Chapter 5 : Wildrider's Tactics
Before they had gone ten miles, Wildrider tried to run him off the road.
Drag Strip wasn't surprised, since Wildrider always tried to run other mechs or vehicles off the road. They were racing neck-and-neck, so Wildrider couldn't use his forward-mounted guns. He jinked instead, a tight swerve that would have slammed another car into a flip.
Since Drag Strip was another Stunticon, it sent crackles of static washing over both of them as one forcefield countered the other. The momentum rocked him a little to one side, though. He recovered at once, but realized suddenly that Wildrider had an advantage – greater mass. The forcefield protected Drag Strip from damage but didn't absorb every bit of kinetic energy directed at him.
And for all his lunacy, Wildrider wasn't stupid. He seemed to guess that as well, and the next swerve was a powerful lunge that brought him shouldering into Drag Strip at full speed. Drag Strip braked frantically, diverting power into his weapons systems as he did so. Wildrider's left front wheel just missed his turning vane, and Drag Strip fired.
His guns punched a smoking crater into the road just beneath Wildrider's transmission, but the Ferrari slammed the brakes on his front wheels, twisting to one side as he did so. His inertia drove his rear wheels forward. He spun so violently that for a moment he was perpendicular to the road, horizontal across the lanes, revolving around the fissure beneath him. Drag Strip skidded away on three tires just in time to avoid crashing into him. Snapping off a few shots of his own, Wildrider rolled away from the crater and turned in the correct direction.
"That was fun!" he yelled before accelerating away.
Drag Strip thudded back down on all six tires and continued, though not at the same speed. A quick diagnostic showed that one of those shots had hit him, though his forcefield had negated it, and his engine wasn't near overheating just yet. He knew, though, that he didn't want to get into another such fight – not unless he had some advantage, anyway.
He had never before felt like that but then, he had never before really fought another Stunticon. The punches they threw to relieve tension or establish a pecking order were nothing compared to the struggle he had just gone through. And even that wasn't much compared to what Wildrider was capable of when he was actually trying to kill someone.
He drove on. It didn't matter that Wildrider was ahead; there were still a hundred and seventy miles to go, and he could easily catch up to the grey Ferrari. If it comes to that, I can hit three hundred mph and overtake the crazy turborat in the last stretch… if I have some way to take him out for good. Far above him he heard the chatter of rotors and realized that Vortex had seen the whole thing.
It doesn't matter. Just keep going.
He increased his speed a little, to lose the helicopter. For the first time he was glad it was dark; there were almost no other vehicles on the freeway and miles of empty ground fell away behind him as easily as raindrops sliding off his chassis. He still had to deal with Wildrider somehow, though. Even if I empty my guns on him, his forcefield might still hold. Leading him into a trap would be better, but how to set one up?
An orange glow on the horizon caught his attention, just right of the freeway, where the level land dropped off into a slope. Still trying to think of what to do about Wildrider, Drag Strip sped past, glancing absently to the right as he did so.
He braked hard and came to a shrieking stop with the stench of smoking rubber in his olfactory sensors. Then he transformed and hurried to the edge of the freeway, beside the mangled guardrail and the gaping rent in it.
Beyond it, at the bottom of the slope, a grey Ferrari lay on its side. Flames licked greedily at its undercarriage and tires, splashing hot light over the Decepticon emblem on its hood, crawling closer and closer to its gas tank.
Taipan Kiryu : Glad you like the story! Dead End's my favorite Stunticon too. I would never have thought of writing about Drag Strip, because he seemed to get the least screen time in the cartoon and his tech specs only said he was obsessed with winning and obnoxious because of it.
Then I read a fanfic by Dragoness Eclectic which said that he was only like that because he didn't have any self-confidence and needed outside validation that he was worth something. Okay, dysfunctional and two-dimensional! :) I had my story.
tomorrow4eva : Thanks for the reviews! The "pre-schoolers with guns and engines" line made me laugh. That's exactly what they are. Not surprising that Motormaster is a violent bully; that probably seems like the easiest way to control Drag Strip's infantile attitude (and Wildrider's craziness, for that matter).