Time started to dilate in my perception as the car pulled in. I hadn't gotten the plates last time but It was distinctive, it was an older car and not in a classy way, one of those mostly steel battleships made before the all consuming advent of fiberglass that were to heavy and overengined to be practical, and to blocky and plain to be classy.
Basically the perfect thing to bring into something that might become a messy fight when you didn't have the money for a jeep.
The rear windows were rolling down and the entire vehicle was slowing, as it pulled onto the street. Lining up for a good old classic driveby.
My eyes narrowed, muscles tensed, and for a second time my skin changed into armored brass as I exploded into motion.
Wings shot out ahead of me like giant hands grabbing onto the air with the membrane between the impossibly long fingers each had. At the same time my more human arms yanked back on the edge of the roof denting into the steel storm gutter lining it as my feet crushed shingles into fragments as I fired myself like a missile.
The gunners had plenty of warning. Viridian Legend Exoskeleton was an awesome combat multiplier, but stealthy it was not. But in a springing dive from a spring position like this with them barely thirty yards away? The driver barely had time to stop on the gas by the time I slammed into their side.
Brass covered talons, punched clear through steel as I slammed my hand into either side of the driver's seat, wings arching back around as additional grasping limbs in the technique I'd pioneered with the first car.
I heard a number of bellowing cries of alarm but it was far to late for them to do anything at this point but gun the gas.
Clinging onto cars is not an easy thing. They're not exactly covered in handholds, so if you want to get a grip you often have to make one. Likewise it's sheer mass and speed could make it very tricky to stop without causing collateral damage.
But fortunately cars had one major structural weakness.
They needed wheels to move.
Pulling my left arm free I raked down at the spinning tires whirling beside me uncaring of just how utterly stupid that action would be in any other circumstance.
After all, my fingers were armored and supported by a carapace that could shrug off an RPG.
The car's tires... were not.
There was a echoing sound as the rubber parted under my swipe, and even with all the force magnifiers I had empowering me it took everything I had not to be knocked clear free by the spinning wheel as I stabbed down and let the wheel rip it's covering apart against me.
That was the important part of the plan. If you had some skill and didn't mind paying for significant damages later you could drive on a flat tire for at least a bit, but there was no one who could drive on a missing one. Not for long at least.
Sparks exploded around me at the front fender touched tar and the screaming inside escalated a few notches.
Regaining my grip by punching a new hole above where I'd just ripped apart the driver's side wheel I shifted my wings around and then Pulled with my right.
Metal strained, screamed and refused to budge.
Fine then.
Pulling back I flattened my fingers and speared through the window above even as we continued to skid out.
The entire car swung to the side as momentum bled from the would be assault vehicle like a sieve as I pulled the window clear out of the door.
I could barely make out someone screaming "Shoot it shoot it!" as we came to a stop.
Then I grabbed the driver by the head and smashed him into his driver's wheel hard enough to knock him for a loop.
One down.
One of the rear riding shooters got his arm and upper body out and sprayed me with automatic weapons fire from a little SMG. I think it might have actually been a genuine Uzi because I felt something akin to a hundred little taps all over me before my leg kicked up and broke his arm against the rolled down window he was sticking it out of.
Two down.
Doors opened and the last two occupants got out of the death trap I'd just turned their vehicle into. One much less elegantly then the other as the front passenger tripped on something and ended up eating a face full of tarmac.
Ignoring the screaming of the guy who's arm I'd just broken like a twig, I coiled my wings back up, grabbed onto the roof and rolled over top of the front windscreen as the guy riding shotgun started getting up gripping... another shotgun.
Huh, I guess The Merchants really took that title seriously.
I kicked him in the kidney before he could fully get up sending him back down with a groan before ripping his weapon out of his hands, "Borrowing this."
Three down.
I looked back up to see the fourth and final man running for his life all thoughts of counter attack gone.
Hum.
With a twisting motion I segmented the gun into front and stock, took careful aim and...
The stock hit the guy on the top of his head right as he was reaching the open door of a neighboring garage.
Four down.
I looked down at the groaning guy, and then over at the screaming one, "Well... That went significantly better then the last time!" I mused to myself cheerfully.
Sometimes violence reallywasthe answer!
Except...
"Damn it, I really need to get a phone..." I mused aloud wondering if that display was enough to get the cops heading down to a WASP infested suburb.
I looked down at my feet, "My this really is embarrassing... I don't suppose I could borrow yours?"
He looked up at me in something a mix of horror and confusion.
"You'll never take me alive!" roared out the driver suddenly as he be grabbed up a revolver the size of my forearm from between the seats.
...Right before the airbag kicked in and promptly flattened him against his own seat.
"Huh," I looked over at the wreck of an automobile, "You should go get your car looked at. The airbag's slow."