Chapter 3
The run
Crawling up the vent wasn't impossible just as Jack said. The shaft was narrow enough to use back to help stabilize your position. A little hard and rather slow, but they were making progress.
"Why in the world do you even need that Monkey Staff?" asked Kimiko, feeling slightly irritated at Jack pace. He was moving way too fast and she was the Dragon Apprentice here. She was supposed to be the faster one! She was training her ass off for hours and hours, and she couldn't even tell difference!
"I like it." She could tell that Jack grinned, even if she couldn't see his face right now. It was just too obvious.
"You like being a monkey." she deadpanned.
"What's wrong with being a monkey?"
"They stinks. And got fleas."
"Maybe a little. Now hush, the sound is going all around the base."
Kimiko blushed. Who the hell he was to tell her what to do?! Besides, he was talking as much as she did, so why suddenly he was one to hush her, like some sort of naughty child?
He was right, of course. They should be silent to get out of here without creating a whole new sort of messy situation.
Crawling, and then climbing up the metal ladder, and crawling some more was boring, nerve wrecking and seemed to have no end at all. Kimiko felt like they were doing it for hours. Her back was hurting from unnatural position she was forced into, her knees were white-hot balls of pain from moving on all four almost all the time, migraine was starting to forming somewhere near her forehead from all the stress she had to deal with. It was truly awful situation, but it could be much worse. They were lucky, they managed to sneak through several levels already, and they were nearby the way out. She almost could feel fresh air already.
Naturally, they luck just had to run out in the worst possible moment.
They were almost out of here, they had almost passed the guards and were about to enter the garage - or the place where the military keep all their mobile stuff, Kimiko didn't really cared for names in such places - when somebody spotted them.
Then, there was nothing else to do but run as fast, as possible. They ducked behind one of the vehicles right on time to see, as the ground where they stood a mere moment ago was hit by the series of bullets. It left deep traces in the concrete.
"Did they just shoot at us...?" Kimiko felt as the blood flew out of her face. She felt weak, and scared, and shocked beyond imagination. "They just did shot at us!"
"Yes, they did!" Jack croaked. "Now move it! We need to run!"
She just nodded and rushed after him. If Jack was good at something it definitely was running. There was more shooting behind them, short series of loud bangs tearing through the space, bringing out the dust up.
"Crap" Jack grumbled when they hid behind yet another vehicle. "This is leading to nothing!"
"Do you have any other idea?"
He quickly looked around, including the ceiling.
"In fact I do!" he grinned nastily. "Make some fire up there!"
"I can't just attack them!" she protested.
"Not them!" Jack shouted. "Just enough to trigger the fire alarm and make some foam to hide us!"
She nodded, now understanding.
"Wudai Mars! Fire!"
The flames came to life before her, eating through the air, hungrily reaching for everything around. Their roar was powerful to tame the screams and sounds of shooting guns echoing in the huge hall.
The fire accidentally touched fire extinguisher and wrapped itself around it, heating the metal enough for whole thing to explode with loud bang, sending scraps of metal in every direction, sharp and fast, and hot, cutting through everything in their way.
"In there! Quick!" Jack shouted, gesturing at one of the tanks.
"Are we stealing a tank...?" She asked, already climbing the vehicle, and then jumping inside.
"They're the only thing here that not come with keys! We don't have time to play with wires!" Even now, after closing the hatch shut behind them, they could hear people outside. It was odd and muffled, and speaking volumes at the same time. There was just no other choice now. At least the tank seemed to be just fine in the whole conflagration. At least for now, because the flames barely licked it surface. But if they don't move soon…
"Do you even know how to drive this thing?" She asked, moving towards him. There was a lot of switches where he was seated, a lot of different stuff too, but no window.
"Shouldn't be that hard!" He said, switching several things on. The small monitor on his right came to life and was now shining bright green, giving everything inside the tank rather sickly coloring. Jack scowled at it.
"Thermal sight in the fire, should know it would be useless…"
"You don't know how to drive it!" Kimiko shrieked, feeling that the doom was near.
"I learn quick!" He barked back. Then the whole vehicle shook violently and they both could hear loud crash.
"I think I just trashed something…" said Jack with rather nervous smile on his lips.
"You're such an idiot!" Kimiko hissed at him. "I promise, I'm going to kick your ass in so many ways if we somehow managed to get out of this mess alive!"
"Hey, I'm driving blind here!"
"Just try to not kill us!"
"Hey, I kind of remember, where the doors were!"
"Kind of?!"
"If you like, you can try to tell me from that shiny bright green if you can tell something apart!" Jack snapped.
He somehow managed to drive through the entrance and not the wall, since there was no another crash. Soon, the green monitor managed to be helpful, since temperature around them dropped to normal.
"How can we tell if they're still after us?" Kimiko asked.
"Oh, they definitely are after us, we stole their tank." Jack rolled his eyes. "But there should be a scope somewhere…"
Before she managed to find something that at least looked like a scope, they both fell sudden jolt.
"And what was that…?"
"I think part of the reactive armor just exploded. " He said weakly.
"It did WHAT?"
"It is supposed to!" Jack groaned. "Anyway, they are still shooting at us, and are definitely after us. And they are faster, tanks don't do the fast stuff very well…"
"So…?"
"So sooner than later we're screwed." He looked really bitter, when he said it. Sounded bitter too.
"Maybe not." Kimiko bit her lip as she was thinking fast. "Would you like to recreate scene or two from an action movie?"
"Why do I fell like getting captured again is actually a better idea?" Jack asked weakly.
But he had no better idea, so there was no other choice than do the crazy and hope it end up well.
"I really don't like this…" Jack squeaked as he drove the vehicle straight in the direction of a cliff. It was stupid, it was suicidal and it was their best shot. Flying tank was likely the worst idea ever. He managed to force vehicle to continue its ride to the inevitable doom, and trotted towards Kimiko. She was already by the hath, ready to action.
It was easy to fell, when the ground ended, even if they didn't really saw it happens. There was just that one strange shook and then that feeling of ultimate wrongness down in the stomach when the floor under their feet slightly shifted.
Kimiko grabbed Jack collar and yanked him up, jumping out of the hatch with all her strength. The machine flew under them surreally slowly and then crashed on the ground underneath, exploding in the giant ball of fire. The power of explosion threw them away like puppets, forcing breath out of their lungs. They it ground hard, luckily on the good side of the cliff.
Kimiko managed to stood up almost immediately after that, shaken up and hardly hearing anything, but still thinking straight. She grabbed Jack again and started dragging him in the direction of nearest place that looked like they could hide there, to wait until they will be alone. Luckily, he didn't faint and get the idea pretty quickly, moving on his own.
"I can't believe we're alive." Kimiko was looking down, down the valley, at what was rest of their tank. It was still burning and several hours (or it at least felt like that) had already passed. Most of this time they spend curled up somewhere behind the stones, in some sort of small cave. At least they could hear each other now, through Kimiko still had that uncomfortable ringing in her right ear.
"Let's go or it won't be a very long life." said Jack, but didn't really move, his eyes fixated on the devastated machine. "Seriously, we can't just stand here and watch the fireworks."
Kimiko nodded. After stealing somebody's tank and then destroying it you definitely should be not around to talk with the owner. Especially after the owner was shooting at them with pretty dangerous arsenal.
"What the hell did you do to end up in that mess?" She asked finally. Because normal people don't just kidnap teenagers for fun. There was something more to it.
"Me? Why do you think it was me?! You were there too!"
"Fair point." Kimiko nodded. "But that was the military, wasn't it?"
He was silent for moment long enough to tell her she was right.
"Right now they think we're dead." He said finally. "You should go back to the temple. Before they confirmed there's no bodies..."
"Jack..."
"This time is really not my fault, ok?" He shrugged a little more nervously to her liking. "Through it's totally gonna be when next Shen Gong Wu will get active."
The forced joke was more than just lame, but she smiled back anyway. They were both pretty shaken by the whole experience and the sooner they come back home, the better.
"Totally."
xxx
"Kimiko!" Omi launched at her the moment he saw her. "You're okay!"
She was slightly weirded out by his action. On the other hands it was rather nice, to have someone to hug you like that.
"Good to see you in fine health, girl," Clay also smiled, his shoulders visibly relaxing.
"Where the hell were you?!" Raimundo was the only one, who get to the most important part straight away. "We through you were dead!"
"Thing or two happened" she shrugged. "Through I still don't remember, how it all started. Got a bump on my head."
"You were having most heroic Showdown with villainous Jack Spicer, when blaam! There was big, big explosion near the arena and everything in many feet around the center was burned to a crisp. We thought..."
He looked like he was near tears, so she hugged him back quickly.
"But I'm all right. So is Jack if anybody interested in that."
"Of course he was." Raimundo rolled his eyes. "It was his..."
"It wasn't" she shook her head, knowing what he was going to say.
"What do you mean, it wasn't? He's the mister explosion here! And the only one around with the stuff that actually explodes!"
"Well, it wasn't him this time." She shrugged. "I really need to check the news, I don't know where we were, or even why."
"And you think it is going to be on news?" Raimundo raised eyebrow, looking at her partially with curiosity and partially like he was suspecting something not quite good on her part. It maddened her a little, that he didn't believe her, when he was the one who always gave the most stupid excuses she ever heard in her entire life.
"I'm going to look for something about terrorists stealing a tank." Kimiko said, just for the pure fun of seeing expression on their faces. She felt slightly better afterwards, because it was really hilarious.
"You are a terrorist?!" screamed Omi, his eyes wide with shock. He even jumped back a little, not really sure what he was supposed to do now.
"You stole a tank?!" The other two boys were more interested in the other part of her story.
"Technically Jack did. I think. I was inside, does it count?" Kimiko scratched her chin, not quite ready to drop the fun just yet.
"Why on Earth you two needed a tank for?!" Raimundo screamed, totally about lose it too. Kimiko wasn't sure if it was because she shocked him that much, or he was just horribly jealous that he missed ride in a tank.
She sighed. She couldn't keep it up forever – Pedrosa soon would die because of a stroke, or something like that, and Omi looked more than just lost in the conversation. Considering, how little the tiny monk knew about rest of the world, she wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't even idea what they were talking about. Clay was just looking at her, waiting in silence and that was truly meaningful type of silence too.
"Maybe we should wait with that information for maser Fung? It is kind of complicated story. " Kimiko smiled slightly at the boys.
They agreed, so the whole group wandered inside the main building, looking for their master. Easy thing to do, since master Fung was man of habit and was actually pouring himself a cup of tea. He looked in their direction over delicate, porcelain teapot and smiled gently.
"It is good to see you in good health, Kimiko." He greeted her, then nodded in direction of the boys. "Would you like to join me in my evening tea?"
Tea was always a good idea – because with master Fung the alternative was always some sort of rather boring training – so they sat down around the table, waiting for Clay to collect cups for all of them and serve the tea, since he was the only one standing. When he sat down, there was time to finally start talking.
"So, can you tell us, what happened to you and Jack Spicer, Kimiko?" asked Master Fung.
She nodded and started the story for the moment, she regained consciousness till her arrival at the temple ground.
"Jack Spicer being useful. Most surprising." Omi snickered.
"Whatever say about the guy, he's quite handy around technology." Clay shrugged.
"Yeah, he was." Kimiko nodded. "Through I felt rather strange not knowing what he was doing or what was going on"
"Yet he seemed to know it pretty well?" Master Fung raised cup to his lips.
"Yeah. And I don't like it at all "Kimiko grimaced. "We were on the same side in there, but he didn't tell me simple thing."
"You yourself said there wasn't much time to do so" he pointed out.
"I guess I did. But afterwards? He just… he didn't even give me chance to ask questions!"
"We probably should hunt for the information about the whole deal" Raimundo stretched himself. "It would be quote hard to just hide the whole flying and then crashing tank incident. And even if it don't give us all the information, we should know where to start digging next."
"Are you sure we should do this?" Clay asked. "I reckon' that messing with military is just a bad idea."
"We just check thing out" Raimundo waved hand at him. "If something else happens, we always could go straight to Spicer and shook the information out of him."
"Sounds like a plane!" Omi smiled brightly.
"Plan." Kimiko rolled her eyes.
The problem was, there were no information to research. At all. She even tried hacking into servers of one of news studio. And didn't found anything.
Kimiko bit her lip, staring at unhelpful monitor. Was that Jack's doing? Or someone entirely else decided to take the initiative?
A/N: Thank You so very much for reviews and PMs! I'm always happy to respond to any sort of feedback!
If somebody is curious, they managed to trash M1A2 Abrams. I was thinking about stealing a Bradley first (I find them pretty damn cute), but that tank is just glorious.