REWRITTEN 9/6/15

The Chase

Chase scenes were the most beautiful thing that Hollywood had ever created. Car chases accompanied by blaring rock music and the powerful whirring of engines were incredible. And now, we were in a chase scene of our own. Excitement pounded through every vein in my body like hot honey running down the side of a bagel.

The helicopters' rotors churned the air above us, though the soldiers had stopped shooting at our backs. Over it all droned the drumbeat of the munchers' moans, more incessant than Death himself.

I laughed merrily. "This is great!" I spun around until I was running backwards and cupped my hands around my mouth, shouting up at the military folk. "Good luck catching us, dumbasses!"

They answered with a burst of automatic rifle fire; I spotted Macho Lifter among the shooters.

I almost tripped almost my own feet as I turned back around, grinning broadly.

"Are you actually enjoying this?" Onyx demanded incredulously as she galloped along beside me.

"I fucking love chase scenes!" I yelled, hurtling a stray bush and killing a zombie that lumbered into our path. "You know what we need, though? Epic rock music!"

If Onyx had had hands instead of hooves, she would have smacked herself in the forehead in exasperation.

"I don't have any epic rock music on me," I said with a sad frown.

Minka rolled her eyes. "How do you find time to think of these things?"

"I have a very scattered brain."

"Obviously," Onyx snorted.

Bullets ripped into the ground before us, blinding me with streaks of mud, and I flung them out of the way with a flick of my wrist.

"HALT," a voice boomed from above us, distorted by the speaker of a poorly made blow horn. "OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO SHOOT TO KILL."

"Aren't they already doing that?" Minka wondered, staggering through a dip in the ground.

"I think those were meant to be warning shots," I said.

As a bullet zipped past my ear, I figured it was time to relieve them of some of their guns. I leapt into the air and spun around, suspending myself there because it looked cool. I twirled my wrist and drew moisture out of the air, forming it into a long, clear, blue whip. It was a move my elven mother had taught me.

I twitched my wrist, and the water whip snapped through the air, its end coiling around the barrel of Macho Lifter's gun. The weapon flew through the air, and I caught it neatly, tossing it over to Minka an instant later. "Hey, catch," I said right as the gun smacked her in the chin.

She tumbled to the ground, cussing, but came up after a dramatic roll, rifle still clenched in her fist. "What the hell, Enia?!"

"Sorry." I cringed sheepishly. Up above, Macho Lifter was bellowing unintelligibly through the blow horn.

"I want one!" Onyx whined, jumping a ditch.

"Hold your horses," I said, snorting at my bad pun. I stole a second gun from the helicopter with a flick of my wrist. "How are you going to hold it?"

"Oh, right. Hooves not hands. Hold onto it for me until I change back?"

"Of course." I slung the strap across my shoulder and let myself fall back to the ground, instantly in step with the others.

The forest began to fade around us, giving way to unbroken snowy fields covered in cut plant stalks. A few munchers were caught on the barbwire fences, struggling to free their flesh from the snags.

"Car!" Minka shouted in warning. A battered red pick-up truck was trundling down the highway, the driver seemingly oblivious to the undead corpses stumbling towards the road.

"Idea!" I called. "Onyx, change back!"

The air wavered around her as she obeyed, and then she was running along beside me on two feet, orange hair streaming out behind her. I chucked her the gun, and she caught it one handed. She spun it around once and pulled the trigger, mowing down the munchers in front of us a knee level.

I waved my arms frantically, shouting at the top of my lungs. The driver saw us out of the corner of his eyes and slowed, unrolling his window to lean out for a better look. It was a younger man in a white tank top and a straw cowboy hat. "What the fu-?" he began, finally noticing the bleeding corpses and the helicopters in the sky.

"Get ready to drive!" I interrupted in a shrill voice.

For some reason, the man stayed and waited for us. For some reason, he didn't tear off into the distance after taking one look at the corpses lining the road and the helicopters droning through the sky. For some reason, he let us vault up into his truck bed, and for some reason, he hit the gas as soon as we were inside.

I landed heavily on my hip, the metal clanging dully with the impact. Onyx fell directly on top of me, her foot catching on the lip of the wall and knocking her off balance, and rolled off, breaking my spine in the process. I was going to be patterned with bruises that matched the ridges of the truck bed for days.

As soon as Minka was crouched beside us, the truck driver screeched away in a black cloud of burning rubber, swerving desperately to avoid hitting a muncher that had wandered into the road. Onyx fired at it with her stolen weapon, sheering away the lower half of its face with her third shot.

She and Minka took pot-shots at the remnants of the mob as I eyed the fleet of helicopters warily, waiting for them to attack us again. I hoped that they would give up now that we had involved a civilian.

We had no such luck, and it didn't take long at all for a hail of bullets to open up from the clouds. Inside the cab of the truck poured forth a long, impressive stream of expletives as the bullets slammed through the red metal and punched through the glass.

I jumped to my feet, wobbling as the truck swerved jarringly back and forth, and began punching up at the sky, alternating my left and right fists. Jagged boulders leapt from the road and zoomed into the air towards the helicopters without any real aim. Most went wide, but the helicopters were still forced to swoop and dodge, and the thudding drone of the guns became erratic.

"I now officially hate the military," Onyx grumbled as she took out one last muncher.

"I know, right?" I agreed, sighing. "But I did like how that guy just drove without question."

"Being scared shitless will do that to ya."

A bullet slammed into the roof of the cab just behind my head, and I jumped, startled, heart pounding. The next boulder to fly into the air was wreathed in flames. "I do not like being shot at," I groused.

"Who does?" Onyx pointed out. She had her gun trained on the helicopters but wasn't firing.

"Suicidal idiots?" Minka guessed.

Onyx quirked her mouth to the side as she thought about that. "Good point."

The truck hit a pothole, and I lost my footing, crashing to my knees, barely able to catch myself on my hands before my nose met metal. I crawled over and banged on the backside of the cab. "Hey! What are you trying to do? Kill us?"

The young man swore loudly in response as he fought to right the vehicle, bullets smashing through the back windshield and flying past his head.

"They aren't going to stop until they kill us!" Minka yelled.

She was right. The nice military folk wouldn't stop unless we did something drastic and made them stop. We had to make it too dangerous for them to continue.

I crawled towards the rear of the truck bed, keeping my head well below the top of the walls. It seemed like there were more bullet holes in the floor than there was actual floor.

"What are you doing?" Onyx asked, crouched down beside the fender.

"Something drastic," I answered dramatically. "And possibly suicidal."

I took one last deep breath and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't get shot. Then I shot to my feet, pointed my curled hand at the helicopters, and flicked my finger at them. "Suck on this!"

The air in front of the helicopters ripped open, fire and heat showering forth like a freshly awoken waterfall. The shockwave tossed the helicopters away like they were made of paper, and I could hear screaming as the machines tumbled around, their pilots desperate to correct their flight, the occupants desperate to hold onto something, anything, that would keep them from falling out into open air.

I picked out Boss Lady's powerful voice, shouting for everyone to retreat, retreat damn you, they aren't worth it.

"Overkill, much?" Onyx wondered.

I shrugged as I turned around. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

Minka threw a rock at my head. "You're so freaking cliché."

Enia: Sorry, I've got nothing clever for the Author's Note today. I'm just chilling at work. There's not much to do at the Multimedia Center of my school's library, so I can pretty much study or do whatever I want. Isn't fanfiction such a productive use of my time?

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