"I think that's our signal to go," Izzy said as the two racers took off through the desert.
Strip watched as Lightning went offroad. "He's drawin' him away from the road. Smart."
"If he's hoping to get far, he's going the wrong way," Izzy pointed out. "There's nothing but a canyon wall over there."
It was true. McQueen had veered off Route 66 to the left. At the rate he was going, he'd reach that vertical wall of rock in no time at all.
As soon as the racers couldn't be seen from the highway, Chick bared a third weapon, a simple machine gun, from his rear quarters. That firearm wouldn't so much as dent the Chrysler custom armor, but Lightning might as well have been dressed in tissue paper. Those bullets would tear him apart.
"I'll take Chick out," Izzy said. "You go make sure Lightning stays safe."
They dove toward the ground. Izzy sprayed Chick with a barrage of bullets, catching his attention. He slowed. Lightning heard the commotion behind him and sped up. Strip followed him.
"By the manufa- how many guns does this guy have?" Izzy asked.
Strip looked back as he passed Chick. Another missile launcher? His vision went black for a split second. In the next moment, he was sitting next to Rick in a falling building, staring into the void of a severed hallway. The missiles. They weren't built to take out cars. They were meant to level entire buildings. Strip snapped back to reality.
"Take it out before he – "
Swoosh.
Strip saw it coming from behind him. He didn't think, not in the least. Lightning was in front of him, and the missile was coming up from behind, too quick to second guess. He dove into its path.
He heard a scream and an explosion behind him. The missile never touched him, but the shockwave it emitted threw him ahead of Lightning. Strip struggled to regain flight control. He was seconds away from leveling out when the ground caught up to him.
Thirty-plus years of racing experience came to a head as he hit the dirt tires first, skidding toward the rock wall at incredibly high speed. The difference was that in all that time, not once had he had wings to deal with. They sliced through bushes and cacti, effectively slowing him down to a point where his brakes finally began to work. Still, he couldn't quite stop before hitting the canyon wall. He plowed into a pile of large rocks at nearly forty miles an hour.
"You idiot!" Izzy screamed over her radio. "What was that?"
Strip moaned and shook himself, backing away from the site of impact. He looked down at himself. Huh. Just scratches? A couple of dents? Other than being a little shaken, he felt fine. What did Rick make this stuff out of?
"Uh, yeah," Strip responded as he collected himself. "Stupid, I guess."
"You guess? Oh, you better pray I never need to blackmail you to your wife," Izzy threatened. "You're lucky I hit that thing."
Strip could hear straight through her anger. That was how she disguised the fact that she was scared. As he realized what happened, he felt guilty. Lynda had specifically told him not to do that. Pull yourself together.
Lightning skidded to a stop next to him with a wild look in his eyes. Not so far away, Chick had his sights on Izzy, who was making him dance. She dropped a missile on him. It did nothing but blow him off to the side.
"Hey, are you okay?" Lightning asked as Strip moved away from the rock pile.
"Yeah, get behind me," Strip ordered.
"What was that?" the rookie asked, doing as he was told. "I felt that."
"Somethin' that could take out a whole lot more than just you," Strip answered begrudgingly, watching the duel.
Izzy dodged an array of bullets that Chick fired up at her. The tng of a few strays bounced off her wings. She dropped another missile. Chick evaded it and drove toward Lightning as though Strip weren't there. Strip raised his guns and prepared a few missiles for launch as the Buick's silhouette darkened against a fiery explosion in the background. He stood his ground, prepared to do anything that proved necessary.
Chick fired a spray of bullets in their direction. Strip lowered and angled himself to intercept them. Sparks flew with every strike. Lightning cowered behind him. One shot kicked up some dirt not five inches from the rookie's front left wheel. Strip fired back.
Izzy circled around and landed at a right angle to their rival, realizing that this battle was better suited for the ground, and charged. Chick made the most of his time. At some point between their earlier battle and that moment, he had unjammed his smaller missile launcher. He took aim.
Strip saw a flash of light before becoming another victim of one of Ford's explosives. The hit bathed him in a brief wash of fire as it knocked him backward into Lightning. Something broke. Metal clanged against the ground. He tried not to show his pain. He failed.
Chick's eyes widened. His weapons reflexively dropped out of disbelief. Was he seeing things? The black rear quarter panel that he'd just blown off lay smoldering on the ground, but underneath it? That familiar striking blue paint with bold-faced, white "DINOCO" sprawled across it. It couldn't be real. It couldn't, but he knew that paint better than anything. He'd coveted it. He'd chased it too many times.
Izzy let out a battle cry and rammed straight into Chick's side, sending him flying up against the same crumbling pile of rocks Strip had hit earlier, several yards away. Ignoring the negligible damage to her front from the impact, she went to immobilize him.
"Oh my gosh, King are you - ?" Lightning pulled himself out from being sandwiched between the veteran and a rock, and turned to look at his makeshift bodyguard.
Lightning's gaze settled on the torn panel laying on the ground. He noticed the bared Dinoco logo and flinched. The front edge of the word had scorch marks emblazoned into it, radiating from the smoking starburst pattern of crumpled panels in front of it. One more hit and they'd disintegrate as well.
Strip glanced at Lightning through the throbbing pains that rocked the left side of his body. All he saw were scratches on the racer's custom red paint. That was a relief.
"I'm gettin' real sick and tired of this," Strip muttered, turning back toward Chick.
Lightning wanted to do something, anything to assist and pull his own weight. Hadn't the King been through enough already?
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Chick yelled as Izzy bore down on him a second time. "Hold on just a – ow!"
Izzy rammed into him and pinned him against the rock. He let out a yelp as she pulled out one of her firearms and shoved the barrel through an open gap in his fender where a weapon had once been.
"Wait, Iz, wait," Strip called, driving a little closer to her.
"What?" she asked as though she were out of breath. "Why?"
Strip stared at the ground in front of him and frowned. None of this felt right. He knew Chick had been the one to kill the rest of the brigade all those years ago. He knew Chick led those Mustangs to their deaths. This was all fact, and such acts were more than deserving of a death sentence punishment. But it wasn't his place to decide that. He lost his want for revenge a long time ago. What passed was past.
"Just, hold off a second, okay?" he asked her. "There's gotta be some other way."
"By the – it really is you," Chick remarked dejectedly. "After all this time?"
Izzy growled in frustration and jabbed Chick again. He winced and fell silent. It was odd to see him refuse to put up a struggle. Lightning drove out from behind Strip to get a better view of the situation.
"Strip, I swear if you're having second thoughts, this is not the time," Izzy warned him in a grave voice.
She pressed the tip of her weapon even harder against Chick's sub-frame. He squeaked. Strip saw the fear in his eyes. He knew he could never forgive Chick – not for the deaths he witnessed, not for the countless wrecks, none of that. He didn't need to. He didn't want to. But death wasn't the answer either.
"I'm going to give you to the count of ten to give me one good reason why I shouldn't pull this trigger and end it all right now," Izzy raised her quivering voice. "He killed our family. I watched them crash and burn – you watched them, too. We're all that's left because of him. He took away everything we had, Strip, don't forget that. He killed our family. He killed your mother!"
Izzy was screaming by the end of her tirade. Strip looked up at the mention of Stacey and saw the tears in his sister's eyes. He felt a different kind of ache course through him.
"What?" he heard Lightning whisper beside him incredulously.
Chick avoided eye contact with everyone, deep in confused thought. He'd done what?
Strip swallowed his rising emotions and looked at Izzy. He shook himself as though he had no answer.
"We can't bring them back, Iz," he said quietly. "They're gone."
Shaking, Izzy rocked her mind for a comeback. She blinked away her tears and reluctantly retracted her weapon a few inches. She considered pulling the trigger anyway. Chick's death would be just another mark on her record. She wasn't innocent. She'd killed before. It haunted her, but she knew she was capable of dealing with the consequences. She did every day. It would be a small price to pay to keep the small remainder of her family safe. It was all she had left.
Strip sighed and considered the options. He didn't know what to do. He was tired, mentally and physically. This had all gone on for far too long.
"Then what do you propose we do?" Izzy asked without wavering. "There's no other option."
"Then we make one," he answered after a thoughtful pause. "Let's take this back where it started. Finish it there."
"Detroit?"
Chick uttered a distressed grunt and shifted around a little. Izzy returned her full attention to him and tightened her hold. He winced and settled uneasily as three pairs of untrusting eyes settled on him.
"Uh," he spoke out in an uneasy tone, "can I – can I say something? Hm?"
He paused for a moment. No one moved or otherwise gave him inclination to carry on.
"I'm gonna take that as a yes," he continued slowly, casting an apprehensive glance at Izzy. "Just gonna throw this out there – that's a bad idea."
"Oh, really?" Izzy aggressively asked. "Kinda makes me wanna do it."
"No, no, no," Chick defended quickly. "Lemme finish. We all go back to that dilapidated hell-hole of a city, we all die."
"We? Or just you?" Izzy antagonized. "Guess it doesn't much matter either way, does it?"
Chick exhaled in aggravation. "Listen, I don't wanna die. I'm guessing you all probably don't wanna die. Why don't we just all agree to – "
"Spit it out, Chick," Lightning spoke up, driving around Strip's left wing and into the open. "What do you know that we don't? Why are you so scared?"
The three older cars looked at the red racer with surprise. As uninformed as he was, Lightning looked every bit as determined as the rest of them. He scowled at his rival and continued questioning him.
"I find it a little hard to believe you're looking for a truce," Lightning kept on. "An hour ago you were intent on killing me. Didn't seem to bother you at all."
"Yeah, well, that was before I knew I had actual competition and the, uh, consequences that came with that," Chick grumbled. "Like I said, nothin' personal, kid."
"I think this is all a bit personal, these days," Izzy hissed, never easing the pressure on him. "Now why don't you answer the kid's questions?"
"Hey, I didn't know about – " Chick glanced between the two Chryslers and paused. He shook himself and changed his train of thought. "Alright. You wanna know what freaks me out? I'll tell you. Those CEOs up there are psychopaths. All of 'em. I think it's safe to say they've all made us do stuff we didn't wanna do. Well, except maybe you, Rook. But I wanna stay as far away as I can."
"Ha!" Izzy exclaimed. "You signed up for this, Chick. You and you alone. You're the only one here that ever wanted to fight. Don't act like you're innocent. Don't act like you didn't enjoy it. That's what you wanted, right? The glory?"
Chick looked at her as if she were stupid. His disbelief turned to an angry scowl that she gladly returned. He looked toward Strip, who sat silently, watching.
"Who is this girl?" he asked heatedly, but broke into a rant before an answer could be given. "Do you guys honestly think I wanted to fight? Me? I wanted to race! I was looking for a sponsor and good ol' head honcho Stephen found me and offered me a deal. He offered me a one-way ticket into the Piston Cup if I'd do a little 'house cleaning' for him, as he called it. He said it was target practice. Just a bunch of mindless machines. I didn't know!"
Chick paused his tirade and took a couple labored breaths. He looked around. He was greeted with nothing but blank stares.
"Come on, I swear I'm telling the truth."
"Mm-hm." Izzy wasn't convinced. "I guess you didn't know about those Mustangs either, did you?"
"They were wired to do what I wanted!" Chick protested desperately. "I was told they were life model decoys, something to stand in for actual soldiers. Just robots! I didn't know they were alive until they started resisting in the middle of the attack. Why do you think I ran? I didn't want any part of that."
He rested a moment to let it sink in. Strip and Izzy shared a glance. They were hesitant to believe him, but it wouldn't be that far of a stretch for Chick to be telling the truth. It lined up. It didn't excuse his actions, not in the least, but it did explain them.
"Look, you want to know what I'm scared of?" Chick asked. "Stephen. Everything he's ever done to me – everything he's ever told me – has been twisted. You kill me here and now, he'll find someone else to fight for him. He doesn't follow the rules."
"Then I guess we take you back," Izzy muttered. "We'll end this thing before he has the chance to replace you. I'm still prepared to end you, boy. That was no excuse for what you did."
"Listen, woman," Chick growled at her. "I'm not looking for redemption. My demons and I go way back. I just want my freedom again. This isn't – "
His voice caught and all emotion drained from his face. He stared blankly into the middle distance to the right of Lightning. A shudder ran through him as his deck lid split apart to reveal another medium-sized rocket launcher. It caught and snagged against an invisible force. Chick grimaced and worked his mouth as though he couldn't speak.
"Not… me," he managed to get out as the weapon rotated itself toward Lightning. "This… not me!"
Strip lunged forward as the safety mechanism flipped off.
Izzy renewed her aim and pulled the trigger.