Shocked silence filled the air.
Strip opened his eyes, dreading the very worst. His wing hadn't intercepted any bullet. The oil staining his hood and fenders was warm, vital fluid. He glanced back at Lightning. The rookie was shuddering, trembling under his wing with eyes closed. He was shamelessly frightened, but lacked any evidence of a wound.
The evidence lay beyond.
Rick sat motionless, twenty feet displaced from where he'd been moments prior, directly between Paul and Lightning. Confusion filled the Power Wagon's eyes as his gaze flickered down to the gaping holes just barely above his fenders. His mouth hung slightly agape as a puddle of fluids grew rapidly between his front tires. Within seconds, he started to seem distant.
Izzy came to first. "No. No, no, no." She threw all caution to the wind and rushed to Rick's side, the only father figure she'd ever known.
Rick blinked a couple times and frowned, trying to focus. He then looked to her and smiled softly. Strip saw the glint of tears lining the truck's windshield, contrasting the serenity his voice and expression otherwise conveyed.
"It's time," he said to Izzy. "Finally. Remember what I told you, Izabel."
Her eyes widened and likewise filled with unrelenting tears.
"I can't do that without you," she whispered. "I can't."
"You will," he countered softly. "I know you will."
Before she could continue, he looked from her down to his left. Strip sat silent in shock, trying to process the sight of the dying truck and comprehend the conversation he'd just heard. What had they been talking about? What had just happened? This couldn't be. Aside from Izzy, Rick had been the only constant throughout his entirety of his life, the seemingly steadfast anchor in the eye of the storm. When no one else could help, Rick always could. He was a manufacturer. He was immortal.
Except he wasn't.
Strip met his maker's gaze and felt a funny sense of déjà vu. Rick hadn't ever looked at him with that sort of soft, genuine candidness before – had he? Strip didn't think so, yet a fuzzy memory surfaced. Though it was distorted, like looking through warped, stained glass, it existed.
"You couldn't have made me more proud, son," he whispered.
He was gone. Just like that. Strip pulled away slightly, away from Rick's body, away from Lightning. He lost all sense of self as thirty-five years of memories flashed before his eyes. Some were clear, others so hazy they might as well not have existed at all. Getting fixed after the wreck. Learning the truth about his parentage and having it ripped away. Sitting in meetings looking at lazily drawn statistical charts. Those were all typical, flashbacks he had grown used to, but a new one surfaced. Sitting in a yard, a bright sunny day, looking at a small white house in the country. To his left, a Monaco sat smiling at him. To his right, the same white Dodge truck that lay before him now.
Stephen's hearty chuckle brought Strip back to reality, fast and hard. He realized how sick the forced transformation made him feel. He realized what he had lost. He realized his anger.
"Well isn't that sweet?" Stephen commented. "Never get attached. To anyone. Let alone kids. That's my motto. What'd you say, Paul? Think this'll do?"
The Bel Air stared down at the gun he held, black metal contrasting red and white paint. Paul grimaced as though he were disappointed. Had he really pulled the trigger? A white tendril of smoke still wafted upwards from the barrel, disappearing into a vent.
"Anything to end the war," he muttered, frowning. "It wasn't supposed to be him."
Lightning shrank away from the deceased body and backed towards the wall. That bullet had been meant for him. Now there was a dead car – a car that wasn't supposed to die. Not that day. A car that was responsible for creating nearly a fourth of the lives in North America was gone just because of his presence.
Strip watched Lightning shy away from the scene. For a moment, they made eye contact. Strip saw himself in the rookie's eyes. That had been him twenty years prior, in only the slightest of different circumstances. That was the night he found his reason to fight.
Lightning fought an array of emotions as he met the King's stare. He was beyond upset. He felt as though he were to blame, even though he knew better. He saw the pain in the King's expression, through his anger. He heard the same pain in the Daytona's voice. His conscious screamed that it was his fault, but he knew it wasn't. Still, he desired redemption.
"Ah, well, someone had to make the sacrifice," Stephen said in response to Paul's less than eager excuse. "I guess the alliance is over? Kind of hard to keep a pact when one of you's dead."
Izzy snapped. She screamed a deafening shriek that could shatter glass and transformed with as much fury as her brother had moments earlier. Her left wing scraped across the top of Stephen's workbench, sending electrical parts flying as she whipped toward Paul. The Bel Air yelped as he backed into a shelf, knocking hundreds of obscure parts to the floor.
She crashed into him with as much momentum as she could muster in the restricted space. His thick sheet metal buckled under the rigidity of her armor and he cried out in pain, fumbling with the murder weapon he still held. Izzy saw it and knocked it from his grasp, sending it skidding across the floor. Then she resumed her task, her one motive.
Strip saw Stephen move toward her, and engaged in the offensive. Without thinking, he launched a grenade right in front of the Coupe. The short timer caused the miniature bomb to explode on impact, creating a fiery wall between the psychotic executive officer and his sister. Stephen swore and backed away in haste, running into one of his many toolboxes.
"What can I do?" Lightning asked out of nowhere.
Strip turned and looked at him, surprised at the evenness of the younger car's tone. Lightning's expression was set in cold resolution, void of the quivering fear he'd just exhibited.
"I need to do something," Lightning continued. "I can't just sit here. This is my fault– "
"No," Strip told him sternly. "It isn't. Remember that, alright?"
Lightning watched as the racing veteran disconnected one of his own weapons and slid it towards him. He reached for it, the magnetic support arms and controls automatically clicking into place in his wheel and on his fender.
"Protect yourself," the King told him. "Do whatever you have to do."
From the opposite side of the room, Chick watched everything play out. It was chaos. General Motors' lighthearted, overpaid spokesperson was a murderer, Chrysler's chief executive officer was dead, the pink crazy lady was slowly beating Paul into a pulp, and the old man had just given McQueen a gun. That was not how he had pictured this trip going at all.
Chick saw Stephen's focus on Paul and his assaulter through the fading wall of flames that still burned along the floor. He was distracted. Now would be the perfect time to attack.
But attack with what? In terms of weapons, even McQueen was better off than he was. His nearly impenetrable armor meant nothing outside of its defensive capabilities. He looked around for something, anything he could make do with.
Strip turned his attention back to Stephen, but saw Chick move out of his peripheral vision. Instinctively, he took note of the Buick's actions. What was he doing? Just sitting there, looking around? There was a fight going on, and if Strip knew anything about his opponent, Chick never backed down from or avoided a fight that directly involved him. Something wasn't right.
Frustrated at the toolbox for being in his way, Stephen pushed it over, spilling its contents everywhere. The mess seemed to frustrate the Ford even more so. Stephen lost all interest in Izzy's assault on Paul at the aggravation of trying to drive over several small, manual tools. He was distracted. Distracted. Distracted meant vulnerable.
Of course.
Praying he wouldn't regret it later, Strip unhitched a second weapon, a larger gun than the one he'd given McQueen, and placed it on the floor, loaded. One shot from that thing would blow a normal car from earth to kingdom come. He shoved it toward Chick.
Chick turned at the sound of metal scraping against the coated concrete floor. He watched in disbelief as the black tactical weapon skittered to a halt next to his front right wheel. Huh? He looked up. His life-long rival shot him a warning, aggressive look before turning away and leaving McQueen unguarded to attend to the Daytona's situation.
Huh.
Without further hesitation, he picked up the weapon. He looked up again as he got a feel for the mechanics of it. He glanced at McQueen, intently staring back at him. The foolish fear the rookie had exhibited early that morning was gone. He wasn't afraid anymore, or if he was, he was too jaded to express it. Just like the rest of them.
Chick felt himself smile. Yeah, the other two racers hated him, he knew that. He didn't much care. Given the chance, they would probably take pleasure in physically beating the dickens out of him, but in that moment, none of it mattered. In that moment, he had old man Weathers' trust. He had McQueen's silent approval. But most of all, he had his personal persecutor cornered and unaware. As much as he despised his fellow racers in return, Chick hated Stephen with a rage that dwarfed all others.
"Hey, Stevie boy," Chick called to the frazzled CEO. "Check this out."
Stephen jumped at Chick's voice and turned to look at him. His eyes narrowed as he fixed them on the gun barrel pointed his way.
"Not so fun when you're on the receiving end, eh?" Chick asked, his voice full of retribution.
Stephen growled and lunged for a metal contraption on a nearby table. Chick wasn't one to waste time. He pulled the trigger without a hint of hesitation.
Everyone in the room halted and redirected their attention as a massive fireball consumed a solid third of the open area. Through the smoldering red and orange haze, the motionless outline of an old Ford slowly disintegrated. The rippling heat radiating from the inferno forced everyone to the farthest reaches of the room's corners for a few long moments. A wounded Paul complained in discomfort as his paint began to bubble.
Izzy glanced at Chick, staring down the harrowing scene without an ounce of regret and looking quite content, resolved even. Halfway between them sat Rick's body right where it had been before the explosions, now with scorch marks adorning his front quarters. The puddle of oil beneath him slowly burned away. She turned back to Paul.
"Wait, I – "
Without showing another ounce of emotion, she fired three consecutive shots with practiced accuracy. Paul shuddered, tried to breathe, and choked. Izzy watched without regret as he faded away. The moment he closed his eyes she transformed back and threw down her gun.
With a blank look in her eyes, she surveyed the room again. Three bodies lay before her – well, two bodies and a molten heap of another. The three most powerful cars in North America, gone, all on the same day, in the same room. They'd unknowingly created their own demise. Deceit and cunning had only gotten them so far.
Across the workshop, Chick likewise took it all in. That was it. It was over. Stephen was gone, and the contract abolished along with him and the others. His mind drifted slightly, realizing he could leave that place, be his own self, and never have to worry about being forced to do anything against his will ever again. That was more valuable than anything – better than a mansion on a hill, better than being swarmed by adoring fans, better than a name on a Piston Cup.
He gently laid the weapon Strip had given him on the ground and pushed it away from him. As he looked back up, he found himself the subject of observation. He let out a conclusive sigh.
"Well, y'all have fun cleaning this up," he said, turning toward the exit. Before he disappeared through the doorway, he stopped. "Thanks for the gun."
Strip watched him leave. A vague sense of security returned as the Buick disappeared from sight. He glanced at Lightning. The rookie was okay, on the outside at least. Strip found he couldn't quite read the expression in the racer's eyes. It was somewhere between exhaustion and melancholy. The straight fear that had plagued him most of the day was absent. Still, there seemed to be something out of place.
"Go wait for us up in the lobby," Strip ordered him gently. "You don't have to stay down here and look at this."
Lightning looked at his friend and frowned in concern. Still fixed in his armored flight mode, the King was covered in the remnants of someone else's life. There was an absence in his expression that only experiencing the death of a loved one could leave.
"Are you sure?" Lightning asked, guilt-ridden.
Strip nodded a couple times and motioned to the door. "We won't be long. We'll get you home as soon as we can."
"Alright, well," McQueen paused before turning for the exit, "if there's anything I can do, let me know."
Strip forced a weak smile at the familiar Tex-esque saying. Lightning returned it briefly before letting his gaze fall to the ground. He softly placed his borrowed weapon, unfired, on the floor and drove around it.
As the racer's engine faded in the corridor, Strip turned back to his sister, still looking absent, numb from shock. He converted back to his normal form, tucking away his wings so he could pull up alongside her. She took one look at him and lost it. Her cold composure fell to uncontrollable weeping as she leaned against him for comfort.
All was quiet except the calm crackling and flickering of lingering flames and shaky, gasping sobs.