Chapter 9
March 23rd 2022, flashback
"Come on, there's gotta be somewhere to hide" Jacob said to his two colleagues
"We can't hide, if that caped asshole gets any higher up then we don't get paid" Josh pointed out
"Good point, have him send the check to my grave now let's get going" Drake quipped "Can't believe you actually shot him"
"Yeah that'll show him," Jacob said. There was a noise behind them "Josh, you-" Jacob said but was shocked to see Josh gone "Ok that's not funny Josh"
"Huh" Drake said
Jacob backed up to the wall "Ok…. Ok owl boy, LET'S FINISH THIS" he said not noticing the L.A. Owl above him with a knife
Back to the Present
"Hold on" Serenity said shoving a terrified and shocked Stacy out of the way "this deserves to be on my account" she said getting her phone ready, as she filmed the missiles ready to tear down Reese's penthouse
"Yeah, if they're still in decent condition I think I'll have his children stuffed and displayed, Dippson do you like that idea" Snyder asked
Stacy just stood there in Shock, Disgust, Revelation, and Hatred. "How could you do that… to a CHILD" Stacy broke down, that was the last straw "That's… That's horrible…. YOU'RE HORRIBLE, You're an irredeemable monster"
"Whoa… oh… What took ya so long, idiot" Snyder said as he grabbed Stacy's collar and pushed her off the edge of the hangar and out of the building
"AHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh" Stacy screamed on the way down.
"Yeah she was really starting to annoy me" Serenity said before a laugh
"Ruben… oh right he died, new Ruben fire when ready" Snyder said in an evil way
"We've gotta load the missiles first sir, automated loader got wrecked by a helicopter blade" new Ruben explained
"Well load it by hand and get too it" Snyder enforced
Snyder went about not noticing Logan scowling at him for murder in the corner.
Nicole made it back to the hangar in this maze of a penthouse. With Logan gone, it was her responsibility to rescue Chase and Lola and get the safe out of here. She tried calling them but her radio was broken. She tried her phone but Zoey's owl boy James impaled it with a knife. Snyder had his army of bastards move entire missiles for some… he knew who she and Logan were, he was gonna blow up their building.
Oh shit shitshitshitshit, what was she gonna do? Fly over and rescue them, no she'd never make it in time and the intel to divert the helicopters outside was lost with Logan. Nicole saw the yacht sized helicopter still in good condition, maybe Snyder just really wants to go for a joy ride after this and is forcing everyone to guard it with their lives.
"Is the signal tower still functional" Snyder said
That was it, no signal tower than no missiles. Nicole had to get up to the roof and shut it down.
"Yes, missiles should fire without a hitch" new Ruben said
"Good job, I'm promoting you from new Ruben to just Ruben," Snyder said, about to shake his hand. A knife impaled Ruben's head "hey what happened to Ruben"
Snyder turned to see the L.A. owl jump down with his recollected knives "hey you killed Ruben" Snyder said wiping out his explosive slug gun and drove the owl behind cover.
Nicole was not allowed a full minute of peace tonight. Snyder's remaining forces fought Owl boy near the exit. There was only one way to destroy the signal tower and save Chloe.
Nicole took a deep breath and rushed to the yacht sized helicopter, making sure to stay behind cover. She only had two bullets left in her gun and couldn't afford a fight. Nicole snuck by and finally made it to the copter. She smashed the wall underneath the controls and found some wires "Ok it's just like in movies right" she said before smacking the wires together and the helicopter started. Nicole could have cheered but she didn't have time for that. Nicole tossed her bag on the passengers chair and looked at the pilot's seat "Ok you can do this Nicole, you can-"
BANG
Nicole collapsed forward as a horrible pain tore through her abdomen. She pulled herself back up to find Zoey pointing her pen gun at her before tossing it away "what do I have to do to get rid of you" she said more annoyed than anything. She had just snuck up to the copter on the opposite side
Nicole reached for her gun in her bag but wouldn't make it before Zoey.
"AHHHHH" someone tackled Zoey. It took Nicole a minute to realize it was Logan, he was alive. Logan kept her busy in a fist fight. Nicole almost got out to help him
"NO DESTROY THE TOWER" Logan called out, he clearly wanted to save Eric and Brooke just as much as she wanted to save Chloe. Nicole forced herself up despite the torturous pain in her wound.
Nicole got in the pilot's seat and pulled the… lever up, it was just flying a helicopter. How hard could it be? She flew up a little and had to hold in her lunch.
Meanwhile Logan was able to pin down Zoey and noticed the explosives detonator "I'll take that" he said taking it from her person.
"NO NOT ME, HER" Zoey screamed away from him. Logan looked up to see the L.A. Owl completely leapt over the conflict and attacked the helicopter.
The owl grabbed a hold of the helicopter door right as it flew out of the hangar and punched straight through the glass. Nicole threw the helicopter to the side leaving both her and the owl dangling for their lives. She had to pull herself up and straighten the copter, she didn't have time to waste. She flew towards the antenna on top of the building, trying to shake owl boy off as she flew.
Logan hid behind cover in the hangar as Snyder and his goons charged the edge of the hangar trying to see what was happening. "Serenity give me your sweet 19 present" Snyder said as Serenity handed him her drone controls to see what was going on. After a few seconds when Nicole was a safe distance away he activated the explosives.
Pieces of concrete and debris blasted off the top of the building like sparks from a firework. The safe was visible and the cables were already attaching themselves to the safe ready for pickup, way to go Michael.
But the signal tower was still standing. Nicole started examining all the controls, there had to be weapons or something on this thing.
Meanwhile the other helicopters were mashing every button at their disposal "Shoot it down" a pilot said. "I'm trying, the weapons aren't responding" the other pilot said. None of them knew Logan was able to shut down the other helicopters after he downloaded Snyder's intel and got access to their network, he could also give Nicole a hand.
Nicole tried to shake the L.A. owl off, somehow the flaps burst out the side and threw him off balance. Thinking he was finally gone she refocused on the signal tower.
All of a sudden the owl pulled himself up onto the front windshield and threatened to punch the glass. Nicole sped up then pulled back, throwing him off balance and leaving him dangling.
Suddenly all the helicopter instruments started going haywire, unbeknownst to Nicole the owl pried off a lower panel and ripped some wires apart. The helicopter was going down.
No No, she needed to…. Nicole couldn't keep this thing in the air but she could control where it crashed. Nicole took a deep breath, slipped her seatbelt on, and pushed the copter toward the signal tower. The copter crashed and ripped it to shreds, owl boy was set flying with all the colliding metal. Once the signal tower collapsed, the copter was dangling on the edge of the building tangled in cables. Nicole got out of her seal and tried to get outside but owl boy was waiting for her. Nicole shot her last two bullets at him, but it didn't stop him from putting his foot down and pushing the copter off the edge.
The copter was in free fall, Nicole got in a passengers seat and braced for impact, but the helicopter was bungeed into the wall of the building and-
5:45 AM March 22nd 2023, Purge Night
It's hot. That's the first thing Nicole feels as she wakes up, it's hot and humid. She pushes her dark brown hair out of her eyes and tries to focus. Her head was pounding in pain and she had a piercing pain in her abdomen. The rocking wasn't helping.
Rocking?
She lifted her head and looked at her surroundings. She was sitting in a seat, next to an automatic door, with a reinforced seatbelt on, directly behind the pilot's cockpit. She was in a helicopter. She started to calm down as memories started to flood back to her. She noticed her backpack leaning on her legs and reached over to it. "AHHHH" she yelled in pain, she lifted her black shirt and realized she had an open bullet wound in her stomach "great, thanks a lot Brooks".
A thunderous sound came from outside and it felt like the helicopter went ten meters in reverse. She then started to panic as more memories started to flood back to her, she needed to get out of there. She unbuckled her seatbelt and carefully opened the door, once the lock was opened the door flew to the side and broke off its hinge revealing the entire city of Los Angeles was on its side. Clutching onto the hand rest, she looked outside and saw that the helicopter was dangling from a vineyard of power cables off the end of the toppled signal tower on top of a skyscraper.
She had to sit back down with all the pain in her stomach. She sat directly on the handgun she was carrying, realizing a way out she pointed it at the glass in the cockpit. She made sure she was under the pilot's chair to be safe from falling glass. She pulled the trigger but there was just a clicking sound from the lack of ammo. She had to move fast, there was a terrible creaking sound that sounded like gravity was taunting her. She looked around for anything else she could use, there was a protective case laying on the other seat. Nicole just barely reached the case and pulled it over, she opened it to find another gun.
"Yes!" she cheerfully said, pulling the gun out and flipping the safety off. She pointed it at the cockpit window and shot it. But a bullet didn't come out, it was something on fire that got stuck to the window. She realized what she shot.
"Oh Fu-" she said as the flare burst. The glass shattered and the helicopter shook, several of the wires snapped and the helicopter shook like a ragdoll and fell another twenty meters.
She didn't have a second to spare, she climbed up the chairs passing the pilot's corpse, and up onto the hull of the helicopter. The copter was dangling about fifteen or twenty feet away from the building. She clutched onto one of the cables for dear life, the hull of the copter was a little slippery. She started climbing up the cable, desperately trying to ignore the hellish pain of her bullet wound.
"DOWN THERE" someone shouted from atop the building. About four armed guards with pistols ran to the railing along the roof and started shooting towards her. They missed the first few but there was no way that would last long. Nicole didn't have time to climb down so she just let go and fell through the window to crash back into the chair right on her ribs. Between that and her stomach she could barely pull herself back up. She noticed the flare gun on the ground next to her, with quick thinking she loaded another flare (there were two more left in the case). She crawled to the window and punched the glass until it shattered, she shot the first flare at the guards and it missed completely. She shot another and it hit one of them. She had one more, there was no way she could hit all of them and Chloe was counting on her to get back home. By now the guards had figured out they needed to aim at the cables.
At least they did, Owl boy was already ripping them apart before they could shoot a single cable. Once he was finished with them, he noticed Nicole still breathing. Even from this distance she could see him balling his fists in anger.
There was one way out of this though, not impossible just improbable. She aimed the flare gun at the toppled radio antenna on top of the building connected to all the cables. After a successful hit at the right of the radio antenna, it started to collapse and sent the copter flying towards the building. A jump like that was going to hurt, here goes nothing….
Nicole jumped and crashed through the window, she made it. She pushed herself up, her stomach screaming in pain whenever she touched it, but… at least her legs were working. Here she was on the….50th floor. They already cleared this floor and Nicole knew exactly what to avoid, she looked around and found the elevator, she didn't realize it was the one to the ground floor until she reached it.
The sound of breaking glass came from behind her, wonder who that could be. She turned and scowled at the L.A. owl, as he ripped off his mask revealing the anger painted all over his face "you Are IMPOSSIBLE TO KILL" he said with fury "This is really hurting my image"
Nicole knew exactly what to do "I'm getting sick of this James, let's finish this" she said raising her fists. James Garret dropped his owl mask, smirked, and ran at her. Come on, come on just a little farther, Nicole just had to wait a little longer.
James pulled out a knife and prepared to strike as he almost reached her.
BOOM
Nicole dropped and covered just in time as he hit the tripwire, she stood up again to find him painted across the walls. "Michael hope you saw that" she said as she walked over and picked up the L.A. owl's mask as a souvenir.
She couldn't gloat, she needed to find the others