Kitty casually swung the briefcase at her side as they approached a hollowed-out snack bar in terrible disrepair, with peeling paint and broken plaster a defining attribute. Looking at his phone to check his skills, Kurt walked into Kitty’s back as he went to enter the building. She had stopped dead, with Rouge standing directly in front of her whispering in a low voice.
“It’s Vice, Kitty. What do we do? It’s frigging Vice,” Rouge hissed.
Kitty shoved past her, the picture of calm. “We play for time, darlings. Kurt, pull your shit together. This is about to get weird.” She swung the briefcase cheerfully as she approached a table with two men seated at it. One wore a slate grey suit with a black shirt beneath. The other wore a white suit with white pants and a pastel pink undershirt. He scratched at his stubble and waved a dismissive hand at Kitty.
“Late. Pirates are always late.” The man fired up a cigarette and leaned back. “Never on time.”
His partner stared at them while rubbing his hands together lightly. “Oh, is that what late means?” He spoke dismissively to his partner, his piercing gaze never leaving them. “That was a nice landing out there. Real professional.”
Kurt walked around behind the snack counter and quietly swiped his coms channel open with Gadot and Jimmy. He spoke under his breath. “Guys, what is ‘Vice’?”
Jimmy immediately responded, concern in his voice. “Oh shit, we got Vice?” The sounds of footsteps increased to a run. “Two boss fights in one day. AI must be pissy at us.”
“Or rewarding us. Just stall them, Kurt, we’ll be there with a ride as fast as we can. Keep the briefcase no matter what.” She sounded as worried as Jimmy.
“Not like that’ll help. You can’t run from Vice.” Kurt heard the sound of Jimmy racking his shotgun through the com link.
“We stand a better chance behind the wheel. Get in!” Gadot muted herself after Kurt heard an engine roar to life.
He turned his focus back to Kitty, who had pranced over to the table and was flirting awkwardly with the man in the white suit. “No, you show me yours.” She tittered and flashed him a smile while holding the suitcase behind her back, batting her eyelashes overtly. Kurt noticed with a start that the man’s partner was ignoring her and staring directly at him, his dark eyes gleaming in the streetlight pouring in through the window. He was still lightly rubbing his hands together and gave Kurt a tiny nod when they made eye contact.
Kurt leaned against the counter nonchalantly, allowing his hand to crawl near his jacket and unbutton it while trying to look bored. The man narrowed his eyes at Kurt, but looked away when Kitty brashly leaned forward, brushing past the men at the table. She giggled drunkenly, winking at them as she grabbed a toothpick from the far end of the table where they were seated. The man in the white suit took a more relaxed posture, smiling at her as he lay an arm across the back of the booth.
Kitty took a couple of steps back, sitting on a swiveling stool at the bar and slowly turning in place while chewing on her toothpick. As she turned away from Vice, she muttered under her breath into the group’s voice chat, “Where the hell are you guys?” She was all smiles when the stool finished its rotation.
The man in the grey suit jacket nudged his partner, seeming to snap him out of his reverie. He glanced back and forth, anger suddenly clouding his features. “Hey now, what’s the hold up? You bring the stuff, we bring the money — simple deal.”
“You think they’re trying to rip us off? Or maybe just stalling.” Both men produced guns. The man in the white suit drew a chrome handgun, and his partner pulled out a black, snub-nosed revolver. Kurt stepped back behind the counter, drawing his Coonan and keeping it low.
Kitty grinned, shrugging as she reached for her Raider pistol and gave Rouge a significant glance. The man in the white suit stood, pointing his weapon at them. “IPD Vice! Drop your guns and get on the ground!”
The wall behind them blew inward, a midnight purple, four-door Mustang sliding to a stop between the two groups as both scrambled into movement.
Kitty had lifted her feet and legs into a high crouch on the stool to avoid the car and used that position to slide in through the open window onto the backseat. Rouge dove in headfirst behind her, as Kurt walked around the counter and opened the opposite car door, squeezing in beside the cluster of women jumbled in the backseat.
Jimmy leaned over Gadot’s crouched form and fired eight blasts from his shotgun into the table. Vice had ducked below it when the car burst in, and the shotgun fire kept them under cover while Gadot reversed out of the snack bar. She sat up as they bounced over broken glass and bits of wall, looking over her shoulder through the rear window.
Glancing at the tangle of people in the backseat, Gadot just shook her head and focused on the job, spinning the car in a half circle and accelerating away from the shack. Kitty and Rouge managed to extricate themselves while Kurt clung to his magnum and stared out of the back window. He was not disappointed. A white 1986 Ferrari Testarossa chirped its tires as it came around the corner of the snack bar behind them, revving into pursuit.
“That looks like a really fast car.” Kurt nervously watched as they navigated the slopes of the drive-in theater, the Ferrari gaining ground on them with frightening speed. Sirens sounded from all around the parking lot, more police cruisers coming to support the Vice vehicle.
Gadot saw them coming and swerved, running down a chain link fence and reversing their direction. “It is. Much faster than we are. Everybody, guns up!”
The Mustang swerved and kicked up dust on the dirt road as they headed back towards the Downtown Cluster with Vice close behind them. Avoiding a police cruiser, Gadot cut the wheel and drove them up an embankment onto the freeway, cutting off the evening traffic and gunning the engine. She drove flat out, her foot pressed flat on the gas pedal as she wove between cars and trucks. The white Ferrari never fell back, only gaining speed and coming closer with each passed civilian vehicle, its police escort in tow. Kurt glanced at his phone to see there was no heat rating and concluded that the boxy looking early 90’s cruisers were a part of the boss encounter.
“How did I end up riding bitch?” Kitty grumped from her middle seat, Raider in hand as she searched about the car for a way to shoot at their enemies. “We need to lose the Company. Vice is so much easier without their support team.”
Kurt reached over and lightly slapped Rouge’s shoulder to get her attention, lifting his drum magazine to show her what he intended to do. She squinted at him before recognition dawned and she patted her holsters. Producing a long stick magazine, she slipped it into the mag-well of her micro Uzi and gave Kurt a nod.
Moving as one, they cracked open the Mustang’s rear doors and began full auto-fire at the tires of the vehicles on either side. The civilian NPCs swerved and smashed into each other, creating a moving pileup directly behind the Mustang that quickly spread across the entire freeway. Jimmy watched in the side mirror, before turning and offering his fist for Kurt and Rouge to bump when their magazines ran dry. Kurt smiled at his friend and knocked knuckles with him, turning to smile at the other players. Rouge rolled her eyes but knocked knuckles with Jimmy anyway.
“Nice, nice. We needed that breathing room.” Gadot kept one eye on the Ferrari behind them, bogged down in the pileup they had caused.
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Vice swerved from one side of the highway to the other, trying to pass the traffic and accidents in their way, but were bogged down on all sides. They slowly worked their way around to the outside lanes, driving off-road to pass the pileup. Once the Ferrari was back on the road, they caught up again quickly. Their police escort was hopelessly jumbled in the pileup, and only a few of them managed to follow.
“Kitty! We need support, what can you scramble?” Jimmy leaned out of his window, firing his BAR at the rapidly approaching Ferrari.
She sat back in her middle seat, swiping at her phone. “Jerome, darling! Yes . . . no, no, report right now. I’m thrilled it went well, but we’re still in the shit.” She paused, her head cocked to one side. “Yes, sir, we ended up with Vice. Need some help. What birds do we have in the air right now?” Kitty made a face, leaning forward to peer out the front windshield. “What are you doing? We’re heading straight into GoonStorm turf!”
“I know! One member of Vice is terrified of machine gun fire. If we can get some Goons on us, they’ll accidentally help us get the kill.” Gadot leaned forward slightly, weaving between traffic and attempting to maintain their lead.
“Right,” Kitty said, returning to her comms conversation. “Seems like some obscure mechanic has us enlisting the Goons to help us somehow. Have the full party at our border and get us some air support to deal with GoonStorm technicals.” Kitty paused, nodding as she looked through her phone. “Perfect. Love you to bits, Jerome!”
The Ferrari caught up, swerved out to the side of the Mustang, and tapped its rear wheel. Gadot clung to the wheel as they spun in place, her other hand working the gearshift while tire smoke boiled on all sides. With a quick flick of the wheel and a sharp gear shift, she turned the spin into a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotation, darting behind a civilian car to keep Vice from attacking them again. Gadot glanced at her mirrors, dodging and weaving in and out of the increasingly nervous traffic around them, attempting to keep civilian cars between them and Vice.
The freeway widened as it moved into the Downtown Cluster, with four additional lanes opening up, causing a large gap in the traffic. Vice moved in, darting up on their left side as the passenger of the Ferrari took precise shots at their hood.
Gadot leaned on the brake, jerked the wheel slightly, and nudged at the Ferrari’s rear wheel well. The Ferrari went sideways, but the driver controlled the slide with one hand, and both NPCs opened fire on the vulnerable radiator block of the Mustang. Thick white smoke began to pour from the engine and exhaust, and the Mustang stuttered on the road before its engine kicked back in.
Gadot dropped back, shaking them loose and heading back into the crush of traffic. “Bad idea, sorry.” Jimmy leaned out of his window to cover their retreat, firing his shotgun at the Ferrari. The passenger in the Ferrari reached out a sawn-off shotgun and blasted Jimmy with it, buckshot sparking off his door.
Ducking back inside, Jimmy set the shotgun between his knees and shook his hands, flexing his fingers. “Oh, ow! Ow! That’s so mean! He’s aiming for our hands, guys, watch out for disarms,” he hissed, shaking the pins and needles out of his hands.
Kurt rolled down his own window, taking a few shots at them with his Coonan, but ducking to be a less visible target. He leaned forward and slid the gun along the side of the car, trying to take careful aim. The sawn-off shotgun poked out of the Ferrari again, blasting the door and Kurt’s hand. He jerked his hand away from the stinging pain, dropping his Coonan and yelping. Kurt glanced at his wrist to see his health bar blinking in the red, only a small sliver of it left, with his primary weapon slot now empty. He rolled his window back up, keeping ducked down out of sight.
Scoffing at him, Kitty turned and blew out the back window with one of her flintlocks, wincing at the loud noise and fragments of glass which showered them. Rouge ducked low, dropping her legs into the space behind the driver’s seat and crouching to stay out of sight. Kurt saw her and mimicked her motions as best he could, with Jimmy’s larger bulk blocking him somewhat.
He ended up laying halfway on the backseat, ducked low to avoid fire from the rear window. “I thought that was bullet-proof glass?” Kurt said. Careful to stay out of sight, he watched his health bar creep back up to half, where it stopped.
“Yeah, but it’s all one-way. You can shoot it out if you need to, but it can’t be shot through from the other side unless its durability is defeated.” Jimmy calmly turned and braced his BAR against the shoulder of his seat, taking carefully aimed shots at the distant police cruisers. He had loaded a magazine of explosive rounds, so each shot caused a small detonation when it struck. The explosive rounds were not quite powerful enough to cause a car to explode with a single hit, but a few in the same area would typically do the trick, and the remaining police cruisers supporting the Ferrari fell away in flaming ruins.
The skyscrapers of the Downtown Cluster rose around them as they emerged from an overpass, hurtling towards the densely packed buildings. Gadot swerved, cutting off several civilians as she took an offramp into a crowded section of the city. She cut the wheel and slid around a corner, hopping up on the curb and driving past a parked GoonStorm patrol. Kitty shouted something impolite and tossed an unlit Molotov onto their hood as she crawled out the broken window onto the back of the car. Reacting in a predictable manner, the Goons gave chase, opening up with their mounted .50 cal machine gun.
Ignoring the incoming fire, Kitty lay down on the trunk, her legs scrabbling at the interior for purchase as she fired her Raider until it clicked empty. One of her rounds lit the GoonStorm patrol on fire and they fell back as the players inside screamed and bailed out at speed to avoid the flames.
More Goons reacted to the incursion on their turf, converging on them as they fled through the city. Gadot used the Mustang’s low profile to their advantage, staying in front of taller vehicles as they darted around corners and weaved in and out of the city blocks. She began a long arc around the city, cutting through most of the Downtown Cluster with the Ferrari firmly in tow. Before they made it more than a few blocks from the original GoonStorm patrol, they had several more following after them in a mad scramble to kill the other players and steal their boss encounter.
The continual machine gun fire kept Vice subdued, the passenger tucked into a covered position in his seat. Both the Ferrari and Mustang were taking fire from the pursuing Goons, and neither vehicle was in good shape. The Ferrari began to spew white smoke from its exhaust, but it didn’t stop the driver from shooting at them with his chrome handgun. His rounds struck the car with uncanny accuracy, no matter how Gadot twisted and turned on the road.
Kitty had wiggled her way back inside, only to hurriedly reload and adjust the position of her ammo belt before squirming back out onto the trunk again. Rouge and Kurt each grabbed a leg to keep her from flying out onto the road, and Kitty hooted with glee as she fought the Ferrari’s driver and any Goons that got within range behind them. Her untrained and chaotic combat methods were surprisingly lethal, and several of the GoonStorm patrols were destroyed or driven off.
Jimmy rolled his window down and slid out, sitting on the windowsill with his BAR. He pivoted in place, reacting to GoonStorm vehicles and firing at windshields and tires with his explosive rounds to keep them from getting too close. Occasionally he would drive back the Ferrari with a few explosive rounds, but the Vice driver deftly dodged them and aggressively returned fire. Jimmy glanced at his wrist after getting hit by a barrage of the incoming fire.
“I’m running real low on armor here, guys. Won’t be able to regen health like this either.” Jimmy spoke into his coms calmly, firing at a new GoonStorm patrol vehicle. His explosive rounds coupled with a thrown Molotov from the back of the Mustang, and the Hummer fell back in a flaming ruin, its passengers screaming and falling to dust.
Gadot swiped at the map on the windshield, looking for something. “Kitty, where the hell is our air support?”
Kitty flopped over with a giggle, reloading from her stretched-out position on the trunk. She slid part way off the trunk and flung another Molotov at a GoonStorm Humvee that swerved into the road beside them. “No idea.” She lit the Goons on fire while partially upside down, squeezing one eye shut and sticking out her tongue in concentration. From her position hanging half off the trunk of the Mustang, she swiped up her coms. “Jerome, my dear . . . okay yes, great news. Be there shortly!” She banged on the side of the car, a request to be pulled inside. Kurt and Rouge complied, hauling on her legs until she was more or less in the backseat with them.
She swiped up her map and thrust her arm into the front of the Mustang, allowing Gadot to tap wrists with her. Gadot immediately flicked her wrist at the windshield, throwing the new map up onto it. Cutting the wheel, she dodged an incoming group of GoonStorm vehicles ahead of them and darted down a side street. The Mustang’s engine cut out briefly, before stuttering back to life. They roared down the side street with black smoke pouring from the hood and exhaust.
“Fight to the dust, Jimmy!” Kitty shouted as she leaned forward and hauled the massive four gauge sawn-off from her rear holster, shoving it at Kurt. “I’m going to want this back, Kurtis. Just keep Rouge alive — we still get credit if one of us is up at the end of all this!” She then ripped at the Velcro on her mostly tattered armor, tossing it on the floor of the car before gripping a pair of Molotovs and climbing out on the trunk again. “WITNESS ME!!” Kitty roared at nobody before launching herself off the trunk with a maniacal grin, a Molotov raised in each fist. She erupted in a puff of silver dust as she struck the front end of the Ferrari, her unlit firebombs splashing across the vehicle and its occupants.
