Retaliation

Chapter 17 Train-wreck

*Warning* Gore

All three of us were currently in the middle of our 3-hour car trip from Chicago back to Grand Rapids with Jasmine driving. I had long since gotten my license and was a pretty good driver but I didn't fight with her. It gave me a chance to stare out the passenger side window and look at the scenery anyway. 

I glanced back at Ryan who was busy playing video games on her little Nintendo Switch. She had recently become addicted to a video game about catching pixelated monsters and using them to beat up other people's pixelated monsters. Some of the ones looked pretty cute, like the little yellow electric mouse thing, but it personally didn't look appealing because the whole concept of catching creatures and using them to fight seemed too close to home. 

I decided to doze off and lean my head against the doorframe. My previously black void dream had been interrupted by a vision. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the highway, multiple clouds of purple mist materialized. The spectacle looked just like Ryan using her teleportation powers.  

A domino effect of swerving and crashing cars ensued as they tried to avoid the mysterious clouds. Jasmine used her quick reflexes to slam on the brakes and safely skid onto the side of the highway somehow avoiding all the wreckage. A speeding truck came barreling towards us and the tail end of our car got smashed. The force of the impact caused our vehicle to spin but Jasmine corrected it and stopped us before we could hit anything else. The truck that hit us had run off the road and into a ditch. 

I looked back at Ryan who was thankfully ok despite a few cuts on her face revealing her green blood. I looked back at Jasmine, she was physically ok of course, but small bits of her were glowing a faint orange. She quickly dispersed them in the form of small blasts that looked like firecrackers.  Thankfully, Ryan didn't seem to notice. 

All of the purple mist had completely evaporated, and before us was a small group of figures dressed in all black that were hard to make out in the dim light. One of the figures I recognized immediately, as he was wearing the same suit he wore every day while working for DRAKO. The small group, with Z'cardan keeping his post, quickly spread out and approached all the cars. With no hesitation, the soldiers shot the occupants in the car even if they weren't responsive.

I was woken up before my vision could finish, I felt a strong hand on my shoulder gently shaking me awake. My heartbeat was rapid and it felt like I was sitting in a puddle of my own sweat. "Elara, wake up. What happened?" Jasmine asked me while exchanging worried glances between me and the road. 

All I could get out was the name "Z'cardan" between my panicked breaths. I noticed Jasmine's eyes go wide as she continued staring straight ahead on the road. I followed her gaze to see a familiar scene of multiple purple figures appear out of nowhere. Cars started to stop and swerve in the same directions they did in my vision. Like before, Jasmine had dodged them all perfectly but I was prepared for the truck I could see in the rearview mirror. 

"Don't stop! Keep going forward!" I shouted. 

Without question, Jasmine did as I instructed and we watched without a scratch as the speeding bullet of a truck flew by us and demolished itself in the ditch. We continued our straight line forward when a figure teleported onto the hood of our car with a heavy thud. Z'cardan broke through the windshield and ripped the steering wheel out of its socket. Jasmine slammed on the brakes and he flew forward with momentum, only stopping once he did a couple of barrel rolls on the ground. 

We were now at a standoff. There was no point in hiding since he could easily find us again. We had no choice but to fight.  

"Ryan, teleport us out!" 

"Where?" 

"Somewhere with no people around." 

Ryan quickly reached out and placed one hand on each of our shoulders. Within seconds we were transported out of our car and into an abandoned railway yard that we had passed on the highway a while back.