Battle Born Vagabond

Chapter 25: Rumbling Warblers: PANM Popke: March 21, 5007

I tap my girlfriends. "Throw me on into the arena! I gotta help."

They do not question me just both give me a kiss on the cheek and one squeezes my butt. "Good luck honey." They pick me up one on one side one on the other and one extra picking me up by the waist they toss me as hard as they can. I'm coming up fast to the arena I feel like I'm going to just reach it. I go in ready to dive into the arena. I get right above the arena and I am suddenly stopped in my tracks and electricuted, it keeps me there for what feels like a minute.

I get thrown out of the arena and into a Cement wall. I open my eyes to see the battlefield getting riddled with holes in the ground from bullets lasers and bombs. The crowd is running away from the arena, the Sentinels are giving them cover.

Marie is yelling at the Alphas in charge, I can't hear them but she keeps pointing to the sky. I can see the heat signatures of the planes. I watch as Daniel Reaux gets ejected from the arena by Hakon. The planes are ignoring the inside of the arena going now for the outside. New York Sentinenls are also swinging wildly to try to swat them out of the air, not even close.

I start yelling for Marie and I'm running to her. Hakon leaps up and tries to get out of the arena. He gets thrown back into the arena when he tries. I'm still running to Marie she sees me running to her and teleports to me. "Yes, What is it?" I see hakon try and fail repeatedly to jump out of the arena by himself just knocking himself down electrocuted and trying again.

"Get Hakon out of there then help me!" She brings Hakon "Hakon, you can go. Marie, I'm a pilot. Get me in one of those fucking planes!"

Hakon growls at me, "I'm a soldier, give me a plane, I'll figure it out."

Marie looks at him confused as we start running to stay out of the open, "Hakon, have you ever been in a plane?"

"I was in your plane about a year ago."

"You might die trying to learn to fly."

"For my nation. I will take that risk."

I interject, "you can swap people, teleport and read minds right?"

"Yes."

"Read my thoughts so you can see through my eyes, get me in one of those planes then swap me and him."

She hops on my back and teleports us both high in the sky and she grabs onto my head. I'm looking at one and I'm locked onto it. In a flash from the sun I'm inside the cockpit then I'm back on the ground. I'm very confused. Marie comes back to me. "That was easy, lets do that again."

"The others are further and smaller."

"How many?"

"4."

"Well lets go."

I smile as I seek out the largest plane, this one is kind of in the background. Going on a parallel to the action, I can see in its heat signatures that it has lights following each of the planes individual. I find me and Marie inside. Alarms start going off and Marie simply teleports the men in the cockpit outside. I go straight to the controls; this is a plane I have never done before. Marie is scanning my thoughts and I ask in my head, "What are you looking for? I do not appreciate your prying!"

I get a silent answer, "How to fly this thing, its big you will need help."

I say outloud, "start helping me push every button Marie. I cannot fly this thingse, we just ejected the 10 who did. We have to turn off the invisibility fields on these things."

We sprint around the room pushing buttons. Marie is having a fun poking every button, nob, toggle and switch she can see and access. "What does this button do? What does that button do? Oh look, shiney! Turn it all the way up, Turn it all the way down. Toggle, toggle, toggle, toggle!" She does not shut up but she is having fun. All I do is pry the door shut so no one can get to us and sit in the captain's chair, no reason to ruin her fun.

I she finds a set of toggles things outside start changing I can see the planes visibly as they fly by. "Marie, that one has two people, get us in there."

She lands us on top of the plane and I'm holding on tight slightly bending the metal trying to hold on as she gets in the rear seat and the guy that was originally there flys out and past me he tries to grab onto the rutter but doesn't grab in time. He screams past me in the wind. She teleports the pilot to the side of the plane, and he is gone; I'm inside the plane at the controls of a plane I have done so many simulators for. I feel so alive! Its not the usual joystick like I was expecting and I'm used to. But I can't help but do a corkscrew loop out of excitement.

Marie screams as the G-Forces increases. I see in the radar where the other two planes are I start going right for them. Firing the lazers at them aiming for the plane they are evading me. "Marie. I can tell you don't like it. Feel free to tell some New Yorkers that we want to catch these pilots not let them die on impact." She disappears from the seat behind mine, my weapons are limited without her but that's okay; I only have physical, laser and heat seeking missles I also have use of my flares but that doesn't matter right now.

I can see one plane acting strange gaining and losing height randomly not keeping things steady with the left or the right. He is mostly losing altitude I have to ignore him as I watch him dip with the plane into the forest. I focus on the other two planes in the air. The Auxiliary Support Plane is slowly sinking to the ground and rotating to the right there's no one inside who can fly it. I see on the radar that someone is behind me. I feel great being in the air again! I am trying to out-manuever him, pulling all the way back on the ball. And he is not far from me. 

I go up at a 75 degree angel and he is still right on my 6 I push the accelerator all the way up I'm gaining altitude and I'm not breathing so well. I start going back down shortly afterwards, I'm starting to float up a little bit because I'm not buckled in. He closes the distance behind me using the Solar Boosters to catch up to me. I decide that I have two choices. I can speed up towards the ground or I can slow down and get him in front of me. I decide to pull back on the throttle and I release the primary chutes when I slow down from 800mph down to 200mph I release the chute and push the accelerator back up to keep caught up with him.

I keep him in the crosshairs just long enough for the crosshairs to turn from green to red to black as he tries to get out of my way. The other plane screaming past us. I push the button to release heat seeking missles, I release three of the eight. I wait a few seconds then I release one that is not heat seeking followed by a laser cannon plasma ball. I can see in his cockpit that he is pumping his fist in victory when he releases some flares and a second set for safe measure. I see the fist stop moving when he sees that final one not changing its course. He goes to the wheel but the missel hits. There's an explosion at the rear of his plane he loses his main rear thruster and then the ball hits and now he does not have his secondary thrusters either and part of the fuselage have a very large hole in it. He is spiraling out of control and he chooses to release all weapons. And ejects himself from the plane.

A very large sentinel uses the cooperation of another very large sentinel to leap up 100's of meters in the air and catches them by the throat in the air. A beep comes out of my plane I'm going to be out of fuel soon. I see the other plane on my tail. I go down from cruising alittue of a safe 500 meters to the tops of the trees around 100 meters to try to evade him while I'm out of fuel. He stays right behind me firing upon me with his machine gun fire. I do some barrel rolls and turn left and right trying to get him off my tail.

Something doesn't feel right, my gut is telling me to get away from the ground. Just as I increase altitude. I see from the bottom a Sentinel Leaping from the cover of the trees scraping the bottom of my plane. He is right in the face of the plane behind me, "Knock, Knock, Slam Dunk, Nigga!" He thrusts a bomb into the plane as he is going back down the plane behind me explodes.

I large sentinel comes down from above me and catches my plane as I'm watching what's going on behind me. I didn't fire any weapons I trust he is not going to do anything because he recognizes me, Because I do the maintence of the New Yorkers, that is my job. "Popke, what the fuck you doing brah?"

"Yo man, I caught this fool slippin and I commendered his whip."

"Cool brah, shut it off please."

"No problem brah. But man, you scratched my whip. What you gonna do?"

"I got you mayn."

"That's all I ask bro."