⛭ Chapter 28 ⛭

Crackling fire surrounded the two rivals as the truck had become totally destroyed from the impact.

The finish line could be seen opening to the last portal which had a bright yet unclear path.

Zadz came in after on his skateboard with Mache following behind with a critically injured Trax in the backseat of his jeep.

Chelbie, however, had gotten flung across the crusty road. Her prosthetic boots were extremely damaged and many injuries could be seen all over her body. Even her sleeveless shirt and jeans were tattered with dirt.

She was struggling to get up while trying to dig in her pockets for the gloves.

They weren’t there.

Searching around for what felt like an eternity, Zadz came over to help her up. He could already tell she was not feeling well after slamming that vehicle into Skullspiker’s face.

“Fuck it Zadz, I can’t find them. I think they’ve gone missing forever,” she said with a sense of loss gripping her eyes.

“Don’t worry about it, we can still make it to the end,” said Zadz as he tried to comfort her.

Deciding to let go of the anxiety that was already tormenting her inside, she climbed into the backseat of The Krashing Kavalry with Trax.

Then she saw the motionless dread tugging at his soul as he sat there. His breathing started to dwindle and struggle.

“Ch-el-bie…” he said in a slower tone than before that got heavier with each syllable he spoke.

Holding her hand next to his heart, his speech stuttered a few more times over to try and tell her what was on his mind.

These words however, got overpowered by the monstrous growl that The Skullspiker made after shaking off all of the debris that had fallen on top of it.

Mache, seeing the robotic monstrosity rise up as it spotted the jeep from miles away, made him push as hard as he could on the brakes.

The machine meanwhile started to run as fast as it could towards the group.

And then, it happened.

At one of the worst possible moments, Mache’s jeep slowed down as the gas had drained itself to the last drop.

“Ah shit!” said Zadz as he kept looking back and forward at their progress being made to get to the portal and The Skullspiker, who was getting a lot closer.

However, they also noticed something else in the background.

The two other blue Corvettes survived the explosions that were occurring thanks to Chelbie’s selfless act.

Unfortunately, their speed did not stop The Skullspiker as he started landing a diving elbow to the one on his right and then threw it over at the other car with extremely accurate aim.

“You all need to run as fast as you can to that portal! I’ll take care of this idiot. For all of our sakes,” said Zadz as he was ready to face the machine with his rocket-powered skateboard.

It was at a time like this that Chelbie wished she hadn’t lost the gloves.

She suspected that the power source strapped onto The Skullspiker was still the only possible way to defeat it, but even that proved to be questionable to a greater degree.

There was however, one last thing she could do at a time like this.

“Zadz, don’t. Let me do this for a sec,” said Chelbie as she pressed a certain button within her ear that communicated to all of her friends for what quite literally felt like the only other way she could get the message out.

Meanwhile, The Skullspiker was now a few miles away from them and approaching faster while The Dark Hazard caught up to the bot quickly for it to hitch a ride inside of it and send a triple cannon shot at The Krashing Kavalry.

Zadz had no choice but to alert everyone as they were about to leave the vehicle.

Until, suddenly, a bright blue force jumped over their vehicle and dropped two gloves into the jeep.

It was Hisa.

“Hey Chelbs, I got this.”

Chelbie smiled with tears in her eyes as she looked back at the gloves and knew exactly what she wanted to do.

While Hisa created a blue forcefield of sorts using the Eternal Light’s energy within her, she immediately destroyed the three shots coming from the tank and then grabbed the nozzle as she slammed it upside down.

Although it seemed as if The Skullspiker had been defeated, it was not done yet. The bot busted itself out of the tank and now emanated a red glow from its eyes.

But as the machine ran towards Hisa to try and finish her off, a loud scream could be heard from up in the sky.

Wearing the gloves on her hands, Chelbie had repaired her broken prosthetic boots and had a fiery essence surrounding her human form.

With both Hisa and Chelbie working together, the two of them kicked down Skullspiker and started trading blows each chance they got.

Piece by piece, the robot was losing parts.

In a last ditch effort to contribute, Zadz ran over with his skateboard and jumped from a good height that was enough to launch the wheeler like a rocket projectile.

As Hisa punched the device that was strapped to Skullspiker’s body, it caused the machine to glitch.

Before they were about to begin attacking again, Chelbie saw Zadz’s skateboard flying in the sky and used its force to deliver a few words as she accelerated downward from a really high altitude.

“Blazin’ is my style!”

Without stopping a single second, she thrusted Zadz’s skateboard at The Skullspiker’s robotic heart as it caused an enormous red explosion to flow across the land.

Chelbie had finally defeated The Skullspiker.