The Terminated

Detective Smith Lance was on his regular patrol route. Thanks to his superior officer, he was stuck monitoring ground traffic on the outskirts of Necropolis. He yawned as he watched the vacant road. He couldn’t help but think that this wasn’t a job for a detective and a total waste of time. All of his colleagues had been assigned actual cases while he was basically watching air.

“Maybe I really should just shoot him already…”

He was seriously considering this when he heard the sound of something coming from behind him. A large burst of noise blasted past him as a car passed him by, followed by a group of hover bikers.

“The hell!?”

He put his foot down on the pedal and the car accelerated through the highway. He couldn’t help but smile a bit at finding something worth his time.

========

Elusia was in a bit of a pinch. She had just taken down 2 of the temple’s security task force that had been sent to capture or kill her. The black hover bikers were closing in on the car. Elusia crawled back into the driver’s seat.

“Damn it!”

The temple had reacted to her escape a lot quicker than she had anticipated and she was in a precarious situation where one wrong move could result in her capture or death. The bikers were now surrounding the vehicle, two on her sides and one right in front of of her.

Elusia prepared 3 ice shard cards.

“Try to dodge this asshole!”

She tossed the cards in her hand straight at the biker in front of her. They turned into large shards of ice which hit them head on. The biker shrugged the attack off with his baton, but ice lodged itself into the hoverbike and it stalled.

“Yes!”

But Elusia’s joy was short lived. The biker used the bike as a springboard and lept onto the car hood.

“Uh oh.”

They stood up and took out another electrified baton into their free hand. 

Elusia readied her bat and got up onto her seat. 

He swung his batons into her in a rapid flurry, but Elusia managed to use her bat to block his attacks. She could feel the heavy blows pushing her back as she used every last bit of her strength to hold her ground. However the biker’s strength was overwhelming. She felt as if she was getting  repeatedly rammed by a truck as she was being forced back.

“Gah!”

The biker kicked her in the stomach sending her back onto the trunk. 

Elusia was running out of room to maneuver. 

She groaned as she quickly got back up and blocked the incoming electric batons. 

The other 2 bikers had her surrounded. Elusia was trapped.

“So…this is how it ends, huh?”

Elusia felt hopeless. Capture was definitely off the table at this point. She was about to die with a lot of regrets. She felt a flurry of emotions flow through her. Annoyance, sadness, resentment, but most of all Rage.

She was angry at herself for getting into this situation.

She was angry at the temple that raised her as a lab rat.

She was angry that she was never going to make up with Amity.

She was angry at the world that let this happen in the first place.

“Like hell! No way it’s ending here!”

She was going to survive.

Elusia quickly grabbed two cards from her pocket. She activated the first one and slid it under her opponent. They suddenly started to float into the air. Quickly as she could, she slid underneath him, just barely being grazed by her other 2 attackers. She slapped the other card onto his back and ducked into the drivers seat.

“Time to get iced!”

A large chunk of ice burst through the bikers chest. They fell to their knees.

“Gotcha.”

But it wasn’t over.

“What the heck?!”

The biker slowly stood up.

“Damage t-threshold exceeded. R-repairs necessary.”

She watched in horror as the biker, dripping with a dark black fluid, ripped out the ice shard and slammed it into the trunk. His midsection was completely destroyed, with a gaping hole exposing his innards.

“What…are you?!”

Inside, she could see a horrific amalgamation of machine meshed with pulsating flesh and organs with magical patterns carved into them.

Elusia felt like she was going to throw up, but held it in.

The biker used the opening created by the ice to rip open the trunk compartment. What happened next was almost too horrifying to describe.

‘Squelch’ ‘Rip’

The biker thrust his hand into the body of the man inside the trunk and tore off a large chunk of flesh. He then pushed it into his destroyed torso. A sickening noise rang out as the chunk of flesh fused into his body and mechanical tendrils bound it together.

‘Squish’ ‘squirm’

Elusia actually threw up a little in her mouth this time.

The biker continued to tear bits and pieces of flesh into his body until his wound was completely ‘healed’.

Fortunately (if you can call it that) the man in the trunk died immediately after the first thrust.

The biker, with his body restored, slowly turned to face Elusia. She could could feel the cold sweat on her back. She knew she had no chance of beating something like this, let alone 3 of them, alone with no plan. The best she could do was find a way to escape with her life and hope that they wouldn’t catch up with her.

“This is the police! Stop your vehicles or I’ll open fire!”

Suddenly an opportunity to escape presented itself.

“Help! I’m being attacked by these psychos!”

She shouted to the detective while flailing her arms around. The bikers were approaching her, with their batons ready to attack.

Detective Lance looked at the situation unfolding next to him. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but he knew he had to act quickly. The girl was incredible suspicious, but the bikers were definitely the aggressors in this instance.

He made his choice.

“Duck!”

Elusia ducked into the driver’s seat. The detective fired his energy pistol into the biker on the car. The shots hit them straight on the head and chest and they were blown off the car.

The other bikers responded quickly. 

One of them rode up to the detective, leapt off their bike and smashed through his car door.

“Get off!”

The detective fired a few rounds into the attacking biker and kicked him with his prosthetic leg as hard as he could. The biker and the car door were ripped off the car and slid across the highway.

The door slammed into the car Elusia was riding, causing it to spin out of control.

“Hey girl! Jump!”

The detective drove closer towards Elusia and held his hand out.

“It’s not girl! It’s Elusia Nulls, got it!”

She leapt towards the detective. The detective quickly caught her with his right arm and pulled her into the car. There was a large explosion behind them as the other car exploded.

“Yeah, yeah whatever! Save it for later! I’m going to need a long explanation about what the hell is going on here!”

“Long story short, I’m a magic exorcist disciple from the temple who escaped to prove to my sister I’m not useless and am now being pursued by that temple because I escaped!”

“…Ok, I’m going to need a lot more details.”

Elusia had no time to think of a plausible explanation for what was happening and basically just flusteredly explained everything that led to this situation.

The detective glared at her in disbelief, but decided to save it for later.

“First of all we gotta get this guy off our tail and get out of here.”

He stared at the the incoming hoverbike in his rear view mirror. The detective opened up his window and fired his pistol at the biker.

“Lay off or die!”

The biker seemed to slow down for a second, but then they leapt from the bike.

‘Clang’

“Dammit!”

The biker was clinging on to the roof of the car.

“Hang on girl!”

He haphazardly steered the vehicle left and right, trying to shake him off.

Elusia clung onto the seat for dear life.

“Hurblfff…I’m gonna throw up.”

“Hold it in!”

Elusia wasn’t the only one hanging on.

The biker dug into the car roof with his fingers.

“Just how determined is this guy!”

‘Creak’

Suddenly there was a creaking sound, followed by the sound of metal being torn apart. 

The biker had ripped off the car roof. 

The detective pulled out his pistol and fired directly into the biker’s face. They flinched for a second, but then continued reach towards Elusia, trying to grab her.

“A cyborg?! No…it’s different!”l

The mask that covered it’s face had been burned away. The detective and Elusia could now see what had been attacking them.

It’s face was a combination of melting, stretched out flesh fused with a mechanical exoskeleton. Part of it’s face was human, with a magical pattern carved into it and a bloodshot white eye, while the other was completely mechanical with human like metal shards for teeth and a glowing green light where it’s other eye should have been. Rather than a cyborg, it looked more machine than man.

It was like the mechanical part of it was using a corpse like a meat suit.

“Go to hell!”

She took out and activated a fire card and quickly slammed it into the bikers face. A large pillar of fire burst out, completely incinerating it’s head. It flailed around for a bit, but quickly stopped moving and slid off the car onto the highway.

“What the hell was that?!”

“I don’t know.”

Elusia looked extremely disturbed by what she had just witnessed.

Smith saw that she was in no mood to talk about it and decided to lay off a bit.

“How about we get something to eat and drink? We can talk after.”

“Fine.”

Elusia and the detective headed into the inner city.