Second Wind

Chapter 4: End of the Line

There she was, blazing through the M-8 with the Pathfinder's mobsters in hot pursuit. She was now completely in the zone, effortlessly swerving her way through the obstacles that littered the road before her. Despite her attempts to try and shake them off, they were still hot on her tail, and more importantly, they were getting closer despite her efforts. It wasn't long before she could soon hear gunshots coming at her from behind, and when she felt a bullet whizz past her helmet, she could feel her adrenaline spiking up with each passing second. She felt that her motorcycle was moving faster and faster, and although she knew she couldn't get rid of them through speed anymore, she knew that she could still be aggressive with them to get the job done.

With that in mind, she began to hit the brakes on her motorcycle, drastically slowing herself down so that they could catch up with the vigilante - as soon as she was level with them, she quickly hit the accelerator, keeping herself amidst the crowd of masked gangsters as they began to ready themselves once she was in range in order for them to safely take aim amidst the chaos, ready to shoot her down for good. However, she had other plans in mind.

She quickly pulled her shotgun out, but instead of taking fire, she immediately smacked its front against one of the drivers that was next to her, causing them to go off-balance while the driver themselves fell off the vehicle - she ended up doing the same thing for the driver on her right, and with her sides now cleared for the time being, she slammed on the brakes once again, making sure that she would be the one behind the drivers as she quickly regained her speed afterward. However, she made sure to not go too fast, and instead preferred to keep her speed constant with the gangsters so that she could maintain their distance from them.

Now that she was in prime position to strike, she clutched onto her shotgun tightly before aiming down at them, and once she had her eyes on her targets, she pulled the trigger - she was able to strike down the third driver in the back, causing him to immediately fall off the motorcycle and onto the asphalt while the vehicle itself went out of control and smashed into the highway divider.

There were three drivers left in her way...

At this point in time, the roadblocks ceased to exist. All that was left now was nothing but empty highway which stretched out as far as the eye could see. Perfect. The three riders looked over to the side to face her before bringing out their guns, aiming at her before firing. The vigilante attempted to move out of their firing range, but that proved to be a lot harder than she had thought, with one of the bullets almost hitting her square in the shoulder when she tried to get herself out of bounds. She then fired yet another round from her shotgun once she had found a moment of opportunity, which was when they had stopped firing for a few brief seconds.

However, she was less fortunate in her attempt to press the advantage, as she found her shot missing her target, and as soon as she had fired, they had fired back. Only this time, their attempts proved to be worthwhile as one of the bullets struck her in the shoulder. With her arm now compromised, she began to lose control over her motorcycle - the trio immediately exploited the sudden change in tides, and with great haste, one of the riders took aim and shot at one of the motorcycle tires. And just like that, she was catapulted off her ride as the motorbike fell to the floor and ground itself to the asphalt until it eventually came to a halt - as for her, she was hurled into the air before she dropped to the floor, rolling against it a few times before ultimately coming to a halt.

Once she was rendered immobile, the riders came to a complete halt, stopping their vehicles as they got off, and with that, they began approaching her, keeping their guns on the ready - they also had machetes on their persons as well, should she get close to them and if things get rough. She struggled a little to get herself up to her feet, but when she did, she immediately clutched onto her injured shoulder, letting out a slight hiss before shifting her attention towards the rogues that were coming at her with firearms still stuck to them. She was somewhat shaking in place, unable to keep herself still - a sign of her current weakened state.

"As much as I want to take the helmet off, I really shouldn't...for now. How do I stop these guys..."

She thought to herself as she looked down on the ground, with her shotgun still within her reach. With that, she let go of her injured shoulder before taking the weapon off the ground with her free hand, and once she retrieved her weapon, she aimed it towards them, though that proved to be difficult given how shaky her hand was - it was clear that she was still reeling from the pain despite her attempts to deal with it.

"I...dare you to take a step closer. If you know what's good for you."

"Last chance for you to surrender, ingrate. You've proven to be a very difficult figure for us to handle. You're surrounded, you're injured. You have nowhere to run, nowhere to go. If you choose to surrender, you will be more than welcome to use your skills to benefit the Pathfinder and their many operations."

"Surrender? You want me to...surrender?"

She let out a laugh in response to their offer, and once her laughter subsided, she then let out a huff before tilting her head down and speaking up in a strained tone.

"You took...EVERYTHING FROM ME. In fact, why am I saying that? My little sob story doesn't bother you. Why would it ever bother you? It will never bother anyone you know, either. And you want me to just bend over and let you come at me? You've got another thing coming...! If you want me to join the Pathfinder so badly, you'll have to make sure I'm DEAD!"

She then suddenly moved her injured arm forward as her hand clutched the bottom of her shotgun, and while she recoiled after feeling a sharp pain course through her entire left arm from her shoulder, she attempted to steel herself, knowing that she had to defend herself with the best of her ability and just fight through her injury. Just as the trio aimed their pistols at her, she immediately took aim and fire - although she was in a shaky state, she was able to immediately take out one of the rogues before they could fire. Four down, two to go.

At that moment, she knew this was the moment where she jumped the shark. There was no turning back now. She knew all too well that they would just shower bullets onto her without any sort of refrain or restraint. They were right - she had nowhere to run, and she wasn't in a situation where escape was a viable option. She had to go out with a bang and pray that she could come back alive. This was it.

"It really had to come to this, huh..." She momentarily thought to herself before she charged at them, and at that moment, the two gangsters quickly fired on her.

She kept coming at them despite the situation she was in, with her taking bullets and fighting off the pain with all the determination that she could muster from them - another shot from her shotgun hits its target, and now, all that was left was just one. She was now bleeding profusely from her stomach, and she was considerably injured on her thighs as well. She was still attempting to keep her arms in place, though judging by how much they were twitching and jerking in place while she held onto the shotgun, it was clear that her resilience was starting to wane and falter. By the time the mobster had run out of bullets to fire, she would be be standing right before them, her shaky finger to the trigger.

"H-Heh...n-nice try...but this is...w-where it-"

In a fit of instinctive desperation, they dropped his firearm and immediately lunged forward, stabbing the vigilante square in the chest with the machete that they had in their hands. She suddenly seized up as her eyes shot open in an instance, with her feeling it pierce through her as she immediately pulled the trigger. The final mobster's guts ended up being blown wide open at that moment as their blood was splattered all over her in the process, and just like that, they just dropped to the floor like an unused puppet. All six of them were dead, but now the vigilante was mortally wounded. Once it felt like the coast was clear, she dropped the shotgun to the floor before grabbing onto her helmet, pulling it off her head before smashing it onto the ground in a wild fervor.

She certainly was a mess, physically - on top of all the injuries that she had sustained after her long altercation with the Pathfinder's cronies that were sent out to kill her, she was bleeding from her head as well. She was finding it difficult to stand any longer, and just like that, her back and knees bent forward while her arms went completely limp.

"D-Dammit...I would've been...fine if I had died while they lived or something..."

She mumbled to herself before collapsing to the ground, with her falling on her side as she found herself totally unable to keep herself upright anymore. She stared ahead into the long road behind her, her breathing heavy and labored as her sight grew immensely blurry. She couldn't move any more. She just didn't want to deal with the pain any longer. She just wanted this to be over.

Everything around her was beginning to turn black. The end was near. However, just before she could close her eyes, she could see a slew of lights in front of her. But she found it intensely difficult to make out anything else that was approaching her.

"W-Wh...at..."

And just like that, her sight went completely black, and she went completely limp after letting out one heavy and drawn out huff. She wasn't moving, or even breathing anymore for that matter. She was officially done and dusted.

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As the legion of vehicles approached the scene where the m******e happened, they came to a stop as the vehicles' headlights shined on the road ahead of them - all that could be seen were nothing but dead bodies. As for the vehicles themselves, there were various kinds of them. Trucks, jeeps, motorbikes, army vans...you name it, they most likely had it. Someone was sticking out from the top of a jeep that was situated in the middle of the convoy, and judging by the animal mask, it was clear that the convoy was the Pathfinder's. They used a pair of binoculars to assess the situation from a distance, and once that was done, they returned back inside the jeep.

Just mere seconds later, one of the jeep's doors would open, and out came an all-too-familiar figure - Fleurie. She had this inhuman smile on her face, clearly finding great joy that the person who she wanted to stop in her tracks was finally dealt with. She walked towards the corpse of the vigilante, paying zero heed to the minions who had died executing her command. She crouched down in front of the body, staring at her and letting out a chuckle before speaking to her, knowing full well that the woman was not going to hear her out at all.

"Well, well, well...look at who we have here. The person who thought she was the hero of the story. How...utterly...LAUGHABLE."

From there, she let out a menacing chuckle, standing back upright and kicking the woman's corpse with glee before letting out a sigh once she managed to regain her composure and cease her laughter - however, this wasn't the end of her long, haughty monologue.

"You know, why did you have to make yourself such a difficult person to deal with? Every time, you're constantly running, you're constantly trying to make problems for us...and it just IRRITATES ME! But now that you're gone, NO ONE will have the guts to try and stop me! Soon, your name will be forgotten, and I will enjoy spending each and every last second robbing the people of Detroit of their last, final hope. I don't know what they were thinking...them believing that you can be the spark of something bigger."

She kicked the corpse once again, and to add insult to injury, she pulled the machete that was jammed to her chest off the body, slinging it to the back of her shoulder as she continued speaking.

"Look at you, being all stylish. Is that your thing? I should learn from you, honestly. I mean, look at that JACKET! I bet you must look like a million dollars wearing that!"

With that in mind, she forcibly pulled the jacket off her unmoving corpse, and when she finally got it off her, she took one good look at it before letting out a childish chuckle.

"Hmph...I think I should keep this. Thank you oh so very much!"

She put the jacket on, and with that, she turned away from the corpse, beginning to walk away from it while she continued on with her monologue.

"Anyways, I should get going. I've got a city to look after, you know what I mean?"

All of a sudden, she immediately pulled a pistol out of her pocket and begin firing directly at her head and chest, with her repeatedly pulling the trigger until she wasn't able to fire any more bullets.

"And I need to ROOT THE WEEDS OUT!"

She then, at last, returned to the jeep that she was in. As soon as she was back with the convoy, the vehicles started up their engines once more, and with that, they continued down the highway, leaving the corpses behind as they got a move on to the Eastern Market, where their headquarters were situated. It wasn't long before their lights vanished into the horizon and the sounds of engines revving and tires moving inevitably dissipated.

Once the coast was clear, a few people dressed in suits showed up, with them coming out of the signboards that were situated around the highway. After the people in black took a good look around the highway to see if anyone else was watching, one of them, who was this burly-looking Asian man, placed a finger to a headset that he had by the side of his ear.

"The coast is clear. Bring the van here - we have our woman."

From there, the others following the man rushed over towards the dead vigilante, pulling her back up and off the ground as they carried her together - minutes later, a big and rather advanced-looking van arrived from the other side of the highway, and once its boot was open, the suited figures brought the body into the van, while the burly man, who is presumably the leader of the group in black, walked to the front of the van and got into the passenger seat. Once everyone was inside, the van drove off into the horizon, leaving Brightmoor.

And eventually, Michigan entirely.