Living Metal

Chapter 1: Between a rock and a hard place-2

Unfortunately, that was not the case. Upon the hill, painted on each side of the truck were Red Skulls, the calling card of the notorious Red Skull Society gang. For years, they had plagued the outside state of New Dicon City.

Inside this truck were two affiliates of this gang, both were ordered to wait and see if Anna had survived. If she did, they would have the privilege to eliminate her personally. But after wait some time both of them started to fall asleep.

The gang member in the driver’s seat happened to wake up and noticed someone walking down the road. He pulled out his binoculars to see if it was Anna. Delighted, he bashed on the steering wheel with glee, waking up the other gang member.

“Hey Bone Crusher, wake up! She’s here,” he said.

“What Razor? Oh, finally,” said Bone Crusher, “Damn, we bombed that place hours ago and now she shows up.”

“It’s only been twenty minutes since it went off,” said Razor.

“Oh, who cares?” said Bond Crusher as he saw a woman with red hair in the distance and continued, “She’s here, right?”

“Right,” replied Razor.

The Red Skulls’ were contracted to bomb the communication tower close to Valhalla’s point. The money was good and the Red Skulls didn’t ask the question of why. Their benefactor had given them the perfect opportunity to lure one of their greatest threats to their gang. It was the Red Skull’s idea to leak the information to the police in hope of luring Anna out.

It was four years ago when Anna infiltrated the Red Skulls as a recruit. To be initiated was to fight against one of the Red Skull’s leaders in combat. Anna faced off against the one called the Butcher of Dicon City. With a single kick to the face, Anna had taken down one of the Red Skull's greatest fighter.

Once they knew Anna was a cop it was too late for the Butcher was incarcerated long with anyone around him. Embarrassed by Anna’s involvement, the Red Skulls vowed to take revenge on Anna. But no plan of how many people that they send after her no one could get the upper hand. It was not until this bombing opportunity, the Red Skulls could get Anna alone and out of New Dicon City.

The trap had been set and revenge was in sight. The two-gang members’ boss, the Grand Jaguar, ordered them to stay close by and make sure Anna took her last breath. In some ways, they were happy that the explosion did not work. It was now up to them to gain vengeance for their gang.

“She will pay for taking out our brothers in the southern district,” said Bone Crusher

“This is our chance to get even with her. Do it, brother,” said Razor.

Bone Crusher rose up and clenched the front of the dashboard with anticipation. For them, there was nothing better than slaughtering their victims from behind. With excitement in his voice, Razor said, “Yeah and we are getting paid to boot! The boss was wise to choose us to be his avenging angels of pain, ha, ha, ha!”

Razor laughed as he started the truck’s custom-built engine. With a flick of a button on the side of the steering wheel, the truck began to transform. Out came the front bumpers with a huge metal plow with a crimson skull painted in the center. At the top of the plow were protruding metal spikes inching for Anna’s blood.

The roar from the engine caught Anna’s attention. Instead of acting like she had noticed it, Anna did not react and continued to walk, waiting for the right opportunity to retaliate.

Quickly the vehicle raged down the hill. At the sounds of the truck’s squealing tires, Anna realized the danger was bonafide and not a low oxygen hallucination. She turned to face the glaring lights coming from the oncoming truck, shielding her eyes and getting a glimpse of a crimson skull on the plow.

The Red Skulls, thought Anna, why I am not surprised? I was wondering when they would make their next move on me.

The truck ripped up the asphalt of this lonely road. Within seconds, it quickly closed the distance to the Skulls’ coming victim. The headlights shone brightly onto Anna, marking their intent.

Feeling irritated, she softly muttered, “Let’s hit her with a truck! Geez, these idiots have no originality. I guess I’m going to have to teach them a little lesson.”

The truck raced over the hill like a lion chasing after its prey through a wheat field. The gang members were able to see Anna’s back facing them. Razor started laughing at the thought of an easy kill. She looked helpless in their path of destruction.

“Ha! Brother, we caught her off guard. Get ready to attack if she dodges me,” said the Razor.

“Right, I am on my way,” said Bone Crusher as he jumped out of the moving truck. Smiling, and with a gleam in his eyes, Bone Crusher in a flanking pattern moved swiftly to the right. If his partner failed, it would be up to him to strike the killing blow. No matter what, Bone Crusher was confident that Anna would not escape his grasp.

The truck made its final stretch upon its prey. Anna could feel the heat bearing down onto her back. The pressure of the immediate threat did nothing to her confidence. She already knew that she would prevail.

Just as the truck raced a few inches away from running her over, Anna spun around and propped one hand to the hood of the truck. With little effort, she jumped onto the truck, slamming her left hand onto the hood. She then used the momentum of her limb as a pivoting point to twist around and land on top of the hood.

Razor nearly lost control as Anna crouched down on the hood in front of him. Smiling, she tapped onto the glass with her gun. The advantage was hers.

Trembling in fear, Razor stomped on the brake, hoping that it would knock her off the truck. However, Anna did not budge from the hood. It was as if the properties of physics did not apply to her.

Razor looked down the hood and noticed her shoes. To his surprise, he saw that Anna had embedded her feet within the hard metal frame of the truck. There was no way he was going to lose her. Razor was tempted to run off the road and hit one of the boulders that littered the right side of the road. When he saw that Bone Crusher was moving in the right side, Razor stopped revving the engine.

“No freaking way,” screamed Razor as he wanted the glory of taking her out.

Only the sound of a gun tapping against the front window regained his attention back to Anna. He looked up to see her pointing her laser-tip handgun directly to his forehead. Razor knew that if he failed to hit her then his comrade was ready to attack. Razor had to play it off as if he was surrendering to Anna. Where they were at it would be easy to catch her off guard as the boulder around the road would masked Bone Crusher’s shadow.

Once the Razor turned off the engine to the truck, he then raised his hands up. It was then Bone Crusher sprang into action. From out of the corner of her eye, Anna noticed him approaching her left. He was almost twice the size of Razor coming right at her, his intent clear.

Unimpressed of this tactic, Anna was fully aware of his position. She quickly jumped above him and landed on a boulder behind him a few feet away from the truck. Bone Crusher did not realize when it happened.

The poor reaction of the Bone Crusher wildly punched straight through the windshield. Instead of hitting his target, the cyborg’s fist smashed right into the Razor’s face. Suddenly, Bone Crusher realized that he did not hit Anna.

Angered at his mistake, Bone Crusher on top of the truck grabbed Razor's shirt collar and pulled him straight through what was left of the windshield.

“Where is she?” Bone Crusher screamed.

The throbbing pain caused by a fist’s impact on his face had the Razor in a daze. He opened his right eye only to see a shadowy figure coming above them. Razor then looked up to his enraged partner.

“Behind you, you freaking i***t!” Razor screamed.

As soon as Bone Crusher turned back and looked up, Anna jumped off the boulder and was already on her way down with a dropkick. Both her feet smacked him right in the side of his face. The impact didn’t seem to faze Bone Crusher as he quickly countered with a chokehold using his right hand.

“You’ll have to do a lot better than that, b***h!” Bone Crusher said arrogantly. “My body is made from aluminum titanium.”

Bone Crusher pushed her back off to the left side of the road and slammed Anna against another boulder, still holding her with one hand. His plan was to keep her off the ground, making her helpless to his aggression. Bone Crusher wanted to watch Anna struggle for life and fulfill her payment of what she had done to his brothers, or so he thought.

Anna with a devilish grin that took Bone Crusher off guard loosened his grip which gave Anna opening to counter strike. With a fluid motion, Anna broke the hold by using an inside block with her right arm and pushed the hand away from her throat. Once free, Anna caught her adversary with an uppercut punch to the gut followed by a left elbow shot to the side of his head and an open palm strike to his throat, forcing him back.

In the daze of Anna’s attack, Bone Crusher thought he saw her arms turn into metallic armor. It was too late for him to make any sense of this. Anna’s final barrage of attacks made his body feel like jelly. Her last punch slammed her opponent’s head onto the hood of the truck. It was over.

Smiling, Anna placed her right boot on top of Bone Crusher’s head. Again, he just looked up at her in disbelief. Anna pointed the gun to his head and said cockily, “Now, now, boys, we can do this the easy way or the hard way? I really hope your choice was the hard way.”

Anna hopped down from the truck and took off the metal bars on the hood of the truck. She then quickly wrapped them around the Bone Crusher’s hands, forcing him to sit a few feet away from the truck.

Razor finally stumbled out of the truck. Anna walked up to him in a condescending way, tightly gripping the back of his neck and forcing him over to the front bumper.

“Now, where do you think you’re going, skull boy?” she said.

“If you must know, my name is Razor,” said Razor.

“Razor, let me guess,” said Anna cockily. “The other schmuck over there is Shaver?”

Surprised, he yelled, “How dare you mock us? You bitch.”

Anna shoved his face onto the hood. “Aw, what’s the matter? The big bad Red Skulls can’t take a joke?”

“Joke all you want, lady,” said Razor. “When he wakes up, you will be in trouble. Do you know who he is?”

Unimpressed Anna said, “Nope, and I don’t care about your silly little titles. What I do care about on the other hand is why you bombed that tower out here.”

While Anna handcuffed Razor, she found a big hunting knife in the back pocket of his pants leg. It was a foot-long blade with ridges running down the blade. Anna took it out of its leather cover.

“Nice knife,” she said, twirling it in her hand.

Once he looked up at her in disgust, she stabbed the hood of the truck right in front of Razor’s eyes.