Unique, maybe. Appealing, definitely not. Chase wasn't going to lie there and allow that. She saw that Melissa C.'s back was to the street and knew what she had to do. She dug deep and pushed up against the crushing foot in one mighty thrust that caught Melissa C. both off guard and off balance.

“Whoa!” she said, teetering backwards. The foot that had been on Chase's back was now floating in the air, and her arms were windmilling. Chase wrapped her cast arm around the cyborg's one planted leg, then leaned her entire body into it with all her might.

This was enough to trip Melissa C. up. Falling backwards, her butt hit the trunk and she tumbled heels over head off the back of the limo, barely managing to grab hold of the bumper to keep from being left behind on the street. This brought about its own set of problems, however, as she was now being dragged along behind the limo on her stomach.

“Gah!” she grunted, trying to pull herself back up. “Dammit! You're going to regret that, you little bitch—”

Little bitch Chase cut her off by putting her hand on the back of Melissa C.'s head and pushing her face into the roaring pavement. The mechanized girl gave a gurgling howl of anger as the coarse surface ripped and bit at her flesh. Almost immediately, her face was being ground away, and a streak of bright red blood painted the asphalt in the limo's wake.

Melissa C. allowed one hand to release the bumper and find Chase's neck with the same powerful grip. Chase let go of Melissa C.'s head in shock. Laughing, the cyborg lifted her head up to look at the cannibal.

Her face was completely shorn away. Beneath it was a skull of gleaming metal, still stained with streaks of blood.

“Aw, man. I worked really hard on my makeup for tonight, you know,” the skull said.

She threw Chase away. Chase's back hit the frame that once held the rear window, but she didn't stay down long. She rose to her feet and clenched her very naked fists for combat, as Melissa C. pulled herself up. Once again, Chase found herself in need of a weapon, and once again, she found herself in a place where weapons were in short supply.

Melissa C.'s feet took root on the trunk and she stood up. Before Chase's eyes, the girl's face was healing, new skin growing to replace what was left behind on the road and down the front of her dress (in the form of a vertical red stripe that was not present a few minutes ago). In a matter of seconds, Melissa C. looked the same as ever. The casual observer would never guess what sort of monster was hiding beneath that bright, innocuous exterior.

Well, they wouldn't until she turned her right arm into an axe. At that point, the casual observer probably would have had an inkling. She leapt at Chase, lifting the axe high over her head and bringing it down with immense gravity. Chase easily dodged the large blow, and the axe punctured the limo roof with the chunky, metallic sound of a giant can being opened.

Melissa C. pulled the axe up and kept swinging. Out here, Chase had more room to dodge, but still not enough for her liking. Although the limo pushed the limits of “road legal” in all dimensions, it felt very narrow when subjected to Melissa C.'s broad, deadly reach.

It was only a matter of time before Chase found herself trapped against the roof's edge. Chase parried a punch aimed at her head, which would probably have killed her as handily as any of Melissa C.'s weapons, and this left an opening for the axe to exploit.

All Chase had time to do was lift her cast as a shield and hope. She caught the axe on the handle, right beneath the blade. The impact was heavy enough to shatter the cast, and probably some of its contents as well. The arm was already broken, anyway. A few more breaks would be a small price to pay for Chase's life.

However, there was no guarantee her life was going to be continuing much longer, regardless. Though the blow didn't kill her, it was more than enough to send her flying off the edge she was already teetering on. Chase careened backwards through the air, off the limo and into the warm, blacktop-heated air. She braced herself for a hard, fast collision with the pavement.

Thump. Instead, she hit metal. She'd landed on another moving car!

It was a small sedan. Chase felt cornered on it, but because of that, Melissa C. looked reluctant to join her there. Chase took advantage of that hesitance and went for her one hope of salvation: the trunk.

She popped it open and jumped inside, looking around for anything she could use as a weapon. An ice scraper, a jack, a Styrofoam cooler...along with other typical trunk clutter. She didn't have time to rummage around; she needed a weapon FAST. And then, one caught her eye.

Melissa C. saw Chase lean down. Then she saw Chase jump back up onto the roof of the sedan and kick the trunk closed. Twirling in her hand was a large, heavy chain.

She whipped it at Melissa C., across the gap between the two cars. Melissa C. tried to block with the axe, which was of course what Chase was hoping she'd do. The chain coiled around the axe handle with a snap, and Chase gave it a strong, heaving yank. Melissa C. could not let go of an axe that was attached to her arm, and so she was pulled off the limo's roof and onto the street that was blazing past.

The cyborg bounced under the wheels of the sedan, which drove over her with two large bumps. From there, the sedan and limo began to outpace Chase's rolling, tumbling opponent, so Chase quickly let go of the chain to keep from being pulled off herself. Melissa C.'s body thumped and spiraled against the street, while Chase and Tory kept going at a steady pace. By the time Melissa C. stopped herself there was at least a football field of distance separating her from Chase.

Of course, that didn't mean much to someone with a built-in jet pack. Angrily, she activated it and took pursuit.

Chase chucked the jack at her. Even though she saw it hit Melissa C. right in the head, the flying girl made such minimal acknowledgment of it that it may as well have missed by a mile.

The scraper and cooler were equally ineffective, and nothing else in the trunk looked promising, so Chase jumped over to the car in front of the sedan. This car was a jeep with skis on the roof. Chase quickly ripped these off their mount and hurled them at Melissa C. like javelins, first one, and then the other.

The first ski stabbed into Melissa C.'s stomach, and the second into her shoulder. If they slowed her down, it wasn't by much. Blood erupted onto the street below as she yanked the one in her stomach out, then the one in her shoulder. Putting them both together, she threw them back. They stabbed into the jeep's rear window, a spiderweb of cracks instantly forming around each impact point.

Chase needed something bigger. She jumped to a hatchback two cars ahead. On this one's roof was a canoe. Chase quickly dislodged it and threw it at Melissa C. with a strapping heave. Melissa C., unfortunately, gave the canoe an equally strapping catch, then snapped it over her knee in one clean, effortless break. She threw these huge pieces at Chase, first one, then the other.

The cannibal jumped clear of the hatchback just in time. The pieces barraged the tiny car, causing the driver to panic and veer sharply off the road and onto the sidewalk, crumpling the car against a brick wall.

The vehicle Chase had thrown herself onto was a pickup truck with a plethora of tools and equipment in the back. If she had known what a jackpot was, she would have shouted this word with enthusiasm.

Melissa C. caught up with her, joining her in the back of the truck just as Chase was picking up a shovel. When Chase's right hand grabbed the shovel's handle, a shot of pain bolted up the corresponding arm. The girl winced. Perhaps her arm was more broken than she'd thought. But she couldn't let it slow her down. If she did, it could very well mean her life.

Chase swung the shovel at Melissa's head, and it connected with a clang so painful sounding, Chase almost expected to get bruises on her eardrums.

The second swing Melissa C. was able to block with her forearm, but it was clear by her expression that neither felt particularly good. She turned her left hand into a large pair of shears. When Chase went for a third swing, Melissa C. caught the shovel's wooden handle between her two blades and snipped the shovel's metal head off as easily as cutting a dandelion.

The decapitation clanged into the truck bed. Chase looked at it, then looked at Melissa C. With a sadistic smile, the girl thrust the scissors right at Chase's neck.

Chase ducked underneath them. The blades closed inches above her head, with the groomed scrape of sharpened metal against sharpened metal. She desperately grabbed for another weapon and came up with one—a sledgehammer.

Melissa C. clipped down at her with the shears. Chase rolled to the right, came up in a crouch, then swung the heavy hammer up at her enemy with all her might.

Boom! It hit Melissa C. beneath the chin, an uppercut too powerful for a normal person to survive. Her head whipped back and Chase's arms and teeth rattled with recoil, the impact too strong for Melissa C. to bear alone.

The cyborg couldn't believe it, but after this hit, she was genuinely seeing stars. She staggered backwards and put a hand to her pained jaw. Chase stood and swung the sledgehammer again, this time from overhead.

Melissa C. regained her senses in time to turn her axe back into a normal hand, catching the head of the hammer in it. Then, with a snarl of anger, she lunged the shears forward at Chase's exposed stomach.

Chase was wide open, and Melissa C.'s grip on the hammer was a lot firmer than hers. The cannibal had no choice but to let go of the hammer to dodge the swipe. Melissa C. threw the tool over her shoulder, and it dove through the windshield of a car driving behind them.

“You're really starting to piss me off,” she told Chase.

Chase tried out a few other weapons. There was a pick, which she was able to bury in Melissa C.'s leg, and a welding torch, which gave the cyborg a bit of a burn, but no matter what she picked up, Melissa C. was quick to disarm her.

Melissa C. threw her to the truck bed, then looked at her shears with annoyance. Chase had managed to weld them shut before she could get the torch away from her. “You really are good. It's no wonder you were able to evade capture...and death, for so long,” she remarked, switching the shears out for the buzzsaw blade. It squealed to life, whining for blood. “You had a good run. But it ends now. Good bye, murderer.”

But there, stuffed behind a toolbox, was something Chase hadn't noticed when she was standing up. Chase grabbed it just as the blade began its screaming descent. She started her new weapon with one mighty pull and rolled onto her back, swinging it over her desperately.

The chainsaw snarled as it parried Melissa C.'s strike. Rusty metal met polished with an eruption of sparks.

…

Lawrence slammed a panel closed with proud finality. “And that's it! We're good to go! As soon as Melissa C. gets in range, I'll be able to shut her down!” He cast a glance up at Lindsey. “So, now that neither of us are busy, care to dance?”

Lindsey looked down at him, then looked at her cup of punch, which, by this point, she had refilled and reinterestinged many times over. She seemed to be having difficulty standing. Caitlin and Alicia had gone off to the dance floor with Marcus and Kirk, and Victoria had departed ages ago, making vaguely ominous comments about “providing some...entertainment for the dance” which none of them paid much mind to, leaving Lindsey on the sidelines feeling very abandoned. Retrieving her flask, she stated, “I think I needa get a lottt more drunk first.”

Unfortunately, a hand snatched the flask away. “Ah ah ah!” said Lara cheerfully. “No alcoholic beverages allowed, Lindsey!”

The blonde moaned and grabbed for it. Lara held the flask high over her head with one hand, then put the other on the drunk teenager's face to easily ward her off. “Aw, c'mon mommm,” slurred Lindsey, reaching futilely. “I mean, Caitlin's mommm.”

“Rules are rules, kiddo,” she said. She noticed Lawrence, and told her with great amusement: “I think you've had enough punch. Better take your, uh, date, and dance some of this buzz off. If you don't, I'll have to report this to the principal.”

Lindsey frowned. “You're sick.” Then, she looked at Lawrence and offered a hand to help him up. “Well, come on.”

Lawrence was shocked. “W-wait, seriously? You're going to dance with me?”

“It sure looks like it. Hurry up.”

The boy didn't move. He just sat there, in awe and disbelief. “M-me? D-d-dancing with a real girl?” he asked, voice filled with wonder. Then, he shrank back. “I, I'm too scared!”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand, dragging him to his feet. “Come ONNN, let's just get this over with!”