Chapter 144

Destroy Everything 12

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Vermilion City is the land of freedom.

Everyone was equally capable of making a success of himself, though this is heavily dependent on one’s own effort.

A fair bit of those who succeed in this city took risks that were potentially life ending.

However, such was the price one must pay if you want a piece of Vermilion City’s wealth and power.

This was also the main reason why the city was in a constant state of chaos.

As such, the high speed car chase going on the relatively busy night streets of downtown Vermilion was hardly anything new.

Theo drove a Mercedes-Benz 300SL that he ‘borrowed’ from the night club’s parking. Mind you, he felt very guilty from stealing such a fine machine. Thus, he made sure to check the registry for the owner of the 300SL and swore that he will pay for it.

Anonymously of course.

Prior to the start of this chase, his spydrones provided the following arms and ammo.

AK47- not his first pick, but he had to maintain the appearance that he was no allegiance.

MGL-140 - you’d be surprised how popular this was. A bit pricey if bought in underground, but it’s cool appearance and versatility was more than enough for people to lust over it.

FYI: This was definitely Theo’s biased opinion.

As for his last armament, it was the FN Five-Seven he procured from John Paul and the 5 1 time spells sealed within the items hidden in his left arm.

It may not look like much, but it was more than enough for the job at hand.

Theo put the pedal to the metal as he pushed the Mercedes-Benz 300SL to perform erratic movements.

This was in order to minimize the chance of getting hit by the shower of lead from his opponents.

Behind him were 4 jet black Nissan Skyline HV37s that seemed to be modified for racing. This would explain how fast they were able to catch up to him.

Overhead were a couple of helicopters with spotlights. One of them belonged to some news network while the other belonged to the 81st Police Division.

Prior to the start of this chase, Theo used a lipstick he found in the 300SL to write ‘Hello World!’ on the windshield. This was a phrase he and the 81st agreed on in order to identify him when he makes a daring escape.

This made sure that the 81st will slightly delay sending reinforcements, giving Theo time to pull off whatever crazy stunt he had in mind.

And so he shall.

Theo took a sharp right turn and sent his car into a drift to dodge an RPG fired from one of his pursuers.

As he blazed through the new street, a red beam of pure heat melted the headrest of the passenger seat.

The heat beam moved sideways to cut Theo’s head off, but he easily ducked underneath and shifted the car to move away from it.

Unfortunately, this slowed him down significantly and allowed his enemy to quickly close in the gap.

Perfect.

Theo stuck his left arm out the window and said…

“Percutiens, Terra, Tormentum”

A cow sized chunk of the asphalt gathered in front of his left hand and pointed it at the car that contained Snake Eyes (heat vision guy).

Without missing a beat...

“Volant!”

The spell Earth Cannon flew at breakneck speed. As it was about to hit the car, the round exploded into a shotgun-type spread.

Snake eyes, the driver and the 2 on the back seat turned into swiss cheese.

As Theo was about to slammed the gas pedal, an RPG round tore apart the back end of the 300SL before another car pulled of the police favorite PIT maneuver and sent his car into a tailspin.

While this was happening, he responded by using the MGL-140 to pump 3 40x46mm grenades into the one that used the PIT maneuver.

The first round exploded on the hood, sending steel, glass and other pointy shrapnels into the guys in the front seat. 1 instantly died, the other got stabbed in the eye by a piece of glass.

The second round went into the car, turning all the passengers into tomato paste.

The third round was unnecessary. They were already dead after all. Expending the additional round merited nothing.

He did this just for the heck of it.

Before the car skidded to a stop, Theo grabbed his weapons and jumped out.

Not a millisecond later, Gigas (Stone Based Body Hardening guy) jumped from his car, transformed into his stone form and flattened the 300SL in one brutal belly flop.

Theo made no effort to fire at Gigas. While the MGL-140 would probably hurt Gigas, it probably wont be enough to kill him. The AK47 would definitely bounce off the man’s stone skin.

As such, Theo ran.

Naturally the other enemies had no intention of letting him just waltz away in one piece.

One car rushed towards him to run him over.

Theo used his AK47 to shoot the driver in the head before jumping out of the car’s way.

The car skidded to a halt without crashing into anything. It seemed that the passenger was able to take control before it was too late.

Unfortunately for them, Theo immediately capitalized on this minor blunder of theirs.

He peppered the backseats with lead as he rushed towards the car, killing the 2 passengers before they could remove their seatbelts.

The one at the front was able to get out in time and attacked Theo with a magic saber, chopping his AK47 in half.

He quickly retaliated by bludgeoning the poor man in the ribs with half of the AK47 via his left hand.

The force was so great that the man coughed blood. Internal hemorrhage was definitely a possibility.

Theo used the man as a meatshield in order to dissuade the last car from pulling off a drive by shooting.

Gigas made a mad rushed at him and it seemed that the stone guy had every intention trampling him and his hostage.

Naturally, Theo has something up his sleeve for such an occasion.

“Spin your sticky slick web my sinister spidery soldier!”

Thick webs magically covered the ground. The web was so sticky that it made Gigas fall flat on his face and stopped him from getting up.

It won't last forever, but it gave Theo some much needed breathing space.

He went to the newly ‘liberated’ car and threw the corpse out of the driver’s seat.

He then ripped one of his hostages’ arms from its hinges and left the poor guy on the ground as he drove off.

It was a simple strategy of injuring one of the opponents to slow them down.

If they wanted to catch Theo, they had to abandon their comrade and chase after him.

Fortunately, that didn't seem to be the case.

The surviving security of the now deceased Fabaro was trying their best to save their injured comrade.

God bless their souls.

With that in mind, Theo’s travel towards the scrapyard was largely unimpeded.

Mind you, he still had the 2 choppers hovering about. They were most likely relaying his location to their allies.

The odds of enemy reinforcement was very high.

And true enough, 2 of the Savior transport aircraft approaching from the distance.

These were akin to the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey except with a much heavier armor plating and a bit of stealth capabilities.

Theo would have needed his spydrones to spot them if they used their cloaking abilities.

The fact that they didn't meant that they were seriously underestimating the dangers of the scrapyard.

“Juno, are the troops ready?” asked Theo through the coms.

“They’re good to go, darling. As you instructed earlier, everyone was armed with armor piercing munitions.” replied Juno

“Very good. I’m about to enter the scrapyard. Start the music”

“Aye aye captain.”

Theo stopped in front of a badly maintained fence, ripped it apart with his left arm and proceeded into the dark scrapyard with the 2 helicopters providing a constant stream of light.

“You are trespassing on private property. I repeat, you are trespassing on private property. Leave now or suffer the consequences. This is your first warning. I repeat...” said a mechanical voice repeated again and again over the loudspeakers hidden among the scraps.

The news chopper continued to follow Theo while the 81st immediately turned back.

Eventually, the Saviors entered the scrapyard airspace and began dropping 40 armed soldiers and the 2 superheroes of Favaro’s security.

Naturally, they did this while ignoring the warnings.

Gunfire erupted in the dark scrapyard.

Despite having a spotlight on Theo the entire time, the enemy forces had an extremely hard time getting a clear shot. This was because of the massive amounts of scrap that kept blocking their bullets.

The scraps themselves were dangerous on their own right.

3 of the armed forces died by bullets that ricocheted off the many metallic trash in the vicinity.

Theo also used his MGL-140 to trigger an avalanche of steel unto 5 poor souls.

They tried to surround him by dropping Gigas right in front of him, but this was quickly remedied by emptying the MGl-140 into the stone man’s nuts.

It didn't kill the bastard, but it hurt him enough to get him on his knees.

Thanks to Theo’s spy drones and other surveillance equipment hidden within the rumbles, it was literally impossible to outmaneuver him.

Vermilion City’s scrapyard was his backyard and his hunting ground. Stepping inside his preferred battleground was suicidal.

For 10 whole minutes, Theo led these poor souls deeper and deeper into the land of no return.

The enemy forces have most certainly noticed the warning going from ‘This is your first warning’, to ‘This is your last warning’, but they stubbornly ignored it and pressed on.

What they didn't know was that everything was being recorded for the eventual lawsuit in the near future.

Eventually, the warnings ceased.

At this point, Theo began his preparations for the finale.

He used his Midas Alchemy to weaken the front part of his Z61 Scout Armor and his left arm.

The sound of powerful helicopters approaching the warzone.

Leading the way was a Mil Mi-26 heavy lift cargo helicopter (also known as Halo) followed by 3 Mil Mi-24 (also known as Hind).

The Mil-26’s opened its cargo bay and dropped 10 B-31 Assault Power Armors around the field. The last person to exit it gently landed in front of Theo despite falling from a great height.

In front of him was Juno Saiga clad in the ‘Holy Maiden’, the same armor she used during the Valkyrie incident.

Using the one hand axe called the Banshee, Juno cleaved through Theo’s chest and sent his left arm flying off to the distance.

Theo immediately activated the Ankh to pump massive amounts of omnigel into his body. This instantly closed the massive wound.

He dropped to his knees before face planting on the dirty ground.

This was his exit strategy.

The idea was to have Tina Sprite ‘die’ in the hands of Juno with both superheroes and the media as witness.

FYI: the whole face planting thing was no act. The pain of getting his chest ripped open by a magic weapon and the subsequent omnigel healing made his legs give out.

Juno stepped on Theo’s ‘corpse’ and walked towards the Superhero group.

“You guys already know why I’m here, right?” said Juno in a cold and mechanical voice.

“Wait wait! We have no quarrel with you!” said Phantasm (the invisibility guy who has been worthless during this incident.) “My name is Phantasm, a B Rank hero. We’ve been chasing after Tina Sprite, a wanted criminal.”

“We have been blasting the warnings over the loudspeakers, and you have not only ignored it, but also brought a bunch of armed soldiers into OUR property.” said Juno before turning to her B-31 bodyguards. “None of these trespassers will see the sunrise. KILL THEM ALL!”

The B-31s open fired with their M2 Browning Machine Guns, shoulder mounted mortars and shoulder mounted RPG launchers.

Almost immediately, half of the armed soldiers were annihilated in the initial volley.

Gigas tried to endure it and run away.

Unfortunately, every last one of the B-31s had armor piercing RPGs. His stone skin could not save him from a concentrated barrage of munitions that were meant to punch through tank armor.

Chaos erupted as the superhero soldiers tried their best to hide behind any cover they could find.

Sadly, they could not protect themselves from the Hinds who simply flew overhead and used their YaKB-12.7 gatling guns to tear the poor souls apart.

No matter where they hid in the darkness, the Hind’s night vision hardware easily found and eventually terminated them.

The Savior armored helicopters tried desperately to vacate the premises, but the combination of the B-31’s armor piercing RPGs from below and the Hind’s 9M17 Fleyta Anti-Tank Missiles from above left them no room to maneuver.

It didn't take long for the 2 Saviors burst into a fireball and fell to the earth.

The news chopper, who belonged to the FNN, was shot down under a focused barrage from the 2 Hinds.

This massacre started and ended in under 5 minutes.

The last survivor was Phantasm.

He tried to use his invisibility to escape.

Yet for some reason, Juno was able to pinpoint his location and chopped his legs off without any difficulty.

“Wait! You know that the HAA is watching right?!” said Phantasm as he pointed to the small camera on his chest.

It was a standard issue chest camera used by the military to see what their troops were seeing.

This was clearly a threat.

If Juno killed him, she would make an enemy out of the Superheroes.

There was just 1 problem… Juno didn't care.

“You filthy ‘Superheroes’ left Theo for dead in the Valkyrie Incident. You and your kind should expect no pity or mercy from me.”

Those in Superhero headquarters were given front row seats to Juno’s brutal butchering of Phantasm.

All’s well that ends well.