Carry me back to Cali [Canon Free Roam - Chapter 2]

I was pretty groggy at first to say the least, my face hurt, specifically the right side, and my nose was leaking blood slowly. Then I was suddenly jolted away by a fist connecting with my right side again, snapping my head to the left, and letting a lot of blood fly out of my mouth. My eyes fluttered open, well, the left one did. The right eye…well…it took a little longer to open and was rather fuzzy. “So you’re awake now, huh? Good morning. Where’s my daughter.” Took me a second to really focus on anything in the room, looking around as I shook off the concussion a little bit, finally focusing on the lady who spoke and the goon who punched me. There were two others behind her as well. She was standing and older, although still quite good looking, and the resemblance to the daughter she mentioned was unmistakable. She was wearing black, all black, one of those business woman blazer slack combos with her hair in a ponytail. The goons were wearing T-shirts or suits or long sleeves, whatever they wanted really, so long as it was business casual it seemed. None of them had that greasy slicked-back hair look to them, all cut short or cropped. Hardcore.

“Who the fuck are you? What daughter?” Had to play dumb long enough to think of a way out of this mess, so I gave my best questioning look through a bloody face and swollen eye, as if I was trying to figure this all out, because I still kind of was. How the hell had they found the car and me in it so quickly? Oh. Tracker. Of course. Damnit, I had made a mistake, taking that car for a joy ride essentially, and getting tracked. Apparently, they hadn’t started until after I left Galente’s house, or perhaps they were blocking the signal there with a scrambler. Guess this is why I’m not a crime boss with my own estate. Another hit rocked my thoughts, scattering them to the four winds, and my head lolled to the side as I drooled blood. The goon that had been doing a fine job of cleaning my clock lifted my chin, then backhanded me like some street whore, where my head snapped right a second time and droplets of blood flew from my mouth. “I’ll ask again,” she said, glaring daggers at me, “Where is my daughter? You were driving her car and we found five hundred thousand dollars on your person as well. What did you do with her?” Well…shit. Guess there’s no denying it now, huh?

“Alright. Alright. I’ll tell you,” I began, then started to faint, falling unconscious as I opened my mouth to speak. Of course, this was only a half ruse, I really was fighting against the loss of consciousness while faking being unconscious, not an easy thing to do, but I really needed them to stop hitting me. I could hear her cussing out her goon, rather angry that he had beat me too hard, since he didn’t know how to handle hitting someone that was not a full-grown adult. I’m grown enough, lady. Anyway, it seemed they had a healer quirk on tap, because she called for the healer, then suddenly my face was feeling a lot better. It had been maybe an hour and a half since they finally relented on beating me due to my fake faint, leaving me alone in there, tied to a chair. Their mistake. I started to rock back and forth, careful not to tip the chair over, but to get it on one leg, rocking in a circle as I was. Finally, I got it to start spinning, using my body weight for momentum, which I began to absorb as quickly as I could. Felt good to get a little kinetic energy in the body. I was halfway full by the time someone walked in on my dreidel act. It was enough.

I put my hands on the chair and rope, releasing a burst of kinetic energy, blasting through my bonds and the wood to freedom. Falling on my backside while a goon rushed me, I rolled backward to my feet, a billie club striking the floor where I had been. Dancing backward from two more swing, I absorbed the momentum of both, making them nearly harmless and, in his confusion at his own weak swings, I blasted his face with two swift kinetic charged jabs that exploded and ended him. Then I took off running toward the door, allowing my body to charge the kinetic energy to make me stronger and faster. Damn goon had closed the steel door to my prison though, the room about the size of an underground parking garage, made completely of concrete with a single-entry point being the closed steel door. I dove at it feet first and, as my feet connected, released a full-powered blast of kinetic energy that sent me sailing backward; the door was sent right into the wall. A puddle of blood started forming beneath the door. Looks like I got the second one. The last goon was caught by surprise, trying to back away, but I absorbed his momentum, then punched him right in the knee as he stumbled. As his leg shattered, a single spinning roundhouse to his temple put him out of commission, leaving me to figure out how to get out of here.

Looked like I was in some kind of hallway, stairs leading down and a single light overhead, like a basement into a type of shelter. Why did these crime lords have such nice stuff? That guy who kept saying crime doesn’t pay is an idiot! Anyway, I jogged upstairs through the blood puddles, leaving little crimson converse footprints, reaching the top and bashing open the door with ease. A tool shed? What? Tools hung everywhere, an assortment of them, along with various surgical items and things you’d find in a butcher shop. They were going to torture me until I talked and then kill me. Wow. That must have been Edna Dalton then, Queenpin of the West side of town, owner of basically every beach and ocean front property you could see. This is a messy situation. Rushing to the end of the tool shed, I prepared to kick the door open, sure it would be locked, only to feel myself kicking something even more solid than the aluminum and wood door. Thwunk! I look at my foot to find something silver there. What the… I followed it up to see chrome abs and arms, pecs, and then a neck and head all solid chrome. Colossus? Nope, not a big metal Russian, but a big metal Irish, which was much worse.

I rolled to the side as a hand swiped through the air, taking most of the shed with it too, causing me to dive out of the ruin into the open air. It was morning? I was down there for that long? A metal fist sending me sailing across the yard brought me back, my body slamming into the wall of the home Ms. Dalton lived in, rattling the foundation; or maybe just my brain. Slowly I crawled to my feet, thanking my quirk silently for absorbing that momentum to make sure I didn’t die on impact, and I did the sensible thing when faced with such an enemy as a giant metal Irishman. I ran. I started running as hard as I could across the grounds, jumping over low hedges, and doing my best not to trip like some lame horror movie. Edna was outside now shouting for the big metal guy to catch me, as if, but he was certainly trying. Too late, I had far too much momentum built up, easily leaving the big guy in the dust. Bullets danced all around me, from the dirt creating puffs of dust and ripped up grass, to whizzing sounds in my ears letting me know how close I was to dying over and over. Finally, the end of the path was in sight, the gates of the estate that would lead out to the street, and I ran with all my might and lowered my shoulder. The gate exploded!

I skid on my right arm in the middle of the street, having put a little too much force into the shoulder ram, listening to car alarms blaring from a large gate having crushed the rooftop of them. Pretty good aim, right? Pushing myself up and ignoring my bleeding arm, I started running as hard as I could down the street, the need to head east foremost in my mind, because if I could get to Galente’s territory, they would just fight each other and leave me alone. Of course, the bullets never stopped, in fact, more were coming as they gave chase in their vehicles. How many guys did she have anyway? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! My legs never stopped pumping, slapping the pavement as I dashed through the hotel strips faster and faster. Surprisingly, I was covering a lot of ground, plus with the traffic, they were having a tough time overtaking me, so it was working in my favor for now. A bullet ripped the concrete of a wall near me as I turned a corner onto Main from 52nd street, cutting my brow and causing the blood to leak into my right eye, blinding me for the moment. Wiping the blood out of my eye, I ran toward the mall, hoping that so many people would be a sort of salvation from them. It was my only hope, as I was in the neutral zone between so many gangs. Too many schools around probably. I dove through the doors, grabbing a pillar on the inside as I slid across the tile floor, sweeping myself behind it as the bullets broke glass, tile, pillar, and people. Everything was getting rather hectic as everyone panicked and fled for their lives.

There was no way I could just wait here, the cars pulling up to the mall entrance now, Daltons piling out of their vehicles holding AR-15s with violence in their eyes. They clearly didn’t care one bit who was in this mall. I took off running again, allowing my momentum to build up once more, my chest puffing from the exertion of so much running, barely able to catch any kind of breather. The main floor was absolute chaos as people ran in every direction, a few heroes who had been shopping were running toward the gang members, others were running away, and still there were some either too confused to do anything or taking this opportunity to take anything they wanted. Me? I was running for my life as explosions began to shake the mall. Guess the Daltons had a few aces of their own as well. A few minutes later and I burst from an emergency exit in a vomit of bodies, everyone scattering now that they were out, but I just kept running east. If I could get home, I could prepare, but I was still a long way off. Couldn’t someone just carry me? At least I had escaped for now. After another mile of running without chase, I finally took a break, dashing into a coffee shop to have a seat and cool off. I was covered in sweat, blood, scrapes, and bruises. People looked at me a little weird, so I just grinned and rested, my chest heaving mightily as if I was dying. Fuck this day…