"Damnit Ricky, will you pay attention!" Phanya shouted, picking herself up from the floor. Their speed through the winding pathways meant that the journey was hardly smooth at the best of times, and their careful stacks of supplies now bounced around the cabin every time the jitney bounded over a garbage mound. Along with Tapper, who couldn't keep his balance no matter how wildly his legs danced. But when the turbulence got so bad that even Phanya couldn't ride the wave, that hurt her pride.

  "I am paying attention, damnit!" Ricky snapped back. "I've only driven this thing once before! And that's still more than either of you!"

  Point sufficiently made, Ricky returned his attention forward and resumed his grumbling whenever they lurched over an obstacle.

  Phanya took a moment to properly listen this time. "Hold on... Ricky, are you reading system messages right now!?"

  "I haven't had time to choose my second class yet!"

  "Ricky!"

  "Shut up, this is important! You said it 'finalized your class' so this is the first real decision I have here, I can't mess this up!"

  "Then do your pondering later!"

  "What if we don't have time? What if Fairbanks catches up to us and we have to fight again?" Ricky grimaced, frustration stinging his eyes. "I barely survived one hit in the last fight and I didn't fight back at all, I only leveled up because you fought off the driver. Haven't even repaired my armor yet, so I'm stuck unless I pick a really good class." His voice fell again, now muttering about not falling behind.

  Phanya placed a reassuring hand on Ricky's shoulder. "You're going to pick a good class. I know you will, this is your whole thing. So please," her hand started to squeeze harder while her voice remained perfectly calm, "until we get to a safe place, just shut up and drive."

  A scream of static interrupted their arguing, allowing a new voice into the cabin. "I hope I'm not interrupting, but I need you kids to pull over and give me the robot."

  The kids answered with panic, searching all over for the voice's source. Phanya cupped her hands to peer through a dusty window set into the rear ramp and pulled back with a confused look. "Someone's following us! And I think I recognize the car, it's that armored pillbug thing?"

  "Stop calling it a pillbug!" The voice sputtered over the speakers, momentarily losing their edge. "She's a bell!"

  "What gives, man?" Phanya asked, projecting her voice to the general ceiling. "I thought you were cool with Fableton?"

  The mercenary's voice slid back to confidence and answered, "Oh yes, very cool. So cool that Everett paid me to drive to Belvidere and start telling everyone that I saw you escaping towards the wilds. And I did, of course. But then I thought, why would the old beaver pay me to do a thing like that? So I simply went in the exact opposite direction of the wilds, and here you are! What a surprise for me!"

  Ricky groaned and said, "You double-crossed us!"

  "No I didn't. I told you, a professional doesn't break a contract. Makes it easier for me to catch you alone, too."

  Phanya whispered to keep him talking, and Ricky answered with a thumbs-up. "Yeah well, you still think you'll be welcomed in town after turning us in anyways?"

  The mercenary laughed in odd hissing tones. "Kid, for ten grand I won't ever need to see Skratsville again."

  "Respect the name of Fableton, you scoundrel!" Tapper joined in on the distraction, rattling his fist in the air.

  Phanya took advantage of the banter to crawl out of the roof hatch, keeping herself hunched low against the wind and her long limbs splayed out for balance. Now she could clearly see the mercenary vehicle, normally a cylindrical dome of interlocking armor plates, but a line of plating lay peeled back along the top length to reveal a collection of different radar dishes, instruments, and sensors. Must be why he could hack their comms, but it left the top of the vehicle exposed. More than that, right now it didn't look like either a pillbug or a bell; it looked like a hot dog.

  If they all survived this, Phanya hoped that she would get to taunt the mercenary with that one.

  Taking a deep breath, Phanya ignored the strange brain flex sensation as her Commander ability ran through subconscious calculations with enough speed to rub against her conscious mind. Distance, angle, velocity, and especially timing. Wait until she feels the front of the jitney hit a bump, and... now! The rear of the vehicle lurched upwards and Phanya turned it into a springboard, launching her into the air on a graceful arc to the mercenary.

  Phanya fell to her knees upon landing, trusting that her magically-enhanced Safety Pads would absorb the impact, and started crawling around on the roof. It was a mess of crossed wires and secondhand tools, so surely there must be an access panel! If she could just find it, she could knock out the mercenary before anyone else got hurt.

  "Hey, what the hell — get off my car!" The mercenary's voice shouted from his own external speakers, the smug attitude breaking away like a shell to reveal the panic beneath. "Don't touch my stuff!"

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  No latch to be found, so time for Plan B. She grabbed a random fistful of wires and yanked them out, reeling back from the sparks. "You threatened us, asshole!" She stomped on the fragile glassy end of some instrument. "And you screwed us! Everett paid you from his own hand!" She kicked a small radar dish clear off its mounting. "Now YOU pull over or I'm gonna break this whole damn thing!"

  [Status effects gained: Stunned, deafened]

  Phanya read the pop-up message, the only thing that remained clear in her vision while the world exploded into pain. A high-pitched tone screamed from just beyond her range of hearing, too far away for her to notice until it became strong enough for her to feel. The pressure in her head blocked out all thought, leaving the same primal reaction as if she were set on fire and Phanya fought to retain control. It was an effort just to keep her eyes open, and her hands were glued to her ears despite doing nothing to block the sound.

  After agonizing seconds, Phanya noticed where the sound hid amongst the mess of instruments. One tool looked like a small radar dish but swiveled to track Phanya's movements, and when she kicked it to pieces the wailing assault finally ended. She breathed a sigh of relief, relishing in the comparatively blissful silence of rushing air and screaming voices, and stood up at exactly the wrong time.

  Right in the sweet spot after standing and before regaining her balance, the mercenary sped up and rammed into the back of the jitney. Phanya tumbled forward and she blindly threw her limbs out sideways, catching herself on the raised trench walls of armor before she could slam face-first into her own car.

  Instead, she was perfectly positioned to look through a thick and dusty window, where a figure was frantically waving at her from the other side. Ricky? Why wasn't Ricky driving?

  Ricky had stayed busy as well. He was never very good at talking anyone down, so when his attempts to distract started to falter he leaned more and more on Tapper. "Well, do you know why the reward is so large? He's secretly a, uh, superweapon! He destroyed the manager's shuttle in one shot, and he can do the same to your pillbug!"

  "Actually, that is unfortunately not possible right now," Tapper said, keeping his voice low.

  "What? Why not??"

  "Because I do not recall anything from that episode, so I do not know what spell I used. Also, I am still grievously injured."

  "Can you two please stop making this so easy for me?" The mercenary mocked them with laughter, suddenly cut off by his own snarl of anger. Phanya was on his car!

  "Fine then Tapper, if you can't cast spells then get up here!" He dragged the robot forward and switched seats with him. "Wheel steers left and right, that's the gas, don't hit the brakes!" Ricky spun around and hurried into his exosuit, ignoring Tapper's confused protests. "Just keep us steady!" He had to get out there and help Phanya, but even with the suit he didn't trust himself to make that same jump with any accuracy. Ricky was halfway toward the ramp release lever before they stopped, stared at it, and cringed with the sudden memory.

  He knew there was something he forgot to fix on the jitney.

  Changing tactics, Ricky stood back and tried to focus on the entire jammed ramp as one project for his blacksmithing skills. This was all metal that needed to be reshaped, after all, and his mind formulated a plan on which areas of the ramp were twisted together. It continued to inform Ricky what temperature it needed to be and how he could best gently hammer the metal back into shape without losing cohesion, all of which he ignored. Ricky really needed a big hammer, and luckily some kind soul had donated a scrap metal club to the supplies.

  [Equipment: Kludgeon

  Medium, blunt, 1d6 + Strength damage]

  Ricky tried to get a good grasp on the improvised tool, and when he shifted to using both hands he saw the message in the corner of his mind's eye change from 1d6 to 1d8. His inner voice grimaced; there were so many things they still didn't know about the system infecting their brains, how was he expected to make any big choices right now? Especially a system with its own sense of humor that makes ridiculous portmanteaus in naming things.

  A high-pitched whine rattled the jitney and brought Ricky back to earth, and with the exosuit's help he slammed the kludgeon down on the jammed metal. The wedge that the ramp formed with the roof made it difficult to aim any swings to the furthest point, but he could feel his Blacksmithing skill simultaneously complain about the process and compliment on the progress. Between his hammering Ricky heard the whine abruptly shut off, right before the cabin lurched from a massive impact that sent him reeling. But the slam also jostled the ramp loose, it was free! Not repaired, but free!

  And as luck would have it, Phanya was already looking through the rear-view window on the ramp. She was pleading to get in! Ricky waved enthusiastically at her and shouted, "Get back, I'm going to lower the ramp!"

  "What's that? I can't hear you! Wait don't reach for that, Ricky do not lower the — oh skrat." Phanya turned and crawl-climbed back along the uneven trench of equipment, carried at the speed of fresh panic. Ricky hadn't seen the mound they were about to hit, and Tapper wasn't avoiding it.

  The jitney, with its large wheels, launched its backend into a jump right as the ramp came loose. The pillbug, with its quarter-sphere of frontwards armor hanging close to the ground, plowed right through the garbage mound. Phanya, with her strange Commander ability to read anything as a battlefield, read the incoming "attack" and got out of the way. She made it to the other end of the pillbug and turned to watch the jitney come down, with its ramp aimed downwards like a guillotine. It crunched into the front end of the pillbug and suddenly Phanya was flying again, launched by the teeter-totter of physics.

  The brief moment of weightlessness gave Phanya a moment to appreciate the utter mess they were in now. The ramp wedged itself deep between the armored plates, raising the back end of the jitney while pressing down on the front end of the pillbug. Now both vehicles were caught in a bizarre balancing act where neither had rear wheels touching the ground, and from her vantage point Phanya could see an open pit surrounded by vehicles and construction equipment.

  Ricky regained his footing, and an appropriate weapon. The homemade bolt-action rifle would've felt large and unwieldy if not for the exosuit supporting him, but now it was braced against his shoulder with the steady confidence of someone trained in all manner of weaponry. Maybe the Armaments subclass would prove useful after all, because right now it held the mercenary dead to rights. Their reptilian face fumed with anger from across the gap but they couldn't do anything besides fume; a forward-facing laser rifle mounted onto their truck kept firing, but they were so close that every shot flew wide.

  Ricky still didn't want to kill the guy if they could help it. "I said, stop your car and we'll let you — jeez!" Phanya landed with a thud right onto the hood in front of the mercenary, and on reflex Ricky snapped his rifle out of the way. "Phanya! You okay? We got him!"

  Phanya stood and shook the daze away, eyes wide with worry. "We gotta turn or we'll fall into Belvidere!"