“Yashas, turn now!” I shouted.

  A freshly fired missile lit up the sky, bringing the promise of certain death upon us. Maybe, with my Vigor armor, I might survive. I might even pull Aerion into my inventory in time.

  But the Humvee? Yashas? Richard? They’d be toast.

  The tires screeched again as Yashas swung the Humvee hard into a side road, the tail smacking a building before careening down the narrow path never designed for such a wide vehicle.

  Right before the missile detonated where we’d just been.

  The first thing that hit us was the concussive shockwave of air, which slammed me against the rear windshield, and even jolted the Hummer.

  Next came the explosion of shrapnel, which my armor tanked with ease, protecting Richard behind me.

  The same, however, could not be said of the Humvee, which was peppered with bits of metal that sliced through its thin armor. Thankfully, nothing hit the tank, but the barrel of Aerion’s 50 cal had been thoroughly mangled.

  As bad as that was, the tongue of fire that rushed down the street, consuming everything, was far, far worse. For the briefest instant that felt like it stretched on forever, I could almost reach out and touch the fire, accelerating at the same exact rate as us, just barely keeping pace.

  It was like watching a static wall of flame, and it was one of the most eerie things I’d ever experienced.

  The moment didn’t last as Yashas threw us into another corner for an even smaller street.

  The wall of flame finally dissipated, leaving everyone’s ears ringing. That seemed like it happened a lot these days…

  “Everyone alive?” I asked, taking stock.

  Aerion and Arianna had the protection of the Humvee, so they were good, as was Yashas.

  Richard, though, looked like he’d seen better days. The guy was knocked out and unconscious, bleeding from his head.

  “Goddammit!” I shouted. “Galia! Get down here!”

  The bird that was circling high above us swooped down happily, no doubt expecting another treat.

  “In the name of—

  “What is that?” Arianna cried.

  Seeing this, the little bird cooed, landing on the truckbed, and giving me a most devilish look.

  “Don’t you dare!” I said, plucking her up just before she burst into flames.

  Their prior reactions were nothing compared to seeing her light up, though.

  “Que porra é essa?!” Arianna cried out, and Yashas turned from the driver's seat with a similar reaction.

  “Relax! She's a friend,” I assured them.

  Galia looked up at me expectantly, clearly proud of her performance. What she got instead was a brutal tickling session that had Arianna staring at me with a look of horror that was honestly uncalled for.

  Well, maybe only a little uncalled for.

  I didn’t have the time to explain as I positioned Galia’s eyes above Richard’s head, where her tears dripped down, healing whatever wound the man might’ve sustained.

  The phoenix squawked at me angrily, and did that thing with her wings where she flared them, threatening to turn on her fire. Honestly, the bird was getting too smart for her own good.

  Spontaneous combustion was avoided with a tasty morsel of a Rare soul crystal, which satiated the bird long enough for me to stick her into my inventory.

  “We,” Arianna said, giving me a look of pure disgust, “are going to have a nice, long chat when we arrive.”

  I smiled sheepishly and scratched my neck.

  Great…

  The tight clearance of our current road also meant the gap between buildings was too tight for the helis to follow. Yashas had slowed the Humvee, giving us more time, but the second we emerged back onto the main road, though, we’d be more exposed than ever.

  “Anyone got powers that work at range?” I asked.

  All I got were shaking heads.

  “Great. Then I guess that leaves us one option,” I muttered. “Richard? You any good with guns?”

  “Rather not blow my own foot off, mate,” he said with a shake of his head. “Least not today.”

  I turned to Arianna, who did the same.

  “Alrighty, then. Yashas? Gimme me your gun.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He shot me a look over his shoulder. “Do you even know how to—”

  “Just give it to me,” I said.

  As much as I wanted Aerion to take the shot, firearms mastery wasn’t something you learned in five seconds, no matter how talented you were. Like any proper American, I knew my way around guns.

  Well, okay, I’d shot one once… but I’d fired millions of digital rounds in games of all kinds. Not the same, not by a long shot, but at least I knew the mechanics. How to load the gun, how to aim.

  I took the Howa Type 20 from Yashas, who handed over three full thirty-round magazines too. With the one already in the rifle, that gave me 120 rounds to take out three helis.

  Now, a helicopter gunship wasn’t the fastest, smallest target around… but it was armored against small arms fire. And an assault rifle firing 5.56 rounds wasn’t exactly a .50 caliber goliath.

  To make this count, I’d have to hit something vital. Either the pilot through the windshield—which was probably bulletproof—or maybe a lucky shot to the fuel line, but I didn’t doubt that area was protected with thick steel, too.

  Realistically, there was only one place that couldn’t be armored and was critical to the operation of the helicopter.

  The base of the rotor. Which, of course, happened to be a tiny target.

  I slid down onto the bed of the Humvee, spread my legs for stability, and braced my back against the rear windshield. Then I shouldered the rifle.

  “Okay!” I said. “I’m ready.”

  “Turning back onto the main road!” Yashas warned.

  “Understood.”

  As tempting as it was just to flee home on surface streets, those streets were crawling with zombies. Zombies that chased noise and movement. Zombies that would form a glowing neon arrow for the helicopters, pointing straight to us.

  Even worse, even if we did get home, we wouldn’t lose our tail. And that would be nothing short of catastrophic. We couldn’t let the military faction know where we lived.

  Which meant we had to shoot these bastards down now, before we hit the highway. We’d be even more exposed on there, where the helis could hang back and fire missiles all day long.

  “We have several minutes to the on-ramp,” Yashas said. “Can you take them out?”

  “I’ll have to,” I said, exhaling slowly as I brought the rifle up and settled into position.

  Almost immediately, two helicopters swung into view. I ignored the one on the left and sighted in on the right one.

  I put my finger on the trigger, recalling every bit of trivia I’d learned from the first person shooters and military sims I’d played.

  Unfortunately, the helicopters’ floodlights nearly blinded me, and there wasn’t exactly a target on the rotor base. I was practically shooting blind.

  Steady as can be… relax… squeeze, don’t pull.

  I fired at the bottom of my breath.

  The rifle jolted, but the recoil wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It did leave my ears ringing. Even with my boosted stats, the sound was brutal this close. Richard had his hands clamped over his ears, probably for the best.

  The first shot missed, of course, disappearing somewhere into the night. The helicopters moved constantly, and Yashas’ evasive swerving barely gave me a second to line up and shoot. It didn’t help that I could barely see my target, either.

  This was so much harder than games and action movies made it out to be. Games were designed to be fun. They were designed to have the player win.

  Reality didn’t give two shits about either. Not to mention the deadly hail of machine gun fire those things were sending our way, making an already nearly impossible task downright insanity.

  I didn’t even think about switching to full auto. Doing that would just waste precious ammo, and while 120 rounds sounded like a lot, it lasted mere seconds at the rate these things fired.

  So I steadied my breath and sighted up again.

  We had maybe ten blocks.

  That was all the time I had to make this work.

  I inhaled, exhaled, and fired.

  Miss.

  Inhale, exhale—fire. Miss.

  Again. And again, falling into a rhythm.

  Miss. Miss. Miss.

  But with every miss, I recalibrated, shifting my aim point based on where the rounds hit—usually smacking into buildings, or sometimes just sailing off into the night. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about hitting a random civilian. At worst, the errant round would skewer a zombie.

  I went through an entire magazine and a half before a shot connected, pinging off the armored windshield of the helicopter.

  Just as I suspected, the canopy was reinforced against small-caliber fire. Maybe it might crack if I hit the exact same spot a dozen times, but I was more likely to win the lottery.

  What mattered was I had an aim point that was in the proper general area now. All I had to do was fine-tune it.

  The instant my bullet struck, the helicopter veered off-course. With skyscrapers hemming it in, it didn’t have much room to maneuver, but I didn’t wait for it to stabilize. There was another target right next to it, just begging to be shot.

  We fired at the same time. Me with a single round, and the helicopter with its full vulcan cannon burst. My shot was drowned out by the roar of the fifty-cal gun tearing apart the street. Rounds traced glowing lines through the air, gouging asphalt and obliterating anything unlucky enough to be in their way.

  My bullet struck. Not the cockpit, but just a little higher, and I saw it hit my target.

  The base of the rotor mast.

  My heart leapt up into my throat with excitement… and then sank just as fast.

  It didn’t work.

  The round just pinged off harmlessly.

  “Fuck!”

  A lucky shot might eventually hit something critical, but I didn’t have a mounted machine gun. I needed a different solution. A solution only I had.

  “Yashas! Full stop!” I shouted, banging on the roof.

  Remote Launch didn’t have the range to hit the helicopters from here. But… it didn’t need to.

  “Yashas, stop the truck now! Then throw it in reverse!”

  “What are you saying? They’ll catch up to us!”

  “Trust me!”

  With a litany of curses I didn’t quite hear, Yashas slammed the brakes and the Humvee screeched to a stop, tires howling, then burned rubber as he mashed reverse. We shot backward toward the helicopters.

  “Are you bloody mad?” Richard yelled.

  “No, I’m improvising!” I snapped.

  The gap closed fast—and thanks to the chaos I’d sewn with my shots—put the helicopters just barely at the edge of the range of [Remote Launch].

  I pulled out one of my Voidsteel shards and, the moment we were close enough, activated [Remote Launch], sending it hurling up… but not far enough, and nowhere near accurate enough to actually hit the moving targets.

  Luckily, I didn’t need it to.

  At the apex of its climb, right as it slowed and began to fall, I Remote Launched a hundred-odd stones from my inventory, firing them all at the shard.

  I just needed one to clip the shard. One to impact. That was all it took.

  The shard detonated mid-air, its ability, [Frag Out], exploding with even more force than Yashas’ fragmentation grenade ever could, flinging thousands of superheated Voidsteel splinters at supersonic speed in every direction.

  Right between the two helicopters.

  This time, the metal did punch through the hulls, peppering both aircraft with holes. One erupted instantly into a roaring fireball.

  The other didn’t ignite at first, but the blast from its partner engulfed it anyway, sending it spiraling sideways until it smashed into a skyscraper.

  Steel bent and glass rained down, and then the helicopter turned into a glorious inferno.

  All just as we barreled onto the freeway on-ramp.

  “Bloody brilliant, mate!” Richard shouted, laughing as he clapped my back. “Absolute madlad, to be sure, but bloody brilliant!”

  Aerion let out a relieved breath, even managing a small smile. And while Yashas nodded approvingly, I caught the look both he and Arianna shot me.

  A look that was a mix of awe… and suspicion.