Liko Lemons: GoW Chapter 3

Liko Lemons: Going out West

Chapter 3: Threo, Reunited

It was sort of official, after six months of no assignments, Threo was finally back together. For those who don't know, Threo was a group that Niko, Samo, and I formed. The name was formulated from the fact there are three of us and each of our names end in the letter O. We all have superior experience in some form of combat. Niko is very good with sniping; I am too, but I move faster, so I took the position of close range fighting. Then Samo is the Melee expert. We each constrained ourselves to 4 weapons: a primary, a secondary, a sidearm, and a melee weapon. My weapon of choice was my katana that has been passed down from generations. I was told that it has actually been passed from the earliest generations of vulpine. Niko has a collapsible Baton that can extend from a single foot (3 dm) to about six feet (1.8 meters). And Samo, he's got throwing knives, laser saber, a large hook, just about anything. But right now he was equipped with just his katana, knives, and mega sword. Anyway, I've been dreaming of this day forever. Even if it is a loved one that is in danger, I still wanted for us to go back on the job. Although this job may turn out unsuccessful, I was still looking forward to it, I needed some action aside from my daily target practice.

So, we were on the road, it was now 2:15 AM and we sped at probably 450 miles per hour (560 km/h), you'd think that was dangerous, but actually, we were on a straight shot road to Atlanta, Georgia. There, it would curve west and into the "forbidden zone" as I like to call it. The engine began to quiet down to a mere purr. Samo sat above us looking perfectly calm. I looked over to Niko and his head was heaving a bit and his eyes were half closed with an occasional blink. "Hey..." I said tapping Niko's shoulder with the back of my hand, "Now's not the time to fall asleep." "*yawn* Sorry Liko, it's just so early in the morning," Niko said kind of slurring his words, "I'm not a morning person. I'll be fine in a few hours." "Samo," I said turning my head to look up at him, "Why is the engine quiet?" "I didn't want to say anything, but we ran out of gas. Apparently this one has been test-driven a lot." Samo replied, "I'll hit the brakes in Atlanta so we can fill up." "Yeah, Niko needs a boost too." I joked, "So how long?" "A couple more minutes" Samo answered.

A few minutes later, like a zit on the face of a human teenager, high rise buildings came into view, totally looking out of place in the flat wastelands that surround it. Samo hit the brakes a bit and slowed down to a more reasonable speed while still being able to move at a steady pace. We entered the city, then Samo said, "Keep an eye out for a place to fill up." It was completely dark in most spots, but the holographic signs and lights lit up the city just enough to see where we were going and to look for a gas station. "Damn it!" Samo exclaimed. "What?" I said. "I just realized this thing uses Baronium and not octane. "I'm sure the gas stations would have it, they need to supply us with all forms of gasoline. I mean they still have Diesel available." I reassured him, "There!" I pointed to the right and there was a gas station, the lights were on so they had to be open. Samo hit the brakes more and brought it down to slower speed, around 4 mph. (6km/h) He took a right, approached the pump, took another right, and hit the brakes full tilt and came to a complete stop. "Nailed it," Samo yelled sounding confident. He opened the cockpit and hopped out. I followed him. Before I got out though, I looked back at Niko, looked forward again, then went on my way. "Where ya going?" Samo asked. "Niko needs some energy, I'm gonna fetch 'im an energy shot." I answered. I ran into the store and saw right on the front counter, "24 Hour energy" I grabbed that, put the money on the counter and ran out; all without making eye contact with the clerk. I came out to see Samo leaning against the craft while he waited for it to finish filling up. I proceeded over to the craft, I got to the top, but before I went into the cockpit a little rustling across the way caught my eye. I got back down, and ran over to see what it was. I went into the darkness of the left side of the convenience store, I unsheathed my handgun. I went a little closer to a pile of papers. All of a sudden a figure leaped out, and climbed over the fence and ran around the corner. I was unable to see his face, but I could tell it was a vulpine, His tail had shown in the light, it was completely black. I turned around to head back to the Pandalpha pondering about that figure. The first thing that came to mind was what race he was. There are no races with black fur.

I climbed into the cockpit and went in back and casually handed the small energy shot to Niko. "Thanks..." Niko said, then he twisted off the top and drank it all in one gulp. A couple minutes later, I heard an unlatching sound, A slight clang, and then a thumping, Samo climbed in, closed the cockpit, and hit the start up button. The craft's whir grew loud like before, rose up off the ground, then we began to coast a little into the street. We went a little ways, came to a complete stop where we could see out into the wasteland. The whir grew louder and faster, And we took off like a rocket like we did back in Albany. The city was no longer surrounding us and was out of our view. "Hey Liko, what were you doing over in that alley there?" Samo asked. "I saw some rustling and I thought I'd check it out." I responded
"Rustling?"
"Yeah, I went over to check it out and the guy took off and ran."
"Odd..."
"The weirdest thing is that he was a vulpine, but he had black fur, at least on his tail, any clue to what race or hybridization might result in that?"
"It was probably a fulvan."
"How would you know? I'm half fulvan and..."
"No, hear me out, fulvans like your father are able to sustain non-race related color genes. This can result in an entirely black fulvan without being a different race. Very rare, but nonetheless existent."
"So you mean my father could be black, but I'd still be the way I am now?"
"Exactly"
"Well I'm half zerdan, so that could block it out entirely, right?"
"I'm not sure at that point. Anyway, this'll take us an hour, to get to the border of the wasteland and the forbidden zone."
"I'll sit tight..."

And I did, I jumped down off the bench seat and lay down on the floor to rest up a bit by shedding my jacket.