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tinfoil-jones · 7 years ago

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Motorcity: Legacy, Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity, or the song. Motorcity belongs to Disney, and the song belongs to Lordi Title: Burners Legacy Rating: T-M depending on chapter Summary: He didn’t want to be his carbon copy, but he might have to be in order to rescue him from Deluxe. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie, ClairexFoxy, DukexBabs, Juliex?, OCxOC Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence, death or dystopian societies Author’s Note: Some characters you like died.

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Chapter 1: Blood Red Man

\They called me “The Leather Apron” They called me “Smiling Jack” They prayed to the heavens above That I would never ever come back

Can you hear how the children weep? Chills of fear like a sawblade cutting deep\

“You look so much like Mike.” Was something Mitch was told frequently throughout his life; and it was true. He was already taller than Mike at age seventeen, taking more after Chuck in that regard, his hair was the same thickness but a slightly lighter shade yet still dark brown, and his nose was long instead of broad and his cheekbones were set slightly lower. His eyebrows weren’t as thick as Mike’s, and he lacked the signature sideburns. But other than that, he was a dead ringer for Mike Chilton. And when he was younger he loved it; his father was a legend amongst Motorcity after all, and being seen as ‘just like him’ gave his younger self a false sense of pride. Back then, Mitch even had a very similar hairstyle with short, but straight hair and a cowlick at the center of the part.

Nowadays, he hated the comparison. Not because he hated his father, but because people always told him he looked just like him with such amazement as if he didn’t already know that because he was told it constantly. It irked him so much he spiked up his hair with copious amounts of gel just to create some differentiation between them. But that was after the incident.

Then the incident occured when he was fourteen.

The incident was called ‘Hellfire Rain’ and for good reason. It started out as a siege of the Cabler settlement, which wasn’t an unheard of event. Mitch was left at Jacobs place with his baby sister while it happened, and his parents in Mutt left to respond. The everything went wrong. A series of bombs were thrown around by the Kane Bots and one caused a large cable to fall down and explode, which destroyed about ten percent of the Cablers settlement.

The cable had fallen right next to Mutt and then exploded; Mike had survived, but was unconscious and then captured by Kane’s forces, Chuck was killed either by the explosion itself or the resulting fire, either way according Texas all that was left was a charred body. Mitch really hoped, in a morbid way, that it was the explosion that had killed him, because he didn’t want his dads last moments spent suffering by burning to death. Chuck wasn’t the only one to meet his demise at that initial battle either, as Tennie’s father perished as well when he was trapped behind rubble and suffocated on smoke.

That was just the start though, Kane forced were rejuvenated through the capture of Mike Chilton and decided to go after the rest of Motorcity while they were at it, and a series of raids and bombings followed. No one was untouched by the Hellfire Rain; all of the Burners allies were affected. The Duke had a portion of his dump incinerated during a raid, he and his daughter Dutchess and some of his goons managed to survive the war, but some of his goons were killed, including his late wife Babs.

The assault on the lower half of Detroit lasted for four months. Near the end, during a last stand where the remaining gangs rushed Kane’s forces and drove the bots back to Deluxe, Claire’s wife Foxy was killed when her vehicle was T-boned by a warpod. Claire was from then on absolutely done with Motorcity and stayed in Deluxe, forcing their son Teddy to stay there with her (although he did eventually run away and return to Motorcity).

After the Hellfire Rain incident, Mitch saw less and less of the original Burners; with Tennie’s father dead, Tennie had to take his place as the Cablers leader and Dutch stayed by his wife’s side and helped her take care of the settlement. Julie had somehow upgraded from intern to an executive in Kane Co and was practically second-in-command, which was unexpended but not entirely unpleasant because she would still not hesitate to rally to Motorcity’s defense even if she couldn’t carry on being a full time Burner. And of course he never saw Claire since as her amity towards Motorcity was so strong she couldn’t even go down there to drag her son back to Deluxe.

Currently, Mitch and most of the rest of the ‘new Burners’ reside at Jacobs place, which was being run by Texas, as Jacob was too sick and frail to do much anymore.

“Still bummed about yesterday?” His co-conspirator Miles suddenly asked, as he laid on the hood of his car Moonstruck, one arm behind his head and the other holding a book in front of his face which he was barely paying attention to. Inactive, Mitch had his jacket in his room and was wearing only the black turtleneck he usually wore under it, his black jeans, and his black sneakers with a blue and green stripe.

Miles was an older teen, about nineteen, who was tall but stood a few inches below him still. She had light brown hair pulled into a ponytail and bangs held in place with a red hair clip, her eyes were the same color of her hair and framed by wire-rimmed circular glasses. She usually wore a yellow-trimmed red leather jacket with the Burners emblem on the back, but now that they were in the garage she had it off; she otherwise wore a sleeveless white v-neck, black tights and red-and-yellow converse boots. She had a red-and-yellow gaping-maw facemask that she usually pulled up to her nose when she was riding, but now that she was idle she had it around her neck instead. Mile’s wasn’t like the other Burners in the sense that she had no connection to the former Burners, the only thing she had in common with them was that she had also been affected by Hellfire Rain, as her mother had died during one of the assaults.

“Go. Away.” Mitch muttered, after yesterday’s failure in rescuing his father from Kane Co he was in no mood to deal with anyone right now.

“Oh come on Mitch you’ve been on the same page for an hour.” Miles told him as she leant over the black hood of his car; Miles wasn’t as into cars as the rest of them, which is why she had a motorcycle called Prowler instead. He sighed and put his book down; she was right.

“I got him Miles, I actually got him out of suspension and ten feet away from that port but I still lost him.” He said “If it were the other way and dad was saving me we would have made it back.” Miles adjusted her glasses at his self doubt.

“You did your best,” she comforted “for gods sake you phased through that building for three hours looking for the specific room he was in.” For over a year ever since he got a firmer grasp on hacking Mitch had been scouring all the files and archives he could looking for some reference to a private cell of some kind, as Mike Chilton was not listed as an inmate at the maximum security prison in Deluxe. After a while, Mitch came to the conclusion that there was no way that Kane would have any file that could be exploited by cyberterrorists such as himself. So he figured he had to manually sweep the building. Mitch had to do back alley deals and even resorted to stealing to get the tech he needed; he managed to snag himself a wristband that allowed the user and any person they were touching to become intangible and invisible; but when it was shorted out at Kane Co, the program that provided this function was too corrupted to allow further use so he had to delete them.

“My best? What does my best matter if I couldn’t even save my father.”

“We’ll try again another day!” Miles insisted “You know that Kane won’t kill him.”

“I don’t care, I don’t care until he’s finally home safe.” Mitch shot back, then stood up and walked away, back to his room.

Or at least he would have if an excited squeal followed by a crash didn’t suddenly permeate the garage from the kitchen, followed by a deep encouraging yell. Rolling his eyes, Mitch went to the kitchen to find what he expected; a ramp formed by a wooden board propped on top of a large steel pot, and his baby sister Little T on the ground with a small scooter about a foot away. Little T was laughing at what must have been a ‘stunt’ and their caretaker Texas has standing by and above her laughing also. Texas had matured but only physically he no longer wore his racing jacket and wore a white tank top instead, and his hair was gay-streaked and a lot longer than it used to be, making him look almost like a past era metal head.

“Yeah that was awesome Little T! Let’s do it again!” Texas whooped and struck an action pose, and Little T immediately got back on her feet and reached for her scooter.

Mitch picked the toddler up and held her in front of him “I think four crashes in one day is enough,” he said, studying his baby sister for any abrasions or bruises. Little T pouted at her brothers fussing.

“Stwong!” She complained and held up her arms as if to flex but all there was was baby fat “Awesome!”

Little T’s actual name was Tory, and she looked more like Chuck but still managed to hold a heavy resemblance to Mike and by extension Mitch. She had shoulder length brown hair the same colour as Mike’s, and she had his nose also. She had fair skin though, with freckles, and blue eyes. At age three she didn’t have all of her teeth yet and had a fair few gaps here and there, but it made it look adorable when she smiled, and she always wore a black t-shirt that was too big for her with the sleeves and the stripe down the middle red, and brown shorts. Since she usually stayed at Jacobs place she usually didn’t wear shoes and just wore mismatched socks instead.

Surprisingly, her main caretaker besides Mitch was Texas and he doted on the toddler. At first, he was pretty lost and confused because he didn’t know the first thing about taking care of babies let alone a baby girl. And as with any female he couldn’t even initially remember her name and just called her ‘Little T’, as in Little Texas. And the nickname was well deserved because as she got older and more active she was practically just like Texas. It surprised and relieved Mitch to no end that her first word wasn’t Texas, because now that she could say it she shouted it as a ‘battle cry’ just like the man himself.

“Just practicing with scooters before we move her onto cars.” Texas said with a grin as he crossed his arm. Bless his soul he meant well and he loved her, but sometimes it’s like he didn’t understand just how fragile three-year-olds really were.

“That’s not for another thirteen years.” Mitch deadpanned and placed his baby sister on the counter, he reach into the drawer and put a bandage on her nose where there was a scratch.

“It’s never too early to start little dude! She’ll be out racing you before you know it.” Texas exclaimed. “You were her size not too long ago!” Mitch only rolled his eyes again.

“Nap time.” He said to his baby sister and held her again.

“Noooo! Nap bad!” She said and thrashed around.

“Too bad.” Mitch said and carried her to his room, where he placed her on the bed behind him as he sat at the edge of it. Luckily, unlike Texas, Little T was actually quite obedient and begrudgingly crossed her arms to curl up for her nap.

Of the people who lived here, Mitch had the cleanest room; he had a clear desk with all of the contents in the drawers, a twin-sized ‘bed’ in the corner which was a mattress propped on top of another mattress but it was still neatly made, a bookshelf full of hand-me-down books and a few figurines, a closet with no door, a chest in front of the foot of his bed, and a black stratocaster in a different corner next to a beat up and obviously scrapped amplifier.

“Mit?” She said, it was a nickname she had for him because she was too young to say his name without making it sound like ‘bitch’.

“Yes?” Mitch responded as he grabbed his jacket - his jacket was actually the same cadet jacket their father used to wear when he was in the Kane Co military, it was just dyed and customized; it was mainly dark blue, with bright green where the white used to be, the Burners logo was where the Kane Co symbol used to be, and the ‘K’ on the other side was changed into a ‘B’. People used to think he would wear his father dark-blue-and-orange jacket, but out of respect for his fathers eventual return he kept it in the display case in the garage where it had been ever since Hellfire Rain.

“When daddy home?” She asked, playing with the cover on the pillow. Mitch froze. She didn’t remember their parents, as she’d only been six months old when that fateful day came. She was, however, well aware that Mike was alive, and was always assured that he would ‘come home soon’.

“He’s… going to come home soon.” Mitch promised hallowly and kissed her cheek. She didn’t pout this time because this was always the answer she got, and she just closed her eyes to sleep. Given that she’d been raised primarily by himself and Texas, she didn’t quite understand the significance of ‘daddy’, it was really more of a word to her. “Soon…” He repeated, he placed his hands on his knees as stared at them as he thought.

Maybe going it alone hadn’t been the best idea, but what other choice did he have? The invisibility/intangibility function was limited to the user and anyone he was touching. He couldn’t sweep through the building with four people hanging on him and each other, not quietly or quickly at least. The current Burners consisted of him, the leader and software specialist. Miles, the scout. Dana, the hardware mechanic/specialist. Kameron, the muscle and spy. And Teddy, the resident medic. No… they couldn’t have been as much help as a hindrance. Going through Kane Co undetected was a solo mission and he messed it up and it was his own fault. He should have saw Mike’s weakness early on, of course he was going to be slow he’d been in stasis for three years.

And why did he have to tell him the truth about his other dad…

Right then had been the worst possible time to tell Mike the truth about Chuck. Mitch should have just lied and told him the truth later, he should have put his honesty aside just long enough to get his father back in Motorcity.

Whoever said that lying was a sin really should have put situations like that into consideration.

Making sure Little T was asleep, Mitch reached between the mattresses and pulled out a ziplock baggie, inside of it was a worn out picture frame which he took out of the bag. At the bottom of the picture frame ‘Chilton Family’ was sloppily scrawled in marker, the ‘L’ had been left out initially on accident and added later. The picture was a black-and-white faded image from three and a half years ago; he was thirteen and small for his age, Mike was standing behind him with his hand on his shoulder and was looking lovingly to the side at Chuck, who was a holding a just recently born and swaddled Little T.

He gritted his teeth as he looked at the picture, and twin trail of tears ran down his face.

—

Julie stood by her father with her arms behind her back, staying quiet as her father was yelling; the now elderly ruler of Detroit Deluxe was pacing back and forth in behind his desk; in front of the desk were some of his other executives, Admirable Gordy of the military, and his ‘private contractor’, Red. Behind her was her son Kameron the ‘intern’, in his Deluxe issued clothing and holding the same pose as her. Unlike her, Kameron could not lie about his parentage, because he looked as much like her as Mitch did to Mike; he had the same rounded cheeks that she did but he had a squarer, more prominent jaw, and his eyes were a darker shade of brown, but he had the same dark red, smooth hair just in a short style. However, since there was still a small amount of people who knew that Julie was Kane’s heir, there was no reason at the time to lie about Kameron.

Red was knelt on the ground as he listened to the ranting of his boss and employer; Julie always felt a special contempt for the man; almost three decades and he still couldn’t let his hatred for Mike go and still worked on behalf of Kane, even though that meant he was a menace to his original home of Motorcity. Ever since Mike had been captured he’d been more mellow than he once was, but he was still twitchty. No doubt just wanting Mike dead instead of in stasis.

“I can’t believe Chilton almost escaped!” Abraham Kane barked; he was past his seventies but due to the extended lifespan typical of Deluxe he was still strong and lively for his age, he hadn’t lost any muscle mass and the only thing different between him now and him when Julie was a teenager was that his hair was mostly white. “I thought the Burners were disbanded!”

“It appears these are new Burners, sir.” Red replied; Red had present during the initial Hellfire Rain attack that had Mike captured and Chuck killed, he’d sustained enough damage that his vocal chords were burnt by inhaling burning fumes and he had to be fitted with a mechanical voice module, which rendered his voice completely robotic.

“That Burner was nothing short of a clone,” Kane pointed out crossly; Julie knew that her father didn’t want a repeat of Mike “he looks like Chilton spat him out.”

The head scientist of Kane Co’s tech department was fiddling around with a projection screen, he appeared to be hacking into some files from Motorcity “It appears this boy is Mike Chiltons son; Mitchell Chilton. He’s seventeen years old.” He explained. Julie had to keep back a flinch at the previously unknown information about the existence Mitchell, but the hospital files in Motorcity weren’t as strongly protected as they would be in Deluxe and comparatively easy to hack.

“Another Chilton?!” Kane groaned in frustration and pinched the skin between his eyes.

“With him in the Burners it wouldn’t be far fetched that these other new Burners are also children of their predecessors.” The head of the tech department said; Julie saw a worried look briefly flash in Admirable Gordy’s eyes; his niece Dana was one of those new Burners.

“This is ridiculous, those Burners have been out of my hair for three years and they shoot up out of the ground like a ragweed by breeding like rats?” Kane inquired angrily, then looked down at Red, pointing at him “I want you to go down to that sewer and gather information on these new Burners.” Kameron, a Burner, was beginning to look uncomfortable as well.

“What kind of information are you looking for, sir?” Red asked, looking up at him from the ground; Julie imagined there was a smug look behind that visor.

“Whatever information it takes to end the Burners once for all.”

—

“That was a bunch of bull.”

“Language, Kameron.” Julie chided her son.

“But it was.” He said, looking down at her slightly; Kameron, being eighteen, was one of the oldest new Burners save for Miles who was nineteen, putting him in a slightly different position than she had been when she was a young Burner, even though he was also a spy. “Why don’t we just… you know.” Julie automatically elbowed him hard in the side which made the boy yelp a little “Oh come on! It’s not that much different than waiting for him to die, which could take thirty more years.” Kameron was adored by his grandfather, naturally, but Kameron believed in the liberation of Motorcity so much that unlike Julie, he thought it was best to just kill Kane.

“You don’t mean that and you know it, Kameron,” Julie tugged the younger redhead down slightly by the ear “you talk like that but we both know you’re not capable of that. And he’s your grandfather.”

“He’s evil.”

“Not entirely.” Julie insisted and let go of the boys ear, which he rubbed to relieve the soreness “If you were to… kill him, that wouldn’t make you any better than you think he is. And no one would rally to either yours or my own leadership if we usurped power instead of legally inheriting it, which is what we are going to do. Now, go to your room.” Hands up defensively, Kameron scrambled to where his room was, but no doubt he wouldn’t be there very long and would go to Motorcity within the hour.

Only two other executives knew that Julie was the heir to Kane Corporation, and by extension, Deluxe; the remaining original Burners still didn’t know. Her son Kameron was also sworn into secrecy, for his own safety. There were plenty of people willing to hurt Kane by any means, even if it meant going after someone who was on Motorcities side.

Julie sighed and headed to her office to ponder on what was said during the meeting; her father saw Mitchell and all he saw was another Mike, but that wasn’t the case. Kane was expecting another Mike Chilton and that was the mindset he was staying with; this put the actual Mike Chilton at risk of being terminated early just to kill Mitchell’s resolve.

Julie wanted very badly to save her friend from stasis herself, but there were some secrets Kane wouldn’t give even to her and that was one of them. He was the only one who knew were Mike was currently being held and he never put it on file, keeping that information to himself instead, the one place that could not be hacked. And as often as the blueprints for the building were updated there were so many changes so often it was impossible to saw where Mike’s pod was being kept, and she looked often but still found nothing. Mitchell had chanced it by manually phasing through walls. At this rate it might actually take until her father died of natural causes before she would know.

She had to passively stand by as she watched her old friend get arrested in front of the closed off ports, as he was dragged back into the building, and given another grandiose speech from Kane about how his time was over, and he didn’t even fight it as he was shoved into a new pod that would soon after be moved into an undisclosed location; her old friend had looked at her, and only nodded, as if to acknowledge that he knew that she had no choice.

In her office, she closed and locked the door; on her desk there was a projected image in one corner of her holding an toddler Kameron, and Claire with an infant Teddy. Time sure did go by quickly, at this point she’d really hoped her father would have accepted letting Motorcity exist autonomously, but of course he didn’t. He wanted to control everything. She sat down at her desk chair; she would always love her father, and would always believe he had good in him, for she’d seen it before and so had Kameron.

Sometimes though, she wondered if it was selfish of her to covet her father’s life at the expense of others…

Foxy, Chuck, Tennie’s father, Babs, and Tooley for example…

Her communicator started to beep and she made sure her door was locked before answering; a pixelated head icon of Mitchell appeared.

“Hello Mitchell.” Julie greeted with a bittersweet smile.

“Kam just called me and said something big went down at Kane Co, should I be concerned?” The head icon asked.

“Maybe just a little bit…” The executive began “Kane just sent Red down to Motorcity.”

“Red? Isn’t he satisfied enough?” Julie could hear the teen huff “My fathers already on ice what more does he want?”

“I’m afraid he and Kane are just a little bit…” Oh dear, how does one properly explain the ‘sins of the father’ trope? “…Off-put by your appearance, because, well…”

“Because I look a lot like my dad?”

“Mitchell.”

“…Because I look almost exactly like him?”

“Yes.” She confirmed “I’m going to send you specs of Red’s suit and warpod so you know what kind of weaponry your dealing with. Red’s old, but he’s no pushover.”

“Roger that boss.” Mitchell said “Can you queue that for an hour from now?”

“Why?”

“I have to clear some space on my hard-drive first.”

“It’s not that big of a file.”

“I know but…” He paused “My drives still kind of fuzzy since it shorted out, I need to do another scan to make sure any new files won’t be corrupted.”

“Alright Mitchell, and please keep an eye on Kameron when he gets down there.”

“No problem.”

—

Mitch hadn’t been lying when he said he drive had been fuzzy when it shorted out; but he’d fixed his wristwatch - the incident where it shorted out taught him a lesson he’d been told of but never realized the importance of until he failed in rescuing his dad.

Always have a your files back up.

That was something his late father always told him, but he didn’t quite grasp just how important that software concept was; some tech he was. No matter, he understood that now. He would still mainly use his wristband, but he had just finished syncing it to a chip; the chip was small, tiny even, but it was capable of all of the functions his wristband was; it had immediate access to his data cache and would have all of the applications of his wristband automatically downloaded to it meaning it would hold the same functions even if his wristband shorted out.

However, it was just a chip and needed some kind of carrier and external user that would allow it to carry out these functions.

And it was making him nervous, because he knew exactly what that ‘carrier’ was going to be.

Mitchell grabbed a bottle of lidocaine; a local anesthetic. Something Teddy used for minor treatments like stitches, but today he was using it topically. He grabbed an eyedropper and sucked up from the solution before dripping about two drops into his right eye, and blinked a few times until he was sure his eye was numb. He then grabbed a tiny fork-like spreader and used it to keep his right eye from blinking anymore once he was sure his eyeball was numb.

He grabbed a cloth and place it between his teeth to bite down on.

He grabbed the chip and began pressing it against his eyeball until the retina gave and allowed the chip to slip right inside. Both of his eyes teared up because the solution had been topical and only numbed the outside of his eyeball and not the inside, but he continued pushing it inside of his eye with a now trembling finger

And once it was right where he wanted it, he howled in pain; making the cloth fall out of his mouth.

—

Texas was in the living room with Little T “You can do it Little T,” he whooped at the toddler; she was standing on top of the TV “on the count of three jump off and do a backflip onto the couch!” He cheered, she nodded excitedly with a gappy grin as she prepared a dismount.

“AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

The scream startled them both; Little T fell off the TV onto the floor, thankfully onto one of the cushions Texas had surrounded the TV stand with. Texas blinked in confusion and looked over to where the sound had originated.

“…Chuck?” He inquired; that sounded exactly like how Chuck screamed alright, he’d recognize that lady-like scream anywhere.

“Fun!” Little T babbled and laughed as she stumbled over to him, grabbing his leg with a giggle, Texas picked her up and held her under his arm as he went over to the noise to investigate the sound; he down the hallway and could hear the still continuing scream behind Mitch’s door, so he took the only action that made sense to him.

He kicked Mitch’s door down “TEXAS!” He hollered “I HEARD YOU SCREAM ARE YOU OKAY MITCH?” He yelled, seeing Mitch hunched over his desk in agony.

The teen turned around; his hand was covering the right side of his face and he was still mostly hunched over and has his head hanging. The brunet stumbled over, almost tripping a few times until he was by Texas and was gripping his shoulder seemingly for support.

“Mitch?” Texas inquired.

“01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 (1).” Mitch groaned in agony; why he repeated ones and zeroes Texas had no clue other than it was the geek language that Chuck had taught the teen.

Little T laughed at her brothers pain and suffering “Bruber a sissy!” She mocked.

“Mitch?” Texas repeated, more sternly as he grabbed the teens shoulder with his free hand.

Rather than whimper Mitch looked up with a pained looking grin “H-Hold on.” He croaked as he pulled his hand off of his eye.

His right eye went from dark brown to green with a circuit pattern and a green comm screen was projected right from his eye.

“What the-” Texas had pause himself at just how awesome that was “dude can you shoot out laser beams?”

“Maybe later.” Mitch said as he straightened out and tested out the comm screen; he pressed a few areas on the screen and files streamed right in like a normal comm screen. “It worked!” The more apparent advantage of an comm screen out of the eye was that he could interact with the screen with both hands instead of just one like people who had their projection screens mounted on or implanted in a wrist.

“What did you do?” Texas asked; usually techno stuff like that didn’t impress him too much the the kid just summoned a comm screen from his eyeball.

“I inserted a chip into my eye; it connected itself to the electrical impulses in the nerves of my eye and is connected to my brain now.” Mitch explained, but Texas only paid attention to the first part.

The kid just shoved a chip into his eyeball - that was so goddamn /metal/.

“Dude that’s so metal!” Texas shouted.

“Mefal!” Little T tried to repeat, and clapped her hands excitedly; she didn’t understand much besides that it was apparently awesome.

Mitch breathed it deeply and tried to focus; the chip was controlled by his brain, but the impulses needed to activate it he needed to practice with, he’d summoned the screen but he needed to retract it now. He blinked a few times and focused hard, and the screen went away; his eye turned it’s natural dark brown color again.

“Duuuude you should put a laser function on that chip.” Texas said, putting his free arm around Mitchell best he could with their height difference.

“I’ll download the application later.” Mitch said, panting slightly at the pain in his eye he still had. “But I have to wait until Julie sends me another file.”

“What file?”

Mitch pulled back a little with a frown “…Red’s back.” and as expected, Texas flipped out.

“THAT GUY AGAIN?! FOOL ME ONCE SHAME ON YOU SHAME ON YOU, FOOL ME TWICE SHAME ON ME, FOOL ME THREE TIMES I BRING MY CAR, FOOL ME FOUR TIMES AND I.. I… TEXAS DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’LL DO BUT ITS NOT GOING TO BE PRETTY.” To augment her caretakers point, Little T did the punching the hand thing to symbolize a beating.

“Calm down uncle Tex, it’s going to be fine. He doesn’t want to fight us, I think…” Mitch hummed and pondered, putting his hand in his chin “…I think he’s just trying to study us.”

“NO ONE STUDIES UNDER TEXAS’S WATCH!” The stronghorn driver yelled and stormed out of the room.

“Texas wait!” Mitch said as he followed the older.

“TEXAS IS GOING TO FIND RED AND MAKE HIM REGRET EVERYTHING.”

“FINE JUST PUT MY SISTER DOWN SHE ISN’T GOING WITH YOU ARE YOU CRAZY.”

—

“I can’t believe you of all people would do something so reckless - it’s all fun and games until you get a vitreous hemorrhage - the fact you didn’t shocks and confuses me.” Teddy told him he as he dripped a drop of antibiotic eye drops into Mitch’s eye.

“I know.” Mitch agreed with a little bit of a guilty saw; with his left eye he watched Little T start climbing Teddy’s cabinet, no bout after his jar full of lollipops. “But, what’s the damage, doc?” He asked.

“Amazingly just a tear in the cornea - seriously Mitch one wrong move and you could have made yourself blind.” Teddy took out a roll of gauze and an eye pad; he put the pad over Mitch’s eye and secured it there with medical tape.

“Teddy I need to use the chip.”

“Not until that corneal tear is healed.” Teddy stated simply, but firmly, to further his point he diagonally wrapped gauze around his head, covering the eye and eye pad. “Keep that there for three days, no excuses. Also, let me look at that periodically; your body might have a immune response to a foreign body like that, or infections - did you even sterilize that thing?”

“Of course I did!” Mitch waved his concern.

Teddy was the resident medic of the Burners, and son of Claire and Foxy. About a year ago he ran away from home and down to Motorcity, as Claire had kept him away from the city ever since his other mother died. Teddy heavily resembled Claire; having the same skin, eye and hair color and even the same hairline he just kept his hair close-cropped. However, his angular, pointed face shape and nose shape came from his other mother Foxy. Teddy was the only Burner who wore Deluxe style clothing; He wore a white hoodie with a light blue burner symbol in the front, and light blue pants with white stripes down the sides, and white-and-light-blue sneakers. The older teen explained that it was to stick it to Kane more, but Mitch didn’t quite follow his train of thought there. He also had a pair of lab goggles that he usually let hand around his neck but since he was treating a patient he had them up over his eyes.

Teddy was a passive Burner in comparison to the others; he usually stayed at Jacobs place and operated almost entirely as support; his vehicle, Sunback, was actually a modified ambulance with a tractor plow in the front and monster truck wheels. He only came on the scene if there was a medical emergency in which he would put patients in his vehicle and tow their vehicle. Teddy was, what his late father would describe of as ‘a healer and tank’. Teddy’s medical knowledge came from being a academic prodigy in Deluxe; he graduate early and trained as a paramedic, although he wasn’t there long enough to make it to full paramedic and instead was a certified Advanced Emergency Medical Technician, an AEMT which was between EMT and paramedic.

Little T was now on top of the cabinet and was helping herself to some of the brightly colored lollipops in the jar; it was a really good thing the medic had recently moved his bowl of complimentary condoms somewhere else.

“Now, change your bandages every day for the next three days,” Teddy continued to advise, not noticing the toddler on his work cabinet “I’d advise taking it off right before going into the shower, and afterwords put only one drop of the antibiotic on it before putting on new bandages.”

“That’s enough suckers for now, Little T.” Mitch deadpanned to his sister; Teddy finally turned around, then stiffened up and threw his arms up in exasperation.

“Little T! Not again!” He exclaimed and walked over; the toddler squeaked and slid down the cabinet with the jar tucked under one her arms and ran off; Teddy chasing her.

Being a teen ‘parent’ wasn’t easy, but it sure could be amusing sometimes.

His wristband pinged with an oncoming message; he pressed a button and a head icon of Texas appeared. “Hey unc-”

“I NEED BACK UP.” Mitch cringed and drew his wrist back to save his ears. Then he could hear what sounded like energy blasts and crashing.

“I’m on my way,” Mitch told the older Burner as he started rushing towards Moonstruck; Miles was still in the garage, but there was no sign of Dana or Kam yet “I’m going to lock on your coordinates alright? We’ll be right there.” The head icon of his caretaker disappeared “Look sharp Miles we have a mission.” He shouted to his co-conspirator as she looked at him confused “Just follow me, I’ll fill you in on the details!” The older teen nodded, pulled her face mask up to her nose, threw her leather jacket back on and jumped on her red motorcycle, which made a puma-like roar as it sprang back to life.

Hopping into his vehicle, Mitch reached into the center console and pulled out an old, warn skull module and popped it on top of the stick shift, waking Moonstruck up with a howl-like rev of the engine.

With his car awake and sharp, he raced out of the garage and attempted making a call to the rest of his team, but only Teddy and Miles would answer.

“What just happened guys?” The blocky head icon of Teddy ask, the familiar sound of Little T giggling was in the background, meaning the medic must have caught her.

“Texas sent out a distress call, he didn’t say what it was but it sounded serious, you know he’s not the type to request backup.”

“Have you picked up on his location Mitch?” The head icon of Miles asked; the brunet checked his screen and struggled to watch both the road and his console screen with only his left eye “He’s about five blocks away, I’m going to patch you the coordinates.” He said and had the coordinates of the destination sent to both of the other Burners.

“Received.” Miles said, and her head icon disappeared as she rushed ahead to the destination; Miles served as a scout because of her vehicle being a motorcycle she could get to a destination much faster than the other Burners and could drive through tight fits a regular car couldn’t. What she lacked in armor and size she made up for in speed and maneuverability.

“Ping me if anyone gets hurt.” Teddy instructed.

“Course.” The younger Burner agreed and shut off the call with Teddy but kept Mile’s line open, when he was three block en route he put Miles back on speaker “Mile’s I need a status report.”

“Almost there-” A gasp and the sound of a energy blast of some kind “Kane Co warpod.”

“Is it red?”

“Yeah.” He heard the older teen curse under her breath and what had to be her wheels skidding on the rough pavement.

“Do you see Texas?”

“Hold on - um- wait, I see Stronghorn, it’s, parked?” She managed to stammer between skidding and energy blasts. Mitch attempted a call to Texas but it just continues to ring, which shouldn’t happen because any driver can answer a call while driving since their communication lines were synced to the cars themselves. This meant that Texas wasn’t in his car.

Mitch took a sharp turn, running a red light but he didn’t really care because this was Motorcity after all “Is there an alleyway there?”

“Two, why?”

He didn’t answer; he connected wirelessly to the warpods communicator but also accessed the data cache “The warpod is acting remotely,” he told the older teen “it’s motion activated, if you /stop moving/ it will stop firing. Just stop riding, now.”

“Mitch-”

“Just do it, Miles, I’ll be right there.” He commanded and pulled up near the area, but not in proximity of the warpods range, which was actually rather limited compared to most warpods, must have been an older model. Making sure his weapon was calibrated, he pulled the skull module out of the stick shift and ran out of Moonstruck - he saw Miles in the area in front of the sinister-looked warpod, she was behind a car overturned on it’s side and had Prowler stationed right next to her.

He ran over and crouched next to her “What happened to your eye?” Was the first thing she asked.

“Just a scratched eye, doctors orders - listen, no ones in the Warpod or Stronghorn.”

“Then where’s Texas and Red?”

“They’re going hand-to-hand - I’ll look in the alley to the left and you look to the alley on the right. If you find nothing, come into the alley I went into, and vice versa.” He instructed, then peeked over the car slowly as not to activate the motion sensing weapons.

She nodded and adjusted her glasses, and got up, running might next to the weapon and having to dodge a few blasts on foot before making it into the alley. Mitch sighed deeply and slightly anxiously because he was going to have to do the same thing just on the other side of. He really hated being a rebel leader sometimes. Sucking in one last breath and holding it in, he ran out from behind the car and made a beeline to the alley, twisting out of the way of oncoming blasts and missing the shots by what had to be pure luck until he finally made it the the alley.

He heard a harsh exchange of words and ran further down the alley until he came to the end of the alley.

Texas was on the ground, on his knees clutching his arm with his other arm reaching around to hold what had to be a wound and was facing Mitch, but in front of him stood a man clad in telltale red lighted armor, and with his back turned to Mitch as he towered over the incapacitated Texas.

Texas tilted his head slightly to look up at Mitch, but this was a bad move because it indirectly signalled to Red that someone was there and the old enemy turned the hell to face Mitch.

Mitch pressed a button on his wristband to ping a medical distress call to Teddy.

“Well, well,” Red said in a robotic voice “if it isn’t the discount Mike Chilton I’ve heard so much about.” He said mockingly, circling slightly, Mitch circled back and kept his weapon hidden but ready “Didn’t your dad ever tell you not to poke your eye out?”

“What do you want, Red, my dads already in prison what more do you want?”

Red shrugged nonchalantly, which infuriated Mitch “Honestly I was fine with Chilton in jail, although I’d really prefer dead. But the big boss is concerned about his clone running around - I thought he was exaggerating your resemblance but now that I’m seeing you in person I have to say, it’s no lie. My eyes are bleeding just looking at you. I’m guessing that’s what happened to you?”

Angrily Mitch made a step towards the armoured man, who brought his fists up, they lit up and sparked in some kind bright red energy. They held an angry stare - well, Mitch held up an angry stare at least, he had to guess that there was an angry or mocking stare behind that visor.

“Go home kid,” Red mocked “I’m interested in Mike Chilton - not some wannabe clone who thinks he’ll ever live up to him.” This enraged Mitch to the point of boiling over and he charged at red with this hand fist going up as if to punch him; out of his wristband an energy-based spinning saw blade sprang out. Red just stood there until Mitchell was close enough, then ducked under him, grabbing his wrists.

“Argh-” Mitch gasped as the red energy tased him, but it was only a minor taze but enough to short out his wristband and deter him for a second, a second was all that Red needed to use the hold he had on his wrists to slam and pin him against the wall.

“Pathetic,” Red spat, laughing menacingly behind his visor. Mitch saw Miles running towards them from the entrance of the alleyway, Red turned to her slightly “STOP.” He bellowed, then placed one hand over Mitch’s chest, effectively stopping Miles “One more step and the kids getting his heart jump-ended.” Speaking of Mitch’s heart, it was absolutely pounding; how did this mission go so wrong?

Miles put her hands up in a defensive pause; the female Burner unfortunately did not have a long ranged weapon and couldn’t attack Red from the distance she was at.

Red turned back to Mitch, who he had was pressing against the wall with the type of force Mitch wouldn’t be able to outmuscle “Now,” he said “where were we? Oh that’s right; I don’t know why Kane even bothers with a baby-faced punk like yourself. You’re no Mike Chilton. Your father would have had me beat by now but look where you are,” Mitch grimaced at the comparison “yeah, you’re definitely no Mike Chilton.”

Mitch began to shake - but not in fear, he was angry. He was tired of this, he entire life he’d been compared to his father, not just because of their actual blood relation but because of how he looked and it was bad enough to get it from other Motorcitizens but now Kane and his goons were going to stick to that rhetoric like flies on shit?

“Bitch,” Mitch swore, which seemed to catch Red just a little off guard “my name is Mitchell.”

He headbutted Red as hard he possibly could. It made stars dance in his vision but it was effective in getting the mercenary off of him.

And then suddenly Sunback came careening into the alleyway and slammed into Red; the hired gun was sent flying into the opposite wall of the alley; he was rendered unconscious, but alive, in a pile of old boxes and bottles.

Teddy jumped out “Get in!” He shouted, then fireman-carried Texas into the back of his vehicle, not questioning his orders Miles walked over and put Mitch’s arm over his shoulder, helping the now vertigoed Burner into the back of the ambulance as well. When everyone was secured into the back of the modified ambulance, Teddy drove out of the alley with a shriek from his tires, and headed back in the direction of their headquarters, getting an electronic tow-line on Moonstruck, Prowler and Stronghorn on the way.

“Are you okay Mitch?” Miles asked her friend as he sat wedged between her and Texas at the ambulatory-patient bench in the back of Sunback, he held his throbbing forehead in his hand, squeezing both of his eyes shut hard in an attempt to alleviate the pain. It didn’t work.

“…That really hurt.” He finally said, and she sighed in relief.

“Texas is fine by the way,” The Burners caretaker said from the other side of Mitch, which made Miles chuckle a little bit.

///

“You got such a knack for hurting yourself, I was wondering where your sister got it from I used to think it was from Texas but it must be genetic.” Teddy ranted as he shined his penlight into one of Mitch’s eyes and then the other one, he had taken the eyepad and bandages off of Mitch’s right eye so he could check both of them. They were back at the garage, and he was in Teddy’s workstation getting looked over. Texas was passed out in one of the cots, Teddy explained that he had no external signs of damage, meaning he must have been tased over and over instead “Okay… pupils equal round reactive to light.” He rambled “You shouldn’t have any real head trauma, but you’re going to have a killer headache.” The shorter teen put his penlight away and produced two tablets and a glass of water “This should help with the pain a little.”

“Thanks Teddy.” Mitch thanked, and knocked the pills back with a grimace. His little sister was ‘seated’ next to him in the doctor’s chair, and was bent on chewing on his arm and hand which he didn’t mind too much because at least she was distracted from doing anything destructive or harassing Texas. “I have a feeling Red isn’t done with us just yet, his mission is to study us and well, he’s already met me and Miles. This is far from over.” He told Teddy, who was nodding, still listening as he jotted down notes.

“Red bad?” Little T babbled, summarizing what what being said around her. He put an arm around her tiny frame, and she held his large hand in her two tiny ones but only to continue to gnaw on it.

“Red bad.” Mitch confirmed.

/Once again there is pain I bring flames, I bring cold I’m the Blood Red Sandman coming home On this unholy night I will make you my own Blood Red Sandman Coming home again I’m coming home again/

TO BE CONTINUED…

Authors note: Song is ‘Blood Red Sandman’ by Lordi. Cars revealed; Moonstruck= Wolf motif, black. Prowler= Cheetah motif, red. Sunback = Honey badger motif, cyan.

(1) He’s speaking binary, which translates to “Fuck”.

#motorcity #motorcity legacy #legacy #au #past!muck #past!muckles #past!dukexbabs #past!clairefoxy #dutchxtennie #burners #burners legacy

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