The Original Beefcake

With a queasy feeling in his stomach Marcus pressed a button on the control console. That's it?

Yes, the cascade has started. Time to leave.

Marcus looked around the bridge for the last time. After a moment, he started jogging through the dark wreck and towards the exit. Now that the whole place was doomed, it felt even more like a coffin to Marcus. Empty hallways, decayed corpses and the only sounds were his own steps. He passed the wyvern nest and made his way up the ice tunnel. The three trucks were waiting for him, ready to depart at any moment. The door to the last truck opened. Marcus jumped in and took his place next to Janette.

"The chick has entered the nest. I repeat, the chick has entered the nest," Janette let everybody know over the truck com system. Laughter came from the speakers and all three trucks started to move. "Chick, really?" Marcus asked, and she stuck out her tongue. He hadn't the heart to scold her, Janette was hyped to finally go home and see her wife. The whole raid had taken over a month and they would need at least two more days to get home. Marcus understood her feelings, he couldn't wait to embrace his Azaa again.

The caravan of trucks moved at a decent speed away from the snowfield that had become a monster graveyard. Marcus didn't mind at all that the whole place would get torn apart. He held no nostalgic feelings for this battleground. The only monster parts worth anything were safely stored away in the first truck. The fight with the evolved wyvern had been weeks ago and the whole trouble with the Big Bad had completely overshadowed the epic battle with the beast. Still, Marcus hoped they would make a good amount of money from the parts.

The heavy snowfall over the last weeks made the journey difficult. Twice in as many hours, one of the trucks slid down a ravine, because of the loose snow. Luckily the machines, with their giant wheels, survived the accidents without any serious damage. The passengers on the other hand got a good shock and some bruises. In spite of the snow they made faster progress than on their journey to the wreck. Going down the mountain was a lot easier than up. In addition everybody felt a sense of urgency to get away from the wreck and the drivers dared to go a bit faster.

Marcus was rummaging through the food storage in search for some hidden chocolate bars, when a deafening sound shook the whole truck and the mountain beneath them quaked. "What the heck!" Janette shouted and Marcus came running to the cockpit. He looked around, but couldn't see anything. Then he opened the side door and leaned outside to get a better look.

Oh no. That should not have happened yet.

With sheer panic Marcus watched as one of the mountain peaks in the distance tumbled down the side of the mountain. It looked like a part of the giant mountain had just moved a hundred or so meters to the side. XEEN! What am I looking at?

A spatial shift, basically a local gravity distortion. A sign that the core is rapidly decaying, but it is far too early. Marcus, you need to get away as fast as you can!

With panic in his voice Marcus told the others what was happening and they increased the speed as much as possible. Janette clenched her teeth. "If I was in the lead we would move faster," she said, and hit the dashboard with her fist, leaving an indentation behind. Marcus knew she was right, but there was nothing they could do right now. Maybe later an opportunity to take the lead would- Another rumbling sound made everything vibrate. The mountain was still falling in the distance but this felt much closer. "AVALANCHE!" Rita's voice echoed over the com system.

Half the mountain was coming down, an unstoppable wave of snow rushed right in their direction. Snow started to wash over the trucks and pushed them to the side as they were fleeing at reckless speeds from the white death. They made some distance and Marcus dared to hope they would make it, when something massive hit the side of the truck and threw the machine around. Janette desperately fought with the steering wheel. The whole truck rotated several times. She pushed the engine to its limits, the machine roared and then the avalanche hit them.

Just on instinct Marcus grabbed Janette and covered her with his own body. The massive truck was thrown around like a cheap plastic toy in a hurricane. Up, down, left, right, it all lost meaning as they tumbled down the side of the mountain. Marcus held on tight to Janette and was thrown around inside of the machine. He dared not activate Carapace in fear to hurt Janette and trusted in his over eighty vitality to keep him alive. All light had vanished and suddenly they were falling. For several seconds, they were weightless, falling in complete darkness. Then the truck crashed into the ground and came to a stop. The impact drove the air out of Marcus' lungs, but he didn't let go of Janette. The noise died away.

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

"Marcus?" Janette whispered. He groaned, "Still alive. How are you?" A few moments later a light fought back the darkness. Janette had activated the torch on her armor. Marcus could see she had some light cuts, but a quick check revealed no broken bones. "Thanks for the protection,"Janette said with a smile, and Marcus nodded. "My job and all. But now we need to get out of here as quickly as possible. The core is still breaking apart. If we stay, we are as good as dead." After this motivating speech the two tried to climb up the vertically standing truck wreck. They pushed boxes out of the way and climbed to the remnants of the cockpit. "How much snow is above us?" Marcus asked, and Janette shrugged her shoulders. "Just hope it isn't a lot or we are fucked. Some kind of heat or fire ability would be really nice right now," she said.

With some effort they tore down the smashed cockpit and a mini avalanche of snow rushed by them until most of the truck was filled. Not disheartened by the view they started to dig upwards as fast as they could. Having superhuman strength and endurance helped a lot, but it was still a grueling task. Minute after minute moved by and snow was replaced by just more snow. Finally Marcus felt the wall of snow getting soft and he blasted a hole into the snow cover. Taking a deep breath, Marcus and Janette reached the surface, only to find that the world had turned into a hellscape.

They had felt vibrations and quakes, but now they could see that several mountains around them had collapsed or were in the process of being torn apart. Somewhere, high up and far away, a few million tons of stone were floating in the air for some time before it all came crashing down causing another earthquake and even more secondary events. Janette checked her com and also her tracker, but the rest of the raid was too far away. "That is good, that means they got out." Janette said, and Marcus could see that she was shivering from the cold. What direction is the portal Xeen?

72° to your current left. And I am sorry Marcus, I made a mistake.

Don't beat yourself up, we can talk about it later. We aren't dead, yet.

"Janette, get on my back. We need to move fast," Marcus said, and she wanted to protest, but his serious look made her obey. She climbed on his back and Marcus started to move. He used Burst liberally, not worried about endurance drain or potentially causing an avalanche. The whole darn mountain side was coming undone anyway. Even with Janette on his back he made jumps over twenty or thirty meters at the time. He moved as fast as he could, but it was still nothing compared to the trucks. Half an hour later they had covered nearly 10 kilometers and Marcus had used up about 30% of his endurance. They finally got down the highest mountains and a lot less snow and higher temperatures meant Janette could run by herself.

Another half an hour later and they could see the vast woodland in the distance. A deafening sound moved through the torn land and made them stop and turn. One of the mountains had been torn apart as if a giant had kicked a sand pile high into the air. Thousands of giant rock pieces tumbled back down to the ground like a meteor shower. They pushed themselves even harder, moving through more and more destroyed landscape. Crackling from Janette's com unit was the first good sign in a long time. They continued their sprint and a few minutes later Janette screamed with joy, "I see signals on the tracker!" They adjusted their path to intercept the signal and the signal moved closer too.

The sight of the heavy truck pushing through the wilderness was a view that made both of them scream at the top of their lungs. They had barely jumped through the open door when Rita accelerated the truck again. "I knew you two would get out! Snow can't hold you down!" Rita shouted, and Hammond gave them hugs and offered some water. "In a second. Rita, let me drive," Janette said, and the other woman surrendered the wheel to the speed demon. "Hold on tight, I will drive a bit recklessly now!" Janette shouted, as the engine got to know its new master.

"The rest of the team is in the other machine. We stayed a bit back in the hopes you would make it out of the mountains," Rita said, while holding on for dear life. Marcus nodded and watched Janette steer the truck through a small river and into the direction of the path through the woodland they had made in the past.

Xeen, what went wrong?

The ice. I did not take into account that the core would emit a larger amount of radiation, which would lead to the melting of the ice. If water entered the drive core it would greatly increase the deterioration of the core. I should have foreseen that there would be cracks in the engine area after the crash. It is a humble reminder that in spite of my capabilities I am far from flawless. A delusion one can easily fall for with enough intelligence crests.

Do you think we can make it?

Yes, if we are not completely unlucky.

For hours they moved through the woodland and caught up to the other truck. Over this time, Marcus fed Janette some sweets and gave her water so she could concentrate on steering the truck. Hammond used a drone camera from the truck to keep the mountains in sight. Halfway to the portal the core finally exploded and they watched as the whole mountain range strangely curved around a center point. Light shifted in absurd ways and a moment later the mountain range blasted apart. Giant rocks flew all over the land and landed even beyond the trucks. Then the boiling lifeblood of the planet exploded towards the sky and massive earthquakes ravaged the land. At this point, Janette took the lead and the other truck followed them through the apocalypse.

They pushed on, through fire rain, sudden cracks in the ground that spewed forth lava, and burning forests. The further they got away from the epicenter the better things got. When they finally passed through the portal and made a few kilometers distance to it they agreed to take a break. Relieved and happy beyond reason they all hugged. Marcus explained to all of them what (most likely) had happened and regretted the loss of one of the trucks.

Alistair laughed and patted Marcus' back, "It is okay. Even with the cargo of the two remaining trucks we will make a killing. More than enough to buy a whole armada of those trucks. Don't worry about it. What is most important is that the two of you made it out alive." A moment of exhausted silence followed as everybody finally dared to relax. "Let's go home," Grace said amidst the silence, and Marcus couldn't have agreed more.