Coal wanted nothing to do with this.
There was nothing he felt he could contribute anyway.
He was going to make a run for it.
The others would follow if they were smart, which he doubted more and more by the second.
He took off to his right, heading for the wooden plank connecting the two rooftops.
The red scorpion had a bead on him, though. With Zank still wailing away on the tail, it rushed forward past Venny, knocking her aside with its claw, and bounded toward Coal.
Venny flew backward and crashed into the other machine’s side as it turned to keep its eye on Marl. She rolled on the ground, trying to avoid getting trampled by one of its feet, but was unsuccessful. One of them crushed her left arm and she screamed.
It lifted up only a second later to continue turning, but the damage was done. Venny’s arm was a mangled mess.
“V!” Zank cried.
Both he and Marl stopped what they were doing and leapt to their comrade’s aid. Zank flung himself off the red scorpion’s tail, landing in a rough roll on the rooftop and stumbling as he righted himself to run for her. Marl was already at her side, picking her up off the ground, when Zank arrived.
Coal was careful getting up onto the wooden plank and managed to get halfway across it before the red HM-3 ruined things. Its claw came crashing down on the wood, destroying the side propped up on the office roof.
Feeling the makeshift bridge collapsing at his feet, Coal took a chance and leapt forward, stretching his arms out as far as he could to grasp the Starlite’s ledge.
His fingers brushed against the building’s ledge and he gripped tight, his body slamming into the side of it. He was distressingly out of shape, which had never been more obvious to him than in this moment. He huffed and sputtered, trying to pull his body up onto the club’s roof.
Behind him, he could hear the HM-3 pacing back and forth. Waiting to see if he succeeded or not before making its next move.
Coal’s boots scraped against the building as he tried scrambling up its side, using whatever small amount of upper body strength he possessed to hoist himself up onto the roof. His muscles strained and his lungs were fit to burst, but eventually he threw himself over the ledge and breathed with heavy relief as he lay on his back.
There was no time to celebrate his victory, however. The bobcat had decided on what to do.
And Coal was now on a different roof.
Farther away.
He suddenly realized what that meant.
Given that he was laying on his back, he did not actually see it happen this time, but he had witnessed it during his previous run-in with these machines. He knew that the tip of this HM-3’s tail had opened up, spitting out a round mechanical device nearly identical to the Fireball-S used in Dend’s office. This one, though, would have a yellow stripe rather than red.
The ball landed with a clunk fifteen feet away from Coal, who turned to look at it but could not muster the strength to stand and run. Not that there was anywhere to run to—the only non-lethal way off the roof was the ladder on the other side of the device.
So he braced himself.
The round device exploded in a flurry of lightning bolts. They shot outward, reaching for anything they could touch, which in this case was the Starlite’s huge neon sign.
Electricity crackled fiercely and blew out the sign’s neon tubes, enveloping the entire rooftop in darkness. The only remaining light came from the lightning bolts that were still whipping around in search of targets.
Luckily for Coal, it seemed the bobcat had only employed a Lightning-M. If he’d gone for the L, Coal would either be unconscious or dead, and given what these bobcats intended to do to him he felt he was dead either way.
He needed to act fast if he was going to get out of there. But he hadn’t been in Vinnag long, and he had no idea where he could realistically hide from these people. It was obvious he couldn’t stay in the city anymore. He might not even be able to collect the payment for this job.
Coal sat up and saw the scorpion was readying to lob another ball of lightning at him. He also saw that Marl had moved Venny to the other side of the roof while Zank was firing on the black scorpion, which was pressing in on them.
Marl had seemingly lost his gun at some point, and so was simply watching Zank shoot at the bobcat while he stood guard in front of Venny. She had since passed out from the pain and lay limp on the rooftop.
The wolverine’s attention shifted to the red HM-3, which was stepping up onto the roof’s ledge to position its tail at a better angle for its next volley.
Marl saw this as an opportunity. He ran forward.
Oh, shit, Coal thought, not anticipating this to go well at all.
The bobcat was still aiming his scorpion’s tail and unable to see the wolverine charging behind him. The tail’s tip opened just as Marl collided with the back of the machine.
Its footing was precarious, and with its heavy weight, even the slightest unexpected shift was enough to throw it off-balance. The HM-3 tipped forward, the front of it now pointing downward at the alleyway below.
The bobcat tried readjusting the feet to get a better grip on the roof, but Marl gave one more powerful shove, and that was enough to send it hurtling over the edge.
Coal grinned as the red scorpion plunged, shooting out another Lightning-M as it did so.
The ball’s ruined trajectory sent it flying into the side of the Starlite, erupting in a spray of sparks on the stone building.
Marl and Coal both watched as the HM-3 careened toward the earth, crashing into the alley in a fiery explosion. The machines seemed difficult enough to disengage from under normal circumstances; Coal saw no way that the bobcat would be able to escape the wreckage in time. If he had even survived the fall in the first place.
Suddenly the black rabbit who managed the Starlite popped his head out from the panel that housed the ladder. Spotting Coal, he shouted, “What the fuck is going on out here?”
“No time,” said Coal, running toward the man, tripping over himself and nearly falling flat on his face. “Is there another board?” he spat out, slurring his words.
The rabbit hadn’t processed the question, instead looking up at his broken sign and asking, “What in all the fucking hells happened to my sign?” His left ear was twitching uncontrollably.
“No time!” Coal shouted again. He grabbed the rabbit’s face and forcefully turned it to look him in the eye. “Is there another piece of wood up here? Or in your office?”
But the man ignored him yet again when his eyes trailed to the other roof and he saw what was going on. The black HM-3 was snapping at Zank, who still couldn’t get the upper hand on the bobcat driving it.
“Hey!” Coal screamed.
Still twitching, the rabbit nodded mindlessly. He pulled himself up onto the roof and ran away from Coal into the dark. There was a scraping sound punctuated by Zank’s continued gunfire before the rabbit returned with a length of wood.
“This long enough?” he asked.
“You tell me,” said Coal.
The rabbit shrugged. “All I’ve got.”
Now the marten poked her yellow head out from the ladder. “What’s going on?” she asked.
The rabbit had no patience for her right now. He turned and shouted, “Go back inside and calm the girls down!”
Her head disappeared in a flash.
Coal picked up the other end of the long board and helped the rabbit carry it over to the roof’s edge. Marl was still near the edge on the opposite roof, watching them.