Shades of Gray

22. The Crackle Beam

Carmen zoomed over the forest, speeding away from the V.I.L.E. facility. As Carmen flew, Graham busied himself disabling trackers and finding out where in the world they were (Yukon Territory, Canada, if anyone was wondering). All the while, he kept a close watch on the camera feed that showed what was behind them.

"Carmen, we have a tail!" Graham warned her as he spotted a couple of V.I.L.E. helicopters coming up behind them. "There's tw- three! They're firing at us!"

Carmen narrowed her eyes at the rearview camera and yanked the steering yoke of the helicopter to the left. Graham gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the handle next to him. With his other hand, he fired off a few retaliating missiles at the pursuing helicopters.

A boom rocked the air as one of the V.I.L.E. helicopters was hit by a missile and exploded. Graham let out a cheer.

"Don't celebrate too soon," Carmen warned him through the headset, swerving to the right to avoid a barrage of gunfire from one of the remaining helicopters. "There's still two more left."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of the- LOOK OUT!" Graham yelled as an enemy missile streaked towards them. Carmen quickly shoved the steering yoke downwards and the missile sailed above them, colliding with a huge boulder on the forest floor instead. A forest fire would certainly ensue from the explosion, but Graham was more concerned about other things right now.

He aimed another missile at the pursuing choppers. His growl of frustration when it missed quickly turned into a whoop of victory when the helicopter tried ducking below it as Carmen had, only to hit a tall tree and crash to the ground.
"Two down, one to go," Graham reported to Carmen. She gave him a quick thumbs up.

The pilot of the final chopper was far more skilled then the first two. Despite multiple missiles, rounds of gunfire, and many evasive maneuvers on Carmen's part, they simply couldn't shake them.

Carmen yelped as a hail of bullets crashed against the exterior of their own chopper when she had been too slow to dodge them.

"This can't go on for much longer, or they'll shoot us down." Carmen told Graham. "We have to finish this quickly."

"We're out of missiles and ammunition for the guns." Graham replied darkly. "Let's hope V.I.L.E. put some extra tricks up the sleeves of their helicopters."

Carmen gave him a confused glance at this strange sentence, but Graham ignored her. He scanned the rows of buttons and levers along the control panel of the helicopter, internally lamenting why it had to be so complicated. Finally, he spotted a button labeled, "Crackle Beam."

He had no idea what that was, but he were about to find out. Making sure the pursuing chopper was directly behind them when he did, he pressed the button.

A jet of green light spangled through the air like lightning, striking the chopper behind them. For a moment, it seemed as if nothing had happened. But then the enemy helicopter's blades began spinning far too fast and it jerked up into the air. Its pilot had obviously lost control as the craft kicked into overdrive. The chopper soared higher, higher, its blades seeming to spin at the speed of sound, and then... WHOOSH! The blades flew off the top of the chopper, leaving it to plummet to the ground far, far below.

"Well, that's one way to crash a helicopter," Carmen commented, raising her eyebrows.