Angry Jasper: Forty-nine

They ran along old Michigan Avenue, slowed by Buzz who lagged behind on those stubby little legs. Scrambling over heaping mounds of debris and dodging falling stone Jazz was of a mind to leave the robot behind, but Kate wouldn't hear of it. When Jazz reminded her Buzz was an obsolete bucket of bolts and moldy wires she froze in her tracks and refused to budge. Jazz kicked at a stone and threw up his arms in frustration.

“Remind me again why I risked my ass to rescue you from your fiancé, the monster?”

“You tell me, Jazz.”

He knew what she was asking. “Not on your life!”

Plasma bolts blasted the broken cityscape, drawing nearer. Jazz ignored them, favor instant vaporization to the hell Kate was attempting to put him through.

“Say it, Jazz, or we all fry on this godforsaken street.”

“Oh, do me a favor, lord!”

A bolt of searing hot plasma whipped high overhead, cracking like a deafening whip. Kate stood her ground, refusing to flinch or move a muscle. But it wasn't the imminent threat of death that got him, but the murderously cold stare that broke him.

“I friggin love you, all right,” he said, literally going down on one knee (Because he knew she wouldn't accept any less.).

Kate cocked her head and gave a satisfied smile. “Now was that so hard?”

She'd barely finished the words when a fissure opened up beneath her feet. That satisfied smile turned to shook as the earth disappeared beneath her feet.. Jazz was already diving towards her, catching Katy, quite by accident, with both hands around the throat.
She held tight to his wrists, straining to breathe beneath his grip. Far below, where the ground dissolved and fell away the rebel lair opened up disgorging bodies and everything else into the widening abyss. Jazz ignored it, digging his toes into the dirt to keep from being dragged over the edge with Kate. At the last moment Skullboy and Buzz fell upon his legs and dragged him back from the chasm. Jazz strained and shouted and pulled Kate up. She pulled free of his grip and rubbed her neck.

“I think you actually enjoyed that,” she coughed.

Jazz stood and helped her stand. Tumbling into hell with my hands around your neck? It's been a fantasy of mine for years!”

the battled the shattering planet all the way down the avenue until at last they came to the dry river bed. Jazz spotted the ship, where it was half buried in the bank. It was dented in a few places and covered with dirt and debris, but thankfully none the worse for wear. The ship had been through some tough scrapes, a lot tougher than crashing into that bank. But things were about to get a lot tougher. Jazz was less worried about the ship than he was about his own ass, and the others too.

They had just reached the twisted wreckage of the Michigan Avenue Bridge when the ground suddenly pitched sharply skyward. Whole buildings dislodged from the earth and slid or tumbled towards the dry lake bed, now hundreds of feet below. The four of them clung desperately to a bridge support. It was all they could do to hold on.

Reaching the ship seemed all but impossible now. The rain of debris from above grew and grew until it all seemed utterly hopeless. Jazz could feel those precious final minutes pounding away in his chest. It was all he could do just hold on and keep from being pummeled and smashed like a grape as the city and the planet disintegrated around them.

The beam of energy was weakening now, but the damage to the planet was irreversible. The crust had shattered like an egg, and the planet might have survived if that was as far as things went. But the beam sliced a hole deep into the mantle until the molten core poured into the breach. It threw the planet out of balance, like a loaded pair of dice. The entire planet shuddered violently, but this time it wasn’t resistance to the beam but a death throe.

When the earth pitched upwards it had dislodged the ship from the riverbed. Jazz watched as it began to slide down the steep bank towards the bridge. Clear to the other side of the river, it was too damn far away for all of them to reach together. At the pace of their progress Jazz didn’t see much chance in reaching it before it slid away forever. What really got him was that the thing didn’t simply tumble away where it was gone forever. Instead it sort of teased him, bumping, catching and skidding along the slope of the bank.

“Ain’t gonna make it,” he told himself. He looked over at Katy. She had a hold of the kid and it was all she could do to hang on. Next to her, clinging tight to a support, the pudgy little robot was all but useless.