Chapter Text
Skull was a stunt driver for a reason, and the other Arcobaleno didn't seem to understand exactly what that meant. Although it wasn't entirely uncommon that a mission went downhill, this was the first time that he had been made their designated driver. Which is why there was no way on earth he was not taking advantage of this opportunity. The thought made him laugh malevolently.
“Lackey, shut up and focus.”
Reborn, sitting with his legs crossed in the passenger's seat, still hadn't moved the barrel of his gun away from his head as Skull hotwired the car. Trying to ignore him, Skull focused on identifying and cutting the correct wires from under the steering wheel as fast as he could.
Honestly, Reborn was terrible at motivating people. Skull thought he needed to attend a leadership seminar. Or maybe one on how to be a decent human being.
Interrupting his train of thought, Fon suddenly leapt through the open door, gracefully seating himself on the furthest seat from the door while leaving space for their missing companions.
Breathing hard, he panted, “Lal and Colonnello should be here in a second. Where were you, Verde?”
“One of their men had some interesting flame data,” Verde snapped from the seats they'd erected in the boot. “I collected it, fought and got out of there.” He was uncomfortably squished next to Viper, and Skull felt a thrill of vindication that the scientist was annoyed.
Served him right, the sadist. Skull snorted and focused on starting the car. Fingers moving like lightning, Skull deftly entwined the exposed power wires below the steering column, before rapidly stripping two others and lightly touching them together. Needless to say, he had plenty of experience with this sort of thing.
With a jolt, the car roared to life, and he whooped in excitement, dropping himself into the driver's seat and buckling in just as Lal burst in the door, followed by Colonnello, who was still firing upon their pursuers with a sub-automatic machine gun.
“Just drive!”
“GO, GO, GO!”
Not even waiting for the door to close, Skull revved the engine, and put his foot down. Heh. They asked for it.
With the horrible sound of screeching tyres on pavement, the car went from zero to a hundred and fifty in ten seconds and Skull whooped in excitement as he felt his head press against the back of his seat with the sudden acceleration.
Colonnello screeched as he almost fell out of the open door, and was rapidly reeled in by Lal. He lost his machine gun, though. Once the door had been slammed shut, and Skull couldn't help himself. It was in his nature to be a jackass.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome onboard this super cool mafia van, with service from right here right now to until Reborn-senpai stops aiming his gun at my head.” Enjoying the exasperated looks on their faces in the rear view mirror, he continues. “Please keep your seat belts fastened and enjoy our complimentary turbulence~.”
With that he slammed on the breaks, skidding around a sharp corner at a dangerously high speed, keeping the accelerator all the way down.
Colonnello, Lal and Fon promptly fell over one another due to the momentum and the fact their seatbelts were not fastened yet. They hit the outside wall of the van with more than a little bit of force, yelping as they piled on top of one another.
“To operate your seat belt insert the metal tab into the buckle and pull tiiiiight!” He snorted at the looks on their faces.
In the passenger seat, he could see that Reborn was starting to have an inkling that this was a very bad idea. Too late. He almost wanted to cackle at the thought. He was going to have some fun.
Skull continued in a serious voice, with an added mocking undertone that he was sure none of the other Arcobaleno missed. “It works just like every other seat belt; if you don’t know how to operate one you probably shouldn’t be out in public unsupervised.”
“Oi, kora, just you wait until-!”
Interrupting Colonnello's protests, Skull slammed on the brakes to pull off a sudden 180-degree lateral spin to skid into the opposite lane of traffic, leaving trails of burnt rubber and smoke on the tarmac behind them.
In the passenger seat, Reborn had a look on his face that Skull had seen on many of his other passengers: it was the one most people made when they wanted to throw up or jump out the window to escape. He was probably fully aware by now that he was in for the ride of his life.
“Alas,” Skull grinned, “smoking and annoying the driver are prohibited for the duration of the ride, but guns and live ammunition are very much not. Feel free to blast those guys chasing us into oblivion. It would be much appreciated really.”
“No way in hell, idiot! I need my hands to hang on for dear life!”
“It's impossible to aim with your psychotic driving!” Lal hissed.
Skull let out a maniacal laughter and floored the accelerator pedal, beginning to manoeuvre the van through the surrounding vehicles at hilariously high speeds. He had timed the spin perfectly so they could whip around and continue again as fast as possible without doing a barrel roll due to the inertia.
Unfortunately, this usually had the side effect of making the passengers feel like they wanted to throw up.
“You will find the safety briefing card in your seat pocket.” Skull continued to bullshit like a professional. “It has lots of nice pictures. I find it makes a very nice fan on hot days.”
He was going to milk this opportunity for all it was worth.
“Stop making fun of us, idiot!”
“Shut it, lackey.” Reborn snapped.
Ohhh, he was going to take a more ‘fun’ route for that. Spotting a bridge over another road, Skull gunned over it, eyeing the rear-view mirror for their pursuers.
“Today’s ride should take about two hours, but luckily I know a whole ton of shortcuts so we might arrive a little early.”
“Skull, if we die here, I will come back from the afterlife and- HOLY SHIT!”
With that, Skull yanked the wheel right with no warning and drove straight off the overpass. Screams echoed around the car and there was a lot of flailing about as people hit the roof, windows and each other in their panic. Oh, Reborn was totally going to absolutely murder him after this.
Worth it.
As intended, the van performed a perfect flip and roughly landed on the road below in between two other vehicles. Skull wasted no time in speeding up and weaving through the other traffic like a maniac.
“Vans aren't supposed to flip, you absolute imbecile!” Verde shrieked, basically hugging the seat in front of him. Fon had his eyes screwed tightly closed, and Viper was using her mist flames to create ropes to tie herself to the seat.
Skull smirked and Verde paled in the backseat, “Watch me!”
For that, Skull set about proving them wrong by performing as many flips and dangerous stunts as he possibly could using the terrain around them. He didn't hesitate to use buildings, overpasses, other cars or basically any drop off that was above five meters tall as ramps for various stunts, jumps and flips.
Of course, Skull was having a great time, but his passengers weren't. The pursuers lost them around five minutes ago, but there was no way in hell Skull was going to tell them that.
“Focus on the road, Skull! I haven't gotten married yet!" Fon yelped as the van once again did a flip while Skull nonchalantly examined his makeup in the rear-view mirror in mid-air.
“Don't you guys have even a little bit of faith in me?” he whined petulantly, turning around in his seat and pouting despite the fact they were going over a hundred and thirty kilometres per hour.
“NO!” Skull had never seen the Arcobaleno so united with a single opinion before.
Far from the usually stoic soldier she was, Lal was hugging Colonnello for dear life, eyes screwed shut and insulting the parents of every single person in listening range with a surprisingly wide range of colourful vocabulary under her breath. They had their seatbelts on tightly now.
And, even better, “Are you praying in the back there, Verde?” Skull snickered.
“I'm going to need divine intervention to survive your suicidal driving at this rate!” the scientist snarled back, hands clasped together in desperate prayer.
“Mou, I have a concussion from your psychotic driving, Skull, I'm going to need monetary compensation.” Viper sounded from beside him, her voice a strained sort of calm. Skull ignored her.
Fon was chanting, “I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die,” on repeat under his breath and Reborn was clutching the overhead car handle so hard his knuckles were white.
Their eyes met, and Reborn smiled unkindly at him, eyes furious. “You are dead, lackey.”
He merely cackled at their protests, flipping Reborn the bird in the passenger seat and pressing the accelerator down even further.
Skull was honestly a little sad when he pulled up at the front of their hideout. But what he wasn't sad about was watching the rest of the Arcobaleno try to disembark.
The door slammed open and Colonnello tumbled out of the van as fast as he could, and Skull swore that he was crying with relief while he lay on the hard ground. Lal rapidly followed, joining him on the floor while Reborn used the bonnet to support his shaking legs. Verde had run off to throw up in a bush somewhere, Fon was on his knees with his eyes closed next to Colonnello, and Viper was still catatonic in her seat.
Wanting to have the last laugh, he announced loudly, smirking, “Thank you for choosing Skull-sama's Joyrides and hope you enjoyed your trip!”
With that, Skull hightailed it out of there before the others could recover enough to beat him up.
Yells of outrage echoed behind him.