The Vulture

The Vulture is the ninth Track in Kiwi Blitz. It is named for “The Vulture” by Pendulum.

Summary
Despite a strong defensive effort by Steffi, Gear almost kills her. At the last minute she's rescued by Ben, and they are friends again. (This episode continues in Track 10.)

Plot
Pretitle pages: As we left off in the previous track, Steffi and Chandra are in the truck, about to drive off with Kiwibot, when Gear appears sitting on the gate. For some reason Steffi gets out of the truck and engages Gear in conversation, asking what Gear has against her. "I may be here to kill you, but that doesn't mean it's personal."

Investigating the source of the blood on Gear's blade, Steffi discovers that Gear stabbed the guard (the one Steffi and Chandra left incapacitated by a sleeper patch) in the heart. It's here that the story abruptly turns dark; the previous time we saw Gear, she was menacing, but didn't do any serious harm to people (as opposed to Kiwibots) despite her efforts. Steffi gets it; she knows there's a good chance she's about to die. And then Chandra pops out of the truck to ask what's wrong. Although small and young, Chandra has shown herself to be an asset in a fight, but Steffi shows her fundamental courage and decency by wanting to keep Chandra safe. "Go on without me. You should get out of here." Then the title page.

Chandra's brave, too; she wades right in. "Is this lady giving us trouble?" But she's outclassed; Gear soon has her hand around Chandra's throat. But then she decides "It actually kind of confuses things if I leave both your bodies here." So Gear, too, tells Chandra to leave. This isn't well justified, and maybe isn't really necessary, because Steffi jumps in and kicks Gear's arm away from Chandra. "I told you to get out of here." Chandra gets angry; as she sees it, Steffi and Gear are both condescending to her. "Fine. It's none of my business.  You two weirdos have your big sexy showdown without me." Steffi is confused: "Wait what?"

Chandra drives away, muttering to herself: "None of my business... I shouldn't even be here." Her panels alternate with the Gear/Steffi fight, in which Steffi is outmatched but putting on a determined try. Then Chandra drives past the blood spatter from Gear stabbing the guard. "... No way... Don't die..."

Steffi puts her Taekwondo to good use until Gear grabs her ankle mid-kick. Gear apologizes that the gun feature of her arm was broken when they last met, "so this'll be unpleasant." But Steffi fends off that attack, and lasts four more pages of battle and weird commentary from Gear, until Gear slashes Steffi across the torso, knocking her to the ground. "It's been fun, kid," says Gear as she prepares to deliver the coup de grace."  But just then a bright light shines at Gear, and we see, out of focus in the rain, a motor scooter, with a yellow-and-orange-haired rider.

It's Ben, of course, arriving just in time. "You sure are popular with the boys," says Gear, who still thinks the Raccoon is a boy. Ben gets right to the point: "Can you stand?" Steffi is in severe pain, but now that Ben is with her, her spirit is back; she can smile while half-joking "I think so, but I might need some help." Ben understands that what Steffi needs right then is for him to take her in stride rather than asking "are you okay" questions; he instead replies "Pathetic."

"What do you think you're doing, kid?" asks Gear. "Taking my friend home." says Ben with a scowl. "Are you serious, kid?" smirks Gear, but she doesn't realize that now she's up against someone who really took Taekwondo class seriously. Ben throws Gear, who lands on her back in a street full of rainwater. "God she's heavy," says Ben, reminding us that Gear is half metal. Steffi's "I see you got my gift by the way" is drowned out by approaching police sirens. Ben and Steffi take off. Gear has no idea how she ended up on the ground, but laughs about it.

But how did Ben get there? We flash back to earlier that evening, as Ben is opening presents. With only one left, he says, "That's the one Steffi's dad brought, right? I'll open this later.  You know Steffi always gives me stupid joke presents to embarass me." Now the timestamps come back. At 9:23 Ben drops the present on his bed. At 11:23 he's reading a book, trying to be nonchalant. At 1:01am his face is right next to the box, staring at it. Finally he tears it open: "I refuse to fear your embarrassment tactics." Nothing jumps out at him; it's just a pair of headphones. When he puts them on he hears a recorded Steffi: "Sorry for dragging you into my hero stuff. I know sometimes I get... wrapped up in an idea, and I'm not good at thinking things through like you do."

So now he wants to talk with Steffi, but he starts by calling 42. "Is Steffi busy at the moment?" 42: "Unfortunately I can't confirm that personally at the moment, as she's rather far from me and I've been asked to wait here." This leads to a string of questions from Ben, starting with "where is she" and continuing until he's heard the full story about the planned rescue of Kiwibot from the police. We watch his face as he concludes that Steffi probably needs rescuing (although presumably he isn't expecting Gear, because 42 isn't).

Back to the present. Everything happens at the same time, each scene on its own page. On Ben's scooter, Steffi talks him into taking her home instead of to the hospital. It takes a lot of talking, because her wound looks serious.

Meanwhile, Chandra parks the truck at the meeting point and finds 42. She's dismayed to discover that 42 is a robot, and that Steffi didn't warn her. 42 asks where Steffi is, since she's supposed to be in the truck. "We... er... got split up." "Oh, all right then." Chandra thinks "No questions?" but she doesn't take the initiative to tell 42 that Steffi is in mortal danger.

Meanwhile, back at the storage facility, several police cars are arriving. Gear takes off, but just as she's opening a manhole through which to escape, Reed swings at her with his baton. But she senses this and ducks, just enough so that Reed knocks her blue wig off her head. We see half a head of brown hair and the other half hairless plastic. And with that, the track ends.

Commentary
Chandra's failure to alert 42 to Steffi's danger is the only serious moral failure on the part of anyone in Team Steffi anywhere in the story. We are to understand that she's angry at Steffi for blowing her off, but after she sees the guard's blood on the wall she understands what's at stake. Maybe the prospect of a conversation with a robot disconcerts her?

Gear's alleged reason for not wanting to kill Chandra doesn't make sense. "It actually kind of confuses things if I leave both your bodies here"? Confuses things for whom? The police? Yeah, it's a comic; so what if the story isn't seamless. But this author very rarely leaves such noticeable rough edges in the plot.

The overlapping timestamps leading up to Ben's arrival are an effective technique, though, even though all that "we're not friends any more" in the previous track makes it clear that they'll be reconciled by the end of this one.

Sound Bite
We're at the police station, just a bit earlier. Officers Flores and Barnes, the ones who were in the storage unit, call for backup after the sleeper patches wear off. The dispatcher sends two cars out, but Reed, who should be at home but is catching up on paperwork, declares that he's going too. As he's driving we hear police radio reports of the events of the previous track.

Then comes a guest strip by John Wigger, which really wouldn't be funny if explained in text, so just go read it yourself.