(Please refrain from opening the video above until indicated to do so.)

Thus, Joshua found himself speeding down the street so fast his tires left scorch marks on the turns. Whatever thrill he found in watching chase scenes, it was gone. All he knew now was pure terror as he desperately tried to avoid hitting every vehicle in his way.

"Agent Jones, where are we going?" Joshua asked frantically.

Ivy, somehow, was calm. "Do you know the way to the WBBA center?"

"Of course I do!" Joshua shouted.

"No need to yell, even if you're panicking," Ivy snorted. "Just speed up for me, will ya."

The audacity of this woman— Joshua thought indignantly. She was talking to him, for goodness' sakes.

"W-well, then, stop pretending to be so calm!" Joshua retorted.

"Whoever said I was pretending?" Ivy asked.

"I don't know, your face kinda looks like you're trying not to break down?" Joshua yelped. He rounded a corner sharply.

"Pretty sure that's you, big guy," Ivy said.

"Nuh-uh, no chance," Joshua retorted. "I'm perfectly capable."

"Hey, do me a favor. Zip it and speed up because there's a high chance we're being followed," Ivy snapped.

"I'm trying, I'm trying," Joshua huffed.

Ivy stopped and looked up at the rear view mirror, clicking her teeth. "And there they are."

Joshua paled at the sight of the two cars racing behind him, honking their horns obnoxiously, chock-full of masked thugs with their guns out. And of course, he thought with horror, it just had to be Ed driving one of those cars. He swerved violently around the next corner into a back street. The sound of bullets being fired rang out all around.

Part of the back window shattered.

"Flying glass incoming!" Ivy shouted, ducking her head. Joshua jerked the steering wheel in fright as sharp shards of glass struck the windshield and left rather sizable scratches. Something landed on top of the car, causing the wheels to screech uncontrollably as Joshua's car went flying and skidded under a bridge pass.

"GAH, we're all gonna die!" Joshua cried.

Well, if he didn't die, then he'd have to face Karina's wrath for destroying her car.

Ivy stumbled against her seat. "Don't have to swing around that hard. Feels like you're trying to crash," she muttered. In the distance, the faint wailing of police sirens grew louder. "Finally, they sent backup."

Joshua continued to swerve around the traffic, spamming away at the car horn. He wasn't sure if it worked, but based on the amount of panicked people who swerved into different lanes, it looked like it did. "What do we do now?! I think they're gaining on us!" he wailed in a high voice. Indeed, from what he could see through the fractured back window, the cars had begun to catch up.

Ivy pulled on her black leather gloves with a snap. "Relax, I've got this," she said. She unbuckled her seatbelt.

Joshua did a double take. "Whoa, wait! What are you doing?!"

"I'm going out," Ivy said.

"WHAT?!"

"Open the sunroof, Burns."

"B-but that's gonna—"

"OPEN IT!"

Ivy clambered over her seat into the back, readjusting her belt. Joshua went against all the logic he understood—possibly because he was just willing to do anything to get to safety—and opened the sunroof fully. "Screw it," he muttered. He could expect anything at this point.

Well, except for what happened immediately next, of course.

In clambering over the seat, Ivy's feet kicked up the controls in the front a bit, including the volume button and the radio. At first, it was silent.

A split second later, Joshua screamed as the speakers blasted an extremely loud song.

(Here the author recommends scrolling back to the beginning of the page to play the video as background music for the following scene.)

"If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe, I'd been married long time ago—"

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"

"Oi, calm down, you're throwing us around!" Ivy snapped.

"I HATE this song!" Joshua wailed back. His eyes darted around to the rearview mirror as the obnoxious music beat his ears. (FIDADN'TBEEN FER COTTON EYE JOEEEE—)

It was then that he fully realized that Ivy had a holster on her belt. (Well, duh, he thought, since she was the one who shot the weapons away from the thugs back at the movie set.)

Not one holster, actually.

Two holsters.

She could shoot him through the heart and he'd thank her.

His fascination was short-lived, however, as Ivy shouted something and punched her hand through the open roof, and then whipped out one of the guns and hit something with a sickening crack. A black-clad figure fell off the side of the car. Two more followed in succession.

Joshua's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "How did you know they were—"

"I didn't, I just happened to see them there," Ivy said, wiping something off the butt of the gun. She took out the second pistol and glanced up. "Okay, now, speed up, but don't throw me off."

"Uh... Agent Jones, what are you doing?" Joshua asked, trembling.

"I'm pretty sure you've starred in enough chase scenes to know what happens next, Mr. Burns," Ivy said. "Not that I've watched any of your movies."

"Ahem, excuse me, we're not in a movie here! And it's not like I was ever the one being chased!" Joshua snapped. "What am I supposed to do?"

Ivy wrinkled her nose. "Seriously? That's lame, Burns," she sniffed. "Just drive. Don't worry, I'm not gonna kill anyone."

"WHAT?! That's not reassuring at all!" Joshua shrieked.

She didn't answer back. In rapid succession, she'd stuck her entire upper body out through the open sunroof, clicked the safeties off, taken quick aim, and fired both pistols at each engine just as the next enemy shots rang out.

Bang-bang-bang.

It would have been thrilling to see how the scene played out in a movie, with all the chaos flying around such an intense duel; but now, Joshua felt that movies paled in comparison to witnessing it in real life. Everything seemed to go by in slow motion, from the swift cracks of the trigger to the billowing black smoke coming from the cars behind them.

It was exhilaratingly frightening.

Ivy shot at the tires and ducked her head to shield herself from the returning fire. "Ugh, I can barely see what I'm aiming at," she hissed.

From what Joshua could tell, her aim was impeccable, because one car immediately began swerving around and slowing down as if out of control. It ended up hitting the side of a food stall in a magnificent display of exploding fruit.

~"Where did you come from, where did you go?

Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?"~

He suddenly remembered that he was driving, which meant he should not be gawking through the rearview mirrors.

And then he saw the truck right in his path at the intersection.

Cue a screech of the brakes and a sharp swerve, so sharp that the SUV hit the back of the truck and more glass shards fell off the back window. "Watch out! My bad!" Joshua shouted, to everyone in particular. But mostly to Ivy, because she'd been thrown against the open roof very hard due to his reckless ignorance of road rules.

"Watch it!" she growled, catching herself.

"Didn't mean to! Did we lose them yet?" he called.

Ivy rolled her eyes and wrung her hand. "Never mind, it's too risky to use these around here," she muttered, clicking the guns back into their holsters. "Your old friend Ed's still hot on our heels. Take a detour! Keep the car as steady as possible!"

"Nuh-uh, Ed's not my friend!" Joshua hollered. "And I'll try, but why?" Ouch, stupid question, Joshua, he mentally scolded himself.

She didn't need to answer why, because she'd taken that moment to hoist her feet up out of the open roof. And then she'd manually pulled part of the hood back in place, and now she was standing, on the roof of the car, and she had a Beyblade launcher in her hands.

"Okay, I've got a clear view!"

"AGENT JONES?!"

Let it RIP.

In an explosion of light, a gold-and-red Bey flew through the air, dead set on course to Ed's car.

Somehow, that wasn't even the best part. Because Ivy called out, "Icarus! Reverse Card!" to her Bey, and then it swiftly transformed into a boy with flaming yellow wings, and he dive-bombed the car behind them, sending it careening off-course down another road. The police cars whizzed right on after as an immaculate cacophony of panicked screams faded from hearing. "Cotton-Eye Joe" only added to the mystifying wonder.

The boy seemed to shout in jubilee before flying back to Joshua's car. Again to Joshua's shock, he transformed back into a Bey on the way back. Ivy caught it in her hands and quietly dusted off the top.

He could only see her back from the rear view mirror, but he would be lying if he said her billowing hair and and blazing eyes weren't the hottest thing he'd ever seen.

Back down she jumped into the car and tapped his shoulder. "Where are you going?"

Suddenly the world in front of his windshield cleared up. With a sinking dread in his gut, he lamented that he really should've just focused on driving instead of observing the action. Yes, he was close to the WBBA now. No, he couldn't get there, because the car must've gone down the wrong road and now there was a wall impeding him.

He pressed the brake.

Nothing happened.

Frustration turned to panic. "Uh... agent?"

Ivy swore under her breath and reached into the driver's seat, ignoring his indignant admonishments. "I swear I literally have to do everything on these missions," she growled, swerving the steering wheel three times so fast that the whiplash nearly snapped Joshua's neck. A tiny, dragged-out, high-pitched whimper came out of his mouth as the car flew through the air into a narrow alleyway, crashing over the dumpsters and the debris and the various scraps until it went soaring into the open.

The world seemed to go by in slow motion. Then it went in extremely quick motion as the vehicle crash landed back onto the asphalt, sending both figures tumbling forward until they found themselves splat against the windshield. With a few more turns around the area, the car finally screeched to a halt, barely missing the wall.

Suddenly the engine sputtered and died, and there was silence. Joshua still couldn't find in himself the ability to move past shivering.

There was a short period of cricket noises when all he could do was sit still in shock.

Ivy groaned and rescued herself from the dashboard. "Never doing that again," she muttered.

As Joshua stared at her, the first words that spilled out of his mouth were:

"Did you just attack a car with a Bey?"

______

The song was a last-minute decision. I hate the song; however, the quality of its meme-ability was too good to discard. Cotton Rye Joe is too classic of a meme to be dated, imo.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed looking at those drawings, because I literally put zero effort into making them look nice. (Don't worry, I'll put in more effort later.)