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Ray wasn’t normally afraid of water (he left that to Ryan), but when he was being hauled over an ocean by Gavin in a cargobob while sitting in a smoking news van, he got a little shaky.
The lads and gents had separated for the day. Both teams stole a Weasel News van and had to complete a series of tasks. They were probably being hunted down by the LSPD as they spoke, but who really cared. The media with the real news vans were loving it.
Michael was in the driver’s seat of the van, talking over the comms to Gavin.
“Okay, Gav, so make sure the van is secure before you parachute out.”
“Got it,” the pilot replied. The noise chipped into Ray’s ears too, though he wasn’t paying much attention.
“We’re so close, you better not die.”
“I won’t! I won’t!”
The door in the back was open and hanging by a thread on its hinges. They were over the sea, with no sign of land for miles around. If Ray fell he was fucked. So excuse him for tuning out his team’s strategizing and focusing on not moving out of his seat.
He tuned into the Gent’s comms instead, figuring they were probably dicking around. They were.
“You see any fish?” Jack asked. Geoff laughed at her.
“Don’t dip us!” Ryan warned from inside their van. Ray shuddered at the thought and switched back to his own team.
“I don’t feel safe in the back.” Ray announced to the Lads. “Can we close the doors?”
“That’ll just slow us down when it’s time to land.” Michael replied. Easy for him to say; he was safe and secure in the driver’s seat.
Thank God they had covered enough air to make it to a beach. Their cargobob flew close behind the Gent’s. Ray let out an audible sigh of relief, before yelping as Gavin dipped the plane low.
“Pull up!” Ray screamed, feeling the bottom of the van being scraped along a hill.
Gavin only laughed, and it infuriated the sniper. “Whoops. Sorry Ray,”
Things went smoothly until he heard Michael snickering. “Oh shit, we’re going to catch up to them!”
As Gavin kicked the cargobob into overdrive, Michael made faces out the window at the Ryan and Geoff. Geoff didn’t notice, but Ryan flipped him off.
“Uh oh,” was all Gavin heard before the whole van jostled violently. Ray was thrown to the ground, back pressed up against one door and watched in fear as the second door was ripped off it’s hinges and flew into the wind.
Everyone screamed as Jack’s engine’s failed. They spun out into the hillside and crashed in an explosion. The Gents were dead for sure.
“Did you kill them?!” Michael screamed at Gavin. Ray stayed quiet and focused on not hyperventilating.
“Uh--” Gavin tried to reply before Jack’s angry voice cut into their comms.
“Goddammit!” she screamed. Rightfully so, too. Geoff was groaning in the background, and Ryan was whimpering about his burnt wreck of a van.
Michael wasn’t done berating his teammate. “Are you fucking kidding me?! You had the whole sky!” Ray managed a chuckle at that one.
“Now we have to get a new plane!” Jack cried.
“And a new van…” Ryan added.
“You have to fucking wait for us now.” Geoff cut in. “We said no sabotaging!”
Gavin squaked. “I didn’t mean to!”
Ray tuned out. He searched himself for injuries that would heal soon enough. He knew this day wasn’t going to work out as soon as both teams realized they couldn’t flip a dump truck. By the time he was done, Gavin was halfway through his defense analogy and Geoff was yelling through it. Michael just sat back and laughed.
Gavin hovered their cargobob over a busy mountain road and Ray wished that just please, god, Gavin put the van down. He wanted to touch solid ground once more.
Ten minutes, two new vehicles, and a discussion about cereal later, the Gents had caught back up to the Lads.
“Right!” Gav chirped. “Let’s go!”
Jack rolled her eyes. “Just don’t hit me this time, alright?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Michael and Ryan counted down from three to one and both cargobobs took off at the same time. Gavin made it ten feet before he had collided with Jack again.
The van plummeted, bounced crudely off a hill, and then Ray was launched into the roof and promptly passed out.
He missed Michael call Gavin a menace, missed the Gents yelling at him again, missed himself almost fall out of the van in open air, but did wake up in time to hear gunfire and Michael screaming out loud.
“Ray! Ray hurry up! Get out of the van we need this selfie!”
Ray staggered back to life and hurried out to the side of the van with the rest of his team. Michael snapped a photo of his and Gavin’s grinning faces compared to Ray’s confused look on a bleeding head.
“Got it!” Michael shouted. From up on a roof, Geoff kicked their van in anger.
“Damn it! We got one too!” Geoff screamed. Ryan started to argue, but Ray was too out of it to internalize their conversation.
“Go! Go! Go!” Michael screamed at the Lads, pushing Ray into the passenger seat and slamming the door. Gavin was at the wheel and Michael jumped into the back (which Ray discovered to his horror had no doors left).
“We uploaded ours!” Michael was saying to the Gents as Gavin raced out of the military base. The other team weren’t far behind.
“So did we!” Jack rebuked.
“So who won?” Ryan asked.
“My phone’s shot to shit.” Michael replied. “We’ll go home and check on the computer there. Whoever’s picture uploaded first wins Action News Team.”
“That’s fair.” Geoff approved.
With that, Ray promptly let the black spots in his vision take over.
He only awoke to Gavin slamming shut the van door. They were in the parking garage of their apartment complex. All six crammed into the elevator, but only five raced to the computer to check their Twitter and see who’s picture was uploaded first.
Ray opted to lay down on the couch. His head was killing him, but at least the wound had healed.
There were cheers from the Lads and someone popped open a water bottle in place of champagne. It sprayed everywhere, sprinkling Ray head to toe. He coughed so hard he fell to the ground.
Maybe Ryan was on to something when he said he hated water.