image [https://imgur.com/OLFcBSF.jpg]
----------------------------------------
The guys in the suits boarded the train, entering the very first train car full of people. Tension started growing as people were murmuring among themselves in our car.
“Is that the mafia?” A woman spoke quietly to her neighbor.
“You don’t think they’re going to try and shake us down, do you?” Her neighbor replied to her.
Mafia? No wonder they looked like Uncle.
The influence these mafia guys carried with them had to be powerful, especially if the entire train had to come to a complete stop to let them on. Something was telling me that they weren’t just catching a ride. I think they wanted to ‘take us’ for a ride of there own, so to speak.
“Uncle…” I tugged on his coat, furrowing my brow with concern. “What do we do?”
He held a finger to his lips, warning me to stay silent.
I was thinking I could hack into the comm systems and listen in to what was going on in the other area’s, but someone had shut those down, preventing me from accessing them without resetting everything. This was awfully suspicious.
A few heavy boot clad men marched up to the doorway to our car. We all peeked out from our cabin and looked down the hallway, anticipating what the door would soon reveal behind it. Many others were doing the same thing.
The door finally slid open. Four men stepped through it, each more menacing than the last, all decorated like mafia guys.
A particularly big man was last in line, but not the least of them by any means. Bowler Hat Joe was his name, provided to me by frantic murmurs somewhere in the back of the train car. His hat was shaped a little like a bowling ball, and his grin told us he wouldn’t settle for anything less than a strike on his enemies.
He prowled down the aisle, clearly holding a lot of fearful authority over the passengers in each of the cabins. His hand was aimed upwards like he was pointing a two fingered gun.
The patrolling mafia men stopped at our cabin and peeked in. Bowler Hat Joe took a good look at Uncle. A plume of smoke puffed out of his mouth as he chomped on an oversized cigar.
“For a second, I thought you were one of my boys…” he grinchingly smiled. “Heh heh…”
I expected Uncle to reply with something witty, but he just gave him a neutral look. None the less intimidating.
Indena caught the mafia’s eye next, and her face was far more aggressive.
“Hey, look what we have here, a Kanai.” He leaned over Marek to give her a very close stare. “We just so happen to be searching for someone from the east.”
“I ain’t from the east,” Indena replied.
He blew a puff of smoke in her face. She didn’t flinch.
“Your eyes say otherwise.” He pulled out his cigar to tap some of the ash off the end of it. “You didn’t happen to see any little birdies around here, did ya’?”
If he was looking for a bird, it couldn’t possibly be Tori, could it? Why would he even be after him?
“I think you’ve got a screw loose if you think a bird’s on the train,” Indena replied.
Bowler Hat Joe lifted up his finger gun hand, then waved it a few times in Indena’s direction, clearly trying to intimidate her.
“I smell wings around here, and it ain’t fried chicken…” He took a few sniffs, turning toward my set of seats.
Then his pointing finger gun aimed at Yamin.
“What about you, sweetheart?”
Yamin was absolutely too stunned with fear to speak. She was sweating and shaking really badly.
“You work with the church…” Bowler Hat Joe’s finger pointed at her Seven Star shield necklace. “They're pretty well known for taking in lost little birds under their wings.”
She was turning beet red. Her body was burning up. A tense energy was building around her, concentrating mostly on her backpack, where the cursed book had been carefully hidden.
"Not now..." I muttered, worried the book would attack him.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I…I don’t know what bird y-you're talking about…” Yamin managed to stutter out a sentence.
“Come on, girly… It’s sinful to lie, you know?”
“Leave her alone,” Miss Lauri stood. “She doesn't know what you're talking about.”
Bowler Joe straightened out his back and looked at Miss Lauri with confusion.
“You have some nerve talking to me like that, toots.” he said, gaining an angry brow. “You know who we are?”
“When my daughter is being threatened, I tend not to turn a blind eye.”
He extravagantly raised up his finger gun toward Miss Lauri now. Green energy began glowing at the tip of his pointer finger as his thumb raised up.
“Didn’t think I'd need to make an example of someone here, but you types who stand up to me definitely make it easy.”
The energy had built up so much that it took on a bullet-like shape of brown and green magic energy. If he got a shot off, no doubt it would hit hard!
She wasn’t backing down. It was impressive how she wasn’t afraid to stare down this man, protesting his abusive ways to her family. That look on her face reminded me of Indena’s stubborn wrath.
Before I could do anything to protect her, Uncle heroically grabbed Bowler Joe's wrist and twisted it up. The magic bullet fired into the ceiling light and burst like a small explosion.
Sparks rained down on us, causing everyone besides Uncle to duck under the table.
Uncle forcefully shoved Bowler Joe backwards, stumbling the very angry man into his own men.
“If you want to hurt a mother for defending her child, then you'll have to go through me to do it.” He cracked his knuckles like a boss and stepped out into the hallway.
“One of you, versus four of us?” Bowler Joe laughed. “Give me a break.”
“Sounds like an even fight to me.”
Uncle'd easily be able to 4/0 these guys! I bet I could jump right in and beat em' up too! We just couldn't kill them, because that would go against our Commandments to protect a human’s life.
*Ring Ring!* A notification sound went off in my head.
-(1) New Message received!-
Oh? Uncle sent a private message to me through our system chat log. I opened it up. His message icon was a fedora hat. Mine was a unicorn.
U -“Yalda, these men are after the bird kid. Get to the caboose and get them out of here.”-
That’s exactly what I was thinking too. Maybe they were poachers, like Tori and the woman were running away from before.
Y -“Okay, Uncle. Make sure to kick these guys butts!”-
U -“Copy that.”
-CHAT LOG ENDED-
To get past these mafia guys without being spotted, I’d have to wait for Uncle to distract them so I could make my escape. Right now, they were more alert than ever.
“Boys, take em’ out!” Bowler Joe lifted his finger gun and fired a magic bullet at Uncle.
Uncle swiftly kicked Bowler Joe’s arm, causing him to miss. The mafia man retaliated by raising up his other hand to shoot a second magic bullet!
It would have hit Uncle, but Indena launched a fireball intercepting the bullet!
The explosion blasted everyone back a few feet. Uncle’s back hit the wall between two of the cabins, while the mafia man did the same on the other side.
“This is close quarters, watch the friendly fire,” Uncle told her, keeping a calm tone.
“Sorry about that.” Indena stepped up, ready to fight with everything she had. “Let’s end these guys.”
“No killing,” Uncle ordered her. “Anything else is fair game.”
"Don't worry, I'll just break their arms and legs."
Both of them picked their targets and jumped back into the fight. Uncle went for three at once, including the leader of the mafia men. Indena went for one who held up a real tommy gun.
*BANG BANG BANG!*
Bullets blasted out of the barrel, just barely missing Indena with each shot. She was sonic fast, easily able to out match a bullet's speed.
With a snap of her finger, she shot a spark of flame toward the man's gun. It flew right into the barrel and caused the weapon to explode!
*BOOM!*
The mafia gunman's hands were burned, but he wasn’t done. He pulled out a pistol and fired it off a few times, but Indena used the smoke from the previous explosion to get in close and strike him right in the jaw with a fire jetted palm strike!
*POW!*
He lifted up in the air. Indena jumped up along with him, flipping forward once, using the momentum to strike her foot down on him hard. He slammed on the ground and was out cold.
Meanwhile, Uncle went in for a punch, cracking a hard hit on the skull of one of the mafia guys. With a second swing he struck another dude, sending him to the ground.
The second mafia guy who Uncle just hit tried to trip him on his way down, but Uncle’s feet were firmly planted.
Bowler Joe was right behind him, cupping his finger gun hands together and taking aim, preparing a signature move while Uncle was distracted.
“Time for a strike!” he announced as a large magical bullet swelled to life.
*BOOM!*
The giant magic bullet ripped through the air like thunder, crashing against Uncle’s reflexively spawned bubble shield.
*BAM!*
Part of the train car got destroyed from the explosion. Luckily, Marek and the others had been evacuating people, so this battle ground was mostly cleared out.
This was my time to leave too. I turned tail and raced out the train car, heading for the caboose where little Tori was hiding out.
----------------------------------------
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please support me, Taylor The Writer, here on Royal Road! :)
----------------------------------------