Loud noises and yelling were muffled and coagulated with the fuzz and static that wrapped around Aaron’s brain. The dwarf peered through squinting eyes that burned from the bright sunlight that shone through a car window. The vehicle shook and went over something, which caused Aaron to jostle and bounce hard in his awkward position between the floor and the seat.
"Hey, buddy.” It was Tommy’s voice that was partly muted from the fuzz. “You okay?”
While feeling blindly for his shaded spectacles, the dwarf waved his other hand as if fanning away his friend’s concern.
“He doesn’t look too good, Corey,” Tommy said, his voice a little more clear now. “We need to disengage from this chaos you started.”
The van shook and bounced again, causing Aaron to knock his head hard against something. The pain from the strike blasted away the fuzziness and elicited a curse from the dwarf. He righted himself in the vehicle’s seat, found his shades, and put them on.
The vehicle was a large van that could have sat twelve people—if the middle row wasn’t missing. Jackie was in the rear bench seats with Corey and Miko. She was waving her hands about in that strange portal magic way; the other two had and were taking occasional shots out the back of the van—which was missing its doors.
Aaron rubbed his head, trying to massage through to the part of his brain that could not remember how he got here.
“Hey, Aaron! You back with us, buddy?”
“Tommy! What in the depths is—” Aaron groaned miserably when he heard his voice. “Oh, fuck-nuggets. How in the depths is my voice still small?!”
“Guess you still got some growing to do.”
“Really, Tommy? Dwarf jokes?”
“Not a dwarf joke, buddy. Just saying that shrink potion probably hasn’t worn off yet.”
Aaron felt pretty close to his normal size, but looking at how much space was left in his seat, he suspected Tommy was probably right.
“You think you’re still ready to pull off the exit part of this plan?” The large bronze elf asked from the front seat
“Plan? What plan, Tommy?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Oh, for magma’s sake!” Aaron pushed hard on his head and hit it a couple times. “Gimme a sec.”
Aaron – Investigation skill 12 vs. Normal DT – EXCEPTIONAL SUCCESS
With the exceptional success came a myriad of details within the vehicle that brought a flood of memories to the forefront of the dwarf’s mind.
# # #
“You! You’re that other elf on the street when I was working with Officer Gundar earlier today. You’re supposed to be under arrest!”
The dwarven investigator knew that was Officer McGrady talking. Aaron was still in the full effects of the shrink potion, small enough to fit in the utility belt of the police officer escorting Jackie from her cell. Officer McGrady wasn’t supposed to be here—his presence, and impeccable memory, were like lighting a candle next to a great bag of foulness. Like Aaron, Corey was keenly aware of the situation’s volatility, and the street elf was intent on accelerating the explosive event.
“Well, Boomas, looks like we’s doin’ plan B on the blue boys.” As Corey spoke, he reared back his fist—it was a great ball of burning infernal red.
The next moment was a blaze of chaos as the police officers all began shouting commands and drawing their weapons. The Boomers, half-baked street elves all in mismatched police uniforms standing behind Corey, also drew their weapons. Aaron had popped his head through the opening of the utility pocket on the cop’s belt. However, the pocket’s cover was locked, and Aaron suddenly found his head stuck in the opening.
Shots rang out, bullets flew, cops and gangsters dove for cover, and Corey pounded his infernal fist into the ground. The strike to the ground created a shockwave that blasted out in a hundred-and-eighty-degree arc in front of the street elf. Its impact rolled fast and hard, causing the cops to fly in the air or get thrown to the ground. Dust billowed, and glass burst. Decorative plants, electrical wires, and phones were scattered about the transfer office, hanging from odd angles and impaling walls and cops.
The impact blew against Aaron’s exposed face, forcing the skin around his eyes to be pushed up into a squint and his lips to flap wide and loose, exposing his teeth. The officer he was riding with was flying backward through the air; Aaron guessed they both probably had the same shockwaved face. The officer landed hard on his back and slid into a nearby wall. Despite being momentarily strangled, the dwarf was grateful he had climbed in a pocket on the officer’s side and not one on the officer’s back.
A crack and thud was heard from behind, and the officer Aaron was riding with spun around to see what made the sound—causing Aaron to feel like he was being swung by his neck. The sound turned out to be Tommy knocking out the officer who was escorting him.
“Sorry, man. I didn’t want to hurt you.” The large bronze elf apologized to the unconscious cop.
The officer who carried Aaron in his pocket raised his pistol and aimed it shakily at Tommy, who was going through the unconscious cop’s pockets.
“Tommy!” Aaron’s shrill, miniaturized voice rang out from the police officer’s side.
The officer jerked his head down and swung his arm up to see where Aaron’s voice had come from. His wide, uncomprehending eyes stared at the miniature dwarf’s head poking out of his utility pocket.
Aaron’s head glowered back at the officer. He stuck out his tongue and taunted the officer, yelling, “Boogah!”
The officer dropped his sidearm and jumped up from the ground while tearing at his armor, screaming at the highest pitch his vocal cords could reach. “Get it off! A rat! A rat! Get it off!”
“I’m no rat!” Aaron yelled back. But it was to no avail. The police continued to jump and scream while futilely scrambling at the fastenings of their body armor.
There was a thud, and the officer went limp, but Tommy caught them before they could fall to the ground. He smiled down at Aaron. “Hey, Buddy!”
An alarm rang throughout the precinct as red lights flashed high in the walls. Corey was next to Jackie, unlocking the cuffs from her wrists. “It’s zoomin’ time, boyos! We’s gotta go!”
Aaron looked up to Tommy. “Can you help me out of here, elf?”
“Sure thing, buddy.” Tommy smiled as he unlatched the pocket cover and pulled Aaron out of the pocket. “Say, what’s up with your voice? It sounds so tiny.”
“Can we please just get out of here before the rest of the precinct shows up?”
Tommy nodded and put Aaron in the breast pocket of his leather jacket. As he turned to head out the door with Corey, the sound of a pistol clicked and locked behind him. The island elf stopped and turned to look at the sound.
“Don’t move, you!” Officer McGrady stood with a thin line of blood running down the side of his head. He held his sidearm with both hands, aiming directly at the center of Tommy’s chest. “You gangsters think you’re above the law. Well, you’re not! You’re under arrest.”
“Easy, kid,” Tommy said with his hands raised. He took a step toward McGrady.
“Don’t you come any closer!” McGrady pivoted and raised his aim slightly. “You’re not getting away this time.”
“Kid, I’m just doing my job—like you. If you want to arrest me, fine. But it will have to be a different day. That cool?”
“All you gangsters are the same.” McGrady’s lip curled. “Filthy, disgusting, murders only out for blood and money. I’m not letting you go and cause more pain to others!”
As Officer McGrady spoke, a decorative plant slowly rose from behind him. Tommy and Aaron maintained straight faces despite their curiosity as they watched the plant slowly wobble in the air until it was directly over the officer’s head.
“I won’t!” McGrady continued in his tirade. “I won’t let you hurt good people!—”
The potted decorative plant dropped on McGrady’s head, causing the cop’s eyes to roll back in his head and the rest of his body to fall limply to the floor. Standing behind the fallen McGrady was Swift, who still had both arms raised high from dropping the plant.
“Swift!” Tommy exclaimed happily. “Great to see you made it!”
The skinny orc made a few hand gestures while pointing to the unconscious McGrady.
“Ah, don’t worry about him,” Tommy said assuredly. “This is only the second time he’s been hit on the head today. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Yo!” Corey yelled out from the door. “Let’s go!”
Commotion could be heard down the hall as reinforcements rushed to the transfer office. Swift, Tommy, and Aaron nodded to each other, and together, they ran outside the precinct.
Piercing rays of light shined down from the brilliant afternoon sky, threatening to overcome the protective shading of Aaron’s spectacles. The dwarf furrowed his brow, attempting to block any errant rays of light that might find their way around the edges of his shaded spectacles. “The sun is brighter than it should be.”
Tommy laughed. “It’s going to take a minute to get used to that new voice of yours.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’m going to get back to my normal size.”
Tommy and Swift ran, following Corey and Jackie to a large van parked outside the precinct. The other Boomers whooped and hollered as they fanned out and jumped into other vehicles parked around the precinct.
“Dwarfie!”
Aaron’s head snapped to the familiar voice in the back of the van. It was Miko, waving excitedly with one hand while holding up a submachine gun in the other. The dwarf grumbled an acknowledgment as he attempted to extricate himself from the breast pocket in Tommy’s leather jacket.
“I’m so happy you made it!” She said, practically bouncing in her seat.
“Bookie,” Corey was riding shotgun, talking to the van’s driver. “Let’s ride!”
Bookie hit the gas, and the van lurched forward with the engine revving near the red lines.
The sudden acceleration forced everyone to fall back. Aaron nearly fell out of Tommy’s pocket.
“Hey, Buddy,” Tommy reached up, allowing the dwarf to place both feet on his hand. “Don’t you think it would be safer up here?”
“It’s getting too tight,” Aaron smoothed down his trenchcoat and straightened the shoulder bag. “Does anyone still have a pair of neutralization cuffs?”
Swift, who was on Tommy's other side, pulled a pair of glowing green cuffs from his side. He made a few gestures before extending the cuffs in Aaron’s direction. Aaron was pretty sure the gestures were regarding the orc’s shoulder bag.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to give back your bag. Let me just get back to normal size first. The cuffs will help speed the process.”
The orc answered affirmatively, then motioned, asking where to place the cuffs.
“Just put them here, on the other side of Tommy.”
Satisfied, Aaron hopped down from Tommy’s hand and stood in one of the cuffs, letting the neutralization effects wick away the shrink potion effects.
“Ah! No more mini-dwarf?” Miko pouted in the back.
“No, Miko. I am not staying this size.”
“But you’re so cute!”
The dwarf grumbled an incoherent response while sitting in one ring of the cuffs, focusing on getting bigger.
Corey’s trill laugh burst from his throat as he looked back from his seat up front. “‘Ey, Tommy! Did yu’s know yu’s boy ther’s a Vision?”
“A what?” Tommy looked between Corey and Aaron, trying to determine if this was some odd joke.
“Don’t listen to him.” Aaron adjusted his position and tried keeping one leg inside the cuff.
“‘E’s a Vision, cuz!” Corey continued as the van bounced from speeding over a pothole. “Frimslaya ‘as died and spoken to Death through a vision. ‘E can see things now; he knows what needs to ‘appen.”
“You died?” Tommy turned to Aaron in anxious confusion.
“Just forget about it, alright?” Aaron tried repositioning the cuff on his other leg while sliding closer to the seat belt.
“That ain’t nothin’ to forget about, Frimslaya. Yu’s canno be another leaf on a tree no more.”
“Shut up, Corey.” Aaron felt he was getting bigger but was still too small for the seatbelt to be used conventionally. The dwarf focused on puzzling out the seatbelt to ignore the street elf riding shotgun.
“No, Frimslaya. Yu’s gotta know. Yu’s can’t just consume like them otha knotweeds out there. Yu’s got a purpose now.”
“Corey, seriously, shut your slag trap.”
“Hold on,” Tommy jumped back in the conversation. “You actually died, buddy?”
Corey continued his dialogue as if his words held the most weight of importance. “Flowers die to make perfume. Fruit dies to make juice. Trees die to make lumber. Everythin’ dies for the people to consume. Like knotweed, they consume, consume, consume! What do yu’s think needed dyin’ to make them healin’ elixas, huh, Frimslaya?”
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Aaron glowered at Corey but did not answer. He did not want to know what dead thing he had been drinking to heal himself from the physical moxie strike earlier in the day.
Corey turned to face the front of the van. “Yu’s donna wanna know what I do, what I kill, to make things the people consume.”
The van’s engine revved as it sped down forward; only the tires tried to speak as they thumped over the uneven city road.
Corey turned back around to face Aaron. “Yu’s canno be a cosuma no more, Frimslaya. Yu’s a Vision now—yu’s gotta see the things for what they are.”
“Oh, Fucknuts!” Bookie, the van’s driver, yelled. He slammed the brakes while turning hard on the wheel. “Hold on!”
For Aaron, it was too late to hold on. The pint-sized dwarf was already rolling, then getting tossed across the seat.
Tommy caught hold of the airborne dwarf while looking back through the rear van windows. “Was that a blockade?”
“Yes, it was, cuz.” Corey smiled as he drew a .44 semiautomatic pistol. “We’s got us three stars for blowin’ the pretty blue’s buildin’. Them blue boys is huntin’ us now.”
“You fracking powder monkey!” Aaron yelled out in his shrunken voice as Tommy struggled to hold him with two hands.
“I told yu’s, Vision. There’s more than yu’s ‘appenin’ right now; yu’s just ‘appenin’ at the same time.”
“We got two on our tail, Corey!” Miko called out from the back of the van.
“Good.” Corey’s smile never waivered, even as the van made another hard turn. “Time to draw the biggest, bluest motha fucka out in the open. Drop the doors!”
Miko pulled a rope in the van’s ceiling, and suddenly, the two rear doors of the van flew off. They bounced and flipped off the road. One went in an errant direction, but the other flipped directly into the windshield of one of the cop cars. Flashing lights and sirens veered hard to the side as the car and van door crashed into a nearby building.
The remaining cop car sped up, broadcasting a voice from its speaker. “Pull over now! If you don’t pull over, we will be forced to shoot.” The cop car did not wait for the van to pull over. Shots from the passenger side immediately rang out, with one round deflecting against the van.
Miko popped up from her back seat and pulled the trigger of her submachine gun. She yelled defiantly as lead sprayed across the front of the police car. The cop car’s windshield became white from fractures and holes; it waivered, veered off to the side, and crashed into a fire hydrant. Jackie and Miko cheered as they watched a fountain of water burst up and around from under the wrecked vehicle.
“Look out!”
Aaron heard Corey’s yell, but there was no time to react. Another cop car racing down a side alley plowed into the side of their van. The van spun violently at an insane axis. Aaron was weightless as he flew through the van. Tommy tried to catch him but missed. As the dwarf’s flight continued directly into one of the van windows, he regretted not figuring out how to get the seatbelts to work at this size. He hit the window head-first and heard the window crack from the impact.
Aaron – Strength (no skill) 3 vs. Very Difficult DT – EXCEPTIONAL FAILURE 1 Physical Moxie strike inflicted. Unconscious status effect applied.
# # #
“Hold on!” Aaron called out above the raucous and chaos. He frowned at the sound of his shrunken voice. “How are we still driving? I thought the van had been knocked down?”
Corey’s infuriating smile was still plastered across the lower half of his face. “That’s Jackie! She’s a beauty with her magic.”
Everything was still disoriented for Aaron. Corey was now in the back with Jackie and Miko while Tommy was riding shotgun. Swift was still next to Aaron, but the skinny orc looked very car-sick as he clung tightly to his seatbelt. From the front, Tommy spared a glance of concern back at Aaron. The fire in Tommy’s eyes helped the dwarf understand his friend was concentrating on maintaining his Aoli Afi ward on the vehicle.
“Why in the burning depths are we still on this insane ride?” Aaron pivoted in his seat to look at Corey in the back.
Jackie made a wide flourish with her hands. A portal suddenly opened under one of the cop cars chasing them, and in the same instant, the car was flying overhead, crashing into another chasing cop car. There was no pause for celebration, though, as four other cop cars were still hot on their tail. Their flashing lights and blaring sirens echoed ominously in Aaron’s ears.
“We’s needin’ five wanted stars to draw out big blue,” Corey explained to Aaron. “Them blues just released a replicata mage. That means we’s shoulda be four stars.”
“A replicator? This is suicide, Corey!” Aaron’s voice was molten hot. “No one survives five stars! You know what replicators do, right?”
Corey gave the dwarf a look of idiocy.
“Yeah, that’s right. They replicate cops. When replicators come out, it’s like facing an infinite hoard of cops. They don’t stop! The cops just keep coming after you until you’re dead.”
“We ain’t gonna die, Frimslaya.”
Miko sprayed lead while Jackie continued to lay out portal traps. The cop cars screeched as they swerved and avoided the portal. Aaron pointed to the four cars still on their tail. “How do you plan on surviving to five stars, huh? How many people do you know live through five stars!”
“Burning sprites!” Bookie yelled.
A wide, gaping portal was suddenly opened in front of the van, and the portal was leading them straight into a brick wall.
“Shit!” Jackie scrambled her attention to the front and snapped open a portal in the brick wall.
The van sped through the first portal, through the portal in the brick wall, and landed hard, careening back on their road.
Jackie scanned the van windows and looked up to the ceiling as if she could see through the top. “Corey, they have a portal mage, too!”
“Fuckin’ Wood Motha.” Corey took aim and fired out the back at one of the chasing cop cars. “‘Ey, Bookie! Yu’s keep drivin’ straight. Let Jackie handle the turns.”
“Corey,” Jackie leaned against a side window, trying to look at the sky. “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know where the other porter is.”
“Yu’s just do what yu’s do, love. We’s’ll take care o’ the otha bits.”
Another brick-walled portal opened in front of the van. Jackie waved her hands and ripped open her portal in the brick wall, allowing them to continue flying down a side street. The cop cars that were chasing them squealed and burned rubber as they tried to quickly alter their direction of travel toward the side street.
“‘Ey, Jackie! Donna go ‘n lose our tail now. We’s almost got them five stars.”
“You worry about your five stars, Corey!” Jackie snapped as she opened a small portal in the van’s ceiling. “I’ll worry about keeping us alive.”
The sky above was a brilliant blue, with a sun that matched the day’s brilliance. No clouds were present, but a helicopter was just above the city skyline, its propellors rotating and thumping in the distance. Jackie closed the portal, then quickly opened another portal in front of the van, causing it to sail onto another side road, giving them more distance with the tail of cop cars.
“Mother Nature, Jackie!” Bookie exclaimed. “I can’t tell if it’s you or them throwing out these portals.”
“Just keep driving straight, Bookie. I’m trying to figure out where their porter is.”
Aaron carefully watched the group’s interactions while quietly recalling what he had learned about portal mages during his time in the service. Portal magic was challenging to master and easy to foul up. A one-sided portal was like a flat circle of fog that one could pass through. Portals only worked when there was a receiving end. Additionally, they needed to be deployed relative to the target being ported. So, randomly casting a pair of portals would often be ineffective for moving targets. There was a whole field of calculus devoted to instantaneous portal casting that Aaron really did not want to remember. The important thing he did recall was that portals were typically limited to the mage’s line of sight.
Another portal with a brick wall appeared. Jackie immediately responded with her own portal that kept the van racing through the wall and down another road. As Miko sprayed another dozen rounds out the back of the van, Aaron surmised that all these brick-walled portals indicated the cop’s portal mage was on the ground, quite possibly in one of the four cop cars chasing them. Aaron frowned as he looked back and saw six cop cars chasing them now.
Flashing lights in the corner of his eye prompted Aaron to scramble for a seatbelt as he realized another cop car was attempting to ram them from a side alley. As Aaron dove to grab a seatbelt, Jackie ripped open a portal just outside the van’s side. She leaped toward the back of the van, holding open the portal as the cop sped through one side of the van and out the other. Her leap carried her through the van, and she likely would have sailed right out the open back if Corey had not caught her first.
The gangster street elf held Jackie by both legs as she hung over the van's back seat, struggling to keep her portals open. The cop car went through the portals, but instead of ramming into a wall on the other side, another portal opened, allowing the car to speed through the wall.
“Jackie!” Bookie yelled from the front.
Jackie twisted from her awkward position over the back seat and saw the same cop car had been ported directly in front of them. The portal elf mage snapped another portal open, allowing the van to drive straight through and appear on the other side of the cop car. The cop car sped straight into the center of the six-car tail but was suddenly ported away before a collision could occur. Shots rang out from the six police cars chasing them, and Jackie and Corey scrambled to get Jackie back on the safe side of their armored back seat.
The ported cop car suddenly appeared at their side and clipped the van's back corner, sending it into a tailspin. Jackie spread out her arms and swallowed the van into a portal that spit them into another side street and in a straight direction. A cop car suddenly fell from the sky and crashed nose into the road just behind them.
Bookie cheered as they sped further away from their tail. “That’s a beautiful site to have in your rearview mirror. You must be wearing down their porter, Jackie!”
“Them’s a dumb blue boy. Ported that coppa right in front of the tail ‘e did.” Corey cursed as he watched the six-car tail get stuck behind the wrecked cop car in the middle of the street. “‘Ey, Bookie. Slow it down—we need a tail to keep our stars.”
“Fuck your stars, Corey! I’m done rimming this firestorm.”
Aaron looked between the front and back of the van. Tommy was concentrating hard on maintaining his ward in the front passenger seat. Swift was slumped over and looked like he had passed out. The two street elves were arguing over their next move. Something felt off—it was too… quiet. “It’s a trap.”
Corey continued yelling about getting their tail back while Bookie said they needed to run to live. Jackie was bent over and breathing hard while Miko sat quietly with her submachine gun.
“Hey,” Aaron yelled above Corey and Bookie. “I think we’re driving into a trap!”
Two police cars suddenly appeared from portals, one in front and one to the side, barreling for the van. Jackie jumped up and ripped open a portal under the van, allowing it to fall beneath the ported cop cars and suddenly appear in the sky. Everyone scrambled for seatbelts as they felt the van begin to descend to the ground faster than themselves.
More portals opened in the air, like large bore cannons firing cop cars at the van. One cop car flew overhead, but the other would have hit if Jackie had not torn open a portal that shot the van higher into a different part of the sky.
The situation was now a high-stakes game of cannon cars, where all portal mages were attempting to fire their cop cars at the one portal mage in the van. Sirens would blare briefly as the vehicles soared past the van. But Jackie was fast and furious in her movements, spinning her arms and arcing her body. It was like watching a strange, hypnotic dance in the center of a semi-weightless van.
Aaron was conflicted with the whole experience. Dwarves were meant for the ground, not the sky. This was deeply ingrained deep within his core—and he hated it. He watched Swift limply rise and fall in his seatbelt with the shifting momentum of the van’s constantly changing trajectories. The dwarf had never once thought of the possibility of flight, but now that he was violently thrown into the sky with the rest of this group, he did not want to feel like a dwarf. Still, he did not want to plummet to his death either. Aaron yelled with the others when it felt like they were falling too far, but not out of fear. Aaron yelled out of rage for feeling like a dwarf.
They were falling fast and far now. A cop car fired out in front of them, and Jackie quickly ported the cop car from their front to their rear. The ported cop car was struck by the second cop car that was fired too high. The collision of cop cars was incredible as the two vehicles shattered and mangled into one another. Car pieces spewed across the sky, and fluids rained from the mid-air wreckage. One of the sirens no longer blared, while the other struggled to persist in its sound.
“Jackie!” Bookie braced for impact; only street could be seen through the windshield.
A portal opened on the ground and they were flying high again through the vast open blue skies. The van began to slow in its ascent as it reached the peak of its launch trajectory.
“Hey, I can the blue’s chopper from here,” Miko said bemusingly.
Jackie glanced out the back and saw the helicopter, too. “Keep an eye on it, Miko.” Another portal opened, and the van was tossed back onto the city street.
Bookie hit the gas and sped through the traffic. As they weaved through different lanes, Jackie leaned against the back seat, shaking and breathing hard. Corey watched her closely, but she did not look to him. Jackie leaned over the back of the rear seat and examined the sky. She spotted the helicopter; it was definitely flying fast in their direction. She glanced at Corey, who gave her one shake of his head. Jackie decidedly ignored his disapproval. “Get ready, Miko.”
Miko hunkered against the van’s back seat with her submachine gun at the ready. Jackie took a step back and waved her arms in wide circles, opening a portal at the back of the van. The portal opened directly in front of the helicopter. “Fire!”
At Jackie’s command, Miko squeezed the trigger and sprayed lead into the front of the round helicopter windshield. Aaron caught a glimpse of the pilot and co-pilot before being sprayed with Miko’s leaden rain—despite their helmets, it was clear they were in complete shock to find the street was now directly in front of their flight path. The entire front of the helicopter became littered with fractures, bullet holes, and blood. The bullet-ridden chopper continued to fly through the portal, crashing into the street and turning into a giant whirling fireball. Jackie opened a new portal in front of the van that quickly made the van travel with the opposing lane of traffic.
They sped away from the helicopter wreckage, blending in with the new flow of traffic, and watched as vehicles piled up behind the flaming heap of helicopter that had suddenly appeared on the road. It was satisfying and brought a measure of relief to most of the crew, giving them hope that they might actually survive this ordeal.
“Fuck!” Bookie screamed as a cop car was fired point-blank from a portal in front of the van.
Jackie dove for the front of the van and ripped open another portal.
Jackie (Portal Magic) vs. Portal Law Enforcement – 1 vs. 1 EXCEPTIONAL FAILURES. New defining trait assigned: Crippled.
Aaron had never seen portal magic like this before. Jackie’s portal opened along the center of the cop car, slicing the vehicle into two pieces. The two pieces flew to either side of the van. Jackie, who was leaping forward, was violently thrown backward with the full force of the speeding cop car, ramming her into the rear seat of the van. The fact that the seat was reinforced with armor was probably the only reason the impact hadn’t broken the seat. Jackie gasped for breath as she writhed in the van’s back seat. Falling to the floor, she found her breath and screamed in mangled pain and agony.
Aaron stared in horror as he saw Jackie hold up what used to be her hands. Flesh was compacted and torn, with fingers bent, mangled, and twisted in grotesque and unnatural directions. Her hands now resembled painful bags of flesh and bone, with fingers protruding from odd angles. Jackie’s screams tore through the air of the van and ripped out the hearts of everyone inside.
Corey dove to the floor, cradling Jackie in his arms, screaming alongside her. As he held the crippled elf, a system notification appeared.
You have been assigned a 5-star Wanted Rating. Maximum Law Enforcement Response will now commence in your apprehension.
Corey looked up and met Aaron’s stare. The elven gangster’s face snarled in a mixture of shared agony and rage. His mouth moved, but Corey’s voice could not be heard.
“I can still save her,” Aaron said, keeping Corey’s focus locked on him.
Corey stared back at the dwarf hard. Rage and murder filled the elf’s eyes.
“I placed a self-destructing daemon in the precinct’s interface,” Aaron explained. “It was timed to go off after we had gotten in the clear and was designed to erase any trace of Tommy, Swift, myself, and Jackie.”
The light in Corey’s eyes changed as he continued to cradle Jackie, who was still writhing and crying through her screams of pain.
“The daemon is set to go off soon. If you get us out of this van, the wanted rating should be wiped from us through the daemon. It will get rid of the heat so we can find someone who can save Jackie.”
Corey looked down at Jackie, then back at Aaron.
“It also won’t wipe the five stars you’ve been going after. It will only affect the four of us. But it will only work if we’re not associated with this van when the daemon completes its job. We can’t be here when the daemon is done.”
Corey looked back down at Jackie’s tear-streaked face. Through her agony, she looked back at Corey. Only pain could be seen in her eyes.
An explosion was heard in the distance behind the van.
“Corey, I think your big blue is on the way,” Bookie called out from the van’s front as he swerved through the traffic. “What are we going to do?”
“Yu’s can save ‘er, Frimslaya?” Corey’s voice was broken.
“I’ll do my best.”
Corey closed his eyes and nodded, holding Jackie tightly. “Bookie! We’s leavin’. Yu’s gonna drive to a safe ‘ouse. Big blue’s gonna ‘ave to die anotha day.”
Jackie continued to writhe in pain, holding her mangled and deformed hands far away from her body as if it would help keep the pain away.
“Jackie, baby, yu’s need to open one more portal.”
“I can’t,” Jackie screamed in pain. “I can’t, Corey!”
“Yu’s gots to, babes. Yu’s needs to port to yu’s safe place.”
“It hurts—It hurts so bad...”
Corey helped Jackie sit upright. “Open the portal, Jackie. It’s the only way to keep yu’s safe.”
Jackie cried out in pain as Corey firmly helped move her arms. Jackie screamed louder as she struggled to move her hands. Gasping with broken fingers that quivered from their distorted positions, she began to slice open a line in the floor of the van. With another scream of agony, Corey helped her tear open the portal on the van’s floor. In the portal, they could see the floor of a dark, abandoned room with dusty boxes and covered furniture.
“Go!” Corey yelled above Jackie’s cries of pain.
Despite his massive size, Tommy moved deftly from the front passenger seat. He unbuckled Swift and jumped over the seat with orc in tow. The large elf landed easily in the dark room. He put Swift down and raised his arms to catch the next person.
Aaron climbed over the back of his seat and got ready to jump through the portal.
“Frimslaya,” Corey spoke, still holding Jackie’s shaky arms.
Aaron paused and looked at the gangster.
“She dies, yu’s die.”
“Go eat coprolite, Corey.”
Corey smiled. “I like yu’s, Vision. Stay alive, right?”
“Yeah, you, too.” Aaron began to jump in but paused and added, “We’ll take care of her, Corey.”
Corey nodded and smiled, and then Aaron jumped in the portal.
Tommy grunted as he caught the dwarf with his whole body. “I think you’re all grown up now, buddy.”
“About time,” mumbled Aaron. As he was quickly placed on the ground, Aaron looked to his side and saw a very pale Swift start to shakily rise from the ground.
Above, they saw Corey whisper something in Jackie’s ear. Then he pushed the broken elf into her portal and stepped away.
The portal overhead closed as Tommy caught Jackie in both arms. She curled into a ball in Tommy’s arms and whimpered in pain as they stood together in a dark, abandoned room.