General Makon, who had been forced to take a long break due to his collapsed lung and broken ribs, was frowning deeply as he stirred his tea. He had been in a foul mood ever since the Aku’andans had waved to him, they were saying something about his location and identity being compromised, Ganz being alive, and a bunch of other nonsense.
He didn’t care too much about most of what they said, but the fact that Ganz was alive and still pursuing his goals infuriated him. When he had woken up at the hospital, he had been told by his men that Ganz had sacrificed himself to land that punch, Knowing now that it wasn't true, hurt. Somehow.
He was still weak and was advised to take it easy, it would take many more months to fully heal, but he earnestly wished he could have Ganz’s neck in his large hands so he could wring the life out of his treacherous body.
Lord Arabambi had come to visit him to inform him that his hospital bills had been paid. General Makon had considerable wealth of his own, but he was also the most powerful War Mage in Sungan, free healthcare was a perk that followed.
Personally he wasn’t a fan of the Arabambi family. They were everywhere. Lord Arabambi’s niece or something was a powerful Aku’andan mage, He had close relatives in Pirun and even Navon.
What kind of family has no roots in a single kingdom? Suspicious.
“I need more tea!” He shouted, a nurse rushed in with a jug of tea. She was five feet tall, and looked absolutely tiny next to General Makon’s huge six feet five inches.
He looked at her as she poured his tea from the jug. She glanced at him in awe and scurried away. He sighed and used his substance analysis on the tea.
It was something he had done habitually ever since his first trip to the banquet of pirun, wherein Ganz had poisoned his own nobles. He still resented Lord Defon for knowing and not telling anyone. It showed where Aku’andan loyalties lay, only with themselves. He was about to take a sip when the unmistakeable glow appeared. He couldn’t believe it.
“Arcanite???”
He looked sharply at the closed door of his hospital room and considered his options.
He wasn’t strong enough to engage in a full battle. Arcanite only meant a few things however, Ganz was here, or the Royal Court wanted him dead. They had turned their backs on him?
His mind raced with possibilities.
He had to hide. He glanced around, found a chair, and used it to block the door. He grabbed his bag of spells that he had been binding at the hospital for the past two months. Was he strong enough to use speed?
He wore the bag with the strap over his shoulders then entered the toilet, closing the door behind him. The moment he closed the toilet door, he heard a knock on the ward door.
Damn it, they were here, whoever it was, he went out, grabbed the tea and poured it down the toilet, placed the cup back, then he went back into the toilet and closed the door, locking it behind him.
Speed it was. His chest ached as soon as he triggered it.
He triggered an energy blade, which he used to cut open a hole in the ceiling. Luckily for him, he was at the top floor.
The knocks intensified. They were now banging the door outside. He climbed up through the hole in the ceiling. As he got up to the roof, he could hear the door to his room being blasted in.
“Where’s that bastard?” He heard a voice say.
“Did he drink the tea?” Another voice asked.
“The cup is empty.” The first voice said. The first voice was a clear Pirunese accent. Ganz’s men were here, to assassinate him.
He made a run for it.
At the edge of the roof he stopped abruptly, noticing the men on the ground dragging two corpses out of the hospital into a hovercoach. He squinted and realized… Those were two Sungan war mages, Two recent recruits who had been injured during the attack.
They had killed those men.
“He’s on the roof!” he heard a voice say. He instinctively tumbled off the roof and latched himself to the side of the wall of the tall hospital. His lungs stung with that move. He jumped to a different building, which turned out to be a textile manufacturing plant. Their top floor was a warehouse where thousands of clothes were hanging. He lifted the window and entered.
He rushed through the clothes towards the door on the opposite side. As he touched the door knob, he heard that first voice just outside the window he’d used. Opening the door slightly, he snuck out, cursing his weakened state.
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He rushed down the staircase, meeting staff who asked him who he was. He paid them no mind and rushed down through the building, exiting at the back. As he pondered where to go next he heard the first voice questioning the staff.
He ran into the next building, it was a comb house, which was a large house that a landlord had subdivided into many small rooms for poor tenants. The ceiling was even too low for General Makon’s large frame. He crouched as he ran, bumping into people along the very long passageway inside the house. He considered his options, as he was about to exit the house, he noticed the man waiting just outside the door. They had flanked him.
He looked around frantically, and entered one of the small rooms, against the protests of the owner. He went to the one window in her small, overcrowded and cramped room, kicked out the window frame and escaped through it.
He snuck from building to building, narrowly avoiding the men who were out to kill him, he ran out into a street where some wheeled coaches were parked, then he burst into one and barked at the driver.
“I am General Makon, Distinguished Magical Warrior! I am now commandeering your vehicle, drive me to the gates!”
The driver turned back and their gazes met and he found himself staring at a young woman in her twenties. His hands instinctively reached back for the door handle… she glanced at his hand and their gazes met. There was a short pause where he considered his options, eventually he decided against stepping out, He cleared his throat and removed his hand.
“Well what are you doing? Drive!” He said.
She invoked a spell and the coach sped down the street, shaking violently even on the smooth roads. General Makon bit his lips and cursed his luck for not stumbling upon hovercoaches instead.
About eight hundred meters from the gates, he noticed some warriors far off into the distance subduing Sungans. He squinted and recognized one of Ganz’s men.
“Shit, turn, turn!” He hollered at her. She swerved and turned around, but it was too late. They saw the absurd turning of the coach and quickly figured out it was a fleeing mage. They immediately gave pursuit with speed.
General Makon cursed. “I’m doomed!”
“Not today, General!” The driver said. “I’ll get you out of this!” She invoked a spell and the wheeled carriage reformed its shape. Its metal body bent and twisted, the seats dropped down two feet, the tires reduced in size and the entire body of the coach reformed into a sleek aerodynamic shape, then it sped up significantly. General Makon was in awe.
“How did you do this?” He asked.
“I do street racing in my free time.” she beamed excitedly. “This is my whip and I’ve never been beaten!”
Street racing was illegal in Odan, but General Makon wasn’t about to bring that up.
The men sped towards the car but as it sped up, they were left further behind, much to their surprise. General Makon looked back and saw them upgrading their speeds.
“Have you ever been caught in any of your races by any of our Mages?” He asked her.
“Hahaha, never.” She grinned and invoked another spell that somehow made the car even faster.
He decided to contact other kingdoms. First with Aku’anda, he waved to Lord Daron. As soon as the latter picked the call, he shouted.
“Ganz has attacked Odan! None of us are safe! Prepare!” He cut the wave and waved to a Navon Mage.”
At that moment a mage burst out of a window and landed on the coach, and using a speed boosted fist, punched a dent into the roof of the coach.
“Shit!” Both Makon and the Driver exclaimed. She invoked a spell and the entire coach spun around multiple times even as it sped through the street, like it was doing a crocodile's death roll. The Mage on top smacked his head against the ground and lost his footing his speed flinging him sideways into a building. Without the speed he would have had his head crushed into pieces.
The coach righted itself and sped off, with at least three mages in hot pursuit, moving at fast speeds. The driver focused intensely on the streets as they whizzed past them in a blur, beads of sweat breaking out of her forehead.
“You’re doing great, woman!” General Makon encouraged, deflecting the spells that the mages were starting to fire at the coach.
Several high speed turns later, a mage popped out from a building, standing right in front of the Coach. Both the driver and General Makon screamed. She shouted a spell that caused a small explosion under the car and made it fly upwards, over the mage, much to his surprise, it flew over the mage and landed with behind him, smacking both General makon and The driver up against the roof of the car, Both of them sustained injuries despite bracing, but continued to speed off.
“This cannot continue.” Makon said as the blood dripped from his brusied left knuckle.
“I agree. Haha,” the driver said. “These guys are much more persistent than Sungan Mages.” The blood dripped from her forehead and forearm.
“If we leave this city with these people in pursuit, they’ll deploy a powerful spell. They could incinerate us in an instant.” He said. “If we keep running around in circles, they’ll have us surrounded eventually.”
He looked outside the window and saw the now four mages running after their speeding coach with superhuman speed, he gritted his teeth.
“We can fake our deaths!” the Driver exclaimed. “It’s a trick I built as a last resort to avoid the cops!”
“What do I have to do?” he asked, slightly bewildered.
“Just sit tight!” She said, “I just need to find an empty building.”
“Head for Lacker street. There’s an abandoned Cathedral there.” he said.
“Okay!” she said and swerved right to Lacker street. The mages ran after them.
The cathedral soon came into view and she drove the coach right into the building. Screaming her spell at the last moment.
A massive explosion flared out immediately, carving a massive hole into the building and stopping the mages in their tracks. The coach exploded into a thousand pieces, flinging General Makon and Driver, wrapped in an invisible shield, over into the next street.
As the invisible shield faded off and the explosion came into view, General couldn’t believe his eyes.
“You built that to escape our mages?” he asked.
“It was a last resort.” she said. “Let’s go!”
They ran through the streets, General Makon gasping from an overexerted lung.
They managed to escape, and found shelter at an inn near the walls of Odan.
There the adrenaline wore down and they realized the driver had broken her forearm.