Introduction Arc
Chapter 1 – Hit the Ground Running (Part 2)
Sara jumped when the emergency override on her com piece kicked in and John's voice shattered the inner calm she had found. "Sara! Sara, damnitSarawhywasyourcompiece offhurryupandgetinherethebar onisescapingweneedtocatchupa nd—do I hear a train?" A yelp reverberated around Sara's head but was quickly drowned by the sound of a train whistle. The enchantress smashed her elbow into the circle she had drawn on the side of the castle wall, creating a perfect hole straight through the wall…
John plummeted down the side of the cliff, spinning in midair to avoid rocks, trees, and the occasional mountaineer. Below him, a five car train was slowly pulling away from the station. Something about the train managed to make it extremely hard to look at properly. It wasn't that it wasn't there, it was just that your mind felt that it shouldn't exist and attempted to edit it out of existence.
It was painfully pink. It was the sort of pink you see when someone punches you in the face. It hurt to look at and succeeded in making the surroundings of wiry trees, stubby bushes, and scrawny elephants look like it was attempting to lean away from it.
John noticed he wasn't going to land on it.
He aimed an arm at the train and attached two katana to his shoes like skis; his arm shuddered as a hook-and-chain contraption launched from somewhere in the sleeve and gritted his teeth as the speed of the train dislocated his shoulder. He slammed down onto the train tracks and bounced along after the train, sparks flying out from under his feet.
His arm made threatening noises, mostly the sound of tearing flesh, as the chain linking the two parts of the contraption together slowly retracted, drawing him closer to the back of the train. He used his other arm to grab the handle of the door right as his swords snapped in two.
Sara dashed along the side of the train tracks, accelerating beyond normal human speeds using her magic while Jacob kept pace beside her by pulling himself forward.
"I can see the train!" she shouted to the older man and ducked as two blade points came flying at her head… and reversed direction to follow the magnetic trail she was leaving. "We need to go faster! We need to catch up! And I need to make these things stop following me!" she screamed in panic as one of the blades nicked her shoes.
Jacob looked at the train in a distressingly thoughtful way and snapped his fingers. "I think I can derail it from here… Maybe. I might hit the mountain instead… Well, might as well try!" And, laughing, he smashed a fist into the ground and created a fissure aimed directly at the rear car of the train.
Gritting his teeth in pain, John slammed his shoulder back into place and looked up at his surroundings. When lying on your back, there isn't much of a choice. Flipping to his feet, he took a better look at his surroundings and shuddered when he noticed he was surrounded by life-sized dolls of clowns. "Nobody likes clowns. Clowns are bloody creepy," he muttered, opening the door into the next car. It was full of guards. He shut the door quickly and climbed onto the roof.
He dashed towards the other end as the door below him slammed open and issued a small group of guards. The door on the other end of the car also slammed open and issued a small group of guards. This wasn't a smart idea. When standing on a narrow platform and dressed in cloaks and pointed objects, it is best not to be in groups of five climbing on one another, especially when the one on top gets kicked in the face.
John winced as the guards fell off to relative death and then disconnected the last two cars. He sighed with relief as the guards' cars quickly dropped away, ducked when one of them shot at his head, then yelped as the two cars were sent hurtling over the other three and smashed down on the tracks in front.
Jacob shouted in triumph then winced as the rest of the train smashed into the cars he derailed and caught fire as they flipped through the air. The people inside came flying out and continued to travel alongside the tracks. All in all, John Smith wasn't having a good day.
With the train cars flying over his head, however, he sliced the door in front of him into pieces with the remainder of his swords and charged at the panicking baron and ran a sword through the deceitful man's chest. It was an even more impressive feat seeing as his sword didn't have a point. The train caught fire and he was thrown through the roof.
Sara scanned the ground around and along the tracks for any signs of the ninja or, more importantly, the guy they had been paid to kill. John could had been known to survive explosives attached to his chest. She ducked as half a train car flew over her head.
"You dumbass! Don't just throw crap around like tha-!" She stopped abruptly when Jacob held up the baron's body. Well, half of it in any case. It was the half that still had John's sword stabbed through it.
"Well, we know Johnny-boy killed 'im before I did. Damnit, I wanted to get theaagh!" John brought both feet down on the man's head, grabbed his sword and hit the ground running, laughing hysterically. "I'LL KILL HIM! COME BACK 'ERE, YA LITTLE BASTARD!" the older man shouted as he took off after the annoyance. Looking on in shock and annoyance, Sara sighed and, taking a brief picture of the dead baron, took off running after the two men.
"Wait! Wait for me! I can't run as fast as you two!"