CH6: Rainy Days

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She turned the corner heading to the statue of Baron Praxis, when she saw a guard arresting a civilian violently. She knew this wasn't right so she ran over to the guard and poor person.
"Stop that! Let him go!" She yelled, but her voice was drowned by the loud rain, "Didn't you hea-"

Splash! She tripped in her running and fell into a puddle, getting all soaking wet. She groaned, and was now even colder from the rain than she was before.

She got up, and tried squeezing the water out of her hair, and used the puddle as a mirror to fix it the way she wanted it. It was frizzy and soaking wet, but she couldn't get most of the water out of her hair, so it was still dripping.

Another few flashes of lightning occurred, and some thunder to go along with it. Ashelin looked down in the puddle and saw her reflection, really quite a bit scattered from the raindrops, but she could tell it was different. In the puddle, she saw her darker side, instead of herself. In another flash of lightning, the reflection was normal again.

Ashelin stood there quietly, her eyes still transfixed with her own reflection in the water. She saw the guard start walking away with the pedestrian, so she started running off faster, but more carefully, making sure not to trip and fall in any puddles again. She caught up to the guard and yelled again. The rain was clearing up a little more, and her voice carried along the air better.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" Ashelin said calmly.

The guard stopped and turned around and said snootily, "Who'd like to know? This pedestrian was caught carrying a gun in their pocket, and probably planning to overthrow the Baron."

"Did you ask him?"

The guard was silent for a few seconds. He opened up his communicator.

"We need two cruisers for sector 9, bring second-in-command to take suspects in to custody, over." He said into it.

"What exactly did I do?" Ashelin yelled.

The guard didn't respond. She should of known better than to question his authority.

But it was too late and a cruiser came zooming around the corner at top speed towards them. Then a few seconds later, another ship came from the direction Ashelin was walking from. The first ship landed; then the second, and a guard came out of both. She recognized the second guard as Jinx, so she calmed down a bit. Jinx saw her out of the corner of his eye, but didn't say anything or turn his head, knowing he'd get into trouble himself or make himself look suspicious.

He walked to Ashelin, and then handcuffed her. The other guard went to the civilian and handcuffed him and put him in the ship to take off towards the Fortress. Jinx did the same with Ashelin, except after he got in the ship, he whispered, "I'll get you outta this. Just stay calm and everything will be fine."

Ashelin winked and slouched into her seat.

"Why did you come to get me? Is Grim still back at the saloon?" She whispered to him.

"I had to, and I had the closest cruiser in the area. And yeah, Grim's still back at the Hip Hog."

Jinx said something to the other guard as he got back in the ship while Ashelin wasn't paying attention.

"Ashelin, I'll take off your cuffs, and when I tell you to, climb to the top of the ship, then jump to the nearest powerline. Understood?" He whispered.

Ashelin nodded her head in a 'yes'.

"Buckle up."

Jinx lifted the ship in the air, and took off towards the north, following the streets instead of going over the city as usual.

He saw the other cruiser lift up behind him.

"Hang on kids… It's gonna be a bumpy ride." Jinx said. He accelerated suddenly, the gravity pulling them back with a lot of pressure. The Hellcat behind them put its sirens on.

"Don't worry, I've got it handled."

He dodged the zoomers and other cars, changing hover zones now and then to avoid traffic. The cruiser followed them until Jinx changed the hover zone to low one more time, and the ship above had a head-on collision with another zoomer and exploded, leaving two black ship carcasses behind them.

"That was close…" Ashelin said, until she saw two more ships come around the corner. "I take that back."

Jinx maneuvered over the ships and pulled up into the air and headed towards the slums. He took off Ashelin's handcuffs quickly and slowed down a bit more. The ship gradually descended and flew back to the street, but only just so much more higher than the other cars.

"Ashelin, top of ship, NOW!" Jinx yelled.

Ashelin scurried quickly to the cruiser's roof and stood low between the two forward mounted machineguns. There was a flurry of electrical lines up ahead, and she wondered if Jinx could clear it or not.

"Get ready to jump! There's a group of lines ahead!" Jinx yelled again.

"But I can't!" Ashelin yelled back.

"Then think of something quick!"

Ashelin panicked and got lost in thought.

"LOOK OUT!"

Ashelin turned her head and saw another cruiser, possibly one of the same ones she saw earlier, turn the corner, with its gun blazing in every direction. One of the shots was fired directly towards her.

"AARGGGGGGGGHGG!" She yelled when the laser hit her. It burned like fire and was extremely painful, but she and Jinx didn't give up yet. The ship kept firing shots at them, but Jinx avoided them as they went under the cables.

"Holy yakkow, are you alright?!?" Jinx yelled and turned his head.

"I'm fine. I think. Just a little burn, that's it for now."
She felt her vision blur in and out a few times and a few sharp pains here and there. Her jaw felt kind of sore and her gums were itching for a second, but it went away, even though the pain from the laser still stung like acid.

Jinx's eyes widened when he saw her, then he turned back around petrified.

"What now?" Ashelin asked him curiously.

"Uh. Um. You. Ah, nevermind." Jinx said with his tone decreasing and getting more squealy with each word.

Ashelin glanced at herself quickly and then understood what was wrong with Jinx. She turned dark again without realizing it because of the sudden shock of pain and anger together. Jinx was always afraid of things with fangs and claws, such as metal heads and lurkers. She didn't understand what was wrong with lurkers… they were a peaceful race, and still are, even with her father enslaving them to do work around the city.

Jinx took his night-vision goggles off, since they appeared to be giving him a rash.

"I'd keep those on if I were you." Ashelin said to him.

"Why? They start to itch after a good few 15-minutes you know! It's not like you can see any better when you have them off or anything."

"Oh you really think so?" Ashelin said with a touch of sarcasm.

"Yeah, of course."

"Then I guess you see that large jumble of powerlines you're heading straight for at the moment."

"What powerlines?" Jinx put his infrared goggles back on. "Woah!"

Jinx slowed the ship, and went under the powerlines.

"Thanks…" He mumbled. He turned around to Ashelin again, and saw her stick her tongue out at him.

"Good thing you didn't bet anything on that." She said.

"That was immature… Anyways, stop freakin' me out like that with all your 'powers'. It gives me the creeps, okay?"

"Sorry, but that's really not my fault." She paused for a second. "I guess we'll have to hit the next batch of powerlines, which should be coming up soon here in a second. I'll get ready to jump."

"You said you couldn't." Jinx debated.

"Well now I can." Ashelin said as she made an easy leap up and landed on a wire. "I'LL HEAD TO THE PALACE!" She yelled as the ship turned the corner quickly and disappeared, with the other cruiser still chasing it.

Ashelin regained her balance on the wire and walked over to the other side of it with ease. She leapt to the roof of one of the buildings but didn't exactly land so smoothly, then she headed to the river district of the city, where the closest entrance to the palace was. She walked over to the other side of the building facing the west, and looked down. There were lots of zoomers and quite a few people. She didn't want to be seen or caught, and there wasn't really any way of crossing. The only thing going across was a thin cable that probably couldn't support her weight. It was the only thing there, so she gave it a shot and tried to run across it, but the cable snapped.

"Aaaaahhh!" Poomph. She hit the cobblestone pavement below and was knocked nearly unconscious.

Wearily, Ashelin got up quickly and wrung out her coat, which landed in a puddle under her.
"I'm sick of falling…" She mumbled to herself as she wrung her coat out.

She put it on quickly, and adjusted it to where no one could see her hands and face. She walked along quickly, not exactly watching where she was going because the hood on her jacket hung low on her head. She accidentally bumped into a fat citizen who wasn't watching where he was going either, and stumbled backwards, nearly tripping, and her hood lowered off her head revealing her face.

There was nothing different about it when she felt it, but when she opened her eyes in relief, the citizen ran away screaming. She grabbed her coat and slid it back over her face, and continued walking pretending nothing happened.

It had started to rain again, but not as heavy as before. It was still a pitch-black night, almost everyone had gone to bed, there were only about two people still in the streets, and all the businesses had closed for the night. Ashelin lowered her hood, because it was dark enough to where no one could see her. All the streetlights were off for the night.