“We need to go North!” Christopher shouted, “and they’re in the way!”

“Go through them. They won’t risk damaging their merchandise,” Allen replied.

Christopher hesitated for a moment, but then the magicarriage started up. Like earlier, it sounded like a jet powered steam engine, or maybe a turbo diesel truck. However, it used blast gems to create torque which means it used mana instead of burning fuel.

All of its controls were either mechanical or magical, making it possible for Christopher to control it with his miasma control and shaping skills.

The Lanthinus vehicles were less than a kilometer away and approaching fast. The magicarriage’s tires tore at the road before it sped off in the direction of the oncoming pursuers. Allen would have been flung off from the force if not for his enhanced strength.

Christopher’s mana funneled into the engine, boosting its power. Air rushed past as the truck accelerated to a speed far past what it should normally be capable of, especially with such a heavy load.

“I can keep up this speed for about five minutes!” Christopher began, leaning out the window, “but that’s only if the thing holds up that long.”

Allen glanced over at Ty.

“I can try reinforcing it,” the Defender said. He shuffled around on the other side of the truck before a wave of magic washed over it. The magic solidified in less than a second, leaving a transparent sheen in the metal of the magicarriage, as if it had just been polished.

“Ok, you’ll have to deal with projectiles,” Christopher shouted, “I can deal with most magic!”

The magicarriage reached the enemy vehicles in less than a minute. Bullets bounced off their vehicle and simple spells veered off at strange angles. As Allen had expected, the enemy vehicles waited until the last moment to swerve out of the way, allowing Christopher to drive the truck straight through them.

More bullets flew past them, deflected by some magical field formed by Ty. Allen leaned out and looked behind the truck as they passed the Lanthinus company pursuers. There were ten speed carriages skidding to a stop before they took off after the truck. They were the equivalent of muscle cars, but their speed wouldn’t be the deciding factor.

One of the speed carriages had spun off the road, but the remaining nine quickly caught up. Allen braced against the truck as two enemy vehicles slammed into it on either side.

“Harpoons!” Ty yelled.

Allen watched as a man leaned out on the window of the speed carriage pinning his side of the truck. The man lifted a heavy harpoon gun and shot it into the side of the magicarriage, securing it with a chain.

“Run them off the road!” Allen shouted. He nimbly climbed up onto the back of the magicarriage and looked over both sides. Ty was getting shot at with steam rifles, but the bolts couldn’t get through his new shield. Then Allen looked over the half dozen speed carriages trailing them. Many of them were preparing more harpoons.

The magicarriage lurched suddenly, almost throwing Allen off again. The speed carriages on either side had both slammed on the brakes and were being drug along by the harpoon chains.

“They’re going to try and anchor us,” Allen thought. “We can’t let them get any more harpoons in.” He hammered on the roof of the magicarriage with his fist before cupping his mouth to the surface. “Camila! We have to take out the speeders before they get their teeth in!”

The back doors on the magicarriage slammed open in the next moment. Camila’s voiced boomed over the sound of the road. “TAKE OUT THIS!” she roared. A huge round object flew into the nearest speed carriage, obliterating the front end and sending it tumbling into the two behind it. All three vehicles were sent careening off the road Camila’s morning star stayed embedded in the enemy vehicle even when it finally came to rest far behind them.

“You’ve just lost one-liner privileges,” Allen said.

The Berserker didn’t answer Allen’s remark, she was already jumping through the air at the next nearest speeder. She slammed into the windshield, causing the vehicle to swerve dangerously.

“Madwoman,” Allen thought.

Still, he used Heavy Accelerate to launch himself off the back of the carriage. Allen floated in the air for what felt like ages. Expanded Awareness and Killer Instinct worked together to give him time to make any adjustments and plan what he would do when he landed.

Allen’s boots shattered the speeder’s windshield in the next instant. Then he immediately threw himself onto the side of the vehicle and held onto whatever he could get his fingers around.

The speed carriage swerved aggressively, nearly flinging Allen off. Instead, he used the motion to throw his legs into the window on the passenger side. He immediately used Expanded Awareness and Heavy Accelerate again as soon as the rest of his body slipped in. The mind-splitting boost to his senses and his attack speed for just an instant allowed Allen to punch the passenger in the throat, deflect his steam pistol to blow the driver’s head off, and grab the steering wheel all at the same time.

The speeder began to slow down as the dead driver’s foot eased off the pedal. Allen wrestled with the passenger, narrowly avoiding the dangerous side of his steam pistol until he managed to slam his miasma shrouded knife into the man’s left eye, causing the other to explode in a spray of chunky gore.

Allen shoved the driver out the door and took control of the speeder. He slammed on the accelerator to catch up to the others. He passed Camila in a speeder of her own as she rammed into one of the remaining pursuers.

Allen rear ended one of the speeders that was still harpooned to the truck. The chain snapped and the enemy speeder spun out before flipping on its side and rolling off the road in a mess of mangled steel.

Then the magicarriage started drifting in the opposite direction. Allen pulled back on his speeder, falling behind the magicarriage until the second to last enemy vehicle was riding beside him.

The tow men in the enemy speeder did a double take before they eyes went wide. “Who the fuck are you!” one of the shouted, lifting a steam rifle.

“I’m the road warrior,” Allen said with a grin.

He slammed the brakes and swerved his speeder into the enemy vehicle, dodging a bullet and clipping the back of the other speeder. Dirt and dust was flung up into the air as the enemy spun around once before flipping into the air and wrecking on the side of the road.

Allen faced forward again, watching as the magicarriage slowly pushed the last remaining speeder off the side of the road. The Lanthinus company men were still firing their magical weapons at Ty, yet they had made little progress against his magically reinforced shield.

Eventually, the speeder fell off the edge of the road, ripping the harpoon out with it as it tumbled away.

Allen looked over at Camila in her speeder, then back to the magicarriage. “Heh, well that’s that. Those were storm trooper tier goons.” He quickly caught up to the truck and called out to Christopher. “That’s all of them!” he shouted. “Just keep going!”

“Alright!” the professor replied, “I can’t keep up this speed anymore, and we’re done for if the Lanthinus company has anyone over level three-hundred to send after us.”

“I know!” Allen said. He had an idea though. He had wanted to avoid letting it come to that so soon, but they didn’t really have a choice. “Tonight should be a full moon, if I saw correctly. Hopefully a Gate shows up somewhere close,” Allen thought. “The closest one right now is over a hundred kilometers away… unless Andy is messing with me.”

The group continued North on the intercity highway until the sun went down around six hours later. At fifty kilometers per hour, the magicarriage wasn’t very fast, but they had still put a good distance between themselves and the Lanthinus encampment.

They stopped for a few minutes so that Allen, Ty and Camila could join Amelia in the back of the magicarriage. Lucas had finally calmed down, but he wasn’t much help with anything other than sharing his story.

In summary, the man was a Farmer from a small village in the Nash Republic, which was on a different continent. He could remember his village being ransacked by some identified force. He remembered being pinned down by a group before everything went black. All fairly basic and derivative.

Allen leaned against the inside of the magicarriage, surrounded by unconscious slaves. He was just about to close his eyes and relax when he caught a look from Amelia. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Who are you, really?” the Healer asked.

Allen snorted and laughed.

“For real though, I’ve been wondering that myself,” Camila said. “In fact, ya’ll are both messed up,” she added, pointing at Allen and Amelia.

Amelia pursed her lips. “Are you serious?”

“Nah, look. You can’t just ignore getting your face torn off,” Camila stated. “That’s fucked and you know it, so don’t try and sass me like that.”

“She’s in the Order of Pain,” Allen said, smirking.

“The Order of Pain! Really?” Ty exclaimed. “Don’t they eat babies or some shit?”

“Yo, no way… What’s the Order of Pain?” Camila asked.

Amelia sighed before shooting a glare at Allen. “Yes, I’m an Archpriestess, and no, the Order of Pain doesn’t eat babies, that’s Ve’akrall. They’re a healing order that’s known to eats babies to restore youth.”

“Wow, Archpreistess is way more that I had expected,” Allen thought, not letting his surprise show.

“That’s ridiculous,” Ty said, looking sick.

“If it works, it works,” Allen said with a small chuckle. “Though I’d say the eating babies thing is Ve’akrall’s good side.”

Ty’s eyes widened. The lack of humor in Amelia’s expression told him all he needed to know regarding the truth about Ve’akrall.

Camila’s face scrunched up. “Then what about the Order of Pain?” she asked.

“Masochists,” Allen said, laughing again when Amelia turned and scowled at him, a little red in the face.

“No, we just train to ignore the feeling of pain,” Amelia said, sighing. “Otherwise, we’re a mostly normal blood healing order.”

Camila and Ty seemed to be okay with that oversimplified explanation. Then they turned to Allen instead. Camila seemed interested mainly for the sake of gossip, but Ty seemed to be expecting something. His expression was firm, like a true Imperial Knight.

“You wanna know who I am?” Allen asked. “Who I am… Who am I? …I don’t know!” he said with a shrug and a smile with a pinch of crazy mixed in. It was apparently just enough to put Ty and Camila on edge, much to Allen’s amusement.

Amelia narrowed her eyes, but the corner of her mouth flicked upwards for just a moment.

“I’ve only ever been a hunter, in this world that is,” Allen said. “First with the Guild, the regular Guild mind you, then with some organizations like the Shadow Watch and Terminus before they went insane.”

“You were in Terminus?” Camila asked, taken aback.

“Like I said,” Allen replied, “before they went insane with all that demon summoning apocalypse bullshit.”

“And now?” Amelia asked, looking faintly smug.

“She’s going to make me say it.” Allen sighed and put on a smile. “And now I’m a Spade.”