Beast Slayer Saga

The smell of freshly washed linens filled Al's nostrils as he crouched in the darkness of the hospital linen closet. He had been strapped up in a stretcher and air-lifted away to a hospital on the nearby island of Mykonos.

There, he had his wounds stitched up and cleaned, which was a relief, however, he also was visited by police, there to question him on his "kidnapper" and how he had hurt him. He doubted they would believe that a magical group of knights had ambushed him in a sealed off dimension filled with Golden Age ruins, so he decided to keep quiet and escape. He grabbed the plastic bag with his robe and knife in them and snuck out of his room by claiming he needed to use the restroom.

By now, the police had realized he was gone and there were several officers searching around the hospital for a sign of him. Pressing his face to the sliver of light between the door and the doorframe, Al checked to see if the guard stationed by the back door was still in place; he was.

Albert was getting impatient, he needed to get off the island and onto the mainland and head towards Olympus. He was lucky to escape the Damen's group of Knights last time, only able to limp away due to Kuzma and Calandra attracting their attention. He didn't fancy his chances at fighting any other Knights or Mystics if he ran across them.

Myrin still hadn't woken up since helping him in the battle and Albert knew his meager abilities wouldn't help him against a fully trained opponent. His only hope was to get to the Mystic Sect on Olympus and then... Al shook his head, he would figure that out later, for the moment, he needed to get past the guard and out that door.

Al had been watching this guard for around 20 minutes now after stumbling across him and diving into the linen closet before he was discovered. The guard hadn't moved. The hospital wasn't big, the police were going to find him if he stayed here much longer and he did not have time to deal with their questioning. If he wanted the guard to move, he was going to have to move him. Al rested his hand on his knife, hanging on his belt again that he had strapped over his robes, which were still bloodstained and partially shredded by combat.

The memory of killing the two men during the skirmish before was still burned into his memory. During his one night of fitful sleep in the hospital after his stitches, he woke with his heart beating and sweat beading off his face several times, preparing to dive out of the way of an attack and desperately stab his blade into flesh only to realize he wasn't back in the ruins, fighting Damen and his Knights.

No, he was not about to kill an innocent police officer just for doing his job.

But...

Maybe he didn't need to kill him. The blue glow of the manastone embedded in the hilt of the blade gave him an idea. The mottled lights that it gave off flickered on the sheets and blankets around him as he pondered an idea. All Al needed was a distraction to move the man away. He might not be able to do much with magic, but he thought that he could summon up something to distract him at least.

Al drew within himself again, a feeling that was becoming more and more familiar in recent times. The sight of the silver and gold pools of numen once again appeared in the distance of his second sight. This time, though, he wouldn't go deeper. Myrin wasn't here to pull him back if he went too deep and he wasn't about to take any chances with magic.

Teasing out some mana, he channeled it into the stone sent the tendril out of the closet, past the guard and out the glass emergency-exit that he stood, cross-armed, in front of.

No need to try anything complicated, he told himself, resisting the urge to pull more of the addicting energy from his pools of Numen, already relishing in the feeling of power that rushed through him.

"What's easier than an explosion?" Al thought, picturing the mortar of the wall outside disappearing in a blast of smoke and dust and sending a silent apology to whomever ran the hospital.

BOOM

Dust filled the air around him as the room around him shook violently, knocking Albert to the floor. The explosion was swiftly followed by screams. Worried that he had made the blast so big that he had actually killed someone, Albert chanced a glance out of the closet to assess the damage.

The bricks supporting the long "L" shaped wall that ran away from the main part of the building had collapsed into a pile of rubble, alongside part of the tiled roof. Behind the former wall, a large group of nurses, patients and doctors were screaming and running. Luckily, though he had made the blast much bigger than he had intended, he had only terrified the people beyond all measure, not maimed, killed or injured them.

Not only that, Al realized with excitement, the guard had left his position to check on the blast sight. Now was his chance! Albert dashed forward and out the emergency exit, unworried about setting off any alarms as the grating sound of the klaxon fire alarm had been ringing incessantly since the explosion. Shouting, different from the panicked screams, rang out behind him as he ran. The guard had seen him.

"Stop!"

Al ignored him, staring down at his feet pounding the ground beneath him and watching as the concrete slabs beneath them shifted to the black asphalt of the parking lot.

"Stop and get on the ground," the voice behind him shouted.

"That...doesn't sound good," Albert thought, moments before the a pockmark appeared asphalt just ahead of him with a puff of smoke, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a gun going off.

"Terrorist, surrounded now and get on the floor! This is your last warning!"

"Terrorist?" Al thought in a kind of dazed shock at being shot at. "Is that what I am now?"

After a moment's pause, gunfire exploded behind him again. Doubling down his pace, Al slid over the hood of a parked police car and took cover behind it. More shouts joined the first guard and more gunfire erupted, the glass of the police car shattering above him. The other policemen had obviously joined him.

"Sure, cause one explosion and now you're a terrorist. I think I preferred being a kidnap victim," Albert muttered dryly.

His mind raced. He wasn't going to be going anywhere on foot with a gun-line shooting at him. And he also didn't have time to wait. Once they realized that he didn't have any weapons-

"Well, traditional weapons," Albert amended, drawing his knife.

Once they realized that he wasn't firing back, they would send some men in to apprehend him. As if they had had the same thought, the rain of gunfire ended and the silence that followed almost seemed unnatural.

It was now or never.

Al reached up above him, pulled the door open, and slid into the driver's seat in one smooth motion, turning the key that was still kept in the ignition. Without hesitation he drove off with the engine roaring, gunfire and shouts re-igniting behind him. Car screaming out of the parking lot a bullet flew past his face and shattered the windshield, showering Al and the passenger seat with little pieces of glass.

"Funny how policemen never lock their cars," Albert mused in the odd sense of calm that danger seemed to give him, brushing the glass off himself.

Well, there was well and truly no turning back now. He followed the signs indicating "Λιμάνι," or "port" and flipped the switch on the console of the car, the sirens blaring into life above his head.

"Always wanted to try that," he thought in satisfaction, swerving around a corner and speeding through traffic as it parted ahead of him like the Red Sea before Moses.

Mykonos was not a big island, so it wouldn't take long to get to the port. Conversely that meant it would also not take long for the police to reach it too. He needed to get to the port, "acquire" a boat and get to the mainland before the small lead he had on the cops disappeared.

Ahead of him, the turquoise blue of the oceans expanded before his eyes as he drew closer. Before him was the port, a small concrete warehouse and a stainless steel gangway supported by air-filled barrels, bobbing on the ocean and connecting a large number of small sh.i.p.s. Ahead of him, blocking the way into the port, was one of the orange and white striped "arms" that certain places used to close off an area.

The guard that was posted in the little box by the controls to raise and lower the "arms" stepped out lazily, preparing an obviously well-practiced routine. He looked up, eyes widening as he realized that he was looking at a bullet riddled police car that was approaching him and had no intention of slowing down. He dove back into the box as Al smashed through the plywood barrier as if it weren't even there and sped into the depths of the port.

Al drove as close to the pier as he could and then skidded to a stop, the smell of burnt rubber filling his nostrils and many of the glass shards created by the gunfire flew forward in the momentum and bounced off the dashboard with little 'tink' sounds. Albert hurriedly kicked the door open and dashed onto the pier, knife drawn and in hand.

"What the f.u.c.k do you think you're doing?" An angry man yelled as Albert barreled past him, shoving the man out of his way of the narrow entrance to the gangway.

The sound of his footsteps changed to a metallic clanging as he stepped onto the pier and considered his options. Al didn't know how far away Mykonos was from the mainland, but he didn't think a dinghy would do. At the very least he needed a ship with a compass.

"That'll do," Al said to himself, eying a man standing on the deck of his small, two-story vessel to Al's right.

The man had just unleashed his moorings and was pulling away from the pier when Albert leaped from the grated metal and landed shakily on the boat, unused to the swaying of the ship.

"Who the hell are you?" The man asked, c.h.e.s.t puffing up with anger. "Get off my-"

Albert pointed the blade of his dagger to the man's throat. He wasn't going to use it on him, but he didn't need to know that.

"Sorry, I'm, uh, 'commandeering this ship,'" Albert said, paraphrasing a certain Captain from one of his favorite movies.

The man deflated immediately, eyes fixed to the point of his dagger.

"Right you are. Sir," the man added, laughing nervously. "Where to captain?"

"Olympus," Al said, indicating that the man should get back to steering with a nod of his head.

"Olympus?" The man asked, l.i.c.k.i.n.g his lips nervously, unsure if he had heard correctly.

"Olympus," Al confirmed.

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