Plan B

"You're not gonna tell us that Plan B is just stealing a car, are you?" Ystur asks.

"Yes, that's exactly what I was gonna tell you two. Plan B is simply stealing a new car. I thought of it just a few moments ago," Astur says as she makes a sharp left turn.

*Bang*

Several metres away, the cops are shooting at Astur's stolen car, all while Astur steers the car in a way to avoid the bullets from puncturing the tires.

"So I'm thinking about dumping the rings with the money in them into the trash so I can say I found billions in the trash. What do you think?" Astur asks.

"Is this really the time for such pointless thoughts?" Ystur asks.

"When isn't it time for such pointless thoughts?" Astur says. "Oops," only to nearly crash the car into another car.

"You were saying?" Ystur asks.

"Shut up, can't you see I'm driving in a high pressure situation here!? Don't distract me with useless drivel!" Astur shouts.

"The hypocrisy…" Ystur mutters.

Astur quickly removes one hand from the steering wheel and tosses Kretea and Ystur a couple of pistols, "Make yourselves useful and shoot back at them! If they shoot the right spot and I crash, I'll definitely still be alright, but will you?"

Both Kretea and Ystur immediately see the truth of Astur's words. With her abnormally durable body, there is almost no chance of her being injured if the police force their car to crash, but Kretea and Ystur are far more fragile in comparison. With little choice in the matter, the two roll down the windows on both sides of the car and begin shooting back at the police cars chasing them.

Making a right turn onto the main road that connects the cities of the Kingdom together, Astur finds that the road is deserted.

"Hmm, they probably blocked off the road. Law enforcement here is much more efficient compared to the bureaucratic nightmare back home," Astur says.

"Definitely," Ystur says as she recalls the slow-moving police from her home on Earth.

Although Kretea isn't entirely sure what the two of them are talking about, she adds, "The Kingdom of Virpal usually doesn't respond this fast. The most likely cause for the quick response is because they knew ahead of time about our plan to steal from the Treasury. It's reasonable to think they made this plan in advance with that knowledge."

"True," Astur says, swerving the car to the left, causing Kretea's head to hit the side of the car and Ystur to drop the gun out the window. Seeing the events transpire in the rear-view mirror, Astur can't help but say, "Don't you know you should be wearing seatbelts when in a moving vehicle? It's against the law to not do so and it's a dangerous thing to do," she then swerves the car to the right as she tosses a bomb out the window while Ystur's head hits the side of the car.

Heeding Astur's words, both Kretea and Ystur fasten their seatbelts, but at the same time, they notice that Astur herself isn't using her seatbelt. Ystur, and even Kretea who usually don't have much to say against Astur's usual antics, wants to admonish her for her blatant hypocrisy. But before either of them can say something Astur throws another bomb out the window and swerves the car to the left again, avoiding a police car that caught up as the bomb lands in the lap of one of the police officers.

*Boom*

Both bombs Astur tossed exploded.

"This should buy us a little bit of time, but there is probably still a blockade to get through," Astur says as they approach the west exit of the city.

After a couple of minutes pass, a new set of police cars can be seen following behind Astur's stolen car, the two groups still shooting at each other. But now the West Gate is coming into view with a large blockade set up. Caltrops are spread out in front of the small stone barriers that form a wall several metres in front of the closed gate.

"Kretea, light me up a cigarette, they're in my pocket," Astur says.

Using her hair, Kretea reaches into Astur's pocket and grabs the pack of cigarettes and the lighter, while she also continues to shoot back at the police behind them. As Kretea brings the cigarette to Astur's mouth, she notices that there is only one more cigarette in the pack in addition to what she pulled out.

"There's only one left," Kretea reminds Astur as she lights the cigarette up for her.

Astur blows out a puff of smoke, "I know, but it can be saved for later. This isn't the best option, but it will still work fine."

Taking one hand off the wheel, Astur snaps her fingers. Almost instantly, a thick fog envelops the city. The same fog that surrounds the territory of the Holy Oulvgar State. In fact, this fog is even denser than the one that protects the Holy Oulvgar State, causing the people within to barely be able to see an object only a single metre away. Because Astur is only covering the city rather than an entire region, she can condense the fog to cause this heavily obscured vision. Even Kretea and Ystur, whom Astur has designated to be able to see through the fog, have difficulty seeing long distances with how thick the fog is.

Astur makes a u-turn, moving right past the police cars unseen as she makes her way to the opposite end of the city. Before her ability is sealed again, Astur reduces the thickness of the fog slightly, but she doesn't remove it. Under the cover of the fog, Astur's group are able to drive without any disturbances while moving towards the East Gate.

"We can take off the masks now," Astur says, removing the mask from her face, causing Kretea and Ystur to do the same.

Slowing the car down, Astur approaches the sidewalk as she parks the car.

"From here on, we should abandon this car. The police should have recorded its licence plate. Using it to leave the city is far more trouble than just walking out or stealing another car," Astur says as the three of them exit the car.

"So what now?" Ystur asks.

"We go back to the hotel and take it easy for a day or two," Astur shrugs.

"You mean, we aren't leaving yet?" Ystur complains.

"Kretea should understand why," Astur says.

Ystur looks to Kretea with an inquisitive gaze, "All of the city's exits should currently be on lockdown. So leaving the city through normal methods isn't feasible. There should be ways to smuggle ourselves out through more unconventional methods, such as moving through the sewers, but we don't know the location of the way out there nor do we know if it has been blocked off. But the city can't keep the gates closed for too long without causing unrest amongst the populace and will likely open the city within a couple of days. Of course, there is likely to be a strict process to check the identity of people leaving due to our recent actions. But thanks to the masks we took from the bank robbers, we were able to disguise our faces while making our theft look like it was carried out by Humans. This makes it far easier for us to leave the city, assuming that no problems arise with Lady Astur's identity as the leader of an enemy nation."

"Is this the reason we never checked out from the hotel? Did you have everything planned out from the beginning?" Ystur asks.

"Yeah, that's basically the gist of it. It wasn't the original plan, but I did leave it as a backup. Turns out, it came in handy since we don't need to look for a new place to stay. So let's get back to the hotel, I wanna sleep."