22. Escape the city.

After a brief conversation the group split up and head their own ways for the evening more than a hundred fights in succession and hundreds of methods used to attempt winning, wore at least one of the two out. When they arrive outside of Silver's place, an unfamiliar car is parked in the drive way, Silver enters halfway ready for a fight, hackles raised. But entering, she sees a familiar face. A now retired general of the city's militia, with a wooden box beside him, her parents sitting opposite him, but her entry causes whatever conversation they were having to pause, seeing silver, breathing a bit ragged and in a defensive position, trying to reel in her fight or flight rush realizing it wasn't mercenaries trying to leverage her family. "Feth, you couldn't warn me next time general markus? Gave a girl a heart attack." Silver says through pants as she tries to calm down. "Sorry Silver, but I had to keep a low profile, there's a lot of eyes, and even more blades aiming your way...I've got word from the palace to bring you in at all costs...dead or alive." Markus states, startling everyone. "And...are you here to make good on that?" Silver asks stepping into the room, micah's motorcycle rumbling into the driveway as well. "Have you ever known me to be that loyal to those royal pricks?" Markus curses after speaking as if the thought put a bad taste in his mouth. "No I come bearing a gift, and advice for you...get out of the city...or be prepared to go to war." Markus states, give a firm glare at Silver, having had her locked in a cell so much that he knows her stubborn and bloodthirsty soul. "I was planning on it, once I got a team, and got some supplies, I have no where to go though...I am sure I am wanted in every city, and even every ally wants my head for one thing or another." Silver sighs, her already tight schedule growing tighter. "Tomorrow at nightfall...can you get one of the gates to stay open...even a half hour past dark will do..." Silver says, her plans already changing behind her eyes, the room can practically hear the gears of her mind spinning to make a way out. "The general slides the box over before standing up and walking to the door. "Don't worry about the gates, at nightfall wait for the signal...and run like hell you hear? Take your parents too, else the royal skags will have them executed" the old general says just before the door opens, and he slips by micah coming in. "Change of plans, call your friends and have them come tonight...we wont be sleeping anytime soon, ma?-" getting interrupted, her mother stands with a knowing smile. "Coffee, lots of it, on it!" She says all too cheerily,her father getting up as well. "Go, get what we need, we will take care of here and have everything we need packed." He says, well aware no one is resting. With that Silver steps out and immediately has her phone out, calling up people who owe her favors, hunting down an armored vehicle, fondly nicknamed the beast, old, and heavy, but with the right tweaks on the ancient engine, fast as hell, the beast was a scrapped war machine about two decades previously due to the unreliable power source, but silver being the crazy girl she is has a few solutions for it that'll get them out of the city in the morning. All while micah is calling everyone we recruited telling them if they still want to join her, bring their families by noon tomorrow to her shop, including the swordswoman. Nearly two hours past when silver gets a text back, and all it shows is a beat to hell beast, nearly scrapped of armor entirely, but the engine looks mostly intact and the gravity plates though damaged are in place.Silver's first thought? 'Shit.' Sending a quick few texts, the scrap yard agrees to a low gold price of about 4500 gold, well within her budget as she hops in the shop truck, a flat bed hover tank, though slow can carry practically anything, and she leaves micah to gather people and set plans in motion with his father and the city guard. Burning another two hours, the city now dark and quiet, the only sound in Silver's ear, the quiet hum of the tow tank's power core. As she returns with a huge vehicle, though inoperable, is everyone's hope now. With quick and near panicked movements as she flies around the shop, putting the beast on a repair rack and getting it in the air, she first focuses ripping the old power source out, and carving out space in the old power core bay, before ripping the tow tank to pieces, the sound of screeching metal, audible throughout the night, as Silver rushes to build an all new power source into the old tanks frame, and after nearly four hours of sweat filled work, the beast rumbles to life, running on three salvaged power sources, one from her own car, one from the tow tank, and another from a scrapped D23R forklift, the power outlet theoretically exceeds the previous power output by nearly 5 times, hopefully good enough for this power hog. Watching the sun slowly creeping into the horizon, only driving silver to go faster, she begins repairing the armor, literally welding whatever scrap armor plates she has in and around the shop into place, covering the vitals, its not pretty, or perfect, but functional after only two hours, pouring sweat and panting from exhaustion, Silver ignores it all, pushing her limits as she repairs the old gravity plates, what cant be fixed, ripped out and replaced, but these each require tuning, slowing progress to degree, hour by hour, and with that, Micah brings everyone to the shop, only to witness Silver creating a monstrosity, midday comes, but the damage was extensive,even if some were only minimal damage, everything is out of calibration, the on board computer being toast, leaving only one option.Full manual control, Silver doesn't have time to deal with it. "Start loading up everything! We are running short on time!" With this, Silver looks over the small group, seeing an older male, tall stocky, and holding a large tower shield, and a younger male, skinny and quite small in comparison but holding a solid tower shield as well, the swordswoman, and a very frail looking older lady, though wearing an armor set that, from all appearances should've been retired long ago, and the triplet girls, but no one else with them. "I hope those who stay behind realize the danger they are facing.." Silver mutters to the girls before going to her weapons rack and dragging all manners of mountable weaponry, machine guns, grenade launchers, even mounting mass drivers to the front of the beast, with long chain belts running to the ammo storage bay in the rear. Looking more and more mad maxed by the second. Eventually She stops, seeing the firepower reaching a certain limit on the vehicle, she lets out a sigh. "Only a few hours left!" She yells, informing everyone to finish loading supplies, strapping down essentials, food, water, tools, and other nessessities, making everyone have a tight fit amongst the old beast. Looking at her phone, she is waiting for two things, both making her anxious with the passing of time, when the sound of a loud craft can be heard overhead, swooping down hard and fast causing a whistling sound as it streaks in, landing hard. A gruff deep voice can be heard as loud foot steps can be heard from the stirred up dust storm. "Ya brat, calling me to rush a craftsman's work like I am some factory, luckeh for ya, that all I needed ta do was finishin' touches." A familiar dwarf, who before silver left for the asari city, had taken a request for a specific construct design. "Thanks for the rush job,I wouldn't have bothered you if it wasn't serious." Silver replies seeing him step clear of the smoke holding a small ornate box. After getting a good look at her haggard form, covered in grease and sweat, he says nothing, only opening the case, revealing a beautiful double barreled pistol, with no way to reload, but mana vines and runes covering it like beautiful engravings giving it life, the piece radiates violence and power, singing its own sort of melody. Silver reaches out,letting her fingers dance over the surface, letting a tiny amount of her mana caress the firearm, only for it to come to life, practically humming with energy. Taking it out, Silver opens up her System window, activating the construction page, choosing to save it, and immediately, mana flows out of her hand, slowly breaking the piece down inch by inch, revealing a spectacular scene for both Silver and The blacksmith. A young soul is revealed within the metal, given birth to steel, looking much like a young pale girl with silver hair and purple eyes looking at silver in surprise. This only lasts a moment before the scene ends and the construction disappears, only for silver to think about it, and it forms back into her hand instantly. "Its beautiful, you out did yourself this time, I would pay you more, but as of now, I doubt ill have much time here." She says before looking back at her warmachine. "No need, seeing my work come to life is more than i could hope for, i have more inspiration thanks to you, take it, survive, i heard your in the shit now haha." The black smith laughs looking at her warbeast speculatively. "And i assume you sold to the ones saying as such?" Silver mentions, only teasing the old black smith. "Of course, I am still a businessman." At that he lets out a hearty laugh, hopping back on his strange flying contraption, neither plane or hover craft. "Take care kid" and with that and a ear piercing screech, the machine takes off rocketing back towards the heart of the city. More time passes, and the sun begins its descent, and still, the last of her packages has yet to arrive, and the signal hasn't been made. This all adds to make her more nervous by the minute waiting...and waiting...and waiting...only the wait to nearly show time when a black car, comes along the road unhurriedly, the side marked with the arena betting organization, coming to a stop outside of the driveway, and after a few more minutes, a young guy, with his hair slicked back, much like a punk, steps out, a briefcase secured to his wrist with a cuff, walks over, very slowly before stopping in front of silver, passing over the documents, "sign these for retrieval." He says nonchalantly. Only for silver, being the paranoid person she is looks at him saying. "Let me review the contents of the case before signing any further documents, to ensure i receive all proper items." And immediately, this makes him sweat, digging up something to say. "I cannot allow any unauthorized review of the contents until a signature is made on the paperwork." He tries, only a moment later to realize that he isn't going to win this when Silver replies. "Yes? Which article says that? Because article thirteen, act 5.1 states that all receiving participants may review the contents of their transactions before signing a delivery slip noting they received the package, if one is to sign before review and items are missing, the loss is on the reviewee and not the betting organization.so do you wanna try that again, or shall i break your legs first?" Silver gives him her best crazy grin to date, making a shiver run up his spine as he quickly returns to his car, opening the trunk to do something for a few moments, before returning. "W-would you like to review the contents now?" He stammers, aware if he is at fault now, Silver will break his legs with a smile at that. "Sure, but make it snappy I am on a tight schedule and you are holding me up." With that, he quickly holds up the briefcase opening it with swift hands to reveal six beautiful bars of dragon steel, seeing this silver nods, doting her signature hastily, though illegible, before tossing it back, and before he has a chance to do anything more, she reaches out, grabbing the cuff before yanking hard, causing his thumb to break and move out of place as the cuff slides off. Having confiscated her property, the last piece of it. Silver rushes to the beast to the agonized sounds of the crooked agent. With an easy toss of the case to micah. The two clamber into the mad maxed vehicle, and not a moment later, a loud explosion happens at the wall in the distance making the ground rumble, and peoples ears to ring. Taking this as a sign, silver takes over the controls and punches the accelerater hard, causing the beast to launch from the bay smashing into the parked car, launching it out of the way as they blitz down the streets heading for the wall at break neck speeds, the power cores humming loudly as the strain to feed the thruster packs for every ounce of speed. Everyone but silver hunkers down and starts strapping into the rig, now aware that silver has no understanding of moderation. "When he said Signal I was thinking flares not a terrorist attack on the wall haha!" Silver hollers over the whistling wind, having had no time to source any glass for the windshield the roar of the wind is near deafening from between the welded window guards. After that, No one says anything the situation tense as Silver navigates the city, dodging guards, and mercenaries alike, until finally, nearly half an hour later she comes up to what used to be a city gate, now nothing but rubble and fighting. Taking her chance, she punches it, sending the beast through the terrain with ease climbing over the mess to power though the gap, right as she exits, a fast moving shadow forms in her peripheral vision, making her jerk the vehicle to the side, only to hear a half second later, a loudly metal screeching noise and feeling a bit of sharp pain in her side, ignoring it for now, She chooses to race on. Finally free of the city, after traveling for awhile, silver eases off the throttle, hearing the immediate relief of the power cores as well as the thruster packs letting out hissing sounds as they start cooling off the outer fins that had gotten too hot. "Fuck yes!, what was that back there?" The group hoop and holler, but Micah's eyed are glue to Silver's waist, having seen what had punched through the door, and what the rest of the group hadn't realized yet. Silver took the blade of an axe, half through the door, now lodged in her side, bleeding a lot, despite healing around the blade for the most part.Looking over, and noticing Silver puts a finger to her lips, telling him to be quiet, before continuing on well into the night. Eventually the coppery smell of blood is too much to ignore, and the group realizes someone is hurt, and so they start checking themselves before realizing that the two up front aren't bothering, as if they know, when they realize silver got hit by whatever that was that struck them. "What happened why are you bleeding? Lets stop and fix you up we don't need more issues now." The swordswomans mother says, though frail one can see the strength and concern in her eyes."five more minutes, we aren't just running from people now..." Silver states, aware the beasts get agitated at night, so she pushes on ignoring the axe, and the injury.