Crossover Escape: Gotta be more than Lucky to survive

1.37 Means to Continue

Luca did not like the implications of that. What was chasing who? The answer came all too soon. Luca settled his butterfly down with another group and watched in horror as three vaguely familiar people rushed out from the trees on the far side. one of them still wore a desert camo jack but they were all bleeding from various cuts and wounds.

Behind them came the bears three of them snarling as they chased. It was a terrifying sight. More so because Luca had seen bears run before and realised that the three weren’t moving at full speed. A fact that became more obvious as the team reached the ten-metre mark into the open ground and the bears caught them. When the screams stopped the butterflies moved rising from all over and swarming towards the blood-soaked ground. Luca followed along to not be out of place while he made a silent prayer for the fallen. There was nothing that could be done for them once they’d reached that point it would have been suicide to even try. Luca did spot several wounds that did not seem to be the work of bear claws, but it was hard to make a clear distinction amongst the mangled bodies.

The only thing that could be construed as good from the matter was the fact that one of the three had managed to make it to the barrier and had passed through easily while the bears had been stopped outside. Unfortunately he collapsed on the other side. Luca suspected that the blood loss was too extensive to go any further.

[Tails: I can’t outrun a bear for ten metres let along twenty or thirty. I am now taking ideas on how the hell to get over there without getting mauled.] Luca agreed that it would be impossible to outrun the beasts unfortunately Luca didn’t have a good solution for how to get around the problem.

All his usual solutions were hampered by the wide-open space above and around the target. Luca could probably use his hook wing and swing out from a tree and then flip over to land in or at least near the barrier giving himself time to dive clear before anything could clear the trees, but that sort of aerial acrobatics would not be possible for Tails. It might be time to ask a different expert.

“Ghost do you have a good way to cross an empty field without being spotted by people watching?”

“How much field are we talking?” in serious mode Ghost strode over and promptly snagged Luca’s glasses having a quick look at the display before putting them back on Luca’s nose. “Is difficult, that sort of thing they expect you to move at night. The senses of animals are two sharp for you to sneak past. Is good that you are here already. There sense will grow dull to your scent the longer your there.” The accent seemed to fade in and out during the explanation a clear sign that he was thinking harder about a solution than he was at maintaining his façade.

“Is pity the camo got bloodied it could be used.” Luca blinked at that reminder. That was true on such a sandy area the desert camo would work. Unfortunately they didn’t have any that Tails could just use.

[Tails: Any other ideas? The only jacked I’ve seen not soaked in blood was shredded.] Luca set the butterfly to auto motion and had it just circle around in the trees while he switched back to Tails view. Luca appreciated the fact that Tails kept his attention firmly away from the scene of the other team’s demise. Having had prior experience with death didn’t make the sight of corpses pleasant after all.

[Lucky: We need some way to bridge the gap I’m just not sure of a method that will be enough for you. How do you cross gaps between tall buildings?]  Luca simulated ideas in his brains looking for inspiration and not finding any.

“Got it.” Holly’s satisfied hiss dragged Luca’s attention away from Tails and back to his current surrounds. Luca let the glasses slide down his nose so that he could see the present better. Ghost crouched just to Luca’s right while Holly and Rӓv stood to his left staring at the wall where it reached the edge of the platform.

[Lucky: Hold that thought I think they have found something on our end.]

[Tails: Sure, not like I can do much at the moment anyway.]

“What did you find?” Luca kept his voice down just in case Tails hadn’t switched to the silent voice conversion on his coms. Rӓv turned slightly to gesture for Luca to come over. Luca stood gingerly and walked over with the glasses perched low on his nose and his ears focused on all the sounds he could hear around Tails and the butterfly. Suffice to say it was a bit disorientating not to mention Luca’s feet had gone to sleep. Luca ignored the pins and needles in his feet and moved over to see what Rӓv indicated.

On the wall was some text though it didn’t have the fingerprint read aloud indicator. It was the diagrams below that interested Luca. It looked rather like a comic strip really. The first image showed a black triangle with people entering doors all over it, each door was marked with a different symbol. The next panel was of various challenge room running parallel to each other with different people in each, with one tunnel being conspicuously absent. Then a panel that showed a large obstacle course with people stuck waiting on platforms. On the second last panel people appeared on all the platforms that corresponded to tunnels that had been entered according to symbols above the platform’s entrances. The final panel showed people racing through the course.

“What is the point of having puzzle challenges at the start if you’re going to equal time later anyway?” Luca asked rhetorically. They couldn’t know how long they’d be stuck here since they didn’t know how many of the tunnels corresponding to this course had been entered. Moreover, what about people who’d been forced into the punishment level or died or both? How would this barrier system tell when it was right to open the way?

“Not sure this wasn’t even present till Holly smacked the barrier in frustration. The whole thing shimmered and then this appeared.” Rӓv took several photos before turning back to look over the course with a disgruntled expression to match Luca’s.

“There’s another one here.” Holly called from where he’d moved to the opposite side. Luca walked over and blinked at the new comic. The gist of which seemed to be entering the ‘punishment’ that Tails was in and then exiting. Once someone cleared that then the barrier could be opened earlier.

“So when we get Tails back, we will be able to continue. This is some weird magic hoodoo.” Luca had been desperately trying to come up with rational explanations for what had been happening. After all magic was a thing of fiction and there was no such thing as monsters. Creatures in myths and stories should firmly stay there. The harder he tried to bend logic to give himself an explanation though the more logic seemed to break so aside from a specific group hallucination he was having to accept the possibility that it was either magic or technology so advanced it might as well have been magic.