Crossover Escape: Gotta be more than Lucky to survive

2.44 Problems of their Own

Luca came to with a start. He felt a little groggy and lightheaded, but his brain blared with an alert have felt more battered than he did. He could only assume that the adrenaline was keeping the pain at bay. He’d pass back out later now he had places to be.

It obviously hadn’t been very long since the explosion because not many people had arrived. He also thankfully didn’t have a massive number of messages affecting his view. There was just the one message from Ghost.

[Ghost: Got them out, Shade staying to watch for tracking with Aran.]

Luca didn’t have the capability to reply to them at the moment anyway. Rather than heading directly for the escape route Luca checked on Ghosts marker and noticed its steady progress. Good that meant they’d gotten people out.

Assured that the rescue was settled Luca went off to prevent further restrict pursuit. Aran had been instructed to do what they could to stop anyone from following the group from the coliseum. Luca now needed to make it so that they couldn’t be followed further than that.

As Luca sprinted across the roof tops to the South Luca had a moment to wish he’d checked if the webbing was flammable. Since it was made with quick cement it might not be. Still the ships looked to be made of wood so they at least would be flammable. Lil’ Miss and Blue trailed behind Luca. As he passed from the industrial into the docks Luca met a flight of Harpies. As Luca’s mind went oops. He prepared for a hard fight. Only for the harpies to spot another wing in a different colour heading to another location. It was like they didn’t see him as they flew straight past zeroing in on the other group.

Luca took that free gift and continued on his way. Luca jumped down and pulled out a lighter, he ran it along the base of the ship setting it alight. Luca moved to the next one and then turned for the third he didn’t expect to get more the four before it got too dangerous, or the fire was noticed.

 When Luca turned though he found that the other ships were already alight with Blue and Lil’ Miss breathing fire on the last ship. Luca blinked twice before he shook his head. Fantasy world, dragons and other things breathing fire is probably normal. Moving to the nearby buildings Luca watched on as his distractions worked like a treat. With the disaster on every front the Harpies should be much to distracted to cause any problems.

While Luca admired the flames, he noticed that Ghost’s marker had stopped moving. He was not at the ship yet, there was no good reason that he should have stopped. Luca rose from his crouch and then raced away to intercept Ghost. From what Luca could tell they seemed to be stopped outside the residential area just before the rocky path to the ship. There were worse places to stop. There were also much better places, such as on the ship. Well, that was providing that the Elder Dwarf could be trusted. Luca hoped the issue was just an injury or problem with one of the rescues.

Luca hopped across the roofs as he eyed the darkening skies, with the amount of fire roaming around it really couldn’t be considered dark but Luca was concerned that the elementals would be out to play soon and that would be a serious detriment to them moving.

A strange unease slithered up Luca’s spine as he realised Ghost still hadn’t moved and he hadn’t sent any messages about the delay. Luca picked up the pace. Shade was supposed to be trying to move Ghost and Luca on closer to Tails and Holly’s location after this, the time delay would make that travel plan scratched and they would have to think again about their next course of action.

“You should have come sooner.”

“Why should you be safe and us suffer.”

“If it weren’t for you, would they have even bothered with us?”

The braying of the crowd carried on the breeze and Luca snarled he didn’t like the sound of that at all. It was a tone Luca had heard before. It was an argument that never ended well. Luca reached the edge of the last building so he could finally see the group.

The rescued people surrounded Ghost and Declan. Ghost watched them carefully with slightly raised hands It looked like he’d tried to talk the situation down, but the crowd was past the point of listening. It might still have been manageable except as Luca watched Declan abruptly turned around and drove a dagger into Ghost where his shoulder met the neck.

The ignitor in Luca’s hand cracked. Followed by the boom of thunder overheard and the sharp strike of lighting. As if that was the signal the sky broke open and rain poured down. Luca dove off the roof landing in a half roll on the ground below. He barely noticed the water on the ground or falling on him as he focused on his friend.

The mob ripped something off Ghost’s arm before they raced away. Luca let them go as he moved to Ghost’s side. Luca focused on emergency treatment stopping the bleeding and getting Ghost as stable as he could manage. The only thing Luca could be grateful for was that it was not a directly lethal strike. Luca couldn’t decide though if the lack of vital damage was out of ineptitude, some remorse or simple a desire to see ghost suffer in this place the way others had. Why Declan was persuaded Luca could hazard a few guesses though it was disappointing to say the least.

The positioning of Ghost’s neck armour meant that the knife couldn’t get proper depth and less struck to deliberately avoid it. Declan had not used such precision, so Luca was able to put a temporary patch on the bleeding and get Ghost stable. Though he remained unconscious.

Luca wiped the rain from his face and prepared to pull Ghost onto his back so he could start moving towards the secondary fall-back point. Luca was suddenly grateful that they hadn’t had the time to bring it up to Declan since he’d missed the actual strategy planning. At that moment Shade and Aran emerged from the shadows. Shade looked shocked for a moment and then furious.

“How dare they,” Shade hissed. Luca raised a brow at the easy identification not that it took much. There wasn’t a Harpy corpse around so that rather left the suspect pool quite limited. Luca grimaced as he hoisted Ghost onto the back of Aran. Help arrived and was speechless. Before they flew over to Ghost and started working their magic.

Lil’ Miss and Blue had vanished at some point. Luca looked around for them with a frown. Ghost couldn’t stay out in the rain while Luca looked for them. As Luca turned to tell Shade to take Ghost ahead the pair rocketed out of the darkness to land on Luca’s shoulders. They spoke a mile a minute in their own way, but the only sense Luca could make of it was a vague felling of ‘good job’. He wasn’t sure what for or who that was directed at, but it didn’t matter they need to leave now.

“Take us to the back up.” Shade had been staring viciously at the path the rescues had taken but snapped his head around at Luca’s command. Shade blinked once but then thankfully complied.