Trouble in the City

*** Trigger Warning: Blood/Gore ***

When the dust settled, smoke billowed up into the sky from the train station. Faint screams and shouts could be heard coming from inside as people continued to flee the station. Now, many had injuries and left their belongings behind. Onlookers and those who stayed to watch from the street were now being trampled by the panicked crowd. The few soldiers outside failed to keep order. The fleeing passengers were far too panicked.

Daren and Chris exchanged glances. They snuck out of their hotel before dawn this morning and arrived at the train station hours before their stalkers. By coincidence they managed to take an earlier train to Forest Waypoint. Wasn't this about the time when they should have originally arrived?

While the other customers stared at the flaming station in horror and confusion, Aayla grabbed their waiter and asked for the bill. He soon rushed back with a piece of paper.

"Dear customer, that will be 13,500 tiur please."

Aayla assumed that this 'tiur' should be the currency. Was this place super expensive, or did the Chinebarian currency work similarly to the Japanese yen or Chinese yuan? She then looked at the paper notes that Ramona gave her, several paper-like strips with different numbers and in different colors. Fortunately, she could read them and pulled out a blue note that said '5,000' on one side and a red note that said '10,000' on one side. She smiled sweetly and handed the bills to the waiter.

"I'm new from abroad so I'm not familiar with the local currency. Is this enough?"

"Oh yes! This is enough. Please give me a few minutes to get your change."

"No need. We will be leaving now and don't have time."

The waiter nodded and beamed as he left with the money. Aayla quickly walked towards the door when she noticed Chris and Daren were still transfixed by the horrible incident unfolding outside. She sighed then went back to the table, grabbed both of them and pulled them towards the door.

"Wait a minute!"

"This is not a good place to watch. If you want to do something stupid, at least do it from a better distance."

Aayla ignored Daren and continued pulling them away. With the wave of his hand, all of their forgotten bags disappeared into Daren's storage artifact.

After they exited the restaurant, Aayla started looking around the street. Which way was the carriage station again? Nervous butterflies started to flutter about in Aayla's stomach as she realized that she had no idea how to get to the carriage station.

A loud roar resounded through the streets coming from the train station. Daren frowned and looked at Chris. His friend thought for a moment, and shook his head. Chris had never heard a roar like that in his life. As more screams and injured passengers fled the train station, Aayla realized that it was time to run away instead of walk away.

"We need to leave. NOW! Where's the nearest carriage station?"

"It's three streets south of the train station, but if we want to take the Nafriton exit then we need to go 6 streets up and 2 streets left." (Chris)

She looked at the street behind them. The street was packed with frenzied people. Aayla decided to just avoid that area entirely. She began to briskly walk in the opposite direction. Chris easily kept up with Aayla so she let him go. Daren frowned as he stumbled trying to keep up with Aayla's pace as she physically dragged him along. Meanwhile, screams and shouts came out from some of the side alleys. Daren looked towards the sources of the screams and frowned.

"Shouldn't we stay and help? As Nafriton students – "

"Exactly! Students! We are not trained to handle sticky situations like this, and Ramona, er… Deputy Heston, told us to leave. So, we are leaving. Hurry up!"

"What's sticky? … Anyways, I agree with her, Young Master. Your safety absolutely can't be compromised. Besides, your physical ability and battle experience is absolutely pathetic since you spend all day in doors reading."

Daren choked on his next words and his face turned red. The trio were silent as they ran up the road towards the carriage station. It soon became apparent to Daren and Chris that Aayla would outpace them without their mana. How in Tellus was this girl so fast without mana? Was she from a martial arts family or something? (No, Aayla simply built a great physique adventuring all over Earth during her childhood. But that's a different story.)

Aayla felt a shadow flash by on her face and looked up. Several large birds flew overhead. Sometimes they would snatch people from the crowds below. Others would flap their wings to create tornadoes or shoot lightning from their eyes. She pushed the boys under an awning when she noticed a raptor was heading their way.

"There's a swarm of some large birds flying overhead. We need to find some cover."

Chris peaked out at the sky and frowned. Clearly, the attack at the train station wasn't an isolated incident.

"Storm Eagles. At least two flocks. We need to find better cover and keep moving."

"Is the True Order involved? But this is Forest Waypoint! Several major groups are here and Nafriton is right next door. They would never dare to touch the city."

"There's no one else who can pull off a sneak attack this big with so many magical beasts."

The city slowly turned more chaotic with people running in all directions. The trio soon encountered more vicious magical beasts with silver collars terrorizing the city. Chris glanced at Aayla. Fortunately, she had forced them to leave earlier than most and they made it onto the less crowded side roads.

The group continued to move, but every couple of minutes they would need to take a detour or wait for a rampaging beast to pass. When they finally arrived at the carriage station, the carriage entrance doors were forced inwards. Several hideous scratches marred the doors. The mutilated remains of people and horses were strewn all over the ground. A horrendous stench wafted out from the building.

The group cautiously walked around the station towards the passenger entrance to avoid the awful scene. When they arrived at the ticket booths, no living thing could be seen. All of the employees seemed to have fled a long time ago. The passengers ran with them. The monster that killed its way through the building earlier was nowhere to be seen. It's path of destruction was still clearly visible through the broken doors, scattered luggage and bloody smears along the floors.

Chris bowed his head and mumbled a short chant. A strong gust of wind blew past the ticket booths and into the rest of the station. A few minutes later the gust blew back out towards Chris. Chris lifted his head and sighed.

"I can't find whatever did this, but whatever it was trashed the rest of the building. We should be able to find some working carriages though."

He confidently led the way into the building. Their footsteps echoed in the empty hallways. Bloody walls and the occasional corpse torn limb from limb lined the hallways leading to the passenger loading platform. The color slowly drained from Aayla and Daren's faces while Chris remained undisturbed. When they arrived at the passenger loading platform, Aayla gagged from the bloody odor that drifted from the main carriage entrance. The group soon discovered plenty of partially working carriages, but all of the horses were long dead. Chris frowned as he magically pushed a small carriage upright.

"Young master, this carriage is barely working, but without horses it won't even make it 10 feet. We can't waste our energy with summons when we might need to defend ourselves."

Daren nodded and closed his eyes. A few seconds later, his eyes opened and Daren pointed towards the stables at the end of the platform.

"I can feel a couple of faint presences that way. There aren't any magical horses, but there should be some non-magical ones still breathing."

Aayla quickly raised her hand.

"I'll go take a look. I can handle regular horses, and I cannot take this smell anymore."

Before Chris or Daren could protest, Aayla dashed off towards the stables. The stables were large, spacious and surprisingly clean. The lights flickered dimly and hung oddly from the walls. A faint scent of blood wandered through the aisles.

She frowned. Hopefully some horses were still in the stables. They would be out of luck if they all ran away or died. She quickly looked through the stalls. Most were unlocked and several were broken. None of them had horses. Aayla quietly continued her search down the aisles.

Fortunately, Daren was right. There were still a few nervous horses locked away in the unbroken stalls at the far end of the stables. Aayla ran to the stall with the horse that looked the least nervous. As she was coaxing it out of the stall, a familiar bloody odor assaulted Aayla's nose. She wrinkled her nose and tried to block out the smell. The wind must be blowing the smell further into the station.

The horse suddenly shrieked with fear and began to shake. Before Aayla could calm it, the horse collapsed. A low growl rumbled from her left. When Aayla turned her head towards the growl, she froze. A pair of red eyes staired back at her. The wind was not carrying the bloody stench over. Rather, it was coming from the enormous, furious mountain of fur in the next stall over.