ASTAKSA - Preamble

8 - Debacle

It had been a while since Faust and the team freight-hopped the train that was speeding towards Lorwenthal. He had never illegally boarded a train before, moreover a regular passenger train in London. He rarely took those underground trains, at least to school. He much preferred cycling his old Dutch-style bike.

Lorwenthal, Faust thought. It aberrantly sounded like an old, non-existent English settlement to Faust. Faust felt alienated enough as if Astaksa wasn't already peculiar enough to him. He had seen a mangrove forest that grew in a desert, horned humanoids called elves, and he also had a super rare magical superpower from a race that was long gone.

The cold air of the train helped Faust to relax, along with increasingly cold tension that exponentially rose every minute passed. The dark windowless cabin was eerily silent. The train had no traditional two adjacent metal tracks that created the eponymous train rumbling that Faust had grown accustomed to. Moreover, it was noticeably wider than any train Faust had ridden in London.

Faust's mind wandered off again, back to when he was fixing the cafe's generator a day before yesterday. Faust listened closely, expecting footsteps to come by at any moment. Should an enemy come up on him, Faust wondered what he would do. Should I let him walk by? Should I tackle him? Should I use my lightning on him?

A door was opened, ringing Faust's ears. His heart raced and he tucked himself even further back into the already cramped space. A cone of white light shone across him, brightening the air in its wake. The footsteps walked closer, making a rhythmic and painfully slow noise as they calmly rang the metal floor. Then, a soldier with his fully geared equipment walked across him, aiming his weapon down the hall. Faust held his breath. He could not believe they just walked by to his amazement. The jovial moment was brief, however, as another person clandestinely followed behind.

An elf?! Faust was surprised. His eyes widened.

The young elf was quickly gone from his field of view. A young female elf with blue shoulder-length hair had just walked by him, holding a cable-like rope in her hands. Not long after, a struggle was heard. Something was dropped on the floor, then a bump to the wall, accompanied by grunting. Faust's mind urged him to go out and take a peek, but he knew it would be the end of him. His body, however, betrayed him, slowly crouching away from the corner. Mr Dodic saw this as if a ghost had appeared in front of him, even if he fully knew it was his pupil. 'Faust, what are you doing?!' described Mr Dodic's horrified expression.

Faust managed to take a sliver of the action. The young elf was strangling the guard with her rope. He tried to break the rope strangling his neck away, but it looked like it had frozen on his neck. She banged him against the wall again, overpowering the disarmed guard. The elf's legs then brought the soldier to his knees, tightening the rope around his neck. His grunting slowly receded.

The elf straightened her rope and froze it with her hands to become a long staff. She then whipped out a curved blade from her hip and bound it at the end of the shiny-frozen staff, turning it into a scythe. Faust managed to look at her pale-pink face, with blue markings on her cheeks. Her light navy outfit looked alien to Faust, a different design to what he saw from Yudhi and other Geo elves, wondering if that's even armour. The elf scanned the room ominously before picking up the guard's body and stuffing it away. She then walked back where she had come from, with Faust nearly failing to tuck his head away before she could notice him. Her footsteps seemed to stop right at the door.

"Any of 'em left? Car's clean," the young elf said.

"No. This side is clean as well," A thick man's voice replied, "In that case, I'll check the front. You stay here and clear the tails."

"Ye sure ye don't need mah help? We'll be spotted soon enough anyway if we don't find that goddamn override button," she said — what's with this Scottish accent? Faust thought.