Taken Souls And Autoclaves

Chapter Two

The train station had a final train waiting to depart, and she got there just in time to buy a ticket and get a spot inside. Elisa was long gone and Vogal walked in alone, seeing that there weren't many people on board. She had free roam of the cars as soon as the train took off, and left her seat to make her way to the dining car, where she was ultimately heading for the bar. She slid open the doors and slammed it behind her, startling the bartender. He jumped at the sound and started stuttering like a motorboat.

"Ahapapapapa! H-Hello! I wasn't expecting a-anyone! S-Sorr-ry!" Vogal narrowed her eye at him, watching him awkwardly fiddle with his hands. He forced a toothy smile at her, trying to avert her gaze. She kept her eye on him cautiously while slowly walking over to the bar. Vogal stood inches away from the bar and leaned in, only for him to lean back in attempt to keep away from her. She let up the gaze and laughed at the bartender's chocolate brown eyes darting around and slowly relaxing as she leaned away. She grabbed a stool and pulled it out so she could slide in and sit down. The bartender huffed out a sigh of relief and ran his shaky fingers through his hair. He noted the scars on her face and neck, studying the eye patch. He thought of all the reasons she could have those scars, but he was too nervous to ask about it. For all he knew, she could be a street fighter or a gangster of some kind.

When she finished laughing at the poor man, she stared at him for a few seconds before she held up two fingers. "Double whisky. Straight up," She said. He grinned and pulled out the bottle and two shot glasses. She turned away and looked out the window to see the landscape barrel by in a blur. As she turned back around to take a glass, the far door of the car swung open to allow all three eyes to stare down the barrel of a rather large mounted machine gun. Vogal ducked for cover behind the bar by launching herself over the counter, but the bartender couldn't make it down in time. She looked at his mauled body and watched the color in his eyes quickly fade to a pale yellow. Her stomach churned and she shut her eyes, trying to blink away the image. However the bullets raining into the car wouldn't allow her more than a moment to gather herself. The windows shattered around her, sending glass mixed with the barrage of bullets.

The wind from outside screeched into the train car, threatening to pierce her eardrums. Sun was setting and the air flashed a chill throughout the entire room. The air, the air she relied on since she was fifteen. Her air. It was a simple idea that she wished she used more often. Quickly, she took a deep breath and exhaled her infamous white mist, but the wind would have none of that. After a few more failing attempts, she turns to the bottles around her. A large can of empty liquor bottles sat next to the bartender's corpse, but she pushed him out of the way to grab the bin and take a bottle out. She put it to her lips and sparked the gland in the roof of her mouth to create a slightly thicker mist. She would need a bit more power for her idea.

Concrete. What's concrete even made out of? Cement... Sulfur? No, not sulfur. Sand, gravel, which means Carbon's in there... Shit! I don't know!

The machine gun's bullets paused. All she created in the bottle was a rocky slush, but it was all she needed. She stood up for a moment to chuck the bottle at the gun, just barely hitting the barrel of the mounted death machine. It was enough to slow down the reload. She peeked up above the counter and saw three people manning it. They fumbled with the bullet reels, allowing a time gap for her to attempt another bottle. She grabbed another and repeated the process, making slightly harder rock slush. The gun crew was quick, and was back to shooting holes in the place before she knew it. The fight fought harder, blowing most of the windows to shreds along with all the furniture. Bullets whizzed by her head through the receding cover of the mini bar.

It was easy to discern the nearing of what might be her demise. Gritting her teeth, she realized her only chance to survive was either a miracle or to throw herself out of cover with a possibility of hitting the gunman. At this point, she had nothing to lose. Except maybe Marcello. Her grip tightened on the bottle's neck and she shut her eye, chucking the bottle blindly at the enemy. A crack, glass shattering, and the tinny echo of metal rang out like a bell, mixing with the screech of the wind through the broken windows. The sound was deafening, enough to break an eardrum, which was exactly what happened to the gunmen, at least the main one doing damage. The spotter was hit between the eyes with a shard of glass. If he had survived he would have been blind. An ironic death if she'd ever seen one. The third man, seeing his teammates downed, dropped his duty as an ammunition loader to stumble back behind the weapon and crawled to the next train car, slamming the door behind him. She wasted no time in chasing him.

As she neared the mechanical weapon when the primary gunman moved in what she previously believed to be his resting place. Burst eardrums are less fatal than one would think. She froze, waited for a moment, and attempted to step over him, but the man was on the footway where she would have to step in order to reach the other door. He groaned again, but still seemed to have some strength in him. She stuck her head out the door and into the cold air outside. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a mounted ladder stretched up to the roof. Now she had three options, climb the ladder, mount the gun and crawl across, or step on top of the man. No way in hell would she climb that ladder, and the gun was covered in the concrete slush she made previously. She recounted her odds, and sighed. It was a better predicament than what she had just faced, so she stepped on the suffering man's chest, opened the opposite door, and landed a single foot inside before her other was tugged backwards by the bleeding man below her. This would obviously happen, so instead of freaking out as her body was thrown back to the first door, she caught herself on the handles of the mounted gun and lifted herself up a bit to kick his hand off, but to her surprise, he was sliding off the small amount of foot room above the train car hinge and nearing his head to the rails that he would make his fate. He was still conscious throughout this and it was clear he was planning to take his own life, as well as hers.