noon the next day-
I said goodbye to the boys who I had known my entire life as I stepped into the airport terminal. I warned them that they had better keep their punky asses out of danger, or I would be back to haul their ass out of the line of fire. I hugged each of them goodbye, gave them a number that was only for them to call me on, and warned them to either return the stolen equiptment or dump it in a backwoods louisiana swamp when the chance came. Then we stepped on to the plane. The next six hours were hell, but they were nothing compared to the final half hour of the flight. The final half hour, of course, something went wrong. And by “Went wrong” I mean “we got hijacked. Again.” “Damon, why the hell is it that every timeI step into an airplane, it get’s hijacked? I mean, the scary part is that this actually feels NORMAL to me now.” I bitched at him as we snuck our way up the aisle of the plane, James and Fayne on our tails. He didn’t look at me, but I could tell he was smiling on the inside. I forced myself to focus. There were four armed guards in the aisle ahead, two more by the door, and God-only-knew-how-many were holed up in the cockpit. No words were said, but none were needed. we already knew the plan. I crept forward alone, pulling out my jacknife from the hollow lead lined area in my heel. to bad I couldn’t fit a gun in there. I yanked off a boot and pitched it towards the rear of the plane, causing a distraction. I watched in satisfaction as no less than four of the guards raced off towards the sound. Idiots. I jumped out and incapacitated one of the guards when he went to help his ambushed friends. the other three were easy to kill. Then the real challange presented itself.
I put my nose to the door, trying to confirm or be able to confidently deny that a nightmare was about to come true. I knew I smelled a Warlock of some sort behind that door, but if it was a War Mage... yikes. A War Mage is a warlock who has extensive and almost exclusive training in “the Dark Arts” of magick, so to speak. They were bred for war. The scent I got told me that it was an untrained warlock, but I kept in mind the possibility that he could be masking his scent as I kicked the door in. I knew it was a good thing I had as a fireball flew within an inch of my face. Damon pushed to the front and subdued him. He was, shockingly, the only one in the cockpit, but once again the pilots were killed. I jumped behind the wheel. I knew that the closest friendly airbase was Ramstein tower, in southern Germany. We could only be an hour away at most, but I wasn’t sure I could keep this thing in the air for that long. I did my best to hail Ramstein tower, with James flying as my copilot. Then my radar picked up six mig-16 fighter jets heading our way. Just by the fact that they hadn’t radioed, I knew that they weren’t friendly. “James, get on the intercom and tell the passangers to sit down and buckle the fuck up. NOW! Damon, get that guy either strapped down or off my fucking plane!” I began pulling evasive manuvers that I really wasn’t sure would work, knowing that if I didn’t at least try, about a hundred and thirty people would certainly die. And some of them were my family, and my pack. “James, get in the back and look for emergency parachutes. Get everyone off this plane, and don’t wait up for me, got it?” “I’m not leaving you here to die, Carmen.” “Yes you are, James Cortez, that’s an order. And you will be taking everyone else off with you, and I do mean everyone.” I spared a pointed glance at Damon, and Vasile as well. I was Alpha now, which meant James would have no choice but to do what I told him. Ten minutes later, I had descended to parachuting altitude, and I let off my precious cargo. Of course it was at that moment that a persistant Alex and Angel came into the cockpit, a haggared Damon chasing after them. “What the hell... I told James to take everyone with him!” “I pushed him over the edge before he could grab me, but I didn’t realize untill about thirty seconds ago that these two were still hidden on board.” “You were WHAT!” I screeched at the twins, my heart in my throat. “Damon! take the children and GO!” I hollered. “Make me!” he called back. “Get the twins off the fucking plane! right fucking now! Have you considered that maybe what I’m doing is to make sure my family gets out ALIVE!” He winced. I put the plane into autopilot and shoved them towards the rear loading dock, strapping on a parachute and attaqching their riggin to mine and Damon’s. “Now!” I yelled, and we jumped. I counted to sixteen as we fell. This was going to have to be what SEALs called a “Hay-lo” deploying. That meant that it was a high altitude jump with a low altitude canopy opening. I pulled the ripcord at the last possible second. My boots hit the ground in a grassy clearing, Damon landing next to me. We unstrapped our parachutes, then detached the kids, but left the rigging on and took the parachute cords. They could come in handy later. I pulled a compass and world map out of my pockets. I passed emergency whistles to Alex and Angel. “Listen, I want you to blow these if we get seperated. Unless it is clear that you could be in danger, I want you to stay at the area where you notice the seperation.” Not that I was going to let it happen, but still... better safe than sorry. Damon magicked a blue fireball into existance in front of us after the last of the Mig’s passed by. I pulled my compass out. “We should be heading due north until we find a landmark to tell us where we are.” Damon muttered. “I agree. What supplies do we have? We’ll need to make them last.” “We have two boxes of snack bars and eight bottles of water.” “We need to conserve water, at least until we can refill. As for food, we eat one bar per day. The children get one and one half.” “Agreed. We don’t need as much to sustain ourselves.” We were walking as we talked. An hour and a half later, we came across a small village. The village elders pointed us in the right direction, and resupplied us with food and, lo and behold, an actual jeep wrangler. I took a look at the engine block and the gas tank before we left. The last thing we needed was to have a breakdown. Then an idea struck me. ‘Damon, can you open up a mind link for me and James?’ ‘I’ll try. Ok, Here we go. I’ve got him.’ ‘James, you there?’ ‘Who the hell is this?’ ‘It’s Carmen. We ended up in the village of soquya, Germany. Where the hell are you?’ ‘We got a flight back from Ramestein tower. I’m in Romania right now. Are Alex and Angel with you?’ ‘No, I assumed they were with you!’ ‘Shit!’ ‘Kidding James, they’re actually right next to me. How the hell is it that you didn’t get them off the plane, you dipshit?! Why am I babysitting in some godforsaken villlage? Anyway, I’ll try to get back your way.’ ‘Okay. I’ll see you when you get here.’ With that, the connection was cut. I saw Damon looking pale and a little shaky. I threw him a snack bar and a powerade. “Eat. You need it.” He threw an arm around me, crushing me to his chest as he downed the last of the powerade.
