Once I grab my “case,” me and Wolf begin to quickly move towards the front of the train. As we move, I ask, “Do you have a job on the train, or did you just come here by accident.”

  Wolf looks at me and says dryly, “It’s just your luck that brings me here. Or at least that’s how you would describe it.”

  I know she is saying it sarcastically, but I honestly do believe my luck, or just the pull of the Resonance, caused her to take the train ride. Wait. “Was there no announcement that something was going on in the train?”

  “There was,” Wolf says. “There was an announcement that something was wrong on the train and everyone who got a ticket would get a refund. Of course, Storyborn were still allowed to go in for some reason.”

  I couldn’t help but ask, “And you did think it was suspicious?”

  “It is, but I have something important to do in a few hours and the earliest airplane would be 2 hours from now.” Hm, if she didn’t have whatever she was going on, I would die by Boomslang’s hands. I guess my stupid ability can sometimes help me. She then asks me, “You said this Tangerine person needs help, why are you so willing to help someone you don’t know. It does not sound like you.” I hear a tinge of hope in her voice

  I sigh, as I did not like to snuff said hope. “It’s because whoever is attacking them is most lightly the ‘bad guy’ of this Story Resonance. If we are forced to meet with them eventually, then we might as well do it sooner rather than later.”

  She looks back at me, I can’t really tell what kind of expression she is making thanks to the angle, but I have a feeling it’s negative.

  Since there wasn’t any foot traffic in the train, we quickly arrived at the front. To my surprise, Limon is standing in front of the door to the control room, with both of his swords drawn. Oddly, he has a solemn, yet determined expression on his face. He then opens his mouth and says, “Turn back now and I won't harm you.” They way he said it made it clear he was reading off of a script.

  We both just stand in silence, waiting for someone to make the next move. Wolf asks, “How much do you know about him?”

  I place the suitcase on a seat, making sure it's comfortable, and reply, “Enough to know he wouldn’t be in the way if he wasn’t protecting something.” As soon as I said that, Limon looks away for a moment, confirming my suspicion.

  Although I said it would be better to face the “bad guy” as soon as possible, it felt wrong to fight someone who is being held hostage. Limon pleaded with us, "Please, I don’t even care if you take the briefcase. If I-”

  The voice of a woman playfully says, “My, that wasn’t part of the script. Although I do like the occasional improvisation once and a while, overminding the writing too much might cause them to take some… drastic measures to correct the “role” purpose." Limon’s hands begin to tremble once she says the last part.

  I look to the back and say, “What is your goal Prince.” I am surprised when I said Prince, as I meant to say Ms. scum, though it does not surprise me that she got the role of the Prince given the situation.

  Prince’s voice came out, with a hint of irritation, “You know what, as punishment for calling out my title, kill the 2 in the room.”

  As soon as she says that, I see Limon take a very deep breath, something that I saw once during the bar brawl. I yell, “Get down!”

  We both took cover as orange red fire erupted through the aisle, and almost burned a part of my clothes.

  As that happens, Wolf says, “The Devil You Forgot.” The same gun appeared in her hands and took shots at him once the flames were out of reach. Limon barely dodged the first shot, which caused him to stop breathing fire. He then uses his swords to deflect the bullets that are coming right at him.

  While he is distracted, I rummage through my pockets to see what I can use, only to be disappointed when I only have 2 pens left. As I look around my surroundings, I feel something fall onto my head. “Ow.”

  I wasn’t heavy so it only hurt me a little. I look at what fell and see a purse filled with stuff. Someone must have left it on the top shelf of their seat, which no matter how odd it is, I did not waste this opportunity. I look through the bag to see if I can find something useful.

  Lipstick no, phone no, wallet… maybe, but not right now. Ah, this will work. I look to my side and say, “distract him, I need to get up close.”

  She nods while reloading her rifle , “Alright, but no promises!” She then gets up and continues to fire.

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  I see Limon is about to shoot fire when he stops to deflect all of the bullets that are coming his way. While she is giving me covering fire, I run up towards him, making sure I am in the Wolf's line of sight. I feel a familiarly weird sensation, feeling like someone gave me an insane amount of painkillers, opened me up and began to poke into my insides, as the bullet harmlessly went though me and hit Limon in the leg.

  Thanks to his vision being blocked, and resulting in having more trouble with deflecting the bullets, he is forced to back up and increase concentration. This gives me the opportunity to get relatively close, and pull out what I got from the purse, pepper spray.

  Limon sees this and tries to move away, but gets hit in the shoulder by another bullet, but oddly the bullet did not go as far as I expected before breaking down. Either way, I have an opening and I press down on the spray… and nothing comes out.

  The hell, I tested it before using it so this won't happen. At that moment, I hear the subtle sound of something hitting the ground, probably Wolf’s magazine as I felt no bullets go through me. Limon must have sensed it as well as he readied his swords and made a slash. I back up and use the spray to block the slash, but it blows up and sprayed the pepper all over my face.

  I feel the painful burn throughout my face, to the point that I fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. I'm probably screaming like a bitch but this is too painful to care about how I sound. I try to look around, but my vision is hazy… Oddly, I see the outline of an orange creature and a container right next to it. I do not question it as I grab it and pour the constance all over my face.

  This relieves some of the pain, enough for me to overhear what sounds like Prince saying, “I know it’s a 2 verses one, but I am thoroughly disappointed by your performance. If it wasn’t for me, you would have been the one writhing on the ground. Oh well, I guess I have to do some of the dirty work.” I hear more gun shots echo throughout the train, but I’m too preoccupied with trying to get all this shit off my face.

  Thankfully, the water washed off most of the spray. It still hurts like hell, but I can focus on what the hell is happening around me, while still pretending I’m in pain. It seems that Limon got hit by the spray as well, but not as much as me, and is wiping the remaining pepper off his face. I hear another shot and see a bullet bouncing all around the train, making an impossible amount of ricochet. I don’t have enough Dexterity to dodge bullets, but I can see them fly through the air. Before I could process if that’s Wolf’s bullets or not, my thoughts were answered when she barely managed to block the bullet using her rifle.

  I see Limon move towards Wolf as she is being pelted with a constant rain of bullets, which oddly always seem to miss Limon by a wide magen. When he’s far enough away from me, I get up and move towards the front. Despite knowing I can’t dodge a bullet, it seems to not be fired towards the target, using the ricochet for it to land. So I might be able to move out of the way of the speeding bullet. Surprisingly, the bullets simply move around me, much like Limon.

  I do not question much further as I grab the pens in order to attack Prince. But as I get close, she fires and the bullet ricochets into the door, which breaks something, causing it to close. It seems that even she is surprised by this development as I see her look through the door and muffly say, “What the hell?”

  Does she not control where the bullet goes? I look around to see if I can find another way to get into the room, cause if I try to force the door to open, I’ll just get shot in the heart. Unfortunately, before I can find a way to enter, Prince reloads and starts to shoot through the window. The glass seems to be bullet resistant, but after 3 shots, the glass broke. This fortunately gave me enough foresight to block the incoming bullets using my jacket. Hm, the gun isn’t a Storyborn weapon, or at the very least the bullets aren't because I only feel a small impact once the bullet hits. Still, I back off as my Endurance isn’t high enough to walk off a direct hit.

  Behind me, Wolf warns me, “Behind you.”

  I turn back and see Limon pointing at me, and fire manifesting from his fingers, and coming right at me. I jump behind the seats, causing the heat to miss me, but some of the seats begin to be set on fire. Now that I think about it, a lot of the seats are on fire, making the need to retreat to intensify. Shots begin to ring out as Wolf begins to attack Limon, once again forcing him to be defensive. I use this distraction to get up and run towards him. As he turns, I shove him to the side, and he falls to the side.

  While Prince is still shooting at me, I look at Wolf who just shot through a window so we won't suffocate, and say, “We have to retreat!”

  She nods as she moves to the exit, and I grab the suitcase and follow after her. Unfortunately, my worst fear came to pass as there was someone blocking the door. The one who is standing in our way is the old lady who wolf shot out of the train, Boomslang.

  She has a smile that barely masks her resentment towards us as she says, “My my, I see that both of you have been having fun without me.”

  From the back, Prince says, “Thank goodness we got some backup. I was this close to killing the brother for his sorry display of guarding.”

  Boomslang snickers, “What a funny little lass. What makes you think I’ll be working for you?”

  Prince responds, “It’s quite rude for you to talk to the one who hired you.”

  At this, Boomslang’s eye twitch, as something she just said made her even more irritable. She takes a deep breath as a false smile widens as she says, “I suppose using the 2 naughty children as stress relief will be good enough for now.”

  I look around to see if there's a way out that isn’t too risky, but all I find is the flames that are eating the fabric of the seats, and the 3 opponents who stand in our way.

  Me and Wolf stand back to back, she asks, “As much as it pains me, I’m all out of ideas. Since you used to be our idea’s guy, do you have a plan to get us out of this 2 v 3.”

  I lightly chuckle, it’s been a while since I was called the idea’s guy. “Not a plan per say, but I know how to make this fight more fair.”

  Wolf sounds genuinely surprised, “How?”

  “Simple.” I raise the “suitcase” and say, “We just got to convince the killer mimic on my hands to help us out.”