Rushing through the house, he crashed through the other side and raised his head at a forty-five degree angle.
'Okay, if the clock tower is there and the manor is that way...' He paused as he drew a line with his finger across the skyline. 'The marina must be...'
"Right!"
He nodded and was turning to go in that direction when he heard a noise getting closer.
"grrrrrraaaaAAAAANNNT!"
Looking in the direction of the noise, he saw Phoenicia elegantly arcing over the roofs of the town with dual orbs of fire in her hands.
'I know exactly what to do." He nodded with a mock serious face as he fished out his earbuds and popped them in.
'Now I can listen to music as I run for my life! :)'
And that is what he did as Phoenicia touched down. Landing with the force of a meteor as she let out all of her built up energy in a single blast. The fiery ball incinerating the nearby houses and leaving them half standing. A thick cloud of smog surrounded the area and rose to the sky.
Grant bobbed his head to the beat of the music as he ran. In fact, he was vibing so hard to the music that he almost didn't notice the carts and carriages heading in his direction.
"TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND!" He yelled and waved his arm as he desperately tried to get them to move.
A flame rushed forth from over his shoulder and struck them all in the dead center of the road. A loud boom was the only cry he heard before the wooden structures were torn to pieces. As for the riders... He didn't know.
"Can't get away!" Phoenicia shouted from behind.
'She hasn't run out yet?' Grant thought as he sped up as he came to the wreckage, the ground littered with flames.
Grant barely even hesitated as he jumped on a larger piece of the cart's remains lying against a nearby wall.
'She doesn't seem to be sputtering out of mana.' He thought as he jumped from the piece of wood before it collapsed. He was on it for half a second.
He landed on a nearby wall and started running, slowly losing height against the vertical plane as he did so. He remembered the hole in her robes.
'Physical injury. Did she use a potion?"
Coming off the wall, he lunged at a lamppost that was bent at an odd angle from the explosion. Grabbing it with both arms, he swung into the air like a gymnast and even managed to do a somersault before coming back down.
'No, I would have been able to tell.' His eyes widened in realization. 'She's using her-'
"OOF!"
Distracted by his realization, he didn't notice that he'd landed on a nearby barrel and managed to knock it over.
"Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah!"
Fumbling to correct his mistake, he eventually managed to get himself stable on the barrel as he rolled down the street.
With one last cry of ,"Skills!" he rolled around of corner and went out of sight.
Seeing this, Phoenicia flared her flames giving her more speed as she ran. Taking a page out of Grant's book, she ran along the wall. Unlike Grant the thrust she had actually lifted her higher.
Coming up to the top, she leaped off of it and into the air. At the apex of her jump, Phoenicia stopped the flames, took out a small charm, and threw it into the distance. From there she let out her flames again and was able to control her descent until after she cleared the wreckage.
_______________________________
"F**k! Did she literally have to bring the house down on us?" Tim said before breaking in a coughing fit.
Emers shook his head as he lifted another slab of rubble off of Tim.
"It's to be expected. We were the ones who let out a singularity in the thick of mana intensive supports."
"How was I supposed to know that she was telling the truth!" He tried moving his leg and found that he could finally move it again.
The clumps of stone fell off as he stood up and dusted himself off.
"Oh, I don't know. How about act-chu-ally checking the area?"
"Shut it Emers! I don't need to hear it from you." He said with a scowl before looking up at the open sky beyond the hole they were in. "Can I go home now? I think this, just maybe, might be out of our jurisdiction."
Emers sighed as he took in the damage. "Sure, why not?"
Tim turned to look at him in shock."Wait, really?"
"Yeah," he paused to kick a stone down the pile. "We lost her trail. She's probably halfway across town by now. Even if we could figure out where she went, she'd already met Grant by the time we got there."
Tim's eyes widened slightly as he came to a realization and placed a hand on his chin.
"Hey Emers."
"Yeah?" He said as he looked for a way to get out of the hole.
"How did ashtray know where Grant was anyway?"
That stopped Emers in his tracks.
"I-I don't know."
You could see the gears turning inside Emers' head. His face turning more ghastly with every implication he considered.
Suddenly, his head shot up.
"I got her."
"What?"
"She used my charm, we have to get there now!"