Flashback Chicken Run

[Lashander]

73rd Day of Spring 513 It was one of those days. Those days were nothing quite went the way it should. Lashander had a lot of these days, he thought to himself as he ducked around a narrow corner. Shooting down what was more space left over between two buildings than a street of any description, the young man could hear the soles of his pursuers skitter past the alleyway. Instinctively, he also knew that he'd only bought a few extra heartbeats that way, and that he stood the risk of losing them again. He ran as best he could, but his shoulders kept scraping up against the walls to either side of him. Left then right then left again. Good thing he wasn't in his better clothes, he thought, and that he hadn't brought the glaive. Well, actually, had he had the glaive he might not be here. Of course he might just be lying in a pool of his own blood. Lash hadn't counted his assailants. Instead he'd bolted as soon as he'd counted the second one. Cause he didn't have the glaive. Cause he'd meant to attend to that so-called business meeting unarmed as he'd been asked. The real question was whether these were just some lucky muggers or whether his contact had set him up, but Lashander's train of thought was cut short as he crashed stumbling from the bright rectangle that marked the end of the alley. It was late enough in the evening for the crowds on the streets to be thinning, but the boy had the ill fortune of almost immediately colliding with a portly Ravolasaman, still in his work clothes. At least he didn't overshoot the main thoroughfare and go straight into the canal. "Watch where you're going, you little shyke!" the Ravolasaman cursed. Lash, still bouncing back from the impact that didn't seem to have had much effect on the much bigger man, had to grin. "I will, good man, if you watch what you eat. Or get a bigger boat. At this rate it'll be mere days before you just sink!" The man turned an unflattering red and inhaled sharply, most likely to launch a profanity-strewn reply but at that moment the next man barreled into him, knocking both flat. Lashander's pursuers had caught up with them. In turning, the boy saw another man leave the alleyway and trip spectacularly across the other two, coming to a stop just shy of the platform's edge. Then he was off, the heels of his boots slamming into the wooden planks beneath his feet with every step. He was young and lithe, running should have come easier to Lash, he thought. Then again he very much enjoyed spending his nights around a table and his days in bed, or at the very least vice versa. He never saw the point in running. Now that he needed to, he naturally wasn't very good at it. This had been so much easier, he felt, when he'd been a kid. He'd been out and about so much, grabbing a snack here or a bauble there, then running off, disappearing into the crowd, scaling a wall, hiding on someone's balcony with his ill-gotten treasures. Now he was bigger, unable to just slip between people as easily, more often than not having to push them out of the way, yelling warnings, stumbling over their pets or some merchant's wares as he got too close to their stalls. And all that even though the streets were hardly busy. This used to be fun. It wasn't anymore. Luckily for him, the men behind him had to fight just as much to push past the people in their way. For now, he managed to stay ahead. For now.

[Lashander]

He'd need to get home. That was the one safe place Lash could conceive of. The household guard would make short work of his assailants if they were stupid enough to follow him to the doorstep, if only on account of being armored. But home was still a long run away. Petch. He'd spent too much time thinking and not enough paying attention to his surroundings. A small child had sauntered into his path and it was a near collision. Water to the left and a fishmonger's stall to the right. Lash wasn't about to go into the drink, so he took heart, veered right and leapt onto the stall's counter. The time of day meant there wasn't much fish to be sold anymore, but what remained was enough. He managed to plant a foot safely on the wet wood, but the second one was not so lucky. The salmon he'd stepped on went flying as Lash crashed to his rear. He caught a look of horror on the old fishmonger's face as he slid past him, momentum and slipperiness of those fish carrying him on. Lash tried to at least look apologetic, finding no time for words. The counter ended and the boy was somehow deposited onto unsteady feet, stumbling onward across fish and planks. He heard the sounds of commotion around and behind him. Certainly that hadn't been his finest hour, but he couldn't afford to stop and explain, could he now? So he pushed on, lungs burning with exhaustion, knowing the next bidge would take him to the Merchant's Ring and thus one platform closer to home. As his luck would have it, the bridge was packed. A busker had chosen it to play his flute and enough people stopped to listen, or just hang around and wait for the inevitable intervention of the Stryfe. Either way, there was no way he'd make the bridge in appreciable time. Time to improvise. After his spectacular failure with the fishmonger, this could hardly get any worse. Or so he thought. Sparing a moment to look behind him, he noticed that the commotion at the wrecked mechant's stall seemed to have slowed his pursuers just enough to allow him a deep breath or two before he hoisted himself onto the bridge's railing and tried to caaarefully balance his way across the bridge in that manner. He took a step, then another, arms wide and trying to ignore the gawking of those people not entirely entranced by the flutist on the bridge. The third step found him swaying towards the water below, so he quickly took another and that had him sway in the other direction. Two more quick steps merely took him to the middle of the bridge and found him actually falling. Through sheer luck and no effort of his own whatsoever, Lash managed to at least fall onto the crowd and not into the canal. To his surprise, he found the crowd so tightly packed that he somehow came to rest on their heads and shoulders and maybe other parts of their anatomy. Either way, he didn't really fall to the ground but was carried aloft by these people. Not one to waste a good opportunity, he scrambled onward across the throng to a cacophony of curses. He might have had sympathy for them, but he had no time for sympathy at all. Pulling himself along people's shoulders and clothes and in one case hair and kicking a few of them as he moved on with all the agility of a fish on land, he somehow made it to the end of the bridge. Tumbling off the assembled shoulders into an undignified heap, Lash struggled to his feet as soon as he could and carried on at a fast trot, slapping away grasping hands or pushing out of them. He should have worn a mask, he allowed himself to think, because as it looked he could never leave the house again. Pushing into a house entrance around the corner, he finally took that breather. There was no way the men after him could match that ridiculous feat. The question was, how would he get any further from here? He'd need to cross the People's Market next and that would still be packed, despite the time or maybe because of it. The market was always packed. Well, Lash thought, he wasn't completely unarmed after all.

[Lashander]

One weapon, but it was a big one. His teacher had stressed it often enough after all. The Flux was no more and no less than a weapon. Or rather the ability to weaponize every possible function of the human body. And he'd loved to demonstrate that too, the flashy git. Leaping to second story balconies, snapping chains and taking a bite out of a silver platter. Well, Lash had no platters, but he did have a row of houses the outsides of which offered enough nooks and crannies and windows and balconies to ascend on. And while he was no climber, he had the petching Flux on his side. He could only hope that he had enough time. Then again, if he didn't do this then they would probably catch up with him anyway. The throng on the bridge wasn't going to keep his pursuers forever. Lash closed his eyes and tried to feel his body. He forced himself aware of every breath as it entered and left his body, measuring the way his lungs expanded and contracted, burning up as they went. Forced himself aware of the state of his aching muscles, on the verge of cramping up where his legs were concerned, coiled along his back and shoulders but untested today along his arms. Well that would soon change. "Battles are decided in the mind." he reminded himself, his voice but a whisper under his breath. "Battles are decided in the mind." he repeated, making himself acknowledge that in order to best others, he needed to best himself first. The strongest sword arm alone wouldn't help here because, "Battles are decided in the mind." Quite quietly, Lash growled at himself. Pushing, forcing his mind against the noises of the people passing the little alcove that was his sanctuary, Lashander reached out with his mind and seized that feeling of bodily awareness in a Djed-fueled grip. It wasn't so much a matter of filling his nerves with intent, his body did that quite well on his own, especially with the often grueling weapons classes he had gone through. Even moreso the hungover mornings where he'd swear he'd be keenly aware of every hurting fiber of his physical shell. They'd left him with a very keen understanding of his body. That was the easy part. It was about fueling those nerves and the associated body parts. That was the tricky thing. Catching the Djed welling up and giving the wave of pleasurable warmth direction, letting it strengthen his shoulders and arms and not becoming dispersed randomly about his body. Lash knew he was getting somewhere when he felt the pain subside from his lungs, then from his legs. If it wasn't so hard to get into the flow of Djed he'd do this more often, he thought, just for the rush alone. In the heat of the moment, the young man contemplated taking on his assailants like this. He'd tear them limb from limb... but that would definitely catch the Stryfe's attention, if his prior antics hadn't that was. No, his course was clear. His way was up. Stepping out of the entryway without bothering to look around, he turned, reached up and pulled himself up by the ornamental frame of its mouth. From there, he reached for the wrought iron of a barred window. Lash couldn't even stop to marvel as himself as he smoothly lifted himself with one arm at first. Too caught up was he in the rush of being the marvel. He looked left, looked right, found a wall ornament to hang from and pull himself further. A push, a shove and he dangled from the base of a balcony by his fingertips alone. Had he not had the Flux on his side, he would have fallen to his death... no, he wouldn't even have been here. But as it was he had unlimited power it felt, and the confidence to apply it recklessly. Pulling himself onto the balcony, he straddled the railing and chanced a first tender look down to the street. They were there alright, the men from the alley, discussing amongst themselves what to do. None wanted to follow. But Lash wanted more.

[Lashander]

With a victorious grunt, the young man pulled himself onto the building's roof. His pursuers down on the street, though they'd been resigned to just gawking as he spider-climbed his way up the building with inhuman levels of strength, understood however that he needed to come down at some point. The last thing Lash could really notice of them was when they dispersed in either direction. They were going to surround the building. He had to laugh. With his Djed in flow now, there was no way they could stop him. "Battles are decided in the mind." he reminded himself, then concentrated on redirecting the flow of energy from his upper body to his legs. Lash smiled as the warmth coursed through his nerves, leaving the arms and chest and sinking down below his waist. Not for the first time he wondered what else he could do with his Djed if he actually applied himself. He'd long suspected that great fun was a side effect of great power. He'd however also been told that only a master of the Flux was able to affect more than his muscles. And for now it was his muscles he needed. Striding across the building's roof with intent, Lashander peered out. Another building to his right, he wouldn't need the Flux to step over to it, but that would lead nowhere else. To his left and behind, canals loomed wide and wet and deep. But straight ahead, the next roof was both a bit lower and not too far. He could make that. The stride turned into a job and that picked up into a run. Flux-strengthened as he was, Lash thought his heels would break through the roof with every step, but so far it held. Coming up to the edge of the roof, he leapt. For a moment, it felt as if he flew like a bird, or an arrow. A projectile launched into the sky, possessed of strength he hadn't known he had. He didn't just clear the alleyway below, he cleared most of that building's roof in his leap, watching tarred planks zap past beneath him as he flew. There was no way he could come to a stop when he'd land, Lash realized. He'd fall, crash, go head over heels, probably break and at least sprain something. He had to land into a sort of run, carrying the momentum with him. Djed-fueled legs allowed for that much, though there was hardly any grace to it. Worse, the roof creaked and groaned beneath him and something in Lash's hip felt like an instrument's string being plucked hard. But he felt no pain, and he had no time to worry anyway. What he did have to worry about was inertia. It was securely carrying him to the edge of the building's roof and there was no way he could stop himself before he got there. So he did the only thing he could do, once more, and dug into the roof, stepping through as hard as he could. Once more, he leapt when he reached the end of the roof.