You step back, pondering your actions in the instant that action affords.
Getting this guy to somewhere where there's people is the best thing you can do. If you're publicly seen being chased by the Masked Dicer, the suspicion that you're her will drop to almost zero immediately. Only the most paranoid will even consider you after that.
You need to find a crowd first though. You know for a fact that some of the sport clubs will be practicing over in the schoolyard. But...
The shortest path to there is through Masked. Yeah, you can go around the back, but that way's long. That means more chances for Masked to stop you, or any number of things to happen, really. Not that you don't have any confidence in yourself, but you're still currently ranked at zero for Athletics.
So you charge forwards instead. He lashes out with a wide, sweeping kick, and a straight punch. You step backwards, blocking it with a upraised arm as your back hits the wall behind you. You grunt as the force of the punch drives you into the wall. But Masked made a mistake: you grab his arm as he tries to retract it and use him as a support while you run over the wall over him, landing on the other side as you shove Masked behind you.
The way is clear. You run. Behind you, Masked curses and you hear the sound of steps after you. Exactly what you wanted.
You sprint down the path, kicking off the wall to avoid Masked as he gets uncomfortably close. You nearly trip over a backpack lying on the ground, but at the last moment, you scoop it up and chuck it at masked.
The lack of sounds of tripping tells you it didn't do anything.
The next thing you know, a foot is between your legs. You trip and instinctively roll, almost slamming into the wall. But you manage to push yourself up with your hands, flipping yourself into the air and kicking off the wall to accelerate again. Masked is ahead of you, and tries to grab your foot when you sail past him.
He fails.
You burst through the gate to this particular section of the school and curse. Ramps. A whole series of them, for the disabled. You don't know what genius' idea it had been to take up nearly twenty five square meters with ramps and their railings, but he was obviously high.
You swear as you leap onto the first rail and start hopping. If you trip, its going to hurt. You toss a textbook from the bag you picked up behind you. It hits nothing, because-
Masked bursts out in front of you, traveling about three meters with each jump. You stare in disbelief for a moment before following suit. One leap fails and you fall onto your shin, but you force yourself to jump, gritting your teeth as your bone tells you that it wasn't meant for doing that.
Masked flips forward on his next jump, utilizing his momentum to sweep horizontally at your feet. You hop over it with barely an afterthought, but-
A
bong resounds behind you, and you turn back to see Masked flying through the air, head over heels. He must have hit his head with the full force of his maneuver. He grabs onto a railing as he lands, flipping himself upright as he lands to continue hopping along the railings. But slower.
Which is exactly what you need, because he's obviously been trained in acrobatics. Even with that knock, he's still making every hop perfectly, moving smoothly but slowly while you have to regain your balance or fall every three jumps.
Making it to the last railing, you hop down. Just a little bit to go...
"X, make me faster!" you gasp. You can't let a chance this good to secure your apparent innocence go to waste because you don't even know the basics of running.
A
sheen envelops your body as you say the words. Just in time too, because you slam through a classroom door and proceed to plow through an entire class of desks and chairs. A table clips you on the chin as Masked impacts you from behind. You turn around, just in time to block the actual attack, a punch. The next classroom the two of you trespass in, you run on top of the chairs and desks while Masked slams through them, throwing them everywhere.
You glance at a classroom sign as you and Masked crash into
yet another classroom. 1-B. Almost there...
You slam through the desks and chairs again, while Masked steps more carefully this time. But it doesn't matter, because the two of you burst into the schoolyard. About thirty students pause their basketball game to see the two of you hurtle out of a seriously messed up classroom.
Masked freezes as he sees the students. But by then, it's too late.
You turn, ready to fight Masked, but then he jumps, leaping almost two meters, kicking off a pillar to launch himself to just in reach of the second floor. He grabs a seam in the building and flips himself over the railing in a single motion.
Damn. And you can't give chase with all these people - a lot of them dicers - noticing... You don't know who that was. You succeeded though. Everyone's seen the Masked Dicer chasing you. Nobody suspects you now.
||||||
"Did you tell anyone you gave us a die?" you ask Emily the next day. "I was attacked by the Masked Dicer."
"Wha- no! Did- did he take it?"
"No, I rolled it," you say. Then you add a bit of acting. "B- but it was really scary! He chased me..."
And the rest of the conversation devolved into Emily asking you too many times if you were alright. It's class by the time you're able to return to your desk.
And that's when it flies out. A piece of paper inside your textbook.
4:00 p.m.
Roof
[] Write in.
[] Spend XP?
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Chase scenes work far better visually than in text. That's all I have to say.
