The group pulled up outside the Ministry compound and could tell immediately that something was going on. The loudspeakers were playing an automated message about unauthorized personnel. The security guards were running around outside trying to organize themselves to search for the unauthorized personnel. Before anybody in the long rental van could make a decision how they wanted to approach this, they noticed sparks flying out of the wall on the side of the Ministry compound building. Suddenly, instead of just sparks, sections of the stone wall started to fall out in molten blobs. Once enough of it had fallen out to create a steaming puddle on the ground they watched, to their confusion and surprise, first Cyrus and then Tyrian hopped over top of the puddle. It looked like some kind of a comedy routine seeing them escaping the Ministry compound by a tiny hole they made themselves in the wall. Mark, who was in the passenger seat, had already half-rolled down his window and was shaking his head at them while laughing.
"Hey you guys get over here we're going to fly the coop with you" Mark yelled, drawing the attention of Cy, Ty and the guards who had gone around the other side of the building. Cy and Ty started running towards the van.
"I'm sorry, but what did I just witness?" Mark said, astonished, Tara nodded along in the backseat.
"Oh I guess you guys didn't know, yeah that big explosion, that was totally Cyrus." Fiona said nonchalantly from the driver's seat with a mischievous grin. "I mean you should have seen him on the training exercise after he fired that…I don't know what, away from his hand, the explosion it made. There was just no hope for the enemy or who we thought were the enemy…" She trailed off.
"Look, we will have plenty of time to catch everyone up, once we get the hell out of here." Chibaya yelled as he pointed to the advancing guards behind Cyrus and Tyrion.
As if to answer Chibaya, although they clearly couldn't have heard him, both Cyrus and Tyrion turned and looked at the guards. Cyrus held up both of his hands and wisps of smoke began to rise up in the grass. Small fires sprang from the smoke in front of the guards effectively making a wall between them.
"Cool. Just cool… apparently you guys are fucking magic or something what the hell is that?" Mark said astonished, pointing at Cyrus. But no sooner had he finished saying that Ty held up his hands as well.
Then Ty's Wisps started to leave his arms but the guards were weary of it after bearing witness to the flames. Before any of the Wisps that left Ty could reach the guards, both Ty and Cy quickly turned and ran towards the van again. His Wisps simply dissipated as soon as he wasn't holding out his hands and focusing on them. Isamu quickly opened the dual-rear doors at the back of the van. "Get in guys come on" he shouted while waving them in.
As soon as they were both loaded into the van, he slammed the door shut. As he did so the guards were both leaning their ears towards the earpiece of their radios. After whatever message had come through was finished, both of them drew their sidearms.
"Oh shit!" Chibaya tried to pull out his own gun and then everything seemed to move in slow motion.
"Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!" Shots rang out from the guards.
The limited training that the trio of younger students had, luckily was enough to at least get them to duck down. Instinctively Fiona had floored it, putting her foot straight to the floorboards of the van starting to take off making them a moving target instead of a stationary one. Two of the shots were aimed through the passenger window; they tore through the Vans interior like lead missiles of hatred, narrowly missing Fiona while she was driving. Exiting through the closed drivers window. Mark could hear the whistling of the rounds as he was showered with glass ducked down in the passenger seat. Both were left with minor cuts from the glass moving at high speed that flew out around the rounds.
The other two rounds tore through the body of the van, missing the rear-side windows. Chibaya had managed to get his pistol out and returned fire through the closed windows. The difference between a training video and reality became apparent immediately as Temporary Threshold Shift kicked into all of their ears instantly. Causing them to lose hearing leaving only a dull ringing sound and pain after the first shot.
After the shootout, which had only lasted a few seconds but felt like an eternity, they're hearing returned and it became apparent that all was not well.
A few blocks away from the shootout "I'm hit, I'm hit!"
"fuck my ears"
Fiona was driving recklessly and swerved around a car sending them all into one side of the vehicle.
"Watch the driving Fiona we got injured back here." Chibaya spoke with a harsher tone than he intended. "Who is hit?"
"Over here! over here!" Isamu grunted out between his moans. Tara was already trying to help him, ignoring a cut below her left eye on her own cheek.
"It seems like it went straight through his shoulder" she offered her assessment based on what she could see. "We have to stop the bleeding somehow." Blood was continuously gushing out in small spurts, despite her having pinched his armpit and above his shoulder in an attempt to slow down the bleeding.
"Here, there was a first aid kit underneath the passenger seat in the front," Chibaya said as he reached underneath the front passenger seat and pulled out a medical first aid kit. He broke the seal on the latch, opened it up and started pulling out supplies quickly handing them over to Tara. Ty now had his head in the game and was assisting them.
Before they started first aid, Tara was required to read the small instruction sheet she had been given out loud.
"For GSW or Gunshot wounds- Take the syringe filled with absorbent compound and inject directly into the entrance wound. Then use supplied gauze to pack the exit wound if there is any. Then bandage both sides of the wounds accordingly."
The three of them worked on Isamu methodically, operating on autopilot simply following the instructions on the sheet.
"Holy crap! We're not the enemy. Why did they shoot at us? All we did was leave the building even if we were helping them escape." Mark said anxiously to Fiona. Ty was still in the back, shocked from the entire situation.
"Listen everybody. We need to get a hold of ourselves. We need to get a handle on the situation, somebody needs to stop his bleeding. We do have a plan guys, it's going to be all right." Fiona said to everyone as she drove with white knuckles gripping the steering wheel tight as she weaved through traffic at a high rate of speed.
**
After 15 minutes of quieter driving, during which, managed to finish bandaging and packing Isamu's gunshot wound, stopping the bleeding. Fiona pulled up to the back of a warehouse where there were two more identical vans parked. Additional members from their student soldier exercise were outside. They had their masks dawned, poised an ready to take next actions. Ty stared out the window at them from the back of the van not knowing what was going to happen and concerned that maybe the people that they had just got in the van with might not be who they thought they were.
"Hey what's going on here? Who are all these guys with the masks on?" Ty asked with more than a little anxiety carrying in the tone of his voice. He had tried to sound brave and strong but the tone revealed his insecurities and fear.
"I wish we had time to answer all your questions and make you guys feel better but to be honest, it's time to have the focus of a Samurai. Be prepared for the battle we're all about to enter into in order to escape the city." Isamu said while grunting in pain. He had still managed to sound strong and confident despite lying on the floor of the van bandaged from the wound.