Kitsune of the Magic Mountain - Ch.27 - Making an Exit

** content warning: brief violence, injury **

The building shook a little harder, causing several cracks started to appear in the outer wall. They quickly reached from the floor to the ceiling, in between the large bullet-proof windows.

My ears folded back and my tails hung down low behind me as I addressed my parents, "Mom, dad? We should probably move away from the windows."

All three of us took a couple steps back away then mom asked nervously, "Aster? Is it true, are you really a terrorist like they said?"

My ears and tails all drooped as I shook my head, "It's not like that. I'm -"

We were all suddenly startled by another loud noise, but this one came from behind us. Someone was pounding on the door Yuki sealed a few moments earlier, like they were trying to force their way into the room.

That was accompanied by some shouting from another familiar voice, "Barrow! Walcott! What's going on in there?! We heard gunfire!"

"I was wondering if we'd hear from Mr. Lead Agent today," Yuki sighed.

I grimaced, but didn't get the chance to respond because at that moment a four meter wide section of the outer wall suddenly gave way with a loud crash. It was as if a giant invisible claw had peeled off the building's façade, which then collapsed into a pile of rubble. Except instead of a big random heap of stone and debris it ended up in the form of a very unlikely but sturdy-looking staircase. Each step was perfectly level, shallow, and a good two meters wide. There was even a railing, formed out of the bars that used to cover the windows.

The stairs hugged the surviving wall of the building about halfway down, then stopped at a newly-formed landing. From there the new staircase made a right-angle turn and descended outwards to reach street level halfway across The Millbank. And waiting barely a meter away from the last step was Wes' Mini, with all four doors open and ready for us.

Shirley was next to the small car with her ears angled forward and her tail standing straight out behind her, and the asphalt around both her and the vehicle was completely dry. Which was notable because the rest of the road all around it was submerged under at least twenty centimetres of murky water from the Thames.

My wolfgirl sister shouted up at mom and dad and I, "C'mon let's go already! Wes can't hold out much longer!"

By that point our parents looked like they were both on the verge of being totally overwhelmed. They exchanged a worried glance with each other, then at both my and Shirley's urging they finally started making their way towards the new exit.

The two had just stepped outside onto the top step when the door behind us suddenly burst open. The lead agent guy stumbled into the room, and he already had his weapon out. As soon as he saw his two colleagues unconscious on the floor his gun came up and without another word he opened fire at us.

Yuki and I reacted together at the same instant, and without a conscious decision or even a discussion we were suddenly co-fronting. I pounced us towards the MI5 agent to make sure our body was in between him and our parents, while my favourite arctic kitsune lashed out at the man's weapon with an angry bolt of lightning. As a result, another two bullets struck us in the chest before the agent's gun seemed to explode into an incandescent burst of plasma.

The pistol took the brunt of the damage, but there was enough current left over to launch the man backwards, out into the hallway. He slammed into the opposite wall, then slumped unconscious to the floor.

"Stop shooting guns around our parents!" Yuki and I shouted together at the guy, not that he could hear us. Then we turned and hurried out onto the rubble staircase after our mom and dad.

Shirley's ears were folded back and her eyes wide in shock as she demanded, "What the hell was that?! Were they actually shooting at you?!"

"Yeah!" Yuki and I responded while we ushered our parents the rest of the way down the stairs towards the Mini.

We paused there to pick one of the flattened bullets out of our clothes and flicked it towards our sister as we added, "We're bulletproof. But mom and dad aren't, so we have to get them out of here!"

Considering we were only about a dozen meters away from MI5's front doors Yuki and I were convinced there'd be a huge crowd of agents ontop of us any moment. Then we realized the main entrance to Thames House was buried behind a second pile of rubble. We knew there'd be other ways in and out of the building, but Shirl obviously thought ahead and bought us a bit more time to get away.

Unfortunately our mum was almost hysterical by that point, while dad was probably in shock. So it took another couple seconds to get the pair of them squeezed into the back seat of Wes's little car. Then as we shut the back doors Shirley called for her boyfriend.

"Wes!" the tall strong wolfgirl shouted. "It's time to go!"

Our little dogkin maid emerged from behind one of the trees in between The Millbank and Thames Path. He looked weary but there was a smile on his face and his tail was still wagging as he hurried through the knee-deep water towards the rest of us. Meanwhile Shirley reached into the car for a moment, then straightened up again with one of those bottles of magic water in her hand.

She tossed the bottle to her boyfriend as she told him, "Here it is! Do the thing, then let's get out of here!"

"Yeah!" Wes exclaimed as he caught the bottle.

He opened it and took a gulp or two, then lobbed the open bottle towards the Thames. I wasn't sure if it was his water magic or maybe Cara chipped in with her air magic, but either way the bottle went a lot higher and farther than I expected. It easily cleared the row of trees behind Wes, then the plastic container seemed to burst apart in mid-air. The resulting blob of enchanted water dropped straight down into the backed-up river, only a couple dozen meters south of Lambeth Bridge.

Thanks to the trees none of us saw it enter the river, but a moment later it seemed like the invisible magic dam gave way. And even though a small part of me was curious to stay and watch that wall of water as it raced downstream, Yuki and I managed to keep focused on getting ourselves the heck out of there.

Wes scrambled past us and into the passenger seat of his car, while Shirley slipped in behind the wheel again. Sally was there too, the little sparrow ducked in through Wes's door before he slammed it shut. Shirl slammed her door too, but the window was open so we could hear her.

"Ok sis," our sister told Yuki and I while she put the Mini in gear, "Let's move!"

"Right behind you!" we replied as we hurried towards our bike.

Unfortunately even with the river flowing again the area was still under at least a dozen centimetres of water, which we had to slosh through on our way back to our Rebel. As we neared we saw our bird friend waiting impatiently for us, pacing back and forth on the seat. There was dry ground around the bike just like Wes promised, but unless our dogkin maid's magic would keep that dry area moving with us we were in for a challenging ride. At least until we got clear of the flooded area.

"You're late," our bird friend greeted us in a grumpy tone.

We pulled on our helmet then rolled our eyes, "Sorry. We got distracted."

"Hmph," she responded as she hopped out of the way so we could take our seat on the bike.

Then as we got her little helmet in place she mentioned as if in passing, "By the way there's a bunch of well-armed jackboot thugs coming up behind you."

Yuki and I both twisted around to look, and sure enough there were something like two dozen military-looking types approaching from the north-west corner of the building. They were all decked out head-to-toe in unmarked black anti-terrorism gear, including body armour and helmets with full face masks. And they were all carrying submachine guns, which were raised and aimed at us as the group sloshed through the ankle-deep water towards us.

"I've just about had it with people pointing guns at us," my cute arctic kitsune headmate growled as she took over fronting on her own.

One of the military types looked like he was taking a breath to say something, like maybe he was going to shout at us to surrender. Or maybe he was about to give the order to open fire. Either way we'd never find out, because Yuki beat them to the punch. Her lightnings flashed out from both hands, but not at the small army behind us. Instead her electricity surged downwards and to either side, into the ankle-deep water surrounding our ride.

As far as I could tell the jackboot thugs never saw it coming. There weren't even any noises from them as the lot all froze up for a second or two. Then every last one of them collapsed at the same time, into a big heap in the middle of The Millbank.

"Well done Yuki," Cara commented in a pleased tone. "Now let's get moving shall we? We're already several minutes behind Shirley and Wes."

"Aster?" Yuki said as she retreated back inside, "Please take us home?"

I nodded, "Of course. Cara?"

Our bird friend slipped into her safe spot, nestled inside our jacket between our boobs so her little helmeted head was poking out beneath our chin. Then I put the bike in gear, and with a surge of magic into the engine crystal thing we were off. Unfortunately the dry patch didn't move with us, so when we pulled out onto The Millbank we were riding through ten centimetre deep water.

That slowed us down a little at first, but fortunately the water was still slowly draining away. And more importantly Wes made sure the flooding was limited in scope, so we were back on dry asphalt again before we even reached Vauxhall Bridge. We crossed that as part of our pre-arranged escape plan, then continued on past the Oval and onto Camberwell New Road.

There was all the usual late Saturday morning London traffic to contend with, but being on a motorcycle meant we were a lot more manoeuvrable than just about everything else on the road around us. And considering we'd just raided the Security Service headquarters, incapacitated a few dozen government agents, and flooded part of Westminster, I figured it really didn't matter anymore if we also broke some speed limits and committed a few traffic violations.

So we treated the red lights and road signs as more of a suggestion than anything else while we sped south-east towards the A20. And any time a police car or government vehicle approached a little too close Yuki reached out with her lightnings and drained its battery then fried its electrical system.

Consequently we got out of London in record time, and actually caught up with Wes's Mini less than halfway to Swanley. Yuki and I waved as we passed the small car, and Wes waved back but Shirley kept her eyes on the road. Our parents didn't wave either, they looked like they were still a little too shaken from the whole experience.

Once we got out in front our sister picked up the pace and stayed right behind us for the rest of the drive back home.

We didn't see any more police cars or other government vehicles after that, so Yuki and I assumed the humans finally figured out there wasn't much point in trying to stop us. On the other hand Cara pointed out an unmarked black helicopter that seemed to be monitoring us from a good safe distance away.

It stayed with us all the way from Sevenoaks to Hawkhurst, where we finally lost sight of it. That was only a few minutes away from our castle though, so it's not like they couldn't guess where we were going. Then again, they probably should have known that from the moment we left London.

As we passed through the little village next to our land I couldn't help worrying we were going to run into some sort of military blockade between us and our land, but we made it all the way back to the little farmhouse without running into any more trouble. We parked our Rebel in front of the building, and a moment later the Mini pulled up and stopped next to us.

Cara climbed out of my jacket and perched on the instrument cluster while I removed her little helmet, then I pulled mine off as I got off the bike. At the same time everyone emerged from the car, and for a second or two we all just stood there staring at each other in silence. Then mom and dad pulled Shirley and I into a family hug, while Cara Sally and Wes all watched quietly.

After a few seconds of silence dad spoke up, "Your sister told us about your new job, what you're really doing for Gaia. And why the government are calling you all terrorists."

"She said there's some other things you have to tell us yourself though," mom added. "Like why your father and I saw you change into someone else for a few seconds? Someone called Yuki?"

I gulped, "That's going to be another long story. Maybe we should go inside and get comfortable? Then we can talk."

Our parents finally let go of Shirley and I, then we all turned towards the farmhouse. It still didn't have any power, but we could deal with that later.

"So this is your new home?" dad asked as we reached the front door. "Gaia must be paying you all pretty good if you could afford a place like this."

My sister and I exchanged a look then I gestured south, towards the castle's wall and towers which were just visible through a row of trees. "Actually we're supposed to be moving in there soon. We've been staying here temporarily, while we finish fixing up the castle."

"All this land is ours," Shirley added with a wide grin. Her ears were standing up and her tail swished back and forth behind her as she continued, "It's over a hundred and fifty hectares, and it's all ours, along with all the buildings on it. We've got a couple farmhouses and their outbuildings. Plus a gift shop, a tea shop, and that fourteenth century castle."

** This chapter is brought to you courtesy of Aster & Yuki who commissioned it! **