*RATATATATA*
Another burst of gunfire rang out as Mira walked through carriage 301. Behind her, a small crowd of both wounded and unwounded elves, beasts and mermaids followed with Maria guarding their back.
"That's a lot of gunfire." Mira muttered, "Yet the train still isn't stopping."
*WAAAH*
The children following Mira cried out of fear due to the loud gunshots that reverberated through the carriages.
Creating a pair of noise cancelling headsets for everyone out of mana, Mira gestured them to put it on. Demonstrating how to put them on for the children, Mira made two more pairs and tossed one to Maria.
"Can you still hear me?" Mira said into the mic as she tested the communication functions of the headsets.
"Yes." A security officer responded.
"Good. Try to keep talking to a minimum as others can still hear you. Also, security guards, take off your hi-vis jackets. I don't know why your wearing those right now. You're practically asking those lunatics to see us." Mira advised as she continued checking the rooms in carriage 301.
'Is Mariana behind us?' Mira asked Maria.
Mira had sent Mercy to go with Brian and co. and Mariana to clean up any stragglers behind her and Maria.
'Yup.' Maria responded.
'Good. Tell her to quicken the pace and meet up with us here.' Mira commanded.
"We're taking a break. Sit down and rest. We don't know what might happen so those with weapons and are able-bodied, stay alert and ready to protect those near you." Mira said to the crowd.
After an hour of resting, Mariana finally caught up with Mira and her crowd of casualties.
"You're here." Mira said, recognising her presence.
"Yup. You want Mariana or Mary and Anna?" Mariana asked.
"Mary and Anna. One to push forwards with me and another to guard the crowd with Maria." Mira said. "Children and those that are easily scared by gore, look away or cover your eyes."
As Mariana split, Mira stood up to survey their surroundings.
"Any ideas as to why the train hasn't stopped yet?" Mira asked. "You can look now. It's finished."
"Either the driver and co-driver are dead, they're being threatened, or they're colluding with Lunar Matches." The nearest security guard said after thinking for a while. "Most likely the second option."
"Okay. Everyone! We're moving now." Mira quietly announced.
Sticking her head into the last room of carriage 301, Mira saw several Lunar Matches. After realising they were spotted, the Lunar Matches opened fire at Mira. Mira quickly stopped peaking through the door and turned to the crowd.
"RUN TOWARDS CARRIAGE 300! I'LL TELL YOU WHEN IT'S SAFE!" Mira barked at the crowd as she sent Maria and Anna to protect them. Unfortunately, there were two many injuries for Anna to transfer to herself.
'Mary! On me!' Mira commanded as she threw an improvised flashbang she received from a fallen guard into the room.
*BANG*
Disorientating, Mira drew Sin and Sacrifice and cautiously entered the room. Due to the length of White Death, Mira thought it would be impractical to use in close quarters, and instead opted to use the revolvers strapped onto the belt around her waist.
*BANG*
Taking advantage of the flashbang, Mira shot at a Lunar Match and looked for any signs of a hostage or hidden survivor. Seeing as there were no signs, Mira freely opened fire.
'Fire at will' Mira telepathically said as Mary appeared behind her like a phantom before shooting at the Lunar Matches.
Leaving the last one alive, Mary charged her bullet up. Seeing what Mary was doing, Mira restrained the last Lunar Match with some rope and sat him on a chair.
Feeling danger, the Lunar Match tried to struggle out of the rope that he was tied in.
As she charged the gun, Mary saw a small display appear in the top corner of her vision with a bar that slowly filled up. Once the bar was filled, Mary shot the revolver. Unaware of the recoil that would hit her, Mary released her non-dominant hand from the grip and pulled the trigger.
*BANG*
*CRASH*
A supercharged bullet left the barrel as Mary felt the force of a rocket lift her off the ground as she hit the wall of the room opposite them. The sheer force of Mary hitting the wall caused the train to almost derail. It was a surprise that Mary was even alive, considering the recoil had the force of a rocket reaching top speed.
"I... Am... Never... Doing... That... Again..." Mary said through wheezes as she tried to regain the oxygen that was knocked out of her lungs.
"It's okay to come back now." Mira said over the mic. "Right, you still need one of these."
Pulling Mary off the wall, Mira made a headset for her.
"Onwards to carriage 300" Mira said as she saw the crowd arriving.
Opening the door to the carriage, Mira was surprised that there were no Lunar Matches lying in wait. As if it was their custom, Mira saw that the Lunar Matches had piled up the corpses in the middle of the carriage again.
"Close your eyes if you're sensitive to gore." Mira advised.
Checking each room, Mira found no survivors. Walking towards the final room, a nano-sized robot camera followed Mira from the ceiling. Looking into the room, Mira's face paled as she barked orders again.
"RUN AS FAR AS YOU CAN! IT'S A FUCKING BOMB!" Mira shouted.
In the middle of the room, Mira saw a bomb sat on top of a chair.
At another location...
"They're at bomb site B now." A man with a hood covering his face said as he monitored a woman with a crowd of people following her.
Atop a throne of bones and skulls, a figure with a jester mask called out with a genderless voice, "Good. Blow them up."
Suddenly, a display ejected from the bomb. On it displayed a timer of 2 seconds.
*TICK*
'SHIT. SURELY SOMETHING CAN GET US OUT OF THIS.' Mira thought as her brain clocked in overtime to think of a solution, 'Time strands can freeze something, as shown by Loki. Maybe I can stop time, or reverse time? Better than nothing I guess.'
*TICK*
As the number was transitioning from a 1 to a 0, Mira activated [Time Strand Manipulation] along with [Laverna's Soul Eyes] just in case it was needed. Looking around, Mira realised that time had slowed down for her. Not knowing how long she could keep time slowed down, Mira quickly surveyed the area for anything that looked like a strand of time, whatever they looked like. Above the heads of everyone, Mira saw that there was a tiny green strand that was connected to them.
'Guess their the time strands. God I hope this works.' Mira thought as she drew Crescent Moon and started cutting the strands of everyone there.
After cutting the strands, the person the strand was connected to started to reverse to any time in the past that Mira wished. Sending them back to Carriage 300.
'Shit, if I don't reinforce the surroundings, this bomb might actually destroy the carriage and disconnect the carriages behind this one.' Mira said as she tried to manipulate mana. Seeing that the ambient mana around her was reacting slowly, Mira resorted to use her internal supply of mana to reinforce the walls. 'FUCK. This hurts!'
After some time, Mira managed to reinforce the whole of the carriage. Praying that it was enough to stop the carriage from breaking, Mira tried to run away from the carriage before time resumed. Coughing up blood from the backlash of using the skill, Mira tried to slightly injure her hand with Jester's Cards in order to not fall unconscious from overuse before the bomb exploded.
*BOOM*
