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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1867117" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 56: Through the StreetsAkan had only rounded two corners when he’d started having second thoughts. After being cut off by ten more Narani and having to quickly turn around at the third corner, barely managing to slip past his original pursuers to another street, he started having third thoughts. They had been shooting at him for the first leg of the run, but had quickly stopped as Akan found more populated areas to run into. But after that third corner, he’d found that the word must have gotten around to get out of the area. It was empty. In fact, it opened up into a huge, wide open market area. He’d not planned on falling into the horrible and usually fatal cliche of stopping in the exact center of the market, but Akan had present with no choice.    Well, there was another choice. That was to plow through a group of twenty other Narani who were aiming weapons at him. Seemed like all of Haladin had gotten annoyed of his killing of just one of them. Akan would have admired that if he wasn’t the one who they were stalking. When he came to a stop in the center, he brought up the lightsaber and thumbed the activation switch again. The snap-hiss and sudden appearance of the blade caused most of the Narani to jump back slightly. This gave Akan a good twenty meter distance between him and the now large circle. So, very slowly, Akan found himself circling in his position so that none of them had a long look at his back. During the run, he’d already pulled the hood down so that he had better peripheral vision, an was glad for it now.    The mask still on, his vision was limited just a little more than normal. It was acceptable though, and the mask was keeping his sand filled dark brown hair out of his eyes. Part of him wished he couldn’t see the current situation though. The Narani were not moving in to enclose him further. They didn’t need to. Seeing as there were well over thirty of them, most with rifles aimed on him, getting any closer was not required to just shoot him. But they were hesitating. Akan could only assume the lightsaber was what bought him time.    But there was a feeling growing among them that Akan could detect. The surprise the weapon had caused was quickly fading, and they were going to act. Akan’s mind raced in those few seconds he had before one of them was going to forget that there were comrades on the opposite side and fire. Not really even thinking, just letting the Force guide his actions. It had gotten him out of worse things before...Akan found himself drawing upon the Force, weaving it around and under him. His eyes only half open as he concentrated on the timing, Akan heard the first shot of a slugthrower ring out as an impossibly loud noise when compared to a blaster. It nearly broke his concentration, but he used that moment to release the energy he’d collected.    In a flash of movement, Akan was no longer where he’d been, and a Narani opposite the one who’d fired was on the ground, the shot having caught him in the heart. The only Narani that managed to see what actually happened were the two that Akan had leaped over. Their eyes followed the blur of motion up and over them, landing behind them, running for a few steps before performing another amazing leap to bring Akan on top of the nearest building. By the time Akan landed on the building, the other Narani had caught sight of him. More loud shots from slugthrowers sounded, nearly catching Akan’s arm as he turned to run out of sight.    Leaping from one building to the next, over the short alleyways between them, Akan ran as fast as he could in whatever direction he was going. With his spinning around in the circle, he’d quickly lost track of the direction he’d come from. The lightsaber had once again been deactivated, though he still held it tightly in his right hand. Though his legs were aching horribly from the continuous run with only that short break, Akan didn’t seem to be noticing how exhausted he was. He found out the hard way.    It was the fourth leap to another building, and Akan hadn’t judged it well. His left foot caught the edge of the roof as he was coming down, and his run was ended with a hard, face first meeting with the roof of a building. He didn’t roll, but slid on his face against the sand covered and coarse roof of the building. There had been a very loud crack when his face had hit, and sharp pains ran through the skin along his brow and disturbingly close to his right eye. Despite the sudden wave of fatigue that overran him when he’d fallen, Akan was on his feet again as quickly as he’d stopped sliding.Pain shot through the palm of his hands when he pushed himself up, and he looked down to see the sharp pieces of his shattered visor all across the roof. He could now see through a strange mix of tinted visor that was cracked and destroyed in so many places that he was half blind from the intense sunlight. Nearing the edge of the building and preparing another jump, Akan realized he’d dropped his lightsaber. Spinning around and easily seeing the metal cylinder off near the left side, he reached out with the Force and pulled it to his hand. He caught it easily in his right hand, ignoring the sudden pain from the impact, turned and jumped across to the next, much larger building.    Akan made this jump with no trouble, but nearly slipped from a misplaced foot on an uneven patch of the roof. Keeping his footing somehow, Akan realized the problem at this point was that he was letting the pain get to him. That problem, currently, was mixed with the blood trickling into his eyes from the cuts the shattered visor had made. While he continued his run across the roof, Akan remorphed the injuries on his face and hands, glad to feel the pain subside. Annoyingly, this didn’t cause blood that was already out to disappear, so he still had to deal with that.    But quick thinking was about to be required again. The line of buildings was about to end in an intersection of streets. Sure, he could try for another very long jump, but they’d likely still be looking on the roofs for him. He managed to get a quick look over the street before jumping down, and was glad to see it was empty. Reaching the edge of the building, Akan came down to the sand covered street hard, stumbling and not able to keep his footing. Yet again, Akan’s face met with the ground underneath him, this time getting sand in the mask and his eyes. Yet again, though, he didn’t let the fall stop him. At least this time he’d been more ready for it.    Shaking his head to get the sand away as he stood up again, Akan looked to his left. Why he didn’t look to his right, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He simply saw the left street was clear, and tore off in that direction, not looking back to see if anyone was anywhere near him. With the planet’s sun having been directly above them the entire time, he still had no idea what direction he was running in. But he did see the wall around the city. He was running right towards it...that meant he needed to turn at the next intersection and hope to go in the right direction for getting out of Haladin. But when Akan got close to the intersection, he saw that a door to a building directly in front of him was open. Standing in the door was a figure. Not aiming a weapon. Not looking ready to kill him. But motioning towards him. Frantically motioning for him to enter as he approached. If he’d not seen that, it was unlikely that his body would have given in to the exhaustion that was consuming every muscle.    However, his mind saw a place to rest. There was no warning through the Force. His mind was just as tired as his legs and aching body to second guess this. Everything just shut down two steps out from the doorway. The figure saw this, and moved in to try and slow Akan’s third fall. He didn’t have a chance to enjoy it, though, as his vision had blurred and head was spinning so much from the non-stop run that Akan finally let himself go. Mid fall, Akan blacked out.</blockquote>

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