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Chapter 55- Following The Trail
Part 1- Tracking
Bip floated in mid air with his eyes closed as he focused intently on the magical trail sprawling out in front of him. Alex and Liz walked down the streets a small distance behind him.
“So what do you really think is going on here? why would someone wanna kidnaped a bunch of kids with magical ability’s?” Asked Liz.
“ Don’t know, maybe there trying to build an army of Magic users to take over the world or something,” Alex replied in a semi sarcastic tone.
The par reached where Bip was hovering. He let out a thoughtful groan. He opened up his eyes and turned around to face the pair. He raised his rail to point down the street.
“Ahh… that way… I think,” Bip said.
“You think or you know?” Asked Alex.
“Don’t judge me, I’m still tired from last night and besides whoever this guy is he’s been all over the city so picking up the trail isn’t as easy as you’d think.”
“ Alright alright, no need to explain yourself. It’s just we’ve already been at this for a couple hours and been all around the city. Just doesn’t feel like we’re getting any closer.”
“Don’t worry, the trails getting pretty fresh now,” Bip said as he returned his gaze down the street. “We’re getting close now.”
Bip flew off down the street leading the group. Alex and Liz followed on behind looking around and keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. They had travelled all the way through the city and where now close to catching there first glimps of the lake that was its name sake. The scenery that had once been filled with residential buildings and various chain shops and resturants had been replaced by sparcly populated markets selling freshly caught fish, home grown produce and random home made nick nacks and do dads. The streets were sparcly populated save for the occasional fisherman or person wandering around aimlessly lost.
“This is a different side of the city,” said Liz.
“We’ve mostly been hanging around the residential and touristy area’s. when this town was first founded it’s main claim to fame was the fishing scene, the closer to the lake you get the older everything gets.” Alex replied.
Liz looked across at Alex, her eyebrows raised at his sudden wealth of knowledge. Alex looked back to Liz, meeting her gaze.
“Huh… whats with the weird look?”
“Well its just, how do you know so much about this places origins? history just doesn’t seem a bit to… brainy for somone like you.”
“What the hell you trying to say you think im dumb or something!” Alex yelled, before turning to looked of down the street thoughtfully. “I came here once with Harry and my
Emily. He was always into a bit of history and kept going on and on with random facts about this place the entire time, guess some of the stuff he said just stuck with me.”
“Oh wow… I never knew you’d been here before, it must be nice coming back after all these years.”
Alex thought back on all the moments he had spent with his adopted father and all the lessons he had taught him.
“Yeah I guess you could say that, more then anything though,” Alex said before trailing off. He clenched his fist tightly as determination filled him. “It just makes me even more fired up to find out what happened to him.”
Liz looked at alex, his determination and drive inspiring her. Bip reached the end of the road and stoped for a moment before turning and fly off to the left. Liz and Alex soon reached the end of the road to be face with the steel lake itself. The silver waters flowed gently downstream almost being completely still. The sunlight glistened off of the water in just the right way to make it shine like freshly polished metal.
“Wow… this is… beautiful doesn’t even cover it. you don’t see something like this every day.”
“Yeah, unless you live here,” Alex replied.
“Over here,” came Bip’s voice from further down the street.
Liz and Alex turned to see Bip hovering by a large metal wall the way from the shore to the centre of the river blocking off an enormous area.
“what is this place?”
“I floated up over the wall, I think its some kind of shipping port. There’s a whole maze of shipping containers, must be at least a thousand total.”
Alex looked at the wall trying to find any breaks or places to sneak in to no avail. He turned his gaze to the buildings along the shore closest to the facility noticing a tall clock tower. He raised his hand to point to the tower.
“Lets head up there for a better look,” Alex said before walking off towards the tower before Liz and Bip followed.
Part 2- Scouting.
Liz climbed up the ladder, pulling herself up onto the rooftop. She looked forward to see Alex knealing down at the edge of the other side of the roof next to Bip. She walked across the roof and squatted down next to her companion. The group looked out over the wide open maze of shipping containers with many workers walking around between them going about their business.
“So this is where the guys hiding,” asked Liz.
“It has to be, from what I can tell all of the trails from around the city lead here,” Bip responded.
“Why would he be hiding out here?”
Alex rubbed his chin as he thought.
“He must be taking all the kids here and shipping them off somewhere else,” replied Alex.
Liz turned to look at Alex, a horrified expression appearing across her face.
“You… you’re not serious are you?”
“It’s horrible but it makes sense, the only question is why?” Bip butted in.
Liz returned her gaze to the docs bellow.
“We have to go save them now, where are they Bip?”
Bip closed his eyes and focused on the maze bellow.
“Don’t know, he’s been all over this place so the trail is near impossible to follow.”
“Damn it.”
“Don’t worry about it. If this really is this guys base of operations im sure he’ll be coming back here soon. All we need to do is wait here for him to show up again, then we can follow him to where the kids are being held, free them and defeat him all in one.”
Liz looked back out over the area bellow. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.
“Fine, I don’t like waiting around and leaving those kid in danger, but I guess it cant be helped.”
“Come on lets get settled in, who knows how long we’ll be waiting here for.”
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TO BE CONTINUED
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Thanks you for reading Chapter 56 of Mage. If you like what you see please consider dropping a Kudos and maybe checking out the rest of my work. Also for any updates or if you just wanna see my cosplay adventure please consider follwing my tumblr here https://www.tumblr.com/blog/50funny and until next time have a good one.
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