“Boom!” “Bang!” when the four students got into the dark purple SUV and took off from the ground, some quite powerful attacks landed on the exterior of the SUV and shook the entire vehicle like shots from cannons.

“Let’s go!” Garret Peyton jumped into the driving seat.

“What about the others? What happens then?” Caroline asked while looking out the window, the agents in uniforms took over the fight against the faculty members and were buying them time to escape.

“They can handle themselves.” the dark purple SUV engine revved, then it took off from the ground like a rocket in full acceleration. All four of the students were almost thrown to the back of the spacious bar inside the SUV, but a buffering array inside the SUV activated and held them in midair. The SUV swerved in the air, evading multiple incoming attacks. And from the back window, all of them saw that there were two enchanted vehicles chasing after them, one in the shape of a pointy-headed submarine with blue translucent exterior and light blue windows, and one in the shape of a golden luxury car.

“Holy fuck the baddies are tacky.” Thomas stabilized his body in the air and floated towards one of the side windows like an astronaut and looked out the window, and all he could see was dark blue space with strange shiny lines in far away positions and : “Where are we now?”

“We are in the tunneling space between the realm where the Grant Academy is and the realm of the civilian world.” Garret Peyton answered through the loudspeaker from the driver seat: “This may take a while, without connecting to a speed channel like when I drove you to the academy, it will take us longer for us to travel through the space.”

“Okay, can we find one of these ‘speed channels’ now?” Aimee asked: “They are tailing us and they’re shooting at us!”

“The speed tunnels between the academy and the civilian world have been shut down since the lockdown.” Garret Peyton sounded like he was almost out of breath: “The nearest speed tunnel is at least one day away, it won’t save us much time if any.”

“How far away are we from the civilian world?” Aimee asked.

“At our current speed, it’s about ten hours. But we might need to take a few detours because of the hostiles after us.”

“Is there any way to fight back?” Thomas asked.

“Give me a second!” Garret Peyton yelled, then he proceeded with a calmer tone: “All of our weapon systems were damaged in the fight earlier - I am rebooting some of the less damaged weapons.”

The SUV swerved again, and two energy bolts that gave off blinding shines shot right past them. The students could almost feel the heat waves coming off from the bolts.

“Excuse my ignorance, but - ” Jason held onto one of the sofas in the bar-like space inside the SUV: “Don’t you have some kind of teleportation device or portal creating mechanism?”

“The tunneling space is itself a sort of portal-like construct, one that connects large areas together. And only specifically designed devices and arrays can teleport safely while in the tunneling space.” Garret Peyton answered: “If we tried to jump, there’s a very good chance we got shredded - Okay! Do you see the aiming screens?”

“No? What are you talking about?” Caroline looked around in the room.

“Fuck - looks like its control array is damaged.” Garret Peyton huffed with anger and frustration: “Hold on! Let me try manual activation!”

Two square panels on the ground opened up, and two short pillars with a crystal ball on top rose from underneath.

“The aiming screen is broken. So you’re gonna have to make do.” Garret Peyton swerved the SUV again and made it fly in a helix trajectory to dodge another barrage of energy bolts from behind: “Put your hands, especially fingers on the crystal ball and focus, it should be intuitive enough!”

Caroline and Thomas jumped and stabilized their positions in front of the crystal balls, and then they felt that their mind seemed to be transported to a small space with a close up and transparent dome. And on the dome, they could see the space around the SUV as if they were looking through a special camera with 360 degrees angle in all directions from inside the SUV, and they could see the two enchanted vehicles chasing after and shooting at them.

When they set their minds on the decision that they would like to attack, Caroline and Thomas were informed through some kind of telepathic means on how to aim and attack just by focusing their vision on a target. And their first targets were one and the same - the golden luxury car.

The SUV shook as the defense weapon opened fire for the first time since they went into the tunneling space, and a small flurry of bright red energy bolts shot out from the top of the SUV, aiming right at the golden luxury car.

The target did a tactical maneuver and derailed from its path in order to evade the attacks, and it had to stop shooting for a moment because of it. But the energy flurry followed it through its maneuver, and eventually forced it to stay further behind.

“Nice!” Jason and Aimee cheered.

The SUV swerved and flew in a drastic trajectory once again, and around a dozen energy bolts of all colors flew by, then the SUV shook in a loud banging sound, which almost threw Thomas and Caroline off from their positions.

“We’re hit! ” Garret Peyton said: “Looks like we have more hostiles coming after us!”

“Anything we can do?” Jason asked as he looked out the back window and at another translucent submarine and a spaceship with a very sci-fi look: “Any more weapon stations we can use?”

“No, but you should take over for them when they’re tired.” Garret Peyton answered as he drove the SUV in more drastic ways: “Keep firing!”