Before returning to the infirmary, I went to the restrooms, entered one of the stalls and waited a couple of minutes.
The person I had asked to help me escape arrived and knocked on the door as I had indicated. I opened it, and he came in after making sure no one saw him. There was barely any space for both of us, but we could talk there without any problems.
"And how are we gonna escape?" he asked me.
"Tell several of your men to create a distraction tomorrow at lunchtime, and we'll go to Dark's cell." I was aware that there was an armory there, stocked with all kinds of weapons, so my plan was pretty simple: take as many weapons as we could to escape. Maybe I could even make an officer take off my Bephelometh's collar.
With weapons or magic in our hands, escaping would be quite simple.
"But there's always police guarding there," replied the man, "and there are even more right below, where the warehouse is."
"I can handle them. We need to get into Dark's cell as quickly as possible, before reinforcements arrive."
"And what will happen to the rest of my men, the ones who distracted the police?"
"When we have Dark's weapons, you'll decide whether you go back with them or not," I told him sharply, since I wasn't willing to risk my plan to save some criminals.
He nodded.
"Well, but if you betray us or we get caught, you son of a bitch, my men and I will kill you."
"I know," I said and shook his hand. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. Anyway, what's your name?"
"Skull," the man told me. Dark gave me that name.
He left the bathroom, and I waited for more than a minute before coming out to tell the officer we should go back to the infirmary. That night I didn't practice any magic; instead, I slept as much as I could.
The next day, I told the officer again that I wanted to go to the dining hall, and he took me there. Most of the inmates and officers were there. I got in line and acted as usual. Suddenly, I saw several inmates start arguing heatedly among themselves, and within minutes, they were fighting whoever was in front of them. The police went to stop them, but the inmates kept attacking everyone, and it wasn't long before everyone was fighting.
I left the place easily and ran through the hallways towards Dark's cell.
"Wait for us," Skull told me, followed by several of his men. I waited for him and we all kept going.
"You think you can handle all the cops? Because they didn't let us keep even a knife," Skull asked me as we ran.
"As long as there are few of them, yes," I told him and we turned towards the last hallway.
Only to find Lancel and his team right in front of Dark's cell. I tried to turn around and face Skull and his men, since it was obvious one of them had betrayed me, but they all grabbed me from behind and subdued me. Even though I could have broken free with a little bit of magic, I decided against it, hoping to escape at the right moment. It was more than obvious I didn't stand a chance against Lancel and his team. The only advantage I had against them was that they didn't know I could use magic.
Lancel approached.
"Go get the others," he told his team, and they left without even looking at me, as if I were just another criminal.
Lancel got even closer and then squatted to look at my face from even closer. He seemed disappointed. But just before he could say anything, I seized the opportunity to unleash some magic and free myself. Then I grabbed one of Skull's men and threw him at Lancel. While he stopped him, I ran toward Dark's cell.
Not even two seconds passed before Lancel started chasing me. Obviously, Lancel was much more powerful than me at that moment, so before he could catch me, I turned toward him and used a large portion of my magic to trap him in a bubble-shaped shield.
As I expected, Lancel destroyed it with a single blow, and the shield exploded with all its energy. Being so close to it, I was thrown toward Dark's cell. I created a shield that shattered the cell's door when I crashed into it. I got up as fast as I could and looked around desperately.
But luckily there were several weapons there, on tables and couches.
I grabbed a pistol and a rifle, and just then Lancel walked in. I shot him as soon as I saw him, and he stumbled back in surprise. That gave me a couple of seconds to head to the back of the cell, where the armory was. Lancel came back in, now protected by a magic shield. I fired at him as I got closer and closer to the armory. I went inside and saw countless shelves piled high with different weapons and ammunition. I grabbed as much as I could, but Lancel came in too and confronted me. I tried to aim a pistol at him, but he punched me in the stomach so hard I fell to my knees and vomited blood.
A very light thump was heard on the ground behind Lancel. He turned around and saw the grenade I had thrown just as he had hit me. He created a shield to protect himself, and I got behind him. The grenade exploded and left a hole in the ground. I seized that opportunity to drop another grenade and jump through said hole.
I quickly stood up and searched the corridors in the storage room. There were clothes, weapons, and drugs on the shelves, each labeled with the number and name of the inmate it belonged to, though they were locked. I still felt dizzy and weak from Lancel's attack, but I couldn't stop to take a breath. I heard Lancel fall through the same hole and threw a couple of grenades in that direction; I ran through the corridors and heard the explosions. I kept going, and Lancel cast a spell so powerful it disintegrated several shelves and everything on them.
Although I wasn't near the impact zone. I was sure that the magic I had left was so little that Lancel couldn't sense it, which is why he cast that spell blindly. I seized my unexpected advantage to advance slowly and silently while Lancel tried to find me. His magic was so powerful that even with Bephelometh's collar, I could still sense it.
A second spell destroyed another part of the storage room. Apparently, he didn't care about destroying it completely as long as he found me. I was still far away, moving stealthily through the corridors, but soon I would have nowhere to hide. At this point, I had three options: find the exit and escape, die from being struck by a spell as powerful as that one, or surrender.
A third spell destroyed another part of the cellar. I had to hurry and find the exit. A fourth spell, a fifth spell, and at this point I started running as fast as I could, taking advantage of all the noise he was making. A sixth and seventh spell. Only a few shelves remained standing. If the exit wasn't behind one of them, I'd have no choice but to try to escape through the rubble left by Lancel's spells, even though that would mean leaving my hiding place and facing him.
I continued through the few remaining corridors just before Lancel's spells destroyed them as well. Only a couple of them were still standing, and I hid behind them. There was no exit in sight.
"If you're still alive, it's because you're back there," Lancel said, gathering magic in his fists. "Are you coming out, or am I coming after you?"
I looked at the weapons I had left: a pistol, a rifle, and a grenade. But no matter how much firepower I had, there was no way I could take on Lancel and win. I scanned the area for anything that might help me escape and spotted what looked like a black glove among the rubble, quite close to me, in the area Lancel had just devastated with his final spell. Even so, the glove seemed unscathed. Beside it, partially buried in the debris, was what appeared to be a black boot, also intact despite the spells, and a little further away was some kind of black helmet.
At that moment I understood it all: those were the parts of the XyzqvqzyX armor that had been taken from Dark when he was arrested.
They were just what I needed, although unfortunately I was too far away to take them without Lancel seeing me.
"I surrender!" I shouted before Lancel cast a spell on the remaining shelves. I walked slowly toward the gauntlet, out of the protection of the last standing shelves. The rest of the storage room was destroyed, and Lancel was in the middle of it all.
"You love playing hard to get, don't you?" he said as he slowly approached me. I continued walking toward the gauntlet without looking at it. When I was right beside it, I gathered all the magic I had left and threw it at Lancel. He easily deflected it with a swipe of his hand, but that gave me the opportunity to grab XyzqvqzyX's gauntlet and put it on. I immediately felt his magic course through my entire body. It was so powerful that it was very easy to grab Bephelometh's collar and shatter it. My magic returned instantly.
Lancel then cast a spell at me that was as powerful as the previous ones, but I created a simple bubble-shaped shield that protected me without any problem.
My chances of escaping had increased enormously.