The Atmosphere which surrounded them just didn't feel right. It was as if the world was watching them, no, like a higher being was looking down on them.
Valen and Tanya subtly slipped into the two seats of the Jeep, not appearing panicked to the naked eye. With his right hand, he took it upon himself to turn the key in the ignition and started the engine.
As the engine sputtered to life, the Jeep itself lurched forward. "Heh..." A small laugh escaped Valen's lips as his eyes quickly flickered to the car for a split moment. Seeing no change as he put the vehicle into drive, he turned the wheel.
After a few seconds, they were pulling out onto the open road just as a man exited the vehicle that had pulled into the Gas Station lot.
The man from the car was watching them, it was clear who they were looking at as he was driving away. Valen though didn't return the gaze, but Tanya, she looked directly at him.
When she reached into her bag to draw the pistol, Valen from the corner of his eye noted her action. Though he said nothing and didn't try to actively stop her. Even he knew that Tanya didn't want to bring any of the public's eyes onto them either.
Tanya did not draw the weapon. Instead, the vehicle turned and went down another road, removing a clear line of sight between her and the station thanks to Valen's transgression.
The last thing he needed was for the police to come after them.
She was still used to the battlefield. Her stay here in the Unified States probably felt like some glorified shore leave, he could only assume though, If she were to jump back into battle on civilian terrain, he had no idea how much damage would occur.
However, that would definitely make the rest of the US military's leadership aware of her presence here. That would make their stay here in the Unified States a rather peeved one.
She was too powerful to just do away with, and if she wasn't part of an existing faction or company, it was likely they'd try to recruit her. If she didn't join them, there was no way in hell they would allow her to leave the country, not freely.
Tanya was an asset to anyone who was wishing to police and control the world, and it was clear the Unified States liked to call themselves the Big White Stick. Though that was despite the fact that they had kept themselves Isolated until they entered the First World War.
Valen let out a sigh, and it seemed so did she as they were both cooling off.
Tanya would not want to serve any other country, she had grown up in the Empire. Though the chain of command had blatantly ignored or denied her advice, it was her home in this reality.
The world's power balance would go off once more, and he could only see bloodshed in her wake. Another light sigh escaped from Valen's lips as he looked over the former blonde who sat beside him.
Tanya's eyes were to her feet, her boots, which were resting beneath the dash. She wanted to be wearing a uniform again, rather than a dress. She wanted to have order in her life and she had been thinking about it over and over again. So far she could only follow the standard life of a soldier, despite having no homeland to go back to in this case, not a cushy one.
This... This was just Chaos. She was on the run with a boy she hardly remembered. If she could look back on her life, she began to wonder, was his eyes always glowing green like that?
Her eyes drifted to the pocket watch operation orb, then over towards Valen who was seemingly focused on driving. He had long since stopped looking at her for a few minutes now.
Tanya didn't understand what he had seen in her. Was it because she had this cute exterior? She laughed mentally at that, seeing as what she was beforehand. In a way though, having him would benefit herself if she wanted a cushy life. He seemed to be the type that would work in order to keep her happy, at least until he died of overwork or was injured.
There were not that many labor laws that helped people after they were injured or got sick. If he were rendered obsolete, she wondered what he would do or want. If he lost the ability to fly, to walk, would he want to be put down?
While she lived a cushy three years in the Unified States, it was boring without war and excitement. Though at the same time she didn't miss fighting day in and day out or being sent from war theater to war theater. She could recall the time when she tried praising her own troop and in response were sent to a mission in order to wipe out a long-range artillery cannon the Russy Union was used to pick off their troops.
That battle was too easy, there were no mages to help them. If only they had surged into the Russy Capital the Communist threat would've been destroyed, their command forces annihilated.
She suddenly stiffened as she remembered the gaze she had felt when she flew over Moscow.
Tanya could only assume that was likely the first time she had been spotted by Loria. The battle-hardened sixteen-year-old closed her eyes and let her head lull back against the cushioned seat.
"Why are your eyes glowing by the way... And why hasn't anyone else asked about them?" That was the one thing that Tanya noticed all the way from the time he first reappeared in Pennsylvania.
Valen looked over her for a few seconds before letting out a soft chuckle, the corner of his lip curling into a smirk. "So you can see my eyes? Interesting..."
"... Do you work for Being X?" Tanya could only assume as much since her stay in the States had been rather uneventful. She was definitely curious if he was being a double agent or worked out a deal with the celestial being who wanted her to believe he was her creator.
"Hm? Who?" Valen slowed the vehicle by lifting his foot from the gas, letting it cruise along with its own momentum. His gaze was now partially locked on her, staring at her plainly for several seconds.
"Uh..." Tanya's mouth opened slightly as she stared at him, now thinking he was probably playing dumb or genuinely didn't know who. "Just tell me why they are glowing green..."
"Experiment gone wrong, not that it really matters though," Valen shrugged as he returned his attention to the road ahead of them. They were going back out onto the federal highway as he noticed two black cars were following at a distance now which he hadn't seen before.
"Experiment...?" Tanya nearly flinched as her mind went back to the prototype orbs she had piloted during the reign of the Germanian Empire. She shuffled in the seat as she also recalled how many times she had come close to death every time the orbs overloaded and exploded.
"You know how aerial mages often had to expose themselves in order to see the battlefield?"
"Yes," she remembered how she took out the spotters numerous times, especially during the Battle of Rhine. She'd pick off her enemies with ease due to the fact that they couldn't get good intel from the trenches.
"I'm capable of seeing magical signatures of nearby mages, thanks to the experiment, I wouldn't be a mole that pops out its head to see where my enemies are."
"Didn't you say it failed?"
"Oh, it failed. It's the entire purpose of the project was to see the entire battlefield, not just mages... The glowing eyes bit was a little... Side effect, but the compensation was good."
Tanya's mouth dropped slightly, seeing as he had allowed human experimentation upon himself in order to become stronger or just to gain money at the time. Though she couldn't blame him, he had run away from the Empire to the Unified States. A place where it was hard to live alone as a child without a home.
Blinking up at him, rather cutely as to grab his attention further, and to see what he would do. "So... When you look at me, what do you see?"
Valen stared at her for a few seconds before shrugging, "Gold, like you were touched by something rather... Powerful," raising a brow he looked over her for a moment. "Does it have to do with this Being-X you just asked about?"
As Tanya went to speak, from the corner of his eye he could see the cars. Without warning, he then pressed his foot on the gas just as they entered the highway, causing Tanya to grab onto the side of the vehicle, her dress picking up slightly as he did so.
"Valen!" She huffed aloud, "Now's not the time to..." Her eyes drifted over to the passenger side mirror, seeing the two cars following behind them. "More of them!? How'd they find us so quickly?!"
"You tell me!" Valen groaned aloud as he was pushing the gas pedal all the way down, the Jeep was picking up speed quickly. However, the vehicle's max speed was only sixty-five miles an hour, and while the cars might have trouble keeping up, they weren't going to get away all that easily.
One of the men hung their upper body out the window with a gun in hand. They were going a few miles under their current speed. It was clear what their intentions were, especially as a bullet hit the pavement a few inches away from the tire.
Tanya nearly jumped in her seat as she went to draw her own weapon.
"Don't," Valen uttered as he looked over at her, "Conserve your ammunition."
"But why?" She looked at him as if he were crazy, only to immediately flinch at the sound of gunfire once more. Almost immediately she went to line up the shot again, using the pocketwatch orb to put up a magic shield.
Frowning he shook his head and reached over, grabbing her by the back of her dress, he pulled her down just as a bullet grazed the shield itself. Having lost her footing, she found herself falling backward and into his lap, her head landing on his left leg.
Nearly blowing steam from her nose, she glared up at him. "Hey! Who do you think you are!?"
A bullet shattered the windshield on her side of the Jeep, then there was the sound of Sirens. Near instantly the two cars pulled off and onto a service route, a singular police car and an aerial police mage following after them.
"That is why..." He uttered as he rested his arm over her collar bone, physically trapping her unless she were to use physical enhancement spells to get free.
Instead, Tanya just lay there, not wanting to get into the passenger seat full of glass as her lower body rested on the divide between the seats. "This is unpleasant..."
"Not my fault you tried to return fire," Valen said with a light chuckle, "You know typical small arms cannot do anything to you. Even if they had the chance to take out the Jeep, we'd just take their cars... Easy as that," In a way what he was saying was the truth and he was common knowledge to her.
Tanya recalled how she had entered the Camp devoid of mages, back during the war. How she had her squad kill everyone except for the Commander after they fired on them first.
She was simply used to returning fire and eliminating hostile forces as they became apparent. Her eyes shifted towards the dashboard, her eyes shifting unto the radio before she reached over and turned it on.
That's when Tight Like That By Georgia Red and Tempa Thompson began to blare from the primitive speaker system of the Jeep, causing her to clench her jaw.