Night was falling. The sunset threw red and orange into the sky behind the concrete jungle that was Dublin.
In the streets below, tyres squealed. A silver Toyota Hilux slid around a corner, completely ignoring a cross road junction that had come previously.
Pursuing, there were several black Range Rovers. They too followed the pickup. The vehicles were moving in excess of seventy miles per hour on a road which only had a thirty miles per hour speed limit.
Spectra Phase was sat in the driving seat of the Hilux. Her foot was pushed down all the way on the accelerator and the pickup kept gaining speed. The Range Rovers chasing her belonged to the Irish Sanctuary. She was being hunted.
Spectra was forced to brake quickly and moved down into gear three, turning the pickup around a tight corner whilst doing so. Again, the tyres screeched, as if they were in frustration about her fast driving.
She quickly overtook a large car, just in time to avoid having a head-on collision with oncoming traffic. She heard the Range Rovers slow down, waiting for a gap in the traffic before continuing the chase.
Spectra heard a gunshot and a metallic thud as a bullet embedded itself into the back of her pickup. She twisted the wheel back and forth to avoid the volley of shots that followed, though some tore holes in her vehicle.
As she turned another corner, the back end of the pickup slid out of line and clipped a parked car. She was spun around, the street flashing in a circle before her car came to a shuddering halt. She put the car into reverse and tried to right herself, but the Sanctuary cars boxed her in.
Four men and a woman approached her vehicle with hands near the holsters on their belts.
Spectra looked at the bow on the passenger's seat and the quiver which lay on top of it. She swung the quiver on to her back and picked up her bow, immediately nocking an arrow.
She swung open the door as hard as she could, striking one of the Sanctuary agents. She had fired the arrow before she had even stepped out of the pickup - the metal tip embedding itself in the chest of the woman up to the shaft. She fell to the floor, alike to the man whom she had hit with the door. She climbed out of her vehicle and dropped her bow.
One of the remaining men clicked his fingers and a fireball flared in his palm. Before he had time to throw it, however, she had raised her hand. His skin bubbled almost instantly, then his body erupted in an explosion of gore and steam - showering the tarmac and making splashing noises as the pieces fell.
She had just used her magic. Spectra could control electromagnetic waves. What she had hit the man with was highly concentrated microwaves - similar to how a microwave oven would work, but on a much more deadly scale.
Spectra fired ultraviolet light at another, causing him to drop to the ground in pain as the radiation burned his skin. She kicked him in chest, knocking him on to his back as hands tried to grasp her from behind.
She launched her foot backwards as hard as she could into the man's leg and felt his knee give way, accompanied by the sound of bones breaking. He howled and half-collapsed. His finger squeezed on the trigger of his weapon but he hit nothing but air.
The man who she had hit with the door recovered and stumbled towards her.
"You're under arrest," he said, "For breaking out of prison."
"Go to hell," she hissed in response. She turned the man with the shattered knee into dust. The remaining Sanctuary agent took a shot at her. Her shoulder jerked back, blood splashing on to her face. She cried out, hand immediately going to her wound.
Luckily it was not bad. She saw the scratch carved into her shoulder by the white-hot bullet. Another gunshot, but this one missed and hit her pickup instead.
She palmed the gun away as he attempted to shoot her again, so the round instead embedded itself into the brickwork of a nearby building. She slammed her fist into his stomach, and he doubled over in pain. Her hand glowed with red energy and a moment later, light sprouted from her fist. The beam travelled through him and erupted from the other side, tearing a hole the size of her hand in his abdomen.
She stopped the laser and let his body fall.
There was movement in the corner of her eye. She turned, seeing the man whom she had burned stumble to his feet, hissing in pain whilst doing so. She had to admire his determination - his body was burned beyond all recognition and he still was trying to fight.
She raised her hand at him and a beam of red light shot towards him. He dodged out of the way, making the laser cut into the bodywork of the Range Rover. She didn't see the damage it did to the car.
When the Sanctuary agent came back into view, his burns had healed. He had managed to heal himself, so Spectra assumed it was his magical ability. Or one of them. It was impossible to know - he could be a healer, or it could have been a sigil.
She swiped up her bow from the floor and strung an arrow, taking cover behind her Hilux.
"There's no way I'm going to let you go, Phase," he held from behind his car, "You were arrested for killing one man and managed to escape from prison. Now you just killed four Sanctuary agents. We're bringing you in."
"I told you I didn't kill him!" she shouted.
Spectra raised her bow above the front end of her pickup and saw a head poking out from behind the Range Rover. She fired the arrow, but the head disappeared so it missed its target. She lost sight of it as it shot into the shadows.
She raised her hand, and a red beam hit the back of the Range Rover. She felt slight resistance from the tough metal, but it slid like a knife through butter. She moved it horizontally, and she soon heard a roar of pain as she sliced the remaining Sanctuary agent in half.
Spectra used to disagree with killing, but since she was wrongly accused of murder and framed by a corrupt Sanctuary official, she had changed her opinion on such things. Now she had escaped after seven years in jail.
And now she wanted revenge.
