The girl nodded again, her face watering. The object she pulled out was indeed a fantastic crystal, twice as large as those of Dod and Danaël.
The girl embedded the stone in the steering wheel's opening, and the dashboard lit up. Danaël could see to his right the meter indicating the level of fantasia present in the crystal, and in front of them, the windscreen, until then covered by a layer of metal, cleared, giving way to a transparent pane.
Likewise, the walls of the cart partially opened up, revealing four portholes on each side.
The girl pulled the steering wheel towards her, and it extended, CLICK! The handlebars, clamped to her chest, engaged the fantastic wing mechanism. The cart gave a gentle rumble.
Dod clung to the back of the driver's seat while Danaël, unperturbed, kept his eyes riveted on the young girl. On either side of the carriage, fantastic wings encased in another metallic veil began to move, tirelessly beating and stirring the air.
The rumbling became deafening, and Danaël felt the vibrations throughout his body, the sensation being such that any itch he might have had was now superfluous.
In the two exhaust pipes, released from the metal mass at the same time as the wings, a phenomenal amount of energy was being prepared.
"You...you can still surrender!" The young girl suddenly exclaimed. "Do you know who I am?"
"I couldn't care less", Danaël cut her off.
"I am Evangeline de Résevi, second princess of the kingdom, and you owe me the respe..."
The princess lost consciousness, her head hit the steering wheel hard, and she collapsed. With a sharp blow to the back of the neck, Danaël cut the princess off again.
He hurried to take the girl's place at the wheel and turned his gaze to Dod. It was very rare for the latter to show such emotion, but Dod was speechless.
Danaël, too, was panicking; in such situations, he often found reassurance in the serene gaze of his friend Dod Allentown. Well, not this time.
"Am I dreaming, or did you just knock out the princess?" Dod whispered madly.
"We've really got to go, man!" Danaël retorted, looking at the tavern on his left.
He could see and hear people bustling about. The shots fired by Princess Evangeline were loud enough to alert the royal guard.
"B... BUT WE CAN'T STEAL THE PRINCESS!" Shouted Dod.
"I think it's called a kidnapping, Dod", resumed Danaël. "And then she saw our faces, so we couldn't leave her with them. If she puts a bounty on our heads, we'll be in big trouble."
"Maybe she saw YOUR face, not mine", grumbled Dod.
He let out a long sigh before leaning back against the first porthole directly to the right of the cockpit. Arms crossed, he was still ruminating:
"We're dead, might as well surrender now."
"Come on, don't be so defeatist! I'm sure we'll get through this; I just have to figure out how to move forward with this thing."