Sworded Affair

Chapter 29: Saving Private Ryan

Apparently Dad wasn't joking about his friends being from the forces, Emma thought as she caught sight of an armored personnel carrier, off in the distance but approaching with every passing second.

It wasn’t much to look at; barely more than a square gray box with a mounted machine gun, but it was the only vehicle on the road which made identification rather easy. Accelerating, Emma dove low as she left Sir Bearington far behind, pushing the sparrow to its limits until it crashed and splattered against the side of the vehicle. Moments later, Emma materialized, sitting calmly right next to the startled gunner’s head.

“Stop the vehicle,” Emma ordered calmly, utterly unbothered as auxiliary hatches opened along the vehicle’s roof and half a dozen rifles emerged, all pointed right at her.

[Ryan Young - Level 1]

“The same gun for each of you, more or less, but only Ryan has a name tag, how curious.” Emma tilted her head. “None of you can possibly pose a threat to me; so do you have one because of your relative importance, or your ties to my father? A key quest NPC, in a way?”

[Sure, let’s go with that.]

“How do you know my name?” Ryan asked, bewildered. “Put your hands in the air or I’ll shoot!”

“Noah might not like you shooting his daughter,” Emma pointed out. “He’d like the results of my retaliation even less, but that’s beside the point. Dad’s approaching riding a bear, with serious bite wounds along his hand and forearm. Is this vehicle equipped for medical treatment?”

“Noah’s daughter?” Ryan blinked. “Emma, is that you?”

“In the flesh, so to speak,” Emma chuckled lightly, before turning serious once more. “The house is lost, so we’ll be turning around as soon as Dad catches up. I won’t ask again though; stop the vehicle, or I’ll stop it for you.”

Unnerved at her unnatural calm, one of the soldiers started to pull the trigger. Faster than he could complete the motion, Emma stuck a finger into the tip of his rifle's barrel; unable to force its way through her armor, the fired bullet broke apart in the chamber, peeling the rifle's tip like an overripe banana as the force of the backlash threw the shooter clean off his chair.

[-5 Anima]

“No seat belt?” Emma shook her head. “How careless of you, in more ways than one. The next person to try something similar loses their head.”

“Stop the vehicle,” Ryan relented at the obvious display of superiority, his words reaching the driver and finally bringing the APC to a halt.

Remaining where she was, Emma waited calmly for thirty seconds more, until the gunner jolted in his seat, raising a hand to adjust his optics.

“You weren’t joking,” He muttered. “Where the hell did you even find a bear?”

“He was just wandering in the forest near home,” Emma shrugged. “Either he escaped from a zoo, or there’s something weird going on. Probably the latter, given what's going on in the world these days. Don’t worry though, he’s well trained; he won’t attack unless you start something.”

Emma could see that the soldiers remained suspicious of her, but thankfully it didn’t stop them from cautiously approaching Sir Bearington with a stretcher, extracting and bundling her Dad into the back of the vehicle. She couldn’t see any true hospital facilities from a brief glimpse, the kind that would be in an ambulance, but the medic examining Dad’s wounds seemed competent enough.

“I’m going to give you a shot of morphine, to dull the pain.” The medic explained as he pressed an injector against her Dad’s arm. “I’ve got sterile water on hand, so we can wash and clean the wounds. Stitches will have to wait until we’re back at base, since doing that on a moving vehicle is a bad idea.”

Happy to leave them to it, Emma replaced her Dad atop Sir Bearington.

“Back to your base, at thirty miles an hour,” Emma ordered, unconcerned about the vehicle trying to lose her.

Emphasis on try; given that the gunner’s upper body remained exposed for Oversoul if needed, to say nothing of the ever present birds flying overhead. Thankfully, nobody did anything stupid; the APC performed a three point turn before heading back the way it came at a reasonable pace, Sir Bearington running alongside them. Unsure exactly how much time the journey to base would take, Emma sank down into the soft fur on her mount’s back, settling in for the long haul as she drifted off into a light slumber.

—

“Was that really Emma?” Ryan asked Noah, the latter groggy but still awake as the potent opioid worked its way through his body.

“Yeah,” Noah slurred. “Changed quite a bit hasn’t she? Heh, wonder if I’ll be able to do that down the line? Nah, magic’s in the blood, but my magic’s more traditional. Not sure how she does what she does.”

“Here I thought I’d seen it all, when Liz flew off on the back of her sword,” Ryan shook his head, before his voice lowered. “Would she really have offed us, if we didn’t follow her lead?”

“Huh? Oh, Emma threatened that?” Noah shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time she’s had to stab a few people who wouldn’t listen. Hell, there was that one time with ERROR, when scouts went on a camping trip. Wait, who was I talking about again? Eh, never mind. Crazy stuff, you know? Never thought you could make something so strange out of a circle of mushrooms. Heh, not mushroom for imagination. Get it?”

“Stop bothering my patient,” Combat Medical Technician Nathan Miller chided Ryan. “He’s clearly not lucid right now, so your questions can wait until he’s off the meds.”

“Got it,” Ryan agreed, backing off immediately.

Highest ranking he might be, but no smart soldier ever wanted to offend the person who might be responsible for their lifesaving care, and Ryan hadn’t gotten through sniper training by being stupid.

—

“Here we are!” The gunner called, his shout drawing Emma out of her slumber. “The former city of Oxford, and our new forward operating base.”

The first thing Emma noticed was the massive tower. Rising up out of the earth high into the sky, a monolith of black glass and corrugated iron, almost as tall as London’s skyscrapers and far in excess of anything Oxford’s restrictive building regulations ever permitted in the past. Mysterious runes lined the length of the tower, stinging her soul as she attempted to read them to no avail. Around the tower was an impact crater, one that Emma estimated to cover at least a ten mile radius, empty of any signs of life much like the immediate surroundings to her house had been.

“Your base is inside of that?” Emma pointed at the tower, prompting a sharp laugh.

“Hell no!” The gunner shouted back, as the APC reached the rim of the crater and began its descent, Sir Bearington following faithfully at its side. “The door’s open for exploration, but nobody we’ve sent in ever came back out again. Nah, we’re camped out on the other side of the tower, near the entrance at the bottom. We’re not sure why exactly, but none of the monsters that appear at night are willing to enter the crater, making this the safest spot we’ve found so far.”

“I may have an idea as to why that might be,” Emma muttered, too low for the gunner to hear.

It was plainly visible to her in bright black letters, after all.

[Dungeon discovered! Scholomance.]