Author's Note: There, muse, I wrote a non-Mass Effect story. Now get off my back.
I stepped forward into the black doorway, resolved to face my fate, whatever that may be. Only, right in that instant before I touched it but too late to stop myself from doing so, I heard two soul-chilling words from Uriel.
"Uh oh."
I wanted to ask what that meant, but I was already being sucked through the door. With it came an enormous amount of pain, light, and rushing wind. The aches and pains of my body were familiar and welcome, even as they dragged on me, and I squinted open my eyes. Clouds were above me, drifting past as I fell away from them, and for a second I just enjoyed the view, before it finally percolated through my consciousness that I was falling.
Suddenly, panic and adrenaline hit me in a rush, and I flailed wildly, getting myself turned around enough to see the ground, approaching rapidly. It was hard to get a good read on the rest of my surroundings, but I was about two seconds from crashing into the bright green foliage and at best another tenth of a second from a very gory death.
"Ventas servitas!" I shouted, shoving my fear into it, yanking the air towards me. Without my staff or any other focusing tools, it was a wide, diffused column of air that came rushing up, barreling around me and slowing my progress enough not to die on impact. But it was still nasty enough of a fall that I broke three branches, added a lovely new lines of scrapes and bruises across most of my torso, and lost a big chunk out of one pinky nail to the branches.
Groaning, I lay on the ground, cataloging my brand-new injuries, and reveled in the feel of the moss on the rocks and the trickle of water running over my legs. I wasn't sure what had happened there, but I really wasn't expecting to wake up totally stark naked and mid-air. Carefully, I pushed up onto my elbows, and looked around.
From all appearances, I had landed somewhere in Faerie, because nowhere in the real world had flowers made of crystal that followed your movements. Which, without my duster, staff, rings, and most especially, pentacle, was a bad sign.
Rising gingerly to my feet, I found that I was wrong on one count. My mother's pentacle, still battered and dented, still with that red gem locked into the middle, dangled on its familiar chain from my neck. "Well, that's one good thing," I muttered to myself.
Several broken branches dangled from the tree I had just crashed through, so I carefully picked one of an appropriate size, scraping the broken ends against the rock enough to take off the worst of the splinters. It wouldn't serve as a magical focus, not without several weeks of work in a lab I no longer had, but it would help me hike, and a nice heavy weapon was hard to go wrong with.
Especially when it sounded like someone was coming my direction through the underbrush. Someone, or something, I couldn't be sure. I put my other hand on the pentacle, trying to find the fastest route back to Chicago, and that's when I got my second shock of the last five minutes. Wherever this was, it wasn't Faerie.
That surprise let the interloper get close enough to see me. All of me. I was pretty sure I was blushing, and I could tell that she was too, as she worked very valiantly to keep her eyes up. "Ah, hi," I said, ever so suavely.
"Are you the wizard?" she asked hesitantly. She was pretty good looking, and reminded me a little too much of Molly. It was in the face, I decided after a longer look, if she cut her hair shorter and dyed it and put on jeans and a t-shirt, she could pass for Molly's twin.
"I'm a wizard," I allowed hesitantly. "The name's Harry Dresden, from Chicago." I motioned slightly with the staff before putting it back in place as cover. "I'd offer to shake your hand, but, well."
"Well. Indeed," she said, turning even more red. Which didn't help with the resemblance, either, making her look even more like a Molly at the beginning of her apprenticeship. "I am Theodora, and you must be the wizard prophesied by my father. You are here to save the kingdom of Oz!"
I frowned at her, suspecting some kind of joke going on at my expense. "Oz? The place with the emerald city and the yellow brick road?"
Her whole face lit up and she clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh, you must be the wizard my father knew would come! He was a wizard as well, and he told us before he died that another would come, to save the kingdom from the evil witch who poisoned him."
That did not sound promising at all. "Look, miss, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not exactly at my best, here." Her blush, which had started to fade, returned with a vengeance. "I am a trained investigator, so I'll help you find out who murdered your father. But I can't stay here long. I have to get back to Chicago, I have family and friends who are in danger there."
Her face fell, looking more like she was pouting than anything else. "My name is Theodora. But my sister and I already know who killed our father." I considered this for a moment, and raised an eyebrow. "Another witch, Glinda, who was jealous of her power."
The Wizard of Oz wasn't exactly a well-watched favorite of mine, but I remembered enough to know that Glinda was the good witch when Dorothy came through. So either this girl was lying to me, or horribly misinformed. I really hoped it was the second, because I hate it when women lie to me. "Well. Why don't you lead the way to the Emerald City, and maybe I can get things straightened out while I figure out how to get home." She nodded, her expression brightening again.
"Of course, wizard! Shall I call you Harry, or Dresden?" Thankfully, at least she didn't sound like Molly.
"Either one. Well, I suppose if I'm going to help you, that makes you a client, and most of them call me Dresden." I followed along as she led the way between the crystalline plants. Most of them weren't really sharp, thankfully, but I still pushed the flowers out of my way, just in case. Oz wasn't all that friendly a place to life, that much I remembered.
"Very well, Dresden. As you'll see, Oz is a wonderful place to live," she paused as a shadow swooped by overhead, just visible through the leaves. "Oh no, they must have seen us!"
"What did?" I asked, having a feeling I knew what the answer was.
"The evil witch's flying baboons!" Yep, I was right. Unfortunately. If I was lucky, these guys didn't fling flaming purple balls of poop. Of course, if I was lucky, I wouldn't be here in the first place, but back in Chicago somewhere like I was meant to be.
"Is there somewhere defensible around here?" I asked, keeping my eyes skyward as I followed her, staff held at the ready. "A cave, a building? Something with a roof that limits the number of directions they can approach us?"
"I, I'm not sure," she said, panicking. "Maybe along the cliffs?"
"Fine, lead the way, and quickly," I snarled at her, hefting the staff as I jogged as quickly as I could manage in bare feet. We ran along the side of the stream, the ground soft underfoot with either leaves or moss the whole way, and ended up by a small pool leading into a small waterfall, no more than ten feet tall. She climbed carefully down the side, while I just leaped into the pool, landing with my knees flexed. It still hurt, but the bottom of the pool had been smoothed by the constant flow of water.
We backed up to the edge of the cliff, watching and waiting. Two shadows flitted by overhead, and then one of them dropped suddenly through the leaf cover, landing on the edge of the pool that separated us. "Dresden," Theodora hissed fearfully, "do something!"
"They need to be closer," I hissed back, watching it carefully and listening for the other one to approach. Sure enough, like I suspected, the one on the pool's edge was a distraction, and when the other one came diving in, I was ready for it. Not with magic, but with the staff. I pulled the move I liked to call "Casey Swings for the Bleachers," connecting into one wing as I side-stepped his dive.
The wing shattered. So did the staff. A moment later, so did the monkey's skull as he hit the stone behind the waterfall, sliding down and being pushed under by the force of the water. I grinned, taking up one of those karate stances Murphy was always trying to beat into my head, and gave him the 'come on' hand motion. "I don't have all day," I taunted the monkey.
To my surprise, instead of attacking, he took to the air to flee. I wasn't going to have any of that, so I summoned the winds again, slamming him back to the ground before he got very far, keeping my hands out and ready as I stalked forward across the pool. "Fuego!" I snarled, a wide burst of flame shooting out from my hand, setting his wings and clothing afire. I watched grimly as it writhed, lunging into the pool.
When he popped up again, I was ready for him. "Forzare!" I shouted, the invisible force supplementing my punch, slamming his head backwards and dumping him back underwater. Sighing, I found the largest rock I could lift, and with very painful back, lifted it and dropped it onto the monkey, still stunned underwater. It hit him heavily, pinning him under the pool, and I watched the air bubbles stream out of his mouth as he writhed uselessly under the surface.
When he finally stopped moving, I moved towards the shore, rejoining Theodora. She had turned pale, eyes wide and frightened. "Are you absolutely sure these creatures are servants of the evil witch?" I asked quietly.
She nodded rapidly, hair flailing around with the speed. "Absolutely," she whispered before clearing her throat. "Absolutely," she repeated louder, "they've been seen committing several attacks on the peaceful citizens of Oz." I figured as much, of course, but I also knew they didn't belong to Glinda. Which left god only knew how many other witches running around Oz as suspects.
I sighed heavily, running one damp hand over my face. "Alright. First step, I think is to get somewhere I can get clothes and a pair of shoes." She blushed and turned away again, but it got her moving, and took her mind off the deaths of those creatures. "Then we can head for the Emerald City."
"O-of course, wizard Dresden," she said, already making a new path for me to follow. I might still be dreaming, or this might be the plain craziest afterlife I could ever have imagined. Really, though, if this was the afterlife, in one form or another, why did my body feel so real? Why were all of my old aches and pains back with me? And why the hell did I land in Oz, instead of becoming a Jedi knight like any sane person would have done instead?