Bethany Anne was feeling restless. She'd been planning a nice, relaxing outing slaughtering an ISIS cell. Instead, she'd been called by Tabitha to help rescue some bait being held by a US black ops group. While it was satisfying to have finally, FINALLY, put the US government, and its new president, in particular, in its place, she still hadn't taken out the ISIS cell.
"Mr. Grimes, I believe we need to have a party before we go teach the Yollins some manners."
John glanced at her from his post by the door and raised an eyebrow. "What kind of party, BA, and who's invited?"
She tapped a finger as if she were deep in thought. "I'm thinking we need the Bitches, including Gabrielle, Pete, Nathan, Ecatarina, and all the toys your girlfriend can come up with for us."
John let a grin spread across his face before he stuck his head out the door. "Hey Darryl! We're gonna fuck up some terrorists!"
There was a loud whoop from outside the door, followed by, "Merideth, please get whoever they've invited to the party on their way here."
Bethany Anne shook her head with an amused grin, then got off her bed and strolled into her closet. A few minutes later, she was back out wearing her leathers and swords. A quick glance told her the rest of the party-goers were ready. "Let's go see what Jean has for us to play with, shall we?"
Charlie Weasley was staring at the secluded desert compound. The compound that was supposed to contain five sand wyrms. The compound that currently contained four sand wyrms. "And you say you have no idea when she broke through the containment spells?"
Mortimer Blotts shook his head slightly. "No, Sir. We did our usual head-count at three AM and noticed one was missing. That was shortly after we started hearing some odd noises coming from Sinjar."
Charlie glanced at Mortimer. "Odd noises?"
"You know the muggles have been fighting in the area, correct?" Charlie nodded. "Well, some muggle craft flew over the containment area, stopped over Sinjar, and then we started detecting life forces expiring along with some occasional screams. We sent a couple caretakers over to ensure the problem didn't spread, and they reported a sense of overwhelming terror in the area. When they got back, we were missing a sand wyrm."
"And that was two hours ago?"
"Yes, Sir."
Charlie looked at his squad of dragon wranglers. "To your brooms, Lads! We have a stray dragon to fetch!"
With that, four scarred wizards and witches mounted their brooms behind him.
Bethany Anne smiled as the sun rose over Sinjar, Iraq. They had exterminated every single ISIS fighter in the area over the course of three hours. Now that it was six in the morning, they could see the light filtering over the newly freed city.
John announced, "I got a hundred and fifty-seven. You guys?"
Darryl called, "One forty-eight."
Scott groused, "One fifty, even."
Eric gleefully boasted, "One sixty-three."
Gabrielle smirked at Bethany Anne, but didn't call her number. It was Ecatarina who burst their bubble with her Romanian accent. "So none of you could crack two hundred?"
Pete and Nathan just high-fived each other.
Bethany Anne, I'm detecting unusual seismic activity in the area.
What's your point, Adam?
It's moving towards you.
"Guys, Adam says something's coming our way. Let's be ready for whatever they've got coming."
The team switched to ops mode in an instant, all of them extending their senses to the limit, Jean Duke's Specials at the ready.
Charlie's team saw the sand wyrm surface from beneath the desert sands in front of a group of nine people standing alone in the desert outside a muggle city. They had the bearing of military muggles, complete with muggle weapons.
As the sand wyrm rose from the desert, resembling an overgrown snake, the nine muggles spread out in front of it, holding their ground. "Matilda, we've got muggles that'll need mindwiping. Gerry, get a shield on them. Louise, …" His instructions stopped when three of the muggles turned into werewolves. "What the…?"
He watched, stunned into inaction, as the sand wyrm belched fire at the muggles, or whatever they were. Most of them dodged the flames, but the beautiful woman in black glared up as she was bathed in fire. When the flames died down, she had not only survived, but she was glaring at the dragon with red lines of power on her face that glowed in the early dawn light.
"I would have been VERY pissed if that had damaged my leathers, you overgrown, hemorrhoid-throated, halitosis-breath, garden snake!"
With that announcement, five of the individuals started shooting their weapons at the wyrm. The female began throwing red balls of energy, and the werewolves advanced to attack with their teeth and claws. To Charlie's surprise, their attacks were having an impact on the sand wyrm.
"New plan! Subdue the wyrm before they kill it!"
Bethany Anne tossed two more energy balls at the dragon. TOM, any idea where that came from? For that matter, are you seeing the cosplay rejects flying on brooms?
If you mean the people in robes on brooms, I see them. I'm hoping I can analyze their flight mechanism, as I don't see an appropriate mechanism for controls.
Yeah, it's a good thing I know werewolves and vampires are real. Otherwise, I'd be questioning my sanity when seeing witches flying around a dragon in Iraq.
I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for what we're seeing.
One of the five people launched a lightning bolt at the dragon. Another seemed to be growing a net made of energy above it. A third was causing ice to appear on patches of the dragon.
Sure, TOM, we'll figure out how they're using the etheric to do that. AFTER we stop this overgrown lizard!
TOM sounded a bit testy as he replied, There's no need to be snarky, Bethany Anne.
Louise had successfully trapped the wyrm in a net of trapping, which had brought the battle to an end fairly quickly. Charlie considered it a blessing, given the amount of damage the muggles had been doing to it. Contrary to his expectations, the sand wyrm was bleeding from the numerous wounds that had been inflicted on it.
Now, he was standing on the ground facing four giant men, three werewolves, and two vampire women. Louise, Matilda, and Henry were tending the wyrm while Gerry backed him up. "How are you… like this… during the day?" Charlie finally asked.
The raven-haired vampire, who resembled a normal woman, raised an eyebrow at him. "Like what? Overdressed for the desert? With those robes, I don't think you're one to talk."
"You're vampires! They're werewolves! How are they like this during the new moon… in the day?"
Two of the werewolves, a man and woman, had shifted back to human form and were barely dressed. The third werewolf was at the lead vampire's side. Four powerfully built men were arrayed behind her looking very intimidating.
"Your point? You appear to be wizards. It seems like we're all impossible around here." She shrugged nonchalantly, but appeared to be completely aware of her surroundings as well.
To add to his confusion, two vehicles were floating just off the ground behind the people who behaved and dressed like muggles. "Involving muggles in magical affairs is a punishable offense!" Charlie reminded her. "I don't know what you think you're playing at, but I'm going to have to report you to the Ministry."
The woman turned to face the male werewolf in human form. "Nathan, is there some ministry I'm supposed to know about?"
The man shrugged, one arm draped over the female werewolf. "No idea. You're the queen, so I think you should know what ministries are answerable to you."
"So you don't know what a 'muggle' is, then?"
"No idea. Michael wouldn't have come up with such a silly term, I know that much."
Charlie had no idea what was going on, now. He knew she wasn't the Queen of England.
Bethany Anne watched the British wizards working on the dragon with interest. What they were doing was like nothing she'd ever seen before. She'd also noticed that, as far as she could tell, their brooms were just brooms.
Bethany Anne, I'd like to get one of their brooms for study.
Yeah, I'm not sure that'll happen. Let's see what they're doing with the dragon, first.
"So, how'd you make that thing?" she asked the man in front of her.
He glanced back. "You don't make them. We have a conservatory where we breed them. Muggle conflicts have been disrupting their habitat."
"Okay, what's a 'muggle', anyway?"
He stared at her. "Non-wizards, of course."
She pondered that. "Pete, I think you can stand down." She turned her attention to Gabrielle. "Have you heard anything about this stuff, before?"
She shook her head slightly. "Nothing, Bethany Anne. However, I think that thing is starting to wake up. Also, if they don't move it soon, the locals will notice."
"We've already put up cave inimicum. That's not a concern."
Bethany Anne glanced around at her team and only got a few shrugs. "Right, so… you did something so they'll ignore us. Convenient." Are you detecting anything unusual, TOM?
Nothing, Bethany Anne. I have, however, determined that he does, in fact, believe what he's saying. There's an impressive amount of knowledge he thinks of as 'magic' that he's aware of. I'm still trying to determine the scientific basis for it.
Good luck with that, TOM. She turned her attention back to the red-headed wizard.
The next thing she heard was the wizard saying, "Petrificus Totalus!" as he pointed his wand at her.
Bethany Anne dodged and saw a light strike Eric, causing him to seize up and fall over. Oh fuckity fuck!
Charlie realized he'd made a mistake when the other vampire woman's hand was suddenly around his throat, yanking him closer to the ground. Her fangs were out as she hissed, "You will undo whatever you did to Eric!"
On top of the problem with his current position, there was an oppressive sense of fear crashing against him in waves that was threatening to turn him into a gibbering mess. Had he not spent his entire adult life facing extreme dangers, he might have caved in to it.
Fighting through the fear, he realized that, in addition to the woman holding him by his throat, there were a lot of muggle weapons pointed at his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the "queen" holding a sword at Gerry's throat, keeping him from taking any action.
"I can free him after we wipe your memories. You can't know about magic," he choked out.
"Michael would love this guy," one of the werewolves observed.
"John, secure the other wizards. We're going to have a controlled conversation."
Bethany Anne watched her team spreading out, guns trained on the wizards. She stayed next to Gabrielle, holding the second in command at sword-point so he wouldn't do anything and so she could stop Gabrielle, if it became necessary.
One of the women raised her wand, only to have her knees shot out at the first twitch. Both John and Scott's hands twitched from the recoil. The other two wizards paused, before slowly lowering their wands as they realized there were four guns apiece aimed at them.
"Gabrielle, put him down and take care of Eric."
She dropped the wizard, causing his knees to hit the ground. Bethany Anne kept her sword at the second's neck while shifting her attention to the leader. She could feel her fangs out and knew her eyes were blazing. "Okay, Mister Wizard. We just finished killing close to two thousand terrorists. Don't make me mistake you for one. Clear?"
The wizard's head bobbed up and down in obvious fear.
Bethany Anne, I've determined there's a 93.7% chance their wands are an essential element of the 'wizard's' spells
Thank you, ADAM. I believe you are correct.
She eyed the leader of these wizards. "Let me guess. We both live in worlds where we have to keep normal humans from finding out about the abnormal realities around them."
The man nodded again.
Bethany Anne pushed her mind into his. Neither of us is normal. We both have secrets. We're fine with keeping yours, but you will NOT touch our minds, am I clear?
The man's eyes widened as he nodded vigorously. She could read his agreement in his mind as she set him on his feet.
"Good, now you're going to release my bodyguard, and then we're going to get this overgrown rat snake back where it belongs. Did you have a plan for that?"
The man muttered something and pointed his wand at Eric, releasing him. "Levitation and a lot of flying."
Bethany Anne smiled. "I think we can help you out with that."
Charlie stared as hundreds of discs descended from the sky. They collected smoothly under the edges of the sand wyrm, lifting them as more slid under. Soon the entire beast was floating in the air.
"It reminds me of something Dad mentioned about a muggle ship getting dragged out of water, recently," he muttered.
"Oh, yeah. Same idea," the vampire woman replied calmly. "So, where do you want it?"
"Umm… I guess just follow us?"
The woman shouted, "Load up! We've got a dragon to deliver!"
The muggles piled into the two floating ships. As Charlie got on his broom, he found the sand wyrm and muggle ships followed behind him with no problem at all. Even when they hit the boundaries of the wards, the ships didn't flinch at all.
They set the sand wyrm down in the pen, then took off straight up and blinding speed.
"What was that?" Mortimer asked him.
"I have no idea," Charlie replied. "But I hope to never face them again."
Bethany Anne sat on the bridge of the Meredith Reynolds. "Let's kick some Yollin ass," she muttered. The thought of what that wizard would think of what she was about to do put a smile on her face.