So I said that YW character would come in via the fact that A Wizard Abroad is set in the UK, but other characters wanted to be written more urgently. And yes, the rest of their encounter is going to show up at a later date...hopefully with winter break coming up I'll actually have time to write stuff for pleasure instead of class. We'll see.
The thing about Rory is that Rory is not a wizard. And, given that he is currently in his early twenties, he never will be a wizard.
He's fine with that, honestly. He's always been a pretty modest guy, and he's content to leave the big, flashy stuff to Amelia (his fiancé, he still can't stop smiling incurably whenever he remembers that fact). Rory? His goal is to get through life and do some good, in whatever small ways he can. That's the reason he became a nurse, really; to help take care of people, to help heal people, to help fight Entropy in his own, little, non-magical way.
Coincidentally, that desire is also the reason that he is currently running around on an alien planet dodging laser beams.
"Duck left!" he hears Amelia shout from behind him. He listens just in time to miss the latest laser beam, and then get hit in the shoulder by the shrapnel.
He winces but he keeps running because they really do not have time to stop and catch their breath. All he can think about is getting the hell away from their pursuers, reaching a section of the Crossings where they can worldgate away, and have enough lead time to do so.
He glances at the monitors again as he jumps over a table and then dodges around a family of tentacled aliens. And sure enough, none of the worldgates surrounding them lead to planets with air that humans can actually breathe. And there's no time to prepare a spell to protect them. Of course. Because, you know, he and Amelia just have all the luck.
Then he almost runs face-first into a woman standing in front of him. From the looks of it, an actual human, quite possibly from Earth, meaning probably a wizard and also less likely to ignore their plight than everyone else. So Rory, instead of running on as he should, practically shouts, in what he's sure is mangled Speech, "Can you help us?" Then he lapses back into English, startled as he ducks again. "We're—" But he's cut off as he has to dodge another beam, and he's trying to pull her down with him but the woman has already moved.
"In trouble?" she asks, and Rory would be lying if he claimed he hadn't felt an immense burst of relief at finding someone who spoke English, because he can manage a few phrases in the Speech, but he isn't exactly fluent.
"Yeah," he breathes.
Almost simultaneously comes a shout from Amy—Rory was one of the few people who had nickname privileges with her—"Hurry up, they're gaining!"
Amelia had depleted her prepared spells on the planet Carimdnshnas (aka their actual mission), along with most of her energy, long before they reached the Crossings, while the ammunition for Rory's weapon had vanished even earlier. Rory is not finding that set of circumstances particularly enjoyable.
"Don't worry," the woman says, flicking a dark brown braid over her shoulder. "I've got this." Then she reaches into her purse and pulls out a curling iron. And fires it.
Well, the good news was that curling irons are apparently effective weapons nowadays, judging by the smoldering char that had previously been one of their pursuers.
Amy stops, eyes wide, but only for a second before she seizes her chance, cracks open her Manual, and starts gathering her remaining energy for one more spell. Meanwhile, their rescuer realigns her curling iron, takes aim, and fires again. And a third time.
As for Rory, he is just bemoaning the fact that he was stupid enough to leave his laser sword (which he totally privately thinks of as a lightsaber because talk about cool) at home that day. Which is to say he sits there helpless for about five seconds before getting off his ass, noticing some unattended luggage, and throwing it piece by piece at the ten or so aliens that hadn't yet perished, whether by their earlier efforts or by curling iron.
Together, he and the mysterious woman actually manage to hold the aliens off, forcing them to halt and take cover, exchanging fire in a miniaturized parody of trench warfare. Like most trench warfare, it quickly turns into a stalemate, both sides shooting at enemies that had taken cover too well.
But Rory doesn't need to win. He just needs to keep the aliens off of Amelia's back long enough for her to do so.
Behind him, he hears her voice moving through the syllables of the Speech, commanding the Universe to do what she wants right the hell now, dammit. Then comes the Wizard's Knot, and even Rory, non-magical though he is, can hear the spell snap into place and the Universe start to respond.
And that second, their attackers all start screeching in pain and drop to the floor. And then they die.
The newcomer whistles and lowers her weapon (which still looks like a curling iron and frankly Rory can't quite get over that because what). "Nice. What'd you do to them?"
"Removed the mucous membranes lubricating all of their internal organs. Painful, but the spell isn't that hard—you're only messing with their bodies, not the laws of physics—and the internal bleeding gets just about everything pretty quickly," Amy answers, standing up, Manual just barely visible in her hand behind the container she had used for cover. "Are you guys all right?" she then asks, giving Rory a thorough once-over as if expecting him to be secretly dead.
Please, that only happened once, but is he ever going to live it down? Apparently not. "I'm good," he says instead.
"Yep," the woman adds, popping the p, "Not a scratch."
"Good," Amelia says, nodding. And, looking at the other woman, "Thanks for your help. Seriously. I'm Amelia. And I'm on Errantry, and I greet you."
"Carmela," she replies with a jaunty grin. "Pleasure to help my fellow Earthlings. I'm not on Errantry, though."
Rory feels his eyebrows raise in sync with Amelia's. Human non-wizards weren't exactly common in outer space, to say the least…but then again, he was here too. "You're like me, then. Rory, by the way," he adds, gesturing to himself.
"Nice to meet you both," Carmela says. She looks like she's about to add something when Amy interrupts.
"We should probably get out of here before one of the other platoons finds us."
"Wait, you mean there's more of them running through the Crossings? Ugh, Sker's gonna be so pissed… He can probably deal with them, though, so don't worry, you guys don't have to play cleanup crew or anything."
"Great," Amy replies, and maybe the name "Sker" meant something to her because it sure didn't mean anything to Rory. "Talk while we walk, then?" she asks. But instead of waiting for an answer, Amy turns and heads off, leaving Rory and Carmela to follow.