It was observed, at the time, that significant attacks against the major galactic powers declined soon after the capture of Coruscant — there were a few border skirmishes and the occasional infiltrator, but the Yuuzhan Vong didn't execute a concerted invasion of remaining New Republic (and later Alliance) territory until shortly before the Battle of Dac itself, approximately two years after the Battle of Borleias. Given how easily they had snatched the advantage in the war, contemporary strategists had no explanation for the abrupt delay. We know now, due to testimony from defectors, that the losses suffered in the initial invasion and the enormous territory they'd stretched themselves across had terribly overburdened their forces — the Yuuzhan Vong needed time, to grow replacements for their lost equipment, to finish training up the next generation of warriors. In the end, they would not get that time, continuing assaults from every galactic power gradually forcing them to retreat, and finally surrender, less than three years after their apparent triumph.
Between the conquest of Coruscant and the Battle of Dac, the Yuuzhan Vong concentrated their efforts on terraforming various worlds within captured territory to their liking, twisted to support their massive biological factories. The process had largely gone unnoticed by the major galactic powers at the time — the invaders' virulent hatred of inorganic machinery had resulted in the destruction of all pre-existing long-distance communications networks — though the lingering effects are well known in the present day. The natural biospheres of hundreds of worlds were devastated by the program, resulting in the extinctions of unknown numbers of plant and animal species, yes, but also an unknown number of sapients. The Yuuzhan Vong preferred to target inhabited worlds, with native populations which could be used as slave labor or as sacrifices to their gods — fertile worlds home to pre-hyperspace civilizations were considered ideal, as they were less likely to be despoiled by industrial pollution or to put up any significant resistance. The military forces sent to pacify these worlds were normally quite meager, in proportion to the opposition expected.
Along with a handful of other 'primitive' worlds invaded by the Yuuzhan Vong, Dimitra was entirely unknown to galactic society. Located deep in the Unknown Regions, far from any major hyperroutes, the region was at the edge of the Hand's influence, the neighborhood occasionally patrolled but never settled. The locals had begun broadcasting in radio bands over the last century or so — but even if anyone had thought to monitor the correct frequencies, one hundred years was not long enough for the signals to reach any major population centers. A few short years before the broader invasion, the nearest communications station operated by the Hand, approximately sixty light-years away from Dimitra, had detected faint signals which might indicate an industrial, pre-hyperspace civilization in the area, but these signals were only identified with Dimitra in retrospect. How the Yuuzhan Vong discovered the planet is unknown, but it is likely that their observations were from enough of a distance to suggest a pre-industrial civilization, ideal for easy conquest and exploitation.
The Yuuzhan Vong were, as we all know, terribly unprepared for what they found. The task force which arrived in the Dimitran system on Zero Day was composed primarily of civilian craft — a single worldship with associated support vessels, belonging to the Shaper caste, intended to direct the transformation and cultivation of the world. The military escort consisted of a single miid-ro'ik-class cruiser, accompanied by a handful of escorts, including the expected complement of yorik-et starfighters — the infamous "coralskippers" — yorik-trema and yorik-vec assault ships, as well as the tsik-seru, an atmospheric fighter frequently seen on occupied planets. Groups of so-called "fire breathers" were deployed in a handful of engagements. Curiously, no rakamat-class ground transport was ever seen during the Invasion of Dimitra — it is assumed that this cruiser's rakamat complement had been left on another occupied world, or had perhaps been lost in a previous battle.
Between the worldship, the cruiser, and their escorts, the task force numbered perhaps as many as seven million souls. However, the majority of that number were civilians, concentrated on the worldship — primarily workers and Shapers, including children. Estimates put the warrior population of the task force, including Yuuzhan Vong and Chazrach thralls, at no more than a million.
At the time, the total population of Dimitra was not quite six billion.
2nd September 1995 (63:5:16)
— Contact plus 00.00.00:08.30
Spreading beneath her out toward the horizon, Manchester burned.
Beth had never been to Manchester, really all she knew about it from, like, history class back in primary school — since most of that had been reading, she hadn't really retained very much. Supposedly it'd been a big deal during the Industrial Revolution? She didn't know. Oh, and obviously she knew a little about the big-name football clubs (they had two), but that didn't really count.
It was a big damn city, clearly, obvious from the air, a huge area along a river all built up, stretching off toward hills in the distance. (It was the second biggest in the UK, so.) There were less bloody huge skyscrapers and shite than London, the city hugged closer to the ground, dense with blocks of terraces one after another after another, on and on. Her vague impression at first glance was also that there were fewer parks and green spaces and shite, especially close to the city centre — more squares and courtyards or whatever, paved or tiled, not a lot of grass. There were patches of green, trees sticking out here and there, but her general impression was pretty...brown. And red, from all the bricks.
Of course, some areas of London looked rather a lot like this, London just also had a lot of really nice places toward the middle of the city, since it was where all the important people had lived for centuries. Not the point.
Not that she could see a lot of it very well at the moment — the city had been hit about as bad as London, smoke pouring out toward the sky from hundreds and hundreds of bomb craters, fires burning in patches all over the place. And Manchester didn't have an Underground, and the military had been slower to get here (all the important people were in London, but Birmingham and multiple northern cities were also being hit), so Beth was sure a lot of people were dead.
"There," Sirius said, pointing. "They're in that park right there, see it?"
After flying cover for that convoy out of London as far as Norholt, Sirius had put out a few calls, asking around if anyone seriously needed help. First they'd jumped across the Channel — literally the first time Beth had ever left Britain — and up to a Dutch city (Rotterdam, she thought?), where she and Sirius had helped the locals chase off some more aircraft, giving the military some cover while they took out a landing party that'd managed to dig themselves in somewhere near a bloody huge dockyard. They'd then hopped back to London to help evacuate Knockturn Alley — unsurprisingly, a lot of the poor people and werewolves and shite down there didn't exactly trust the Ministry much, so weren't willing to go anywhere just because they were told to...and also it was sort of difficult for the vampires to move about during the day. A lot of them were more willing to trust Sirius, though, he'd ended up sending a bunch of the more stubborn ones (along with like a couple dozen vampire children, which were apparently a thing?) to Ancient House, the Black family manor, which Beth hadn't even been to before. Sirius didn't like it there, so he'd never bothered bringing her, but there was plenty of space, and some far enough from the sun to be safe for vampires, and elves around to keep an eye on people, it was fine.
(So, the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black was basically hosting a refugee camp for desperately poor mages and nonhumans — Beth was sure Sirius's ancestors were rolling in their graves.)
The evacuation of Knockturn Alley was still going on, she thought, but Sirius had found enough trustworthy locals who could teleport (not apparation, Beth thought, felt different) that they could handle the rest of it without Sirius there — he'd given orders to an elf to let everyone through the wards as guests, before continuing on again. After once again asking Beth if she wouldn't rather call it quits and stay somewhere safe, which really seemed quite silly, by this point.
Though she was getting filthy, sweat and ash and blood and who knew what else, she wouldn't say no to a quick shower...
They'd then moved on to Manchester, where the evacuation wasn't exactly going very smoothly. The city was a bloody maze, and apparently there were a bunch of tunnels and basements and stuff, some expanded into bomb shelters over the last few decades, which had been the natural places for people to go hide in...so, when buildings were smashed to bits over their heads, they found themselves trapped. And there'd been a few landing parties here too, a bunch of the lizard-people and a handful of the much more dangerous scarred aliens, which had obviously made everything a whole lot more complicated.
There were still packs of aliens roving around the city, they were told, but muggle soldiers with automatic rifles were just as effective against them as mages — the thing Beth and Sirius could do the most good with was clearing the rubble so they could free trapped people and get them out of the city. They had a pack of mages and emergency workers and local volunteers going down a block of old textile factories long ago converted into flats, that had been more or less completely levelled in the bombing, the mages smothering the fires and getting rid of the wreckage (and whatever seemed unsafe to poke around in), leaving the muggles to search for the entrances belowground, pull people out and swarm around tending the injured, while the mages moved on to the next pile of rubble. It was surprisingly hard work, and a little nerve-wracking — move or vanish stuff in the wrong order, and you could cause a bloody rockslide, which might accidentally crush the people below or the workers scrambling around. It was generally safest to vanish stuff as much as possible, so it didn't get in the way or fall on anyone's head, but vanishing big blocks of brick and plaster and whatever else was pretty damn power-intensive, Beth had to take a quick breather now and then, her wand arm stinging.
Also, they kept finding bodies in the rubble, Beth had nearly sicked up the first time. Not a fun job, to put it mildly.
(But she had to keep going — who knew how many people there were under there, and the machinery muggles would need to move all this shite wouldn't get here until it was too late.)
After who knew how long, the news had been passed along that someone had spotted another landing, somewhere to the southeast. A relatively big one, by the sound of it, including a pretty sizeable, boxy ship they hadn't seen yet. There weren't any military people in the area, mostly handling evacuations in Trafford to the west and hunting down the survivors of an earlier landing somewhere north of here. Beth volunteered to fly up and take a look, and Sirius didn't want her to go anywhere alone, so here they were.
Squinting through the smoke, it took Beth another second to spot what he had — a boxy orangeish shape was wedged into a narrow street, nearly hiding it, but she also saw a couple greenish curves of those odd misshapen fish-like landing craft she'd seen back at King's Cross. One on a bridge over a narrow canal was the most obvious, probably what Sirius had spotted first. There was a lot of movement in the park, but Beth couldn't make out what it was from here. "Yeah, I see them." She frowned, leaning over her broom, as though that'd make any difference at all. "Those are people, in the park. Are they taking captives?"
Sirius bit out a low curse. "Not if we have anything to say about it. I'm counting at least two of the green ones, will be a hell of a fight. Unless you want to wait for the army to come around."
"...If they are taking captives, we don't know how long that'll take, they might be gone by the time the army gets here."
"True." Sirius didn't sound at all happy about it, not looking forward to trying to take that many aliens by themselves. To be fair, she wasn't either.
"We can see if a few of the local mages will come help. And look, the canal goes all the way down to the river, we can get right to them without being spotted, come up from under their feet."
Sirius nodded. "Good thinking. Come on."
They returned to the rubble-clearing group, explained the situation to the local mages. Some of the people in earshot made faces when they figured out where exactly the landing was — Beth got the feeling it was the bad part of town or something — but they got a few volunteers. After some questions back and forth, Sirius narrowed it down to two — a tall blond man who was maybe about Sirius's age, and a dainty, ash-streaked woman who was just starting to get old enough for her dark hair to frost at the edges. The woman, Rosemary, might actually be the best fighter after Sirius, or maybe even better than him. She claimed she'd been an Auror before retiring to help raise her grandchildren — Sirius admitted her name was familiar, but that would have been before his time. (She didn't look that old, but mages aged weird.) Which was when Beth learned she was Rosemary Fortescue, like the ice cream bloke? Apparently so, the ice cream Fortescue was her husband's, like, second cousin or something...
(The magical world was so absurdly small sometimes.)
Anyway, they split up, the bloke riding with Sirius and Rosemary riding with Beth — it was possible to fit two people on a broomstick, but it wasn't really comfortable. Sitting awkwardly far forward on the handle, Beth grimaced at the arms around her waist, forced her shoulders to relax, tried to ignore it. Staying low, they flew a few blocks to the south and east, meeting the river, picking up some speed as they followed the water. There were buildings tight to either side, blocking out their view of the city, after a little bit they came past what Beth was pretty sure had been a train station — like most transportation infrastructure identifiable from above, this one had been pummelled, smashed to bits and gushing smoke from roaring fires — a big parking lot spreading out on one side, the buildings to the other side retreating a little bit in favour of a strip of greenery. They dipped under the low arch of a red brick bridge, Rosemary's arms tightening on her a little, nervous, the river widening on the other side, a patch of trees to the left, hanging low over the water—
Beth hadn't realised the trees were on a tiny little island, Sirius turned off along the narrow strip of water just before the trees and out of sight. Banking hard, she turned after him, but she'd gotten too far ahead to take the same path without slowing down — instead she looped a little further down, slipping between two treetops (one snagging at her leg a little), and then immediately jerking down to avoid the brick supports of the bridge, Rosemary letting out a little gasp behind her. Her surroundings whipping by so fast they were a blur, Beth kept turning, jinking around some bit of metal equipment (went by too fast to tell what), past the narrow strip of land the bridge was on was water, squeezed in a narrow gap between a pair of parallel bridge, she leaned even harder into the turn, coming out low over the water and shooting off ahead, nearly one-eighty from the direction she'd been going in two seconds ago. Sirius appeared out from under the first bridge a few metres ahead of her — he'd slowed down coming through more than she had. The pair of bridges overhead were angling closer together, their waterway narrowing, it looked like this strip of water might vanish underground soon, a turn off to the right streaked by before Beth had hardly seen it — besides, she thought the gap between the water and the concrete slab the right-hand bridge was on had been too narrow, and for some reason a barrier blocked off the path through the bridge supports — but Sirius had had the same thought she had. There was another bridge ahead, a road, their pair of bridges rising to allow it under, Sirius turned and pulled up at a hard angle, easily slipping through a narrow gap between the end of the barrier between the right-hand bridges posts, the concrete barrier marking the edge of the road, and the bridge overhead, Beth taking the same turn just as easily, then another sharp turn the opposite direction, angling down again, crossing over the bridge, jinking out of the way of a lamppost and barely clearing a fence, and then they were rocketing down a river, buildings and trees whipping by to either side.
Her grip on Beth finally loosening a little, Rosemary said, "You're bloody mad, Potter."
Beth smirked.
Their waterway came around a curve, little notches for docks to either side — there were boats around, but they didn't look like those big commercial barges, she assumed these dockyards weren't used anymore — dipping under another bridge, right on the other side the river splitting. Beth initially followed the wider path, curving to the south, but then she saw another smooth curve a little bit ahead — too smooth, they were supposed to be following a narrow canal, this was the wrong way. Yanking back on the handle, she took another sharp upward turn, Rosemary let out another little gasp, gripping tighter again, as they angled toward a building, but Beth kept turning, narrowly slipping in the gap between the wall and a tree, sailing over what looked like the outdoor seating area of a restaurant, and they dropped right into a narrow, deep, brick-walled canal. She actually ended up a few metres ahead of Sirius this time — he must have slowed down taking the turn off.
"Thought I lost you for a second there!"
Beth focussed on weaving through the supports of a bridge crossing overhead before answering. "Just try to keep up, old man!"
"Kids today, no respect..."
It was quiet and dark in the canal, the sun low enough in the sky they flew in a kind of false twilight...or maybe actual twilight, she'd lost track of the time ages ago. Several bridges criss-crossed overhead, Beth and Sirius gracefully weaving between the posts — not bothering to slow down at all, Rosemary's arms now and then twitching with nerves — the brick walls to either side gradually lowering toward the water level. As they took a sharp little corner, the walls fell away entirely, the buildings right to either side (a mix of old brick and more modern plaster and glass) practically on the water, only a thin strip of pavement between them and the canal. They passed through a tunnel under a bridge, the air echoing deep around them, and the walls started to rise to either side again, another shallow corner, a series of lock and dams forcing them to lift a bit higher over the water, staying as deep in the shadow of the buildings as they could—
They were going over a dam when Beth glanced up, her heart jumping into her throat when she spotted one of the fishy transport ships up on a bridge, maybe only fifty metres straight ahead. Diving down to the water again, they zipped ahead as fast as they could safely go, darting through gaps under a pedestrian walkway with only inches to spare. Beth held her breath, she saw one of the tall aliens on the bridge — but his back was to them, they managed to get under the bridge unnoticed, Beth and Sirius wrenching themselves to an abrupt halt, Rosemary clinging on tightly to stop herself from being flung off. In a low concrete tunnel under the bridge, there was a narrow walkway to one side, they drifted over in that direction, Beth careful edging over the railing, barely enough room.
Just before they landed, a swirl of Sirius's wand had a wave of magic ringing through the cramped space — a paling of some kind, probably keeping any sound they made from reaching the aliens overhead. "Come on, let's take a look." Broom resting in the crook of his arm, he walked toward the edge of the bridge, started casting charms. Sections of the air ahead seemed to shimmer, quickly resolving into panels, reflections from overhead dizzyingly tilting as he adjusted the spell.
A bit of tweaking the spell, and Sirius eventually managed to bring the situation overhead into focus. There was a little square of green above them to the... Beth was pretty sure the spell was reflecting the light funny — it looked like it was ahead of her to the right, but she was pretty sure it was actually behind her to the left. Anyway, a tiny little park, just the size of one of these tight, inner-city blocks, a tiny patch of grass and some trees. She thought there might be some walkpaths stitching through the place, benches here and there, but it was hard to tell through all the people packed in there. Dozens and dozens of people, and surprisingly mixed, rather more non-white people than Beth would expect — but then, she guessed they were in a not-so-nice part of a major city, that tended to happen — obviously terrified, sometimes even halfway trampling each other. They were being herded together by these big reddish insectile things, long spindly limbs knotting together around clumps of people, closing around to press them close. The aliens were definitely taking captives.
Sirius panned the aperture of the spell around, getting a better idea of what they were looking at. There were two of the fishy green landing ships — from the muggles in Rotterdam, they knew each of those held maybe forty soldiers, thirty to thirty-five of the lizard things and five or six of the scarred ones, for a total of sixty to seventy of the former and ten to twelve of the latter. Those might seem like bad odds, but they had pretty shite defences against magic, so, with Sirius and another Auror-tier mage here, Beth wasn't really worried...though, the bigger transport wedged into an intersection way to the right (left) could have fit a bunch more soldiers. Beth was willing to bet, though, that it'd been mostly empty — they had to have somewhere to put their captives, after all.
It looked like the lizard-things were mostly in the park, helping to hem in the prisoners. (Beth spotted a few bodies laying here and there, but not very many, the aliens clearly trying to take as many as possible alive.) There were a few of the scarred ones in the park, but most were waiting near the transports, or standing on bridges or intersections. As they watched, a few appeared from inside one of the buildings ringing the park — mostly rather old-looking, red brick, the base structure plain without obvious decoration, but people had made additions, since, and...
Beth was belatedly noticing rainbow flags in multiple places around the square, and even in the park itself, and more on the other side of the canal. Well, if this was where the gay people lived, she guessed that might also explain the faces some of the locals had made when they'd figured out where the landing was. There were plenty of children in with the captives, but she guessed it wasn't against the rules for straight people to live here too, and she was aware they sometimes had kids from previous marriages...
As the aliens Beth had spotted a moment ago dragged and prodded several people toward the park, adding them to the pool of captives, Sirius said, "Alright, could be worse. I was thinking Rosemary and I would stay on the ground, being very loud and distracting, while Beth and Eugene fly cover. Try to take out the ones on the roofs over here early, if you can," pointing at a few figures on a roof across the park Beth hadn't even noticed, "don't want them shooting you out of the air. Prioritise the tall scarred ones — those can be dangerous devious fuckers, but the scaley ones aren't much of a threat. Rosemary and I can sweep up all of those no problem.
"Also, we'll need to take out the transports first — we don't want them escaping with hostages, and the guns on those things are a bitch. Rosemary, if you want to take the one over our heads, I'll apparate over to take out the big one, and close toward the middle from that side?"
Rosemary nodded. "Agreed. What about the other little one?"
"Beth will take that one. What do you say, think you can open with that little trick of yours you came up with back in London?"
When Beth had exploited a dive to extend an arc curse, she hadn't realised that would become her signature move or something, but it quickly seemed like that was starting to be a thing. She'd used it a few times since, whenever it seemed convenient. "Sure, that shouldn't be a problem. It'll take me a little bit to drop, Eugene'll be on his own for a few seconds."
"'Course. Eugene, then you'll hit the ones on the roof here first. They can fire back at you, so come in at an angle — destructive curses, biggest shite you got. Take the building down around them if you have to. Good?"
The man looked rather nervous, pale and twitchy, but he nodded easily enough. "Good."
"All right. Try to keep them off the prisoners as well as you can," Sirius said, handing his broom over to Eugene. "There's no point to this if all the people we're trying to rescue get blown up in the crossfire. Everyone ready?" Rosemary just nodded, squaring her stance to land solid out of her apparation, Eugene mounting Sirius's broom. Beth sidled over closer to the opening of their tunnel, and hopped up to crouch on the railing, balancing on the balls of her feet, cheating a little bit with her broom's levitation spells. "We'll apparate on three. One. Two."
Pop-pop!
Beth jumped off the railing, swinging a leg over her broom as she fell and then immediately shooting straight up into the air, the wind tearing at her eyes and her hair flapping behind her.
There was a second pair of apparation pops, one louder than the other, closer, quickly followed by a harsh boom-crackle of some kind of lightning-based curse, then a hissing of the lava-ammo being splattered over damp concrete. That was Rosemary, somewhere underneath her, but she hardly heard Sirius's curse at all, just a rattling and cracking of debris settling. Sirius knew an arc curse that fucking vanished anything it hit — multiple layers thick, just kept vanishing its way through everything in its path until the energy was expended, Beth simply didn't have the power to cast it — she assumed he'd used that one again. Beth was coming up to the top of her arc when she heard more curses, an intense roar of flame and crackling of lightning, booming and snapping of explosions, concrete cracking from the force — sounded like Sirius and Rosemary were putting on a hell of a show, trying to keep the aliens' attention.
A brief moment of weightlessness as Beth reached the top of her ascent and started back on her way down, "Hostīs damnātōs millanceīs flagrantibus ulcīscere." Gritting her teeth through the intense flood of magic burning its way down her arm, she wondered whether she should work at shortening that incantation, if she was going to keep using it all the time. You could do that, it just took practice and familiarity, gradually chopping off training wheels until you could do it silently — she'd already practised several curses to not needing the incantations anymore (though mostly just nonlethal ones), and dropped a third of the Lance of Modestus — but she hadn't realised she'd be using this one this much. After the battle, she should try to find some time to practise her lethal curses more...
The ribbon of the curse extending out behind her, Beth aimed herself toward the fishy green transport, sitting at an intersection directly across the square from the transport on the bridge. She'd release the curse at the last second, jink to the side to avoid the transport and continue into the street behind it, before curving back around to the park — to the left, to make sure she didn't accidentally hit a trailing end of her own curse. Looking over the path ahead, she could loop around this way, and come right at the roof those aliens were on, finish up any Eugene had missed on his first pass, and then angle back toward the bridge, shooting down at the aliens below as she went, loop back around the way Sirius had gone, and then pause a second to see how things were going and decide where she was most needed from there. Right, good plan.
Let's see how long it took for it to go to shite.
Turned out, not very long — she was only seconds away from the transport, ignoring the swirling of activity in the park below her, when there was a low gulping noise from the transport, orange light blooming in one of the tubes at the nose. Beth angled to the side to make sure she wasn't in the line of fire — grimacing as the quick movement drew magic out of her even more quickly to properly fill out the arc over that distance — and a fireball launched out of the transport...
...aimed nowhere near her, closer to the ground. Huh.
Beth released the spell, letting out a sigh of relief as the burning in her wand arm reduced to the familiar hot-cold tingling, pulled out of her dive to zip at stupid-fast speed inches from the pavement, pulling up into her loop even as the curse began to land, a long series of fiery explosions added to the noise of whatever the hell Sirius and Rosemary were doing. Bleeding off some of her reckless speed around the curve, Beth slipped in an alley between two buildings, angling back toward the park. She spotted the rooftop aliens ahead — one of them was definitely dead, a charred crater blasted into the roof, but a few were still standing, chucking their weird bug-grenades after Eugene. Beth was coming up behind them, they wouldn't even see her coming. Aiming at two standing closer together, "Cumigne lacera!" and then a "distona" at the third.
One of them must have heard her, reacting surprisingly fast, whipping around to look over his shoulder — but he'd wasted the second he had before the curse hit, didn't have time to dodge before it struck him full in the chest. The explosion definitely caught the one next to him, but Beth wasn't sure if it was lethal. Seriously injured, at least. The distona had hit the lone alien in the centre of his chest, punching a hole straight through his body, that one wasn't going anywhere.
Beth was past them before the bodies even hit the floor, twitching to the side to avoid one of the trees. "Steðjinn detti!" The blast of wind shook her around a little, tightened her grip to stop herself from rolling — but it also opened up some space between the lizard-things and the captives. She rained blasting and slicing curses down on the sprawling figures, once using her motion to extend a sectumsempra long enough to probably kill a half-dozen of them at once, but she didn't stop, standing still was a good way to get yourself dead.
Rosemary was on the street near the bridge ahead, the air around her shimmering with ephemeral blue-orange flames, an occasional crackle of static sparking off to nearby lampposts or manhole covers — flaring your aura, Sirius called that, channelling so much magic through your body that the bleed-off was visible to the naked eye. It was pretty wasteful to do in a fight, since you weren't really doing anything with that magic, but it was extremely intimidating, since most mages couldn't channel enough magic all at once to be visible like this (and especially not holding it for as long as Rosemary was). With especially powerful mages, you might see an accidental flash of soulfire in the instant before they cast a big spell, that just happened sometimes, but flaring your aura and holding it like this was one hundred per cent just to terrify the shite out of people.
The aliens probably didn't know that — at least, it sure seemed to Beth sometimes like magic had taken them by surprise — but they didn't have to know the mechanics of what was going on to know that someone so powerful the air around them burned was probably super fucking scary. There were a few of the tall aliens nearby, along with a bunch of lizard-people, holding back and not attacking. Beth wouldn't say they looked scared, exactly, but at the very least definitely wary, watching Rosemary casually walk toward them, narrow-eyed and fingering their weapons. A harsh jab of Rosemary's wand, her aura clenching and crackling, and she shot off an absurdly powerful lightning curse (angled down, so she didn't accidentally hit the captives), bright enough that Beth blinked spots out of her eyes — the aliens tried to scatter, but many didn't get out of the way in time, when the light cleared several new char-striped and twisted corpses left behind. The aliens threw off a hail of bug-grenades, seemingly hoping Rosemary would be distracted, but a big bronze shield appeared to absorb the hits with a storm of clinking and banging — seriously dented in places, but it held — which then reformed itself into a half-dozen big sickle-shaped blades, a banishing charm sending them tearing into the mob of aliens, easily cutting deep into the lizard-people, bouncing off the armour of the scarred ones but the force still knocking the wind out of them, chucking them bodily to the ground.
And then Beth had reached the corner, "Cumigne lacera!" aimed down at a clump of aliens, sprawled on the pavement from dodging the sickles, the group exploding into fire. Starting her loop back toward Sirius, she used the curve to extend a "Sectumsempra!" then quick tossed another "Cumigne lacera!" down to the left before zipping on toward Sirius. She spotted aliens through the trees in the park as she flew by, tossed an occasional piercing, blasting, or cutting curse that way as she went. Aimed low, to avoid hitting the captives — which meant she was probably getting few lethal shots, but it would slow them down and distract them, at least.
Sirius's fighting style was obviously different from Rosemary's, but just as flashy. After reducing the blocky transport to a mangled wreck, he'd also decided to set it on fire, with a dark curse of some kind — the flames were black, flickers of green here and there with wet little pops from the ship's innards, definitely not natural. He didn't stand in one place, but was continually apparating around the intersection, blasting apart one alien and slashing at his friends before popping away again, to appear among another clump of aliens, killing or injuring a few of them before popping away again, pausing to cackle for a second — too loud, his voice magically amplified, just to taunt them — aiming a blasting curse at one of the tall aliens trying to rush him so powerful that the alien just disappeared, the street underfoot shattered into fragments. He apparated away again, a piercing curse from point-blank blowing a hole through a scarred alien's armoured chest so large its body flopped to the ground in two pieces, a seemingly careless flick of his wand in the opposite direction lashing a trio of lizard-people, greenish blood splattering, a storm of bug-grenades were buzzing into the air, Sirius reappeared on top of the part of the street he'd torn apart with that blasting curse, a swirl of his wand transforming dozens of pieces of rubble into hawks all at once, the constructs immediately flying off to hunt down the bugs (or just take the hits for him), one of the scarred aliens was rushing out of a broken window in the building behind him, only a couple steps away, Beth aimed a curse (too far away, wouldn't stop him in time) but apparently Sirius heard him coming, a spellglow extended from the tip of his wand and stayed there, almost like a sword, Sirius easily batted the heavy overhand swing aimed for his head aside, twirling around the alien's back with a flourish of his wand, as graceful as dancing, sank the 'blade' through the back of his neck, tearing it out to the side, black blood spraying, turning the motion into a wide swing, the 'blade' separating from his wand and zipping away in a flash, spearing through the chest of a charging alien...
Beth had always known Sirius was an incredibly dangerous battlemage — actually seeing it was something else. She guessed she was lucky Sirius hadn't actually been trying to kill her back in third year, because there was absolutely no way she would have lived to see summer.
It didn't really look like Sirius needed her help, but she tossed down a few curses as she took the corner anyway, aliens blasted apart or thrown from their feet by the explosions. Sirius paused to toss her a jaunty salute before getting right back into it. Still drifting at a pretty good speed, just in case (holding still was a good way to get dead), she took a quick glance around the park, and—
She figured out where that fireball had been aimed — a streak had been carved into the park, grass and trees on that side burning. The centre of the blast, where the fireball had hit, was right where one of the clumps of people had been, streamers of lava flung over the lizard-things nearby...
Seeing they were under attack, the aliens had fired on the prisoners. Why the fuck would they do that?! Didn't they want these people taken alive?! What the fuck was the point?!
Hanging in the air, horrified, it took her a second to realise the aliens were still attacking the prisoners — compressed into tight clumps by the reddish insectile creatures, they could hardly do a thing to resist, the swords slashing into them, bug-grenades rising into the air and—
Beth arrived over one of the clumps in a blink, fired a stormhammer charm down on their heads. The prisoners were shoved roughly down by the force, but the wind also pushed the aliens stumbling away, giving them a second's reprieve — and opening up enough distance that Beth could lay into them with curses. Firing them off one after another, flying in a tight little circle over the prisoners' heads to get every angle, lizard-people were sliced apart or got holes punched through them or were blasted to pieces, but she couldn't just stay here, she'd bought enough time to move on to the next group. Another stormhammer charm cleared the area around them, slipping over to the side a little, "Calore vindico," thick blue-white flames bursting out of her wand, she directed them to crash over the scattered aliens, flying in a little loop around the prisoners she coated the entire ring, alien voices screeching from all directions as their flesh popped and sizzled, like bacon on the pan. (The smell was even relatively similar.) Dipping down closer to the ground, Beth's arm was shaking badly enough from channelling so much magic so quickly, it took her a second longer than it should to aim — a slicing curse tore apart the ring holding the prisoners in place. The flames were already dissipating, the prisoners streamed out of the hole, the insectile things quickly collapsed, the bubble bursting.
Some of them, she noticed, were pausing to pick up the lizard-things' discarded swords, charged swinging at the nearest aliens. Beth would have to be more careful with her aim, but she couldn't be everywhere at once, so, she'd take the help.
Moving on to another group, there was a heavy drone on the air, Beth took a hard corner, a brace of bug-grenades zipping past her. They started wheeling around to follow her again, she dove, moving toward the survivors from the first prisoner group she'd stopped at — the aliens regrouping, moving to attack the prisoners again, despite the fact that they were actively being slaughtered, what the fuck — arcing in straight toward the densest pack of them, she waited until the buzzing stopped before taking another hard corner.
Wheeling around, she saw Eugene get hit in the back, once, twice, banging into a tree and spinning out of control down to the street, out of sight behind the barrier wall. She grit her teeth — he hadn't known the bugs could take more than one shot at you, had he? With heavy thuds and a single burst of fire, the bugs that'd been aimed at her tore into the aliens below, to a chorus of surprised shouting and screeching. Sidling over, another stormhammer charm pushed the aliens away from the prisoners a second time, and she repeated what she'd done a moment ago, covering the whole ring with intense blue-white fire, then paused to free the prisoners.
The fight didn't take very long from there, most of the aliens already dead and over half the surviving prisoners freed. Plenty of the muggles plucked up swords and tore into the remaining aliens from behind, Beth circling the fight overhead, laying in curses wherever it seemed like they could most use the help, exploiting stormhammer and banishing charms to stop the muggles from behind surrounded. Barely a minute passed before Rosemary and Sirius were done clearing the streets — after both Aurors had entered the park, the aliens were cut down in batches, basically pulverised by the attacks from all sides, and soon it was over.
That didn't mean the park calmed down, though — there was still a lot of noise, yelling and crying, people running back and forth. Sirius and Rosemary rushed to start helping the injured, Sirius shooting off a patrōnus on the way — surely whoever he'd called must be terribly overburdened, Beth had no idea whether anyone would even come — several muggles who apparently knew at least some basic first-aid trying to help, shouting for people to go look for supplies in nearby buildings, some running off to do that. Not entirely surprising, it didn't seem like very many people intended to leave the park — she'd half expected people to scatter as soon as they were freed, but most looked to be sticking around. Probably wanted to stay close to the people with absurd magic powers who'd just swept in to save their lives, Beth would guess.
While all that was going on, Beth popped over the barrier wall to the street behind, looking for Eugene. He was definitely dead, by the mess the bugs had made out of his back — one hole near his hip, and especially the second one just at the base of his neck — he might have been dead before he'd hit the ground. It looked like he'd hit his head on the wall, so, at least he probably hadn't suffered very long. (Which seemed like a really cold thing to think, Beth had just been talking to this bloke a couple minutes ago and now he was dead, but she couldn't help it.) Beth touched down, grabbed one of the foot-posts of Sirius's broom — she'd levitate Eugene back to Rosemary, presumably she'd know who to send him to. But she came up with only maybe a third of the broom handle, ending in a splintered mess a handspan above the posts.
Beth let out a sigh — looked like Sirius wasn't going to be able to fly with her anymore. That was going to make the next fights rather more complicated. And he might not even let her help anymore, if he couldn't keep an eye on her...
That was definitely a cold thing to think, but she couldn't help it — besides, it wasn't like there was anything she could do about Eugene anymore. Except get him back home to his family, anyway. Gently flying back across the park with his body levitating a foot away — she didn't want to accidentally drop him — it took her a moment to find Rosemary. When she landed, Rosemary was working on a nasty-looking stab wound in a man's chest. She glanced up at Beth, and then glanced down at Eugene — her jaw clenching, her eyes squeezed closed for just a second. And she went right back to her healing work. She did know Eugene's family, she'd bring him to his grandparents' once they were finished here, thank you, Potter.
Not really worth thanking her for — she hadn't been paying attention to him and he'd gotten killed. But whatever.
Somewhat to her surprise, some mages did turn up. Not Order people, and they weren't in the white and green robes Saint Mungos' healers wore — mostly not robes at all, trousers and long-hemmed tunics, leather boots and gloves. Beth had no idea who these people were. But it seemed like they knew what they were doing, jumped straight toward the most seriously injured, dropping shoulder bags filled with potions and shite, so she guessed it didn't really matter who they were.
Beth didn't really know much healing, not enough to be useful, she settled up on a tree branch where at least she'd be out of the way. There were a lot of dead bodies around. Plenty of aliens, yes, the greenish-black blood of the lizard things splashed all over the place, some of their bodies rather badly mangled — which was gross, yes, but... Well, it was hard to think of them as people, honestly. She'd fought plenty of them by now, and they seemed pretty mindless, would follow basic orders from the scarred aliens but mostly just settled with charging at people and swinging their swords or tossing bug-grenades, nothing clever to hint they had thoughts in there at all. She'd fallen into thinking of them more as, like, trained attack animals or something — it'd probably be better not to kill them, since blowing the shite out of animals for no reason wasn't on, but they were trying to kill people, so she did have a good reason. She didn't really feel bad about it, but the results were pretty gross.
(Of course, the scarred ones were definitely people, but she didn't really feel bad about killing those either. If they didn't want to get blown up, they shouldn't have come here.)
But there were also a bunch of human bodies, too. Some scorched, half-melted, unrecognisable, over where that transport had gotten off a shot before she'd gotten to it, others holed from sword or bug-grenade wounds. Very messy, not pretty.
Near her tree, a woman was crying, clutching to herself the body of a boy probably about Beth's age, or a little younger. He'd been caught in the gut with a bug-grenade — one of the purple, cutting ones. He was long dead by now, his middle a slashed-up bloody mess, deep enough his insides weren't all on the inside anymore, pale pinkish tubes and whatever else leaking out. The woman (his mother?) was also streaked with blood, but Beth was pretty sure it was his, hugging the boy's body to herself, a second woman crouched next to her, arms hugged tight around her shoulders (her girlfriend, maybe, rainbow flags), a couple other teary-eyed adults standing around them. There were a dozen scenes like that, all around the park.
Her breath sharp in her throat, her skin crawling, Beth was glad she hadn't eaten anything in a while.
The healers had been here for at least a few minutes before Sirius called her down — he was standing with an older man who was apparently in charge of the healers, and a couple representatives from the muggles, trying to figure out what they wanted to do with everyone. Apparently, the seriously injured (along with their families) were being evacuated to a magical hospital in Ireland — Beth wasn't familiar with it, but she guessed magical Britain was too big to only have the one (now that her attention had been drawn to it, the healers were talking to each other in Gaelic) — but who knew how long it'd be until another bombing run came around, they should get everyone else out of here too. The muggles thought the quickest way out of the built-up areas of the city would be to go east, but there was a problem with that — Leeds and Sheffield were also being hit, and who knew how many bombs the thing dropped along the way, they might not be out of danger there. There were green areas along the river, to the northwest, that was the direction the Army was evacuating through...but they'd have to go through the whole city centre to get there, they wouldn't be out before another bombing hit.
Or, they could move everyone to a magical safehouse, at least until the bombing was over and they could safely go home. (Assuming their homes were still standing, that is.) Sirius already had half of Knockturn at Ancient House — there was still room, because that place was huge, but he didn't know if the muggles would be comfortable with all the vampires and wilderfolk and whoever around. The Keep was still empty, but too small to house this many people; Ravenhome and Castle White were also options, though Ravenhome was somewhat dilapidated and the residential wings of Castle White had been closed up for centuries, so not ideal. (The muggles were amusingly surprised that Sirius owned two literal castles.) Beth reminded Sirius that Rock-on-Clyde was still mostly empty, just serving as a safehouse for Order people at the moment, they could fit plenty of people there.
After a few minutes of discussion (the time they had until the next bombing slipping away), they decided that a magical safehouse was probably best — not only was it safest, but they'd be able to get there most quickly. They'd split the group up roughly in half, one sent to Rock-on-Clyde and the other to the Keep, that should be doable. (It might be kind of tight at Rock-on-Clyde, with some rooms already taken up by Order people, but they'd figure it out.) A couple of the muggles ran off to spread the news, work on getting the group split up, while Beth and Sirius figured out how exactly they were going to do that.
Thankfully, Cediny said the elves could just pop their guests straight over, it wasn't a problem. They'd need to do it in batches, taking breaks in between to make sure they didn't overexert themselves, and it'd go faster if she hopped over to the farmhouses and shite to recruit some more elves to help, but it shouldn't be a problem. The Black elves could also help, if they needed it — Cherri, the Blacks' head elf, had offered on her own, glancing at Sirius and then Beth as though asking for permission after the fact. (Beth had noticed that the Black elves were a lot more forceful and impulsive than the Hogwarts elves, didn't know what was up with that.) It was actually Cediny who had control of the boundary wards — Beth did too, of course, but she wouldn't be the one in charge of this whole evacuation mess — so Beth left that one up to her.
Sirius also said that, if they were going to be sheltering so many evacuees, maybe they should think about opening up Ravenhome and Castle White. Cediny actually spoke up to offer help with that, Beth thought as a kind of trade for the Blacks' help with the evacuation, so that was that.
(So, the refugee camp hosted by the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black would now also be taking in muggles — if Sirius's ancestors hadn't been rolling in their graves before, they certainly were now.)
When they had that all figured out, Sirius amplified his voice to make an announcement to the whole crowd. The news that they'd be being moved to a magic house with magic protections got a pretty bemused sort of reaction, but most of them seemed willing to go along with it — Beth bet the "magic protection" part probably helped. They'd figure out where they'd be going after that once the battle was over, and their government started getting all this shite sorted. They'd be teleported over by house elves, who were kind of funny-looking folk, but they were super friendly, they'll take care of you. At a shouted question from someone in the crowd, Sirius quickly leaned down to whisper with Cherri, before answering, yes, they could bring the bodies of family or friends with them — the elves would store them away somewhere under preservation spells, they'd keep until a funeral could be arranged. How long? Indefinitely — even if it took years they'd still be waiting, the elves would keep track of who was who and make sure all the survivors knew how to contact him when it was time.
Anyone else? Of course they'd all be fed, and they could get toiletries and clothes and shite too, within reason, just ask the elves. That it, then? Brill, let's get going.
As elves popped in to start evacuating the survivors, teleporting them out as few as two and as many as five at a time, Sirius shuffled closer to Beth. "I didn't have a chance to ask, you doing okay?"
"Yeah, not a scratch this time. My wand arm's a little tingly again, but it's not that bad, I think I'm fine for now." Beth did feel a little...off, eyes kept being drawn to the bodies around, but how she was doing physically was the much easier question to answer.
"We can take a break, if you want."
"No, I'm good to keep going." Sirius looked pretty sceptical, Beth cut him off before he could argue. "We have no idea how long this is going to keep going on, Sirius. We could be at this for days, for all we know. When we do take a break, I want to be able to get some sleep while we're at it — I just don't think I'll be able to do that right now."
Sirius was quiet for a moment, giving Beth a... Well, she wasn't certain what to call that look. She didn't doubt there was something unsaid there, his eyes dark and intense on her, but his face was blank enough she couldn't really guess what. Finally, he said, voice low and thick, "That's not a bad idea." ...Okay. "Oh, did you see Eugene? I didn't get my broom back."
Beth winced. "He didn't make it — bugs looped around and hit him from behind. Your broom snapped when he crashed. Rosemary's bringing him to his grandparents'."
"Ah fuck, poor kid." Beth didn't know how old Eugene was, exactly, but she was pretty sure he was older than Sirius had been during the war — kind of funny calling him kid, but whatever. "The Order has a stash of brooms tucked away, we'll have to go grab one quick. The safehouse is in Hogsmeade, think you can apparate there?"
...To Hogwarts's front gate, maybe, but not into the village itself, didn't know it well enough. "Um, no, you'd better side-along me again."
"Alright." Sirius glanced around, checking to make sure the evacuation around them was going along well enough, before holding out a hand. "Let's go."