Gabrielle Delcaour: Wrath of the Unmaker C2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2:

Trading in Flesh

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“Approaching target.” The pilot’s voice called over the hum of the helicopter blades.

Gabrielle stood up and grasped one of the handles in the ceiling near the helicopter door. Jun and Eric did the same, in the positions behind her.

“First drop-off point in twenty five seconds.” The Pilot warned.

Gabrielle ripped open the sliding door to be blasted by the cold, arctic winds. Her goggles were immediately made less useful as wet sleet covered. She cast a quick impervious on them like she should have earlier and returned to looking out at the snow-covered rocks of the Siberian mountain they were flying uncomfortably close to.

The black stone of the mountains and white of snow gave way to the clear and obvious train tracks they were following. Train tracks that were as wholly covered in snow as she was after mere moments exposed to this blizzard. Save for the metal rails upon which it drove.

Four rows of rails. Enough for four trains to ride upon, side by side, but when the helicopter finally turned around the corner it was to reveal just one. One train, taking up for rails. Four times as wide as any normal train, and many times more armored. Tank shells could pierce the hull of the basketball court sized train carts it lugged along.

“Operative Delacour. You’re up in five. Four…” the pilot counted off.

Gabrielle braced herself as they approached the rear of the last cart. She had never seen a train so wide. She expected it to take up one of the lanes, but it took up all four. Well over ten meters in width, the back cart was easily as reinforced than a U.S tank, whatever the latest monstrosity on treads they had shipped out lately, and twice as armed.

Each and every turret turned to point in their direction.

As soon as the helicopter passed the back cart Gabrielle jumped overboard and, arresto momentum on her tongue, she fell to the metal canopy of the back cart. She landed silently despite her heavy combat boots, but the alarm began ringing all the same. The large, black helicopter was hard to miss against the white sky, even if Gabrielle wasn’t.

“Moving to drop-off point b. Operative Chang, prepare for insertion.” The pilot’s voice came through the comm in her ear.

Giggity.

Anyways, the rescue and retrieval mission was still a go and so she climbed down the back ladder to the sealed door in the rear. She heard gunshots along the length of the locomotive and knew her allies were being fired at, but it made an acceptable distraction for her to break in.

She pointed her wand at the rear door and cast her best blasting curse at it, only for it to bounce right off into the valley below.

All she could do was sigh at the insanity of the world she lived in where Muggle creations were now magic-proofed.

Muggle governments around the world had mastered the art of creating armor weaved with cultivated dragon heart string and scales. The same technologies with which Muggles grew skin grafts for burn victims, they had retooled for growing parts of magical organisms. Whoever told Voldemort that Muggles were no match for wizards had greatly deceived the man.

And if the vehicle itself was lined with these materials, then surely the armor the soldiers within war was too. She would be making good use of her pistol today, it would seem. And the pockets on her vest full of plastic explosives.

She unbuttoned one and bunched it up in her fist before slamming onto the door. It held firm and she cast a delayed electrification charm on the dough. She high-tailed in back onto the roof and waited for the boom, pistol and wand drawn. When the boom cam she quickly cast an arresto momentum on all the shrapnel before banishing all of it back inside like sharp projectiles.

The screams of pain and surprise from inside told her the maneuver worked and so she vaulted back down and inside.

The train cart was covered from wall to wall with caged and bottled creatures whose prisons were haphazardly strapped down like cargo on flatbed truck. Everything from living Grindylows in jars to puffskeins in cages.

Her shrapnel had damaged some of said jars which were now leaking profusely and bodied the handful of soldiers within the compartment. The latter were now getting up.

“Incarcerous!” She cast at the first to stand up.

A thick, knotted rope conjured itself into being and wrapped around his neck so hard she heard it snap. Deciding he was sufficiently dead she transfigured the conjuration into barbed wire and banished it into the second soldier, adding an animation charm for good measure. It shredded his armor and flesh as it wrapped around him over and over again until she canceled the simple animation charm.

“Moving to drop of point C. Operative Creevey, prepare for insertion.” The pilots voice came over the comms again.

Good. So Jun was already dropped off at the middle of the train and now Eric was on his way to the very front where the engine room awaited.

The gunfire increased in magnitude. It seemed her little chinese friend was getting all of the combat today. Lucky for Gabrielle at least.

Gabrielle got to work. She went through cage after cage determining which creatures could survive being let free in this weather and which would have to await the extraction team and their big ol bag of portkeys. The puffskeins, mooncalfs and the bugbear pup were all well accustomed to the cold and would make it on their own, so she unstrapped all of their cages and brought them to the back where the blasted open door served as a good hole to throw them out of.

She cast a delayed unlocking charm on each before banishing them out and into the canyon below, cushioning and momentum slow charms came complimentary with each of their flights. They would land in the rocky, snow covered and wooded wilderness below where the unlocking charms would activate, freeing them.

Was it wise to introduce these non-native magical species into the area? Absolutely not. But it was superior to letting them get into whatever Russo-Chinese bio-lab they were being transported to. The only other alternative was killing them outright and burning the corpses so there was nothing to experiment on. This, naturally, didn’t sit right as an option to any of them.

“Operative Creevey had been asserted. Now retreating back to base. Happy to work with your little rag tag team again sometime.” The pilot told them over the comm.

They all had individual portkeys to escape, and could apparate on top of that. A moving anti-apparition and portkey ward was just on this side of impossible, which was one of the reasons their team specialized in moving targets. Cargo ships, trains, and recently their first plane. They were the team you sent to interrupt supply lines. Today’s supply? Illegally poached and trafficked magical creatures.

Gabrielle went back to work looking through all of the cages and watery containers. She found one covered in a tarp near the front. She removed the covering to find a most unwelcome prisoner.

“Are you with the Unmaker?” The mermaid asked, her voice beautiful even through the inch-thick glass separating them.

The long cyclinder of glass containing her was too small for the mermaid to even move her arms around. This left her floating in a straight position, the equivilant of a human in a cage where they had to stand at all times. Compounding to these inhumane conditions the fact that she looked anceint, well into her eighties if not older, and Gabrielle feared for the woman’s life.

“I am not.” Gabrielle told her. “I’m a strong, independent Veela who don’t need no dark lord. And I’m here to rescue you.”

“That may prove difficult.” The mermaid said sadly.

Indeed. The one was of the Mediterranean variety. Aside from looking almost indistinguishable from the waste up to a beautiful human woman, they were ill suited to the cold unlike their more fishy northern counterparts. Even if Gabrielle could safely get her to the river in the valley below, she would freeze to death before having the chance to try and navigate the shallow waters.

“Be advised, another bird is approaching your location. It bears His mark. Eta, one minute.” The pilot’s voice came back over the comm one last time.

Gabrielle closed her eyes. And things had been going so well. She reached up to her comm to try and thank him before he was out of range, but she momentarily went deaf and felt her legs fall out from beneath her.

She caught herself on one of the crates and when her hearing returned it was to catch the echoes of the high pitches wails of a woman that were rocking the train harder than the snow storm. Gabrielle looked up to see the Mermaid clasping her hands over her ears with her arms twisted awkwardly in the confined space to allow this.

She was weeping.

“Um. We have a banshee on our hands here.” Eric’s voice said into her ringing ears.

“I fucking noticed!” Gabrielle screamed over the comms.

They had maybe a few minutes before this banshee, wherever she was, could let loose another wail. With the absolute wallop that first one caused, she was sure a second would render even her unconscious, and kill any surviving Muggles. She assumed they were already unconscious.

“We need to neutralize her quickly. If we can’t, then we are to portkey away early and consider our mission a failure.” Jun said over the comm.

Or they could just leave now, let whoever was on that second helicopter deal with it, then come back to clean things up. But that would leave all of the creatures in danger.

“I’ll focus on freeing everything in the back few carts, you two handle the banshee. I leave it to you two to activate all of our portkeys before the next wail.” Gabrielle answered.

She got to work. Barreling into the next cart and simply casting delayed unlocking charms on every container within, save the aquatic ones. She set them to activate after she left to the next cart, which she did, leaving the door behind her to freedom open for the critters. She began repeating this process for the next cart the roof ceased to exist.

The entire canopy was shredded like paper that had been crumpled up and fed into a pencil sharpener. The large, sharp sheets of metal that remained were quickly stolen away by the wind as the silver threads that had sliced it into pieces retreated to a woman standing atop the next cart.

Gabrielle recognized her instantly. The orange fabrics she wore, her perfect black hair, and the little acromantula latched onto her like a backpack were all pretty distinct features. Her goblin-forged, mono-molecular wire was even more distinct still.

Parvati Patil. One of the four “Daughters of Hogwarts”, the deadliest squad of killers serving the dark lord, and among his favorites. She had been there during the Bauxbatons massacre, in the tunnels beneath the school. Gabrielle remembered her, and the flamethrowers her underlings had levied upon her underclassmen.

“Avada Kedavra!” Gabrielle intoned with all the hate she had.

The Indian woman showed actual surprise on her face for the briefest of moments at the unexpected death curse, before bending her knees and letting gravity do her dodging for her. But she need not have bothered. A shimmering veil of silver silk enveloped her from behind and ate the spell, shielding her and the blonde woman behind her that owned it.

Daphne Greengrass. The daughter of Slytherin, and another owner of the five sacred goblin artifacts.

Damnit! Did that mean all four were there? They needed to abort now. Taking one of them on was within the realm of possibility, but taking on all four? The quartet that the dark lord regularly dueled four on one as practice and sometimes to a standstill? Not a chance.

She apparated away, back to the first carriage where she had been dropped off.

“The Daughters of Hogwarts are here. We need to retreat.” Gabrielle called over the comm.

“Oh thank god! They can get a banshee wail to the face instead of us.” Eric said. “Activating portkeys on three.”

Before he even started his count, the back carriage became riddled with holes as something sharp and powerful pierced it like shotgun blasts. Gabrielle recognized the detached teeth of the third treasure, the comb gifted to Susan bones. Like the thread, it was sharped to a sub-molecular point and could pierce just about anything.

It didn’t matter how hard, thick or dragon-flesh imbued your armor was, if a needle made of goblin metal with a point approaching the plank distance in sharpness hits you at two hundred kilometers per hour, its going to pierce you. And it did pierce, and pierce, and pierce. Like a swarm of angry bees, the needles shredded the back cart just as easily as Parvati’s thread had done to the front cart.

Once again she was left exposed to the sky and once again, standing on the next train cart were two women. This time one had red hair, the other brown. Both wielded their wands and treasures, Susan her comb, Lavender her mirror.

The red haired witch let loose the teeth once again while the brunette flashed her with the mirror, its light brighter than any flash bang grenade. Blinded by it she didn’t see the first tooth pierce her chest, but she sure felt it.

The yank on her naval from the portkey activating at the same time didn’t feel great either.

-

There was another thousand words here, but I decided they would be better put to use as part of the next chapter.

I haven’t been writing much this last week. This chapter was easy, but the spark wasn’t in me. This month really has just proven that caffeine is my enemy. That first week I had none in me and wrote like a champion. Been caffeinated ever since and my productivity plummeted. I need to quit for good. Will be in withdrawal for the next couple days, but when I come back on Tuesday with the next chapter to MKNB I'll be in full form. The 2 chapters per week goal seems be the perfect pace for me, so expect two chapters for each story this month.