Muggle Born: Down in the Mud

Just a note; This is a first draft and in this case not where the story starts but just where I wanted to start writing, this is the first Death Eater encounter, where they thought they were just out to kill a couple muggles and a mudblood for sport. Thankfully Mr. Riley believes in being well prepared and has at this point made a few friends in the wizarding world, including a certain eccentric headmaster and a couple of very creative and very dangerous Goblins who have little love for wizards, and even less for Death Eaters.

His entire world was pain, but that was okay, Cameron Riley was no stranger to pain. Ten years in the Special Air Service had seen to it, and if not that then losing his wife two years ago had definitely made him and agony old buddies. The important part was that his mind was still his own. The very important part was they thought it wasn't, they called themselves Death Eaters but he knew better, They were bullies and fanatics, arrogant and full of pride, and as everyone knows, pride comes before the fall. The big one they called Shmitt was still talking. 

"Now muggle filth, watch as we hunt down and execute your precious little mudblood princess." He nodded to the other three and they left the room to search but the big dumb bastard just kept going, "you filth think you can just come into our world and usurp our heritage and we will do nothing? My blood goes back centuries, my ancestors were some of Slytherin's first pupils and you think - " He turned back around just in time to see the Glock 9mm come level with his face, then his head exploded.

"I think you talk too much, and now your blood goes all the way back to the bookshelf at the end of the room." Thank God for the Goblins, those crafty little buggers have more gadgets than Special Projects Division, and for fairer price too. Who would have guessed that they had a way to resist the Imperious curse? Certainly none of the wizards he'd met... maybe Dumbledore, but he plays it pretty close to the vest. He could hear a commotion down the hall as the other three rushed back to the front parlor where he had been. Riley however had begun to move the second he pulled the trigger, but not before leaving a present for them by Shmitt's suddenly much more pleasant to be around body.

Desdemona Blackburn stormed into the room she had just heard an explosion in, only to stop with shock to see Avery Shmitt's headless corpse lying on the floor. "What sorcery is this?" She demanded to an empty room "How did this come to pass!?" A crackle of static drew her attention to a small black box on the ground beside his body, the other two gathered around as the strange box began to speak.
"It's not sorcery, it's called tech-nol-o-gy. And if you ignorant fucks weren't so busy inbreeding and beating off about how much better you are than us muggles this wouldn't be such a surprise."
The way he spoke set off every alarm possible in her mind. "Protego Totalu-"
The claymores detonated. Stevens and Nigel both disintegrated, the only thing that saved Desdemona from annihilation was dumb luck, her barely completed shield spell would not have kept her from the full fiery wrath of that room but she was standing almost atop of one of the mines, the blast wave hit her shield and flung her clear before the shrapnel and fire could wear it down. She was still charred, scarred, and wounded, but she was alive.

Well I wouldn't want to live long term in a house wired with eight separate explosive kill-zones, but it does have its uses. Cameron Riley thought to himself as he made his way to the panic room in the basement where his daughter had holed up. He could already hear sirens in the distance and he didn't want to be here when they showed up.

Well that's it for tonight, a little short I know, but I promise much more to come. Leave a comment as to which of the three you like so far and why, or why not, just follow the golden rule, constructive criticism is always appreciated; trolling, bitching and general douche baggery is not.

Thanks
Captain Maximus.

Ork in the City

Emma Gunnar fidgeted nervously as she waited. If you asked an average person which they would rather do, charge into a burning building or go on a date, even a blind date, the vast majority would choose the date and probably wonder at how messed up you must be for comparing the two. But Emma, having spent most of her life either dreaming of, training for, or, relatively recently, finally actually doing the former, would have gladly sprinted into a wildfire than be where she was right now. Which was a perfectly nice (perhaps a little too nice) restaurant waiting for a, by all accounts, perfectly nice Internal Operations Manager (whatever the hell that was). But appearances had to be maintained, and being a firefighter just over five feet with the build of a gymnast and the face of a model (both of which were career paths her high school guidance counselor had tried to encourage over firefighting) invited enough attention without being the cute blonde firefighter who didn't date. So here she was, finally agreeing to one of the endless stream of offers of set ups with buddies, brothers, cousins, or whatever, of the people she worked with just to appear normal. Because as much as she might have wished otherwise (and most days she did wish otherwise) Emma Gunnar was not normal. She'd agreed to dinner with a guy that she could tell Mikey barely knew. So, when it inevitably went nowhere (or to hell whichever came first) her working relationship with Mikey wouldn't be affected much if at all.

As she fidgeted her hand brushed the cutlery and an unpleasant tingle swept up her arm. She swore to herself, Damn, of course a place like this would still use actual silver silverware. Don't panic you can easily sort this out. Hopefully before Dan gets here. Luckily the waiter was just returning with her wine. "Excuse me; do you have any non silver silverware?" He looked at her slightly baffled. "Steve wasn't it? I have an allergy."

"To silver?"

"Yeah, to silver." 

He thought about it for a moment. "I think we have something that will work, I’ll be just a moment." He gathered the cutlery and started to leave then paused and turned back to her "Our chef has a fondness for garlic, that won't be a problem, will it?"

'Funny, never heard that one before." she replied sarcastically but with a slight grin. "No, garlic is just fine, so are steaks."

It was Steve's turn to grin at a bad joke "Like I said, I'll be back in a moment."

It was a fun bit of idle banter, too bad it was the highlight of the night.

*****

It's not like he was a bad guy. Emma sat reflecting on the previous night. It was Saturday morning and she was trying to meditate, but clearing her mind was next to impossible. No, in order for him to be a bad guy he'd have to have an opinion on something, generally speaking a functioning brain helped too. He had been completely bland, it had become obvious quickly that working as a cog in the corporate machine had stripped him of an alarming amount of personality, good or bad, and left him as some sort of pseudo zombie. Not actually dead but no longer truly alive, walking around trying to spread the disease to others, not through bites but through long winded, buzzword filled, rambles about nothing. Okay, he wasn't that bad. She scolded herself, he was just a little "flavorless" and you really didn't want to be there in the first place. He did offer to walk you home, even after you made it abundantly clear that nothing was gonna happen. But he lived only four blocks from the restaurant, she lived almost twenty, he had freaked when she had told him she planned to walk home near midnight and very little she had said had calmed him down till she finally agreed to take a taxi. 

She shook her head, focus! You're never going to clear your mind like this.

Someone knocked on the door. Fuck it. I'm not expecting anyone, besides I'm trying to find my inner peace, whatever they're selling probably won't help with that.

They knocked again, more forcefully. Whatever, inner peace is overrated anyway. She got up and made her way to the door. On the other side she was somewhat alarmed to find two men who were obviously detectives even before they said anything or flashed their badges. "Good morning officers, is there something I can help you with?"

If they were surprised at her IDing them before they said anything they hid it well "I'm afraid there is ma'am. I'm Detective Neal Barboza, this is my partner Detective Ben Anderson and we have a couple of questions for Ms. Gunner, is that you?"

"Gunnar."

"Excuse me?"

"Its pronounced Gunn-are not er." She wasn't sure why she felt the need to correct him except she suddenly felt quite vulnerable and needed to control something.

"Sorry, Ms Gunn-ar." He replied with emphasis "you are her though?"

"Yes, Why?"

"We have a few questions to ask you about Dan Mitchells."

It took her a second to realize they were talking about her date from last night. "Let me guess, he's dead and you want to know if the date went so bad I killed him?" she quipped sarcastically. "If I had had to listen to one more word about corporate re-dynamification or whatever I might have." It took her about two seconds of them staring at her stone faced for her to realize the truth.

Well Fuck.