Patrol Abroad Chapter 6
By Captain Gaul
“Captain?”
“Ugh….”
“Captain, are you all right?”
Nicholas tried to sit up. He failed. “No….”
“Name, rank!”
“Nicholas Gaul…unemployed.”
“Wrong. You’re working for me.”
The world snapped back into focus. Magus was kneeling beside him. Chi and Moe were nearby. “Gaul, none of know any decent healing spells. We’re going to take you back the castle.”
At the castle, while the potions and elixirs took effect, the captain explained his story.
“Dimensional hops, appearances in strange lands, different rules, damned convenient timing—dammit, Gaul, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Then you don’t believe me?”
“Yes, I do.” Magus sighed. “You were a captain of the patrol. You should know how to lie, it’s part of the training. And you’re too good of a liar to make something like that up and expect me to believe it. So you must be telling the truth.”
“Then you believe me.”
“Right. Now then, I’ll try to get a lead on this. The armies are out scouting, and I’ve run into a bit of free time on my search, so we can work on figuring this out.”
A few hours passed….
“Sir Magus! Sir Magus!”
“What is it, Jif?”
“A stranger comes!” Magus looked out the tower window. He didn’t know what to make of what he saw. The young man was holding a small box, and was dressed differently from anything he had ever seen.
“Gaul? I think it’s for you.”
The recovered Gaul looked out the window and saw the man. “I don’t recognize HIM, but I think I saw his buddy earlier…I’ll take care of him.” The captain grabbed his weapon and took a carefully aimed flying leap out the window.
The small box Ray was holding suddenly emitted a steady beep, growing louder very fast. Ray looked up in time to see Captain Gaul land directly in front of him, nightstick in hand. Ray started shaking. He looked down to see the picture taped on his box. He started shaking even more. He raised a trembling finger towards Gaul. “You…! I’m supposed to, um,” he stammered, then set down his scanner and opened up his briefcase. Gaul leaned back against a tree, looking amused. Ray pulled his clipboard out of the briefcase, flipped some pages, and then found what he was looking for. “Oh yeah! Okay, I’m ready now. You…! I’m supposed to kill you!”
Gaul walked over. “Oh yeah? How are you gonna do it, shorty?” He pushed Ray over.
Ray started to quiver more with rage than with fear. “Like…this!” He tried to whip a gun out of his briefcase, but he discovered that he had forgotten to assemble it first. He turned red. “Um…could you give me a minute?”
The Captain smiled. “Sure.”
Embarrassed, Ray struggled to screw the various parts of his hi-caliber firearm to other parts of it. Finally, he raised his assembled pistol into the air, ready to gun down his target. Except…“Hey! Where’d you go?” A glimmer of recognition hit him less than a second before the nightstick did.
Gaul leaned over Ray’s unconscious body. He picked up the extremely large gun Ray had been carrying, pointed it at a tree, and pulled the trigger. The tree, and three others behind it, ceased to exist except as shards of wood scattered over the continent. Half of the ammo clip expended itself and shot out the side as a shell about as large as a football. “Shiessen. I’ve got to hold onto this.”
Gaul pulled Ray over to a nearby tree, set the scanner on top of him and pressed the big red button marked ‘BACK’. In a flash of blue, Ray and the device disappeared. Satisfied, Gaul returned to Magus’ castle.
.