章 70: Return

June 20th, 1991. Near Llyn Llydaw, Snowdonia National Park, Wales.

On a hilltop, there was a silvery crack running through the air. Suddenly, it expanded in almost an instant, as if someone had thrown high-yield explosives into it. A heavily modified jeep burst out of the silvery hole in space, closely chased by a massive fireball that bloomed towards the sky.

There was something that looked like a hedgehog and a praying mantis had made a baby that was then injected by a whole lot of growth hormones dragged behind the car by a chain, its body eaten halfway by the friction. Many of the bone spikes on the creature were broken, giving testimony to the fact that the road hadn't been kind to it.

There were four heavy machineguns fixed atop the vehicle's roof, still spewing .50 caliber bullets soaked with enchantmets towards the crack. There was a flamethrower in back and front and what looked like two large chainsaws on the sides, all currently inactive. Most of the vehicle was covered in blood that looked rather fresh. From the small slits that could be used to look outside, the driver could be seen.

The driver had an overall burly appearance, with strong reptilian undertones. His face and bare torso were covered in thick scales and eyes that darted everywhere around sent out glares that could probably kill lesser lifeforms. There was a large fistful of dog tags hanging from his neck. The driver was holding the partially deformed steering wheel with his left hand. It had sharp talons attached to the fingertips and was covered by rough scales. The right was missing, alongside a good portion of the forearm, leaving only a few inches of a stump below the elbow.

Indeed, your not-in-a-friendly-mood neighborhood part-beast, Gaude had arrived in what he figured would be yet another world that was severely messed up in one way or another. He opened the driver-side door and tossed a head-sized Wardstone behind him. All those actions were executed with telekinesis. The Wardstone, or Ward Grenade, however one wants to call it, landed close to the crack, and the next instant, a semi-transparent sphere formed, closely surrounding the crack. The Wardstone lied under the crack, outside the sphere.

After a while, Gaude cut off the car's engine and it kept rolling for a while on inertia before eventually coming to a full stop.

His first order of business was to go behind the car where the creature was attempting to get back to its feet. What the creature lacked in intelligence, it amply made up in toughness – its kind were some of the toughest sons of bitches Gaude had come across. Very few creatures could survive being dragged through three consecutive worlds on their stomachs. He landed a skull-crushing punch on its head, causing it to return to a more docile state. The damage on its underside had already started to recover at a visible pace.

Gaude took out a modified rift tracker from his utility belt and checked it. After getting no reply from the device, he slapped it against his thigh, pressed a few buttons and waited once more. Still getting no response, he let out a disappointed grunt.

He took a look around, then, as if reassured that he was safe for the time being, Gaude turned his attention to his hip. He took a Mappa Mundi out of his Mokeskin pouch that had somehow managed to survive all the crazy he went through. He placed the piece of squared and enchanted parchment onto the jeep's seat. He tapped the map with his fingertip and after a while, it started focusing on Britain, then Wales, and finally, the Snowdonia National Park. A small red dot appeared on the map. After inspecting it for a while, he repacked the map and took a look at the compass.

After fastening his seatbelt, he started the engine again, surveyed the surroundings and took off once more.

After fifteen minutes of four-wheeled alpinism, Gaude finally reached a road and was finally free to really put the pedal to the metal, now going eighty miles an hour, the top speed of the car due to all the extra weight from weapons and steel plating for armor.

On the road, the car passed a lone cyclist. Immediately, the reptilian driver was replaced with an exact replica of the cyclist, except the bloody nose and a few scrapes and bruises that resulted from the cyclist's crash after staring at the passing Mad Max prop for too long.

Half an hour later, he could see houses in the distance. The jeep stopped, then drove into a concealed spot in the woods. Suddenly, all the heavy weaponry and armor disappeared as if they had been an illusion, only fist-sized hemispheres remaining where the weapons had once been attached.

A large volume of water appeared above the car, washing away most the blood and gore covering it. However, the layer of more stubborn, old and dried gore was much harder to get rid of. An instant later, the car was covered with foam that was swirling intensely and after half an hour passed, the car looked as if it had come from a premium-quality handwash, all clean and shiny.

Gaude picked up the spiky creature that had been dragged behind his car so far as a means of punishment and threw it in the trunk. No amount of car wash could let it go unnoticed if he left it dangling behind. Also, the bloody trail it had left on the road so far would beat his purpose of trying not to get tracked.

After a while, the very same car rolled into Llanrwst, a sleepy little town situated on the eastern bank of river Conwy. As if he was mute, he made his grocery shopping without a single word. However, his ears had remained open the entire time. The topics seemed to circle around relatives, neighbors and pets, there were no indications that there was something critically wrong with the world.

Prepared for the possibility that thunder sense had failed him for the first time, Gaude pulled out a knife from his bottomless pouch and made his way into a secluded alley. He waited for a lone passer-by, then pulled them in with telekinesis before they could even make a sound, placed the knife on their throat and used a minimum-strength Legilimency probe to go through their past memories, trying to find out as much as he could about the threat level in the area.

However, no matter how carefully he looked, he couldn't find any discrepancies in the mind of what turned out to be a young, pretty Muggle woman. It was all so mundane that Gaude almost dozed off just by going through it, but eventually, he decided to give this world the benefit of a doubt, letting the woman go and after removing any traces of himself from her mind. Once he had gone through another change of appearance, he left the alley to fetch his car and continue driving North, towards Glanwydden, one of the few wizarding communities in Wales he knew about.

Illusion magic was about the only thing that Gaude was willing to use, due to the benefits outweighing the risks – changing his appearance every now and then would make him a whole lot harder to track. Meanwhile, telekinesis was a good way to overcompensate for his lack of a second hand, and any number thereafter.

He had discovered long ago that those who trespassed through a rift weren't looked upon all that kindly in most worlds, and the best way to be found out was to use powerful spells – there were some common parts to every individual's magic signature, that were unique to each of the Earths connected by the rifts. The only way to avoid being attacked and killed on the spot was to earn the trust of the locals, but it was damn hard to do if you were too dead to even try.

Gaude was perfectly oblivious to the difficulties a certain cyclist was about to face, to the point of nearly being convinced to check into an insane asylum. The very same cyclist was only rescued by the fact that a pair of very official-looking people picked him up. However, that wasn't the end of it for him – he was very thoroughly interviewed about an encounter that had barely lasted ten seconds. On the next morning, he woke up in his bed, believing nothing out of the ordinary had occurred during the previous day.

Hours later, Gaude finally reached the village. Once again, he went over the surroundings twice before having a modicum of assurance of being in a relatively safe area. He alighted from the car and walked up to a tall hedge that looked in no way out of the ordinary. However, when he took a step forward, he wasn't greeted with the sensation of leaves and branches pressing against him. In fact, he felt no different that he did while walking along the street. A few more steps and he found himself in a different world.

A young wizard in traditional grab could be seen knocking on a door, with a broomstick in hand. He was shouting: "Willy, come on out, let's race around the village!"

After confirming that his information was correct, Gaude went back outside, where the Muggles would never even suspect that there was a village twice as big as their own cleverly hidden in the hedge that old man Timothy pruned so carefully twice a year.

This time, Gaude made sure there were no eyewitnesses and drove the jeep through the hedge. Once he was hidden from Muggle eyes, he sent a sliver of magic into just the right spot on the car's dashboard, causing it to instantly turn into what looked like a designer suitcase complete with wheels and a handle. There were eight hemispheres protruding from its surface, four on top and one on each side. Putting items with extension charms inside each other was a bad idea, but things worked out fine if such items were merely in close contact.

Gaude walked to the other end of the village before he saw the public Floo, a modest fireplace covered by a small roof. Gaude fished out a coffee tin from his pouch and after taking a quick look around to make sure there were no witnesses, said in a rusty voice: "Wywin manor!"

Not expecting anything to happen, he was quite surprised when everything around him turned bright green and he was suddenly in a green ethereal corridor, with openings of different shapes and sizes flashing past him. He drew his trusty sword, just in case and waited, senses alert for anything out of place.

After a few minutes, he finally arrived at his destination.

It looked exactly like he remembered it, as if no time had passed. Suddenly, quiet pops that accumulated into a thunderous rumble could be heard and he was surrounded by a flood of house elves. Gaude had instantly encased himself in multiple shielding charms and the air above was boiling with a wide-area barrage of bombardments that were about to rain down before he realized the identities of the arrivals.

Among them, Laly was right in front of Gaude, with tears in her eyes and a great deal of trepidation on her face as she said: "Ma- master, you have returned!"

Gaude, finally reassured that he had found the world he had been trying so hard to find, felt the accumulated stress start leaking out of his body. Gaude sought out the third guest bedroom, built without windows due to being meant for those with intolerance towards sunlight, set up a multitude of wards and crawled into bed.

He fell asleep for the first time in three months. As he did, his body slowly returned to its human form, leaving behind a very healthy young man that looked to be around twenty years old, if one were to discount the lack of a forearm and a multitude of scars.

---

Gaude woke up in his bed after a long and uninterrupted sleep, even if he would've preferred an interruption or two. The reason? He had a rather disturbing dream. At first, he saw only flashes, a Troll, Basilisk, Hungarian Horntail, and a certain sun-hating caped baldy, then a red-headed woman yelling at him fiercely. All those didn't seem like much of a concern, except perhaps the redhead, considering the rest seemed to be in order of difficulty.

Finally, there was a proper motion picture. It was of building-height humanoids walking the earth, draining people to dust using shadowy tendrils. Judging by how the sense of looming danger that had been present ever since Gaude had obtained the Thunderbird bloodline had just gone nuclear, he felt that this was a threat just waiting to march in and give him a real bad time. Immediately after that, he woke up, soaked in cold sweat.

Gaude's senses had finally regained full alertness after being at half capacity during his sleep. He could hear rhythmic breathing of an approximately human-sized creature nearby, way too close considering the wards he'd set up. Within the blink of an eye, he had drawn his sword and sent enough magic into it to make it release a low hum. His body had transformed into that of a weredragon once again. An instant later, the blade was already pressed against the intruder's throat.

An instant before he reached his target, Gaude had recognized the opponent to be a human, or at least something that had transformed into one, giving him the idea of getting some information first, so he stopped the attack at the last possible moment.

They let out a surprised yelp before Gaude growled in his still rusty voice: "Who the fuck are you? Give me one good reason not to take your head off right now!", his fierce expression and the almost perceptible killing intent giving testimony to the truthfulness of his words.

The person threatened by him gulped audibly, the hair on their body rising and heart pumping at its limit in an intense urge to flee as they replied frantically: "Gaude, it's me, Irma! Now, please put your sword down so we can talk!"

Gaude finally took a better look at the person in front of him and discovered that she did indeed resemble Irma, to an extent, even the voice was close to what he remembered. However, that was it. Gaude growled while pressing the blade forward by a hair's breadth, causing blood to start seeping out of the broken skin: "Stop trying to bullshit me and start telling the truth. This is the shittiest disguise I have seen so far."

Irma wasn't sure if she could still take Gaude on in a fight. She had tried to transform the instant she noticed Gaude move but found herself locked into her current form. What she didn't know was that Gaude had torn over twenty muscles during the rapid movement, a small sacrifice in a situation that he considered do or die.

She said in a still agitated voice: "Do you think time just stops when you leave? Tell me one living person that looks the same after ten years. Wait, you can read minds, right? Go ahead and read mine."

Due to the fact that Occlumency, to some extent, could be practiced by Muggles, Irma was somewhat confident that Gaude wouldn't go prodding into the memories of things that she would rather keep private. In her heart, she also hoped that Gaude would be satisfied with her display of sincerity.

Gaude did as Irma had proposed, however, right after reinforcing his mental defenses against any traps that could be prepared in the opponent's mind. Then, with a tiny strand of his will that could be cut off without any repercussions the instant a threat was revealed, he went exploring into her mind. However, any defenses Irma thought she had set up, Gaude circumvented like water seeping through cracks.

He started from earlier memories, confirming that they were the exact ones he had seen during his earlier forays when Irma had still been innocent towards the mind arts, and then got to those he hadn't seen before.

During his absence, she had been relying on Carter of all people through grief and loss, and later, loneliness. Omitting any juicy details, Irma had a daughter. She had also continued the task given by Gaude, bringing White Wolf Mercenaries to the global stage properly.

Once Gaude had gone through every single memory, he finally relaxed a bit and put away his sword.

He didn't even seem to notice the tears streaming down Irma's face. She had slumped down in her chair listlessly. She had two big reasons to cry: one, Gaude seemed to have lost all trust in her due to whatever he went through and two, she had just been violated to her core by someone she thought she knew and could trust.

She was also terrified: she had seen glimpses of Gaude's memories from the past two years. He had left the less significant ones strewn about in his mind, but the contents were enough to make any normal person build a concrete bunker completely cut off from the outside world and live the rest of their days in its safety.

Gaude growled: "Let's say I believe you, for now. How the hell did you get through my wards?"

Irma replied angrily: "I had the best wardmasters and curse breakers work on it. It took them two days to get through. Any longer and you would've been dead of dehydration by now. Maybe I shouldn't have made the effort."

Gaude growled out a response while glaring at her: "You're damn right. Two weeks is the longest I've gone without water. A week is nothing for me." It was the truth. During the second week of his journey, Gaude had traded two fist-sized fully charged Wardstones for a method to minimize his water losses with a group of nomadic wizards in a nuclear wasteland, a skill that had saved his life many times over the later years.

Irma replied, still greatly indignant: "How were we supposed to know that? None of us goes to ravage the mind of every person they see in front of them! It's not like you left a note. The only reason we found out you were even alive was the letter five years ago."

Gaude knew the letter Irma was talking about. Except, he had written it right after he had regained his bearings in the world he had been shoved into. It was just that transdimensional magic mail turned out to have abysmal delivery times, modified Protean charm or not.