Emma was left walking with the strangers for quite a while, and this brought a simple choice to her. Did she dismiss her armour, or sustain it? Ordinarily it would've been a difficult one, the thought of exhausting her mana weighing heavily against the fear of leaving herself unprotected against one of those lightning guns.

But there wasn't the slightest risk of being shot by these people, as she saw it. They were just so…harmless. It wasn't that they were unskilled, that Emma could see, they simply didn't know how to go about hurting people. They were probably shit hot at a shooting range, but she imagined any one of them would be at risk of feinting if they actually killed a person.

Unfortunately, they were still well-trained soldiers. This meant the pace they set in marching back was frustratingly fast. Fortunately, it was not much more than a mile or two, and Emma cheated like usual by gently nudging herself along with a bit of Force fuckery.

Their first stop was at a much larger force of people, all of whom wore the same uniforms and wielded the same guns. Among them, though, were a few vehicles. They were big, silvery…tanks, they were tanks, Emma was staring at tanks. Actually good tanks too, not the shitty ones Kruger had been throwing into combat.

Emma didn't know what they were made of, but she didn't want to test her magic against their armour plating unless it proved entirely necessary. She hadn't improved her firepower so much following the previous bout of fighting that she was confident it would rend through something so clearly…science fiction.

More words were exchanged among the soldiers, and Emma waited not-so-patiently before she and her allies were hurried onto a vehicle. This one was less tank and more…skimmer, maybe? It certainly skimmed, hovering a few feet above the ground and moving along at what had to be pushing fifty miles per hour at least.

Fifty miles an hour, and things weren't nearly as far away in this world as Emma had gotten used to them being back on earth. They reached their destination within thirty minutes and Emma barely had time to examine it from a distance before they were slowing down to enter through one of the city's gates.

It was a city that reached taller than any others she'd seen so far. More so than the shitty Victorian London expie, and anything in Curgundry. Every other building seemed to be a spire, all of them stretching hundreds, even thousands of feet, and every scrap of it seemed made from pure silver.

"Incredible," Aexilica whispered. Emma found herself agreeing. Even back on earth she hadn't seen many buildings like these, in scale at least. In terms of beauty…Nowhere. Whatever that silver stuff was, it was beaten out by nothing for sheer aesthetics.

"Welcome to Agbafiya," one of the soldiers grinned. She was smug, and Emma found herself understanding why. If this was where she lived, Emma would be smug, too. "Crown of the Eranmade Republic, and where you will be judged for invading our airspace."

"Fine," Emma whispered, "sure, whatever." She was finding it hard to really care about anything other than the sights at the moment, and that continued long into her entry to the city. The streets were wide, clean. Everything was dazzling with colour. The people moved around in surprisingly small numbers, given the scale of everything, and seeing them reminded Emma how surprisingly short and unhealthy everyone else in this world had so far been.

It was the largest of the buildings that Emma's group was being escorted to, a tower that looked at least as tall as a shorter mountain and seemed to practically glow with the luster of its composition. Her jaw was basically scraping the floor as they entered. Not particularly dignified, but then Emma's entire existence was feeling undignified compared to this place.

The walk through the building took almost as long as the one through the city, mostly due to altitude rather than horizontal distance. After climbing most of the stairs that had ever been assembled by human hands, they finally reached what Emma could only assume was at least close to the building's peak.

A grand hall awaited them, filled by more guards, these ones looking a great deal meaner, better armoured and with bigger guns, and crested by a pair of giant chairs upon which were sat two men guarded by…something else. A creature Emma had encountered only a handful of times before, and one that, as usual, tilted her very perception of the world just to lay eyes upon.

It was a woman as small as she was.

Granted, that was about the only thing Emma and this girl had in common—other than being of a similar age. She was black where Emma was white, had longer hair that was neatly bound up in braidsdredlocks, and seemed entirely pleased to be here.

"Oh shit," Larry said. Emma frowned at that, glancing at him, turning to see the girl getting up out of her throne and making her way across the room. Emma had just about pieced everything together when she snatched Larry and hurled him with inhuman strength right into a far wall. He hit so hard Emma was quite sure a normal head would've broken open.

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"What are you doing!?" Emma yelped, as the girl drew out what looked to be a handgun variantvarient of those lightning-rifles and aimed it at him, ignoring her entirely.

Emma acted fast, and without a lot of thought. Her hands snapped forwards and threw down a wall just in time to stop Larry from being barbequed.

That did little to de-escalate the situation, of course. Emma's manners had never been great back home, and in this world she barely even knew what a manner was, but she did know that using magic of any kind around others was generally considered equivalent to holding and cocking a loaded gun. Everyone reacted predictably.

Guns were raised and aimed Emma's way, she readied another wall, Aexilica stepped forwards close to drawing her weapon and the men on the thrones called out with a voice that sounded halfway between confusion and fear.

"Wait!" one of them snapped, uncharacteristically—at least for what Emma had seen of these people so far—irritated.

Emma waited of course, she was outnumbered about a dozen to one and unlike the gunmen she'd gotten used to dealing with lately, these ones could actually hurt her bad through the armour. That armour was also only halfway to forming across her body, another incentive to not get shot in the face again.

"What is going on here, Temi?" the second one on the throne asked, glowering at the woman who'd thrown Larry into a wall. Everyone ignored Larry himself as he rolled around promising to do nasty things to the human race, while the small woman met the glare now coming her way and managed to look…surprisingly chastened.

"Apologies, Elected," she lowered her gaze and stepped away from Larry, perhaps by way of placation. Emma saw the throne-bound pair considering what they did next, watched them glance at one another and murmur in tones she couldn't overhear. Apparently they concluded that this Temi woman was not their most pressing issue, and turned to her group.

"Why did you assholes shoot us down?" Emma snapped, deciding to get that out of the way before anything else. Really just because she was so confused about it. "We were just flying!"

The people on the thrones, apparently called 'Elected', looked at one another, then back to her.

"You were flying a Curgundry vessel over our airspace, on an intersection with one of our settlementssettleemnts. We assumed you had violent intentions."

"Why did you assume that!?" Emma pressed, growing more outraged now, not less. It was Kruger who cut in to explain, though.

"Because Curgundry has bombed their people a lot in the past, almost constantly in fact. The recent war was the only reason there was a lull in us doing it."

Emma turned to him now, just as confused. "I…what? Why the fuck did you do that?"

Kruger stared at her, as if she'd just said the stupidest thing he'd ever heard.

"Because Curgundry is essentially an early nineteenth century Germany and this country is full of black people. They are ridiculously racist towards them."

Oh, right.

"Germany," the woman, Temi, called out, frowning now. "You just said…Nineteenth century Germany?"

Emma saw realisation dawn in the woman's features. "Hang on, you…you're all from earth?"

One day, Emma was going to stop being surprised when she met someone else who wasn't native to this world. Certainly not today though.

"Florida," she said, planting a hand on her chest, "I'm from…Florida."

She turned to Kruger, who reluctantly spoke next. "Bavaria."

"Lagos," the woman named Temi blinked, then turned to Aexilica.

"Aethiq," she replied. Vari groaned, and blew bloody bubbles from his lips. He did not seem to be any more miserable than usual.

"You…were sent here by Larry," Emma found herself piecing things together, but all a bit slowly. The woman named Temi did not respond to her at once, instead turning to the Elected.

"I beg leave to discuss matters of personal importance with these strangers on my own, please," she called out. Another brief discussion which Emma wasn't privy to, but apparently she received it, because they were quickly escorted elsewhere and left alone with the woman.

The moment they were, she rounded on Larry with such murder in her eyes that Aexilica even stepped in front of the severed head to reflexively protect him.

"You," the woman hissed, staring at him a way Emma had not seen many people stared at. If looks could kill, not only would Larry have died but everyone in the room would probably have been torn apart by the resulting explosion.

"Don't attack him," Kruger cut in, eyes hard, "I cannot allow that, I'm afraid."

Temi's eyes flitted up and down his body, taking in the uniform.

"What, are you some Prussian military statesmen? Schlieffen right?"

Kruger looked at once stunned and impossibly pleased, and Emma found herself actually feeling happy for the guy.

"I have…made a study of his works, yes," Kruger nodded, smiling slightly. His face quickly straightened back to its usual constipation. "But that is irrelevant now, I cannot allow you to harm this angel."

Temi laughed at that, threw her head back, fingers twitching nervously.

"ANGEL!?" She shot back, "oh, you don't know a single thing about this bastard man, do you? Let me guess, he showed up all amazing and magical after you died and promised you another chance at life in a world you could change for the better?"

The wind seemed to go right out of Kruger's sails at that. He opened his mouth, raised a finger to answer, then hesitated. Emma felt for him. He had a strange, naive belief in Larry's goodness even now, liked to tell himself that all the Larryisms were just damage from his beheading. That delusion was being torn down right before her eyes.

But she couldn't bring herself to step in. Maybe it needed doing.

Temi did not seem to be enjoying herself, Emma noted, but she was certainly not hesitant about pissing all over Kruger's parade either. She flicked her eyes over to Emma next.

"And what do you think about him?"

"Larry's a dick," Emma shrugged. Temi blinked at that.

"His name is…Larry?" She grinned, and Larry swore like usual. "Alright then, let me tell you all a thing or two about Larry."

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