“I’m so happy to see you guys.” Jones’ big smile and the tone of absolute welcoming in his voice as if it was the best thing in the world for the army to show up, shocked the children inside the vehicle. Anna found herself blinking in surprise at who well the Magicorps soldier was lying through his teeth. “We’ve had a rough time of it. So glad the calvary has arrived.”

A couple of sniggers came from the two guys who were still standing on the running boards outside the vehicle. Jones had been selling it so well until the last sentence took it a little too far. Still, the soldiers were almost immediately more friendly toward Jones despite them glaring at the other two individuals who weren’t nearly as impressed by them.

For her part, Anna wasn’t particularly impressed either. They were of low rank. None of them were magic users, otherwise, they would have had the insignia for it, which was universal across military branches in the United States. These weren’t rescuers. They’d be almost useless in a fight, and they knew it was the reason they were directing traffic.

Jones knew it too. He hadn’t rubbed it in and had lumped this small group in with the overall efforts thereby not offending them. Which was smart. It kept people who weren’t super significant from using the little power they did have to be jackasses. It was one of the things that her mom gripped about all the time. Small-minded people being petty because they could was a common complaint in the Wattkins house.

After a brief friendly exchange, they were directed to park out of the way of ongoing efforts. Then the kids were escorted into the building to be sorted and sent home if their homes were safe. Boarding students were being sent back to whatever city or country they were from. It seemed a bit wrong for a military operation to be involved with a private school. Like, that was definitely unfair favoritism towards the wealthy and influential. It made sense of a sort though because so many of the students were the children of diplomats, politicians, and various other foreign dignitaries. For example, cough, a couple of members of royalty that everyone pretended were normal students, cough.

There were students of way more important people than Camina Wattkins there, so both Anna and Jones were surprised when Jones was stopped and told he had to report to the command on the scene.

“You need to be debriefed and assigned to a temporary team.” Jones was informed coldly.

“I’m under assignment from the Museum.” He pointed at the patch that showed he was assigned to the National Museum of Unnatural Science and History. “I’m under orders to escort Miss Wattkins until she’s transferred over to Museum personnel, or she is returned to her parents' custody.” One of the soldiers drew back as if Anna was a venomous spider and she was about to bite him.

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“Wa – Wattkins?” He stuttered. “As in…the Wattkins?” Anna snorted and rolled her eyes.

“Was that you?” One of the soldiers turned to Anna with admiration. “Doing the ‘Wrath of Zeus’ spell and that giant ice shield?” Before any of the teens around him could speak, Jones answered for Anna.

“She did the ice shield. We did not witness who cast that Magekiller spell.” He turned to the three students with him and gave them meaningful looks disguised as seeking confirmation. “Did we kids? We were several blocks away at least and our view was cut off from wherever the epicenter of the spell was by buildings.” They had given quizzical looks at first and then they realized that no, they hadn’t really seen who cast the spell even if they had assumed that it was Kyle.

“Oh.” Clearly disappointed, the soldier’s excited look turned downcast. Anna and Liam were both put out that he didn’t seem impressed at all with her ice shield. To everyone’s surprise, it was Sara who spoke up.

“But her ice shield was amazing.” She placed her hands defiantly on her hips, tossed her long blonde hair in the epitome of spoiled rick mean-girl fashion and stomped a foot for emphasis. “She held off a gigantic monster for hours with it until the museum guys showed up.”

And that’s what did it. If Sara had stopped at ‘but her ice shield was amazing’, they could have been overlooked a little bit. But it was the big monster being stopped by the ‘museum guys’ that got them singled out and truly noticed.

“Yeah.” The squad leader looked lazily back to a nervously grinning Jones and then at Anna with a raised eyebrow. “You definitely need to come with us and talk to command.”

“Damnit Sara.” Anna glared at her bully. “Even when you’re nice…” She wanted to kick the girl. But didn’t get the chance to as Sara and Liam were led off to join the rest of the students and Anna somehow got lumped in with the S.W.A.T team, the school security personnel, and Jones for debriefing.

It wasn’t bad. In fact, it seemed like things were going to go very well. They asked her about the ice shield. She admitted to it. They were like ‘cool, we already knew you could do that you’re a registered sorcerer with an elemental affinity for ice’. Then they asked about the Magekiller spell and she told the truth, she hadn’t seen who had used it. And they believed her.

Everything was hunky dory. Her and Jones were loaded up into a jeep in the convoy and driven out of town. Over the bridges, into New Jersey, and then to some kind of military base or office building. Honestly, she’d fallen asleep at one point, so she didn’t know exactly where they were. Just that when they stopped, the sun was out again. When she got out of the vehicle she looked around and could see the dark clouds gathered over Manhattan and it was not as far away as she feared.