“Stay back!” bellowed the doctor. Glaring daggers at the small army of soldiers that stood before the entrance of a small domed village.

“I’m sorry, good doctor. We can’t do that. We have our orders…How about you stand aside?” said one of the small army’s officers.

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Snow swirled over the frozen field. Flames crackled, guns barked, the air hummed with the pulse of the strange anomalous powers that the strangers from the so-called Winter-blood Empire seemed to wield. Doctor Milicent “Millie” Franklin found herself as the last line of defense for a village that had managed to make peace with its tooth-fairy neighbors.

She didn’t know why these strangers were here. All she knew was that they’d made it clear that they intended to kill everyone present in the village. And as both the villagers and the tooth-fairies were her patients, she intended to do all she could to keep them safe.

Two flocks of healing and shielding units gathered around Doctor Millie in the form of crystalline white-birds. With a single thought, a large blend of khopesh and polearm, that strongly resembled an outsized tooth-scraper appeared in her hands. Then with a second thought, a deep breath, and a drawing of her will, the tooth-scraper began to glow a warm orange as a fire that lived within the Doctor’s heart flowed into the metal polearm.

“Give up, doctor…We don’t want to hurt you,” said one of the armed men that were trying to wipe out the village.

Millie laughed. Glancing at the bullet wounds that she’d already wrapped up in bandages and the brown-red stains covering her lab coat.

“Not that it matters, but let’s just say I don’t believe you,” said Millie.

“Hmph, very well then…Take her down…Take her alive if you can. If you can't, well, perhaps we’ll be able to learn something from her corpse,” said the leader of the armed strangers.

The fighting began in earnest. For her part, despite her injuries, the good doctor wasn’t content to fight passively. She’d always been a big believer of the best defense, being a good offense, and so long as she was fast, and efficient, the shielding units would do a better job serving as a barricade to the village’s entrance, than she would. Thus the good Doctor Franklin surged forwards. Spinning the tooth-scraper as she did so, and using it to create a shield of flame that turned the bullets that were flying her way into ash and molten vapor.

She swung the tooth-scraper and a massive tendril of glowing plasma lashed out bisecting a third of the Winter-blood men. The soldiers cried out. Millie felt a pang of guilt, clear that the death she was dealing out was very much in violation of her oath to do no harm. She pushed past the guilt and blew out a breath of dragon’s fire hoping to kill or incapacitate a few more. Unfortunately, the soldiers that were further away were able to summon spheres of ice and cold to shield themselves.

More bullets came flying Mille’s way. The bullets were accompanied by arrows of ice that were summoned from the empty air. Millie dodged out of the way of some bullets, and created a shield of flame to catch the others. Then she reciprocated by tossing out balls of flame that would explode shortly after being thrown. Thunderous blasts from the balls of flame left the soldiers stunned and scrambling for cover.

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Mille used her tooth-scraper to impale one of the soldiers, and then after tossing the body aside, Millie decapitated another of the soldiers, slicing the woman’s head off with the hook of her tooth-scraper. Things progressed like so, for the next forty-five minutes. The soldiers desperately tried to kill Millie, while she desperately tried to kill them.

She couldn’t help wishing they’d be more like the bandits she’d come across on occasion and flee after some small trinket, and only a few of their number dead. In comparison, the Winter-blooded soldiers were far too persistent. Forcing Millie to kill each and every one of them to the very last man.

Things looked like they were going to come to a clean end, but then suddenly the captain of the small army began to growl and hiss. Swelling and growing, as he tore his way out of his uniform. Revealing a body of robust muscle, that was quickly covered in enamel armor.

“Sweet mother of…! Is that why you bell-ends have been chasing me?! Is that why you’re after the village?” said Mille. Brow gathering in consternation.

The Tooth-fairy-ized Captain didn’t seem in the mood for conversation. Loosing a bestial bellow and charging towards Mille. Thankfully, after more than a decade of training and supplements provided by a certain store, Millie was more than a match for the creature. Using her tooth-scraper to carve open a weak spot in the Captain’s enamel-shell, and then burning her way through the creature. Leaving only a charred husk, a thing that she’d almost instantly end up facepalming over, because the strange fusion of tooth-fairy and human was definitely something worth studying.

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“Doctor Franklin, Doctor Franklin?! Are you okay?”

Millie looked up.

“Hm? Ah, I’m fine Elder Joseph…” said Millie, smiling tightly. Blinking tiredly as she realized it had actually been quite a few minutes since the fighting had stopped. Long enough for the frightened villagers to work up their courage, and stick necks outdoors to see what the outcome of the battle had been.

A few locks of dark hair flew free in the icy bluster. Spilling from under her fallen hood. Her headscarf must have gotten torn during the fight. Now hair leaked out like ink from a pen, or the oil from a deep-sea rig. Or like the countless murky thoughts that currently filled her head. Of all the things that she’d considered, Millie had never once considered a compatibility in the genetics of tooth-fairies and humans. Now it seemed like she needed to think again.

Millie crouched over a large blender-like device that was analyzing the mostly carbonized human and tooth-fairy hybrid. Despite the fact that the man was basically reduced to ash now, she hated to lose such a rare specimen without doing anything. Heaven only knew when such an oddity would cross her path again. She’d saved a second sample just in case, that certain special shop could produce another miracle and restore the sample to a usable state for her. Or at least give her another means of extracting data from the creature’s blackened flesh.

“Ah…Well, the other Elders and I were thinking that perhaps you were right…Perhaps, the village should move closer to the city,” said Joseph.

Millie looked up from the device and her brows furrowed. She recalled why she’d come out here, to begin with. She’d been forced to come on an emergency call because there had been a not-so-minor outbreak of influenza. The strain of flu wasn’t particularly dangerous in and of itself, but the fact that the village was so isolated had kept them from getting help in time.

This and the growing number of bandits and beasts that were gathering in the region thanks to the great Professor Remmington Franklin climate-alteration devices, made the village’s distance from the rest of society a source of growing peril. Thus Millie had tried to exhort the villagers to move closer lest something befall them. Naturally, they’d refused, but she’d still aimed to get them to leave their place in the wilderness. It seemed that they’d had a change of mind, but she wasn’t at all happy to have been proven correct.

“Very well then…I’ve got some things that could hopefully make the move a little less stressful,” said Millie. Putting away the device, and exhaustedly getting back to her feet, as she shifted from mad doctor, to "good doctor".