Whee.
Plus he'd have to fix the hole in the wall now, or make an actual gate back here. Tor decided to bother with that later, after he had some rest and got cleaned up. The cutter had finally faded, almost at least, so Tor just walked in, being careful not to trip as he made his way past the five foot long pieces of smooth red and black stone littering the ground.
“Stop right there!” A voice screamed at him forcefully. Maybe “scream” was unkind? It was a manly bellow maybe. Whichever, it made him wince, head throbbing. Ten military men stood around holding force lances on him. Ah. Still no one that knew who he was? What the heck was with that? Had he come to the wrong compound made of focus stone in the wastelands?
“Down on the ground, now!” The one in front screamed. Tor had a shield on, but no weapons. He let his mind turn to rebuilding the cutter, which sprang back into place almost instantly, though it wasn't very strong yet. That would come, if he had a few more seconds. He decided to buy some time.
“I don't think so. Put your weapons down and move out of my way. This is my house and I won't be treated this way here.” Tor knew his voice shook with rage, but the man in front of him didn't seem to care about his feelings at all. Kind of rude of him really.
“I said get down!” The bully in front screamed again, making Tor a little mad. He didn't care for people trying to bully him in general, and his tolerance for it in the moment was gone completely. The ache in his temples was too much to allow forbearance. It wouldn't have been a problem if they would have done what he said or even left him alone… So of course the moron in front tried to kick Tor in the stomach, because if you don't get your own way, don't bother trying to think, right? No just go right ahead and attack a man in his own house. Not that he was doing so hot in that department himself, thinking, but he had a reason for that. These men didn't, they were just morons.
The move cost the man his left foot as Tor reflexively blocked the move with the cutter field. The man didn't even realize his foot had been removed until he tried to set his leg down. A cutter wound didn't hurt after all, but the man, a captain if Tor recognized the little blob on his collar, certainly screamed loud enough when the stub hit the dirt. The raw wound had to sting a bit. The man crumpled to the ground and grabbed his leg, bleeding profusely.
Then, probably not realizing that Tor hadn't been attacking at all, just trying to defend himself, the remaining nine men opened up with their weapons. They turned out not to be force lances, but a variety of military weapons. No air chokes, thank god. Nothing they had touched him at all, so he started walking.
“I'm Tor you morons, stop attacking me and get this man medical attention! This is my house…” No one listened to him at all. He yelled it again. Finally he just decide to go home, the men screaming at him the whole time. At least one of the men, a private, had enough sense to get a tourniquet on the downed mans leg. None of the men had shields on for some reason, which was too bad for the captain, or he'd still have that foot. For a moment Tor wondered if he could fix it. The cut was really clean and if he could repair the field, like he had his own leg, would that work? He could try, if these morons would stop getting in his way.
They didn't though, trying to tackle him and getting more people to join in. What fun, let's beat up Tor! Finally voices started telling them to stop, first a female voice, one of Kolb's instructors, Petra. Petra Ward. Even if her brother and sister in-law had tried to poison him, she seemed all right. Nice even. Being cute didn't hurt either. After a few seconds she stood in front of him, and started knocking out anyone that came towards him. Less than ten seconds after that half a dozen combat giants took up position around him too.
“Stand down!” One of them, a huge man that stood at least seven-six and was a full Baron ordered the military men. “I said, stand the fuck down!”
“Tor…” Petra said softly, “What happened? Why are they attacking you?” She sounded baffled.
“They kept me out at the front gate, so I came back here and made a new one,” He gestured behind him. “Then they attacked me, probably for doing that, but it's my freaking wall, if I want to put in a new gate, I can. That one there, Captain moron? He tried to kick me, so I cut his foot off. I didn't mean to, acted on instinct. They're just lucky I didn't do the same to the rest of them!” His voice had moved into a half yell. He snorted as he took a deep breath through his nose.
“Now, if no one’s going to try to kill me for a few minutes I need to drop my shield if I'm going to do anything about this assholes foot before you all leave. The military I mean. If they're going to attack me, they obviously aren't welcome here anymore.” That made sense, didn't it? Tor decided it did and knelt by the jerk that had tried to attack him. Mad as he was, a kick to the stomach wasn't really worth a lost foot as a lesson.
It took about an hour to really fix the foot back into place, but the initial repair got managed in less than ten minutes, fast enough that the tissue hadn't died yet at least. That was good, because Tor was pretty sure that if the flesh died, the foot was gone forever. That just felt right. When the work was done the man got up and started walking as if nothing had happened. He went gingerly at first, and was pale from blood loss and shock, but didn't seem to be in pain. Good, he could walk out on his own then.
Before anyone else could say anything Tor looked at the military men arrayed around him in their dark uniforms. He pointed.
“Get out. Get your crap and get out of my home now. You have ten minutes. Don't take anything that isn't yours and get out. Now.” No one moved. Tor got to his feet and pointed again. “Now!”
He didn't wait for anyone to do anything, covered in blood from working on the man’s foot he stalked towards his hut. If they thought he was going to just let them stay now, they were going to be surprised. Though they really shouldn't be. He was a builder after all.
Walking down into his hut, the single room fifty by fifty foot dwelling he'd made for himself his first day here, he moved to his box of amulets and made sure he was better armed. Flying rig, Not-flyer, force lances, two air chokes and going to his bed he dug an explosive out of the chest he had under his bed. No one knew these were there, but he had a hundred of them. They were special, designed to kill, but not destroy the whole world or anything like that. No, that weapon he kept on a twine string, which hung around his neck. It was too powerful to leave lying around. Really he should destroy it, he just hadn't gotten to it yet. Things kept coming up.
Walking outside he noticed that no one had started packing. In fact the military men all seemed to be lined up in front of his house. With weapons. So not even bothering to try and apologize?
Jerks.
He blinked at them, arrayed there the hot white sun. At least some of them seemed to recognize him this time. There were a lot more of them now, nearly five hundred? What the hell? He'd only been gone for a little under a month. How had this happened? There had only been about three hundred before. It didn't matter. Not now. They were just about to leave anyway.
Tor pointed at them with a force lance.
“Go! Get out now.” No one budged.
“You can't order us off a military base! You're not even in the military you sawed off psycho!” One of the men near the back yelled. Tor understood that the guy wasn't anyone in charge, but it was just about the wrong thing to say, wasn't it? He was sawed off? How would they look without any legs, he wondered? Instead, he responded, sounding a lot more relaxed and calm than he felt. So basically he came off as a half insane gibbering fool, even to his own ears.
“True. And if this was a military base, there'd be a problem, but it isn't. It's my home, not a base at all. Now go. Get out.” No one moved. Tor sighed. “Right, then.”
Sweeping the force lance fast he knocked down the first three rows on the right hand side, then laid into them for real. Didn't they get the point? It wasn't that deep or anything, they were being evicted and needed to leave. Seeing their fellows being knocked down and as often as not, out, those with weapons opened fire. Nothing happened to him, but his house got hit a lot. He could hear it, even though nothing they had did much to it at all. Focus stone was tough. Tor kept sweeping their lines, making a point to hit anyone coming his way or holding a weapon.
True, he could just switch weapons and kill them all, but most of them were just guys that made furniture, plates and cisterns for water. They hadn't wronged him, not personally. They had to go, because their fellows had messed up and they worked for the King, but death seemed a little harsh just for that. Still, he had a second force lance, one way better than what they had. He took out most of them then, holding one in each hand, the little copper tubes glinting a bit and feeling smooth to his fingers. His weapons moving back and forth as fast as he could move his arms. This worked pretty well until someone flew into him at speed.
