Auricularis almost turned her nose up at his weakness before she remembered that in this body she wasn't much stronger herself.
"Somethin' up with Her Grace Junior?" The knight captain stopped his timer worriedly, allowing Auricularis and the rest of the regiment to take a quick breather.
"Stolen!" the butler wheezed, his monocle coming loose and swinging back and forth like the sad pendulum it was. "From right under our noses!"
"Alright, I'm gonna need you to take a deep breath. Yeah, just like that," the knight captain said, patting the butler's shoulder reassuringly. "You're doing great, son."
"Lady Bolita was kidnapped by none other than the vile Sarman D'Wite pretending to be a family friend!" the butler wailed once he had become somewhat composed. At the moment he was more like a few notes than a sheet of music, but it was better than nothing. Auricularis pitied the poor dude.
There came a great gasp in unison from the regiment.
"Sarman D'Wite? Well I'll be darned.'' One of the knights shook his head gravely, as if he had just seen someone steal candy from a baby.
"Not the notorious powderman Sarman D'Wite!" Another leaned back and fluttered his eyelids in distress.
"The notorious powderman Sarman D'Wite?" Auricularis wondered aloud, momentarily forgetting herself.
Fortunately, the knights were too excited to provide a brief exposition for the sake of setting to notice her lack of knowledge about this supposedly famous figure.
"Yes, that Sarman D'Wite. Word has it that he's wanted by the feds for his unlawful possession of arms and unregulated sale of magic powder. He's the biggest crime lord in the main merchant town in the Schmancy dukedom, ya see," one of the knights next to her said darkly.
"That rasengun of his sure is a real piece of work," remarked the knight who had been fluttering his eyelashes earlier. "Once saw it myself at an underground shootout. Now if that wasn't one wild magic tool..."
"Yikes," Auricularis shuddered. She had always been one to stay away from shady biz, especially with stuff like steroids. All her gains were one hundred percent au naturale.
"Alright lads, saddle 'n suit up! We've got a mission to run," the head captain called. "Rank an' file, rank an' file!"
Suddenly realizing that Auricularis seemed a tad out of place due to her apparent lack of western garb, the knight captain thoughtfully pulled a brand new cowboy hat from under his poncho and graciously handed it over.
"Thought ya' might want one." He nodded at her as he stepped into a hazmat suit.
The rest of the knights followed suit, whipping out classic yellow hazmat suits from the depths of their ponchos and stepping into them.
Auricularis accepted the hat gratefully and privately wished that she too had a nice hazmat suit to don for battle. Then, the knights proceeded over to the stainless steel rack lined with muskets at the side of the courtyard, which she hadn't noticed before, and rode them up into the air like brooms.
Out of nowhere, from the left side of the courtyard, Calorie suddenly burst into view and skidded to a stop in front of Auricularis.
"Where were you?" she whispered, as soon as they had been ushered off to the side. The knights were clearing up a path from the main path to the palace to the center of the courtyard for whatever reason. And in the center of the courtyard, they were strewing dead fish about.
"Here, working out," Auricularis whispered back out of the corner of her mouth, flexing a bicep to prove her point.
"Oh, makes sense," Calorie nodded. "What's going on?"
"Some lady got kidnapped by a drug lord," Auricularis nodded solemnly.
"Oh," Calorie nodded. She seemed to be fond of doing that, Auricularis thought.
"We should go with them," Calorie nudged her, winking aggressively.
Auricularis was clearly not following.
"Well, it would be good to for, connections, you know? We need to have a solid squad we can rely on when the time comes, you know?"
"Oh." Auricularis was nodding too now because she and Calorie were finally sharing the same third of a brain cell.
"Also, I want to test out my magic," Calorie added, as an afterthought.
Auricularis continued to copy her, nodding. It made sense. They made their way over to the head knight, the last knight on land, who was busy pulling strips of dried fish out of a vacuum sealed package and setting them on the ground in the shape of an angry face.
"Hey, uh captain, sir," Auricularis faltered. She realized now that she did not know what any of the knights were called. There were so many people in the palace who's name she didn't know, why she was starting to feel like it was her first day in a new school.
"There a problem?" the captain responded, voice muffled through his pristine hazmat suit.
"Yeah no, actually, I was just wondering if we could come along. We wouldn't be a burden, I promise. See my maid here can use magic."
"I don't see why not. That Sarman ain't much of a threat, really. Would be a pleasure to have y'all with us."
"Take these then. They're plenty easy to use. Just hop on and they'll do the work."
He grabbed two magic muskets passed them to Auricularis and Calorie, who mimicked how the knights were sitting on them. Just as the captain had said, the muskets did what had to be done, and brought the two up to the level of the other knights. The distressed butler had also been given a musket at one point, and so he was also up in the air with them. He seemed to be in a much better state of mind now, and was holding onto the barrel casually with one hand to prevent himself from falling off.
After all three were safely airborne, the captain picked up a magic musket of his own and joined the rest of his squadron in the sky. He lifted up his left arm so his gloved hand was struck by the full power of the sun and slightly bent his index finger, placed it atop his middle finger, which sat directly on top of his ring finger, and slightly separated his pinky finger from the rest.
The result? A goose shaped shadow appeared ominously on the ground.
"RELEASE THE GEESE!" cried a knight from the side, and a stream of white furies stormed in, flooding the courtyard, with wings spread majestically and beaks honking like they were trumpets heralding the end of the world.
There came a thundering cacophony of extremely angry squawks. Auricularis felt the heavy sensation of dread in her stomach for this was a sound she was all too familiar with and one she preferred to avoid. Calorie seemed to recognize it too, as she floated up a good few meters in fear.
The geese descended on the dried fish the captain had set out earlier like vultures picking away at the carcasses of their fallen prey. It was both a horrifying and mesmerizing scene to watch.
"If you have anything of Her Grace junior's that you can give to the hunting geese, that would be great," said the captain.
"All I have is this," said the butler grimly, holding out a small silver jar with the hand not firmly attached to the weaponry. "She dropped it right before she was taken."
"Alright then, just drop that down to where the geese are and we'll let them work their magic."
The butler let the jar fall, and as it rushed through the air and to the ground, the geese looked up. Their unfeeling, beady eyes watched the trinket with laser precision, and when it had at last landed, they swarmed around it squawking and beating their wings.
After a couple moments of harsh geese noises, the geese fell silent.
"They're ready. Hold onto your muskets tight," stated the Captain.
The geese shot up into the air like arrows and with a few beats of their wings, had set off to where the duchess was certainly being held. Having had a path set, the firearms jerked forward, following the birds, and the lot was on their way to do some rescuing.