So, here he is somewhere in the coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania, under an inaudibility spell (which he vastly prefers over invisibility), sneaking up toward the cabin by an isolated airstrip where some foreign mages (with their small plane that's undoubtedly souped up with a few spells) have smuggled in a winged snake.

The snake's got some other official name - probably a couple of them - but Gene just calls it a winged snake.  What he does remember from the briefing, though, is that the snake is venomous, and has enough magic to bite you through personal wards, and is at least a near-person... and that the mages' friends in their home country have been known to use enslavement spells on these snakes.

("At least a near-person" means that if it tells him its name for itself, then he won't be shocked.  But it also means that probably it won't be talkative, or else his Chief wouldn't have said the "at least near-" part.)

Gene doesn't care to get bitten by a snake.  Especially not an enslaved snake.  So, he's going to try to keep this from being a fight in the first place.

He sends a wind toward the cabin... and nothing moves.

Not even the moss hanging off the shingles.

It's shielded.  And stupidly shielded at that!  All the good shield spells would've left the moss outside!  The muggles would notice, if any of them were here!  The mages here are endangering the whole Masquerade!  He could indict them for that in itself!

So, facing some rogues who can cast some powerful shields but don't have good judgment about how to cast them, Gene rethinks his tactics.  He can't sneak in.  He's got to get in and then overpower them or convince them to surrender at once, before they can unleash the snake.  Or any other magic, but the snake's what he's most concerned about.

Well, he's got one idea for that - he learned it from one of his partners when they were taking down a big nest of dragonlets last month in northern Alberta.

He touches up his personal wards; they'll be useful against the mages even if not against the snake.

Then he takes an ax out of his backpack, and pauses thoughtfully.  The land here knows coal-mining... an ax isn't quite the same as the pickaxes miners use, but it's sort of close and it'll have to do.  But he can at least use a drill-spell; the land's memory will strengthen it.

So, an ax in one hand and his wand in the other, he twists his wand to unleash the Aethereal Drill Spell against the house's shields.

The shields collapse in half a minute, probably sending off all sorts of alarms inside.  But Gene is right behind it, smashing through the window with his very physical ax.

It gets through, and he doesn't see any tripwires - even without the land's memory, most mages' tripwires would react to magic a lot better than to physical force.

Inside, one of the mages has his wand trained on the door; another is ducking with spots of blood on his shirt and head from the shower of glass Gene unleashed.  They quickly swivel to face Gene.

But the other two are doing something with a large wooden shipping crate on the other side of the room.

So Gene raises his wand to his head and casts:  "Regal Awe."

He remembers what Clara did with it in Alberta, how it had all the dragonlets sitting at her feet and how even he and Alex were staring at her like a queen and hanging on her every word.  He's counting on it to stop the rogues here -

But nothing happens.