The siblings were in Frank's car, enjoying each other's company with a random playlist served to them by their music streaming app. Lauren was only half paying attention, however. She kept looking at her phone and typing up a storm before scrolling some more. This wasn't terribly unusual, Frank's sister was chronically screen addicted. But something about the way she still had a nervous look on her face and kept shivering slightly as she scrolled turned the gears in his head.
At the next red light, Frank decided to talk it out.
"Your friends are awful chatty today. They might get in trouble, you know"
"Oh, they're not talking to me much today, I told them I was too sick. I'm on a forum right now, they're talking about monsters. Goblins, orcs, chupacabra, moth man, Jersey devil, right now I'm reading about the kelpie. It's some kind of shape shifting horse that tries to tempt people to ride it near lakes, then drags them underwater to drown and eat them"
"Uh, I thought horses were vegetarian?"
"Normal horses, sure. But these are monsters. Normal horses also don't turn into beautiful women with hooves"
"Alright, fair point. Why worry yourself with that, though? You're not going to be anywhere near the monsters. We already agreed that if anyone is going to fight the monsters, it'll be me. Even then, my powers aren't exactly good for fighting"
'At least, not yet' he thought to himself. He remembered his first system induced dream and realized after levelling his skills a couple times that eventually his powers would prove more useful. He still had to be very careful, though. The only thing that saved him in the dream was that the Orcs weren't totally clear on what a gun was and didn't think to take it from him.
"It doesn't matter, I still want to know. If these things could come through here, why not learn what they might be like? Every piece of info I can get helps!"
"Because you're gonna scare yourself stiff. You can't turn invisible at the first sign of trouble like I can. What forum are you reading anyway? I might be able to use what they've got"
Lauren sighed and tapped on her phone again for a few seconds. Soon, Frank's phone buzzed.
"There, I sent it. I think they have a chat group too, but I'm probably not going to join it" Lauren confirmed before she got back to her research. Frank didn't know what else to say, so he kept quiet until they pulled into the parking lot in front of the cafe.
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A few waffles covered in raspberries and perfectly done over easy eggs later, Frank was polishing off a second breakfast sausage and experiencing culinary bliss.
"Oh my God, this place is the best! This was such a good idea!" Frank gushed over the delightful food, and Lauren's phone was back in her hoodie, her smile back on her face.
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"Told ya! You should listen to me more often, asshole. You can't beat my instinct for good food spots!" She said with a large piece of waffle halfway out of her mouth. Finally chewing it while Frank nodded along, she spoke again. "So, did Dad tell you? We're going to the range this weekend. He wants to make sure we can all shoot well. Especially you"
"Me? Well... I guess that makes sense. I haven't been to the range with Dad since I was in high school. I'm not sure why I stopped, it was always fun" Memories of Harold's pride as Frank pulled back a target at the range to find his shots hit with a decent grouping made him smile. He realized that they were going not for fun, but for necessity now. He only hoped the same atmosphere of joy and competition would still be present, even if only on the surface.
"Frank... We should tell more people"
"About what?"
"You know... that... thing coming up. The..."
"Realm war" The words fell out of Frank's mouth too quickly. Lauren caught the shocked look he wore hearing his own words, they both suffered a sudden chill up their spines. "That was what the system kept calling it... I've never actually said it out loud though. Not even when I was describing the whole situation to you"
"The system, you said angels run it?"
"Well... I'm not really sure. The messages mention heaven, and spiritual power. But I've never seen whoever is sending the messages, if there even is a living being running it. I mean, everything seems to be pushing me towards fighting invading monsters. I even went to some kind of weird temple last night to train swordsmanship with a knight" Frank rubbed his beard, carefully shaking the excess syrup off of another piece of sausage.
"But you were in your room last night, I went to the bathroom and saw you sleeping!"
"I told you earlier, it was in a dream. Apparently, I don't get a break when I'm sleeping. The system forces my, uh... my mind? My consciousness, maybe? Anyway, it forced me to go train while I slept. If you handed me a sword right now, I could fight with it. Not terribly well, but I could fight"
"Well then that's more reason to tell people. We don't know who runs the system, or their intentions. We don't know what monsters will come through, and we don't know when! We don't even know who else have powers like yours or where they are. We need to find more superfreaks like you and get you together, to form a team or something"
"What, like those superhero movies? No thanks. Besides, power corrupts. You know what kinds of powers were available to pick in the menu? With no context as to why we were picking them? Mind control, shape shifting, immortality. That's not mentioning super strength, flight, or even the ability to exist without eating, drinking, or sleeping"
Lauren's mouth was stuck open like she was a snake swallowing a really chunky rat. Frank braced himself, knowing what she was going to say next.
"They gave you all those options, and you skipped over all of them? Are you an idiot?!"
"I thought I was hallucinating! If I got the dream first and then picked my powers, I would have picked something more powerful" Frank sipped his coffee and hid his face in his hand "What would you think if time suddenly came to a screeching halt, then a voice boomed out from inside your head and told you that you were chosen by heaven? My first thought sure wasn't 'look out bad guys, here I come', it was more like 'oh great, looks like I'm gonna need a padded cell'"
Both of them couldn't help but laugh, Frank finally pulled out his phone and saw that FatBuckLincoln had uploaded another video. This time, he seemed to be camping out in a tent somewhere in the wilderness.
"Hey, Lauren take a look at this weirdo. He might be on to something with his weird conspiracies"
Frank propped his phone against the napkin dispenser and they began watching FatBuckLincoln's video, titled "PROOF of ALIEN monsters! REAL UNEDITED LIVE! #IMNOTFUCKINGCRAZY"