John Barrington scanned the menu provided by the greasy spoon cafe with an inscrutable expression. The young server waited nervously, note pad and pen at the ready.

“I’ve eaten much worse, granted there was a famine at the time and it was a choice between that and starvation. I also once knew a man who ate his crew mates leg”

“But would you like white or brown toast with that”

“Brown, and extra eggs for the boy… And sausages”

“I’m a thirty year old man” said Myles as the server sauntered back to the kitchen. “And I thought I was supposed to be getting an explanation, something about ruining my life”

“First sit and eat, I know you want answers but I cant give you those answers if you are mad with hunger”

Now it had been said out loud Myles realised the gnawing inside him was ramping up. If he was going to be tired, confused and hungry, he was going to be tired, confused and hungry with a plate of sausages in front of him. Fortuitously, the wait for food was short and the tea that came with it was hot and sweet.

“I think it is safe to say you are the super-hero cat guy from the park last night” Said Myles as he stuck his fork into a fat sausage.

“Guilty. You saw me all dressed in my Sunday best and ready to dance. But let's talk about the less pretty things you saw, you encountered a pack of whistlers, a type of fae. By fae, I mean fairy, fair folk, sidhe… They have a lot of names but they all denote the same bunch of and this I believe is the accurate scientific term, absolute cunts. Fae invade our reality to hunt and kill, not to feed, well some do. But mostly it’s not about survival but because humans suffer. It brings them joy. They maim, torture and laugh at the broken things they leave behind”

Myles, stopped eating, sausage frozen mid-way to his mouth.

“You however, nearly outran them, fought back, took a beating and received a fatal wound meant for this old man, I may have a few hundred years under my belt, but I’m far to valuable to go just yet”

“Can we skip to the part where my life is ruined because I have several questions, such as what the fuck? And fairies, fucking really? But feel the bit about my life needs to be addressed as I’m well overdue an emotional meltdown and should probably get this sorted before tucking myself into a ball and having a bit of a cry”

“You should be dead Myles. You were brave, nearly as brave as me. But brave won’t stop a man bleeding out. I had a choice, let you pass from this world… Or recruit you. I chose the latter”

Myles sipped his tea and thought about the events of the last day from the attack to how he did not feel in control through to the words just now uttered by John Barrington.

“I’m not going to get choice in this am I”

“Smart kid, but if it is any consolation I have a gut feeling you were always involved, you showed a ludicrous level of compatibility and with ‘that’ device… Sorry I’m getting ahead of myself. The fae are not from our reality. Our brains being made from meat sourced entirely from this reality are ill equipped to process and record them, so encounters with the bastards end up as a messy footnote that get pushed right to the back”

“So what are we then? What is that armour all about and why is it making me hungry? Is this forever because my savings will not survive my current appetite? Also. Thirty. Years. Old”

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The point was given a performative exclamation by Myles stuffing another sausage into his mouth.

“The armour isn’t like a flat pack, at least not not yours anyway, it needs to build itself from scratch so the device is consuming a lot of energy and matter for the initial construction. More so in your case thanks to having a hole in your chest you could drive a bus through. So no, the hunger will not last but you will still likely burn calories above that of a normal human. As for what we are, there was a time we were called Shade Walkers due to how often we walked into the spooky stuff. It was a bit on the nose but it sounded cool. Of course with our kind not being popular in the community at large, it was the pejorative that stuck. Fairy Trigger.”

“Why? How does that make any” Myles paused as the realisation hit him “The armour triggers automatically in the presence of fae”

“Bingo. We can call it anytime we want, but when a fae shows up, party time. Thats isn’t even the best part. What do the gamer kids call it again when they make the boss focus on one guy?”

“You mean drawing aggro?”

“Yes! Drawing Aggro, we draw aggro from fae. A fae gets too close and it’s hit with an overwhelming urge to ruin our day. The smarter ones can choose to ignore it but the dumb ones… You saw what happened earlier with the Fernseherfett. That being said, even with the suit in partial control I was still impressed how”

John moved like a bolt of lightening grabbing Myles and throwing them both out of the way as a red pillar box crashed through the space Myles had been occupying only moments earlier. Black sparks had begun to cover John

“Whoooooooooee-uueet”

“Myles my good lad, did you happen to utter any insults about their mother”

“I may have begun to imply their mums offered oral satisfaction slightly before you blew one of their heads off”

“That’ll do it. Whistlers are psychic and aggressively matriarchal, so you made the shit list” John leaped through the broken window. Black sparks intensifying as he landed to face the onrushing pink abominations.

“But at least this way I get to impress my new kid apprentice” The black armour Myles had seen the night before burst into existence and encased John Barrington.

“I’M LOOKING BETTER THAN NICE. I’M LOOKING… DANGEROUS.”

The now armoured warrior ran towards the fae materialising his sword, gun and aimed shot after well aimed shot into the leading whistler.

“I’m thirty! I haven’t agreed to anything” Myles shouted after John “And why does your armour say cooler stuff than mine?”

Getting his leg out through the window Myles shuffled through and awkwardly dropped to the pavement. Red sparks kicking off his body as he moved closer to the fae. Myles felt his suit manifest again for the second time that morning.

“HARMLESS LITTLE BUNNY LEAPS FOR THE STARS, THAT'S NO ORDINARY RABBIT!”

Two dead whistlers littered the asphalt by the time he caught up. Myles counted seven more, so probably another big bastard in hiding. John was using their numbers to his advantage, positioning himself so every direction he struck hit home. It wasn’t his power that was the biggest threat, it was his experience.

One of the whistlers turned to see Myles and immediately lunged. Myles leaped up intending to land on top of the creature, but instead went arse over tail landing on his back in the middle of the melee.

“John, I’ve gone shit at fighting again”

“Overuse of the suit auto-help function will cook your brain” John spoke as he decapitated a whistler and knocked another away to give Myles room to get back up “So it heavily limits use to prevent you getting a bad case of cervelle de veau”

Deciding that loitering in the middle of a fight would probably get him killed Myles made a less powerful leap this time and succeeded in getting the seven foot whistler in front of him in a very amateurish headlock. Skill and grace were apparently not options at the moment so Myles tightened his grip further and applied brute force to the problem at hand. The Whistler clawed at his back trying to displace him. Myles scrabbled his feet into position on the fat pink torso and began to pull. The creature panicked and began striking him harder and harder. The whistlers prehensile snout shot something at him but he paid it no mind. He bore the discomfort until… Pop!

Myles tore the Whistlers head free from its neck, splattering insipid pale blood over the pavement and a nearby parked Honda Civic. He made a mental note to actually learn how to fight. The rest of the whistlers lay dead. The big one Myles had predicted was wounded but still breathing, whatever business John had with it would presumably be over soon. There was an acrid smell coming from somewhere.

“Myles disengage your suit right now”

What good were mentor figures if you ignored them. The order was complied with and the bunny rabbit themed armour dematerialised. Myles stood there all stark white hair and fatigue. He felt like death warmed up. John put his sword through the big whistlers head and his own armour dematerialising singling the death of the last marauding fae.

“You could smell it right?”

“The really gross vomit smell, yes, if thats what you mean”

“Remember when I said these things were matriarchal, thats not entirely accurate, these things are more like the yellow tang and they serve a big arse sea turtle. only it's not a sea turtle it’s an eldritch dragon like being.”

“Interesting, but what does that have to do with gross smells?”

“Whistlers spray strong digestive fluids through their snout, it dissolve their prey into a kind of soup, they suck it back up, and regurgitate it into the mouth of the eldritch dragon like being to feed it. You had that shit all over your arm and chest… Welcome to your new life by the way.”

“Fuck me I’m going to die” said Myles as his imagination flashed images of his future before his eyes.

“Did you not see how magnificent I was just now, no apprentice of mine will be kicking their oxygen habit on my watch.”

Myles turned and started walking back to the cafe.

“Where are you going?”

“To pick broken glass out of my sausages and have another cup of tea”

“At least the toast should be ready by now.” said John Barrington.