Joe emptied his clip into its chest, the gunshots drowning out whatever it tried to scream, leaving my ears ringing as it collapsed under the barrage of lead. It twitched a few times and then lay still.

He raised his radio, saying something I couldn’t quite hear. Then I saw something slip from the pit, something long and serpentine. It reared up, blue eyes - or were they scales? - glittering all along its body and spat a thick glob of venom.

“Joe, look out!” I shouted, and I threw the table I had been leaning against forward as he let out a scream.

The venom hit the plastic table, splattering against it. Joe stumbled back, reloading and shouting, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The rip was screaming, or maybe that was one of the customers. It might even have been me. I couldn’t tell.

As the venom ate away the table, hissing, the snake-thing blinked its scales - or were they eyes? - and I lunged forward. My hand closed around its neck and yanked. My arm forced it back, making it bend away, as its eyelids, its scale coatings, scraped against my palm. I felt my skin tear open, my blood making my grip slick.

Still, my body moved. I snatched its thrashing tail, ignoring the spikes digging into my hand, and smashed it against a chair, slamming the middle of its body down until I heard things break. It hissed and spewed more venom and writhed in my grip, and I felt more blood pour down out.

And then my mind caught up with what my body was doing and the pain reached my spine. I dropped it, I screamed, and then as it fell to the ground I started stomping, the heavy soles of my boots proving useful for the first time as more things cracked under their weight.

And then what had been happening hit me. Two more monsters, these ones resembling long-limbed, many-legged alligators, had poured forth, and both lay dead, black blood pouring from their wounds and sizzling ominously. There was screaming, and someone’s blood was on the ground.

Slowly, I realized some of it was mine. My palms were ripped open, swathes of skin torn off on both and deep divots ripped out of my left hand. I swallowed the urge to throw up and scrabbled at my hip. Hissing in pain, feeling far too many people looking at me, barely suppressing my urge to curl up and hide, I drew my knife.

It wasn’t quite legal for me to have one, but I wanted to be able to defend myself and it was cheaper than a gun. I had only drawn it in earnest once before, and even then my would-be mugger simply ran away.

And now I was going to use a cheap piece of steel, only a few inches long, and fight monsters. It was hard not to laugh, but if I started what came next would be tears and screams.

My grip on the knife was terrible, my grip sanity even worse. But I needed to fight these thing. Horrible, impossible creatures were spawning out of a wound in the air in front of my eyes. One had already nearly killed Joe. Someone had to watch his back.

What came next didn’t quite seem to fit inside my head. There were more monsters, there was screaming, someone shouted for me to get back. The stench of rotting meat clung to me. There was blood.

I stabbed things. Joe shot things. Things died.

Another monster came forward, this one bigger than any of the ones before. It was black as pitch, black as the suffocating darkness of a hood over your face, and insectile, with antennae that ended in dagger-sharp points and two powerful forelimbs lined with toothy suckers. In the center of its head was a single, sickly green, unblinking eye.

Joe shot at it, emptying another clip. I saw the bullets strike the creature’s carapace, hammering against it. Chitin cracked and blood dribbled out from several wounds, but it was like trying to stop a tank. The creature kept moving forward, slowly, letting us watch our death coming.

Joe took a step back and started to reload. I squeezed my knife, the hilt rough against my wounded hand. There were more screams, and the feeling of eyes watching me and piercing into my very soul came again.

The monster’s arm started to rise. The world started to slow, and then froze utterly. A voice, soft, gentle, and artificial, spoke in my head.

[“Congratulations. The Alliance has seen the strength of your soul and found you a suitable candidate for becoming a Magical Guardian.”]

I couldn’t move, or I would have cried out from shock. “What?” I asked.

[“I am sure you have questions. Don’t worry, there should be plenty of time to answer them, we are conversing quite a bit faster than the speed of thought. And if you decide to reject my offer, I am not putting you under duress. There are other candidates who could take up this burden, and you will almost certainly survive the first few minutes after this conversation ends no matter what you choose. Further on is harder for me to predict.”]

I was too dumbfounded to do more than say, or maybe think, “What?” again.

[“I am a familiar, an artificial being created by a group of extraterrestrials called the Alliance. They have stood in opposition to the horrors currently attacking your world since before humans had writing. And now that you have come under attack by these abominations, I and others like me have been sent forth to help you defend yourselves. They do not wish to rule you, but they still want to help you, and so they created me and my kindred to find suitable candidates and offer them the power they need.”]

I was sure there was something missing from that story. Epic battles between good and evil like something out of a children’s show didn’t happen. I wanted to say no, to have no part in this insanity. Unfortunately, the monster standing frozen in front of me, unblinking eye glaring at me with hate, was a convincing argument for why I should listen to whoever was talking in my head.

“You haven’t actually said what the offer is.”

[“So I haven’t, forgive me. This is my first time doing recruiting, I will be much better at it next time I give you the...elevator pitch.”]

I could hear uncertain laughter in its mental voice. It was definitely inhuman, pitch too high and tones too gentle, but it was nice, somehow. I couldn’t help but chuckle along, only partly out of fear and shock.

[“The first thing you must understand is that you do not need to accept this. There are others who will have the offer made to them, and any one of you could defeat this incursion by yourself. It is simply a question of time. The second is that there is only one condition for you, only one obligation you must uphold for this contract: that you fight these spawn of oblivions, these abominations, and the evils they feed on in some way. There will be no compulsion, no punishment if you fail to do so.]

I looked at the dead monsters and the one that still lived. It might be a question of time, but it was also a question of lives. If I refused, that was putting people in danger, people I could save. The condition was....eminently reasonable. Everything seemed fair.

I was sure there was some loophole or trick. I was also sure that I couldn’t do anything about it.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Not going to tell me not to misuse my awesome gift? Or that with great power comes great responsibility?”

[“I prefer not to fall into the role of Uncle Ben, if it’s all the same with you.”]

It sounded uncertain again, its mental voice wavering just a little, like it was telling a joke but wasn’t certain of the punchline.

[“But you are being offered a great responsibility and if you take it up, you will also take up a terrible burden. In this world and in others, you will face horrors without end. You will charge into scenes from the collective nightmares of humanity and do battle with the things which inhabit them. Your understanding of reality will be stripped away from you. Your life, your health, your sanity, and your very soul will all be imperiled and assaulted. You will wade into darkness and fight in a war more terrible than anything in your history. You will suffer if you take up this mantle, it is inevitable. One cannot fight monsters without taking wounds. Physical or mental, you will carry scars with you for however long your life is.”]

I am sure it expected me to quake at those ominous words, to shake with fear or cry out. Instead, I let out a bitter laugh. “I have seen plenty of awful already, you know? I’ve seen men in suits worth millions of dollars let people starve in the street so they can get another worth...worth tens of millions. I’ve heard of entire villages where their hands were cut off, all of them, all their hands. I’ve seen the islands where people walked across it from one end to another killing everyone they found to make a sugar farm. Heck, that’s not even getting into...”

I paused and let out a silent breath. The familiar knew me, somehow. I didn’t need to explain this to it.

“I know what this world is like. And I don’t give a damn about it. But I’ll bleed myself for the people in it, and I’ll rip out my own eyes to change it. Tell me what else I need to know and then let’s make this contract.”

There was an instant of silence.

“[Very well. This is your last chance to back out. Power given cannot be easily returned.”]

I took a deep breath. “I’m not backing out. If you’ve been watching me, you should know that. What kind of powers will I get?”

[“I cannot say until the contract finishes taking form and you become a Magical Guardian. Hold still. And brace yourself, this might be...strange.”]

I smiled.

And then I was falling. Or was I standing still, and the world around me rising? I couldn’t tell. I could see I was moving but felt nothing, and the disconnect started to make me nauseous as the world around me shot up so fast it left streaks on my vision. And then I was surrounded only by soft, warm darkness, gentle and comforting.

All around me, stars twinkled into existence, glowing bright red. Beyond them, I felt a presence immense and distant, a leviathan breaching in faraway waters. It touched me gently, cold but kind, and embraced me in its frozen grip. Blinders fell away from me.

And now I saw a presence spreading through the darkness, skittering out hungrily, consuming all it could reach. I saw the stars go out as it touched them. I felt death of every description come everywhere it went, and it left behind worse.

I looked up at what I somehow knew I would fight and sneered. “Is that all you got?”

The vision vanished. Instead, I was in a city. Skyscrapers taller than mountains rose up, interwoven with greenery and delicate carvings. Trees stretched their branches out between buildings, making paths for children to scamper on. Great machines stood proudly, made by willing hands to ease burdens and provide safety.

Around me were presences, far too many to count. Not a one of them was human, not one of them understood me, and I could not understand them. Nevertheless, we communicated.

They whispered, they sang, they chanted, they cried, and it was for me. Every word they said was meant for me, a benediction and a blessing and a plea for forgiveness and a challenge given. Slowly, in a daze, I stepped forth and whispered my response. “I a-am not, I’m not worthy. I can’t do it. I will stumble and fa-fall. I will bleed and I will lose. It’s happened before. Even when I win, I lose,” I told them.

“We know. We know you, how you will fall and how you will rise. Do not fear,” they told me.

And they reached out and we touch and again the vision was gone. This time, I stood alone in an empty room. Before me was a perfect duplicate, shackled with ribbons of light and a hole in its chest. And it’s eyes, they burned.

I met my own gaze and saw my past, and the past of my ancestors. I saw stars ignite in bursts of fusion and galaxies die in fits of exhaustion. I saw far too much for my eyes to witness, for my brain to comprehend. I reached up and grabbed the bindings and cut-ripped-broke them apart, even as they burned-scorchesdsliced at my hands.

And as I tore at them the hole filled itself in with a thin, barely-there layer of skin. The last ribbon fell in two. The duplicate stepped forth and merged with me. I felt something click into my place, a cramp in my brain unwound.

And then I was back in the world. Nothing felt different, nothing had changed.

[“Soul Gem stabilized, Magic Control enabled, Vault System initialized, Transformation Locus ready. Congratulations, you are now Magical Guardian Inferno Blade! I am now officially your familiar, here to advise and assist you however I can. I can’t wait to meet you properly!”]

“Feeling’s mutual,” I murmured. I still had a lot of questions.

[“Ahh, excellent. I would advise you attack the Reality Tear as soon as possible. The rewards for its destruction will be great, and it is the most effective way to slow the incursion.”]

Something scrambled in it, static fuzzing across the connection between us. We both cried out in pain as it ripped across our minds.

[“ he Tear is interfering with --- communication. You must enter --- Make contact with it and you will fight ----- Once you triumph, I will seal it.]

It paused and I felt a grunt of some kind emanate across our connection. It hurt, the way I hurt when I sat down from a sparring match and all my muscles complained. The familiar spoke faster now, a frantic edge to its voice.

[“Your status as a Magical Guardian grants you increased raw abilities and instincts, personal magical capabilities, access to the Vault System and a combat form that greatly improves all benefits. We do not have much time. Further explanation must wait. Now, transform!”]

“You never actually explained anything! What the hell does all this mean?” I started to protest, but I felt a wave of energy sweep over me.

I found myself watching my own body rise up and spin, getting cloaked in a wave of heatless flame. Where it touched, I was transformed. A mask appeared over my eyes, sweeping up, its ends curling like flame. My shirt vanished, revealing a torso far smoother and more muscled than my own. My pants tightened and lost color, my shoes turned into simple black slippers. And around me was a hooded coat, long and loose, cut in an almost military fashion, made of black fabric and decorated with jewels that glowed with inner fires in dozens of different colors.

There was a song that came from somewhere, deep and rich and resonant and shaking with anger. There were lyrics, crying out in defiance, calling for the oppressed to rise, for justice to be done, furious and triumphant and weeping all at once, but all I could hear was “Inferno Blade! Inferno Blade! Inferno Blade!”

And then there was silence.

And suddenly, I was looking through my own eyes once more, facing the insectile abomination, now wearing the coat I had seen through outside eyes. And I could feel heat, energy, power rushing through my body. I met the gaze of the hungry, bullet-proof abomination approaching and raised a hand. What came next was no harder than lifting my arm. A muscle I didn’t know I had relaxed at my silent command.

The energy within me shivered, and my soul sang the same notes I had heard as I changed. My two dark eyes met the abomination’s green one. And I let the heat flow out.

A ray of crimson energy spat forth, so hot it made the air around it shimmer, yet left me untouched. Distantly, I heard someone hiss in pain. And then the monster screeched in agony as its hard carapace simply melted under my attack. Noxious blood boiled away, flesh burned to ash, bones twisted and crumpled under the heat. I stood unbothered, barely noticing the rise in temperature, as it trembled and then collapsed.

I stepped forth, the heel of my slippers grinding the end of a limb against the floor. The room was dead silent for an instant. Joe started to stutter, skin reddened, and then looked at the corpse and shut his mouth. He looked at me with hard eyes but said nothing. I could feel people watching me, the dozens sheltering and scattering suddenly faced with another impossibility in an already insane day, not even a minute after the rip had opened. I wanted to answer their questions. I wanted to ask the mysterious familiar some questions of my own.

But if it was telling the truth...I needed to close this portal. And the faster, the better. So for now I ignored everything but the twisted shape before me as I thrust my hands into it.

It was disgustingly warm to the touch, and slightly sticky. Slow ripples spread out from where I grabbed the nauseating, and the whole thing seemed to shiver.

[“Be careful----You will be on your own ---a battle of will and belief as much as magic and skill The monsters might ---- will do their best to kill you --- not what you really need to worry about --- attack --- The Realm Tear will break ---belief matters --- remember your purpose. Shout it to the world. The interference --- you need too ---”]

I smiled and let out a roar.

“It’s going to be fine!” I lied.

And then I was enveloped in darkness, hateful, unrelenting and everlasting.