From each palm, Crimson Spears swept forth, called into being by my will. Glowing red beams, hot and angry, cut down through the parking lot. The crumpled asphalt melted under my fury, ruined cars caught on fire, and the countless monsters caught in its path were vaporized. Up and down my spears swept, carving paths left and right for those still healthy enough to flee. Not all who had tried to run had made it.

But I would not let anyone else get hurt.

I could feel the cost of this desperate attack. As I flew through the air, a quick glance upward showed the blue bar depleting steadily, and there was a sucking sensation in my chest and stomach.

But it didn’t matter. I would not let anyone else get hurt.

The other Guardian rose to her feet, bleeding from a long scratch down her stomach...in the same place that girl had taken her fatal wound...and her foe hissed furiously, beating at its chest with powerful arms, serpentine heads snapping at her as she dodged backwards.

And then I landed on it.

There was no special trick to this, no magic, just the raw force of gravity. My feet struck it dead on, just above where its scythe arm had rested. Flesh tore and bone shattered as it fell backwards from the force of the blow. I raised my leg and stomped down once more, shattering what remained of its ribs and crushing the heart to a pulp.

And I got a good look at the Guardian who I had just...saved was probably not accurate, if she was anything like me.

“I’m Guardian Inferno Blade. You?” I asked, studying her.

Her hair was tied back in a long ponytail. Her eyes burned with suppressed terror and bolstered anger as she cursed under her breath, every line of her screaming frantic fear.

. She wore a dress made of black and white feathers, the skirt layered like a ballerina’s, and plain white leggings. And there was something...she had replaced the girl who had gotten impaled. Or...

Her voice was shaking, furious as she replied to me, already rushing past me.

“Swan Victorious. Now come on, shithead, we have to keep my friends safe.”

Inwardly I growled. I had gotten distracted by my fears. But if what I suspected was true, I would be having a chat with Karl later, a pleasant and civil conversation about coercion and child soldiers. She was right though, other things took priority. We at least had to defend the people she had nearly died protecting once already.

She held her feather like a giant baseball bat, while my Spears vanished and were replaced with a pair of long knives. Monsters from throughout the parking lot were gathering, forming a dense crowd of slavering jaws and slashing claws, of venom-dripping stingers and razor-sharp limbs. Some were trying to creep around us.

Others rushed to cut off the retreating survivors, but I heard the crack of gunfire and decided to trust Joe to handle things at the entrance.

For an instant, all was still.

And then the fight began.

About a year ago, I had marched by and fought by the same people again and again. We’d learned to read each other, to move in unison like parts of the same mighty machine.

That wasn’t what me and Swan Victorious had. There were disconnects, pauses, places where our instincts didn’t line up, but I could feel the beginnings of it, embers ready to ignite.

She leaped above me, feather swinging down, elongating and dividing, until there was a ring of death around her. Out went my knives, catching the creatures that avoided or survived her onslaught, and then she landed further back into the horde.

Up rose her feather, polished to a mirror finish, and with barely an instant’s hesitation I thrust my hands forward and let out a pair of Crimson Spears. They deflected off it, splattering the ground before her with rock-melting heat, turning the horde of venom-spitting fungal insects before her into ash.

And then I was the one to leap forward as she retreated, falling back to protect her friends, while I encased myself in flame and dove into the two centipede beasts who had scuttled over. Up close, they were even more horrible, with wide lamprey maws surrounded by twitching limbs and pitiless black eyes lining their chitinous hides.

Knives in hand, I encased them in flame, and dove forward. I felt something strike me hard in the back, but I let the strike propel me forward as I cut long lines through their sides. Flesh parted like the earth beneath a plow, and out spilled tiny versions of the insectile abominations we had killed before.

I ducked another blow, wincing as my muscles ached where I had been struck before, and dodged a tide of venom.

I was going to need something bigger than my knives, or my Crimson Spears.

The centipedes were content to let their spawn harry me as they scuttled forward. Swan and her friends were almost at the entrance, where Joe and two others had advanced out, laying down a barrage of deadly fire. I could hear screaming and panic, but none of it sounded pained, just panicked.

“Karl, get me one of those guns, the ones I made for Joe.”

Again I flicked my coat, and scooped up the rifle he obediently created for me.

Retreating, I smirked at the centipedes, still dancing away from venom.

“If you’re hungry, try eating lead!” I shouted, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

“Karl!” I cried out, smashing two of the insects into paste with the butt of my gun as they tried to take advantage of my distraction.

I jumped up onto a melted car overrun with strange plant matter and stomped on some sort of rose that started to thrash about, pulping it.

[“Turn off the safety! It’s just behind the setting lever!”] Karl called back, sounding irritatingly amused.

I obeyed and flicked the fire-select lever down. And then I started to pull the trigger.

The rifle bucked against my shoulder, the sights jumped and twisted, but I could not possibly miss what I was aiming at, even as I sprung from my perch into midair to avoid another shower of venom.

Holes appeared in the centipede creatures, holes bigger than my head, sizzling with icy prismatic energy that ate away at the flesh of the abominations. They raised their heads to the sky and screamed.

I emptied the clip into them.

As they collapsed, dead, I saw Swan Victorious charging into the remaining monsters, cutting into them. Her friends were being escorted into the mall, while Joe and some tall lady were dragging a fragment of a car in front of the drawbridge, joining a slowly-growing barricade.

I turned my eyes to the Reality Tear, where another centipede monster was crawling through. It was like watching a worm forcing its way through thick mud, limbs clawing impotently at the air. Past it, I saw a pack of monsters scampering away, heading towards the city proper. None of them looked particularly dangerous, so I sped forth to clean them up.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I slung my new rifle over my back and pulled my knives out from...somewhere. They simply flickered into my hands, never mind I had last left them buried in the sides of the centipedes.

I flicked one knife through the air. It flew as swift as an arrow and cut into a rotund, scaled beast, jabbing into the top of its spine below its many horned head. It fell dead, and with a gesture the knife appeared back in my hand. The rest kept running.

They weren’t fast enough to get away. As Swan and Joe defended the entrance and began to methodically clear the parking lot of lingering surprises, I swept among the retreating creatures, who had turned and began to charge me. I met their hatred with burning wrath and struck into them, cutting them down. None even tried to run.The last one was the same sort of horrible ghoul thing Joe had first killed. It spoke at me, but it didn’t say anything different than the last one. As I returned to the parking lot, I began to think about everything I didn’t know.

The centipede was still trying to crawl out of the Reality Tear. It maybe managed to move a foot, so I decided to ignore it for now. I had questions that needed to be answered, and conversations to be had.

I began to stalk among the cars, pieces of chitin and bone crunching under my feet. There were swollen, foul-smelling barnacles, lumps of flesh that seemed to be nothing more than mouth and stomach, twisting knots of thorny vines, and far too many dead bodies. The monsters I killed with quick jabs of my knives, dodging their blows even as my breath started to come short and my muscles ached. The bar across my vision was slowly depleting as I forced myself to continue.

But even as I was fighting, I had questions that needed answering.

“What are these things? Where do they come through? And why are they here, and here now?”

[“You don’t need to speak out loud to talk to me. You know that, right?”]

I did the sort of mind-speaking he did, pushing my thoughts towards him. “I prefer just using my voice.”

[“I thought humans didn’t like talking when there was no one to answer back. But in any case, their true name is not when I dare speak. They are known by many lesser titles that still reveal their nature. They are the Hungry Ones, the Devourers of Hope, the Misery Swarm. And as to where they come from...there is a place where the light of the stars fades into nothing, where even the vacuum of space flinches away, where gravity and time are unknown and unknowable. These are the Oblivion Stars, and they seek to consume all. They create the monsters and the Reality Tears that allow them passage.”]

I don’t think Karl breathed, really, but I got the sensation of him exhaling from nerves.

[“I don’t know why they are here specifically. You have seen their purpose, the grand design of the Oblivion Stars themselves, the nightmare universe they seek to create. Presumably, attacking Earth serves this design in some way beyond merely spreading misery and suffering. But I don’t know what, or what prompted them to come now.”]

“Mmmm,” I continued, jumping onto a beat-up pickup truck and surveying the parking lot. It seemed to have been largely cleaned up. Swan and Joe were locked in some sort of argument that I decided to get involved in.

Slowly, I made my way over to them, but I decided to ask Karl another question.

“So, how smart are they?”

[“It varies greatly. Most of the ones you have killed are not very intelligent, but some were smarter, and the more intelligent Hungry Ones can command their lesser brethren. The Serpentarilla was the most intelligent here, even if it was not particularly powerful.”]

I would definitely need to get some more information about the different types, but there would be time for that later. The walk through the lot, brief as it was, had let me recover somewhat. The bar across my vision was slowly trickling back up, my heart had slowed, my muscles had relaxed. And I was finally approaching the argument that had caught my attention.

Just before I reached it, spinning one of my knives, I softly asked one last question: “So, Karl. I’ll want to chat about this later. Are you and your buddies familiar with terms like ‘child soldier’ or ‘age of consent’?”

Before he could answer, I cut him off. “Swan Victorious. Joe. What’s going on?”

The blade shone bright and angry as it danced between my fingers, the blade just missing my flesh again and again.

They were facing each other, iron determination etched into both faces. Neither bothered to answer me.

“You can’t stop me, fucker. I’m going to go help people. Wings told me there are more portals in the city. I have to go help them!” Swan shouted, shoving Joe for emphasis.

Angry tears glistened in her eyes, but I noticed she took care to restrain herself. Even so, Joe stepped back.

He gave me a look. “What if the monsters come back here? We are going to need the help of a...Guardian in that case. There’s hundreds of civilians in the mall, are you just going to abandon them?”

I returned the look. I wanted to go help people, and I was going to do so, just as soon as I was finished here. Swan’s anger was just as intense as mine. The thought of more Hungry Ones tearing into helpless crowds the way they did in the parking lot made my stomach knot and my blood surge with heat. But she couldn’t be more than sixteen...and Joe was right too. They would need help. More weapons. Medical supplies.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one having these thoughts. “If you are worried about monsters, I’ll help get you assholes set up.”

A tiny speck appeared in my vision. Despite its size, it was perfectly legible. Swan had sent me a request for points so she could purchase some equipment - some sort of semi-automated medicine dispenser, more weaponry, a system for converting sunlight into magic to recharge anything enchanted equipment, some sort of radio thing.

I accepted without hesitation, and watched my total drain down, from the low thousands to barely more than I’d had before buying Joe weapons.Most of the monsters I killed, except for the gorilla-thing and the centipedes, had probably only given me a few points, but I had burned through a vast swathe. And there were probably some bonuses for saving lives and helping a Guardian and such. Another thing I would need to ask Karl about, once we finished our talk.

“There. Now you can handle whatever comes,” Swan said, as equipment just...cascaded out from under the between the feathered layers of her outfit.

She tossed one bit to me. Karl informed me it was an earphone and microphone for the radio, so I slid it in. There was a sense of pressure, and then I could barely tell it was there.

She turned on her heel, but I grabbed her shoulder before she could move. I kept my grip loose, but I still had things I wanted to say.

“Look, Swan. Don’t be reckless. At least let’s get you some backup. I’ll equip a couple people so they can watch your back, and then you can go save people. I can handle this Reality Tear, and then come and help you out.”

Before she could answer I gave a couple quick commands to Karl. From my cape poured three small metal boxes, each one engraved with circuits of glowing runes. The total to unlock the armor vault and then purchase these made me wince, but it was a small price to keep the kid alive and healthy.

“Press a box against yourself and it unfolds into a suit of magically enhanced armor. Between these, the guns, and the radio, you should be good.”

I didn’t give her a chance to argue with me. Instead, I looked over my shoulder at the centipede slowly crawling from the Reality Tear. It was nearly halfway out. Time to move.

As I sprinted across the lot, my limbs started to ache again, and the blue bar at the top of my vision remained stubbornly still, only a third full.

I shivered at the thought of entering a Reality Tear in this state, but I had no choice. The alternative was to let Swan see the horrors of that terrible ocean or allow more monsters to claw their way into this world.

Neither was acceptable.

I allowed a smile onto my face, one sharp as my knives. The centipede was still struggling to pull itself out, clawing at the shattered asphalt, upper limbs waving uselessly.

“Karl, give me something else. A big sword or knife, one that can cut this thing right open.”

[“You’ve made your way up to 365 points. I would recommend the Tier 1 Magic Melee Weapons Vault, and the Goredrinker Bonesword. These purchases will cost you 175 points.”]

“That’s quite the name. Give it to me,” I commanded, and flicked my coat again.

The sword dropped into my hand, hot enough to the touch it almost burned. It was longer than my arm, and so light I barely noticed it. It was shaped like the spine of some predatory beast, the spikes on the vertebrae engraved with runes that dripped with blood. It thrummed in my hand, angry at the pointless slaughter the wretched Hungry One, the Endless Abominations, had inflicted, and demanding vengeance.

As I leaped through the air, spinning myself around a street light to add acceleration and accidentally ripping the metal off, I resolved to satisfy that demand

The centipede saw me coming and reared up to try and catch me in its mouth. I landed on one of its eyes, making part of its head cave in, and whipped the sword down. As soon as it cut into flesh, it started to buck in my hand, twisting and twitching, every section of the spine moving independently as it ravaged the unlucky monster until it fell dead. Even as it died with its head and brain torn to pieces, it fought back.

It tried to throw me off, but I kept my grip. It tried to spew more of its insectile spawn at me, but I coated myself in fire and let them burn. It tried to crush and cut me with its many limbs, but I avoided most. A couple were too fast and cut long scratches across my back, the protection of my coat failing. They were painful, but a quick prodding with my fingers told me they weren’t that bad. “Time for this, I guess,” I whispered, staring at the nightmarish portal I was about to invade.

Karl appeared, hovering beside me. [“Inferno - don’t -- magic low -- let Swa -- Blade! Blade! Guard- you’ll d -- Benny!”]

With a confidence I really didn’t feel, I told him it would be alright, and plunged my hands into the horrible rift once more.

My last thought before the cruel darkness enveloped me was that at least I knew what to expect this time.