I awoke having somehow bent to my left and twisted to my right. My legs were tangled in my sheets and I was shivering uncontrollably despite the warmth of the summer day. Karl was curled up against my side, nose and eyes tucked under his tails. I moved like an old man as I untwisted myself, wincing slightly whenever I moved too fast and wondering why magic powers didn’t come with some sort of way for me to not have to deal with this.

Gradually, as I lay there in the stillness of my room, the blood flowed smoother and things stopped hurting. I murmured some vague, angry sounds. Waking up in pain had just become part of my routine at some point, but it never stopped being annoying

Throughout my movements and mumbles, Karl had remained still and silent. I reached one hand out and hesitated, before I touched him as gently as I could.

His fur was softer than cotton, and his legs twitched. I pulled away, and then he rolled over, lying on his back, tails splayed out, front paws held above his chest. His belly was exposed, and a sudden surge of memories rushed through me.

My father’s dog had laid just like that. He loved it when I rubbed his tummy, his tail would wag and his leg would thump against the floor. He had been such a good boy.

I started to reach for Karl, then hesitated. As tempting as it would be to rub that cute, fuzzy belly, it wouldn’t be right. He wasn’t a dog. And even if he was, he was one that was still very much a stranger to me.

Before I could pull my hand back, his eyes lolled open and he looked up at me.

[“Go ahead. I picked this form because it was ‘cute.’ I may as well take advantage.”]

I hesitated for a moment longer, then let my hand fall. Gently, I moved it in little circles around his stomach. His tails swayed back and forth and his mouth popped open, a long white tongue falling from between two rows of very sharp teeth. And then his legs began to kick.

[“Mmmm...little to the left,”] he sighed contentedly.

I spent a few minutes rubbing his tummy, and then with a wistful noise made myself stop. Karl let out a little whine of protest and I tried very hard to ignore the way his tails stopped wagging.

“Sorry, buddy, but I do have things I need to do today.”

He rolled over onto his paws and stretched, delicately licking his hands and then springing onto my shoulders.

[“I suppose you do. Training or helping people? I doubt it's going to be anything else.”]

“Huh? I was planning on getting some people fed. There are a few soup kitchens I know who would kill for the stuff you described.”

He nodded. [“Very well. Afterward, I would appreciate it if you could make time to meet with Serpentine Shield and the other Guardians.’]

I hesitated, then agreed. “I suppose we did end on kind of an awkward note. Hopefully, Musical Isle doesn’t show up. What was with that guy?”

As I spoke I was slowly getting dressed, not really paying attention to what I was throwing on. I would be going out transformed no matter what.

[“I genuinely have no idea.”] Karl told me.

My stomach rumbled and I stuffed a slice of bread into my mouth. I would eat something proper later. Everything I needed to do was done, and I could go now. “Come on Karl, let’s go!” I called to him, and then I began to run.

The carpeted stairs shook under my feet as I sprinted down them, dodging a few other tenants on my way. In the time it took me to blink, I was across the parking lot and in the hidden little alley.

“I probably am not as subtle as I think I am,” I commented, and then I began to transform.

Energy washed over me, driving away all the concerns of my body - the hunger, the ache, the budget, the job search. Every bit of misery I endured vanished. My veins ignited and raw power coursed through them alongside my blood. Warmth suffused my flesh.

It was the greatest thing I had ever felt.

After what seemed an hour and was really an instant, the feeling faded into the background and my transformation was complete. Karl hopped up onto my shoulders and wrapped himself around me.

[“You could be less subtle. For instance, you could run around screaming that you are the true identity of Inferno Blade.”]

I pressed a hand over my heart. “You wound me, Karl,” I told him, then I jumped up to the rooftops.

“Any thoughts about how I could...not do that? I really don’t want to deal with paparazzi or spooks trying to cut me open and see how I work.”

[“First of all, don’t take your cell phone when you transform. I can link your calls and texts into the earpiece you have and constantly forget to use. I can manage them for you, or you could purchase an AI to help with that.”]

“Cool. I think you can handle it. You’ve probably seen everything there,” I said, a trace of bitterness suffusing my voice.

[“...’]

Karl wanted to say something, I could tell.

“What?” I asked, irritated. “I already know my cell can be tracked. If I was doing something illegal, I would’ve put it away. I just need to get into the habit,” I told him.

He settled down.

[“Adequate,”] he decided.

“Glad it meets with your approval. Come on now, we have people to feed. Open the Vault you mentioned, and be ready to get the food synthesizer.”

It was getting late now. Shadows stretched across the ground, and people hurried home. No one wanted to be out in the dark, not if they could help it. Even so, there were dozens of businesses that glowed in the descending night and scattered packs of people. I found one especially large one clustered around my destination: the North Thiva Community Shelter.

It was a squat block of concrete in between two empty lots they were slowly turning into gardens, loosely fenced with rusted chain link and painted a pale blue. A light hung over the main entrance, illuminating dozens. Some of them had the look of the perpetually homeless, while others seemed better off except for the stunned despair on their faces.

I also noticed a man standing off to the side holding a rifle. That was new. He was doing his best to be unobtrusive, but he was too tense to pull it off. I had seen first-time undercover protestors more relaxed.

I leaped from my rooftop perch and landed between two rows of green things, rolling with the impact and springing to my feet. And I saw the barrel of the gun pointing right at me. Instinct demanded a reaction and I was unable to disobey. A Crimson Spear lashed out, no thicker than an eyelash but as wide as three fingers, and I sliced the gun in half. The man let out a yelp and dropped it, and people began to scream and scatter.

I really hadn’t thought things through.

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

“It’s alright, it’s alright, I’m a Guardian!” I shouted, but no one was listening.

Someone clanged metal together, making a sound like an angry bell. The noise was loud enough to cut through the panic. An uneasy half-silence began to replaced the shouting and shoving. I saw someone, holding two pans, shoving their way forward.

Almost immediately, I recognized her. “Cel-”

Karl whapped the back of my head with one paw. [“Be subtle!”] he reminded me.

I nodded slightly and stood straighter. “Ma’am. Are you in charge here? I came here to offer some help...I didn’t mean to startle people. I am sorry about that,” I told her.

She was about to say something, but I held a finger up. “And of course I’ll replace or repair anything my carelessness damaged.”

I had hoped to make a good first impression, but...that seemed unlikely now. I dropped my hand and let her speak, smiling just a little sheepishly.

“Well...it’s good to see you coming to volunteer. We’re honored to have you. What did you have in mind?”

I hesitated, and then I decided to go for broke. “Karl, remember the things we talked about? I want two of the gardens and one of the food printers.”

Immediately, three large boxes appeared behind me, dropping to the ground with a trio of deceptively quiet thuds. I ripped open the smallest and lifted up the contents, a black metal machine with neon red runic patterns and glass insets that showed spinning systems of silver spheres. It was surprisingly light. “This baby can output a thousand pounds of calorie dense, nutrient complete paste every day. Stick a bit in a stew or a soup or add it to a sandwich and you will make everything stretch much further and leave you much fuller. I’ll need to come by once a week to recharge it, at least until something more permanent gets set up,” I told her, translating Karl’s dry numbers into something much more useful.

Celia blinked, and I smiled at her. “Is there room in your kitchen for this?” I asked, and she nodded eagerly, clearing a path for me through the crowd of hungry homeless people.

They parteed for me and I felt many eyes locking onto me. The gems on my coat shimmered brightly and shifted about on the fabric.

“Karl, are you doing something to my coat?” I hissed softly as Celia opened a door for me into the kitchen.

[“Merely giving people a show to try and distract them from your smooth entrance. I wonder if anyone got it on video...”]

“At least I don’t get al eager for tummy rubs,” I murmured.

“Hey, why don’t you show yourself? We can answer some questions from people while we hang around,” I suggested, plotting revenge on my familiar.

Meanwhile, Celia dumped some pots into the sink and I set down the food printer on the cleared section of counter. “Just press this button,” I said, matching action to words, and showed her how the front opened to let her access blocks of paste.

“So, is it just you?” I asked, looking around the empty kitchen and the long line.

“Given the...everything that’s been going on, we’re a little short-handed. Some more volunteers are supposed to come, but for now it’s just me.”

“Post a picture of me and let people know I am here and helping out. I bet that will get you some help,” i suggested, and I looked over at Karl.

He lifted his head from my shoulder and gave me a little smile, then he appeared in a puff of black smoke.

Celia let out a little yelp of shock. “What the fu-”

“Sorry, sorry, this is just my familiar! He’s friendly, I promise, he’s even house-trained!”

Karl’s tails swept slowly back and forth as he leaped down from my shoulders and gave me a look. I just grinned back at him.

Celia took a deep breath and put on a customer service smile that made my wince. “I am really sorry. I’m just..used to this. It’s part of me, and I forget that its not for other people. I should be better than that,” I told her.

Again, I cursed myself for not having the right words. Why was I like this? Why could I never explain things properly?

Her smile lost its retail sheen. “It’s not been easy for anyone,” she told me, and she shooed me out of the kitchen.

The path she had made through the crowd remained like someone had carved it out, and I walked through the corridor of people to stand out in the darkness. With a wave of my hand, I filled the air above us with glowing spheres of every color, bathing the block in light.

“Three requests for you all: Enjoy your meals, ask me questions, and put this all over the internet!”

I was honestly shocked no one had tried taking pictures of me already, or maybe they had and I just didn’t notice. But I smiled and tried to seem approachable and waited for someone to start. And while I was at it, Karl did his part too.

He slid out from behind me and sat up, lookin soulfully at a nearby man in a filthy jacket with dull eyes and a face that hadn’t smiled in years. “You can pet him, Karl is really friendly,” I said

He wagged his tails so hard I was amazed he didn’t blow people off their feet. The man cautiously reached down and held one fist in front of Karl’s face. Karl rubbed his forehead against it and the man began to scratch it. He let out a quiet laugh and that broke the dam built up around me.

“How’d you find him?” he asked.

“He found me!”

“Will the monsters attack again?”

“Not if I can stop it!”

“Why did they attack? How come you all showed up right after they did? How can we trust you? Why are you here? How can I become like you?”

Question after question sped towards me, so many I couldn’t make out the individual sentences and tried to answer as fast as possible. All the while, Karl capered about, soliciting head scratches and belly rubs from everyone he could. I saw quite a few people filming. About half had their cameras on him, and half had cameras on me.

People were slowly starting to relax around me, they were coming out with full bellies, and more people were coming by, some for the food and some for me. I started to ask people questions as well, and share things I had heard from people. A few of the stories were really about me, told like they were something I had heard.

“I’ve seen the world at it’s worst. I’ve seen good people ground into nothingness, I’ve seen people starve and die for no reason but base cruelty. I have spent years trying to fight that tide, and every day it rolled in higher and lasted longer. Soon, i would have drowned, if not for this.”

I raised my hand and let more glowing spheres rise into the sky.

“I was given power to fight monsters and defend people, to be a Guardian against the Hungry Things that sought to invade us. But I wouldn’t be worth the name if I didn’t try and do the same thing in other ways. And I want help doing this. I am not a god and I won’t be a king. I’m not even a good leader. There are groups trying to do the same things I am everywhere. Help them, if you can, that’s what I showed up here for.”

Amazingly, no one interrupted me. I guess they weren’t completely relaxed around me, or I would have had people shouting things at me before I got a sentence in.

But once it was clear I was done speaking, the questions started pouring forth again. Someone shouted at me “Who are you?”

I turned to face the speaker. She was a tall, pale woman, clutching her purse to herself and standing stiffly in the middle of the crowd.

“I’m Inferno Blade, Guardian,” I told her.

She stepped closer to me. “I don’t mean who the costume is, you little magic freak. I mean who you are under it. What gives you the right to fight and kill and make all these sweeping statements?”

She reached out, grabbing for my mask, and I caught her wrist.

“What gave me the right is the fact that it’s a free country. I was doing this stuff for years, and it’s not like I was the only one.”

I let go and turned my back on her. “Anyone else have anything they want to know?”

As I kept answering questions, completely ignoring any attempt at trying to demand I take off my mask. The woman wasn’t going away, and she kept shouting at me.

“I can’t promise that the Hungry Things won’t invade again. They almost certainly will, even if its probably not here. Me and my comrades will fight them no matter where they are, but I would encourage you to do what you can to help. Get to know your neighbors, make shelters, make plans and get organized.”

I emphasized that people needed to organize themselves as much as I could, even as the crowd grew and the number of questions did as well. Karl was contentedly playing with some kids, doing all sorts of tricks and begging for belly rubs with soulful eyes. I left him to it.

Things were getting crazier than I could handle by myself and my Familiar was busy, so I ended up picking a few people at random to try and act as moderators. It didn’t go too great, especially when more people started yelling for me to take off my mask and show my face, something I was not going to do. I had no intention of waking up in a CIA blacksite and getting vivisected.

But people were getting loud enough that I couldn’t actually answer any questions. Everyone who was hungry had eaten, or at least I couldn’t see anyone more going into the kitchen. Even with all the chaos and the people heckling me, I thought things were going pretty well. I was sure there would be plenty of footage of me on the Internet and that organizations like this soup kitchen would be getting a surge of support soon.

But I wanted things to end on a positive note.

So of course that was when someone blew a painfully loud whistle and shouted “Disperse! You are blocking traffic and do not have permission to be here! Return to your homes now, or you will be arrested!”