The park was a charnel pit. There had been some kind of event going on when the Reality Tears had torn open, and the people in attendance hadn’t been able to run.

Magical Guardian Crystal Combat swallowed and stormed forward, refusing to hesitate. Her hammer hung low, ready to smash into anything that approached. On her back, whirling machines of living crystal spun and shifted, tracking every monster, ready to send bullets and bombs smashing into them.

The horde had retreated as she and other Guardians hemmed them in, following the orders of one especially dangerous creature, a tall spidery lizard surrounded by bleeding eyeballs it used as shields.

She glared at it as the horror and its minions slowly backed towards the Tear, which was busily disgorging bleeding flower-figures that stank of rot. “Look at what you’ve done! Look at all the lives you ruined! I will not forgive your crimes...”

The spider-thing made a gesture with one of its many scaled legs, and the eyeballs began to rub against each other. A hideous sound that mingled laughter with the crackling of flames and the screams of the burned spewed forth, the sheer force of the sound almost pushing her back.

She met the mockery with an angry glare and planted feet. “Face the hammer of justice!” she roared, and through the wall of sound, she leaped.

Grenades spewed from the launchers on her back, encased in balls of crystal that added to the flurries of shrapnel and magical fire that exploded amongst the horde. A spell adjusted gravity, first lowering it to accelerate her rise and then increasing it to add weight to her fall.

The ground cracked beneath her as she landed, hammer swinging down so fast it appeared to vanish before reappearing, colliding with the spider monster and the ground beneath it, having blown through its shield of eyes, its scaly hide, its torso, and a chunk of the path beneath it.

Its many limbs collapsed and began to dissolve into a noxious goo as the horde lost all coordination, some throwing themselves towards her with abandon, others fleeing.

With one hand, she sent a barrage of darts forward, each one slicing perfectly into the back of the head of the fleeing creatures (or the center, in the case of two blobby abominations that looked like living spheres of burbling earwax) while her hammer swept through the air, effortlessly intercepting every attack on her and delivering crushing retaliations.

A quick glance upward showed her magic reserves starting to dip below halfway. “Leoco, are there other Guardians nearby? I want backup if I am going to enter this Tear,” she said, backing away slightly.

[“Investigating. Stay safe.”]

She saw a flash of her Familiar’s silver tail as they retreated from the Tear.

The day had started so normally until there had been a sensation like an earthquake in her belly and the sky above her had split open like an egg. She had thrust open the office doors and pulled people to shelter within as mutated bats, floating jellyfish, and animated body parts tried to slaughter them until a lion made of silver and diamond appeared and offered her the chance to do more.

And then she had found herself encased in crystal, doing battle with things from the nightmares of the nightmarish. With a hammer in hand and a body moving with instincts and reflexes that weren’t hers, she had held back the monsters for an hour before she and two other Guardians had plunged into the Tear, rampaging through a realm of unnatural flame to destroy it.

They had gotten separated, splitting up to hunt down the Hungry Things and keep people safe, and she had made her way through the city.

After that first initial wave, she encountered relatively few monsters, but many panicking people. A few had even taken shots at her, and twice she’d had to rescue people from car accidents and similar situations.

She’d also given a brief interview, although Leoco said that the presence of so many Tears would disrupt most methods of communication.

She was shaken from her thoughts by the arrival of another Guardian - he wore a floppy red cowboy hat and a crimson vest cut to expose plenty of bulky muscle. A pair of pistols hung at his hips, and he carried a long rifle.

“Guardian Cowboy Glow. So this is the Tear you wanted help with?” he asked, with a strange accent that stretched the “you” into “yah” as he spun his rifle like it was a parade marshal’s baton.

The two of them exchanged a few words, and then together they plunged into another nightmare plane to end this front of the invasion. Hours later, exhausted and bleeding from vast swathes of skin, her crystal armor cracked and fragmented, she stumbled out, carrying Cowboy Glow.

“I’m so glad I waited for help,” she thought dazedly. Gently, Crystal set him down and called upon her Familiar, spending points to try and save his life. As he hacked up rotting slime while she spent points to save his life, she purchased a set of nanite healing devices to repair his ravaged lungs.

They moved like living specks of glitter, sliding down his throat and infiltrating through his skin. She could see him struggling to live, and clenched her hands, trying to think of something else she could do. Hating how helpless she was.

Leoco appeared beside him, and Cowboy Glow’s Familiar as well.

[“His injuries are too severe. I am sorry.”] Leoco told her, as Glow’s Familiar, a miniature pig with glowing red stripes, nuzzled against his side.

She wanted to curse and to cry, but there were still people who needed her. So she stood up, hammer in hand. “Where’s the next bunch?” she demanded, and Leoco wisely answered and did not comment on her limbs trembling with exhaustion or her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Magical Guardian Serpentine Shield slid into the knot of Hungry Things. His ax flicked down and to the right, slicing through two tiger-striped beasts with manes of bloody quills and mouths full of bone-crushing teeth, while he thrust a curved spike into the ground and activated it, sending waves of crackling energy into the rest.

“Vile abominations, invaders from the Oblivion Realm, you dare come here, how dare you harm these people!” he hissed, and there was no reply.

A faint smile appeared on his face, but the situation was too grim for him to really take pleasure in the small victory. He had invested many of his points in seeking information and purchased a scanner that showed Reality Tears, concentrations of Hungry Things, and Guardians. The resulting display did not inspire confidence. There were perhaps thirty Guardians in the city and fifteen Reality Tears. The Guardians were needed to fend off the monsters and destroy their portals.

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He could not imagine their victory like this. If things continued, they would get picked off, overstretched, and all the while whatever portals they couldn’t close would spew out more and stronger monsters.

They needed reinforcements. Impromptu militias had already been forming, scattered bands of civilians with cast-offs from Guardians or any weapons they could get their hands on, but it wasn’t enough. They were isolated and disorganized.

So Shield was going to pay a visit to the largest body of armed men in the city and see if he could get some help from them.

The Thiva Police Department Headquarters stood in the center of the city, a towering modern structure of steel and glass. The City Hall and Municipal Court were ancient buildings of carved stone, both seeming to huddle in its shadow. All three were surrounded by heavily armed police officers who shook with nervousness.

As soon as Shield approached them, he found a dozen guns pointing at him. Instructions were screamed, and then someone pulled a trigger. The bullet smashed into his chest and knocked him flat on his back. “Shit fuck that hurt!” he growled as he sat back up, only to find another barrage of bullets headed his way.

“Scaled Aegis!” he shouted, calling upon the magic in his soul, and glowing green plates sprung into being, forming a shimmering barrier that deflected every shot.

Shield had hoped he could do things properly, but he supposed the police were a bit on edge. “Maybe it’s better this way,” he thought.

He expected it would almost certainly be faster.

He swung his arm around like he was throwing a baseball and a long, hooked fang shot from his wrist, punching into the wall of the headquarters and then pulling Shield up behind it. A few more shots rang out, but none landed, and then Shield hit the glass.

He let out a cry of pain as the impact reverberated through his body, but in the contest between his flesh and the window, the window lost. Shimmering fragments flew inward, scattering across an empty office.

Shield dismissed the aches and bruises as he rolled forwards and sprang to his feet. He smashed through the office door, grabbed the nearest person, and barked a question.

A few more similar interactions led him to the office of the police chief. He knocked the door open and found the man he was looking for sitting behind a desk, morosely staring at a half-empty bottle of whiskey, his face red and eyes bleary.

“Who da fuck are you?” he demanded.

“I’m here to help, Chief. We need you and your men to help us fight the monsters invading your city!

“Help? Against those things? You want to throw away my boys like that? Guns don’t work, nothing works, just gotta hunker down...”

Shield had expected something like this, and he had rehearsed an explanation, explaining how he could provide them with more effective weapons.

A hungry light dawned in the police chief’s eyes. “Alright then, give us what we need.”

Shield laid down his map of the city on the chief’s desk. “Where are you going to put your men?” he asked.

The chief shrugged. “I think they are just fine where they are. They are either protecting important government institutions or the best parts of the city. We’ll send some men to Sheffield Mall and the suburbs, but that’s all. There aren’t enough of us to do everything, so we have to triage.”

Shield looked at his map, at the vast swathes of neighborhoods threatened, at the well-defended mall, and felt something in him break.

“I never thought you’d be cowards!” he raged.

The chief grabbed the bottle and stood up, his chair shooting back and colliding with a shelf, knocking over the countless awards displayed atop it.

“I am the one who has to make the hard choices to keep this city safe! You prissy little pansy, with your fancy costumes and your special powers, you are nothing but a bunch of dumb brats! Now give us the weapons you promised and scram!”

Shield was in motion before he properly understood what he was hearing. There was the sound of flesh striking flesh, once, twice, thrice. And then the drunken pig wearing a police uniform was on the ground, blood flowing freely from a shattered nose, teeth hanging from his jaw.

“A pleasure dealing with Thiva’s finest,” Shield spat, and then he turned and sprinted for the window, slamming through it, ignoring the pain as he dove toward the ground.

Magical Guardian Ghostly Defiance stood tall and proud, disguising their weariness behind shimmering ectoplasm and silvery light. The fact that they were no longer alone in their struggle also added strength to their tired limbs. Twenty-six Guardians stood in a loose circle, surrounding the last Reality Tear and its army of horrors. All day and night they had fought through the city, and now dawn was breaking once more as they prepared to end this first battle.

It couldn’t have happened at a more appropriate place, Ghostly thought. The prison had been built nearly a century ago, and lay abandoned half its life, full of haunting stories and strange sounds.

They had heard of mass executions of prisoners, of brutal forced labor, of the entombing of the innocent in vaults beneath the earth. They would have said this out loud, but as the sun’s first rays began to creep across the ground, it felt far too profane.

The moment stretched out, silent except for the unearthly wailing of a fleshy tree that had grown up through the heart of the ruin. Finally, Ghostly stepped forward.

“Nightmare Children. You have invaded our home without provocation, and slaughtered innocents without consideration. In the name of this world and all who live on it and love on it, surrender or be destroyed.”

Others spoke up, shouting their own scraps of defiance, but Ghostly found their eyes drawn to the only one who remained silent - Inferno Blade. He stood stiffly, the rainbow of jewels on his jacket

glowing with a dull light. He seemed to have enough of the posturing and stepped forward, a massive sword appearing in his hand.

From beneath the ground a creature burst, a horrible amalgamation of mole and main battle tank. Gray spears shot forth from flaps on its neck and Inferno deflected them without breaking stride before cutting it in two, walking past and slicing four bulbous, poison-spitting bats out of the air.

Other Guardians began to lash out with weapons and magic. One started firing a massive multi-barreled gun, sending prismatic streaks of metal forth into the tree, burning away vast chunks of its trunk. Another raised their hands and summoned an onslaught of snakes from the air, giant pythons that wrapped their challengers in crushing coils and bit into their flesh with venomous fangs. Another became wolf and man at the same time, knocking aside the Hungry Things with giant paws and ripping into them with powerful jaws while simultaneously summoning blasts of scorching flame and winter cold.

It was a display beautiful enough to bring tears to Ghostly’s eyes, but watching would have meant leaving their comrades to do all the work. And Ghostly could never abide laziness, especially not from themself.

So forward they stepped.

“Spirits of the unjustly slain, spirits resting in earth! Grant me your strength, summon your power, and arise in defense of life!”

Glowing silver motes of light rose from the ground, first one or two, then more and more, until they were ascending in a thick blizzard. They swarmed about the Hungry Things, tearing away at the essence of the abominations and assembling into skeletal humanoids. Ghostly panted, their flesh paling and their heart fluttering as they directed the spirits into battle.

For perhaps an hour the fight continued. Magic flowed thick and fast, shattering the walls of the ruined prison and the monsters that fought within. Dagger-sharp feathers glowing with energy danced about, pinning down Hungry Things. Gemstone animals rose from the ground, catching limbs and torsos in unyielding diamond jaws. Whirling clouds of smoke and mist passed over ranks of monsters and left them dead, bodies untouched but souls cut away.

Ghostly and two others advanced towards the Reality Tear, while the others pushed their way in, fighting relentlessly to ensure no foe escapes to cause further harm. Ghostly stood over the bodies of their two comrades, protecting them with shields of ectoplasm and wards summoned from their Vault, while they plunged into the Tear.

Their victory was finally at hand. The last Tear was being closed, the Hungry Ones destroyed. The giant screaming tree was at last toppled by the silent Guardian, who cut through the remnant of its truck with a single backhand blow.

And then from beneath the ground thirteen fresh abominations rose up. Each was like a giant shark with powerful legs in place of its two front fins and clawed hands with gaping lamprey mouths in their center. Their flesh was covered in spikes glowing with a black un-light that made Ghostly’s eyes burn to look at, and from rips in their skin came legions of lesser horrors, whirling balls of venomous thorns and squat apelike abominations.

Immediately, two Guardians were devoured, grasped by the maws of the shark creatures and consumed, their screams echoing through the ruins of the prison. Others were embattled, dodging the mighty blows of their new enemies or cutting down the tide of their spawn.

One Guardian, a short woman wielding a giant feather, charged the largest of the landsharks with a curse-filled cry, only to be batted away into a knot of the ape creatures, who immediately began to beat her.

But then the silent Guardian, still refusing to use anything but his sword, dashed across the battlefield, his blade dancing in his hands as it cut through everything in his path until he reached the other Guardian’s side. The sudden vacuum in the tide of Hungry Things gave the other Guardians opportunities to push in and link up, as Ghostly remained untroubled in the center, redoubling the strength of their shield and refusing to yield an inch.

The first of the sharks was toppled by a stream of corrosive energy that melted a hole in its hide, the second by a leaping slash from the silent Guardian followed by an onslaught of enchanted bullets and bolts into the wound by others. One by one, the monsters died, and at last, the Reality Tear trembled and vanished, leaving twenty-four Guardians standing, a number which quickly dropped as many collapsed into seated positions, exhausted by their struggle.

The silent Guardian collapsed hardest of all, falling face first into a pile of rubble, black energy in the shape of a strange dog leaving his body and then disappearing.

Ghostly allowed themself to sit down as well. They had won. And now, they were wondering...what came next?