Waking up from his comfortable bed, Victor felt like a new man. Stretching his hand to grab his alarm clock, he looked it over and could not help but think. Damn, I slept so well, but it is basically 5 am.

Trying to close his eyes forcibly, he rolled around for a good 15 minutes before giving up.

Meh, fine. I might as well go outside for a walk…

Slipping on comfy slippers, he went on to open the curtains and eyed the weather for a while before shrugging his shoulders: It ain’t raining, so no excuse there…

Dragging his feet across the narrow hallway to the bathroom, Victor yawned before brushing his teeth and got ready for a rare morning walk. Grabbing his keys from the counter, he went on to unlock his front door and stepped outside.

What greeted him was a slight glare from the sun just rising above the horizon and fresh air.

I have had a burning question in my mind for a while: How does the city have such fresh air and how do they deal with the pollution here… Whatever. No more science for me: I can just sleep and eat myself fat if I wanna.

Walking with a steady pace, he felt like a tourist who has never been in a particular place before: Observing his surroundings with curious interest and stopping every once in a while to admire the architecture.

It does feel weird, I have been here over a year already but I have never actually paid too much attention to the surrounding neighborhoods before. Meh, outside is overrated anyway.

Being an introvert was a trait Victor already had, but suddenly starting a new life in another world was throwing him off his game even more. When he first arrived, he just wanted to hide away from the strange and new world. Already feeling out of place, even on Earth, Victor rarely went outside if it was not necessary.

Strolling through the empty streets, he marveled the outlook of shops, houses and landmarks. It somehow brought to his mind an early 1950’s architecture vibe and thought it was strange how the two worlds were so similar. Obviously some things were different, but he thought that it seemed like a good change that every house was not just made from the same mold.

Passing by a construction site, Victor heard talk coming from around the corner.

‘’Mark,just throw that mutt away. It is already dying so who would fault you for doing it?’’

Perking his ears, Victor hastened his walking pace to see what was going on.

Looking at the source of the voice from before, he saw two gruffy looking construction workers in an argument: One holding a badly wounded small dog by the neck and another looking at it with disgust.

‘’I suppose so Sam, I just felt bad for the little guy for a moment.’’

‘’Of course I am right, I mean look at it. Are you going to miss our deadline and take care of the wounded dog? It would cost you a pretty penny too so why don’t you get your lazy ass back to work instead of looking for excuses to dump your share of work.’’

The man called Sam persuaded his co-worker to ignore the dog’s blight and get to work. They were already behind the schedule so there was no time for extra delays.

‘’Very well…I guess I should let her out of her misery, it would be the humane thing to do.’’

Victor saw the wounds on the small dog and heard what was about to happen to it. He couldn’t stay still and started to run towards the duo and dog.

‘’Waaait! Hol up!’’

Hearing an unknown voice, the duo directed their gazes upon Victor with puzzled expressions: Where did this animal rights activist pop out from?

Looking at the newcomer from the bottom to the head, they secretly breathed a sigh of relief: This should be just a regular dude with affection towards the mutt.

Seeing the look on each other’s eyes, they knew that they can just push all the responsibility to the newcomer.

Sam elbowed Mark to let him talk and spoke to Victor before the latter could even open his mouth.

‘’We have important deadlines to keep, I trust you can take care of the poor dog will you?’’

Without waiting for Victor to speak any rebuttals, Sam pushed Mark forward with the puppy.

Knowing Sam’s intentions, he meekly handed the speechless Victor the dog and patted him on the shoulder twice. Seeing this, Sam called out to Mark.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

‘’Come on Mark, the gentleman has this under control. We should focus on not getting our asses handed to us by the foreman!’’

Quickly fleeing from the scene, Victor was left standing dumbfounded with an injured puppy in his arms.

What the hell just happened? My appearance seemed to solve their problems like magic.

Taking a look at the injured puppy in his arms, he moved his head near its head to see if it was still breathing. After confirming that it was still breathing, albeit weakly, he needed to hurry to save her.

‘’Hold on buddy, I’ll take you to the doc to fix you up.’’ Speaking gently to the sleeping puppy, Victor pulled out his phone and called a local taxi service.

Impatiently waiting for his ride to arrive, he paced nervously in circles.

Maybe I can’t control my own fate as well as I would like to, but I’ll get you back on your feet gal. Such a little woofer should live a long and happy life…

Sliding his hand through her burnt fur in a soothing way, Victor finally saw his ride turning from around the corner, opened the door and hurriedly told the driver to go to the nearest vet.

----------------------------------------

In a spacious office, John Murray received a report that his teams had returned and all members accounted for. Hanging up the intercom line, he could not help but wonder where all had gone wrong?

Jeez… If I don’t solve the problems here quickly, the mayor is going to give his infamous shit talk to the press and pin all the blame on me. Asshole politicians and their rat nature.

Standing up from his chair, he took a look at a photo of his wife and kids.

Sorry guys, I have a hunch that it’s going to be a long shift… Maybe I should get Marcy something nice to appease her?

Shifting his focus from the picture, he took his jacket from the stand and briskly exited his office. Taking long strides, he could not bother to even greet the night shift office workers as he sped towards the briefing room.

Entering the room, he could practically cut the tense air with a knife. Men and women from the dispatched teams had returned from the slums.

Slumped shoulders, grim looks, blood and sweat covered uniforms pretty much gave him the answer he came to ask.

‘’Erikson! I guess the mission to suppress the suspected terror attack was not going as expected?’’

Hearing his name called directly by his superior officer, Erikson stood in attention and reported the happenings in an orderly fashion. After summing everything up as concisely as he could, he waited for the Captain to digest it.

After a short while of thinking, Captain Murray took a look around the room as if to ask for a confirmation and talked.

‘’So now we have docks serial murderer, some chap exploding in the middle of the streets and now some fucking terrorist cultists who avoid confrontation with the authorities? Did I get this right?’’

The members of the special unit nodded their heads weakly and waited in silence before Nicole weakly raised her slender hand for a chance to speak.

‘’Sir…We discussed this with the team before, but we are not quite sure how to put it…So here goes: I don’t think these are the biggest problems we have.’’

Captain Murray raised his eyebrow: Wondering how his day could get even better.

‘’Well then, we are a team so just spit it out.’’

Nicole took a phone and called someone to bring something. Waiting for a few minutes for the person to arrive, the door to the briefing room finally opened slowly.

A meek secretary fearfully carrying a stack of papers and a few brown bags neatly placed inside a plastic bag entered a room.

Placing the bags and the papers carefully on the briefing table, his pale face was visibly relieved by the thought that someone would take care of it instead of him. Turning to face the Captain, he slightly bowed, greeted him and quickly left the room like his ass was on fire.

Disdainfully the Captain looked over at the secretary before focusing his full attention on the stacks and the bags.

‘’So what am I looking at here this time. Just give it to me straight without any bullshit.’’

Nicole looked at Erikson and bitterly smiled when his eyes practically told her: ‘’Good luck. Maybe next time you learn to wait for others to jump into the fire.’’ Taking a deep breath, she took a deep look into Morrison's eyes and spoke with a serious tone.

‘’The cultists were burning down Duma guild property. That in itself isn’t the point but they secured evidence of human experimenting, drug manufacturing and much more. The big hook, line and sinker is that the Church is involved in it deeply.’’

Hearing the last sentence from Nicole, Morrison knew that he just couldn't get a break. With a blank face, he removed his coat and neatly put it into a stand. Walking calmly next to a magically reinforced wall and it was then that Erikson knew Morrison was about to pop off.

Pulling Nicole and the nearest teammate from the collar further away from the Captain, he heard a thunderous sound reminiscent of an explosion and bright blue light filling the room.

Erikson saw from the corner of his eyes the pale face of Nicole and smirked.

First time you see a grandmaster erupting, always gets ya. Hope you still have clean pants, rookie.

The reinforced wall had a fist sized hole in it, and the special operations briefing room fell silent before a thunderous roar.

‘’GREAT, SO FUCKING GREAT. MAYBE I CAN SEE MY WIFE AND KIDS NEXT DECADE WHEN ALL THIS IS SOLVED.’’