A good story about a hero always begins with choosing the right hero. In this city of about a million (human) souls, if you include the suburbs, there's at least 6 prime candidates for the spot.
The first of the hero candidates is a young man who wanders down the sidewalk with his earbuds in, listening to a soundtrack of his favorite songs. He hums to himself and the world hums with him, seemingly brightening up the day to make it better for everyone around him. A breeze flows by the hero to a construction worker and his fatigue seems to fade. A ray of sun glances through a nearby apartment window and a dog that was whining for it's owner perks up, wagging his tail. A spring shower suddenly drops from the clouds and fills up a small tarp, letting a homeless man survive just a bit longer on the collection. Wind through the branches of the trees forms a beautiful natural song, lulling a nearby baby into a peaceful slumber.
But then this young man sees something in his vision that causes him to panic; there's a group of school children about to cross the street on the opposite side of the crosswalk, unknowing that the stoplight isn't working properly. His approach from the opposite direction gave him the perspective that they're lacking, and the adult leading them was too busy corralling the little tykes to see the truck coming down the street, distracted and unable to see the short beings below the hood of his vehicle.
There is not even a single iota of hesitation as he charges across the street at the now paralyzed children, willing his legs to accelerate in time. He draws on unseen reserves of power to make his approach truly Olympian in speed, matched only by the best of athletes. Adrenaline pumps through his body and his heart rate increases to triple digits instantly.
He does the math in his head to figure out if he is on time and he's coming up all green: he's going to make it! The chaperone of the children notices him finally and has a confused look on her face. The children watch this strange young man and wonder what he's doing. The dog watches the window and barks at the truck careening down the street. The homeless man is sipping his water ration, holding in his tears to save himself just a bit more time.
The world watches the True Hero. The wind pauses as if holding its breath.
Unfortunately, the True Hero was terrible at geometry. He barely passed and went to college on a sports scholarship.
The young man, terrible at math, realizes his mistake as the truck collided with him in the middle of the street, scraping him along the bottom instead of merely knocking him away, turning him into a meat crayon. The children were never in any danger; they froze the moment they saw the young man charging at them.
Screaming children and a howling dog followed. The spring showers turn into a full on gale. The world weeps.
His soul did not go to another world from that encounter with a truck.
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The second of the hero candidates was a young girl with a teddy bear with button eyes that saw too much. The bear was gifted with intelligence beyond the stuffing in its head. Love and care caused something miraculous to blossom from time and a bit of magic; a living doll that bonded with its owner. Where ever the girl went, so did her beloved doll Humphrey the Bear.
The brown cloth fur that was well cared for pressed against her side, clung to her like a sloth to a tree. Her arms wrapped in a vise grip that no one, save her parents, could undo. The bear was used to this though and was in something of a meditation, waiting for dawn to arrive and another wonderful day of love. No place in the world could be as divine as the spot in Daisy's bed right now, empowering the bear with more kindness and warmth.
The night was calm and the bed warm. Not even the accommodations of Tibetan monks could provide such serenity to Humphrey.
Alas, a crash of glass that was unnoticed to the parents of the house broke Humphrey out of his mediation. He waited just a bit in patience; perhaps an animal knocked something into a window accidentally. Those little rascals always did something like that in search of food from the garbage bins. Daisy's father said so himself.
When not even half a minute passed and there was suddenly voices that were not of the Kitchener's family coming from downstairs, Humphrey knew that it was not those innocent animals in search of fine trash dining.
He wiggled cautiously out of his bonded partners grasp, pausing only a moment when she frowned in her sleep, but she stayed asleep. Mission success, he could practically feel the magic empowering him increase even more as he did one of his duties: keep Daisy comfortable and safe.
Well, he toddled down the hallway in practical silence; his cloth body was perfect for stealth. As he peered over the balcony below, he saw flashlights panning over the main hallway. They were coming from the living room. He nodded to himself and listened to the softly whispered words of the intruders. He made his way downstairs and towards the kitchen.
"Hey, Greg, that TV has to be at least 3 grand," said one of the perpetrators with slight askance.
A little groan, barely audible over the sound of shoes scuffling the ground, preceded an answer to the unasked question.
"Tommy. If you can carry a 65 inch TV out to the truck without waking up anyone, be my guest."
The man named Tommy looked to the TV and then back to his compatriot, just barely missing the brown teddy bear's fur in the shadow next to the stairs.
He seemingly thought about it for awhile before coming to a conclusion. "We don't we just, y'know, off them. I mean, don't look at me like that. But they have a wine collection. The smart fridge and the casual money clip on the kitchen island... they're pretty swanky, right?"
Humphrey in his mission of silence paused and waited for the reply. He was already in said kitchen, preparing for the confrontation. The magic kept filling him up and giving his stuffing more power than he'd ever felt before. This was one of his duties: keep Daisy safe.
Greg gave a non-committal grunt, before finally answering and letting Humphrey's judgement reach it's conclusion.
"Fine, but get a knife. I want some time with the mom, so no gun. If these pictures aren't old, she's something else."
Tommy gave a slight snicker as he moved closer to the kitchen. "I don't mind sloppy seconds. But you're going to take care of the kid, that's a bit..."
Greg went back to stuffing his backpack with random things he thought he could pawn off for a decent price. Nothing bulky, mostly just electronics or similar things. Unfortunately, he thought Tommy merely trailed off due to distance.
The pool of blood coming from the kitchen went unnoticed.
*
*
*
For a moment of time.
But after 30 seconds Greg became worried. He crept through the hallway into the kitchen and froze at the sight. Somehow within the half a minute he was out of contact with Tommy, he became something of a depiction of horror; his clothing on his body was ripped off, leaving him naked. He was placed on his chest, laying face down in a pool of blood. His back was sliced open. His ribs were broken. His lungs were pulled through the gash in his back. A blood eagle. And a message was written in blood on his lower back: "Daisy loves birds."
As Greg tried to draw in breath to scream at this unnatural scene, he felt the air leak out of his lungs as a sharp pain entered his chest. He couldn't even cough, so sudden was the air gone. He fell backwards, swiping his hands wildly to try to stop what was happening as he felt the air not heeding his desperate call.
Then he saw it.
A brown teddy bear hanging off of two metal straws, purchased for their environmentally friendly and washing machine safe nature, both of them stabbed deep in his chest. No plastic in a turtle's lungs!
Only metal in Greg's. No air.
Unfortunately for Humphrey, he couldn't stop Greg from crashing into the television that the Kitchener family bought for morning cartoon watching as he flailed wildly. Just not enough leverage (or arm strength). Humphrey knew that Daisy's father would be cross about that one; he purchased that one specifically for its color accuracy. An opulent but loving purchase to let his daughter eat cereal and keep the mess contained in the linoleum lined room. Blood or milk, both messes were contained here.
As the loud crash in the kitchen rang out, the rest of the Kitchener family woke up. Two of them were confused but went into fight or flight mode, reaching for implements to defend themselves with. But one of them woke up and panicked about her misplaced teddy, searching frantically for her lost companion.
Humphrey suddenly felt the magic giving him strength start to weaken; his actions were no longer protecting Daisy or giving her comfort. She worried for him. This was the opposite of his bond.
He quickly made the decision to return to his charge and ignore the man who was now drowning in his own blood. The coughing gurgles were of no import to him at this time.
But a trick of the moonlight worked against this hero's companion. As he was walking silently down the hallway to the stairs, it came through the front door and skylight simultaneously, exposing him for all to see.
Jacob Kitchener and Sandra Kitchener, both holding a baseball bat and a 10 inch tablet respectively, peered over the banister and saw what could only be considered something out of a horror movie. Their daughter's bear was covered in splotches of blood and moving under its own power somehow. Toddling silently towards the stairs.
A memory beckoned to both their minds; when questioning the other, they both denied having bought the teddy bear.
Humphrey rounded the corner and began to take the first step as he noticed both Father and Mother were looking right at him. He paused in the step and felt his magic bond draining rapidly; exposure was at the top of the taboos of his bond.
Humphrey felt the power that kept his stitching strong fade into nothing. He felt the button eyes that let him see the world of love and wonder become inert, blinding him permanently. The magic bear ears started to muffle until he heard nothing, not even the screams of the parents and panicked phone call to the police. His soul felt the sadness and terror as Daisy came up next to her parents and gazed at him.
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"Humphrey loves Daisy."
He left the world after speaking another sentence for the Kitchener family, falling to the floor and becoming inanimate.
"Humphrey will always love Daisy."
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A hero with a bonded companion cannot possibly be summoned if their bond is broken. A tragedy for the world and the Kitchener family.
But the third hero was not terrible at math nor was she reliant on another for her own personal hero magic.
She was an incredibly intelligent woman who watched the world and saw the beauty in it, but pried the deeper truths. Janet Springton loved the tales of myth and legend and pored over books and maps voraciously, looking for a hint of the hidden past. And she chanced upon some Truths about the fairest of folk in some of the tomes she found.
The falsehoods written into tales and meant to ward off those without the Sight to See were nothing to her vision. She could connect tales and she could find the false-hoods from the truth-hoods. And surprisingly, her journey led her into the City Park.
It was after midnight by a few hours, but she couldn't tell with any certainty. Mechanical machines had no power in this weirding wonderland that she ponderously pranced into. Fungal friends planted near the trodden trail lead to a concealed circle of mushrooms. A fairy ring!
She rubbed her hands together as she found something she'd always heard of but never truly thought she'd find; a way to the Fae. The bit of alliteration in her thoughts also confirmed this.
She checked herself and double checked her clothing and possessions. No iron, cold or hot, was found on her persons. The dress she picked was a floral pattern that may have meaning to the Spring or Summer Court.
With a skipping step into the fairy fungus and she fell forward and backwards briefly before bouncing on loamy land littered with perfectly particular plants she perceived to be pleasurable.
She blinked her eyes and scanned the forest she arrived in, trying to clear her head of these odd thoughts that appeared in alliteration.
And from the brown wood with multicolored lights in the background everywhere around her stepped a Fair Folk, not taller than 4 foot. It had a sort of unnatural beauty that made it's reddish hair more real than any hair she'd seen before. Janet could not decide whether the creature in front of her was of the Autumn or the Summer Court. But definitely not of Winter.
"Yon traveler of resplendent rings, care ye of a glamorous guidance to mine house? A splendorous sup awaits ye in mine humble hovel. I surely swear guest rights are afforded to ye."
The lyrical nature and slightly hard to parse words made her hesitate, but the inclusion guest rights lined up with everything she knew about the ancient tales.
Unfortunately she did not parse the words correctly.
"I will take your offer to your home. Thank you for your hospitality."
What she did not understand is that this creature said she was afforded guest rights. And the sup was not specified into who was partaking.
So she followed the sharp-toothed not-human of less than 4 foot stature. Her eyes to see truths saw what was true, but she did not have the Sight to see what was not true. Her wisdom to understand how to negotiate in the same manner as the Fae was also lacking. For all her brilliance, she lacked a certain type of perspective.
As she crossed the threshold and past the door, not as a guest but as a someone receiving guidance to the home, she was none the wiser and fell into a dream. She saw the real Reality of the home and magic of wonders, but not the truth. She was the supper and not the one to sup.
Janet's journey to a fantastical realm ended shortly after, having spent all of her time in books about ancient tales and not seeing the practical application of these trickster's wordplay. Had she played a single session of a tabletop game and asked a Djinn or Genie to use their power for wishing, she'd know the first rule of magic contracts bound by words you say exactly.
Don't. Just don't. Kill every single one of those little fuckers and be done with it.
Janet Springton did not invoke her guest rights. She became the dinner she thought to partake in. Her bones were used as stock in a soup and discarded along with a plethora of other realm travelers in a nearby bone pile, just one of hundreds if not thousands.
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The... fourth and fifth options were similarly disadvantaged for a real adventure, but not because of anything they did. It wasn't their fault they were trapped in someone else's story.
The twins, Julio and Julia Windstorm, were practically groomed into becoming summoned to another world. Their childhood was filled with training in martial combat and magic theory. Their constitutions were supplemented by herbs and elixirs obtained and crafted from other realms adjacent to Earth. They learned how to navigate the political structures of low technology societies and the various easy to source recipes for a great many life-changing products.
Their entire family was in the business of hero summoning, after all. At least a few dozen generations between both lines culminated in the pair of these siblings becoming the perfect hero. Maybe not a true hero, but one that would leave them with a perfect satisfaction rating from the summoner. On return they'd contribute their wealth (mostly in gold, but sometimes enchanted items) and keep the Windstorm family one of the hidden powers of the world.
They were trained in how to deal with both System and Systemless summoning worlds. Trained in the different types of Systems, how to deal with them, how to obtain quick and easy power within them. Taught how to use esoteric rulesets such as a 'card' system or even one that gave them a typical randomly generated hero disability (See: Truesight but the inability to comprehend all that was seen). Even how to fulfill their duty if they became a tree, heavens forbid. It was always treated as something that naturally happened as part of their hero's journey, but it happened often nonetheless. A normal person does not just go blind because of a rare and unique race change or have some threatening condition with a deadline that often without some meddlesome influence from a Divine or equivalent.
Unfortunately for the scions of this great yet hidden Power, it was their world that needed a hero to save it.
One of their favorite 'classes' was On How to deal with Evil-doers. It was effectively desensitizing a person on murder, but flowery language dulled that bitter truth effectively. The twins were waiting on more criminals; tragically the city was too peaceful and law-abiding to have a healthy population of murderers and dog-kickers.
On a particularly random day during a free-form class titled 'Party Synergy and Typical Companions', Julia set down her spider plushy that (for reasons unknown to all) purred when stroked. Apparently that's what fantasy spiders do, according to her family.
She felt something changing in the atmosphere above the Windstorm compound.
Julio set down the book of 'Potential Harem Companions and Their Quirks', inserting a leaflet in the chapter titled 'Princesses by Race'. Both of the scions shared a look and watched as the sky split apart in a great purple-black void and began to SCREAM. Waves of some strange power wrapped around the planet like a blanket and near instantly affected every single 'living' thing.
Their souls were ripped from their bodies along with 100.000000% of life on Earth simultaneously. All particles in the local area around the planet were ripped apart as their bonds were ruptured. Immediately after, it was condensed into a primordial soup where gluons and protons and every other unique particle was turned into a cosmic slurry. Souls, greatly misunderstood by the majority, existed on another metaphysical layer but still ultimately part of the universe. They, too, were condensed into the cosmic slurry.
Adjacent worlds of fantasy and wonder such as the lands of the Fae, ancient realms like other 8 realms of the Norse, even conceptual realms like the idea of a collective unconcious. All of them were ripped apart and turned into this mass of chaos and nothingness.
Everything.
But just a few brief minutes before this happened...
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A nursing home in the same city as our 5 heroes, a singular "Shady Glen Assisted Living Facility", contained a pit of misery and neglect. If any one of them entered the location, they would see it as a caring and wonderful place to house their loved ones when they were past their time.
But for the residents in there it was a living nightmare. Most had been housed here against their will. Many had court orders placing their 'wellbeing' in the hands of the nurses who were woefully understaffed to handle this many retirees and elderly. The administration for the facility controlled the finances of every single one of them in their care, save only for those who set up living trusts with others as the executors.
But for the vast majority of them, they were never afforded that chance in their life. They placed too much faith in their family. Love was supposed to be their bond, but unfortunately their family had other obligations and "their own life" to handle.
So the compound that held somewhere close to 300 residents while only equipped to handle 150 was left bereft of the true care that the older generation needed.
During the night, in one of the hallways that had not yet had a caretaker bring breakfast or any other meal, a few men and women called out repeatedly the same haunting chant that plagues healthcare providers worldwide.
"Nurse! Nurse! Help! Nurse! Help! Nurse!"
A cacophony of misery that could only be alleviated by the administration performing their duty for their fellow man. The cry of pain and sadness that leads to, and is from, abuse from prolonged exposure to these siren's wails.
Hidden under these woeful wails was the crying of a new hire. A nurse silently weeping in the bathroom, holding their head in their arms. Just another casualty of the system.
In this hallway in one of the rooms is a resident who had never cried out and never used their remote that would be ignored anyway. It's a woman that, sometimes, was forgotten about for days at a time. One time it was nearly a week before someone came to help her with getting out of the chair next to the window or changing her clothing.
Surprisingly even after a decade, no one questioned the fact that the woman survived a week without water, merely assuming that someone else came to help her during that time but too busy for the other tasks.
Her clothing rarely stank and she seemingly never needed much help with the adult diapers they had outfitted her in. No one questioned why the diaper seemed clean and did not stink.
The plaque at the door listed her name yet it seemed everyone outside the facility forgot her, never once having a visitor after she was placed here. Cassandra Troy.
Cassandra never spoke, never moved on her own, never blinked, and never once responded to any outside stimulus. It was as if she was in a waking coma. She sat at the window where they placed her or lay in her bed where they moved her. She had her sweat shirt and sweat pants changed to identical grey variations. And not once did she change. Only a few noticed the peculiarities around her, but for some reason forgot about them not long after.
Minutes before disaster struck, something inexplicable occured. A pair of eggshaped helicopters flew over the facility and let down ropes, men or women in black rappelling down the lines and crashing through the upstairs windows.
On the street outside the facility, half a dozen SUVs screeched to a halt outside the building and unloaded their cargo; a veritable platoon wearing black and using strange rifle-looking weapons. Behind them, a man in a suit wearing glasses with splotchy skin and blonde hair rushed behind them from his own sedan with tinted windows.
All of the people arriving suddenly rushed through the lobby. The assistant at the front desk started to shout and went to pick up a phone while yelling. She was silenced by a burst of gunfire, but oddly not like the usual kind. This was less of a BANG BANG and more of a THUMP THUMP THUMP. The last of the thumps exploded her head like a ripe melon with rubberbands wrapped around it. An oddly specific description. Behind her were holes in the wall where the rounds kept going.
The platoon ran ahead, clearing each room. And with each room, another THUMP THUMP THUMP. Sometimes there had to be another set or two of thumps. But without fail, the splotchy blonde man kept running.
Finally the forces converged on the room with the plaque. 'Cassandra Troy'. The door was broken open, the brief wails of "Nurse! Help! Help!" were silenced with a staccato of thumps.
Cries of surprise and anguish were silenced.
The splotchy man fumbled with his words until he found them.
"Cassandra, you have to stop it. I know this is your doing. Please, Cassandra. Director. Please. Please. I know you can break out of this. Please."
Each of his pleads was met with utter and complete disregard. He even threatened her with one of the not-rifles.
And when the sky opened up and wrapped the world like a blackish purple balloon, she never once reacted. Not even as a not-rifle went off and the thump-thump-thump harmonized with cries of despair.
But something else did. A flicker across her vision too fast for mortal eyes, directly printed in her cornea in a spectrum beyond normal human vision.
//Tartarus Protocol Active
//Calculating Host Survival...
//Survivability is 98.9333%
//Unacceptable Survivability Parameters. Engaging Life Raft Protocol.
In the time it took for the slugs to fall from where they hit the side of her head to her shoulder, the message was processed and engaged by something.
And the unspeaking, unmoving, unblinking and completely forgettable woman simply slipped between the cracks of the world and fell into somewhere.
The final messages that came across her vision was something that no one could have seen due where she was relocated to, but boded poorly for her.
//Life Raft Engaged. Tartarus Active. Beacon not found.
//Beacon not found.
//Beacon not found.
//Error: Tartarus Protocol will run out of power in 1.7×10106 years.
//Entering Low Power Mode. Beacon not found.
//Beacon not found.
Now the woman just had to wait for somewhen.
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Somewhere in the space between spaces, after an unknowable amount of time, an old woman blinked.