And as a bonus to anyone who bothered to look at a post called Poll, the test chapter for an Isekai novel about Jim after he was taken, that did not give me enough inspiration to continue it.

I wasn’t prepared for this.

Test Chapter

So one moment I’m in my kitchen reaching for the handle of the fridge with one hand and with two pizza boxes in the other.

There was only about half a pizza in either box, but I didn't want to mix my half a medium barbecue pizza with my sister's and Alzara’s half a small veggie pizza. Imo claims she can taste it if food she doesn't like touched her food.

It was a thing with her, but since the fridge was pretty empty it wasn't that much of an issue.

But just before I touched the handle, I found myself standing in a brambly field with two women, the closer one in a suit of mixed bits of armor, running right at me.

And behind them a horde of snarling half dressed lizard guys running on their hind legs with various sharp blades, axes, and other weapons in hand.

White words began to appear in the lower left field of my vision.

{Elevated Magic Field detected. Tech Disruption Warding holding. I believe we are on another world Jim}

I blinked twice to acknowledge.

The armored woman began waving her hands at me and shouting a warning while the other smaller woman in the pale robes behind her was so focused on keeping up with the armored one that I didn’t think she even noticed me.

For a second, I could only think… It finally happened.

And… of all the times to kick my boots off to relax during dinner.

I first saw someone taken nearly two years ago, a man I worked with named George who had a heart attack and faded away as he was lying on the ground.

Not metaphorically, him and his clothes went transparent, then vanished.

My Mom filled me in that things like that had been happening for years, but had begun to be more common recently, and more blatant.

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Two weeks later she vanished from her hospital bed.

And I started getting ready for when my day came.

It came.

Reaching into the front of my shirt, I pulled out the chain with my Mom’s high school ring on it as I let the boxes of pizza hit the ground. Wrapping my left hand around the ring so that I had skin contact with the amethyst set into the white gold I mentally sorted through the inventory within the extra denominational storage space inside the gem.

My Mom didn’t make it back home, but the daughter she had on another world did, she was only able to come looking for me after learning dimensional magic.

She should be along fairly soon, after she had already found me once, and helped me prepare.

Like helping me get a hold of the big gun that I pull free from the ring.

My sister said they called it a ‘Rampart Heavy Combat Rifle.’ It was specialty made of advanced material and etched with Goblin runes to make sure it could at least hurt anything it couldn't kill.

I'm not supposed to have it, but Imogene snuck one home from her job.

She wasn’t the only one to find her way to Earth from somewhere out there, but she was pretty good at helping deal with anyone, or anything, else that showed up and decided to be a problem.

{ Weapon link activated. Targeting. }

The Nanocyte suite that was lacing my bones and showing me messages as well as the red firing circle that appeared in my eyesight to show me where I was aiming was a gift from another visitor. A fan of the blog I began to write about my preparations and other things I had down over the last two years.

The armored woman's eyes went wide as I aimed sort of in her direction with what she could tell was a weapon from the way I was holding it, but she gave me a bit of a nod as I began to sidestep to my left. She reached behind her to snag the shoulder of the woman trying to keep up with her and began to drift off to my right to get clear.

So… Not entirely sure what's going on here. I don't want to end up hurting a bunch of innocent people, not even ones covered in scales, who happen to be chasing after what might turn out to be the bad gals.

“Stand down! No one-”

I leaned away from the spear coming at me as I saw it blinking red until it went green to show me that I was far enough over to be safe.

“Thanks Ava.” If that’s the way they want it.

The amount of ammo I have for the Rampart is limited as I can only carry so many of them with me, at least if I want all my other stuff. I had no idea of where I might end up, so I had to mix things up.

A few white spots appear on the lizard guy who threw the spear, suggestions of vital spots, the head, and guts, or yellow ones on the joints to disable.

That guy tried to kill me. That’s enough for me to pick a side and to set my rules of engagement. I go for white.

The red circle flashes briefly before I take the headshot. The bullets have runes as well, my own unskilled work in the weak magical field of Earth. But it still turns the creature's head into so much mush.

Red outlines begin to blink on the one stopping to throw things at me, while the others keep on heading in my direction.

I move my hand to the other trigger. The one for the under mounted grenade launcher.

The first explosion takes out the ones getting ready to pincushion me with their spears. The next grenade thins out the crowd heading my way.

There is another gem right above the trigger where I can touch it with my finger to load up whatever I need from my storage space into the launcher. My sister had helped make the Ramparts and thought that only having one shot in the grenade launcher was a weakness.

With the number of them that were made, she had only added this feature for the people she had made storage gems for, her personal team, and me.

Nepotism sure is handy.

I looked at the lizard guys running away, screaming, then at the two ladies staring at me, neither one of them entirely human.

The smell of the dead bodies drifted across the field to me.

I gave the ladies a nod. “Excuse me.”

Four steps, that's how far away I got away from them before I couldn't hold it in anymore and emptied a belly full of barbecue sauce, roasted chicken, parmesan cheese, and low sodium bacon all over the ground.

I had been prepared to fight if I was Taken to another world, even to kill, but killing people by the dozens, blowing them up?

I wasn’t prepared for this.