On the TV, continuous monologuing of the reporters was incessant. Their irritatingly excited voices chanted about the events unfolding, countless… <i>things</i> coming through dimensional rips, killing people and destroying everything. Bullets rattled off in the background, alongside many other sounds. Namely two loud blasts from a shotgun, an inhumane screech, and a scream. Then it gets abruptly cut off by a crunch.


    Their smiles faded instantly as one walked up to the camera and demanded it be shut off. While that happened, viewers across the country and globe could see something behind them while the cameraman and reporters babbled, silently stalking up toward them. Its fleshy body was silently gliding through the air, slowly morphing, transforming into a monster, two horns  extending from its skull made from amalgamated human parts, mostly bones. It had the body of some quadruped animal, but which one was indecipherable.


    As it walked up, it’s eyes glowed, initiating a crunch somewhere behind the camera. Then one more, and after that, screaming was heard. Begging for forgiveness, the female reporter’s voice slowly got quieter as she tried to scramble away, only to get inevitably crunched, too. Whatever the crunching even was.


    The thing walked up to the camera, staring into it. While it did, something landed on the road a bit behind it, moving at insane speeds toward the entity. While it turned, a weapon slashed through the air, arcing through it flawlessly and deftly decapitating the entity.


    The TV cut to static after that, leaving Xander stunned and staring at the distorting screen with wide eyes.


    His ears rang in the newfound silence of the room, finally placing him back in reality. He got up, stretched his arms, and looked forward. He could hear something outside.


    The sound was high-pitched, like a siren or a shrill scream. He got up, moving slightly to the side and looking through the window. A black blur suddenly got bigger from the background, shooting into the foreground and blasting the window into a million pieces.


    Glass shards shot straight into his eye, half-blinding him while the rest of the shards sliced and pierced his skin. Arms up, protecting his head, Xander fell backward, ramming back-first into a table containing various vases, pictures in their frames and other such things. All of it was flung straight up as the legs of the table collapsed under the pressure, launching half of its contents straight forward.


    The table hit the wall, reverberating the force back into Xander. He placed one hand on the glass-covered ground and got up, retreating further back into a hallway, grabbing whatever he could from the table next to him and raising it while he kept one eye shut. He couldn’t even tell what it was. Might have been a fire poker.


    Whatever it was, it felt sturdy enough to hit whatever was standing in his doorway. As the weaponry he’d acquired arced through the air, it avoided it without any semblance of effort and backhanded him. The attack was caught by his hand, but the weapon flung out of it and hit him in the head on its way to the ground.


    Xander’s desperation pushed him to launch his fist in a fit of power toward its head, as if he hadn’t just done that but with a weapon, and collided with the palm of its hand. He felt the plating, almost like fiberglass, and his fist cracked when it made contact.


    He retreated, watching it follow him and move to block his path. Without an obvious path to escape from, he engaged again, this time faking another punch and just barely slipping beneath its counterattack and standing in the doorway. Looking back, he saw its hand get lodged in the doorframe, then its eyes lock onto him.


    The doorframe became his grip while he flung himself outside, losing balance quickly. He tucked and rolled, hitting the ground smoothly and narrowly avoiding the concrete patio. His slides got flung off as he did, both getting stuck in the tree above him while he refused to look back and locked himself into a dead sprint for his life.


    Whether or not it was still after him was a mystery after five minutes, but despite that, he slowed to a stop and hunched over. Each breath hurt. His eye hurt worse, though.


    Opening it, he found that it was useless either way. The scratch was really deep and his vision out of that eye was essentially nonexistent with how blurry it was.


    Xander turned around and looked behind himself. The figure was nowhere to be found. But he could feel it, in the darkness of the night.


    …


    Xander’s back laid against a tree. Did he feel safe? No. Not at all. But at least he was somewhat hidden and out of populated areas. Nonstop alerts on his phone about an all-out ‘invasion’ of planet Earth, texts from friends. He was overloaded with information. Despite all that, though, he’d yet to receive a test from his parents. Worry settled in his heart when he realized that. For good measure, he sent them both a few texts and let that sit while he pulled a solar-charging power bank and charger from his back-pocket and plugged his phone into it.


    The only reason he had it was because he was preparing to go on a field trip the next day and didn’t want to forget his stuff, but somehow forgot about it after picking it up to place it somewhere he wouldn’t forget and holding it in his pocket while he did so.


    The lights on it blinked, all five, signaling a full charge. His phone lit up and began recharging. He looked up, exhaling a stream of white air in the cold atmosphere.


    Alright. What do I have?


    Phone, power bank, charger… clothes… and that’s it. Wow.


    Can’t say I expected better of myself, though.


    A sigh came out instinctively. He brushed his hair off to the side of his forehead a little, wiping off a coat of sweat despite the freezing weather. He was in a thick hoodie and jeans, though, so he assumed it would be fine, aside from his feet. And eye.


    His bare socks were already ripped and had been soaked. Not to mention his eye’s condition.


    Taking the socks off, he tossed them to the side and got up, moving back toward town down the path. Help was what he needed.


    He got his phone out, dialed 911, and got what he expected. No response. The emergency operators were probably overloaded with calls with now.


    Xander then tried to dial a friend. Once again, to no avail.


    The next few minutes consisted of continuous dialing of his whole contacts list.


    Most people he called ended up answering but being hunkered down or were probably dead and didn’t answer. And he was down to his last contact in under a minute.


    It was an ‘Avery’, with a profile picture of a girl he didn’t recognize. But, without hesitation, his finger fell upon the call button and he waited for about one second before the phone was answered.


    “Xander! Why are you calling me now?” She asked angrily. Xander stopped on the path and lifted the phone to his ear.


    “I need help. Can you come get me?” Tires squealed on the other side of the call. Indistinct yelling, the rough maneuvering of a manual gear shift and the roar of an engine came over the phone before an answer. And even after she tried to, somebody interrupted her.


    “Where?” She asked. Xander checked his maps, they exchanged locations and then hung up, leaving him in silence while sitting on a sidewalk.


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    While he sat in silence, feet tingling and stinging with pain, a familiar figure emerged from the shadows menacingly. Xander’s one eye instantly recognized it.


    The thing’s body was covered in black plating. It had two insect-like appendages on its forearms, alongside a thick covering of the shoulders and upper back. The rest was lightly armored.


    Its aura was dark. The area seemed to lose lighting as it got closer to Xander while the panic set in on him. A thousand thoughts filled his mind with desperation and adrenaline lined his blood vessels, a golden light to his life that supercharged him and his rushing emotions of anger, fear and hate.


    In a burst of energy, Xander shot forward, feeling something metallic and staff-like form in his hands. He swung it upward and back down, watching the entity casually avoid the attacks. But he kept going, until on one slam, it became lodged in the pavement.


    He grabbed it and pulled, the force throwing him back once he retrieved it. While he was off balance, it rushed at him, appendages shooting forward and their blades attempting to cleave him in two with a shimmer of silver from the previously hidden cutting edge.


    Using the thing in his hands, he knocked both of the appendages upward and used the weapon’s butt to slam into the thing’s chin. When he came back down with the crystal ball thing on the top of it, the entity grabbed it with a newfound speed and punched him in the gut, following it up with a knee to the same spot that knocked him backwards.


    His breath left him while he dropped to the ground, holding his lungs, trying to breathe. It felt like it wasn’t working, and he would die because his lungs collapsed, but in an instant of hope, he took a deep gasp and swung the weapon with incredible force at it. It used its palm to hit it aside, then used the same palm to go for a hit on his head.


    Xander used the scepter to make the attack slide across him, barely avoiding it. He moved his grips higher on the scepter, swinging the bottom at its stomach and using the top to bludgeon its head in. He couldn’t notice earlier, but when he got close, he saw a face with normal human parts, but two large pincers extending from the base of the jawline.


    It used the pincers to deflect the attack, restraining his arms and lunging forward with the pincers, attempting to take a chunk of his neck out.


    Extending his arms to push it back, Xander then ducked slightly, yanking it into an onrush, shoulder first, hitting it straight in the unarmored neck. Unfortunately, a pincer got caught on his eye socket, getting ripped off as he shot forward and inevitably completely eradicating his eye beyond repair.


    Its glowing green blood flowed from the pincer wound, but while it was still stunned, Xander readied a swing with his scepter and slammed the orb on it straight into the entity’s other pincer and knocked it off, breaking another plate of its armor on its cheek and embedding the shards in its head. It screeched after he did that, and did not look happy.


    Second phase? Really?


    Both of its appendages came undone, extending to full length. From its right hand, a stinger about the size of a bayonet emerged. That giant spike and the two flying blades would probably make this fight a whole lot harder.


    Xander raised his scepter to ready, watching it crouch slightly and lunge at him, stinger outstretched. He deflected it with the scepter, but two appendages were flung his way. He dodged backward, watching its left hand approach him. Thankfully, it lacked a stinger, but it was a fist and accelerated too quickly to dodge.


    The scepter made it just in time, its metal shaft protecting Xander from the punch that reverberated in the metal.


    He swung it back at the entity, not expecting the stinger to eject a high-pressure stream of a toxic yellow liquid at him. He barely avoids it, but after doing so, two appendages swing in on him. One snags on his hoodie after he tried to deflect and counter, canceling his counterattack while he uses his hand to rip its appendage’s blade from his clothing.


    The other appendage slices downward, making a deep gash in his upper arm when he tries to dodge. Thankfully, however, after he removed the appendage from his clothes, he slammed the scepter down onto the extended appendage while it was stuck in his arm, using one leg to kick the entity away and make enough tension on it to rip it off of the entity, while holding the scepter in a hand he was also ripping with.


    It screeched again, stinger coming for his chest. He saw it coming.


    In a swift movement, he uses the scepter to deflect it and dodge backward, grabbing the appendage from his arm and holding it with the hurt one to dual wield weapons.


    The entity screeched again, recklessly diving for him once again with its stinger. Xander uses the appendage to slice at the entity’s hand, and it only barely manages to scratch its armor while another stream of the yellow liquid nearly dissolves his arm.


    In a rare moment of solitude, right after that move, he stares at the opponent, trying to find something in its eyes.


    Nothing but hate.


    It swings an appendage at him, but as it does so, Xander swings the ripped appendage, albeit slowly and weakly, at its eyes. It avoids it relatively easily, but as it moves back, he swings the scepter with one hand, in a downward arc like an axe, making a crushing blow on its head, essentially turning it to mush. Its black armor and skin are stained green and yellow with a blood red undertone from Xander’s own bleeding body.


    And then, as if nothing had happened, a plume of white, cold air came from his mouth and two lights of a car approached him slowly, cautiously pulling to a stop while the scepter’s crystal ball or orb or whatever it is, a stone or something, shone with a dim glow, oddly lighting up a massive area.


    “What happened?”


    Xander looked down, then grabbed his eye, feeling the massive gash across his socket. It was closed when it got caught on the thing’s pincer. He was pretty sure he’d probably have to get it out sooner or later so it didn’t get infected, especially in the cold weather.


    “I, uhhh…” He said, trying to figure out what to say or do.


    “I guess I killed this thing?” He said. She, and the other girl in the car, gazed at the entity bug-monster’s dead body lying on the ground. And it’s appendage in his hand, and the numerous wounds.


    “Why… no, how did you kill it?” Avery asked. Xander was going to answer, but stopped, then thought about it. He had no idea how. But he knew he wanted to leave.


    “Can we go?”


    …


    Everything burned. All of it. His feet hurt like never before when he got in the shower. The burning sensation was incredibly painful, but at least the frostbite was minimal. The cuts, the gashes, and especially his eye did not like the body wash. They hated it and so did he.


    The water, despite its moderate to high temperature, felt like a stream of lava was falling onto his wounds and searing them.


    <i>That scepter… I wonder where it went.</i>


    After the fight, in the car, the scepter had just… left. That was after he let go of it, though, and he already assumed it was something new and interconnected with him when it materialized in his hand.


    Regardless of magic scepters, Xander was beaten and battered, almost beyond recognition. A big, purple bruise on his gut had been left by that bug thing when it hit him and his arm still had the giant gash on it from its appendage lodging itself inside his arm. He still had that appendage now.


    Furthermore, his eye was turned to mush. Before he’d gotten in the shower, removal was required, and I will elaborate no further on that subject.


    Other than that, he’d doused his whole body in Basic H and rubbed it everywhere, and despite that, he didn’t feel clean nor healthy. He’d even took the liberty to wash his hair. Raising his arm to do that wasn’t fun, but either way, he did it.


    Xander pulled the curtain open, looking at himself. Bruises were on his face and in other places he didn’t remember getting hit. He guessed that it was probably from his maniacal swinging and disregard for safety, but upon further inspection, they were scratch marks. Nothing on the scepter could scratch him.


    Sighing, he dried himself off carefully and applied the bandages to his body even more carefully, tightening them off on his body to prevent further bleeding. He did have to loosen a few up after his limbs went numb, though.


    Really, his bandages were paper towels and athletic tape, but it’s fine. Both were in high supply. Thankfully, his savior, Avery happened to be an athletic trainer (new and inexperienced) alongside her friend, a psychology major in college. He''d learned that from the useless small talk on the drive here


    After getting re-dressed in clothing that was not his, Xander emerged from the bathroom, half-mummified and with a hand over his eye. It had stopped bleeding for a while now. Not being able to blink was weird. The pain hadn’t stopped, but all the other pains were somewhat canceling that specific one out. He assumed it would hurt the worst from the beginning, so that was nice.


    The setting was dark. The two were sitting there, at the table, both on their phones absent-mindedly. Xander’s had been broken in the fight. Got flung out of his pocket and was crushed by him and the bug-man’s collective efforts.


    “What’s going on?” Xander asked. Avery and her friend glanced at him for a second, surprised by him, and looked back at their phones. They seemed a mix of worried and tired of something.


    ” Everything’s shutting down. Department of Defense, Homeland Security, even private defense contractors are shutting down. The military’s already getting punished, but there’s rumors of a new branch emerging to repel the invasion.” Avery’s friend said, sighing and yawning afterward. Bags laid under her eyes like damp hammocks.


    ”Invasion by what?” Xander inquired. She shrugged. He already had ‘entities’ in his head from the fight, since that seemed to be what he was fighting. Or maybe an anomaly, abnormality. Maybe a mistake. Something that shouldn’t, couldn’t, and won’t exist but does, despite all that.


    “Most people think they’re aliens, but I think they’re… don’t make fun of me for this, but something like demons or monsters. Y’know?”


    ”Yeah. I get it... but I don''t really know what to think. I guess I just don''t know enough yet to decide what they are."


    "That''s fair."