“So, Mitch, how were you planning to fight those mutants without someone watching your back?”

Mitch froze. There were not many things that could have gotten him to halt his departure, but that sure as hell was one of them. He half turned around and looked at this interloper through the corner of his eye. He seemed to be young, about the same age as Mitch himself appeared to be now, although considering his own transformation that didn’t necessarily mean much. However, something about the irreverent way he carried himself and the sarcastic glint in his eye made Mitch think that his youth was probably genuine.

Had Kanshou noticed his departure and sent a babysitter? Mitch wasn’t sure why he would have done that, but maybe the information provided by the relay was limited and he wanted someone to have eyes on? Whatever the case he was going to have to play this carefully. Kanshou had made it clear that there would be no more tolerance for mistakes.

He walked back to the booth and sat down. A flood of questions ran through his head, but only one seemed initially relevant.

“Who are you?”

“Joel,” was the simple reply. Mitch fought down the urge to get nasty with the punk. He felt that the implication of the question had been clear, and a name told him nothing about who he was dealing with. “You work for the warden?”

“No.” Was this guy from the next realm? Stay cool, stay cautious.

“Then how do you know about that?”

“Look, some guy found me, called himself the Historian, and he told me a bunch of stuff, including that mutant creatures are going to-“

“So, you’re a normal guy.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“I’ll be fine on my own.” Mitch stood up again and started walking away without waiting for a response. He didn’t need to get wrapped up in the plots of another one of these assholes. Kanshou was already more than he wanted to deal with. He dumped his tray and headed out of the building, his annoyance causing him to open the door perhaps a bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary.

Well, that could have gone better.

Joel watched Mitch leave the building not entirely sure of what to do. He had tried to play things a bit mysterious, thinking that that would draw this guy in. Curiosity could be a strong motivator, but this Mitch dude seemed to be immune. As soon as he revealed that he wasn’t some sort of agent or member of the people who were making all of this happen the guy just up and left.

When the Historian had dropped him here he had been under the impression that this would be easy: show he knew more than the Average Joe to demonstrate his value and get brought along on whatever misadventure this guy was wrapped up in. Humans are social creatures, so who wouldn’t want to have someone to share their burden with?

However, this Mitch character didn’t seem to be acting rationally. It was almost like he was making every decision emotionally, which was weird because his demeanor seemed to be wholly composed.

He almost felt like he was dealing with his ex. She had made emotional decisions and then found semi-rational reasons to justify them. She had had a talent for making him feel like the bad guy even when he knew he wasn’t because whatever rationale she had come up with seemed so reasonable. That had actually been a big reason for why they had broken up.

Maybe he could deal with this guy the same way he would have with her? He wasn’t sure, but maybe? Apologize, rationalize, sympathize, empathize, explain, provide a logical pathway back to his own point of view. He didn’t have any other moves, so why not go for it?

“Mitch!” The voice came from the door behind him. He had almost made it to his truck, damnit. Couldn’t this waste of sperm see that the dysenteric sphincter he called a mouth wasn’t going to get him anywhere? Mitch paused for a second. That was the first genuine curse he had used in a while. He had been so stressed the last few months that all he had been doing was throwing swear words around like candy from a piñata. Swears were okay, but uninventive. A real curse had flair. Feeling slightly better about the world, he continued toward his truck without acknowledging the utterance of the irrelevant ignoramus behind him.

“Look, dude,” the kid had jogged to catch up with him, “I’m sorry for that performance back there. I thought playing it that way would make you curious and give us a chance to talk, but I get it. Some stranger comes along throwing out stuff that nobody knows, I’d be suspicious to. I just want to get stronger. Strong enough that I can’t get pushed around. I think that’s what you want to, and the Historian said we would get stronger faster if we worked together.”

Mitch looked at the kid for a moment, then walked to his truck without a word. Hopping into the drivers seat he started the vehicle with a wheezy cough and a spray of black smoke from the tailpipe. He rolled down the window on the passenger side and pulled up to where the kid was standing.

“Get in.”

When Joel heard that he was surprised. He had been thinking his method had been way off and the gambit had failed entirely, but it seemed he had been right. Feeling pleased with his success and also apprehensive about dealing with someone like his ex for an extended period of time he opened the door and jumped into the passenger seat. Turning back around to Mitch, intending to keep talking, he found his vision full of a vaguely orange coruscating ball of energy, little wisps of it floating off between Mitch’s fingers, which he now noticed held the ball.

“You think you can play me like your high school sweetheart?”

“No, I-“

“Shut it. You’re in that seat because I don’t know if you’re a threat or not. So, you have until I get bored to convince me that what’s coming out of your mouth shouldn’t be used to fertilize a garden or I blow you out of the cab.” With that he pulled out of the parking lot and started accelerating.

Joel wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, but he did know that he didn’t want to be tossed from a moving vehicle. He wasn’t sure the ball Mitch was holding could do that, but he also didn’t know that it couldn’t.

“Go.”

So Joel started talking, he hadn’t really been planning to cover any of this up anyway. He began with his initial encounter with the Historian, then followed with the stuff he had been told about what was going on and finished with the things he had been given.

Mitch wasn’t sure what to think. This guy had inside information from somewhere, but his story beggared belief. Then again, if he told anyone his own account the chance that he would be believed was only slightly above zero.

“This Historian character is just in it for the kicks?”

“Pretty much, at least that’s the impression I got. There may be some ulterior motive, but I didn’t pick up on anything that indicated it.”

“Ok. So. Let me see if I’ve got this down. The Historian, an insanely powerful eccentric with undetermined motives, teleported onto the cliff you were training on, told you the world depended on us teaming up to fight aliens, you said sure, at which point you had a Q&A session, he gave you some books, fifteen spirit stones, and then flung you into a wormhole.”

“Umm, when you break it down like that it seems even crazier than when I said it, but yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

“Do you have any idea what you have gotten yourself into?”

“A quest to save the world given by an extradimensional being?”

“Have you ever been laid? Never mind, someone as gullible as you could never have gotten that far.”

“Hey man, that’s completely uncalled for. I just told you some real stuff and you’re just going to dump on me like that? What the heck?”

“No! That is not uncalled for. Do you have any idea what you’re messing with here? These people, and I use the term loosely, have no concern for us, or what happens to us. All they care about is their personal agendas. I have the feeling both of these herpetic dicks will gain something with their higher ups if their plan works out. Our success is their gain, and when they’ve gotten what they want from us they’ll toss us aside. And that’s only if they don’t kill us.”

“Aren’t you being a bit extreme?”

“No. The ‘counterpart’ you keep talking about calls himself Kanshou, or the warden. Every item and every bit of information he’s ever given has almost killed me and he doesn’t care if it does. He only cares if he can benefit from whatever I find before I die.”

“Look, I am not under the illusion that the Historian’s motives are pure or anything, but it seems like his goal is for us to get as strong as possible, which pretty much coincides with both of our goals, unless I’m way off base.”

“If that is actually his goal, but you have no way to know that.”

“Except for the fact that he told me.”

“What he told you doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not, but what reason does he have to lie? He could probably break the world if he wanted to, but he messes with some nobody to mess things up? Why?”

“So he is not implicated in messing up his bosses’ plan.”

“Sure, fine. But the way he does that is to make us stronger, and that’s what we want anyway right?”

“Yes, but that plays right into their hand.”

“So we get stronger than they think we can, faster than they expect, and mess them up after.”

“That’s the plan.”

“So what’s the use in not working with me? Worst case I am useless, best case I help you out. You don’t lose anything, and have the chance to gain something. Only a fool would turn that down.”

“That’s only if you are who you claim to be. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that you might be an agent of the warden.”

“Well I can’t disprove that, so you will just have to trust me.”

“Show me these books you are talking about.”

“What? Why?”

“They might help convince me you’re at least telling the truth. The warden is the only person I believe came from the next realm, and he is less than forthcoming. If the books your guy gave you check out then it might mean you’re not full of emu poo.”

“Emu poo?”

“Shut up, it rhymes. Better than something idiotic like dog shit.”

“I think that might be more relatable.”

“Books. Time for show and tell.”

“They’re in my car.”

“Your car. And yet, you claim that you teleported here.”

“The Historian teleported me and my car here. What kind of person goes to a gas station with no car?”

“A hobo that needs a meal and a place out of the elements. And makes up stories about an extradimensional being to gain a travelling companion.”

“Sure, ok, but that’s still a lot more memorable than some dude who pulls in for food and gas. And, if I were making this up, having an imaginary car is kind of an easily verifiable thing that I would avoid if I were running a scam.”

“Fine.”

“Right.”

“We’ll go back and look at your stuff. If it’s legit, I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll think about it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s bull.”

“Tell it to someone who gives a shit."

Joel was already exhausted when they got back to the station. At this point, he had the feeling that Mitch wouldn’t believe the sky was blue without a spectrometer. At least he wasn’t an utterly emotional idiot, although he still was not convinced the dude was entirely rational. There was something dangerous in his eyes, despite his outward calm.

He didn’t even bother to speak before disembarking when they arrived next to his old Buick, just hopped out, opened the trunk on his vehicle and walked inside to buy a pack of Red Bull. He was going to need wings if he was going to get through dealing with this fool.

This kid was too emotional. He had shut the door overly hard, opened his trunk, and then stormed into the convenience store like a teenager having a tantrum. Mitch almost left then, without even checking the contents of the trunk, but he held himself back. If the kid was on the up and up it behooved him to see what was going on.

He dismounted and walked around the truck to see the trunk of the Cutlass this kid was driving. There were three bags. Two large duffels and a smaller one. He was really interested in the smaller one, but he opened all three just to be sure. There was nothing but clothes and toiletries in the bags. Some cash in the side pockets, which he left alone. He lifted up the floor to look at the compartment for the spare tire, and saw the firearms the kid had told him about. So far so good.

The moment of truth then. Mitch opened the small bag. At first he felt vindicated; more clothes was all he saw, but after he pulled those out he saw the things he had been told would be there. Three pamphlet sized booklets, fifteen rocks, and a small jade disk. Supposedly this had the strength and ability features of a relay, without the phone home function to send information back to the Historian. He picked it up, but didn’t feel anything special from it and so set it down.

Next he looked at the pamphlets. The titles were: Basics of Jade Use, Mana Mutants, and Principles of Qi Refining.

All three of those titles interested him immensely, but first he needed to get the proof out of the pudding. Who put the proof in the pudding anyway? Totally unsanitary.

He picked up one of the stones and dropped it immediately with a shout. It had felt like grabbing an electrified livestock fence; definitely a spirit stone then. He hadn’t handled one of the stones Kanshou had given directly him since the incident in his apartment, but he thought the one he had just picked up might be even more potent.

“So?” Joel’s voice came from behind Mitch.

“So, no garden must suffer your expulsions.”

“Huh?”

“What I said at the beginning- you know what never mind. You’re at least not making everything you told me up. I don’t believe everything just yet, but for now I’m going to accept it at face value. I have a site picked out. You can follow me.”