“Son of a bitch!” I exclaimed, dashing into my apartment as the rain came crashing down out of nowhere. In the 14 years I’ve lived in Texas, I’ve never seen a rainstorm develop that fast before. The two mile drive home from work started out a clear summer’s day, and within five minutes a monsoon nearly pushed my car off the road. The run from the parking lot to my apartment left me soaked to the bone. As I was kicking my soggy shoes off at the door, a black lab came flying out of bedroom to greet me. Meet Ryo, my one companion in the small apartment. While she was indeed happy to see me, the way she kept looking from me to the door and back to me again indicated what she was truly eager about. She had been left alone for the last eight and a half hours, after all.

“Are you sure, girl? I mean, it’s pouring down out there, and you’re terrified of lightning.” She just yipped at me, remembering to keep her protest voice down, knowing the neighbors would complain if she was too loud. She really was a smart dog.

“Alright,” I sighed. “Go get your leash.” As she dashed off to find it, I slipped my wet shoes back on. As they squished uncomfortably under my feet, Ryo returned, leash dangling from her mouth. A couple minutes later we were both soaked to the bone and back inside. After drying her off with a towel, I let her have the run of the apartment again as I threw my wet clothes in the washer and stepped into the shower. Nothing beats a warm shower after getting drenched in the rain, I tell you.

My name is John Badger, and I’m 35 years old. Currently I’m working part time delivering pizzas. It’s not that I can’t find any other work, it’s just that so far, it’s been paying the bills and I’m comfortable where I’m at. A couple years ago I got out of the US Army after a decade and I’m quite content having far less responsibility just driving around the city dropping off food. Don’t think that I was one of those hardcore infantry types all the movies are made about (most of which get everything completely wrong, by the way). I was an aircraft electrician. The not so glamorous job of chasing wires around helicopters. I’ll spare you the boring details of the actual job itself. I deployed a few times to Iraq, but since I never left the camps and airfields we were stationed on, the most danger I faced was random mortars, rockets, and the powdered eggs at the chow hall. The deployments weren’t particularly hard on me. I’ve always been the type that settles in wherever I’m at and goes with the flow.

I’m divorced. That was hard on me. She left me a few years ago while I was deployed and never looked back. It hurt, and once I got home I spent more than a few nights warming barstools and waking up in unfamiliar bedrooms next to unfamiliar women that ranged all over the traditional beauty scale that all men have. I’m no saint, but even I look back at that time with disappointed eyes. Well, most of that time. There were a few mornings where I was particularly proud of myself. There were also a couple of mornings where a husband came home from their nightshift not nearly as impressed as I was. Thankfully, running was one aspect of Army PT that I was rather fond of and not too horrible at. Better to offer a quick apology and denial of any knowledge while hauling ass than getting beat to ground meat, I say. I never went out of my way to ensure if the ladies in question were single or not, and there were times I did turn a blind, drunken eye away from certain tan lines on fingers or pretended to not see that certain family photo hanging over the mantle of their home. I wasn’t thinking with the logical or moral portions of my brain at the time, and just wanted to revel in the warmth of someone else. Like I said, I’m no saint, and I do have disappointing moments in my history.

These days things are calmer. I still go out drinking occasionally. I still manage to find some nightly companionship every now and then too. Just not as frequently, and I’m a little more discerning. I’m still a little hesitant to get into anything serious, so there is no female in my life beyond Ryo, a couple friends and the wives of friends. No one I’d ever consider worth losing a friendship over if it failed miserably. Nowadays I mostly spend my private time doing the things I’d wanted to do growing up. Playing video games, watching cartoons, collecting comics. That sort of thing. I’ve also become a huge anime, manga, and light novel fan. Not to the point where I’d want a 2-D wife or anything. While I might be considered an otaku by some, I’m certainly not on the level of thinking “man, I wish I was born Japanese!” Remember, my interests may seem childish, but I’m still in my mid-30s. I’ve got a reasonable enough head on my shoulders to not let it consume my whole life. I watch the shows, read the books, collect the figures, and play video games. As hobbies go, it’s actually pretty harmless. It’s not like I’m cooking meth or anything, unlike a particular woman’s new husband that she gets to see for twenty minutes every other week through reinforced glass.

Overall, I’m perfectly content with where I’m at in life. Just a single man with a dog watching cartoons and playing video games in his spare time. It’s a pleasant life.

After getting out of the shower and feeding Ryo and myself dinner (dogfood for her, leftover pizza for me. The job does have its perks), I settled in at my computer desk for another night of gaming. The rain was still crashing down outside, now coming in sideways enough that it was missing the second floor walkway and pounding in to the sole window in the apartment behind my couch. Ryo was curled up next to me, whimpering slightly with every flash of lightning and crash of thunder, which were constant. Texas does have a reputation for having bipolar weather patterns, but this was a bit ridiculous even for this state. I glanced through the curtain to see how bad it was, but I couldn’t make out anything through the rain hitting the window. Just the occasional green flash of lightning and crack of thunder.

“…” I stared.

Green lightning? I guess it’s not impossible, depending on what’s in the atmosphere, but I’ve never seen it. Curious, I searched for green lightning on my phone. First hit was a volcano in Chile. Other hits showed random weather phenomena and a comic book character. Hmm. Add that to my comic research list. Okay, so while it’s not common, it’s not unheard of. Can’t seem to find any pictures of it being THAT green though. It’s a pretty neon green. I’d take a picture of it, but like I said, my window is pretty much useless right now and there’s no way I’m opening my front (only) door to see it clearly. I’ll just snag some off the local weather channel’s webpage tomorrow and share it on social media. It’ll serve the double purpose of entertaining everyone and reminding them that I’m still alive.

I’m absolutely horrible about keeping in touch with people, something my mother yells at me about when I remember to call her every few months. Honestly, if I dropped dead right now, no one would notice except Ryo and my boss. No one else would think it odd that I’m silent online. They’re used to it. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to people or that I dislike them. It’s just that I have nothing to say to them. I suck at small talk, and no one in my family wants to hear about delivering pizzas or the latest episode of whatever anime I’m watching. My life is literally nothing to write home about, and I’m ok with that, even if my mother isn’t.

I cursed at my computer and nearly threw my joystick at the monitor. Some asshole just pulled my spaceship out of superflight and blew me up without warning. That’s going to cost a few million credits to replace, but that’s not a big deal. What’s frustrating is that I had just spent two weeks flying to the center of the galaxy for a passenger tourist mission, exploring the different star systems along the way and back, only to be destroyed two minutes from my home station! 40,000 light years’ worth of exploration data gone in an instant that could’ve afforded me a new ship and now it’s digital space dust. Oh, and the passengers are dead too. Failed mission penalty and no twenty million credit reward for successful completion. I guess they don’t call the game Dangerous Space for nothing.

“Damn griefers,” I muttered. “Why not go fight someone that actually wants to fight? I’m just a glorified cab driver in this game, man.” Ryo cocked her head at me, looking up from the chew toy she was working on. “Sorry, girl. Didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

I got up from the computer desk after logging off, deciding I was too frustrated enjoy the game anymore this evening. I flopped down on my couch just as the power went out, accompanied by a loud bang from outside. Finding myself on the floor without realizing it, I chuckled at myself and sat up.

“It’s been 7 years since the last time you heard an angry boom. A transformer blowing in the middle of the night shouldn’t trigger a relapse. Haaa,” I sighed. I groped for my phone on the coffee table and turned on the flashlight app, then made my way to the little kitchenette to grab my actual flashlight. I stepped in something wet and warm on the way, but I had a hunch what it was and decided it could wait until I had better lighting. Grabbing the flashlight and a couple candles out from under my sink, I set one candle in the bathroom and lit it, then took the other into the living room, setting it on the coffee table. Then I started my search around the apartment with my flashlight.

“Ryo,” I called softly. “Where are you, sweetheart? I’m not mad you peed yourself. It was a loud bang and it scared me too. Where are you, girl?”

I found her in my bedroom, trying to squeeze herself into the corner by my closet, ears drooping, head down and watching me through the tops of her eyes, tail firmly set between her legs. I knelt down and called her over. Slowly she made her way over to me, scared I might be mad, probably remembering the time I got angry when she peed on my bed after I ignored her playful advances in favor of just relaxing on the couch reading. She spent the night in her kennel that night, and her hatred of that thing is extreme.

When she was close enough, I started to stroke and reassure her that I wasn’t angry. And I really wasn’t. How could I get angry at her for getting the piss scared out of her after I’d hit the floor like I was expecting a rocket attack? Slowly she warmed back up to me and gave me a couple licks before I got back up to clean up her mess. She wasn’t cowering anymore, but she wasn’t leaving my side either. I sopped up the mess on the carpet with a towel as best I could while she maintained physical contact with me, but it would have to wait until the power came back on before I could bust out my steam cleaner to really clean it. Given that it was near midnight anyway, I figured now would be a good time to go to bed and said as much to Ryo.

“Well, girl, let’s head to bed. I’m guessing you don’t need to go out anymore?” I chuckled. She glanced at the front door before making her way back to the bedroom, stopping at the door to look back at me. “Alright, just give me a second. I want to turn off the lights so we don’t get woken up and blinded when the power comes back on.” I made my way around the apartment, locking the front door, and turning off any lights that were on when the power went out, not that there were a lot of them. I cursed when I realized that because of the power outage, my computer had a hard shutdown. They handled things like that better these days, but it still wasn’t good by any means. I made sure to flip off the power strip for the computer in case the surge protector decided to fail overnight. I then did the same for my entertainment center, blew out the candle on the coffee table and the one in the bathroom after taking care of my business, then followed the flashlight beam to my room, where Ryo was staring up at me from my bed, chew toy hanging from her mouth. I tossed the chew toy on the floor, knowing she’d just slobber all over the bed as she worked on it through the night if I let her keep it up there. Then I removed my shirt, pulled the comforter down to the foot of the bed, and slid in under the sheet. It was already starting to turn uncomfortably warm thanks to the lack of air conditioning, and the humidity from the storm raging outside wasn’t helping. Ryo curled up in her spot near the other pillow, and together we tried to sleep as best as we could in a hot and humid room while thunder and green lightning crashed outside, and torrential rain raged through the night.

**

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked the tall, broadly built man. “A lot of people are going to die.”

He sighed, looking over his shoulder at the beautiful raven haired woman. “No. I’m not sure. In fact, I don’t want to do this at all. The fact remains, however, that I must. This world has been without for thousands of years, ever since the last one left. Gaia’s heir is out there somewhere, and we need to flush them out.”

She looked apprehensive, nervously shifting from one foot to the other. “If this works, they’re going to hate you. You’ll be the devil they fear on this world.” She took a step towards his back, slowly reaching out to him. “Inton...”

“A role I’ve been forced to play before,” he said, increasing the distance between them. “Now go, Rhia. I don’t want you to see this, and I’ll need you standing by in case they reveal themselves.”

He turned and faced her. “I hereby release you from our pact. It was an honor working with you.”

Her eyes widened, realizing what he was saying. There was only one way to end a pact like theirs, and there was no going back once completed. Here in the eye of the storm, it was warm and dry, but the cold chill that ran through her had nothing to do with the rain and lightning raging nearby.

“No! You can’t mean that! Don’t leave me alone! You’re all I have! Serving you is my purpose in life! I can’t just le-“

“You can, and you will!” he shouted, then softened his tone after seeing her expression. “Consider this my final order. What I’m about to do is heinous. I will never be forgiven for this, and I can’t have you caught up in that. Rhia, you’ve served me faithfully for hundreds of years. You are now free to do as you please. My greatest wish is for you to live your life as you see fit.” He grasped her by the shoulders and stared into her pleading eyes. “Go. Enjoy life without being shackled to my side. See the universe. Play. Fall in love. Start a family. Do all the things we’ve helped others to do over the centuries.”

He released her and walked back to the edge of small mountain at the edge of the town. Rhia stared at his back, tears streaming down her face. Nodding sharply, as if to psyche herself up, she spread her wings and, hesitating only a moment, shot into the sky, leaving behind nothing except the crack of the sound barrier being broken and a couple dark feathers floating down in her wake.

He smiled bitterly as he listened to her soft muttering during her hesitation, waited to be sure she was safely out of range, then raised his arms. Reaching out to either side, he grasped at the green lightning swirling and cracking around him. Absorbing its raw energy, he pulled it into himself, condensing it. More and more he pulled, until the storm dissipated around him.

If anyone had been looking, they would have seen a large glowing figure on the ledge of the mountain that rose above the city. The energy inside of him, condensed into too small of a vessel, even for one as large as himself, began to agitate. He struggled to hold it in, knowing he’d only get one shot at this, and even if he’d never see the results of his actions, he had to get it right. There would be massive repercussions no matter how it went, and his life was forfeit no matter what, but he had to flush the heir out. Sensing the captured energy was reaching the critical stage, he stood tall, closed his eyes, and remembered Rhia’s parting words to him before she took off. He smiled briefly, before the state of Texas disappeared from the map in a blinding green flash.

“…but I already have fallen in love.”