Charlie Patterson, sixty-two year old woodsman and self-proclaimed man’s man, stared wide eyed through the trees as he nervously fingered the holster for his trusty glock-17. He had at least one broken rib, was covered in bruises and welts, and had just hiked several miles through unpathed woodlands. And just when he thought his day couldn’t possibly get any worse, it got much, much worse.

The night before— at least, he thought it was the night before, he had been perched up in his tree stand a few miles from the road. It was illegal to hunt in this part of Pennsylvania, of course, but it didn’t matter to him.

To Charlie, hunting was a real man’s sport, and he wasn’t going to be kept away from prime locations by any rules and regulations. It wasn’t like anyone lived out there anyway.

And so there he was, observing the forests through the soft glow of moonlight, when he heard a slight rustling approaching from his side. As an experienced hunter, Charlie could identify what was approaching his tree stand by footfalls alone.

Thus, it was no surprise when a deer entered his range of vision from about thirty feet away.

What was surprising, however, was that it proved to be the most beautiful stag he had seen in decades of hunting. The creature was adorned with such glorious antlers that he wondered if a work of art had stumbled into his range.

This very moment, he realized, was the culmination of every foray into these woods he had ever made. This was the reason he had hunted here for decades.

Ever so slowly, he silently drew back the string of his crossbow. At this range, the shot was almost comically easy. He wondered if he would become like those older hunters he once mocked, embellishing this moment over fireside whisky for years to come.

It was an amusing thought, but for now, he would focus. For such a prize, worse hunters than he had fired under far poorer conditions. The thought of missing himself never once entered his mind. For this stag, and for his pride, only the cleanest of shots would be worthy.

An instant kill was necessary.

Thus, he steadied his aim with a breath held tightly in his chest, waiting for an opportune moment to let loose his bolt.

It came unexpectedly, a sudden pause in the stag’s movement as it looked up to the sky. Charlie did not hesitate and immediately pulled his trigger. Then, his entire tree stand began to rumble. It wasn’t just his tree stand, he realized, as the stag had bolted the moment his bolt flew. It let out a yelp of pain as the sharp metal went straight through its leg and out the other side.

Charlie cursed his poor luck, and realized he would not be telling anyone of this particular adventure.

Then the voice came.

[Origin Wave detected…]

Charlie barely had time to interpret what was said, however, as the old tree stand suddenly tilted at an angle. He had barely a few seconds to flail his hands about searching for any purchase before he was suddenly freefalling.

He ricocheted against a few branches, still desperately trying to find something grabbable with his hands. He did not find it.

Charlie slammed ruthlessly into the forest floor fifteen feet below. Any breath held in his lungs was lost as the forest floor, knotted with roots and twigs, dug into his back.

[Initializing Reintegration Protocol…]

That damn voice again, his addled brain mumbled. Falling from tree stands was uncommon, but not entirely unheard of. He was just glad to be out here alone, with no one around to make fun of him later.

The ground was still shaking ruthlessly, but at this point he couldn’t tell if it was just his head spinning more.

He felt his consciousness begin to fade as the light of the sky grew ever so slightly darker. Charlie thought he heard the voice one more time before he passed out, but he was in no state to interpret it.

When he finally woke up, the morning sun was barely illuminating the canopy above him, but it had a ways to go before it shone down on him.

His attempt to sit up brought on a searing pain in the right side of his back, but he powered through it. At least one rib was broken, which was going to make hiding this whole fiasco a lot harder.

He looked around for his crossbow and found it lying off to the side, gratefully unharmed. His bolts were scattered across the forest floor as well, while his box of supplies had littered itself around the base of the tree.

All of the food was still there, somehow, and he muttered something about ungrateful squirrels under his breath.

His pistol was still kept securely on his side, which brought him some small comfort. Loading bolts into his crossbow was going to be nigh impossible after all, and in the off chance of a bear encounter he didn’t want to be left defenseless.

After he picked up as much of his expensive gear as he could, Charlie decided this hunting trip was over. After losing that stag, he honestly didn’t have the heart to continue for the moment, earthquake or no earthquake.

It was thus exhausted, sweating profusely, and utterly fed up with life that Charlie approached two people he saw on the dirt road that led to his truck almost an hour later. While this spot of the woods was common among couples, who spent the nights in their cars staring at the stars among other things, this duo was clearly not a couple.

One was probably about two decades younger than him, and the other looked no older than his own granddaughter. A father-daughter pair then, but who would come out here so early?

His question was perhaps answered when the father picked up an unassuming stick and the daughter backed away with vested interest. What happened next though, Charlie wasn’t sure he could accurately describe.

He felt something strange emanate from the father, and the unassuming twig of a man suddenly inspired a deep rooted fear. To Charlie, it was an undeniable presence that reminded him of the time a mother bear and her cub passed beneath one of his tree stands further north.

He reflexively reached for his gun as the stick was thrown down the road where it suddenly and violently erupted in flames, spraying fire into the surrounding atmosphere.

When it hit the ground, numerous bursts of flame launched heat blasts that he could feel even from where he stood amongst the foliage.

What. The. Fuck?

When neither acted particularly surprised, the father more disappointed and the daughter more excited, Charlie wondered if his day was somehow getting worse.

He tried to rationalize it, but he had very clearly seen that the father had picked up a random stick from the ground and turned it into a napalm grenade.

He nervously unclasped the holster for his gun and stalked closer to the duo. He needed to get to his car, and he needed to drive down this road. Confronting them was going to happen either way, and Charlie would rather have some element of surprise should they prove hostile.

He was silently creeping through the underbrush about thirty feet away when a reddish ball of light flew in and began berating the two. He wasn’t able to understand much of what they said however, as it was all some nonsense about multiverses, divine energies, and explosions.

Were they filming one of those animes his grandson loved to watch?

Charlie shook his head. Those were animated, he remembered sourly, and there wasn’t even a film crew on site. The girl looked vaguely foreign though, maybe asian?

He didn’t count it out entirely.

Eventually, it looked like their conversation was over. Whatever was going on here, he was a simple man who just wanted to go home. Surely they would let him leave even after he witnessed what he could only assume was magic. If not…

Charlie fingered the cool metal of his gun.

He really hoped there wasn’t an if not.

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John was still struggling to find a proper response to Tim’s hypothesis. His immediate response was that he was obviously human. His mother was human, and even his father was human despite all of his flaws.

He had been human his whole life, so it stood to reason that he was still human now.

Then again, he did just turn an ordinary stick into a more aggressive molotov cocktail. Of course, Tim had assured him that all living things were quickly becoming magical in some way or another, so why would he be any different?

He could only interpret that this ‘form’ Tim spoke of referred to something fundamental to humans, and that it’s alteration made him different from most others.

He was about to ask for clarification when a bear of a man stepped through the underbrush that lined the roadside with barely a rustle of leaves. He had a head and beard of silver-gray hair alongside a pair of deep-set aged eyes that failed to reduce his large figure in the slightest.

John’s eyes followed the man’s biceps, visible even through his camouflage jacket, to where his hand rested on the holstered handgun on his hip.

Well shit, John pondered ruefully. It was either a lethal weapon against them or another pocket sized old-world IED, and neither were pleasant options. John was absolutely terrible with guns as well. Terrified of them, even.

He wondered if the other man saw the fireworks, then figured that it didn’t even matter. Tim, their ever illustrious beacon of the multiverse, amicably floated around without a sound.

“Greetin’s.” The man’s gruff voice betrayed little, spoken in an abrupt manner that suggested he wasn’t very keen on over-talking.

“Uh yeah, greetings.” John moved to wave his hand before the older man flinched. Right, the magic. He slowly lowered his hand to his side. “Can I help you?” He asked tentatively.

“Saw that fancy trick ya did there. Yous wouldn’t be aimin’ any more a’ them sticks my way, would ya?” His tone implied that doing otherwise would be met with violence.

To be fair, doing otherwise involved throwing an arguably more dangerous weapon the man’s way, so John had no qualms.

John took a page out of the brusk man’s book and silently shook his head. It certainly wasn’t because he was intimidated. Nope, not at all.

“Good. I’m leavin’. Keep yer magic to yerselves.” At that, he turned and walked away from them. Towards the cars, John realized with a silent groan. Even scared, John wasn’t about to let the man walk into almost certain doom.

“Hey, ah…” The man turned to give him a withering glare, and the pistol suddenly found itself in the man’s hand. The cool metal was threatening even leveled at the ground.

John gulped, and looked towards his daughter. She was still ‘unconscious’, mentally trapped by whatever magic the stone’s characters seemed to hold.

No retreat, then. John forced himself to continue, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but the cars… They aren’t safe.”

“What d’ya mean they ain’t safe?” John gratefully noted that the man’s weapon was still pointed at the ground, even if his voice gave away his suspicion driven tension.

“Didn’t you hear the voice?” John tried tentatively. If he could steer the man to reach his own conclusions, there would be a lot less combativeness between the two of them. People liked having their own ideas, even when they were based on other people’s information.

John felt some of his own tension relax as the man visibly pondered thoughtfully.

After a few moments, the hunter inclined his head slightly. “I might’ve.”

Talk about noncommittal.

John suppressed the urge to sigh, and instead pushed forward. “Then you would know that some weird things might be happening now, right? Like the uh...” John faltered for a moment before continuing, “Like the magic?”

The man’s eyes narrowed dangerously as his fingers stretched themselves on the potential bomb’s grip. John thought the man should know that pulling the trigger on said weapon was a coin-flip away from causing terrible damage to either of them, but didn’t want to antagonize him more than necessary.

If there was one thing John knew about gun types, it was to never threaten their guns.

For what it was worth, the older man did seem to consider his words carefully. John felt like he could see the thoughts flicker in his eyes as some indecision swept over him. World-defying magical stunts probably tended to have that effect on people.

He was hoping that they could reach some kind of peaceful resolution when an exaggerated sigh left Tim’s mouth, wherever it was located.

“You meat-heads are so slow! It’s not that hard to understand, the old laws governing your backwards four dimensional rock of a home have been altered by the presence of the ultimate energies of the multiverse. Of course your primitive technologies won’t work the same!”

John flinched at every subtle dig the socially inept space fairy levied against the older man, and was forced to watch helplessly as their once tenuous peace was upended when the older man realized he was being insulted.

When Tim suddenly approached the newcomer, John felt like he saw his life flash before his eyes. Whatever Tim’s purpose, John knew things would end badly. He had little time to act though, and Luna was still locking gazes with the mysterious stone tablet.

“Fuck this!” The older man took a heavy step backwards with a stubborn growl of pain, twisting his face in agony. That didn’t stop him from flipping his gun upwards and leveling it at the invading orb of light who, to his credit, paused briefly.

There was a fraction of a second where John hoped to rekindle the potential for peace until Tim opened his mouth again.

“Go ahead! I take your *beep* bullets! You think you kill me with—” John barely had time to question how Tim managed to censor his own speech before he heard the unmistakable clap of gunfire. Some part of him was screaming that Tim threw himself in front of a gun to deliver a movie quote, but it was silenced by the scene before him.

Instead of a smoking barrel, John’s eyes opened wide as the cool black matte metal of the gun quickly turned a fiery red and arcs of violet electricity sparkled around it. Unsure of exactly what was going on but nonetheless terrified, the older man threw the gun to the ground with a vicious howl, his smoking flesh testament to the unbridled heat.

Another spark of violet electricity coiled around the quickly melting gunmetal as the plastics caught aflame. More sparks danced around threateningly as the reaction increased in power.

It didn’t take a new-age rocket scientist to know that more sparks probably equaled more explosion, or whatever was happening here.

John wasn’t about to take his chances.

“Run!” He yelled at the man who was still stumbling away from his rebelling ally in confusion. John didn’t have time to worry about him, however, as he quickly scooped up his daughter. Even with the severe jostling, her eyes remained glued to the cultivation manual as if enchanted.

Hell, maybe she was enchanted.

John would have to have a serious talk with Tim about withholding important information. Again.

He quickly dashed into the treeline even as the foliage around him was dyed in a purplish light, his only hope being that some trees and shrubs could hold back whatever storm was brewing behind him.

He dove behind a particularly wide tree and cupped his daughter’s ears protectively, managing the best he could with his shoulders for his own. They sat in silence for a few moments, John patiently waiting for some earth shattering explosion to occur behind him.

It never came.

Instead, all signs of the reaction abruptly faded away. A few more seconds ticked by until he tentatively peered around the trunk and saw a faint orange glow coming from what he could only assume was molten dirt, if such a thing even existed.

The violet arcs of lightning had stopped, which John hoped meant the chain reaction of every bullet in the magazine had finished. He wasn’t about to check on his own though.

“Tim! Are we safe?” John called out loudly to his surrounding, sure that if any of them were uninjured it was probably the sentient ball of light.

“That was incredible! You should remember that one, John. Gunpowder! Wow! Earth sure has some interesting resources.” Tim’s reply was full of excitement, apparently ignorant of the grave physical danger they had all just been in.

The impromptu exultation of new-age thermodynamics did little more than annoy John.

“Right, okay, that’s cool and everything but ARE WE SAFE?” He finally yelled at Tim, causing the orb to flutter down before him in an affronted manner.

“Yeesh, John, relax! The reaction is over, which means your fragile meat suits are safe from the gun-splosion, yes. The old guy is too, for what it’s worth. As is the other girl-human approaching from the parking area. Now she looks like trouble!”

John sighed at that. Today felt like a never ending slew of one thing after another that he was quickly growing tired of.

He scooped up his daughter yet again, unwilling to leave her alone considering the constant trouble that seemed to find them. He walked his way to the edge of the forest road, brushing away some still-smoking leaves and branches that blocked his way to the molten crater of concrete.

To his left, wavering in the light-bending heat waves of the pool, a girl who probably hadn’t graduated highschool yet stood wide eyed and mouth gaping at the scene in front of her. She wore some pretty intense black on black with a band tee, which John’s memories of more youthful days recognized as a fairly popular punk-ish emo-ish band from the 2000’s.

My Chemists’ Bromance? Not a bad choice, he thought to himself. She finished off the look with some excessively applied black eyeliner and ears studded from tip to tip.

Maybe trouble, but more than likely a nice enough kid. He would make sure she didn’t poorly influence his Luna though. When she finally turned to look at him, he gave a light cough.

“Can I help you?” He asked, ignoring the smoldering pit of hellfire in front of them.

“I uh, need someone to jump my car.” Whether out of surprise or fear, the girl played along nicely, tactfully ignoring the dazed Luna in his arms. Before John could even respond, the now-shaking voice of the old bear resounded out from the opposite treeline.

“Jesus Christ almighty, no! God no, no more fuckin’ technology!” The older man angrily brushed foliage out of his path with none of the finesse from earlier. “An’ yer gonna tell me what the hell is goin’ on here.” All of the cool calm and collected old man that had John shaking in his boots earlier was gone, replaced by equal parts fear and anger.

John turned to his guide, who was now bound to him by contract until he decided otherwise. In spite of his role in their current circumstances, the little fairy seemed ignorant of their plight.

In fact, Tim began to whistle loudly with an unseen tongue as he pretended to inspect the hot mess before them.

John felt two gazes press onto him, one bewildered but curious and the other furious and fairly terrified. He suddenly just wanted to go home.

Hell, when he got home, maybe he would even start working on his next book again. After a few months of hiatus, John was beginning to wonder if such a thing was even possible, their current situation notwithstanding. He sighed, a mix of woe and guilty gratefulness.

It probably just wasn’t meant to be.