Ken had just finished taking a quick shower and was putting on a pair of pants when his doorbell rang. It had been about 20 minutes since the call ended. When Ken opened the door, Tim was standing outside in the pre-dawn light. Tim's 6' 4” frame carried an impressive amount of muscle underneath an equally impressive amount of fat. True to his nature Tim was holding a couple dozen doughnuts in pink boxes and a huge black thermos of coffee along with a schooled confident expression which only his dodgy eyes betrayed. Tim immediately shoved the doughnuts toward Ken.

“I bought doughnuts.” Tim said with a pained look in his eyes.

Ken had known Tim for years. This was as close to an apology as Tim ever offered. If Ken accepted the doughnuts it would mean that he'd accepted the apology, and Tim was forgiven for being a jerk and disconnecting from the call.

Ken grabbed the doughnuts and stepped aside to welcome Tim into his house. “Sure. Thanks.”

Tim stepped into the clean, well decorated living room before heading to the Dining Room to drop off the coffee. Ken's Landlords of 3 years had finally gotten married and were in the Caribbean for their honeymoon. On his low pay as a manager at Del Taco, Ken couldn't really afford much, but Marian & Samuel Bengston were old friends, and the $600/mo they charged Ken for his room was a deal for everyone. They got $600 and a decent quiet roommate who was willing to do more than his share of the chores, and he got a MUCH nicer home than he could ever afford. Ken was not looking forward to when the newlyweds finally decided it was time to have a kid and needed him to move out.

Tim finished setting up the coffee and returned to grab the doughnuts from Ken. They needed to be setup too.

“So can I see one of the glowing amulets?” Tim asked too casually. It was clear he was trying to hide his excitement.

“I'm wearing one. My pentacle is glowing yellow.” Ken responded, “You don't see it?”

“I see the pentacle, but it's not glowing.” Tim's disappointment hit Ken like a small truck. Ken had always been an empath, but somehow, just like the telepathy earlier with Melanie, Ken’s ability to feel emotions seemed stronger now.

Ken couldn't stand it and changed the subject. “Wanna see my room? It looks like a bomb changed its mind about exploding when it was halfway done.”

Tim perked up. “Sure.”

They trooped down the stairs to Ken's Basement together. Ken hadn't exaggerated. Paint and posters were curled up on the walls, all of the cloth looked like it had been put into a dryer for too long. Brown toast like marks and black burns scarred everything. His plants looked tortured.

Tim whistled. “Damn.”

“I know right?” Ken said. “I'm afraid to do anything else.”

“That's stupid.” Tim declared vehemently while gesturing around the room. “If we're actually in the danger you say we are, and I'll say this is pretty proof positive, then we need to get trained and armed fast! You should be outside now trying to practice.”

“But my neighbors will see!” Ken Protested.

“Are you shitting me?!” Tim said. “Supposedly an invasion from another world is on its way and you're worried that your soon-to-be-ex-neighbors will watch you being weird? We freakin’ LARP dude.”

Ken couldn't respond. Tim was right, and he was being stupid. For some reason he had thought that everything needed to be kept a secret, but secrets and hiding probably weren't going to help.

“You're right.” Ken admitted.

“Damn right I am.” Tim said beaming with pride. “Get yourself outside and start figuring out how to protect us helpless normals or I'll kick your aaaaaaaa...ssssss...ssss.”

The moment Tim had started to say “kick your ass” Ken's pentacle flashed a brighter yellow light for a moment and Tim's eyes unfocused like he was hypnotized. Ken stared in shock. After a couple seconds Tim seemed to wake up.

“What was I saying?” Tim said, “Oh yeah. Get yourself outside and start figuring out how to protect us, we're gonna need it.”

Ken was shocked. When Ken and Melanie had enchanted the pentacles, he designed the spell so that anybody who wanted to hurt him would just stop wanting to hurt him. They'd be distracted or just plain have a hardtime focusing on hurting him.

The results today though? That was incredible. It was like the amulet reprogrammed Tim. Not only did he completely forget about his threat to hurt him if he didn't practice, but he didn't seem to remember the spell!

Ken really wanted to talk to Tim about it, but he didn't know how mad Tim would be. He couldn't handle a fight about it right now. So Ken simply said, “You're right. Can you settle everyone in while I head outside?”

“Sure thing.” Tim responded and started to herd Ken up the stairs.

“One Second.” Ken looked around his room and decided what to grab before heading up the stairs. He quickly grabbed his 2nd sight crystal (which was glowing purple), his athame (white), his healing cord (red) and his wand (white). He had a chunk of other things he'd obviously enchanted too, but he couldn't remember the enchantments. His God and Goddess Pillar Candles were glowing too, but he wasn't sure how to use them and really wasn't feeling ready to talk to another God today.

They headed back upstairs. Ken got himself a cup of coffee and headed out back. The sound of a car pulling up front hit their ears as they were closing the sliding glass door. Tim looked frustrated, but he turned around to head it.

It was just as well. Ken thought. I'm not sure how comfortable I'd feel doing this with witnesses. Ken thought for a bit, and decided to try ice this time.

As before, Ken started pulling energy up like in his meditations, but he decided to do a LOT less this time. After a minute Ken could see a small amount of the goo around his hands. He tried to form a very clear image in his mind of an ice claw extending from the end of his arm. He tried to feel it starting as a small ball of ice around his (perfectly safe) hand and then growing out into a foot long claw. When he opened his eyes he saw the claw there with a tiny amount of the goo still around it.

Awesome! Ken thought to himself. He playfully thrust the ice claw to stab an imaginary enemy in front of him. As he did so the remaining Goo around his hands was flung forward. Ken remembered the huge fire inside, and with horror imagined a wave of ice flying into the 6ft wooden fence and breaking it.

Luckily the tiny amount of goo only turned into about 15 pounds of icy snow which thunked noisily, but harmlessly against the fence. Worried that someone might come to investigate the noise, Ken thought to his ice claw: melt.

The claw sat on his arm stubbornly. Ken spent a couple moments trying harder and harder to command the ice to melt while nothing happened, but then, like an unexpected reflex, Ken felt a small amount of energy move down his arm and melt the ice.

The energy is key. Ken thought to himself as he waited a couple minutes to see if anyone came to investigate.

Once he was confident nobody had heard, Ken carefully willed a tiny amount of goo to the tip of his finger and thought: Fire.

A bright warm 8 inch flame burst into existence like a tall candle burning on the end of his finger. Ken watched it with pride, willing it taller and shorter, wider and thinner until about 45 seconds later it seemed to run out of fuel, shrink and disappear.

Curious, Ken willed a larger amount of goo to his finger tip and flicked it off thinking: small ball of fire I can move around with my mind.

Sure as rain the goo became a small ball of fire arcing toward the ground. Ken concentrated and willed the ball to hover where it was. The ball of orange fire responded perfectly to his will. For a couple seconds Ken floated it around him when a cry caught his attention.

“That is fucking Sweet, Ken!” A rather homely looking overweight woman with un-brushed brown hair and a huge smile yelled.

Ken grinned and turned to look at his newest house guest. Angie White was a long time friend and one of the most reliable people in the group. She worked and played hard and didn't let anyone else's opinion affect her except her own. He was glad she chose to help his group.

Unfortunately, the moment he stopped focusing, the tiny ball lost control and without containment burned itself out in a momentary wave of fire which washed over the whole yard and each of them. While Ken was unaffected (probably his assumption of being safe from his own fire), it singed Angie who cried out in pain and fear, and fell to her knees to rub her singed eyes.

“Damn.” Tim said shocked as he ran over to help Angie. “Ken. Don't fail your concentration check when playing with fire.”

Despite her pain Angie laughed. After a fearful moment for her Ken and Tim joined her in laughing at Tim’s joke. Angie picked herself up, still squinting.

“I don't suppose there's anything you can do to help with this?” Angie asked pointing to her face.

“I'm not sure I wouldn't do more damage.” Ken said concerned.

“You're probably right.” Angie admitted. “Do you have any eye drops or something though?”

“Check the bathroom cabinet.” Ken said.

As Angie headed to the bathroom, Tim returned. “Get back out there. You've still got until the others show up. Messing up isn't an excuse to quit.”

OK. Ken thought to himself as he headed back outside. I should try something more useful. I'll see if I can make a shield.

He pulled some of the goo around him (it was definitely getting easier) and imagined the goo becoming a shield around him like in Startrek. When he opened his eyes the goo was gone, but he didn't see anything there.

He walked forward to see if he could feel anything, but he couldn't. Finally he grabbed a small rock and tossed it up. It came back right back down and he caught it no problem.

Confused he thought about it carefully. He realized that in Startrek the shields are supposedly on, but they only seem to protect from threats. You never see shuttles slam into the shields. Perhaps the rock was never a threat because he knew he could catch it. Feeling stupid Ken decided to throw the rock, but keep his hands down so that if it fell on him it would knock him on the head.

As soon as he threw it he knew the rock was going to miss him. He tried 4 more times until finally the rock came down toward him. It was all he could do not to throw his hands in the air... ZZZIIING!

For a split second he could see the shield like in Startrek as the Rock hit the shield, but the shield hit back so hard the rock was pulverized. Powdered stone exploded away from the shield in all directions. Tiny rock fragments peppered the fence, as well as nearby houses and windows.

Impressed and excited, Ken grabbed another stone. After a couple more tosses the stone was on its way down to hit him and the shield...

...was gone. The stone glanced off the side of Ken's head before smashing into his shoulder.

Ken was so surprised as he completely lost his balance and fell sprawling into the grass. His friends roared with laughter. Apparently, he thought to himself, everyone had arrived and they all saw that last one.

Still laughing Chris and Angie opened the sliding door and walked over. Chris reached down and offered to help Ken up. Chris was Angie's boyfriend. He was a monster of a man; he looked as if someone had covered a 6 foot tall stay-puff-marshmallow-man with coarse, curly, black hair. As terrifying as that sounds, his kind eyes and smile showed genuine friendly mirth as he stood there offering a hand up.

As he accepted the hand and was lifted to his feet Ken said, “So... apparently the shield only lasted for one hit.”

“What the hell are you doing out there?!” came a cry from a neighbor's house, “It's 5 in the fucking morning! Don't make me call the cops!”

“Sorry.” Ken called back, “We're done, I'm heading inside and we'll be quiet.”

“Good! Stupid kids doing God knows what at 5am...” The neighbor's voice became intelligible after he closed his window.

Everybody trooped inside.

“That's what that was? You were making a shield?” Angie asked, “I came out of the bathroom to see you throwing a rock in the air; then all of a sudden POOF! The rock you were throwing turned into a puff of smoke with pieces going everywhere. I couldn't figure out what you were doing.”

“You may only get one hit, but the hit is a doozy!” Tim declared. “Jared and Sam just drove up, so we're good to get going.”

Everyone packed up to go and started choosing who was riding with who. On the way out Angie looked over at Ken and asked. “Ken, you just did a lot of magick. In D&D that might have been a lot of spell points. How are you feeling? Any sense of your limits?”

Ken thought about it for a second. “I feel a little sore from getting hit and maybe kinda tired from concentrating, but I'm not feeling any sort of limit like spell points. I dunno.”

“You are so freaking lucky man.” Tim said jealously. “How did you get super powers while we are staying your sidekicks?”

As much as he wanted to avoid the topic, Ken thought about it for a second before he replied. “You know, Melanie and I were the only ones who practiced witchcraft type magick. Maybe it has something to do with that.”

Tim was silent at that. So was everyone else.

“So how do I start being a witch then?” Chris asked with a joking voice.

But everyone knew he wasn't really joking.