Feared are the men in black suits and masks who wear guns and come through your front door. Even more feared are those who belong to the Syndicate and wield incredible, deadly powers!

I should mention that before pandemonium reigned all around us, there was this brief moment when everything around us rippled. It was like my vision went grey as this happened, but it quickly switched to normal. And I had a very strange feeling tickle its way up my spine. Naomi and Trick stiffened suddenly.

And that was when the door was kicked in.

No less than twenty Syndicate agents poured in, ridiculous, chrome and shining guns leveled at everyone. They were followed by these hellish monsters of swirling, bubbling mass. Fangs, horns, multiple eyes, claws, and mouths all protruded from the impossible bodies. And six figures swooped in with flowing and rustling capes of purple splashed with gold stars. They had wands and staffs in their hands.

It looked like it was going to be a massacre.

“Rueben, watch out!” Trick shouted, trying to shove me under a table. In that same instance I saw people in the shop rising to their feet: the Harem.

“Dreamssssssss belong in the world of dreamssssss,” someone hissed. The voice was unnaturally deep and sounded like a snake trying to speak English.

Lars fell onto all fours and transformed into a thick, dark substance with gleaming red eyes. Nathan pulled a sword from this air which became ringed with crackling electricity, causing his beard to become poofy. Vince rose into the air as a hole opened up in the floor beneath him. Scott turned in a muscular anime girl with a large sword. Camille simply vanished.

“Practitioners?” one of the robed figures asked.

“No. Novice writers,” Nathan spat. “With highly, overactive imaginations!”

“This isn’t going to be good,” Naomi muttered under her breath.

The dark glob that was Lars sprang at the hideous monster, elongating and taking shape to become something more draconic. Large black claws tore mercilessly into the creatures and a dripping jaws plunged into its putrid flesh.

One agent leveled a gun at the others and fell to the floor in a heap as his neck was snapped.

“Invisibility!” another robed person shouted. He raised his hand, fingers dancing with power. Nathan sword his sword and discharged his electrical current.

Another robed figure pointed her finger to, well, probably redirect or conduct the electricity. Her finger bent back awkwardly and the blast hit the enemy. Four were sent to the floor convulsing as Vince moved in. As he approached, the hole moved with him. A howl of wind issued from the unknown depths.

To my horror, I watched as the four downed persons were sucked into the hole. Stunned as they were, they didn’t put up a fight, but were slurped up by the greedy pit. The others, however, did put up a fight. Guns began blazing. Scott ran with the speed and deftness born only to anime characters, and with his ridiculous sword managed to block and cleave every single bullet.

There was an explosion at the door. Two suits when Wilhelm-screaming into the air, covered in sticky jam. I crawled out from under the table, much to my handlers’ displeasure. One of the shop workers was throwing their filled doughnuts like they were grenades.

One of the robed figures yelped and fell to their knees, placing both hands on the ground. From their hands, ringed with magic, burst lines that spiderwebbed out to form an intricate pattern on the floor. The roof burst into the air and a storm formed overhead.

“We need to get out of here!” Naomi shouted to Trick above the din.

A gun appeared in her face. One of the Syndicate suits leered down at her.

SWING!

Scott’s massive sword cleaved head from shoulders effortlessly.

“Don’t do anything foolish!” he shouted.

Lars meanwhile submerged his strange, new form into the monster, causing it to writhe with pain and bloat with disgusting bubbles. Nathan and Scott attacked the robed figure, but the power of the pattern repelled them. Two more people went down with broken necks before Camille reappeared and fired off a spell from her hands. Two more Syndicate operatives were caught in massive bubbles of water.

The storm clouds overhead spun themselves into a funnel and descended. Another howl of wind greeted Vince’s own hole. He levitated until he was just under the cyclon and then drifted out of the way. His hole screamed louder and then devoured whatever was being summoned.

“Don’t waste your time with these small fry! Get the kids!” a woman shouted, coming into the broken shop. She was made of metal, similar to Colossos. She raised a gun at the worker with the doughnuts and killed him.

The monster blew apart, spraying stinky guts in every direction.

The dark creature flowing from the collapsing corpse and reassembled itself as another, now shorter, draconic figure. It stood before the woman and said, “I Seeeeeeeee what issssssss happening here. How kind of you to expossssssssse yourselvesssss! The child shall esssssscape you.”

To her credit, the woman didn’t just stand there and let Lars monologue. She punched him in his face, but her fist got stuck. She began screaming in agony as her metal hand and arm melted away. I then saw Camille throw out both of her hands and a massive gust of wind hit the robed guy on his knees, sending him tumbling into the vortex of clouds, being sucked into the void. He was gone with a surprised yelp and a flourish of robes.

More Syndicate suits appeared and were knocked unconscious with electricity. Nathan then went about finishing the downed enemy with his sword.

“Hang on, I get this is meta and everything,” Vince suddenly said, his calm voice carrying through the chaos. “But how are we doing this? Why are we even doing this?”

“Is now really the best time to ask such plot-heavy questions?” Camille demanded.

“I know I would sure as hell like to know what is going on,” Nathan shouted. “That’s all I know!”

Lars took the metallic woman by the throat and hauled her over to the pit. He spoke as he walked, squeezing to cut off her cries. “We know better than mossssssst the powerssssss of an unbridled imagination. Conssssssider ussssss convenient plot devicessssss, assssss dumb assssss the trope issssss. But because we novice writerssssss don’t wish to be bound by the constraintssssss of othersssss’ rulesssss, we feel a powerful connection to the Realmssssss of Imagination.

“These moronssssss shouldn’t have relied on that power and ssssssumoned a Grey Bubble,” he explained, casually tossing the woman into Vince’s pit. “They are too green with using their own abilitiessssss, not having taken the time to embrace their own creative potential. It’ssssssss an easy thing to say that you can be imaginative, but sssssssso many people have cut themselvesssss off from dreaming without restraintssssss.”

He transformed back into his regular self and looked around the broken shop and its huddling customers. He then saw us and approached with a grim expression. His friends went to hold the entrance against any other attackers. Trick and Naomi barred his way. I couldn’t believe how brave and how dumb they were being!

“This Grey Bubble will eventually burst. When that does, all of the damage and deaths caused here will be reversed. Well, except for those pulled in from the Realms.”

“How do you know that?” Trick asked, trying to sound confident, but for the squeak in his voice.

Lars shrugged. “Plot convenience, remember. Anyway, you need to get out of here. But I feel there is something I need to share with you.” He muscled through the two teens and came to me, whispering instructions in my ears. Those dreadful words sunk deep into my soul, as if he had branded me…

“How do you know that?” I asked, repeating Trick’s question.

“You’re not the only one who sees the stories in the Realms,” he told me with a wry grin. “Every creator has peered in some way into the Realms and brought what they saw to life here. Or what they have done here has fed the Realms. In any case, they have touched that dimension and know it, even if they don’t fully comprehend it. And again-”

“Plot convenience, right,” I finished.

Lars pointed to the door into the bakery. “Get going and let us have our fun.”

I didn’t need a second invitation. I had had enough of this! I sprinted as fast my legs would carry me, and was soon flanked by Naomi and Trick. We burst through a series of doors and wonderful smells before we escaped into the outside world and passed once more through a ripple of grey.

And in a way that I can’t quite explain, everything was back to normal. But still, the chase was on.