Xavier rights himself, stepping away from the mess he left on the ground. "Just a moment!" he calls out, and then stomps back into the house he had just left, looking around briefly before finding a towel, and wiping the blood and otherwise off of his face while he catches his breath, ruining the towel in the process. Tossing the towel into the ruins of the house he steps back outside and looks around, spotting Balere standing near the house the man sitting on, speaking with him. The conversation trails off some as he walks up.


    "Thanks for shooting that thing. It would have sucked if it had gotten away and attacked again while we were distracted. What kind of cannon is that that anyway? Never seen a rifle blow something apart quite like that."


    "That was the biggest raccoon I have ever seen! I didn''t think they got that big, it was the size of a bear, maybe bigger. Just this hunting rifle. Its never done that before though. Kinda messy though, you are covered. Thanks, by the way. You saved me there. It had me trapped there for a minute before it heard you stomping about and got curious. Gave me time to get out of there and hide up here. I didn''t expect it to come running out here missing an arm. Especially not being chased by a guy with a...is that a trash can lid? Trash lid shield and a hammer."


    "Ha. It is, its been a long night... We got woke up about an hour ago by something knocking our front door across the living room and into the far wall. Watched the neighbor get pulled through a portal in the air and fought some weird overgrown praying mantis kind of thing that broke through her window and attacked us. You seen any crazy shit over here? I mean, beyond the bearcoon there."


    "Nope. Woke up to some screaming out on the street. Grabbed the gun and was looking out the window when that thing came through the wall and started chasing me. I put a couple of rounds into it while I was running from it but it didn''t seem to slow it down any. Door didn''t slow it down any, neither did the wall. You got any idea what is happening out here?"


    "Nope, your the first person I have seen since this all started. But there is some kind of portal," Xavier points off into the distance towards downtown, "if you look over that way. I saw something that looked like a dragon fly out of it and the other direction. We were trying to find someone who had any idea what was going on, figured maybe we head towards the beach, see if we can get a boat or something and get out to water until shit settles down. Unless we find some information before then. Phones are dead, if you haven''t tried them yet. You aren''t the only one that can do new things though. Both of us seem to have gained what almost seems like magical abilities. Only reason we aren''t another victim in this so far."


    Xavier rubs his face, the lack of sleep and double hit of shock and adrenaline taking its toll as he starts to feel the weight of the nights activities settling on him. "I have the beginnings of a vague idea though. I think it is all tied to that portal downtown. If you get the right angle on it, you can see that it doesn''t go anywhere here. You can see through into the tunnel inside, but it goes up into the air a bit, and there is nothing behind it. At least some, maybe all, of the new weird creatures that I have seen tonight probably came from it, given the dragon-like thing we saw fly out of it. I think whatever is causing the abilities maybe came from it as well? I certainly wasn''t able to do this yesterday. That, or I am losing my mind and this is all some kind of mental break or weird dream."


    Both Balere and the hunter, who hadn''t provided his name yet Xavier realized, before the hunter started to talk. "As good of a guess as anything I guess. I don''t think your going to make it on foot to the beach tonight though. Or much of anywhere else since you don''t really know where you are going. Perhaps you need to find a spot to hunker down and wait for morning and see where things stand then. Better to be prepared than running headlong into another encounter like this. Eventually your luck is going to give out and it will be you dead on the ground. At least if the rest of the city is like this."


    Looking at Balere, Xavier could see the exhaustion slowly setting in for her as well, a slump as the adrenaline faded and the normalcy of conversation in this relatively quiet corner of the suburb allowing the fact she had only had a couple of hours of sleep to settle in. "That''s probably a good idea. I couldn''t think of anyplace that seemed safe against creatures that can kick doors across rooms." He turns and looks at the holes in several of the houses nearby. "Or charge through walls like that for that matter. Not trying to chase you out of some shelter if you have any, but you got any ideas on where to hide from that?"


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "I got some. Some of them are probably a bad idea if there is a chance that everything actually goes back to normal at some point. A bank vault could be defendable if you could get in, and definitely safe-ish, but would look really bad if you got caught there in the morning. If it is as bad as it sounds, that''s probably not a worry, would still leave getting into something like that. My bet would be something big, like an office building, since it would give a lot of space, or something made out of concrete, since it would be harder to destroy. Like maybe a parking garage or something."


    Like a lightbulb in his head, it struck him. No idea why I didn''t think of this before. Must have been panicking too hard. "I think I actually have an idea then. The office I work at isn''t too far from here. Another hour, maybe a little more being careful to not run into anything. They got a garage, and I can probably get into the building. Wouldn''t get into too much trouble for being there, all things considered. Plus a bunch of interior windows with no windows, so we could have some light without giving ourselves away. Thanks...uhh, what was your name?"


    "Gareth. Look, if your not opposed to it, I can tag along. Something is going on here, and even if its calm here now, that thing crashed through something like 4 houses, and none of my neighbors are splattered or screaming in panic, so something happened here as well. Safety in numbers?"


    Xavier glances over at Balere for a moment, half expecting her to object, but she just shrugs. "He could have just ran."


    "Fair enough. Sure, that gun might come in useful if you can pull that trick off again."


    "Let me go find some actual clothes then and gather a couple of things up, like more bullets." Gareth gets up and walks over to the side of the house, climbing down out of sight before wandering across the street and into one of the damaged houses.


    Xavier turns back to Balere, "You doing ok? You saved me back there. Again. That thing was about to squish me."


    She looks embarrassed for a moment, "Barely. That was a little harder to actually do than I thought it would be. I guess I should have practiced first. Or just kept it around."


    "Yea, it was like trying to pick something up when your arm is asleep. We haven''t really had time to do anything yet. Hopefully we can get to the office without too much issue and get a breather. Does this one look the same? The last one seemed to freak you out a bit."


    "Kinda? Not really, this one is less...alien? Not that it mattered much when it ripped that arm off. That was gross." She makes a face. "You think we are going to be alright? This seems like a big deal. Gareth made a good point. Things are torn up, but we haven''t passed nearly enough destruction or carnage to explain the lack of people. Phones were down. If this is happening elsewhere..." She trails off quietly.


    "Hey, we will be alright. I got this weird shield to keep you safe. And you can call on the monsters to beat things up. Perfect team." He grins as he reaches over a messes up an already destroyed head of hair. "We just got to figure out what''s going on. Maybe we can find something besides monsters that came through that portal that will explain things instead of attacking us. I doubt anyone here has explanation for alien mantis, bearcoon, and giant dragon that doesn''t somehow involve aliens."


    She laughs. "Maybe the mantis thing, that looked like an alien. If it came through that portal from another world, doesn''t that technically make it an alien? Oh, he is back." She looks over his shoulder as the sound of footsteps on the asphalt can be heard. Xavier turns around to see Gareth walk back up dressed in denim and a t-shirt, heavily tanned, bearded face pivoting around and watching the road.


    "Well shit, we are being invaded by aliens I guess. You got what you need?"


    "Yuh. Where we headed?"


    Xavier turns till he isn''t quite looking back towards downtown but instead off towards one side. "That way, roughly. I didn''t even think of it at first cause it was closer to downtown instead of away from it, but I think that''s far enough off to the side we will be fine. Plus, the majority of the problems seem to be outward." Motioning back towards the fading wall of chaos.


    Gareth and Balere both grimace at the direction. "Yup, back towards the portal seems terrible, unless this entire thing takes a sudden shift for some reason. Still, someplace to hide is better than being here with the holy houses that everything seems to be able to walk through." Balere comments, then shrugs. "Lets get moving though. I am tired and getting more tired by the minute. I''m going to be ready to collapse after another hour of sneaking around."


    "Agreed. Lets get this over with" Xavier starts off down the road again, headed towards the office and hopefully safety for a moment or two. Balere sticks close behind him while Gareth lags slightly further back, keeping a watch on the groups rear. Behind them, there is the clatter and crash of one of the damaged houses giving up and collapsing on itself.


    "Insurance is never going to pay out on this. That was my house if it was any." Gareth mutters to himself, shaking his head. Around them, the clamor of the invasion they were hiding from fading in the distance, the suburbs they were stalking through grew quiet once more, as you would expect for the dark hours of the night. The only sign of things gone wrong the occasional wreckage of a house or car.