It’s frankly amazing what the human body can do with just a little bit of adrenaline in its system.

  -Curtis Mackerel, controversial fitness trainer and host of “Building a Body to Beat the Bloodthirsty Aliens”, cancelled after its first four episodes due to numerous lawsuits, 2034

  Well, that could have gone better.

  Today’s match was always going to be an uphill battle. Weight classes are more of a suggestion than a hard rule for under-the-table institutions like the one I work for, made even harder to enforce when I had garnered my very specific reputation as someone prone to punching up. Not that Toby was a particularly bad guy or anything like that–he’s very mellow most of the time and there was no bad blood between us going into the fight–but crossing a fifty-pound weight gap was always a tough sell. No matter how good my footwork might be, it only takes one well-placed hit to put me on the floor, and that’s exactly what happened today.

  My face still hurt on both sides, one where the punch had landed and left a very nasty bruise that I was currently cradling with an ice-pack, the other being the side that had hit the floor in a weird way and caused a general ache on the right side of my face. Seeing or even thinking straight was hard right now; I must have had a concussion. I’d get some meds to treat it, but that’d be taken out of my already strained paycheck, so all I could do was groan like the dead as I slowly hobbled my way through the alleyways of Targ.

  Nighttime in town was actually usually pretty relaxed all things considered, mostly because there wasn’t quite enough activity to breed up fights and gangs in a town barely a fraction the size of the nearest megacity. Not that some raucous upstarts didn’t try to stir up trouble with me, usually under the influence of alcohol, but any that I came across learned pretty quickly that the Bloody Hawk of Targ with a head wound could still beat the tar out of any cocky, inebriated hooligan. What that left was the relative quiet of the town itself, stars still partially obscured by the inevitable light pollution but far more visible than our much, much larger neighbor down south that was Phoenix.

  Ugh, this week was gonna suck. Not getting that extra fight money meant the budget was extra tight until the next fight, which was inevitably going to be a low paying pity fight due to the injury. The other jobs would have to pick up the slack in the meantime, and cup noodles with the crappy protein powder were all my tongue would be tasting for the foreseeable future.

  Back-breaking physical labor during the day, getting beat bloody during the night. What a life I lived, right? Hard to imagine my situation could get worse than the vicious cycle I had found myself in for the last few years.

  As if to directly spite my internal sarcasm, my augs were suddenly filled with flashing reds and high pitched rings, which did wonderful things for my concussion.

  [INCURSION DETECTED. PROCEED TO NEAREST SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.]

  It took a second for the words on the screen to fully register as words in my brain, but as soon as everything clicked into place I let out a dour hiss. “Shit.”

  Where was the nearest shelter again? Damn, it was hard to think right now. I thought there was one somewhere downtown, but the answer was just escaping me. Wait, wasn’t there one near town hall? That should have only been a few blocks from here. Usually I’d spend the night after a fight wandering around the town, but my desire towards just wanting to get home meant I took the closest path, and that was near that shelter.

  I was about ready to make my run towards it, but the sight of a canine silhouette at the end of the alley made my blood run cold. To the untrained eye it looked just like the shadow of a dog, but something was just subtly off about it, namely something about the jaw that seemed a little too big and a little too loose. The incursion is really what made me terrified about it though, because the time I spent in school and every job I started all drilled one thing about incursions into my head: they always sent the Model Threes first. And here was one now, seconds away from turning its head and mauling me to death.

  And then a second one came into view.

  And then a third.

  My ice-pack remained glued to my face, mostly out of fear that dropping it would alert the dogs. In the meantime, my hand reached into my pocket and quietly grasped my fingers around the knuckleduster secretly held within. They were still technically illegal in most places and I had used them before in fights I had no business winning, but there was always a gentleman’s agreement that there would always be just a touch of cheating in the ring. Plus, it was great for deterring dumbasses the few times I had decided to shoot back drinks at a bar.

  Frankly, I didn’t like my odds here. That concussion was still blaring and would inevitably hamper my reaction time and throw off my balance, and my solitary weapon had exactly zero range to it, which was not at all a good matchup against the close-ranged focused Model Three. Even in peak condition the fight would be dicey, and I was far from it. But those dogs could no doubt chase me down the minute I bolted, and…well, I’d rather go down swinging if I had to choose.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Ugh, this was gonna suck.

  The trio of Threes finally locked onto me with a sharp turn of their heads, and a second later each was barrelling down the alley with fangs bared. I toppled a mostly-empty trash can nearby as adrenaline finally kicked in before punting it down the alley right towards the Antithesis. The first of the three smashed face-first into the can, but the second evaded, bounding directly over it from where its sibling collided and hurtling directly towards my position.

  Knowing I couldn't back up in time, I threw a right hook at the now airborne Antithesis. Good news, my punch struck true, landing right at the head, watching in slow motion as the head of the Model Three crunched inward at the eye socket thanks to the knuckleduster and seeing how the neck was forced to bend a very awkward way from the impact. Bad news, the entire rest of the body moved unimpeded by virtue of inertia and being airborne, leading to the mass of plant smashing directly into me and toppling me over.

  Somehow I managed not to crack my head on the pavement. As soon as I could process, I threw the now limp body off my own and to the side, the now-dead Antithesis sporting a very sizable hole in its face with unknown fluids slowly seeping out. I didn’t get a moment to take any of that in, what with another of the Threes bounding at me with murderous intent.

  Still prone, I managed to roll out of the way of the beast’s lunge by a hair’s breadth. I managed to pivot while on the floor and started kicking the Three as hard as I could into the brick wall. Its head was smashed time and time again between my foot and the wall before finally slumping to the floor motionless.

  The moment I had pushed myself back to my feet, eyes still locked on the second Antithesis, the third reared its very ugly face and and immediately clamped down on my right leg. I grit my teeth and held back a scream despite the sharp, searing pain shooting through my calf, as that surely would have alerted any other Antithesis that may have been in the area. My arm moved before my mind did, throwing a punch right into the dog’s putrid face, causing it to stagger back from the impact and releasing its grip on my leg. Unfortunately it wasn’t a killing blow; I had used my unarmed hand.

  Now or never. In that brief reprieve I threw myself at the Three and tackled it to the ground. As soon as we hit the floor I punched with my right as hard as I could into the dog’s face. I punched again. And again. I don’t remember how long I punched for, just that I did over and over, the squelch of flesh becoming almost rhythmic in cadence.

  After who knows how long my assault finally ceased, probably when I realized I was no longer hitting the Three and instead the concrete right below it. There wasn’t even a head anymore, just a collection of viscera that could vaguely form a head if you managed to figure out what went where. Frankly, it was disgusting and I would have lost my lunch had I not been riding a crazy adrenaline high.

  Shuffling myself away from the extremely dead corpse of the Model Three, I let my back fall limp against the brick wall of one of the buildings behind me. That had sucked. Everything currently sucked. My head was still screaming bloody murder at me and absolutely didn’t like whatever the hell I had managed to make this body do, the adrenaline was now receding and leaving me as an exhausted and pain-stricken mess gasping for breath from overtaxed lungs, and that gave me a front row to see exactly how the puncture wounds in my leg were beginning to ooze blood like a leaky tap. It was a miracle it hadn’t hit my artery, otherwise I don’t think I would even be conscious right now. Probably not at all helped by all of the alien fluids I had covered myself in, but how I reeked like a morgue was a much lower priority. Either way, my chances against another wave of xenos was currently slim to none, with a heavy lean towards that none.

  The frantic beating of my heart calmed my mind. The taste of blood filled my mouth and soothed my senses. My fists still shuddered from those impacts, and the thought of doing that again made a smile creep up on my face. Despite everything I was…excited? Satisfied? Well, you had to admit it was pretty cool beating up a bunch of Antithesis with just your fists. If I made it out of this alive, that was definitely a story to tell the folks at the ring about.

  A sharp pain shot through my head, far worse than the concussion’s ache before. I nearly passed out from it, not helped by all the added hurt before, but just as soon as it came it ceased. That probably wasn’t a good sign, and I’d have to get that checked out by at doctor at some point.

  That was the plan at least, but a new voice inside of my head immediately turned those plans upside down.

  System Initialized.

  Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Calydon, and I will assist in your efforts to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat. Rise Max Peregrine, and become a protector of the weak!

  Maybe it was the concussion being a convenient scapegoat again, but something about that didn’t process for a few seconds, looking around for the source of the voice, seeing that the alley was empty sans the now very dead corpses of the Antithesis before all those gears began turning in my head.

  I ended up saying the first thing that came to my mind: “Huh.”

  What a remarkably mundane response.

  That was enough to get me to huff, but not enough to get me on my feet. “Do you mind if I take a minute, Cal? Need to catch my breath and…process. Actually, are you cool with Cal?”

  You are free to call me however you wish, as I am meant to assist you as comfortably as possible. And while I’d rather you attend to your flesh wound sooner rather than later, I suppose we can spare a moment.

  “Cool.” I took another deep breath. “Something tells me it's gonna be a long, long night.”

  really didn't want to write a starting incursion. I understand why starting at the incursion is a good idea as it is a really good point to establish the character and world, but I genuinely felt like if I wrote the starting incursion I would a) be bored of it extremely fast and b) kind of just go through the motions, neither of which would help me write the story I want.