The wind smelled funny today, it had a sort of musky smell tinged with copper. Shaking my head to clear it, I had work to do. My brother Lenny and I were only 16 and 9, not old enough for people to want to hire us properly. So, we did odd jobs and errands for the people who owned the airfield at Jean. Mostly cleaning up junk or doing repairs to the building’s workings. Even though neither of us had a proper education, handiwork seemed natural. That, and with the mesh available, we learned a lot about repairing buildings, plumbing, and just basic maintenance.

  So instead of hiring a proper repair team, they cheaped out and paid us in food, clothing, and a place to stay.

  “Lenny, come hold door closed, the wind is too strong.” I said to him, grunting. The door lock had been clogged from all the dirt and I was trying to clean it out. With the wind though, it kept flapping all over the place and I needed both hands to take apart the lock and clean it.

  “Coming, Allen.” Lenny said, putting down his Grasshopper action figure. He grabbed hold of the door, and I was finally able to remove the lock and start cleaning out the dirt.

  “There is a new Samurai out, Allen. Do you think we can save up and get it?” He said, looking up at me sheepishly.

  Lenny loved the Samurai, he looked up to them like heroes, and whenever a new action figure came out, he wanted it, but we barely made it by as it was. I hated to tell him no, so I tried to find other ways to get them. Most of the ones I got for him, I found in the trash, usually damaged in some way. But that did not matter to Lenny, he loved them all the same.

  “I will try and find it, who is it?”

  “It’s a new model of Sam-O-Ray!” He shouted a smile spreading across his face, and his eyes lighting up.

  “I thought that your favorite was Cause Player?” I said, trying to distract him, I know he has a few of Cause Player, he has a few styles, depending on who he was playing as, for his stream.

  “It is, but I don’t have any of Sam-O-Ray and he’s cool too.” He whined back.

  I rolled my eyes; I managed to clean the last of the dirt out of the lock and got to putting it back in the door.

  “I will try, Lenny. No promises, okay?” I said, knowing that the chances were very small.

  I gave the lock a few tests, making sure it was working before closing the door. Mr Blearman, the owner of the airport, had one more job on the list today. The far hangar had a dirt pile behind it that was somehow getting larger. He wanted me to spread the dirt back out, a simple task that should only take a few hours at most.

  I liked those sorts of jobs, I could sort of turn my mind off and just work, it made days go by faster and Lenny liked to play with the creepy crawlies that would come out of the dirt, his favorite was the roly-poly’s. I went around back of the building to where our tool shed was, to get a shovel and wheelbarrow. Figured I would just disperse the dirt further away with it, preventing whoever was dumping dirt there from having easy access to the same dirt.

  We walked over, me pushing the wheelbarrow and Lenny behind me making whooshing noises as he flew Grasshopper around, fighting imaginary Antithesis.

  We came up to the dirt pile, I set down the wheelbarrow, grabbed the shovel and pushed it down into the dirt. I repeated this for a while until I filled up the wheelbarrow, then wheeled it over to another spot and dumped the dirt out. Taking the shovel, I flattened it out, so it did not look like someone just dumped a pile of dirt there.

  For some reason the coppery mold smell had been getting stronger while working. Over the next hour of digging the smell was becoming almost unbearable, it was starting to smell more like a rotting compost pile. Did someone bury a dead body under this thing and it was rotting?

  I shove my shove back into the pile, and without warning the ground erupts! I get thrown down on my butt and drop the shovel when I hit the ground. Dirt and debris are flying up into the air obscuring my sight, but I catch glimpses of something moving around in the dirt cloud.

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  Next thing I know I feel sharp teeth bite into my arm. I let out a scream, that makes my throat hurt from the strain. Blinding pain sears through my body as I’m picked up by my arm and whatever has me shakes me in the air. Whatever has me flings me into the air, I land on the dirt and roll a few times, stopping when I collide into the hanger.

  I’m bleary with pain and blood loss and can’t focus.

  I try to stand but fall on my side. I let out a scream as fresh agony blasts through my head. I try to catch myself with my right hand but fall flat on my face. My whole right arm is missing!

  A piercing scream breaks through my mind, a scream not coming from me.

  Lenny!

  Whatever attacked me must have moved on to him when I got thrown. I get a massive surge of adrenaline; my head clears enough to see that what’s attacking us is a Model Three Antithesis. A large wolf sized plant alien, slightly different than the normal type, the ones here in Vegas resemble more of huge coyote and make a yelping noise with their single massive jaw.

  The pain subsides and the loss of my arm becomes a side worry. Lenny is in danger, and I must protect him, he is the last family that I have. We were both abandoned in the desert. Thankfully we were found, and had somewhat of a stable upbringing until our adopted parents were both killed during a gang war. Since then, we have been working here, away from the big city and its gangs.

  I charge at the Model Three, it has Lenny cornered against the wheelbarrow. He has been throwing himself out of the way of the aliens’ attacks, barely avoiding them. It’s not that he was special or had any skills, just his small size enabled him to wiggle away from the attacks.

  I rushed over and picked up my shovel with my only arm and swung it as hard as I could at the things neck, just behind the head.

  *Thwunk*

  It hardly even seemed to notice and lunged again at Lenny, who fell to the ground to avoid the attack.

  I needed to get its attention! I threw myself in front of it, standing over Lenny.

  My mind went red and hazy with rage, and I swung the shovel at it, over and over.

  *Thwack*

  *Thwack*

  *Thwack*

  I must have gotten a good hit in somewhere because it fell over dead, its head looking like a disfigured sack of goop and blood.

  I stood there, bleeding out, breathing heavily, looking over the dead alien when the world split asunder, and my head felt like it was exploding.

  System Initialized!

  Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Typhest. I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your home world from the Antithesis threat!

  Rise, Allen Kasidya, and become a protector of the weak!

  My dude, your health is low, you need some healing potions, or you’re going to bleed out all over the place and die. I don’t see any extra life tokens, so you won’t respawn.

  Confusion rained supreme in my mind, what was going on? From what I’ve heard only Samurai get talking AI, what was this thing on about? Was this some sort of malware from a video game? I was pretty sure Samurai did not have health potions.

  Allen, like don’t ignore me. I’m trying to help you. Here, I’m going to unlock some skill trees for you and get this ball rolling. I hate watching the MC get stuck on silly shit, like figuring out what’s going on.

  Skill Tree Medical Supplies I unlocked!

  Points reduced to: 60

  New Purchase: Class I Health Potion!

  Points reduced to: 10

  In my hand appears a glass bottle about the size of an apple, filled with a thick red liquid.

  Drink that quickly, it will stabilize your HP and keep you from dying.

  I look at it skeptically, this definitely has a video game vibe to it, but at the same time this is how Samurai stuff works in all the news, videos, and stuff.

  I go ahead and remove the cork that sealed the bottle and chug it down. It tastes like super fake cherry medicine, I almost gag on the taste, but manage to get it all down.

  Almost instantly I feel better, warmth rushes back into my body, that I hadn’t realized was slowly draining away. Something strange also happens. My augs, which were literally free garbage a corp gave out to spam you with ads, fill in with a UI like in a video game. It has a red health bar in the top left corner, under it my current point totals, 10. I also see a crosshair, lightly imposed in the center or my vision.

  What the fuck.

  The health bar is slowly filling up from where it was about 10%, now up to 80%. It seems to be capped out, the section above it grayed out.

  If you’re wondering, that missing 20% is your arm being gone. You will need a stronger healing potion or some other option to restore the missing HP. Also, if you’d like to actually kill stuff in one hit, I can get you something slightly better than a shovel. You know what, here you go, Ye Ol' beat stick.

  New Purchase: Common level 1 Hammer:

  Points reduced to: 5

  In my hand, a large Warhammer appears in place of the empty bottle. It fits perfectly into my hands, and weighs just enough to feel hefty, but not too heavy for me.

  On my UI a new icon appears in the shape of a hammer.

  At that moment, from the large hole that’s now replaced the dirt pile, a pack of Model Threes come climbing out.

  Aww, yeah! It’s fucking hammer time!