I own nothing except my OCs. Enjoy the show!

I'm Amos Darvosky.

If I'm being honest, I've worn more hats than I care to count. I'm a brother, a son, and a friend (as of late, bordering on ex-friend) to Miriam Stegner. Class clown. Charter school kid. And as of this summer, a VLADJI.

By the way, I didn't exactly ask for the responsibility of the world. I mean, I'm kinda young for that. But someone has to stop people from going insane. Someone has to stop people from restricting common sense and creating a whole fudging mess of our country. And someone has to help fight off monsters unseen by most. And that someone happens to be me.

Luckily, I'm not alone in this. But sometimes it feels that way.

I was halfway down the aisle in the Wal-Mart when I spotted my childhood friend.

To be fair, Miriam Stegner wasn't exactly hard to miss. Her habit of wearing Katie Mitchell tees (this as of two years ago) was almost as distinct as her bobbed, turquoise-streaked brown hair. Today, it was a green one with the words I'M NOT JUST ANY HUMAN surrounding an image of the aspiring filmmaker throwing a phone into the air as she fell, paired together with green jeggings and blue sneakers – honest-to-God Nikes (of all things). And for some reason, she had stuffed animals on her waistline.

Yes, I'd seen my fair share of people who still hung onto a stuffed animal. I don't generally ask questions about it. But Miriam wasn't satisfied with just one in her bed. Oy, no. Lately, she needed to have several, on her belt, at all times. Even when she was a kid, she had never gone this overboard.

I shuffled onward through the Wal-Mart, anxious to finish my errand. I'd been sent to recover certain items for dinner. Look for the kosher label, I thought. This was a big deal, since my family and I are Jewish. I needed to pay attention to that. I'd fumbled with it in the past, and I was trying to prove to my family they could trust me with the groceries.

I also didn't want to meet Miriam, given our… tense relationship in recent years. While I'd dodged the indoctrination of public schools thanks to my mama (long story), she sure hadn't, and it put us on edge early on. And I wasn't sure what she'd make of my company – at least, as of lately. I get enough flack for hanging with a half-Jew, now make it a pair of Christians, one gender-questioning, and a Muslim?

I wasn't sure how I could breathe with all that pressure.

I was confident I could avoid her easily. If I spotted her, I could just move farther away and hope she hadn't seen me.

Naturally, no such luck. I'd just swung the corner when she bumped into me, nearly upsetting my cart in the process.

"Amos!"

Her voice was high and light. Not like she'd swallowed helium, mind you, but more like a little girl's. I'd once joked that while she'd hit puberty in her body, her voice hadn't gotten the message. She had not exactly appreciated that remark.

"Miriam," I said firmly, "I'm kinda busy here."

I rummaged through the meat, eyeing the beef in particular.

"That's not very nice," Miriam replied, trying for that "you're hurting my feelings" tone that always struck a chord with my sympathies – when we were younger, that is. "I was hoping you'd be able to come over."

Now that was a new one. Miriam almost never asked me over. Her father is a Methodist pastor, and her mother was the Jewish one. They were always arguing over something or other, which just created a hostile home environment. She always went to my house, if we went to anyone's house, because she couldn't stand the chaos at home. (Frankly, I couldn't blame her.)

On the other hand, I had dinner supplies to attend to, and Papa was going to be ticked if I didn't come up with it in time to get it ready.

"What time did you have in mind?" I asked, swiping up some salt. (One can never run out of salt.) "'Cause I can't right now. I've got to stock up for Shabbat dinner. You know how the family is."

"I wasn't saying right now," Miriam retorted. "Sometime. Tomorrow? Sunday? Perhaps the Studio Six Two?"

I shook my head. "That's the thing. Shabbat's tomorrow. You know I can't very well come out for that."

That was partially true. I couldn't just walk out of the house without a really good excuse. However, I could make an exception for an emergency – and I was quite good at faking those for a day out with my other company.

Speak of the demon – a drone came into the store. I could generally tell drones apart by maker, and this one was operating on a turbine, which many toy drones didn't do. Also, it bore a yellow cloud insignia with arrows coming out of said cloud – Tails' trademark.

"Yeek!" Miriam yelled as she dove away reflexively. She's not fond of flying drones ever since one of the Schoen boys sent one in a suicide bomb toward her hair. (Jerks.) Getting a kamikaze drone in the face is not going to endear you to those devices.

This time the drone wasn't aimed at her. This time.

I also recognized the drone – a drone-o-gram, as I'd termed it. Tails dubbed it an Aerial Mechanized Messenger – AMM, for short – but I preferred to think of it as a telegram by drone, birthing my nickname for it, which stuck. I like to think I have the best nicknaming skills of the VLADJIs. It was I, after all, who came up with DJ's nickname.

I caught the drone in my hand as it came near me. The drone-o-gram shuddered, then emitted a pleasant ding. A slip of paper slid out of the drone's mouth (well, as near a mouth as a flying robot could have).

I read the memo.

You coming to the Hangar? 3 o'clock. New avatar to train. MP.

I muttered some words unbecoming a Jewish gentleman and snagged up the beef. It was 11 am. I scanned the beef, and upon finding the kosher label, set it in the cart.

"What was that about?" Miriam asked.

"Gotta go, Miriam." I wasn't interested in wasting any more time than I had to. If Tails was indeed interested in meeting us at the Hangar, I couldn't miss it. Sure, I had at least four hours, but I had lunch to think about.

And what was this about a new avatar? I hadn't seen any sort of protocol on that. Then again, I hadn't been around the avatars long.

Miriam looked hurt for a second, but then pushed her cart away and left me.

It wasn't exactly the fact that we had a new avatar that bothered me so much as the timing. We'd been expecting more avatars to show up, yes, but not in the first couple of months of resettlement. The avatars were still getting set in one place and working out a plan of action. VLADJI was still on its training wheels. And yet, the Vortex had had the chutzpah to let a new avatar into Philly for training. With us in town.

Okay, I'll back up and explain. Again.

Avatars are basically these non-human beings spawned paradoxically through a fusion of tech and magic. (Even saying it sounds totally absurd.) The magic part comes from the infinite life force of the Vortex, a powerful immortal who commands portals, sends swirls of rainbows, and basically is incredibly wise. But their tech codes, the part that commands most of their outward appearances, originates from various video games and pretty much anything in pop culture that's fictional and has a hard copy that can be exploited – so you basically have Fortnite fighters everywhere.

As much as I don't want to explain how it operates (mainly because I don't have a flipping clue), I will say it offers the avatars some natural perks. Invulnerability, for one. They're as impossible to kill as the things which originated them. There's also a sixth sense thrown in, which makes them that much more aware of their environment. Oh, and they're much stronger, faster, and smarter than most humans will ever be.

How do I know all of this?

Two months ago, I stumbled across an avatar. Amy Rose from Sonic the Hedgehog, no less. She'd been scouting for a place to live after a big diaspora of her kind from New York City. They'd been sent away by their former masters, the Rainbow (long story), and they were looking for a new place to congregate. I didn't make sense of much of her words, but I did help her find a good neighborhood to settle into – the neighborhood which currently hosts the Hangar, the hideout of VLADJI.

Ironically, the weirdest thing about that run-in was probably the aftermath. I mean, sure, I didn't understand anything about Amy, but at least I wasn't seeing monsters everywhere when I'd run into her. After that, I spotted a big three-headed dog on my way home. And that was just the start. Honestly, it was kinda nice when I didn't know.

The day after the encounter, I bumped into another set of people – DJ and Vinny Lee.

I mean, sure, I'd seen Vinny Lee a few times in the past year when I took leisure time in the park, but we'd never really interacted until that day. It turned out that she was helping DJ, who was new in town, to adjust to her environs.

But it was DJ who stood out to me – mostly because she knocked me onto the pavement, and then bound up my injuries, then let me come along after a few fake-outs. You know, your typical chance meeting.

We weren't exactly on even ground – she was Christian through and through, I was Jewish – but she was probably the first person since Miriam who'd been really nice to me. Furthermore, even in the chaos of moving to a new place, she was still bold about her choices. And – shocker – we actually have quite a bit in common.

I thought, for once, maybe I could have something somewhat peaceful. Maybe I could have, you know, a normal set of friends. Hey, when you're a guy without anyone else in the neighborhood for a friend, you'll take anyone you can.

But even that bit of normalcy wasn't enough to shake what came after. That same day, I found Amy again, and not just her, but Sonic and Tails as well. The next day, we added a new member to our little friend group – a Muslim one, no less – only for all four of us to get thrown into something way over our heads.

I'll just say we searched for a mysterious sender and got way more than we bargained for. We didn't just discover our superhuman buddies' creator, but also another set of problems. The avatars had been sent by the Vortex to protect and keep watch over humanity, and thus couldn't intervene when it was human against human. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.

Unfortunately, they'd been released in wartime. Humans were getting into little squabbles with each other – and holding some harebrained ideas behind them, such as men being women and races getting justice for being wronged decades ago, just to name a few. Again, ridiculous.

So basically, we were called forward. Me and a bunch of people from completely different backgrounds and life experiences were called to be the defenders of reason for the human race. I wasn't looking forward to it, at first, because it meant being thrust into people and situations I couldn't explain to my family. However, I've grown a soft spot for it.

But where was I?

I headed back home with the groceries. I lived in North Philadelphia West, which wasn't that far from Kensington, where the Hangar, the unofficial headquarters of VLADJI, was based. I could just walk there, no trouble. But I had the sense that I might be in the house for a while. We had Shabbat preparations, after all. I picked up the pace.

I arrived at noon, no trouble at all. I was humming "Teeth" while I walked, still thinking about my encounter with Miriam, when I caught the first sign of weirdness that day.

I heard a faint whooshing in my ear. At first I thought Daniel might've sneaked up on me and blown into my ear (his all-time favorite way of messing with me).

"Daniel," I said, "if that's you, I swear –"

I faltered when I spotted the smoke cloud dissipating.

When I say smoke cloud, I don't mean the pleasant kind of white smoke that comes out of the chimney. I mean dark, pitch-black smoke, like you might see in a building fire, but a lot thicker and more opaque than regular smoke. It was already going away from where I was, but from the height of the trails – which was up to my eye level – it was probably big enough to cover a whole person.

"Hello?" I asked, but at that point it was already out of my eyesight.

I shrugged and headed up to the house. If I went until the afternoon without seeing any weirdness, that was a good day. On the other hand, what the heck was that smoke hiding? Tails didn't use smoke to hide himself, he flat out disappeared. And I got the sense that nothing had been burning.

And that my day, already chaotic with Shabbat on the way, was about to get even more chaotic.