17 Uncle Marvin

The door opened, and a middle-aged man with a thin body revealed himself. He had a thick, black beard that reached down to his neck and wore glasses over his baggy eyes. The man had messy hair, and his attire had food stains scattered across. The man standing by the door was Marvin.

"Ray, what the hell are you doing here?" Marvin asked.

"Monster invasion," Ray replied.

"Well, well, well." Marvin crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe. "Who would have thought that something from childhood would come true."

"Can we come in?"

Marvin stared at Ray then looked at everyone one else. He waved his hand, signaling them to come into his room. The first thing Ian noticed were newspapers hung onto the wall over a computer, many of them were stories of major incidents from the past. Papers and cardboard boxes scattered across the floor in the living room. Blue and red wires, with unknown functions, cluttered on the ceiling that connected to his TV and computer. Marvin had metal shelves filled with gear parts, tools, and all sorts of electronics with a craft station nearby that had many gadgets on it.

"Welcome to my man cave, away from those government scum," Marvin said.

Lily walked towards the newspapers on the wall and asked, "What's all this for?"

"These are the highlights of the lies our government told us." Marvin looked at her. "I suspect that these bastards are the demons from hell, and the monster invasion proves that."

Marvin continued. "Think about it! Who has the technology to develop a real-life game system and open wormholes to other dimensions?"

"The government?" Ian scratched his head.

"Exactly!" Marvin's eyes brightened. "Aliens are just a cover-up for politicians to install a one world government to rule over everyone."

"Hey bro, where can we sleep?" Ray butted in the conversation.

Marvin led the group to a small room, and he laid down a thick blanket on the floor before dropping two pillows on it. He grabbed a candle from the kitchen and lit it up before setting it beside the window. Everyone dropped their belongings on the floor. Lily didn't like the dirty room and began cleaning it, along with Mrs.Willard and Mac.

"Hey, I just realize that our phones are working here!" Conner shouted with surprise.

"It probably won't be for long." Marvin shook his head. "The monsters would be here soon. Follow me."

Marvin brought the three men to his computer. He sat down and began fiddling with his computer. Various images of portals showed up on his monitor, some of them had monsters coming out.

"A buddy of mine from Daneland took pictures of these portals before he died," Marvin looked at the men.

"How'd he die?" Ian asked.

"It's highly likely he got killed by one of them." Marvin pointed at the monster in the picture.

Marvin continued to scroll down, and an image of a soldier in a camouflage uniform appeared. The soldier wore a mask that covered his entire face. He had a thick bulletproof vest and a ballistic helmet. In the photo, the soldier shot streaks of lightning at an incoming monster.

"What's weirder is that this soldier had some sort of supernatural ability." Marvin turned to look at them. "How he got it remains a mystery to me, and there's a possibility that there's more of them."

"It's the system, you damn nut." Ray held up his hand and transformed it into a blade.

Marvin was startled by the sudden transformation and fell out of his chair. Marvin adjusted his glasses and stared at Ray's arm with a look of bewilderment. He then stood up and began walking in circles around Ray, looking him up and down.

"Did the government experiment on you?!" Marvin grabbed Ray's shoulders and shook him.

"What? No!" Ray pushed him away and continued. "Like I said, it was from the system."

Then, Slimebob came out from underneath Ray's shirt and stared at Marvin. Slimebob wriggled its body as if it was trying to say hello. It moved from Ray's shirt and onto his shoulders.

Marvin flinched at first but took a closer look at it. "Is that the system's summoned beast as well?"

"I managed to summon it after collecting Souls from monsters. It sucks that the next summon costs one hundred thousand, though."

Marvin grabbed a camera by his computer and took pictures of Ray and Slimebob. Bright flashes of light filled the living room from the camera. Marvin wanted to share this with his friends online. Ray's eyes twitched wildly and grabbed the camera away from him.

"Hey, give it back! That's for my scientific log!" Marvin yelled.

Ray tossed the camera onto the sofa and said, "Scientific log? More like sharing it with your fuckbuddies online and blaming the lizard people."

"Fuck off, you low IQ ape." Marvin walked towards the camera and picked it up before setting it back near the computer.

"Yeah, whatever." Ray rolled his eyes at him.

Conner interrupted both of them, "I think its possible that the military is already thinking of transforming the whole army into one that integrates supernatural abilities."

"Think about it. Although the uses of our abilities can be limited, it can continuously be used over and over again." Conner continued. "In this way, the military won't have to waste more resources on ammunition or firearms."

"They're probably planning for when the time comes to fight the Gods' Underlings, or whatever," Ian added.

Three days passed while the group stayed in Marvin's room. Occasionally, they would head out to collect food rations from the military. They all noticed that the army was recruiting those with summoned beasts and abilities. Over the past three days, the government has been trying to regulate the usage of abilities from citizens to prevent any powerful anti-government resistance and organizations from forming. However, the government's attempts failed as many of those with abilities secretly organized throughout Condria, whether it was for good or bad.

The monster invasion worsened as portals materialized near Condria's mainland. As the monsters grew stronger, the soldiers on the ground were pushed back into retreat. Thousands of casualties occurred every day since the fighting began. For humanity, the situation was turning for the worse. Countless civilians were trapped in monster-infested areas with nothing to defend themselves with, and those who tried were killed.

Lily and Ian were currently in an abandoned apartment room across from Marvin's room. Ian watched Lily as she practiced her ability. Fire shot forward as she waved her hand, and disappeared before it reached the wall.

"You said you only have the power to use flames, right?" Ian asked.

"Yeah, but it didn't tell me exactly how I could use it, so I thought I could experiment a little," Lily replied.

"Can you breathe out fire?"

In the next moment, a large, blue flame shot out as Lily blew air from her mouth. The furniture in front of her caught fire, but Lily immediately put it out with the wave of her hand. Lily smiled and gave Ian the thumbs up.

"Damn, that's incredible!" Ian's eyes brightened up.

The two continued to experiment with the usage of Lily's ability for hours. They were finding all sorts of new ways to manipulate her flames. Lily was able to adjust the speed of her flames to a certain limit, as well as the number of fireballs that she can create simultaneously, which were five in total. Ian's favorite method was the finger gun that he told her to do. Lily held her two hands out, forming her fingers into guns, and shot out fireballs one-by-one. However, Lily didn't want to put it in her new arsenal as she thought it was goofy looking.

Conner suddenly barged through the door and screamed, "The portals appeared over the city!"

The three of them ran back towards Marvin's room and noticed Marvin was staring into his telescope near the window. Right beside them were Ray, Mrs.Willard, and Mac with grim expressions.