Brian Ortes was not a Thief, he worked as an IRS agent in property seizure. He of course decided early in his career to keep his occupation discreet, telling friends and relatives only that he was a "federal agent" and that he was not at liberty to speak about the details of his work. This was only true to an extent, as nothing in his work said he couldn’t discuss his occupation, only the personal information of his victims, or ‘cases’ as he referred to them.

  A few weeks prior, while seizing the assets of a family owned business, a strange window appeared out of thin air as he was handing the writ of seizure to the elderly former owner:

  ^

  Congratulations, you are now a thief!

  Confused, he initially suspected the NSA was pranking him again, as his office often blamed them for internet outages and other minor annoyances without proof. It took days for Brian to grasp the reality: supernatural powers existed, and he possessed them.

  After experimenting with his enhanced reflexes, an odd ability to hide in shadows, and an uncanny knack for unintentionally startling random people he stood next to, Brian briefly entertained the thought that he might be special. That notion faded when he found himself soaking wet next to an airport strip in a covered hanger, standing beside a ten year old kid wielding nerf guns.

  Brian finally asked, “So what’s your story kid?”

  The boy looked up at him. “My name is Darin, not ‘kid’. I won a nerf archery competition and the prize was a fifty dollar gift card and super powers. I guess they kept that last part a secret.” The kid chuckled at his own joke.

  “So what, you’re an archer?” Brian asked.

  “Marksmen, I poured all of my skill points into expanding my arsenal options.” He said as he lifted up various Nerf guns, all of a single shot variety.

  “Very impressive.”

  “Yeah, I’m level eight now,” Darin said, standing a little taller.

  Brian, only at level three, wasn’t sure how the power scale worked. It annoyed him to be so far behind the child though.

  “Are you here by yourself, kid?”

  “No, my mom is over there with the camera,” Darin said, waving at her.

  Glancing at an unoccupied loading bay, Brian saw an attractive woman with brown hair falling in ringlets, holding a handycam and waving back at her son proudly.

  “And she is ok with you being here in a potentially dangerous situation?” Brian asked.

  “Yeah, she has tried to be supportive of my hobbies since dad left us. Says she wants me to pursue my dreams like she was never able to or something,” Darin explained.

  “Well, that is very kind of her,” Brian said, glancing at her again. She was undeniably attractive.

  “HEY! Eyes over here, bucko,” Darin shouted, giving Brian as intimidating a look as he could muster as a grade schooler.

  “I uh, was just hoping I could get a copy of any footage she gets today. Could you help me with that?” Brian stammered.

  Darin eyed him suspiciously. “Yeah, sure,” he shrugged.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Brian noticed two women approaching from the parking lot. One was about to hop the fence, but the other walked to a gate and snapped the bolt with a stick—or was that a broom? They shuffled quickly toward Brian and Darin to get out of the rain.

  Checking the time before the raid began, Brian noted ten minutes remained—plenty of time for awkward small talk. He greeted the women as they approached. “Good evening, ladies. I assume you are here for the global event?”

  “Yes I am, but I can only stay for about thirty minutes. Then I have to pick up my kids at daycare,” said the curvy woman holding a broom, as she and her companion shook out their umbrellas and caught their breath.

  The other woman, middle-aged and wearing heels, stood straight, cleared her throat, and said, “I’m not exactly sure what is happening, but if we want to go in a circle for a minute and say what each of us does I’d be happy to go first.”

  Her rehearsed tone suggested she was severely misunderstanding the situation, but Brian wasn’t about to interrupt.

  “Feel free,” he said.

  “Well my name is Linda with Naturoleum. We help people heal naturally with our therapeutic grade essential oils. We also help others achieve financial independence through part-time work,” she said, passing out pamphlets in sandwich baggies to protect them from getting wet.

  “Let me know if you would like to meet up to learn more, or host an event in which you could receive some free products! My favorite is the diffuser necklace paired with peppermint oil.” She held up her necklace proudly.

  Still confused, Brian ventured, “Very interesting. So what is your ability?”

  “I help people find the natural path to health and gain financial independence at the same time!” Linda replied.

  “Of course,” Brian said, masking his confusion. He turned to the woman with the broom. “Ma’am, do you care to share?”

  “I’m Marsha. I don’t really know what’s going on either, but I have been blessed with a holy mission that was revealed to me last week when someone tried to break into my house. I picked up my broom and smacked him good in the name of Jesus. I knocked his demon-possessed ass back out the window all the way to the sidewalk and my broom didn’t even break! So I think Jesus wants me to help people by smackin’ the devil-worshipping ass out of them!”

  “Ok, well I believe the devil-worshippers might be coming through that green portal in… five minutes.” Brian pointed towards the now visible energy shimmering in the middle of the air field.

  "So real quick, I am Brian, and I am a…” He paused, glancing at Marsha, who had literally kicked a thief to the curb, and said, “I’m a ninja… and the young man next to me is Darin, an archer turned Marksmen?”

  “Something like that,” Darin conceded.

  Just then, a tiny red-headed girl jogged up, wielding two baseball bats and some 80’s punk gloves, trailed by a skinny young man with something under a jacket.

  “Hey there everyone! Names Ridley, and this is Funk Master. Do y’all want to join my party, the Planeteers?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Brian began to wonder if he was the odd one out in this group by being sane.

  “One minute!” Darin announced.

  “Shit,” Brian exclaimed.

  “Language!” Marsha glared at him.

  “Invite to Planeteers! Invite to Planeteers!” Ridley started saying as she looked at each of the people in the circle.

  Brian accepted the prompt and he saw a tiny window in his peripheral that showed the names of the people in the group and green bars. The chaos and insanity of the situation was getting to him so he took a deep breath and calmed himself. Then opened his eyes concentrating.

  His mind worked overtime as he looked at the field of battle before him. There were two airplanes and hydraulic cargo loading karts nearby. It seemed there was a range of loading and refilling vehicles just sitting idly in the rain.

  “Ok, game plan: if you are good at hitting things, get up front. If you shoot things or help people, you stay back behind at least one row of cover and retreat if need be. Good luck, everyone,” Brian gave the orders using textbook video game logic, but some instruction was better than nothing.

  To his surprise most of them snapped alert and started moving into a semblance of his directions. Save one.

  “Hi, I’m Linda with Naturoleum,” Linda began, pitching to Ridley.

  “Three, two, one,” Darin counted down, looking more excited than on Christmas morning. The rain and wind stopped abruptly. Brian watched as the sickly green portal grew, emitting a strong light from its center, opening into a forty-yard-wide half-circle on the pavement.

  Through the portal, Brian saw a mountainous world with sparse, withered foliage. A startled rabbit with a long horn on it’s head darted through, but as it saw the group, it screeched, revealing two long, pointed teeth more suited to a vampire than a rabbit.

  “Holy crap! Do we have a full-on Monty Python scenario here?” said the young man that Brian refused to think of as Funk Master.

  A blast of heat radiated from the portal, followed by a horn’s blast. The rabbit fled as the ground rumbled. Around a mountain pass, Brian saw a large group of green-skinned figures—tall, thick-muscled, with tusks protruding from their mouths. They wore tough leather and carried crude weapons: spears, axes, and hammers. As they drew closer they could hear the sounds of guttural chanting.

  “Hooo-Haa Doooh-Sharon! Hooo-Haa Doooh-Sharon! Hooo-Haa Doooh-Lexus!”

  “I think those are orcs,” Darin said. “They look similar to an old online game called WOW.”

  “There are at least two hundred of them,” said the young man now holding a saxophone. “Did they just say Lexus?”

  Realizing their group was vastly outnumbered, Brian considered suggesting an immediate retreat, but as he watched the first line of Orc’s exited the portal. As they stepped on the tarmac, the concrete emitted a glow. A pattern of light started to spin a series of symbols, revealing a complicated series of rings shining a blue glowing light from the asphalt.

  The glow increased in intensity and complexity as the Orcs began to charge forward—then with a snap, the giant ring of patterns flashed. The circles unleashing a howling circle of wind that erupted around the orcs. The wind sucked the orcs inwards, yanking them off of their feet causing them to tumble to the center of the ring. They began piling on top of each other creating a ten foot mound of orcs.

  A second flash went off from a series of smaller ring before Dozens of exploding webs shot forward toward the center of the circle. The orcs pushing against the wind now found themselves stuck together by interconnected sticky strings.

  Finally a third and final flash went off. The orcs in the piles roaring suddenly cut off, replaced by a dazed and confused look in the faces of the previously terrifying orcs.

  The former menacing wave of orcs were subdued within in a few seconds. This display of power left all but the red headed girl stunned.

  “Alexander you wonderful bastard! You did it! Louis, make yourself useful. I think we need some battle music!” Ridley shouted.

  Brian glanced at Louis—grateful to know his actual name. Like a spell had fallen over him, Louis pulled out dark sunglasses, sliding them on his face like he was the coolest kid in elementary school. The kid dropped his voice to mimic an R&B singers, “Ohh, sista. It’s time to slide that funk back on ya.”

  Louis began a rhythmic beat on his saxophone, as he he swayed back and forth to the beat. Physically Brian felt his body forced to relax. Louis’s legs twisted and kicked to the beat as he approached a trash can, kicked it over, and started stomping on it, using the lid in place of a bass drum.

  Sharp, quick notes started the pattern flowing into a smooth funky melody. After playing the melody through twice, he continued stomping, dropped the sax from his mouth and began to sing, “Oh my little fi-re child, gunna burn the town and get real wild, we’re gu-nna burn the night away, gunna crush some skulls, til the break of day.”

  Ridley, who had been staring at Louis in awestruck wonder, howled into the air before turning to charge the orcs. She twirled her bats around as a golden glow enveloped her. Brian was about to stop her, but realized this might be the only chance to attack.

  Seizing the opportunity, Brian shouted, “It’s now or never!” and rushed after Ridley, using his enhanced agility to catch up.

  Drawing his pistol first, Brian fired off a few rounds into the the charging orcs, but a glowing blue eradicated each of the bullets before they could hit. Brian expected this as the same had happened when he faced a giant mole tearing up his lawn. Switching to a magic dagger and some throwing knives he had prepared, he rushed forward again.

  The pile of bodies was blocking most of the portal. This forced the orcs still waiting to pass through to climb over or around the pile, greatly slowing their forward progress.

  Brian heard the sound of two plastic toy guns pop off as green darts whizzed past his ear. The darts hit the first orc to get around the pile and charge, one dart sticking his chest and the other his head, collapsing the orc in place. Glancing back, he saw Darin slide between a loading cart and refuel truck like he had done this a thousand times. He cocked the nerf hand guns he was dual wielding before jumping out of cover, smoothly firing two more shots.

  “How is that fair?” He griped as he turned to see what the kid was taking cover from. Twenty yards in front of him an orc took a single step before hurling a javelin straight at his head.

  Two weeks ago Brian would have died on the spot, but he now moved with snake like flexibility. He fell forward as he twisted his body. The javelin passing an inch above his chest. As it passed him his leg kicked around and back underneath him before he spun and threw a knife, piercing the orc’s arm, but the orc simply shrugged it off as it charged at him swinging a club in the air. He rolled around the side of the orc gracefully as the orc swung down at him. Taking another knife out he stabbed the back of it’s knee. The orc fell but still attempted another swing at Brian as he jumped away.

  “These are some tough bastards.” He said moving away as the orc was no longer a threat, and he lacked finishing power.

  Brian watched as Ridley launched herself into the oncoming orcs. The portal was plugged up enough to where only three or four orcs were charging out at a time. Ridley leapt while swinging her bats into the knee of the front most orc, collapsing his knee with the first swing then threw her gloved fist into the side of its head causing the orc to tumble sideways. Turning around he saw nearly a dozen orcs downed by Ridley and the supporting fire of the Nerf kid. To his left, Marsha lifted her broom, which glowed white like a beacon as she shouted, “Get your ass behind me, Satan!” She smashed it into an orc holding a battered shield, sending him hurtling into the orc standing behind him, both falling to the ground dazed. He began to wonder if he was the weakest one here.

  Not a bad start, however. Brian thought, shifting to support.

  He jumped horizontally, landing behind Marsha, and aimed for an orc about to swing a club at her. Marsha blocked a rusty sword with her broom, ducked a fist, then lifted her broom high, shouting, “The power of Christ compels you!” The ground shook as she struck the orc shoulder and slammed it down into the ground, cracking the asphalt. A wave of power radiated out, causing the nearby orcs to stumble.

  A glow was now wrapped around Darin as Louis improvised a song about a ‘Nerf orc stomp’. The kids speed at which he reloaded his guns seemed to increase as he took out two more orcs in a blink. Running forward, Darin slid behind a body to reload as if he was John Wick.

  Darin and Marsha seemed capable of holding the flanks, so Brian moved in to search for Ridley who had dove to the other side of the pile of webbed orcs, out of his sight. He saw black blood fountaining over the orc obstruction and as he rounded the mound, another, smaller mound of bodies had formed, with Ridley atop it like she was playing king of the hill.

  Her bats, now bent and dented up, didn’t seem to hold her back one bit as she caved in another orc’s skull. Her brutal onslaught was gruesome to watch. She was starting to get drenched in the black blood of the orcs. Contrasting horrifically with her glowing red eyes.

  As he ducked under an axe, he sliced an orcs forearm with his dagger, aiming for the tendons. Then rammed his other knife into the kidney and jumped back toward the webbed orcs, trying to cover his back. A shout erupted from the mound surprising him. The previously dazed orcs were beginning to wake up and tear at the webbing. Ridley also had the webbed orcs to her back so she wouldn’t get encircled, so Brian was forced to move in closer to warn her. Fighting past two orcs, but as she turned toward him, a wave of primal fear hit his gut. Shaken, he felt the need to hide—not from the orcs, but from her. Using all his agility, he ducked as her bat swung at his head, brushing his hair. She howled as she leapt off the hill, full of killing intent, targeting him.