The midsummer day was like any other in the record books. One moment it was drier than cracked earth. The kind where you beg and plead for just an inch of rain.
Then like magic a pop-up thunderstorm graces your day. Only for it to last a few minutes and to bring humidity to destroy your fleeting determination to get anything done.
This is the day Arthur Shadowthorn was having. If only that was the worse of it but today was also his day of a major exam.
Well it would have been if not for an ever useful apocalypse. You know the kind with portals raining down mythical beasts as dragons plucker unsuspecting people from the sidewalks.
You ask, what is Arthur doing?
Ah, that is running for his dear life. He must have a steak tied around his neck. For ever creature found him irresistible. There was a long 'conga' line as beasts thrashed each other to get just a fraction of a centimeter closer to a meal.
This had been going on for almost ten minutes, a lifetime if one was in such a situation. The end was drawing near as a our unlikely hero turned down the wrong dead end alleyway.
"Well damn... all that running for this crap?" Arthur's immature voice cracked underneath the stress and puberty.
He was not anything impressive in stature either. Short and unattractive in just about anyway possible. Zits and pimples riddled his face as the oily skin and sweat mixed. Giving off a foul odor of a boys locker room.
Not wanting to die like a dog, Arthur grabbed the first object that came into reach; a bent waffle bat...
Finally seeing his 'legendary' weapon, he let unleashed a war cry of fear and embarrassment.
"For Asgard..."
Arthur could not even finish before a beast, a rat of some kind, lept forwards. With a mighty swing the bat collided with the rodent.
Where the most unlikely of things occurred. The broken weapon bent in such a way to create a sharp edge. Well, protagonist luck be damned, that rodent was gutted like a fish at the morning market.
Here the world be frozen as a blinding vortex of light swallowed the faint darkness of the alleyway. As a letter unfurl in front of Arthur.
[Putting these thoughts and deeds to paper is far more difficult than you could imagine.
...
Protect the cornerstone of humanity.]
After reading, if one can call it being forced into your skull that, Arthur felt memories and emotions that were foreign smashing like waves inside his mind.
Each cycle was like torture but also blissful as his mind and body were molded into something greater than the sum of its parts.
At first it was more accurately to say it was physical. Then the changed were more along the lines of the paranormal. Where Arthur could feel energy that wrapped around him like a compression blanket.
This compression fueled more changes as instincts long dormant raged in the background.
In the brief pause of the world, Arthur, found himself forever changed.