“Come on~! You can do it~! Yay~, I’m glad I never have to worry about the stairs you broke, or the completely destroyed wall, doorway and part of the kitchen counter… Anyway, good job Violet~! Daw~, who’s a cute bear-sized rat-dragon~? Aw~, yes you are, you’re my adorable, ow~! Shitballs, no biting! My right arm is still all fucked up from the last time you maimed me!” As Michael was trying to ‘bond’ with his feral parasitic demonic beast, she attempted to bite down onto his arm again. Fortunately, he was wearing a leather jacket, so he was able to avoid being injured.

It was then that he noticed the loud and incessant buzzing that was coming from the living room. He whispered “Holy cuntsauce… That does not look like fun. Nope, fuck gathering supplies, we gotta get the hell outta here, right now.”

There had been quite a few potted plants and even a small tree, stored near the front of his house. Normally, it would just look like a lush garden, but in the few hours since his parents died, it had transformed into a dense jungle.

He couldn’t hear the birds squawking upstairs, so he could ‘safely’ assume that they were probably dead. However, that buzzing noise was definitely a huge swarm of those glowing green wasps.

“Fucking cunt! Bitch, fuck me in the ass you whore!” Violet was nervous, so she suddenly started screaming obscenities towards the hundreds of bees. Almost instantly, a couple dozen of those hornets started heading towards the giant dragon-rat.

Michael immediately noticed something else that was quite peculiar and disturbing: His mother’s corpse was gone. It hadn’t melted into goo, but simply disappeared. At least, it did for a few moments, until he saw a five-foot tall, bright-green, dryadic woman, walking down the stairs.

When she entered the living room, her crystalline eyes focused on him for a moment. Then she waved her right hand and all of the bees abruptly stopped. A few moments later, they all began gathering around her arm and she whispered “This is merely an empty shell, her soul has already left this world. Do not worry, you shall see her again eventually. Now, you must leave…”

He complained “Meh~, can’t I eat something first? I’m so fucking hungry right now.” Without even waiting for her to reply, he grabbed a flashlight and started pulling various cans of food out of the cabinets. There was also frozen chicken liver, legs, thighs, and a large bag of fish fillets in the freezer. As for the refrigerator, he managed to find ground beef, five onions, ten small red potatoes, a dozen eggs, some green peppers, jalapenos, seven yellow squash, celery, carrots, and a myriad of other random vegetables.

The dryadic woman murmured “Fine… it makes no difference to me, but are you going to be able to consume all of that sustenance?”

Michael snickered, “Nah~, probably not, but who knows? Most of this is for my cute, weird-ass monster-rat here…”

“Fuck-fuck shit cunt!” Violet yelled as she trembled in fear; a series of loud explosions were making the ground quake and even the windows were rattling, about to shatter. Sonic booms rang out as well, caused by the jets that were flying over the city. There were also Apache helicopters firing heavy machine-guns incessantly, along with drones launching Hellfire Missiles, as they bombarded the denser concentrations of ‘hostiles’.

“Damn, that’s probably around Fleet Street? I should hurry the fuck up, huh? Well, it’s not like you can ‘outrun’ something like this… Anyway, who are you? I know you’re not my mother, but I feel like we’ve met before?” He was ignoring the chaotic air-raids outside and continuing to calmly slice up some onions. Normally, he would wash them off with soap and water first, but that wasn’t going to be possible. Besides that, he was also fairly certain that his immune system was strong enough to resist salmonella and E. coli at that point.

The dryadic woman walked over to the broken windows near the front of the house and released the huge swarm of bees outside. Then she turned and walked over to the kitchen, smiling at the man who had removed his torn leather jacket. She whispered “My name is Arcana… You might not remember me, but we have known each other for a very long time. Michael, you are far more powerful than you realize… This universe is attempting to restrain you at the moment; however, it is only a matter of time before you regain your full capabilities. Until then, you need to be a little more careful… There will be many beings who will try to bend you to their will. They will try to use and abuse you. Do not worry, I will always be there to protect the seven of you… Although, I will refrain from intervening unless it is absolutely necessary.”

He smirked, wondering “Are you like my ‘guardian angel’ or something? Hahaha~, is there some rule where you’re not allowed to help me out too much? Or is it because you need to preserve your strength?”

Arcana giggled, shaking her bright-green head and murmuring “No, I simply enjoy watching you struggle… Please continue to entertain me.”
After that, she continued to walk over to the back door, opening it and walking out into the yard. As she passed by the myriad of flowers and other types of plants, she was swiftly starting to construct a bastion of Nature.

By the time that Michael finally finished ‘preparing’ the four giant pots of food, every row-house on the block was covered with gigantic vines and starting to collapse. However, enormous trees were growing out of the concrete and reinforcing the various walls. There were a couple dozen survivors hiding within the adjacent basements and were thus trapped underground, as their homes were invaded by all kinds of strange voracious man-eating plants.

Surprisingly, the two black cats in his yard, weren’t killed. Rather, they were invigorated and infused with a massive amount of Nature aura. Tiny green mana-cores started forming in their brains, while their bodies rapidly expanded. Within a few minutes, they looked like panthers and ‘meowed’ cutely to Arcana, rubbing their scent against the bark-like skin on her legs.

As he watched that strange scene, Michael muttered “She seems really~ fucking familiar, but I just can’t seem to remember for some reason? Meh~, whatever, she’s probably some kinda weird godlike being from another dimension, heh-heh~…”

Even though the electricity and water were both cut off, the gas-line still worked properly, so he was able to use the stove to cook the four giant pots at the same time. Violet kept screaming obscenities as she was using her giant claws to tear apart the vines that were coming from the living room; they were attracted by her chaotic aura and wanted to devour her alive.

Michael didn’t bother stirring the food and decided to help out his ‘friend’ instead. He quickly entered the kitchen and grabbed a huge butcher knife out of a cabinet under the counter to his left.

Then he yelled “Seriously, Arcana, can’t you tell your garden to stop attacking us?” It was at that moment when a nearly invisible, pitch-black wisp, flew into his back and transformed into a fluttering, illusory cape. If he wasn’t hacking and slashing the vicious plants, he might have noticed the beautiful mantle of glowing stars that was expanding behind him.

However, it swiftly condensed into a tattoo, underneath his white shirt. The beautiful starscape branded upon his flesh, slowly vanished into ‘normal’ pale skin, with plenty of old acne scars.

The screen door behind him was suddenly ripped off of its hinges and when he turned around, there was a two-meter tall, out of shape, dryadic, middle-aged man who he recognized. Michael shouted “Oh for fuck’s sake! Now my neighbors even turned into zombie plant-monsters?! Welp, guess this means I spent all that time preparing an awesome and amazing feast, for absolutely no goddamn reason at all!”

Instead of confronting the roaring monstrosity coming in the back, he guided Violet forward, into the living room. Of course, he did remember to grab his jacket first, along with the knives he had stored in the pockets.

Many of those glowing green vines had sharp thorns, which contained a paralytic toxin. However, when they scratched Michael’s neck, face and hands, it merely caused him to bleed a little bit. As for the giant bear-sized rat, its draconic scales were able to protect its body, while it focused on using its claws to defend its slightly vulnerable face and head.

The two of them quickly made their way through the ‘jungle’ and the enormous reptilian roden jumped into the huge window. It didn’t hesitate for a moment, as it continued sprinting across the street and chomping down onto a screaming, terrified little girl; Violet ripped off her left arm and devoured it, but the child was still frantically trying to fight back against the demonic beast.

As he casually walked outside, Michael looked up at the beautiful bright-blue, almost-full Moon in the sky. He smiled wryly, grumbling “Figures that the first time I leave my house in six months, it’s literally the end of the world… or at least it sure as fuck looks that way.”