Lucas blinked and his vision changed entirely. Just a moment ago, he witnessed the defeat of a massive monster. A threat to the entire world. Lucas had sat down with a sigh, prepared to be whisked away to another world in need of saving. He'd gotten used to it. He'd been at it for so long that he thought it would never end.
Instead of waking up to a new problem on a new planet, Lucas saw water pouring out of a tap, his calloused hands covered in soap. He looked up at the long mirror and saw a public restroom, wooden cubicles lined up behind him. He wore a black polo shirt with white accents and dull blue jeans.
Lucas stood up straight and took a step back, not believing what he was seeing. Water dripped from his hands onto the tiled floor as Lucas ran through possibilities. It could be a dream. An illusion. He had waited for this day for over ten thousand years. He'd saved nearly two thousand worlds during that time. He had kept track of the exact number. 1,974 worlds.
Memories of the places he'd been ran through his mind. To say he saved entire worlds might be an overstatement. He had a duty to fulfill on every planet. Kill a corrupt king. Be a bodyguard for someone important. Stop a natural disaster. Help discover lost technology. Every world had asked something different of him, but the end goal was the same. A course correction that led the world down the right path.
The door to the restroom opened and a stranger walked in, wearing modern clothes. Lucas snapped out of his stunned state and reached for the hand dryer. The stranger gave a brief nod to Lucas, who responded in kind automatically.
Lucas was struggling to focus, the implications of being back finally setting in. He remembered this day even ten thousand years later. Lucas had created something of a ritual, going through his last day on Earth every morning and night. Running through the faces and memories of friends and family to ensure he didn't forget them. Their likes and dislikes. Their hobbies. He tried to remember all he could about those he loved.
He was at a large family gathering. Parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. They'd all banded together and gone to a large bar for a good old greasy meal. Lucas had discarded the information around the food he'd ordered, so he had no idea what meal awaited him.
Just the thought of getting to see his family again, getting to eat a meal with them, caused a lump to form in the back of Lucas' throat. He gritted his teeth and forced himself not to cry, baring his fangs at himself. He dragged his hands down his face for a reset now that they were dry. His face became blank and he walked out of the restroom.
He entered the main ground floor of a long building. People stood around tall tables, talking loudly and watching football while sipping beer. Lucas walked to the other end of the building which had lower tables and comfortable sofas attached to the wall. Lucas saw them. His family. He kept a straight face and sat in a simple wooden chair opposite his younger brother Ben. He ignored his meal, instead glancing around at everyone without making it too obvious. He didn't want to draw attention to himself.
On Lucas' left was his father. Lucas resembled him. A gruff, hardworking man with a strong build. Lucas' height matched his father's six-foot one-inch size to the exact millimeter.
Lucas was in his early twenties, while his twin siblings were nine years old. An odd fact that Lucas remembered about them was how they'd purposely been given names beginning with 'A' and 'B'. Amy came first. The older sister. If the roles were reversed then their names would have been Aaron and Bella.
Amy pulled on her big brother's sleeve. He looked and saw the screen of a smartphone pointed his way. Lucas had completely forgotten that these devices existed. So much other information had been crammed into his brain during his conquest. He only remembered the important bits like his family.
"Hey, hey, look at this." Amy said. Her phone displayed two orange cats playing, only to get scared by their owner appearing out of nowhere.
Lucas forced a smile and patted Amy's head. She smiled back and inched closer, pushing her way onto her older brother's chair. She held the phone in a way that allowed them both to see it and kept flipping through short videos of animals being cute.
He remembered feeling his sister, despite being nine years old, was mature for her age. Even if she was born just a few minutes earlier, she took her role of being Ben's older sister seriously. She had to look after the youngest. Because of that she gained strong intuition and knew something was wrong with Lucas. Lucas needed to sort himself out. It wasn't right to have a child caring for an adult's mental state. But he was just so overwhelmed. It took all his willpower to keep his cool. He refused to break down in front of his family.
A batch of food arrived, which included Lucas's and Amy's, so she put the phone away and hopped back onto her seat. This was the second batch, so some members of the family were already eating.
"Honey, could you pass the gravy over, please?"
Lucas whipped his head around at the voice of his mother as a plate was placed in front of him by a waiter. Long brown hair ran over her shoulder and down the front of her sweater. She smiled warmly, her bright blue eyes that Lucas had inherited smiling with her lips.
She pointed at a white porcelain cup next to Lucas. He did as she asked, passing it over in a way where his fingers felt the heat so his mother could grab the cool handle. Lucas was a stereotypical mother's boy.
Finally, Lucas turned his attention to his meal. Burger and chips. Classic. He grabbed the meaty steak burger and took a giant bite. Heard thick lettuce crunch. He leaned back and really enjoyed the taste. Junk food never tasted so good. No other world quite did it like Earth. Or maybe they did. Lucas had forgotten a lot over the years. The important part was that he was with family now, enjoying a meal with them.
Lucas' father raised an eyebrow. "Is it that good?"
The patriarch was usually a man of few words, but Lucas appreciated the small talk. "Yeah. It's been a while since I enjoyed some trashy food."
Lucas' father grunted and turned back to his own meal. That was his way of acknowledging what his son said and agreeing with it. This wasn't a fancy restaurant, but that didn't mean the food was bad. There was a certain charm to greasy food.
Lucas continued to eat and enjoy the atmosphere. His cousins shouted at each other, always at each other's throats. His grandfather watched football. His mother and grandmother gossiped about neighbours.
Once the burger was done, Lucas grabbed a fork to begin working through the chips, but he froze when he heard a scream outside.
The front door of the bar was nearby and stuck open. Most of the patrons heard the commotion. The place went quiet as heads turned, the sports commentator continuing to talk through speakers.
A fight had broken out across the street. There were eight people in the conflict, but it wasn't an even split. Two people were on the defensive. Half of the remaining combatants were attacking someone, while the other half laughed about it. They wielded various weapons, from swords, to guns, to giant axes. Cars rushed to drive out of the way and civilians scattered.
Dungeons started appearing on Earth a few years ago. Being a normal civilian, Lucas hadn't paid much attention to them, but he knew that explorers ventured into these dungeons for one reason or another. That's why people wearing suits of armour and wielding melee weapons roamed the streets. Humans adapted. It had become a normal way of life. Open carry, regardless of the weapon, was accepted. It was helpful to have explorers roaming with their weapons. If monsters left a nearby dungeon and attacked, then these people were capable of solving the problem immediately. It was a lesson learned from the slaughter of hundreds of thousands because explorers weren't allowed thier weapons and couldn't fight to save the people in this new, dangerous world.
Lucas' fist clenched so hard he shattered the fork. Some of his family saw and were going to question him, but when they saw the glare on his face, they held their tongues. Lucas swiftly moved around his wooden chair. He grabbed the back of the seat and took it with him as he exited the bar. He finally got a good look at the conflict.
On the defensive was a woman with a tower shield. It was as tall as she was, and twice as wide. She wielded the shield with one hand while a young girl was tucked under her other arm. Only using one hand meant she wasn't at peak efficiency, yet she wasn't struggling to move her equipment. She was strong.
Spending so much time fighting caused Lucas to have a good understanding of the capabilities of others. The way the woman moved her shield ahead of time was like she had precognition. There were three people attacking her and she was preemptively turning, like she could see it coming. To be fair, she could just be highly skilled, but she looked around Lucas' age. Early twenties. She wasn't old enough for her ability to be purely skill.
The young girl tucked under the woman's arm must be her sister. They both had striking blonde hair and shining green eyes. The girl looked to be around the same age as Lucas' siblings, which boiled his blood. Don't involve children in fights. That was one of his most important rules. Fights were problems by adults, for adults.
Chair legs clattered along asphalt, but no one noticed as the sound of weapons striking a metal shield drowned out most other sounds. Lucas planted a foot firmly up front. He picked his target. The shield woman might have precognition, but she could only block so much. She turned to defend her right side while the swordsman lashed out at her left. Physics. She literally couldn't counter in time. Lucas brought the chair overhead and tossed it at the swordsman. The sheer force of the object knocked the man off his feet, the chair bursting into hundreds of pieces.
This stopped the fight as all eight people turned to Lucas.
"What are you doing...?!" The blonde woman asked as she rose from the crouched position she'd been pushed down into, her full suit of shiny silver armour clinking with the slightest of movements.
Lucas saw how her stance was uneven. She leaned to one side, not putting full pressure on one leg. With the shield out of the way, Lucas saw red liquid running down the blonde's armour. This may have been a backstabbing. Not like it mattered. Someone was injured. Lucas was needed. How the fight started was irrelevant.
The swordsman winced as he stood up and pulled shards of wood out of his body, trickles of blood running down his arm. They'd pierced his simple leather jacket. He looked ready to rip Lucas' throat out. "Yeah, what the hell you think you're doing, huh? You wanna die?"
Lucas would've rolled his eyes at the cliche if he wasn't so annoyed. "I've been waiting for today for a long time. I don't appreciate my meal being interrupted."
While his meal hadn't been directly interrupted, the atmosphere was important. Hearing screams and a fight outside ruined the meal. And Lucas knew deep down he just couldn't help himself. He'd been saving people for so long. It was ingrained in his instincts. If he heard trouble, he would help. But at least for this one, his anger was taking over. A personal reason to fight had taken hold.
The group of six looked at Lucas in bewilderment before turning to each other and laughing.
"Your meal? Who cares. Man, what an idiot." The swordsman spoke up. "As thanks for the joke, I'll let you off." He made a shooing motion with his hand. "Go on, get lost."
"No, that's my line. You're a problem for the subjugators, not me. If you leave then I won't chase." Lucas clenched his fist. His emotions were still out of whack. He wanted this fight. He wanted to blow off some steam. It might cheer him up, like going to one of those rooms where people could destroy objects. "But please, do me a favour and stay. I need a punching bag."
Subjugators. They were SWAT for rowdy explorers that needed to be put in their place. Lucas had no doubt the nearest group were on their way, a nearby civilian likely calling them in.
Swordsman and his gang might be hotheaded, but they understood that Lucas wasn't just being courageous. His glare said he was prepared for a fight. The swordsman's crew switched to sizing up their new opponent, taking his threat seriously.
The blonde woman limped as she put her sister down and ushered her to run into the bar behind their mysterious saviour. With her sister safe, the woman stood in front of Lucas. "This is my fight, but I appreciate the help. I can at least defend so rely on me."
She was in no state to fight. Lucas stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "You'd just be getting in the way." It came out harsher than Lucas wanted, but he'd said it now. It's not like he cared what the woman thought, but he cursed his inability to shake his bad mood.
To her credit, the woman acted as if Lucas had been nicer and told her to stand down because she was injured. "...You're right, sorry. And thank you."
The blonde backed off but didn't rest. She didn't know what Lucas was capable of. She remained standing, ready to jump in with her shield just in case Lucas was in over his head.
Swordsman pointed the tip of his blade at Lucas. "Don't say we didn't warn you. You asked for this fight, so you're gonna get it."
In response, Lucas said just one word. "Constellation."