After: The First of Newer Tales (Closed)

"And this," Mr. Mendelson says, in that high wheezy voice of his, "is where you'll be spending your wonderful days with us." He sweeps his hands the way those gameshow girls do when they're showing off the prize showcases.

Janus Fox surveys the cubicle --modular walls covered with grey felt, a dental plaque-hued CPU with a CRT screen and a dusty table. He fakes a smile. This is his --what? fourth?-- job in the span of six months. Minimum wage for 8 hours inputting collated traffic data into spreadsheets. He NEEDS this. There are people with worse luck --jobless, penniless, and alone. At least you've got a living, right?

Tch, he thinks scorn brewing inside. You call this living?

Janus Fox should know.

He was sixteen when he fell into a lake while on a field trip with his class. Getting wet and laughed at was a discomfiture at most he was prepared to endure. Standing up from a shallow pool to find yourself in a faux-medieval fantasyland populated with living armor, elfin princesses and gigantic monsters was another thing entirely.

At first, Janus thought it was a lucid dream, but an encounter with the Demon Lord Cullwright dashed that belief to pieces.

SHE saved him. Or, rather, he finally allowed himself to be saved. Finally gave in to what he was sure was a fantasy of his drowning brain. After spending a week in excruciating pain and a fever that burned hotter than hell, wouldn't you?

Surviving Cullwright's "Curse of Unmaking Shadows" changed him somehow. As days faded into weeks he found he had become faster, stronger, and more sensitive to the presence of the Demon Lord's black magics. Janus also found that he could summon bladed weapons --black as pitch and a thousand times stronger than steel-- at will from thin air. Selphyr the Mage believed that the shadows of Cullwright's curse that had coursed through Janus' veins had somehow bonded with him and became his to command.

So, through a bloody, sweaty (and spunky --haha) campaign that lasted seven long years, the boy became a man. The man became a legend: Janus Blackblade, the Unmaker of Shadows.

They were on their way to the capital of the newly forged empire when, crossing a logbridge, his lanndragon Misteltein reared up unexpectedly and Janus Blackblade fell into a ditch...

...and surfaced from the shallows of a lake, sixteen again, and being laughed at by his classmates.

The fevered fantasies of a drowning brain?

Not quite.

Because Cullwright's mark was still there.

And the power of the Blackblades was still there.

But without monsters to slay, or demon lords constantly harassing him, or princesses to be saved, he called upon the power less and less. There were assignments to be done, school events to join or organize, reports to be made... And slowly... Slowly... What had seemed to be an amazing truth became more and more a fantasy.

He tried to make something of it. Write it down... Hoped to sell the story one day. People told him he wrote well, after all. But every day the story faded bit by bit. It was enough for the dream of telling the story of The Land to carry him through a Literature degree.

Maybe that was all it was meant to be.

So the Janus Fox of now, 23 years old and a failure for the past two years, sighs inside his head, and smiles, and says "It's wonderful, Mr. Mendelson. I'm sure I can spiffy it up a bit after a while."

He hears a few people in nearby cubicles snicker.

Mendelson claps once. "Well, okay. That's it then. Welcome to Maerowicz and Bayer!" He shakes Janus' hand, smiles his odd little smile and scuttles off to his office down the hall.

Janus sighs audibly this time and takes his seat. Buries his head in his hands in a momentary fit of dissatisfaction. Forces a smile as he turns his computer on and the plaque-colored thing whirrs to life.

Janus Fox --The Blackblade, Unmaker of Shadows and Savior of The Land-- sets to work for a day of number-crunching and spreadsheets.

The day does not end soon enough.

Janus pounds the street with his heels and the echo of the hard rubber of his sole on the concrete is: bored. Boredboredboredboredbored. Even his steps complain about what his life has become.

He passes by a convenience store on his way to the bus stop to pick up a six-pack of soda and sees his reflection on the misted-over glass: pale and scrawny in a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, black slacks wrinkled from a day of sitting down and crossing and uncrossing legs.

Janus notices a girl behind him. She is pretty --shoulder-length hair framing a youthful face, full enough breasts, curves where they matter. She flashes a glance at him, thinking he isn't looking. She smirks. What a loser, Janus reads from her body language.

Janus imagines himself turning around, saying, "Hi, I'm Janus from Maerowicz and Bayer just about a block away from here. I actually saved the world... Well, A world, at least. I was wondering if you'd like to go out and have a drink with me?"

Yeah, right.

On reflex, Janus hits his head against the glass pane in despair. The girl snickers and the sound brings Janus back to reality and the fact that he is in public, where such displays are reserved for homeless crazies or insufferable losers. He almost groans, but decides to save what dignity he has left. He pays for the soda in exact change, smiles a weak apology at the cashier and leaves.

He is a block away from the bus stop when he hears the crash, and a woman's scream. Years of the life mundane locks his feet in their course --it's probably just someone getting mugged... or worse... It's not like I could do anything about it...

But then a jolt runs up his spine, and Janus senses a familiar current in the air.

The crashing continues. A fight. But no ordinary one...

He freezes in place for a heartbeat, ears searching, sharp once again. His whole body is tense with anticipation as he runs back... Back into a shadowed alley where the screams had come from.

Janus Fox grins. Rips off his tie. He knows.

Janus Blackblade is alive again.