One of the weirdest parts of having your life turned upside down is that afterwards, you have to keep going as if everything is normal. Come home, talk to your parents about your school day, avoid mentioning the monster that tried to kill you on the way home. The rest of the evening passed in a blur, and before I knew it, I was staring at the ceiling, wondering how I'd possibly be able to sleep after a day like that. I blinked once, and my alarm clock was blaring in my ear that I had overslept.

I did talk with 101 a bit more after the first fight, to figure out a bit more of the basics. In summary:

1. There are nine Chosen.
2. My upgrades include enhanced speed, physical strength, reflexes, and basic knowledge of how to use my new weapon. Also, whenever I'm not fighting, all that energy goes towards rapidly healing my injuries.
3. The spear is a unique weapon that I can summon or dismiss at will. These weapons are the only thing that can damage the monsters.
4. Monsters, 101, and all related phenomena can’t be perceived by anyone but the Chosen. They can see them, but they’ll just mentally parse them as unimportant background scenery.
5. The barrier between this world and the beyond is starting to break down, allowing monsters to invade through the cracks.
6. When the barrier is weak enough, the Last Ordeal will begin, and our skills will be put to a final test.
7. If we fail to overcome the Last Ordeal, humanity will be eradicated.

My questions didn’t end there, but 101 said that further discussion would be easier in front of the whole group. It even went so far as to schedule a meeting of the Chosen the following afternoon. How convenient.

The next day at school was uneventful. I did my best to hide my newfound strength during gym. I hadn’t told anyone about anything that happened; less for any specific reason than because I was pretty sure nobody would believe me. As soon as school ended, I swung by my locker and beelined to the woods out behind the campus. I think the land behind the school is caught in some endless zoning rights deadlock, so it just ended up as a forgotten chunk of wilderness that we aren’t supposed to trespass on. People cut through it all the time; nobody cares.

There were already a couple other people at the meeting spot when I arrived. One of them – a blond musclebound boy who I’d seen around but never spoken to – regarded me with a look I’ve come to recognize and expect from strangers. With my buzz cut and wardrobe full of oversized t-shirts, people sometimes aren’t sure whether I’m a boy or a girl at first glance. It’s exactly what I’m going for, so it’s always gratifying to see that reaction in the wild.

Not knowing anyone, I didn’t feel like being the one to break the silence, so I leaned against a tree and waited. The others looked like they were on the same wavelength, so the tension remained unbroken. All the others looked like they were about the same age as me, which I wasn’t expecting – I figured I’d be the odd kid out on a team of adults, or at least high schoolers. When the eighth Chosen joined the circle, I spoke up.

“Rita!”

Rita is my best friend. We’ve been looking out for each other since before she started her transition. She’d always help my stupid brain understand whatever subject in school I was struggling with that month, and I’d beat up anyone who bullied her. I was relieved to see a familiar face, but at the same time I was instantly worried for her. Rita doesn’t have a mean or violent bone in her body.

“Val?!” she called back in surprise. “Did you, um…”

“Meet a weird alien?” I replied, finishing her sentence. “Sure did. I’m pretty sure that’s why we’re all here.”

“Oh, do you two know each other?” That was from one of the other seven, a Japanese girl gravitating towards the conversation now that the silence had finally broken.

“Yeah, uh, we’re friends,” I said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. I’m usually okay at talking to strangers, but the weirdness of the reason we met was throwing me off. I glanced around the clearing, counting heads. “Eight, nine… is this everyone, then?”

A hand shot up from the middle of the crowd. “All right! Now that we’re all here, let’s all introduce ourselves!” Everyone looked at them – a tall and cheerful-looking redhead in a leather jacket – but nobody spoke up, so they just kept talking.

“I’m Harley Stanford. Age 13, they/them pronouns. No idea what’s going on with all this chosen one stuff, but we’re gonna be hanging out a lot, right? It’ll be a better time for everyone if we can get along.”

“Marie Edison.” The next one to speak up was a shorter girl with shoulder-length brown hair and a wary expression. “Also 14. I didn’t want anything to do with this, but now that I’m in, I’m in.”

Next, a wiry boy, towering over everyone else present, with a head of neatly trimmed black hair. “I’m Julio Valencia! Age 15. Hey, has anyone actually gotten a chance to fight a monster yet?”

“I have.” That was a girl with long, wavy hair so nice that she looked like she walked right here out of a shampoo commercial. Her smile suggested that she was way less freaked out about fighting monsters than I was. “Laura Selby. 14, she/her. I’ve got a lot of questions for the shiny weirdo who brought us here.”

“Don’t we all? I’m Keiko Inaba.” The girl who had spoken to me earlier introduced herself. “Age 14, this is my brother Akio. He’s cool and good at everything.” Akio nodded meekly, half-hiding behind his sister. Keiko had a casual energy to her that made it feel like she had always been friends with everyone present. Her brother couldn’t be more different, not even speaking up to introduce himself.

“Chris.” The boy who was giving me that look earlier declined to give a last name, or any other information. That bothered me more than it probably deserved.

Rita was next. She was tall and had a head full of messy hair that refused to obey the laws of man, brush, or God. “I’m Rita Hawthorne. Age 14, uh, she/her pronouns… it’s nice to meet you all?” I could tell that she was nervous, even more than Akio.

And that just left me. I stood up straight, giving an awkward wave to the group. “Uh, Val Jones. I’m 14, uh, they/them pronouns. I fought a monster earlier, too.” That introduction felt awkward. Shouldn’t I say more about myself? What else is there to do, talk about my favorite metal bands?

Fortunately, the uncomfortable silence was cut short by a tangle of flickering light from the middle of the circle that eventually settled as the familiar ‘face’ of 101.

“You nine are the Chosen,” 101 began in its usual monotone. I felt weirdly singled out by the fact that it was looking directly at me, but since everyone else was looking at it, I figured it probably looks that way from every angle. That felt impossible, but why would it start obeying the laws of physics now?

101 continued. “Together, you will face the monsters encroaching on your world from the Beyond. Through battle, you will protect humanity, and prepare yourselves, mentally and physically, for the Last Ordeal.”

“Yeah, you already told us that much,” Marie said. “We’re gonna need a little more info than that if we’re gonna do this.”

“Ask your questions.”

“Okay, what the hell are you?” Marie continued.

“Your language does not have the required vocabulary to describe existence within the Beyond. To give an approximate answer, the sole purpose of my creation was to come to this world and grant it the required power to fight back against the Last Ordeal. Monsters are created by a force that seeks your civilization’s destruction, but it is not the only force that exists within the Beyond.”

“Then what’s that force?” Keiko asked. “Why is the Last Ordeal happening in the first place? Whose fault is that?”

“I do not know.”

“Wait, seriously?” I spoke up in disbelief. “You came here from another dimension just to make us do all this! How can you not know?!”

“The force behind the Last Ordeal is unknowable in nature. What little information about it I possess was uncovered at great cost. It possesses the ability to obfuscate information about itself, even after it’s been discovered. Accordingly, the nature and motives of this force are unknown.”

I felt a chill run down my back as 101 explained. So, not only do we not know what we’re fighting, but we can’t know. I thought back to the monster I fought, trying to grapple with the fact that I would never understand where it came from or why.

Rita spoke up. “Are the monsters alive?”

“Not in the same sense as a human. They have more in common with machines than animals, although they possess some extremely limited intellect.” Rita nodded, but I could see in her face that 101’s answer didn’t really satisfy her.

“Are we getting rewarded for any of this?” Asked Laura. “I know this is important and all, but if our work is so important, we should be entitled to compensation.”

“I do not possess the ability to reward you with material wealth. However, whatever powers I have given you, you will retain even past the Last Ordeal. Beyond that, the only compensation I can offer is the continued existence of human civilization.” Laura pouted a bit at that.

“Why us?” That was the first time Akio had said anything since I got here.

“The nine of you were selected due to your potential,” 101 responded, unhelpfully. “The source of power for your new abilities is emotion. Those younger than you are too unsuited to combat. Those older than you feel emotion less directly and urgently. Therefore, all Chosen are selected within a specific age range.”

That was the moment I started to hate 101. It was the blank monotone that it spoke in that pissed me off. It just punched combat ability and emotional complexity into an equation and solved for X. It didn’t care about us or our feelings.

There was a quiet moment. It seemed like people were running out of questions, at least for the moment, so I offered one more.

“How long do we have?”

101’s eye shifted subtly, its gaze becoming more intense. Then, it gave us our deadline.

“The Last Ordeal will begin in 18 days.”