AN: Hi, and welcome to Incursion. This is actually the second incarnation of this fic, and has multiple changes to both make the story more logical and to set the plot up for more exciting developments in the future.

I hope you enjoy. And, feel free to leave a review with your thoughts on the fic. This is ultimately for your enjoyment, and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

I awoke to a startlingly intense beam of UV radiation blasting through my window, and winced as my retinae screamed like a woman in labor. It was an average day in the beautiful southeast, the raging pustule of the United States where the humidity is so insanely high that your skin turns into a slip n' slide the moment you dare to enter the steamy hell known as "outside."

Attempting to not drown in my own sweat, I rolled to the other side of the bed and glanced at my clock. The gleaming red lights read "7:30 AM, Friday." A shudder shot through me as I came to terms with the fact that school started in exactly twenty minutes. I sprinted to the kitchen to pour a glass of orange juice when I saw a note taped to the refrigerator.

"I've got training this weekend, so the house is yours. Don't burn the place down. BTW, I drank all the OJ." -Richard

"Dick," I said with a chuckle as I took the note down. My older brother and sole housemate, Richard, was enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, so I had the house to myself one weekend a month. We had been on our own since our mom and dad died in a car accident sixteen years ago. Luckily, we had our grandmother to take us in and raise us until Richard and I moved out. It wasn't ever the same in the family, but we got by.

I showered in two minutes flat and rushed into the nerd lair known as my bedroom. Neon Genesis Evangelion figures adorned the shelves and looked nearly cool enough to make me forget my status as a piece of weeaboo trash. Alongside my potentially cringeworthy merchandise, the room was complete with a collection of classic consoles, a beastly jet engine PC, and enough Doritos to feed a family of four for a week or so. I yanked a pair of tan cargo pants and a t-shirt with the insignia of AMD out of the closet and donned the attire before looking at myself in the mirror.

"Oh my, Aaron Carlyle, the females will not be able to resist your rapier wit and stunning good looks," I said to the reflection as I swept my brown hair to one side and attempted to make myself look presentable. I had the muscle tone of a wet noodle, and being over six feet tall didn't help my appearance in that regard. A bowl of Lucky Charms and three absolutely sick rolls over the living room furniture later, I leapt into my car and floored it out of the driveway.

This car was a great way to empty the wallet, and I was absolutely delighted that I made a Saudi prince smile every time I turned the key. I nearly flipped the car after a hard right turn that would impress Speed Racer, and sped down the parkway to my high school. As ashamed as I was of being a "Southern Boy," I was grateful for actually having paved roads and not being absolutely uncouth like many of my brethren.

I swerved into the parking lot of my beloved education establishment, Grandview High School. The view was only grand to the blind, and even that was up for debate. I felt the stinging pain of physical exertion as I ran into the building, and could barely stand by the time I made it to homeroom.

"Exhausted, Mister Carlyle?" asked my homeroom teacher, Mr. Wexler.

As the lone engineering teacher in school, Wexler naturally attracted the "nerd herd," and his intellect was still formidable despite his advanced age.

That and he literally had seven PhDs on his wall.

"I think I ruptured my spleen, Mr. Wexler," I wheezed between fish-like gasps for air as I limped to my seat.

"ArmA 3 doesn't prepare you for sprinting, Aaron," a familiar voice said.

"Dating sims don't prepare you for getting a girlfriend, Henry," I retorted. Henry was a fellow nerd and my best friend. The guy had a predilection for mischief, but if you could channel his cognitive faculties you had a real asset. If school was an Elder Scrolls game, Henry was my favorite follower. Our relationship had been cemented by a Game Boy Advance link cable a decade ago, and even in senior year, gaming was our favorite social activity.

"Well, my friend, it's Friday, and you know what that means," Henry said.

"It's Awful Fanfic Night, isn't it?" I replied. AFN was one of our oldest traditions, a sacred custom shared between two idiots with subpar social skills.

"Dude, I have a more exciting idea for tonight," he said, reaching for his backpack. The look on his face said it all: this was going to get good. Henry shuffled through his stuff, mumbling something about a "devious plot," until he pulled out a small black rectangle the size of a cell phone.

"You know it's a bad idea," I said, "when Henry breaks out the remotes."

"You know that the football team has a game tonight, right?" Henry asked.

"Duh," I stated. I didn't care about football, but the school clearly did, and with that kind of setup a game is hard to forget about.

"This baby controls an RC car that I planted under the bleachers," Henry whispered. The mischievous grin adorning his visage was contagious, and soon the hype was building within me.

"Want to join me for a drive, Aaron?" he continued as a ghastly cackle escaped his throat. I allowed myself a moment to think. This would be the most insane stunt we had ever pulled by a long shot. As much as logic wanted me to shoot it down, this idea was hard to resist.

"I'm in."

The remaining time at school was lackluster, as usual. I didn't see how so many people called the teenage years the "best years" of their lives, and personally, I thought that the imbecile that conceived the idea of placing twelve-hundred pimply and volatile sub-adult humans in one building should have been terminated with extreme prejudice.

The only class I enjoyed was Wexler's Engineering Class, because I got an excellent grade on my transcript just for tinkering and learning how to build things that didn't totally suck. After battling the hormonal crowds in the hallways in a way that would make the LAPD proud, I finally regrouped with Henry.

"Alright, if we're gonna pull this heist off, we need some gear. I have the car, of course, and some smoke bombs in case we want some extra fireworks," Henry said, the sunlight turning the lenses of his glasses white, like what happens in every anime ever.

"That's a nice trick with the glasses," I chatted.

"I've practiced," Henry bragged. "Anyways, you need to wear dark clothes, of course. Think Metal Gear Solid, but with us instead of highly trained operatives that actually know what the hell they're doing."

"I'll make sure to be stealthy," I confirmed, "and I'll bring the cardboard box."

An idea hit me as I finished the sentence.

"Henry," I began, "follow me to Mr. W's room. I have a pet project locked up in there that I'm dying to test out."

I could barely contain my excitement as we traversed the now-empty halls. I walked into the lab, checked the room for witnesses, and slowly opened the bottom drawer of a dusty and desolate tool crate that rested in the corner like a poor kid at a birthday party. I felt around in the drawer until I found my secret weapon.

"You'll be... Shocked, by this one," I cackled. In my hands, I held a pair of metal-studded mechanic gloves covered with a tangled web of wiring and solder. I flipped the red switches on the power sources, and flinched as blinding blue arcs shot across the shiny silver electrodes that adorned my knuckles.

"You have way too much time on your hands, dude," Henry said. He looked impressed, and this was coming from the guy who, at age four, built a device to get the straw into a Capri Sun without bending it.

"I modded some military-grade tasers that Richard brought home," I replied. "And I must say, these were entirely worth electrocuting myself...twice." I flipped the switches again, removed the improvised shock gloves, and stowed them in my backpack.

"Alright, mall ninja, meet me at the softball field at 8:00," Henry said as he walked out of the shop. I closed the crate and cleared any evidence of my entrance, and returned to my car.

"This is gonna be dumb as hell," I said, cracking a smirk as I peeled out of the parking lot.

I arrived at my manor of manly, dropped my bags, and proceeded to plop down into my desk chair. I figured that if a seat has a permanent imprint of your ass, it may be used too much. But come on, what was I going to do, go outside? Sacrilege!

"Alright, it's 4:06, I have some time to relax."

I booted my jet engine PC, savoring the sound of my overclocked graphics card awakening from its slumber. I built the thing after sorting through seas of Amazon boxes, and I treated it like my child. Really, it was going to literally be my only child if my exploits with women didn't get more successful.

I opened Steam, thanked the almighty Gabe Newell for my beefy library of games and my shriveled wallet, and prepared for my daily Russian language lesson on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

I played for the next three hours, making a point to scream "ayy lmao" at 4:20. It probably wasn't healthy to have the three hours feel like three minutes, but I didn't really care. I threw open my closet doors in the most dramatic manner possible, sending a myriad of clothes careening across the room. Brimming with apprehension, I reached for a duffel bag in the corner of the closet and dragged it over to my bed. I unzipped the bag, and extracted my stealthy gear stash.

"Gotta get sneaky," I said to myself, sorting out my black pants and shirt. They were both padded, so I hoped that they would allow me to maneuver without snapping my brittle bones in half. At the edge of the bag, I grabbed the small microfiber bag that contained my Sly Profit paintball mask. I pulled the mask over my head and snugly fastened it to my face, then slid my shoddily-constructed electroshock gloves onto my hands. Realizing that I needed to get a move on, I walked outside, locked the front door, and ran over to my car.

The drive to the field itself was relatively uneventful, the only real inconvenience being the notorious game day traffic clogging up most of the major thoroughfares. Thankfully, I still had a little bit of cushion left, and was able to roll up to the dilapidated, possibly Cold War-era complex just as the digital clock on my dash struck 8.

Disembarking from my car, I took a brief survey of the surroundings, easily picking a crouched Henry out in the darkness despite his purportedly "sneaky" clothing. I skulked over to his position and saw that he was carrying his snazzy RC car, which he seemed to have rigged with some kind of sketchy-looking firework bundle.

"You ready?" Henry said, vigilantly snapping his head back and forth.

I swallowed, scanned the surroundings, and replied, "Yeah. You?" My friend nodded and pointed silently to the football field. The sports arenas were all contained within the same complex, which was great if you were either a soccer mom or a lanky doofus trying to be a ninja. I was the latter. We slinked across the small parking lot to the football field, where the audience's incessant shouting muffled every other sound.

"Alright, let me make this entirely clear, buddy, we split up if we get spotted. It's safer," Henry whispered. I shook my head in agreement, hoping that we wouldn't need this contingency plan.

I peeked at the current state of the game. The Grandview Hornets were already within field goal range, which would bring joy to any meathead in the town.

"Ready the car," I said. "If they go for a field goal, that'll give us one helluva setup."

Henry was already preparing his toy for the moment of glory. I gave the signal as the team prepared to kick the pigskin through the giant yellow salad fork.

"Alright, my child, prepare to be immortalized in the hearts of hundreds," Henry whispered as he comforted his favorite inanimate object. I thought I saw a tear roll down his face as he set the miniature vehicle in the launch position. The next moments were a blur.

The kicker lining up his shot...

Henry's fingers on the control sticks...

The sound of fireworks detonating as the car sped across the turf...

Stunned expressions and silence...

Our school team charging at us...

"FUCK!" I exploded. Panic coursed through my veins as the flight response kicked in and I sprinted like Usain Bolt high on caffeine. Henry frantically dashed away in the opposite direction, with a parade of sweaty and violent jocks.

"Get 'em!" I heard the quarterback order, his bellow accompanied by the grunts and roars of five other testosterone-filled muscle packs. Fear immediately shot through me as I turned and ran faster, the burn of fatigue already making its way into my thighs.

Henry was right. ArmA sprinting didn't translate to real life.

"Well, I have no choice," I mumbled as I grasped the power supplies mounted to my arms. The sparks flew as I prepared my most badass fighting stance. These intimidating monuments of manhood seemed to be SCARED of my device!

"Not so tough now, are you?" I swaggered cockily.

Snap!

"Shit."

My confidence was replaced with sheer terror as one of my gauntlets shorted out, and the football team realized that no, I was not in fact the god of thunder.

Karma was a bitch.

"YOU! STOP RIGHT THERE!" an overweight-looking cop yelled, running as fast as he could behind the pack of jocks. Fear turned to panic as I realized the gravity of the situation.

'I can't go to jail!' I thought, my breathing quickening even more as I suddenly veered right, into the thick woods bordering the parking lot. A stray hand narrowly missed my shirt as I threw myself down the hill and through a densely-packed thicket, twigs scraping every inch of exposed skin as I tumbled down the slope. After several seconds of pain, I regained my bearings, rolling to my feet and sprinting away before my pursuers could make it down.

'Thank God,' I thought, coming to a stop after what felt like an eternity of running. After devouring my emergency Pop-Tart and almost immediately vomiting said pastry as a result of the exertion, I finally dragged myself out of the woods.

I examined the surroundings, and recognized where I was. Daniel's Gun Shop, the ultimate headquarters for unnecessary firepower. I collapsed against the back wall and clinched my teeth as a killer side stitch ripped through my torso.

I was preparing myself for a well-deserved nap when, inexplicably, an eerie purple ray of light hit my visor. I instinctively turned my head toward the disturbance: a trippy spherical iTunes visualizer the size of a bowling ball.

"What the huh?" I grumbled. I had just spent my Friday night running from a gang of Incredible Hulks, and now I was apparently experiencing an LSD dream. Just as I started to move away from the mass, it began to expand and contract in a rhythmic pattern, increasing in size with every cycle. Before I could run away, the anomalous orb suddenly exploded outward, engulfing the entire store as my vision blurred and my consciousness slipped away.