His parent were halfway through what Diarmi had nicknamed ‘the Conjuring set’ (a nickname which had gotten some disapproval from his older siblings until they learned he knew nothing about the film at which point the discussion had shifted to how were they going to get him caught up on pop culture and how much of his ignorance was due to the family constantly traveling and how much was due to him reading comic books ragged instead of doing anything else) when everything went sideways. His first thought at the scream was that Alessa and Loris had been seen with their hands where they shouldn’t have been, and he needed to get Zola back away from the crowd before she heard anything. He moved to grab her shoulder when he realized the shriek had come from further down the road. So good news, his family had nothing to do with that. Bad news, [i]what in the hell of hells was going on[/i]?

It was like something out of one of his comic books, the older ones. Everything was normal and then, next panel, people were being attacked by aliens. Well, maybe that was what was happening too? They looked more like someone had managed to stretch pigeons over human skeletons and then sharpened everything for good measure, but it wasn’t like he knew what aliens looked like. Of course, more likely than an alien invasion was that he was daydreaming again, but a pinch to his upper arm and the fact that everyone was now visibly moving away from the bird-things suggested this was incorrect. His brain felt like it was working at lightning speed as he watched them attacking people, leaving them unconscious – or dead? He couldn’t tell this far away, but he’d seen enough. 

“We need to go.” He grabbed Zola and pushed her towards their mother, who picked her up handily and bolted, fiddle set down in favor of her child. Alessa and Loris were nowhere to be seen, meaning they’d probably bolted too. His dad was packing up the few props and fiddle before he’d take Diarmi by the hand and get them both away too. That felt wrong, though. Diarmi glanced down the street again. He already looked the other way with what his family did. No one got hurt, he told himself, so it was okay to look away.

Well, now people were getting hurt. And he was going to look away again.

He more felt his hands tighten into fists than made the decision to do so. He couldn’t turn away from this, not if he could do something, anything to help. He bolted down the street towards the bird-like monsters, ignoring his father crying his name in shock and horror. One bird monster was swooping down on a young woman, and her scream rang in his ears. Okay, first person to help. He jumped at a building's side for some height, pushed off for momentum, moved to swing his fist-

And the bird beast, turning likely out of curiosity to the movement in its peripheral vision, smacked Diarmi out of the air with a wing and no effort.

Diarmi tumbled along the ground, groaning as he skidded to a stop. He was almost certain the right side of his face was scraped up - yup, that was a tear in his pants, Mom was going to kill him - he was pretty sure that was road rash on his left forearm - all in all, a failure. He glanced back to see the bird monster taking off with... something, and the young woman lying disturbingly still on the sidewalk. His eyes watered, and he tried telling himself it was from pain.

"Even if you had landed the blow, you would've been more likely to break a bone of your own." The deep rumbling voice was foreign to Diarmi, with an accent he didn't recognize. He wiped at his face before looking at the person who spoke - to no avail. 

"Um."

"It's not how you should shape your hand when you land such a blow. Even then, the sheer force could have knocked bones out of place." Whoever the voice belonged to, they sounded old - not grandparent old, more like old recordings. They also sounded knowledgeable. The world seemed to slow down for Diarmi.

"Can you show me?"

"Hm?"

"Show me." Diarmi staggered to his feet. "I wanna do it right."

"Child, this will be a war, not a single battle I have been summoned for. I have seen boys your age die, bleeding out from grievous wounds-"

"I'll do better, I promise! I - just let me help people for once." Diarmi flinched as his voice cracked mid-sentence. That probably wasn't going to help prove he wasn't a 'boy' that the speaker needed to worry over. The resulting silence seemed interminable. 

"...I see. If I cannot dissuade you-"

That was when the axe materialized before Diarmi. Well, he called it an 'axe', though one side was heavy and blunt while the other curved sharply and wickedly. "-then may we fight together and enter Valhalla together." Oh, hey, Diarmi recognized that reference. It would be nice if the voice was more positive, but he decided it didn't matter. Instead, he took the axe and felt the energy flow into him. Something about himself - no, about the whole [i]world[/i] shifted six inches right. The axe weighed lightly in his hand now. He looked up to the bird still flying away, and already he knew what to do. The voice's eye seemed to somehow overlay his, and he could see if he threw it at this angle, with this force, it should land in an area of road safely without risk to others. That worked for him - them, he supposed, he wasn't exactly alone in this. He flung the axe, watching it smash the bird and reduce it to smoke, and then ran forward to catch whatever it was it had taken from the young woman. Or to retrieve the axe. Maybe it'd be magical and fly right back to her, but no point risking that, right?