Norville was stunned.

Astounded.

Flabbergasted.

Blown away.

The boy just didn't understand.  He was trying to make the world a better place.  A place where honor and skill were valued.

Norv looked around.

There were slick oily spots where the imps had been slain. The three intruders were huddled back to back waiting for the next onslot.

And there was a pentagram and blood on the carpet.  His blood.  He had opened a portal to an unknown dimention and had set in motion the arrival of a grand duke of Hell in Fredericton.  He had done that.  He had done that because these intruders had worked together and defeated his monsters.

Monsters.  He had brough monsters to attack the people of Fredericton.  The people of Fredericton who thought and encounter with a moose was scary.  Ok, encountering a moose on the highway at night when you are driving only a Honda Civic counted as scary.

But this team of people were demonstrating what he aspired to himself.  Throwing themselves in harms was to protect people who didn't know and didn't care about them.  Why?  Why would they do this?  Maybe because they could and it needed to be done.

Were heroes made, or were they always there, waiting until there was a need and hoping there never would be one.  Like the movie "Kung Fu Hussle"  Were there masters everywhere just trying to have a normal life.

Maybe it was the people who lives a normal life that were the heros.  They kept going even without special powers.

The gateway pulsed and trobbed and opened a little wider.

This was wrong.

He remembered something his mother tried to teach him: "Every step you take should be in the light." She was trying to tell him that the means are more important that the ends. There are no short cuts.  Your life will be judged by indiviual actions, not on the results.

A good outcome does not excuse any wrongs committed to attain it.

This had to be stopped.

And he was the only one who could do it.

It was his blood that opened the gateway and it would need his blood to close it.

Norville did not want to die.  But he knew that he was the cause of so many deaths and so much pain.

He stepped through the portal.  Willing it to close behind him.