They walked away from Everett’s yells and back into the John’s house. John’s mom kept a diverse stock of medical supplies in case of emergency. John and Case found her in the foyer applying burn salves to Mr. Kenderson, but John wanted to test his powers some more.
“Hold on Mom, I want to try something. Mr. Kenderson, do you mind if I try to heal you like I did for Mr. Sudeiki? Actually, where is he?”
Mr. Kenderson voice was tight with pain, “Sudeiki and the others are in y’all’s kitchen, discussing what to do. Feel free to try your powers on me, Sudeiki seems fine.”
John nodded, “Thanks. I want to try and do this at range.”
He focused on his energy, willing a tiny drop out of his body, but kept it on the point of his right index finger. Aiming at Mr. Kenderson’s chest, he flicked it towards him. The drop sank into the branching burn from Everett’s lightning, and immediately the damaged skin started repairing. It didn’t go all the way with that small amount of power, but John had another idea in mind. This time, he thought of a hose on his fingertip… and nothing happened.
“Huh, why didn’t that work?”
“What didn’t work?” asked Case, quirking his eyebrow.
“I tried to make a stream of the energy come from my finger, like a hose, but nothing happened.”
“Odd. Wait a second, from the finger or from the energy itself?”
“What are you talking about?”
“My energy seems to come out of this spot in my abdomen when I use it. It slides out from there up to my skin, then goes into the air. Try drawing it from there.”
John’s mom was raptly attentive, extremely curious about whatever was going on. She joined in, “John, try pulling a stream of energy from this ‘source’ Case is describing.”
John nodded; eyes closed as he focused on the warm feeling inside him. He scrunched his face as he focused before he found what Case was talking about. “You’re right, there is a center to the energy. It’s kind of behind my belly button, I think. All right, let’s give this a shot.”
John focused on that point inside him, trying to pull a stream of energy off the central mass. It was reluctant, like pulling waterlogged rope, and it got harder as he dragged more out and got closer to his skin. Suddenly, a stream of crimson liquid splashed out of his finger, splashing Mr. Kenderson. The burn vanished, without a hint of scarring. John breathed heavily, the effort of corralling the energy like that was like lifting weights with his brain.
Katherine was wide-eyed, “Incredible. What else can you do?”
Case grinned and responded, “We’re wizards now! This is so cool! C’mon John, we gotta find out what powers other folks have.” Case had fished his phone from his pocket and was texting their friends frantically.
John was more concerned about more people like Everett going bonkers, but that was for later. For now, he was just concerned about his family and the Kendersons. “We can do that later, but for now let’s just go to the kitchen with everyone else and figure out what to do, okay?”
They shuffled into the kitchen, finding Mr. Sudeiki absent. Mr. Kenderson asked John’s dad where he had gone.
“Sudeiki went to the guest bedroom to sleep, he was really rattled. I want to ask him about the bruises on Everett, but I think that can wait,” George looked frantic, but his response was slow and reasoned, which alleviated much of John’s concern. His parents weren’t the type to go into a screaming panic, but with everything going on, who knew?
Linda and her mom had busted out the cookware and started cooking a large batch of scrambled eggs. Mrs. Kenderson loved to cook and believed tasty food was part of every solution, and John was hungry enough he wouldn’t complain.
She asked the next question while waving a whisk at John and Case, “While I work on getting us fed, how about you two explain what you’ve got going on.”
John was the first to respond, and everyone eagerly paid attention, “Case and I have some sort of energy inside us that’s giving us powers. Mine looks like blood and Case’s looks like crystals. I can feel blood in people and Case can feel things with crystals in the-”
Linda interrupted excitedly, “Mana! You must have mana now, for your magic! It’s just like the wizards and sorcerers in games!”
Linda enjoyed playing on Case’s computer while he was at practice and had taken a liking to RPGs. John was startled to realize she was probably right.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Huh, yeah. That makes a lot of sense Linda, thank you! Anyways, I bet a lot of other kids have gotten powers, which might get chaotic. The voice did warn us about rioting. We shoul-”
Loud knocking at the front door interrupted John again. The group all moved to the foyer. Mr. Kenderson opened the door, and there were two officers standing on the porch.
Mr. Kenderson knew the pair and greeted them, “Hi Mike, Hi Barry. Took your sweet time getting here. You know what that big explosion was?”
The pair were haggard, and the second officer, Barry, shook his head and spoke frantically, “It’s chaos out there. There’re folks running wild with some sort of superpowers. Some are robbing, some are trying to stop the robbers, and some are staying put. Nobody knows what to do. We’re taking as many into custody as we can, but most can’t be stopped.”
Case spoke up proudly and gestured between himself and John, “Well, John and I stopped one! You can see him over there in the boulder in front of 1482!”
The officers’ eyes narrowed, and their hands drifted to the pistols at their sides. John noticed Mike had a riot shotgun slung on his back, but he didn’t reach for it.
Mike spoke first, “You did that? Are you saying you got powers, kid?”
John made eye contact with Case, trying to get him to shut the hell up, but he didn’t notice and kept talking.
“Yeah, I do! John and I both worked together to take down Everett, the one in the rock. He was shooting lightning at us, so we stopped him. We’re good wizards or whatever, we’ll help.”
Pride goes before the fall. John knew they were screwed as soon as Case finished his first sentence.
Barry spoke this time, “Well, then you’re under arrest. Can’t have you guys with powers running loose until we get everything figured out.”
Both sets of parents protested, but the officers addressed Mr. Kenderson, as he was their colleague. “Sorry Kenderson, orders from the chief.”
The two brought out handcuffs and started moving towards John and Case.
“No.” John did not want to get handcuffed when random idiots were out there throwing magic around. He and Case had demonstrated they could stop other people with powers, and he refused to sit out when his friends and family were in danger.
“What was that, kid?” Barry looked equally surprised and angry that John defied him.
“I said no. Why arrest us? We’ve already stopped one rampaging idiot. We can help with the others.”
John’s verbal gambit failed Officer Mike grabbed Case. John was still backing away, but then the impression of a raging, angry bonfire erupted from down the street. It must have been another person with powers, like how Case felt rigid and John himself felt like hot, coursing blood. On impulse, John acted to protect everyone from that presence.
John reached for the sense of warmth in Officer Mike, and his mana urgently reached out and linked him with the man’s circulatory system. Instinctively, he homed in on the blood flow in the brain stem. He forced the blood to expand rapidly, immediately knocking him out. Mike collapsed and Case was free.
Barry saw John’s glowing eyes and his partner’s collapse, connected the dots, then yelled and drew his pistol. It took John a few critical seconds to extricate himself from his link with Mike’s blood. Two shots rang out. Two bullets landed neatly in John’s chest, and he collapsed backwards. The two families started screaming and backed up. Mr. Kenderson reached for his pistol, but Case was in motion already.
Case roared, “Fucker!” as blue mana spilled from his hands.
It formed into a long, octagonal blue bat. He dove at Barry and clubbed him in the abdomen, driving the wind from his lungs and folding him at the waist. Case drove an elbow down into the small of Barry’s back and he fell prone, groaning.
Everyone was yelling and screaming, pointing at what must have been someone with strong fire magic through a window. John lay in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood, shocked by the pain and impact. Weirdly, he could feel where the bullet had punctured his heart’s ventricles and a nicked a lung. He had one hope as his vision started fading. Desperately, he rallied the mana in his torso and pushed it at the wound. Here goes nothing!
The mana in John’s body surrounded the two bullets lodged in the perforated remains of his heart. They shot out like a rock from a hose. John reoriented his focus and mana on the entry wound. John’s parents saw a nimbus of crimson mana surround his body while his muscles spasmed. The mana knit his heart back together, sucked the pooling blood back into his veins, reformed his sternum, and healed his skin. His parents and the Kendersons could hardly believe what they were seeing, but sure enough, John was fine. The sudden drain of mana left him feeling cold, but he had some left in the tank.
He sat up and coughed, then looked around, realized that he was still alive and grinned. Officer Barry was in sorry shape on the floor. His mom’s face was twisting itself into an expression he had never seen before and everyone else was pale. He saw Case peering fearfully out the door, and realized the fiery presence had not come any closer.
“What’s going on out there, buddy?” John called; glad Case had oriented on the threat.
“Some crazy chick is staring right at us. She’s got a bunch of little fireballs around her hands, and it looks like she’s been stealing stuff from people. She’s got a grocery bag full of phones and stuff next to her.”
The family was too preoccupied by staring at John to have any input, so he stood up, wobbled for a second, then walked over to Case, stepping over the officers.
“So, another one like Everett?”
“Looks like it,” Case frowned.
“Alright, do we want to try and stop her? The boulder looks like it can hold someone else. Everett seems lonely over there,” John joked, but the situation was grim.
“It's our responsibility, right?” Case glanced over at his friend’s face.
“We aren’t obligated to put ourselves in danger, but it seems likely she’ll try and rob us either way. How about this? You focus on making a shield around us, and I’ll focus on knocking her down.”
“You have mana left after healing yourself?”
“Somehow it didn’t take all that much, plus there’s three guns just sitting there if it turns bad.” John wasn’t the best shot, but their families went shooting often enough that he wasn’t concerned.
“Alright, you want to scoop the shotgun and head out there?”
“Yup.”
The parents tried to stop them, but the fact was that the fire user would try to rob them either way, so they needed to go try and frighten her off or stick her in the boulder.