As they arrived in Raleigh’s capitol district, John noticed more and more auras coming up ahead of them, until finally he stopped being able to tell them apart. He radioed to the two other cars, “We’re feeling tons of mages coming up in the complex, seems like the rule of law has plenty of supporters.” The siblings were sitting quietly in the truck’s bed, waiting to see what would happen to them. John, Jen, and Case were looking around for the
Case’s dad’s voice crackled through the radio, “Great to hear John, thanks. We’re expected, so we should be able to get through the barricade they’ve set up pretty easily.”
With that, the convoy turned onto the road that approached the state legislative buildings. Ahead, cars had been parked end to end to form a small wall. Sandbags and an interesting earthen wall supplemented the cars. John suspected a mage of some sort had raised the earthen portions up. People carrying guns were moving behind the wall, wearing motley uniforms. John spotted run-of-the-mill police officers, sheriffs, National Guardsmen, capitol security, and even a couple people wearing street clothes underneath flak vests.
When they made it to the only place in the barrier with a gap for vehicles, a contingent stepped out. Three national guardsmen and one teenaged male wearing a flak vest and a helmet. John sensed two auras moving with the group but couldn’t pinpoint which of them were mages. One aura felt like shifting water, the other was really strange. It felt like John’s weird new senses entered a kaleidoscope when he focused on that person. John pointed it out to Case and Jen then settled in to wait. They’d eaten some granola bars in the last half of the drive but hadn’t recovered all their mana yet. John was around the halfway mark, and it seemed like the regeneration was getting slower, but he wasn’t sure.
The lead guardsman went to the driver’s side window where Case’s father was driving. The window rolled down and words were exchanged. John couldn’t hear what Officer Kenderson was saying, but he saw him flash his badge and the guardsman nodded. Now that the group of guardsmen were separated, John could feel that the one in charge wasn’t a mage, so he focused on the trailing trio. They were all looking towards the group in the truck bed, but John couldn’t clearly see their faces. One stepped forward and a streetlight illuminated a familiar face. John recognized Riley Ajax, their school’s starting quarterback. He pointed him out to Jen and Case then waved.
Riley smiled when he recognized his classmates, “Hey guys! Case, John, I recognize you two, but who’s the chick?”
Jen scowled, “My name’s Jen, Riley. We were in statistics together last year.”
Riley winced, “Sorry Jen, that’s my bad. I feel two other mages, who’s up there with y’all?”
Jen squinted before vines of mana sprouted from her shoulders. They wrapped around Lucy and Sam, lifted the siblings out of the truck bed, and placed them on the pavement.
“These two were running amok with another friend of theirs, we captured them and figured we’d bring them here to see what procedure was for cases like theirs,” Officer Kenderson contributed. “They’ve capitulated and promised to not cause any more trouble.”
The lead guardsman walked over to the truck and introduced himself, “Lieutenant Chris Mayberry, would that I met you at a more pleasant time. I take it Riley knows you three from school?”
“Yes, though I have to ask, why is Riley wearing armor?” John asked.
Lieutenant Mayberry answered, “Riley is one of the mages who we’ve deputized to help with the peacekeeping efforts.”
“Thanks,” John pivoted on Riley, “So, what’s your mana like? You feel wet to my magic sense, but that’s it.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I tell you? Can I trust you?”
John was taken aback by Riley’s response. Usually he was pretty laid back; John had never even heard of him snapping at someone. Hell, if he’d been wrangled by the National Guard for whatever reason, Riley may have seen more combat than the convoy had. Shit, is it a faux pas to ask about someone’s magic now? Damn, that makes sense.
Case stepped in while John floundered. “Hey man, no need to freak out. My mana’s crystalline, looks like this.”
Case made a small cube appear over his hand and then turned it into a rough rectangular prism. John noted that there was actually a smaller repeating pattern in the shape, reminiscent of the crystal structures he knew from his chemistry class. He’d missed that earlier.
John apologized, “Sorry about spooking you, Riley. My magic affects blood, my mana looks like this.”
John focused on pulling as small an amount of mana from his recovering pool as he could. Directed carefully, it seeped from his upturned palm, arced into his index finger, then returned to the rest of the mana in John’s abdomen. John noted how much he lost when he was being that careful. Thankfully, it was very little.
Riley nodded, “Cool. Mine looks like this, but it does something weird that I haven’t seen from anyone else yet.”
Riley stuck his hand out into the air as if he were grabbing a football. Turquoise mana gushed from his hand and filled an invisible mold in the air. It looked like a football comprised entirely of water. Spread throughout were small symbols. Riley lobbed it to Case and it stayed solid enough to catch.
“That’s so weird, it feels like just like a damp football. Is that those little symbols doing that?” Case asked quizzically.
“I think so. Someone called them runes, apparently a few mages have them show up when they use mana, but they’re not sure why. I can make footballs and a couple other things. When I throw them at someone they explode and clobber ‘em pretty well. My symbols make the water more cohesive, but apparently people’s symbols do other things.”
The adults finished negotiating entry into the capitol district, and the convoy was waved through, cutting off the youth’s conversations.
Riley called after them, “I’ll come visit y’all in a bit, they’re going to rotate the people on the barricade in a couple hours!”
They waved goodbye to Riley then wandered deeper into the barricaded area of the city. It was a hive of activity, National Guard personnel and policemen running around the premises. Tents were set up outside of buildings and John saw several people being treated for injuries. It was odd, there was a man with grisly frostbite on his legs next to a female national guardsman with an angry red burn covering most of her right arm. Civilians in pajamas or work uniforms, national guardsmen, and uniformed police officers had injuries reminiscent of dozens of different disasters.
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John’s mom gasped and moved towards the tents with injured people standing outside them. Officer Kenderson stopped her.
“Katherine, hold on a minute. You can help later, but let’s meet with the police chief and see who’s in charge here,” Officer Kenderson cautioned.
The group was catching looks in general, which was understandable. The thirteen-year-old girl carrying a bow was strange, as were the two handcuffed homeless kids glaring at everyone they saw in a uniform. People approached several times, but Officer Kenderson turned them away as the group traveled. John observed through his new magical sense as best he could, but the throng of people made it difficult to pick out any details. He couldn’t feel anyone that was grievously injured, which he filed away as a small blessing.
Sirens echoed from all around the barricaded complex as people rushed around unpacking equipment and supplies. The group navigated towards a large open-walled tent with piles of electronics and desks inside. They stopped at the periphery and the police officers went inside with Sam and Lucy. The others were left outside to wait and converse.
John was unnerved by feeling so many mages around him. Discounting Case and Jen, he could feel at least 20 distinct mages throughout the camp. All the ones he could see were wearing National Guard uniforms, but he assumed there were more people like Riley running around. He was still curious about how Riley had arrived here so fast, but that could wait until they had settled in and understood the situation better.
Case and John’s dad were off to the side discussing something about Case’s mana. John’s dad was a structural engineer and was holding a notepad he’d brought along. Case was holding a cylinder of mana in his hands while John’s dad scribbled notes. Jen was catching up on gossip with Linda, which helped calm Linda down. John’s mom and Melissa were animatedly debating what they could do to help out the situation and John moved to listen to them.
“I need to get to that hospital tent, I could help those poor people,” John’s mom was desperate to help.
Mrs. Kenderson soothed her, “Just be patient, Katherine. I’m sure they’ll let you help out. Maybe John could too, with his powers? You’ll be able to help out somehow, at least. My skillset doesn’t exactly translate here, now does it?”
Katherine sniffed, “You’re right, I need to be patient. I want to be able to help somehow, it feels like the world got flipped on its head overnight.”
Melissa smiled warmly, “I do too, but don’t worry too much, hun. We’ll figure out something to do.”
“Thank you, Melissa. I’m sure they’ll find something for you to do, maybe you could help plan things?”
Melissa laughed, “Oh yes, I’m sure my phone is going to explode soon. The mayor’s office is probably still waking up.”
John dimly remembered that Case’s mom worked for the city as a civic analyst and social work coordinator of some sort. He wondered how busy she’d be while trying to keep folks fed and happy. A wave of exhaustion followed on the memory’s heels. John wobbled unsteadily and had to back towards a curb. He sat down hard and laid back on the grass. The toll of the past hours of combat caught up with him and his eyes ground shut. As John fell asleep, the last thing he felt was the throbbing mass of mana in his abdomen.
---
Jen found herself somewhat left out. John had settled down for a nap, Case and Mr. Brisal were clearly talking about something too nerdy for her to be interested in, while the two moms were consoling each other for their helplessness. Jen would scoff at that, but they had just had their world turned on its head. She had nothing productive to offer either party, so she decided to experiment with her magic.
Jen walked back to the wall, keen on helping out somehow. She didn’t think she could use her magic to heal anyone, but she knew she was quite capable of restraining attackers and batting attacks from the air. Jen’s goal was to see if she could manipulate plants more, like the trick she had used to trap the ice-wielding mage who’d attacked her home. Jen directed her mana to extend from her back, forming two vines.
There were no gate guards on the inside of the wall. Jen thought that was unwise, but who could she mention it to right now? She filed it away for later. With nobody to stop her from leaving the barricaded area, one vine plunged into the ground and telescoped, propelling her up over the relatively short barrier. The second vine caught her fall, arresting her motion perfectly. Both vines shortened and wrapped themselves around her arms. Jen had found that having her mana deployed didn’t drain her overall stores, just increasing the size of the vines and using them to exert force. In fact, she recovered a small portion of mana as the vines shortened.
The guards on duty outside this section of the wall wheeled on her. Riley had left, but the mage who felt like a kaleidoscope was still around, plus the man in charge of their group from earlier.
The guardsman grimaced, “What are you doing out here, girl?”
Jen stopped her scowl from showing. “My name’s Jennifer. What’s yours? Or should I keep thinking of you as the misogynist prick?”
The guard’s expression stuttered. “Uh. The name’s Tim. But that doesn’t change anything! You shouldn’t be out here!”
Jen rolled her eyes. “I’ve faced four mages in combat, fuck off. I’m here to help y’all fix this shitty wall situation. As I just demonstrated, anybody who can clear more than about six feet with their magic can easily get inside.”
The mage Jen felt approached, but when she tried too look their way, she felt her eyes sliding around and unable to focus on their face. It was extremely disconcerting.
Jen forced her gaze to look at their face, “Hi! Nice to meet you. Please stop doing whatever is going on with your face right now, it makes my head hurt when I try and look at you.”
The figure paused in their approach. They passed a hand over their face, tearing away the mana that had obscured their features. The veil hid a woman’s face, now revealed. Jen didn’t recognize her but did note that she could have been a model.
The beauty extended a hand and introduced herself. “Good meeting you too. Name’s Samantha. Sorry about the face thing, it helps me go unnoticed in a fight. That’s some cool magic you have there!”
Jen noticed the foot and a half long rifle on the woman’s back and concluded that she was some sort of sniper/scout role.
Jen smiled, “Thanks! Are you like an illusionist or something? My mana’s pretty straightforward, I just do plants and… plant things, I guess.”
Samantha giggled, “I wouldn’t say I’m exactly an illusionist, but I guess I haven’t tried that specifically. So far I’ve managed to redirect people’s attention, and I when I throw mana at someone it scrambles their senses, like a flashbang but for every sense imaginable.”
Tim inserted himself back into the conversation. “Ladies, this is all well and good, but Jennifer here said she’d try to improve the wall.”
Jen was tempted to glower at Tim, but he was not wrong. She nodded to him, as much a dismissal as an acknowledgment. Samantha gave her a thumbs up. She turned around and pulled two of the acorns that she’d fetched from her yard out of her pocket. She hammered them into the earthen wall behind the barricade of cars, one on each side of the makeshift gate. Then, she reached out with her senses, searching for the seeds.
Jen’s senses pushed through the background noise like roots question for water. Her control was rough, and the sensitivity muted. Thankfully, she found the seeds easily. They were two small globes of potential for working her magic, and she poured mana into them. As she did, she implored them to grow in a certain pattern. She directed the trees to thread their roots through the earthen embankment and down, plunging below the streets to anchor the walls. As the roots grew, she managed the trunks. They spread out in a highly unnatural oval shape, just barely overhanging the gate. The branches were thick and would serve to prevent someone easily hopping over the wall as she had. In addition, she wove specific holes and platforms for sentries to stand on and look out from.
The guards on the street and the neighboring rooftops cheered appreciatively. Several of them had recognized the hole in their security, and Jen had provided a much-needed solution.
By the time Jen had completed her task, her mana had guttered completely. She felt the acorns – trees now – once again, discovering that the ephemeral sense of potential was long gone from them. Instinctively, she knew that she’d grown the trees too quickly, and trying to force them to develop further would harm them. She thanked the trees – who knew, maybe plants would come alive with magic – before walking back inside the walls. She needed to contact her parents.