By the time Case sealed the girl into the boulder, John’s body finished repairing the burns and bruises from the fight. Just in time as the sense of warmth in his body bottomed out. John figured that meant he was out of mana for now, but he noticed it was already seeping back in from that point behind his navel.

Trudging back to John’s house, they opened the front door to see the two officers sitting on the stairs, with John’s dad and Mr. Kenderson yelling at them. Mr. Kenderson was leading the lecture, but John’s dad looked apoplectic and had clearly said his piece. John noticed that the officers didn’t have an advanced rank patch, but Mr. Kenderson was a sergeant. He wasn’t clear on how the police department handled hierarchy, but it was probably bad form to try and arrest your ranking coworker’s son then shoot his friend.

“- and why would you try and arrest the people that can stop the rogue wizards or whatever the fuck they are?!” Mr. Kenderson’s tirade stopped as the duo returned. John’s dad pivoted to hug his son as Mr. Kenderson carried on. “Are you ok son? We saw the fight through the window, it looked hot out there.”

John’s dad hugged him hard enough that it was basically a tackle. John thought it wasn’t quite this dramatic, but he patted his dad’s back anyways and listened to Case.

Case wasn’t fazed, “We were fine. She couldn’t get through the barrier, so I was able to deflect the worst of her mana. The road is kind of melted though, and the paint on the squad car is messed up.”

John’s dad still hadn’t let him go, so John spoke around him, “It was a girl, had to have been younger than us. Maybe 15? Anyways, she’s trapped in the rock with Everett. Neither of them will be able to get out without getting molten stone all over them. Mr. Kenderson, you should get on your radio and tell the rest of the police about trapping them.”

Case’s dad was listening closely to what the boys were saying, “So we need to find ways to trap them, but your methods won’t work for normal officers. How do you get them to stay still for long enough to trap them?”

John pried his dad off him before replying, “Repeat what I’ve done so far. Blunt force to the head. Our mana seems to heal us, even if it’s not my sort that lets me survive two bullets to the heart. The girl outside had a cut on her chest that stopped bleeding almost immediately. I bet everyone has some sort of innate healing. Pain still stuns us, Everett and the girl staggered after I hit them, and those bullets bowled me over like any other guy.”

Through all this, the officers had been silent, but Officer Mike chose this opportunity to speak up, “That’s good and all, but how would we get close enough?”

John’s mom answered that one, having wandered over from the kitchen with Linda and Mrs. Kenderson in tow. Her tone was full of authority, having seen more than her fair share of injured people. “Nothing they’ve done so far has been faster than a bullet, or hell, even an arrow,” she glanced at where Linda’s bow rested in the corner, “if you’re aiming not to kill, bag tip arrows would knock them out, or beanbag shotguns. John, how much do you think you wizards could heal from?”

John thought for a moment, then shrugged, “I don’t know. For me, I bet that something that doesn’t destroy my brain is fine, unless I’m out of mana. Recovering from my heart getting pulped felt instinctual. For someone without my mana? I bet they can still bleed out from huge cuts, and die from bad head trauma, but just getting knocked out would be completely survivable. Heck, we could stick our heads outside and see if the girl out there is awake yet, just to get a gauge.”

Mr. Kenderson volunteered, and after peeking out, he turned around and updated everyone, “Yeah, she’s awake. She’s out there screaming her head off about getting out of the rock.”

John’s mom considered how long she’d been out before speaking, “Incredible, that’s a remarkably fast return to consciousness. This might be viable!”

Mr. Kenderson had been nodding along, and now he spoke up, “I’ll take these two officers to the station with this information. The rest of you should stay here and eat. Mike, Barry, do you have riot gear in your car?”

Mike considered the question, then shook his head, “We only have some of the tear gas gear, we didn’t think to bring the other less lethal options.”

“Well, alright. In that case, I’ll just try and radio this in. Let’s head out to the car radios. John, Case, can we have the guns back?”

John and Case shared a quick glance before shrugging and surrendering the firearms. Not like we couldn’t handle them regardless. The three officers left, and Mrs. Kenderson grabbed the duo and dragged them to the kitchen, “You two should not have been out there fighting, and now you’re going to sit still and eat.” She gestured between them and her eggs with a spatula.

The accusatory point of her spatula was nearly as intimidating as Everett had been, and the duo dug into their plates without complaint. John ran upstairs and shed his bloodied clothes. He changed into jeans and a heavy long sleeve shirt before returning to the kitchen.

John fished out his phone and started going through the myriad notifications. As he filtered the information, he noticed that having food in his belly hastened how fast his mana came back. He mentioned it to Case and went back to investigating.

John had numerous texts, Snapchat messages, and even a couple of calls he had missed in the excitement. He triaged, picking the people he was most concerned about. None of the calls were from anyone immediately important. Still no word from Cameron, but he had a couple snaps from Jen. He opened the first one and yelped.

“What, what happened?” Case was worried.

John titled his phone so Case could see, and he marveled at the video of Jen surrounded by glowing green vines that were clearly made of mana. She spoke proudly, “Hey John, hope you’re ok, but look what I can do!”

John looked at Case and rolled his eyes but tapped onto the next video about half an hour later. This one was the same green vines thrashing someone in the street outside Jen’s house. The figure threw misshapen icy lumps, but they did nothing other than bounce off the vines. Eventually, the greenery wrapped the figure up and the view switched back to Jen’s face. She was panting hard and forced words out in between ragged inhalations, “Hi guys! This guy tried to break into my house with magic. Any ideas on what I should do with him?”

Shocked, John moved to Jen’s next message. It was a photo of the offending thief stuck inside a tree, like Everett and the girl out inside the rock. It came with a caption: “figured it out!” John and Case looked at each other and shook their heads.

“We almost die, and you get SHOT, and all she does is stick some poor schmuck in a tree! Case whined, “She even records it! Tell her to come over, she lives a few streets over, right?”

“She does. Here, let me reply.” John started recording and spoke to the phone, “Hi Jen, glad to see you’re ok! Come over to my house, I’m here with Case. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

He sent the message and turned back to Case, “You have anything?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“A whole bunch of questions about what I think all the noise is, a couple of snaps, no calls except from one of the coaches.”

“Look at the snaps, we need to see if there’s anyone we know with magic.”

They both stuck their noses into their phones and investigated. No one else had any magic news, but they supposed most would be too busy to send messages, for good or for ill. They replied to everybody with news that they were ok but said nothing about their own powers.

Mrs. Kenderson turned on the small TV in John’s kitchen and turned it to the local news channel. The broadcast had two banners at the top and bottom, both reading BREAKING NEWS in a glaring red. The two anchors looked haggard, probably having rushed through the devolving situation in the city to get to the station. One was speaking as they joined the channel, a young woman.

“Chaos on the streets of Raleigh. Young people with all sorts of supernatural abilities are running amok. We here at CBS have decided to call them mages. Some are looting and rioting, and others are trying to quell the chaos. The Raleigh Police Department has not released an official statement, but they are attempting to barricade the State Capitol and other important buildings.” A photo flashed of police cars lining up with the capitol building in the background.

The male anchor, an older man with mildly graying hair, took over. “Reports are flooding in from other cities with similar news. We are sourcing video from Charlotte, Washington DC, London, and Moscow, with more to come. Some viewers may find these views frightening, so discretion is advised. “

The broadcast cut away again, first to a view labeled as Charlotte. It was a phone video from a parking garage with the skyline front and center in the camera. Two figures were flying around the skyscrapers. One was covered in a solar blaze, like a second sun contrasting the sunrise. The other was a swirling patch of black, an inkblot in the early morning gradient. The two blasted at each other, and chunks of skyscrapers were demolished in the crossfire. Mrs. Kenderson gasped, and John felt just as horrified. There was an occasional plume of bronze energy that destroyed some of the larger falling debris, but that third mage couldn’t keep up with the pace of battle above them.

John’s eyes widened and a glance at Case showed the same astonishment. We can’t do anything like that! Those two are flying!

Next up was DC. This was an actual news camera, and it was much clearer. The sight was bizarre. The street was swarming with odd metallic figures, but they didn’t seem to be doing anything aggressive. Suddenly, a hooded figure dropped from a nearby building and stuck their hands out towards the horde. A wash of blue mana poured down the street, knocking over the strange humanoids and breaking glass all along the street. Curiously, there were small symbols around the figure’s hand. They looked almost like Japanese or Chinese to John, but not either of the two languages.

The characters grew brighter as the mana passed through them, but John was hard pressed to identify what that meant. The attack tapered off, leaving a street full of mangled metal that seemed to fizz at the edges, and the mage waved towards the news crew. A smaller blast flew at the camera before the feed winked out, displaying a technical issue message. By now, the rest of the family, except for Mr. Kenderson and the officers, had wandered into the kitchen, and their eyes were peeled wide.

“Oh my God, those poor reporters,” John’s mom was clutching at the cross around her neck.

A few minutes later, the anchors were back, and their faces were pale. The woman spoke “We are trying to re-establish contact with that news crew. We don’t know their condition, but we’d appreciate it if everyone held the crew’s wellbeing in their hearts and minds. We’ll continue reporting in this difficult time, this is a video from London.”

In London, it was well into the day as someone in an office building filmed from their window. Down the street, a mage was throwing swirling green orbs around, melting through windows of stores. He was carrying several bags, presumably stolen goods. A group of police rounded the corner before the recording ended.

At least that one was somewhat tame. John thought that he could probably fight that corrosive green energy. Sharing a glance with Case, they both nodded in agreement.

Moscow was a shocking, if grainy, view. Three massive forms towered over the city. They looked like craggy bulldogs carved from a glacier. The low afternoon sun played through their bodies and made miniature sunsets in each one. There was a small figure standing on top of one, and they were throwing what looked like small blizzards at circling helicopters. The swirling masses of snow felled aircraft all around the creatures. Shouts came from behind the person recording and they spun around to see several military vehicles. The cameraman ducked into an alley and the video stopped.

Holy shit. Those things were taller than skyscrapers. John couldn’t imagine how he’d fight that.

The broadcast returned to the anchors. The woman looked disturbed, and the man seemed like he was on the edge of tears. John vaguely remembered the male anchor was originally from Charlotte and felt a twang of sympathy for him. It didn’t seem like Raleigh had anything like that the duo in Charlotte or the Russian mage, but who knew?

John’s dad picked up the TV remote and muted the newscast with a grim look. The kitchen was silent for a moment, the plates of food forgotten as everyone processed what they’d just seen.

Abruptly, Linda started sobbing, choking out broken phrases about her dad that John couldn’t hear clearly.

Case and his mom immediately moved to hug Linda, patting her on the back and reassuring her. John stayed in his chair and thought, looking back and forth between his parents. He wanted to stay in the house and pretend there was nothing wrong. He wanted to go back to bed and wake up in time for school. But he wouldn’t. He remembered the electricity burns on Mr. Sudeiki, still asleep in the living room. He remembered his own screams as he thought he would watch Case and Linda die. He knew that similar scenes would play out across the city, the country, the world. What would happen to people without a mage neighbor to save them? What would happen to his brother, or mages who panicked?

John shook his head. I don’t know how, but I have this power. I should help people with it. He grabbed his phone, a plan coming together as he stood up and rounded the counter to face his parents.

“Mom, Dad. I want to go out and help. It’s the right thing to do. I somehow got powers, or magic, or whatever the hell this is, and I should use it to protect people. And someone needs to get in touch with Cameron.”

His mom was on the verge of tears, “No. John, there’s too much risk out there. You could be arrested or one of those more powerful mages could find you. You saw the TV; it was like some horrible movie. You should stay here.”

His dad nodded along, “Your mother’s right, you know. You should stay here where we can keep an eye on you.”

John understood their concern, but he also knew they weren’t the ones protecting him. “You guys aren’t the ones keeping me safe, Case and I are keeping us safe. It makes more sense for the two of us to head out and try to keep other folks safe. You have the guns in the safe to scare off any other mages.”

His dad strode forward and grasped John’s shoulders before fixing him with an agonizingly worried gaze “Son, I thought I was watching you die in the foyer. Your mother and I can’t bear to see something like that again. You’ll stay here with us, end of discussion.”

“Fine. How about we split the difference? We all head towards the school for shelter and round up as many folks as we can? Strength in numbers, that kind of thing?”

Mrs. Kenderson had released Linda after she’d calmed down some and stood watching the Brisals’ discussion. She chose that moment to interject, “Going to David Roy isn’t a terrible idea, that’s designated as one of the shelter zones for hurricanes and other disasters.”

John added, “Mom, Dad, I’m going regardless. You should come with me. I’d feel much better if you and the rest of the community were together, protecting each other, while Case and I help stop any out-of-control mages. Jen should be here soon, let’s get her input too.”

John’s phone buzzed on the counter, and he removed his dad’s hands to see a notification from Jen. He opened it to find a photo of Elliot and the girl stuck in the rock, glaring daggers. The photo was captioned “Was this you?” As soon as John finished reading and was about to announce Jen’s arrival, someone knocked on the door. Case had been busy whispering to Linda to calm her down but pivoted to John at the noise.

“Is that Jen?”

John nodded, “Yeah, but Jesus, she’s moving quick. Maybe her magic helps?”

Linda and Mrs. Kenderson stayed in the kitchen, but everyone else went to the door. Through the door, John could feel a mage that felt like a forest. John opened the door, and as expected, Jen was standing right outside. She had two of the writhing, glowing green vines trailing out of her shoulders. Her clothes were intact, unlike John and Case’s. Her eyes widened immediately when she saw them and started speaking immediately, pushing her way inside. As she moved from the door, John saw Mr. Kenderson and the two officers behind her, frowning. He waved them in, and everybody shuffled into the kitchen.

“Holy shit! John, Case! What happened to you two? John, is that a bullet hole in your shirt? And why does it smell like blood in here? Why are Elliot and that girl in the ro-?”

John held up a hand to stop her, “Calm down, we’ll explain. It’s like that person you stuck in the tree, but let’s go to the kitchen first, Case’s mom made food.”