While the Brisals, Kendersons, and Jen prepared to make a pilgrimage to the Raleigh state government complex, the nation’s capital was in turmoil. President Olderant was in a secure briefing room underneath the White House, but he was starting to question that security as explosions rocked the city, growing ever closer to where he sat with the Joint Chiefs, his cabinet, and the leaders of as many departments, agencies, and bureaus had been available at short notice. He had just finished making his address over the EAS and sat watching the various functionaries, aides, and members of the armed services rush around trying to understand the situation.
Secretary of Defense’s teenaged daughter, Marissa Thornburg, was sitting next to him. Well, “sitting” was inaccurate. Instead of occupying a chair, Marissa floated midair with her legs crossed and her eyes radiating a fearsome steely light through her shut eyelids. Her hands twitched rapidly as her head swiveled back and forth, seemingly peering straight through the reinforced concrete, lead, and ceramic armor that lay underneath the room’s wood paneling. At her side was another of these young “mages”, a young Marine named Louis Hernandez, who had been on ceremonial guard duty elsewhere in DC. Still in his dress uniform, a purple light shone in his eyes while his hands emitted a dull brown glow. Olderant understood Louis was prepared to erect a shield around Marissa and Olderant should the bunker be breached.
The young Marine was constantly speaking to Marissa, relaying information from the Groupmind to the young woman controlling the swarms of gunmetal grey humanoids that flooded the streets. When Olderant and Marissa had been sucked into telepathic communication with the mage that established the Groupmind, Olderant had forbidden her from joining it. The young woman had established herself as too integral to the defense of the Capitol to risk her being suborned, so the Groupmind had to settle for a liaison. The Marine was relaying positions of riotous mages from the hundreds of Groupmind mages racing to relieve the Capitol.
Marissa had already saved his life once that morning. After waking to a besieged White House shaking around him, members of the Secret Service struggling to repel multiple insurgent mages outside the building, he had felt personal fear for the first time in his presidency. Then, Marissa had descended like the fist of God, plummeting from the sky while creating dozens of those metallic creatures and several barriers of sturdy mana between the attacking mages and the White House’s pitted walls.
After the dust had cleared, Olderant and the people defending him had been shocked to see the attackers bruised, battered, and tied together by a band of sterling mana. Marissa stood in her pajamas, hair ruffled, and eyes bleary. From what Olderant gathered after, she had heard the same voice as everyone else within the reach of the Groupmind’s founder, and awoken to a bizarre, potent instinct. She had accidentally crushed a rampaging mage outside of her family’s townhouse. Her father had been on the phone the whole duration, and eventually heard about the siege at the White House. Marissa had left a contingent of her creations with her father as she departed, which led to the current situation in the bunker.
President Olderant was thankful that she had arrived when she had, or the nation could have been decapitated. Regardless, he saw her as a niece, and was concerned about the responsibility she now carried. It had scarcely been two hours since that voice had echoed across the continent, and this 17-year-old had thrust herself into defending the President of the United States on little more than a whim. Olderant knew he wouldn’t have made the same decision when he was her age, and now worried about the consequences of her impulsive decision.
The Groupmind liaison concerned Olderant more than Marissa did. Olderant had spoken with the mage responsible for the phenomenon, and he suspected that man was comparable to Marissa. Powerful, possessed of instinctual magical capacity, and terrifying. Despite calling himself “the Architect” instead of divulging his real name, he seemed trustworthy, a patriotic university student dedicated to helping the nation. For now, he assumed that the purple-eyed legion propagating across the Northeast was reliable.
He turned his attention to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, relocated from the Pentagon after some sort of explosion-wielding mage had blown apart a third of one wing and compromised the building’s security. The man was killed and, as far as Olderant knew, his body had been squirreled away somewhere for scientists and analysts to poke at.
He shook himself out of his moment of distraction and addressed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “Update me, what’s changed?”
The man looked up from his laptop where he was reading reports coming in from his aides in other sections of the bunker.
“Well, in the last 10 minutes, we’ve confirmed these ‘mages’ in one thousand, four hundred and thirty-five more population centers, based on cell phone video, police scanning, and emplaced assets from various organizations. Including remote locations where we conduct specialist training, twelve Army bases, five Air Force installations, eight Naval bases, and three Marine bases have confirmed mages. Multiple US vessels are reporting mages, and we are writing them off for the time being. Magical combat onboard a warship’s enclosed spaces would likely do critical damage. The analysts are identifying there’s a bias towards youths gaining magic, but we aren’t committing to a conclusion yet.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Is there any good news?”
“The majority of mages cropping up on bases are either obeying orders or making forays into outside towns, aiming to suppress rioting. There are only three confirmed incidents of mage servicemembers turning on their own. I’m sorry to report bullets have been effective in every case.
President Olderant shook his head and turned to the Secretary of State, “What of the international community? How are other countries faring?”
The Secretary of State, Janice Morrison, pressed several buttons on her laptop and several video windows appeared on the large monitor at the fore of the conference room. Each window was headed by the name of a city or region. Several were the same videos news stations across the country had broadcasted, but many were new.
A satellite view of Kathmandu showed craters around the city and small dots highlighted as likely mages flitting through the streets. An aerial view of New Delhi moved to the center screen, and the room’s occupants gasped. There were multiple shattered skyscrapers and large swathes of the city were burning. A multitude of colors flashed around the remaining buildings. The camera on the helicopter panned down and revealed tides of people fleeing the epicenter of the fighting in the afternoon sun.
Secretary Morrison commented on the view, “We have been unable to reach the top levels of the Indian government or our diplomatic staff in New Delhi. We are operating on the assumption that they are alive but embroiled in combat.”
A window labeled as rural Brazil was next. A shaky cell phone video showed a giant human figure made of dirt and boulders towering over a small town situated in a valley. It was remarkably lifelike and Olderant suspected the face belonged to the mage who created the giant. The titanic figure cleared the town in a single step. When it touched down in the open mouth of the valley, a missile streaked down from a ridgeline and clipped its shoulder.
The explosion blew a spray of boulders and loose earth out of the giant’s shoulder, and Olderant saw golden streaks of mana inside. The giant turned and viciously backhanded the ridge. The strike was shockingly fast, to the point the camera was unable to track it. The ridge was obliterated and Olderant was sure whoever had fired that RPG was gone. The hole in the giant’s shoulder filled in with loose earth that flowed up its body from the ground. The giant resumed its stride.
Olderant’s worst fear was next, a video from US soil. A window labeled as New York City appeared, and a hush fell before several people swore. The window displayed a cell phone video taken from an apartment high up in a skyscraper, and the situation outside was frightening. The southern half of Manhattan was pocked with craters and shattered windows. Olderant counted 5 buildings with fires before the camera panned to the sky over the city. Barely visible against the sunrise, a silhouette hung in midair, surrounded by a large swarm of glinting metal shards. They were facing the section of the city riddled with damage, seemingly waiting for something. This continued long enough for Olderant to speak up.
“What are we looking at, Morrison?”
“Just a while longer, sir.”
As if cued by the Secretary’s request, odd aqueous tendrils rose from the streets in the damaged portion of the city. The lights of emergency vehicles around the perimeter illuminated them from below, revealing the mass of water lurking behind the downtown skyscrapers. With no warning, the tendrils sped upwards towards the mage in the sky. The mage made a small motion, and the swarm of metallic shards around them broke apart and sped forward.
The shards and splinters of metal tore through the aquatic tendrils, dispersing them over the city. The shards mostly lost their momentum, but some continued forward, hammering into buildings, causing further damage while disrupting portions of the mass of water that clung to the buildings below. Clearly, two mages at or near Marissa’s level were fighting.
Olderant decided to interrupt before another video appeared, “That’s enough for now. Figure out what city that giant is walking towards and send them a warning, please,” The least Olderant could do was leverage the fearsome information network he had to help other nations. “Evaluate US populations most at risk and analyze options for relief.”
Louis spoke up, “It is our opinion that the mages responsible for that giant, possibly New Delhi, the Moscow conflict, and New York City are on a comparable scale to the Architect and Ms. Thornburg here. We are seeking to understand the inherent differences among mages. We are looking into any other mages operating on that level, but we suspect it would be simplest to locate them from orbit.”
Olderant nodded, “Thank you.”
The Secretary of Defense, Anthony Thornburg, looked worriedly at his daughter, “Marissa, how are you feeling?”
She cracked one eye, meeting her father’s gaze briefly before shutting it and speaking softly, “My mana is recovering very quickly and I’m hovering around…. half a tank. I’m not sure why my regeneration is so intense. The people I’m detaining are exhausting themselves much faster and not recovering very fast, comparatively. They also lack my finesse. Most attacks are formless masses of mana hurled at the golems.” Her eyes shut again, and her hands started twitching faster to make up for lost time.
The generals and officials in the room nodded, and Marissa’s father spoke again, “We need to figure out a way to hold these mages until we can try them. It’s not practical to have a golem pinning each one, and eventually Marissa will run out of mana.”
Louis responded, “The Groupmind is working on research as fast as we can. As more nodes are freed from fighting, we are developing our understanding of magic. There are a couple leads, but we can’t promise anything just yet.”
Olderant nodded, “Thank you. For now, let’s work on figuring out civil responses in areas without Groupmind support. People, what do you have for me?”