Awakened

The patrons of the cafe moved to quickly covered their ears. The rampager's scream was shrill and screeching and for a moment it felt as if the glass might shatter before them.

His scream abruptly stopped. A lower toned moan emitted from him as his lips seemed as if they were trying to form words.

"He..He...hel." The voice was pained and anguished.

"he...HELP!" He had managed to get out. Now the words were clear. 

"PLEASE! HELP ME—" his plea cut off into a snarl as the corruption took over again. This man must have been strong. The violent convulsing was him fighting off the consumption. He wasn't giving up.

Emma looked at him with pity. She thought about the women she had run to the Safehouse with the day before, taking long, confident yet rushed strides while holding her children. People knew mages and conduits were brave, they faced battle sometimes daily. But even in everyday life, there were ordinary people who were just as brave. The women who carried her children. Her sister who immediately enlisted the moment she knew she had power. And this man, who, faced with impending death, was not giving in.

The cafe turned solemn again with the man's anguished screams. Prior to being distracted by the presence of their mage celebrities, they were brought back to the moment, this man, their neighbor, dying before their eyes.

This had also caught the attention of Team Steel, whose expressions changed from boredom to seriousness. The back door of a dark sedan that had been parked further back opened, and a woman with a serious expression, dressed in a military uniform with many pins, suggesting to Emma she was probably high-ranking, emerged. She walked up to an attendant and said something Emma couldn't hear, but suddenly everyone snapped into action. No more dilly-dallying. It was time to deal with this rampager.

The rampager continued to shake violently and then fell to his knees.

"PLEASE!!" he shouted.

"P...PLEASE!! H-help...!" His voice was becoming more strained. It was getting harder for him to speak.

Emma looked at him, all the horrible feelings she had been suppressing swirling inside her. I wish I could do something, she thought.

Suddenly, the rampager stopped shaking. He remained on his knees, hands hanging limply at his sides, knuckles resting on the ground. His head hung low. Everyone thought it was over, that in any moment now there would be only snarls, that he was completely consumed and would become a monster.

But then his head jerked up and looked straight at the cafe, or rather Emma felt that he was looking directly at her.

Emma could feel his eyes piercing her. She felt something piercing her. A powerful sense of dread, that same sense she had felt before, overcame her. Her body felt an overwhelming urge to do something. Do what? She wasn't sure. She both wanted to run toward him and run away. She both wanted to keep staring and close her eyes. She didn't understand it, but the feeling grew stronger, and the sense of needing to act grew stronger as well.

But do what?

She had a thought as she felt the energy. Her eyes went blank as if she were in a trance. The blinking she had been doing stopped, and the welled-up tear fell from her eye.

She felt for a moment in her focus, that there was a sense of understanding.

This? she thought, and responded to the energy she was feeling. A response as if she had heard four notes of a song and knew the fifth note to play back. A response as if a voice had called into a cave and she was the cave that had no choice but to echo back.

The rampager got up, and his black corrupted eyes started crying.

"You...you can help me?" he sobbed, his legs stumbling into steps. One slow step after another.

"I can feel you." he said. Stumbling closer towards the cafe.

Emma was still frozen, another tear fell from her eye and she felt herself be pulled deeper into this connection between the two of them. She felt that they were connected, in the way that two people stood in a meadow were connected by the wind that was blowing between them, but the wind felt alive itself.

"I can feel you." He said, again. One more step closer.

"I can feel you." Again, and another step.

Then.

"Can you feel him?"

Another voice. One she didn't recognize.

The voice was deep and calm. It rang in her ears and she quickly realized it hadn't been the rampager. Alerted now and shaken from her trance, she looked around as much as she could through her peripheral, still unable to tear her eyes away from the rampager. She didn't think that was anyone in the cafe with her, had she imagined that? Too much was going on, before she could look around, the rampager called for her again.

"You're helping me!" he exclaimed.

Emma didn't feel that she was doing anything, like the echo in the cave, she continued responding to the energy's calls. It was as if she was faced with an error that needed debugging. This is wrong, she'd observed about the energy. I can fix it.

Then a large black truck pulled up in front of the cafe, blocking their view, and Emma could no longer see the rampager. 

"NO! PLEASE! NO!" the rampager could be heard shouting. But then there was a loud churning of metal sound, and then silence.

Emma felt the connection disappear and then from her crouch she fell to her knees, clutching her chest as tears continued to fall.

The rampager was either captured or dead.

What was that?

She felt a horrible sense of dread, mostly because of the horrible situation that had just befallen before them all in that cafe, but partially because she felt whatever it was that had just happened, she had left it unfinished.

As she caught her breath, she realized that Melly was still next to her, one arm around her shoulders.

"It's okay, Em, we're fine," Melly consoled, assuming that what was bothering Emma was fear that they would be attacked.

"We've got Team Steel here, nothing will happen to us." Emma leaned into Melly's shoulder, welcoming the comfort. She didn't respond and let her friend continue to think that what was bothering her was fear attack. Comfort was comfort, and she felt so comforted to be resting in her dear friend's arms.

"It's okay," Melly continued.

Emma was regaining her composure and lifted her head from Melly's shoulder to say something when a pounding could be heard at the cafe door.

The cafe manager, stood behind the counter, observed a monitor and then pressed a button. The rolling metal of the outdoor facing metal shutters could be heard as they began to rise. He glanced back at the crowd and said "It's okay, its an official," and after the shutters were fully lifted, he entered a code that unlocked the door.

Standing there was the high-ranking woman Emma had noticed before, the one whose orders had gotten everyone to immediately action on the rampager. 

She took two steps into the cafe. Without saying anything, she scanned the room, left to right once, then right to left, looking down briefly to observe Emma and Melly still on the floor before returning her attention to the rest of the patrons, who were now all standing. 

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She observed the crowd once more, as if disappointed by what she saw, then opened her mouth again to speak.

"The situation is handled." She started. Then paused.

"Please feel at ease. You will need to remain here until the all-clear from the cleanup team, but there is no more danger." She stated. 

The crowd sighed with relief. The cafe manager, standing awkwardly by the door next to the official, managed a quiet "Thank you," followed by silence.

The woman continued standing there, stern and observing.

"Before I ask this question, I want to say to you all that as per our Colony's codes, all manipulators of all kinds must identify themselves to a Ministry of Defense officer. Are you all aware?"

She waited for a response. No one said a word, and a couple of people nervously nodded. This was a strange interaction. People could tell that something was up.

"I want to be clear. Even members of outside coalitions must identify themselves, this is agreed upon when crossing our borders," she said, again met with silence.

Emma, still on the floor, no longer crying as she was now mystified by this woman's presence and her inquiries, started to piece together what she was asking. They were in the higher income part of PortTown. Did the officer think there was a manipulator here who was a visitor from another colony?

The woman opened her mouth to say something again when footsteps could be heard behind her, slow and confident. Suddenly behind her stood a tall man, clearly handsome even with his sunglasses on. His silver hair had dark roots where it was starting to grow out. On one ear dangled a dagger earring, on the other a stud. Around his neck were multiple silver necklaces, one with a rifle pendant. His uniform was black with silver embroidery throughout, and on his sleeve were the three stripes identifying him as a Rank Three mage. Everything about him was theatrical, his look both professional and staged.

It was Alexander.

"Need help, Captain?" he said with a smile. She didn't turn to acknowledge him and continued to stand rigid in the doorway. He chuckled and took a step around her to enter the cafe.

Emma was transfixed by the whole situation, so much so that she suddenly realized that while Melly's right arm was around her shoulders, her free left hand was squeezing Emma's arm. A squeeze that said: "It's Alexander!"

Emma became aware of the crowd around her, all whispering to themselves. One of the patrons took out their phone, and Alexander lifted a hand.

"Ah, please. Just one moment, and then we will be happy to take pictures," he said, his voice strong yet soft, a voice that made you feel safe. The patron obeyed and put the phone away. Alexander smiled and removed his sunglasses, revealing the handsome face the two friends had been giggling over on TV not even an forty minutes ago.

Alexander hung his sunglasses on his collar and casually raised his hands together, clasping them. "Okay, well. There's someone here you're looking for, Captain?"

In that moment, Emma started to feel strange. She felt a sense of energy. A conceptual thought came to her: Alexander was releasing energy. And just like the echo, she was responding to it.

It didn't take long for Alexander's eyes to dart down and look at Emma on the floor, whom he had not noticed before. He smiled softly and stepped toward her. His energy grew stronger, and her echo became more frequent. He knelt before her, now face to face with her and Melly, but kept his eyes on Emma the whole time.

He raised his hand and presented it to her, palm out.

"May I?" he asked.

Emma looked at the hand presented to her, noting the hands she had noticed on television just moments before, adorned with multiple silver rings, it was surreal. Instinctively, Emma, raised her gaze to his eyes, blue, she noticed, and raised her hand to place in his.

When their hands interlocked, there was no more echo, no more call followed by a response. Rather, the energy achieved a oneness so amazing she couldn't comprehend it.

"That's sync. You've heard of it, right?"

Emma nodded.

Alexander released her hand and raised it to wipe a tear from her eye. "It was a lot for you, wasn't it? It's okay. You're gonna be fine," he said softly.

Alexander stood in one fluid movement and kept his eyes on Emma. Turning back to face the Captain, he said, "There you go, Cap," putting his sunglasses back on and walking out of the cafe. As he stood next to the Captain, who remained at the entrance, Alexander stepped around her to exit and leaned toward the Captain, saying, "She's new." Then he turned back to the crowd, waved goodbye, and was gone.

Dumbfounded, Emma and Melly remained on the floor.

Emma looked at the Captain to find that she was looking back at her, for how long, she didn't know.

Melly's hand, which had previously been squeezing Emma's arm, was now gently shaking it to get her attention. "Emma, what was that? Do you know him?"

But Emma couldn't respond. She kept returning the Captain's gaze.

Locked in the Captain's gaze, she realized she couldn't keep denying it anymore. She saw in the Captain's eyes that her weeks of denial were over.

There was no other explanation.

She had awakened.