Just, Taranger Storfylke, Republic of Breheim
The city of Just in the far-south of the Republic was not particularly well-known for its tourism. Universally considered one of the biggest shitholes in the country, it had still suffered less from market liberalization than most other heavy manufacturing industry. The city, the heart of Breheim’s military industrial complex, had barely had any bankruptcies within the heavy industrial sector, smog covering much of the skyscape of the city. The Irka Group, one of the three corporations who had risen as the dictators of Breheimian economy since the moderately-successful shock therapy and privatization, more-or-less ran the city, owning all industry and many amenities. Grey apartment blocks dominated the residential areas, with smaller pubs making up most of the city’s restaurants. The underdeveloped retail industry, even more-so than most Breheim cities, was dominated by large street-markets, and it was a well-known fact that Just was the pre-eminent smuggling route and black market in the country.
Still, despite this, the city did have a small tourism industry, primarily concentrated around the relatively isolated Fredsborg Resort in the relatively affluent south-end of the city of more than three-hundred thousand souls (large by Breheimian standards), consisting of a couple five story hotels, several restaurants and bars, a spa, a larger store (the largest in the city proper, but wouldn’t even be considered a supermarket in most other countries), pristine beaches (far away from the industrial sludge of the northern heavy industries) and internet cafés made it able to compete with Alfheimer and Storviking resorts, the two most developed tourism areas in the country.
A girl strode down one of the city's streets, walking quickly; she was around nineteen years of age, or at least that is the most reasonable estimate one could make by simply observing her. She was not extraordinarily tall at any rate, a little below average for that age and gender perhaps; with dark blue eyes and chestnut- to dark-brown, long hair. She wore a sort of beret on her hair, which largely matched her clothes; it wasn’t too unpopular with her group back in her homeland. It was most likely that she was perhaps staying here for a few days or so, as part of a holiday; there was little reason for one like her to be in this place for many other reasons. This country's culture was strange to her, being so different to that of her homeland. She was accustomed to a society that was ultraliberal towards civil rights, accepting just about anything as socially acceptable; the society of this place was very much different. Her parents had brought her up telling her that the society she grew up in was abhorrent for this, but as she grew older she rejected this conservattive viewpoint, developing her own views. But as far as she was concerned, culture shock was an exciting element of her travels, which she had embarked upon after discovering that in her homeland, upon completion of studies, one was presented with more time than they knew what to do with.
She wore practical clothing, nothing extravagant, but entirely suitable for this colder weather which this place was apparently experiencing. In two days she would make her way to the airport and board an aircraft for… somewhere else. It would be one of the supersonic airliners, she had decided, for it presented a thrill unlike anything else short of a fighter.
The Breheimian summer, with highs of only twenty degrees celcius, seemed to already be on its last legs. The past days rain had dissipated in favour of clear skies and sun, although the smog obscured it somewhat. Somewhere in the vicinity, yells and screams in Breheimian, English, German and Rechenskian was clear indication of a market, while few outright stores existed beyond groceries and pubs. The cars, chiefly the aged and poorly built Novas, drove rapidly across the streets, having little regard for traffic rules or their own safety.
A boy, seemingly only six years of age and with no apparent guardian in sight, was strolling out towards the car-heavy streets. He was short and stubby, even chubby, with bright-blonde nearly platinum hair, wearing shorts and a t-shirt depicting a cartoon bear. He had kicked a ball on the other side, and was seemingly going to get it. No-one noticed by the time he had already taken a step out onto the street.
By chance, the girl happened to look in the boy’s direction and spotted what by some strange misfortune nobody else in the area had. Entirely by instinct, she raised a hand in his direction with an open palm. The air seemed to crackle with invisible energy, and… the boy’s feet rose from the asphalt of the road. And they did not come back down. The cracking continued, the tension in the air building. He had risen higher than the cars now, and the cars rushed by underneath him; he floated through the air towards the pavement on the other side, where his feet once again made contact with the pavement. The tension in the air stopped abruptly, as a transistor ceases immideately to hum when one cuts the flow of electricity to it. Looking around, the girl once again returned her hand to her side, and continued in her stride.
The boy was pale-faced, and once he landed, began screaming. Bypassers had stopped in their tracks as they heard the cracking, while others had started running. People had taken cover, and looked around for who caused it, many noticing the girl. The street had almost fallen silent, even several cars had stopped, as people looked at the girl.
Noticing this, the girl remembered quickly that this society was not one that was used to magic being used in everyday situations. Culture shock may have been exciting, yes; but she did not count on it causing such problems. She began to walk more quickly now, on the verge of breaking into a run, attempting to look as inconspicous as she could manage. It was certainly rather an embarassing feeling to have everybody stare at her like so. She looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of a taxi or something similar.
Four men exited a nearby car, having nearly stopped in their tracks the moment they saw the flying boy. One of them ran up to intercept the girl. They were young, and seemed to almost be uniform. All of them had clean-shaved heads and faces, wearing leather jackets and jeans. The man who ran in front of the girl was tall, almost two metes, and almost as wide, a prominent beer gut extending out of his open jacket. He shouted: “Stopp, heks!”
”Stop, witch!”
There was that sort of crackle in the air again as energy pulsed through it invisibly, an invisible battering ram that charged towards the man that had intercepted her. It came at him at incredible speed, and then proceeded to knock him backwards, off his feet and into the air, sending him flying against his will towards the group of men behind him. His head impacted one of the men square in the stomach, who received about half of his kinetic energy and proceeded to fly backwards also; they eventually came to rest on top of each other. Like a bowling ball knocking down a bowling pin, and they seemed proportionally thick/thin, also.
The smaller skinhead was gasping for air, nearly entirely obstructed by his larger comrade, as the other two men leaped at the girl. One of them, a lean man with a scar running through his cheek, kicked her harshly in the gut, a steel-capped boot almost lodging itself. Moments later the other, a short man who was grinning, punched her square in the throat, thankfully not hard enough to crush her larynx. As she collapsed, the two men continued to kick her as she went down, despite the cracking sound of a broken rib. The men stopped only when the sound of sirens erupted, none of the bystanders having done anything to stop them, some even cheered, as they ran to pick up their knocked out comrades and got back into the car.
Several vans blasting sirens appeared moments later, as black-clad agents with an assortment of weaponry including assault rifles and shotguns. They dispersed the bystanders, asking questions to some, who pointed at the girl. It took minutes before the agents got a stretcher, lifted her roughly up and took her into one of the vans, driving off.
Emergency Ward, Just Hospital
The girl woke up inside a well-lit white room, connected to a handful of tubes. Her entire body was aching, although the sedatives had killed most of the pain. A couple of uniformed men, pitch-black uniforms with a logo of two hands shaking over crossed swords, sat and played cards on a nearby table. They were both armed, and didn’t seem to have noticed the girl had woken up yet. They were chatting between themselves, one of them wearing a heavy cap, and a well-trimmed blonde beard running down to his throat. The other had foregone the cap, and unlike most Breheimians, had black skin and black hair, and a clean-shaved face. Both seemed like they were in their thirties.
This country- this was a strange country, she thought for a brief moment. It was not enjoyable at all. She became a little apprehensive, of course; she knew for the most part what was going on. But she could, at the very least, rely on her position back home and on the fact that her country prided itself on taking care of its citizens; that it had done so for decades. They were willing to go to some lengths to recover any citizen, and so surely she, a relation of the Fifth Noble House of Auroya, the landed elite of the Fifth Kingdom - one of the Kingdoms of the Empire of the Nine Kingdoms, as Auroya was occasionally (though archaically) called; mostly based on the Ospravian Isles, the last part of the Empire - would be rescued by any means necessary.
She felt something in her throat now, and she coughed violently, then again, the process proceeding for around a sixth of a minute, leaving her exhausted.
The dark-skinned official turned at the cough, and said in a mildly german accented tone: “Miss, are you awake?”
Finally finishing coughing and retching, she attempted to sit up on the bed, and weakly answered: “U-ugh, y-yes, I’m aw-wake…”
The officials rose up from their table, leaving their card-game behind. The dark-skinned official continued: “I am afraid, you are under arrest under charges of assault and usage of paranormal abilities. You do not need to say anything, and if you are not willing or able to pay for legal counsel, a lawyer will be assigned to you. From this moment on, consider this room your containment cell. Do you desire a state-provided lawyer?”
“I would prefer my own, but it would be hugely inconvenient for him to fly here… it is better than nothing, I suppose.” She reached into the pocket of her coat, which was by the side of her bed, and removed a black wallet from it, the leather engraved with her family’s coat of arms. “And don’t worry, gentlemen, I am in no shape to attempt an escape, as you can see. I… have no healing powers.” She sank a little after saying that, and one could see that it was something she had regretted for some considerable time. “I have only one question. What will happen to those who attacked me?”
“An investigation is being undertaken to determine who was at fault,” the dark-skinned official said “Regardless if it was self-defence or assault on your part, however, it was still a criminal act on your part.”
She sank back onto her pillow a little. So she was going to be tried for something, that was probably certain.
“W- and what is the maximum penalty?”
“Well, that depends.” the dark-skinned official shrugged. “If it was self-defence? Five years. If it was assault? Then you are looking at around thirty. At least you are not a citizen, or you’d also be rendered chemically infertile.”
She sank back in the bed to lie flat. At least five years? She couldn’t speak. Five or thirty years of her life potentially gone, just like that, for a perfectly reasonable split-second decision. There was only one thing she could rely on, she supposed; and they had messed up once or twice in the past, that much was true. She had most likely gone white now, she reasoned for a split-second, before abandoning the idea in the midst of a much heavier, faster train of thought that slammed into it and erased it from existence.
“A squad of agents will be with you for the duration of your stay, before you are transferred to a containment cell for Magi in Storvik. This room is being watched,” he pointed at a camera in one of the corners “When you are ready to make the calls, tell Gundersen here.” the dark-skinned officer rose up, and left the room, while his subordinate got out a cellphone and started browsing it.
Storvik, Taranger Storfylke, Republic of Breheim
“This will be a short statement,” Harald Tormodsen, head of the Department for Counterparanormal Affairs (commonly known by its acronym of KGB) of the People’s Security Bureau said, flanked by members of the press, exclusively domestic ones. Tormodsen was a wide man, one-armed and heavily scarred from many years in the service of the paramilitary force of the Department of Counterparanormal Affairs. Cleanshaved and bald, he wore a simple suit rather than the uniform of the FSB itself.
“It is true a potential act of paranormal terrorism was carried out in Just, and the immediate threat has been contained. It is a foreign citizen who undertook said deed, and investigations are currently being carried out on whether this was a coordinated attack on the Republic, a lone wolf or simply a matter of an uninformed tourist. The FSB will not answer any further question until official charges have been brought. Thank you, and I am prepared to answer your questions.”
“Mister Chairman,” a journalist from Breheim Today, the country’s largest newspaper began “You have thus far been unwilling to come forth with any names or spe…”
“I will stop you right there,” Tormodsen said “No names will be given at this point in time, nor any more specific information.”
“Mister Chairman, which country does the terrorist hail from? Has he made any demands?” a reporter of the Breheimian Broadcasting Company, the state-run Breheimian television channel, continued.
“It is a regional neighbour. No further information will be given.” Tormodsen replied.
“Where there civilian casualties as a result of the act of terror?” a journalist from the Sons of Labour, Breheim’s largest far-left newspaper asked.
“No deaths occured as a result, although two citizens suffered lasting physical injuries.”
“Is it true the so-called terrorist attack was in self-defence, mister Chairman? And why didn’t the FSB react sooner?” a young man from the Sjøfarer University Student Paper, asked.
“Investigations are still being carried out. No more questions.” Tormodsen said, and left the podium, disregarding some of the journalists’ shouts for more answers. Muttering under his breath 'Fucking transparency'.
