Zarkenis Ultima wrote:A boy ran through the streets in one of the poorer areas of Pandora City, being pursued by a pair of rough-looking men. The boy was quite young, no older than ten, and in his hands he held an expensive-looking wedding ring that he held close to him as he ran. Behind him, the two men were chasing him angrily, their faces betraying their less than benevolent intentions. Though the boy had a head start, the two men were slowly but steadily gaining on him, and the desperate child was well aware that it was only a matter of time before they caught him and then... he didn't want to think about it. He just kept on running. He didn't even notice as more people began chasing him, undoubtedly associates of the first two.
"Come back here kid! Your whore of a mother gave us that ring, it's ours!" He heard one of them say as he turned a corner.
Meanwhile, in the same area, a young-looking, attractive woman leisurely walked through the lonely streets, gazing all around her. She wore a knee-length black skirt and a simple red blouse, her blonde hair cascading down to her waist. Though the area wasn't quite a slum, it was still nothing special to look at according to most people's standards, but even so, she looked around in admiration. Admiration, in concrete, of how far humans had come since they lived in caves, in awe of the sun. She didn't quite know how she knew about it, but the fact was that she did, and it was something that she found very respectable.
Amidst her musings, though, she noticed a boy running in her general direction. This made her feel both curious and concerned, and so, she moved into the boy's path and stopped him when he was next to her. It took some effort, but the boy soon realized that the woman could not be with those men from before, so he relaxed, as much as someone being chased by a mob could relax.
"What's wrong? Why are you running?" She asked him as she crouched to his level, looking him in the eye. There was a motherly quality to her voice, the boy thought, and that made it feel easy to trust her, but even then, in his alarm, he was barely capable of coherent speech.
"I-I have to run! Sorry!" The boy cried out, tears beginning to stream down his face. His evident suffering made the woman feel compelled to help him, but before she could offer her assistance or even say anything more, the boy saw something that terrified him. The woman looked in the same direction, and saw the mob that was chasing him.
"HEY!" One of the men shouted as they continued running after him. The boy immediately broke off from the woman and fled, and she realized that she would not learn what was truly going on here unless she used her powers. Focusing, she dismantled the barrier that she had put around her mind, its walls keeping foreign thoughts away, though not without a conscious effort. Immediately, she felt the weight of the several minds that were now touching hers, putting pressure on hers. She endured, though, as this was not the worst she had dealt wth, and scouted the minds of those people.
It was not hard to find out which one belonged to the boy, as even despite the hardships of his life he retained a certain innocence that she was able to pick up on. Looking through his memories, she understood everything. The ring that the boy held had belonged to his mother, a widow, who had given it to the thugs pursuing the boy so that they would stop harassing her and her family. The blonde woman easily picked up on his intentions as well, which were nothing if not noble: he wanted to return the ring to his mother, as it was the only heirloom they had of the boy's father. Another thing that was now plain as day to her were the intentions not of the boy, but of his pursuers, and they were dark and cruel.
Making a decision, she ran after the boy, quickly catching up with him and dragging him into a backstreet, momentarily disorienting the thugs that were chasing him. Scouting the surrounding area with her mind, she noticed that one nearby building was devoid of psychic signatures, meaning that either it was abandoned or the inhabitants simply weren't there at the moment. Either way, it was as good a place to hide as any, and so, she headed inside with the boy in tow. They hid in the furthest corner of the house, a bedroom's closet, where the blonde woman told the boy to be quiet. However, he couldn't help it and sobbed a little, moved by the kindness that a complete stranger had shown him, something he was in no way used to. The woman frowned at first, but then, her expression softened and she simply stood there, scouting the surrounding area to make sure the sobs didn't tip off the thugs to their location.
After the boy had calmed down a little, he looked up at the woman. "What... what's your name?" He asked her. Surprised to hear him, the woman looked down at him and offered him a warm smile. "My name is Melissa. It's nice to meet you, Dylan." She told him kindly, and he smiled in turn, not even realizing that he hadn't actually told her his name. Afterwards, Dylan looked back down while Melissa peered through the gaps in the closet's door. The boy saw something odd on the ground, though, something shaped like an animal's fang, but larger, and picked it up, looking at Melissa and assuming she had somehow dropped it at the end of their racing to get there.
"What's this?" He asked her innocently. Looking back at him, Melissa's eyes widened as she saw the object he had in his hands.
"Give me that!" She urged him, reaching out to grab the object, but it was too late. Even though it was now in her hands, it had already become active, and a blinding light emerged from it.
"I saw something over there!" A voice came from outside. Unfortunately, the thugs in pursuit of the child suspected him and the woman to be nearby, and so, they had remained behind, exploring the backstreet. It barely took them any time to reach the house and approach the closet.
"Come out, lady! You look like someone we can have fun with as thanks for helping that kid!" One of the men shouted, laughing, before throwing open the closet's doors. Melissa's face was fair, but her expression was fierce, to the point that the man hesitated for a moment. However, he was not about to show fear of a woman in front of his associates, so he harshly grabbed Melissa's arm and tried to pull her away.
"Come on, don't play hard to get!" He told her. But in a surprising display of strength, by human standards at least, she shook him off, backing away and staying close to Dylan. Enraged, the man raised a baseball bat and prepared to hit her in revenge. But all of the sudden, before he could act, an invisible force hurled him away, sending him crashing against the wall on the other side of the room and knocking him out cold, several cracks now visible on the wall. The men looked at her in shock and fear, and even Dylan felt in awe of what the woman had just done.
"She's one of those supers, kill her!" Spoke the man who appeared to be the leader of the pack of thugs, and many of them suddenly pulled out pistols, training their guns on her. Having anticipated their actions thanks to her mind-reading, she put up a wall of invisible force in front of her, to protect herself and Dylan from the bullets. Gunshots rang through the house as a hail of bullets crashed against the invisible wall, and the men were surprised to see both Dylan and Melissa still alive, but they weren't about to relent, and so, they continued shooting in hopes that they could break the wall.
"Go away..." Melissa spoke, her voice barely breaking through the sound of gunfire, though even if they heard her the thugs clearly did not care to comply. The woman frowned, the stress in her mind steadily growing as she made an effort to maintain the barrier.
"Go away!" She ordered them, louder this time, but still they did not feel like obeying, continuing to fire. She was beginning to grow desperate; she did not want to hurt anyone in the same way she had hurt the man she had knocked out, but she didn't see any other way out. She was hoping they would stop, but eventually, the stress became too much for her.
"GO AWAY!" She shouted. But this time, it was not something physical. It was a psychic scream that was charged with psionic energy. Almost immediately, all of the thugs around her fell to the ground, their minds overloaded. However, that was not the extent of her scream, which had turned out far more powerful than she would have wanted. Its effects spread in a radius of a couple blocks, knocking out most people present in the area, causing a handful of traffic accidents and other things of that nature. Those further away from her were only unconscious, but those near her, the thugs, had received the brunt of the psionic energy overload, and their brains were fried as a result, rendering them lifeless.
Dylan, on account of being next to her and due to Melissa's desire to protect him, had been unaffected by the scream, though he still managed to perceive it. Scared out of his wits, the boy ran away with the ring, only wanting to go home and forget about everything.
"Dylan, wait!" Melissa called after him, but the boy did not heed her words and simply left. She was now alone, and with care, she crawled towards one of the bodies. Some of its functions were still active, she noticed, but even so their minds had been completely destroyed, and even if they were saved they would be nothing more than fleshy husks that had once harbored true life. Regretting her actions, she slumped down on the ground with her back against the wall. She hadn't meant to kill anyone, even if they were less than reputable men like these, but now she had their metaphorical blood on her hands, and who knew what else she had caused outside of the house?
She didn't know what to do, so she simply continued to sit there in shock.
Shino was basically right around the block;
Of course, she didn't have any protections towards psionics, but oddly enough, going away wasn't the thing she did, instead, she did quite the contrary.
Possibly due to her backwards energy, but she didn't really know.
At first, she felt a little dizzy, then almost fell, woken up only by the sound of a car almost crashing into her, waking her up ever so slightly and dissipating the spell, if only for a moment's notice.
Trying to stay awake, she wobbled around in the back streets to find the source of the energy surge, of course it wasn't that easy either, she didn't know how to handle psionics at all, much less feel their energy.
After a strenuously large amount of wobbling, she found a woman staring in shock at a few bodies.
"Ah, must be the source..." She tried to limp herself up to her to gain her attention, however, she wasn't waking up completely for a while, she still had an hour of being like this.
"Hey, how's it going?" Trying to make conversation, she also attempted to hide her quite obviously tired face.
