Several tense seconds followed my proclamation as people tried to make sense of what had just happened. I couldn’t really blame them, I had just stopped a whole bunch of bullets in midair. That type of thing didn’t generally happen.
“Honestly, you should all just, like, fuck off?” I told the counter-protestors, starting to get impatient for them to do something. “Like, who shoots at people at a peaceful protest anyway? That shit’s just not cool.”
“What the hell are you?” one of the militia guys asked, staring at me with wide eyes.
Considering the question for a moment, I glanced at my gauntlets. “I’m a witch, you can call me, uh…”
I scrambled to think of a name. As cute as ‘Lette’ was, it wasn't the kind of name that would get much respect right now. I needed a… a hero name.
My eyes flicked to my gauntlets, and a lightbulb went off in my head. “My name is Gauntlette. I’m here to keep these people safe. Please, just turn around and leave.”
No movement. They all just stood there, side eyeing each other like one of them was going to make a move or something. Herd mentality, a bunch of wannabe predators meeting something they didn't understand. I know that’s talking myself up a little, but… fuck, I could stop bullets with my mind. What the hell were they going to do?
Running out of patience, I gave a long, deep sigh. “Alright, I’ll start with the guy who just tried to shoot someone.”
Giving a slight motion with the fingers of my right arm, I activated another trick of my gauntlets. My ancestors had run into a problem as they resisted the APA and their Hunters — with every sealed leyline, there was less ambient mana to work with. So, they learned how to recycle.
With a process that was too fast to comprehend, I pulled all the heat from the bullets in the stasis field. Moisture from the air rapidly condensed around the bullets, forming small, delicate crystals.
With a flourish I sucked all that mundane heat energy into my smaller left gauntlet, then pumped it like I was cocking a gun. The process let out a sound like steel gravel being crushed, and it was followed by my larger right gauntlet lighting up like a whacky celtic christmas tree.
Runes flashed along the strips of metal, full to bursting with energy, and I grasped reality once more and punched it. A directed shockwave exploded outwards, rippling through the air to strike not just the gunman, but everyone within ten meters of him. Guns and bodies went flying, landing with clatters, dull thumps, and the sharp snap of breaking bone.
I’d say I felt a little sorry for them, but I’d be lying. They had come looking for a fight, now they had it. Wasn’t my fault if they couldn’t handle it.
“Oh lord, she's a mage!” someone cried, and I winced as more guns were levelled at me. “She’s just killed them!”
I was a witch, thank you very much — and what were they talking about? Nobody died. At worst, they might need a trip to the hospital, plus a few months. They’d all be fine. Well, apart from the medical bills.
The man who’d called out was staring at me with wide eyes and gun raised. I could see him make the decision, his expression subtly changing as signals began to process what he wanted to do.
I moved quickly, arm coming up just in time to catch this second round of bullets. I didn’t wait this time — I crushed their energy into raw magic. My next spell was a shotgun spread of small projectiles — all made of magic and as real as any plastic riot round.
People dropped, crying out in pain, while others tried to run for cover. One though, he raised his assault rifle towards the crowd.
Oh fuck.
With a panicked surge of energy, I grabbed at reality and leapt through the air — no finesse to my movement, no artistry to my spellwork. My large right gauntlet impacted his face with a sickening crunch. The punch sent him backwards at an alarming speed before slamming through a shop window with a spray of safety glass. That was going to do some permanent damage… but, you get what you get.
Protestors were moving now, some trying to run away, others going for recently discarded guns. For the most part, the militia people were routed and fleeing, although a few were still brandishing weapons with varying degrees of confidence.
That… that was close. That guy had been about to — wait, did he fire his gun? It didn't sound like it, but suddenly I wasn't sure.
Eva.
My head whipped around — had she been hurt? No, she stood there in the crowd, staring at me with wide eyes. Nobody in the crowd looked like they'd taken a bullet. I breathed a sigh of relief, with her fine I could finish off the last of the militia people. This needed to end now.
Another rubber-bullet blast… that would do it. There was a mild snap as the spell sprayed the stragglers with nasty little balls of hurt, and finally, finally, the rest of them broke and ran.
Then the cops arrived. The only warning I got was a call from the crowd. They raised their weapons.
Oh shit. My right gauntlet was still venting exhaust! It would destabilise the complex stasis field, I needed—
My right arm whipped up and I crouched low, trying to cram my body behind the biggest hardened magical barrier I could create. It was only barely big enough, and it flickered to life barely a second before they fired.
Since I was now well away from the main crowd, the cops didn’t seem to be interested in mincing words. Bullets hammered into my shield, and chunks of pavement sprayed everywhere as some of the bullets missed. Sweat trickled down the side of my face under the strain of holding the shield up. The barrier could negate some of the kinetic energy, but not all of it. The hail of bullets stopped as abruptly as it started.
Why were the cops using live ammo? On a kid? This was… I mean, I understood why the militia people had real bullets — they were crazy. The cops weren't supposed to just kill people, though. That's why this whole protest was even happening!
My shield pulsed erratically and suddenly I felt nauseous — both were physical indicators that my internal reserves of power were pretty badly diminished.
I wasn't going to be getting any more, either. What I'd started with was what I got. The cops weren't going to sit and wait for months while my body passively gathered microscopic tufts of mana from the air. Oh, and if I ran out entirely… I would be helpless. Shit, I was about to become another dead witch. I needed to get the fuck out of here.
“Witch,” a voice called, amplified through a megaphone. “You’ve caused an awful lot of trouble for me, and I would greatly appreciate it if you’d stop.”
Peeking around the side of my magical shield, I searched for the owner of that voice, but before I even found him, alarm bells began to ring within my head. Those weren’t normal cops...
A man strode forward, and like the rest of his buddies he had no identifying features on his uniform. Navy blue slacks and shirt, black tactical gear over the top. No name badge, no insignia for whatever precinct he came from or whatever… just black and blue.
His head was perfectly visible however — naturally bald on top and sides shaved to match. His face was all angles, eyes sunken and piercing as they attempted to beat me with a baton purely through force of will.
“If I stop, does that mean I can leave?” I asked with a wry, sarcastic smile.
His answering laugh was chilling. “We will see, won’t we?”
Maybe it was his laugh, or maybe it was the look he was giving me, but some part of me began to really scream for me to leave. I was pretty sure I knew who they were, especially because of the way he didn’t seem phased by my use of magic.
Since the formation of the United States of America, the APA, or its predecessors, had enjoyed a certain level of freedom with these borders. Not enough for anything door-to-door… but this? With the current administration being very friendly to those with money and power, the Hunters had more freedom than at almost any other time in modern history.
I'd been so stupid — so cocky and so stupid, and now I was going to die for it. I needed to run. Listening to a villain monologuing was always an idiot move.
So, I ran.
Like, just turned and hoofed it in the opposite direction, making for the nearby industrial park.
Bullets once again pinged past me, and the air protested their passage with whiplike cracks. Shit, running wasn’t going to be enough. With a flick of one wrist, I yanked myself through the air like a living cannon ball.
I didn’t fully take to the air like I had on my way here though, their bullets had drained my reserves to the point where I wasn’t confident in my flight capabilities. Running out of mana in midair would definitely not be a good time.
What a disaster. I really should have planned this out better — which is to say I should have planned it out at all. I should've at least come in with a goddamn exit strategy. Turns out you don’t need to be going through puberty to make dumbass teenager decisions.
Still, I did save a bunch of people from what was about to turn into a real bad situation. That had to count for something, right?
Another bullet chipped the asphalt next to me, reminding me that right now, it didn’t count for shit. Nothing did, except getting away. I dodged down a side street and kept running—
Oh, no. Another group of unmarked law enforcement stood at the end of the street, blocking my path.
Turning, I saw the main Hunter was close behind me, his movements far too fast to be merely human. Wait, was he holding a sword?
I barely caught the vicious serrated blade on my large gauntlet, absorbing the kinetic energy of the impact. A pulse of energy entered the mechanism of my gauntlets, and I slid backwards activating the conversion process at the same time.
Wow. The amount of power that had been in that strike! If I hadn’t been able to turn a bunch of that force into fuel, I’d have been sliced in two. He hit like a rocket-propelled truck!
“Jesus, dude,” I laughed nervously. “Let’s turn that intensity down a few notches? I'm just a child!”
“You are not a child, you are a threat. The only mercy I can offer is a swift death,” he said nonchalantly, like he was talking about the best way to fillet a fish or something.
“Wow, alright,” I blinked, ice forming in my gut.
Magic was so rare that many forgot it existed sometimes, and in my case, I forgot that others besides me could use it. Like, obviously the APA used it, but I'd never met anyone with the ability… until now. This man was, without any doubt, augmenting his physical attributes with magic.
If I made it out of here, I really needed to translate the rest of granddad's ancestral journal. I needed to know what I was up against.
The hunter’s feet shifted slightly in my peripheral vision, scuffing the concrete. I didn’t wait for the strike that would follow — yanking myself backwards and into the air using the mana that he’d just provided me. I didn’t have enough for flight, but I could try and put a block or two between us.
Of all the things I’d practiced with these gloves, actual fighting wasn’t one of them — I only knew how to throw spells. Flying though? I’d done a hell of a lot of that, and although I was still rough at it, something I’d also perfected was landing. It was kind of a requirement to learn, really… without broken bones at least. It really was too bad I couldn’t figure out how to absorb the energy of my landings.
When I hit the ground, I landed gauntlet-first and tucked into a roll, coming up to find myself in what appeared to be a small cemetery attached to a tiny old church.
Alright… a little creepy… Where did I go now?