I was constantly searching my power as we drove, but something pulled me away from that inner space and back to reality. It was the sounds of the first raindrops hitting our windshield. They were coming down heavy and fat, and as the wave overtook us, it raced out towards the ocean. The weather here was mercurial, I had learned over my years, and it often went from clear to thundering in the same day. Sometimes twice a day.

So, this afternoon downpour was not so uncommon, though perhaps its intensity was. What was truly unsettling was the juxtaposition, as if the whole world was turning upside down at once. Ash and rain were mingling in the sky together.

It's like something out of a movie, I thought. But this is real life.

Before I knew it, we were halfway to our destination. Time passed quickly at first, out towards the edges where things were safe. Not too much trouble was around to find us there, yet as we grew closer to the center of conflict, it became apparent the warzone would not let anyone pass through it unscathed. Gang members started to appear, driving around with truck-mounted guns, along with criminals of a more opportunistic sort as well...

What really sunk my heart was the looting. Unlike with the rampager, people knew in this situation that not everyone was in danger. The villains trying for a takeover were not an indiscriminate monster searching to kill anyone it could find. They were searching only for the photogenic hostages that they could parade before the media to stave off military intervention.

Your average citizen was not going to make that cut, and the criminal types certainly wouldn’t. Now that the bombs had stopped going off, all that was left for them was an opportunity for looting. The symbols of law and order were too distracted to act on petty theft at the moment, if not powerless entirely, leaving our city ripe for the picking. The villains were already in charge, I realized, since they were the de facto leaders the longer this all went on.

They set the beat that our city marched to.

Once we started dodging the crowds, Sixes told me to hide. In case someone sees my face, he said, and recognized me from the news.

I slunk down, then, and tried to distract myself by asking him personal questions, which went about as well as you would expect. "So, how long have you been in the city, Chri-... uh, Sixes?"

"That's none of your business. Let me focus on driving.”

I simply sighed and went back to watching the rain while my mind wandered. From within the psychic world, I saw people full of emotion. Panic, excitement, confusion, and courage, sometimes all in the same person, but usually one was primary. My heart sunk when the prayers started to get through to me. Even more so than during the last attack, they were everywhere. Just good folk fearing for their lives and turning to the only power they thought could hear them.

Some were so densely packed that I couldn't make them out amongst the noise, but others were more isolated and clear.

'Don't let them find me,' a man said. He worked at a bank. That information announced itself to me for whatever reason. He had no family, but a dog he loved very much.

'Please, God, take care of Timothy,' a mother also prayed. She had three kids…

One voice in particular sounded out from a neighborhood we were about to pass. A little girl was asking for the protection of her family, I heard, with all the innocence and earnestness of true belief. She, I understood, was only eight.

'There's bad men at the door, God, please do something!' she thought.

I could hear through her ears what came next. The crackle of wood sounded as the attackers forced their way inside. A brief fight and two gunshots went off, and moments later the girl started to sob in her hiding place.

Catching a glimpse into her mind like this caused our spirits to briefly connect, and I was stricken with overwhelming fear. It was like I was a little kid again, paralyzed by anything and everything, utterly helpless and small. Then I remembered, it was a two-way connection. I could send back some courage perhaps, but that wasn't going to be enough. Words alone would never be enough...

Up to this point we had been driving by every scene of tragedy we passed, as it was just impossible to stop at them all. This time, though, we had to do something. We couldn’t just keep our heads down and pass by.

"Hold tight," I told her. "We're on our way!"

I took hold of the steering wheel suddenly and shouted at Sixes, "Someone is in trouble! Pull into that neighborhood! Don't pass it!" I found my voice to be clear and strong. I was certain for once beyond a doubt about what I was doing, and it gave my steadiness.

Sixes hesitated, though. "Wait, what's the situation? We can’t stop right now for every person in need!”

I yanked at the steering wheel, knowing that he was far too strong for me to budge it, but that it was the only thing I could do to drive my point home. "You don't have to come but give me three minutes, alright!? Just three minutes!"

Do it! I thought, not willing to use my power on him, but glaring as hard as humanly possible instead.

The entrance to the neighborhood was flying towards us at sixty miles per hour. He looked back and forth between me and the road, quickly calculating whether or not we could bare to take this risk, knowing full-well that anything we did here was nothing more than a drop in the bucket amongst all this calamity. Yet, I knew from what he had said earlier; his belief in duty and obligation, that his conscience wouldn't let him pass this by.

The eyes I had seen in him were far too caring, even if they were scarred over with callousness.

Our wheels locked down and we screeched to slide over the wet asphalt. We came to a stop at last just beyond the entrance to the neighborhood, but quickly backed up to make a swing into it. The prayers had come to me just at the limit of my range, so once we were closer, I could get a better handle on the situation's entirety. I could see all the auras involved, and the countless numbers of terrified people hiding in their homes. Out of these, however, only one set of souls was currently being visited by those possessed of pure malice.

Amidst all the fear, their blackness showed itself in its focused intent. The will to do harm.

A semi-truck was parked out in front of the little girl's house. In its steel back, over thirty people had already been crammed, ready to be taken away wherever the villains were putting their hostages. These people were being collected by just four men with automatic weapons going house by house, experiencing little to no resistance as they did. Their collective psychic energy was like a whirlwind to my eyes, harder to tune out than tune into.

My seatbelt was quickly unlatched as my hands went for the door. Sixes started slowing us to a stop about a hundred yards up the road as he tried to caution me, but I was already getting out and running.

"Headcase! Adrian!" he yelled.

I had to move as fast as possible now. From the sounds of the gunshots, the girl's parents might already have been dead, or would soon be finished off if not. Their auras were nowhere to be found...

Think. Don't charge in without a plan!

One of the gang members was still in the truck's cabin I noted, while three of his friends did the dirty work inside. One, two, three, I counted them up and decided the best order to attack by. First the man in the doorway, then the one in what I guessed was the kitchen, then finally the man upstairs. I could ignore the one in the truck, even though he was likely armed, as he his attention was glued to the phone in his hand. He would be too slow to react as I sprinted inside, if he noticed at all that I was there.

"Get the truck," I projected to Sixes, "There's people injured in the back. One armed driver up front. I can handle the house!"

It was cocky, but I didn't care. After helping to take down the rampager, I was confident in what I could do to three regular humans.

My bare feet came off the soaked grass and hit the driveway as I turned in for the door. It was hanging open, of course, with the one who had broken it down standing facing me.

I knew from his aura that he was not hopped up on super-serum as Passthrough's mooks had been. He was just a normal man, capable of feeling pain.

My hand was already raised, and I hit him with a blast of yellow-electric agony before he could think to react. First his eyes went wide, then they rolled back as he screamed. Unfortunately for me, his trigger finger reflexively clenched down, and molten lead raced towards me.

I had to stop all of my momentum at once, and the only way to do that was to throw my body into the brick just at the corner of the threshold, using friction to slow myself down. His bullets went close enough past me that I heard them whizzing on the air next, but none of them scathed me. Finally, the recoil brought his arm up towards the ceiling where the last of his ammunition expended itself and he could safely spasm out.

From where I stood over his body then, I checked to see if he was still conscious. To my surprise, I had thrown so much anger into that blast that it had taken him out in one hit. Though his heart was still beating, his aura had the pale character of a resting nervous system.

Huh, I’m more powerful than I thought. Let's see if that works twice!

The next man had been alerted and he was running my way. I hated to play chicken, but I had no choice except to stand with a blast readied and count on firing it off before he did his. Although, I wasn't really leaving it down to skill, I admit. When it's life and death on the line, I was sure to cheat my way to victory.

So, I watched as his aura was about to round the corner, and just as it was, I took my shot preemptively, landing it squarely in his chest. He flew forward and bashed his nose into the adjacent wall, but he wasn't instantly unconscious like the last man. My shot had hit the armor plating in his vest, I saw, and only the lancing electricity had managed to circumvent it enough to startle him. Since he was dazed though, I was allowed another strike for free, and I was sure to nail him in the cranium on the second go.

Once again, he was out like a light.

Not too shabby for an amateur, I thought.

But my stupid little smile only lasted for a moment as the final gang member came forward. He had his rifle slung around his back, with a pistol in one hand and the little girl held tightly in the other. With her at his gunpoint, he had rendered both of us helpless. I had been too excited with my power to keep track of his aura or perhaps I could have prepared myself for this! I had seen similar scenarios play themselves out countless times in movies and comic books, yet faced with it now in real life, I had no idea what to do.

I was more scared than I had been facing death before. If I made the wrong move here, this little girl would lose her life. A life infinitely more pure than mine.

We always think we'd be the one to shoot first and shoot fast, ending the standoff with nobody hurt, but the reality was, if I moved my arm even a fraction she was dead. No one could take the risk of having that kind of blood on their hands. No one was that fast.

"What the fuck did you do!" the bastard said, looking at his friends down on the ground.

"They're just sleeping," I told him. "They're not even hurt."

"You're... you're that guy from the TV. The new hero who stopped our nutcase. Boss wanted you dead, if I heard right."

As we talked, I was pouring energy into my power's perceptive abilities. His nervous system was lighting up before my open eyes, if only I could send something other than words into it, I could stop him dead in his tracks. But my pushes were never that strong. I couldn’t make people do anything they didn’t already want to do, deep down.

He got impatient at my silence and shook the screaming child to make his point. "Unless you want me to kill this bitch, you get down on your fucking knees! Right now!"

"Okay. I’m g-going slow."

I lowered myself down and started to put my hands behind my head. He was far too savvy for that, though. He switched his gun from her to me and barked, "Hands down! I know what you can do! Keep them at your back!"

His aura underwent a subtle shift. He was certain he had me now, and he was going to pull the trigger in mere seconds.

I had a clear vision of his intentions and timing. Possible movements raced through my head, but every one of them came up with the same ending. I could throw myself to the side and dodge the first shot, be he was experienced. He was going to keep firing on me until I was dead, and there was no way he couldn't reorient his aim faster than I could prime a shot. No matter how I looked at this, I ended up biting the bullet.

If not for Sixes, anyway.

I didn't even hear the shot. I only saw the man's head disintegrate and the little girl drop.

The truck had been parked with a clear line of sight from the driver's cabin to the entryway of the house, and all he needed was for me to get out of his way. As I looked back, the passenger side window was blown out and just as expected, my guard was perched over the dead body of the driver, smoke still clearing from his barrel.

My body slunk down as I let all the tension slip. That had been far too close for comfort. Despite being in similar scrapes recently, I never got used to staring down the grave.

Maybe I should take up meditation or something, I told myself, half delirious from the stress. Still, I convinced my legs to get me back up and check on the girl. She was bawling her eyes out, like young kids tended to do, but she was completely unharmed. Taking one glance into the kitchen let me know that the same could not be said of her parents.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse than a merciless rampager, I had to remember that there was something far more insidious than unleashed insanity. Evil existed, and it was methodical and practiced.

And it was here to stay.