Psychic

Chapter 2: The Market.


Vauhan glared back at Mia. The sound of the idea to him sounded insane, but at the same time, it could work. “Psychics,” said Vauhan, in a toned down voice. “I’ve never liked them. I was raised by my parents to hate him. Why should we just start to trust these people after one just killed my precious daughter? It’s unthinkable!”

“Sir,” replied Mia. “I know you didn’t see what happened, but that man got away from 200 of our best soldiers. I can tell you want vengeance just by looking at you, but we have to face the facts, here. This man is one step ahead of the average person. We’d be wasting lives to just send soldiers to find him. This guy can only be stopped by his own kind.”

Vauhan finally gained enough strength to raise his weak body off of the ground. He rubbed his eyes, which were stained red from crying, and wiped the dust off of his uniform. “I still don’t understand. How are we going to get psychics to just start fighting for us?”

“It’s simple. I thought of it on the way up, sir. An exam.”

Vauhan arched his eyebrow. “An exam? What are you talking about?”

“We should hold a test that applies for all psychics. We’ll gather as many psychics as possible. Of course, recruiting them all would be a waste of time, so we just need to test them. You know, find the best of the best.”

“Best of the best…,” muttered Vauhan.

Mia nodded. “We’ll get the best of the best, and they’ll be the ones to find that man and eliminate him.” Mia looked into Vauhan’s eyes and could still see that he was unsure of the fact. She couldn’t blame him, of course, considering he grew up in a world that discriminated psychics. “Please, sir. This is the only chance we have.”

Vauhan stared down at the carpet, ignoring the shattered glass and flipped furniture that was caused from his anger. He had to decide now. Could he really trust any of these guys? Vauhan took a deep breath, taking his time to exhale. “3 days,” he said. Mia gave him a confused look. “You have 3 days to device an exam and gather the best psychics you can possibly find.” He looked away from the carpet and into Mia’s eyes. “This will be the first and only time that I can trust those people. If anything more catastrophes occur because of those animals, I won’t forgive you for this.”

With no response, Mia left the room and walked down the stairs, where Momo, her fiancé and the priest covered in white bandages. Mayor Vauhan is right, she thought, this is our only hope, and I don’t even know where to begin.

“Listen up, maggots!” she yelled, grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. “We’ve come up with a plan to avenge Momo, and as confirmed by Mayor Vauhan, we will be holding an exam to find the strongest psychics in the city.” The crowd of soldiers all started whispering to each other, surprised by the mayor’s choice. They couldn’t believe he’d let anyone come up to the top of the pillar ever again, let alone psychics. “I want all of you to spread the word of this exam across every last corner of Mercury! Make posters, call up broadcasting stations and newspaper companies. I don’t care what you do as long as we get the word across the city.”

“But, what about Momo?” asked a soldier.

“We’ll keep her and the other two wrapped like this and kept in the cellar until further notice. For now, I’m heading down to the lower level to help spread the word.”

“And the test?”

“I’ll come up with something tonight, but that doesn’t matter now!” In a rush, Momo pushed the soldiers out of the way and started scurrying across the pillar to the closest elevator. South Mercury, she thought. That’s where I’ll go first.


The sun was beating down ferociously, and that didn’t make the day any better for Knox. He was grateful that he worked in market, where he could at least stay inside with the shade most of the time. Knox turned the corner from the dirt road onto a large stone path, that stretched for a good 2 miles. Along the stone road were buildings that had barely any space between them. Most of the buildings were constructed with bricks, and were no bigger than 3 stories at the most. A majority of the people from the North, which is where the rich people live, consider the stone path to be disgusting and poorly put together, but in the south, you were considered rich among those citizens if you were living on the main road. Even the smell of rotting garbage and brick houses are better than the shacks that some people from the South live in.

Along the way, Knox occasionally kicked up some stones from the path, moving slowly through the road, which was flooded with peasants all across the district. The crowd wore mostly light brown rags, and sometimes there would be a man or two who could afford decent clothing, such as Knox, but it was rare. Something seemed off to him though. Not only was the street more crowded then ever, but the crowd was in a massive uproar. Usually stuff like this happened when there was terrible accident, but today it seemed pretty bad.

Knox finally arrived at work, which was the Main Street Market, a run down green shack that was stocked with nothing but fruit and some canned food. Despite its low quality, it was still a very popular market.

“Oi, you made it on time for once, mate!” A large shadow surfaced over Knox. He turned around quickly, looking up at his tall, but fat, boss, Mr. Lans.

“Morning, sir!” said Knox, grabbing an apron off of a workbench. “Pretty hot day, to say the least.”

Mr. Lans grabbed a few crates of fruit and dropped them on the ground. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad even for June. But, hell, that’s the least we can worry about right now?”

Knox gave Lans a confused look. “Why, is something up?”

“Boy, didn’t you hear? You must be living under a rock if you haven’t heard what happened?”

“Well, it must be pretty bad if the crowd is in such a panic today. What’s up?”

“You know that snot nosed mayor of ours, Vauhan, well his daughter got assassinated.”

At the sound of those words, Knox dropped the fruit he was packaging in shock. No wonder why everyone was freaking out. “You’re kidding? By who?”

“They don’t got the culprit yet, but the man’s supposed to be some psychic. Guess the guy could make this fancy blue energy stuff and fire it. It packs a huge punch if it can take down that balcony!”

“So, he can emit energy, huh?” Knox had always been pretty good with figuring out psychics and how they use their powers. “That’s a pretty powerful man, then. They don’t even know if he was using a full power attack, either. For all we know, if he charged up long enough, he could’ve taken down the entire Blessed House.”

“Entire thing?” said Lans, in a shocked tone. “Man, you psychics are crazy people. I’ll have to make sure to stay on your good side, boy.”

Knox smiled as he finished packaging the fruit. Nevertheless, it was mind blowing to him that someone could’ve taken down an entire balcony like nothing. Knox thought to himself, I wonder if it’s possible to become that strong. Then again, is it even worth it.

The day passed by fast as always, but it wasn’t closing time yet. Knox was in the back of the shop, cleaning out garbage like he did before he went home every day. Right before finishing his duties, a loud bang came from inside the shop. Knox quickly came in through the back door to see what the commotion was.

In front of the check out counter stood a gargantuan brute, easily standing at 6’6”. His muscles were buff, and his large chest could barely keep the wife beater he had on secured. The man had his fist through the rotting counter. His veins popped out of his head and arms, showing that he was angry.

“You freaking a******!” yelled the giant, directing his anger towards Mr. Lans. “What the hell are you trying to do, feeding me outdated fruit?”

“I apologize, good sir,” replied Lans. “It’s just, well, we haven’t gotten many sales with the fruit lately, and wasting it would be kind of unfortunate.” It was kind of entertaining for Knox to see his boss try to talk in a fashionable manor.

“I don’t give a s*** about your sales! I want my money back this instant.”

Mr. Lans pointed to his right at a sign that read, ‘No Money Back Guarantees’. “Please read the sign, sir, it explains everything.”

The veins on the man’s head started to expand, just like the crowd around the scene. “I’ve had it, you piece of trash. I’m gonna mess you up real bad.” The man cocked his right arm, and at full force, slammed his fist at Mr. Lans. Mr. Lans went flying onto his back at hit the ground hard, moaning in pain.

“You need to relax, Johnny!” said a woman in the crowd.

“Shut it, this man deserves to pay. If he won’t give me money, then he’ll just pay me back by letting me beat the crap outta him.”

Johnny started to slowly walk towards Mr. Lans, who still was on the ground. “Take this, fatty!” Johnny threw another punch right for Lans stomach. Suddenly, he stopped halfway through his punch, watching as Knox grabbed his fist and stopped him in his tracks. The entire crowd was in disbelief that a teenager could stop a brute with just one hand. “What the hell?” replied Johnny.

“You’ve already caused enough damage,” said Knox. “Just leave the poor man alone.”

“Why should I? There’s no one here to stop me.”

“That’s a lie. I’ll stop you if I must.”

Before Johnny could continue talking, he busted out into laughter. “You gotta be kiddin’ me? You, try and stop me? Well, if you really want a fight, don‘t start crying when I‘m beating you into the ground.”

“Fine, get outside. But I’ll warn you, I’m abnormal.”

“Pfft, I already know that. It’s obvious that something’s wrong with that brain of yours.” Following Johnny, Knox walked outside into the middle of the stone road, forming a circle with the crowd as the barriers.

A little further down the street, Mia was walking, exhausted from trying to tell the citizens about the exam. Despite her hard work, not one psychic had emerged to talk to her. What a waste of time, she thought. What am I even doing down here in this piece of garbage district? As she prepared to turn around, she couldn’t help but notice something strange. The long lane of people were moving to the side, going around a circle of citizens. She knew that there was a fight going on. Maybe something interesting would finally happen. She squirmed her way through the crowd, finding herself in the front row. To her surprise, this wasn’t just an average street brawl. It was a fight between a monster and a teenager.

“Go get em’ boy!” yelled Lens, who had finally resurfaced. Johnny looked down at Knox, who had a blank expression on his face, and gave him a smirk.

“This is going to be a lot of fun!” Johnny jogged towards Knox, with his right arm ready to swing. As he approached, he threw a straight right, but it was useless. Knox ducked below him and shifted to the right. 2 more punches came flying at Knox, but he blocked both of them at ease. Johnny continued to spam straight punches one after the other, but none came close to connecting. Finally, out of boredom, Knox jumped back, stretched his arms, and positioned himself in a fighting stance.

“You’re too predictable,” said Knox. “All you do is throw the same straight punches, one after another. Dodging them isn’t even considered a challenge.”

“You little s***,” murmured Johnny. “Think you’re all that just because you can dodge, don’t you? How about you try attacking me for a change?”

“Fine, have it your way, Johnny.” Knox slowly walked over to him, exiting his stance. Johnny could barely see the logic in his strategy. Before Johnny knew it, Knox threw a punch right to his abs. It was so fast, that he had no time to even try and dodge. Knox moved to the right, and threw a powerful roundhouse kick straight to his ribs. Johnny, even with his muscular body, couldn’t believe how strong the attacks were. Knox finished it off by dropkicking into a back flip, making Johnny fly onto the stones, which dug into his skin like needles.

Mia watched from the sidelines into total doubt. She eyed back at Knox, who looked like any average teenager. How could someone like him be so strong, she thought. I’ve never seen someone his age be able to Johnny picked himself off of the sharp surface, picking out the stones that stuck into his body. “Eh, you’re pretty good, kid. Must be a karate expert or something. The thing is though, I got a few things up my sleeve, as well. How about you try me one more time?”

“Alright, I hope you can actually impress me this time.” This time, Knox came running towards Johnny. Before he could land an attack, Johnny jumped to the left, closing in near the crowd. Knox quickly changed direction and came flying towards Johnny with an uppercut prepared. As soon as Knox started to swing his fist, Johnny grabbed a young woman from the crowd and placed her in front of him.

Knox’s eyes widened, stopping the uppercut just an inch away from the woman’s chin. He was disgusted by how cowardly and sickening Johnny’s ‘trick’ was. “Now’s the time, baby,” said Johnny, punching Knox directly in the nose. Knox flew back onto the ground, feeling small drops of blood leak out of his nostril. He didn’t want to do this, but he no longer had a choice.

Knox immediately got up from the ground and gave Johnny an angry look. An angry look that told him that he wasn’t playing around anymore. “Do you remember when I told you that I wasn’t normal. I’m going to show you what I mean.”

Knox slowly shuttered his eyes and dug his short nails into the palm of his hand. He took a deep breath before veins started to surface all over his body. The crowd, along with Johnny was deeply confused.

“What the hell is this, some Dragon Ball s***? What are you doing?” Slowly, a red aura started to outline Knox’s body. It was barely visible, but within a minute, the aura was sparkling and could be seen from far distances away.

“When I said I was abnormal, I was being literal. Normal people call the abnormal psychics, correct? You should be careful who you mess with next time.” Johnny stood and watched the magnificent red aura in shock, but he wasn’t alone. The entire crowd was silent, and some people were even frightened. “Quit now or prepare to take a trip straight to hell.”

Johnny snapped out of his petrified state and got back into battle mode. “I’m not scared of a little s*** like you. Bring it!” Johnny sprinted full speed at Knox. Johnny tried to think of an attack on his way there, but it was useless. Knox jumped into the air and swung his leg right into Johnny’s neck. The impact was so brutal that Johnny went flying to the left, smashing through the market. He connected with the wall, which completely shattered. With that, Johnny was knocked out cold.

“If you weren’t so damn hasty,” continued Knox. “I could have told you that this red aura enhances my strength by five times, making me much more powerful than before.” The crowd was speechless. There was no cheering or excitement, only fear. There was one exception, though, and it was Mia. I’ve decided, she thought. He must take the exam.