Jun excitedly emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. Grinning ear to ear as his grand plan for the morning began to take root. he stretched his left hand out, his phone levitated to him allowing him to push the play button on the music player function. Pop-rock began to blast through a set of Bluetooth speakers and Jun nodded to the beat.
With a flick of his wrist, the phone returned, he stretched his right hand and began to pull items of clothing to him one by one; first his boxers; then singlet; before his trousers then button up shirt. He levitated each piece of clothing, letting them hang in the air as he maneuvered his body into them.
Fully dressed, Jun all but skipped to his elevator. He was quite early as he wanted to beat Mr. Kim to the office, so he wasn't bothered by the lack of foot traffic along the apartment corridors.
Going down the elevator, he called Rin. The call went straight to voicemail. He waited till he was out the elevator, crossed the mail slots and out the building before he called again. Once again, it went straight to voicemail, so he left a quick message, thanking her, adding that he wanted to see her; which he did. Jun doubted he would immediately tell her of his new abilities, but he knew he wouldn't want to lie to Rin, so he kept his mind open.
The streets were not empty. He almost immediately hit the legs of a man sitting on the ground leaning against the apartment building. Jun did a double-take as he recognized him as the resident from a floor above him in one of the bigger apartments, also he was weeping openly. The resident was dressed in a suit with the tie pulled off, which he clutched as he wept. The man caught Jun's look and openly cried out.
"It's all gone. My investment!" he cried, "How does an entire building vanish!" he screamed, shocking Jun.
The man began beating his fists onto the pavement, muttering about the impossibility of disappearing buildings, ignoring Jun as he wallowed in pity. A few people walked by, ignoring the scene as the man simply continued to thrash about, Jun felt no choice but to continue.
Jun felt disturbed by what he saw, he remembered this resident as the smooth-talking business type who would rarely loose his cool. However, the bus he had to take was still a couple of streets away so Jun simply increased his walking pace.
This morning, he had planned to take the first bus of the day so he could get into the office earlier than most. Usually, he wasn't out this early so a part of him just assumed the early mornings were filled with unusual types of people.
As he crossed the road to get to the bus stop, he noticed a group of people standing and listening to a man dressed in strange robes. The man wore an odd crown made of cardboard paper, cut and painted in the style of a burning flame. As he passed, Jun caught a few words spoken.
"- time of new beginnings. The gods have deigned humanity worthy. Their chosen have begun to walk the earth,"
Jun slowed as he assumed the man referred to the phenomenon of super powered beings. He listened without facing the crowd.
"Your righteousness shall be your shield. For ALL the gods have sent their chosen. Not all shall be worthy of praise, not all shall retain their humanity in this new era! Yet you must rejoice. We must aid the great ones," the man gestured quite casually at a collection basket held by a brown haired woman, "for they resist the cruel intentions of the demons as they appear."
A few people clapped after his words while some began to drop money into the collection basket. Upon seeing this, Jun decided to move on. He assumed this was just someone capitalizing on the new phenomenon, collecting as much wealth as they could while garnering a flock of easily misled masses.
He sighted the early morning bus, so he sped away from there, not noticing as one of the members of the flock, turned his head to watch him leave.
Jun boarded the bus and took a seat in the middle section by a window. He clutched his work bag beside him and waited for the bus to get moving. A few minutes later, the bus filled up and was on its way.
Jun watched the city pass him by. After he left his street, he tried Rin's number again but got the voice answering system, so he put his phone away and continued watching the city.
Halfway through his journey, he was stunned to see a high rise building emitting thick black smoke from the upper floors. The walls were cracked, scorched black and actually appeared folded, somehow appearing melted. There were people gathered and watching as survivors gathered opposite the building, perhaps waiting for emergency services.
The bus passed the scene and continued. Next, Jun felt the bus shake as it passed a few potholes he didn't remember passing before. He looked out the window and could notice several damaged parts of the road that he had taken just days ago, he didn't recall the roads being this damaged. There were small craters dotting the road and as he looked around, he noticed damaged buildings sporting wide holes in the walls or busted up doors. These were mostly shops.
The bus then approached a gathering of people blocking the road, some of whom held crude weapons, like baseball bats or steel pipes. These people immediately reacted to the bus's approach and surrounded it.
"What's going on?" someone in the bus asked.
"Who are these people?" the driver asked his passengers.
Someone carrying a bat banged on the bus door demanding to be let in.
"Don't you know" said a man who began pulling out a series of bank notes, "he counted an amount and returned the rest back to his pocket. Jun noticed that most of the other passengers did something similar, while himself and others looked surprised by the unfolding event. The man looked up as he noticed the driver hadn't opened the door. "What are you doing? Oh, you must be new, the last driver really said he wasn't going to deal with this."
Another prepared passenger spoke up, "They call themselves Lightbringers. They are a new gang that serve one of those super people, or a group of super people, I don't know." she finished flippantly.
A passenger rushed to the driver, "Open the door now or they will make trouble with us." the passenger then turned to the man at the door and make apologetic gestures towards him.
"They demand a tax. If we pay they'll let us pass. It's not much anyway." said the man with the bank notes.
A youth with a passionate look in his eye then spoke up, "and what if we don't pay. There's no way what they're doing is legal." this got murmurs of approval from other passengers, but a majority seemed to chuckle at the youth's naivete.
"Look around you," it was a mother with a young boy seated with her. "Those destroyed buildings are shops who refused them."
Jun looked around and could tell, those buildings were purposefully destroyed and it seemed by super beings who demanded some form of protection money or tax. It was extortion through and through.
The driver, under urgings from some passengers then opened the door, watching the baseball bat man who then strode calmly onto the bus. Behind him, four other armed men rushed in and quickly spread to the back of the bus.
He pointed his bat at the driver.
"What is wrong with you? How dare you keep us waiting eh!"
"Sorry!" shouted a passenger, "he is a new driver, he doesn't know how things are done here."
"Shut up!" shouted the bat man, "was I talking to you?"
The man's accomplices then began to roughly demand money from the passengers.
"Master Lightcore has claimed this territory as his own and any one that doesn't obey," the man swung his bat at the driver's leg causing the driver to squeal out in pain. The driver immediately began to rise in anger, however, one of the bat man's accomplices tackled him back to his seat. The accomplice pulled out a dagger and pointed it at the man's neck causing the driver to raise his hands in surrender.
At this, the passengers began to drop their hard-earned money into the collection nags of the hooligans.
Seeing this, the bat man smiled.
"That's better." nodding, he added. "You see, things are changing. There are many dangerous people around now. Master Lightcore is the only who can protect us. All you have to do is support him."
Jun clenched his fists. It was his turn to pay up. He considered fighting back, but he knew he wasn't strong enough yet. He calculated he could subdue two maybe three people, but there were more outside, watching the extortion unfold and would no doubt rush in if something were to happen. He pulled out a 1000 won note and dropped it into the collection bag.
Once their collection was done. The bat man spoke again.
"Thank you all for your contribution to Master Lightcore's endeavors. Our community will remain safe thanks to your efforts." with that, he gave a signal and the group exited the bus. He waved at the others who then made a path along the road allowing the bus to resume it's travels.
Jun waited a few moments then asked, "when did this all start?"
"Does it matter? I've seen this Lightcore person. A friend of mine didn't to pay up. He called them out on their bullsh*t." he sighed, "Did you see the burning building we passed on the way?" Jun nodded, he continued, "That was them. The man shot a - er- beam of light from his bare hands." the man said incredulously, "incinerated parts of the whole building yesterday, the fire started then but no one has officially come to put it out."
The hot-blooded youth spoke out, "but the police-"
The mother cut him off, "what's the police supposed to do ehn? These - people - shoot fire from their hands, I even saw a brave officer fire his weapon back at them." she shook her head in pity.
"Mm-hm," agreed the man with a saddened sigh, "I saw that too. The poor officer was blasted to a burning husk right before our very eyes. Lightcore just shrugged the bullets off. It didn't do anything to him."
The mother continued, "who can stop them? Who wants to die such a pitiful death?"
There were resigned murmurs of agreement.
Jun found himself sinking deep into thought. None of this was right. Yet, what was he to do? As he was, he couldn't put up much of a fight against people who could destroy buildings or set people ablaze.
'I need to get stronger. What is I have to protect... Rin!'
Something caught his eye and for a split second even he doubted what he knew he saw.
He was already on his feet "Watch out!" Jun screamed at the driver.
BANG!
SCREEEEECHH!
CRASH!