Johnilantism Manifesto

Si vis pacem, para bellum

John was on his way to the school grounds, he passed by the city center. The place was busy: restaurants were full, waiters were rushing, a good number of joggers were regularly passing by, etc...

The scent of food triggered the young boy's empty stomach, especially when passing in front of the numerous Kebab shops. Buying a little treat would be nice but his body was in a weakened state and imperatively needed fast recovery from all the fighting he still engaged in regularly. With great pain, he forced himself to only enter a grocery store, and bought a can of beef. He still had a few frozen products in his fridge, vegetables, to accompany the meat.

People kept looking at John weird, his helmet surely had something to do with that. The school was quite far away, and it was getting dark. He left the store and started walking away, leaving the city center.

In the crowd of people staring at him, he noticed someone tailing him. The young boy sped up his pace and took a longer complex path to lose any possible stalkers. It still was not enough, the guy behind him was persistent.

The teenager suddenly turned into a narrow alley and settled near the corner to ambush the person following him. Standing still and patient, he realized something was odd. The alley was empty despite of the city's activity, moreover the stalker was taking too much time to reach John's position.

Maybe he was just paranoid, his last missions made him face death several times which started to make him a little on edge. John often had brief hallucinations. Every time he entered a room or somewhere new, he would briefly perceive silhouettes on the side of his eye that he always instantly took for hostiles or dead corpses. Of course, they disappeared as soon as he faced the illusionary shapes. However, it was still an impression that could maybe reflect on a possible psychological trauma.

He breathed in and relaxed, then walked to the other end of the alley. The boy convinced himself he was just losing his mind. It would be a matter of time before he became schizophrenic, he thought.

John was still in the middle of the alley when he was hit by a feeling he quickly recognized. A gut punch that he experienced before. It took him a little time to recall the similar experience: the attack on his house by who he thought was Ember. John had given the event much thought especially during his vigilante missions and had concluded that he was hit by a dampener laser (which explained a lot of things like Arlo's barrier weakness against the van). He had found more answers when interrogating the engineer working on the machine producing such an effect. Fighting alone without his ability would be impossible, he did not even bother to look around and started running towards the alley's exit.

John was at the end of the street but just as he was turning around, he felt the presence of an aura around the corner. He caught the glimpse of a tool heading towards his head and in a quarter of a second, ducked down. The boy heard an impact above him and felt a few crumbs falling on his head. He continued his motion, evaded to the side of the ambusher, pushed this one against the wall and started running again.

During the attack he instinctively sampled the attacker's aura but still didn't know the characteristics of the ability. After successfully mimicking it and powering up, without any intervention from the boy, he felt some of its effects. The world around him slowed down a little and he started seing everything with great detail. A potted plant on the side of the road caught his attention and he started focusing on it, his vision was extremely precise, he could admire each one of the flowers' firm steams, the smoothness of their wet green skin.

His observation was interrupted by a quick rising pain on his hip. John was about to turn his head and examine it but time took back its normal course, he was swept from his legs, barrel rolled on a solid surface before being sent flying on the road.