[IC] Mortal Reverence

[Mizos]

The bustling city of Naveria, one of the smaller cities compared to it's neighbors but it was home to some. It's one of the few cities in the area that didn't completely rebuild over the older parts of the city. Thanks to that decision Naveria is technically divided into two different sides, the old side of the city which is where the original homes are and the older slightly worn out buildings reside. The new half of the city which is where the new residential district and a majority of the shops are. At the center of the new half of the city is the square which is where a majority of the shops are, they're lined up together circling a large blue fountain which is surrounded by benches. The road runs between the shops and the fountain dividing the two but any parking areas are further back thus the only cars that pass through are any that are leaving not going.
There are two exits from the square one on the north side and the other to the south, only the north has a parking area and is also where the other shopping district is, the south end heads towards the residential city and the rest of the city.

Aria walked through the crowd of people in the square her headphones hidden by her hood which covered her head as she tried to move through the people as quickly as possible. She stopped at a crosswalk as a car went by taking a small step away from one of the others also waiting, being in crowds always made her uncomfortable. She briskly walked across moving past a couple and an elderly man as she made her way to the fountain. She had a white grocery bag in her hands and though the expression was hidden by her hood she was irritated at the idea of weaving through the crowd to get what she needed. Normally she'd go to the old district but since there was construction going on near one of the roads she headed to the new district, she wasn't in any mood to deal with people and extremely loud noises at the same time. What she wanted was cheaper in the new district anyway and she was barely scraping by this month.
Aria pushed a person out of the way causing them to stumble before they turned and reaching over to stop her wanting an apology, they pulled her head down in the process which caused her to stop and turn to them.
She reached back and threw her hair out of her hood letting it fall to the middle of her back and pulled her headphones down before narrowing her eyes at them.
"What the hell do you want?" she said turning towards them.
The person stared at her for a moment mouth slightly agape at her curt manner before going to speak, however before they could Aria turned around and continued walking.
"I don't have time for this stupidity, go away," Aria said walking away from them.
She sat down on one of the benches near the fountain before pulling a sandwich out of the bag and taking a bite, her house was in the older district and it was a bit of a walk so she decided to wait for a bit.

[Sam12435]

Chase woke to find himself in a dark apartment, surrounded by paper and empty instant noodle cups. He had spent another night up, researching for the thesis that he was putting together. He shook off his drowsiness and decided food would be a good idea right now. He checked the usual spots, the cupboard, the fridge, under his desk but e couldn’t find food anywhere.

“Great…” He mumbled as he came to the realisation that he had eaten the last of his supply. That meant he would have to take a break from work to go shopping. Taking breaks was the one part of work that Chase didn’t like. He grabbed his coat and put it on as he threw things on the floor in an attempt to find his wallet. He eventually found it inside one of the noodle cups and made his way out the door, locking it behind him. After a few minutes of walking he had made it to the new part of the city. He found it more comforting to be around newer things, they seemed more natural. In order to retain his scientific mind while in the real world, he recited Newton’s laws in his head. Simple physics but enough for him to be pleased. He went through the usual routine that both him and his shopkeeper of choice had grown accustomed to. Without a word, she put several bags of instant noodles on the counter and held out her hand in anticipation of the money. Chase just smiled and placed the money in her hand. Sometimes people could understand how he did things.

He wasn’t in any financial trouble, being a scientist may have been hard but he got paid a nice amount. He just bought food that didn’t take time to cook or to eat. His health may have suffered a little for it, but he didn’t really care, his life was about scientific betterment, thought and research was all he needed. For a moment, he stopped his mental reciting as he looked into the crowd. He couldn’t help but wonder if he knew any of these people, if they were his friends before he became who he is now. The pendant around his neck seemed to grow heavier as his thoughts wandered. He opened the small oval to view the face he had spent many an hour trying to identify. He let out a sigh as he faded back to reality, looking around and realising he was standing next to a fountain.

“How the hell did I get here?” He asked as he scratched his head. He had a habit of spacing out, but usually he knew where he was. He may have lived in this city for a year that he could remember but he still didn’t know his way around most of it. Needless to say, he was lost.

[Mizos]

Aria finished her sandwich and got up to leave when she noticed a man holding what seemed to be a countless supply of noodles, he seemed to be looking around so he assumed he was lost. She stared at him for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and getting up to leave, his affairs wasn't any of her business. She started to throw her bag away in the nearby garbage when a loud noise caught her attention. She looked up to see the large TV screen that overlooked the square, it was the commercial about some kind of restaurant on the new side of the city. Aria shook her head and turned to leave but the TV shut off for a moment stopping the commercial, a brief second later it clicked back on a red background showing on the screen with a dark silhouette of a person in the center of it.
"Hey look at that," a person said in the crowd. "There's someone on the screen."
Aria started walking but came to a stop seeing everyone in the crowd was pointing up at the screen, she turned towards the screen curious what had gathered everyone's attention to see the silhouette on the screen.
"Hello everyone!" the person on the screen said. "How are you doing today!"
The voice was distorted and the person waved to them before crossing their arms over their chest. she couldn't tell if the person was male or female but they seemed human, of course with technology the way it was it could be an AI or something. With that in mind she was starting to wonder what advertisement this was for.
"I suppose I should introduce myself. my name is.....uh....oh I forgot the evil alias I came up with. Hold on a second I think I wrote it down in case I forgot."
Aria watched as the person started rummaging through their things throwing objects to and fro before finally standing up, Aria looked around wondering if she was being filmed on some television show or something as the person mumbled to themselves.
"Ah I can't remember it so I have to come up with a new one now. I guess you call me Mr. Descent. Anyway I don't really care about your day so onto why I'm here, you'll have to excuse me for interrupting your game shows, horrible movies and all of that. If you were in the middle of watching a funny internet video excuse me as well as I have temporarily taken over the internet, yes I am that awesome. I'm sure if you check your new phone it's got my handsome mug on it too."
Aria looked next to her to see a woman staring at her phone and sure enough Mr. Descent was on it, looking around he was on any other TV or electronic device in the area.
"Anyway whether it's morning or night where your viewing this pay very close attention as my message is extremely important, I mean I just hijacked everything to speak with you and I know your government is hating me right now so let's move this along."
Mr. Descent cleared his throat before crossing his arms and looking straight into the screen before speaking.
"All of you are boring."
Aria stared at the screen and listened as people started murmuring to one another and pointing at the screen, she couldn't blame them as no one knew what was going on right now and whoever this was basically just insulted them; even looking at the police they were trying to contact others to figure out what was going on. Mr. Descent continued speaking intent on getting his message across.
"I've watched you all for a bit and it's just been so boring, doing the same thing day in out, and the sad thing is you show no sign of stopping. Aren't you all tired of the same mundane activities everyday. I mean people of the lower class aren't you tired of working for minimum wage and barely scraping by enough earnings while someone of the upper class is fine dining and relaxing in one of their eight Jacuzzis. Aren't you tired of barely providing for your kids while some rich kid throws away things daily you would literally kill for. What of the upper class aren't you tired of hearing the complaints of the lower class, pretending to care and giving away your hard earned money. I mean you keep them at the bottom for a reason right why can't they understand their role in this society. Ah and the middle class what of you the in between it has to be nice not to be poor but you can never truly reach the funds the upper has, your closer to being lower than upper that has to be stressful. Of course the world isn't so easily divided but you know who you are in social standing even if you won't accept it. Isn't it just a little tiresome to be repetitive all the time, well I suppose I can't expect an open answer for this at least."
Mr. Descent seem to laugh to himself as he spoke and Aria felt a chill run up her spine as she watched the screen, she could hear people talking in the crowd, some were confused but others didn't exactly disagree with him. They didn't speak about it openly and spoke mostly in whispers but they went quiet as Mr. Descent started to speak again.
"Let me ask you another question then. Have you ever wondered if your life was better than anyone else's? Perhaps you were deserving of something another person had. That your life had more value than another homo sapiens and you deserved to live better and longer than they did? Well I'm sure some if not most of you have asked this and even if you haven't you'll have the opportunity. Would you be so kind as to look at the sky."
Aria raised a brow but looked towards the sky, it was the same blue as always and the clouds seemed to drift by slowly, there wasn't anything different about it. However Mr. Descent raised his hand and snapped his fingers, there was a loud echo of the snap before the sky suddenly went dark. Aria's eyes widened as a large red pentagram formed in the sky overshadowing the entire city, the pentagram glowed a bright crimson and two star shaped symbols floated in the center of it, one circling clockwise the other rotating counter-clock wise. There was four red circles in the four corners one of the stars made, a bright glow filled the pentagram and though it couldn't see seen there were multiple little circles around the rim of the circles where the lines were.
"What the-" Aria's words were cut off as the pentagram's glow flared and a red light slammed into the entire city covering everyone in it, inside or out the red light hit every person in the city. Aria fell to her knees as a pain filled her, the screams of the people around her echoing in her eyes, people in the stores screamed and fell through their doors gripping their arms. She held her arm as a burning sensation filled it. She grit her teeth as it felt like someone was carving something into her arm with a hot knife slowly. A mark started to form on her wrist and slightly up her arm as the burning sensation of being cut continued to barrage her forcing her attention on it. The same thing was happening to everyone else, the same mark was being put on their rights arms in the same spot.
Finally the light subsided and the pentagram vanished completely, Aria fell to her knees as the pain subsided her breath heavy as she released her arm. For some reason it felt like something was moving in her body, like a stream was flowing through her, it kind of felt like the sun's warmth but inside.
She looked at her arm to see a mark running from her wrist to a little below her forearm. The mark was the crossing of two lines three times while moving downwards before pointing at the end like an arrow, near the top the lines were adjacent but there were lines curving off the top barely touching the lines, they looked kind of like wings, since their were four lines it looked like four wings two on each side. At the top of the marking was a symbol she didn't recognize, it looked like an eye but there was an oval going through it, she wasn't sure what exactly it was.
"Ah man those screams were fantastic! Hahahaha!" Aria's head shot up at the screen as Mr. Descent clapped his hands. "Ah sorry I was just enjoying how painful that had to be. Anyway what I just did was give you an opportunity not to be boring anymore, to put it bluntly I just gave everyone in the area magic. Go on and summon it, you should be able to bring it forth pretty naturally, be careful though just cause you can summon it doesn't mean you can control it. I'll wait why you do it just don't move you'll really want to hear this next part."
Aria stood fully back up and stared at the palm of her hand, she didn't want to believe Mr. Descent but whatever that was it wasn't normal. She flexed her hand and just as Mr. Descent said with barely any effort her hand was covered in a light purple glow. Her eyes widened and she shook her hand the glow vanishing.
"...I-impossible," she said holding up her other hand and doing the same thing, the magic coming forth easily enough.
Looking around others were doing the same, they could summon their magic with little effort but some had to quickly dismiss it as it wasn't easy to control.