Notice: This chapter mentions vomiting.

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May 17, 33 AE

Mack's world was spinning.

When it wasn't, it would blur for a few moments, then slowly come back into focus.

And then there were the times where everything would be a spinning blur.

It was one of those instances that had Mack propped up against a wall, bracing for stability. Around him, orders and answers swirled together into incomprehensible echoes, as if he was underwater. The room in front of him was a dark gray blur, and beacons of light swayed through the dusty smoke, as if searching for ships lost at sea.

"Officer Olomana!"

It took a moment for Mack to realize he was being addressed, and another few to actually do something about it. Eventually, he blinked a few times before heaving himself off the wall, then sending a salute in the direction he thought the sound had come from.

While he was off by a few degrees, he was at least almost certain the blur waiting in front of him was Amira.

"Yes, ma'am?" Thankfully, his voice was much more stable than his vision.

"How many times do I have to remind you to ration your energy?" Amira's blur questioned, her tone clearly carrying her trademark no-nonsense attitude.

Well, this was unfortunate. Mack could've sworn no one witnessed him toeing the line of healer protocol, but maybe he had already been more out of it than he realized.

Of course, he didn't mention that he thought Amira had left to handle other issues. He also didn't mention that they had more than enough healers to take care of all the scientists and staff members that got injured during the lab's fire and resulting explosion. And he definitely didn't want to point out that no one else seemed to care that a victim was clearly still in pain over a partially healed chemical burn.

He wasn't going to mention any of that, otherwise his imminent lecture was going to turn into mandatory overtime.

Mack was intimately familiar with being chastised for bad judgement calls, but he couldn't help it. Whenever he saw people in pain, he wanted to heal all of them completely, even if he knew he wasn't physically capable of that. But he couldn't bear to live with his regret if he didn't try.

The first few times captains or vice captains caught him "wasting energy", Mack received mandatory community service. He didn't mind it, so of course the higher-ups eventually changed his punishment to mandatory overtime when they realized how much he enjoyed chatting up people at the soup kitchens or road clean-ups.

Belatedly, he remembered how the last captain that doled out Mack's punishment threatened to send him to Farallon the next time he "blatantly disobeyed orders". The thought alone was enough to force his mind to snap to attention, and Amira's stern expression came into focus soon after.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Mack blurted out, not exactly sure how long ago Amira initially posed her question.

Obviously, his remorse was a lie. But he was a part-time actor, and he was more than just a pretty face and a set of sculpted muscles. He had at least a little talent for the big screen.

But Amira didn't seem to be buying his act, and she kept her cold glare on him for much too long.

"I'm going to be having this conversation with you again, aren't I?" she eventually asked, her expression still unreadable.

Mack probably couldn't get away with lying again, so he kept his lips sealed tight, not even giving into Amira's silent stare as it burned a hole through his head.

Eventually and finally, Amira sighed.

"That custodian you helped with the chemical burn?" Amira said, her tone a touch gentler. "They wanted me to thank you."

Mack perked up instantly, his exhaustion and anxiety vanished. "Really?"

"Don't let me catch you again," Amira snapped.

"Yes, ma'am."

Amira waited for Mack to put his foot in his mouth again before nodding at the emergency stairwell. "Get a recharge."

"Yes, ma'am."

While Mack was still slightly unbalanced, he wasn't going to wait for Amira to change her mind either. Without missing a beat, he darted for the stairwell, hoping that Amira didn't notice him partially colliding with the door frame on his way out.

Unfortunately, he was five floors below ground, so he had to pause to mentally brace himself before he began his long and arduous trek upwards. However, as he stared at the stairs, focusing solely on making his vision focus, his concentration was broken by the sharp sound of stilettos cracking against the tile above him.

Since no right-minded guardian would wear heels in this mess, Mack's curiosity forced him to raise his gaze.

And luckily he did.

"Doc..." he began with a hasty salute, then glanced at the rank displayed on her uniform, "Chief Hester."

He hadn't seen Bridgette Hester since his days at the Academy. And even then, he didn't know her very well, and had only seen the woman at the Academy's occasional all-hands assemblies. In those days, the only trouble he got into was slacking off in his studies, and his teachers were more than capable of doling out punishment for that on their own.

Last he heard, Hester had left her position as the West Academy's headmistress. And while it was a mystery as to what she was doing now, no one, including Mack, dared to ask. After all, not only was she ranked above most other guardians, but she was one of the first guardians their country ever had. Questioning her was out of the question.

"Please, I prefer 'Doctor'," Hester smiled down at him, her bright red lips stretching across her face in a thin line. "There are too many chiefs in our ranks and not nearly enough doctors. Wouldn't you agree?"

There was something about her smile that sent a shiver up his spine; or maybe he was in worse shape than he thought. Regardless, he shrugged calmly, and gave her his signature charming grin.

"I think both have done a lot to make the Org what it is today," he answered easily as if he believed it.

Mack wasn't sure if his response was enough, but he didn't trust his exhaustion to say anything else remotely intelligent.

Fortunately, Hester simply nodded slowly, her chilling smile still frozen in place.

"Clever answer, Olomana," she commended, then her eyes did a once-over of him. "You might want to get a recharge."

"Yes, ma'am," Mack said.

He waited a beat for her to pass by, and when she didn't, he quickly heaved himself upwards instead.

Mack forced himself to take the stairs two at a time, not looking back until he had to take a breather with two more levels to go. Thankfully, the traffic through the stairwell had died down compared to an hour ago, so Mack sat in a corner, pressing his bulky frame into the wall, and pulled out his phone.

As expected, his phone struggled to get reception, and his most recent text was from Elsie before everything went to hell, requesting an order of donuts to bring to the set with him.

All the guardians at the lab had already heard about the attack on the For the World film set, and while there was major property damage and minor civilian injuries, everyone was safe. While a part of Mack still worried about Elsie's wellbeing, Camilla was with her, and he trusted that that was enough.

Right below her message was one from Jordan, wishing him good luck for the day's filming. Mack smiled to himself, imagining that now familiar warmth in his chest. His past conversation with Jordan was the perfect remedy for his exhaustion, and Mack was inclined to simply read through their messages while he recuperated.

But just as his thumb was about to press on Jordan's messages, his name was replaced by Elsie's; a new text from Jordan bumped Elsie's down, and Mack was now staring at his co-star's aggressive demands for pastries.

Too exhausted to comprehend what just happened, Mack robotically typed up a quick apology and explanation to Elsie before switching back to his intended conversation.

Chat Members (2): Mack ♥️♥️♥️, Jordan 💩

May 17, 33 AE
Jordan (10:42 AM)
Mack where are you

Jordan (10:45 AM)
Mack come on this is not funny

Jordan (10:46 AM)
MACKENZIE OLOMANA ANSWER ME

Jordan (10:50 AM)
Seriously where are you
Elsie just said that she didn't know where you are but that's it
She didn't even say if you were there or not
Useless

Jordan (10:55 AM)
Mack please answer me I'm seriously freaking out over here

Mack (10:56 AM)
I'm fine!! 😁🤗🥳
Sorry I was in a mad scientist's basement
And they don't like reception while they do their mad sciencey things
It messes up the results that's why
That's how the birds became robotic spies for the government you know 👀

Jordan (10:56 AM)
OMG
FINALLY
Where are you

Mack (10:57 AM)
On my way to the main floor of the mad scientist's home
Maybe they'll have refreshments served by robot birds
I'm thinking flamingoes or ostriches 🦩🦚

Jordan (10:57 AM)
Mack
How much energy have you used?

Mack (10:58 AM)
Idk
Like THIS much

Jordan (10:58 AM)
Mack I can't see what your hands are doing over text

Mack (11:00 AM)
[Mack ♥️♥️♥️ sent a picture]

Jordan (11:00 AM)
You look terrible

Mack (11:01 AM)
Thanks you too 😘

Jordan (11:02 AM)
Okay the news says there was a fire at Zenipro Laboratory. Is that where you are?

Mack (11:02 AM)
Yessssssirrrrr

Jordan (11:02 AM)
Okay stay there
And drink some water or whatever you guardians do to get energy

Mack (11:03 AM)
🤤💦

For a moment, Mack did as he was told and refused to move from his corner. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before Amira's voice echoed through the stairwell from only a few floors below, and Mack hurried to his feet to comply with her previous orders about recharging.

Once he was outside, the recharging station was impossible to miss. It was a large trailer that was fondly called The Greenhouse amongst the active cell manipulation guardians, mainly because it was very, very green. The color was courtesy of the same plant organisms that were in their wearable biobatteries, and they covered the exterior of the trailer on panels that automatically angled themselves to receive the most sunlight possible.

Of course, there was more green on the inside, and the plants painted the walls like tacky wallpaper from an era long ago. The length of the trailer was divided into a dozen parts, and there were two chairs for every section, one facing each wall. A guardian would sit at one of the chairs and replenish their energy from the plants. Once a section of plants was depleted of energy, the panels would swap out like a revolving door, sending the drained one to the outside for more sunlight, and bringing the new one in. The ones on the outside would switch places too, sliding around the surface of the trailer to distribute the sunlight evenly amongst all of them.

As expected, most of the seats were taken by other healers, each of them looking just as exhausted as Mack felt. Maybe he was biased, but he thought healers pulled the shortest meta-abilities stick of the bunch. While the matter manipulators had to work hard to put out fires and clear the rubble, they were blessed with numbers, and they could get the job done together without most of them having to go to their own recharging station. Healers didn't have that luxury.

"Surprised you didn't get here earlier, Mana," one of the healers by the Greenhouse entrance said. She was slouched over in her seat, and her hand on the green wall in front of her seemed to be supporting the weight of her entire upper body. "At the rate you were going, you should be on the floor right now."

Mack grinned as much as his tired facial muscles would allow. "That's exactly what I've been doing, Mikey. Right in the middle of the stairwell."

Mikey, whose real name was possibly Maiko, chuckled weakly before nodding vaguely towards the back of the trailer. "There should be an open spot somewhere. A couple people left a little while ago."

While Mack would've loved to stay and chat, he was struggling to stay upright as things were. As such, he quickly thanked Mikey before dragging himself to the back of the trailer and collapsing onto the first chair he saw.

For a moment, he simply stared at the green wall in a daze, then belatedly realized he was literally facing his second predicament: he couldn't use biobatteries. Or rather, he knew how, but he had a record of killing them and rendering them useless.

In theory, guardians were only supposed to take just enough energy to keep the organisms alive. Except Mack could never do that, and more than once he ended up sobbing into his depleted biobatteries, deliriously shedding tears over the millions of dead plant organisms he accidentally killed.

Giving energy was easy for him; he could probably do it in his sleep. But when it came to taking energy, he had about a thousand mental hurdles he had to overcome first. He hated feeling something being drained of life, how time seemed to slow for it, and how it steadily grew weaker and weaker. He hated feeling that energy within him, and the thought of it coursing through his body made him sick with guilt. Worst of all, he hated opening his eyes and looking at the victim of his abilities, seeing something dead where life existed just moments before.

The first time he took energy from something, he was fourteen, and it was a potato at the Academy. He cried. Since then, he hadn't gotten any better at it, but he did have a fifty percent success rate of keeping his crying internal.

But his body was swaying and his vision grew dark at the edges; he was running out of options. And it had been a while since his last attempt. Maybe things would be different this time.

So Mack hesitantly placed a hand on the mossy wall and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the soft warmth beneath his fingertips.

His world started off as a sea of black. A second later, there was a patch of light in the shape of his hand, and the illumination spread outwards from there like a ripple of water. Soon, he could see the entire wall as a shining rectangle before him.

Now for the real challenge.

Ever so carefully, Mack let down his first wall. When nothing happened, only a part of him was surprised; the rest of him knew that that wall didn't actually do anything, and it was just a false barrier he set up to make him feel like he accomplished something when he took it down.

Bitterly, he tried again. His next wall was a real one, judging by how much he had to fight with himself to take it down. With every push he gave to topple it over, a part of him pushed back to keep it upright. Two sides of him battling against each other: one reluctantly fighting for his physical survival, and the other stubbornly defending his emotions from the inevitable heartbreak.

But eventually, one side had the give. And as the light in front of him began to dim with the darkness of unconsciousness, Mack could feel his internal defenses slipping. As always, his instincts were about to take over, and there was nothing he could do about it.

So when a part of him pushed against his wall and found absolutely no resistance, his wall came tumbling down all at once, and a tidal wave of energy crashed into him with nothing to slow it's flow.

By the time Mack recovered his bearings after toeing the line with unconsciousness, his world was dark again. But this darkness was different, and he didn't want to open his eyes to confirm what he already knew.

"Um... sir?" a hesitant voice behind him said.

Muffled whispers accompanied it.

He knew what this was about. He couldn't keep sitting there with his eyes closed. He couldn't ignore it.

So he opened his eyes and faced the truth.

The wall in front of him was a sickly greyish brown. There wasn't a hint of green in sight.

"Sir," the voice behind him repeated.

His fingertips trembled against the dry, coarse wall.

"Um..." the voice continued.

Mack could feel his body thriving with newly acquired energy.

"I think you killed it," the voice finally admitted.

Mack didn't cry this time; instead, he threw up.

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NOTES

Mack could use a good hug right about now.

For Triple Point readers, this chapter lines up with Chapter 12, when the film set in Downtown Los Angeles is attacked by unknown assailants (and plenty of fireballs, of course), and Elsie and Camilla are left to fend for themselves.

Thanks for reading and voting!