The man from the restaurant had taken it upon himself to watch over me. As I stood up from my spot in the bunker, he grabbed my arm to stop me. "You have to sit down," he told me. "It's not safe yet."

Where is your date? I wanted to ask him. Shouldn't you be more concerned about her?

My voice had not quite returned yet though, and all I could get out was a simple, "No."

He was obviously confused. He saw me as his responsibility for some reason, and he wasn't about to just let me go walking off into the streets while an A-Class threat was ongoing. My attention was partly still split on the streets above, with my ability straining to track the rampager as he moved out of range. I had to keep a sense for which direction they were headed so that I could catch up and do something. Anything.

I had barely managed to find that much resolve. Now, before I lost my nerve, this man had to let me go.

Once I pulled my mind back fully into my body, I focused all of my attention on the one holding my arm. While all his attention was also on me, I couldn't just disappear. That command wouldn't work, so I had to do something more offensive.

Sorry for this.

"Terrance," I said. That was his name. "Let go." And with that, I pushed his will to shatter. The pain that lanced down my arm and into his hand went straight for his head; a psychic pulse inducing an overwhelming sense of discouragement and doubt. I kept the signal simple to focus on its potency.

A pure negative emotion. Those were easier than thoughts.

He gritted his teeth, and I saw his resolve begin to falter. But only for an instant as he shook off the lingering effect. "You... you have to stay safe." He continued to insist. No less determined.

My words began to jumble over themselves as I tried to explain, and only a stuttering mess came out. I wasn't used to having to get anything without my power. I'd been wrapped up in my own head for so long that I hardly knew how to begin getting out what needed saying. "Why?" was the first thought of mine that broke through.

There was more confusion on his face, but his mind betrayed the true answer as I peered into it.

I saw a flash of a memory. He was standing in the park. Pure sunlight was raining down on everything, and it was a perfect day. He was just looking at some flowers off the trail, his attention lingering there for a moment too long. When he turned around, there was no one there.

Absolutely no one. It was enough of a shock to send his heart into his throat.

A small toddler wandered off in the park that day. Never to be seen again.

And then, ten years later, he saw a young man sitting helplessly at a table. I was cowering in place to his eyes, with my head down and hands over my ears, and suddenly all that guilt came crashing back down onto him. No amount of my pushing could make it go away. Terrance Leary would rather die than let me go.

What an idiot I was, trying to cheat my way out of this. I had to tell him the truth. The bunker door was closed, and it had to be opened for me to leave, which would never happen unless they all knew, not just him either. I had to tell them all the truth, because the conscious mind was the only thing that could erode emotions this powerful.

As I continued to try though, the words kept catching in my throat. I was a dumb stuttering mess. A useless half-baked super with nothing to offer.

Worthless, I heard myself think.

"Enough!" I shouted.

No more talk like that.

My hand raised up to my head, and I sent the wave out. They all heard my mental words spoken as if they had been said directly into their ears. It was crystal clear above the terrified whispers and the constant rumbling of concrete, far too close for comfort.

"The situation outside is bad", I projected, looking around as I did so. All eyes were on me so that they knew exactly where the voice was coming from. "You all need to understand what's going on out there. I've seen it from a distance. The city's top heroes are dead and whatever is on a rampage now is not slowing down. Our only hope are the leftover supers like me who have been sitting this thing out. I don't know what I'll be able to do as a telepath, but I have to go try... And you have to let me."

Slowly, Terrance's hand began to loosen until it fell away entirely. I patted him on the shoulder in understanding. It was hard not to feel for those whose minds I glimpsed, but his grief couldn't be allowed to get too tight a hold on me. If I didn't help shut this rampage down, everyone in this bunker might not survive the night.

Or worse, they could die over the course of days; suffocating beneath a collapsed building while the government fumbles around trying to organize an assault with its S-Class heroes. Fat chance of that. They were hoarded away by the capital protecting our dearest politicians.

At least I could rule out such a slow and painful death for myself. The people of the bunker were stepping aside. The heavy steel door was being opened, making my way clear back to the surface and what likely awaited. Judging by the girl I'd seen earlier who went toe to toe with this guy, that would be a swift and brutal demise.

But better than slow! I kept telling myself that.

For some of my abilities I would need a line of sight, which meant I had to put myself right in front of that oncoming train. Because if I could see him, he would see me.

I'll save that as a last resort, I thought as I stepped over the threshold. The door slammed shut behind me with a few mutterings of, "Good luck." The unlit staircase before me led up into the restaurant, which was now eerily empty, just like the whole city itself. Once I reached the dining area and I could see out the windows, or rather their empty frames, the extent of destruction was clear. It was a miracle I hadn't been trapped down below already.

The building just across the street was a pile of rubble. The road itself was littered with smashed cars and smoke that had yet to settle. It was everything I had seen on the internet time and time again, but this time it was in my own hometown. It was buildings that I'd seen every day for years. And it was real.

My sandals crunched glass beneath my feet as I walked out. I had grabbed a large white napkin off one of the tables and tried to fashion a makeshift bandana out of it. Anything to keep the suffocating debris from my lungs. As I scanned my surroundings then, I took in the rest of the warzone around me.

My power had lost track of the rampager completely, but I knew which direction he'd been heading. Towards the city-center and, if I had to guess, town hall. Government buildings were a longstanding favorite of the insane and disgruntled supers who felt cheated and unwelcome among the professional ranks. Thankfully, New Marion City tended to sprawl more than it rose, which meant that its size was working against whoever this guy was. But unfortunately, that also meant it was working against me too.

Old red never let me down before, though. A bum like me had to have some way of getting around, right? My piece of shit bike would have to do in this case as well.

It was chained up in the alley just next to the restaurant. It had barely missed a chunk of roof that fell down all around it, and I had to carry the thing overhead just to get it out onto the street. Enough of a path still remained there between the wreckage that I could put her down and ride though. The tricky part would be trying not to crash as I used my power at the same time.

On my bright red bike and with a mask on my face; in my baggy sweatpants and shirt, it wasn't much of a hero's costume, but it would have to do. I mounted up and got to peddling as hard as I could. Although I couldn't max out speed with all the twists and turns I had to make, there were still some straightaways where I could build up momentum before having to slam on the breaks.

The further I went, the more bodies I saw.

People were strewn open like dropped eggs. Some of them were little more than neon red smears on the asphalt. Men, women, and children alike.

It was enough to drive anyone crazy. They were slaughtered wholesale, and I couldn't take my eyes off of them and I couldn't catch my breath. With my vision wavering as my head swam, thoughts and memories that I'd buried deep down since my powers first manifest were coming back.

"Now is not the time to be worrying about that," I said, shaking my head.

Doing all of this and trying to keep half my brain floating over the city at the same time was, just as I expected, too much to do at once. Before I lost control completely and spun out into a crash, I had to stop my bike and breathe. My body wasn't used to this stress.

I lived on a diet of steak and ice cream and my heart rate barely ever cracked ninety. I had to work smarter, not harder if I wanted to keep up my stamina. My power, if pushed any further, risked blowing out too.

It worked through a kind of mental energy. Receiving that energy was easier than projecting it, but I had more control with projections, although it mattered from where and how I sent them. What if there was a way to synthesize the two? To use my projections to receive?

Through all these years, I only ever used my power as a plaything. I never got serious about testing its uses or stretching its limits. But if I didn't think on my feet now, I couldn't get a damn thing done.

What if I could send a signal beyond my own range? If that was possible then...

Radar! Yes!

"That's it!" I shouted. "A pingback would work." My voice found no trouble getting out when no one was around.

A smile actually found its way onto my face as I raised my hand. Pointing it down the road, I let energy build up along its length, concentrating a single thought with repetition in the nerves of the limb. I could store my thoughts there until they were strong enough to project across a much longer distance, or at least so I hoped. This was no mind control, just the equivalent of building up volume.

If all went according to plan, the energy, when picked up by another, would amplify their signal.

The words went out as a tidal wave over the city. "Hello world!" And silence followed.

Some sound came back, but it was so distant I could barely hear it. I could tell the person was yelling their thoughts, which worked exactly as you'd expect, but beyond that, there were just vague impressions of color. It was barely enough to make out where people were hiding and where the fear was more and less intense, like a heatmap of stress. Just like a radar as intended.

Doing a burst like that almost turned my legs to jelly though. A headache was beginning to take hold and soon it would turn into a migraine. I had to get one more blast out now that I knew how this worked, though. I wasn't trying to hit the rampager anymore. No, I knew roughly where he was, and he wasn't heading for city hall. He was off towards the very edge of my cone, moving East. He could be going to kill his ex-girlfriend for all I knew at this point.

What mattered now was organizing with anyone who would listen.

Both hands came to touch my temples. This was going to hurt, but I needed all-around coverage to get my message out, and the only thing that could blast in all directions was the dome of my skull. I would sacrifice range for area, which was just as well, since I did not want to catch the rampager in this.

The energy that was collecting in my arms surged outwards after bashing into my head like a dropped rock, blasting out from it in a disk as it reached its maximum strength. It was corny as well, but I could only think of one word to get the right idea out to all the supers that would hear me. Precisely because it was corny, they'd know exactly what it meant. They'd also know exactly which direction it came from.

I simply had to hope that there were people out there willing to heed the call.

All Heroes, villains, and rogues...

"ASSEMBLE."