A strange voice awoke Roun from his brief daze; turning his attention towards the young woman that he had taken with him. She was still stunned.

“Tyler!” He shook her in an attempt to bring her back to her senses, while he surveyed the area.

Tyler just groaned softly and struggled to open her eyes.

Behind the two of them, their classmates were already pouring out. The more physically inclined were the first out of the doors, followed by those whose gifts lay more in the realm of energy manipulation than physical augmentation. Next, Brian and Nikolai rushed out with Mr. McLeod, while the building collapsed behind them.

Roun wasted no time hoisting the still groggy Tyler Cage over his shoulder and hobbling over to the rest of the group, who were assembling in the small courtyard outside of the now inaccessible lecture theatre.

“Are you two OK?” McLeod inquired, drawing a slow nod from Roun and an even slower one from Tyler as she began to come to her senses.

Around them, the effects of the cataclysm were in full swing. Buildings swayed violently as the ground beneath them became pliable, while fires erupted as the sparks in the air caught anything that was flammable; and it did not appear that these phenomena would soon subside.

“What do we do?” A young man with long blue hair, pulled into a pony-tail inquired frantically.

“We need to get to the other end of campus.” McLeod explained. “It was destroyed by the last cataclysm some twenty-five years ago; so when they rebuilt it they fortified it for another such occurence.” He continued. “This section wasn’t so lucky… or unlucky depending on how you want to look at it; so these buildings won’t last long.”

“Shouldn’t the environmental regulators kick in and stop this thing?” Nikolai inquired, having studied the global phenomenon known as ‘the cataclysms’ extensively for his dissertation.

“They already did, not long ago.” An athletically built young woman. “I felt them, but they don't seem to be having much of an effect.”

“Yeah – unfortunately this one is bigger than the event from twenty-five years ago… it’s going to take a while before the automated systems start to have any real effect.” McLeod explained. “If we’re lucky, they’ll deploy a ground team to speed things up, but even so, we don’t want to be here when they show up.”

“Why’s that?” Brian inquired.

“Cuz they’ll likely be teleporting in… and that’s going to make things a lot worse before it makes them any better.” Roun explained, still feeling the effects of his attempts at such a feat just moments before.

“Indeed.” McLeod confirmed. “No one knows why, but our abilities only seem to make these things worse… so whatever you do, try to keep the channeling to a minimum. Now get moving.”

The affirmations were almost synchronised among the students, who now began to move out of the small clearing and towards the lobby that separated the Historic Sector of the campus from the Modern Wing.

“Roun, Nikolai.” McLeod’s voice caused these two to hang back slightly as the others made their way off. “We’re not the only ones in this section of the school… help me sweep the rooms to make sure that no one’s left.” He requested.

“Sweeping the rooms is not a problem Mr. M; but I think you should leave that to us and go with the others.” Roun suggested.

“I agree.” Nikolai chimed in before McLeod could contest the suggestion. “Your abilities may be stronger than ours, but they’re not at all geared to this kind of work… you’d just slow us down and put yourself in danger.”

“Yeah, we promise to be thorough.” Roun smirked. “But you should make sure that the others get out OK.”

“You’re right.” McLeod conceded, taking Tyler from Roun before allowing the two young men to move off.

“Alright 'kid', follow my lead.” Nikolai now prompted. “Time is of the essence.”

With this, the small gathering split up, with McLeod heading towards the lobby with Tyler while Roun and Nikolai rushed towards the three remaining blocks of the old university that made up the Historic Sector.

Of the two young men, Roun was the smaller and the faster. His sleek but athletic build was one of a runner and his natural physical predisposition to such activities was heavily complimented by the nature of his preternatural abilities. Like all the members of this extreme minority – known technically as ‘channelers’ – Roun’s body possessed the ability to absorb, processes and utilise free floating energies. These energies, normally undetectable to the naked eye in their latent form, were converted to the unique golden energy form that he exhibited earlier; referred to as aesis. Aesis, like most other personal energy forms, was specifically attuned to his body and offered him heightened resilience and durability, enhanced muscles and senses, and granted him the ability to perform his more unique abilities. His most notable was the ability to warp from location to location – a skill he playfully referred to as his silhouette slide, due to its tendency to leave energetic after-images in it's wake. These factors all combined to make him extremely quick on his feet.

“Alright 'old man'—” Roun announced as the two rushed towards the buildings. “—I’ll take the west and central buildings, you can search the east.” He suggested.

“Sounds good.” Nikolai nodded as he too prepared for the task at hand.

Standing almost six feet tall and with a slightly more substantial frame, neither Nikolai’s body nor his supernatural abilities were built for speed. His hobbies tended more towards the gymnastic than sprinting, causing him to develop the attributes of strength, control and balance more so than direct speed. These abilities were compounded by his green energy, known to most as aegis, which he could use to create constructs that augmented his already impressive physical prowess.

Such physical prowess was extremely effective in these situations, allowing Nikolai to easily access areas that would be barred from most. He was approaching one such area at this point; a large open-plan building that was once a chapel, but was now used for theological studies. Much like their small lecture theatre, the structure of this building was no match for the heaving of the violent earth and had suffered critical structural failures. But even amidst what looked like little more than rubble, Nikolai could sense the building’s inhabitants. There were at least fifteen, with the largest cluster being a group of six in one of the upper chambers. The others were spread out over the ground floor, which had been subdivided into cubicles for small classes.

Nikolai slid to a stop as he approached the location of the main door, which had collapsed and was now just a barricade of rubble. Instinctually, his aegis snaked its way down his arm and coiled around his fist, anticipating him to punch his way through the obstruction – but he quickly realised that this would not be the best utilisation of his unique skills. If McLeod had needed someone with pure physicality for this task, he would more than likely have selected Brian – the red-haired channeler whose physical prowess easily dwarfed that of Nikolai’s. So to be effective, he’d need to rely on the finesse of his abilities rather than just their potency. In response to this realisation, his energy spread out over his entire body as it had done earlier. The young man then forced himself into the rubble that blocked the doorway, displacing it more subtly then he would have with a punch, and occupying the same space that he cleared in the process. From there, his energy expanded into the armoured ethereal figure that had manifested just minutes prior, displacing the remaining debris to occupy the cleared doorway. With this accomplished, Nikolai closed his eyes and concentrated. His mental focus had a profound effect on the pure-energy construct, which slowly ceased to mimic his motions. No longer heaving as he did, the construct became still and began to solidify from the hazy ethereal energy into a body of stone and steel.

“Stay here and see them out.” Nikolai commanded to the fully realised golem as he stepped out of it, his body now occupying an energetic state as the golem replaced him in the corporeal world. “I’ll find the others and lead them out.”

These were his words as he hovered deep into the building to find those trapped inside.

Some distance away, Roun was making his way back into the complex that housed their lecture theatre. While his class had successfully made it out of that room, there were three others just like it and he knew for a fact that at least one of them had a class in it. However, despite his sense being augmented by aesis, unlike Nikolai he was unable to discern the numbers or locations of people trapped inside the building. This meant that despite having the speed advantage over his accomplice, his searches would not be as efficient as his rescue partner. With that in mind he'd have to captilise on his speed and simply start from the room at the furthest edge of the building, before making his way inward.

Just like with the other buildings, the doorways were blocked and much of the internal spaces had been reduced to rubble, but unlike Nikolai and Brian, Roun lacked the physical strength to clear such debris with a punch or a kick. Instead, he was forced to rely on his warping ability to bypass these barriers and left to deal with the consequences that it had on the environment. Accepting this fate, he rushed towards the first room from the outside of the building and summoned his aesis about him before allowing it to prepare his body for translocation. The experience was preceded by a familiar tingling and soon his mass was converted to the very same golden energy that he was able to manipulate so freely. In this energetic form, with no substantial mass as a hindrance, his speed was equal to the rate at which he could move his own energy and his individual particles were allowed to travel into spaces through which his body would not usually fit. The final effect was as if he simply vanished from his original location and reappeared within the room. This resulted in a mild intensification of the tremors, but thankfully, there were no additional ill-effects.

“Shit.” He muttered under his breath.

The room was empty but there was no time to waste. His body resolidified with much of the momentum that had taken him through the wall, forcing him to react quickly and break into a stride before he rushed towards the next wall. Just like with the first, a burst a golden light heralded his body vanishing and he quickly reappeared in the adjacent room. This was the room that his class had not long left so Roun didn’t dally; another few strides and a burst of light saw him through one more wall and into the third of four rooms.

Prior to the cataclysm event this room also housed a small class of students, many of whom had already managed to make it out before the ceiling caved in and blocked off the single exit. Only eight were trapped – thank goodness – which made Roun’s job much easier.

“Hey guys.” He started as he scanned the room visually. “I’m here to help.” He continued, only to be bombarded by indiscernible speech as the voices of his peers blended together into a wave of confusion. “Whoa, whoa, hold up.” He replied, scanning the room to see if anyone there was seriously injured.

Luckily it would appear that none of them were. That made his job much easier. With a quick dash, he closed the distance between him and the two nearest students; grabbing each of them by their forearms before his golden energy swirled frantically around the three of them. A flash of light preceded them vanishing and appearing outside, an experience that left Roun’s passengers unsteady and slightly nauseous. Oddly enough Roun also felt slightly disoriented, like the effect that the cataclysm was having on him intensified with each slide. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to deal with those effects. Almost as soon as he appeared, he was gone again, leaving just an after image of himself pointing toward the lobby as he made his way back into the room.

A flash of yellow announced his return to the room, but unlike his original entry, this appearance saw the young man fall to one knee, clutching his chest and breathing heavily. The combination of the effects of the cataclysm on his body and the quantity of energy that his silhouette slide required were already beginning to take their toll. What made it worse was that his last stunt had only made the trapped students more frantic. Before he could catch himself, the six students remaining in the room rushed towards him and latched onto him, screaming for him to take them to safety next.

“The hell…?” Roun exclaimed as they clung to him, too disoriented to fight them off. “You need to get off me!” But his cries fell on deaf ears.

His peers had already been taken over by their fear, and had long since lost the ability, or in some case the will, to think rationally.

Unfortunately for them as well as the young channeler, he lacked the strength, skill and experience with his silhouette slide to be able to transport more than two of them at a time; and to make matters worse his disorientation prevented him from being able to warp just himself away without potentially harming those that were clinging to him with the discharge of energy.

“You people have got to be kidding me!” He exclaimed, engulfing his body in the protective glow of aesis while the others swarmed him. “I came to save you… you fools are not going to get me killed!”

His brewing rage helped to focus his swirling energy, drawing it into him to steady his senses and augment his muscles so that he could at least attempt to fight the students off. With all the strength that he could muster between his muscles and the augmenting energy, he threw his right hand into the air and with it, flung one young woman off of him and onto the ground. A similar but swiping motion with his left hand had a similar effect, flinging another one into the wall nearby.

“Now, get the hell off me!” He growled. “I can only take two of you at a time!”

Roun yelled, but once again, his logic seemed to be lost on those that frantically clung to him. Luckily, the throws seemed to have snapped the two young women back to their senses, causing them to try to help him pull the others off.

One of the girls, a dark-skinned brown-haired young woman rushed towards the four that remained attached to Roun, grabbing one young man by the ears and pulling as hard as she could until the pain forced him to stop fighting. The other woman, one with lighter skin and red hair, instead grabbed herself a handful of hair from another of the young ladies and pulled, quickly detaching her from Roun and earning herself a handful of hair in the process.

This left just two frantic students clinging to Roun, and he wasted no time warping them outside of the room, leaving them too disoriented to continue accosting him. This made warping back into the room and easy task.

Unfortunately, at this point his vision was blurring severely and even with his energy augmenting his body it was hard to focus. All he could do was try his hardest to fight the feeling. Once again, he materialized in the room, only to find two scuffles that had developed in the few seconds that he was gone. For their troubles, the two young women that had helped him, now found themselves being assaulted by the students that they had managed to pull off their rescuer. The attacks only made his rage grow. Roun snarled with displeasure, his eyes emitting a golden glow as aesis spewed forth from his hands. A quick dash towards the only remaining male in the room preceded the energy infused slap that Roun delivered with equal parts annoyance and disdain; launching the male student from his mounted position on top of his female peer from where he was attempting slam her back and head into the ground.

Grabbing the young woman’s hand and pulling her along, he picked up the other woman who had helped him with one hand and warped her right out of her little skirmish. The burst of energy from their disappearance created a small shockwave, sending the last woman’s opponent hurling away from the glowing epicentre of the warp left in the wake of their disappearance.

“Shit…” Roun cursed as he dropped to both of his knees now.

The energy emanating from his body no longer swirled uniformly, but instead blinked sporadically in the form of a visual glitch as he tried to cope with the effects of over extending himself up to this point. Unfortunately, his work was not yet done. Understanding this, he struggled to his feet and took a deep breath as his two ‘passengers’ attempted to hold him up. This in itself brought a slight smile to his face, but it wasn’t long before he was forced to usher them away and to safety. He needed them to be some distance away from him before he warped back into the room and picked up the last two students, both of whom were now unconscious from Roun’s last entry into the room.

Just a few seconds passed on the outside before Roun reappeared yet again, this time with the last two students from the lecture theatre. Resting them down, he too collapsed on the ground beside them, taking this time to allow his body to replenish its energy supply from the environment.

Laying on the ground, he could see students exiting the old chapel as the physical manifestation of Nikolai’s aegis held the passageway open.

Nikolai had managed to top Roun’s rescue efforts of eight, with nine rescues so far on the ground floor of the chapel, a task made much easier by his body’s immaterial nature and his ability to lead those trapped, out through a single cleared exit.

He also had one more advantage. Unlike the rather old rooms built into the already dilapidated structure of western building of the Historic Sector, the old chapel’s wide-open spaces and comparatively modern construction allowed it to fear somewhat better. The main damage was to the roof, which had fallen in most places and was being upheld by the walls of the cubicles and sub-divisions. This meant that little debris needed to be displaced between the gathering of survivors and the now secured exit. This left Nikolai with just the task of clearing out the upper chamber before he too could make his way to safety.

“Get up… your task is not yet finished.”

Once again, the odd voice urged Roun onwards, forcing him up off the ground and back to the task at hand. His energy reserves had replenished somewhat, but he was still mentally and physically taxed. A deep breath denoted his attempts shrug it off, grabbing the unconscious bodies and vanishing in a burst of light. Seconds later he reappeared stumbling, making his way towards the final room of the western building.

A quick burst of energy and flash of light saw him inside of the building and as he had hoped, that class was empty; meaning that the building was cleared. This just left the central building: the old library, one of the last written archives of much of the nation’s history. With a long sigh, he proceeded inwards.

Back in the old chapel, Nikolai was having a slightly easier time. His immaterial form allowed him to pass through solid structures without any hindrance, with the only downside being that it prevented him from providing physical assistance to those trapped inside. In his energized form all he could do was project weak blasts of aegis, blasts that possessed barely enough power to clear small bits of rubble so that those he was rescuing could pass. Luckily, this had not yet been a problem. The dividers used to create the cubicles had protected the inhabitants of the chapel from much of the falling debris and even though a few of them sustained injuries, they were for the most part minor; allowing them to make their way out under their own power. This was not the case in the upper chamber however.

The small room on the top floor did not share the sprawling open-plan design of the central chamber downstairs. Its design was that of an office, likely for priests to prepare for and retreat to after ceremonies. It possessed a low hanging roof and no ceiling to speak of, so when the tremors struck it quickly collapsed inwards. Metal shelves and wide desks provided the only protection for those present in the room, preventing the roof from collapsing completely and killing them. Unfortunately, it left four of the six persons trapped inside seriously injured and even for the two with mild injuries there was no way for them to make it out.

Nikolai sighed heavily as he surveyed the room from his vantage point, hazy green energy escaping his mouth in the absence of breath.

"Aegis, are the others out?" He queried to the guardian of stone and steel that he had left at the entrance.

"Yes, all are clear." A voice rang out in his head.

"Good job." He replied with a smile. "Then you're done for now, buddy."

With these words, he ceased the exertion of mental effort required to sustain the construct's material form. Stone and steel quickly became energized, once again adopting the eerie green glow and shrugging off its opacity for the translucent form that it had previously occupied. At the same time, some distance away, the opposite was happening to Nikolai. Slowly, his aegis body began to solidify, with energy channels being replaced by veins and arteries before muscles, organs and tissue replaced their energetic counterparts. Lastly, skin and hair resolidified and fell into place forcing his body onto the ground as the effects of gravity once again took their toll.

"Alright buddy, come back." Nikolai spoke once more.

This time, the energetic construct completely dissipated and the energy from which it was comprised raced through the collapsing building. In it's wake the single opening that led from the building's interior to the outside collapsed as the energy snaked through the demolished rooms. At the end of its path, the energy found its host and poured into his chest, filling Nikolai's body once more and causing his form to pulse with a supernatural green glow. The result of this energetic infusion was the maximum amplification of his physical abilities, providing the young man with the strength that he needed to begin clearing the rubble.

As he'd expected, time was of the essence. Having dissipated Aegis' physical form and removing him from the doorway, he'd further compromised the already collapsing building's structural integrity. Digging through the debris to save those that remained was now like removing pieces from an already unstable house of cards. To make matters worse Nikolai was no civil engineer, so he lacked the knowledge required to go about this in a very systematic manner. His best bet was to do it as quickly as possible and hope for the best.

With this in mind, he coated his hands in protective energy and began shovelling debris out of the doorway. With each handful of debris, the structures around him became less stable, only adding to his haste. After a few seconds, the doorway was cleared just enough that he could see the first group of survivors nearest to the door. There were three of them, two unconscious and a third who appeared to be in shock – none of them would be any help to themselves and even with his enhanced strength, carrying out three of them at a time was not ideal given that Nikolai barely had space to crawl.

Nikolai growled at the predicament. With mild annoyance, he crawled his way through the clearing that he had made and into the small space propped up by a broad mahogany desk and metallic filing cabinets. Once there he expanded Aegis' physical form once more and assumed an ethereal state. It was Aegis' job to shield these three, while he charged a blast of energy that he hoped would knock out the near wall. Normally, his energetic discharges in this form were too weak for such task, but he hoped that with some concentration he'd be able to manage the feat on the already weakened structure. So he steadied his mind and allowed the ambient energy on which his abilities fed to flow into his energetic form. In just a brief moment he possessed enough energy for a standard discharge, but rather than release it Nikolai continued to absorb more. Green energy pulsed around his outstretched arm, coalescing into a small orb just outside of his palm before he lost control of it, resulting in a violent discharge. The blast shrieked as it cut through the air, before impacting the near wall with a thunderous clash and blowing a hole straight through it. Nikolai also watched as debris was blasted everywhere and the old building creaked loudly, coming that much closer to collapsing completely. He clearly had little time to waste.

"Aegis, go." He ordered, watching as the large golem dragged the three survivors towards the hole and pushed them out.

This caused the only one of them who was still conscious to scream with fear, much to Nikolai's amusement. Luckily for them, he had no intention of throwing them to their demise. As soon as they were out of the building, Aegis was converted back into energy and streamed to the the location that they were going to land. Once there, the energy resolidified into the golem, who caught them and took them to a clearing just in front of the old library. Aegis was then recalled once again and his energy reabsorbed into a now solid Nikolai.

"Three down, three to go..." Nikolai muttered as he started to move towards those that remained.