The Rising Storm

Posted on Sat Jun 15th, 2024 @ 8:37pm by Eisa Kallestad & Joseph Alo
Edited on on Sat Jun 15th, 2024 @ 9:41pm

5,116 words; about a 26 minute read

Mission: Summer's Fading Light
Location: Jefferson Park; Seattle, Washington
Timeline: Sunday, 8/21/2016

ON

The lights of police cars flashed brightly in the noon-day sun on the paved sidewalks at the center of the Jefferson Park in Seattle, serving as the outermost barrier for the crowd. Thousands of people, many of them of them obviously mutants, gathered around a large movable stage that had been erected in the center. Among them were people of all shapes, sizes, races, and ages listening to a booming, charismatic male voice and cheering. Signs advocating for mutant rights were held high and many parents held their children on their necks so that they could see.

Fingers, big and small, pointed at the man sitting on the stage in a huge white chair. He was large and handsome with wild hair and an exotic, almost feral look about him, but he wore a white robe inlaid with gold thread. His smile alone seemed to send a wave of energy through the crowd, leaving the throng unusually electric, excited, and in awe. There was a sense that something indescribable was about to happen.

A lot of people had a tendency to complain about the weather in Seattle, but on a day like this, who could possibly do such a thing? Even at the height of noon, it was still gorgeous in the 70s with rarely seen big, white fluffy clouds. She had definitely come to find an appreciation for the place more than she had for Portland where she had been up until a few months ago. The group she had been with had been small, only eight others with her, but they’d served as a substitute family unit of sorts for the past two years; truthfully it had been the most stable place she had been since leaving home years ago. But, inevitably for people like them, the persecution got to be too much and several members made a very poor and very stupid decision which had resulted in the death of one of their own and a number of humans too. The group quickly scattered to the wind, not wanting to risk being caught up with the perpetrators; a few had tried to get her to come with them, but she felt it was better to be alone for a while.

She had been taking a walk after her free lunch which she had flirted her way to with the young, stupid waiter. Going through Jefferson Park was semi-normal, but she knew better than to have any sort of routine. After coming up one of the side paths, she finally caught sight of the massive crowd and frowned. Immediately her instinct was to turn around, but there was something unusual about this whole thing the more she looked at it. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she approached the back of the group warily.

Her dark blue eyes found the man on stage in his chair with his charming grin and handsome face. He toed the line of “dirty hippie hobo” just right for many, it seemed. She found a middle aged woman nearby and moved up closer to her.

“Uh hey, what’s going on here?”

The woman had been standing at the margins of the crowd wrapped in a dingy tan shawl. Her weathered face turned toward the radiant young woman who had approached her and, though she ordinarily would have frowned and told the girl to fuck off, it was a special occasion. She pointed to the stage.

“It’s Tama, sweetheart. He came to talk to all the mutants in the area.” she said with a scratchy voice. She smiled at the stage and put her hand over her chest. “He’s the most wonderful man.”

“Oh.” Tama… it took her a second to connect the name or title or whatever it was really with what she was seeing. She noticed there was very little color variation in the sea of people gathered at her level and the ruddy colors they were wearing were a sharp contrast to the man’s gold and white and the white and blue the people up on the stage were wearing. Her eyes moved around again and while she had only noticed a few cars before, she noted that there were far more police here than she had initially noticed.

“He doesn’t make a lot of appearances, does he?”

“I didn’t think he ever came down from his mountain. But they say he travels a few times a year.” she said, her eyes turning back toward the girl. “I live here in Seattle…times have been hard on me. But some of these people have traveled across the country to see him.”

On the stage, the women in white and blue garments drew near Tama’s stark-white chair and knelt down around him on the floor. Some of them were older women and some were girls, but the majority of them were young women in their twenties and thirties, and all of them remarkably beautiful. They gazed up at him as if he were God himself, and he said nothing, but gazed into each of their eyes with a smile. Each of them seemed perfectly content and at peace. It was an odd sight, but almost the entire crowd seemed equally enraptured.

She didn’t reply to the woman but did look back up toward the stage and let her eyes linger there. A man like him surrounded by beautiful women was no real rare thing, but she did notice there were some older faces among them which was unusual. Usually older women were set aside for the fresh, barely legal flesh of young women; it was simply a disgusting truth. She did notice the crowd was a good mix of men and women and ages in general, and she was also highly aware of the… strange sort of aura that permeated the air. The women on stage certainly seemed completely enthralled.

“So is he going to actually talk or does he just sit there smiling at people?” She asked, feeling suddenly annoyed.

“He talks eventually, but he always makes the crowd wait.” the woman said. At once, a subtle low music could be heard from the speaker system on the stage. “But I like this part. The way that he looks at people is beautiful.”

On the stage, twelve men in white robes that matched those of Tama walked on, six from each side, their hands open and their heads angled up to the sky. They stopped in front of twelve white chairs much less grand than the one in the foreground and slowly lowered themselves into the seat in unison. As soon as they were seated, their eyes moved to the large man in front of them.

When the men filtered out, she audibly scoffed and started to walk away. This amount of staging and pomp was a complete turn off. More people had joined the crowd of course, so she was actively having to push through them to get out of the crowd, but found herself being pushed back in by the people mindlessly trying to get closer to the stage.

“Hey, get the fuck out of my way.”

At last, the man with the wild hair turned his beautiful eyes to the crowd. He smiled brightly, and showed an expression which was completely devoid of discomfort. It seemed like love in his eyes, and though he was obviously quite strong, he seemed like a very gentle man.

“My brothers and sisters; my lovers…and fighters. You are beautiful the way you are right now.” he said, his voice low and gravely. He spoke calmly and musically, the microphone picking up every signal and playing it loud through the park. “The world will tell you that your gifts are flaws. But they are liars; they are completely unbalanced. I see you right here, and right now; you..are…perfect.”

Once the man had stood up, there was no escaping the crowd as they pressed in even closer with adoring eyes and awed expressions. She found herself squished in a small cluster of people and with a yelp of frustration began to violently shove them away from her body just to make room. They stumbled, one fell, but each one quickly scrambled back to standing with their eyes trained on Tama.

It was creepy.

There was no point in trying to extricate herself from the crowd though unless she was willing to make a big scene and with the police presence here being so thick, she really wasn’t. So, along with the rest she turned her eyes to the man, but whereas the crowd was open and receptive, her crossed arms and scowl on her beautiful face clearly communicated her feelings on the entire matter.

“I have said it many times before, and I will say it many times again: the persecution of the mutant is the greatest evil in the world. This society..this cruel, judgemental society, believes that we are dangerous. They believe that we must be registered, watched, controlled…and even killed.” Tama said, walking around the stage now, his strong arms gesturing more actively. He raised his voice above the quiet, loving tones from before. “Even here, in a public park, they send their pigs to watch you…and make sure you don’t act out. The persecution of the mutant is the greatest evil in the world!”

As the crowd around her cheered, the beautiful blonde woman looked around at them again. As she stood there, she could feel excitement starting to seep into her whole being; her heart rate picked up, and though she had been skeptical and annoyed she couldn’t deny it felt good to be in a crowd of people who seemed to understand mutants - who understood her. She lowered her arms from her chest slowly and looked up at the stage. Her eyes focused on Tama himself, and she did her best to ignore the rest of the set up spectacle.

“The problem they have…is that they are right.” Tama said, his feral eyes narrowing like a tiger on the hunt. He balled up his massive fists and raised them to the height, and a greater swell of that eerie energy surged through the crowd. People started cheering even before he’d started to speak. “We are dangerous! We are powerful! They are right to fear us!”

A swell of cheering came upon the crowd, and many of the younger and more emotional people started actively jumping up and down. There was a sense that what Tama was saying was meant very much as a compliment, and the cops standing by their cars, though just as enraptured, seemed seriously uneasy. On the stage, the twelve men in white and the women in blue and white stood and applauded.

“We are made special, we are made different, and we are perfect..and the whole world knows it..”

The woman raised her hands and clapped with more subdued enthusiasm than the rest of the crowd. This wasn’t the first she had heard of “The Way”, but she had never paid too much attention to it before. She had her own little group and home and didn’t feel she needed more than that, but it had been lost to her and she was angry.

“That hurt and regret you so often feel is completely understandable to me. I understand.” Tama said, his voice calming slightly, and his understanding seemed perfectly genuine. “But I must ask you a question before I go on: Have any of you found that feeding that monster of hurt and pain has made your life any better? Be honest with me…or has it hollowed out all the joy you once longed for? If so, you aren’t alone! You’re right to feel angry about being treated like trash by the world, but has that anger helped you? Has it helped anyone? Or has it only made you use your holy power to destroy others and, ultimately, yourself?”

Frowning, the woman brought her arms back up in a defensive gesture. Helpful or not, sometimes people deserved to be destroyed or hurt for what they had done. At the very least, it served as a balm to soothe her anger toward the injustices she had suffered in life and continued to suffer daily; she would not, however, apologize for who she was. She was magnificent and powerful like all of her brothers and sisters. Humans were just jealous and afraid of their own weakness.

“Perhaps you are tempted to say ‘Tama, you don’t understand what they did to me! You don’t know how they hurt me, and how much they deserve my hatred.’, but you would be wrong.” he said, his eyes growing wide as he gazed across the crowd. That sweet and painful feeling that people experienced in the presence of concentrated love and affection, like the feeling lovers had for one another, fell on the crowd, and it seemed to so many that he really did know. “I know that they deserve to die…and there is a time under the sun for every wrong to be set right, believe me. But you are killing yourself along with them…and you are too beautiful to die…”

Tama looked sad, and placed his huge hands together in a prayer motion as if he was begging.

“We must hate our enemy with a perfect hatred…but we must not harm ourselves, or our brothers and sisters.” he said, and stepped out to the edge of the stage, so close that the people in the front row all surged forward to place a hand on his polished white shoes. He didn’t flinch or step back, but gazed down at them with a tender smile. “We must learn to love ourselves and throw away our guilt, our shame, and our uncertainty.” he looked out to the crowd at large and extended his hands as dozens of arms of all colors reached desperately, yet gently, for his pants and shoes. “If we are going to conquer this world…we must first conquer ourselves! We must come together as one, strong and full of passionate love, and conquer ourselves!”

As the people around her surged forward, she was pushed with them whether she wanted to be or not. She was surrounded by mutants and she didn’t want to hurt any of them, so she found herself being knocked around like a pinball in a machine, shoved steadily closer toward the stage where she found what she was feeling to intensify. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously up at Tama, now much closer to him than before.

“And the self conquered-mutant is balanced..” he said meaningfully, then stepped back far enough that the people’s hands could no longer reach him. The women on that stage had sat back down, as they were likely expected to remain seated under normal circumstances, but the looks in their eyes made it seem like they wanted to touch Tama in more ways than one. But he made his way to the white chair again and sat down. Looking silently into the cheering crowd for a while, he folded his hands like a serene and wise visionary. And when he spoke again, it was with all the calmness of a wizened old master. “Life has pleasure and life has pain, but the answer for us is in balance. The people of the Compound know this balance well. They are people who had nothing, and brought themselves alone, or with their loved ones, to the foot of my mountain. And there, they are learning to love, to forgive themselves, and to balance themselves for the good of our people. My chosen, on this stage, know great pleasure, and they know it regularly. But each of them knows their own power and none of them are afraid to use it at the right time. These women are true warriors and goddesses, and they are not the only ones. In the desert, under the sun, with none around but those just like you, we build the world of tomorrow. The one we will create with true hearts..and the sword.. If you believe in a world that belongs to our kind, then your place is with us.”
The people cheered and screamed, the feeling was electric. Even she found herself caught up and distracted from her skepticism and suspicion and drawn to the man on the stage. She took a step forward and lifted a hand to start to reach out to him, entranced, but then she was jolted violently to the side by a late middle aged woman knocking into her and screaming at the top of her lungs as she jumped up and down.

“TAMA, I LOVE YOU!” She pulled open her shirt, exposing her big naked breasts which bounced with her. This seemed to be the excuse the police were looking for and they immediately moved to take action.

“I love you to-” Tama started from his chair, but he noticed the police moving in quickly toward the woman. He watched calmly as they moved, knowing what might come next. “Leave her be. She’s done nothing wrong.”

He commanded it from the stage, but didn’t expect it would actually happen. He stood up quickly, moving to the edge of the stage again, and again ignoring the hands that moved to him. With predator eyes, he watched the scene, seeming genuinely concerned about the random woman on the margins of his massive crowd.

“Goddamn, cover your tits lady before you get us all killed.” The beautiful blonde hissed and grabbed the woman’s hands and shoved them away, then brought the sides of the fabric of her shirt back together. “Christ on a candlesti- hey HEY!”

She positioned herself between the oncoming officers and the woman, then bodychecked the woman back into the crowd so they could hide her. “Listen, its fucking fine. She got excited and like three people saw her tits outside of you perverts.”

Tama’s heart began to race, but he was careful to keep the feeling to himself. He noticed the woman who had so brazenly expressed her love for him be pushed back by a woman dressed in different clothes. They were far away from him, but the crowd receded from the tense situation enough that he could see the different players clearly from the stage. Before he could speak again, several men in black and read military uniforms moved toward the comotion. They were his security organization, and they didn’t seem to be in the mood for peaceful negotiations.

“Officers. Tama said that you should leave this woman alone.” the man in the front said. He had hair so blond it was almost white, and he seemed to spend quite alot of time in the gym as did all the security officers on his heels. “That means step back. Now.”

“Hey, she’s gone alright?” The blonde woman now in the middle of the police and the security detail said, lifting her hands out toward each side. “Mutant Jesus is safe up on the stage, the tit lady is gone, and everyone else is chill. Let’s all just calm the shit down and go back to standing and making big doe eyes at the man okay?”

“Put your hands on your head!” the lead cop said, his full lips moving fast as he placed his dark hand on the safety slide over his gun. “Raise those hands and get em where I can see up, gene hazard!”

It was clear everyone was on edge, and the mutant insult had done nothing to quell the anger and anxiety in the crowd at all. The military officers in particular looked angry, and the fact they were armed wasn’t lost on the cops. Yet they didn’t act, as they weren’t under any orders to protect this woman who clearly wasn't dressed like one of them.

“Hey now, I didn’t do a fucking thing.” The woman protested but did lift her hands up slowly, but only because she was still surrounded by people even if they had backed off to give some room. It wasn’t lost on her that Tama’s people weren’t there to help her, but she wasn’t really expecting it. She hadn’t paid the $19.95 joining fee.

“I’ll leave.”

The cop in the lead raised his gun and pointed it directly at her and the other officers followed suit. It was clear they were afraid as their hands shook, and the fact that they were up against a sea of problematic mutants wasn’t lost on them.

“You’ll put your hands up, bitch!” He said, the anger in his voice mixing with the trepidation. As soon as they raised their weapons, the military officers did the same, pointing at the police officers.

Tama stepped back on the stage, making sure he wasn’t stepping on anyone as he did so, then he surged forward as fast as he could and kicked off from the stage, launching himself into the air with such a powerful burst of strength, that the metal frame of the stage shifted slightly and he soared across the the open space. He came to a landing mere feet from the scene of the drama, and half the cops turned immediately to him with their weapons, while the others stayed trained on the blonde.

“GET THE FUCK BACK NOW!”

Seeing police weapons leveled at their prophet and leader sent a wave of all-out panic through the crowd, sparking pandemonium in the park. There was an immediate discharge from the Security forces to protect him, and the rest followed suit, taking the cue. Cops started dropping like flies. The scene that followed it was brutal and full of death, as bullets sprayed police and police bullets sprayed back at the forces and into the crowd.

Tama charged at a cop with his weapon still trained at the blonde and backhanded him so hard that the man dropped his gun and flew back fifty feet. The prophet then turned to her and charged, his humongous 7 foot frame bounding as fast as he could, and his huge arm wrapping around her, as if she were a child. He carried her into the crowd of panicked and scattering followers of The Way, and a sea of them formed up with them, chasing him wherever he went for guidance and protection.

The woman barely had time to think before bullets started to fly all around her. This was one of those times where history would question who was the aggressor and shot first, but she knew the truth. She wasn’t sure if Tama was just some bleeding heart idiot or if that had been a calculated maneuver, but she didn’t exactly have time to analyze the situation either. The sting of a bullet grazing her arm focused her and she spun around to reflexively retaliate, then suddenly she felt herself soaring off of the ground, picked up by the massive man himself as he retreated into the crowd.

“Are you stupid?!” She growled at him, wiggling in his grasp but thoroughly unable to get away.

Tama didn’t respond, and after he’d run for several moments, he stopped and put her down gently. He was rushed, but there was no panic in his eyes as he looked into her beautiful face.

“We can get a doctor to take a look at that.” He said, indicating the gun wound on her arm. Then he reached for the sash on his white and gold robe and removed it. Letting it drop to the ground, he used his hands to rip off a long, expensive strip, clearly intending to do first aid. His muscular torso was a patchwork of interesting tattoos, but he wore black pants that covered the rest.

“It’s just a graze, don’t-“

“Tama! Tama! Help us! Save us!” The massive amount of people surrounding them began to close in, hands reaching and grabbing desperately for the giant of a man. Not a single soul cared about the others around them, to them, it was simply themselves and Tama. The bleeding woman was pressed against his body and then hands started to drag her back from him to be replaced by others. She let out a cry of frustration and pain.

They were other mutants. She didn’t want to hurt other mutants unless they were threatening her… but it was getting to the point where they were - inadvertently - threatening her. The throng of bodies and voices was overwhelming, and she regretted ever stopping for a moment in this place.

He was pinned in by his followers, and while he towered over them enough to make it much less overwhelming for him than it would be for others, he was also incredibly easy to spot in the crowd. Calm as ever, he raised his palm in the air, the colored parts of his eyes turning stark white, and the people around him raised their hands too and suddenly stopped pressing in. It felt good to do what Tama wanted.

“Go to your homes! We will take care of things here!”

He then pushed past them as gently as he possibly could. Most of them reluctantly peeled off on his orders, but still some persisted in following him. He pressed back to the other side where gunshots were still blaring. When he arrived, finally breaking through the crowd, he saw a tense stand-off. The bullets stopped instantly and a line of police officers met the line of his soldiers. He held up his hand.

“No more fighting today. There are children here!”

The stress and tension of the situation had nearly overwhelmed her and she felt the strong urge to make room for herself in the only way she knew would possibly be effective. The small hairs on her body had stood up and even the beautiful crown of gold on her head had started to fluff out unnaturally, but then she suddenly stopped, and her hand lifted with those around her. While her hand was raised her blue eyes moved from side to side, seeing everyone around her in a fair radius also raising their hands.

A good portion of the crowd began to disperse, and her urge to do the job herself went with them. Instead she stood where she was and looked down at her hand and then lifted her gaze to watch Tama. Instead of leaving, she meandered after him, her curiosity getting the better of her.

None of the men seemed inclined to obey his order - the police weren’t backing down, and his guards weren’t about to lower their weapons when there was an active threat to their leader about.

Tama’s eyes went blank white again and each police officer gathered in the area actively tossed their firearms onto the grass in front of them. Then he raised his right hand, and the police officers did the same, each of them looking just as perplexed and uneasy as the others. Tama stepped forward over the guns and onto the pavement, his bare torso making him a stark contrast to the strange, uniformed scene playing out. The distant sound of helicopters could be heard in the distance, and when he fixed his eye in that direction, six choppers were approaching the park, each with the same emblem the soldiers had on their arms.

“We’ll be leaving now, ladies and gentlemen.” He said in a low, confident voice.

The woman remained where she was though had lifted her hand to cover the wound on her arm. Watching Tama control the people in front of her was very unsettling, and knowing he had done it to her too made it even worse. Her eyes went up to the sky on hearing the helicopters, then immediately came down again as she heard the screeching of tires. She needed to get out of here; it was going to turn into a bigger shitshow than it already was. Ten or so dead in her quick count and over what? A desperate mutant woman just wanting to get some dick.

Gritting her teeth she turned and began to move away from the scene. While she wanted to see it to its end, she knew that wasn’t the smart choice.

There was silence in the discomfort as the helicopter landed in the grass slowly. Women in white and blue and men in white robes streamed toward them. Everyone else had basically scattered to their homes or their cars to return as quickly as possible where they came. The helicopters were bound for the Compound.

Tama turned next and walked quite calmly from the police toward the transports and stepped aboard. They would have to leave their decorations and the white chairs on the stage, but that was a small loss in the long run. As soon as he stepped onto the chopper, the soldiers retreated, their guns still pointed at the unarmed cops and the news vans. The helicopters were leaving in short order, with just a few random mutants climbing aboard and finding available empty spaces. People sometimes joined them suddenly.

The beautiful outsider was heading away from the whole spectacle; she just wanted to head home. She started to approach one of the paths that would take her away when several cop cars came speeding up that way. She cursed and turned to quickly head off another way, but she could see news vans and more cops coming that way too. She was feeling very trapped, and while maybe she could have found a way out, at what cost? It was already reasonable to assume people had seen her face, and lingering here any longer would just be a risk. She cursed and looked around then finally back to the last remaining helicopters. It was a better alternative than what she had at the moment - it isn’t like she would be trapped there.

Probably.

She turned and sprinted toward it, reaching it just as one more mutant was piling on for the last seat. She grabbed the man by the shoulder, yanked him backwards, and then hopped into the seat herself. The man in control of the doors immediately closed them, and the giant machine whirred with powerful purpose and began to lift off.

What a shit day.

END

 

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