17 Mayor Danjo

Mayor Danjo's Manor

That evening, while Mayor Danjo had been going through a few documents, he had felt a sudden surge of power drain from him. The mayor had tried to fight against the power forcing to subdue him, however, he was overpowered. After what seemed like an eternity of been trapped in darkness, he finally broke free. Once again, he could feel his body regaining its lost energy.

When the mayor regained consciousness, he saw a little boy with a big afro looking at him. Mayor Danjo stilled suddenly, as he stared at the teary face of the boy. Lokirrak Roggo? He had not expected the boy to be here. What was the son of the captain doing here? Or did the child perhaps, come with his mother. Maybe Captain Roggo had felt the strangely powerful essence too.

Lokirrak dashed towards the mayor with a huge smile plastered on his small brown face. He hugged the mayor's legs as though hanging on for his dear life. "Mayor Danjo. You are awake, finally. I was so afraid you would never wake up." Overwhelmed with so much mixed emotions, Lokirrak burst into tears, not letting go of Mayor Danjo's legs. He had been so afraid about everything. He had thought of all the worst possible situations. What if no one woke up? His mother, his father, everyone. What if he never saw Varran and Marlla again? After a nerve-wracking wait, the mayor began stirring from his sleep, and Lokirrak could feel a small ray of hope slowly illuminating his dark fears.

A smile glowed on the handsome face of the young mayor. He had a good relationship with Captain Roggo and her family, however, the mayor could never recall a time when the captain's son had ever been this happy to see him. Something suddenly clicked in his mind. Lokirrak said he was afraid he would never wake up. Did the child know something?

"Lokirrak, what happened? Are you here with your mother?" The mayor asked after the child finally calmed down. Lokirrak shook his head in the negative.

"I came alone. My parents also fell into that deep sleep and would not wake up. Then suddenly all the children in the town without essence started walking like ghosts and leaving the town. Savyrran said someone was trying to kidnapped them and she asked Kasko to find out who. Then she asked me to come here and tell you everything and then sent Duro to report the same thing to Master Bufan."

Lokirrak blabbed on oblivious to how shocked the mayor looked. He had been so anxious to tell an adult about what was happening that everything had come out as one long ramble. But the mayor had heard and understood most of what the child was saying. Well, with the exception of the random names coming here and there in the child's story.

But Lokirrak was not done. "Everyone with a soul armos fell asleep and we could not ask for their help. Savyrran said something about breaking the spell to wake everyone up... maybe the spell has been broken. Mayor Danjo, you have to do something. Some children have been kidnapped, and that includes my sister and my cousin. Please, Mayor, please."

A fresh batch of tears began flowing on the boy's face again. The mayor knelt before Lokirrak until he was standing face to face with him. Then he gently patted the boy on his afro, assuring him that everything would be okay. Lokirrak nodded, and urged the mayor to do whatever he had to do since time was running out. "I'm fine, really." Lokirrak assured the mayor, drying his eyes with the back of his palms. The mayor smiled at the child.

Mayor Danjo gently rubbed the communicator he was wearing around his wrist. An orange glow emanated from the silver bracelet, then, a lifelike projection of a tall woman appeared right in the middle of the room. There was a faint glow of orange light surrounding the woman, giving her the appearance of an astral being.

"Mayor." The woman said. There was panic on her face and in her voice. "There is something going on. I just woke up from a terrible nightmare and my children and niece are nowhere to be found. There are several parents also complaining about their missing children."

Lokirrak's eyes bulged when he saw his mother standing in the middle of the room. Did this mean she was awake? "Ma." Lokirrak could not help himself. He ran to stand beside the mayor and then waved at the woman frantically. "Ma, you are awake. Is Pa awake too?"

"Loki?" The woman said. "Are you okay? I could not find you anywhere and…Where is Varran and Marlla? Where are they?"

"Captain Roggo, that's why I called you here." The mayor's soothing voice cut through this touching moment. He would have liked for the mother and son to catch up, but this was not the time for that. Things were actually worse than he thought. Missing children, powerful forces in Coast Town even capable of subduing him? What exactly were they up against?

The captain composed herself and nodded.

The mayor continued once he had the captain's attention. "We are under attack by unknown forces. I need you to gather your best guardians. Find the children and whoever was responsible for kidnapping them. Comb every part of the town, and don't stop until they are found."

"Yes, Mayor." Captain Roggo saluted the mayor by putting her right fist on her chest. In a second, the projection was gone.

"Follow me, child." The mayor said then began to leave the large study which was filled with books. He had been here that evening reading over some documents when he felt an inexplicable fatigue overtake him. It was so sudden since he had not been tired at all in the first place. Then the sleep came, and he felt powerless to it.

Lokirrak followed the mayor out of the house. The mayor's residence was a beautiful manor on a cliff overlooking the sea. It was easily the most beautiful house in the entire town, however, it was not the largest.

Outside, it was still very dark. Even though it was not yet midnight, it was still past the bed time of many people in the town, yet, the whole place was bustling with people. The usually serene evening of the town was no more. Instead, there was so many people standing outside the mayor's manor. The moment they saw him step out of the building, everyone started talking at once.

"What is happening?"

"Where are our children?"

"Are we under attack?"

"What will you do, mayor?"

Lokirrak kept close to the tall man beside him as if the anger and fear of these people would whisk him away. He knew how they felt. It was all he had been feeling the entire evening.

The mayor lifted his right hand and everyone was silent at once. "As we are speaking, the Soul Guardians are searching everywhere for our children. I am also calling on the Assembly and we will determine what we are up against at all cost. I cannot possibly imagine what you must be going through, but I urge you all to help me help you. Please, go back to your homes. We will do everything we can to find them."

"What about the kidnappers?" Old Noji asked. He was the chief of the fishermen in the town. Fishing was the most significant sector in the economy of Coast Town, thus, Old Noji was revered by everyone, even including Mayor Danjo.

"Our brave guardians are hunting them down and the Assembly would not rest until they are found."

After hesitating for a while, Old Noji finally encouraged the people to listen to the mayor. Soon, everyone dispersed back to where they had come from. Once the place had been cleared of the crowd, Mayor Danjo turned his attention to the boy. "Tell me, who is this Savyrran you kept speaking of?"

Lokirrak smiled widely at the mention of her friend's name. The mayor better be prepared to be mind-blown. He thought.

…....…..

Kasko and Ayani had been taking turns carrying the man from the temple and were almost close to the town proper. They were exhausted from such an intense fight, and thus, their pace was not as fast as when they first went to the temple. While it took them less than five minutes to run all the way to Alhari Temple, it took them almost twenty minutes to get back. As the town got closer and closer, they saw a group of people in uniforms parading the town.

Kasko heaved sigh of relief when he recognised the green and gold uniform as the Soul Guardians. This meant that they had succeeded in breaking the spell.

"I wonder if all the children have been found." Ayani said more to herself.

Three guardians saw the children approaching. The boy was carrying a bound unconscious man over his shoulder.

"Kasko?" One of the guardians, a young woman barely in her twenties said. She was wearing a shiny green armor with intricate gold designs all over. The armor was actually not made of metal, but rather a special kind of fabric that made it a lot more flexible to move in, but at the same time very durable in a battle. This armor was capable of withstanding the impact of even a green user and they were the official uniform of all guardians lower than the captain rank.

"Serin." Kasko beamed. As the baker's son, who sold his father's bread by going from door to door, Kasko was quite popular in the town. Everyone knew him. "Lugo. Farrak." He acknowledged the other two guardians. "It seems everyone is awake now. Have you found the children yet?"

Serin watched the boy keenly. "You know what is going on?" Her almost gray eyes darted towards the lump of luggage the boy was carrying on his shoulder. "Who is that?"

"Oh." Kasko scratched his head as though he had just remembered he was holding a grown man hostage. "He is one of the kidnappers. Ayani and I captured him and we are taking him back to the Base for questioning. I don't think he was alone."

Serin nodded then ordered Farrak to take the captive. Farrak did exactly as he was told, and then without saying a word, they all started moving toward the direction of the Soul Guardian Base.

….….

Captain Roggo had her hands full this evening. Besides worrying about her family, she had to worry about the safety of the entire town. After her call with the mayor, she had changed into her uniform. It was similar to that of the other soul guardians, however, hers was in blue. Once at the Base, she had selected six squadrons to comb the whole town for anything with every power at their disposal.

Each squadron was made of three guardians and one of them was the leader. So far, none of the squadrons had reported back to her about anything. It was like the children had suddenly vanished into thin air. What if someone had actually teleported them somewhere? If that were the case, then won't all their search be in vain? None of them had a specific ability that could trace teleportation soul armos. Would they have to depend on the District Headquarters for help then?

She was barely done with a decision when her communicator started blinking red. She touched her communicator and then a woman's voice spoke into her mind. She recognised it immediately as the leader of the second squadron.

[Captain Roggo, this is Squadron Leader Pah. We found something]. Serin's voice rang in the older woman's mind.

[What is it?] The Captain was not talking out loud. Instead, she was communicating with Serin through her mind. The communicator connected people's essence to make such communication possible. It used the same method to project Captain Roggo's form into the mayor's room.

[We found one of the kidnappers . We are on our way to Base].

This simple piece of news was enough to make the captain's heart thump with excitement. Whoever it was, as long as they were not higher than a yellow, extracting information from them would be as easy as taking sweets from a child. With her soul armos, she would extract every last bit of information from this perpetrator. This could help them in finding the exact location of the children.