“Look, lady. Just give me what you have and I’ll let you go.”, the attacker spoke a little more at a normal volume, though still retaining that sense of urgency and the tension that he held onto Fayth’s hair and the knife at her neck. It was useless to struggle against his grip, as the hair close to her scalp was encased within the iron fist grip of the attacker and any sudden, violent attempts to wriggle herself free would result in the blade accidentally cutting her throat open.
Fayth quickly reached within the tender awareness of her psychic power and focused her attention upon the thoughts of her attacker. As their minds touched one another, Fayth could faintly hear disconnected pieces of the attacker’s thoughts.
“-it, shit, shit… fuck have I…n’t look like she ha…er pockets…maybe she’s go…”, the thoughts were incoherent and nonsense, but the mental link was weak between them and Fayth did not intent to read her attacker’s mind, for that wasn’t going to help her to escape.
Fayth quickly conjured a surge of intense and raw sensations and solidified it with a hard casing of her will, then forcefully sent it through the psychic connection with her attacker. The mental projectile shattered whatever mental barriers that the attacker had erected from the tension that they held, and exploded upon impact with their mind. Pain stabbed through the mind of her attacker, piercing attention and thoughts, and ripping areas of the psyche.
The attacker painfully cried out and released their grip on both Fayth’s hair and the knife held at her throat. Though the psychic explosion destroyed the fragile mental link between them, a spike of pain returned back upon Fayth’s psyche and she gasped in discomfort and surprise. Her mind became disorientated from the blow and nauseating dizziness washed over her, forcing her collapsing to the ground on her four limbs and breathing hastily and heavily to calm the unpleasant sensations.
After a moment or two, she quickly recovered and turned back to face her attacker, focusing her mind once again to deliver another psychic blow if necessary. Groaning came from where her attacker was, and Fayth thrust her mind forward, only to found another that was ablaze. She sensed that her attacker’s was still burning with pain from the psychic blast, and like putting a hand into a fire, she recoiled back upon the touch. But she could still feel the erratic pressure thrashing about within the attacker’s mind, spawning more of the disorganised thoughts and unpleasant sensations.
The attacker was hunched over on their knees, with their head held intensely in their hands. Though it was dark, Fayth could see that the attacker wore a plain brown jacket and dark, baggy trousers. What drew her attention to the attacker though was their skin, which appeared to be covered in scales. Fayth also noticed a scaled tail that was frantically thrashing about, making deep thudding noises as it hit the ground. As soon as she absorbed the sight of this, her battle spirit was soothed to curiosity and she drew closer to her attacker to get a better look.
As she did, the groaning and mental discomfort died down, but Fayth was by the attacker’s side, crouching next to them and placing a hand on their back.
“Hey? You alright there?”, she asked tentatively, aware that her psychic blast had done more damaged than she had mean to.
Her attacker flinched at the sound but slowly looked up to the sound of her voice, trailing their eyes up to meet hers. But in that instant, her attacker panicked and wildly lunged into Fayth, uncontrollably throwing their clawed hands into whatever made contact. Both of them fell into a heap of their bodies and it ended with Fayth on her back with her attacker on top, clawing at her arms that partially shielded her face from the onslaught. But as quickly as the scrap had occurred, Fayth felt the weight of her attacker lifted from her body and she could hear feet scurrying away as her attacker fled the scene.
Fayth lowered her arms and achingly gathered herself up. The sleeves of her hoodie were ripped to shreds, which revealed that her arms and the exposed areas of her face were covered in bleeding cuts, and she could feel bruises developing in places where she had been hit and landed. Although the encounter had left her a little shaken up, her attention was entirely focused on her escaped attacker. She started to head in the direction of where she has heard the footsteps run off to, crying out and mentally scanning for mind of the attacker, but after a few minutes of searching, she was unsuccessful. Her mind was racing with excitement and she decided to run back to the rendezvous point, as she was eager to tell Reina of what had happened.
-
“Finally, I was startin-holy dreams! Are you okay?! What happened?!”, Reina emerged from her bedroom, dressed in her oversized pajamas, when Fayth returned back to their rendezvous point. Their rendezvous point and base of operation was in actual fact the apartment that they shared together. A cosy flat on the second floor of the building near the university campus; it wasn’t huge in terms of space but it wasn’t terribly tiny to be uncomfortable for residence. It was furnished with second-hand items that were slightly marred though not completely ruined beyond comfortableness, and the walls were painted in a horrid cream colour that was standard in most rented accommodation near the university campus. The living room greeted people when they entered the apartment, where to the right resided the kitchen next to bedroom, which was opposite another bedroom and a bathroom on the other side of the living room. The floor was carpeted light blue and utterly spotless, as were the rest of the surfaces in the apartment; it was surreally neat and organised that one would have thought the flat was the showcase display for potential new residents.
Fayth certainly thought that at times when she entered her apartment, but not on this occasion. Her mind still ecstatic with thoughts of her attacker, but she could sense the rush of Reina’s frantic worry as her friend went over to her.
“Rei-Rei! I ran into someone with a power, and they sort of attacked me, b-”, Fayth burst out as soon as she came through the door, but she was soon interrupted by her flatmate.
“They attacked you!?”, Reina’s concern for her grew intense and Fayth could feel it tickling the edges of her psychic senses and threatening to overwhelm her.
“Yeah. Look, stop fussing for a moment. Your emotions are a bit all over the place right now…”
“Right, sorry.”, taking a few deep inhales of breathe, Reina forced her distress for Fayth to calm and the tension she held onto began to subside. Her worries did not disappear completely but they were merely minimised; contained and kept at mental bay to avert the risk of another explosive expression that would torment her friend’s mind. If something terrible had happened to Fayth, then her concerns would only further hammer at her friend’s psyche, which she assumed would be fragile from the trauma.
“Thanks. Honestly, I’m fine. Just a few cuts and bruises. But did you hear what I said? There’s someone out there who might be like us!”
“A power? What makes you say that?”, Reina asked and waited with anticipation.
“Yeah, I think I saw they were part-lizard or something. I don’t know, I only saw a little bit before they got away. I tried running after them, but they were damn fast. Do you think you could use your powers and see where they went…?”
“I don’t think I can. My visions don’t work like that, and I would need something of theirs to get a vision from.”
“Ahh, damn”, Fayth cursed as she remembered the knife that her attacker had dropped. In the thrill of the situation, she had completely forgotten about it and she didn’t notice if it had been retrieved or left out on the streets. Already, the late evening was shifting to a darkened night, and if she were to go back out to recover the weapon, she could get lost within the maze network of the city streets. Just like the last light falling victim to the night, Fayth’s enthusiasm began to wane at the unlikelihood of finding her attacker.
“Sorry.”, Reina apologised as she could see the glowing excitement begin to fade away in her friend’s eyes. But she quickly had a thought and shared it with Fayth in hopes of comforting her. “Maybe we could go check out where it happened and I’ll see if I can pick anything up, if we get up early enough?”
“Yeah, that’s a great idea!”, Fayth beamed at the idea and hugged her friend in appreciation.
Reina hugged back, glad to see Fayth hopeful. But she was left curious and though she didn’t express it as openly as her friend, she too was stirred by the prospect of meeting another like them, another with a power…
