Insects of all kind invaded the small coffee shop, and panic soon erupted that crippled Fayth and grated against her psychic senses. People hastily escaped from their chairs and tables to the open safety of the road and the other side of the street. The coffee shop had also been infested by the bugs, and more people were rushing in the same direction towards wherever they would be safe. Screams could be heard from both inside and outside of the coffee shop, though this was quickly muffled by the buzzing of the winged insects. Nearby the coffee shop, innocent civilians scuffled away and stopping once they were out of the immediate danger. Despite this, no-one made any attempts to help those still trapped inside the coffee shop, and whilst they were concerned about the severity of the situation, there were no actions taken to call for emergency services. Rather, bystanders simply looked around to see if anyone else had taken up the responsibility, yet not bothering themselves to take out their own phones.
Fayth observed glimpses of this while being overwhelmed by the onslaught of anxiety and panic that struck her deeply, like blades of distress pinning her to her chair. She was shaking intensely, as she also felt the bugs physically crawling on her from the insects on the ground and the insects in the air. The sensation was irritatingly ticklish as the legs of multiple bugs explored her all over. As they made contact with her, through all the distress of the public and the wriggling of the insects, Fayth felt something else with her psychic senses. The feeling was almost gleeful, yet malicious in nature like the events taking place was satisfying to someone.
In that moment, Fayth swooped her gaze to Reina in an attempt to mentally contact her. Reina's immediate response to the unfolding events had been to stand her ground and locate where the source of the insect invasion. But due to the masses of winged bugs, her vision was blurred and she was forced to protect herself and her face from the swarms flying everywhere. Instinctively, Reina had held her hands out in an attempt to use her powers. To her surprise, she looked up from her outstretched arms and found that the insects surrounding her had been suspended in the air, frozen in the time that she could control once again. Wasting no time, Reina resorted to the other spectrum of her abilities and proceeded to accelerate the lifespans of the bugs, and swarm by swarm, they died and withered away in a blink of an eye.
But Reina had her limits and she was nearing the end of hers. Accelerating time, especially the short lifespan of insects, was relatively easy compared to the ongoing effort to freezing or slowing time down. But the constant accelerations began to take it's toll upon her and she was beginning to feel the drain of overexerting her powers. In the moment that Fayth turned her attention to Reina, she could sense and knew that her friend would only have moments before she too was overwhelmed by the bugs.
Several things happened from that moment onwards. In the midst of the chaotic scene, a higher pitched scream broke out and Fayth sensed a change from the confusion and panic to fear and terror emitting from the crowd of bystanders. A moment later, a large, black, disproportionate, winged figure swooped from above Fayth's field of vision and snatched her best friend from her defiant stance. Exhausted from her extensive time accelerating, the shock of the impact knocked her unconscious and she became limp in the arms of her winged kidnapper.
"Follow the trail of my beauties, if you wish to see your friend, alive...", the winged kidnapper shouted as he flew away with Reina.
Another moment later after the departure of the winged kidnapper and her friend, Fayth felt a sudden pressure nearby being built up. Sound seemed to become distorted around her and the pressure eased off as the pent up energy was released. The warped sounds snapped back to normality as the invading insects collapsed and fell from their places, dying from whatever had been released. Silence followed immediately as the last of the bugs died, which gave Fayth time to recover from her psychic shock. Yet, even after the nauseating effects of her psychic shackles, a burning determination exploded within her that ignored the discomforts she was self-inflicting upon herself.
"REINA!!", Fayth shouted both mentally and physically, despite the rawness of her mind and senses. Once the aftershocks of her mental overload wore off, Fayth set off on a sprint in the direction of where the winged kidnapper went and ignored people who expressed concern for her.
After a while of sprinting that gradually became an exhausted, light jog, Fayth stopped to take a moment to rest and to stuck fresh oxygen back into her lungs. She looked up quickly to see if she could spot any signs of where the winged kidnapper would have gone, but she had lost the trail a few streets back. All of a sudden, her psychic senses picked up a particular presence in the street behind her, one that was uniquely different to the ones she had felt before. She concentrated on it and sensed a curiosity and a desire, but not entirely sure what for. She whirled around to face whoever it may be, and almost bumped into tall, muscular man of African descent. He wore a simple plain light blue t-shirt that contrasted against his dark skin and tight shorts that Fayth had seen athletic runners wear on the track. At first glance, Fayth couldn't help but notice how his legs and arms bulged in his clothes, but eventually she snapped back to the reality of her situation.
"Oi, watch where you're going!", she said violently, which was emphasised by the push she gave to distance them both from each other.
"Sorry, I'm sorry.", the man said as he held his large hands up in an apologetic gesture. "Look, I saw what happened at the coffee shop, with your friend."
"Yeah? Like you did anything to help!", Fayth viciously spat back at him.
The man remained silent for a moment and Fayth could feel his reservation at wanting to reply back at her comment, but he quickly dismissed it. "I came after you because it's dangerous, whatever that thing is that took y-".
"I can handle myself, thank you very much."
"It didn't look like you could earlier..."
"Oh, and I suppose you're coming to help me, are you? What could you...", Fayth trailed off as her eyes wandered and noticed the way the man's gaze wasn't focused entirely on her. Rather, they weren't focused on anything in particular, yet they had an intense look, as if he was concentrating on something else. Fayth's intuition suddenly sprung to a conclusion and worked it out.
"You're blind! How are you going to help if you're bloody blind!?"
"Yes, I am.", the man said as he lowered his voice. "But I can help. It's like that saying, two heads are better than one.", he said and offered a smile to Fayth.
Before the man had even finished his sentence, Fayth had already fine tuned her senses and focused upon the superficial thoughts of the man before her. Although her senses became sensitive to stimuli around her, they wouldn't be a usual interference for a simple psychic task such as this one. Yet, what she found from her engagement with this man's thoughts was that she could hear noises more intensely and louder than before, and rather than hearing them with her ears, the sounds were present within her mind. The crunching of pedestrian's shoes hitting the ground, the hasty and heavy breathing of people as they went by on their daily journeys, the metallic shifts of mechanical gears operating within vehicles, and the blaring chattering of people from all directions as if she had been submerged in a very crowded room of cheering sports fans, amidst many other sounds of the urban life. Among the super concert of noises, Fayth picked up on a single thought from this man, but only barely:
I'll still see, just not like you do...
Fayth quickly withdraw her mind from his before she experienced a second psychic shock of that day. She looked up at the man again and directly into his eyes, which only stared blankly ahead of him. The urgency of her situation scratched at her again and she abruptly turned on her heels and spoke quietly enough for only the man to hear.
"Come if you want. Just don't get in my way."
