Rena narrowly missed a guy who was watching the commotion as they ducked to avoid the flying girl. I’m… flying? Wait. Oh no. No no no no no. Rena put her hands over her face as she slammed into the glass, she kept going still, flying about 10 feet before landing. Did I land? Am I dead? Rena opened her eyes to see she was still floating, but also she wasn’t just floating. The burning spirit that had appeared in the living room had caught her. She looked down at the ground, then up. It was Sylvie. Sylvie’s face looked down on her, smiling. “Lol. Woops maybe that was a bad time to make an entrance.” “She just summoned reinforcements!” Amber pointed at the burning Sylvie. “What the fuck, Sylvie!” Rena shouted! “Hey! I was using astral projection to watch you. Looked like you were in some trouble. Sorry about that.” Sylvie said to Rena. Her entire body was a glowing silhouette, only her face was discernible as her. “Why were you watching me!?” “Sometimes I watch or follow people. You included.” Rena looked dumbfounded. “I stop looking when you go to the bathroom?” The crowd started coming out of the back door, and peaking through the broken window. Mari called out. “Rena!? What the fuck!?” “I guess we’re fighting now.” Said Sylvie looking over the crowd. “Hey are you alright? You kinda just went face first through a window.” The adrenaline had made Rena forget. She looked over her arms which she used to block her face going through the window. A few scratches, but not deep ones. And it didn’t hurt. In every other way she was perfectly fine. “Uh I.. guess I’m ok.” She returned her attention to the angry glowing lady in front of her. “How are we gonna get out of this, Sylvie?” “Uhh I guess I’ll have to fight her?” Sylvie responded. “You don’t seem too upset about that.” Responded Rena. “Well this is just an astrally projected form. I can’t get killed like this, plus I can do stuff my body can’t do. If I get hurt it’s not that big a deal.” “Hey, Zack’s cronies!” Yelled Amber. “We’re about to beat your ass so you better get ready!” “We’re not with whoever you think we are, also we don’t know who that is!” Yelled Sylvie across the distance of a dozens of feet. “Amber, I think they might be telling the truth.” Said Alec. Rena noticed Amber’s aura growing once again. “Sylvie, I don’t think they’re listening to us!” Said Rena. She instinctively stood in a defensive stance, though she had no idea how to fight. “It’s ok. I actually want to fight them.” “What the fuck?” Said Rena. “It’s ok. I’m pretty strong in this form. Also you should just stay back. She’s a psychic just like me. And she can get hurt and I can’t sorta. It’s a good matchup.” “What do you mean sorta?” Asked Rena. “Don’t worry about that. When we start fighting, run far away and use this for research you know? What better way to learn how powers work than up close with a good old fashioned drunken, psychic mud fight?” Sylvie turned to Amber and pointed. “I’m challenging you, you stupid bitch. Come at me!” Amber clapped her hands together in front of her face. “Stay behind me right now. Also most of this is probably going to be invisible to you.” Sylvie floated in front of Rena. Sylvie could sense Amber’s psychic energy building. She had a pretty good idea of what she would do to start out. A regular Psychic Wave attack. The astral projection should be able to block it without getting disrupted. Sylvie, having had strong psychic abilities for her entire life had honed her abilities and was now fairly confident. Although she was nearly useless in a fight in person, in the astral realm she had braved worse terrors than an ornery bitch. Amber certainly knew that Sylvie was now in an astrally projected form, being a fellow psychic you could sense when psychics were doing things and how they were using their energy. To Sylvie’s remote perception Amber was rippling with fractal energy. She could tell where her psychic energy was coming from, and she could visibly see any disturbance in the astral field. “PSYCHO WAVE!” Circular disturbances rapidly extended from the area around Amber’s head. Sylvie held out a single hand to block the wave, and a psychic field also erupted from her body. The Psycho Wave disrupted the air in a way that Rena could even see. She could see the energy disturb the grass like violent ripples in a pond, overlapping each other in strange shapes. Rena flinched and closed her eyes, bracing her body behind the astral Sylvie. Amber dropped the attack, clearly seeing it as ineffective. Sylvie tapped Rena on the shoulder after it was done, indicating she should back off. Rena ran to the other side of the large backyard, cowering behind a tree. I can’t see anything. Rena thought. She just did something but I couldn’t even see it. She was focusing her aura sense but all she could see in the two girls was simple fluctuations in the amount and feel of the aura. She couldn’t see the psychic attack even with the sense. From the way Sylvie looked she wondered if she would be able to see her astral form without the sense. She dared not turn it off for a second though. Alec stood off to the side behind Amber. His aura was still activated but he wasn’t doing anything. Can he see Sylvie’s projection too? “Go team Renaaaaaaa!!!” Mari called from the window. Some in the crowd also cheered. Scattered around the lawn were numerous discarded red cups. The people watching the fight also held them in their hands. Can they see Sylvie? The wind picked up in the backyard, all the cups on the ground started to roll towards Amber, picking up speed until they were circling around her in the air, several cups were snatched out of people’s hands with the wind. “Boo! Hey what the hell!” Several onlookers called out. In the air above Amber the cups circled and clumped into several groups, smashing together, with loud crinkling sounds of the plastic being crushed, several groups of cups were shrinking further and further until a single one was about the size of a fist. “That not good enough for you huh? Try this!” At the last word Amber brought down a red sphere in front of her outstretched hand and flicked. The ball rocketed across the backyard at absurd speed, directly at Sylvie. Sylvie dodged them, but Amber was making more little red bullets, and there were so many cups around it was seemingly an inexhaustible supply. She was shooting several of the bullets rapidly, Sylvie was dodging each deftly, floating with grace. The barrage of bullets continued rapidly, with a bullet being fired off every half a second. One hit the backyard’s metal fence, and ricocheted in Rena’s direction. “Stop her from doing that, she’s gonna kill somebody!” Rena called out across the yard. A couple of bullets pierced a large tree. “What the fuck are you doing to my yard!!!” Kelsey called out from beside Mari in the window. Amber stopped the barrage. She seemed to come to her senses and noticed the damage she was causing. At the second of hesitation Sylvie closed the distance, shooting forward like a comet. Sylvie jumped into the air before colliding with Amber, and brought a fist like a meteor down onto her face. Amber struck the ground hard. “Bleh.” Amber murmured. The floating bullets Amber had suspended dropped to the ground at once. The fight seemed to be over. Amber was out of it. Alec scraped her off the ground. Amber seemed dazed but otherwise relatively unhurt. Her head was spinning. Slyive raised her hands for the crowd and everyone cheered. Mari pushed through the crowd. “Rena!” Mari ran across the yard to Rena who was sheepishly emerging from her cover behind the tree. Kelsey was following behind, looking around at the damage. “Rena what the fuck were you doing?” “What the fuck were you doing to my house!?” Kelsey exclaimed. The crowd, sensing the action was over, returned to mingling inside. A few stragglers stayed outside, chatting. “Sorry. I uhhh.” Rena looked around at the plastic cup bullets littering the ground, and at the trees with large dents in them. “I did not. Know. That would happen.” She responded. Kelsey shook her head and walked back to the house. Mari and the spectral form of Sylvie followed Rena to their defeated opponent. “Pretty lame of you to run and hide TBH.” Mari said. I thought you were gonna clobber her. Who is that anyway? They both approached the back patio where Amber was sitting on a chair, head hung. Alec was standing beside her. “No idea honestly. Also sorry to disappoint you but I’m not actually used to getting shot at.” Rena replied. Alec turned to face them both. Sylvie was hovering nearby, still wreathed in ethereal blue flame. “Maybe warn me before you start a fight next time?” Rena said to Sylvie. “Sorry about that lol. Uh. I gotta go now so… Peace out.” Sylvie’s form dissipated, the human form dissolving, and once it was gone, the fire went out in the air. She was gone. “That was pretty good.” Alec said with a big grin on his face. “She took out Amber like it was nothing.” He laughed a bit. Amber groaned in the chair and looked up. “Yeah that was pretty surprising to say the least.” Rena said reflecting on the senseless violence she had just witnessed. Flying through the window flashed in her mind’s eye for an instant. “We’re really not a part of whatever gang you thought we were though. I didn’t really want all that to happen.” “It’s cool.” Alec put out a hand as if to say ‘don’t worry about it’. “This kinda thing happens all the time.” He chuckled. “Sorry about that.” Amber said dejectedly. “Damn, girl you got your shit rocked.” Mari said laughing. Amber shot her a look Mari didn’t even notice. “What do you mean this kinda thing happens all the time? You just randomly fight people all the time?” Rena said. “Yeah pretty much.” Alec said, shrugging. “Last few months have been nothing but random battles.” He said it as if he was talking about getting coffee. “You guys should join us sometime.” He laughed a bit looking back at Amber. “Why are you guys getting into fights all the time? And who were you waiting for?” Rena’s head was filled with questions. “There’s this dude named Zack we used to hang out with. We don’t hang out anymore because he’s a huge asshole. Anyway he started hanging with some guys. Gave them each a piece of a magical amulet. Thing is the magical amulet was made using the power from one of our friends.” “The amulet contains the soul of Alec’s girlfriend.” Amber said. “No she wasn’t my girlfriend. Not at all.” Alec brushed off the comment. “And it wasn’t quite her soul either. So we have to collect all the shards of the amulet to restore her power and turn her back to normal. We’ve got back most of the pieces by now. There were uhh 10 of them.” Rena simply looked. Not believing. She simply had to listen as if what she was hearing was perfectly normal. “May I see it?” She replied, deadpan. “The amulet shards we already have are at my house. Sorry.” Alec said, shrugging again. Rena’s mind raced with millions of possibilities and new information she was constantly being bombarded with. “So you guys have powers right?” Rena said. Not even caring how stupid she sounded. “Uuuuuh yeah?” Alec said. The question seemed to confuse him. “I mean we kinda just had a fight ha. Do you not?” For a second Rena simply stared, thought about it and replied. “Uh. I guess I just got mine recently?” “Aw fuck.” Amber said. She put her head in her hands. “I coulda killed you god dammit. You should have told us!” “I kinda… well you didn’t really give me a chance to?” Rena said. “I guess that explains why you were acting kinda weird haha.” Alec said. “To us you just look like someone who already has powers so we didn’t really think about it. Sorry. But that’s a weird thing to ask people you don’t know.” “I think I’m starting to learn that.” Rena said. “I’ve kinda just been looking for a way to figure out what powers I have.” “Oh I get it. Yeah that can be difficult. I learned to fight by just doing it mostly.” Alec said. “Also I trained with a master for a couple years I guess.” “Trained with a… wha?” “I can’t help you there. Sorry, kid.” Amber said. They were clearly the same age. “If you want help with that I guess I could point you towards someone who maybe could help. It’s kind of a longshot though.” Alec said. “Oh uh. Yeah. Sure!” Rena said, containing excitement.
She sat Rena on the grass of the backyard like a little baby. Through the window, Amber floated out of the house. She touched down softly in the grass, her eyes angry and glowing purple. Her hair whipping around by the power of an unseen force. Alec also jumped through the window seemingly effortlessly.
“Why are we fighting!? What’s going on!?” Alec exclaimed.