All Aimi wanted to do was go back to her room. To return to her sanctuary, the one place she could quiet the 5 billion voices of human thought that echoed through her head at all hours of the day. The one place where everything was ordered according to her whim. It was a mess, but it was her mess.

She had done everything that was asked of her. Overcame the life of an unemployed, drop-out shut-in that she had chosen in order to maintain her sanity. The men in sharp slate-gray suits from the government said all she had to do was put on a uniform, leave the apartment, and attend a nice little school they had picked out for her. Complete high school, become functionally employed, and they’d see to it grandmother wouldn’t have to worry about rent ever again.

A telepath who didn't go around blackmailing people, or stealing state secrets, and instead acted for the good of society, such a thing could bring about a new era of peace, they said.

It was terrifying, but she did it. One step at a time, she made her way out of her room and into the daylight, where the teeming minds of the city buzzed all around her. Gradually, she could tune them out a little. She was always angry, or at least slightly irritable, and sometimes, she’d start to break things. But they were things she could afford to replace, and she could generally stop herself from breaking people.

Eventually, she was functional enough to complete a day of high school. She even humored that clingy little flea, Riko Nomura. Why she insisted on tormenting her, she did not understand. But she dealt with it, even helped her when she got hurt.

Now, she was forced to stay out way longer than she had ever trained to. Aimi was pissed, and someone would have to pay for the throbbing in her head.

Leaving the crowd of evacuees behind her, Aimi floated through the air towards where the hijacked train had just pulled into the station. Projected her power into the doors, wrenching them open, freeing a crowd of trapped civilians. She didn’t particularly care about rescuing anyone now that Riko was out of harm’s way, but it’d cause problems for the enemy.

In the dim lighting of the station, she could see two figures standing atop the train,  posed for battle.

One was a girl Aimi knew, the parapsychology club leader, Nana Ishihara. She seemed to be wearing nothing on her chest but her bra and school uniform tie. A cursory scan of her memory told Aimi she lost some clothes in battle. Aimi would leave it to Riko to harass her about it.

The other figure must have been the one Nana was fighting, a girl clad in orange clothing, and surrounded by fiery manifestations shaped into birds and other beasts. Appropriately enough, named Orange, or so her memories stated.

Nana’s memory told Aimi there was another enemy esper aboard the train, but as an astral projector, she would not be located easily with telepathy. Their mind could be hidden in any of the countless mobile phones in the crowd, any device in the station itself, or any of the countless wi-fi relay antennas blanketing the city with Internet access.

For now, the enemy she would focus on was the one called Orange. She was going to suffer for keeping Aimi from the sanctity of her room.

Nana called down to her, “Subordinate Aoki-san, is Control Sample-chan with you?”

“Nomura is outside. I advise you to go check on her.”

Nana nodded, and blinked out of view. Good, Aimi tough, she would have the firebug all to herself.

Except for one problem. The one called Orange wasn’t looking at Aimi. She was focused on the people fleeing from the train. They were milling about chaotically, without someone like Riko to corral them through the narrow island platform exit stairways and out of the station.

Orange began to rise up into the air, a column of flame emerging from her feet. “Hey, where’s everyone going? We’re just about to start the cookout!” The bonfire at her feet erupted into a shower of sparks as the esper did a mid-air flip, coating the entire station platform area. Individually, none of the embers were hot enough to do more than mildly sting a person, and being a building of concrete and metal, it’d take a lot more heat to burn down the train station.

But the esper’s abilities turned out to extend beyond fire.

The Mass Panic Wave was most commonly associated with other mental powers, like Hypnosis and Telepathy. It was a cascade effect where a single person would start to panic, projecting their own worries into the people around them, the potency growing exponentially depending on the population and density of a crowd, fears and anxieties bouncing off each other like Pachinko balls. Orange, having mastered one of the psychological aspects of fire, possessed this ability as well.

It was like shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, with an actual fire to back it up.

Aimi could feel it pulsing against her head. Not the Panic Wave itself. Any disciplined esper, and even some resolute Normals, could focus through it. Being surrounded by people yelling and churning in fear, however, drove Aimi’s telepathic receptors haywire. All of their terrified, adrenaline and instinct-fueled thoughts buzzed through her mind like a serrated knife.

Orange could see Aimi, the girl who had moments ago floating around, talking to her enemy, and sizing her up like a slab of meat, now kneeling on the ground, clutching at her head, desperately trying to dull the sensation of fear flowing through her. She leaped down, riding a small jet of flame from her feet to land beside Aimi.

“Hey, are you one of the warper’s friends? She gave me a nasty jab. Looks like she went and left, so you’ll just have to take a beating in her place!” Orange wound her arm up and smacked Aimi hard across the face with the back of her hand, sending the girl flying away. She hadn’t even bothered trying to burn her. She was going to try and enjoy herself with her first.

Moving forward, Orange reached down and grabbed Aimi by the scruff of her jacket, dragging her back to her feet. A skinny girl who didn’t eat much, she was pretty easy to lift, even for another girl her size. Following Orange was her army of fiery feathered friends, some of them watching Aimi in anticipation, others hovering around and pecking at people to keep the Mass Panic Wave rolling.

Bringing Aimi up eye to eye with her, Orange growled, “Why don’t you make this easier on us both, tell us why you’re here. Are the JSDF recruiting schoolgirls as operatives now?”

“I… want… to… go… home,” Aimi grunted out in reply, legs kicking as she writhed around in agony.

“Sure wish I had a home to go back to,” Orange huffed, throwing Aimi backwards into the hardened chassis of the train. “But I don’t have that luxury, and neither do you tonight, unless me and my friend make it out of here nice and safe.”

“I… want… to… go… home,” Aimi repeated, staring up at Orange defiantly, a trickle of blood pouring from her lips. Something was building inside her. It wasn’t letting her tune out the crowd’s panic, but more like, the target of her hatred shone through all that noise like a blood-red guiding light. She began to rise up to her feet, and then a few centimeters off of the ground, killing intent radiating off of her like the flames around Orange.

“Hey, don’t get up until I tell you to, sow,” Orange yelled, one of her birds flying to her outstretched palm. It turned into a ball of flame, growing in intensity as she aimed it towards Aimi. When AImi began to fly forward, she let it loose. Aimi didn’t even try to dodge it.

In the world of Psychokinetics, there's a good degree of overlap among the various abilities. For example, if you wanted to bend a spoon, you could warp the iron content with Ferrokinesis, intensify the magnetic field surrounding it with Electrokinesis, melt it with Pyrokinesis, or simply overpower it with a Basic Telekinesis force field.

With Matter Animation, Aimi would simply ask it to bend, by connecting to it telepathically as she would a human mind. She could give an object a simple command, and it would follow it automatically, as a golem would the words in their head. It acts and reacts, without thought, much faster than Aimi’s conscious mind is capable of.

This time, Aimi told a fire extinguisher to take the next blow directed at her, and to turn into a tornado of foam if it got destroyed in the process. Sure enough, when that fireball flew straight for Aimi, the metal canister took flight and directly intervened, catching the hit. The heat forced the extinguisher to expand, and eventually erupt like a pinata

Before The fire extinguisher could blast the surroundings with shrapnel, it instead acted upon its second condition, reincarnating as a fire-fighting device of another form. The metal pieces of its former shell dropped harmlessly to the ground, as it became a whirling mass of potassium bicarbonate and water. One by one, the white foamy goop snuffed out the little embers harassing the crowd, and slowly a calm began to wash over the station.

Aimi began to float closer and closer to Orange. In her wake various objects were picked up by Aimi’s psychokinesis, like a trash can and a park-style bench. Each given a simple instruction: ‘shield me from harm’.

Another flaming bird dived at Aimi. The bench reacted instantly, swinging around and smashed into the bird like a baseball bat, splattering it into a harmless gout of sparks. Another one darted forward, only to fly right into the mouth of the trash can, the liner bag quickly sealing itself shut around it to starve it of oxygen.

A master of Basic Telekinetic could just create force fields to ward off heat attacks. Aimi, however, would just have to improvise, as her form of telekinesis sacrificed raw power for utility. She might be in trouble if the enemy decided to go all out, and focused a lot of energy in a single attack covering too much area to simply dodge.

Orange screamed out, “What the hell are you?” She held her hands up above her head, palms outstretched, gathering up all the blazing birds and stinging embers that remained after the fire extinguisher eruption. They were now forming one massive, singular ball of burning gas, appearing almost like a portable sun.

“I’m no one. I’m NEET trash. All I wanted was to go home. That’s all you had to let me do.” Aimi spoke dispassionately, giving Orange.a freezing glare. Aimi was pretty sure she couldn’t dodge that massive fiery orb, but her animus towards Orange kept her from showing any fear. In quiet desperation, she flung the bench at the pyrokinetic, shoving it like a battering ram into her solar plexus. Orange was sent flying away.

Unfortunately for Aimi, Orange reacted just as the bench hit her, and the gigantic fireball came crashing in her direction. Not as accurate as it would have been had Aimi not struck quickly, but still way too close for comfort. It erupted in a massive spinning pillar of flame as it landed, and began to inch closer to Aimi. She felt her palms starting to blister as it drew near. She tried projecting her will into the flame. Gas is matter, after all, she might be able to telekinetically direct it.

It wasn’t as effective as Aimi would have liked. Pyrokinesis was all around better at controlling any intense oxidization reaction, and someone who specialized in it could exert greater control than broad telekinesis. Giving it a command like "attack your master instead of me" only served to slow it a little, like a game of tug-of-war that Aimi would eventually lose.

It was just when Aimi had run out of ideas that the shirtless Nana Ishihara returned to the train station platform. Appearing next to the pillar of flame, Aimi watching in horror as she shoved her arm directly inside of it. She expected her flesh to melt away, but something else happened: all of that burning gas began to flow into her hand in the shape of a vortex, as if she had inhaled it with her palm.

Ishihara-sama must have used Apportation to teleport all of the oxygen out around her hand just as she shoved it inside, creating a vacuum in the process that draw the fires into a second Apportation effect.

Orange rose off the ground using her foot jets, and was just about to charge back into battle when she discovered just where Ishihara-sama had sent all of that gas. A concentrated beam of blazing propellant shot her point blank in the gut, emerging from seemingly nowhere. It pierced right through her gut, and came out of the other side, scorching the concrete wall behind her without further harm. She keeled over in agony.

Aimi wasn't entirely pleased she needed help. But she was rapidly adapting to a dynamic circumstance. And she doubted this was the end of it. She'd have a chance to reflect on what she learned from watching Ishihara-sama's counterattack.

Aimi’s jacket, only slightly singed, floated off of her outstretched arms and over to Nana. Nana took it gratefully, sliding it over herself before making her way towards Orange, who was now coughing up blood.

“I may have pierced your internal organs. Even given a pyrokinetic’s innate resistance to their own fire, I suggest you turn yourself in, so that you can receive immediate medical attention.” Nana tried to look as dignified as she could, even with her cleavage hanging out of the jacket for all to see.

Not yet defeated, Orange stood back out, coughing up a bit of blood, but quickly stabilizing herself upon her high heels. “I cauterized it. I’m not done yet, ladies.” The wound was glowing a bright red, and quickly cooled into nothing but a small burn mark. “Inside and out. Freedom or death, Phantasm doesn’t surrender.”

Aimi waved a hand, locking Orange’s limbs in place. “You lost when you used up all your birds,” Aimi said, moving closer. “You could probably still attack otherwise. as long as you maintained consciousness” She gestured again, causing the enemy esper to flip upside down, holding her eye to eye with Aimi’s malevolent stare.

“No need for theatrical intimidation. I won’t betray Phantasm’s secrets, even under torture.”

Aimi huffed. “You have no secrets. I’ve already looked inside your head. Your accomplice is your sole point of contact with your organization, such as it is. All you know is that your leader calls herself the Prism Empress.”

Orange smiled a surly upside down smile. “I just have two things to say to you, then. First, long may the Empress rule. Second… I like lots of animals. Not just birds.”

A quick telepathic scan told Aimi what she meant. She looked over to a nearby gas pipe. Just visible upon it, was a glowing mouse made of flame. It must have been keeping itself hidden during the battle.

“Just let me down nice and gentle, and my little friend might not decide to chew open that pipe.”

Aimi looked to her side. Nana had disappeared again. If she was occupied elsewhere, Aimi might as well keep Orange distracted. She reluctantly put the enemy esper back on her feet. She was keeping her word, and the mouse simply watched them.

There was a tension in the air as Orange and Aimi watched each other, waiting to make the next move. A tension that was suddenly cut by a voice. “Hey Orange, look what I found, It’s Dr. Nomura’s daughter! A much better hostage than some random civilians.”

It was Riko’s body talking, but not Riko’s voice.

“I didn’t know you could possess people, Blue,” Orange replied.

“I can now, thanks to her! She has absolutely zero latent psychic potential. An F-rated Normal. Completely brimming with psychokinetic energy, and has no outlet for it. She can even-”

“Quiet,” Orange said, glancing at Aimi. “The enemy is here.”

Aimi heard the rest of the sentence in the one called Blue’s mind:

'Riko can even grant abilities to psychic beings, but she has no idea how to consciously control it. She has a power like the Prism Empress herself.'