Miya was sulking next to a puddle of stomach acid and her lunch. She couldn't see because her eyes were wide open, but Ambrose was laughing his ghostly ass off. She could hear his laugh faintly. "Why'd you do that?" she asked him. Ambrose stopped laughing, wiped a tear from his eye, and said, "That attack you hit me with had a rather significant amount of psychic power behind it. It's hard to do the first few times unless you have a lot of adrenaline. You were already pumping it through your veins because of the bike ride. I hit you so it would spike to the max." Miya gave a pouty and skeptical look. Ambrose sighed and said, "Look, now that you've done that, your powers should come to you naturally." Miya had little interest in whatever this asshole had to say. Getting kicked hurt. A lot.
Ignoring Miya's pout, Ambrose picked up a rock and threw it at her, very hard. She yelped as it stopped half an inch from her head, then fell to the floor. "What just happened?" she asked, wide eyed. She had to close her eyes once again to hear Ambrose say, "To show you that you have psychic powers. You're out of power now though, so don't expect to be doing anything for at least half an hour. Now, follow me." He beckoned and she followed, forgetting about her pains, now excited at the prospect of being able to do magic.
In the clearing in front of them stood a creature. It was shaped like a clove of garlic, but had stubby little legs on it. It had bone pipes shooting out of its back. They were leaking a questionable gas into the air. "What in the actual fuck is that thing?" Miya queried. "Well it's one of three things you can expect help from. Those being other psychics, ghosts, and spirits. That's a spirit. Specifically, a spirit that keeps phantoms away, but doesn't hurt psychics or ghosts." Ambrose explained, "You're going to 'tame' this spirit. I say tame, but it's really just bribery. You're going to lure it into your house with food, and then keep it there by feeding it. Phantoms will stay away from your house then." Miya's eyes were closed, but Ambrose could tell very clearly that if they were open, she would have been glaring at him.
"What?"
"You want me to let that thing in my house, near my brother and my mother?"
"Yes."
"Are you fucking mental?"
Ambrose laughed and handed Miya a piece of what appeared to be jerky. "Go forth, young padawan! Acquire your new pet!" Ambrose said in an overly dramatic voice. Miya slowly walked near the ugly garlic with legs and offered the jerky to it. It showed no signs of fear as she got close. It suddenly snapped it's head into her open palm and stole the jerky. Its neck was unreasonably long and its head was as ugly as can be, but not particularly scary. It had the eyes of a cow and the teeth of an angler fish. Ok, maybe it was a little scary.
"Ok now let's go back to the campsite." Ambrose suddenly said from right behind her. Miya jumped, startled, and yelled, "How do you teleport like that?!?!" The cheerful ghost just smiled.
They walked back to the campsite and set up their tent. The spirit followed, albeit slowly. When her eyes were closed, Miya could clearly see herself, spirits, ghosts, and phantoms. She could see the ground near herself and the ground near spirits and phantoms too, but it was blurry. "Will I ever be able to see you without my eyes closed?" Ambrose thought for a moment before saying, "Yeah, in a couple of days. The reason you can't right now is because your brain is still prioritizing your normal sight over your psychic sight. At least, that's what people who are smarter than me say."
Miya started to set up the tent she had in her backpack while Ambrose watched. Eventually he got bored of watching and started playing games on her phone. "Why would ghosts like video games?" She asked. "Everyone likes video games, but I admit I like them more than some. By the way, holding things does cost me ESP.1This is what I'll be calling psychic power. I would have used the term "mana" but that's more fantasy like." Miya stopped hammering in the stakes and asked what ESP was. "It's the source of psychic powers. You expend it whenever you move something with your mind, destroy something, or heal yourself." "I can heal myself?" Ambrose pointed to Miya's legs and arms. The light bruises he gave her were gone.
"Everyone generates ESP at a different rate. My rate of generation is on the lower side of moderate, and yours is on the lower side of very low. I could get more by killing phantoms, but it's sort of like a drug for ghosts. If I get too much I'll get addicted, and if I get more still I'll die." "Will I get any negative effects from gain ESP?" Miya asked, concerned. "Nope, not at all. Your ability to gain it will be drastically stunted after the first few months of your awakening as a psychic so I'd suggest practicing now instead of later." Miya got excited by the prospect of becoming a powerful psychic. "How do I get more powerful?" Ambrose gave a sadistic smile and said, "Well there are two ways. Use your powers while under stress and eat phantoms. Interestingly enough, you can do those one after the other! How about, right now, we try it out?" Ambrose pointed behind Miya.
It was one and a half meters tall. It had long thick legs and longer skinny arms. It's skin was a greyish green color. It's torso was very bulky, and in the middle of it was a huge mouth with sharp teeth. It had three eyes of different sizes and colors, seemingly placed randomly around its mouth. On closer inspection, you could see two more eyes on it's left arm and one more on its right thigh. It had no head, and where its neck should have been laid only disgusting rotting flesh. It was a phantom, through and through. "I want you to kill that thing and then eat it."
"You what?"
"I want you to kill that thing and then eat it."
"You sure we're speaking the same language? Because I'm pretty sure you just told me to kill that thing and then eat it."
"That I did."
"No way, no way in Hell. I'm not getting near that thing, much less killing it, NOT TO MENTION EATING IT."
"Well tough shit scaredy cat, because you need to get stronger fast."
Ambrose handed Miya some sort of dagger for psychics and threw a piece of jerky into the woods. The spirit, which had been protecting them from the phantom just by being there, ran off after it. The phantom, in turn, started running at them.
