[Jasper's POV]
Jasper was sitting in a little cafe with Jessy, but his mind was elsewhere. He sighed for the hundredth time that afternoon.
"If I'd known you were going to do nothing but sigh, I think I would have locked myself in my room too," he heard Jessy say with a mean bite to her words.
"Huh," he asked as he looked up to her and startled when he saw a hurt expression on her face. "Sorry, had you been saying something?"
"Look," she said as she delicately snivelled her nose. "I'm worried about her too, but she doesn't need us right now…"
Wait, was she crying? Jasper had never seen Jessy cry before.
"Damn it! My best friend is hurting and she doesn't even want to talk to me!" she continued, properly hiccuping now, tears started to fall down her cheeks.
"Hey! Hey, it's ok," Jasper said as he hurried around the table to hug her tightly. "I know you're worried about her. So am I. I hate it too. But she'll find us when the time is there."
"You think so?" Jessy asked weakly as she nuzzled her head in the crook of his neck. Jasper immediately felt his cheeks burn red hot.
"Y-yeah," he stuttered weakly. Damn, he was used to hugging Otto, but he couldn't remember being this close to Jessy before.
The moment was broken when they simultaneously received a text-message on their phones. Jasper fished his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen, while Jessy put a hand on his chest to gently push away from him to look at her own phone. He'd gotten a text message from Alex saying: "You need to come here ASAP! Otto x" and then a GPS location.
"Wait, … did Otto send a text with Alex's phone?" Jasper asked. Jessy answered with a confused frown of her own.
"I got the same message," Jessy said.
"Hey, you guys?" Anthony from their class yelled as he approached them. "Did you get a message from Otto too? Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"We did get a message, but no, we don't know," Jasper said.
"Hey, wait a second," Jessy said. "These GPS coordinates are moving. It should be somewhere over there?"
As she pointed, they watched a building catch fire, and a bright light appeared from one of its walls.
Jasper heard Jessy gasp incredulously besides him, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from the burning building and the bright glowing object that was moving through it. He wasn't even sure what he was looking at. Was that a human? With wings?
Some people were scurrying away from it while others fell to their knees and started praying. Then he saw a girl in particular, hovering around the strange creature. Yelling at other people.
"Get away! Don't let him touch you!" the girl yelled.
"Is that Otto?" Jasper asked.
"It is, isn't it?" Jessy asked, sounding just as incredulous as he felt. That meant it was safe to assume that the girl hovering around the strange creature was Otto. And if his deduction skills weren't failing him, that meant the strange creature could only be one person.
"What the hell is she doing?" Anthony voiced his thoughts next to him.
"OTTO!" Jasper called as the three of them ran over. She looked up in relief and quickly hugged them all.
"Jasper! You can't let Alex touch anyone," she said between heavy breaths. There you had it, suspicion confirmed.
"It's ok," he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "How can we help?"
"We need to clear a path. I think he's making his way to the park, but I doubt he can see or hear anything. He's been walking through walls and iron like a hot knife cuts through butter. Thank God he hasn't hurt anyone yet."
For a moment, Jasper wanted to ask if she was exaggerating. But then again, the trail of destruction Alex left behind wasn't exactly subtle.
"Wait, that is Alex?" he heard Jessy ask. She looked rather terrified. So did Anthony.
"Snap out of it Jessy! It's still Alex," Otto said as she took Jessy's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She looked up at her doubtfully. It was clear that she'd rather run away and hide somewhere.
"Why do you think he can't see anything?" Jasper asked Otto. That just didn't seem right. Jasper watched Alex as he took an unsteady step forward and stared oddly at one of the people who'd dropped down to their knees on the sidewalk. "I think he can see us."
"Us?" Otto asked as she followed his line of sight and frowned. "You think?"
"Yeah," he said with a small smirk as he watched Alex stumble because he'd accidentally stepped off the sidewalk which was a little higher than the road. "He stumbled just now because he was trying to avoid that hysterical woman."
"Hmm, maybe. But I don't see how this changes anything?" Otto thought out loud.
"Oh, he's clearly avoiding people," Jasper said as he saw Alex halt to let two hysterically screaming people pass by. He looked rather annoyed. "Maybe we can guide him out of the shopping district, but it's still a long way from the park. Getting him there by foot will take a LONG time. Seriously, why doesn't he just use the wings on his back?"
"That's it!" Otto yelled excitedly. "Oh my God, Jasper! You're brilliant!"
"So obvious you overlooked it, huh?" he asked as he allowed a prideful smirk to spread over his face. "I take it you have a plan of action?"
"You bet I do," Otto said, with a smirk that mirrored his own. Jasper was reminded of when they were in kindergarten together and he could still occasionally convince her to play pranks with him. Oh, this was going to be fun!
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[Alex's POV]
Alex was starting to lose his patience. He'd figured out that most of the floating lights he could see around him, were humans. Really annoying and hardly predictable humans. Some of them ran away, others dropped to the ground and stayed put, but all of them started visibly trembling once they spotted him. It really hurt his feelings! He'd always hated prejudice, but this was simply too much! He wasn't some monster trying to destroy the city, now was he?!
The second reason why he was about ready to make everyone disappear around him, was because he couldn't see where he was going. He constantly tripped over bumps and pits in the road. Honestly, it was a miracle that he hadn't walked into anything yet.
At one point he'd even wondered where he was, because he could see a floating light above him, but couldn't remember where there was a bridge in town. Yet, he was certain that he was moving in the right direction, because he could see the connection to the universe right up ahead.
The Great Oak Tree. His destination. If only he could get close enough to put his hands on the bark. But if the little floating lights kept getting in his way, then he might not make it before his body failed him.
Damn it! He really didn't want to harm anyone, but at this rate, he'd have to chose the lesser evil. Because if his body failed before he could get rid of all the excess energy, things would probably turn out a lot worse than the Petrified Mountain in the Field of Reeds.
Then suddenly, a light floated right in front of his nose. For a moment, Alex felt the urge to swat it away, but then he noticed it wasn't trembling like the others. The only other floating light that hadn't trembled at the sight of him, was Otto.
He looked over towards her light, just to confirm that she was still there, and then looked back. But the second he did, the light started to zigzag away from him to a certain direction. He looked at it rather flabbergasted.
"What a strange floating light," he thought to himself and then noticed the light seemed to be dancing into place a few meters away from him. He still doubted. He didn't know what to do with this strange floating light. Then Otto's light joined the strange one and for a moment he thought he heard her say: "Come on, this way!"
So Alex followed them. He was glad to notice that he wasn't stumbling over bumps and pits anymore and all the other floating lights seemed to move out of his way of their own accord now.
A lot of other lights joined the strange light and Otto, until they all stopped and surrounded him.
Alex looked around in confusion. Had it been a trap after all? But Otto had been with them?
Then Otto's light stepped out of the circle and came to stand right in front of him. He startled when he felt her hand on his cheek and the world around him came into focus just enough for him to hear the whispers of the people around him.
"Of course it'll work!" he heard Jasper say. "My zigzagging caught his attention too, didn't it?"
Alex couldn't help but laugh.
"Of course, the strange one had to be Jasper," he said, still grinning. This seemed to startle the others voices into silence.
"Did he hear you just now?" he heard Jessy say.
"AND! He recognised me!" Jasper yelled excitedly. He seemed very happy about the fact.
"Alex! Alex!" Otto yelled urgently. "You're causing to much damage by foot! You need to fly!"
"Fly?!" he asked dumbstruck, then remembered his wings and released a string of curses. He'd completely forgotten about those.
"Told you so," he heard Jasper say smugly, which annoyed Alex endlessly, but decided to ignore it.
"Otto, sweetheart?" he asked as he took her hand on his cheek into his hand and kissed the top. Immediately, the world around him faded a little more into the brightness again. "You'll have to stand further away when I take off, or you'll be blown away."
"Show off," he heard her mumble quietly, but did as she was told. He unfolded his wings to their full size and automatically, the other lights went to stand back as well. Alex grinned when he saw some of the lights tumble over when he took off. He'd warned them, hadn't he?
Alex breathed a sigh of relief, now that he could finally make his way to the Great Oak Tree without any distractions. He landed right in front of it and put both of his hands on the bark.