It wasn’t a stretch to say that telekinesis was one of the most singularly practical psionic disciplines in the field of psionics.

It also wasn’t a stretch to say that it was one of the most mysterious.

What, precisely, did a psychic manipulate to lift an object? For years psientists posited theories; everything from mental control of the very atoms and quarks that made the object, to creating solid pockets of psionic resonance, to trying to come up with entirely new forms of energy or brain waves to try and explain it.

Telekinesis never shows any distinct tells, even under a microscope; one’s telekinetic grip can cause deformations, but no visible or detectable anti-gravity fields appear, atoms seem no more affected than if the object was moved by hand, and diviners can detect a person using psionics to perform telekinesis, but the act itself is as invisible under scrutiny as it is to a careless glance.

What telekinesis exactly is has confounded psience for over a century. The exciting field of telekinetic psience is one that, despite its years of progress worldwide, leans heavily into the theoretical side of things; it is no coincidence that physics enthusiasts are often involved.

On the practical side of things, telekinesis has nearly unlimited applications for a creative and well-practiced – or, perhaps, lazy – psychic.

For instance, one can use the incredible power to make paper airplanes fly.

A long, triangle-shaped papercraft floated lazily in the air amidst a circle of desks, turning in an almost lazy U. It moved naturally, like it was a living thing turning and wheeling through the air, its wings even flapping as it drifted into a smooth, sliding landing on the desk of Christine Woods, the British girl. She picked the paper airplane up curiously, examining it, unfolding it, before Mr. Gonzalez spoke aloud.

“When you think of telekinesis, what is the first thing you think of?” He asked, turning away from his desk, another paper airplane in hand. “Is it how you can lift things without using your hands, or any part of your body? The power of Big Show Paul Wight, lifting hundreds of pounds with his immense focus?” With a light toss, the paper airplane flew from his fingertips, and Taz watched it sail over her head towards the far side of the room. “Is it the fine control like Jon Stewart has, able to flip pages, fold laundry, make a bed, all with the same delicacy as your hands?”

The new paper airplane suddenly accelerated, turning sharply in its path but never brushing the walls, flying back towards the students, descending ever-so-slowly before boosting in an upwards arc over the encircled desks.

“Those are what most people think of when it comes to telekinesis.” Mr. Gonzalez said, the paper airplane slowing and sliding between his fingers. He held the paper airplane up to the students with a smile. “It’s what everyone sees, after all, but we see more than a regular human. We are psychics, that means we sense with our minds as much as our other five senses.”

Mr. Gonzalez strode into the center of the class circle, a rather short and rather fat Mexican man with his black hair cut into a tidy flattop, and with big, excited black eyes above a prominent schnoz. He kind of reminded Taz of her uncle with his big, caterpillar mustache over his lip, but uncle Randy was a much more soft-spoken and easy-going guy.

“Telekinesis isn’t just moving things around, it’s much, much more. If you could break telekinesis down into a single sentence, what would it be?” He asked the class.

A few hands rose, Taz’s included as she glanced around. Fatima looked like her arm might pop out of her shoulder with how hard she stretched her arm in the air…

“Miss… Cooper?” Mr. Gonzalez glanced her way, and Taz nodded with a smile.

“Yeah! Um…” She cleared her throat. “It’s the father of all psionics, right?”

“That is correct – though a few people would argue with me on that.” Mr. Gonzalez grinned. “But that’s what psientists say it is historically; what is it practically?”

Taz blinked a few times, her hand lowering as she wracked her brain for an answer. “It’s… it’s not—you said it wasn’t just moving stuff around…”

“It’s the psychic’s ability to manipulate physics.” Fatima suddenly spoke up, looking annoyed.

“That’s exactly correct Miss Ping,” Mr. Gonzalez grinned, “but please wait for me to call on you first. It wouldn’t be fair to the other students since you had early lessons, after all.”

“Yes Mr. Gonzalez.” Fatima sighed.

“Would you like to elaborate?”

“Yes Mr. Gonzalez!” Fatima smiled, bridging her fingers in front of herself. “Telekinesis is the basis for a majority of other disciplines; it’s necessary to accelerate or slow molecules for thermokinesis, manipulate nutrients and bacteria for biokinesis, electrons and protons for electrokinesis, the three states of matter for hydrokinesis, and light and sound waves for mimicry.”

“That’s right!” Mr. Gonzalez glanced around at the other students with a nod. “Telekinesis handles the physical side of psionics. The mother discipline, telepathy, handles the mental side of psionics. While you can excel at one, a truly great psionic is great at both. Those of you who are interested in medical biokinesis will need to master both telekinesis and telepathy.”

Taz hummed to herself for a moment. She tapped her fingertips on her desktop for a moment, and her brain burned a bit as she concentrated on the air above her desk.

“I focus on telekinesis, however! As you might be able to tell by me speaking out loud, I’m not much of a telepath.” He chuckled, and the paper airplane swooped around his head, spinning in a slow, easy-going circle like the man’s melon had an orbit. “But I learned telekinesis from Zhou Ping personally, and I am happy to pass his lessons on down to his progeny.”

He and Fatima beamed a pair of smiles at one another, and he turned his head around at the rest of the class.

“As well as the rest of you! So today we will be—” He paused as his eyes settled on Taz, “—that’s very impressive, Miss Cooper, but this isn’t mimicry class.”

Taz blushed a little bit. The blobby green stegosaurus wandering her desk faded into mist, and Mr. Gonzalez continued.

“Today we’ll be starting with something easy and fun. That’s all telekinesis is, it’s not facts and figures or physics – yet – it’s building mental strength, mental agility, applying your brain to day-to-day activities, chores, and challenges in order to make your life easier! So, let’s start with making some paper airplanes!”

Sheets of paper began to fly off of the teacher’s desk and land in front of the students, sliding into a smooth stop one-by-one in rapid succession, until every filled desk had paper, and an additional one floated right next to Mr. Gonzalez.

“I encourage you to use telekinesis to follow my steps, but if that’s too much for you right now, you can use your hands! First, start by folding the paper in half hot-dog style like so…”

Telekinesis allowed finer precision than hands could ever hope to achieve if it was properly trained. The teacher’s paper folded flawlessly as he gave his instructions, and Taz focused on her page to do the same. Feeling the subtle texture of the page with her mind was the easy part, but the folding part…

Well, fine telekinetic control demanded just as much training as telekinetic strength did.

Mr. Gonzalez passed by Taz’s desk as he examined student progress and paused to stare at the messily folded, jagged paper triangle she was wincing at with all her might, her hands either doing a rather offensive imitation of a cerebral palsy patient, or trying to cast a magical spell of unimaginable power.

“Having a little trouble, miss Cooper?” Mr. Gonzalez asked with a patient smile, and with a face reddened by both frustration and embarrassment, she let out an exasperated grunt and let the monstrosity fall to her desk.

“You made it look so easy!” She sighed, awkwardly flicking it.

Mr. Gonzalez nodded, and the paper ‘airplane’ sprung from her desk and into Mr. Gonzalez’s hand. “It’s easy to make telekinesis look easy.” He said, the ‘plane’ unfolding on his palm until it was open, though crinkled and bent. “Kind of like seeing somebody make one by hand, right?”

“I guess?”

“When you practice something a-thousand times, you make it look easy, but psychic powers are kinda special in that nobody sees the effort your brain is making.” The paper floated up between them, and suddenly, the paper flattened; the lines of its folding were still vaguely visible, but the paper looked stretched thin again. “You can’t see what I’m doing here, can you?”

Taz shook her head. “No.”

“I’m making two telekinetic planes to flatten it between. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll be close enough.” He said, looking pleased with himself. “I’ve been making paper airplanes with my mind since I was a boy back in Puerto Rico. I’d look for loose pieces of paper around the room and fold them up on the sly, then throw them around; it’d drive my teachers crazy trying to figure out who was making them.” He chuckled a little bit.

Taz smiled at the thought. She’d heard stories of psionic classroom antics plenty of times before; in fact, they were a common talking point of anti-psi pundits. ‘How do you teach somebody with powers that you don’t have? How do you prove that they’re doing it?’ Not easy questions to answer, but Taz vastly prefered having her psionics unrestricted in the classroom; Mr. Gonzalez’s alone was buzzing with students expressing frustration, delight, and general activity as they folded paper.

More than once she got a few mental notes of people sharing how they were folding their specific planes, but telekinesis was only learned by doing.

“You didn’t practice telekinesis much at home?” Mr. Gonzalez asked her as her sorta-kinda-flattened paper floated back onto her desk.

“Oh, yeah, no, not really.” Taz shook her head as she took the paper thoughtfully, embarrassed to be using her hands to fold it in half. “Mom thought I’d get lazy if I used telekinesis for everything, so she had this ‘no psychic powers while doing chores’ rule.”

Mr. Gonzalez looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself. “I respectfully disagree with her decision.”

“Well I disrespectfully disagreed with her a few times, and boy did it get her mad…” Taz muttered. For a moment, she felt a pang of worry from her teacher, and then a gentle, mental prod from him. With a blink, she allowed the bridge to form, and heard Mr. Gonzalez’s voice.

{Ms. Cooper, did your mother ever hit you?}

Taz froze mid-fold, and furrowed her brow. {No, never.}

{Yell at you? Belittle you for her powers?}

{No.}

{Did you ever feel unwanted?}

She shook her head. {She doesn’t like psionics, particularly telekinesis, I think? So I just focused on telepathy and music.}

{Well…} Mr. Gonzalez’s expression twisted for a moment. {If you ever feel like your homelife might be… harmful, you can come talk to me, okay?}

Taz nodded as she examined the more flight-worthy, though still scuffed papercraft in her hands.

{Sí señor.}

{Bueno, and nice paper airplane.} Mr. Gonzalez nodded, and with a final meaningful glance Taz’s way, walked to the next student, the bridge disassembling comfortably between them.

She idly considered doodling a design on her airplane, maybe some penciled-in fish scales on the bottom fin or something, and she instinctively turned her head to look for Melodica, only to find empty air.

Right… Melodica has been gone all morning. Longer than when she’d disappeared before. She’d left Taz to shower and dress up by herself, not reading her notes out loud to her, or sing along with her…

Taz breathed out anxiously, then looked up when Mr. Gonzalez raised his voice.

“¡Oigan! Let’s get started with the real meat of today’s class!” He called out with a smile. “This empty space in the middle of you all is going to become a battleground; everyone’s going to throw out their paper airplane and use your telekinesis to dogfight the other airplanes around you!”

A few grins sprouted in the crowd, as well as murmurings of excitement. Armando looked especially pleased, and Taz was jealous he’d taken the time to add cool flames to his airplane’s design. Her eyes silently shifted over to Fatima, and she caught the girl looking cool, calm, and confident… and turning a sharp look on her, which Taz avoided with a jerk of her head.

“The rules are simple: write your name on your plane, no attacking other students, no using your telekinesis on a plane that isn’t your own, and your plane is considered ‘down’ if it leaves the circle, touches the ground, a desk, or a student, and this one is important: if another plane’s tip—” he tapped the tip of the plane he was holding, “—strikes it anywhere! So play evasive, take your chances, and just have some fun! Last one standing automatically passes next week’s test with a one-hundred. Any questions?”

A few hands raised, and some rules were clarified, and then Mr. Gonzalez pointed at six students. Taz straightened up with a grin! Telekinetic games always sounded like a blast, and she and Madeline had a few of their own, but in big groups like this?

Her chest swelled with excitement as she lifted up her paper airplane in anticipation as the teacher began a countdown

On the word ‘go’ the room fell into chaos. It wasn’t just the two dozen planes suddenly taking off into the air guided by psychic minds, it was the sheer, raw, concentration and competitive glee that now filled the room to near bursting.

Paper planes descended on another willy-nilly as Taz winced and guided hers along the outside of the circle before it could crash into Gerald’s legs, and she watched probably ten paper airplanes hit the floor as they were pecked apart by other fliers in the first few seconds. The disparity in control was staggering; some airplanes flew about sharp and fast, weaving and diving, almost like a seaborne predator than a child’s toy, others jerked and flew about seemingly at random on no real guided path, looking unnatural in the air as their controllers tried everything to stay in the game.

The paper planes were forming a cloud of activity in the center; with some of the competition already picked off – amidst the moans and jeers of loss – the other planes were playing cautiously, rapidly swooping away from dives and positioning themselves for choice attacks, spur of the moment boosts to shake off a pursuer or dodge another plane, the game drawing lots of laughter and gasps as others stressfully focused.

Taz wanted to imitate Mr. Gonzalez’s more realistic looking flight with smooth, looping turns and gradual climbs and falls, but it was difficult. Even with the amount of excited resonance being put out, her telekinetic control felt unnatural and forced. It felt like the first time she’d ever picked up Robbie’s guitar one early morning, before she’d even known his name. She held the instrument in small, awkward arms, the notes she plucked were simple and awkward, with no clue how to make a song, much less a tune…

With a fond smile, she recalled nearly leaping out of her skin when she glanced over her shoulder at the stairs to see a roughneck man she’d never met before standing there, watching her with tired eyes, a half-cocked smile on his face; she’d thought she was in trouble, but then…

A paper plane with red flames along its wings was suddenly falling in line behind Taz’s, gradually accelerating towards hers as another two got knocked out in the middle. In her panic, Taz’s plane wobbled and wavered, slowing at times as her grip became weaker, and as she realized it, coming to a dead stop as her grip reaffirmed so tightly that she forgot to move.

Armando’s plane shot right over hers in its attempt to predict her flight pattern, and she heard the boy let out a Spanish curse as he forced his plane to pull up before it could crash into somebody’s legs.

As Taz tried to stabilize and turn to head the other direction, she spotted that flame-streaked plane whirl around and zoom after her own with greater speed, and Taz squeaked. Her plane curved upwards to avoid a high-speed spear, and with the maneuver, her eye shut tight as her left temple began to burn.

“Yo Taz, ¡quédate quieto!”

“¡Déjame!” Taz whimpered back.

The two planes flew in a steadily faster circle around the edge of the room, until Taz’s violently turned and started flying towards the center of the room again. She was baiting the beast here, but Armando’s plane briefly slowed in its pursuit, floating downwards as the remaining six planes still dogfighting around the center briefly broke off from their safer routes with the appearance of the new plane.

Like circling vultures they followed after her plane, and then more like a swooping hawk, one descended, followed swiftly by another with the same idea.

Taz took a deep breath. She’d seen enough movies to know this was a maneuver, but she worriedly wondered if she could pull it off right… and her paper airplane suddenly stopped, and fell.

Above it, the two descending planes smacked into one another, their wings bending awkwardly and flying together as Taz scrambled to reconnect with her plane as it fell towards the floor.

“That doesn’t count!” Christine yelled in a sudden, worried tone.

“The tips didn’t touch!” Cecil added.

Mr. Gonzalez simply laughed at their pleading looks, then gave an ugly cough when Armando’s fire-streaked plane crashed into both from behind and knocked them to the ground.

A triumphant cackle was drowned out by twin shouts of outrage and agony, his plane now flying swiftly towards Taz’s as it wobbled itself into a flight just before it hit the floor. Her headache was spreading, making Taz pant, but she was still in the game.

Two more planes fell as Taz swept her plane left and right, trying to imagine how a bird might escape from a predator, weaving between desk legs as she sucked in a breath to try and cool the dull ache in her forehead as Armando guided his plane just outside of Taz’s, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike…

… before wheeling up, avoiding another plane now fast in pursuit of Armando’s. The fire-patterned plane zipped through the air towards the middle, now empty of other competitors, leaving it plenty of space to swirl and loop around as the third plane charged it, both barrel rolling upwards, both speeding up, then corkscrewing downwards in a dangerous dive bomb before pulling up at the last moment.

The class’s eyes were fixated on the display. The two planes weaved around the open airspace like twitterpated birds, Armando valiantly trying to shake the other plane off, but their controller was almost stuck on his six, giving the impression of a well-coordinated airshow rather than the most vicious dog fight paper airplanes could experience.

Several times the planes passed close to one another, less than an inch from victory each time, drawing gasps and ‘oooh!’s from the crowd each time. The flame-clad plane and its plain counterpart twirled up towards the ceiling, with Armando giving another curse as yet another maneuver failed to shake off his pursuer.

Taz’s plane went entirely unnoticed nearer to the ground, and given a moment to breathe, she tried to reduce her mental strain. “One plus one is two, two plus two is four, four plus four is eight…” She whispered to herself. The pain wouldn’t be gone until she let her mind fully relax, but for now, this would help.

Given the moment, she took her eyes off her plane, letting it slow in the air, easy-pickings if the other two decided to dive for it, but she looked over at Armando, whose hands were raised, moving with his plane like he was steering it, his black eyes wide and his mind so engaged that Taz doubted even a mental probing would break his concentration.

She looked around at her other classmates, at their excited looks and awed smiles at the show, but only one person had a look of concentration as intense as Armando’s.

At first glance, it was almost impossible to tell that Fatima was the third pilot still in the game. She sat back easily in her chair, watching through her glasses like everyone else did, but she wasn’t grinning, clapping, or cheering; if it wasn’t for her thoughts being so entirely devoted to the show Taz would have guessed she was just a bored spectator.

Her plane, however, was impossible to shake off. It dove like a raptor on high at Armando’s, barely missing as they both peeled to the left, the fight going on for a full minute before Armando wheeled downwards, and Fatima, having guessed Armando’s next move, steered directly into the top of the flame-painted plane, and sent it spiraling down onto the floor to the class’s cheers of delight and Armando’s howl of defeat.

Fatima’s plane whirled through the air. Though the tip was bent from its numerous attacks, the plane still flew straight and true at Taz’s craft, floating slowly over the floor. Fatima’s face split into a satisfied smirk, her plane going for a dramatic dive towards Taz’s, but stopped, her head jerking in the direction of a pained cry.

Taz had her head in her hands, her glasses pushed up her scalp. Her plane hit the ground, and she tried to suck up the tears that had sprung up, her head aching horribly.

“Seriously?!” She heard. “You can’t even give me this?!”

“Relax, Fatima.” Mr. Gonzalez said.

Taz whispered to herself, feeling the pain prickle down the back of her neck, making her feel tense. “Sixty-four and sixty-four is one-twenty-eight… one t-twenty-eight and—” She felt a hand touch the back of her head, and blearily she tried to look up from her hands, but her vision was swimming.

“C’mon Cooper, c’mon. Let’s get you to the nurse, alright?” She heard the teacher’s voice, and she let him carefully pull her up from her seat. “Fatima, you won, so you pass next week. Everyone, just play with the planes some more until I get back, I won’t be long.”