“Go!”

  The boy closes his hand into a fist, my body loses all velocity, every limb is frozen by the joint.

  “Mom! I got him!” I can only see the grass as he says this, my neck locked in place.

  “Very good. Now just fling him, remember the wrist movement.”

  My body gets released, I fall to the grass, sliding back a bit, “aw man, I messed it up again.”

  A light drizzle of rain begins to come down, the only light source being from the extravagant lights of the mansion. The grass marble between my fingers almost slipping away as I stand up from my awkward fall.

  The boy is staring at his mom, completely distracted, “what was the movement again?”

  I throw the grass marble, converting it into the liquid, and then imploding that liquid into a bullet, doing exactly what Jackson did that night with extra steps, I lose vision for a second as the second implosion spell causes the bullet to break the sound barrier.

  It flies directly towards his temple. “Oh!” He ducks just in time, crouching with his right hand on the floor. He swipes with his other hand in a haymaker, somehow hitting me from the far distance we were both at.

  The haymaker sends me flying right into a rougher patch of dirt, beside the mansion where they were growing fresh trees. Surprisingly it didn't do much damage despite the knockback I felt.

  I grab the growing tree with my hands to produce more of the black sap, I have it slide across the grass as I step out of the patch of dirt to meet him again.

  Stay calm, wait for him to try that telekinetic attack again. The liquid stays beside my feet as we both standoff, he gets up from his crouched position and watches me, “mom do I do close quarters now?”

  “What do you think honey?” She steps back.

  “I just think his innate magic outmatches that spell you taught me.”

  The woman takes a sip of wine, “how are you going to learn without challenging yourself?”

  I implode another patch of grass as they speak, they both stop at my sudden action. Staring at me with a vicious gaze, like I had done something wrong.

  “Mom he is cheating!”

  “He isn't, even if he was you can still win.” She finishes her drink and passes it to a random person beside her, “go on.”

  The boy holds out his hand and squeezes, yet again I'm frozen. I form the liquid near my feet into a spike and shoot it towards his body.

  His body twists to lay back on the grass, dodging the spike completely, his arm swinging in the air to catch the ground, this movement causes my body to swing around his body like I'm a sledgehammer and his body is the handle, my body gets flung up and around him.

  As I'm being catapulted above him, I desperately try to control my body and use the grass marble to fire another bullet, converting it to a liquid and then imploding it towards him, the sound barrier breaks and pushes me further upwards, it must've hit because I hear a cry.

  I fall from 30 feet in the air while my body tumbles and turns, landing on a slope of grass while rolling. My shoulder takes the brunt of the fall, I land on the edge of the cliff, I hear wailing and crying, “ITS NOT FAIR.”

  I see the boy run over the hill and towards me, holding his hand out yet again in an attempt to grab me, his other hand seems to be bleeding.

  Instead of the usual telekinesis a bolt of red lightning shoots out of his hand and towards me, striking my body almost instantly.

  The burn from the impact goes through my clothes and into my heart, my body falls onto the floor, “I WIN, I WIN I WIN I WIN.”

  My muscles move uncontrollably like id been hit by a taser, the crowds of people watching me get hunted by this child, he steps over me and begins kicking me, “DIE, OFF THE CLIFF.”

  My body rolls once, closer to the cliff face, then again, then again, my body still not responding to any movements I try to make. One of my hands are hanging off the edge while my other is on the grass that leads to it.

  I try to visualize the implosion spell again, this time without that 10% multiplier, if I'm going to die I might as well take one of them with me.

  My body gets kicked again, I regain the use of one of my fingers, I say the words in my mind, the two words. A rock cracking sound happens as I activate it. The floor we were both on turning into a ball that tumbles down the side of the cliff.

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  The child manages to save himself somehow, it was stupid to think he couldn't use the telekinesis on himself. I feel the brunt of the spell mid fall, my body chokes up blood, it floats through the air like I'm in zero gravity, the waves below getting louder and louder.

  “NO!” The boy grabs me with the same telekinesis, now standing safely on the cliff, he flings me back up and onto the hill, I land with a few more rolls towards the mansion, almost besides the feet of the people watching, “you hurt me.” He lets out a small sob.

  The mom who is now just beside me shouts, “try the twist move!” She taps me on the back a few times, ”you’re doing well.”

  She throws my body back into the middle of the valley, the boy is holding his hand out, “how do I do the twist again?”

  “You take the carry variable onto itself, randomize each part of the human anatomy to pull together on itself”

  “Thats so much to keep track of though!” He stomps a bit before trying it on me, I feel my arm tighten but then release, “urgh! Can't I just kill him?”

  “Not if you can't perfect this spell.”

  I need to be able to physically touch him, like back with the clones, I can convert the organic insides of them into that liquid. His hand is bleeding pretty bad, it has a hole through the middle causing the middle and ring finger unable to function.

  I reach into my pocket, deciding now is the time to use that thread ball Null gave me, as I take it out of my pocket the boy notices, “woah pretty.” I throw it overarm as hard as I can towards him, he tries to catch it like it's a ball.

  “STOP.” The mother screams as it touches his hands, the thread ball instantly unwraps itself, slinging threads in every direction like a grenade with shrapnel, sharp rubber bands fly into the air cutting up the grass and him.

  Both of his hands fall off as it lacerates every part of him, parts of his torso are missing. The thread only bounces of bone, but the rest is fair game.

  I didn't realise it would do that much damage. Did I just kill a kid...? No this isn't a child, it's a demon, a demon that if I left alive would kill multiple humans... I'm saving people by doing this.

  The boy lands backwards onto the grass, coughing.

  “Okay. Remember the healing spell! Focus on every part of your body!” She says frantically, not making a move to join in on the fight.

  The boy's body begins to reconstruct itself, hands rejoin as well as they can, little bits of lightning solder the pieces together that were ripped clean off.

  He survived that.

  I produce 2 more marbles of grass in haste, planning to aim directly at his head with the projectiles as he is healing, but something stops all my limbs. “Let him finish healing, don't be a sore loser.”

  The two marbles fall out of my hands, rolling down the hill. The mom is using the same spell the boy was using.

  I watch Lilith walk down the hill while drunk, almost tumbling multiple times, she gets close to the boy, “maaan... you really hurt em.”

  “What are you doing?” The orange haired woman runs over and grabs Lilith’s arm.

  “My human won! I'm checking damages.”

  “He did not ‘win.’ The fight barely started.” They both stand eye to eye, Lilith's posture showing no sign of the power she has displayed in the past.

  “Want me to kill both of youu?” She pokes her nose and turns to me, “urghhhh, why do you have to be so interesting?”

  My body gets released, I land feet first on the floor, all I can do is plead in this moment, “take me home.”

  “No!”

  “Please.”

  She grumpily picks up a piece of loose thread, “I hate this so muuuuch.” Her body lands on mine in an improvised hug, “I want nothing to do with you Fay...”

  Her head rests on my shoulder, the boy is now looking around, confused, his body still healing itself, “did I lose?”

  His mom holds his cheek, “only because he cheated. But you should have been smarter.”

  They both walk back into the mansion, the crowd of people dispersing as well, the most interesting event of the night had ended.

  Lilith is crying on my shoulder now, “you ruined my life! I was going to do great things and now I'm being blackmailed by everyoneeee.” she squeezes her arms harder around me, “you're an abomination, a disgusting creature Fayyy.”

  I can't even feel sorry for her, nothing in her words or tone is evoking any emotion from me, I'm distant right now.

  “Lilith... lets go home, okay?”

  “NO! We need... we need to settle this!” She steps away from me and walks into the mansion, expecting me to follow, I do so.

  We make our way in and out of rooms until Lilith spots the orange haired woman sitting on the couch with the boy crying next to her, Lilith speaks up obnoxiously, “I challenge you to a duel!” She points at the mom.

  She just shakes her head, “with all due respect... I'm rank 5... I'd lose.”

  “That 2 rank gap didn't stop your child from duelling my... human thing, duel me.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  Lilith grunts, “okay.” She steps forward, somehow taking 5 steps in one, grabbing the head of the woman and popping it, the lights in the mansion flicker while the body falls to the couch side, landing near the boy, “didn't even have your defences on... pathetic...”

  Lilith seems completely sober now as she turns towards me, the blood sliding off her body, the clothes having the same enchantment as mine. “You’re welcome.” She grabs my hand harshly and walks me upstairs, people rush into the room where the attack happened, nobody bothering to stop her.

  “My court date is soon... for teaching you magic... I'll be executed.” She walks into a random room, one with a desk and a bed.

  I don't even give a fake reaction, “that's good.”

  “Thanks.” She squeezes my hand nervously, “a part of me asks...” She shakes her head a few times, trying to replace her words and failing, “a part of my asks what was all of this for?”

  “What?”

  “What's the point of... any of this...? Getting stronger... trying to achieve something... none of that matters.”

  I don't take any of this seriously, I can't after every single conversation we’ve had has been manipulation.

  “What will happen to me...? When you’re gone.”

  She stops for a moment, then sits on the desk, this is eerily similar to our old meetings, “aha... oh she has plans with the whole human magic experiment thing... I'm the scape goat; she will be doing all that behind closed doors while I take all the blame for what happened in the open.”

  That doesn't really answer my question.

  “you'll be dead soon after me, they’re trying to figure out where you stand, some people are saying you are one of us because you have a ring, others say this is a gross misinterpretation of the law of being.”

  I sit on the bed like usual as she draws up a healing spell, the bed sheets a lot silkier than the ones in her usual place, I decide now is the right time to ask if I ever had the chance, “why do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Try to hurt people on purpose... for no reason, like with the experiments that go nowhere, making me kill Jackson, hurting Null, taking me to see my parents just to rip it away.”

  Her eyes widen for a moment before relaxing into her usual gaze, “because it's fun.”

  Because it's fun.