“Let me guess - you’re not happy to see me.”
*Vic, I’m your familiar; I love both sides of
your being.*
“But you prefer Vickie.”
*I never said that.*
“Why not? Everyone else does.”
*You know that that’s not true.*
“Ah, leave it alone.” Vic looked at the dresser
top. “Jeez, would you look at all this junk? Ma keeps sticking me with the
brothers’ hand-me-downs, says new clothes are too EXPENSIVE, but she spares no
expense for dear sweet Vickie!” With a snarl he swept all the beauty products
into a wastebasket, and set about wiping off the beauty mask.
That done, he carefully checked the days marked
off on the calendar. Nine days, and there was no real way to accurately measure
the hours. Man, he hated the whole ‘change in your sleep’ bit! Still, there was
an increase of at least One Day and Eight hours. Then he found his journal and
checked. One thing that Vickie and he actually cooperated on was keeping track
of how long the change lasted, and any indicators as to the progress. Of
course, they had diametrically opposed reasons for figuring out the reason why
his changes were getting longer - she wanted them to get even longer, and he
wanted to whittle them back down to overnight, like they’d been at first.
Jeezus Kee-rist, would look at those entries?
His entries were short, sweet and to the point. Her entries were long,
rambling, and went off in all directions. He remembered most of what that she’d
done, though from a radically different point of view. Oh well, at least the
bitch was good about getting her homework done on time. And, when he had time,
he’d go over what she’d written. Their teachers said that seeing things from a
different point of view tended to show you things that you missed, or glossed
over before.
Then his panties bunched up, and Vic remembered
to get out of Vickie’s nightclothes.
*****
Vic went down to breakfast in his Merlin High
school uniform. “Well, Good Morning, Sweetheart!” his mother started off
cheerily as Slyboots scampered into the kitchen ahead of him. Then she saw Vic.
“Oh. You’re back!”
“Yes, it’s me. Remember me? Vic? Your son? The
one who lives here and catches all the goblins for free? Maybe you would prefer
Little Miss Perfect to waft downstairs, in a shower of rose petals, accompanied
by little tweeting birds?”
“Now, now, you’re my son, and I love you - BUT,
you could stand to learn a lesson or two from your feminine side! SHE applies
herself! And-” From there, Moira O’Bryan went on to enumerate the ways that her
son could improve himself. While they were definitely Blue Collar, the O’Bryans
had both great expectations and very high standards. When Magic first came back
into the world, lovely Moira Lafferty had risked the wrath of her parish priest
to ask Tarisa, a proven witch, which man she should marry, Richard Barry or
Lyle MacReady. To her surprise, the witch had told Moira that if she married
Richard Barry, her marriage would be passionate but short, and if she married
Lyle MacReady, her future would be long and secure, but boring and childless.
But, if she married Keith O’Bryan, a man who wasn’t really on Moira’s nuptial
radar, her marriage would be happy and long, and she would have many remarkable
children.
Tarisa had proven right. While Moira and Keith’s
marriage hadn’t been the stuff that romance novels are made of, they proved a
good couple, and extramarital adventures were never a real danger in that
house. And the children! Paul, the eldest, was the big, barrel-chested,
bull-necked ‘Mick’ sort of Irishman that barroom legends are made of. He was
doing well in college on a Football scholarship, and he was rumored to be a
Front Four all by himself. Not that he was a ‘dumb jock’ - he was studying for
an MBA, and he meant it. Even a short career with the NFL would pay for
schooling for the rest of them. Richard, the next youngest, was tall, imposing,
dynamic and brilliant, the very image of the famous ‘Irish Priests’ that had
kept the unruly Shanty Irish in church and minding their manners in the 19th
Century. Not that Richard was headed for the Seminary; he was going to College
next year, with an eye toward Medical School. Jonathan, who was still in high
school, was a handsome, silver-tongued charmer with a razor wit. If he didn’t
become a lawyer, and a successful one at that, there was something very wrong
with the universe. The youngest, Megan, was bright as a penny and a thousand
times as dear.
But Victor, the youngest of the boys, seemed to
prove that even Tarisa couldn’t hit the bullseye every time. It wasn’t that he
wasn’t smart, or quick, or fit, it was just that he didn’t seem to be able to
pull it all together. He was, in a word, a loser. A loser and a wiseass, who preferred
pranks and getting in trouble with his equally worthless buddies.
Moira sat a plate of hash browns, eggs and
sausages in front of her youngest son, and gave him a kiss on the temple. “Vic,
honey, I want only the best for you, but if you don’t knuckle down and start
applying yourself, what’s gonna happen to you? You know they won’t let you work
in any area except magic, if you know magic.”
Dad, Rick and Jon all came down, and had the
same reaction. “Oh. It’s you.” When Vic confronted them with their blatant
preference, Rick said, “Damn straight, I prefer the side of you that could get
into Stanford, MIT&T or Chicago Magical! Squirt, you've got everything that
it takes, except the good sense that God gave a goose! Vickie could be a Th.D.,
with a six-figure a year practice, but you? All I see for you is a job catching
goblins or mopping up toxic vibes! And that’s only if Uncle Kyle doesn’t get
his hooks into you!”
“Hey, Uncle Kyle is cool.”
“Uncle Kyle is a hoodlum and a goon,” Rick
snarled, “and if you gave him anything to use, he’d grass you out to the Cops
in a gnat’s heartbeat!” Rick leaned over and gave Vic the Inquisitor’s Eye.
“That good-for-nothing hasn’t been trying to get you to do anything stupid, now
has he? Not that you need the excuse...” he ended in a mutter.
Keith O’Bryan looked over at his son with a sort
of weary exasperation and said, “Son, you talk like Vickie’s another person.
She ain’t. She’s just a part of you. Anything that Vickie can do, you can do.
Like Rick said, Vickie could get into Stanford or MIT&T. That means, if you
put your mind to it, so could you. Vic, all this means is that we want you to
do the right thing by yourself: get good grades, go to a good school and make a
real life for yourself. Don’t be a bum, like my idiot brother Kyle, and go
around picking at whatever scraps you can find on the street. Son, if you don’t
pick up your grades in your magic courses, you’re gonna wind up like Artie
Culligan, crawling through the sewers, lookin’ for magical vermin.”
“Hey, you should be glad that you have at least
ONE son who’ll be out there,” Vic returned mulishly, “earning a living, instead
of lollygaging in college, breaking your backs for tuition and expenses.
Besides, Merlin’s a Vocational School - even with Straight A’s, I’d still have
to go to one of those la-de-da Prep schools, like Carolinus, for at least two
years before anyplace like Von Junzt or Toronto Thaumaturgy would even look
either one of me. And you know how much those places cost. Isn’t the cost of
that Prep school you’re sending Rick to breaking your backs enough?”
“We’ll find a way,” Mom said with a sniff that
said that it was already decided, and that he’d better get used to the idea.
“Besides, Father Ethan tells me that if Vickie keeps up the good work and keeps
coming to Mass, that he’ll nominate her for one of those magic scholarships
that the Arch-Diocese is offering.”
Wonderful, Vic said to himself, even my pastor
likes her even more than me.
Then a voice came wafting down the stairs, “Hey,
Moy, I think Himself wants breakfast in bed this morning!” Then Fay came down
into the kitchen proper. Faythleen Lafferty was eleven years younger than her
oldest sister, and was still working it, though it was hard to tell in her
dressing gown and curlers.
“What?” Dad grumped teasingly, “haven’t you
moved out YET?”
“Hey,” she shot back as Moira handed her a cup
of coffee, “at least _I’m_ not still living in my father-in-law’s house!” Then
she saw Vic. “Oh, you’re back! I was beginning to worry!”
“It’s nice to hear that SOMEONE likes me better
than Vickie,” Vic said pettishly.
Fay settled herself down to sip her coffee. “Oh,
I like Vickie, all right. Nice to have another blonde, in this sea of red
hair.” Fay touched a hand to her own curlered blonde hair (Max Vector™ #165,
Malibu Sunshine©). Then, she beamed at Vic. “But you’re still my favorite
nephew!” She leaned over and whispered, “So, is there any chance of scoring any
more of that Rosedew skin lotion?”
Vic thought it over for a moment. “I think so,
but Sewer-babies haven’t been that thick around, for at least a few weeks now.
I might be able to trade around, and get someone to brew some up, but remember,
we’re talking High School Alchemy.”
Fay beamed at him again and tousled his hair.
“Awww, you wouldn’t let anything happen to your dear old auntie, now would
you?”
Mom rather pointedly handed Fay the tray to take
to their demanding father, up in his bed. As Fay mounted the stairs, Mom turned
on Vic. “You shouldn’t encourage her like that. If you stop supplying her with
those damfool youth potions, she might get serious and stop looking for the
perfect Doctor or Lawyer with Old Money parents and an Adonis physique, and
actually settle down with someone REAL.”
Rick paused in shoveling food into his mouth.
“What are you readin’ there, Vic?”
“I’m re-reading Vickie’s notes on her
calculations about all of this.”
“Not nice to read a lady’s diary, Squirt.”
“Hey, it’s MY Journal! I’m hoping that if I look
at this from this side, I’ll see something that she missed. Maybe I can find a
way to keep the bitch in her bottle.”
Mom bridled at this. “Now, don’t you go doing
something-” but it was too late. Tapping into his link with his Mist Fox
familiar, Vic had telported out of the kitchen.
Then, suddenly, he was back. “Sorry! Forgot my
schoolbag!” And then he was gone again.
Mom gave a martyred sigh and reached for the
kitchen phone. “Hello? Mrs. Welles? This is Mrs. O’Bryan. Is Dylan still there?
*****
Vic could only ‘jaunt’ about fifty feet or so at
a clip, but he could string them along in ‘relays’, so that he could cover a
lot of ground quickly. Besides being quick, it was damn hard to catch him like
this. He’d picked up some quick money this way, making deliveries for his Uncle
Kyle.
Of course, there were other applications for his
little knack. Vic made a two-block detour on his way to school. Two of the
eight ley lines that the school tapped into passed through a two story house,
the upper story of which was rented out to Mister Quinton, who was in charge of
the Enchantment lab. Is was common knowledge that Mr. Quinton also did some
experiments of his own, and had a very nice little lab set up in one of the
spare rooms. Vic ducked around a corner, pulled out his Invisibility talisman,
and faded from sight. Once he was sure that he was invisible, he jaunted over
to the back porch that Mr. Quinton used for a front door, and waited.
As per usual, Mr. Quinton came bustling out of
his door, in a hurry to get to school. He was, understandably, rather paranoid
about students getting into the supplies locker at school.
Maybe he should have been more worried about
students getting into his supplies at home.
Vic slipped unseen past Quinton as he fumbled
for his keys to lock the door. Vic stood stock still, waiting for one of
Quinton’s wards, or maybe Quinton’s gnomish familiar to sense him. Nothing. Vic
heard Quinton hurry down the stairs. When the sound of steps on the stairs
stopped, Vic moved very carefully into the room that Quinton used as a lab.
He’d been there before, so he knew that Quinton kept the keys to the storage
locker in a magnetic box under the worktable. He took care to check for any
other traps, before opening the locker.
Yes, there it was, clearly labeled, though in
Latin. Like any kid who’d had to suffer through Catholic School wouldn’t know
that ‘Sanguis Lamia’, meant Lamia’s blood. And Lamia’s blood was just
what he needed. Normally, Vic wouldn’t take this much risk, just for an Ofuda,
but he really needed this one, and at $350 an ounce, there was no way that he
could afford this on his own.
Besides, Mr. Quinton was a teacher, so this was
technically school supplies.
He carefully copied out the magical diagram in
Lamia’s blood, capped the bottle, replaced it, shut the locker and replaced the
keys. There! Done! Now, all he had to do was get out, before Quinton’s familiar
got wind of him.
Fortunately, while Quinton’s wards would have
kept him from jaunting in, there was nothing to keep him from jaunting out.
Still, the little detour had chewed up a lot of
time, so Vic had to keep jaunting to make up for it. But while it’s quick,
moving that way is tiring, and you chance missing an opportunity along the way.
Merlin Vocational, Vic’s school, was located on a nexus of no less than eight
elemental ley lines, with a little help from a system of steering stele. Also,
it was in the direct center of ‘The Pit’, a mysterious very shallow crater
formed when ‘the TV exploded’, but for some bizarre reason didn’t destroy any
of the buildings. The school itself was gematrically designed to focus magical
energies in toward the school. As a result, all the goblins and spooks and
other weird beings in the area were drawn almost magnetically to the school. If
they got onto the school grounds proper, they were school property; but, if you
caught them before they got past the school gates, they were yours to do with
as you saw fit.
Then, Vic heard the soft wailing of a baby. It
was soft, so soft that you really had to strain your ears to hear it. He
tracked the sound to a storm grate that lead down into the sewers. As he craned
around, he just barely managed to make out the form of a weakly crying baby,
wrapped up in a blanket, tragically twitching, reaching out for whatever
comfort it could find.
Well, Vic could hardly just stand by and do
nothing! He jaunted down into the sewer. Following the sounds of the baby’s
crying, he carefully walked through the sewer. He stopped and pulled out a
large blank card and three pieces of colored chalk. He drew a ‘funnel’ and a
circle surrounded by mystic characters. He drew a character on the card and set
in the center of the circle. Then he said, “Boots, SIC IT!”
The Fox familiar charged forward, growling. The
baby suddenly stopped whimpering and looked up, startled. “What the bloody
HELL?” It said in a nasal voice. As Boots sank her sharp teeth into the
‘baby’s’ arm, it looked over and saw Vic striding forward, pulling a long
be-knobbed stick out of his schoolbag. “Aaawww, Maaannn...!”
The Sewer Baby managed to duck between Vic’s
legs, and scampered along as fast as it could on webbed frog’s feet. Its pudgy
little hands were now long claws, and its wide-open mouth was full of long
sharp teeth. It was in such a panic to escape the mageling chasing after it,
that it didn’t notice the ‘funnel’ chalked onto the walkway until it was guided
right on top of the card, where it was trapped.
Vic strolled up and gave the Sewer Baby a brisk
whack on the noggin, which forced the goblin down into the card. Then he picked
up the card and looked at it. The Sewer Baby was now only a two-dimensional
rendition of itself. The picture showed the claws that it used to latch onto
those tenderhearted fools who came down into the sewer to rescue a poor
abandoned infant, and the sharp fangs that it used to suck out the milk of
human kindness. If Vic wanted to, he could call the goblin out, and bend it to
his will. One of the Dueling games pit goblins against each other. Not that he
would use this one in a duel; Sewer Babies were lousy duelers. They were vile
creatures, which relied on what there was of the better side of human nature to
betray people who were rising to a heroic effort. No, better to boil the damn
thing down and reverse its ectoplasmic polarity, so that it became the very
milk of human kindness that it craved. If nothing else, it would make the
Rosedew lotion that Aunt Fay wanted.
Vic jaunted back out of the sewer, and checked
out the markings on the card as he strolled toward school. Well! This was a
juicy one! It must be the last Sewer Baby left in the region, and without all
the competition, it was feeding on suckers right and left. He must try and
isolate the matrix for its ‘Forget-Me-Now’ power; no telling what he could get
away with, with a Forget-Me-Now Talisman. Lucky he heard that cry...
Lucky...
Vic dug around in his schoolbag for his Sorcery
book, and opened it to the Stantz Diagram. Taking note of the time, Vic touched
his finger to halfway between ‘Eight’ and ‘Nine’, and ran it around the edge of
the diagram. Yes, indeed, eleven of the twelve ‘petals’ of the ‘rose’ glowed.
It really was his lucky day!
He pulled out his luckstone, and touched the
connected rabbit’s foot to four of the ‘petals’. The petals faded, and the
luckstone glowed green a little. The problem with lucky days, is that everyone
tries to mooch some good luck off of you, and you never know when you’re going
to need a little good luck. Better to have a little stashed away, where no one
can mooch any off of you. Not too much - no sense in tempting bad luck, even on
a lucky day. Four petals worth left seven petals of good luck, enough for a
smart man to do anything that he needed to do.
With a definite sense that it was going to be a
good day, Vic set across the last few blocks to Merlin High.
Merlin High was specifically designed to be a
magical school. While actual sorcerers had had a large say in such matters as
the location and the direction of the main entrances and such, mundane
architects had designed the rest. Mundane architects who obviously thought that
a magical school should LOOK like a magical school. Merlin Vocational was a
four-story high hollow pentagon, with high hip roofs, and lots of gothic arches
and windows. There were gargoyles and ‘guardian figures’ all over the place, and
God only knew which - if any - of them actually did anything. The main
southward opening entrance was flanked by a pair of very no nonsense looking
female sphinxes (known lovingly by the students as ‘Hilda and Zelda’) and the
main gates to the fence that surrounded the place were guarded by a pair of
Griffins (known as ‘Ruff and Reddy’).
Two boys, one tall and gangly, the other beefy,
were lounging against the pedestal of the griffin known as ‘Reddy’, amusing
themselves making unwonted remarks to girls as they went by. They were chiefly
remarkable because they didn’t have familiars by them, which was because
neither of them had bound a familiar to them. Which was odd, as most students
at Merlin Vocational had familiars. Familiars weren’t just pets, or even
intelligent magical assistants. They were the physical manifestations of the
‘Guardian Forces’ that Mages bound to themselves. With these Guardian Forces,
the Mages could command greater power, and actively tap into the magical forces
of other spirits.
There were, of course, rumors as to why these
two hadn’t bound familiars. First and foremost was that they had tried, and the
spell simply didn’t work, which was the sign of the loser who was going to wind
up doing the grunt work for other, more powerful mages. Another was that they
hadn’t cast the Invitation spell, because they were afraid of what they’d get.
The spell that brings a familiar to a Mage seeks out the being most compatible
to them, and, well, some people got familiars that made even THEM uncomfortable.
Another theory was that they’d cast the spells and the spells had worked, but
for some reason, the familiars never came - which opened up a whole new rather
nasty set of possibilities. And there was the possibility that they had, but
they hadn’t been able to bind the familiars. Vic’s personal theory, never
spoken, was that they had summoned and bound their familiars, but they kept
them at home, because they were embarrassed of them.
“Yo, Guys!” Vic called out as he strode toward
them, “Howcum you didn’t meet me by Dermott’s, like uze?”
‘Long Tom’, the tall one, and ‘Big Ben’, the
hefty one, looked at him and showed glad surprise. “Yo, Vic! You’re back!’
“Oh, Man, how many times am I gonna hear THAT
t’day?” Vic grunted as they shook his hand.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” Long Tom said as he resumed
slouching against the pedestal, “but we weren’t really expectin’ you.”
“Yeah,” Big Ben grunted, “how many days was it
THIS time?”
“Nine and change,” Vic returned.
“Hey,” Long Tom said, “if you gotta go dueling,
do it with yer fox, or a goblin. At least until you get some real power of yer
own, and you can start winnin’. We’re losin’ you for weeks at a stretch, as
is.”
“That’s the problem, Tom, and you know it,” Vic
shot back. “I can’t get more power unless I duel for it and win, but I can’t
win because I don’t have enough power! Every time it looks like I’m starting to
build up some power, that asshole Dylan Welles or one of his buddies comes
along and slaps me down, and takes it!”
“Yep, vicious circle,” Big Ben commiserated.
“You just need to be a little more choosy about
who you pick on - er, I mean, who you select to duel with.”
“Or at least come up with an edge,” Vic sighed.
Long Tom gave Vic a hard look. “Hey, I remember
yesterday, Vickie was in three duels runnin’, and kicked ass. She was slingin’
around some major mojo. Howcum you can’t tap into that?”
Vic grated his teeth. “I dunno, and it’s really
pissing me off. If I could tap into any of that magic that she’s hoarding, I
could kick some serious ass. I just wish that I knew how she was keeping it
from me!”
Tom looked at Vic harder. “Yeah, and while we’re
at it, what’s up with this ‘her’ crap? You ain’t the only guy - or even girl -
at this school who changes sex when they screw up magically, y’know, but
they’re all like, ‘well, it’s me, but with boobs’. But you? It’s like yer one
person as a dude, and annuther as a chick! What are you up to, Man?”
Vic canted his head back, bumping it against the
pedestal. “I don’t KNOW! It’s like I ‘m there, watching over her shoulder, but
I can’t DO anything! And I don’t always get what she’s doing or thinking or
planning! And I KNOW that she’s out to take over!”
Big Ben just glowered, “Sounds schizo t’me.”
“Imagine what it’s like from THIS side,” Vic
growled back.
The Ten-minute bell rang, and they slouched off
to class. As Vic was checking his locker for any surprises, a sleek black cat
walked between his legs and started rubbing against them. Before she could even
lay a hand on his shoulder, Vic asked, “So, waddya want this time, Lexie?”
Alexandra ‘Lexie’ Verlaine leaned against the
bank of lockers with a pout on her sleek kittenish face. “And what makes you
think that I want anything?”
“I’ve seen you work, Lex,” Vic returned, making
sure that his schoolbag was well sealed. After all, misdirection is one of the
classic techniques for slipping a Hex Slip into a mark’s belongings. “But don’t
let that stop you from buttering me up.” He leaned forward with a leer.
Not that Lexie wasn’t worth leering at. At 16,
she was past the ‘awkward stage’ and obviously well on her way to becoming a
real heartbreaker, with long lustrous black hair, large equally lustrous
sapphire blue sloe eyes, full pouting lips and a body-
Vic pulled himself back to the here and now. One
of the problems with spending so much time as a girl, was that he got out of
practice in dealing with his hormones.
“Well, there IS a little something that you
could do for me...”
“And what pray tell, is it?”
“Well, you know Donna Sachs, in the Morning
Session? Well, she’s been talking trash about me, and well, I thought that I’d
teach her a lesson...”
Vic raised his eyebrows. “Well, why didn’t you
SAY so? I’m all about payback!”
Lexie reached into an envelope and pulled out a
strip of paper, about the size of a dollar bill. “I’d like you to slip this to
her. She’s expecting something from ME, but you’re so good at this sort of
thing...”
Vic pulled a plastic clothespin from a pocket
and took the slip. He read it carefully, just in case Lexie had something
nastier that a little practical joke in mind, and was looking to set up Vic to
take the fall for it. “Lessee now -- I don’t see anything particularly nasty
about this --“ He spared Lexie a look. “What does it do?”
Lexie gave him a wide, toothy and rather evil
grin. “It’s the ‘Double Talk’ spell. Whenever she says anything, a second voice
will repeat what she says, but it will say what she REALLY means.”
Vic grinned in appreciation. “oohhh... Very Niiiccceee...
No physical damage, but she’ll be convicted by her own words. Just a sec.” He
pulled a talisman out of his schoolbag. “Now, where would she be right now?”
“In the central courtyard, near the southwest
entrance, yakking with her buddies, trashing someone else’s reputation.”
“Okay, just a sec.” Vic appeared to step into a
classroom, but when Lexie opened the door, he was nowhere to be seen. Lexie
nodded in appreciation. None of this juvenile ‘See? I can teleport!’ crap. And,
if she was right, the talisman that he’d pulled out was an invisibility
talisman. Invisibility and teleportation were a remarkably effective
combination, blending the best of the two techniques, while canceling out each
other’s glaring flaws.
She picked up Chandra, her cat familiar, and
petted her as she waited by the locker. It was getting close to class time,
when Vic suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. “Boo!”
“Oh!” Lexie jumped, more out of politeness than
shock. “Did you get it to her?”
Vic nodded smugly. “Wait until after she picks
up her books, and then hit her with your questions.”
Lexie gave him a half-exasperated,
half-disappointed look. “In her BOOKS? Is that the best that you can do?”
“Hey,” he defended himself, “EVERYONE watches
their books, just because it IS such an obvious ploy, which is why it’s so
artistic - they were watching, but I still got it to her, anyway. She’ll never
see it coming, Lex.”
She grinned in appreciation. “They were all
watching, and you STILL managed to slip it into her book?”
Vic just spread his hands and grinned in a ‘what
can I say? I’m GOOD!’ gesture. Then he leaned in and grinned again. “So, how
about returning the favor, and going with me over to Pop Tate’s™ after school?”
Pop Tate’s was the local unit of a national franchise of ‘Ice Cream Fountains’
done in the 1940’s style. They also sold regular fast food and such, but they
were designed to be hangouts, with comfortable booths, an old fashioned ‘juke
box’ loaded with the latest hits, and so on.
Lexie gave him a voluptuous grin. “Y’know, Red,
if you start actually WINNING a few duels, I just might do that. But as it is,
well, a girl is only as hot as those she hangs out with.” With a merry wave of
her hand, Lexie went off to confront Donna Sachs before class.
Vic looked after Lexie sourly. The hell of it
was, he agreed with her. Hanging with a hot chick like Lexie was just begging
for some mojo’d up asshole to start something up in the parking lot. While the
Dueling Circles might limit his moves, they kept him from getting seriously
hurt, too. And while a street duel was much lower powered, they were deadly
serious. As a rule of thumb, he, Long Tom and Big Ben avoided street duels. Not
because they were scared, but because they weren’t dumb enough to get into
fights that they knew they couldn’t win.
He had to start winning duels. Duels were the
best way to build up your power. It didn’t matter how many goblins you
captured, or how powerful your ‘Guardian Force’ was; in a duel, the real thing
that mattered was your personal power. If you lost a duel, you still gained a
little power, but it was only a fraction of what you’d gain if you won. Also, if
you won, you got to claim a prize from the loser - magical energy, luck, or
even the magical ‘matrixes’ that goblins use to create their magical effects.
Unfortunately, Vic was near the bottom of the
Dueling Lists, and neither Tom nor Ben were even ON the list. But he had an
idea to do something about that.
Vic was in the Afternoon Session, which meant
that he took his magical classes in the afternoon, and the normal, mundane
classes - Math, History, Civics and so on - in the morning. They were able to
cram all that into less time than the mundane schools were and still be able to
turn out some of the highest scores in the school system, because the Teachers
routinely used Teaching spells, and the students routinely used various
Learning Spells. Vic’s class were only High School Sophomores, but they were
learning Information Field Theory, dissecting the interplay of Religious
Doctrine in the political struggles between Central Authority and Feudal
Privilege in the 17th Century, and examining the effects of ‘Virtual
Town Halls’ on the downshift of political power from the Federal to the State
and Local levels. Even slackers like Vic, Long Tom, and Big Ben already had
sufficient educations that could have gotten them into the best colleges in the
country - IF they weren’t Mages.
But things were different for Mages, and
everyone knew it. By and large, people regarded magic as a cheat. Only 15% of
the population were susceptible to the magical ‘infection’, and only a third of
those were able to control their magic well enough to be considered Mages. And
the Vast Mundane Majority may not have been having huge national nightmares
about becoming subject to a Magical Elite, but people were definitely touchy on
the subject. So, in order to ‘protect’ the majority, the Courts had interpreted
already existing ‘Unfair Business Practice’ and ‘Unfair Advantage’ laws to
effectively freeze Mages out of almost everything that didn’t already directly
involve Magic. They argued that what non-magical restaurant could compete with
a restaurant that used magical allure to keep customers coming, no matter how
bad the food? And any whiff of Magic in Politics was the kiss of death for a
movement, let alone a candidate - the voters hated the idea that they were
being magically tricked into voting a certain way. Vickie couldn’t even help
her brothers study, (not that Vic ever bothered), by using Learning spells on
them, because it might ‘taint’ their test scores. Almost 40% of all Magic
practiced was to make sure that no other Mages were pulling fast ones.
As Vic walked into Civics Class, Mrs. Berigarde
gave him the cold fish eye. “Oh, it’s you.” Vic just smiled sourly at her - he
wished that he could have given her some lip, like normal kids could after
being dissed that way, but Merlin High teachers had very fast and effective -
not to mention painful - ways of maintaining discipline in the classroom. “I
suppose that you’ll be taking your usual seat at the back of the room?” she
continued.
Vic sketched a salute at her and went to the
back row. When Berigarde called the class to order, the students all cast their
Learning spells. Every student had their own learning spell; Vic’s was a
‘listen with one ear and let if filter in, while I do something else’ spell. As
Berigarde droned on about ‘Media Saturation’ and ‘Information Overload’, he
carefully traced a Challenge Slip out of his Enchantment textbook. The Dueling
Club had very strict challenging guidelines for duels, to keep the more
powerful from taking unfair advantage of the average students. Among other
things, Year and Ranking mattered as to whether a challenge would be accepted.
And there was the matter of what was being wagered, as well - there were rules
to keep the winners from demanding things that the losers couldn’t afford to
lose. But these challenge slips were a way around the usual red tape. They were
a variation on the Hex Slips, like the one that he’d slipped to Donna Sachs for
Lexie. They were sort of a curse, and as such they had to be resolved as
quickly as possible. But even this wasn’t foolproof - the Dueling Club had ways
around these things, but Vic doubted that his mark would kick up a fuss - at
least not until it was too late.
Vic had just finished filling out the forms
properly when the half-hour class ended, and Mrs. Berigarde started assigning
the homework. Berigarde watched him as he left the class, but didn’t say
anything about him doing magic work in class, like she usually did. Odd.
Vic jaunted around the halls until he found
Charlie Wannamaker. “Yo, Chuck!”
“Yo, Vic! You’re back!”
“That’s what they keep telling me. So, you got
those comic books that I asked you for?”
“Yeah, I've still got ‘em, and you’re damn lucky
that I do.”
“Hey, I've been, ah, ‘out of town’.” Chuck
handed Vic the comics, and Vic started hastily flipping through them. “Right.
Right. Right. Cool. Okay. Okay, not perfect, but definitely, it will do. And
what about that ‘special order’?”
Chuck beamed and pulled a vacuum-sealed plastic
wrapped copy of a comic book. “One perfectly counterfeited copy of the classic Southern
Belle #24, the ‘Magnificent Chrysalis’ issue, copied directly from my
brother’s collection.” Vic reverently took the forgery and paid Chuck off.
“So, what’s all the sudden interest? You gonna
be pulling a Chelkiss on us?” Chuck indicated with a jerk of his head as
Chelkiss walked by. Darryl Chelkiss was the kind of Comics Geek that made other
comics fans embarrassed by their hobby. Not only was he the archetypal pudgy
bespectacled nerd who only kept his acne under control with heavy application
of magic, but he was walking through the halls ‘in costume’. While he was still
technically in school uniform, he wore a copy of the cape that Dr. Strange ©
had, there was a green glowing ‘lantern’-shaped ring on his right index finger,
he had a Batman © style utility belt around his commodious waist, and a gold
metal visor, in the style of the X-Men’s © Cyclops © over his glasses. The only
reason that he wasn’t mercilessly heckled in the hallways was that he was #12
in the Dueling Club’s rankings, and he was heavily favored to move up into the
Top Ten. And the dorky looking accessories had a lot to do with it.
“Yes and No,” was all that Vic said. In a school
for magic, the only place to keep a secret was inside your skull.
And it’s not always safe even there.
*****
Vic spent the next class carefully trimming
panels out of the comics that he’d bought. In the pause before the next period,
Long Tom came up to him. “What are you up to, Vic? Paper Dollies?”
“Tom, I’m ashamed for you!” Vic returned with an
evil grin. “You should know better! Watch and learn, Junior.”
For once, Vic was the first one in the
classroom. He still beat it to his usual seat in the rear, but he made sure
that he could easily be seen from the doorway. He opened up the vacuum-sealed
plastic sleeve, and deposited the counterfeit comic book on top of a small
stack of comics. Then he idly started leafing through the latest issue of The
Sizzling Southern Belle. For the articles, you understand.
Sure enough, the lure of the comic books
practically dragged Chelkiss all the way from the door to the back of the
classroom. “So, wha’cha got there, Vic?” Chelkiss asked ingenuously.
Vic ignored him, apparently engrossed in his
comic.
Chelkiss spotted the coveted copy of Southern
Belle, and you could see his eyes widen under the visor. Quietly,
slowly, his hand crept to the famous issue where the classic character’s entire
life changed so dramatically. His hand was a mere fraction of an inch from the
cover, when he heard, “Don’t touch that.”
“I wasn’t going to touch it.”
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you, not to go
around grabbing other people’s stuff?” Vic pointedly took the stack of comics
and moved it to the shelf under his chair. Chelkiss stalked sullenly over to
his usual chair near the front of the class.
Long Tom leaned over and whispered, “Okay, what
was all THAT all about?”
Vic held up a finger. “The ball is still in
play.”
When the class was over, Vic reached under his
chair, and---
-- the ultra-desirable collectable comic book
was gone. Vic grinned. “Good Boy. I knew that you had it in you, Chelkiss.”
As he and Vic walked to their next class, Long
Tom asked, “Okay, NOW what?”
“Wait for it.”
They were halfway to Science class, when
Chelkiss stormed up to them. “And WHAT is THIS?” He all but rammed the
Challenge Slip up Vic’s nose.
“Well, I’m not that nearsighted, but I’d say
that it was a Challenge Slip,” Vic returned, blandly.
“And WHY didn’t you just challenge me
face-to-face, instead of slipping this into that bogus comic book?”
“Because I didn’t think that you’d have the guts
to accept an open challenge.”
“WHAT?” Chelkiss hyperventilated. “Not only am I
gonna accept, but I’m gonna whip your smartass butt so bad, that you’ll be a
girl for the rest of your LIFE!” With that, Chelkiss tore up the challenge
slip, turned and stalked off, his cape billowing out behind him.
“THAT was your big plan?” Tom asked
incredulously. “Get one of the heaviest hitters in school pissed off and then
get into a dueling ring with him?”
“Of course!” Vic breezed. “First, like you said,
he’s pissed; he’s concentrating on beating me up, rather than on winning the
duel. Second, he’s at a disadvantage - the crux of this duel is that he stole
my property. And, naturally, being Chelkiss, he’d rather commit hara-kiri with
a power tool than admit it, so he’s only making it worse for himself. Third,
since it’s a Hex Challenge, it has to be taken care of ASAP, so it’ll be kicked
up on the Challenge Lists to get it out of the way.”
“And why is getting this Duel out of the way
fast so important?”
“I’ve noticed Welles and his buddies keeping
their eyes on me. I think they’re gonna pull something, and I wanna have
something of Chelkiss’ on my side when they do it. And lastly-” He carefully
picked up the shreds of the Challenge Slip, “-he’s so angry that he never
bothered to check what the wager was.”
*****
In Math class, which was the only one of the
mundane classes that Vic actually had to pay attention in, the teacher was
handing out a worksheet. As was usual, she gave a stack of them to the kid in
the front row, who took the one on the top and handed it back. You know the
drill. By the time that it got to Vic in the back row, somehow someone had
stuck a Challenge Slip to the back of the very last page.
Fnark.
There was no way that he could get out of Math
class and foist it off onto someone else. Maybe he could complain to the
Dueling Club leadership that this guy was exploiting the Duels to take
advantage of a much weaker player. But passing Hex Slips and Challenge slips to
each other was regarded as a form of training. There were people out in the
Real World who were passing around things a lot nastier than 'Double Talk’
spells, and learning how to avoid such things was something that you just
couldn’t learn in a classroom. But, there were rules to the Duels, so that
people wouldn’t clutter up the waiting lists with predatory challenges. Which,
admittedly, was exactly what he was doing with Chelkiss. But Chelkiss was
almost in the Top Ten, so no one would take that seriously, even if Chelkiss’
ego would let him complain. But if this guy was ranked high enough... He
checked the particulars on the slip. Doug Hammersmith... Student ID number...
Sophomore... Club Ranking--- 56. Shit, Hammersmith was a mid-range duelist,
there was no way that he could weasel his way out of it.
*****
Vic headed out to the Inner Courtyard as soon as
the Lunch Break started. It was best to Duel on an empty stomach. At the center
of the courtyard inside the pentagonal building was a statue of Merlin - or at
least, a sculptor’s idea of what Merlin looked like, staff in hand, the other
hand raised in a cryptic gesture, an owl on his shoulder and wolf at his feet.
Not that anyone really knew what the real Merhyddin looked like, or if he even
really existed. Arranged around the base of the statue were the five Dueling
Rings.
The dueling rings were a set of magical diagrams
that the students used to have their duels, without the magical effects
slipping out and endangering anyone. There were five of them, arranged around
Merlin’s statue. They were set there so that they could tap into the magical
energy that the school’s design concentrated in toward Merlin’s statue. Besides
allowing the duelers to use the freer energy, there were enchantments that
softened the ‘blow’ of the magic casts. While the duelists could wail at each
other and render each other unconscious, no real lasting physical damage was
done. Thus relieving the school of liability from lawsuit, while still letting
the students hone their skills. The circles were about ten feet in diameter.
The outer ring was a Zodiac circle, and the inner ring was the eight
permutations of Tao. The circle was quartered along a North- West- South- East
axis, and separated into a Tao design.
But the most important thing was that they were
almost always booked way ahead. People were always challenging each other over
one thing or another, mostly as an excuse to get in dueling practice. Still,
the excuses could get pretty involved. Vic walked up to Joy Michelson, the
Dueling Club president. “Yo, Michelson! Where are Chelkiss and I in the
lineup?”
The perky blonde looked up from her PDA. “You’re
fighting Chelkiss, O’Bryan? How did that happen?”
“Hex Slip.”
She looked at him. “Chelkiss is ranked number 12
- if you don’t wanna go through with this, I can slap him on the wrist and
disallow the challenge without any penalty to you.”
“Ah, thanks, but no thanks. Chelkiss didn’t hex
me, I hexed HIM. So, did it get registered?”
“YOU hexed one of the toughest duelists at this
school? Why?”
“Would you believe that I suddenly understood
what this school was trying to teach, and that I’m trying to realize my full
potential?”
“No.”
“Would you believe that I was suddenly overcome
by a driving urge to show that I really had the stuff to be a champion
duelist?”
“No.”
“Would you believe that I’m trying to show a
really cute girl that I’m a guy that should be taken seriously, so she’ll date
me?”
“No.”
“Would you believe that I’m trying to pull an
underhanded stunt and make a quick score?” Vic muttered, rather deflated.
“Now, THAT I believe!” Joyce checked him off on
her PDA. “But, since you’re going up against someone ranked at least a hundred
places higher than you, it should be educational - or at least entertaining -
so I’ll allow it. Okay, you and Chelkiss are slot three on Circle B. As
challenger, you enter from the West.”
Vic got in line for the West entrance to Circle
B. The first duel ate up a lot of his lunch break, because it was a couple of
Top Twenty types showing off, fighting to a knockout. When the loser was hauled
out of the circle, even the winner was looking ragged. The second duel wasn’t
as bad - it was a friendly duel between a couple of girls giving their GFs a
workout; no real wager, and it was only to the first pin. The Guardian Forces,
or ‘GFs’, were the greater spirits behind the familiars, which give Mages the
raw power to perform the really kickass effects.
The girls walked out of the circle together
chatting gaily. Even their familiars looked better for a good tussle. Vic
walked out onto the white dot in the black half of the Tao design, and Chelkiss
walked onto the black dot across from him. Slyboots waited outside the ring for
Vic, and Chelkiss’ familiar, a particularly stupid looking blue monkey wearing
a yellow shirt and purple cape, waited on the other side.
Aaron Tran, Circle B’s duel ref, said, “You guys
ready?”
“Just a sec.” Vic took off his school blazer and
tie and threw them to Big Ben, who was watching along with Long Tom at the
sidelines. “Ready!”
Chelkiss was clipping a pair of golden wing
things to his heels. That done, he pulled a pair of long red gloves on his
hands, making sure that the ‘Green Lantern’ ring was still over the cloth, and
slipped a golden domino mask over his glasses. He finished by reaching into his
utility belt and pulling out a disk the size of a CD and a small hammer.
“Ready!”
Aaron tapped his staff of authority three times
on the circle and snapped, “Begin!”
As was part of the ritual, both Vic and Chelkiss
went through their ‘Totemic Posturing’. While their familiars were physically
outside the circle, and unable to directly help, the Guardian Forces still
resided inside them. Large archetypal images of the GFs flared up beside them.
Behind Vic, a huge fox redolent of the mystery and danger of the night coiled
and bared fangs of lightning. Vic held up both hands, full of Ofudas glowing
with power. Ofudas are spell slips, similar to the Hex Slips, but unlike the
hex slips, they didn’t need to be accepted by a person to work. The downside
was, that while a Hex slip would work, an Ofuda only might work,
depending on the target’s power and concentration.
Behind Chelkiss, an enormous purple gorilla
reared up, arms held high, and roared. The domino mask on Chelkiss’ face became
a full golden Greek helmet. The clasp on his cape suddenly opened and an
uncanny eye blinked. The hammer trinket in his right hand became a large
squarish gray metal hammer that crackled with lightning. The disk in his off
hand became a large round shield with a white star on a blue disk as the boss,
surrounded by concentric circles of red-white-red. The long red gloves grew
black spider webs along them, and the ring glowed with green power. The two
golden wings clipped to his ankles became a pair of yellow boots. Somehow,
despite the patchwork superhero look, Chelkiss didn’t look quite so stupid
anymore.
Chelkiss made the mistake of mimicking his GF’s
roaring posture, which gave Vic the perfect opening. Vic picked the Ofuda with
the Word of Mist written in the Low Script on it. The Word of Mist glittered in
foxfire for a second, and then Vic appeared to explode in a cloud of smoke.
Chelkiss thrust his right fist forward, a beam of green light erupting from the
‘power ring’. But the beam only scattered mist, making the smoke screen spread
quicker. Chelkiss felt a *ping!* as someone flicked a
finger against the back of his helmet. Chelkiss spun around, sending another
green beam lancing at the wards of the circle.
“In the brightest day, in the darkest night...”
Chelkiss spun around sending blast after blast into the mist, trying to keep
Vic from sneaking up behind him, as a beam of light from the amulet pierced the
mists, searching for Vic. Too late - Vic was already right behind him, and
moved with him. As Chelkiss blasted at nothing, Vic pulled two of the clippings
that he’d cut out of the comic books from the ‘fans’ of Ofudas. One was a
frontal head-shot of DC’s Dr Fate©, and the other one was of Marvel’s competing
super-mage, Dr Strange©, in rather dire straights. He pulled out a yellow
marker and marked over the eyeslits of Dr Fate’s helmet. He attached the
clipping to an Ofuda with the Word of Blindness written on it. Then he attached
the clipping with Dr Strange to an Ofuda with the Word of Binding on it. That
done, he tapped Chelkiss on the shoulder.
Chelkiss spun around again, but Vic stepped
inside his reach and slapped the Ofuda squarely on Chelkiss’ brow. Immediately,
the eye slits in his own helmet sealed over. “What the fuck?”
As Chelkiss paused to wrap his brain around it,
Vic slapped the other Ofuda on his shoulder. Chelkiss’ cloak wrapped itself
around him, snaring him as Dr. Strange’s cape did in the clipping.
Vic moved away from Chelkiss as he struggled,
and moved to behind and just to the side of him. As Chelkiss wriggled, Vic took
his yellow marker and attuned it to his energies.
It occurred to Vic that Chelkiss might suspect
something if he didn’t take advantage of this golden opportunity. So, he threw
a couple of Battlestars at Chelkiss’ helmet.
Finally, Chelkiss got it together and cut
himself out of his own cloak with energy lances from his power ring. As
Chelkiss’ right hand came out of the shreds of the cloak and rose up to take
the blindered helmet off, Vic pointed the marker at the power ring, and sent
out a spray of yellow paint that totally covered the entire hand - and ring.
Chelkiss managed to get the helmet off, looked
at it and threw it to the ground with a curse. Hearing Vic snicker, Chelkiss
spun around again and jabbed his fist out. And saw his paint smeared hand. As
Chelkiss reacted, Vic threw an Ofuda with the Word of Wind on it at him,
sending Chelkiss flying up into the air. Chelkiss came down with a resounding *thud!*,
and as he was recovering, Vic darted out of the mist, grabbed the ‘Eye of
Aggamotto’ from the shreds of his cloak and threw it out of the circle. Then,
Vic retreated into the mists.
“Fucking smartass...” Chelkiss snarled as he
touched the palms of his hands with his middle fingers, sending sprays of a
webbing-like adhesive out into the mist.
“Bad Move, Darryl,” Vic snickered, and from
where he snickered a barrage of Battlestars came at the other boy.
Chelkiss zipped out of the path to the chain of
strikes. Then he realized that he had a way of dealing with the mist. “Okay,
you think you’re clever? Let’s see you deal with THIS!” Chelkiss tucked his
head behind his shield, and concentrated on running as fast as he could. Either
he’d run smack into the smartass hiding in the mist, or he’d dispel the mist
and have a clear shot at the bastard. After all, it was only a ten-foot radius
circle. He got up some speed, but then something threw him to the ground.
Looking back to where he’d been thrown, he spotted his boots stuck to a glob of
webbing. As he reeled, yet another Ofuda hit him, this one with a clipping of
Spiderman’s hands touching the triggers of his web-shooters, and a balloon
saying “Nuts! They’re Jammed!” And there was a ‘fthpt’ sound from his gloves
that echoed the sound effect in the panel.
Okay, Chelkiss thought to himself, that didn’t
work, but clearing this circle is still a good idea. He got to his feet and
pulled the hammer from his belt. Bracing himself, he whirled the hammer around,
until he stirred up a stiff breeze that cleared the circle of the mist. As the
mist cleared, Chelkiss caught sight of a crouched figure, and let the hammer
fly. The hammer hit the two-dimensional figure square in the chest, and totally
shredded it.
Then he felt a tap on his shoulder again.
“Excuse me, but are you by any chance, the Mighty Thor ©?”
“No, of course not! What-”
Vic pulled to the side. “Behind You!”
Chelkiss turned just in time to see the hammer
as it smacked him square in the chest. The force of the blow sent him back to
the very edge of the circle’s wards, and the hammer landed on top of him.
Chelkiss grunted and strained, but he couldn’t budge the hammer that was
crushing his chest. “What...the...Hell...did...you...do?”
Vic kneeled down by Chelkiss. “Oh, me? I didn’t
do anything - YOU did. You magicked up that hammer so that it’s Mjolnir, the
Mighty Thor’s hammer. AND, as anyone who’s read comic books - or actual Norse
mythology - can tell you, Mjolnir has Odin’s blessing that only Thor can lift
it. And you just finished stating flat out that you are NOT the Mighty Thor©.
Y’can’t have it both ways, Chelkiss...”
“Can’t...lift it. Can’t...breathe...” Chelkiss
gasped.
“Well,” Vic said in the Voice of Extreme Reason,
“you could always admit defeat. The second that you tap out, the magic stops.”
“Up yours, Loser!” Chelkiss snarled. He focused
his will, and the hammer diminished to its original trinket state.
Before Chelkiss could get up, Vic plucked the
trinket from his chest and threw it out of the ring. Chelkiss hurried to his
feet. “Okay,” Chelkiss said, breathing heavily, “you’re good. A lot better than
I expected...but I have,” he reached for his utility belt-
-Which Vic was holding up. “I, ah, took the
liberty of relieving you of it while you were concentrating on breathing.” With
a grin, Vic tossed it out of the ring as well. “MAN, I hope someone is keeping
tabs on those things.”
Vic produced another pair of fans of ofudas with
a flourish. He looked at Chelkiss. “Y’know, Chelkiss, your real weakness as a
duelist is that you rely too heavily on tools. The only tool you've got left is
that ‘Captain America©’ shield. I admit, it’s a damn GOOD tool. But, it can
only block attacks from one direction at a time - IF you manage to block it.
And I've got a LOT of ofudas here. Why don’t you save me some time, and
yourself some embarrassment and pain, and just give up?”
“Give up?” Chelkiss snarled.
“Y’know, Darryl, you’re taking this WAY too
personal.”
“Why should I give up?” Chelkiss yelped. “Tools?
You think I need TOOLS? I don’t even need this shield! I was going easy on you!
Why should I rely on TOOLS, when I have my Ace in the hole?” He clutched at his
chest, pulling apart his blazer, shirt and tie to reveal under all that a blue
undershirt with a red ‘S’ in a pentagonal shield.
“The Original! The Greatest! The Unsurpassed!
The most POWERFUL superhero of them all! Now feel my POWER!” The red ‘S’ glowed
with magical power and Chelkiss began to grow larger and more muscular. His
round face got longer and more regular, and his jaw gained a heroic definition.
His curly brown hair became blue-black and a curling lock formed over his
forehead. He almost outgrew his clothing, which just barely kept up with his
expanding chest. “WELL? Take your best shot!” he shouted in a deep, commanding
voice.
As Chelkiss was going through his metamorphosis,
Vic calmly attached yet another clipping to the Ofuda that he’d made with
Lamia’s blood, at Mr. Quinton’s place. “Okay, Darryl, if you insist.” He tossed
the Ofuda at Chelkiss’ feet. The Ofuda twisted and folded itself into the form
of a large, featureless purple humanoid with green trunks. “Well? Let’s see how
you do against that.”
Chelkiss aimed his heat vision at the paper
figure, but it didn’t catch on flame. Instead, it advanced on him. He threw a
punch that should have shredded it, but it just bounced off. Then he noticed
that he was getting tired. But he had magical energy flowing through his entire
body - there was no way that he should be feeling tired! Then it hit him - this
figure was somehow draining all of his super power out of him!
Vic saw the realization cross Chelkiss’ face.
“Oh, Chelkiss?” he spoke up, “Original? Yep. Greatest? Definitely! Unsurpassed?
Iffy. But most powerful? Hardly. Meet ‘The Parasite ©’, one of Superman’s
deadliest enemies. As you’ve probably realized, he has the ability to absorb
all kinds of energy thrown at him. He particularly likes to slurp up Superman’s
power.” The ‘Parasite’ conjuration grabbed Chelkiss and got him in a headlock.
“But, I guess that you’ve figured that one out by now.”
As he felt more and more of his magical power
drain out of him, a desperate thought occurred to Chelkiss. The conjuration
might be based on a pattern that was very effective against him, but it was
still only a conjuration. With a croak, he uttered the Word of Dispelling in
the High Speech - a very dangerous thing to do, as he didn’t have anything like
a mastery of the High Speech. The purple conjuration shredded, freeing all the
stored up magical power.
Chelkiss valiantly reached out for the raw
magical power that hung in the air like livid smoke, but it was too late. Vic
calmly reached into his pocket and produced an uncharged powerstone. As
Chelkiss flayed about trying to gather up some of the free power, Vic matter of
factly swept up the raw manna and bound it into the stone. “Damn nice of you,
Chelkiss!”
Chelkiss gritted his teeth and focused entirely
on getting up. He reached out into the ambient energy of the circle and drew it
into himself. He used the ‘S’ on his chest as his matrix and forced raw magical
power through his frame - which he hated doing, because it gave him acid
indigestion like you wouldn’t believe. He climbed to his feet and trumpeted,
“Well, any MORE tricks?”
“Don’t be ridiculous - OF COURSE I have more!”
Vic waved two ofudas with clippings attached, one in each hand, and the papers
metamorphosed into large chunks of glowing, transparent green crystal.
Pain swept over Chelkiss. “No! How-”
“Oh, Please! If you can be Superman, then there
MUST be Kryptonite©! And if you’re Superman, and I’m holding some Kryptonite,
then, well, your azz is grazz, Chazz!”
Chelkiss was on the ground, agonizing. “How -
how did you know? You’d have had to prepare --- it --- beforehand ---”
“What? Like this is some big secret?” Vic asked
incredulously. “You go around wearing that stupid blue shirt under a thin white
shirt, and you expect no one to notice? Talk about Magical Thinking!”
Chelkiss didn’t answer - he’d passed out. Mrs.
Roker, the faculty supervisor, tapped the staff of authority three times on the
ring, ending the duel. Consensual Reality re-asserted itself, Chelkiss faded
from a fallen (and rather green-tinged) paragon of power to an exhausted and
flushed overweight boy, and the two chunks of astronomically impossible crystal
dwindled to mere pieces of paper.
Mrs. Roker walked in and checked on Chelkiss.
“You’ll live. You tried to win by absorbing energy from the Circle?” He nodded
weakly. “Well, that explains it - it only made the ‘Kryptonite poisoning’ more
real for your metabolism. Go sit down, and I wouldn’t accept any challenges for
at least a week.”
“Excuse me?” Vic interjected. “First things first - the wager.”
“What are you talking about?” Chelkiss whined.
“You got the energy that your Parasite thing drained from me. Isn’t that enough
power for you?”
“No,” Vic explained reasonably, “that was a
by-product of the duel, not the wager. The wager was for one of your matrixes.”
“My Matrixes?” Chelkiss hugged the bits and
pieces that had been returned to him possessively. “I never agreed to anything
like that!”
“Yes, you did.” Vic produced the Challenge slip,
and though it had been restored, you could see the tears from when Chelkiss had
ripped it apart. “You accepted this challenge, in front of a witness.” Vic
indicated Long Tom. “And, it says right here - ‘Nature of Wager: Matrix for
Matrix’. Now, do you admit accepting this challenge?”
Chelkiss nodded, though it looked like he’d
rather be chewing glass. “So, which matrix do you want?”
Vic’s eyes sparkled with barely subdued greed.
“That one - the shield.” He pointed at the tri-color disk in Chelkiss’ hand.
“The Shield? But --- that’s one of my BEST!”
“Well, SHUH!” Vic shot back, “Do you honestly
think that I’d go through all of this for a third rate bit of work? Chelkiss,
you are the BEST at Matrix-working; take it as a compliment!” Vic pulled out a
blank amulet and held it out. Chelkiss reluctantly touched his disk to the
amulet. The disk lost its red-white-and-blue, which passed over to the amulet.
Vic gave a passing thought to altering the Matrix’s rather dorky appearance,
maybe tweak it so that the protection wasn’t quite so limited. But no, as he’d
said, Chelkiss was one of the best at Matrix-work; if he messed with the
shield, he’d probably screw it up.
“Well!” Mrs. Roker broke in, “Now that the
crasser aspects have been taken care of, I’d like to congratulate Mister
O’Bryan on an excellent duel!” She turned to the other kids
standing around, waiting their turns. “I want you all to remember this! This
was a classic example of how a less powerful combatant can take down a
more powerful opponent, using planning, preparation, and careful analysis!
Victor studied his opponent carefully and saw not only his weakness and
limitations, but ways that his strengths could be used against him! He took
control of the situation at the very onset, and kept Mr. Chelkiss off balance
throughout the fight. This is almost a textbook example of the adage that
there’s no such thing as a perfect defense!”
Vic wondered why Roker was being so nice. Yeah,
it was a good duel, but -
“As a matter of fact, I’m so impressed that
besides the Ranking upgrade that you’d get for beating a much higher ranked
opponent, I’m also adding on bonus points for ingenuity, planning, and
excellent use of the Rules of Theme and Balance. With those bonus points,
Mister O’Bryan, you come screaming out of the cellar, and well into the
mainstream of competition!”
The mainstream of competition... In other words,
well out of the ‘protected’ status that the losers in the cellar enjoyed. So,
now he was fair game for anyone that wanted to take a crack at him. He’d
planned to rise, but he wanted to take a few more carefully planned strikes
before getting completely out of the cellar. Vic felt the dull thud of a dagger
burying itself deeply in his back. He was in deep shit, if the teachers were
ganging up on him.
Vic spotted Lexie on the sidelines giving him a
cheer. He started to move out of the circle, when Aaron stopped him. “Hold on,
we have another Hex challenge to resolve, remember? Might as well get it out of
the way, while you’re still in the circle.”
“Hunh? But I just got through with a fight. I thought that I’d get
some lunch and chill before the next match.” And soak in some victory, before
he had to risk it all going up against Hammersmith.
“Sorry, that’s the way these things work - you
got in early with a Hex challenge, so you gotta take care of the next one. Yo!
Hammersmith! You here?”
“Yo!” came back over the crowd. Doug Hammersmith
pushed his way through the line. Doug was a thin boy, with a long thin face and
long floppy dirty blonde hair.
“Hey, Hammersmith!” Vic called, “What’s up? I
mean, I hexed Chelkiss, lookin’ to work my way up the list, but what did I ever
do to you?” Which was a legit question. While Vic knew Doug, mostly in passing
in the halls, they only had a few classes together, and Vic couldn’t remember
having ever crossed him.
“What did you ever do to me?” Hammersmith
echoed, “Hey, if you can’t remember, then I’m not gonna tell you!”
“‘If you can’t remember, then I’m not gonna tell
you’?” Vic hooted, “Doug, you been spendin’ a lot of time on the other side of
the gender gap? That’s Chick-think!”
“Yeah, well, you should know - you spend most’a
yer time in skirts these days!”
“Are saying that that makes me lame?” Vic cupped
his hands and yelled out past the circle. “Hey! Everyone who changes Sex!
Dougie here thinks you’re LAME!” Vic folded his arms across his chest and
grinned at Hammersmith. “Well, I wish you well, on your future career as a lawn
gnome.”
Aaron clapped his hands briskly. “Enough
sparkling banter! We have people who want to duel lined up here!”
Hammersmith produced an odd looking gnarled
stick from his jacket - probably had a ‘Deep Pockets’ spell on the jacket - and
tapped it in his off hand. Vic noticed that the knob at the end of the stick
resembled a balled up fist. And Vic also noticed that Hammersmith’s familiar -
a Mandrake, a small gnarled humanoid that looked like a cartoon tree with legs
and a full head of leafy ‘hair’ that cascaded down its back - had one arm that
was much smaller than the other. While it looked like the Mandrake wasn’t in
pain and growing a fully functional arm back, it sort of queased Vic out that anyone
could dismember their own Familiar like that.
Which was probably the whole idea.
The familiars did their ‘Totemic Posturing’ bit.
The mandrake grew into the Great Granddaddy of all Oaks, and was still damn
impressive, even without the usual screams or roars.
Still, the Great Oak gave Vic more than a few
problems. After Chelkiss, he’d expected to face off against Dylan Welles, or
his buddy Jase Constantine. Welles had a Griffin familiar and Constantine had a
large Raven; one Fire & Air biased elementally, the other Air biased. Most
of the effects that he had prepared were Water based, and he was so busy
getting ready for Chelkiss, that he hadn’t had time to prep for Hammersmith.
And even if he had, he hadn’t known about the mandrake. Mandrakes were the next
best things to Wood elementals. Throwing Water biased effects at a Wood-attuned
elemental would have been like throwing gasoline on a Fire elemental.
Somehow, Vic suspected that Hammersmith hadn’t
been chosen by drawing names out of a hat.
Vic charged up his Ofudas and his Shield matrix.
It looked like he’d have to wing it. And winging it sucked.
He flourished an Ofuda with the Word of Mist
written on it, and Hammersmith tensed. But, Vic didn’t disappear in a bank of
mist. Rather, he threw the slip right at Hammersmith, who disappeared in a bank
of mist that he couldn’t control.
Hammersmith waved his ‘wand’, which held out a
flat hand, clearing the air with a fan like motion. When the mist cleared,
Hammersmith found himself surrounded. Glancing around, he saw that there were
twelve identical figures in gray plate armor, wearing green doublets, capes and
hoods, and the armor all had expressive metallic masks. While he’d left comic
books behind him years ago, Doug recognized Marvel’s Dr. Doom ©, the
arch-nemesis of the Fantastic Four ©. Besides the usual mad scientist garbage,
Dr Doom was famous for using android duplicates of him to confuse his enemies.
“Using up your leftover Ofudas, O’Bryan?”
The twelve ‘Doctors Doom’ said nothing, but held
up their gauntlets as one. Hammersmith tensed, and waited. Then as the twelve
‘supervillains’ fired at the same time, he leapt up, dodging the blasts. The
conjurations were perfectly spaced out, as the magical equation outweighed the
tactical considerations, so they blasted each other. Eleven of them
disappeared, but one of them managed to deflect the blast with a
red-white-and-blue shield.
Still protected by his ‘Dr Doom’ armor, Vic
threw another Ofuda at the space where Hammersmith would land. The characters
flared with silvery light, and a large patch of ice formed. Hammersmith landed
awkwardly and slipped. As Hammersmith scrambled to regain his feet, Vic
produced two more Ofudas and threw one. Doug was immediately engulfed in a wave
of water, which was frozen solid by the second Ofuda, trapping him inside.
There was a moment of eerie silence, as
Hammersmith dealt with the trap that Vic had set for him. As he waited for
Hammersmith’s move, Vic prepared his countermove. He linked two Fire-Restraining
Ofudas that he’d prepared for Welles. Now, when Hammersmith broke out of the
ice block with a fire effect, these restraints would confine the fire and send
it back at him, using his own magic against him. And when he summoned up some
water to defeat his own fire, Vic would throw another Deep Freeze Ofuda,
trapping him again. Which would give Vic time to figure out what Doug would do
then, so that he could anticipate him again. That was the way that you won
duels.
But instead of melting, the ice block began to
crack, and then it exploded apart, broken free by the force of a whirling cloud
of leaves. That was a very tricky spell to pull off - he must have had the
makings for that particular spell already prepped. The smell of a set-up was
getting pretty thick. The leaves gathered a coating of ice around them and flew
at Vic like a flock of razor-sharp bats.
But Hammersmith was playing right into Vic’s
hands. The leaves and ice were both made of Glamour, and Wizardry, the
manipulation of glamour, was his strong suit. He reached out with his will,
grabbed the glamour under the leaf-pattern, and turned it to his will. In order
to take control of the ‘leaves’, he’d have to impose a new pattern, a new image
on the glamour. But that was fine with Vic - that meant that he would have to
impart a little more power to the attack, making it even stronger than before.
And he’d barely have to tap into his own reserves to do it.
Since they looked like bats, he merged them all
into one particularly nasty bat, and sent it back screaming at Hammersmith.
Hammersmith, it seemed, knew this ploy too. He
reached out and took the bat by its head just as it reached him. There was a
flickering, and the bat dwindled into a lacy fan in Hammersmith’s hand.
Hammersmith coyly fanned himself with it and then pointed it back at Vic. With
a flick of his hand, Hammersmith used the fan to blow a furious wind at Vic.
But then, that’s the problem with this gambit -
each mage takes control of the magic, adds a little to it, and sends it back at
their opponent, who does the same. The power grows and grows with each
transformation, which MUST be different from the ones before, until one of the
duelists misses their catch, or can’t think of a new form suggested by the
previous one, or just can’t control it, and takes it full in the face. Once the
volley begins, it’s only a matter of time before one of the duelists gets
creamed; and you can never really be all that certain that it won’t be you.