“That won’t work again.” Trevor laughs, but not for long. My fist collides with the side of his face sending him toppling over. This time, I did it right though. I condensed all my energy at the moment of impact and actually accomplished not fracturing every bone in my arm.

  “But that will.” I say as I inhale deeply. I’m proud of myself for timing that so perfectly, made for a perfectly witty moment. Madison is down for the count, so it’s just Dardania, Avis, and myself against this man. Hopefully we can beat him before Prisha’s spell wears off.

  Avis flips over the bar, knife in hand plunging it straight for Trevor’s throat. Trevor pushes off the bar, sliding out of the way just in time. He raises his foot and slams it back down into the floor, causing the floor board to break free and fling Avis up towards the ceiling.

  “Hypogravity” I decrease the gravity on Avis moments before he collides with he ceiling, freezing him in place. He flips around so his feet are flat against the ceiling, and pushes off and dives towards Trevor.

  “Heavy.” Dardania screams out as she stands up, increasing the weight on Trevor preventing him from moving out of the way. Avis’s knife plunges deep into his stomach and he screams out in agony. Avis pulls the knife out and goes to stab him again. Trevor grabs a hold of Avis’s wrist, stopping him, and starts to squeeze. Avis drops the knife, catches it with the other hand and slams it into Trevor’s wrist. Trevor pulls one of his legs into himself, and swiftly kicks Avis’s in the stomach. Avis immediately throws up from the impact as she soars through the wall and into the building next door.

  Trevor kicks off the floor, flips over the bar, and lands right next to Dardania. Before she has a chance to move, he quickly puts a hand over her mouth. Her eyes widen in fear. She raises her leg to kick him but he pushes her leg back down to the floor.

  I rush in, pour every ounce of magic I can muster into my fist and I swing for him. He easily leans back and I miss him by a mile. With his free hand, he grasps a hold of mine and with nothing more than a flick of the wrist launches me across the pub and out into the street. I slam into the ground, roll, and crash into the building across the street.

  I’m pretty sure I haven’t ever felt this much pain before. I don’t think anything broke like when I punched him, but every part of my body hurt. My muscles were on fire, my lungs burned, and I’m pretty sure I have spots in my vision. Why is it possible for one person to have this much strength? We are supposed to be a part of the Major Arcana as well but he seems so much stronger than both Madison and myself. How is that?

  Perhaps I am just useless. I thought I finally found the magic that worked for me and I could master, but even having gotten better at it, I still don’t know how to use it to protect the people I care about or pound this stupid idiot into the pavement. I’d love to make a joke right about now, but I don’t have the energy to do so.

  I stumble to my feet and look back towards Trevor. He still has Dardania in his grasp and Avis was still in the building next door as far as I could tell. Madison hasn’t moved since she passed out and Prisha was using every ounce of power she had to hold the Minor Arcana in place. I was the only one who could do anything. I had to, no matter what. Even if I didn’t think I could, I have to. Wasn’t a lot of other options at the moment.

  If I made a black hole in the center of his body, theoretically his body would collapse in on itself. Then again, due to the event horizon he might just be stuck like that forever. I really haven’t gotten that far into the gravity magic book yet to fully understand how that would work. Also, not entirely sure I could even condense that much mass into one space to create said black hole. This is a pointless thought and I need to just get back in there and kick his ass.

  I kick rubble out of the way as I stumble back into the pub. Trevor turns towards me, a sinister smile on his face.

  “Looks like the heroes have fallen.” He chuckles. I look to Dardania, her eyes are wide from fear. All it would take is to squeeze just a little bit harder and he could probably collapse her skull, and she knew that.

  “Why are you doing this?” Maybe if I distract him long enough I can think of something.

  “To inspire the world. Are you an idiot?”

  I stare at him. I’m sorry, did he just say to inspire the world? I may have blacked out for a second, that can’t be right.

  “To inspire the world? I heard you correctly?” I wonder.

  “You’re not going to get me to do the whole villain monologue and tell you my whole plan. If you’re too much of an idiot to get it, that’s not my problem.” Trevor jerks Dardania causing to her let out a loud yelp. I take a step forward, but he instantly turns his attention back towards me.

  I look to Dardania who is slowly snaking her hand up his until she points at his wrist. I’m not a hundred percent sure what she is asking, but if I had to guess it was to target his wrist. I haven’t done anything precise yet, I’m not sure I can. But, I don’t have a lot of options here.

  I focus on his wrist, searching for the familiar feel of energy in the room around it. I’m used to large areas, not something so small. You can feel the void in the energy where a person is. While every person does hold energy, it’s like there’s a wall that exists between the energy in their body and the energy on the outside. So, even if my eyes were closed, I would be able to tell where someone is. Well, that’s if I’m focusing on it.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  I try to narrow my focus searching for the ambient energy around his body, I use that wall to travel around his body searching for the part that I’m looking for. Once I find it, I concentrate on the area above and below it, compressing the energy in that one place and increase the gravity until his wrist snaps.

  Trevor jerks his arm backwards with a loud snap, which is his wrist breaking into two. The moment Dardania’s mouth is uncovered, she lets out a guttural scream.

  “Squall.” With the strength of a hurricane, the wind blows Trevor off of Dardania, he crashes through the bar, the wall behind it, and out into the street on the backside of the pub.

  “You okay?” I rush to her side, but she quickly pulls me towards the giant hole in the wall. As we push through the wall, Trevor is already climbing to his feet.

  “Like a fucking cockroach.” I mutter under my breath, but he still hears me.

  “You all are really starting to piss me off. I thought this was gonna be easier, guess not. And now you broke my fucking wrist.” Trevor holds his wrist up and his hand is simply dangling there. I have an overwhelming desire to laugh but I stifle it.

  “Wow.” Dardania lets out a very loud chuckle. I whip towards her, I can’t believe she just said that. Out loud. Where he could hear us. He’s going to kill us. “You’re supposed to be one of the great Major Arcana. I figured you’d be harder to break.”

  “I’ll admit, you’ve surprised me. I thought you’d be the easiest to take down. Guess I was wrong.”

  Trevor uses his free hand to wipe the dust off his jacket before jumping around in place for a second, signaling he’s ready for a fight again.

  Before he has a chance to move, Avis slides behind him, slicing his Achilles’s tendons. He immediately collapses to the ground, unable to hold himself up. He screams out in agony as he slams his fist into the ground, cracking it and causing a shockwave strong enough to send the three of us flying in all directions.

  Avis crawls over towards me, pulls me to my knees.

  “You okay?” He asks through gritted teeth.

  “I should be asking you that.” My entire body hurt. I don’t know where I end and the pain begins.

  “I’m not done with you.”

  We both turn to see Trevor crawling on the ground towards us. Every movement he makes, he collapses onto the ground, and has to push himself back up again. He doesn’t have a second hand to use to crawl properly and he can’t control his feet now.

  “Just give up.” Avis says as she collapses onto the ground, and leans against me. I think he’s reached his limit. I’m not even sure I could move at this point.

  “I won’t stop until every single one of you is six feet under.” Trevor cries as he falls face first into the stone street. He immediately pushes himself back up. “Starting with you Avis. I’m gonna rip your punk ass in two.”

  Watching him crawl like a broken person towards us was just sad. Something was seriously wrong with him. But even in this state, he still scared me. The violence that radiated off of him was unchanged. One broken hand and two feet that don’t work, along with some broken ribs, and he is still terrifying. But, no matter what, he refuses to quit. What could possibly push this man to keep going?

  “I will kill you. I will kill all of you!” Trevor lets out a guttural scream. It sounds like it was mixed with frustration and agony.

  “Not before we kill you.” Trevor’s eyes open wide as Dardania leans in behind him and whispers, “Implode.”

  Trevor goes to scream, but nothing comes out. His eyes turn red, his face flush, and he immediately begins sweating profusely, and then nothing.

  “Not today.”

  Dardania takes a step back as Nabu places his card on Trevor.

  “Why?!” Dardania screams at the top of her lungs as she rushes towards Nabu and pushes him. “Why would you do that?”

  “I can’t let you suffer the pain of having to do this to someone you know. Someone you’ve spent time with. Not when it’s so personal.”

  “You don’t get to decide that!” Tears rush down Dardania’s face. Nabu looks towards Avis who mouths a soft thank you. Dardania goes to push Nabu again but he vanishes into thin air, along with Trevor.

  Dardania collapses on to the ground as she begins repeatedly punching the street until her hands bleed. Avis quickly grabs a hold of her to stop her from breaking her hands on the cobblestone. She raises her head to look at him, her face red and soaked from tears.

  “Why? Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t want to see you like that again. Like you were after the camp.” Avis whispers softly as he pulls Dardania into his chest, she continues to weep uncontrollably.

  All I can do is watch.

  It’s over, the fight with Trevor is finally over. I don’t know where he went, but either way he’s frozen in time and can’t cause us any more pain, at least not physically.

  I slump backwards until I’m laying on my back staring up the sky. Unfortunately now that we are in the city, there is more light pollution and I can’t see as many stars as when we are on the road. Though, what is visible here is still exponentially more than I could see from any city back home.

  I kind of wonder if Trevor somehow made it home at the last second. If someone somewhere answered his plea and sent him back. I guess it doesn’t matter though, he was on the verge of death and the moment Nabu’s spell is lifted, he will die. His death will be extremely violent, and I’m glad I won’t be there to see it. I suppose when you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

  I’d like to think he had some good reason for everything he did, but if that’s true, it kind of makes it all worse. It’s just easier to assume he’s evil. That he has some very skewed sense of right and wrong and was just pure evil. I doubt it’s as simple as that though, but alas I’ll never know. I just wish we could have been friends, but it’s hard to do that when one of you is a sociopath and serial killer. Kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.

  Well, in his next life may he end up as a hippy lesbian who wants to save the planet and everyone that currently lives here. That’s probably a lot better than some religious bro whose extracurricular was being a supernatural serial killer. Though, that would make for a good book title, ‘The Supernatural Serial Killer: The Bro From Hell’.

  I chuckle.

  I really shouldn’t be making jokes about a complete loony, but what else is there to do? My body feels like I just got run over by a steamroller. My soon to be boyfriend who was just recently in a coma due to a very bad stabbing is cradling his sister who is upset about not getting to murder the guy who tried to murder her brother. It’s all so far beyond absurd that it’s hard to not try and make light of it.

  Besides, I have a family now. I thought I never would have one again, but I do. People that are willing to make sacrifices for me, and who just genuinely care for me as I am. So even though everything royally fucking sucks right now, I have that and it puts a smile on my face. That’s what really matters.