Chapter Sixteen
The next day, Victor and Karl are working on more air spells. They have taken off their vests and ties after hours of practicing. Leo and Karl’s staff sit around a table playing cards. The staff are annoyed with Leo as he has a majority of the chips next to him.
Karl is impressed with how quickly Victor catches on with his air specialty. “Damn, I can’t believe how much you have done today. Let’s try doing some ‘Jedi tricks.’”
“You mean like a force push?” Victor snickers.
“That’s the one,” Karl answers as he throws his palm outward without looking in that direction.
A gust of air knocks down a stack of wooden boxes.
He starts showing off by throwing air punches, pushes, and kicks.
Each time, he knocks down boxes all over the place.
At one point, he kicks so hard that the gust of air breaks a box sitting on top of a stack.
When he’s finished, the two muscular guys annoyingly throw their cards down and start walking over to restack the boxes.
“Is he always like this?” Leo asks the female assistant.
“You have no idea,” she responds with annoyance.
Karl creates a ball of water in each hand. He starts to drink one and then hands one to Victor.
Victor raises an eyebrow, asking, “Exactly how am I supposed to drink that without looking like you’re feeding me from out of your hand?”
Karl winks and then starts to freeze the outer layer of the water, creating an ice cup. When it plops into his hand, he hands it to Victor. “This better?”
“Yes, this will work,” Victor says, taking the ice cup. “I take it you used the air to freeze the water, or you froze the water itself?”
“A little from column A. A little from column B. Just a few tricks you’ll learn yourself.
” Karl looks over and sees his staff finished placing the boxes back into stacks.
“Okay, break time is over.” As soon as Karl speaks, a small red fireball hits Victor’s ice cup and melts it. Water goes all over the place.
“Really, Leo?” Victor shouts. Leo sits in his chair, giggling with a shit-eating grin.
Karl snickers while he escorts Victor to a stack of boxes about 20 feet away. “What I want you to do is throw a few punches. As you do this, concentrate on punching the air like you would do to a punching bag.”
Victor nods as he tries to remember a boxing workout his gym trainer gave him and starts punching the air.
He focuses on the stack of boxes as he throws punch after punch, but nothing happens.
He keeps his focus and begins to feel something solid when he throws another punch.
He throws another, and the solid form becomes harder.
He starts to go faster, again and again.
Air pulses are beginning to push away from his knuckles.
As the pulses become stronger with each punch, the boxes shift slightly. Out of nowhere, Victor throws a kick, and a pulse of air pushes the top box.
Karl is impressed. “Not bad, but just focus on the punching right now,” he recommends.
Victor doesn’t hear him. Victor punches and kicks. He moves around like an MMA fighter. He kicks, socks, and throws a knee in for show.
Karl becomes concerned. “Okay, now. No need to act like a street fighter. Just go back to punching.”
Leo notices Victor showboating. “Vic! Just throw punches.”
Victor is in the zone, however. He doesn’t hear Karl or Leo calling out his name. Without him knowing, his eyes start to illuminate white again.
Karl starts to back away as Victor’s movements become more intense. “Leo, what’s going on?”
Leo walks over to Karl. “I don’t know, but I don’t think he can hear us like last time.” When Victor spins around, he notices that Victor’s eyes are glowing brighter than the night before. “Shit, I don’t know how to stop him.”
Victor starts throwing stronger air pulses, knocking down the remaining stacks. He throws his palm out to push the air. Victor begins roundhouse kicking, jump-kicking, and sweep-kicking. Then, before Karl and Leo can react, Victor begins to float. Karl and Leo start walking backward in shock.
“I don’t even think I know how to levitate,” Karl says in astonishment. “I can jump very high, but levitating, that’s something I can’t do.”
“VICTOR!” Leo shouts as loudly as he can.
“VICTOR, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” There’s no response from Victor.
“I hate to do this but fuck it.” Leo conjures a large fireball and throws it at Victor.
Victor doesn’t see the fireball coming but instinctively throws a backhand and knocks the fireball to the side, crashing into a couple of stacks of boxes.
Victor remains levitating as he turns his attention to Leo and Karl.
“Well, fuck me,” Leo mentions, as he knows what will happen next.
Karl’s staff runs to the boxes and snuffs out the fire with their Water Magic. But Victor pays no mind to them. His targets are Leo and Karl.
Leo and Karl take defensive stances and start conjuring their magic specialties.
“He’s using Air, and it looks like he knows what he’s doing. We have to be creative with our attacks. I don’t think your fire spells will work on him,” Karl commands.
“Looks like we’ll have to attack him with Air or Water,” Leo replies, concerned.
Leo doesn’t like the idea, but knows he’ll have to take down the warlock he is supposed to mentor. Before Leo is about to throw an Air spell, Victor attacks.
Without physically hitting each other, Leo and Karl start throwing air pulses at Victor, who blocks and counterattacks.
The two muscular men attempt to cast a couple of Water spells, but Victor stops their attacks and then goes after them.
When Victor is about to throw anything at the two men, Karl conjures an air-roping spell to pull Victor back toward him.
Because Victor is caught off guard by Karl’s attack, Leo jumps in and throws a couple of fireballs.
That was a mistake.
Victor knocks the fireballs around, setting more boxes on fire. This time, the flames are much larger.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Karl shouts at Leo. “Stop using Fire Magic before you destroy my warehouse.”
Victor breaks free from Karl’s spell and charges at Karl.
Leo tackles Victor before he can reach Karl.
They roll around on the floor. When Victor rolls on top, he uses an air push to fling himself backward into the air and throws a few air punches at Leo.
Leo is lying on his back and covers his face with his forearms, allowing the bulk of the air punches to hit the sleeves of his jacket.
Victor lands on his feet and looks at Leo.
The glow in Victor’s eyes begins to flow outward from the corners of his eyes.
Victor then charges toward Leo. Leo takes a defensive stance to prepare for Victor to tackle him.
When Victor is halfway to Leo, two large metal planks hit him.
Outraged, Victor looks to his side, and a large metal rod smacks him across the face.
Victor is now surrounded by metal rods floating and circling him.
He tries to throw air attacks and jump away, but the metal rods keep knocking him back down.
Superior Jackie and Akisha walk into the light. They flick their hands and wrists, controlling the rods with their Metal Magic. The rods lower, and Victor tries to fight back. The rods start to coil around his arms and legs. The more Victor struggles, the stronger the metal gets.
Akisha cautiously approaches Victor. She raises the palms of her hands, and they start to flash pulses of light, which look like Morse code.
Victor flings his head around to avoid Akisha’s hands touching him.
Akisha lounges forward, cupping Victor’s eyes.
Several seconds later, Victor goes limp like a rag doll.
His head rolls back, his eyelids start twitching, and then he passes out.
Superior Jackie releases the metal binds off Victor. Karl rushes over and helps Akisha catch Victor before he falls to the ground. They slowly lower Victor to the floor. Leo walks over, brushing off his sleeves.
“Are you alright?” Superior Jackie asks Leo.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Leo responds, using the back of his hand to wipe the corner of his mouth. “What did you do, Akisha?”
Akisha sighs while looking down at Victor. “Superior Jackie and I were able to find a technique in the archives that could help neutralize a magic-wielder when their eyes glow and they go into a rage. It looks like we arrived before things got worse.”
Leo looks down at Victor’s unconscious body. “Will he be okay?” he asks with concern.
Superior Jackie steps next to Leo and places a caring hand on his shoulder, looking down at Victor.
“He will be. But right now, we need to take him back to his bed. I’m unsure how long it will be before he wakes up or how he will react.
But when he does, we’ll be ready for a debrief over what happened tonight.
“Talk about perfect timing,” Karl comments. “What brought you here? Besides the new empath raging out?”
“I wanted to see his eyes glowing for myself,” Superior Jackie responds.
She looks down at the unconscious Victor and says, “Like you said, Karl. Talk about perfect timing. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t shown up.
I can sense the power flowing within him.
If he were any stronger, this warehouse might have been turned into rubble. ”
Victor bolts up on his bed in a panic. He looks around the room frantically, breathing rapidly, still wearing his suit. Leo darts into the room.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Leo says as he jumps into bed with Victor and pulls him into his arms to help calm him down. “Shhh. Shhh. It’s okay. You’re back in your hotel room.”
Victor begins to calm down as Leo holds him and strokes his hair while rocking back and forth.
Victor calms down but is still shaking. “How long was I out?” Victor asks.
Leo pulls away enough to look into Victor’s eyes. “You’ve been out for two days.”