Chapter 6 #3
“Exactly,” Yaritza said, recalling a slight delay in the alteration of the flames compared to other enchanter strikes. “It’s harder for Winston to manipulate. We can use that to our advantage.”
“So, what is this big plan of yours?” Jamius asked.
“You’re gonna make him grow, that’ll slow down his size manipulation ability.
He won’t worry about staying smaller since he’s already dealt with Enchanter Ortiz and the other first responders.
Melanie is then gonna hit him with as much blinding firepower as she can.
By the time he removes the flames, I’m going to hit him with a star shower unlike any other. ”
“Won’t he just shrink it like everything else?”
“This will be huge,” Yaritza explained. “Based on the size and distance correlation, if my measurements are precise, it’ll be too big for him to stop in time.”
Melanie and Jamius both stared skeptically.
“Trust me, I know my numbers.”
And she did. Yaritza regularly counted out her pebbles, scattered rocks in the auxiliary gym when we trained, and anywhere she found herself in the city.
It seemed that checking her surroundings to ensure she had full access to her branch became second nature to her.
That, and her joy for math, which she didn’t brag about much to anyone.
Not even herself, hence why it rarely rose to the surface of her mind.
“Alrighty, let’s do this.” Jamius summoned every duplicate he could muster and sent them into the fray.
Despite their best efforts, their taunting did little to force Winston’s hand. He had the advantage in telekinesis and physical combat. Every time his duplicates moved in close, Winston propelled them, destroyed them, or took his time slapping them around.
“I could move in with my flames,” Melanie suggested, a bit queasy watching the many copies of Jamius get pummeled while the sadistic witch cackled at the fraught fight.
“No.” Yaritza shook her head. “You have to focus on obscuring his vision. Jamius, make this work.”
He groaned. “I’m trying.”
“Try harder,” Yaritza said with a stern confidence I’d never seen in her before.
“Fine.” Jamius kicked his feet a bit and grumbled as thoughts of embarrassment filled his head. “But not a word from either of you. Ever.”
“Huh?” They cocked their heads.
“I have another technique, but I swear to god if y’all tell anyone, I will kill you.”
They each mimed zipping their lips.
Jamius smacked his cheeks a few times and then clapped his hands.
Each of his duplicates exploded. They reformed at half the size and twice the number.
Twelve copies became twenty-four. Jamius clapped his hands again, cutting their size down even more, and made forty-eight.
Then he repeated the process again and again until he had nearly eight hundred duplicates, each no bigger than his hand.
“Is this a joke?” Winston roared with laughter. “Going to strike me down with an army of tiny tyrants?”
“It ain’t the size that counts, buddy,” a high-pitched squeal came from one of the duplicates. “It’s how you use it.”
“Yeah, you oversized bitch!” another copy shouted.
“Charge!” a mousy squeak of a shout came from a copy declaring himself the general of this army.
They rushed Winston from every direction, easily flying through the air since, at their size, they didn’t require much magic to levitate.
Annoying bug bites for certain, but it worked.
Winston swelled with rage, growing large enough to swat a hundred away at a time.
He stomped throughout the streets back and forth until he’d massacred the majority of Jamius’ miniature army.
The original Jamius lay half-conscious and dreary from splitting his magic into so many versions of himself.
Even smaller duplicates carried a heavy casting cost.
“Melanie, now.”
She nodded and drew upon all the stray black and white flames on the block.
She spiraled vibrant orange flames around them to keep Ortiz’s erratic fire under her control, then sent waves at Winston.
He struck out with telekinesis, shrinking the flames each time she hurled a section his way, but she kept the bulk of her fire high and blinding in an attempt to hide Yaritza’s actions.
Yaritza dug her hands into the broken asphalt of the street and searched for the minerals within her control.
Once she’d identified them through channeling, she called every speck of dust, every tiny pebble, every broken rock to her.
Hundreds of them floated above her head, swirling into a massive boulder.
“Try stopping my meteor shower strike,” Yaritza shouted with fury from all her repressed fears and frustration.
She unleashed a flaming boulder that could easily destroy the entire block.
Hell, the entire neighborhood if it built enough force.
But it didn’t. Winston struck out with telekinesis and began shrinking the attack.
As predicted, his large size slowed down his ability, and he couldn’t compensate fast enough.
Soon, the boulder was barreling on top of him, and he tried to physically overpower the attack, gripping it with pure telekinesis and gigantic arms.
“You might be able to handle one giant meteor, but can you handle a thousand burning comets?” Yaritza snapped her fingers, and every rock she’d gathered burst in a flurry of furious flames.
The attack made it impossible to see, to hear, to sense anything other than the cacophony of explosions. I snapped my link of telepathy and soared faster, still hearing the bursts, and knowing I’d nearly arrived.
Debris and smoke made it difficult to navigate. I spotted Yaritza doubled over and wheezing.
“You little bitch.” Winston limped toward her. “You think…you think some pathetic no-name with a worthless branch like yours can stop me?”
Yaritza shuddered, stunned by the resilience of this witch. The Celestial Coven was on an entirely different level from other witches. But it didn’t matter.
I descended, planting a hand on Winston’s shoulder. “Stay the fuck away from my students.”
Just like that, I bypassed the enchantments cloaking his mind and shattered it into pieces. Not irreparable, as I’d certainly like to delve into his thoughts and unravel all his secrets, but enough to keep him from putting up any resistance.
Winston’s face fell flat, devoid of expression, and he collapsed to the ground in defeat.
“How’d you…” Yaritza stammered.
“I didn’t do anything,” I replied. “That was all you. You and your team. I just came in and finished him, something I wouldn’t have done without your brilliant plan.”
Yaritza sighed, releasing a part of the voices in her head that always whispered she wasn’t good enough. They wouldn’t vanish after one success, but this battle had changed her, proved to her she belonged in this industry, and showed her how to believe in herself.
“I was pretty amazing.” Yaritza smiled big and bright, much like I’d grown used to over the last few years.
It was a spectacular sight.