I surged toward Mavus at a speed that rewrote my understanding of motion, my body no longer running so much as committing to a trajectory—every ounce of me collapsing inward, compressing into a single vector of violence and reckless intent.
Enhancements tore through my system in a cascade of power that made every nerve ending sing with electric potential. My muscles swelled with artificial strength, my bones reinforcing themselves with a density that turned my skeleton into something approaching living steel.
The sand beneath my boots exploded with each step, golden particles spraying upward in fountains of displaced earth as I closed the distance between us with the inevitability of an avalanche, my body moving so quickly the world around me blurred into vivid streaks of color that painted my peripheral vision in abstract chaos.
My mind ignited into a fever-bright lattice of calculation, thoughts spinning faster than the frantic hammering of my heart against ribs that suddenly felt far too small to contain the violence rising within me.
I planted my foot just shy of Mavus with explosive force, the impact slamming into the sand hard enough to send a massive wave erupting upward like a breached tidewall. Golden grains burst skyward in a violent plume, catching the overhead lighting and scattering it into a glittering storm that swallowed us both.
Time thickened, stretched, slowed to something viscous and heavy, as though reality itself had decided to hold its breath.
In that razor-thin fraction between heartbeats, I executed the maneuver I'd already committed to the moment I started my charge—ripping every enhancement out of my legs and slamming it wholesale into my right arm.
Power condensed with brutal efficiency, flooding muscle and bone until my entire limb practically vibrated with barely contained destruction.
My bicep coiled with power, tendons standing out like steel cables, bones reinforced to withstand forces that would've shattered any normal human anatomy, and threw the punch with all my might—everything I had, everything I was, compressed into a single strike aimed at Mavus's smugly painted face.
And then... nothing.
After all that buildup, all that dramatic tension, all that carefully orchestrated power—there was absolutely nothing, my attack landing against Mavus's palm with the impact of a light slap, barely enough force to disturb the paint on his makeup.
I stared up at him, horror dawning in slow, icy waves as comprehension crashed through my skull. He'd caught my punch. With one hand. Just one hand. Held casually at chest height, fingers loose, posture relaxed—as though I'd just handed him something mildly inconvenient he hadn't asked for.
Not a flicker of effort crossed his painted features, no tension in his arm, no bracing for impact. He remained perfectly composed, serenely unimpressed, wearing the calm expression.
I began to stammer—words fragmenting before they could fully form, my brain abandoning all higher functions in favor of internal screaming.
And in that split second—right as panic finally found its purchase—I felt it.
An odd sensation unlike anything I'd ever experienced before, foreign and deeply wrong in ways that made my instincts scream warnings I didn't know how to interpret.
It was as though Mavus were draining something from me—not blood, life force, or anything so dramatic, but the enhancements themselves, the magical energy I'd channeled into my arm now flowing backward through the point of contact between his palm and my knuckles.
I jerked back in disbelief, breaking contact and clutching at my right arm which I suddenly found I couldn't control. The limb hung limp at my side, fingers twitching uselessly, the entire appendage responding to none of my mental commands like the connection between brain and muscle had been severed completely.
"What did you—what the fuck did you just do to me?!" I demanded, my voice climbing several octaves into territory usually reserved for panic and existential dread. "My arm—I can't—it's not—"
Mavus didn't answer.
He merely settled into a relaxed fighting stance, his body shifting with that same predatory grace I'd been observing all night. Then he punched. Straight through the air. The motion was so fast it barely registered as movement at all—just a blur, a pressure change, a sudden sense that the space in front of me had made a catastrophic mistake.
The effect was devastating.
A sharp crack split the circus tent, loud enough to sound like reality snapping under strain, followed immediately by an impact that slammed into my body with physical force.
The invisible blow scattered the air from my lungs in a painful wheeze, sent sand around me exploding outward in a storm of displaced particles, and lifted me slightly off my feet before dumping me back down in an undignified heap.
I sat there absolutely dumbfounded, my brain doing mental gymnastics trying to reconcile with what had just happened. Then the realization hit—clean, sharp, and profoundly unwelcome—the kind of understanding that arrives fully formed and leaves you wishing ignorance were still an option.
My enhancements.
The power I'd channeled into my arm for that final attack. Mavus had stolen them. Somehow, through that brief moment of physical contact, he'd siphoned my magical energy and was now using it himself.
"That's—" I breathed, staring up at Mavus as he began to straighten from his stance. "You didn't just neutralize my magic. You took it. Absorbed it. And repurposed it for your own attack."
Mavus's painted face split into a soft smile, the sad clown makeup somehow looking less melancholy and more... proud? Satisfied? Hard to tell.
"Concarnic magic," he began, his voice smoothing into that lecturing cadence, "exists at the intersection of two fundamental principles. Incarnic magic influences the body, strengthening flesh and bone through internal channels. Excarnic magic influences the world around us, projecting power outward to reshape reality according to will. These are the fundamental dichotomy every practitioner learns—internal versus external, self versus environment." He paused, his painted eyes finding mine with laser focus. "But mix the two... and what do you get?"
My mouth answered before my thoughts fully assembled, the conclusion snapping into focus through the haze of shock and reluctant admiration. "Influencing the internal power of others through external means. You're... you're treating someone else's magical energy as part of the environment to be manipulated."
Mavus's smile widened by a fraction, genuine approval lighting his painted features in a way that made the sad clown aesthetic feel dangerously misplaced.
"Precisely. The technique creates a bridge between bodies, a temporary channel through which magical energy can flow in directions nature never intended. Physical contact establishes the connection—" he gestured at my still-limp arm, "—and conscious intent directs the transfer. The sudden displacement of energy causes temporary damage to the nervous system, similar to what you'd experience from magical exhaustion but localized to the affected area. You should regain full function in a few minutes, though I imagine it's rather uncomfortable at present."
I flexed my fingers experimentally, watching them twitch and spasm without proper coordination. "Uncomfortable is... one way to describe it. Feels like someone replaced my arm with a sack of angry eels."
Mavus continued without missing a beat, already sliding deeper into explanation with the quiet enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loved explaining complex magical theory.
"The technique doesn't work exclusively on Incarnic magic either. Any form of magical energy can be manipulated, including Excarnic spells mid-casting. The trick directly influences the Astral Nexus, that processing plant for magical power that exists in every practitioner's core—creating an alternate pathway between the two."
I stared at him, my mind racing through implications that made my remaining functional hand tremble slightly. "So what you're telling me is that any spell, any form of enhancement, any magical attack—could be completely neutralized and stolen through a single touch? That's... that's insane!"
"It's extraordinarily difficult to master," he continued. "The first recorded Concarnic mage in history, Merlin De Verrasi, spent three decades perfecting the fundamental principles before achieving reliable results."
I burst out laughing—couldn't help it, the sound exploding from my chest with manic delight because of course that name came up again. First with Iskanda's ruby and now with this. The man was starting to feel less like a historical figure and more like a recurring prank played by the universe at my personal expense.
"Merlin De Verrasi," I wheezed, clutching my side between laughs. "The gift that keeps on giving. What's next, am I going to discover he invented something equally ridiculous like... I don't know, a spell that makes people communicate exclusively through interpretive dance? A curse that turns your enemies into judgmental houseplants?"
Mavus didn't acknowledge my outburst, his painted face maintaining that same calm focus as he pressed forward with his explanation.
"The specifics are incredibly complex. Establishing the initial connection requires precise manipulation of your own Astral Nexus to extend tendrils of influence beyond your physical boundaries. Maintaining the channel demands constant mental focus that will exhaust you faster than any enhancement. Directing the flow of stolen energy into useful applications rather than just dissipating it wastefully—that alone takes months of dedicated practice. You'll need years of training before you can execute even the most basic version during real life combat scenarios."
I gave him my most insufferably smug grin, the kind I saved for moments when I had every intention of being as annoying as humanly possible.
"Years, you say? Please. I learned Excarnic magic in what... a few hours? I'm a prodigy, Mavus. A beautiful, talented, slightly traumatized prodigy who picks up impossibly difficult techniques with offensive speed. Give me a week, maybe two if I'm feeling lazy. Should be plenty of time to have it mastered."
The circus tent collapsed. Not gradually, not with warning—no, the effect was instantaneous. The striped canvas ceiling, the spotlight, the sand beneath our feet, the wooden barriers—all of it simply ceased to exist, reality snapping back to the familiar backstage area with its scattered props and dim candlelight that felt almost disappointing after the vivid spectacle we'd been occupying.
Mavus gestured toward the empty space beside a costume rack, the motion smooth and casual, invitation threaded neatly through with challenge.
"Then let's begin your education. I have about three hours before other obligations demand my attention. That should be sufficient time to teach you the absolute basics and watch you fail spectacularly at least a dozen times or so." His smirk returned with renewed intensity. "Prepare yourself. What we've done tonight was merely warm-up. The real lesson starts now."
I rolled my shoulder—my right arm finally regaining sensation in pins-and-needles waves that made me wince in response—then cracked my remaining knuckles.
"Bring it on. I've survived everything this city's thrown at me so far. How hard could learning a little magic trick be?"
The answer, it turned out, was very hard.
But that's a story for the next several hours of my increasingly bizarre education in the art of being an absolute magical menace.