Sorceress' Scheme

Mari ducked and dived out of the way of the flying mailbox. Unfamiliar with human surroundings, she was at a bit of a disadvantage here. Preoccuppied with the mailbox, she forgot to prepare herself for the flying bicycle.

It was therefore about to collide with her head before she could throw up an invisible barrier and deflect it. Invisible barriers took energy, and she was barely able to create one in time.

With a horror, she realized that she had been on the defensive against the human child for the past ten minutes. Since they'd "arrived" at this "location", he'd been steadily pummeling her with heavy objects. She was unaware the boy had enough strength to heave a fire hydrant across a wide street towards her at the speed that he did.

Not wishing to be beaten without a fight, she stretched out her right hand and managed to fire a red beam at him, only the second she'd fired since this stage of the battle had come. But the lazer-like beam was weak, and the boy easily deflected it.

Now she was rather annoyed. She was nearly a hundred years old, no where near retirement yet, and with a great amount of experience behind her. Yet she was being beaten by a mere child! And a human child at that!

Annoyance turned to anger when she was barely able to dodge shards of glass from a window that was heaved at her. One small sliver of glass slightly nicked her right shoulder, causing her to be no longer merely angered but now enraged.

Draining what was left of her energy reserves, she managed to slowly utilize what was her last chance at defeating the boy. She began to grow larger.

Thomas stared in horror as his opponent grew to twice her original height. Her normally pale skin slowly became a mucky colored green, and her legs seemed to melt and reform thicker than tree trunks. Her facial features ceased to exist, and her eyes changed from a semi-innocent dark brown into a positively evil-looking yellow-green. Spikes grew from her head and her arms and legs, now thicker than those of an elephant, also grew sharp claws and blades. A long, thick tail grew from behind her, as hideous a color as the rest of her transforming body, with sharp spikes and blades along the edge of it.

The end result was something of a cross between a rhinocerous and a dinosaur. Thomas could only stare in shock.

He found himself now on the defensive as the large hideous monster that was once a beautifully evil woman began to breathe fire at him.

Quickly he dodged to the right, and then, seeing that he wouldn't be able to run fast enough, shot into the air to avoid the blast of flame that flew towards him.

'How on earth am I gonna beat this thing?' he gasped to himself. He spotted a metal trash can on the sidewalk and heaved it towards the monster.

The metal cylinder bounced harmlessly off the jello-like flesh of the monster and Thomas had to dash out of the way to avoid the rocketing can.

'Give up yet, little boy ?' Mari's voice asked him, though the monster's mouth did not move.

'Not without a fight,' he replied, trying to sound as though she wasn't worrying him, which she was. The sounds of mental laughter flowed through the air towards his ears. How could he beat her? He racked his brain even as he dodged the next blast of fire and heaved a rock at his opponent. The rock was as ineffective as the trash can, and he frowned in confusion as he dodged another fire blast.

Mari continued to laugh at his attempts. 'You should know you're not strong enough to beat me,' she scolded, amused. 'You're as pitiful in your mind as you are in the real world.'

Thomas didn't respond as he heaved a motorcycle in her direction. It didn't even phase her.

'She's right,' he thought to himself. 'I can't beat her. She's too strong.' He dodged the fire blast. 'If only she had a weakness of some sort.'

The trouble was that he might not find out the monster's weakness until it was too late. She was certainly not vulnerable to any sort of physical attacks, but what other way could he attack her? Maybe if he could distract her long enough...but then what? Even if she was distracted, a heavy object heaved at her wouldn't do much good.

'If only I had some other way to attack her,' Thomas grumbled.

But it seemed he had none. Even now, he was on the defensive, dodging fire attacks and avoiding swipes from the powerful tail. Then something occured to him. Something so simple that he was almost surprised he hadn't thought of it earlier. Of course, he'd been rather busy, but still...

Avoiding the latest attack from the monster's tail, he touched down on the ground a good ten feet away from the monster.

Thomas had realized that, since it was only his mind, anything could happen. Of course, in real life, he didn't have the ability, but this wasn't the real world. For that matter, in the real world monsters like the one he was facing probably didn't even exist. At least not on earth.

He had considered what to do, and he realized he needed something that was able to fire something like fire. But not fire. A fire blast wouldn't be very effective against this monster, that much was apparent. A blast of water, like the ones Jenny had used, probably wouldn't work either. That left only one option.

So Thomas decided to harness the power of electricity.

It wasn't as hard as he had thought. Electricity is all around, even in the real world, and that means that the only problem is merely to harness it. Since Thomas was no longer in the real world, it was easier to do this than one might think.

Mari was confused. For the past few moments the boy had merely been standing there. She didn't really feel like attacking if he wasn't going to even dodge. That made it too easy. She preferred a fight. Besides, she was tired and needed the rest. But the boy probably had another reason. She just didn't know what it was.

The boy rose both arms into the air and appeared to be standing still. Mari prepared to heave another blast of fire.

Then she realized what he was doing and nearly swallowed the fire ball that was forming in the monster's mouth. Sparks of electricity began to appear around the boy. At first they seemed to be random, but then, as they became more numerous, it was clear that the boy was controlling them.

Mari muttered a word children aren't supposed to hear as she realized she was doomed. Her only chance would be to change back into her normal self, but she wouldn't be able to finish in time. She muttered another curse under her breath.

A sharp and jolting bolt of electricity that almost looked like a lightning blast (except for the fact that it came from the boy and not from the sky) appeared in front of Mari and before she could move an inch in defense, she felt the excruciating pain that only lightning strike victims can sympathize with.

When Thomas opened his eyes again, she was no longer a hideous green dinosaur/dragon monster, but now a pitiful human-looking person scarred from the electricity burns, lying, moaning in pain, on the ground in the middle of the street.

'Surrender?' he asked, a slight smile creeping up the side of his face.

His opponent merely groaned in reply, which he took to be a 'yes', and then slowly dissolved the background of the suburban street on which he lived. Thomas found himself once again in the real world.

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