Finley Cai Aies Hall May 10th,20XX

Boring.

The old man sitting across me squirmed nervously in his chair but for some reason, the sight wasn’t as pleasant as I’d expected it to be. But then again, I supposed it was my fault for assuming any positive emotion could come out of having to see this guy.

“You’re Marvin, right? From the scouting section?”

He nodded at the speed of light, intimidated by the mysterious boss that never showed his face, even to his employees.

Boring

“Ah, um, yeah- yes sir. I am. Can I ask why you wanted to see me?”

It was difficult to imagine this was the same guy that Alice paraded as a stronghold at school when he could barely keep eye contact with me. I could practically read all the guilt in his actions as he shifted around and continuously loosened and retightened his tie.

Considering I’d been planning this meeting for so long, it was almost boring how completely subpar he was. I’d even thought I would have to fabricate a reason to fire him; after all any good villain would surely be good at covering up any mistakes or shady dealing that they had done, right?

But not for this guy, who was even subpar in his villainy.

I couldn’t muster up the strength to make a big scene and instead pulled up the file Nikolas had created for me. I pushed the folder in front of him and let him read it, staring him down from the opposite side of my desk and watching for the reaction. But even in that he was disappointing.

Rather than immediately jumping to his defence or even giving me a bunch of cleverly crafted alibis be instead just grew more and more still as he read through the folder and once he reached the middle of it he closed it and put it back on my desk.

“Mr. Hall. I-“

Pathetic

I cut him off, knowing there was nothing I wanted to hear.

Even his crimes were as petty as they came. Manipulation of who was scouted and an excessive amount of bills that were falsely charged to the company. There were also a few reports of him harassing his subordinates with unreasonable requests but even that wasn’t fun enough.

The only reason I wanted him fired instead of just demoted was because of a personal grudge. But such a weak character was undeserving of my rage. Ruining him would do nothing for me.

“I’ll give you a month to hand in your resignation letter and leave the company. If you’re still here after that ill have to take more aggressive measures. Fair?”

I didn’t even bother deepening my voice with this guy, knowing I would never have to see him again. Or even if I did, I doubted he would be able to put anything together.

Ahh. How boring.

Fair or not fair he still had to nod in response and even thank me as he left the office. Not even giving a decent exit speech of how I would regret this despite him already being an executive.

I spent the rest of the day in a frustrated daze and went straight home afterwards, flopping into my bed and trying to catch a nap until midnight dawned. But as I tossed and turned in bed, I found myself grabbing the bejewelled box my father had left me and hopping over to Theodulus.

I still hadn’t figured out how to get to him with a new transporter but the old one worked fine and got me there in a whirlwind of nausea and regret.

Once again, the room was empty, and the intimidating picture seemed to glare down at me from the opposite wall.

“Theodulus! Are you here!”

I began to roll around the room, stuck in the smoggy pit of boredom and eventually found my eyes drifting back to the picture. He did look a lot like me... Or perhaps I should say I looked like him since I was his great grandkid, but I wasn’t quite ready to say it out yet.

That stubborn old man that left so many clues lying around but wouldn’t come out and say it.

First by leaving that picture up even though it so clearly irritated him to see it, then there was how often he kept emphasizing my father's name as Theodulus III, and I couldn’t forget how he told Cai and Aies but silenced them with flimsy promises ‘not to tell me’.

Knowing him I was sure he wanted me to put the pieces together and then come to him crying in relief so he could hold that over me for the next eternity and a half, but I couldn’t let that happen.

Just the thought of him obnoxiously imitating my crying or whatever was enough to make me curl into a ball and regret something that hadn’t even happened yet.

While I didn’t have a lot of virtues, I could proudly say that patience was one of them.

I suddenly got a dark premonition and quickly ducked down into a ball out of self-preservation.

The wind generated by the object that flew past me tickled my ear, but I didn’t have enough time to register the sensation and jumped up to my feet.

There, with an irritated expression was my very own great grandfather.

“What are you doing here? There’s still a lot of time till midnight.”

So, we’re just not going to talk about the globe that lodged itself into the wall instead of my skull. Cool.

I got up from my pathetic pose and straightened myself out, acknowledging with a bit of pride that I was taller than him, even if it was just by a couple of centimetres.

“I didn’t have anything to do so I thought I’d come here. Was I not supposed too?”

Although I asked I knew there was no way he would send me away so I drifted away before receiving an answer and went to look at the wall that had previously been replaced by a perilous rock cliff.

I still didn’t know how he managed to change the room around to whatever he wanted but I hoped it was something I could learn soon.

“Fin- no Aies. Come over here and spar with me for a bit.”

Ordinarily, there would be no way I would willingly fight with this guy even if I had awakened and he purposefully handicapped himself. He was just too experienced for one and was way too strong to even defend against but for some reason, the offer seemed pretty appealing today.

I looked around for a knife to cut my finger with but eventually just used my teeth to rip open the calloused skin. The dark crimson blood that turned bright gold by each passing second pooled onto my finger as I lifted my hand and pressed it into the diamond earring that my father had left me.

The skin that had been dyed by the blood began to bulge outwards and eventually hardened into a horn and I could see the ends of my hair turn white in my peripheral view. My fingernails hardened as well and slightly lengthened into sharp points, not enough to be grotesque but enough to serve as weapons.

Theodulus watched me with an odd expression as he bound his arm to his side, tied weights onto his ankles and strapped an eyepatch over his left eye.

I supposed I should have been offended by the numerous handicaps that he gave himself but honestly, I considered asking him for more. While I wasn’t sure I could win against him I wanted to at least draw a tie.

“Same rules as always. A win is six points. I’ll consider touching my nose or horn as a point and if you can manage to touch the back of my neck it’ll be 2 points. If you can make me move from this circle then I’ll consider it a draw and its unlikely but If you can touch my heart or my throat then I’ll consider that as a win.”

He indicated a small circle that extended around 5 centimetres from each end of his feet as the final part of the explanation but I was already bouncing back and forth between both feet to get my body used to the movement. while he explained the rules and once he was done I lunged into action.

I feinted for his right side and kicked at his left, hoping I could at least startle him out of balance but I supposed I had used that strategy too many times. He grabbed my foot with his single loose arm and like usual, prepared to lodge me into the wall as he’d done with the globe earlier but I had prepared for that.

I used his tight grip around my foot as a launchpad and aimed for his forehead with my other foot but he quickly released my foot with a small push, making my other leg miss its target. The floor was smooth so I could catch myself with my hands and roll back to my feet but now he was even more on guard than before.

I ran straight at him this time but stopped just short of his extended palm and jumped atop the outstretched arm, nearly breaking my waist in half as I tried to touch the base of his horn but he forcibly tuned his arms into a launchpad, forcing me to use his shoulders to balance myself and land right behind him. His hands shot out backwards to push me away but I resolved to take the hit and tapped the back of his neck.

My body flew away from him at the impact and my back hit the wall with a thud but it couldn’t stop the grin on my face from blossoming.

“That’s two points.”

He growled at me but that did nothing to hide the smile that tugged at the ends of his lips. My great grandfather that only looked a few years older than myself even began to bounce in place, completely ignoring the weights that were heavy enough to hold down an elephant.

“Don’t get cocky kid. You still have four more to go.”

This time he took a stance and waited for me to approach in the same overt way as before but I feared for my health if I let him catch me. With him being so aggressive I may have had to sacrifice any limbs that he got a hold of.

I shook off the shock of impact and began to run a wide circle around the old goblin, weaving in and out of his reach every time he grabbed at me but I couldn’t find an opening at all and no matter how many long I delayed for he never seemed to lower his guard. Taking a deep and reluctant breath I bit the bullet and ran at him straight on and made to grab at his horn but dived towards his feet instead. I stopped a few feet from him and rolled into another jump, this time aiming for his heart, or if I could manage it his throat.

The ends of my lips began to edge upwards as I thought I had made it but the sight of the smooth expanse of his throat was quickly replaced by the hard calloused plains of his palm and I was pushed with a lot more force than before.

This time though I grabbed a hold of his palm and took the hit to my stomach as I reached out my hand and tapped his horn.

A slightly horrified expression crossed his face as a small trail of blood escaped my lips and trailed down my chin but I disregarded it even as I slumped to the ground.

“That’s three points old man, only three to go.”

“Hey, value yourself a bit more would you? Last I checked this wasn’t a death match.”

Well, he had the luxury to think like that, but for me, the only advantage I had was his reluctance to hurt me. The half a second gap that his hesitation always gave me was something I’d tried to take advantage of but it seemed like he was slowly growing aware of it.

I silently nursed the growing bruise on my stomach and took a few heavy breaths to make sure nothing was broken.

“If it's not a deathmatch then why did you hit me so hard? If I were anybody else I'm sure I’d be dead by now”

But even as I grumbled I’d already pushed myself onto my feet and resumed looking for a blind spot.

Honestly, most of the handicaps were useless anyway since he’d once fought me completely blindfolded and had still wiped me across the floor.

I’d also had him demonstrate his regular fighting style for me a few times and knew he preferred to fight with his legs instead of his arms. My biggest advantages right now were that he couldn’t move and had to be careful not to hurt me too much.

But once again, it looked like he was aware I was capitalizing on that and would be less careful from now on. I needed something big.

I wasn’t sure why I so wanted to win today but somehow the thought of losing today almost revolted me.

Theodulus tensed in preparation as I approached him but smiled when he registered how unaggressive my approach was.

“Trying something new?”

Squaring my shoulders and taking a few deep breaths, ignoring the burning feeling of my bones melding back together I stopped just a few centimetres out of his reach and braced my muscles to run onto a sprint.

“What are you-“

“You’re my great-grandfather aren’t you?”

He faltered and blinked twice in succession from surprise but that small period was enough for me to sprint towards him and tap his heart and leaped backwards out of his reach again.

“My win.”