“What’s it gonna take?” Charles said.

“You’re gonna to have to be more specific,” the power armor said.

“What’s it gonna take for you to release my vassals and send them back to Earth?” Charles asked.

George would need them.

“You want me dead? Is that it?” Charles asked, spreading his arms and lowering his defenses. “Here I am.”

“Don’t be silly, Charles. You were always such a kidder. I don’t wanna kill you.”

Charles felt a hint of relief.

“I want to break you.”

The armor that had trapped Stella Germaine suddenly began to transmit her panicked breathing and grunts of effort as she tried to struggle against the inexorable strength of the armor.

There was a short-lived cry of pain as the helmet swiveled 360 degrees, then went limp, falling to the ocean.

The two armors he’d struck with Weathering Blast rose back to the surface, saltwater dripping off their light-devouring black surfaces, shrugging off the damage of the spell and rejoining the fight, each of them devoid of life.

The armor containing Reginald Johnson began to transmit the young man’s panicked whimpers as it floated forward, detaching a glaive from its back.

“This is monstrous!” Charles shouted as he blocked the glaive-wielding armor’s attack aiming to cripple him. “Fight me like a man, you coward!”

“Such valiant mewling,” The glaive wielding armor said, leaning in close to Charles’ face. “Coming from a man who assembled a dozen combat mages to kill a boy. How insulting. You should’ve brought more.”

“Did I not tell you what would happen?

The armor traced a finger across Charles’ chin, causing goosebumps of disgust to spread across his body.

“As far as I’m concerned-“

Divine fury

A blast of brilliant white light speared through the armor and everything beneath, sending Reginald’s smoking torso to a watery grave. Exhaustion began to creep into the edge of Charles’ mind, but he tapped into his Well and washed it away.

“You gave up your right to be treated as a human when you mansplained stage magic to me.” The armor bearing Hans Anderson continued, drawing a longsword as it approached, with two of the corpse-bearing suits following suit.

The three suits began to shuffle in front of each other as they approached, moving rapidly over under and behind each other like a shell game.

“Would you like to see a magic trick?” They said as one.

“Watch carefully. The trick here is-“

Divine fury

The beam of Charles’ most powerful attack spell accurately bored a hole through the two empty suits and…the one bearing his daughter’s fiancée, Kyle Brass, who had been moved behind them.

“There’s a fourth one!” Kyle’s suit did ‘jazz hands’ as it carried the bleeding corpse of his soon-to-be son-in-law to the ocean.

Magic trick? Charles’ attention was drawn to the ocean waves beneath them.

“Oooh, looks like he gets it!” The remaining suits said.

Grasp of the Titan

With a cry of effort, Charles reached down with his most powerful telekinetic spell and grabbed the presence he felt in the waves beneath them.

A massive squid was drawn out of the ocean. With access to his full suite of powers, he could tell that it was an inanimate object. A hollow metal tube with four living things on board.

“AAAGH!”

Charles clawed his hands and tore the offending machine apart, exposing the two living beings to his ire.

It was his ‘dead’ vassals, restrained by the boy’s version of ‘Threads of Gintax’…somehow seemingly preserved by it.

Not dead yet.

“Trying to preserve your character?” Charles sneered.

“Not exactly,” One of the armors said from behind him. “I’m proving to your vassals that I can protect them from me. You can’t.”

BOOOM!

An explosion sent Charles reeling back as the submarine detonated along with its passengers. Sky and ocean blurred together as he cartwheeled through the air, barely managing to regain his orientation.

Fuck this.

The Zauberer was a madman, and anyone who viewed his memory of the situation would agree with him. His gleeful, sadistic toying with Charles was more than enough to discredit him in the court of public opinion.

I’m sorry, Charles thought as he put on all the speed he could muster and headed for the portal floating in midair.

Charles was on edge, waiting for something to try and interfere with his escape, looking for one of the black armors to lunge in front of him, a short-range teleport on the edge of his mind, ready to engage in mind-bending areal dogfighting if it was required to reach the portal.

But nothing stopped him.

Teleport

Charles closed the last hundred feet in the blink of an eye, appearing in front of the portal going well over a hundred miles an hour.

CRACK!

He slammed into a solid barrier, his magical protections flickering as they absorbed the damage that would’ve otherwise broken his neck and shattered his ribs.

A gauntleted hand patted Charles on the shoulder as blood dripped down his chin.

“Good job, guinea pig.” The armor gave him a blurry thumb’s up. “I was wondering if Tyrannus would booby-trap the return portal. Looks like he just cut Earth off. Plausible deniability and all that, I suppose.”

“Wha…”

“Oh come now, you think I’d believe you designed the counterspell machine yourself, you fucking moron?” Paradox asked.

“Anyway, now that your vassals have seen you run away from a boy like a little bitch, let’s reset the board.”

The eight remaining armors folded open, revealing his puffy-eyed vassals, their eyes and noses watery from sheer terror.

Four pods of tar with ivory script venerating Astra and Gintax emerged from the ocean, releasing his four ‘dead’ vassals.

Edgard, Stella, Reginald, and Kyle took to the air with dazed expressions, their clothes ragged and torn around their lethal injuries.

The dozen armors assembled in front of them, limbering up their weapons.

“Now, before we play again, does anyone wanna switch teams?” Paradox asked.

***Paradox***

“So that’s your game, boy.” Charles said, his voice transmitted to Perry via the connection to his suits.

“That’s my game, Chuck.” Perry said, stifling a yawn.

“None of the men and women here will ever betray me. We are bound by blood-oath to a singular purpose.”

“Let’s see how they feel about that after seeing their liege abandon them a few more times,” Perry said, swirling the champaign in his glass as the sunlight crept past his parasol, inching towards his sand-covered, wiggling toes.

Mmm, bubbly.

“I got all the time in the world.”

Perry only had to choreograph a brutal beatdown eight more times.

In about four hours, The dozen mages and their hapless master were barely able to fly, wobbling in place, utterly exhausted. Perry had to slow down his suits drastically to match their feeble efforts.

Perry kept preventing them from actually dying, only technically dead just long enough to potentially loosen up any ‘till death’ oaths that might’ve been sealed by magic or honor.

Finally, Perry heard the words he’d been waiting for the entire time, but the source surprised him.

“If I switch sides, do I have your word that no harm will come to Ellanore?” Kyle, Ellanore’s politically-arranged fiancee said.

“Kyle!” Charles shouted, his face reddening.

He actually likes Ellanore!? Perry thought, spilling his drink on his reed-fiber shirt. Will wonders never cease? Ellie, your boyfriend’s a keeper. He’s got his priorities straight.

“Ah, damnit, one second, spilled my drink.” Perry muttered, wringing out his shirt.

“Alright, Kyle Brass, was it?” Perry said, squirting a bit of marguerita into his cup, making sure his opponents could hear him refilling his drink through the speakers in his suits.

“Yes.”

“You, Kyle Brass, have my word as Paradox Zauberer that should you swear fealty to me, no harm will come to you or your bride as long as you and she serve in good faith, with grace period of…let’s say…fifteen years.”

“You are most generous.” Kyle said, taking a knee in midair. “I swear to-“

“KYLE!” Chuck roared, aiming one of his Divine Fury blasts at his son-in-law. Perry flickered a suit far faster than he’d allowed them to see up until this point and nudged the man’s aim up and away, causing the bolt of energy to shoot out into space.

“Now, Chuck, don’t be rude.” Perry said, breaking his uncle’s wrist for good measure as Kyle continued his swearing-in.

Sure, they tried to kill him, but they weren’t the originators of the plot…and Perry needed his own political base if he was going to go against Gramma one day. That day marched steadily closer and he couldn’t just kill everyone who wronged him. Not when he could use them like dogs instead.

Waste not, want not.

“Anyone else?” Perry asked, scanning the assembled combat mages through his suits as they glared back at him. “No? Well, let’s reset the board and start game number ten while I get Kyle here measured for a change in livery.”

Perry escorted Kyle to the factory to get his measurements while Paradox’s Pernicious Prison crawled over the exhausted mages, restraining them in claustrophobic black tar, which jammed life-force into them, bringing their bodies back to fighting fit so he could safely beat them within an inch of their lives. Their bodies would be fine.

Their minds on the other hand…

Who gives a shit?

“Will you spare my son!?” Stella Germaine shouted as his armor bore down on the remaining mages, shrugging off a torrent of their magic like a heavy snowfall off the hood of a moving car.

“My lady,” Perry said, giving a formal Manitan bow with his armor. “I would relish the opportunity to spare your son. Same deal as Kyle? Fifteen-year grace period for you and your boy, with an indefinite sparing beyond for good behavior.”

The floodgates opened as Charles’ vassals betrayed him to secure the fate of their own families.

Everyone’s got people, Perry thought, climbing out of his sun-chair.

It was about time he made an appearance in person.

In less than a minute, Perry arrived in front of his uncle, all the man’s vassals standing behind him, wearing Perry’s armor, branded with the symbol of their houses.

“Uncle.” Perry said, inspecting his panting blue-eyed relative. “You look tired.”

“Infernus!” Charles grunted, thrusting forward with two clawed hands, unleashing a barely restrained Divine Fury and Hellfire. The spells combining into a raw and unfocused beam of pure destruction that dwarfed anything he’d done until now.

Perry’s armor warped around his uncle’s trump card, bending space to add distance between himself and the beam, causing it to miss by a relativistic mile.

He felt the world come to a halt as Charles took the opportunity to recast Michela’s Hindrance and Brethor’s Dominion.

Charles’ expression paled as the spell dragged them both to a higher plane and revealed a little candle-flame where his fate should be.

Perry flew lazily through Michela’s hindrance and grabbed his uncle by the shirt collar.

“Tell me,” Perry asked, inspecting the delicate, flickering flame in his uncle’s chest. “What do you see?”

“Monster…” Charles breathed.

“I thought as much,” Perry said, smacking his uncle hard enough to break the spell and knock loose a couple teeth, causing the darkness of Brethor’s Dominion around them to shatter, returning their surroundings to daylight.

“Apologize for inconveniencing me.” Perry, his voice low as his armor opened up to allow him to look into his uncle’s eyes bareback.

Sure enough, Perry caught a glimmer of essence in the old man’s eyes, and Perry interrupted the enchantment spell with a headbutt, re-breaking the fuckwad’s nose.

“I-I’m sorry for being an inconvenience.” Charles gasped, bits of blood bubbling from his split lip and loose teeth.

“Ask me to punish you.” Perry said.

“W-what?”

In his calmest, most even, most patronizing voice Perry laid out his reasoning.

“I explained in great detail what would happen if you continued to inconvenience me. The only reasonable explanation I can conjure as to why you didn’t heed my warning is because you wanted this to happen. Tell us all about it, uncle.”

“You can’t be-“ Charles cut off with a yelp as Perry clamped a bare hand down on his uncle’s spine and began to squeeze, causing the man’s vertebra to creak as they neared their breaking point.

“Please punish me!” Charles squealed, prompting Perry to ease off the pressure.

“Geez, if you’re that into it, I guess I could oblige.” Perry said with a shrug, patting his uncle on the shoulder before engulfing him in a tight hug.

“But not right now,” Perry whispered in his uncle’s ear. “I’m gonna wait. I’m gonna wait until I’ve delivered you safely back home to your family. Your oldest son all the way down to your youngest daughter are going to bear witness…because you asked for this, uncle.”

“My liege?” Kyle said, and it took Perry a fraction of a second to realize that Ella’s boy-toy was talking to him.

“Eh?” Perry asked, grabbing Charles by the back of the neck and turning with his hostage so he didn’t try anything.

“What is that?” Kyle asked, pointing out a shimmering whorl of bent light that seemed to be gnawing on the side of Perry’s factory. More of them emerged from the water, gradually swarming the island in the distance and sniffing around his factory like a shark scenting blood in the water.

Charles started chuckling.