James could feel his entire mass shake before he even heard the detonations that echoed across the city. The booming sounds drew closer and closer until they were deafening and he could visually notice the way the very air rippled from their sheer power. He readied his shadows and hid the vials Mercury the alchemist had gifted him, just in time for his senses to finally peek through the disturbances and finally see the man whose ire he'd drawn.

On many accounts, Abrakaboom looked exactly like you'd expect someone with such an alias would. There was an undeniable silliness to the mage's attire, a clear exaggeration of a stereotypical magic show magician outfit with an explosive theme that suited his usually bombastic personality. The best example of this combination of these themes was the thing resting upon his head, a tophat fit for summoning bunnies that had been modified to imitate a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion, the piece of clothing perhaps owning its dark grey coloration to the rains of soot and ashes it had been exposed to over the years rather than a purposeful design choice.

The tailcoat the old man wore was just as flamboyant yet monochrome, though the fact it was singed on all of its extremities hinted that it might have been bigger or longer once, with the pants following the same pattern. Those burn marks were notably still glowing in various colors, not simply the orange of cinders but also much more unnatural ones such as pink and green. The general color of the cloth seemed to have once been white judging by some of the more protected areas such as the inside of the elbows, but much like the hat had been greyed by decades of exposure to explosions, though not as uniformly as the thing upon the wizard's head, resulting in a gradient that appeared to highlight marks of past detonations.

The attire was finished off by a pair of nigh-black gloves, so drenched in dry soot and charcoal that one had to wonder how they could move without cracking or leaving residue everywhere. The sole exception to the dirtiness was a trio of white lines on the back of each hand, not simply spots spared by the remnants of the mage's actions but bumps sewn into the accessories' design.

Truly, the man's aesthetic matched his fiery personality, that of an enthusiastic and theatrical enjoyer of all that went boom. Sadly, his face did not match the usual childlike glee and cheekiness that marked his features in all photos of him James had spotted throughout the various times he had studied the city's current events and major actors. No, the man's visage was much more worrying.

The incredibly wrinkly angular face of the man usually likened to a lively grandpa, had become a terrifying grimace alongside the long white frowning eyebrows that rested above his dark eyes, filled not with a desire for mischief but dreadful wrath. The facial hair above his lip that any mustache-twirling villain would dream of and the goatee of his pointy chin reminded James of those stereotypical villains from old stories. For the first time in his life, now that he was the victim-to-be, he realized the true terror of seeing such a face while tied to train tracks that spelled certain doom.

The man flew through the air, not like a bird of prey but a missile about to destroy a target. Detonations followed in his wake, as though he was shattering the sound barrier every second. With a final powerful burst of air that sent the furniture James and the alchemist had been sitting at flying, the mage dropped down from the sky.

At the last second another burst of nothing beneath his feet stopped his fall, canceling all momentum and letting him land safely. He began to walk towards James, not bothering to bend the knee as he advanced faster than a man his age and with his physique should. He adjusted his gloves all the while, and his aquiline stare never left James.

"Mister Abrakaboo-"

Pain filled James' mind just as gold filled his vision.

Luckily he was used to fighting off the debilitating effects of agony from his experience with Sydakors, and he managed to focus back on his surroundings fast enough to realize what had happened.

The wizard's arm was stretched in his direction, his hand's palm to the sky while his index pointed at James' black mass. Fading away from existence were yellow sparkles, and already moving back to merge with his body were shredded pieces of solid shadows that had once been part of James spread about everywhere.

It was at this point James realized he was missing his head. Thankfully it served no purpose in his case, being purely cosmetic and to aid when dealing with humanoids, but still.

Tendrils of darkness erupted from the ground and went after the magician, but were easily battered away and disintegrated by a flick of the wrist that summoned a tornado of miniature fireworks. Each spark burned away at James and hurt him more than most things in either of his two lives ever had.

A flow of black magic rose from his soul and began to take shape to protect him against the destructive man and retaliate, only for a transparent colorless explosion to send James flying and ruin every single spell he had been making.

James melted into the ground as a shadow, only for the magic-covered foot of the old man to stomp on him and cause a detonation that projected him out and onto a wall, cracks forming from the impact.

He tried to take advantage of the opportunity and climb up, even using his new unfinished technique and partially turning into a light gas to float away as fast as possible. A roar of flames and kinetic power from above sent him back down.

The cycle kept repeating itself. Every time James attempted to do anything, something would put an end to it and hurt him. It was clear to him that Abrakaboom could have easily killed him by now if he truly wanted to. This whole charade was just the wizard's way of taking out his anger on something, and it was clear he was doing his best to hold back his punches to make sure James would be fine being treated as a punching bag for a little while longer.

It wasn't like doing nothing was any more effective either. When he tried to freeze in the hope the mage would pause the onslaught of attacks, the only response he got was another explosion similar to the first one, golden light harming him more than any of the other deflagrations. The message was clear: either he played along and tried to resist, or it would hurt even more.

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Fight or flight, get blown up, repeat.

Fight or flight, get blown up, repeat.

Fight or flight, get blown up, repeat.

It went on and on. James' usual strategy of preparing a strong attack while struggling against an enemy was completely denied by whatever trick Abrakaboom had up his sleeve that ruined every spell he tried to prepare or the more instinctual shadow attacks he attempted to unleash.

He had no idea how long it lasted. One moment he was flying through the air, feeling not the wind on his body but the aching of his burned being, the next he was beneath the sole of the magician's shoe, the wizard crouching to look down at the black puddle James had become.

"You're more durable than the other kids."

James was about to respond, but before he could voice any syllable he felt a terrible fizzling spread through his being.

"When I heard about what happened... About Runar..."

The mage's eyes gazed into nothing as his right hand slowly went over his heart shaking all the while.

"He was my oldest friend. The straight man to my shenanigans. I could feel my world fall apart, like a house of cards victim to nitroglycerin."

Abrakaboom focused back on the present.

"I wanted to blow you up until there were more pieces of you than there are stars in the sky, lad. Itty bitty pieces, still alive, still burning, healthy enough only to stay alive and regenerate to compensate for the constant ongoing damage. An eternity of nothing but agony, with barely enough sense of self to realize what's going on."

The manic look on his face was more off-putting than the pain, only for it to fall apart and reveal the tired old man beneath the magic and flair.

"But I know Runar. How stubborn he was. Bah, for all his finesse and etiquette, he was more of a charging bull than I am. You got his attention for some reason, and after that, there was no getting rid of him. It's how we became friends, ya know? I was the weird kid, but he was the one who treated me like a science project and did all he could to hang around and study me. He was around, so he became my go-to whenever I needed feedback. It was the good old days..."

He smiled and chuckled, overwhelmed by a wave of nostalgia, barely aware of James beneath him.

"Oh, like that time I made a tree grow in the pipes of the bathroom, roots exploding out of everything... Oh, that time he lent me a hand and made a rune to attract stinky bombs! ohohoh, that one was fine. And that Philbert kid deserved it. His look was priceless! Oh, and how his glasses reeked for weeks before he got a new pair!"

The chuckle turned into full-blown laughter, and James realized he somehow still had his gloopiness wrapped around the blue potion he had been given to hopefully make Abrakaboom forget his grudge. He wasn't certain of how distracted the man stomping him down was though, and thus elected to wait a little longer.

"Oh! Oh! That day everything was so hot, so I cast a ritual of Winter's Wrath! Oh, the way frost clung at the windows and snow filled the room... We made a few snowmen and still were in it up to the knees..."

The wizard's eyes turned glassier and glassier, lost in a rabbit hole of pleasant memories.

James took his chance. His body turned more solid around the Erlenmeyer to pop off the cork and-

A dark grey glove picked the volatile elixir of distraction from his black jelly body, uncaring of the way pieces of the solidified shadows fell off. The mage brought the concoction to his face to take a closer look.

"Yup, that's Mercury-made juice, alright."

Abrakaboom popped his lips, and the thing in his hand disintegrated, puffing out of existence in a small cloud of fading dust.

"Sneaky, eh? But how rude of you to treat me like one of those droning grandpas."

The man's weight on James suddenly became a lot heavier.

"I do like someone who tries, though. Eh, a boneless shadow has more of a spine than the two second greatest Villains in this city. Oh, that's funny."

James could feel the hot breath of the wizard on him, and smell it too. He suddenly developed a lot more pity for nurses in retirement homes who complained about the smell of old people.

"But, like I was saying lad, I know Runar. The bootlicking dotards of the cabal may think I'm an idiot, but I still bothered to read what they knew about you. It's that foolish genius that begun the fight, uh?"

He stayed silent, and James realized for the first time since their encounter began he was allowed to talk.

"He sent people after me, I beat them and ignored it."

"Uh uh."

"He did it again, and Blake Black intervened."

"Oh, I heard that one!"

"He sent a knight and a bomb to my warehouse. I told him to stop."

"He didn't?"

"He didn't say he would, so I went to his base for a change. We gave him a chance to surrender, beat his knights, and told him to give up again."

"He didn't."

"I sabotaged his teleportation crystal. I knew he'd try again if he ran away. As expected, he tried."

"Tut, wait, wait... You beat him because he tried to flee, yes?"

"I won the fight, but my sabotage ensured he wouldn't try again."

"And that, you did it with your Transformation, yes?"

"How do you-"

"Kid, lad, buddy, I'm Abrakaboom. I can feel the constant bubbling of change in your cells as they keep on recycling themselves. So, you corrupted that crystal or not?"

"...Yes."

"Now, here comes the important part. Don't lie to me, lad. Can you still feel him?"

"Yes. I don't know where he is, though, and we can't communicate."

The magician let out a sigh as he got back up. He stayed silent after that, only mindlessly dusting his clothes for what felt like an eternity.

"That's better than nothing. You're lucky, lad."

The old man walked off from the puddle James had become, though he did take the time to drag his shoes to clean them off.

"You're mostly a shadow kinda guy, so that narrows things somewhat. Still, ugh, looking through the elemental planes and the abyss will be a pain. Maybe I'll drop by his family, his folks should have something to track him on hand."

The wizard took off his hat before plunging his arm deep inside, wriggling it around despite the impossibility of his entire limb fitting in the accessory despite its size.

"Nice work on the shadow show, by the way. That pillar of darkness thingy? Loved it, eye-catching yet effective, with the right amount of gravitas to take center stage. Not a big fan of the whole using it on my best friend part but eh, nobody's perfect. I hope for you that you'll get better at it soon, because if I can't bring my best bud back..."

He pulled out a deck of cards and quickly looked through it, his hands moving faster than what should be humanly possible.

"There'll be more pieces of you than atoms in the universe. Toodles!"

He ripped a card in half and vanished in a flash, leaving a very confused, hurt, and bruised James behind.

The reincarnated pizza delivery boy briefly felt he needed a moment to fully return to reality, struggling to understand what had just happened or how he even felt about it. Seconds later he couldn't feel anything, his mind far too busy processing everything. Had he been more aware, he might have drawn a similarity to an old computer blue screening, such as that one bizarre robot the ratlings had battled in the Sunken City. Or perhaps his fear would have overwhelmed his ability to think rational thoughts for a short while. At this point, there was no way to know, and by the time he'd be aligned with existence once more, he'd likely have subconsciously gotten over the brunt of the event.

James' fading connection to the world around him pulled him back when one of his Infused mentally signaled yet more people knocking at his door.

Had he been more mentally present, James might have refused them, sending them off via his guards. Now, however? All he could do was go with the flow.

Deep, deep within his shaken psyche, was a faint echo.

Why can I never get a break?