More Witching Hours...

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
05:31 PM ( +1h 12min )

"Now, try firing some white light through a prism," I held my hand out, using it to hold an imaginary prism in place "And you'll see a pretty lil rainbow! But what do you imagine happens if you run that rainbow through a second prism?"
I gestured the same way with my other hand, "Guess what? You won't get a new rainbow! At best you recombine the colors back into white light! That's cause the prism doesn't really add colors to the light; It breaks the colors apart from it! So white isn't actually a color! It's all colors mixed together! Which means that the reason a red horse is red..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
05:31 PM ( +1h 51min )

"...So how many times can you break apart that same stone?" Once again I made a smashing motion to the table without actually hitting it, "You'd think you could keep it up forever, right? Which means that no matter how small a part we get, there will always be smaller parts. In other words, the smallest part is really infinitely small. But... Then something that's infinitely small would be the same size as nothing! How can something be made out of nothing? Clearly there's a limit to how much you can break something apart. There must be some smallest part that is bigger than nothing. A teeny tiny un-pick-apartable part. And that smallest part..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
05:31 PM ( +3h 20min )

"...But the atoms don't like it when their outermost shell has an empty spot! So they try to steal electrons from other atoms! But now those atoms end up with empty spots of their own, so it really didn't solve the problem. Stealing leads to more stealing, right? And it continues like that, until..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
5:31 PM ( +5h 39min )

"...And every magnetic field has a north pole and a south pole. Just like Earth. Whether there is a Santa Claus on each one... Well, I've not figured that one out just yet. But listen..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
5:31 PM ( +5h 59min )

"...So the band where everyone marches in a single direction?" Puffing my chest out, I wave my arms so as to imitate the major, "That's like the domains of the ferromagnetic material! And the band where some march in the opposite direction from the rest? That'd be the domains of the ferrimagnetic materials! And the ferrimagnetic band is not gonna be as loud as the ferromagnetic one, since part of that band marches in a different direction from the rest. That means the music they make will partially cancel itself out, and... Uh, I think that's where the metaphor falls apart. But the point is, keep in mind..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
5:31 PM ( +6h 21min )

"...And PLOP!" I let a cherry fall into my ice-cream, "You drop the rubber duckie in the bathtub! And you will immediately notice how the waves from the rubber duckie move different from how the rubber duckie does if you push him! Waves, like the ripples in water, aren't the same things as things, like the rubber duckie. They don't move in the same way. The takeaway here is that the rubber duckie moves on the water; it doesn't need the water to move. That's not the case for the waves. The waves do need something to move in to exist. Remember that for later. Cause your mind is about to be blown! Now..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
5:31 PM ( +6h 44min )

"...And your phone-call will reach the aliens just in time for you to read the Christmas card from your great-great-great-great-great-great-great- and so on grand-daughter. If you're still alive after fifty thousand years. Which you likely won't be. It's not the radiowaves' fault though. They travel at the speed of light."
I swish my open palm through the air, "That's literally as fast as anything can go. It's just not always fast enough to get there in time! But from another perspective..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
5:31 PM ( +7h 26min 21sec )

"...So he decided to aim his spectroscope at the sun! Fraunhofer did find that the sun did leave some dark absorption lines on the color spectrum, as if it was an element! But it didn't match the electromagnetic signature of any of the materials he had tried so far. Couldn't find anything like it either. So he thought maybe he had found some new material that the sun is made out of. That material came to be named after the god of the sun, Helios. But that begged the question, what is helium? And can we find it on Earth? And this is where things got interesting..."

Day 5 of The 129th Rasheul Great **** Tournament
5:31 PM ( +8h 00min 00sec )

"But neither Michaelson or Morley could detect the 'drag' of luminiferous ether with their experiment. It simply didn't exist! The light from the sun appeared to travel at the same speed no matter what angle it was measured at!"
The Witch huffed in exhaustion, laying slumped on the table. She looked as if in transition to being dead from wanting to die.
"...With the exception of the direction your planet travels in... Right?" She droned.
I shook my head, "Nope."
She frowned in annoyance, "But... Yes. If your planet travels towards the light, then the light must reach it faster."
"You'd think so. But no! It's always and only at that one speed!"
She rose from her sloped state, looking startled and confused, "That... Makes absolutely no sense."
I couldn't help but smirk, "Damn right it doesn't. To make sense of that conundrum, we'd have to dip our footsies into the wild world of Albert Einstein. But I think I'll leave that for another time. Oh... Oh, wow! We've been going at this for a while, haven't we? I'm supposed to be on a date! How long did I talk?"

The Witch stared at me dead-faced as I pulled out my cellphone, "1AM!? Oh... Oh, no! I've been at it for eight hours!? Seriously?"
I looked back at Mully. Still as immobile as ever. He probably wouldn' notice I spent eight hours of our date talking to someone else, but still, it's incredibly rude, "I... guess I got carried away for a bit, huh. And I still haven't explained what an EMP is. Oh, let's go over it quickly, shall we? So, here's the thing..."
She waved her hand dismissively, staring into empty space with a dead stare, "No. There's no need. I got it. It's a sudden, intense burst of electromagnetic radiation incited by a high-energy source. The sun, for example. From the way you described it, the electromagnetic pulse has no discernable effect on living organisms, but can destroy any and all electronic devices within its span."
"Uh... Y-yeah. That's... That's it, basically. You got it." I was a bit taken aback that she was able to puzzle it together so quickly. Sure, I was able to explain it clearly, but this chick started out with a renaissance level understanding of the universe. I guess just cause someone doesn't have access to modern education, that doesn't make them dumb.

She kicked herself off the Fake Assassin, "Now, with that being settled, we can finally get over with what I wanted to bring up from the start."
"Oh, right. Of course. Go ahead."

She cleared her throat.
"I took the liberty of viewing your exhibitions." She glanced towards me with a faint yet theatrical grin, "I must say, I'm not disappointed."
"Well, I'm glad I could amuse you."
The Witch paced circles around me, "I have seen enough to know your little gadgets have the capacity to equal my magic in utility and devastation. On top of that, every time you enter the Arena you bring something new with you. Something that defies any expectation, and eludes common sense. I hate to admit it, but at this rate my own powers will prove insufficient to best you in combat."
"Hah..." I waved dismissively, "Flattery will get you everywhere, missy. Except of course winning the match. My fans rely on me to put on a show, you know? But hey! If you try your very best I'm sure you'd be able to stand against me for, like, a minute or two!"
"Oh, you misunderstand what I'm saying. I only said that my own powers won't be enough to beat you. But what if I didn't have to rely on my own powers alone?
"Uh...?"
She smirked, pleased by my bewildered stare, "As it happens, I do have a secret weapon. An ace in my sleeve, as it were. The very Crème de la crème of this Tournament."
She snapped her fingers. A cloud of small black orbs appeared from nowhere, converging into the shadow of a feminine figure.

Once the cloud was absorbed into the black shape entirely, light and color spread across its surface.
Standing before me was a toned-down version of Asmodeus. Toned down, of course, being relative. Her purple outfit was still more cleavage than dress-suit. And she still donned a feral smile.
One aimed squarely at me.

"Allison," She gestured towards the fiendish friend of hers with an elegant flourish, "Allow me to introduce to you my familiar. This is Femto; the Devil of Time."