Change Your Mind

“It’s so simple,” Metallia began, “I just have to use what I know about you to help me decide which one is tainted. Would you give yourself the tainted water, or me? Now obviously, I can’t trust the vial in front of me, only an idiot would take what they are given. However, you know I’m not a moron, you would have counted on it, so clearly, I can’t pick the one in front of you.”

“So you’ve made your choice then?” John asked, adding onto the cylinder he was sitting on to make a backrest.

“Not quite. The pacifying agent within this water was made by my partner, meaning it was powered by mana, at least initially. This means you could have placed it in front of yourself in case it needed a constant flow of mana, so clearly I cannot choose the vial in front of you,” the woman explained, a smug look on her face.

“Wow, your intelligence is staggering,” John replied, stroking his chin with his fingers. All the while, he did his best to keep a straight face.

“I’m just getting started! What was I saying?” she asked, looking intently at the vial closer to her.

“Mana,” John simply replied.

“Right! And obviously, you would know that I would know that the bubbles were, at least initially, powered by mana, so I can’t choose the vial in front of me.”

“Now you’re just wasting our time,” John said, leaning forward, and getting tired of listening to her go on and on.

“You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you! You’ve beaten Mandruzzo, apparently without a scratch on you, so clearly you’re very durable. You could be relying on that durability to stall the stun, having put it in your own glass. However! His intellect rivaled my own, and you must have outsmarted him to have beaten him, I don’t believe you were just that strong. To outsmart him, you must have experience. To get that much experience, you must have faced your own mortality. In facing your own mortality, you would realize that you are mortal, so clearly you wouldn’t endanger yourself and put the tainted water in front of you,“ Metallia finished, obviously studying his face as she spoke.
“You’re trying to trick me into giving it away… you won’t,” John confidently stated, and true to his word his expressions hadn’t given anything away. He used Mind Reading on her for a peek into her thoughts. By the extent of what he heard, he was guessing it levelled up again.

He could have put the vial in front of himself, but he could have put it in front of me because- but that wouldn’t make any sense, but in reality it couldn’t be so, but in the end it doesn’t matter because I’m just going to hold liquid in my mouth with my metal filling. I just need to buy enough time for the metal I’m controlling to snake around his legs. It’s slow going because he is really out of my major sphere of influence but it’s almost there… almost there… He cut the connection immediately, having everything he needed to know.

“I tried to be civil,” John commented, Jumping to Lucille, picking her up, and Jumping back to Mandruzzo and picking him up. “I’ll just be taking these.”

“Wait!” Metallia screamed, shrapnel flying everywhere. When it came to metallomancers, though their influence was weaker outside of their sphere of control, making metal explode outward required power and no precision, which was doable.

Since the shards had no aim, they clinked uselessly against Lucille and scraped his duster lightly.

“Please, wait. Can you find it in the good of your heart to give me another chance?” Metallia pleaded, the metal slowly returning to her.

“Why should I? You tried to cheat with the first chance I gave you,” John replied, looking back at her. Seeing her on the ground, he was very tempted. Someone so obviously in need.

“Fine. Unfreeze my teammate, and I’ll give you yours. You can trust my word, at the very least,” John said, tilting the Lucille-statue into his enemy’s sphere of influence. The metal flowed down her head slowly, and John noticed that her nostrils had air holes just before the metal melted away.

“Don’t trust her!” Lucille immediately gasped, and John saw that the metal that melted off her head had formed a disc which was currently sailing toward his head. Not having the time to re-grab Mandruzzo, and counting his losses, he Jumped away with Lucille. Strapping her to his back with Magic Rope, he looked back at Metallia and shot a Magic Rope net at her through Ebony before sprinting into the woods, following the pull of the magnet sticker once again.

“You were gullible to trust her once and a fool to trust her twice,” Lucille commented as John sprinted through the forest. This close, he could feel the resistance from the charge of her magnet sticker, even through the layer of metal restraining her.

“I know, I know. What’re the chances of you breaking free?” John asked, double jumping into the trees. It was difficult with the extra weight Lucille posed, but he was able to grab a stable, low branch.

“Well, if I had to guess by its color, I’d say this is tin. That is one of the more malleable metals, but with no range of movement, I won’t be able to get out. It has a low melting point though; your fiery friend could be able to melt me out without harming me much,” Lucille explained, her eyes darting around the forest.

“Well, the scrying magic I used on Metallia told me that she had excellent control over mundane metals, so hopefully you’re right about it being tin,” John replied. As he leapt to the next branch, Discordance rang out. He was worried for a moment that they were followed or happened upon another group of applicants. Luckily, all that happened was the next branch was too weak for both of their combined weight and snapped under him.

They came crashing down, Lucille’s extra weight earning him a few points of damage. “I guess since I can’t really move around too well with you strapped to my back, it’d be better to stick to the ground.”

“That’s a good call,” Lucille groaned, clearly uncomfortable. They continued on the ground in silence for about fifteen minutes, and John was surprised that it was his partner who broke it.

“Thank you… for saving me back there. Your approach was unorthodox… but based on your performance then, I believe you could have disabled her pretty easily with a physical stealth approach. In this business, mercy will get you killed. Don’t be nice to people trying to kill you,” Lucille advised, looking down, though he couldn’t tell.

“You speak like you’ve been a bounty hunter for years,” John joked as the forest cleared out into a meadow that went on into the horizon. “How could you tell what I was doing anyway?”

“She left tiny pinpricks in front of my eyes and ears, and holes for breathing through my nose. I was constantly cancelling her magic when you were sat at the table, but against constant magic like that, it’s difficult and costly,” Lucille explained, cracking her neck, the largest amount of movement she was allowed.

“Well, everything turned out alright, and I’ve still got her partner’s ID card, which is going to be inconvenient for him,” John laughed. Pinpricks in the distance headed in the same direction as them. Since the magnet tattoos became inactive the second they came into sight, John guessed they were Abigail and Grace.

“Though I disagree with your methods, I can’t argue with their results,” Lucille wearily finished. “I’ll be honest, I thought you were going to get yourself killed. So again, thank you.”

“Wow, what a great pep-talk. I really feel the gratitude,” John remarked, which made the elf roll her eyes. After a few more minutes, John could distinctly make out the forms of his two friends.

“Abigail and Grace are close to us, you’ll be out soon,” John called back, shifting her position on his back. He was starting to get a little cramped.

A condition Lucille shared, after being in the same position for so long. “That’ll be a relief. I hate being out of control like this.”

“I didn’t hear a ‘thank you’ for carrying you,” John complained, though he didn't really mind much. It’s not like they had any alternatives.

“Don’t push your luck,” Lucille replied, and there was venom in her voice. After a few more minutes, John could clearly see his friends, and Abigail was waving to him.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” John called, setting down his partner. He stretched after, feeling stiff.

“I don’t remember ‘find treasure’ being on your list of tasks,” Grace joked, which made Lucille turn her head and glare at her.

“Can you get me out of this, Cherufe?” Lucille requested, and Abigail’s fingers began to glow with fire when she heard the request.

“Are you sure that won’t hurt? Molten metal flowing down your body?” Abigail asked, inspecting the metal with flaming hands. “I can melt it easily, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m a little more resistant than that,” Lucille replied in an attempt to set Abigail at ease. The fiery girl set to work, applying her flames to Lucille’s trapped form, bottom up.