The Watch – Part 140:

I found myself lying face down on the ground, my mouth full of salt, the dryness of my mouth making me feel sick. My eyes were struggling to focus, my head pulsating rapidly and my chest painful from when I landed. I groaned as I slowly moved my arms and legs, trying to regain some normality to my senses. I lifted my head up to see where I had landed and saw nothing but flat ground, salt. I’m back on the salt plains where I fought Magician yesterday. A shadow poured over me. Their shoes looked familiar, but it was the purple clothes that jogged my memory, made me put the pieces together.

‘Here, let me help you up,’ Magician said, levitating me upwards and righted me so that I was standing upright. He let me go and I dropped, my feet landed hard. I was expecting to fall flat on my face again, but surprisingly my legs held me up. Now that I was upright, my head was able to clear quicker and I spat out the salt. When I had fully recovered, and able to drink in all the information that I need to know from now on. When I saw Magician standing there, I had hoped that I was imagining it, that the sudden teleportation had made me hallucinate, but unfortunately, he was standing there as clear as day, smiling manically, waiting patiently for me to adjust to my surroundings and figure out what is going on.

‘The look on your face is priceless,’ he said, ‘I wish I could take a picture for keepsakes, you know.’

‘I thought…’

‘You thought what? That you had defeated me? That my sudden disappearing act was your final victory over me? Well, looks like I have some explaining to do. But please do not worry, it is not a long story. It is rather straightforward.’ He was being playful. The tone of voice was hard to pin down. It was full of spite against me for overpowering him during our last battle, but there was a strong sense of glee as well, as if he was happy that I managed to beat him.

‘I must give credit where credit is due,’ he began, ‘you did surprise me earlier. I thought I had you beat, but it turned out you were only balancing on the ropes, climbing back up for another go. Not many people can say that they have surprised me, but you, you did that all by yourself, and in such a short amount of time as well. Congratulations to you, indeed.

‘Now, when you successfully pulled off that amazing final attack, I found myself somewhere very strange indeed. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be in a different Parallel Universe, far away from you and that watch. I still can’t figure out how you managed to do it, but you did and that is what is surprising, nevertheless that happened, and now I know what you are capable of, and that is going to be a whole lot of fun.

‘To answer your second question,’ he continued. I wasn’t aware that I was asking any questions, but who knows what’s going on inside his head. I have a feeling that even he doesn’t know, and that is absolutely terrifying, ‘I am standing here because of you. I have you to thank for using your watch. All I had to do was follow the energy spike, and that led me right back here, and I’m fairly confident you’re smart enough to figure out that I will not fall into the same trap twice.’

Seriously, he is starting to get on my nerves. I’ve never heard of anyone this crazy before. Whatever is running through his staff I do not want to take? ‘This time, I have not come here alone. I have brought backup. Oh, it is so comical to watch your facial expressions change so quickly,’ he chuckled. ‘But I am not going to reveal my backup because you are going to hand over the watch, are not you?’

Bringing backup is surprising to say the least. I pegged him as a one-man-army kind of guy. That level of unpredictability increases his fear factor tenfold. What else is he going to do that is against everything that I think I know about him? Maybe he’s bluffing, trying to invoke the fear factor. I really wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case at this point.

‘How can I be sure that you’re not making your backup up?’ I asked.

‘Do you really want to test that?’ he asked rhetorically. That threat is used to make people fold, implant some kind of fear in their minds, preventing them from doing anything the other person doesn’t like. That threat is designed to be empty, meaning no one is going to follow through. Occasionally someone does, but only on rare circumstances, and even then there’s no guarantee that they will. This is the first time I’ve ever heard that threat, and I know that if I do anything, he will follow through on his threat.

He knows it, too. He knows that that I know he’s not bluffing. But is he creating a double bluff, lying about the lie. No, I can’t let him get inside my head. If that happens, I would have lost the battle before it even began.

That means there is only one thing left to do. I have to refuse. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

‘I’m sorry,’ why did I apologise? ‘but I can’t let you have my watch.’

‘Very well,’ Magician said. ‘Then let’s get this party started.’

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)