The child explored the jungle, the surroundings illuminated a distinctly greener shade by a light that hovered nearby. Just like last time the floor was a buzz of activity of countless wriggling bodies but unlike last time it didn’t find them interesting enough to look at.

Instead it focused on traversing the jungle, using the light to look for any dangers ahead and keeping its eyes trained towards the distance. It was thanks to its vigilance that it spotted a familiar looking tendril on the ground, a tendril that not too long ago had nearly killed it. But now, things were different with its new power. Such a creature would be no danger to it because now it had the ability to spot it and trick it.

It mentally noted where the tendril was and exhaled a plume of starry vapor to form into another green light and steered it forward to scout ahead. The light revealed a web of tendrils covering the ground, just waiting for an unfortunate soul to step on them.

The child moved forward using its faithful lights to spot the tendrils on the floor and step over them without touching them. The child gracefully avoided the monster and moved deeper into the jungle without difficulty. Another creature that was previously a threat now tricked and rendered a non-threat thanks to its power.

In the distance, It spotted something new and interesting. A plant colored vibrant shades of red and pink bloomed from the ground, releasing particles of glowing golden pollen that floated lazily in the wind, lighting up a good portion of the jungle ahead.

The colors, the lights, the plant, the sight all of it was beautiful especially when compared to the drab browns, greens and occasional rocky grays of the jungle floor. The child drew closer to gain a better view of the patch of wonder but it was not the only being drawn to the area.

As the child was approaching another creature had also been doing the same. The child jumped as a large, shaggy brown furry creature lumbered forward into the yellowy glow of the pollen, crushing branches and stones under its feet by sheer mass. Beast and child stared straight at each other. Luckily, for one reason or another, the beast had no interest in the child, glancing at it briefly before turning away and instead focusing its entire attention on the flower.

The child released a sigh of relief, for the first time in its life there was a large creature that didn’t want to kill it. The child stared at the brown creature, maybe the creature was like it, simply curious and wanting to see and study the jungle around it while avoiding dying.

The coming feeling of comradery shattered as the shaggy creature began biting down and tearing the flower into pieces. The child was horrified as it witnessed the shaggy monster inhale the wondrous plant in one bite and turn the previously wondrous view completely barren.

The child was flabbergasted, what motive was there to do such a thing?

What reason?

Rage filled the child, how dare this evil creature destroy such a beautiful sight for no reason. The plant was a ray of niceness in the otherwise terrible jungle and that beast had senselessly destroyed it. It had thought they were similar, but it was mistaken.

If the beast enjoyed destroying beautiful things then the child would have to do something about it. With malicious intent the child blew a plume of vapor and formed it into an illusion of the beautiful plant. The child then placed the flower high in the tree nearest the beast, at a height where the child knew the evil bugs lurked.

If the beast was truly evil and intent on destroying things that were beautiful and nice then it’d climb up and chase after the illusion. If not then that meant perhaps the beast had accidentally destroyed the flower and the child could forgive it.

To the child’s disappointment the former appeared to be true. The beast, too stupid to realize the stupidity in destroying such a wonderful plant for no reason, was also too stupid to distinguish illusion from reality. The shaggy creature immediately turned its head skyward, to the fake plant high in the tree and moved towards it.

As the beast clambered up the tree its claws drew large gouges in the wood as it made its ascent with surprising quickness. It didn’t take long at all for the beast to reach near the level of where it had placed the illusion.

The child watched scornfully as the beast futilely tried to bite the illusion of the plant, consuming only mist for its efforts. The beast let out a frustrated roar as it tried to eat the plant but no matter how hard it bit, or clawed nothing changed.

As planned the racket of the angry beast drew the attention of another creature, or in this case creatures. It began with one at first, a lone evil bug was effortlessly torn to pieces by the shaggy brown beast, splattering black blood all over itself and the surrounding trees. As the beast continued chomping at the illusion two more evil bugs emerged only to be shredded, then three more, then four more, then more and more in an ever increasing number.

Before long the whole canopy above came alive as the same horde from earlier emerged to attack the shaggy brown beast. As with the last time the child made sure to stand perfectly still, completely unmoving so as to avoid attracting any attention from the chaos unfolding above as it watched disdainfully.

To the stupid beast’s credit it ripped apart and tore many evil bugs but there was only so much one creature could do when faced with so many. Before long the beast was overwhelmed by the swarm and its roars of rage changed to shouts of agony. The beast’s bellows soon faded to silence and bloody red confetti began raining down from the canopy.

Not long after the horde disappeared back up the trees and out of sight. One truly evil creature and countless evil bugs were rid from this world through the child’s ingenious mind and the creatures being too stupid to tell illusion from fiction.

Although the beautiful sight had been destroyed the child had made sure that its destruction hadn’t gone unavenged and so, the child merrily continued walking into the jungle with the light trailing nearby.

It had only been a few steps when in the distance the child heard a high pitched pulse, so high that the child could only barely hear it. Noise, like with the swarm, meant something was coming, another creature to trick.

Like during its confrontation with the swarm, the child stood still as a statue. If it stood still the creature wouldn’t be able to notice it, the shaggy brown furry creature earlier had only been able to spot the child due to it moving to take a better look at the flower. After that it’d either cast an illusion so that the monster would chase after said illusion dumbly, or the child could just sneak around it, like with the fleshy blob monster.

Its eyes scanned the jungle floor, looking for any sign of movement, for a creature’s approach. Its focus on the distant ground was a mistake as something swooped down from directly above, slashing the child’s back and carving out three deep lines. The now familiar sensation of pain bloomed from the wound as the child was pushed to its hands and knees.

It had been spotted despite standing still, why hadn’t it worked?

Standing still had worked on the evil bugs and the fleshy blob monster and probably would’ve worked on the shaggy brown beast as well but why wasn’t it working now?

Another high pitched pulse rang and a flapping of what sounded like cloth brought the child out of its thoughts. It might’ve been discovered despite standing still but it had its illusions, that’d throw the creature attacking it off.

With an exhale the child puffed out a cloud of stars and commanded them to form into six identical clones to run off into the distance and lure the creature that was attacking it away like how the child had dealt with the evil bugs. To the child’s annoyance the mists ignored its commands and only three clones were created. Despite its power’s misfire the clones faithfully followed their instructions and began running in three different directions.

Although there were only three clones that ought to be enough to trick whatever creature was attacking it. After all six had been enough to trick a whole horde so three should be more than enough to trick one beast. As it lay on its hands and knees the child made sure to suppress any movement

After a silent moment passed the child stood back up, that was more than enough time for the beast to be tricked by the illusions.

The child inspected its injury. It was annoyed at the three lines scored into its back. The wound hurt but by this point the child was so used to the sensation of pain that the feeling barely bothered it.

The creature must’ve accidentally hit the child, there was simply no other explanation for it. There was no way the creature could’ve spotted it when it had been standing perfectly still. Not spending much time dwelling on its misfortune the child brought its faithful green light close and set off to continue its exploration of the jungle.

Just as the child was taking another step another high pitched pulse sounded and the child saw a leathery brown figure barrelling straight towards it.

Throwing itself to the side, the child barely had enough time to dodge the incoming creature. It flew past the child, a three talon claw ripping at a now empty patch of air before soaring straight up into the mess of branches above and beyond the range that the conjured light could illuminate.

The child was shocked, the illusions hadn’t worked, the creature was still chasing after it. Scrambling to its feet the child exhaled more vapor, conjuring as many lights as it could to form a clear view of its surroundings. Although the lights helped the child see the nearby jungle it did not reveal a view of whatever monster was attacking it.

In the distance the same high pitched pulse echoed. Wherever there was sound there was a creature and so it sent the army of conjured lights to explore the area nearest the sound. The lights moved, commanded by the child to weave around branches and hunt down the creature that had attacked it. They lit up the darkness but found nothing apart from tree branches and leaves.

Pain dug into the child’s shoulder as three more lines were drawn into its white flesh. The child’s attacker flew away, past its reach and past its view.

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The child mentally kicked itself, it had been so focused on its lights that it hadn’t paid attention to its attacker. A complete change in tactics was needed. The child banished the army of lights, only keeping one to illuminate its surroundings. Instead deciding to neglect its conjurations the child poured all its focus on scanning the branches above for movement.

A leathery flapping followed shortly by a high pitched pulse, above and slightly to the right. The child turned to face the noise in time to see a brown furry beast bearing down on it. The child stood its ground, whatever the attacker had didn’t scare the child. The bite of the evil bugs were far more painful than the scratches that this creature gave it.

As the creature brought its talons up and lashed out, so too did the child. Three additional lines darkened the otherwise ivory skin of the child but in exchange a leathery wing of the brown furry beast was torn to pieces as twin white spikes shredded the limb.

The creature spun in circles, screeching the whole while as it completely lost control of its flight, slamming into the trunk of a nearby tree. Its delicate hollow bones shattered with a wet crunch and it was left paralyzed in a broken heap.

The child approached the creature’s limp form and bent down to stare at the large brown furry flying creature. The creature let out another pulsing sound and feebly tried to take a swing at the child. In response a white spike was sent straight through its head and after a shuddering death rattle it lay completely still, dead.

The child removed its spiked hand from the creature’s skull and wiped the blood and gray matter off on a nearby branch, before shifting its hand back into its original five digit state. It stood back up and took a moment to think.

Overall, the fight had gone well but during the fight it’s power hadn’t worked. Apart from its lights, not one of its tricks had worked. The standing still didn’t work, the illusions didn’t work, not even the lights really worked all that well.

Why hadn’t any of its tricks worked! They had worked on all the other creatures, the tendril monster, the evil bugs, and the shaggy brown beast but for some reason this one creature didn’t fall for a single one of them.

In the end the child had been forced to stop trying to trick it and instead had to fight it. Although the child had easily killed it, it found the need to so… vexing… It didn’t want to get into fights, fights hurt and although it could stand being hurt it felt that with its power it didn’t need to be hurt anymore.

The child fingered the scratches in its skin, feeling the hot pain radiating from the wound. It didn’t want to deal with this. It really didn’t like dealing with this. It’d need to do something different the next time it encountered the flying creature. Stabbing it to death wasn’t something the child wanted to do again.

Bringing the green light near the child prepared to continue exploring the jungle however, the light flickered on and off.

How odd that hadn’t happened before, why was its light acting up now?

The child focused on the light, willing it to stop its flickering. The light ignored its command. Annoyed, the child tried again, imposing its will on the light. Again the light ignored its command and continued flickering.

Hmph, if the light was going to ignore its command then so be it. The child dismissed the light, plunging its surroundings in darkness and exhaled to summon another light. However, nothing emerged, no starry vapor and no light.

How odd, every time before it’d conjured something its power had obeyed. The child exhaled, again nothing, no vapor and no light. It tried once more, and once more the same result. It tried some more, exhaling, picturing, commanding but nothing came out.

The child was rapidly becoming painfully aware of the surrounding darkness. Its imagination began filling the murky blackness with images of monsters reaching out and eating it. In a short period of time all the confidence it had vanished and it returned to being a small scared child.

Fear filling its every thought the child dropped on the ground, trying to find shelter. It felt around blindly, trying to find a space between roots or a hollow in the ground. The child had grown so used to the light that it had forgotten the terror of the blindness that came with the dark.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the child to find a shallow space underneath an intersection of three roots. The child shoved itself in and curled into a ball, trying to stand as perfectly still as it could but failing as it shook with fear. It hoped that no monster would find it.

—

Time passed and nothing changed. It hated the dark and the fear that came with it. It wished it still had its power but for one reason or another the power it had earlier possessed abandoned it, leaving it defenseless and afraid.

Why had its power abandoned it?

For the life of it the child couldn’t comprehend the vanishment of its power. One moment the power followed its every command and the next nothing came out, nothing at all!

The child exhaled for what perhaps was the thousandth time, hoping that by some miracle it’s power might come back. However, just like the thousand other preceding attempts, nothing came out.

The child reflected back on its power, how it had used it and how it had kept it safe. Though, the more the child thought about it, its power never had completely kept it safe.

When the evil bugs had had it surrounded it managed to recall that the creatures only reacted to its movement. It used that knowledge to trick all the dumb evil bugs into chasing after fake clones of itself. But… if it had failed to notice that the bugs were only attracted to movement it would have been torn to shreds.

When it’d reencountered the tendril monster it had managed to get past it using the light to take note of the danger, allowing it to step over the monster’s tendrils without touching them. Had the child tripped just once it’d have alerted the creature and probably have been torn apart by the monster’s massive jaws.

When walking to the beautiful flower it had been spotted by the shaggy brown beast. Despite the child’s blunder the beast ignored it and instead went for the flower. Had the beast been more interested in eating the child rather than the flower the child might well have been ambushed and eaten.

When it encountered the flying furry creature its power had well and truly failed it. None of its illusory tricks had worked and the creature had seen through it all. Only by letting itself get injured did the child manage to kill the creature. If the creature had been larger and stronger the child might’ve died from fighting it.

In all those encounters while it still had its power it could’ve easily died. If it had made just a tiny mistake or the situation was a tiny bit different it’d likely not have made it. The safety brought by its power had been an illusion.

However, even though it now knew that it had been over reliant on its power the child still longed for its power. The child wished that it could see the world around it once again. Even if all it saw were drab greens, browns and grays it wanted to see something other than blackness.

Sighing, the child closed its vision and pictured the scrambled memories of how it got its powers. The scene of tranquil waters and a beautiful urn filled its mind. Although it had only seen the other worldly plane briefly it had left a lasting impact on its mind.

When the child’s eyes reopened it was amazed to see the sight of a pool of water and a beautiful urn next to it. It stared at the view, mind completely blank as it stared at a manifestation of everything it wanted in that moment. The child reached for it, hoping to reach the safety of the tranquil plane but its hands slipped right through the urn and the view warped into a starry vaporous cloud.

It was then it realized what was going on, there was no plane, it was an illusion… An illusion it had created… It felt silly for trying to touch the plane and with a mental command dismissed the view.

Exhaling, the child puffed out a green light and just like that the darkness retreated and the child’s view of the world returned. With the darkness’s retreat so too did the fear that had been creeping into its heart flee, freeing its thoughts from the doom and gloom of its surroundings.

By some miracle its powers had returned!

Or had it?

Was it really simply a miracle that its power had returned… Probably not, there had to have been a reason its power disappeared and then returned. Again the child thought back to every moment it’d used its power and any potential correlation to its power's disappearance. There had been moments when its powers hadn’t just not worked but flat out disobeyed it. Perhaps those moments were related in some way.

From what it could recall there had been two times its power had completely ignored it. The first time was when it’d tricked the evil bug swarm. The child had tried to summon an army of clones to bait the horde but its power had ignored it and instead only six clones were summoned. The second time was when it had tried to throw off the flying furry monster. It’d tried to summon six clones like last time but only three had been created by its power.

What was the correlation?

What was the reason?

What had been different from the first time and the second time?

Countless possibilities passed through its mind. Had it been the situation? No, the circumstances had been similar. Had it been the creature? Probably not, it didn’t see how the creature changed its power when its power had followed it against all creatures.

A possibility that it didn’t immediately dismiss finally entered its mind. One difference was that when it had summoned six clones it hadn’t used its power at all. After using its power to travel the jungle for a while it had only been able to summon three clones. After that it had summoned the army of lights and then not long after its power disappeared.

Was there a limit to how often it could use its power?

Did that even make sense?

Why would using its power make it not be able to use its power?

The child was about to dismiss the idea when it thought to itself why not try out the idea. It couldn’t hurt. If it wasn’t true then nothing would change and if it was true the child would now know what made its power disappear. It was decided then, it’d try to see if it could use its power until it couldn’t use its power any more.

After taking a deep breath it conjured forth as many clones of itself it could muster. The stellar vapor formed into five separate clouds, solidifying until the child was now staring at five clones of itself.

It then repeated the action and this time only three more additional figures emerged. It repeated the action again where only two, then one, then zero additional clones were created. The child reached for its power and tried to summon an additional light but its power ignored it, instead lying dormant.

It appeared that its power could create eleven clones before nothing more could be summoned. Test one complete.

Soon after depleting its power all of the clones and the child’s sole light began flickering and then they began dissolving, leaving the child in darkness once more. Oddly, the child was less afraid of the darkness. The knowledge that its power would return had given it great comfort despite the danger.

It waited patiently in the hole in the ground for its power to return, checking every once in a while by trying to exhale a plume of nebulous gas to see if its power had returned. It counted the moments that passed and after the number of counted moments hit 3,654 its power returned.

Alright that settled that, its power had a limit to how much of it could be used before a long period of not being able to use it. If its power had one limit then it might have more. If it wanted to travel the jungle without dying every bit of knowledge would help. Let the tests on its powers begin!

—

Hmmm it’s power was weaker than it thought… It had so many limits and things it couldn’t do that it wondered if it’d ever feel safe with its power.

There was a limit on how much power it could use before it ran out, how many things it could create at once, the size of its illusion, not to mention how far it could control the illusion. There were also weirder limitations like how using its powers heavily for a while caused it to not be able to summon as many illusions.

All the weaknesses swirled around in the child’s head making it wonder why its power had so many limitations. It was weird, why did its power have to have any limitations at all?

Oh well, it is what it is.

Although its power was limited it knew what the limitations were, it could work around them. The child got up and prepared itself to go back into the jungle.

It’d have to make due with what it was given. It’d have to be careful, smart. The jungle wasn’t a safe place and so to be safe it’d need to remain sharp.