I walked in front, leading Arturo down to 'a specific corner store which had exactly the kind of ice cream I wanted'. I was lucky the place was both real and close to the doll, or this never would have worked.

"Man you really want this ice cream," my brother had to power walk to catch up to me, "haven't seen you this excited for something in a while."

"Well I haven't had ice cream in a while," oh that was bad. What was I saying? I just had ice cream… actually when was the last time I got ice cream. Maybe it had been a while.

We arrived at the store as the two of us walked in. Pickati said the doll was around this general area, so now all I needed to do was find some way to split off from him for a little bit.

I reached into the big freezer to grab the ice cream I wanted as he reached in to grab his own. I let myself enjoy the cold of the freezer for a second. This heat wave was driving me crazy. At least the big jacket my transformation gave me had some sort of spell on it to keep me from dying of heat while wearing it.

"Okay so here's your change," the clerk handed Arturo some spare change before handing him the ice cream. He took the money before holding the bag open for me to reach into.

I took the little cup of ice cream and held it up to my head. I closed my eyes and let myself enjoy the moment. I let everything fade away until it was just me, the ice cream on my forehead, and the weird noise coming from the back of the store.

My eyes flew open as I looked back into the store. There was a box of cereal on the floor in front of the shelf. After a second, some more boxes fell to join it.

"What is that?" I heard him whisper as he stared at the back of the store too. I glanced back at him before looking back at the boxes on the ground. I had to get him out of here before the doll decided to attack us.

"This again," The clerk grumbled before walking out from behind the register. He walked over to the boxes as I kept my eyes open for any signs of the doll.

"Things have been falling over all day," another clerk added as the first one started picking the boxes up, "we have no idea why."

She gave us a weirdly nervous smile as Arturo and I looked at each other and slowly walked out of the building. I put a bit of distance between us before I started thinking of ways to split off on my own. There was no way I'd manage to fight the doll without him noticing if he was this close, even with Pickati casting the spell…

Pickati hadn't given me the three tugs, the sign the doll was near. We had been in the same room as the falling boxes and he hadn't done a thing. I shuffled around a bit and managed to hit my bag without Arturo noticing. I felt it shuffling around under my arm and then two tugs.

Not three, but two. I was sure Pickati hadn't forgotten the signal, so was the thing in the store not a doll?

The two of us walked past a guy as we left the store behind. I almost passed by him without a second glance, until I noticed his eyes. He had blue eyes, the brightest I had ever seen before. It almost looked like they were glowing or something.

Should I be worried about that? I felt like I should have been worried about that. Pickati wasn't freaking out, so maybe I wasn't supposed to be?

Well, the blue eyed man walked into the convenience store, so it was out of my hands for now. I could worry about it after we dealt with the doll… wherever it was. I would have to ask Pickati what 'active' actually meant one of these days. I would have assumed it meant the doll would be out here causing trouble, but I hadn't heard any sort of panic or trouble.

We ended up stopping by a small park on the way home to enjoy our ice creams where Mom and Dad wouldn't find out about them. I took the top off the little cup and tore out the plastic spoon built into it. I dug into the chocolate treat before wondering how I was going to get away from Arturo and start looking for the doll.

And that was when I felt my three tugs on my bag. The doll was nearby. I glanced around a bit before feeling Pickati pulling the bag in a certain direction. I looked over there and saw a two way road with a line of buildings on the other side. Each of them had a store on the first floor with apartments above them.

In order words, there were a ton of people around but no one was panicking yet. Good, it meant I had time to get there and take this thing out before it could cause any trouble.

"Hold this for me for a minute, I need to use the bathroom," I shoved my ice cream into my brother's arm and ran off before he could say anything. I quickly crossed the road while it was still empty and ran in whatever direction Pickati dragged me in.

The pull took me into a bakery. I ran through the public part at the front and squeezed myself past a whole bunch of people to come out on the other side of the building. There standing in the middle of this back lot was the doll with its back turned to me and total visible. It started turning to me, its skin already changing, when I thrust my arm out.

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"Power of the stars, guide me through the deepest wells," Pickati shot out of my bag just in time. He cleared the light as I was transported into the void and given the usual transformation. I changed instantly like usual and pointed right at the ground under the doll.

[Gravity.

Spot under the doll.

Circle with a circumference of one foot.

Multiply gravity by three.]

I learned two pretty useful things about the doll as it fell to the floor. The first was that it wasn't as fast as usual when it needed to start from zero. The second was that a big enough impact was enough to knock it out of its invisibility.

Well, time to try out my strategy. I leapt forward, another spell going as I flew towards the increased gravity zone.

[Gravity.

Self.

Internal self.

Stability.]

I felt myself enter the field and let myself get pulled down by the increased gravity. But I had a feeling it wasn't going to be enough. I needed more force if I wanted to take this thing down.

[Gravity.

Self.

Double gravity.]

Between the tripling from the first spell, and the doubling from the third, I landed on the doll with six times my normal weight. Even with my relatively small body, I still had enough force to push my boots through the doll and out the other side.

And now that the doll was stuck, it was time to flip the script. As soon as my boots were on the ground, I readied another spell.

[Gravity.

Self.

Negate gravity.]

I kicked off, my body no longer caring how much gravity was pulling down on me. I twisted in the air until I was looking downwards. I thrust my arm forward and pointed my fingers at the part of the doll where its tail connected to its body. It couldn't move one bit as I let loose the spell which would finish it.

"Gravity Crush!" The tiny orb appeared at the base of the doll's tail before swallowing it, along with the doll's waist, upper legs, and lower torso. The rest of the body went slack as the black hole faded away. I let all of my spells drop before landing in front of the doll's now collapsing body.

I made sure the doll was gone for good before undoing the transformation.

"Finally," I stretched my arms out like I had just finished exercising them. "It took way too long to deal with that thing. Now let's get back to Arturo before he gets too worried about…"

I turned around, expecting to see Pickati flying in the air behind me. And he was there, don't get me wrong. The only issue was he wasn't the only one there.

Standing right next to an awkwardly floating Pickati was my brother, staring at me completely stunned. I felt my face slowly heat up as I looked at Pickati who could only offer me a small shrug.

I marched right up to my brother and took back the ice cream cup he was holding out in his hands. If this was going to be a conversation I had to have, I was going to have it with an ice-cream in hand. I took a single bite before looking up at my brother.

"So how much did you see?" If he only saw the last few parts, maybe this could be salvageable.

"From the part where you started saying something about the 'power of the stars'," oh, so pretty much the whole thing then. That complicated things a lot more. I gulped down the ice cream as Pickati sunk down into my bag. Maybe he thought if he moved slowly enough, Arturo wouldn't notice him. With the way my brother's eyes were tracking him, I didn't think it was working.

"Is that… supposed to happen?" He pointed down at my bag as I closed my lips.

"Yes…" I finally said after a long pause. I had to buy myself more time… oh I knew what to do. "We can talk about this more at home," I started walking towards home without a word, leaving my brother no option but to follow after me. We made it to the street and waited for the cars to clear when we heard a siren. We both looked over and saw smoke in the distance. Specifically in the direction we came in. We took a single look at each other before making a quick detour.

On the other side of the street was the convenience store. The right half was on fire and being hit by a fire truck's hose. The other half was covered in a bunch of ice. Over in the other direction I could see the guy from earlier. His eyes were a more normal green now, and he looked like he was arguing with thin air. Maybe he had a headset in?

He noticed the two of us staring at him and hurried away. I looked up at Arturo and said the only thing which needed to be said.

"None of that is my fault."