A fist the size of a toaster slammed into Issac's left side with the strength of an Amtrak train. The force from Markine's punch threw Issac back to the far side of the room, sprawling him across the ground on his stomach.

Even without moving, Issac knew that his arm was broken.

Anyone else would be passed out saving them from feeling the pain of having a broken arm, but Issac seemed just unlucky enough to still be awake despite the pain. And it wasn’t just his arm either.

Issac could feel his broken ribs move and shift into pieces only to come back into place with every breath he took. Pinching his organs as they did.

Crawling the rest of the way there Issac propped himself up against the wall, allowing him to face as Markine stalked out of the wall of smoke. Issac, no longer having any energy to keep together, lets the smoke disperse into the air.

He didn’t need it anymore anyway.

Already Issac could feel his poncho start breaking on his body. Tears started forming as parts of it turned to ash. His rattling sticks were still stuck in Markine's back and one of his knives was lying somewhere on the floor.

The only things that he did have, were his clothes and a single knife still clutched in his hand.

“ What now you little shit, any last bit of defiance that you want to throw at me? ”

Making his way over to Issac Markine crouched down until his eyes were level with Issac.

“ I will tell you this, whatever tricks that you did have were pretty spectacular. In fact, if I didn’t know any better I would say that you knew some equations.” Makrin paused as he tilted his head to the side, staring at Issac. “ But there is no way for an Infa to use equations, especially, all the way out in the Wastes.”

Reaching out Markine lifted Issac’s chin, forcing him to stare into his eyes. Not one to back down, Issac stared down Markine with all the intensity left in his tired body.

And as Markine stared into Issac’s bright purple eyes he realized that Issac was never going to submit. He was never going to bow or break.

As he was now Markine knew that if he took him in then every day he would have to be constantly looking over his shoulder wondering when the knife would enter his back.

Looking into his eyes Markine realized that even though he was still lying on the ground, back against the wall and down an arm, somehow, he still thought that he was going to win.

But everyone has a breaking point.

“ You know, just because I don’t like that look in your eyes I’m gonna tell you a little something.” Reaching into his suit Markine pulled out a small circular rock. A black jagged-looking bit of rock that fit perfectly inside of Markine’s hand. The rock was pure black with a red symbol painted on it.

It was a strange symbol, nothing that Issac had ever seen before. To Issac, it looked like a circle of chains circling a star in the middle of an X.

Lifting his face with his hand Markine forced Issac to look at the rock, waving it in front of his eyes. “ See this little thing, this Center is the thing that carries the formula on that little bitch. Now watch as I do this.”

Forced to watch Issac looked on as Markine pinched the rock between his fingers, Issac saw as he fed a tiny sliver of energy into the rock causing the symbols to glow an ominous red.

“ AAAAAHHHH”

A child’s scream tour threw the crackling air. It was a terrified, pained scream and it came from the stone. Wide-eyed Issac stared at the rock, knowing that somehow it was Lucy who was screaming in pain.

“ This pretty little thing carries a formula that causes pain to whoever is branded with it, reaching them from anywhere in the country.” After letting the screams die out Markine started placing the stone back into his suit.“ Not only that but it watches and marks just where the branded are, making sure that they never leave the scope of the holder.”

“ Now that we understand each other let's get back to our discussion….or would you rather have another demonstration.”

Watching as Issac was forced to release his dagger, Markine knew that he had him.

“ That’s right. Now that you had your little temper tantrum taken care of let us get ba-”

Markine stopped.

He felt something land on the back of his neck. When he moved his hand to find out what it was it happened again, this time on his hand. Looking down Markine saw that a drop of water had landed right on the back of his hand.

And gradually more kept falling.

It started slow, a few drops here and another falling from across the room. But as the seconds grew so did the rain. The intensity kept increasing and increasing until a literal thunder rang out from inside the warehouse.

“ Wha- What is this ?”

Looking up Markine saw that once where there was black smoke now stood a collection of black thunderclouds. Somehow, without Markine noticing, clouds had begun to build up inside the warehouse, blanketing the ceiling with lightning-charged clouds.

“ You act as if you’ve never seen rain before.”

Surprised to see him still able to talk Markine just stared at Isaac, his mind too confused to even properly hear what he said. Staring silently at Issac’s smirking face as the rain continued to pour and build up at their feet Markine started to slowly connect the dots.

“ You?… You did this?” Gesturing to the clouds above Markine started to get more and more agitated. “ HOW?... THERE IS NO WAY IN THE WORLD FOR AN INFA TO PRODUCE A FORMULA OF THIS SIZE?.... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE.”

And all the while Issac watched.

He watched as Markine’s brain tried to deny what was in front of his very eyes. Issac could see that what little reason was left in his eyes was slowly starting to erode as more and more questions started to build up inside his head.

Deciding to play with him for the last time Issac answered.

“ It's not that difficult really. While I don't know the full science behind it I do know that a large amount of heat will lead to rain so all I did was close off the space and gather the moisture up above. And ta-da, you got yourself your very own thunderstorm, inside and ready to go.”

Enraged at this abnormality Markine lifed Issac, holding him up into the air with both hands. “ I don't know how you did this but this changes nothing, I can see now that an abomination like you should never have existed. And I plan to fix that mistake right now.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Again Thunder sounded out. This time louder than before.

Nervously Markine looked up watching as the clouds crackled with power. Even though he still had his shields up Makrine couldn't help but flinch with every noise that came from the clouds.

“ Scared ain't yeah?” Issac decided to put in the last nail. “ You should be, those sticks I had were made to work with nature, which means they make excellent lightning rods and-.” Motioning towards his back. “ -They are still on your back.”

Frantically Markine tried to look behind him, trying to see what Issac was mentioning. But it was too late, In a blindly fast white light a pale white arc of power reached down from the clouds and grabbed ahold of Issac's rattling sticks.

As they had been stuck inside of Markine shields they were able to bypass them as if they weren't even there.

“RRRRGGGHHH.”

Dropping Issac back onto the floor Markine’s body seized up as electricity tore through his body. All Markine could do was try to hold out as his body became paralyzed. He tried to utilize the Vita within his body to fight off the lighting but the sticks puncturing through his skin gave the lighting a direct path into his body.

Issac watched as again and again thunder and lightning rained down on Markine, each one guided towards him by Issac’s rattling sticks.

Issac knew that as long as the sticks remained inside Markine’s body he would never be able to dodge their strikes. And soon there would be nothing left but a charred corpse.

So while Markine was occupied Issac decided that he was going to have another look at what was inside of Markine’s office.

“ AAARHHH, STOP I WILL NOT DIE LIKE THIS.”

Surprised Issac looked back. Markine was still standing, through the pain of having lighting burning through his body Markine was still trying to fight.

Issac thought about leaving him alone. Given enough time he was sure the lighting would finish the job for him. And in the off chance that it didn't he would dedicate his life to finding and killing Issac, Markine would become the villain in Issac's story constantly trying to defeat Issac using complex schemes and traps.

That could be fun for a while.

But Issac didn't need him anymore. Markine had shown Issac that there were more people like them out there, there were places and people that he had never seen before all of them touched by magic. There were so many new and wonderful things out there to have fun with, all of them waiting for Issac.

He just had to look for them.

And really Issac didn't need Markine anymore. He already figured out his spells and his motivation was just to have money, all things considered, he was kind of a boring villain. I mean come on all he had were his shields and body powered by his tattoos.

So it would be better just to kill him.

But even though he was being electrocuted to death Markine's shields were still going strong so Issac couldn't just snipe him and be done with it. To finish him off Issac would need to construct a whole new spell, one strong enough to tear through Markine’s shields and end this show.

This would be the first time that Issac had ever created an offensive spell and doing it on the fly would be too dangerous. Issac would first have to take some time to center his mind and then gather as much magic as possible to create the body of the spell.

Now having time to cast the spell was easy seeing as Markine was stuck fighting against a thunderstorm. But it was when Issac went to gather his magic that he had trouble.

There was nothing left, Issac didn't have any magic left.

Between using [Mind] on a whole gang, gathering the smoke, closing off the building, and creating the clouds Issac had nothing left. Issac searched his entire body for an ounce of magic, he even tried to draw magic from his gear, hoping that he could siphon off a little bit of what he needed.

But no matter where he looked all he found was nothing.

' What to do, what to do?' Without any magic, Issac wouldn't have anything to build the spell on. Like a cup holding water, if the cup was too weak or heavens forbid not there, the water would spill everywhere. ‘ There's only one thing left then.’

The Wild Magic.

Normally for his spells, Issac would only use his magical energy, never the energy outside of his body. If he had to Issac would wild magic to juice up his spells. He would never use it as the body of the spell.

That energy was just too wild, it couldn't be used.

All of these reasons told Issac how it couldn't be done but the only thing Issac could think about was 'This is going to be fun.'

For the first time ever Issac was going to build a spell with Wild magic.

No, no, not building the spell. Issac obliviously couldn't build the spell with Wild magic, you can't with explosives. Instead of filling the container with the spell Issac would instead have to let the container build around the spell. It was like shooting a cannonball at a tarp, when the shell makes contact with the tarp the tarp naturally starts to fold over the shell creating a cover over the cannonball.

Of course, this was harder than Issac made it sound like. Normally when Issac created a spell he first built a container, something to hold the ideas of the spell together. Then he filled the container with what the spell was supposed to do, who it targeted, how long it lasted, and other details like that. The more complex the spell the more complex the container.

Then to tire it all together he needed some kind of symbol like a word or a rune that acted like a trigger so any time that Issac wanted to use that spell all he needed was the trigger.

This time however the spell was going to have to be built backwards. First was going to have to be the name of the spell, that should at least help him keep the form of the spell together long enough so that it could make it into the Wild.

Then after he filled the name with what he wanted the spell to do he would launch it into the Wild using the name as a sort of propellant. If it worked as it should then the name would send the spell into the Wild forming a shell of magic that would power the spell towards the target.

'So how is this all going to go together?' Issac closed his eyes, concentrating as he built the spell in his mind.

‘ I need something to get me through his shields.’ A blade was the first thing that came to mind.

‘Something that can kill him in one shot.’ Concentrating Issac tried to picture what he wanted to happen, he tried to imagine a spell that would make all of his problems just go away. Almost as if they were taken away by a strong gust of wind.

‘Wind, ok, let's go with that.’ Out of nowhere the thought of wind just popped into Issac's mind, that was fine, Issac had always liked the wind anyway.

Glaring at Markine’s figure still bathed in that yellow light, Issac chose his form of attack. ‘ I don't just want him gone….I want his head.’

Now a name meant to hold it. [Rey de Viento] or Kind of the Wind, a little pretentious but hey, this was his first offensive spell, he deserved to have a cool-sounding spell.

With all of his preparations ready Issac collected what little he had built in his head and carried it with him into the Wild.

Just by connecting himself to the Wild Issac felt as if his mind was eroding. There was no better way to describe natural magic than Wild. It was like standing in the middle of a storm, at any second he felt as if he would be swept away and scattered throughout the ether.

With no time to think Issac threw the spell that he had created into the Wild, trying to direct it as best as he could towards Markine Before throwing his mind back into his consciousness.

" [Rey de Viento] "

For a second nothing happened. Then right in front of him Issac saw his spell take form. The air gathered in the air condensing itself into the blade, one that even though he stood behind it he could still feel how sharp it was.

And then faster than anything he had seen Issac watched as the blade of wind launched itself toward Markine. Tearing through the air with a screech it raced towards Markine drawn towards his neck.

Barely having any chance to recognize what was coming towards him, Markine could only open his mouth before the blade passed through him.

Continuing past him the blade of wind passed through the back of the warehouse and into the sky beyond.

“HAHAHAHAHAH” Issac couldn't help it he just started laughing. Even as Markine’s head rolled to the ground and his body fell with a thud Issac just continued laughing.

His last Hail Mary attempt worked. He used Wild magic.

Oh, how he couldn’t wait to try that again.

Sure he’ll have to practice it first maybe tweak to delivery some more but he now saw the way through the storm.

Forcing himself to his feet Issac started the slow climb back into the office. With Markine dead the protection placed onto that space was now starting to disappear.

Wherever Lucy was he would find that out in there.

And if he made off with a few valuables, who would stop him?

After all, to the Victor goes the Spoils.