Haochen gets another letter that he needs to leave to reply to - and Luca ducks out to the bathroom now that the threat to Nicholas is gone from the room too.

Only when Nicholas is alone does Wei Zhang step out, fully formed as a frozen sixteen year old student in neatly draping robes. Too beautiful and so perfectly put together he still doesn't quite look real, with dark eyes and pale skin and impeccably straight long black hair in a tight braid.

And the first thing Wei does is insult Nicholas for "-horrendous, childish humour of writing dick jokes in a grimoire you just found and then running around touching everything you see like an untrained mongrel-"

"I always knew you'd look like a nerd!" Nicholas snaps back because he's never spoken to this person before in his life but he doesn't take that shit lying down - and, admittedly, every time Luca says Nicholas couldn't win a fight just makes him more intent on starting one.

Nicholas lurches to his feet, only a year older at seventeen with tanned skin and messy hair, smudged glasses and casual clothes already rumpled. "Look at you, you're such a cliché – I heard you had minions in school like lording over kids means you have power, I bet you think you're special because you were the smartest teenager in a school, like that means anything-"

Wei throws out a hand and Nicholas is blasted back, slamming into the armchair and the whole thing topples over.

Nicholas only laughs and staggers back up. "Get a focus, asshole, let's fucking go."

"I don't need a focus," Wei spits out, the sneer twisting his beautiful features into something monstrous. "You want to see power? I'll show you."

Nicholas pulls out his wand and throws it to the ground, rips off his jacket as well and shoves up his shirt sleeves. "I'm not going easy on you just because you're made out of paper."

Nicholas dives behind another chair as a spiral curse sails over his head and rolls back to his feet, dragging up the floor as a shield but it stutters and moves lopsided. "Come on, come on!" he mutters.

"Pathetic," Wei hisses and his power builds, dense enough to be seen as shifting heat waves, kicking up wind and making his robes billow out.

Wei hits the shield with a blasting hex and Nicholas ducks away, a long line of red forming along his cheek as a piece of wooden shield cuts through him. In a constant sprint, Nicholas dodges between chairs, hurls broken-off pieces, ducks behind cover until he's chased out and tries to get closer to Wei all while the magic is throwing him back, Nicholas barely weaving around curses in time.

But he can't keep it up forever, there's only so much cover he can hide behind in this sitting room before it's all blown to shreds.

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Nicholas struggles back to his feet after slamming into a wall so hard it shook dust from the chandelier hanging over them.

A sharp piece of broken off porcelain from a vase drops from Nicholas' hand, a wide, manic grin on his face. His shirt buttons are ripped open, three concentric runes carved into his chest – a simplistic siphon. Because if Nicholas doesn't have enough magic power then he can just take Wei’s, gods know there's more than enough being thrown around.

Nicholas pulls at the floor with a simple gesture and it lurches up immediately, snapping to glass, forming spikes, launching itself at Wei.

"You think you can fight me with my own magic?" Wei snarls, exploding the glass stakes mid-air. He hasn't moved a step from his starting position -takes pride in not needing to- but he pulls in his power, wraps it around himself so the siphon no longer has access.

"It's mine now, asshole!" Nicholas cackles and when his hands move, the morning sunlight through the large windows catches off the edge of thousands of razor-sharp shards of glass, suspended in the air around Wei.

Wei’s eyes go wide.

It's a tornado of razors, cracking against Wei’s shield, half falling to the floor and shattering further as they collide but there's still more than enough still roiling, a cloud of glass that shifts and forms, transfigured into whips that lash out against the stone Wei pulls out of the walls.

It's only after a brief, violent, vicious few seconds but it stutters and droops, already using too much siphoned magic that Nicholas is running out of and he can't do focusless like this, not in a fight.

Luca bursts back into the room, panting from sprinting across the manor when he first heard the crashing sounds. Haochen is only a step behind but he's unhurried and seems to see no problem with any of this.

Nicholas power-slides on his knees under a stone shield raised up to block a strike from his glass whip and lurches to his feet, planting a foot into Wei’s stomach. Wei folds over, the breath forced out of him, and Nicholas grabs the back of Wei’s head, slamming his knee up into a nose so hard it throws Wei flat onto the floor.

The stone and glass crash to the ground and fall apart, skittering across the sitting room. Nicholas stumbles over Wei’s legs and falls too, barely catching himself above the other teenager.

Wei is sprawled on his back, hair splayed out and clothes ripped in a dozen different places, nose broken and bleeding profusely all over his lower face. Nicholas is on his hands and knees above him, exhausted, shirt open to bare the runes he cut in with blood now seeping all the way down his torso and into the top of his pants, glass in his hair, aching all over from being slammed into things.

Nicholas could end it, right here. But instead he smirks.

"I bet you think you're special," Nicholas mocks and then just laughs.

Wei throws him across the room where Nicholas hits the floor and rolls limply, already knocked out. Luca blocks the next curse, falling to his knees at Nicholas' side and raising his wand towards Wei with his teeth gritted.

Can he fight two high mages? No.

Will he do it anyway for Nicholas? Fuck yes he will.

Haochen places a hand on Wei’s shoulder when the teenager staggers up. "It's over."

"Not until he's dead," Wei hisses.

"You're bleeding everywhere," Haochen scoffs. "And it was done by a boy who can barely even use focusless magic. Concentrate on yourself, you’re still off-balance from coming out of the grimoire."

Wei whips towards Haochen with a glare on his face, shrugging off the man's hand. "I won!"

"Maybe you didn't lose but you certainly didn't win anything here, beating someone we already own." Haochen moves past a stunned Wei and holds his hands out to a scowling Luca. "Come now, I highly doubt you know any healing spells."

Luca looks down at an unconscious Nicholas and grits his teeth.