First things first, it was time to spend some Experience. Thus far, after the enormous amount I'd gained from my nights with Maki, the only purchases I'd made were 2 Dice in Martial Arts to give me 1 more than I had in Erotic Sorcery. I'd almost bought my Agility up to par with my Aura to really keep to the spirit of the promise I'd made to the Audience – the loud proclamation to always be a martial artist first and a sorcerer second – but had decided to hold off and give myself some time to think about it.

That had been a wise instinct in retrospect because I certainly hadn't anticipated running a Peach of Immortality across the city. Today was supposed to be a light day and a busy night of social maneuvering amongst the Cranes, which I still had to do later. I would have to be efficient to manage both.

As much as it pained me to admit it, upgrading the Crouching Tiger Stance was the only reasonable move. The technique involved wrapping your Qi around yourself in a constantly shifting, complex pattern that both camouflaged you and deadened your sounds. I didn't know if the Major Feat version of it could also mask your Qi; probably to some extent, it was a narrative system after all. The wording of the Master Feat, however, explicitly mentioned supernatural means of perception. Making one of my few Master Feats a Tiger Style technique had bothered me enough that I'd previously decided to work towards my own way of masking my shining, golden Aura, but for this, I'd put aside my pride for now. After this was settled though, I'd come up with my own, cooler stealth Stance.

At least it would drive the Tigers completely mad if they learned I'd stolen one of their most legendary techniques out from under their noses and mastered it on my own. Humiliating them online and even burning down their counterfeiting operation were two things that could feasibly be negotiated down from a death sentence, this was not. Stealing a signature technique was an unforgivable offense amongst traditional kung fu practitioners, the start of many a revenge tale for thousands of years. I'd be signing my death warrant in the eyes of their more old-school masters.

Fuck 'em. Welcome to Jersey, motherfuckers. My Black City Style will embody disrespect.

Even with the new, more generous Feat Prerequisite rules, the mastered Crouching Tiger Stance had a pretty broad set of requirements. Thankfully, I met most of them already, having already been an acrobatic and agile fighter, but I still had to buy another 2 Dice in Stealth for a total of 10, 3 in Climbing for a total of 5, and 2 in Athletics for a total of 6. There were other ways to get there, but that was the cheapest and most in line with how my build was developing. After spending 210 Experience on Skills, I was able to spend the last 50 to upgrade the Feat to Master.

> [Master Feat (Tiger Style Kung Fu)] Crouching Tiger Stance

> Your spirit reflects that of the Great White Tiger, Báihǔ, with crystalline clarity. Your Qi cloak is perfect, blending your very metaphysical presence into your surroundings with deadly precision, extending beyond just your appearance and the sounds you make to include your heat, scent, psychic presence, and more. When motionless in the Stance, you can only be detected by specialized supernatural abilities, with most creatures utterly unable to notice you. When in this Stance, you may add your Aura to any attempt to avoid detection, including against unknown observers.

That was around a third of my reserve Experience gone and while it would never feel great to see that number dip by the hundreds, I had to say, the fully realized Crouching Tiger was pretty damn cool. I would enjoy crushing the Triads with their own technique.

But that was only one of my concerns; speed was the other. In the vast catalog of Feats in Love Fight, there were hundreds of ways that I could increase my movement speed that I already had the Prerequisites for. However, I had a better idea, more in line with my Black City Style; it was high time to start wrangling in my build. I pulled up my shirt and pressed my new shiny Artifact Token, a platinum thumb-sized bolt, to my black-and-gold Steel Silk Sash. I'd taken to wearing my mother's gift under my shirt; it was indestructible, making it ideal for knife defense, and served as a sentimental reminder of her.

A mental screen akin to the Base Upgrade menu popped up, offering a multitude of ways to improve the Sash. Unfortunately, unlike my rinky-dink basement apartment, the Sash offered me no discounts. The Producers had already upgraded it with indestructibility, the ability to return to me if lost the next day, and a self-cleaning enchantment. I counted myself lucky that it didn't cost me extra to upgrade it further, and that Artifact Tokens, while still costing 50XP, hadn't been designed to be pooled together like Bases. Each Token, at first glance at least, could have far greater effects.

It still cost me another 200XP in Tokens to get exactly what I wanted, but I was more than happy with the results. Two Tokens had bought me 'Extendable 2', which allowed me to effortlessly extend the sash up to a hundred-fold its normal length of three meters. Another three Tokens had given the Sash 'Flawless Qi Channeling', meaning I could channel any of my Qi techniques through the material with the same ease that I could my arm. The only reason I could see that the Upgrades hadn't cost more, was that in the hands of most anyone else, it was still just a fancy length of silk. For me, though, it was devious.

I extended the Sash's ends, making them telekinetically zip in sharp angles around me, envisioning using it to block Pak Hadiman's relentless flurry of whip attacks. At a potential three hundred meters, I'd have been able to both attack and defend simultaneously – shit, and entangle, distract, and a half dozen other things too. It would take a long time, or a lot of specialized Feats, to master the use of my new thousand-foot-long, extendible, indestructible silk limb, but the possibilities were endless, and I was itching to explore them.

With that, I was off, out the backdoor, onto the roofs, and racing towards Chinatown at a full sprint. The Sash was a game changer, making me into a knockoff Spider-man and exponentially expanding my potential routes. I could now leap from what we in the roof-running business referred to as a 'death fall', wrap a Sash end around a lamppost on the way down, and not only not die, but convert the momentum into ludicrous speed with a swing.

Three hundred meters was so, so much more than I had been able to visualize in my head. While the Sash didn't have the benefit of being sticky like Spider-man's webs, with telekinesis I could form the end into a hard hook to latch onto any ledge or I-beam and retract it like a movie grappling hook as needed. And the further I went down Force Armor's tactile telekinesis tree, the more the city would open up. Already, there were few roofs out of reach. The tallest were typically flat and thus required by law to have a parapet; with one end of the Sash around my waist, and the other hooked onto the parapet, I could defy gravity and run up the sides, the silk helping pull me up faster as it retracted. The only thing stopping me now was that some buildings lacked a way to swing down off them safely. Once I could effortlessly stick the Sash to surfaces, I'd be flying.

Despite how serious my task was, and the still deeply anxiety-inducing presence of the Peach of Immortality zipped up in my pocket, it was impossible to not enjoy myself as I cut through the air faster than the trains below. Unfortunately, the speed meant that the fun ended prematurely, taking me from Riverside to Chinatown in no time at all. While I could pass nigh invisible in the Crouching Tiger Stance over a sidewalk full of people without disturbing them with wind or noise, when I swung off a post or railing, it would continue to wobble or bang noisily after I'd gone. I wasn't naïve enough to think I could do that in a neighborhood full of Triad killers and not catch some unwanted attention.

Once on the edge of Chinatown, I stuck to jumping from roof to roof, moving as quickly as I could while minimizing lines of sight, even crawling on my hands and feet when I needed to. I treated every window as though it had an old master with supernaturally enhanced perception. After all, the one I was headed towards did.

I landed noiselessly on the fire escape outside Ma's kitchen window, the same that a Rain-Woman had crawled through shortly after my birth. My whole life I'd assumed this window stayed locked for security reasons, and yet the front door was unlocked more often than not, and no one who could have seriously posed a threat to our family would have been stopped by a glass pane anyway. I'd never really considered it, I suppose. If I had, I don't know what I would have thought – Ma wouldn't have made a mistake as simple as that. Now I knew, though. A spirit had crawled through that window and tried to drown her baby, so that window stayed shut and locked, forever.

It was strange to think of Lily Li as a woman capable of being traumatized, but there it was. I could think of no other reason she'd been such a stickler about it. I was flattered; once you got to know Ma, you learned to recognize all the little, unspoken ways that she expressed her love. You had to, because she sure as hell didn't express it verbally.

There was a familiar looking girl in the kitchen standing over the stove. I thought she may have been one of the new students I'd taught last Friday, but I couldn't place her exactly. That was kind of annoying, but I could make do. I placed my hand on the window so that my Qi extended cloudlike over the latch on the other side and telekinetically undid it. I could have used my new Skeleton Key Fob, but it only had three charges and my life was too chaotic to take that for granted when a small effort of will would do.

I slipped in and had to clutch my head as a shock of pain exploded within it. There was some mystic ward over the apartment defending against non-human entities – the sensation felt nearly identical to the venomous, electric sting of Maki's charm except it had shot up the base of my spine and into my skull. I shook my head free of the pain and closed the window behind me, pointlessly locking it out of respect for my mother's rules. If it made her feel better, then it made me feel better.

The girl continued cooking, too busy nervously glancing between a bubbling pot and her phone to notice me from the corner of her eyes when I entered. Even without my stealth technique, the noise of the vent hood over the stove would have covered my entrance. It had been absent the night of the Rain-Woman attack but there for as long as I could remember. My parents must have installed it just to remove any reason to open the kitchen window.

It took me a few seconds to recognize the girl. Wasn't that…Kuze's henchwoman? It was! She was dressed completely differently, her hair wasn't spiked anymore, and she was without her ostentatious make-up, but that was without a doubt the girl that had been with Kuze – Ami, I thought her name was. What the hell was she doing here? And in my sister's old clothes too, I noted.

That was odd, but I had more important business to worry about than the girl anxiously cooking lotus root and pork soup for my mother, so I slinked behind her and into the living room. Ma was there, in a low horse stance, eyes closed in meditation. She was dressed for comfort in linen flood pants and one of my faded Gorillaz t-shirts she'd turned into a crop top, exposing her abs and a bit of a red sports bra. Her long hair was in a braid and slung over her shoulder.

"Ma," I whispered, having to consciously allow the sound to pass through my Qi-cloak. "Don't freak out, it's me. I'm going to close the blinds."

"Eh, James?" She snapped to attention and scanned the area my voice had come from.

I watched as what appeared to be a second eyelid covered each eye and left two huge yellow irises that eclipsed the white sclera and wide, round pupils behind – the eyes of a great bird-of-prey. My single Die in Biology informed me that the eyelids were called nictating membranes, and Style Maker finally gave me some hints at how to achieve our family's legendary technique. I'd already assumed I'd never learn it after leaving the School, but it still stung to see that confirmed. I met the bloodline requirement, but it was the first Feat I'd seen that required a guided Qi-ritual to unlock, something that would remain closed to me.

"Hah?" she exhaled in disbelief, jaw falling open. "You stole the Crouching Tiger Stance?!" Ma threw her head back and started laughing uproariously. I'd rarely seen her so thrilled. "Well done! I was proud of you for destroying their wretched distillery, but this, this is true spite. Hahahahahaha!"

Ami poked her head out of the kitchen, clearly confused. "Shifu? Um, is someone—Ah!" The blinds fell closed, startling her.

My mother waved her hand in my approximate direction. "Ami, your ridiculous older brother stole the Crouching Tiger Stance away from your former employers. Wonderful, yes? This is exactly the kind of spiteful, creative cruelty I want you to internalize on your martial journey. To teach our enemies new forms of fear – this is the Dao of the Li-Family."

I sighed, glad my Qi-cloak stopped her from seeing me roll my eyes. I'd heard some form of this sentiment a thousand times. Ma had a talent for putting simple creeds that were relatively normal for martial artists, in the most deranged, villainous ways possible. If I had to communicate the same meaning to Annie, for example, I'd say something like, 'Keep your ops guessing, Shine. If they never know what's coming next, then they'll never feel safe. Poison their minds with doubt.' See, much more reasonable than 'internalize cruelty'.

Hang on, did she say, 'older brother'?

"James, this is my new closed-door student and your new younger sister. Ami had no official identity, so I decided to adopt her into the family. She has a better-than-average talent for our Eagle Style, as I'm sure you noticed in your instruction of her."

"You adopted someone without telling me?" I hissed incredulously, lowering the last blind.

She crossed her arms and glared. "Oho, so you can see how that might be hurtful now, can you? And yet you don't even call your mother to tell her you've taken a senior student or have been adopted into the Ishida Clan?" She shook her head sadly. "One would think we live on different continents, not in the same city. Now drop that coward's technique and introduce yourself to your sister properly. I have some thoughts about this absurd charity you're doing for the Ishida, by the way, but we can discuss them later. What do they grovel to their gods for if not protection, hm? Why do they need you?"

"What? How—" I stopped myself. "Look, I've got a million questions, and we don't have time for any of them."

I closed my eyes and regulated my breathing, pulling my Qi-cloak away from my body without dismissing it entirely. It was a complicated maneuver on account of my massive Aura and required a Willpower + Meditation check for me to manage. But with three Successes I was able to reveal myself without showing the whole world my second sun of an Aura, shunting much of my power into my shadow. It wasn't a sustainable plan though; any major distraction and the technique would drop entirely.

There was a sharp inhale from both women as they saw me. My mother wore some unreadable expression, a mix of concern, pride, and something else. Ami, on the other hand, was blushing brightly and was obviously terrified to see me, though I wasn't sure how much of the latter was related to my appearance. The last time we'd been in the same room, I had gouged channels through her Aniki's collarbones and left him on death's door.

I held out the Peach. "You need to eat this immediately before something insane happens."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Ma went rigid and her face pale – it was the most affected I'd ever seen her, not counting the attack by the Rain-Woman. "Ami," she ordered, "go downstairs and keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Shout if you need help."

"Yes, shifu." To her credit, the girl didn't hesitate for an instant, simply bowing and moving. Did she know she was being sent to safety, or did she actually believe that the two of us needed a lookout? I didn't know enough about her to say either way, and while I was extremely curious as to how the former henchwoman ended up in her position, every second counted here.

"Zhiqiang," my mother called me by my Chinese name and switched to Mandarin the moment Ami was out the door. That was normally an 'oh shit' moment from me, but this time I was glad to see her taking this seriously. "How—"

I cut her off in Mandarin, "Some gods found me entertaining enough to give it to me. Listen, we don't have time for a question-and-answer session, Ma; my getting this did not go unnoticed. You need to eat the Peach."

She looked wary. "If these gods gave it to you, then you were surely its intended eater."

"If the gods couldn't tell that I would immediately give it to my mother like the devoted son that I am, can they be called gods at all?"

There was a flash of a small smile that was quickly replaced with firm resolve. "And do you think that I, as a doting mother would snatch immortality from the hands of my only son?"

"Ma, I promise you, I will find a way to achieve biological immortality. Look at me, I'm already shockingly close and it's only been a week. Now would you eat the goddamn fruit? Every second we waste is another opportunity for this to go horrifically bad."

Lily Li closed her eyes and was silent for an agonizingly long three seconds, the ticks of the wall clock ringing like funeral bells in my head. She nodded to herself, shifted her weight almost imperceptibly, and moved her back foot to the side a few inches. "You are correct. There is no time for discussion. Come, give it here."

I squinted at her; she couldn't be serious. "Are you fucking kidding me? You really want to do it like this?"

"Now who is wasting time? I don't know what you're talking about, James, but I know you should hurry."

She extended her hand palm up for the fruit. I rolled my eyes – the battle maniac was totally incapable of chill. You didn't need to know that those fingers could curl up into diamond-hard blades to see the threat in the gesture. It oozed violence.

"Ma, you ain't fooling nobody. I modified and perfected that 'no tell' stance you're in the first thing I did when I started designing Black City Style." She had me stressing; I'd slipped into the gutter trash Mandarin of most Chinatown-born kids there.

"Hmph, very well." She shifted into a proper, offensive Eagle Style stance, arms out and relaxed, equally as ready to start a grapple as they were to parry an attack. "Then I will drop the pretense. You leave me no choice. I will make you eat."

"You're going to force feed me this Peach of Immortality? Really? That's your plan."

"Don't discount your abilities, James. You've grown quite strong since I've last seen you, perhaps it will be you shoving immortality down my throat." Ma smiled viciously, sending a shiver down my spine. "You know, my son, this will be our first proper fight. My love for you won't allow me to hold back."

"Hah…unbelievable. I really, cannot fucking believe this is how this is going." I moved my feet apart for balance, making sure to keep the foot furthest from her at a sharper outward angle than the other – Ma would be going for a takedown. "I'll try not to break anything, bones or furniture, but no promises."

I shook my head, and with another great sigh, let loose my fighting spirit. Funikugami's influence had warped it to become oppressive and hungry. It flooded the room and likely the surrounding block – I could either hold it back or continue hiding the light of my soul and since the latter shone for far further than a block, the choice was easy. Ma only laughed as it washed over her, predatory eagle eyes twinkling with excitement.

Lily Li's soul was a kaleidoscope of violence. Within it, a simple, ugly red could become a dazzling variety of colors, one for every occasion. Even this display of maternal love and self-sacrifice was dyed bloody crimson and adorned in glittering jewels of joyful cruelty. The battle aura she released in response cut through me like a bitter wind, colder than a blizzard and more gut-churning than the fetid drafts of the Carrion King's domain. On it was a promise. 'I will beat the hell out of you, and I will make you eat this Peach,' it was saying. 'And I shall enjoy both equally.'

"What's the matter, my son? I can't eat from over here. Step closer."

Ah, shit, this was going to hurt. In a straight fight, I doubted I could have beaten the Ma I'd seen in Funikugami's memories, and that had been twenty-two years ago. At twenty-six, days after my birth, she had torn that Rain-Woman to pieces and then gone on to, presumably, butcher the people who had sent it in the same night. Ma was a freak, a generational talent and total obsessive, a prodigy who had gleefully spent her childhood on the constant edge of training herself to death. God, I loved her, the absolute maniac.

No, I couldn't take her in a straight fight, but this wasn't a straight fight. Neither of us would risk destroying the Peach, nor would we be trying to maim or kill each other – well, I could see Ma taking one of my eyes to teach me a lesson, she was old school like that, but nothing more. Still, she was a killer, and this was a brawl with a loved one – how many of her high-level techniques would she be able to pull out here?

"You know, Ma," I said, starting to juggle the Peach between my hands, "this is some supremely silly shit we're about to get into. Know what that means?" I started slowly circling, outer foot first to never present an opportunity to pin my legs, and put the coffee table between us and the TV at my back, hoping she'd be reluctant to tear her apartment apart. "That means this might be your home, but we're in my domain now. Welcome to Silly Town, mother; population: 2, mayor: James Li."

"Tch, you should feel ashamed to admit that openly."

With the Challenge I'd accepted, I wouldn't be able to rely on lucky Criticals anymore, not to the same extent, at least. I couldn't split up extra Successes after the fact to make insanely complicated single-round Attacks. I needed to make intentional, careful moves, no more using half the Successes to tie someone up, two more to move them, and the last few for extra Damage.

My plan was to flip over her, kick off the ceiling, and take her back. If I could force her face against the ground, I could use my elbow to pry her jaw open from the side and force the fruit into her mouth. Mid juggle, I caught the Peach between my neck and chin, and hopped onto the coffee table – or tried to.

Ma's foot went through the table a fraction of a second before I could land, crushing it into splinters as she put her entire body into an overhead left using the fully-extended ridge of the forearm, what we called the 'wing strike', twisting from the hips and back, lunging forward, and utilizing gravity for that added 'oomph' – essentially the upper body equivalent of a roundhouse.

'BREAK THROUGH'

Her intent was so perfect, so honed, that her Qi screamed the words in my head the instant her forearm made contact with my sternum, or rather, my Force Armor, which it completely ignored. I used my newest Feat, Punching Dummy, instinctually, tucking my hips to curve my trajectory slightly under her arm rather than taking the blow head on, and reduced the damage by half my Agility Dice. It wasn't enough to save me. I went crashing into and through the TV, its stand, the DVD player, and onto the hardwood floor with such force that the boards buckled underneath me.

I slapped the ground and telekinetically pushed myself into an uncontrolled roll to the side, hitting the wall to the kitchen but avoiding Ma's follow-up stomp to my ribs.

"Ho! Impressive. That would have killed you two years ago."

Groaning, I pushed myself to my feet. The direct blow to the body had knocked the wind out of me. "What the hell, Ma? You never showed me that before," I said, referencing the Feat she'd used to blast through my armor.

She was examining the Peach in her hand. I'd missed her catching it while I was hurtling meteor-like through our pirated DVD collection. "I asked you if you wanted to harden your shins or your forearms first. You picked shins. Don't put the blame on me. We could have done both, but you wanted your free time."

I looked at the wreckage of the living room before me and rubbed my chest, using the opportunity to use my Circular Breathing to heal the bone bruise and hairline fracture she'd given me. Fragments of hard plastic were embedded in the plaster of the walls and ceiling and there was blood dripping down my back from where some had cut me.

"Can't believe you once made me do an hour of wall-sits for forgetting a coaster," I grumbled, stalling as I tried to figure out my next move. If she was willing to rip this place to pieces then I had to reevaluate my strategy.

"I've wanted to redecorate since the divorce, but it was difficult to get started, so many memories in these simple belongings. This is an excellent reason to start over, however; I can finally get rid of this furniture and put in some new wallpaper. Feel free to go wild, boy. You'll have to, if you mean to stand a chance."

Ma grinned at me, seemingly uncaring of the mess or the situation, and rested her chin on her fist. She was waiting and anticipating, antagonizing me with her nonchalance. Right, I'd make her regret giving me this break.

I dropped out of the Crouching Tiger fully, allowing my Aura to shine freely. It had been foolish of me to assume that I could fight Lily Li while holding anything back. I'd have to end this quickly though, everyone of import in the neighborhood was now an audience to our family spat. Accelerating my metabolism and breathing, I began ratcheting up my body heat to unbearable temperatures. For good measure I even invented a Feat with Style Maker to make what I was aiming for easier, creating something I could easily teach Annie as well.

> [Minor Feat (Black City Kung Fu)] Hot Blooded

> By allowing your fighting spirit to rage inside your lungs and heart, you can elevate your body temperature to a tremendous degree. Most opponents – and unprepared allies – suffer a 1 Die penalty when engaged in close-quarters combat with or around you, and a 2 Dice penalty when in a direct grapple with you.

She had caught me off guard with her willingness to destroy the table, and I'd paid the price, but the gap in skill between us was no longer the chasm it had been my entire life. Without meta knowledge, it was impossible to say exactly where we sat in relation to each other, but I could feel it – there were two masters in this room. She could feel it too, or else she'd have pushed her advantage, but she was just waiting, watching, unsure of where I had taken my Art in the time since I'd left the School, unsure of what I could do.

"Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?" Both our grins were manic now, but only Ma had started to grit her teeth. She'd be sweating soon.

I let my windbreaker slip from my shoulders and tore my shirt off, not taking my eyes off her for a second. The fewer places the master grappler could grab me, the higher my chances of success.

Ma would be the first to see my wacky novelty Art and generalist build grow into something cohesive and busted. I undid the Sash around my waist, wrapped one end around my right wrist, and started swinging the other like a pendulum in front of me, spending some Experience as I did to upgrade Feats.

> [Major Feat] Improvised Brawler (Upgraded)

> The entire world is your weapon and ally. Add 2 Dice to your Attacks when incorporating the environment or a non-traditional weapon and increase the Base Damage by 2.

>

> [Major Feat] Rope and Chain Combat (Upgraded)

> Taking account of the wild trajectories of rope and chain weapons in the heat of battle is as easy for you as breathing. Add 2 Dice to your rolls when attacking or defending with weapons that can be swung in this manner. You may freely use one of these weapons to make complicated maneuvers such as grappling two opponents at once or to aid in movement, even during a fight.

"Tick. Tock," I said in time to the swings of the Sash. Those Feats by themselves had turned it into a deadly weapon; its base damage was still only 2, but that was equivalent to a light baton, and no baton could extend to a thousand feet. "If you're still holding that Peach when we get attacked for it, I expect you to eat it before anything happens."

"Where is this sense of urgency when it comes to giving me grandchildren? That's how a mother truly lives forever, James."

Well, if she was going to keep standing there, then I was going to up the heat. I started gathering my Qi in my chest, getting ready to consciously raise my body temperature even further; the more penalties I could inflict on her the better.

Ma moved at the same time I rolled my Aura + Elemental Control (Fire), taking advantage of those crucial seconds to clear the space between us. The maneuver forced an opposed check against her Endurance; I didn't know her results, but the air had become wavy, and the wallpaper nearest me was beginning to curl away, decoupling from the glue as though I'd put a heat gun to it.

We both tried and failed to grapple the other. I sent my Sash low to tangle her legs, but she hopped over, just barely avoiding the attempt. She landed in a low crouch and tried to swing her arm up through my legs to hook around a hip and take me off my feet. I sank into a low and closed pigeon stance at the last minute, blocking her hand with my knees.

Ma turned her hips and drove up, attempting to convert the momentum into a shoulder check. I could see it coming – it was exactly what I would have done – but she was a hair too fast for me, pinning me to the wall and getting a single point of Damage through my armor that I negated entirely with Punching Dummy, lifting up my heels with the blow.

With one hand still holding the Peach, she was forced to grab me with the same arm that had checked me. The only thing in range was the waistband of my sweatpants, a bad hold that was about to get much worse. I thrust my hips forward and belly bumped her using the full telekinetic might afforded to me by Lance Pressure. Unfortunately for the both of us, this was where my new Challenge got me into trouble. I couldn't decide after the fact to distribute extra Successes towards pushing her; all I could do was to preassign however many I got before I rolled.

She blasted away from me directly into the side of the couch, destroying it and sending the remains flying into the opposite wall where they busted out a window and its surrounding framing. Ma was thankfully still inside, but the ruined couch was now half hanging outside of her apartment. Regrettably, she was still holding both the Peach and the waistband of my pants and underwear, leaving me butt naked apart from my sneakers and socks – looking as ridiculous as this fight.

"Shit. Sorry, Ma. I'll, uh, help pay for the repairs."

My mother rose to her feet and cast my clothes to the side, wearing a smile so terrifying the system inflicted a roll against fear on me. The heat had begun to sweat through her clothes, and she was covered in plaster dust and woodchips. A little laugh began to bubble up from her, growing louder and more maniacal until she was full villain-laughing at me, head thrown back. I probably should have taken advantage of it, but the little boy in me was shook.

"Okay, Zhiqiang, okay."