Azad, The Living Catastrophe, and King of Monsters faced me.

He began speaking in the native tongue. “Well, well-”

I didn’t hesitate to throw a boulder into his face, erected from the landscape of the mountain I’d memorized. It shattered against an invisible barrier of psychic energy.

He blinked in surprise. “Why doesn’t anyone let me monologue like a good-”

In an instant, I crashed into him. Our psychic fields resounded an unearthly, haunting note as I drove him down the mountain. Ignoring the migraine I felt, I kept up my pursuit, throwing dozens, then hundreds of stones at him far faster than the speed of sound, hitting his barrier with the sound of cracking glass.

Then even as the dust settled, my heart skipped a beat as a whip of black nothingness sliced towards me. It was so fast, that I barely reacted to it quick enough, sidestepping it in a panic. It didn’t even pause against my psychic barrier and sliced an inch from my foot.

The most deadly psychic attack and the end of five super psychics. I’d only heard of it a few times, from Parkarka, who had fought him before, but that whip of blackness could end my life in an instant.

“YOU MANIAC!” I heard Azad yell from the dust, his whip dissipating once it flew past me, “You won’t let me get in a word!”

I felt like I was hyperventilating. Right then, just a second ago, I nearly died. I could have died.

I could have died.

Oh, oh god. I could have fucking died.

Like some realization from hell, it made my vision blur, and I lost strength in my legs, briefly falling limp in midair. At no point, not once in my life, had I ever been close to dying. Besides yesterday, that was. Still, I couldn’t think straight. All I could do was focus on the present, fear enveloping my mind.

“I’m surprised that they had the gall to summon another psychic to this world. Heck, I’m surprised Mr.Green didn’t kill you the instant he had the chance. After all, I was probably a really big f- mess up on his part, so he wouldn’t let more people get slaughtered. So, uhh, what was your name? Psychi, right? The super psychic nobody talked about?”

Worthless words came from his mouth, but I didn’t care. I had to live. My life wasn’t the only one on the line.

But...he was in front of me. The one person who could threaten humanity on his own, the psychopath that killed more people than the worst scum to have lived, the most dangerous person in existence.

“Helloooo, anyone in there?” he asked, his other hand behind his back.

Oh go-

Instantly, I threw myself to the side as his other hand suddenly materialized a lethal black whip and flicked it through where I had been. Before he could do anything else, I battered his barrier with a barrage of supersonic boulders, prying them from the ground, more focused than I ever had been, my primal instincts guiding my mind towards what mattered.

Survival

Another whip of nothingness cleaved through the mountain where I had been, leaving a gash a hundred meters thick through it, then I ducked to the side as another whip cut me off. He swung his arms around, gripping the nothingness tightly as he flicked them about.

“Fire Shroud!”

An explosion of fire, too wide and fast for me to dodge, enveloped my barrier, and I let it send me flying before blowing away the debris so I could see the barrage of whips that followed.

I weaved through a quick succession of attacks, barely dodging them all while I threw boulder after boulder at him. He didn’t move an inch, tracking my movements with subtle movements of his eyes, his expression frustratingly neutral.

“Rock Storm.”

Materializing around him, rocks began to fly at me incredibly fast. They hit my barrier before I could react, rocking my mind with a piercing pain, like I’d eaten ice too fast. I flew around him in a circle to dodge t the rocks making craters in the mountain, turning its surface into a blast zone. I tried to stop them, but he was using his telekinesis to fling them at me even faster, which in turn negated my own telekinesis.

Then, even as the rocks kept attacking me, he tried to slice me open with his whips, forcing me to fly around him at nearly hypersonic speeds, putting everything I had into avoiding his lethal attacks.

I could feel my mind deteriorating, my very ability to think turning into nothing more than a blind attempt to not die.

[You’re going to die if you keep this up!] I heard Green think. [Either get smarter or RUN!]

[YOU DON’T SAY.]

In a burst of speed unlike anything I should’ve been capable of, I zipped out of Azad’s barrage, then charged straight at him, going for a head-on, dangerous strike.

He sidestepped my charge, sending me flying back into the mountain, but that gave me enough time for my cognition to command another assault of massive boulders, which were cut loose by his whips.

“Wind Barrier!” Just after one crashed into his psychic barrier, the others were blown back and shattered against the rock from whence they came by an intense wind. He looked at me with a smirk as I caught my breath, waiting for his next move. Any time he spent monologuing was time The Marionettes spent escaping.

He took a good long breath, drawing it out, probably to bug me or maybe even to upset my rhythm of breathing. No, the fact that the second possibility even came to my mind proved it was irritating me. It was too calm to come from someone so demented. “What?” he asked as if he was oblivious to what he was trying to do. “Don’t look at me like that? No need to give me the puppy dog eyes. I’ll put you down like a good dog should be- with a rock to the throat.”

I wasn’t giving him puppy dog eyes. I was giving him the most determined, heroic look I could, hoping it would irritate his antagonist syndrome into a long monologue.

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“Oh, you’re really afraid. Don’t act like you aren’t; you’d be dead if that were true.”

No doubt about that, maniac.

He shrugged. “But, hey, since you really want me to do it, I’ll act like the villain you know I am.” He cleared his throat like he was about to read from a list. “If you want to, we could rule this world together; clear it all of human scum.”

I focused on keeping my breathing consistent. For some reason, all this fighting didn’t get him riled in the slightest, while my fear alone was making me nearly hyperventilate.

“Now, I sense you just asked me, hypothetically, why I hate humanity. The simple answer is; I don’t. Hate’s kinda boring, you know?”

What in hell was he talking about?

He shrugged. “I’m just killing people because it’s a whole lot of fun to watch people try to survive.”

‘Fuck you...’ I mouthed.

“What a potty mouth you are, Psychi. Don’t think I can’t read those lips of yours!”

He was crazy.

Well, I guess that wasn’t exactly in doubt.

“I’m crazy, you think?” He said as if he’d read my mind, or like I’d said it aloud. “No, I’m a nihilist, I think. Is that the right word? I dunno, I can’t look it up on the internet here, so I wouldn’t know if it’s the right word. I don’t care about anything, and I’m just living for...what was the word shists? shists and giggles, that’s what!”

I felt like he was rotting my brain from the inside out. Was he pretending he didn’t know the word just to annoy me? Was he that vain?

“Oh, right, dummy me!” He innocently bopped his head with his hand. “Even though you hypothetically called me crazy in your hypothetical hero monologue, you never said you wouldn’t join me in world domination! I sure hope you do!” he said, sardonic and irritating.

“We both know you wouldn’t let that happen!” I yelled, hoping it would buy more time.

He shook his head, looking at me with a frighteningly neutral, honest expression. “No, really, I think it would be fun. I seriously wouldn’t betray you -I’ll even pinky promise, or swear on Allah if you need me to!”

“Sure,” I said, hoping he’d buy it, at least for a moment. I tried to fall into a relaxed position. “I’ll die either way, so why not.”

“Good choice,” he said, his sick smile returning. “I mean, obviously, you’re just trying to keep the conversation going so your friends can evacuate, but I appreciate the effort.”

I froze. Why did I think he hadn’t noticed...well, that I wasn’t insane.

He sent me a mocking smile, hunching down and speaking like I was a baby. “Ywou dwididn’t thwink I was dwumb enwough fwor me two fwall for thwat, dwid ywou?”

For a moment, I tried to look behind myself, to see if something was happening in the entrance behind me, but the instant I did, a boulder smashed into me, sending me flying into the ruin’s stairway.

“Caughtcha!” Azad said happily. “I came running the instant I realized someone was summoned, but I’m sure you figured that out-”

I flew up the steps as fast as I could, praying my fears weren’t true -that something else may have been threatening the people still inside the mountain.

Azad quickly cut me off with a whip, then slammed into me, throwing me tumbling through the air, landing far away. Standing my ground would’ve made him transfer all his kinetic energy into me in an instant, which may have rendered me incapacitated after all the beating I had taken.

I couldn’t afford anything like that.

“Now, if you had listened to me, I would have told you that my monsters already hid in the mountain, waiting for you to get distracted outside so they could sneak by and slaughter whoever was inside.”

Tears welled in my eyes, made up of fear. What could I do? Everything I had done was for naught because this damned child predicted my every move, even before I knew he would be coming.

“You are really dumb, you know that? Did you actually think I was so conceited that I wouldn’t focus on killing the people that mattered, your backup, first?” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “You know, I aspired to be you back when I was mundane.”

My expression melted.

He’s trying to put me off-kilter. He’s been doing it the whole time. He probably doesn't even have men in-

“Oh, no, everything I just told you is true.”

[Can he read your-] I heard Green begin, his thoughts only briefly resurfacing.

“Yes.” Azad said.

A whimper left my mouth, and tears streaked down my face. So many people would die only because I was too dumb to think about what was happening.

“I loved how all those other psychics meddled with the world, and the natural order, while you lived a happy life with your brother. I wanted to live a happy life with my sister too. Unfortunately, they killed my family, so I killed them all back. It’s the natural order, you know~”

He knew, didn’t he? He knew exactly what memories he was bringing up.

“It was the Americans who invaded my home. They sent that super psychic...Jenesse, was it? to wreak havoc. A boy, unlike you,” he pointlessly noted. “Not sure how they convinced him to do that, but apparently they unintentionally ‘radicalized the government’, if I remember correctly. Now, I, as a child, don’t know why that ‘radicalizes’ governments. But, you know,” He shrugged. “they killed my family.” He blinked like he was surprised. “Oh, wait, you’re Canadian, I entirely forgot!”

I shook my head, the migraine from being hit fading away enough for me to let go of my defeatism and think.

He continued. “You all weren’t even in the Psychic Wars. What was I thinking! Err...or maybe Cannada was...I don’t quite remember. Canada is the really big country above America, right?”

While he did his dumb monologue about American militarism in the twenty-first century or something, I used my Recognition to search for anyone I didn’t recognize in the ruins.

“LISTEN TO ME, BITCH!” he screamed in Arabic before sending a barrage of pebbles to batter my field.

It’s all an act. It has to be. You can be strong. You must be strong.

None of that was Green. For once, I told myself I could be strong.

I braced myself against the impacts, my vision blurring as I scanned the area for humans.

[Only people I know. They’re running away. I need to-]

A whip of blackness sliced past me just after I moved aside, cutting some of my loose hair.

“You...” Azad growled, scowling, “you’ve got Recognition, don’t you? Fine, if you don’t want to listen to me, then burn in whatever hell you believe in! Air Slice!”

Two blades of concentrated air blasted towards me, homing in. I tried to fly up but stopped before a whip decapitated me. I stood still to evade another one he threw right below me, anticipating I would overshoot my dodge, then batted the wind aside with my own psychically made wind.

“Pebble Strike!”

I flew away as fast as I could, avoiding a barrage of tiny, hypersonic pebbles, and kept running, looking behind myself to see if he would follow.

He didn’t.