[Greyson – 10 years]

"Greyson, why are you wearing a suit again?" Dad asks as I exit my room. "And it's only six-thirty in the morning. On a Sunday."

Dad and Papa are in the kitchen, Papa pulling ingredients out to begin making breakfast.

"I fail to see what the day of the week has to do with anything."

Especially as I am often up before now, which they know.

"We need to talk about yesterday," Dad says. "Cal says that you and Xander are friends and he discovered some interesting things about you. And then you dressed up and left last night, and we're fairly certain you're teleporting around again. We-"

"Negotiations must wait," I tell him. "We have a guest."

"And why would we have a guest?"

"Because I told him that you would be here at six-thirty," I tell him. "So that we may commence the renovations as early as possible in order to ensure the smoothest workflow for-"

"Greyson," Dad interrupts as Papa frowns at me. "What the hell are you talking about? We have not approved any renovations and you are not-"

"Not for the house," I walk over to the front door and open it. "Hello, Grandfather Adrian. You may come in. Dad and Papa are in the kitchen, though I forgot to inform them of your coming so they could properly prepare. In all fairness, they were not awake when I began my morning workout."

"Why are you wearing a suit?" Grandfather Adrian asks.

It seems he has forgotten his own outfit, though he's also carrying a gift bag which gives me a strange feeling.

"You're in a suit, too," I step to the side. "Dad. Papa. This is Adrian King. He's my birth dad's dad's dad. We performed negotiations last night and he has agreed to provide me with necessary materials as long as I agree to certain… rules of oversight. Now that you have met, we should go to the secret base and-"

"Absolutely not," Grandfather Adrian puts a firm hand on my shoulder to prevent me from escaping the house. "I will be speaking to your dads first, Greyson."

"They are incapable of comprehending discussions of magical-"

"About you and your brothers," Grandfather Adrian says, then looks at Dad and Papa. "I've attempted to reach out to the two of you several times in the past, but Greyson's interfered each time."

"Greyson!" Dad scolds. "You're hacking again! Was your last grounding not enough?"

"There is no grounding sufficient enough to stop me from doing what is necessary to protect my family."

"I know it's early and on short notice," Grandfather Adrian says. "But if I didn't act as quickly as possible, I would need to take more drastic measures to prevent Greyson from changing his mind and once again preventing me from reaching out," he gives me an amused look. "Nice try with the ninja."

"It was the best I could manage on such short notice."

"It was clever," Grandfather Adrian says. "I'll give you that one, Greyson," he looks to my dads. "Is it alright if we enter? I have a solution that will help with Greyson's… inability to be effectively punished."

Dad and Papa look at each other, then back to Grandfather Adrian.

"You're his great-grandfather?"

"Yes," Grandfather Adrian says. "And part of the reason the boys were able to manage after their mother and step-father abandoned them a few years ago. Greyson didn't interfere with me doing that."

"It was necessary for our ability to continue living together."

"You mean it was necessary for you to get away with your little projects without oversight," Grandfather Adrian says.

"You're talking tomatoes, I'm talking chocolate cheesecake."

"Those are two completely different things," Papa says.

"Exactly."

"Come on in," Dad sighs. "Though is your name actually 'Adrian', or is that Greyson attempting to mess with us?"

"I'm the Adrian King," Grandfather Adrian enters and I close the door. "I have proof if you need it. Greyson and his brothers are from what's considered a branch family. Their father was my grandson, though we lost contact with each other about thirty years ago. Some internal conflicted happened within the family and many members left. I'll admit that I didn't do a good job at attempting to track them down, but I felt that they would return on their own if they chose to.

"Sometimes," he continues. "My descendants are born with… a bit extra power. When that mixes with a mind as unusual as Greyson's, it can result in… personalities which can be considered unstable. Since he's done everything he can to prevent me from handling his and his brothers' situation, I decided to stop short of coming out here personally and simply watch over them to make sure things work out. Greyson has… needed it."

"I have needed no oversight."

"There is a reason things are changing now," he gives me an amused look.

"I believe that I approached you."

"In this bag," Grandfather Adrian shows the bag to my dads. "Is a set of clothes in Greyson's size. Hand-wash only. I put in some detergent that works for them. The clothing bag they're in prevents them from affecting things. They're a form of static clothes that will interfere with his magic. As long as he's wearing even a piece of it, he won't be able to use his mana. They'll also brick any tech – scientific or magical – they touch, so be careful with them."

"Those are evil!" I reach for the bag.

"And if Greyson attempts to get rid of them or destroy them," Grandfather Adrian lifts the bag out of my reach "Contact me and I will seal his magic for a month. And replace them. If you need to punish him and he refuses to wear them, contact me and I will deal with him."

"Those are evil! Only a member of the Faction would make something like that!"

"I personally created them just for you," Grandfather Adrian says. "For a ten-year-old with warped morals who can manipulate time and space, such measures are necessary."

"He can do what?" Papa asks. "We knew about the teleporting, but he can manipulate time, too?"

"How else do I make cinnamon rolls in twenty minutes from the start?" I ask. "Temporal acceleration is a necessity to make them proof and to bake them in such a short period of time. Let me at those! There's a nice fire pit out back I'm going to toss them into! And stop preventing me from using telekinesis and flight magics and teleportation!"

"Do you remember our agreement last night?" Grandfather Adrian asks. "Part of it was you agreeing to abide by rules set in place and accepting punishments as determined, including by your dads. Or do I need to have you declared a threat to the public in order to put you in my custody, to keep a closer eye on you?"

I stop jumping for the bag.

"Stop pouting," Grandfather Adrian says, then looks at Dad and Papa and offers them the bag again, which Dad cautiously takes. "As I'm sure you two have learned over the past half of a year, Greyson… operates on a different frequency from the rest of humanity. It makes handling someone like him difficult. If you'll allow me, I'll handle Greyson's more extreme side. The using-higher-magics-and-breaking-the-law side."

"They're mobs. They deserve to be robbed."

"You're robbing mobs?" Dad exclaims.

"He will not be doing that anymore," Grandfather Adrian gives me a stern look. "He agreed to it as one of the conditions for my assistance in legally acquiring materials he needs."

"I understand that you may be a very influential person," Dad doesn't fully believe that Grandfather Adrian is Adrian King. "But we're his legal guardians, and-"

"Allow me to explain," Grandfather Adrian holds up a hand. "Greyson is the sort of boy who will find a way to do what he's interested in. It's better for there to be some degree of oversight than to block him outright. That's why I've kept an eye on him as much as I could without him becoming aware of it and disappearing on me. And if I didn't think you two were doing a good job with him and his brothers, I would have stepped in before now.

"What Greyson has agreed to," he continues. "In simpler terms, is that he'll submit a request for materials to me, along with what he wants them for. I'll review the list and send any that I approve. This will be his sole method of acquiring materials for his projects, outside of stuff he can simply buy on his own. Like a paper mache volcano."

"Why would I do something so boring when I can just make a replica volcano with real lava using my magic?"

"Greyson," my great-grandfather gives me a stern look, before returning his attention to Dad and Papa. "While it won't mean he's honest, it means I'll at least know what he's up to with his projects, to some degree. And I did tell him that you two would have to approve this arrangement. Do keep in mind, however, that if proper oversight cannot be placed on him, then it may be necessary to declare him a public threat and have him placed under suppression. I have received… complaints. Like when he broke into a military base to steal a bomb."

"Greyson Henry!" Dad exclaims.

"Next time-"

"There will be no next time!"

"I'll just reinforce my body with magic so that it doesn't get blown up when I take a bite."

"…what?"

"I didn't think it was a good moment to tell you that bit," Cal says, having approached while we spoke. "You were worked up enough over the rest. Yeah… that was another thing they'd mentioned. Greyson made exploding muffins to eat. He apparently has extremely good regeneration, and that's why he disappeared for a few days a couple of months ago."

"I didn't expect them to blow up," I sigh. "And neutralizing the explosive magic ruined the flavor."

Cal appraises Grandfather Adrian with wariness.

"A man I don't know," Cal says. "Greyson in his suit again, this early in the morning, and talking about Greyson stealing bombs. He's finally being taken into custody, isn't he?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Grandfather Adrian says. "Hello, Cal. My name is Adrian King, and I'm your great-grandfather. Greyson decided to approach me last night instead of continuing to interfere with my attempt at contacting you and your brothers. However, I am the hand which allowed you and your brothers to continue living together in the trailer until David and Ryan here took you in. Your brother didn't interfere in that."

"It was necessary in order to ensure that the four of us were capable of continuing to live together," I state. "Otherwise, I would have taken other measures to ensure our-"

"You were six."

"And I had already hacked our mother's and step-father's bank accounts and drained them," I inform him. "That money has been placed into secure growth, resulting in nice savings for the four of us. I have also continued to hack any accounts which they have made and-"

"Greyson," Grandfather Adrian's voice is stern. "You will stop that. That also suggests you know where they are? I've not managed to track them down."

"They arrived in Vegas Friday evening," I tell him. "And they mostly keep things in cash now since they realized any money they put in an account vanishes."

"You're our great-grandfather?" Cal decides to ignore me. "Your name sounds familiar."

"He owns the Lumaria Group," I tell him. "Papa, are you or Dad making breakfast? Grandfather Adrian wants to do some stuff at my secret base."

"Installing some additional security measures," Adrian says. "And making sure he doesn't have anything truly contraband there."

"While you're talking with him about what he wants to do to me-"

"It's called 'oversight', Greyson."

"I'm going to go and-"

"No, you don't," my great-grandfather grabs my left ear. "You're-"

"NO EARS! NO EARS! NO EARS!"

Grandfather Adrian very quickly releases my ear and I stop trying to claw at him to get his hand away. As soon as he's let go, I run to my room. He's still suppressing my teleport magics so I can't escape to somewhere safer.

In my room, I strip off my clothes and grab my blanket, then go into the closet and pull the door shut, using my magic to bundle me up in several layers of the blanket. Now I'm safe. No one can hurt me here. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.

----------------------------------------

[Greyson – 10 years]

"Greyson," Grandfather Adrian says as I exit the hallway, now dressed in a pair of grey shorts with golden stripes and a golden sleeveless shirt that has a little griffin pattern on the left breast. Me, not my great-grandfather. "I want to apologize. I didn't know you reacted severely to having your ears touched. Pinching the ear is how we keep kids from running off at my house. Can you forgive me?"

Grandfather Adrian is sitting at the table with Dad, Papa, Cal, Travis, and Henry. Breakfast has been prepared and set out, and they're all eating. Dad is sitting at one end of the table, with Papa to his right, as usual. Rather than sitting to Dad's left like normal, Cal's sitting in Travis's usual spot, in the middle of that side, while Travis is sitting to his left. Grandfather Adrian's sitting at that end of the table, and Henry's in his normal spot to the right of Papa.

That's not right. That's not right. They're not in the right spots. And my spot is by Grandfather Adrian, in the empty spot to his left. I can't sit down. I can't sit down. What do I do? What do I do?

"Greyson," Cal pats his usual seat. "Come sit next to me."

But that's not my seat. That's not my seat.

"It's okay," Cal tells me. "Come on, Greyson. Before the food gets cold. Dad made waffles."

"We get to have ice cream on them!" Henry bounces in his seat. "And they're saying that this man is our great-grandpa and you know him?"

I'm not sure about this. But I sit down in Cal's normal seat. Cal puts one of the massive waffles on my plate, then gets a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to put on it before moving some of the toppings over.

"What's that in your hands?" Grandfather Adrian asks as my brother starts drizzling chocolate sauce onto the waffle and ice cream. "It looks like some sort of magitech sphere?"

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

I look down at the device I'm holding. It's a 3.5" sphere with wedge-like metal panels that have gaps between them, a faint blue light emitting from within the depths of the device. I twist the sphere a little and the wedges shift, altering sizes and angles. The light within gets fainter by just a little.

"Papa! Greyson's playing with toys at the table again!" Henry exclaims.

"No so loud," Papa says. "And we can see that, Henry. Stop tattling on everything. Greyson? Can you show your grandpa your fidget sphere?"

Cal leans back as I hold up the sphere a little, then I push on one of the wedges. Several of them change shape and/or size slightly, while a few shift positions or even locations. The light gets a little bit brighter.

"He made it a couple of years ago," Papa tells Grandfather Adrian as I lower the sphere back down to my lap, and Cal returns to putting toppings on the waffle and ice cream. "You can move the wedges, turn them, push them, pull on them, or even spin entire sections of the sphere. When you do something, several of the other wedges will shift, with the possibilities being size, angles, rotation, location, height, and even merging or splitting. How the sphere reacts to each possible action is then changed based on what action you did. The goal is to crack the pattern and get the entire sphere to be covered in a smooth plate. Once it resets, the formula that determines how things shift changes. The light inside gets fainter the closer you get to solving it and brighter the further you are, though the shifts are subtle."

"Greyson's weird," Henry tells Grandfather Adrian. "He makes the most useless things. Or dangerous things! He sometimes makes bombs!"

"Or cars that shoot lasers," Cal says. "Greyson, that should be enough toppings. Go ahead and eat now, okay?"

I pull on a wedge, and several others change and an entire segment of the sphere rotates.

"Greyson, just eat!" Henry says.

"Henry, zip it," Papa says. "You're not in charge of him."

"Neither is Cal!"

"Can I be excused?" Travis asks.

"Go ahead," Dad tells him.

"How come he gets to go?" Henry asks.

"Travis isn't feeling well," Dad tells him.

"Well, neither am I!"

"No, you aren't," Papa tells him. "Stop acting up or you're getting grounded again."

Henry pouts and I push in the same piece I'd pulled out, resulting in several more changes. None of those are the reverse of what happened when I pulled the piece out. The light grew a little brighter, too, so that was a bad move. There's no "undo" on this. I try sliding another wedge, and several others shift.

"Greyson told me it wasn't him who made it," Cal says. "Wouldn't say who did. But… I guess he has a point?"

"Yeah," Dad looks at Grandfather Adrian. "You're right that school isn't really suitable for Greyson. He either does well in a subject or doesn't really pay attention. There's no in-between. And the fact that he can do even a tenth of the things he does is just… extraordinary. We've honestly been overwhelmed with him."

"Greyson's just weird," Henry says. "And you don't punish him."

"Greyson uses magic to get away from us," Dad tells him. "We've not had an actual way to effectively punish him. And stop being mean to your brother."

"Our grandfather was just telling us about a school," Cal tells me as I turn a wedge, watching the shifts in others. "It's a boarding school for geniuses. He says he thinks you might like it there."

"You'd be allowed to return home on the weekends," Grandfather Adrian tells me. "As long as your grades are good and you've been behaving. They tailor the classes to the student rather than standardizing it per grade."

I press in another wedge, and several pieces shift.

"How come he gets to ignore people?" Henry whines.

"Henry, stop," Papa says. "Keep it up and you're getting grounded."

"As we were saying before Greyson came out," Dad says. "We're well-off, but we can't afford a private school like that. Not if it's one that could actually challenge and help Greyson. Especially with his… quirks."

"The school is free for entry," Grandfather Adrian says. "I fund it myself specifically so that child geniuses from less-wealthy families have an opportunity to go somewhere that can let them flourish. All that's required is that the student passes the entrance exam, which is designed to see if the student would be challenged at the school."

It's been two months and I still can't figure out this pattern. If only I could figure out what he based the overall code on, this would be a lot easier to solve.

Maybe if I twisted it like this, then that piece would… nope. That one turned, though, so maybe if I spun this part of the sphere… yeah, that piece pushed out a little and this one resized. It got smaller rather than bigger, though, and its angles changed.

I push in another piece, and one wedge changed its angles in the way I expected, but none of the other changes were figured out. What happens if I rotate this wedge? None of those movements match up with what I expected.

"Greyson?" Dad says as I continue fidgeting with the puzzle sphere. "If I make you a fresh waffle, will you eat it?"

"How come he can get a new waffle if he doesn't eat it?"

"Henry Greyson King!" Papa snaps. "Go sit in time-out!"

Too noisy! Too noisy!

Henry huffs and scoots back his chair, then stomps off to his room. That's not time-out. That's not time-out.

"Careful with the rocking, Greyson," Dad says. "You're going to whack yourself on the table if you go too much harder."

"Greyson," Cal softly says. "If Dad made you a new waffle, would you eat it? This one's a bit soaked from the ice cream now. I can eat this one for you."

I nod. A new waffle is good. A new waffle is good.

"Alright," Cal grabs the plate. "Dad's going to make you a new waffle now."

"Sorry," Papa tells Grandfather Adrian. "Things can be a bit rough sometimes, and Henry is… also difficult, in his own way."

"More typical of a child than Greyson," Grandfather Adrian says. "I've been alive for thousands of years and have dealt with many kids. I'm used to such behavior. Greyson is, if I'm entirely honest, a new case for me. Not him being Autistic, but the way his mind works combined with his level of power. We're all fortunate that he's not malicious. And that he was born in a branch line rather than the main line. He would no doubt have ten times as much mana if he were in the main line. He would also-"

If I twist it like this… yeah, that's how I thought those two pieces would react. And then if I push this piece, then… yep, those four reacted the way I expected. Pushing on this piece… nope, nothing reacted the way I expected. Having ten times as much mana would be nice, would be nice. I'd probably heal a lot faster, too.

That piece split into two? I thought it was going to elevate a bit more.

Dad made three waffles and stacked them. At least Cal hasn't scooped ice cream onto them yet. I set the puzzle sphere on the table beside me and separate the waffles, then coat each the bottom one in syrup, chocolate sauce, and caramel sauce. After adding sprinkles, I place a waffle on top and repeat the process. Once the third waffle is on top, Cal scoops out three scoops of ice cream and places them on top, then I add more toppings.

What if I twist that piece? At least the light dimmed a little, but I didn't anticipate any of the shifts that occurred.

"Greyson?" Cal says as I finish eating. "They said that they're going to your workshop, Dad and… our grandfather? Mr. King because he needs to put in some new security measures for it now that you're not going to disappear for it, and Dad so that he can at least know what's going on? Would you be okay with me coming with you guys?"

I don't want people to know about the secret base, but Grandfather Adrian insisted that I let Dad know. He said that it would make my dad and papa more comfortable if at least one of them knew what it was like there. That makes me not want Cal there. At the same time, however, it might be better if he's there. Safer. More comfortable.

I'd rather Xander be there, but the longer it takes for Grandfather Adrian to meet him, the better. Something important is forgotten, though. Something important.

I nod.

"Okay," Cal says. "Why don't you get ready to go?" He looks at Grandfather Adrian. "I got the impression that Greyson teleports there?"

"He walks, actually," Grandfather Adrian says. "Though he manipulates his own time to reach it faster. I'll be teleporting us all there, however. Greyson's put in some powerful wards around the location to keep others out. You and David wouldn't manage to enter unless we broke them. You wouldn't even notice the place."

Does sliding this piece in this direction, then sliding it back… yeah, the light got brighter, but that piece there elevated a little bit, just like I expected. Then if I move this one like this… yeah, those three reacted just as I expected, but those four didn't.

"Uh… 'Xander's Zone'?" Cal asks. "Xander does magitech, too?"

Huh? I look up to find Cal starting to walk toward Xander's zone. We only just got teleported here and he's already walking there. Why did Grandfather Adrian teleport them into the secret base instead of the yard?

Wait. No! The important thing I forgot! The important thing I forgot!

"Mnh!" I run in front of Cal and stretch out my arms, shaking my head. "Nh! Nh!"

"No?" Cal asks. "I can't enter?"

I shake my head.

"Okay…" he looks at Grandfather Adrian. "Xander's an orphan Greyson's befriended. A good kid, though we only learned they knew each other yesterday, when they came to the restaurant together. He comes there most Saturdays at about one to get a piece of cheesecake."

I forgot about the sign!

"Xander?" Grandfather Adrian examines the sign for a moment, then examines me. "Would this be the Alexander King under the care of Trey Caldwell?"

Oh, no! How did he learn about Xander without my awareness? Or is he plucking information out of the universe again?

"It is," Dad's staring at the opaque, glowing blue barrier surrounding my mega computer. "You know about him?"

"Trey reached out to the group yesterday," Grandfather Adrian says. "He wants to look into some sort of arrangement for a treatment for a condition Xander has. It's a bit… on the expensive side. I'm the only source of one of the ingredients for it and it comes at a steep cost. I had just been notified of it not long before Greyson teleported to my home yesterday to speak with me, and was reviewing the case. I'll properly research the situation after the holiday."

That's not good, but it seems there's nothing I can do to interfere. Grandfather Adrian is already planning on personally involving himself. Since he's aware of things, that means any interference which I perform will only make him more suspicious. Does twisting this piece make… no, it caused half of the sphere to spin thirty degrees.

Grandfather Adrian looks at the sphere in my hands, then into Xander's Zone.

"Though the mana signature in the sphere's enchantments match the ones on some of the things in there," he says. "Not Greyson's. I take it Xander made your puzzle?"

I nod.

"Wait, seriously?" Cal asks. "Xander made that? Not you?"

Xander's very smart. Only a god could make something this puzzling. He actually made three of them. I bet even Grandfather Adrian would struggle to solve it. Why did that piece rotate clockwise when I pressed this one in? It should have slid, shouldn't it have?

"Greyson," Dad looks at me. "What is behind this barrier?"

"Probably his mega computer," Grandfather Adrian answers. "He insisted on putting a mana field around it to prevent me from using magesight to see its workings."

That's not actually a barrier but a dense wall of mana which acts as a barrier. It took me almost two hours last night to figure out how to set it up without having any exposed parts from the frame. I don't want anyone stealing my world-changing project or its design.

"Greyson, is that a bomb?" Dad spots something one of my workbenches.

It's an inactive bomb. I rarely make them live until I'm ready to use them. What kind of idiot does he take me for? I'm ten, not stupid.

"Greyson," Cal says. "While Mr. King checks on your things and sets up the protections, can you show me a little of what you do while here? Dad might be more comfortable if you do that, too."

Make a project? They actually want to see me make something? They're always getting annoyed at me for it, though. But I can do that. I teleport the puzzle sphere into my backpack… wait, when did I put it on? Well, no matter.

I walk over to another part of the workshop and clear out a space, then start grabbing various tools and components to build a device. Dad and Cal watch as I work, and Grandfather Adrian watches a little bit as well, but also inspects some stuff. I keep an eye on him in case he tries to access my mega computer or Xander's Zone.

"How… are you moving so fast?" Cal asks as I weld a panel into place.

"He's manipulating his personal time," Grandfather Adrian answers from where he's inspecting some of the remote-controlled vehicles I've built. "It allows him to move at a faster pace than the world around him, and the spell is designed to not age him faster than normal time."

"Oh," Cal says.

"What are you making?" Dad asks.

Wait, this enchantment is wrong. I scrap it and remake it, then assess it again before continuing on. After about two hours, I finish building the chamber, then strip off my clothes and enter it. There's a slight humming sound as the machine powers up – I designed it to do that – and I can feel it working. Once it completes, I step out and get dressed, then tap the screen fixed beside the door a few times.

Estimated Current Length of Puberty:

1 year, 2 months, 23 days, 4 hours, 7 minutes, 39 seconds

Error Rate: 12 minutes, 23 seconds

Hm… that's not what my own calculations are for it, but maybe I was off on my math? Or the machine is. We both could be. I'll need to perform some further tweaks to it. The error rate it gives isn't what the machine has as a standard, but what it thinks the error rate on this specific estimate could be up to.

"I think Greyson's annoyed that you challenged his estimate yesterday," Cal quietly tells Dad.

"I still don't understand how you would estimate how long someone's been in puberty for," Dad responds.

"Considering the medical books on that shelf," Grandfather Adrian indicates a shelf. "Greyson's probably researched more than a few things about the human body. It wouldn't surprise me if he's done his own analyses of others as well to help refine his ability to make such estimates."

"Greyson has medical-" Cal looks over to the bookshelves. "Greyson, why do you have bookshelves filled with medical books?"

Obviously, it's so I can study up on medical stuff. It is important for the future of the world.

"Never mind," Cal says. "Greyson, can we see your laser cars? Mr. King said you have a safe spot set up to play with things like that in."

I teleport the cars out of my backpack and lead Cal and Dad outside, Grandfather Adrian following us. We go to the arena I've set up for playing with my remote-controlled toys, then set the laser cars into it. The arena is a space about twenty feet in diameter with a grassy ground floor rather than paved in some form, though I did put up a one-foot-tall retaining wall.

"There's magic woven into the retaining wall," Adrian tells Cal and Dad. "They create a barrier which prevents certain types of active magics from passing through. Also insects and, for some inexplicable reason, trees."

One never knows when a tree might interfere with something.

I teleport the controllers out of my backpack and hand one to Cal, then start using mine to make my car move. Using my controller, I show Cal how to make them move, including how to shoot the quarter-inch shots of lasers (they look closer to two inches as they fly) and how to summon the six-inch laser swords.

Cal practices a little, then we battle our cars against each other, laser bullets splashing off of them and laser swords pushing the other car away. That continues until I manage to break through the shielding on Cal's car and finish it off with a few well-aimed laser bullets.

"Aaaand now it's broken," Cal says. "Maybe we should have stopped after the first one broke through?"

"But then we couldn't rebuild them better!" I take the controller from him and teleport it and mine into my backpack, then retrieve the cars and teleport them into it.

"Greyson," Grandfather Adrian approaches us, having walked off to examine other things while Cal and I battled our cars. "The stream that's flowing through here… is that a miniature hydroeletric generator?"

"The mega computer needs a lot of energy," I say. "But the generator failed to produce enough. Same with the solar and wind power setups I tried. Magitech energy ended up being a requirement as well. They hydroelectric generator works well enough for other stuff, though. And I ensured it does not affect the stream's ecosystem. That's part of why it's small."

Xander complained about the bigger one messing with the fish, which is why I realized it needed to be shrunk. The stream itself isn't massive or dangerous, but it's big enough and the water flows quickly enough that I can produce some power from it. It's also good for swimming in, but I only do that when Xander's not here. I swim in the pond on the property if he is and I want to go for a swim.

For some reason, he panics if I swim in the stream. I think maybe he thinks I'll get swept away? The water isn't that fast, though. Or that deep. It only goes up to right above my bellybutton.

Oh. This reminds me that I need new swim trunks. I didn't think about that while shopping yesterday, but if I've outgrown everything else, I've probably outgrown those as well.

"Let's show your dad the bomb zone," Grandfather Adrian says.

"There's a bomb zone here?" Dad asks. "I'm not sure I approve of this."

"It's well-warded," Grandfather Adrian says as we begin walking. "And one of the things I'm here for today is to make sure the wards are proper and strengthened further. One of the conditions for me to allow Greyson to continue is that anything he makes which he wants to use and which can't be contained in the zone must go through the bomb squad with their supervision and in their designated location."

Dad still doesn't look happy, but I'm more than happy to show him the bomb field. It's fifty feet in diameter, with a one-foot-tall retaining wall, also with magics woven into it to form the barrier.

"-the zevelturim field technique allows for absorbing any excess mana in the explosion to strengthen the barrier as well," I say. "So that if a blast hits it, it's weakened further. The technique also causes the impacts to be absorbed, their energy distributed. Sort of like punching a jar of slime versus punching the slime itself. Magic is being used to affect science. The explosion itself is magic, but the impact is a simple matter of science when it comes to force hitting object. It's just that it's magic causing the force, so the force itself can be greater and in some types of explosions, actually ignore scientific distribution of energy."

"That sounds half-made up," Cal says.

"The simple version," Grandfather Adrian says. "Is that there's a non-solid barrier around the field which absorbs the mana and disperses the scientific portion of the force from the explosions. Greyson may be a bit of a maniac, but he isn't really destructive. He likes explosions, but he prefers to keep them contained so they don't cause problems."

Dad still doesn't seem happy. This may be a long day.

"Let me put things this way," Grandfather Adrian tells Dad. "Would you rather know that Greyson is only blowing stuff up in approved, shielded areas, or knowing that he's sneaking away to blow things up where there's no guarantee of shielding?"

"I don't want Greyson doing either," Dad says. "It's too dangerous for a ten-year-old!"

This is going to be a long day.

"So is attempting to tame griffins, yet Greyson does that, too," Grandfather Adrian says. "He's either talked or beaten into submission every griffin within five hundred miles of here. This is a ten-year-old who can manipulate time and space, reinforce his body to the point that he can withstand high-power attacks, and will naturally regrow lost limbs in a matter of days. Unless his magic is sealed and he's placed under heavy suppression, he'll find a way. It's better to monitor and regulate it than attempt to stop it."

"You're not giving me a choice, are you?" Dad asks.

"You're being given a choice," Grandfather Adrian says. "Of Greyson actually having supervision while he does this, or him sneaking around to do it without supervision. Which one sounds safer?"

"Dad," Cal says. "He's kind of right. Greyson's been doing this stuff for years and our attempts at stopping it… don't work so well. We knew he was still doing some stuff, though we had thought he stopped with the bombs…" Cal gives me an unamused look. "And I doubt we could really stop him."

"This is the contract Greyson has agreed to," a thick packet appears in Grandfather Adrian's hands. "It details all of the restrictions he has to operate under and ensures that he doesn't do anything too dangerous for him. He's also required to report any weapons he's created to me. Failure to comply with that clause will result in his magic being sealed for a month."

It's an evil contract, but if it's what it takes to make Xander not upset with me, then I'll do it.

"I've been watching him for a little more than three years now," Adrian says. "As much as I could without causing him to vanish on us, at least. This will ensure there's stricter oversight, and that he's not breaking the law to get the materials he needs."

While they discuss whether or not I'm going to be watched while I work on my projects, I decide to go inside and start repairing the laser cars. Them debating might take awhile and I have work to do.