My fist slams into the Fat Man's face with a satisfying smack, sending his glasses flying. Right on cue, the riot starts just as the visions had prophesized. The emcee flees the stage in the fracas and I quickly duck under a chair that had been blindly thrown by one of the attendees.

I have zero idea what game this event is supposed to be about. All I know is that the Fat Man's doppelganger had attended the event, meaning that he would be forced into the same set of shoes if I used the vision as the stage for our reconciliation battle. As the Fat Man stumbles blindly about, totally out of his element, I give him a solid kick in the butt, sending him flying into a backroom.

"Whoa." I raise my eyebrows as the building's security charges into the crowd, trying to restore order. Things are getting out of control here. Unfortunately, I've no idea how the riot ends. The vision was unhelpful on that point. Whatever the case, I need to settle my duel with the Fat Man as quickly as possible. There's no telling how long this reconciliation will remain stable.

Rushing into the backroom, I spot the Fat Man gasping and heaving, his face ruddy from exertion. Around us are a few chairs and a small table littered with a laptop and slim folder of notes. The Fat Man grimaces as he spots me, his lips curling in displeasure.

"Still resisting?" fatso scowls, "You're just making it more difficult for yourself."

"I'm kicking your ass just fine." I raise both my fists, marveling at my own transformation in this reconciliation. My body is several years younger with none of the scars associated with the whole adventurer, bottom grade sorcerer lifestyle.

"You can never cross the gulf between us," the Fat Man declares, "And you've just made it even easier for me to crush you."

"How so?" I snort, rolling my eyes as while steadily advancing on the enemy.

"Its now reasonable for me to use violence to end you!" the Fat Man shouts and his halo erupts, engulfing the entire room. The aura of raw power is overwhelming and the pressure literally pushes me back.

Yeah. Reconciliations need to be plausible before they can stick. If the scenario I presented was something peaceful, it wouldn't allow the Fat Man to just attack me and be done with it. The artificial world I created would not allow it. The battle would have to be fought with something other than our fists.

So by attacking him during a riot, the Fat Man thinks I've effectively declared a death sentence on myself.

The entire building shakes and the ceiling is blasted away, revealing the night sky and the gigantic constellations painted across it. The Fat Man had begun to invade my reality with his own. His eyes light up with glee as the constellations grant him powers beyond anything I can match. A ray of light slashes downward from the sky, bathing the Fat Man from head to toe.

A god descending from the heavens. That's what I have to deal with.

"Now, where were we?" the Fat Man chuckles as his body begins to grow. He's going to assume his giant form again. I bite my lip.

This is it.

Now I'll see whether the gamble paid off.

The constellations burn brightly, prideful in the fullness of their power. And in the middle of the stars, a see a single thrashing mote, waging a solitary war against the mass.

That's me. It has to be. The Fat Man wants to absorb me into the array. The stars close in on the mote, a slow, inevitable garrote tightening to its final conclusion.

And everything changes.

The Fat Man shrieks in agony and the constellations begin to flicker and spark. There's a loud bang and a massive section of the constellations blow out like cheap lightbulbs.

Botched reconciliation.

My personal reality rallies and the ceiling rapidly seals itself back up as if nothing had happened. I might not have perfect control over my personal reality, but I do know the one iron clad rule that this reconciliation possesses.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Super powers do not exist.

There are no such things like class skills or magic. No men who can tank multiple sword wounds or sorcerers that can conjure soul fire. This is a world where the starfall tragedy never occurred. In this where and when, only baseline humans exist.

And in this world, the Fat Man is nothing more than a fat man.

Grabbing the laptop, I lob it straight at the Fat Man, scoring a hit on his gut. As he keels over blubbering impotently, I grab one of the chairs and slam it hard into his skull. There's a satisfying squelch and the Fat Man wobbles unsteadily on his feet, eyes glassy.

"Now, for the finishing blow!" I swing the chair like a baseball bat, sending it plowing into the Fat Man's bloody head. I feel the Fat Man's skull obligingly burst and he totters into a hollow partitioning wall. The wall is no match for my opponent's bulk and it gives way, breaking apart in a shower of plaster.

The Fat Man belly flops out of the backroom, landing at the floor's lobby. He weakly crawls toward a set of escalators, blood liberally leaking from almost every orifice on his face.

He's done for. Now all I need is to wait for the right moment to harvest his potential. The same way Debra nearly harvested me when I messed up the reconciliation with her.

As the Fat Man crawls across the marble floor, his body gradually begins to fade out and becomes nearly translucent. I feel it deep in my bones as well. The flow of power between us is reversing. My reality is growing metaphorically stronger, its gravity drawing away the array's energy.

"Not ... over ... yet ..." the Fat Man gargles out.

The halo around him becomes hazy, dissipating with every inch he crawls. The Fat Man resembles a guttering flame, desperately clinging on to the last moments of life.

Now. It is time.

"Agreed." I concur with the voice of my heart.

My heart opens, ready to receive the Fat Man's potential. And it drinks deep, only to promptly spit out the halo.

"What the hell?" I curse as my vision blurs. Glimpses of multiple lives flood through my brain. Men, women, animals. All mixed together in one churning inseparable morass.

The halo -

Its made out of multiple people and creatures. Rift bioforms included.

We cannot consume this. Too many simultaneous reconciliations. It would tear us apart.

"How did fatso handle it then?" I steady myself as best as possible.

Look.

As my eyes adjust, I see that at the core of the Fat Man's halo, is a crystalline diamond. It glitters weakly and I can immediately tell that whatever potential it holds is incredibly meagre. A thin and weak soul.

But more importantly, the soul is filled with life. Hard and unyielding.

A soul untouched by destrudo.

"You never Awakened." I finally understand, "You never faced your death."

The Fat Man guffaws uproariously, the murky, blended together halo dissipating as he speaks.

"The True Aga Khans found a way forward," the Fat Man stands, "without the need for ascension. While the Sensorium commits its atrocities, we stand under the light of god."

The Fat Man's core revolves at lightning speed, molding the murky halo much like a potter working clay. The halo gradually begins to fill in the gaps of the Fat Man's body, letting him regain his former solidity. But with every piece of the Fat Man's body that is restored, the halo is accordingly shaved down. By the time the Fat Man is fully healed, the halo has diminished by almost a third.

I've seen this before. Sam in the Winter Rift. She unknowingly adverted her death by expending whatever provided her with a similar halo.

What is the Fat Man's tie to Sam and James? I need to know. If only to more fully understand the halos and my own condition. This is my best lead in perhaps forever.

I will not let it escape.

"Just need to beat you up again." I growl, loping forward with determined steps.

The Fat Man throws himself down the escalator without hesitation and I can hear his bulk bumping and crashing its merry way. He's just buying time at this point.

I start pounding down the escalator just in time for the Fat Man to pick himself back up and get back to running. He's slow, as can be expected for someone overweight, and I should have no problem catching up.

Be careful!

A sudden pressure rocks the building and the ceiling tears away again, revealing the Fat Man's much reduced array. Even after all the abuse, the array still manages to squeeze out enough potential to begin another invasion of my personal reality.

"What can he expect to do? Drop a car from the sky?" I scoff, "There's no way to boost yourself over human limits in this reconciliation."

And a shutter drops from the sky, cutting me off from the Fat Man.

Yes. Buildings are outfitted with shutters. Reconciliation accepted.

"Whose side are you on?" I complain as my fists beat on the shutter.

I am just reporting facts.

Squinting, I try to make out the Fat Man from behind the shutters but my entire vision is taken up by the corridors twisting and turning, splitting and combining. Stairs are born out of the concrete while the wall literally consumes a set of elevators.

"What the hell?" I scream in shock.

The Fat Man is reconfiguring the building.

"How is that even allowed?" I snap while trying to work the shutter's release.

Did you ever perceive the entire building in the vision?

"No, only the room the press conference was held, oh." my mind stops, realizing the mistake that I had made.

Perception creates reality. And since you never perceived the entire building -

"Fatso can substitute his reality for mine. I get it." my fingers quickly stab at the release and the shutter begins clicking its way back up onto the recess.

Looks like there's a maze separating me from the Fat Man. The duel had become a game of cat and mouse.

But who is the predator?