“What are you working on, Max?” Sarah had asked him one evening, ten months ago.

Max had a floor plan of their high school along with all of the class schedules.

“Nothing,” he said, embarrassed. “You’ll think it’s pathetic.”

“No, I won’t!” she cried. “Tell me.”

Max sighed. “I’ve created a map of the school and the schedule that Seth has. I can then use this to know which floors and halls to avoid throughout the day to minimize my contact with him.”

Sarah didn’t say anything and just looked down at the paper.

“It’s pathetic, I know,” sighed Max.

Sarah began to tremble and tears filled her eyes. “It’s not pathetic. It’s just unfair. You shouldn’t have to do this. It’s not right that Seth can get away with so much.”

“I’m doing the best I can to get around that fact,” he shrugged.

Sarah sniffled and wiped the tears out of her eyes. “That’s why I don’t think this is pathetic. It’s pathetic that the world we live in means you have to do something like this. But since you had to think of something—I actually think this is pretty genius.”

“You really think so?” smiled Max.

“Yeah,” said Sarah. “You’re up against a stronger opponent, so you need to take advantage of everything else to stand a chance against them.”

“Well,” Max sighed. “I hope it works...”

* * *

BOOM!

Max leapt away from the rock golem’s attack.

The creature lifted its arm from the crater it made in the arena and waddled back around to face Max once more.

The crowd continued to cheer for Max’s death.

He got back to his feet and wiped the blood from his mouth.

He grinned to himself, thinking about all the times throughout his life he had to go up against opponents stronger than him.

He took a deep breath.

The audience who wanted him dead was about to face sore disappointment.

He had a new strategy up his sleeve.

42

Max placed his hands on the ground.

He took a deep breath and triggered his trait, intuitively unleashing the ability his mimic power had now memorized.

“What the hell is the punk doing?” shouted a member of the audience.

“Why won’t this kid just die already!?”

Max ignored them and focused on channeling the rock golem’s power.

His arms and hands began to glow with a new aura and the arena floor rumbled.

The ripple of broken arena and shards of wood and stone rushed in a blast right to the side of the golem.

“Is this kid an idiot?”

“What happened to his slice ability!?”

“Does he not know how to aim?”

Max kept his cool. Stage one of the strategy complete. He just kept thinking about that conversation he had with Sarah so many months ago.