Sorry, The Only Power Left Is Alteration.

Circe sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her vision blurred because she didn’t have her glasses, so she squinted to see. A weird bunch of torn cloth was tied over her right leg, which ached so intensely she had no will to move it. A loud snore issued next to her, almost causing her to jump as she saw Ebony sleeping to her left. The sweat and tears needed to be wiped from her face, yet her right hand remained closed. Something crawled inside. It gave her skin pinches and tickles and felt incredibly smooth. Roach!

A rainbow-colored roach flew up from her open palm. Its wings blurred a mix of vibrant neon greens, reds, oranges, yellows, blues, and most importantly her favorite color, purple. The tip of its abdomen protruded white as paper while the head was pure black. The sight of the insect flying away toward the stage made her smile. A purple roach crawled into her splint to tickle her leg. Circe frowned and tried to reach for it. It ran down to her foot, which forced her to stretch until she could flick it off her toe.

“You’re awake,” Alfredo said, “How yuh feelin’?”

“I want to get up. But somebody worked really hard on my leg and I’m not going to mess it up this time.”

“Yuh can thank tuh lady next tuh yuh. She saved yer life yuh know?”

A glance at Ebony, then she looked up at Alfredo and squinted so she could see his face better.

“Did you find alcohol?”

“In a place like this? What are yuh on toots?”

“I don’t know, but your face is all red. I’m hungry, do you mind if I eat the bar you gave me?”

“It’s all yours.”

Her hand fumbled around in her pocket until she found the payout bar he’d given her earlier. The wrapper needed to be carefully opened at the tip. The best way to do these things in a situation like this was to eat half now and save the rest for later. Though once the nibbling started it became difficult to simply stop. Some water would have really hit the spot though because her mouth felt dry.

Dehydration could become a big problem in a place like this. Wait, didn’t some people have water magic? They could probably draw moisture from the air like a dehumidifier. This cave did have a dampness to it that she hadn’t detected before. It smelt like gym socks and old man. Circe tilted her nose at Alfredo.

The white-haired woman sat on the stage, but even squinting, Circe couldn’t manage to see much detail about the throne. If only she hadn’t lost her glasses. She thought she’d gotten over the phase of losing glasses one pair after another. How disappointing, she thought, as she nibbled the bar like a chipmunk. Circe couldn’t see the chains scattered about the cave because she wasn’t facing them, and even if she had been, her vision wasn’t the best. Everything not right in front of her face became quite blurry.

This woman whom she never met yet still still helped her according to Alfredo took deep breathes as she slept. Circe poked her on the shoulder but it did nothing to wake her.

“Hey, hey! This is a very bad place to sleep. It’s not safe to sleep here. Are you listening? You should wake up.”

“Tried that,” Alfredo said, “It’s some kind uh curse. Yuh ain’t gonna wake her.”

On the stage, Azoria shifted on her thrown and altered the order of her legs as she crossed them. Her fist supported her cheek as her eyes gazed upon horns and then the top portion of the face of the bull peeking from the overturned cardboard as if it were rising from a puddle. The bull pulled itself up by stretching the puddle as its hooves smacked into the stage. Once out, it decided to trot behind the throne and plop down for a sit facing the wall. It burped loudly.

A single clap of hands boomed through the cave. Contestants squinted as the chains vibrated in place. All attention focused on Azoria. Except for Circe’s attention, she remained nibbling her candy bar, which was now half a candy bar.

“Every time you humans disappoint me. One thousand summoned and you only managed to kill off twenty of yourselves before the chain of fate. And I had to help you do that much. Am I supposed to think highly of your pacifism? Good job!”

She gave the audience a thumbs up. Nobody dared to say anything in return. Azoria shrugged.

“I need everyone awake for this next part, so those of you who are asleep. Get up.”

Azoria snapped her fingers. All those who had been knocked out, even those at the verge of deaths door, awoke. There were a few screams of pain from the back of the cave. The wake-up call wasn’t gentle for the injured.

Ebony sat up next to Circe, blinking and looking about as she got her senses together. When she saw Circe nibbling on the candy bar next to her, she broke into the biggest smile. But the booming voice on the stage forced her attention away from the patient.

“Well, now that the wheat had been sorted from the chaff and the gate has been unlocked. We do have a poll to conduct. It’s really a simple question.”

She opened her right palm and faced it flat to create a model of a knight on bended knee. She set the model down by her right foot.

“Will you kneel and serve me?”

She opened her left palm and manifested a model of a knight with its fist upraised. The model found a place by her left foot.

“Or will you dare to raise your fist in defiance right in front of my face at the very base of my lair? You have five minutes to decide.”

Ebony rose to her feet upon hearing this. Her fist shot up in the air. The thorny vines of the tattoo wrapped down her arm blooming into jet black roses all the way to the base of her shoulder. The first to decide caught Azoria’s attention but nothing was said.

Alfredo put his hands out to block his chest, “Doc, yuh gotta be kiddin’ me here. We need yuh alive! That demon lady crushed my skull wit a jack hammer. Whaddaya think she’s gonna do tuh yuh if yuh put yer fist up in tuh air like that?”

“I don’t care. We’re not her toys. I refuse to not do whatever it takes to bring her down.”

Azoria smiled at the first choice, her eyes glowed wicked red as a fang grew larger out the left side of her mouth.

“Your choice has been registered paladin. It can’t be revoked.”

“I have no intention of backing down, so do your worst,” Ebony shouted at the top of her lungs.

Azoria laughed, “Killing insects gets boring after the first five hundred or so, get stronger and we’ll parley.”

Circe continued to nibble on her peanut bar, now a quarter of it remained. She could hear the murmurs of discussions from nearby mixing with the sound of human voices from throughout the cave.

“This is actually fine,” Circe said to herself, “I never knew payouts were this good. The caramel really compliments the peanuts. It holds it all together.”

Alfredo looked down at Circe and shook his head with a weak smile. But seriously, what was he going to decide? He couldn’t decide for the lady. He couldn’t decide for himself. Ebony seemed to be fine though, and he didn’t much like what was going on here or having a jack hammer or bolt fastner, he couldn't remember which, go through his skull. Powers or not, this all seemed a bit too messed up. Kneeling, well, just felt wrong.

Fedor knelt. Body mass strained against the sides of a bloody sliced shirt and the torn apron. He put his head down solemnly and forced girth back with his strong arm so that his elbow could touch his knee.

The group of four nearby discussed the issue.

“It’s a pretty obvious decision here. You don’t get on the bad side of authority, and she’s the authority,” Mark said as he slowly pushed himself from the granite floor, “You all saw that. She killed half of us for giggles. And I doubt she needed to even put that much effort into it.”

Banko nodded, convinced.

Carson nodded, also convinced.

Nickey shrugged, “I don’t like it. But she’sh lacking in the evil department compared to my previoush mastersh.”

Carson wiped his face. “Can you not spit when you talk?”

“Can you not have naturally perfect teeth?”

With the clock ticking and no timer to help them keep track, all four of them got on one knee and bowed before Azoria.

Alfredo looked over the cave and saw a lot of kneeling, “Doc, I have a feelin’ that yer gonna be a party of one here.”

"Do I look like I care?"

Toward the back of the cave. A knight in steel armor carried a dried corpse in cracking leather armor on his back. He snapped the corpse’s legs so the joints would bend for a proper kneel and joined it after it had been set in place. The mummy toppled against him as he knelt.

Lizbet and Janelle stood over the corpse of the unfortunate spaceman. Azoria’s wake up call was not a revival skill, so the man remained very much dead from the last set of coins that had torn through his body.

“Let’s stand over here so we don’t kneel in the blood,” Janelle suggested.

“Yeah, that would be gross.”

They knelt together away from the body.

The baseball player sat on the ground with his bat over his shoulder as he stared angrily while thinking about the games he missed.

Two scared boys in street clothes remained of the five that had been roving earlier. Three of their party were now part of Azoria's throne. After a short discusion about their friends who had been sacrificed, both of them decided to kneel.

Megan, the magical girl in an oversized office dress suit, ran about the cave in her stocking feet, almost bumping into several kneeling people and a few who were trying to decide what to do. The cat bat flew behind her.

“Nya need to decide Megan, nya should make a choice before time runs nyout!”

The mascot went poof as Megan crashed into the back of a young man with his fist in the air. Deep gashes from a bladed weapon drew blood down his arm. His jeans were cut and bloody. Megan looked up and blushed deeply. He was so tall.

Alfredo noticed that someone else had registered their opposition to his mess. That guy who had taken a beating from Adonis had his fist in the air. A few other upraised fists were scattered about among the kneelers. At the last possible second, Alfredo pushed his fist into the air.

“Times up!” Azoria announced, “Your decision, or lack thereof, has been registered.”

Circe finished the candy bar and folded the wrapper with total care and attention so she could place it in her pocket, “That was actually satisfying.”

She looked up at Alfredo to thank him more properly, as she had to do her best after all. At least that was what she felt at this moment for some reason. What was he doing that for though?

“Why are you doing that?”