Timmy's grin sharpened.
"Round one?" he echoed. "We're still in warmup, Butters."
Lila stood on the swamp.
Boots planted on a thin, shimmering skin of water, aura spread under the surface like a second sole. Tiny ripples lapped at her ankles and then stilled as she held it.
Water Muti — Surface Walk.
The crowd buzzed; some of the younger kids bounced. "She's standing on it—!"
Timmy rolled his shoulders, amused. The threads on his fingers pulsed.
"Let's see how long you can keep that up."
Psychic Muti — Rib-Hum.
Cicadas poured out of the dark—out from under leaves, from the bark, from the reeds. Fat, winged, ugly. They swarmed up into a ring around her and screamed.
The sound hit in a sheet.
Not just loud, wrong to. The pitch crawled under her skin and under her aura, shaking it. The water under her boots shivered, the thin skin of control rippling.
Lila flinched.
"Ngh— that's— too loud—"
Her focus fuzzed. The water-skate she was balancing on trembled. One boot sank a fraction, then the other.
Timmy's voice rode the noise, smug and amplified across the swamp.
"Can't focus if you can't hear your own thoughts, right? No focus, no Water Muti. No Water Muti, no standing on my swamp."
Her heel slipped.
The water-skin tore.
Lila yelped as both boots punched through, and the swamp swallowed her to the shoulders in one cold gulp.
Muck hit her tongue. The world above blurred.
Timmy laughed, bugs humming thicker around him. He chopped his hand toward the churned patch.
"Psychic Muti — Bombardier Line."
The hum shifted pitch.
Bombardier beetles marshaled over the spot she'd gone under, tails glowing orange. They dropped in a curtain.
Auric sacs flashed—
"Psychic Muti — Mantis Knot."
Behind the blast zone, his swarm climbed into a shape—limbs, hooks, serrated edges knitting together in midair. A mantis made of chitter and segments loomed over the water, arms cocked, ready to scissor shut if she tried to burst out.
Timmy grinned, threads taut on every bug.
"This is the end!" he called, hype loud for the cameras. "Blow the whole patch—don't give her a lane!"
Under the surface, cold closing over her head, Lila's eyes snapped wide.
Oh no.
(Flashback - Two days earlier)
The Butters estate's back garden was more pond than lawn.
A broad mirror of water stretched out under willow trees, cut clean in half by a stone walkway that ran from the terrace straight into the center like someone had dropped a spine onto the lake.
Lila stood on that spine, boots on stone, tongue out in concentration.
Water curled off the pond into a staff in her hands, spinning lazy circles. It felt safe. Familiar.
On the shore, Laila Butters watched, arms folded, hair in a messy knot, eyes sharp.
"Again," she said.
Lila puffed. "We are doing 'again.' My arms are gonna fall off."
"Uh-huh." Laila stepped onto the walkway, bare feet silent. The pond barely rippled around the stone. "I said move the water. Make a wave. Not a noodle stick."
Lila huffed, twirled the staff, then planted it with a flourish.
Pond water rose in a soft swell, then rolled forward like a lazy tide.
"See? Wave," she said, smug.
Laila pointed at the staff. "What's that?"
"My... staff?"
"What did I say?"
"No staff," Lila muttered.
"No staff," Laila repeated. She reached out, tapped the water-forged staff—shhh—and it dissolved back into the pond. "If someone knocks that out of your hand mid-fight, what then? Drown dramatically?"
Lila's fingers twitched, suddenly bare. "I can't do it without it yet."
Laila's tone eased, just a fraction. "You can. You don't believe you can."
"Pretty big talk from the lady who invented the staff trick," Lila grumbled.
"Hands open, Lila."
She sighed big, rolled her eyes, but obeyed. Feet on the stone path. Arms out. Palms toward the pond.
The water just sat there. Rude.
"Good," Laila said, stepping behind her. She rested her hands lightly on Lila's shoulders. "Now stop shouting at it."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your aura's yelling." Laila's voice dropped. "Breathe."
They breathed together. In. Out.
The pond wasn't still. Not really. Tiny currents slipped around the walkway, tickled her boots. Wind brushed the surface. Somewhere, a fish popped, breaking the mirror and mending it again.
"Listen first," Laila said. "Hear her move before you tell her what to do."
Lila closed her eyes.
She let her shoulders drop a little. Let her breath match the tiny licks of water around her ankles.
Something soft brushed her aura—cool, insistent.
Her fingers tingled.
She raised her hands a little.
The pond followed.
First just a shiver. Then a bulge. Then a sheet, lifting off the surface in front of her, clumsy but moving with her palms instead of following the staff.
Her eyes flew open.
"Oh—!"
"Don't look at me," Laila said. "Look at her."
Lila laughed, breathless, and pushed.
The wave swelled higher, rolling down the pond, brushing willow branches aside. The stone under her boots shivered with the weight.
"Look! No staff!"
"Less screaming, more shaping," Laila said, but there was a proud smirk now. "Good job, kid."
They stood in the middle of a moving pond, mother and daughter, water obeying her hands like it had been waiting.
Lila's grin felt too big for her face.
(Now)
Swamp water erupted where she'd gone under.
KA-THOOM—KA-THOOM—KA-THOOM—
Bomb bugs hit in a chain, each blast big enough to kick trees sideways and slap a hot shockwave across the lower stands. Fans yelled and flinched as spray and mud geysered into the air, raining down like filthy rain.
Timmy squinted through the smoking column from his perch, threads humming, mantis construct poised over the kill zone.
"That's it," he said to his swarm, half-whisper, half-cackle. "Let's see you heal that, Butters."