They deserve it all.

Mom

Little note: This chapter is not really needed to read to follow the story line. It's just a small memory of her mom. See it like a filler episode or something. So you can just skip this if you want to.

11 - 05 - 2027

"So? What have you got for me?" She puts down the invisibilis terminus to protect us from others seeing what isn't supposed to be seen, also known as the invisible border. And only one blink of her eyes and few words and she has herself in the air.

"Well, I will see our battle like chess." She raises her eyebrows as I speak, obviously either impressed or at least intrigued. "In chess the best and most common opening to begin with would be with the King's pawn, that way you do not only have an opening for your knights of course, but that move also acts as an invitation for your Bishop and your Queen to strike when needed, and it immediately works on controlling the center— it's like, when I first begin the battle, I will start by provoking a little bit. At first it will be a small blast which will give me the upper hand, but as they will return what I delivered, I will start the real battle by either using a powerful move or a smart one depending on my enemy."

"Wrong." She creates 2 slabs of air and makes them float, she levitates herself but leaves me looking up at her. I still struggle to carry my own weight with Elemental Magic, just like I still struggle to have my molded air stay in place and form, air manipulation isn't my strongest suit. "I find it a shame you haven't yet found the perfect opening. I could swear you would have figured it out by now."

"There is no such thing as a perfect opening, ma." I finally reach her eyes far up in the sky, her slab of air much more steady than mine.

"There is, actually. You just have to figure it out." She lets her slab of air circle around mine, her voice carries this far up in the air and the circling around me makes her voice switch from one ear to the other.

So I started thinking about the perfect opening. I played games of chess off in my head, but every time the opening would seem like something along the lines of what I had thought about before, and just like before, it wouldn't be perfect.

My mother is still circling around me, and as I am getting more and more frustrated, her whirling around me getting on my nerves, I end up addressing her on it.

"You don't truly suppose someone will adjust their selves to you, mold themselves towards their enemy." She sighs but never stops rotating around me like I'm the sun. "Don't think so hard about it, it's so simple, you ought to know by now that not everything is an equation you must decipher. You need to know when something is complex and when something is just simple."

She stops her cincture and looks me in my eyes.

"Relax, my dear." She comes closer and has me release the tension in my shoulders. "Think simple." She says. "Think chess."

I close my eyes for only a second, just for my mind to stop running, for I have found the answer. I have found the perfect opening.

"Do nothing."

"What was that?" She starts circling again, now much slower.

"You do nothing. You wait for an attack."

She claps slowly and smiles, at least, whatever it is I get of the glimpse of sharp white teeth showing. "It's like I say, fight fire with fire, it means you never start the fire yourself." She smiles softly to herself. "After all—"

"White begins and black wins."

My mother creates an illusion of a chess board with the black side towards me. "If neither white nor black make an opening, nothing happens, only the smart people will understand that having to start a fire will do no good."