Escape Artists vs. Ink Fighter (pt 1)

From the long awaited writing challenge! Thank you for everyone who got a commission that helped us boost the word count on this! It was over 9,000 words! Here's the first part!!





Escape Artists vs. Ink Fighter (pt 1)

Marco’s room was bigger than Hugo’s. Posters of famous Escape Artists lined the walls, and shelves packed with fishbowls threatened to collapse under their own weight. Each bowl held a flux destiny, Marco’s creations, the result of his training as a Creative Escape Artist. Hugo had helped with a few, but their beauty and design were mostly Marco’s.

He’d been practicing karmastry longer. His room made that obvious. Dented practice toruses were stuffed in a box under the bed. Framed trading cards covered his paint-splattered desk. Hugo had a lot of catching up to do.

He sat on the edge of the bed, fiddling with a wristwatch. Tiny gears floated above it, projected into the air as constructs. His torus hummed with a dull heat on his wrist. Lately, Hugo had been experimenting with Clockwork constructs—gears he hoped to use in practice (and combat) once he became a real Escape Artist. He was obsessed with the Great Machine and how it controlled destiny.

Some Clockwork users had even journeyed inside it. Hugo dreamed of doing the same. Maybe, just maybe, he could change the world.

Across the room, Marco was digging through his closet. He eyed each piece of clothing like it had personally offended him, tossing most back and flinging a few over his shoulder. A small pile started forming on the bed. Finally, he huffed, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and walked over with an armful of shirts.

“Okay, Squid. Let’s try these,” he said, dumping the stack on the comforter next to Hugo.

Squid. Marco had called him that ever since Hugo told him about…

Hugo scooted toward the end of the bed, holding up the shirts and sizing them up. His own shirt was huge on him now—baggy and stretched from a body he no longer had.

Marco gave him space, turning to his desk and picking up an empty fishbowl, spinning it on one finger as he examined it.

“I grabbed the smallest ones I had. You really shrunk,” Marco said.

Hugo peeled off his old shirt and pulled a new one on. “Yeah! I lost the pounds fast, huh?”

He didn’t say the rest. They both knew the weight had only come off because of Marco, because he’d inspired Hugo to learn karmastry. Because he helped him get out of that slump. 

Karmastry wasn’t easy, but outrunning payback sure burned through the calories.

The first shirt hung off him. Better than the old one, but still too big. Marco was taller. He tried another. This one buried his hands in the sleeves.

He kept trying on shirts until he found one that sort of fit—still pretty big, but wearable. The hem brushed his knees, but it was the best of the bunch.

Marco rolled out a mirror from his closet, and Hugo stepped in front of it. The shirt draped over him like a coat, sleeves a little shorter than the rest. What caught his eye was the faded Wolfgang logo across the front.

He ran a finger over it.

Hugo had always liked karmastry on TV, but never seriously thought about doing it himself. That changed when he met Marco. Ever since, he couldn’t think about anything else. Karmastry thrilled him. And he was getting better. Fast.

He picked at the old logo. A family member must’ve gotten it for Marco once. It had been his dream first. But now it was Hugo’s too.

Wolfgang. That was the first step to becoming someone great. To not just be somebody—but to stop being a “Big Dipper Nobody.”

He smiled at the mirror.

“One day, when I’m in Wolfgang, I’ll get a real shirt. One that actually fits.”

“What do you think?” Hugo called, spinning toward Marco and holding his arms out. “I look like an Escape Artist now, right? Jill Solar wears oversized clothes!”

Marco glanced up from the fishbowl he was designing and walked over, circling him.

“Jill Solar’s a Creative Escape Artist. Oversized clothes are fashionable on her,” he said, unimpressed.

“What’re you trying to say?” Hugo huffed, dropping his arms.

“You’re not pulling it off,” Marco said, tugging at the hem.

Hugo frowned at his reflection, bouncing on his toes. He really liked this one. Then he caught the look in Marco’s eye—that spark he got when karmastry ideas hit.

Marco’s right earring lit up. His fingers traced symbols through the air—fast, confident. A pair of scissors and some sewing pins appeared in midair, glowing with Creative Karmastry.

He crouched and yanked at the bottom of the shirt.

“Stay still. I gotta work fast before the undertow takes my tools,” Marco muttered, pinning the hem.

“Okay!” Hugo said, still bouncing slightly.

A sharp tug froze him.

“Sorry! Not moving.”

Marco moved quickly, folding and pinning the oversized shirt, trimming the excess with his summoned scissors. Then he reached for real thread and a needle from his desk—his stitches were fast, practiced, the kind his sisters had shown him back when they all had to figure things out on their own.

“Why not just use karmastry to sew it?” Hugo asked, watching Marco’s reflection.

Marco threaded the needle, stuck it between his lips, and adjusted the shirt one last time.

“Because karmastry doesn’t last forever,” he muttered around the thread. “The Great Machine would erase my work unless I keep feeding it karma. I’m not getting payback over a dumb shirt.”

A few well-hidden stitches later, the shirt was done—mostly. The fit was better, but the hem was a little uneven.

“That’s because you wouldn’t stop squirming,” Marco sighed. “At least now you don’t look completely like a dork.”

Hugo turned in the mirror. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was the best anything had fit him in a year. He wrinkled his nose, then grinned wide.

“Thank you!”

He launched into the air, nearly smacking the ceiling before tackling Marco to the ground.

“DUDE!” Marco groaned. “You lost weight, but you’re still heavy as crap.”

Hugo just laughed, hopping up and pulling Marco to his feet. Marco’s torus lost its glow and faded back into simple earrings.

“That reminds me!”

Hugo ran to his backpack, bouncing with excitement.

“You ready?” he asked, clutching the surprise to his chest with his back turned. “You have to guess what it is!”

“An elephant,” Marco deadpanned.

“You’re no fun,” Hugo huffed, but turned around anyway and held out his prize—a big, chunky torus.

It was round and heavy, about the size of a pizza, and nearly covered his chest. Not as massive as the ones most Clockwork-types wore in high school, but it was real. And it was his.

“Oh!” Marco’s eyes lit up. “Is that a legit Clockwork torus?”

Hugo handed it over. Marco turned it carefully in his hands, examining it with his sharp green eyes. Then he froze, tilting it toward the light.

“…Wait. Is this stamped? Karmalux?”

He looked up, suspicious.

“Is this from—an actual fridge?”

Hugo winced. “Yeah. The old one in our garage.”

Marco blinked. “No way.”

“It’s been dead for years,” Hugo said quickly. “I just—look, I was trying to level up, alright? I’d hit a wall with the practice torus, and I knew I needed something bigger. Something better. So I started thinking.”

He scratched his neck, a little embarrassed now.

“I remembered this article I read on appliance-era karma tech—back when stuff used massive Clockwork toruses because they hadn’t figured out how to miniaturize everything yet. Fridges, dryers, even old AC units. So… I figured it was worth a shot.”

Marco was already cracking up. “You ripped open a Cold War fridge to steal its karma-tech guts?”

“It wasn’t stealing,” Hugo muttered. “It was abandoned. And technically, it was brilliant.”

Marco handed the torus back to Hugo with a smirk.

“—that is the nerdiest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

Hugo tried to keep a straight face. “Shut up.”

He glanced at the mirror leaning against the closet. The gold torus gleamed on his chest like it belonged there. It didn’t matter that it had come from a broken-down Karmalux. Didn’t matter that no one else had seen its worth.

It was his.

“So how’re you gonna wear it?” Marco asked.

Hugo frowned. Most Clockwork-types wore their toruses with proper harnesses, strapped across the chest or shoulders. He didn’t have one. And he couldn’t exactly hold it in his hands—he needed those to build his constructs.

“Hmmm.” He tried tossing it over his shoulder. It slipped off. He looked at his shorts—no belt loops. “Hmmmm.”

“I’ve got an old belt?” Marco offered.

“How’s that supposed to help?” Hugo snapped.

“Just give it here.” Marco reached for the torus.

Hugo handed it over, reluctant. Marco rummaged through his closet and pulled out a cracked brown leather belt. The buckle was barely hanging on. He gave it a yank and popped it clean off, then tied both ends around the torus until it looked like a giant pendant.

“Ohhhh.” Hugo blinked. It wasn’t pretty—but it would work.

Marco walked over, holding it over Hugo’s head like he was awarding him a medal.

“Gold place in the Karmastry Olympics goes to... HUGO WANDSCHNEIDER!” he announced like a game show host.

Hugo faked tears. “I just... never thought this day would come.”

They cracked up as Marco dropped the torus over his shoulders. The weight pulled at Hugo’s neck, forcing him to stand straighter. It pinched a little. But he’d get used to it.

“You look so cool, dude,” Marco nodded.

“You think?” Hugo turned to the mirror one last time. One-Hit-Wonder hair cut, oversized Wolfgang shirt, giant gold torus slung on a makeshift strap. 

Yeah. He looked cool… in his own sort of way.

“Thanks, Marky,” he muttered, adjusting the belt around his neck.

“No prob.”

Marco walked over to his desk and picked up the abandoned fishbowl. “We should put this moment in a fishbowl.”

“Yeah!” Hugo bounced, leaping across the room to join him.

“OK, strike a pose!” Marco said.

Hugo struck a superhero stance on instinct—torus puffed out, chin up, one hand on his hip like he was on a karmastry comic cover.

Marco closed his eyes, holding the empty fishbowl in both hands. His earrings glowed, channeling karma from the air into his torus, then into the bowl. Hugo watched as the image started to form—slow and steady, like an old printer etching a memory into glass.

He crouched beside the desk to get a better look.

The picture finally sharpened. Marco’s room. Hugo standing heroically. Marco beside him, smiling.

The rendering was perfect… almost.

“Did you give me a mustache?” Hugo burst out laughing, pointing at his tiny, heroic self sporting a massive handlebar.

Marco snorted. “Gotta keep you humble.”

He sealed the fishbowl and stuck a sticker on the bottom. In black ink, he wrote the date, then added:

Hugo and Marco, Age 12 and 13.

“You gonna put it on your shelf?” Hugo asked, eyeing the towering, overcrowded fishbowl display already on the wall.

“Nah,” Marco said, placing it on the desk instead—front and center, with nothing around it.

“I think I’ll leave it right here.”