Playtime - Chapter 5

Alzador is doing his best to take Zoe in.

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Zoe’s earth piercing shriek had its devastating effect on the direct vicinity of the crammed-up intersection. One window after the other popped to smithereens as her scream only intensified when the Dark Enforcers raised things up a notch, blasting her with full force from the palm of their hands.
Alzador saw that Allegra, Zoé’s mother, had a hard time keeping herself on the sideline as she saw her own daughter ruthlessly being drained from her life’s energy.
As the enforcers were compelled to intensify their energetic effort to bring Zoé down the solid asphalt split open, forming several cracks in various directions.
Alzador had never seen a youth withstand the full dreaded might of even one Enforcer, let alone three.
Onexius had strongly insisted for Alzador to not confront Zoé by himself. He found it to be a preposterous recommendation at first. It bruised his proud ego to know that the high council clearly had little fate in his capabilities to bring Zoé to justice on his own.
Only after long hours of fencing with cogent arguments, Alzador was finally willing to swallow his pride and agreed on the high council’s proposition to bring along some of the finest members of the Dark Elite Faction.
With these three Enforcers joining the fray, Alzador had little doubt he would be back before lunch taking Zoé in. Up to this moment, Alzador had made the decision to stand by idle while the Enforcers would take care of Zoé. If the High Councel was so ardently keen on letting the Dark Elite Faction meddle with this undertaking, they might as well do it without Alzador’s help.
His bushy brows frowned deep when he noticed these Enforcers were actually straining with effort to bring Zoé on her knees. The girl was screeching in agony, but somehow still manages to remain on her feet.

“Turn up the heat gentlemen.” Alzador said. “I do not wish to linger on this filthy planet for too long.”
 

Zoé’s unearthly scream seemed to split the heavens when the Enforcers intensified their pressure, giving her the brunt of their full power.
As the ground beneath him began to tremble with great force, Alzador had to cling on to something for his raggedy old legs were unable to keep his body in balance.
Alzador was afraid that if these amplified forces would remain in effect for too long its accumulated energies might even be able to blow up a large part of this city.
He looked in awe at Zoé, a mere scrawny teen girl who was capable of withstanding the full power of three of their most elite sorcerers.
This girl was truly a marvel to behold. Alzador had to admit having strong doubts about his own capabilities to withstand such might if it was unleashed on him.
When Zoé was born, her level of power was already beyond anything they had ever seen with a mere infant. Alzador remembered well the words of one quirky soothsayer predicting that this little girl carried the potential in her genes to ascent to Goddesshood even, and that her ascension would herald a new age.
The soothsayer was vastly ridiculed by many prominent members of the high council, scorned by the rest of society as his prediction was seen as a crude act of blasphemy against Imna, the Goddess of Light. Imna lived many thousands of years ago and is the only mortal known that ever transcended the material world and became an immortal Goddess, able to alter reality with the sheer power of her will.
 

When Zoé was just a little girl, it quickly became clear that she was a true prodigy, mastering spells with the greatest naturalness ease. She was able to perform enchantments, which were usually practiced by students who were many years older than her.
The high council was at first quite euphoric by this promising development of the little girl. They’d placed her in a private class, consisting only of the most talented students, and made sure the lessons were challenging enough and carefully adjusted to each individual’s potential.
In a matter of a few days it became apparent that little Zoé was even a prodigy among these above-average students, provoking a sense of envy with the rest of her class.
The High Council was pretty content with Zoé’s outstanding performances in class and promised her a great future in society if she kept up with this pace.
The only thing that was nagging on various members of the High Council was her unsettling behavior. Some called it merely a phase of childish devilment, something Zoé would grow out of over the years. However, when some acts of devilment began to border on pure cruelty, Alzador himself felt obliged to take responsibility to nudge Zoé back on the right track again.
For many years, he tried tutoring her in the ways of empathy, kindness and the noble act of altruism. This was all to no effect though. Zoé seemed only interested on further expanding her already vast array of magical abilities, especially psychokinesis and size-alteration piqued her interest. She also had a worrying habit of exercising control over others by shrinking them to miniscule sizes and putting them in perilous situations they were unable to escape from. The cries of her victims and the pleas for mercy seemed only like fuel for Zoe's sardonic laughter she sprayed on them from above.
When Zoé reached the years of early adolescence, Alzador pronounced to the High Council that Zoé was a lost cause, and that he will be washing his hands from her now.
 

While his exclamation did hold a grain of truth, Alzador kept the true reason for his withdrawal as Zoé’s mentor to himself.
He was afraid to admit it, but Alzador was slowly beginning to become attracted to young Zoé. She was still far too young to be a voluptuous woman, but the feminine curves slowly started to emerge on her still scrawny body. It did not help either that Alzador carried the fantasy of macrophilia in his innermost sexual desires. Zoe had pranked Alzador more than once by shrinking him down to the size of a mouse and playfully threatened to crush him with her bare feet. For a sorcerer of Alzador's caliber, it would be childlike easy to parry such a spell or even counter it back to the bratty juvenile. He never did though, being shrunk by Zoe was something he just really enjoyed, perhaps a bit too much. He even feigned despair, and called out for mercy when Zoe plunged him in one of her miniaturized charades. He made her believe that she was the one running show, utterly to satisfy his own carnal needs.
Considering Zoe was a smart child, Alzador took the safe side and withdrew from his position as her personal mentor in time before she found out his carefully secluded longings.

“Steady, keep it steady!” Alzador prodded.
 

He saw the Enforcers giving poor Zoé their all, blasting life-draining energy at her fragile body in an attempt to bring this juvenile prodigy to justice. Their strained faces gave away the fact that this effort was taking a heavy toll on their body’s vitality. Just when a drop of doubt started to seep through the corners of Alzador’s mind a sigh of relief escaped his mouth when he noticed Zoé's legs beginning to falter.
 

“Cu-curse you, Alzador!” Zoé screeched, plunging on one knee, still trying to resist the heavy assault on her body. Alzador’s lips twitched slightly upward as he saw Zoé’s solid defense falling apart, piece by piece.

“I’ll shrink your shriveled cock to subatomic scale, you backstabbing sleazebag!”
 

“Give in, Zoé.” Alzador said. He took a brief glance towards Allegra and added, “your mother and I will take good care of you, I promise.”
 

Zoé looked at him with a demonic glare in her eyes, jaws painfully clenched, “I will… I will never give in.” she stammered, “I’m destined… you know it… you want it.” Zoé used her final powers to reach out her hand, gasping in pain. “Give it... Alzador… give it to me…”