"Captains to the center!"
Madam Hooch's sharp command sliced through the roaring stands.
Wood gave Lucian a firm nod.
Across the field, Marcus Flint strode forward, predatory grin spreading across his broad face.
They met at midfield.
Flint loomed larger, heavier, radiating brute force.
They clasped hands.
Flint leaned in, voice low and venomous.
"I'll make you understand something, genius."
"Even prodigies fall."
His grip tightened deliberately—an intimidation tactic.
He had already ordered his team: ignore the Quaffle, ignore the Snitch. Target Lucian. Body-check him. Box him in. Wear him down.
Break him midair.
Lucian's expression didn't change.
His eyes were calm.
Almost curious.
He applied the faintest pressure in return.
A sharp click of shifting knuckles.
Flint's face flushed instantly.
The pressure reversed—controlled, overwhelming.
Lucian spoke softly.
"I hope your bones," he said evenly, "are as hard as your words."
Flint pulled away abruptly, masking discomfort with rage.
The whistle blew.
"Mount your brooms!"
The match began.
Slytherin's Assault
At once, Slytherin abandoned subtlety.
Their Chasers slammed into Gryffindor players with calculated aggression.
Angelina nearly lost her balance after a brutal side collision.
Boos thundered from the Gryffindor stands.
Hooch warned—but did not penalize.
The Weasley twins found themselves pinned by relentless Bludger pressure.
Formation fractured.
Chaos spread.
High above it all, Lucian hovered.
Watching.
Flint circled like a shark, waiting for weakness.
Lucian's gaze cooled.
Primitive tactics.
If chaos is your weapon…
Then let's redefine chaos.
Phantom Maze
His thoughts accelerated.
Light distortion.
Structural duplication.
Airflow animation.
A projection—no.
Multiple projections—capable of independent motion vectors.
He completed the framework in an instant.
Phantom Maze.
Then he moved.
His figure blurred—
—and split.
Two identical Lucians slid free from the original like reflections peeling off water.
Three total.
Gasps erupted across the stadium.
Lee Jordan stammered mid-commentary.
"Th-there are three of him?!"
Each Lucian shimmered faintly with Wind Spirit's Aegis.
No visible difference.
No lag.
No flicker.
They scattered.
One shot skyward like a falcon.
One skimmed low over the grass.
One began weaving between Slytherin's goal hoops at dizzying speed.
"Hit him!" Flint roared.
A Bludger blasted toward the high one—
It passed straight through.
Illusion.
Two Chasers dove at the low one—
They collided with each other instead, spinning out of control.
"That one! The middle!"
Flint charged.
As he closed distance—
That Lucian split again.
Four.
Now four identical figures streaked across the sky.
The stadium erupted into confused shouting.
Bludgers struck empty air.
Brooms crossed paths.
Slytherin's formation disintegrated.
They lunged, swerved, overcorrected.
Every target dissolved upon contact.
Every pursuit ended in nothing.
Lucian had not merely avoided their strategy—
He had shattered its foundation.
Their entire game plan relied on locking onto a single body.
Now there was no certainty.
No anchor.
Only ghosts.
High above the confusion, one Lucian—real or not—paused briefly.
Observing.
Calculating.
Then he accelerated again, weaving through the disarray he had engineered.
Slytherin players began shouting over one another.
"Which one is real?!"
"Spread out!"
"No—don't split up!"
Flint's jaw clenched in fury.
Their brute-force assault had turned inward, collapsing under its own lack of precision.
To the crowd, it looked absurd.
Green and silver uniforms chasing phantoms.
Bludgers striking air.
Brooms tangling midflight.
And amid it all—
Scarlet flashes dancing like spirits.
Lucian had become untouchable.
Not because he was hiding.
But because he had multiplied the battlefield beyond their ability to comprehend.
From the Gryffindor stands came a roar of laughter and triumph.
Wood stared upward in stunned admiration.
"This… this isn't just speed," he whispered.
"It's control of the entire field."
Above, the Phantom Maze continued its elegant chaos.
And somewhere within that living storm of afterimages—
The true Lucian Thornwick moved silently,
Rewriting the rules of Quidditch in real time.