I stared at the girl, her hands on her hips as she stared down at me. The fight in me was gone, thoroughly beaten out of me by the barely five foot girl in the frilly outfit that barely protected her modesty, let alone her vital organs from attacks.

"Excuse me?" I asked, incredulity lacing my voice as potently as destruction laced my magic. "Can you... can you repeat that once more?"

The magical girl, whose name I labored to remember as Alice, puffed out her cheeks and stomped her feet as she regarded me. "I said that I don't want you doing bad things anymore! Think of all the people whose feelings you hurt!"

I was sure that I hurt a lot more than people's feelings. I hurt their bones, skins, and souls as I rampaged across the land, bringing darkness and misery to all that I encountered. I had killed many magical girl before this girl, and that wasn't even accounting for all the civilians I had murdered both before and after those magical girls had failed.

And... and yet this young child thought bonking me on the head was a valid enough punishment? I was a psychopath bent on world destruction, but even I thought that such a reaction was lenient. Putting it lightly. Did she think me some sort of errant child? Did she think that a stern talking to and a time out to be sufficient to cow the entity said to be the Herald of All Darkness?

Apparently so, because she raised her staff again, intent on bonking me until I agreed.

"I understand," I lied. Because I was a supervillain, and lying was not outside of my realm of evil. "I will stop doing bad things."

"And you will never do so again."

I stared at the girl. This time my incredulity could not be tamed, and it showed clearly on my face. "Excuse me?"

"Did our last clash blow out your ears or something? I want you to promise me that you won't do any bad things ever again!"

First off, our last clash had enough power behind it to destroy reality twofold. The only reason I survived the backlash of that attack was because I was too much of a coward to dedicate all of my energy to it, and instead redirected some of it into a shield to protect myself. Second off, even if I had lost my hearing, I would have assumed that I had because what in the Nine Realms was she asking of me?

"I... will not... do bad things ever again?" I repeated, unsure if this was really happening or if I was hallucinating vividly. Perhaps that last clash had been enough to give me a concussion or something. I didn't actually have a brain--I was a mass of collective magical energies given a consciousness--but I didn't have a better excuse for this madness.

Alice beamed, her smile bright enough to light every corner of the cosmos. She floated away from me, stardust leaking from her very pores, as she turned around and prepared to fly home. She had grown strong enough to do so, a far cry from when I first started observing her. Back when she was a high school girl of little renown and even less power.

Now, she was a universe destroying powerhouse. Insane what could change in a month.

"Now, I'm going to trust you," she said. Her words confident despite having no real reason to do so. "But if you start acting up again, I'll be coming right back to stop you!"

If I started acting up again, millions of lives would be lost in the blink of an eye. That would likely go against her code, something that only confused me more. She should have evaporated me, and yet she was just flying away?

What was going on?

"Alright," Alice said, apparently satisfied with my words. "Then I'll go off! Hopefully we never see each other again!"

As she turned her back to me, I waited a few moments to make sure that she had well and truly lowered her guard. Then once I was sure she was exposed, I raised my hand. I channeled what little power I had left--just enough to destroy a galaxy--and aimed it at the retreating back of my enemy.

She was a fool for believing in my words. I was an evil entity bent on the destruction of the world. I was a liar, a cheater, and a villain in every sense of the world. What even was evil, anyway? Everything was relative in a universe as big and varied as our own. As my attack finished charged and the magical girl was none the wiser, I smiled at how, after everything, I would finally win. There was no one left to challenge me once Alice was gone. I would finally be able to...

... and then it happened. A large, distinct pain where my heart would be if I were human. It didn't start off as most pains did: stinging and painful and maybe burning if it were of a certain magical variety. Instead, it started off dull, echoing in my core for a few seconds and delaying my attack.

"What... what is that?" I asked myself. It was unusual. Like an invisible barrier that stalled my actions and muddied my thoughts. It was so abstract that I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but after concluding that it wasn't magical in nature I relented. I refocused my sights on the still retreated magical girl and aimed.

... and the pain returned, echoing from my core but much stronger. I found myself not only unable to focus, but unable to bring forth my magical energies. The dark magic bomb I was preparing began to fizzle out, and the last vestiges of my magical strength started to leak away, evaporating uselessly into the cosmos.

"W-what is... going on?" I gasped. My breath, something that I hadn't found the need for until now, was coming out labored. I found it hard to talk, even to think, and it only seemed to grow worse the longer I focused on the magical girl.

Had she managed to inflict me with some kind of magic that even I wouldn't know about? That was unlikely. As powerful as she was, she wasn't as intelligent as me. She was just a little talented with her abilities and far stronger than she needed to be. Kind of like a baby with a nuke. She wouldn't have had the time to do the research necessary to learn how to place a powerful enough magical curse. At least, to place one that I wouldn't be able to detect.

No, there was nothing wrong with me magically. So why couldn't I shoot down this damned girl? She was retreating further and further away, and soon enough she would be out of my range.

"Damn it!" I cursed, my voice loud enough to echo off the asteroids and broken debris of the planet we destroyed. "Just... go!"

I focused all of my energy into my palm again, fashioning it into a spear rather than a bomb. She was too far away for me to toss a dense magical bomb, but a sharp magical spear was more than enough to overcome the distance and kill the girl. I reared it back, preparing myself for the massive effort required to spear that girl, when...

Right. The pain was back, and this time it was overwhelming. I nearly fell to the ground from the pain it had cause, and this time my focus was shattered so completely that the dark spear broke apart immediately, bleeding out into the cosmos and likely unwilling to return to me for quite some time.

I had lost. Utterly and completely. And for some reason I couldn't strike down the hero. Had something gone wrong? Were the magical circuits that made up my being damaged from our last attack?

I didn't know. I couldn't know. And I was all the more confused for it. I laid down, closing my eyes as I thought on my predicament.

All my thoughts kept coming back to whatever reason it may be that I felt so incredibly bad whenever I felt like attacking Alice, and going back on the promise I made to her.