"Okay, fine, if you say you won't do anything then I believe you."

… He doesn't look much like that's the case.

"Of course, if anyone like Brad should try to pick a fight with me..."

"Then he's being a dick and you shall try very hard to stick to the moral high ground where you try to get away and don't attack him back?"

He doesn't seem to much believe that this is how it'll play out, but a boy can hope, right?

"Ah, yes, and what do you expect will happen to me, then?"

"… Either you get away and then he attacks you at school instead, where you could maybe try to get a teacher, or he catches you and attacks you there and there's no net loss anyway, except for maybe him feeling a bit more like it's a game of cat-and-mouse?"

"He's smart enough to do it with enough friends that escape is basically impossible. What, you don't think he alone was enough to stuff me in that locker? Granted, if I," and he twirls his fingers making sparks appear, "I'd probably be able to take them all on, but therein lies madness."

"Well, m-maybe if you did that in a sufficiently convincing way they'd stop bothering you..."

"Mm…"

Theo doesn't really want to advocate for Sadde getting himself more addicted to magic, but if he just uses a small bit to scare Brad or something, maybe that would be okay?

"Besides, that's just not in his nature. Brad is the kind of person who escalates. Better to keep the game in the junior leagues for now, offer token resistance that he can break and feel good about doing so. If I show my hand too much, he will escalate, and I'll have upped the antes, and then either I stop, at a worse place I'm in right now, or I continue and thoroughly ruin him. I do not want to ruin him."

Theo might want to ruin him.

"How exactly does he escalate over magic?" he asks, kinda expecting that it's a dumb question. "I mean, I guess he wouldn't realize it's magic unless you actually made sure of that but wasn't that supposed to be the point of scaring him with it? So he realizes he's in over his head?"

"And what do you propose I actually do with said magic?"

"I dunno? Can you do bad luck charms? Not exactly shiny, but it should… y'know… give him bad luck. Retribution or whatever."

"Which will cause his mood to be generally sour for no apparent reason, and who will he take that out on?"

"Yeah but then depending on how the bad luck works he might be less able to actually take it out on you anyway? Or it might backfire or something?"

"So you want an effect noticeable enough that it would actually impair his bullying abilities, even when those are often nothing more than asking his friends to do it? Not to mention that a curse like that is preeeeetty dark magic."

Theo blinks. "Okay, so it's not exactly a perfect solution, but this is with like twenty seconds of thinking. Besides, he kinda has it coming."

"And therein, also, lies madness. It's so very easy to start using magic for the littlest things, to curse someone who 'has it coming,' even though there's literally nothing to gain. Magic does stuff to you, frequently undesirable stuff, and doing it out of spite without any expected gain?"

"I'm not sure that's really 'literally nothing to gain', but anyway… Look to an outside source to determine who 'has it coming'? Unless I get affected by magic simply by being around you, and I'm pretty sure you said to my dad that I didn't?"

"You don't, but I will. It's not a matter of who thinks what, revenge magic is by its nature dark."

Theo still looks a bit confused, but decides to accept that answer.

"I'd still be deciding to cause someone else pain for—what? A perverse sense of justice and self-satisfaction? While at the same time sacrificing a little bit, who knows how much, of my self-control. It'll be that much easier to do it again, to be nastier, and nastier, and before you know it I've erased Brad's personality and replaced it with something more palatable."

Theo raises an eyebrow.

Do you see him complaining about this idea? No. He is not complaining about this idea.

"I will not erase someone's personality and replace it with another one, that's murder and bad and will probably cause a minor god to take over part of my mind."

"Well sure, if it causes a minor god to take over your mind, obviously don't do it, I'm not suggesting you sacrifice yourself to do it. It's hardly like that would be an improvement."

He still doesn't seem to care about Brad, though.