Genius can be achieved in one of two ways. The first is to leave the young burning mind in and environment of supreme comfort, with incredible space to develop and grow. Give it everything it needs to function at the highest level, and you will be able to artificially and meticulously cultivate it to be perfectly prodigy. The second is to abandon a mind, and force it to survive on its own without any help at all. The soul is starved of any nourishment, so it must excel in order to survive.
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The first time she ever saw him, she found herself suffocating under his painless smile. The unfairness of the situation wrought her to her roots; she'd survived the impossible, at least four times, and here he was, at the top of the world, no universe, challenging her to a battle of wits? Please, he really thought he could match her intellect just because he'd wasted his childhood reaching for glittering degrees and polished honors that came from government idiots? She'd earned her smart much more effectively; on the streets, where there was never a free moment to reflect on, and never a chance to try again later. It was life or death, and if you wanted to live, you had to fight for it. And meanwhile, he, in his pristine suit, with his glossy hair and dazzling smile, he thought he was better than her just because his life was cloaked in gold.
"That's not how it works, sweetheart," she bit at him, a scowl arching her features, "that's not how it works at all." But his surgically flawless eyes merely mocked her, a laugh tickling his reply.
"Maybe not on... your level. But up here, it happens all the time." He poured a glass of something honey-colored, letting it linger on his exquisite lips before licking it off with an equally flawless tongue.
"I've learned not to trust many things, sir," she spat through chapped lips that were sticking together, "so do you really expect me to trust some bastart with immaculate hair and smooth words?" Her gaze was so powerful that he looked away, breaking off to stare into his golden liquor, though his smile remained plastered to his face.
"Never, my dear. Which is why I want to prove that we're equals"
He clacked up to her in his shiny boots, bringing his hand to her cheek and down her scarred arm, to her sharp fingers, where he planted a honey colored kiss, a mocking kiss of snobbery and cruelty. The smile remained on his rosy lips as he turned and walked towards the glassy black door. "Just let me know when you're ready to play, darling," he cooed, and then the door slid shut, leaving her alone in the darkness again.
