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[WP] You can see video game-like titles for the people you meet. Usually they are just "The Shopkeeper", or "The Mayor", but today you saw an old homeless man with the title "The Forgotten King".	I have a peculiar talent. I know, there are lots of folks that say that. Most of them are people who can, I don't know, play the violin with their feet or do origami with their tongue or something like that. Compared with mine, those talents look commonplace. When I was a kid, video games were all I cared about. If my teachers wanted to reach me, they had to think in videogame terms. My math teacher reached me through Minecraft. So did my science teacher. My creative writing teacher suggested I write a fan fic based around Mario Kart and, after that, TF2. My Social Sciences teacher won me over using UnderTale. My history teacher earned my interest through World of Tanks and even went so far as to gamify her subject, setting up achievements I could earn points for and prizes I could buy with them (usually other resource books or websites). I think I was probably twelve or thirteen when I starting seeing people as video games. At first, it was pretty simple. The school principal, Mr. Farnum, came to lunch one day with the words "The Principal" hanging over his head in big bold letters, like a video game title. He was concentrating on getting his lunch, though, or he'd have seen me staring. My best friend did notice, though. "What is it, Bill?" he asked. "Does Fart'em have TP on his shoe or something?" I turned and nearly snorted my milk all over him. The words over his head were "The Nerd." I tried to explain, but he thought I was making a stupid joke at his expense. Needless to say, we weren't friends for much longer. Years have gone by since that first time. Every day, there were more and more titles. Nearly everyone has them now. Some are really simple. During the presidential elections, for example, I knew Donald Trump would win because his title was "The President." Some are more complicated. Like the time when I was at the grocery store and saw this ordinary-looking person in the check-out line with the title "The Bank Robber" hanging over him. I placed an anonymous call to the police over that one. I later saw him get arrested on the news. I guess they'd been having a hard time figuring out who he was. The other day, I was out walking my dog home from the local grocery store when I passed an old homeless man. He was dressed in an oversized, old, windbreaker with ragged blankets tucked into it for insulation and sitting half-asleep inside a doorway. He had a sign made from the bottom of an old cardboard box. It read, "Homeless. Desperate. Anything helps." His title, however was, "The Forgotten King." I was so busy staring that I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and almost landed on my poor samoyed. Picking myself up, I went to sit next to the guy. Digging around in my groceries, I pulled out some bread and cheese and made a quick sandwich. I nudged the guy awake and handed it to him. He took the makeshift sandwich and ate it like he hadn't eaten in a long time. "My name's William," I offered, watching the man eat. "Friends call me Bill." I stretched out a hand and he stared at it like he'd never seen a hand before. He didn't stop eating and he didn't take my hand or offer me his name in return. I looked up at his title again, wondering if I'd imagined it somehow. "The Forgotten King" still hung over him as clear as daylight. "Look," I offered, unable to ignore those words, "I have a spare bedroom you can use." He stared at me even more. "Come on, sir," I added, standing up and offering my hand again, "I can't just leave you here." Hesitantly, the man reached up and took my hand. "Thank you, William," he mumbled through his matted beard. "You have no idea how much I appreciate this." I chuckled softly as I helped him gather his meager belongings. "I think I have a general idea."	Adam froze. "FUCK YEAH!" "Excuse me?" The homeless man - no, The Forgotten King, spoke with a cultured, precise accent. "Let me guess, you were once a king or a famous man, ruler of an empire or something. Then, due to events out of your control, or self imposed exile, or a brother betraying you for the throne, you were cast out! And here you are now. And now you need an adventurer to help you reclaim your rightful place as king." The Forgotten King frowned. "Was that really just a guess?" Adam nodded. "I woke up in that street the other day, with no memory of my past. I'm guessing it's some sort of amnesia plotline, or maybe someone was lazy and my backstory will just write itself on an as-needed basis." The Forgotten King's frown (That's way too long to type out every time), deepened. "I do not understand. But if you are offering to help me reclaim my throne - Call me Robert." There. That's way quicker. "Hell yeah, I'm going to help you. I've been killing rats for the past week and just waiting for my first quest." "I do not believe slaying vermin will aid us in our quest." "Just come with me - we'll need weapons. I don't know why, but I have a gut feeling the finest blacksmith in the world somehow needs a favor that only you and I will be clever enough to grant, and he'll give us some sweet loot as thanks." And so, Robert and Adam set off on the first of many adventures together.
[WP] You can see video game-like titles for the people you meet. Usually they are just "The Shopkeeper", or "The Mayor", but today you saw an old homeless man with the title "The Forgotten King".	As I walked my usual way home from work, I went about everything normally. I nodded at The Baker in her little shop as she wiped down the counters. I reminded myself, like I did every day, that I needed to pay that lady a visit on a lunch break--she looked like she didn't get a lot of business, but everything in the window looked delicious. Next, I went about pointedly staring at the red hand at the traffic light and ignoring The Prophet as he spouted the same old "repent or be damned" nonsense he always spouted on the corner to whomever was in earshot. When I finally crossed, I made the "sorry; I know" face to those passing me, looking really uncomfortable to have to walk next to that guy. I, as always, didn't look toward the freeway underpass, as I came to find that eye contact made me a target of the homeless people there. It was really close to a shelter, but the shelter had its limits, so there were always loiterers outside and under the bridge. However, a title I didn't recognize was shining from under there, and I only caught it with the corner of my eye. I slowed down and looked up just enough to read it. &#x200B; The Forgotten King. &#x200B; Huh. &#x200B; I'd never seen anything like that before. &#x200B; I thought about just picking my pace back up and making it home in time to get a bit of laundry started before going to the gym, but my interest was officially piqued. &#x200B; I found myself walking toward the man, trying to figure out how I was going to go about this. What was I even going to say? Before I even fully realized it, I was standing in front of him. He had been huddled under a worn blanket and didn't really notice me until I was right there. I got the impression that he was very used to people passing literally right next to him without doing anything; there's no way he hadn't heard my footsteps. He peered up at me from under his hat. I was immediately struck by how intelligent his eyes were. They were bright. Sad, but bright. &#x200B; "Can I help you, child?" he asked. His voice was worn and tired, but there was a strength to it that I wasn't anticipating. &#x200B; I found myself feeling rather embarrassed. "Oh, um... I'm sorry. I just wanted to see how you were doing this evening." &#x200B; He seemed a little surprised, but didn't skip a beat. "I'm getting a bit cold, but I'm okay. Thanks for asking." &#x200B; "Um... is there anything I can get for you?" &#x200B; He chuckled slightly. "I don't know how to go about answering that question, honestly." &#x200B; I felt my face flush. Of course, there were probably lots of things I could get for him. "Are you hungry?" &#x200B; He smiled faintly. "Actually, I am doing all right. Just a bit cold." &#x200B; "Well, I can give you some hand warmers, if you'd like? I always carry a few in my bag." At least it was something. &#x200B; He gave me a genuine smile, and I immediately felt happy. It was the oddest thing. "Yes, I would very much appreciate that," he stated, reaching out a bare hand from under his blanket. I pulled out two of the little packets from my bag, placed them in the outstretched, dirty hand, and watched them disappear behind the fleece. "Thank you very much," he said. &#x200B; It was really bothering me that there didn't seem to be anything special about him. The curiosity was almost infuriating. Surely, if he was a king, forgotten or not, he'd give me some kind of tell. Yet... nothing. &#x200B; "Are you sure there's nothing else you absolutely need tonight?" I asked helplessly. &#x200B; He chuckled without mirth, and it seemed like it pierced my soul. I had never thought about how asking how I could help someone could be selfish thing. He absolutely needed a warm place to sleep, a shower, and someone to really care for him. Yet, we both knew that I would not be offering those things. I wanted some trivial thing to be able to do for him, to... what? Check off a "I've been good today" box on my daily list? I didn't even know. Either way, my face was so flushed that I didn't feel the cold on it anymore. &#x200B; He smiled sadly, but his eyes didn't dim. "It's all right. I know. I appreciate that you gave me the hand warmers. They're already doing wonders for me." &#x200B; "I'm... I'm sorry." I didn't know what exactly I was apologizing for. I guess there were lots of things; I was sorry he was in his situation, though I didn't even really know what that situation was aside from needing a home. I knew he was fallen somehow... his tag told me that. I was sorry that I wasn't a better person, too; was it really all that hard to invite him into my house for a least a shower? What's the worst that could happen? He'd steal my mismatched silverware and try to sell it? Or... he could kill me... I guess? But, that didn't really make sense, because it's not like he'd get much out of that. Yet... I still wouldn't. We both knew it. "I don't carry loose change with me," I stammered. "But, I do have some gift cards for Starbucks if you'd like them?" &#x200B; "I don't want your money," he muttered as he looked down. I could tell he was clutching those hand warmers really hard under the blanket. "Thank you." &#x200B; There was an awkward silence for a bit, and then he looked back up at me with a sudden hope. "You know what you could do for me?" he asked. &#x200B; "What is it?" I truly wanted to help him in that moment... within reason of a stranger helping a stranger... I guess. &#x200B; "Do you think you could pray for me?" &#x200B; I was instantly uncomfortable. Like, he might have gotten a better reaction from me had he actually asked to sleep on my sofa. "Oh, um..." was all I could muster. &#x200B; His eyes dimmed. It was devastating. He looked down at the street. "You don't believe in God, do you?" &#x200B; "I... uh..." What to say? "I... I don't know what I believe." &#x200B; He nodded. "That's something I hear a lot. I hope you discover what you believe some day." &#x200B; I shifted my weight and coughed. "I... I hope the hand warmers last a while. And I hope you don't get too cold." He didn't answer, and he didn't look up. I felt so stupid. He'd asked for a prayer. Honestly, was that so hard? Even if there wasn't anyone listening, what harm would talking to my empty room be? "Look, maybe I can muster up a prayer for you tonight. I'm really sorry I can't do anything more." I instantly knew that was a lie, and I'll bet he did as well. But, socially, I think it was true enough that we both would just accept it as truth all around. &#x200B; He nodded again. "Thanks." &#x200B; I went home. I got some laundry into the washer. Then, just like that, everything was like normal again. The Gym Rat was attempting to speak to The Model when I got to the gym for my nightly workout, just like normal. The Manager told me that rent was due tomorrow, like he always does on the last day of the month. And, just like normal, I went to sleep without saying a prayer. &#x200B; The next day, it was normal again, except I wondered if I would see that Forgotten King again. All day at work, I was distracted, hoping he had found a way to be warmer. Maybe the shelter had a space open up? Maybe someone better than I had stopped by and offered something else? &#x200B; On my walk home, past the bakery I forgot to go to once again, I found myself looking up more than normal, trying to get a glimpse of the underpass before I got there. &#x200B; Then, a break in the monotony pulled me out of my thoughts. At the street corner, I realized that I didn't hear anyone shouting at me. Nobody was reminding me of sins I didn't commit or hellfire I didn't believe in. &#x200B; I turned, and I saw The Prophet sitting under the awning of the corner building, sobbing uncontrollably and repeating through his sobs to nobody in particular, "God is dead, God is dead." &#x200B; And, in that moment, I felt my heart stop, and I knew that I wouldn't be talking to The Forgotten King again.	Adam froze. "FUCK YEAH!" "Excuse me?" The homeless man - no, The Forgotten King, spoke with a cultured, precise accent. "Let me guess, you were once a king or a famous man, ruler of an empire or something. Then, due to events out of your control, or self imposed exile, or a brother betraying you for the throne, you were cast out! And here you are now. And now you need an adventurer to help you reclaim your rightful place as king." The Forgotten King frowned. "Was that really just a guess?" Adam nodded. "I woke up in that street the other day, with no memory of my past. I'm guessing it's some sort of amnesia plotline, or maybe someone was lazy and my backstory will just write itself on an as-needed basis." The Forgotten King's frown (That's way too long to type out every time), deepened. "I do not understand. But if you are offering to help me reclaim my throne - Call me Robert." There. That's way quicker. "Hell yeah, I'm going to help you. I've been killing rats for the past week and just waiting for my first quest." "I do not believe slaying vermin will aid us in our quest." "Just come with me - we'll need weapons. I don't know why, but I have a gut feeling the finest blacksmith in the world somehow needs a favor that only you and I will be clever enough to grant, and he'll give us some sweet loot as thanks." And so, Robert and Adam set off on the first of many adventures together.
[WP] You can see video game-like titles for the people you meet. Usually they are just "The Shopkeeper", or "The Mayor", but today you saw an old homeless man with the title "The Forgotten King".	Everyone has a title. I’ve always been able to see them, but it didn’t take long to figure out nobody else could. Mom heard me sounding out the text shortly after I learned to read, and asked me what I was doing. When I told her, she laughed and said something about how kids had such vivid imaginations. She didn’t laugh when I asked what a philanderer was when dad got home that night. After that, I learned to keep my mouth shut. After a couple decades of seeing titles, I don’t really pay much attention to them anymore. Most of them aren’t all that interesting: “Jeff’s Mom”, “The Mediocre Rapper”, “The Mayonnaise Eater”, “Incel 554280”, etc. Today, though, I see one that made me do a double take. “The Forgotten King”. “Hello, can I help you?” He asks politely. “Are you looking for a specific book today?” I glance around the store, remembering why I’m here. I saw this used book shop a few weeks ago, and thought I might be able to find a gift for Mom here. She likes old novels. Says they have more character. “Umm, yeah.” I mumble, trying to keep my eyes on his face, not the distracting title hovering over his head. “Do you, uh, have anything by John Smith?” So sue me. It’s hard to think of a fake name when you’re distracted. His eyelid twitches as he stares at me. “Are you an idiot?” “Uh...” I avoid his gaze, my eyes wandering around the store. “It’s possible. I’ve been called that often enough.” Desperate to change the subject, my eyes fall on another customer browsing in the cooking section. “What in the blazes is The Order of Tesswold?” Next thing I know, he’s grabbing me by the collar and hauling me over the counter. “Who are you?Where did you hear that name?” Struggling for an explanation, my eyes flicker to a mirror, to the title hovering over my own head. I’ve never shared it with anyone before, but I’ve never met anyone with a title as strange as mine, either. “I’m The King’s Eye.”	Adam froze. "FUCK YEAH!" "Excuse me?" The homeless man - no, The Forgotten King, spoke with a cultured, precise accent. "Let me guess, you were once a king or a famous man, ruler of an empire or something. Then, due to events out of your control, or self imposed exile, or a brother betraying you for the throne, you were cast out! And here you are now. And now you need an adventurer to help you reclaim your rightful place as king." The Forgotten King frowned. "Was that really just a guess?" Adam nodded. "I woke up in that street the other day, with no memory of my past. I'm guessing it's some sort of amnesia plotline, or maybe someone was lazy and my backstory will just write itself on an as-needed basis." The Forgotten King's frown (That's way too long to type out every time), deepened. "I do not understand. But if you are offering to help me reclaim my throne - Call me Robert." There. That's way quicker. "Hell yeah, I'm going to help you. I've been killing rats for the past week and just waiting for my first quest." "I do not believe slaying vermin will aid us in our quest." "Just come with me - we'll need weapons. I don't know why, but I have a gut feeling the finest blacksmith in the world somehow needs a favor that only you and I will be clever enough to grant, and he'll give us some sweet loot as thanks." And so, Robert and Adam set off on the first of many adventures together.
[WP] You can see video game-like titles for the people you meet. Usually they are just "The Shopkeeper", or "The Mayor", but today you saw an old homeless man with the title "The Forgotten King".	As I walked my usual way home from work, I went about everything normally. I nodded at The Baker in her little shop as she wiped down the counters. I reminded myself, like I did every day, that I needed to pay that lady a visit on a lunch break--she looked like she didn't get a lot of business, but everything in the window looked delicious. Next, I went about pointedly staring at the red hand at the traffic light and ignoring The Prophet as he spouted the same old "repent or be damned" nonsense he always spouted on the corner to whomever was in earshot. When I finally crossed, I made the "sorry; I know" face to those passing me, looking really uncomfortable to have to walk next to that guy. I, as always, didn't look toward the freeway underpass, as I came to find that eye contact made me a target of the homeless people there. It was really close to a shelter, but the shelter had its limits, so there were always loiterers outside and under the bridge. However, a title I didn't recognize was shining from under there, and I only caught it with the corner of my eye. I slowed down and looked up just enough to read it. &#x200B; The Forgotten King. &#x200B; Huh. &#x200B; I'd never seen anything like that before. &#x200B; I thought about just picking my pace back up and making it home in time to get a bit of laundry started before going to the gym, but my interest was officially piqued. &#x200B; I found myself walking toward the man, trying to figure out how I was going to go about this. What was I even going to say? Before I even fully realized it, I was standing in front of him. He had been huddled under a worn blanket and didn't really notice me until I was right there. I got the impression that he was very used to people passing literally right next to him without doing anything; there's no way he hadn't heard my footsteps. He peered up at me from under his hat. I was immediately struck by how intelligent his eyes were. They were bright. Sad, but bright. &#x200B; "Can I help you, child?" he asked. His voice was worn and tired, but there was a strength to it that I wasn't anticipating. &#x200B; I found myself feeling rather embarrassed. "Oh, um... I'm sorry. I just wanted to see how you were doing this evening." &#x200B; He seemed a little surprised, but didn't skip a beat. "I'm getting a bit cold, but I'm okay. Thanks for asking." &#x200B; "Um... is there anything I can get for you?" &#x200B; He chuckled slightly. "I don't know how to go about answering that question, honestly." &#x200B; I felt my face flush. Of course, there were probably lots of things I could get for him. "Are you hungry?" &#x200B; He smiled faintly. "Actually, I am doing all right. Just a bit cold." &#x200B; "Well, I can give you some hand warmers, if you'd like? I always carry a few in my bag." At least it was something. &#x200B; He gave me a genuine smile, and I immediately felt happy. It was the oddest thing. "Yes, I would very much appreciate that," he stated, reaching out a bare hand from under his blanket. I pulled out two of the little packets from my bag, placed them in the outstretched, dirty hand, and watched them disappear behind the fleece. "Thank you very much," he said. &#x200B; It was really bothering me that there didn't seem to be anything special about him. The curiosity was almost infuriating. Surely, if he was a king, forgotten or not, he'd give me some kind of tell. Yet... nothing. &#x200B; "Are you sure there's nothing else you absolutely need tonight?" I asked helplessly. &#x200B; He chuckled without mirth, and it seemed like it pierced my soul. I had never thought about how asking how I could help someone could be selfish thing. He absolutely needed a warm place to sleep, a shower, and someone to really care for him. Yet, we both knew that I would not be offering those things. I wanted some trivial thing to be able to do for him, to... what? Check off a "I've been good today" box on my daily list? I didn't even know. Either way, my face was so flushed that I didn't feel the cold on it anymore. &#x200B; He smiled sadly, but his eyes didn't dim. "It's all right. I know. I appreciate that you gave me the hand warmers. They're already doing wonders for me." &#x200B; "I'm... I'm sorry." I didn't know what exactly I was apologizing for. I guess there were lots of things; I was sorry he was in his situation, though I didn't even really know what that situation was aside from needing a home. I knew he was fallen somehow... his tag told me that. I was sorry that I wasn't a better person, too; was it really all that hard to invite him into my house for a least a shower? What's the worst that could happen? He'd steal my mismatched silverware and try to sell it? Or... he could kill me... I guess? But, that didn't really make sense, because it's not like he'd get much out of that. Yet... I still wouldn't. We both knew it. "I don't carry loose change with me," I stammered. "But, I do have some gift cards for Starbucks if you'd like them?" &#x200B; "I don't want your money," he muttered as he looked down. I could tell he was clutching those hand warmers really hard under the blanket. "Thank you." &#x200B; There was an awkward silence for a bit, and then he looked back up at me with a sudden hope. "You know what you could do for me?" he asked. &#x200B; "What is it?" I truly wanted to help him in that moment... within reason of a stranger helping a stranger... I guess. &#x200B; "Do you think you could pray for me?" &#x200B; I was instantly uncomfortable. Like, he might have gotten a better reaction from me had he actually asked to sleep on my sofa. "Oh, um..." was all I could muster. &#x200B; His eyes dimmed. It was devastating. He looked down at the street. "You don't believe in God, do you?" &#x200B; "I... uh..." What to say? "I... I don't know what I believe." &#x200B; He nodded. "That's something I hear a lot. I hope you discover what you believe some day." &#x200B; I shifted my weight and coughed. "I... I hope the hand warmers last a while. And I hope you don't get too cold." He didn't answer, and he didn't look up. I felt so stupid. He'd asked for a prayer. Honestly, was that so hard? Even if there wasn't anyone listening, what harm would talking to my empty room be? "Look, maybe I can muster up a prayer for you tonight. I'm really sorry I can't do anything more." I instantly knew that was a lie, and I'll bet he did as well. But, socially, I think it was true enough that we both would just accept it as truth all around. &#x200B; He nodded again. "Thanks." &#x200B; I went home. I got some laundry into the washer. Then, just like that, everything was like normal again. The Gym Rat was attempting to speak to The Model when I got to the gym for my nightly workout, just like normal. The Manager told me that rent was due tomorrow, like he always does on the last day of the month. And, just like normal, I went to sleep without saying a prayer. &#x200B; The next day, it was normal again, except I wondered if I would see that Forgotten King again. All day at work, I was distracted, hoping he had found a way to be warmer. Maybe the shelter had a space open up? Maybe someone better than I had stopped by and offered something else? &#x200B; On my walk home, past the bakery I forgot to go to once again, I found myself looking up more than normal, trying to get a glimpse of the underpass before I got there. &#x200B; Then, a break in the monotony pulled me out of my thoughts. At the street corner, I realized that I didn't hear anyone shouting at me. Nobody was reminding me of sins I didn't commit or hellfire I didn't believe in. &#x200B; I turned, and I saw The Prophet sitting under the awning of the corner building, sobbing uncontrollably and repeating through his sobs to nobody in particular, "God is dead, God is dead." &#x200B; And, in that moment, I felt my heart stop, and I knew that I wouldn't be talking to The Forgotten King again.	I have a peculiar talent. I know, there are lots of folks that say that. Most of them are people who can, I don't know, play the violin with their feet or do origami with their tongue or something like that. Compared with mine, those talents look commonplace. When I was a kid, video games were all I cared about. If my teachers wanted to reach me, they had to think in videogame terms. My math teacher reached me through Minecraft. So did my science teacher. My creative writing teacher suggested I write a fan fic based around Mario Kart and, after that, TF2. My Social Sciences teacher won me over using UnderTale. My history teacher earned my interest through World of Tanks and even went so far as to gamify her subject, setting up achievements I could earn points for and prizes I could buy with them (usually other resource books or websites). I think I was probably twelve or thirteen when I starting seeing people as video games. At first, it was pretty simple. The school principal, Mr. Farnum, came to lunch one day with the words "The Principal" hanging over his head in big bold letters, like a video game title. He was concentrating on getting his lunch, though, or he'd have seen me staring. My best friend did notice, though. "What is it, Bill?" he asked. "Does Fart'em have TP on his shoe or something?" I turned and nearly snorted my milk all over him. The words over his head were "The Nerd." I tried to explain, but he thought I was making a stupid joke at his expense. Needless to say, we weren't friends for much longer. Years have gone by since that first time. Every day, there were more and more titles. Nearly everyone has them now. Some are really simple. During the presidential elections, for example, I knew Donald Trump would win because his title was "The President." Some are more complicated. Like the time when I was at the grocery store and saw this ordinary-looking person in the check-out line with the title "The Bank Robber" hanging over him. I placed an anonymous call to the police over that one. I later saw him get arrested on the news. I guess they'd been having a hard time figuring out who he was. The other day, I was out walking my dog home from the local grocery store when I passed an old homeless man. He was dressed in an oversized, old, windbreaker with ragged blankets tucked into it for insulation and sitting half-asleep inside a doorway. He had a sign made from the bottom of an old cardboard box. It read, "Homeless. Desperate. Anything helps." His title, however was, "The Forgotten King." I was so busy staring that I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and almost landed on my poor samoyed. Picking myself up, I went to sit next to the guy. Digging around in my groceries, I pulled out some bread and cheese and made a quick sandwich. I nudged the guy awake and handed it to him. He took the makeshift sandwich and ate it like he hadn't eaten in a long time. "My name's William," I offered, watching the man eat. "Friends call me Bill." I stretched out a hand and he stared at it like he'd never seen a hand before. He didn't stop eating and he didn't take my hand or offer me his name in return. I looked up at his title again, wondering if I'd imagined it somehow. "The Forgotten King" still hung over him as clear as daylight. "Look," I offered, unable to ignore those words, "I have a spare bedroom you can use." He stared at me even more. "Come on, sir," I added, standing up and offering my hand again, "I can't just leave you here." Hesitantly, the man reached up and took my hand. "Thank you, William," he mumbled through his matted beard. "You have no idea how much I appreciate this." I chuckled softly as I helped him gather his meager belongings. "I think I have a general idea."
[WP] You can see video game-like titles for the people you meet. Usually they are just "The Shopkeeper", or "The Mayor", but today you saw an old homeless man with the title "The Forgotten King".	Everyone has a title. I’ve always been able to see them, but it didn’t take long to figure out nobody else could. Mom heard me sounding out the text shortly after I learned to read, and asked me what I was doing. When I told her, she laughed and said something about how kids had such vivid imaginations. She didn’t laugh when I asked what a philanderer was when dad got home that night. After that, I learned to keep my mouth shut. After a couple decades of seeing titles, I don’t really pay much attention to them anymore. Most of them aren’t all that interesting: “Jeff’s Mom”, “The Mediocre Rapper”, “The Mayonnaise Eater”, “Incel 554280”, etc. Today, though, I see one that made me do a double take. “The Forgotten King”. “Hello, can I help you?” He asks politely. “Are you looking for a specific book today?” I glance around the store, remembering why I’m here. I saw this used book shop a few weeks ago, and thought I might be able to find a gift for Mom here. She likes old novels. Says they have more character. “Umm, yeah.” I mumble, trying to keep my eyes on his face, not the distracting title hovering over his head. “Do you, uh, have anything by John Smith?” So sue me. It’s hard to think of a fake name when you’re distracted. His eyelid twitches as he stares at me. “Are you an idiot?” “Uh...” I avoid his gaze, my eyes wandering around the store. “It’s possible. I’ve been called that often enough.” Desperate to change the subject, my eyes fall on another customer browsing in the cooking section. “What in the blazes is The Order of Tesswold?” Next thing I know, he’s grabbing me by the collar and hauling me over the counter. “Who are you?Where did you hear that name?” Struggling for an explanation, my eyes flicker to a mirror, to the title hovering over my own head. I’ve never shared it with anyone before, but I’ve never met anyone with a title as strange as mine, either. “I’m The King’s Eye.”	I have a peculiar talent. I know, there are lots of folks that say that. Most of them are people who can, I don't know, play the violin with their feet or do origami with their tongue or something like that. Compared with mine, those talents look commonplace. When I was a kid, video games were all I cared about. If my teachers wanted to reach me, they had to think in videogame terms. My math teacher reached me through Minecraft. So did my science teacher. My creative writing teacher suggested I write a fan fic based around Mario Kart and, after that, TF2. My Social Sciences teacher won me over using UnderTale. My history teacher earned my interest through World of Tanks and even went so far as to gamify her subject, setting up achievements I could earn points for and prizes I could buy with them (usually other resource books or websites). I think I was probably twelve or thirteen when I starting seeing people as video games. At first, it was pretty simple. The school principal, Mr. Farnum, came to lunch one day with the words "The Principal" hanging over his head in big bold letters, like a video game title. He was concentrating on getting his lunch, though, or he'd have seen me staring. My best friend did notice, though. "What is it, Bill?" he asked. "Does Fart'em have TP on his shoe or something?" I turned and nearly snorted my milk all over him. The words over his head were "The Nerd." I tried to explain, but he thought I was making a stupid joke at his expense. Needless to say, we weren't friends for much longer. Years have gone by since that first time. Every day, there were more and more titles. Nearly everyone has them now. Some are really simple. During the presidential elections, for example, I knew Donald Trump would win because his title was "The President." Some are more complicated. Like the time when I was at the grocery store and saw this ordinary-looking person in the check-out line with the title "The Bank Robber" hanging over him. I placed an anonymous call to the police over that one. I later saw him get arrested on the news. I guess they'd been having a hard time figuring out who he was. The other day, I was out walking my dog home from the local grocery store when I passed an old homeless man. He was dressed in an oversized, old, windbreaker with ragged blankets tucked into it for insulation and sitting half-asleep inside a doorway. He had a sign made from the bottom of an old cardboard box. It read, "Homeless. Desperate. Anything helps." His title, however was, "The Forgotten King." I was so busy staring that I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and almost landed on my poor samoyed. Picking myself up, I went to sit next to the guy. Digging around in my groceries, I pulled out some bread and cheese and made a quick sandwich. I nudged the guy awake and handed it to him. He took the makeshift sandwich and ate it like he hadn't eaten in a long time. "My name's William," I offered, watching the man eat. "Friends call me Bill." I stretched out a hand and he stared at it like he'd never seen a hand before. He didn't stop eating and he didn't take my hand or offer me his name in return. I looked up at his title again, wondering if I'd imagined it somehow. "The Forgotten King" still hung over him as clear as daylight. "Look," I offered, unable to ignore those words, "I have a spare bedroom you can use." He stared at me even more. "Come on, sir," I added, standing up and offering my hand again, "I can't just leave you here." Hesitantly, the man reached up and took my hand. "Thank you, William," he mumbled through his matted beard. "You have no idea how much I appreciate this." I chuckled softly as I helped him gather his meager belongings. "I think I have a general idea."
[WP] You’ve just discovered that you're an elite, highly trained deep-hypnosis sleeper agent put in place by the government, and now your employers are sending other agents to bring you in. Thing is, they’re actually being really nice about it.	"So, I'm not really Brandon?" You ask? Your hands are awkwardly holding a paper cup of coffee. Staring into the deep brown liquid, you thought you loved coffee, used to love it, but now... "No, no, no." The woman across from you says. "You are Brandon." She smiles reassuringly. "You're still you, all we did was encrypt a few years of memory and ." You're doubtful. Weeks ago, a seemingly innocuous phrase, "October Platypus" set your brain spinning. Memories seemingly not your own crashed into your head, piling up and overflowing onto your personality. But it went wrong, memories that you had a mission, of your training, of your preparations to assume a new life, blended together in a seamless fever dream of confused information. You know that you've always loved coffee, you remember the black bitter taste and what soothing clarity it brought. But, you remember hating coffee, the thick acid taste almost makes you want to vomit. However they knew, whatever branch of the government they were, they contacted you. They sent out this woman, a snow leopard with silvery grey hair and the kindest eyes. She claims that you were a part of a secret military program to place sleeper agents in positions of influence. You believe her, that much at least matches your hazy shuffled deck of memories. "But I thought I had another name?" You ask her. "Wasn't I someone else?" She smiles and shakes her head. "No, Brandon, you're still yourself. All the program was intended to do is ensure that we had agents in place in case the need arose. We chose real people, those outside the organization, filtered them, trained them, and then ensured that they'd be available." "But I'm an accountant." You say. You're not sure what sort of utility a simple accountant could have. "Exactly." She says. "You're just an accountant. Imagine all the things you've overheard. Imagine all the numbers you don't realize are in your head. If I asked you about one of your company's top clients, you would have extensive, and comprehensive, information on their finances." "So..." You hesitate. "What now? What are you going to do with me?" You ask. "We just want you to come into our office." She says. You notice her lean forward into a sympathetic posture. You know, without knowing how, that she's simultaneously being honest and trying her hardest to manipulate you. "The program has been discontinued for a number of years." She says. "Code phrases, shoe phones, mind control... all that secret squirrel stuff is behind us. It's too prone to bugs." "Bugs like me?" You ask. She nods. "Yes, bugs like you." She spreads her hands out. "It's too easy to be activated accidentally, and hypnotic suggestion only lasts so long. The meat in your brain is always changing and new neural pathways are always being built. Before too long, they're built over old pathways and things become jumbled." "So why not do something sooner?" You ask. "Why would we?" She says. "We're monitoring you all already. There's a chance agents are never activated, so why interrupt a happy life and introduce more risk?" She's trying hard to maintain eye contact. "But..." You still can't form the words for your question. "What happens now?" You ask again. "Nothing." She says. "Life isn't a film. It's way more boring. We just need you to come into the office and sign a few documents. We'll debrief you and put you right back where you always were." You open your mouth to respond, but don't. She continues, "We even have therapy if you need it. Activating can be a traumatic process for your personality, we've seen it plenty of times. It's in our best interest to make sure you're happy as possible." "Why not just..." you pause, unsure if you want to vocalize the question, to make the idea concrete with words. "Why not kill you?" She finishes. "We could." She says, shrugging. "But it's messy, there's loose ends all over the place. Murders are inherently interesting to everyone. Agents especially, due to their positions, leave a larger hole in society than the average person. This isn't Soviet Russia. It's always cleaner to leave someone happy and satisfied, it's cheaper too. A sanctioned murder cost millions. An interview and therapy costs thousands." She smiles again, soft and inviting. Despite her attempts at nonverbal influence, you know inherently that she's being truthful. "It's just cost/benefit analysis. You know numbers, you should understand." You nod. She's right and, even though you know the government isn't one to consider expense outside elections, you also know that whatever arm created you is far more efficient with their money. "Alright." You say. "I'll come in." She smiles, the first completely honest smile. "Wonderful." She says. "Can we go now?" You shake your head. "I can't call of work today. There's a big report due that I need to finish." She nods. "What about tomorrow?" "Tomorrow works." She says, producing a card from an unseen place. "Whenever you want, just show up to this address. We'll be expecting you."	"Get back! I know who I am now... what I am now!" screamed Brian. "I could kill you with two fingers, or a toothpick, or... or..." The other two agents in the room held up their hands in an attempt to placate him. One of them spoke up. "Brian, you're not that kind of secret agent, all right? Get off the table, please." "I'm not falling for that crap! Don't come any closer!" Brian looked around wildly, and then snatched up a salt shaker from the table he was perched unsteadily upon. He hurled it with all his might at the head of the agent who'd spoken. It bounced off with a thunk. "Ow." the agent said lamely, bringing up a hand to rub the spot on her head where the salt shaker had hit her. "Brian, seriously. You can't kill anyone with a salt shaker. None of us are that kind of secret agent. That's only in the movies. Now get off the goddamn table already." "Ash, he's not listening, obviously. Let me talk to him." said the other agent. He stepped forward, catching the pepper shaker that sailed through the air toward him, to Brian's dismay. "Brian. You're standing on top of a dinner table in your underwear, and you hit Ashley in the head with a salt shaker. Which means you're not in your right mind at the moment, authorizing me to do this." Before Brian's incredible super-spy reflexes could save him, the twin harpoons from the agent's taser had already buried themselves in his chest, and he collapsed onto the floor, twitching and jerking. Ashley frowned at James, who had gone over to restrain Brian, remarking, "You opted to use the taser pretty damn quickly, Jim. All he did was yell at us and throw small objects." Jim scoffed. "You were doing a great job talking him down Ash. At that rate we'd have calmed him down after only another hour or two." "But he isn't going to forget about you tasing him Jim! How the hell are we going to convince him we're not out to get him after that?" "I'm sure we'll think of something. In the meantime, get his legs, would you. He's gained some weight while undercover." "Ugh..." *** Brian blinked groggily, trying to bring a hand to his eyes, but found himself cuffed to the bed he was lying in. Two shadows looming over him resolved themselves into Ash and Jim as his vision cleared gradually. "Are you back to your senses yet, or does James have to tase you again?" asked Ash. "Jim tased me?" said Brian, looking unsteadily at Jim, who shrugged, avoiding eye contact. "Yeah. Long story short, you've been in deep-cover and we were sent to activate you. Only problem was, by some stroke of bad luck, you'd accidentally exposed yourself to your reactivation trigger with nobody around to brief you. When we got to your location you'd barricaded the door and went all Jason Bourne on us, minus everything but your boxer shorts. You also hit me in the head with a salt shaker, so thanks for that." "Oh." murmured Brian. "Well, shit. What was the job?" "They gave it to another team because you're out of commission. So now we have to wait for another one. Also, you're on a refresher course now, because nobody's screwed up deep-cover hypnosis nearly as bad as you did. Good luck." answered James. He crossed his arms in disappointment, glaring at Brian. "We have to take this course as well, since we couldn't calm you down." said Ash. "But it wasn't really your fault, so I'm thinking we let this slide between us, all right?" Brian nodded. "Okay... now that that's over..." "Can one of you uncuff me?"
[WP] You're an alien studying humans. You keep hearing about this "Golden Rule" that every human is aware of. You're convinced it's a source of human power but nobody will actually tell you what it is, assuming you already know it, and you're too afraid of blowing your cover to come out and ask.	It has been many moons since I settled upon this planet to study the humans to see if I couldn't gather information about them and then exploit it for my own gains. I settled in nicely, and they accepted me as one of their own, suspecting nothing. My mission was clear, but secret: Conquer earth and bring it to the heel of my empire! These squishy humans are always going on about something. Whether it is the pathetic weather, the overcrowding of vehicles on their primitive roads, or the meal they are currently digstesting, it is always something! However, one thing the weak humans have not mentioned was this golden rule thing. Nobody ever spoke of it. This was the first time I ever heard of it. Was it a weapon!? Perhaps they threatened eachother with it. But nobody will speak of this golden rule. It is likely a human wide secret that everyone knows, but does not speak of with anyone else. Much like taxes. I seek out answers in the form of spying. I first go to their primitive knowledge resource center known as a library. I ask for where their books on power sources and weapons would be, and also where to find books on the secrets of humans. The fragile human with the glasses pointed me in several directions. She suspected nothing. I was take to sections where books described nuclear power, fission, missiles, tanks, and other such stone age technology and weapons. My planet used these during ancient times, we have no need for such a thing! I went to the keeper of the books, nonchalant, and simply said "remember the golden rule!" Perhaps this was the password to gain access to the power source or weapon. The guardian of paper simply nodded at me and smiled, speaking of her small barking animal and of her offspring. I was intrigued by this. Perhaps this was not a power source, but a spell. Could I use this to conquer the humans?! I left the citadel of knowledge and took to the streets. I scanned the area looking for a mighty earth warrior, the biggest and bravest of them all. After some time, I could only find a meager human weighing approximately three hundred pounds with large arms and a large torso. Clearly no worthy opponent but he would have to do. I shoved him, as is customary when initiating a duel. He growled at me, asking for my intentions. After reciting "remember the golden rule!" he initiated combat. Clearly, this was not a spell after all, for even after reciting it he still wished to combat me. Why did he not blather on like the guardian of the books? Clearly this was still a power source and not a spell. After swiftly dispatching the squishy and feeble human, I sought a different location: A human drinking site called a bar. Mingling with inebriated humans will surely lead someone to let their guard down and tell me of this power source! I went inside. I did not like to visit bars. At first I assumed it was a noise factory, a place where small humans gathered to make noise in a room. My curiosity got the better of me, and I went inside. The smell was worse than the noise. My assumptions were still right, but there were more rules. You had to enter the bar. One must drink, and then one must vomit on the floor. You must do this while also making noise. I proceeded to do all of these, and was thrown out the first time. I observed the ritual at another human watering hole and found it was much more complex than drinking, vomiting, and making noise. Vomiting only occurs when you drink in excess, and then people cheer you. It was a strange place indeed. I approached the drinkmaster and ordered a bud wiser. I assume this is the drink that unlocks the humans golden rule, however after consumption, I realized this was what unlocked the humans potential to vomit. I did not feel any wiser. I looked at the human next to me and spoke to them, reciting the phrase "remember the golden rule!" The human then began to ramble about a small yappy animal and a previous mate. The reaction of the golden rule seems to be different among the genders. I would not get my answers here. Growing frustrated, I turned to the great public forum of earth: a protest rally. The humans gathered into groups, holding signs to show their frustration, and shouting loudly in rhymes. These signs contained messages about their frustration. This current gathering of humans was rhyming about pollution in the water. When there was a gap in the shouting, I declared loudly "remember the golden rule!" Their leader pointed at me with enthusiasm, and slurred at me "Right on, man!" and the crowd reacted with loud cheers at my statement, also putting their hands together in an applause. Human clapping still puzzles me to this day. I grew weary of stepping around the issue. Frustrated and angry, I returned to the home of the only human that I was on speaking terms with, an orange haired sapien of low intelligence, and then pummeled the door. The slow human takes his time to get to his small portal, but once he opens it, I make my intentions clear. "I AM LURR, RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI EIGHT! WHAT IS THIS GOLDEN RULE YOU HUMANS SPEAK OF?!" "It's that thing where you're supposed to be nice to one another. Ykno, treat others like you'd want to be treated?" The orange haired one looked confused. "Do you derive power from this golden rule!?" "I wish. Maybe then I could get girls to like me and drive a race car in space." I was stunned. So simple. So basic. So stupid. I scratched my thorax and left his domicile, disappointed by it all.	maybe a bit off topic, but I'll write it down any way As the aliens took me: 3 years ago I was kidnapped by a group of aliens who wanted to know if there is an intelligent life on earth. They had a device that translates their language into English. Apparently, they had been observing the earth for a really long time and they had collected too many information about us. They started asking me questions. They asked me: "Why do you drink the milk of cow but not the milk of human?" then they asked me: "If the brain is the most valuble thing that you have, then why do you unsolicited damage your brain and shut it down?" I think they meant with that things like alcohol and marijuana. They also asked me: "Are all humans capable of leaving this planet to another one? Do you have another home?" I said no, then they asked me: "So why do you destroy your own planet as if had another home?" too many questions that I couldn't answer most of them. At the end they let me go and said there is no intelligent life on the blue planet. But I wanted to show them that they are wrong, so I said: "Wait! We are really very smart! We even use nuclear fission power!" so they asked: "And what do you do about your nuclear waste?" I told them that we hadn't figure that out yet and they started laughing. One of them even said: "let him go. I told you they are stupid." And they left me and convinced me that there is no intelligent life on earth.
[WP] You're an alien studying humans. You keep hearing about this "Golden Rule" that every human is aware of. You're convinced it's a source of human power but nobody will actually tell you what it is, assuming you already know it, and you're too afraid of blowing your cover to come out and ask.	"Tzelle, it's been a month. How hard is it to find what we're looking for? I'm docking your pay." Tzelle scratched at the implant in his head as he winced at the voice of his boss yelling at him. There was no way to turn it off, and his head throbbed as Arch-Overseer Kricha's voice reverberated through his skull. He would probably have a headache for the rest of the day. "M-my sincerest apologies, Arch-Overseer. The project is more challenging than first thought... The secret of the Golden Rule seems universally prevalent among the human race, which means I can't find out without compromising company policy." He slumped a little and slid down onto the ground in the alleyway, keeping out an eye for any curious Earthlings. A feline observed his mumblings from not far away, but it'd be fine. He was speaking in English, so the creature would not understand him and deduce anything to be amiss. "Is that so? Perhaps I should replace you with someone who has more initiative." Tzelle's jaw dropped. His stomach turned and he started shivering. His fingers dug into the soil as he formulated a plea for mercy. Being fired was a death sentence. He would be considered useless... No, even less than useless; a burden on society, taking up resources that rightfully belong to others. The implant inside his head was equipped to euthanize him instantly should the Arch-Overseer so choose. He'd be disintegrated and not even dust would remain. "T-thank you, Arch-Overseer, for pointing out m-my shortcomings. I realise now that I've not been working hard enough. I'll correct my mistake immediately if I'm given another chance. But only by your m-mercy, Arch-Overseer. I would not wish to impede progress on our objectives!" It remained silent for a few seconds. Tzelle's heart pounded in his chest, waiting for the reply, knowing that every second could be his last. "You owe me, Tzelle. When you get home, I demand tribute for tolerating your inadequacy. Now get going! You have two days to get results, or you'll be replaced." The droning in his head stopped, letting Tzelle know the Arch-Overseer had ended communications. He'd survived another day, but for how many more would he be able to fight off the inevitable? Everyone got euthanized eventually. His muscles relaxed, and along with them, a wave of despair washed over him. He was unable to hold it back, and his cries of despair filled the alleyway. "Are you okay?" An unknown voice intruded on his solitude. Tears streamed down Tzelle's face as he looked towards the street. A woman stood there, looking at him. "I'm... fine," he sniffled before turning away from her. This is the kind of attention he'd been hoping to avoid. He could pass for human at a distance, but didn't know much about the way they carried out interpersonal relationships. And to be discovered was to violate company policy. Immediate grounds to be euthanized. She walked towards him and put her hand on his shoulder. "You don't look fine. You can tell me what happened. I'll listen." She squatted and straightened out his jacket a bit. "You look a mess, you know." "I don't think that's a good idea..." he muttered. "You don't need to know about my problems. I'm sure you have enough of your own." "Well I'm not the one crying in an alleyway. Seriously, tell me what's the matter." "I... I almost got fired from my job today, and they're expecting me to do things that I'm not sure I have any way of doing to stay employed." "Ah, poor thing. Come, get up." He recoiled as she touched her hand, but she grabbed it firmly and pulled him onto his feet. The warmth of her hand in his sent a shiver through his body. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had physical contact with anyone. "Thanks. I d-don't know what to say. Why would you do this for me?" It was natural that Tzelle didn't have the capacity to understand. The society in which he was born was an authoritarian, utilitarian nightmare of a civilisation born from near-constant war. As a result of previous societal collapse their entire planet had erupted into a millennia-long strife between countless factions over resources that had become ever more scarce. There wasn't enough to sustain large populations as conflict erupted wherever they went. Peace, even on smaller scales, was often the exception. If the warring entities weren't states, they were politicians, companies, or even families or siblings. Tzelle was a product of this society, born of one of the poorest classes of his society. He could never rest easy. He had to work the hardest of anyone to stay employed with little chance of ever being promoted. And now, his nation had enlisted him in an attempt to find the secret of humans. How could they stand being packed so closely together without constant war? What was the secret of their prosperity? Their strongest clue was the so-called Golden Rule, but it had proven elusive. Until now. "You know what they say," the woman said. "Treat others like you want to be treated. If I were you, I'd want someone to do what I did. It's the Golden Rule." "O-oh... So it is," Tzelle responded weakly, before the full realisation of what he'd just discovered hit him. And when it finally did, he knew that it was all he'd hoped it would be.	maybe a bit off topic, but I'll write it down any way As the aliens took me: 3 years ago I was kidnapped by a group of aliens who wanted to know if there is an intelligent life on earth. They had a device that translates their language into English. Apparently, they had been observing the earth for a really long time and they had collected too many information about us. They started asking me questions. They asked me: "Why do you drink the milk of cow but not the milk of human?" then they asked me: "If the brain is the most valuble thing that you have, then why do you unsolicited damage your brain and shut it down?" I think they meant with that things like alcohol and marijuana. They also asked me: "Are all humans capable of leaving this planet to another one? Do you have another home?" I said no, then they asked me: "So why do you destroy your own planet as if had another home?" too many questions that I couldn't answer most of them. At the end they let me go and said there is no intelligent life on the blue planet. But I wanted to show them that they are wrong, so I said: "Wait! We are really very smart! We even use nuclear fission power!" so they asked: "And what do you do about your nuclear waste?" I told them that we hadn't figure that out yet and they started laughing. One of them even said: "let him go. I told you they are stupid." And they left me and convinced me that there is no intelligent life on earth.
[WP] You're an alien studying humans. You keep hearing about this "Golden Rule" that every human is aware of. You're convinced it's a source of human power but nobody will actually tell you what it is, assuming you already know it, and you're too afraid of blowing your cover to come out and ask.	It has been many moons since I settled upon this planet to study the humans to see if I couldn't gather information about them and then exploit it for my own gains. I settled in nicely, and they accepted me as one of their own, suspecting nothing. My mission was clear, but secret: Conquer earth and bring it to the heel of my empire! These squishy humans are always going on about something. Whether it is the pathetic weather, the overcrowding of vehicles on their primitive roads, or the meal they are currently digstesting, it is always something! However, one thing the weak humans have not mentioned was this golden rule thing. Nobody ever spoke of it. This was the first time I ever heard of it. Was it a weapon!? Perhaps they threatened eachother with it. But nobody will speak of this golden rule. It is likely a human wide secret that everyone knows, but does not speak of with anyone else. Much like taxes. I seek out answers in the form of spying. I first go to their primitive knowledge resource center known as a library. I ask for where their books on power sources and weapons would be, and also where to find books on the secrets of humans. The fragile human with the glasses pointed me in several directions. She suspected nothing. I was take to sections where books described nuclear power, fission, missiles, tanks, and other such stone age technology and weapons. My planet used these during ancient times, we have no need for such a thing! I went to the keeper of the books, nonchalant, and simply said "remember the golden rule!" Perhaps this was the password to gain access to the power source or weapon. The guardian of paper simply nodded at me and smiled, speaking of her small barking animal and of her offspring. I was intrigued by this. Perhaps this was not a power source, but a spell. Could I use this to conquer the humans?! I left the citadel of knowledge and took to the streets. I scanned the area looking for a mighty earth warrior, the biggest and bravest of them all. After some time, I could only find a meager human weighing approximately three hundred pounds with large arms and a large torso. Clearly no worthy opponent but he would have to do. I shoved him, as is customary when initiating a duel. He growled at me, asking for my intentions. After reciting "remember the golden rule!" he initiated combat. Clearly, this was not a spell after all, for even after reciting it he still wished to combat me. Why did he not blather on like the guardian of the books? Clearly this was still a power source and not a spell. After swiftly dispatching the squishy and feeble human, I sought a different location: A human drinking site called a bar. Mingling with inebriated humans will surely lead someone to let their guard down and tell me of this power source! I went inside. I did not like to visit bars. At first I assumed it was a noise factory, a place where small humans gathered to make noise in a room. My curiosity got the better of me, and I went inside. The smell was worse than the noise. My assumptions were still right, but there were more rules. You had to enter the bar. One must drink, and then one must vomit on the floor. You must do this while also making noise. I proceeded to do all of these, and was thrown out the first time. I observed the ritual at another human watering hole and found it was much more complex than drinking, vomiting, and making noise. Vomiting only occurs when you drink in excess, and then people cheer you. It was a strange place indeed. I approached the drinkmaster and ordered a bud wiser. I assume this is the drink that unlocks the humans golden rule, however after consumption, I realized this was what unlocked the humans potential to vomit. I did not feel any wiser. I looked at the human next to me and spoke to them, reciting the phrase "remember the golden rule!" The human then began to ramble about a small yappy animal and a previous mate. The reaction of the golden rule seems to be different among the genders. I would not get my answers here. Growing frustrated, I turned to the great public forum of earth: a protest rally. The humans gathered into groups, holding signs to show their frustration, and shouting loudly in rhymes. These signs contained messages about their frustration. This current gathering of humans was rhyming about pollution in the water. When there was a gap in the shouting, I declared loudly "remember the golden rule!" Their leader pointed at me with enthusiasm, and slurred at me "Right on, man!" and the crowd reacted with loud cheers at my statement, also putting their hands together in an applause. Human clapping still puzzles me to this day. I grew weary of stepping around the issue. Frustrated and angry, I returned to the home of the only human that I was on speaking terms with, an orange haired sapien of low intelligence, and then pummeled the door. The slow human takes his time to get to his small portal, but once he opens it, I make my intentions clear. "I AM LURR, RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI EIGHT! WHAT IS THIS GOLDEN RULE YOU HUMANS SPEAK OF?!" "It's that thing where you're supposed to be nice to one another. Ykno, treat others like you'd want to be treated?" The orange haired one looked confused. "Do you derive power from this golden rule!?" "I wish. Maybe then I could get girls to like me and drive a race car in space." I was stunned. So simple. So basic. So stupid. I scratched my thorax and left his domicile, disappointed by it all.	>After three and a half "decades" (three of our solar llarn cycles) I have studied the three dominant species on this dingy backwater seed planet. Their cultures are unique and widespread, but very diverse. One in the sea, two on land. The easiest to study was the tailless lemurs. But one aspect confused me, their central adherence to something called the "Golden Rule"... before I return with my findings I must know. The little semi-aquatic primates are doomed so this anthropomorphic record may be the only evidence their species existed before the culling ships arrive to process them. >They don't even have trinary-resistors yet only "diodes" or yet to grasp nano-industrial concepts. So backwards. But this last bit vexes me. They call me silly, or stare blankly for a moment and change the conversation. Dammit! This shouldn't be hard! Query: "Hello, fellow human! What is the "Golden Rule"? I'm so forgetful..." And yet nothing! They've really been compiling data in the last seven llarns or so, and attaching the wrist unit to a terminal only filled an eighth of the cellular memory within the crystal. My last gambit is posting on a primitive message board before I'm forced to evacuate due to the tachyon disruption slated for the theta cycle of their year. I'll miss their stupid faces, they had such potential as a subspecies... >UPDATE: The filthy subhumans that call themselves "mods" deleted my query, however I got my answers and can resume evacuation procedures. My only hope is the fallout gets rid of that vile and petty form of life. [-Anonymous](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afnrva/eli5_what_is_the_golden_rule)
[WP] You're an alien studying humans. You keep hearing about this "Golden Rule" that every human is aware of. You're convinced it's a source of human power but nobody will actually tell you what it is, assuming you already know it, and you're too afraid of blowing your cover to come out and ask.	"Tzelle, it's been a month. How hard is it to find what we're looking for? I'm docking your pay." Tzelle scratched at the implant in his head as he winced at the voice of his boss yelling at him. There was no way to turn it off, and his head throbbed as Arch-Overseer Kricha's voice reverberated through his skull. He would probably have a headache for the rest of the day. "M-my sincerest apologies, Arch-Overseer. The project is more challenging than first thought... The secret of the Golden Rule seems universally prevalent among the human race, which means I can't find out without compromising company policy." He slumped a little and slid down onto the ground in the alleyway, keeping out an eye for any curious Earthlings. A feline observed his mumblings from not far away, but it'd be fine. He was speaking in English, so the creature would not understand him and deduce anything to be amiss. "Is that so? Perhaps I should replace you with someone who has more initiative." Tzelle's jaw dropped. His stomach turned and he started shivering. His fingers dug into the soil as he formulated a plea for mercy. Being fired was a death sentence. He would be considered useless... No, even less than useless; a burden on society, taking up resources that rightfully belong to others. The implant inside his head was equipped to euthanize him instantly should the Arch-Overseer so choose. He'd be disintegrated and not even dust would remain. "T-thank you, Arch-Overseer, for pointing out m-my shortcomings. I realise now that I've not been working hard enough. I'll correct my mistake immediately if I'm given another chance. But only by your m-mercy, Arch-Overseer. I would not wish to impede progress on our objectives!" It remained silent for a few seconds. Tzelle's heart pounded in his chest, waiting for the reply, knowing that every second could be his last. "You owe me, Tzelle. When you get home, I demand tribute for tolerating your inadequacy. Now get going! You have two days to get results, or you'll be replaced." The droning in his head stopped, letting Tzelle know the Arch-Overseer had ended communications. He'd survived another day, but for how many more would he be able to fight off the inevitable? Everyone got euthanized eventually. His muscles relaxed, and along with them, a wave of despair washed over him. He was unable to hold it back, and his cries of despair filled the alleyway. "Are you okay?" An unknown voice intruded on his solitude. Tears streamed down Tzelle's face as he looked towards the street. A woman stood there, looking at him. "I'm... fine," he sniffled before turning away from her. This is the kind of attention he'd been hoping to avoid. He could pass for human at a distance, but didn't know much about the way they carried out interpersonal relationships. And to be discovered was to violate company policy. Immediate grounds to be euthanized. She walked towards him and put her hand on his shoulder. "You don't look fine. You can tell me what happened. I'll listen." She squatted and straightened out his jacket a bit. "You look a mess, you know." "I don't think that's a good idea..." he muttered. "You don't need to know about my problems. I'm sure you have enough of your own." "Well I'm not the one crying in an alleyway. Seriously, tell me what's the matter." "I... I almost got fired from my job today, and they're expecting me to do things that I'm not sure I have any way of doing to stay employed." "Ah, poor thing. Come, get up." He recoiled as she touched her hand, but she grabbed it firmly and pulled him onto his feet. The warmth of her hand in his sent a shiver through his body. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had physical contact with anyone. "Thanks. I d-don't know what to say. Why would you do this for me?" It was natural that Tzelle didn't have the capacity to understand. The society in which he was born was an authoritarian, utilitarian nightmare of a civilisation born from near-constant war. As a result of previous societal collapse their entire planet had erupted into a millennia-long strife between countless factions over resources that had become ever more scarce. There wasn't enough to sustain large populations as conflict erupted wherever they went. Peace, even on smaller scales, was often the exception. If the warring entities weren't states, they were politicians, companies, or even families or siblings. Tzelle was a product of this society, born of one of the poorest classes of his society. He could never rest easy. He had to work the hardest of anyone to stay employed with little chance of ever being promoted. And now, his nation had enlisted him in an attempt to find the secret of humans. How could they stand being packed so closely together without constant war? What was the secret of their prosperity? Their strongest clue was the so-called Golden Rule, but it had proven elusive. Until now. "You know what they say," the woman said. "Treat others like you want to be treated. If I were you, I'd want someone to do what I did. It's the Golden Rule." "O-oh... So it is," Tzelle responded weakly, before the full realisation of what he'd just discovered hit him. And when it finally did, he knew that it was all he'd hoped it would be.	Over 70 years on Earth. I have not only disguised myself as one of them, but reached the very top of their society. The weak humans don't suspect a thing. I was sent on a mission. To find the most important thing a human can know and bring it back. Those that came before me failed. They talked about a "golden rule" that was the most valuable knowledge of humans. But they could not find out what it was. Sad! When I came to Earth, I started by finding out what gold was. It is a yellowish metal that humans value. Step one: I gathered all the golden things. I colored everything gold. My home. My name. My showers. Even my appearance. Then, I looked for what a rule is. A rule is basically a guideline for the weak to behave. Humans have many kinds of rules. They make rules but like to break them. Since I am not weak, I broke so many! There is another kind of rule. "To rule" means to govern. I decided to add it to my collection. By breaking even more rules, I was able to rule. I made friends with other rulers, all of whom have so much gold. And since we rule and have all the gold, this is The Golden Rule. Mission Accomplished!
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	"Fucking wanker." She said. A young novice strode out of the crooked stone tower, home of the towns resident wizard. A piece of parchemnt was clutched tightly in her fist. She had spent the past sixteen months fetching this ingredient, paying off that merchant, appeasing so and so's husband. He is an absolute cad, she thought, but he also had the largest library of magical texts in the country. Once, Cosimo had been the greatest wizard in the land. He courted kings, queens, dukes, any manner of noble and wealthy clientelle who would purchase his spells and hire him to rid them of their woes. He did his job well, and along the way he found he really enjoyed adoration, and its perks. These days, all he was known for was summoning spirits from a bottle. The girl hiked up her rough hewn robes, tying the cord tighter in a vian attempt to stop them from dragging. "The robes of a novice should be plain," he said, she recalled, after finishing three kegs of merlot. She scoffed, loudly. "The Gall!" She shouted, to no one in particular. A few startled geese waddled quickly away. HIS master had given him proper lessons! She had resorted to teaching herself spells in the dark of night after he had passed out, or taken up with a lady patron. Yes, she had taught herself much, and here she was. Sent on a fools errand! Figure it out, he says. I CHOSE YOU FOR A REASON, he says. She balled the list up in her fist, letting her rage build until it forced itself out in a strangled yell. With all the strength she could muster, she let her foot fly, seeking out a nearby dirt clod. To her dismay, her toe was met solidly with the thud of stone. "Yow!" She cried out in pain, doubling over and clutching her throbbing toe, her anger reduced to a smoulder. Doubt began to creep in at the edges as the pain subsided. Why was she doing this? Why did she think she could do this? She looked once more at the list, at the time it would take to prepare each ingredient. 9 items at 3 hours a piece, that makes 27 hours. The potion relied on a critical moon phase that occurred in 24 hours time. She had thought it through over and over again but she could find no solution. He had asked her to do the impossible. It had to be another cruel prank, and yet he had seemed lucid when he gave her the task. What a fool she was! She knew better than to not ask questions, especially of Cosimo. Could he possibly be setting her up to fail? Had she wronged him somehow, and now he was enacting his revenge? A chorus of birds chirped around her, accompanied by the russle of the leaves, creating a song that spoke secrets of the forest to her, nagging, and begging to be heard. She had always been able to hear them, been able to understand the connections between all things, but she had always been driven to know more. It began to drill at her mind, jumbling her thoughts and makign her frustrated. She needed a break. Taking a deep breath, she controlled her emotions and centered herself. She imagined herself reaching deep inside, where she found the source of her magic and willed it to unfurl. She let it flow through her, and willed it to bring her calm. A blessed moment of fucking peace and quiet, was that too much to ask? Breathing deeply, she pulled in her knees and hugged them. she sighed deeply and let a smile come to her lips, as she felt the warmth of the sun fall on her dappled cheeks. Feeling better, she picked herself up and dusted off her robes. If he was setting her up to fail, she wasn't going down without a fight. Still smiling, she walked down the dirt road that lead away from the crooked tower, determined to do whatever she needed. She almost compelled to whistle a jaunty tune but decided not to ruin the moment. All around her, the earth stood quiet. The birds had taken a momentary intermission from their performance with the trees. For a second, nature held its breath. After all, sometimes a moment of peace and quiet is just what you need in order to make time stand still. ---- Sorry, it's not really edited. Just decided to write it on a whim.	Diana woke up promptly at 6am every muggy Monday morning with a burning,full-bodied headache brought on from tailing her boss through another weekend of debauchery. Diana did everything for her, hailing cabs, scheduling meetings, and holding back her hair when the meetings went too well, and turned into rooftop parties downtown. She scrubbed face raw, removing the previous three days from her skin, and went through her routine: stretching, popping pills, slathering on foundation, and munching on a granola bar, all the while, chanting, "You should be grateful for this opportunity. Getting such a plush internship straight out of college at a firm of this prominence is unheard of. You are worthy. You will conquer today." She didn't believe it, but she tried, you know? Two hours of traffic,abandoned ride shares, and a broken heel later, she hobbled into the marble-coated lobby of LaVey,Laveau, and Ledoux and jabbed the up elevator button rapidly, trying to summon the thing faster. "Gimme a second, Diane, Jesus", the elevator moaned. "It's Diana. It's been six months". The elevator's voice grew more inattentive as it drew closer. "we gotta lotta people coming though here, Diane,I should get credit for being in the ballpark". "It's Diana, and we only have three employees that have proper nouns for names." The elevator dinged and opened its doors in reply. She knew better than to say anything else. The elevator could always be repaired,but she was still healing from the last time it decided to release it's brakes. Another ding,this time from her phone. She swiped her finger over her blazer pocket and saw the beginning of a checklist peek out. She tucked it back in, hoping that it wouldn't appear as read. She had to have an excuse ready if she wanted to avoid her boss's wrath. As she cruised past empty cubicles still alive with clicking and typing, she kept her eyes forward. The old independent contractors were still bound to their agreements, so they had to work weekends for all eternity. Unbreakable , even by death, the Infernal Eye Contracts could only be transferred by maintaining eye contact for only a few seconds. She had enough work as it is, so sacrificing her retinas to florescent lights was a fair trade. The phone began to scream rather than ding this time, echoing through her head. She sighed and picked it up, kicking her heels off in the process so she could walk more briskly. "Ma'am? No. Traffic. No, I didn't have the opportunity to look over the itinerary, I didn't even know we had one written, since you usually...aren't able to dictate it this early on a Monday. You know, because of your busy weekend schedule..." She rolled her eyes and started into a sprint, snagging her tights on the low pile carpet. "No ma'am, you're not paying me for that, you're not paying me at a-" She stopped in place. Never in her life had she wished she could take back a sentence fragment so desperately. Somehow she hoped her boss was too hung over to comprehend the end of that sentence, but when her body started to levitate and whoosh through the unnecessarily long hallways of LLL,LLC she knew her answer. A heavy, dark walnut door inscribed "Cherise Laveau, CMO" swung open and slammed violently behind her. "Good morning,Ms. Laveau..." She heard a gurgling noise beneath an even darker wooden desk that cut the room completely in half. It looked more like an entire courtroom bench rather than a real piece of furniture. The waste basket at the far right was missing. She heard a spattering against plastic. Oh, thank God. She wasn't going to have to clean the floor this time, just maybe a blouse. A hand the color of burnt honey cornbread slapped onto the surface of the desk, and a mop of tangled silver hair pooled onto it. Diana thought she saw an unidentifiable chunk of something caught in a coil or two, but she may have superimposed the way her boss looked the previous Monday, when the boss had to be collected from her penthouse. The finger pointed to Diana, and her phone lept out of her pocket. Cherise gurgled again. On screen, the checklist began to get longer, filling with time stamps and extensive details. At least that's what she could gather from context. The characters made no sense, and even shifted when her phone caught the light differently, and the only way she knew that there were times on the list were a few telltale colons. "Um, Ms. Laveau? I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I follow." The hand tensed up, and her boss pulled herself into the desk. Whatever was in her hair was gone now, and the coils were nearly arranged,like an avant-garde bouquet of silver kudzu vine. Her boss rubbed her eye sockets until her dark circles went away, and she leaned backwards, a little too far, and slid into a massive black leather chair that moved into position just before she hit the floor. Laveau grunted "Eh, this is a list. Of places. I lost something important to me over the weekend, and that's an itinerary of places that only appear during those times before the next weekend. It's not really a 'list'." She said, hooking her finger into quotes around her head. "It's necessary that you so everything on it. In order. I really need that thing, and those clubs we visited are very exclusive. I've got to give you a sample of myself for them to even appear. Hold on." She plucked out a tuft of hair, which instantly replenished itself on her head. Diana shook her head at her, a little derisively. "That's ok, I already have some left over from the last time." She wondered what she meant by that, but sure enough, in the purse crossing her body, was a tuft of silver hair. That wasn't too surprising, so she paid it no mind. "Ms. Laveau, I'm still not sure how to read this." Her boss wiped her mouth, checking for something that shouldn't be there, and grimaced. "It's steam of consciousness. Evaporated digitized thought. It's better than the letters and numbers." Diana still wasn't that certain. Cherise Laveau,Chief Magical Officer of one of the largest, successful magic practices in the state was incredibly old, incredibly talented, and incredibly drunk, so her thoughts, while brilliant, probably weren't the easiest to navigate in the middle of the week,much less after a weekend bender. Cherise sensed her hesitation, and took the two minutes or so required to walk across the room to make her way towards her assistant. Diana didn't look up from the floor, and saw her boss's expensive heels click clack into place. The woman was shorter than average,but somehow she managed to look even more imposing on those stilts. No matter how far gone she was, she never really stumbled. Maybe that was it. She clapped a sticky hand on Diana's shoulder and smiled. "You. Graduated at the top of your class. Honors. You had a full ride. Very Horatio Algae. I know you can figure it out. I hired you for a reason." Despite everything, Diana couldn't help but smile back. In the middle of the week, her boss showed her amazing feats, fixing problems, and discretely disposing of titanic issues for clients whose prestige made Diana's head spin. For all the nagging and the searing direct messages she broadcasted into her skull, she mentored her the only way she knew how. Cherise reached into Diana's bag and tucked the hair coil behind her assistant's ear. "Look out the window". She gestured to a dark cloud, pillar-like , and completely vertical. A flat gray concrete metal and glass structure, like the top of a any scraper, protruded from the bottom, almost inches from the ground. "See? The first one is already there. Remember, we've got to backtrack,find all the places that we visited this weekend. Well, you've got to. I've got to. Do something here." She was already halfway to her desk, obviously eyeing a pillow resting on a far corner. "Also, I don't remember what it was exactly, but you've got to get it back before end of shift. It's imperative to our survival. Diana grimaced, and swallowed a little. The notes seemed to separate themselves, ordering into twenty eight locations and times. The severity of the stakes of her job never seemed real, but she wanted to keep it. She'd managed to do that for six months, where others had perished or failed in an equally miserable fashion. "You are going to conquer the day", she murmured. Her boss sniffed. "I'm very rich, very very rich and successful, my dear. I already have." She tilted her head and smiled disarmingly. "But so have you. You've handled yourself so well before. You'll do it even better this time." The column of cloud outside rumbled with thunder, calling to her. She was going to answer this time, and with a perfect, professional phone voice.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	"Fucking wanker." She said. A young novice strode out of the crooked stone tower, home of the towns resident wizard. A piece of parchemnt was clutched tightly in her fist. She had spent the past sixteen months fetching this ingredient, paying off that merchant, appeasing so and so's husband. He is an absolute cad, she thought, but he also had the largest library of magical texts in the country. Once, Cosimo had been the greatest wizard in the land. He courted kings, queens, dukes, any manner of noble and wealthy clientelle who would purchase his spells and hire him to rid them of their woes. He did his job well, and along the way he found he really enjoyed adoration, and its perks. These days, all he was known for was summoning spirits from a bottle. The girl hiked up her rough hewn robes, tying the cord tighter in a vian attempt to stop them from dragging. "The robes of a novice should be plain," he said, she recalled, after finishing three kegs of merlot. She scoffed, loudly. "The Gall!" She shouted, to no one in particular. A few startled geese waddled quickly away. HIS master had given him proper lessons! She had resorted to teaching herself spells in the dark of night after he had passed out, or taken up with a lady patron. Yes, she had taught herself much, and here she was. Sent on a fools errand! Figure it out, he says. I CHOSE YOU FOR A REASON, he says. She balled the list up in her fist, letting her rage build until it forced itself out in a strangled yell. With all the strength she could muster, she let her foot fly, seeking out a nearby dirt clod. To her dismay, her toe was met solidly with the thud of stone. "Yow!" She cried out in pain, doubling over and clutching her throbbing toe, her anger reduced to a smoulder. Doubt began to creep in at the edges as the pain subsided. Why was she doing this? Why did she think she could do this? She looked once more at the list, at the time it would take to prepare each ingredient. 9 items at 3 hours a piece, that makes 27 hours. The potion relied on a critical moon phase that occurred in 24 hours time. She had thought it through over and over again but she could find no solution. He had asked her to do the impossible. It had to be another cruel prank, and yet he had seemed lucid when he gave her the task. What a fool she was! She knew better than to not ask questions, especially of Cosimo. Could he possibly be setting her up to fail? Had she wronged him somehow, and now he was enacting his revenge? A chorus of birds chirped around her, accompanied by the russle of the leaves, creating a song that spoke secrets of the forest to her, nagging, and begging to be heard. She had always been able to hear them, been able to understand the connections between all things, but she had always been driven to know more. It began to drill at her mind, jumbling her thoughts and makign her frustrated. She needed a break. Taking a deep breath, she controlled her emotions and centered herself. She imagined herself reaching deep inside, where she found the source of her magic and willed it to unfurl. She let it flow through her, and willed it to bring her calm. A blessed moment of fucking peace and quiet, was that too much to ask? Breathing deeply, she pulled in her knees and hugged them. she sighed deeply and let a smile come to her lips, as she felt the warmth of the sun fall on her dappled cheeks. Feeling better, she picked herself up and dusted off her robes. If he was setting her up to fail, she wasn't going down without a fight. Still smiling, she walked down the dirt road that lead away from the crooked tower, determined to do whatever she needed. She almost compelled to whistle a jaunty tune but decided not to ruin the moment. All around her, the earth stood quiet. The birds had taken a momentary intermission from their performance with the trees. For a second, nature held its breath. After all, sometimes a moment of peace and quiet is just what you need in order to make time stand still. ---- Sorry, it's not really edited. Just decided to write it on a whim.	Thaddius Kalvenn stared pitifully at the task log hovering before him. The sole assignment plastered alone on his planner petrifying his mind to its core. Three hours had passed since he left the Institution, and three hours of shallow breathing and the steady hum of his ships engine were the only sources of stimulation that Thaddius’ ears were privy to in the cold dead of space. “Damn it all to hell!” Thaddius recoiled as his voice rang out around his small cockpit, only serving to further agitate himself. A layman might look at the _test_, whatever else could it be, and conclude that it looked simple enough. A short jaunt to a nearby system, Albireo, and a routine spectrum survey of its twin heliacal inhabitants. However, Thaddius’ studies forced him to yield a different assessment. Surely, in all their wisdoms his teachers could not have forgotten facts that made him an ill-chosen candidate for this outing? His credit-banks, unlike many of his peers, were untouched by any ancestral benefactors and had been thoroughly emptied, all his labors of the past years prior to his enrollment could only amount to a Phoenix-class ship. Its sputtering twin nova engines would barely suffice in an endeavor of a round trip of fourteen hours. The real issues lied within the second aspect of his undertaking, the computations of a full spectrum survey was severely limited with the programs such a ship was capable of handling. With nothing else running, and a students full attention, twelve hours to complete the survey would be a pessimistic conclusion. Frustrations welled inside him, the strong structures of his intellectual confidence beginning to struggle against the tendrils of doubt undermining them. “I should have listened to reason!” Thaddius wailed. “Throwing away scholarships, relationships... respect. A self-exile to a fool's college, a refuge only home to madmen! All because I couldn't. just. grow up” The logics of his mature mind should have overwhelmed the childish beliefs he still held. Tales of wizards and witches, spells and incantations, power not garnered solely from mind and science, but from arcane streams that flowed far beneath what a microscope could view. Reaching the peak of his patience, he broke backwards, exhausted. His stubbornness wavering, and his once full reservoir of determination rapidly evaporating, he toggled the ships lights. Yet as he drifted off to sleep, unknown to his mind at its current erratic state, a spark of true belief still shimmered deep within his subconscious. Hours later, the Albireo system was no longer void of life, and as the ships inner systems blared to life so did its pilot stir as well. groggily, he enjoyed a moment of blissful ignorance, before the cogs of his conscience mind once again began to turn and manufacture doubt. That too, however, was quickly snuffed out, and as soon as the twin stars, of Albireo, locked in a forever-dance shone their lights upon his craft, into his eyes, and though his soul, he realized he hadn’t really awoken yet at all. Seconds passed, and just like that Albireo was once again, alone.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	"Sir, I just checked my tasks for the day, and... well frankly I won't be able to complete this in the day. This is three days work at least, and they're all marked to be done today?" I looked up from my unusually long list of tasks to find that his eyes were already fixed on me. His brow furrowed, he leaned in as he spoke, seemingly trying to add an intensity to his words, but just missing the mark. "Figure it out Nick, after all, I chose you for a reason." The Great Wizard, St. Gilford was my master and mentor and had a flare for the theatrics. But what wizard doesn't? I was slowly coming to the conclusion that most Wizards became Wizards to show off. Not me though, I want to help make the world a better place... I never had a lot growing up but I always heard tales about Wizards' magic doing incredible things, making something from nothing, making things disapear, fixing broken things and even healing people. But for whatever reason, they usually use their magic for their own convenience and benefit. Hell, most of the stuff on this list is the same usual finder gatherer tasks he always gives me... all except one. I am to deliver a birthday gift to his Neice. I didn't even know he had a neice. And of course the only thing on the list for someone else is the very last thing there. She will get her present. And it will not just be the towel he has asked me to retrieve. She will get the best damn present she has gotten in her life. Her birthday won't be like my childhood birthdays. She will love it, and she will feel loved. I set off. I quickly got my pack together, I headed into the woods, firstly I needed to get his copious amounts of ingredients that were scattered far and wide through the thick forest. I picked and foraged and scavenged and hunted as quickly as I could, all the while keeping Gilford's neice in the back of my mind. I went to the shops, exchanged packages with scholars, handed out potions for trade, gave researchers test results, swapped informational sheets and handed a carpenter magically enhanced tools, I went through the town and forest as fast as I could, doing my best to be thorough and careful and as meticulous as I had been taught to be. Finally, through some miracle, I was at the end of the list, the sun was still up. At least I think it was. I had been moving so fast I didn't really have time to check and I was inside getting her a present. Fortunately I found a gift that felt perfect. I had never met her but I had a really good feeling about this one. I raced to their home. I knocked on the door, it swung open and I was greeted by a smiling mother "good morning, oh you must be Nick with Gwen's birthday present, please let Gilford know that she very much appreciates his persistence in his love of towels." Apparently not wanting to shoot the messenger, she graciously accepted the gift, momentarily noting it's weight, nodded and closed the door. I waited on the street as I heard Gwen quickly open her gift, which was followed by screams of excitement and happiness. My cheeks burned red, and an unstoppable smile stretched from ear to ear. Wait... "good morning"? How could it be morning? I made my way back to the Wizards small hut. The door opened revealing the interior which was, as was with most wizards, much bigger on the inside. "Done already? In under an hour? Why my boy, you're more exceptional than I thought. Did Gwen like what you picked for her?" Gilford was smiling warmly down at me. "An hour? But how... when did I-" I stammered as I tried to gather myself. "I noticed it when we first met boy, time seems to... bend to your will. I have been curious what would happen if you were appropriately motivated. It just took some time for this selfish old fool to realise your desires and aspirations and purely selfless in nature." He stroked his beard as billows of colourful smoke wafted through the house. "Boy, this is just the beginning... keep on this path, become a wizard, fulfil your dream. As St. Nick, you will do great things, you will change the world."	This was, by far, the dumbest thing this old wizard had asked me to do. Honestly, figure out how to fit more than twenty four hours into Earth's good old twenty four hour day? At first I didn't know what he wanted me to do. Every time I asked about it he just shrugged me off and told me I'd "Figure it out." Hah. Yeah, right. Listen, man. I'm seventeen! I don't have time for this! Okay, so yeah I figured it be an easy time warp spell or even some kind of cloning spell, but no. The old fart had all of those locked up. "A real Wizard doesn't need old spells to solve every new problem." Alright, let's see about that when I take your recipe book away. He added five more hours to the list. Every day that passed that I still hadn't figured this stupid riddle out, the more snide comments I would get from my mentor. This continued for two weeks. Two weeks! Then it quite literally hit me on the head. Of course, as this was all going on I was gradually working on the chores, cleaning out Phoenix cages and scrubbing brewing pots and such. But it happened when I was realigning the miniature solar system in the star room. Jupiter just so happened to drop and rattle against the floor, shaking the room and causing books to fall off of shelves. Everything stopped, it all froze. Even the dust suspended in light filtering through the windows stood still, as if waiting with baited breath. Power hummed through my veins, tingling in the tips of my fingers, warming my ears and cheeks as it does every time it's used. This is what the old man wanted. Time is a fragile thing but it too can be controlled if done gently.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	" So, let me get this straight." the innkeeper said, looking quite concerned. " If I don't wash all these cauldrons in exactly this manner every Tuesday for the next year and a half, the great and powerful wizard who has lived outside of our village for decades is going to rain down fire and brimstone on everyone within 100 miles?" I bit back a nervous laugh. I had to sell this. Schooling my features so they looked suitably grim, I nodded gravely. " Yes, that about sums it up." The innkeeper was used to dealing with tall tales and exaggerations; he had to be or else he wouldn't have been in business. This was going to be the hardest victory of all to win. He looked me over once, and then again, and then again. Then he sighed. " I'll get on it right away." I looked suitably relieved. " Thank you." I said, being sure to add a grateful quiver to my lips... no, I didn't need to add that. Walking out the door I desperately tried to keep the skip out of my step, looking somber until I made it into the tree covered path leading through the woods to my master's castle. I let out a triumphant laugh that startled every beast in the forest as I pumped my fists into the air. " Who's the master now! Zen is! WOOOOOO!!!" I had nearly shit my pants when master Ærie had given me 30 hours of daily tasks. When I tried to reason with him he cryptically told me to "Figure it out." before fucking off to his tower to do research. Maybe if he had taught me any magic it would be more managable. Time stopping would be incredibly overpowered and broken, and therefore fun. But temporal distortion was way more advanced than anything I could figure out my own... the extent of the magical abilities before coming here was actually being able to make coins and knick knacks disappear. I thought about just banishing the list but knew that wouldn't help. If I couldn't finish these tasks I couldn't be a wizard's apprentice, and I didn't have enough man hours to get them done. So I got some more. If you don't have enough man hours and you can't get more hours, you get more men. Growing up in a village with an ultra powerful being who is almost never seen, who's name includes a letter and sound most people have never heard of before and who's name also sounds like a synonym for 'unsettling' or 'scary' gives you a very solid rumor base to work off. A little bit of ...embellishing... and the locals were happy to cooperate. Busywork taken care of, check. Old scores settled, check. The most beautiful women in the village coming to the castle regularly to cook and clean, check, check, check! All that was left for me was 8 hours of the fun stuff. Brewing potions,reading magical scrolls, and organizing the library. The last one was a bit less fun but I wasn't letting anyone else near the magic I had worked so hard to earn the right to. Old man Ærie was out of his tower for once and was standing right behind the castle door as I walked in. " Wipe that shit eating grin off your face, brat." he said cantankerously. "Killjoy." I muttered. He frowned, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to insult a master wizard, but I was thinking it, and the motherfucker reads minds so there wasn't much I could do to avoid it. " What have you been doing all day?" He said. " You already know th-" "Of course I already know that you oaf!" He shouted. " I'm asking if you do! I gave you a comprehensive list of tasks, and you went gallivanting off into Birchburg telling tall tales about how I would annihilate people, like I was some weird aggressive recluse." "You are a weird aggressive recluse." "That's not the point, genius!" He said. " I gave you those tasks so you could learn magic!" "But I have." I said cockily. " The magic of manipulation." 'The magic of manipulation' Ærie mimed, throwing his hands in the sky and sending small waves of thunder and lightening out of sheer irritation. " Bah! What if one of those villagers gets the bright idea to go to the king with those threats you made?" "Already covered it." I said. " I told everyone that you had already put a curse on everyone in the village and if they said anything to outsiders about it their genitals would melt off." "Their genitals!" He shrieked incredulously. " I know." I replied with a smirk. "Awful, ain't it?" "What the hell is your problem?" "My problem was I had to do 30 hours of work per day with no time for eating or sleeping for 18 months straight. I have solved that problem." "So ... the cauldrons will be cleaned by_" "Lane, the innkeeper." " And the household chores will be taken care of by" "Alice. And Blanche." I smiled, then added " And Cynthia on weekends and holidays." " And the dung from the bestiary will be cleaned every day by-" "Tom." Fuck Tom. The old man sighed wearily before looking out the window, lost in thought. " And if I were to tell everyone in the village the truth about this little yarn of yours, maybe let something slip to one of the maidens you decided to hire?" "You won't." " How do you know that?" He said indignantly, puffing his chest. "Because" I drawled. "You hate talking to people. Pretty girls especially." He deflated instantly. "...I... you... how???" " Now if you'll excuse me master," I said, heading for the library, " I've got research to do." "Clever little bastard." He muttered angrily as I walked away. " I chose you for a reason." He hummed thoughtfully. " In retrospect, probably for the wrong reason." "Love you too, teach!" I said, slamming the door shut.	This was, by far, the dumbest thing this old wizard had asked me to do. Honestly, figure out how to fit more than twenty four hours into Earth's good old twenty four hour day? At first I didn't know what he wanted me to do. Every time I asked about it he just shrugged me off and told me I'd "Figure it out." Hah. Yeah, right. Listen, man. I'm seventeen! I don't have time for this! Okay, so yeah I figured it be an easy time warp spell or even some kind of cloning spell, but no. The old fart had all of those locked up. "A real Wizard doesn't need old spells to solve every new problem." Alright, let's see about that when I take your recipe book away. He added five more hours to the list. Every day that passed that I still hadn't figured this stupid riddle out, the more snide comments I would get from my mentor. This continued for two weeks. Two weeks! Then it quite literally hit me on the head. Of course, as this was all going on I was gradually working on the chores, cleaning out Phoenix cages and scrubbing brewing pots and such. But it happened when I was realigning the miniature solar system in the star room. Jupiter just so happened to drop and rattle against the floor, shaking the room and causing books to fall off of shelves. Everything stopped, it all froze. Even the dust suspended in light filtering through the windows stood still, as if waiting with baited breath. Power hummed through my veins, tingling in the tips of my fingers, warming my ears and cheeks as it does every time it's used. This is what the old man wanted. Time is a fragile thing but it too can be controlled if done gently.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	The clock can sing. It sang, it sings, and it will sing again. &#x200B; “I’m sorry, Jack,” Clara said, “I don’t know why the clock would be singing.” She was sneaky. Oh yes, yes she was. Jack smiled, "Ah, so you confirm that the clock does sing! You just don't know why." Clara's short brown hair framed a lovely face, a face that had loved him once. Now it held only fear, fear of Jack the Apprentice. She was afraid of all wizards, and rightly so. Even wizard apprentices could be all sorts of trouble. "I didn't." Clara sighed, plainly exasperated, "I didn't mean-" "Thank you, Clara, that's all I needed to know," Jack said. He left the library with a smug look of satisfaction, jauntily strolling past his former acquaintances without a word. You are very sneaky, Lemon said. Lemon was the man who lived behind Jack's ears. "Thank you, Lemon," Jack said. It wasn't very nice tricking her like that. I already told you about the clocks anyway. "I had to be sure," Jack answered, "You haven’t always been so easy to trust." Lemon muttered a few choice words and sullenly slipped away. That should keep him silent for a little while. If I'm going to accomplish all of Master Elday's tasks for this week, Jack thought, I'll need to interrupt the time continuum before Wednesday at the latest. In theory, it was a simple matter of quantum time magic. Consider an hour at a party vs an hour doing chores. Or rather, think of how long an hour drags on for a child vs an hour for an adult. The 60 minutes in each scenario are static, yet relative to each other one finds they are vastly unequal. Therefore, if a motivated wizard could establish the quantum constraint of each minute spent at a party as roughly equal to the relative length of a minute spent scrubbing dishes, he/she could make the party feel two or even three times longer than it really was. That’s in theory, of course, as the amount of raw energy necessary to extend even a single minute would be staggering. Jack wanted to go even further than that, he wanted to alter the quantum time level of an entire day. The issue would be gaining access to an energy source powerful enough to unhinge a universal constraint (such as time). The key to it all, Lemon had told him, was to "remind the clock to sing." But what did that mean? What song could time hold in its heart? The sand beneath Jack’s bare feet was warm. He had forgotten to wear his sandals again, it seemed. Warm sand....sand that had warmed....warmed by.... His neck dropped back to let him stare into the shining morning sun. A wild idea sprang to him, almost startling Lemon awake. Jack grinned, he hoped this would be a wonderful surprise. He cupped his hands above his head like a child trying to catch rain. "Bel'avanor Setovna Bravacator," Jack shouted. Nothing. Jack raised his hands higher. He had to grit his teeth to keep from turning his eyes away from the searing brightness of the sun. "BEL'AVANOR SETOVNA BRAVACATOR!" It started as a trickle, a little piss of sunshine. Then Warmth began to flood into his hands. Encouraged by the simple siphoning spell he had chanted, a radiant stream of liquid light filled him. The sand beneath his feet heated until it began to smoke. Yes, yes, yes! Very clever, OH SO CLEVER, Lemon moaned. He was enraptured by the light, coaxed into a state of sheer bliss. "There he is," A voice shouted behind him. Six gaunt librarians formed behind Jack, ready to charge. In front of them stood Clara, pointing a crooked finger his way. "He's gone mad," She yelled, "We have to stop him before he-" Jack stopped listening. He shook with sardonic laughter. With the power that filled him, not even Master Elday could have stopped him. The librarians ran at him with blind abandon. Rage and terror spurring on their every step. They think they can stop us! Ha! What fools, Lemon screeched. Jack could not end his internal laughter long enough to respond. How silly! He raised a hand toward the pack and six bookworms became six pillars of fire. Fools, what fools! Lemon laughed maniacally within him, drowning out all other senses. "What have you done," Clara pleaded, "What are you trying to do?" Jack wished he could stop laughing so he could answer her. Instead he let Lemon take use of his voice. "We are teaching Time her favorite forgotten melody, dear soon-to-be-dead, Clara," He yelled. The ground began to shake as Jack channelled the energy within him. It wasn't enough, he needed more power. A raging torrent of light rushed into him, and Jack channelled it instantly to batter at the door of time. He felt his skin begin to boil, it wasn't painful, just odd. Like a cold shower, Jack thought. MORE, JACK. MORE, Lemon hissed. As he reached the limit of what he could hold of the sun’s power, Jack finally heard the wonderous, mournful, lullaby of time. It washed over him, coating him in smooth splendor. The song soothed away his fears, his pain, his doubt. Lemon sang along gleefully. Time slowed to a drip. Jack smiled as he set the quantum time level as low as his power would allow. For what felt like eons, he listened to Lemon's song. And all of that long eternity, Clara wept.	Being the White Wizard’s apprentice is an honest days work. Still. I didn’t spend 7 years and $350k in tuition to spend my days skinning newts, grinding herbs, and swiping right for the White Wizard Elon Musk. “Elon. I’ve never let you down. But today’s list is impossible.” “Fucking millennial. Siri could do your job better. Figure it out. Or don’t bother coming in tomorrow.” Knowing it was impossible, I went to the local apothecary to begin planning tomorrow’s inevitable job search. As I administered the final drops of my Starbucks down my gullet, I overheard a conversation between two hooded figures who were huddled together in the corner. My Apple watch could hardly keep up as my heart rate soared dangerously high from the speedball of excitement and caffeine. The next 23 hours and 11 minutes were a blur. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, vape-break, tick, tick, tick, tick. Done. Yet... although I had completed my tasks for Elon and he wouldn’t fire me today, I knew it didn’t matter. Soon my job would be irrelevant. “You got them done? See, I was right again. So how’d you do it?” asked Elon. I repeated to Elon what I had overhead in the apothecary, “TaskRabbit. The convenient and affordable way to get things done around the home. Now that’s real magic.”
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	"Sir, I just checked my tasks for the day, and... well frankly I won't be able to complete this in the day. This is three days work at least, and they're all marked to be done today?" I looked up from my unusually long list of tasks to find that his eyes were already fixed on me. His brow furrowed, he leaned in as he spoke, seemingly trying to add an intensity to his words, but just missing the mark. "Figure it out Nick, after all, I chose you for a reason." The Great Wizard, St. Gilford was my master and mentor and had a flare for the theatrics. But what wizard doesn't? I was slowly coming to the conclusion that most Wizards became Wizards to show off. Not me though, I want to help make the world a better place... I never had a lot growing up but I always heard tales about Wizards' magic doing incredible things, making something from nothing, making things disapear, fixing broken things and even healing people. But for whatever reason, they usually use their magic for their own convenience and benefit. Hell, most of the stuff on this list is the same usual finder gatherer tasks he always gives me... all except one. I am to deliver a birthday gift to his Neice. I didn't even know he had a neice. And of course the only thing on the list for someone else is the very last thing there. She will get her present. And it will not just be the towel he has asked me to retrieve. She will get the best damn present she has gotten in her life. Her birthday won't be like my childhood birthdays. She will love it, and she will feel loved. I set off. I quickly got my pack together, I headed into the woods, firstly I needed to get his copious amounts of ingredients that were scattered far and wide through the thick forest. I picked and foraged and scavenged and hunted as quickly as I could, all the while keeping Gilford's neice in the back of my mind. I went to the shops, exchanged packages with scholars, handed out potions for trade, gave researchers test results, swapped informational sheets and handed a carpenter magically enhanced tools, I went through the town and forest as fast as I could, doing my best to be thorough and careful and as meticulous as I had been taught to be. Finally, through some miracle, I was at the end of the list, the sun was still up. At least I think it was. I had been moving so fast I didn't really have time to check and I was inside getting her a present. Fortunately I found a gift that felt perfect. I had never met her but I had a really good feeling about this one. I raced to their home. I knocked on the door, it swung open and I was greeted by a smiling mother "good morning, oh you must be Nick with Gwen's birthday present, please let Gilford know that she very much appreciates his persistence in his love of towels." Apparently not wanting to shoot the messenger, she graciously accepted the gift, momentarily noting it's weight, nodded and closed the door. I waited on the street as I heard Gwen quickly open her gift, which was followed by screams of excitement and happiness. My cheeks burned red, and an unstoppable smile stretched from ear to ear. Wait... "good morning"? How could it be morning? I made my way back to the Wizards small hut. The door opened revealing the interior which was, as was with most wizards, much bigger on the inside. "Done already? In under an hour? Why my boy, you're more exceptional than I thought. Did Gwen like what you picked for her?" Gilford was smiling warmly down at me. "An hour? But how... when did I-" I stammered as I tried to gather myself. "I noticed it when we first met boy, time seems to... bend to your will. I have been curious what would happen if you were appropriately motivated. It just took some time for this selfish old fool to realise your desires and aspirations and purely selfless in nature." He stroked his beard as billows of colourful smoke wafted through the house. "Boy, this is just the beginning... keep on this path, become a wizard, fulfil your dream. As St. Nick, you will do great things, you will change the world."	Being the White Wizard’s apprentice is an honest days work. Still. I didn’t spend 7 years and $350k in tuition to spend my days skinning newts, grinding herbs, and swiping right for the White Wizard Elon Musk. “Elon. I’ve never let you down. But today’s list is impossible.” “Fucking millennial. Siri could do your job better. Figure it out. Or don’t bother coming in tomorrow.” Knowing it was impossible, I went to the local apothecary to begin planning tomorrow’s inevitable job search. As I administered the final drops of my Starbucks down my gullet, I overheard a conversation between two hooded figures who were huddled together in the corner. My Apple watch could hardly keep up as my heart rate soared dangerously high from the speedball of excitement and caffeine. The next 23 hours and 11 minutes were a blur. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, vape-break, tick, tick, tick, tick. Done. Yet... although I had completed my tasks for Elon and he wouldn’t fire me today, I knew it didn’t matter. Soon my job would be irrelevant. “You got them done? See, I was right again. So how’d you do it?” asked Elon. I repeated to Elon what I had overhead in the apothecary, “TaskRabbit. The convenient and affordable way to get things done around the home. Now that’s real magic.”
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	My name is Jim, and I have a problem. You see, I have a propensity for making bad bets. Mostly to friends, granted, and for the last year, never for money. When part of the last bet I lost included crashing a campus event, I decided to show up to our upperclassman's career day in an homage to our school's mascot, to try and hide in plain sight. Nobody likes explaining to the dean why a freshman was at an event limited to those seeking internships. Interesting note: our mascot is a wizard. Well everything went great for the first half hour. Walking around in the school mascot suit, making comical gestures. I was about to leave, when I heard a voice behind me. "James Williams, could you follow me?" My heart sunk. How on earth was I identified? Did my friends rat me out? The walk to an unused meeting room had me panicking, and a stuffy mascot outfit did nothing to help the situation. Imagine my surprise when I was offered a job. By someone claiming to be a wizard. I had turned to leave the room, sure that this was Ron's doing. He knew I hated being pranked on these things. But the door wasn't there. Over the course of the next hour, the mage, Edstiniax, verified his credentials. Thoroughly. Believe me, never tell a mage, "if you're doing real magic, then I'm a goat." Worst 10 minutes ever. So the job wasn't bad until I started getting the crazy tasks. Magic exists all around us, hidden by veils that require very specific spells or actions to part. I spent days in class, nights hunting down the various mystical odds and ends that Ed wanted (he hates when I call him that... but he doesn't really do modern technology, so whatever). Day 1 and 2 were uneventful, but the list he gave me on night 3? Would take me halfway into my 1st class before I was done. Besides, who wants to collect honey from arcane bees? But that's "my problem", according to Ed. So I decide it's time to stop using the actions to part the veil. They're bulky rituals that take over an hour, and so I looked up a spell from Ed's library. I took what I wrote down to a janitorial closet, and got ready to begin. I read the words, and did the gestures, or so I thought. But evidently I didn't carry a one somewhere. So, that's where we are now. I am trapped in this closet. When I last peeked out the door, I was blasted by heat, and some 3 headed hound 12 feet tall rushed the door. I barely got it closed in time. So my question to you is... does anyone know a good way to distract the guardian of the underworld? Time is something of a concern.	Being the White Wizard’s apprentice is an honest days work. Still. I didn’t spend 7 years and $350k in tuition to spend my days skinning newts, grinding herbs, and swiping right for the White Wizard Elon Musk. “Elon. I’ve never let you down. But today’s list is impossible.” “Fucking millennial. Siri could do your job better. Figure it out. Or don’t bother coming in tomorrow.” Knowing it was impossible, I went to the local apothecary to begin planning tomorrow’s inevitable job search. As I administered the final drops of my Starbucks down my gullet, I overheard a conversation between two hooded figures who were huddled together in the corner. My Apple watch could hardly keep up as my heart rate soared dangerously high from the speedball of excitement and caffeine. The next 23 hours and 11 minutes were a blur. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, vape-break, tick, tick, tick, tick. Done. Yet... although I had completed my tasks for Elon and he wouldn’t fire me today, I knew it didn’t matter. Soon my job would be irrelevant. “You got them done? See, I was right again. So how’d you do it?” asked Elon. I repeated to Elon what I had overhead in the apothecary, “TaskRabbit. The convenient and affordable way to get things done around the home. Now that’s real magic.”
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	" So, let me get this straight." the innkeeper said, looking quite concerned. " If I don't wash all these cauldrons in exactly this manner every Tuesday for the next year and a half, the great and powerful wizard who has lived outside of our village for decades is going to rain down fire and brimstone on everyone within 100 miles?" I bit back a nervous laugh. I had to sell this. Schooling my features so they looked suitably grim, I nodded gravely. " Yes, that about sums it up." The innkeeper was used to dealing with tall tales and exaggerations; he had to be or else he wouldn't have been in business. This was going to be the hardest victory of all to win. He looked me over once, and then again, and then again. Then he sighed. " I'll get on it right away." I looked suitably relieved. " Thank you." I said, being sure to add a grateful quiver to my lips... no, I didn't need to add that. Walking out the door I desperately tried to keep the skip out of my step, looking somber until I made it into the tree covered path leading through the woods to my master's castle. I let out a triumphant laugh that startled every beast in the forest as I pumped my fists into the air. " Who's the master now! Zen is! WOOOOOO!!!" I had nearly shit my pants when master Ærie had given me 30 hours of daily tasks. When I tried to reason with him he cryptically told me to "Figure it out." before fucking off to his tower to do research. Maybe if he had taught me any magic it would be more managable. Time stopping would be incredibly overpowered and broken, and therefore fun. But temporal distortion was way more advanced than anything I could figure out my own... the extent of the magical abilities before coming here was actually being able to make coins and knick knacks disappear. I thought about just banishing the list but knew that wouldn't help. If I couldn't finish these tasks I couldn't be a wizard's apprentice, and I didn't have enough man hours to get them done. So I got some more. If you don't have enough man hours and you can't get more hours, you get more men. Growing up in a village with an ultra powerful being who is almost never seen, who's name includes a letter and sound most people have never heard of before and who's name also sounds like a synonym for 'unsettling' or 'scary' gives you a very solid rumor base to work off. A little bit of ...embellishing... and the locals were happy to cooperate. Busywork taken care of, check. Old scores settled, check. The most beautiful women in the village coming to the castle regularly to cook and clean, check, check, check! All that was left for me was 8 hours of the fun stuff. Brewing potions,reading magical scrolls, and organizing the library. The last one was a bit less fun but I wasn't letting anyone else near the magic I had worked so hard to earn the right to. Old man Ærie was out of his tower for once and was standing right behind the castle door as I walked in. " Wipe that shit eating grin off your face, brat." he said cantankerously. "Killjoy." I muttered. He frowned, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to insult a master wizard, but I was thinking it, and the motherfucker reads minds so there wasn't much I could do to avoid it. " What have you been doing all day?" He said. " You already know th-" "Of course I already know that you oaf!" He shouted. " I'm asking if you do! I gave you a comprehensive list of tasks, and you went gallivanting off into Birchburg telling tall tales about how I would annihilate people, like I was some weird aggressive recluse." "You are a weird aggressive recluse." "That's not the point, genius!" He said. " I gave you those tasks so you could learn magic!" "But I have." I said cockily. " The magic of manipulation." 'The magic of manipulation' Ærie mimed, throwing his hands in the sky and sending small waves of thunder and lightening out of sheer irritation. " Bah! What if one of those villagers gets the bright idea to go to the king with those threats you made?" "Already covered it." I said. " I told everyone that you had already put a curse on everyone in the village and if they said anything to outsiders about it their genitals would melt off." "Their genitals!" He shrieked incredulously. " I know." I replied with a smirk. "Awful, ain't it?" "What the hell is your problem?" "My problem was I had to do 30 hours of work per day with no time for eating or sleeping for 18 months straight. I have solved that problem." "So ... the cauldrons will be cleaned by_" "Lane, the innkeeper." " And the household chores will be taken care of by" "Alice. And Blanche." I smiled, then added " And Cynthia on weekends and holidays." " And the dung from the bestiary will be cleaned every day by-" "Tom." Fuck Tom. The old man sighed wearily before looking out the window, lost in thought. " And if I were to tell everyone in the village the truth about this little yarn of yours, maybe let something slip to one of the maidens you decided to hire?" "You won't." " How do you know that?" He said indignantly, puffing his chest. "Because" I drawled. "You hate talking to people. Pretty girls especially." He deflated instantly. "...I... you... how???" " Now if you'll excuse me master," I said, heading for the library, " I've got research to do." "Clever little bastard." He muttered angrily as I walked away. " I chose you for a reason." He hummed thoughtfully. " In retrospect, probably for the wrong reason." "Love you too, teach!" I said, slamming the door shut.	Being the White Wizard’s apprentice is an honest days work. Still. I didn’t spend 7 years and $350k in tuition to spend my days skinning newts, grinding herbs, and swiping right for the White Wizard Elon Musk. “Elon. I’ve never let you down. But today’s list is impossible.” “Fucking millennial. Siri could do your job better. Figure it out. Or don’t bother coming in tomorrow.” Knowing it was impossible, I went to the local apothecary to begin planning tomorrow’s inevitable job search. As I administered the final drops of my Starbucks down my gullet, I overheard a conversation between two hooded figures who were huddled together in the corner. My Apple watch could hardly keep up as my heart rate soared dangerously high from the speedball of excitement and caffeine. The next 23 hours and 11 minutes were a blur. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, vape-break, tick, tick, tick, tick. Done. Yet... although I had completed my tasks for Elon and he wouldn’t fire me today, I knew it didn’t matter. Soon my job would be irrelevant. “You got them done? See, I was right again. So how’d you do it?” asked Elon. I repeated to Elon what I had overhead in the apothecary, “TaskRabbit. The convenient and affordable way to get things done around the home. Now that’s real magic.”
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	"Sir, I just checked my tasks for the day, and... well frankly I won't be able to complete this in the day. This is three days work at least, and they're all marked to be done today?" I looked up from my unusually long list of tasks to find that his eyes were already fixed on me. His brow furrowed, he leaned in as he spoke, seemingly trying to add an intensity to his words, but just missing the mark. "Figure it out Nick, after all, I chose you for a reason." The Great Wizard, St. Gilford was my master and mentor and had a flare for the theatrics. But what wizard doesn't? I was slowly coming to the conclusion that most Wizards became Wizards to show off. Not me though, I want to help make the world a better place... I never had a lot growing up but I always heard tales about Wizards' magic doing incredible things, making something from nothing, making things disapear, fixing broken things and even healing people. But for whatever reason, they usually use their magic for their own convenience and benefit. Hell, most of the stuff on this list is the same usual finder gatherer tasks he always gives me... all except one. I am to deliver a birthday gift to his Neice. I didn't even know he had a neice. And of course the only thing on the list for someone else is the very last thing there. She will get her present. And it will not just be the towel he has asked me to retrieve. She will get the best damn present she has gotten in her life. Her birthday won't be like my childhood birthdays. She will love it, and she will feel loved. I set off. I quickly got my pack together, I headed into the woods, firstly I needed to get his copious amounts of ingredients that were scattered far and wide through the thick forest. I picked and foraged and scavenged and hunted as quickly as I could, all the while keeping Gilford's neice in the back of my mind. I went to the shops, exchanged packages with scholars, handed out potions for trade, gave researchers test results, swapped informational sheets and handed a carpenter magically enhanced tools, I went through the town and forest as fast as I could, doing my best to be thorough and careful and as meticulous as I had been taught to be. Finally, through some miracle, I was at the end of the list, the sun was still up. At least I think it was. I had been moving so fast I didn't really have time to check and I was inside getting her a present. Fortunately I found a gift that felt perfect. I had never met her but I had a really good feeling about this one. I raced to their home. I knocked on the door, it swung open and I was greeted by a smiling mother "good morning, oh you must be Nick with Gwen's birthday present, please let Gilford know that she very much appreciates his persistence in his love of towels." Apparently not wanting to shoot the messenger, she graciously accepted the gift, momentarily noting it's weight, nodded and closed the door. I waited on the street as I heard Gwen quickly open her gift, which was followed by screams of excitement and happiness. My cheeks burned red, and an unstoppable smile stretched from ear to ear. Wait... "good morning"? How could it be morning? I made my way back to the Wizards small hut. The door opened revealing the interior which was, as was with most wizards, much bigger on the inside. "Done already? In under an hour? Why my boy, you're more exceptional than I thought. Did Gwen like what you picked for her?" Gilford was smiling warmly down at me. "An hour? But how... when did I-" I stammered as I tried to gather myself. "I noticed it when we first met boy, time seems to... bend to your will. I have been curious what would happen if you were appropriately motivated. It just took some time for this selfish old fool to realise your desires and aspirations and purely selfless in nature." He stroked his beard as billows of colourful smoke wafted through the house. "Boy, this is just the beginning... keep on this path, become a wizard, fulfil your dream. As St. Nick, you will do great things, you will change the world."	The clock can sing. It sang, it sings, and it will sing again. &#x200B; “I’m sorry, Jack,” Clara said, “I don’t know why the clock would be singing.” She was sneaky. Oh yes, yes she was. Jack smiled, "Ah, so you confirm that the clock does sing! You just don't know why." Clara's short brown hair framed a lovely face, a face that had loved him once. Now it held only fear, fear of Jack the Apprentice. She was afraid of all wizards, and rightly so. Even wizard apprentices could be all sorts of trouble. "I didn't." Clara sighed, plainly exasperated, "I didn't mean-" "Thank you, Clara, that's all I needed to know," Jack said. He left the library with a smug look of satisfaction, jauntily strolling past his former acquaintances without a word. You are very sneaky, Lemon said. Lemon was the man who lived behind Jack's ears. "Thank you, Lemon," Jack said. It wasn't very nice tricking her like that. I already told you about the clocks anyway. "I had to be sure," Jack answered, "You haven’t always been so easy to trust." Lemon muttered a few choice words and sullenly slipped away. That should keep him silent for a little while. If I'm going to accomplish all of Master Elday's tasks for this week, Jack thought, I'll need to interrupt the time continuum before Wednesday at the latest. In theory, it was a simple matter of quantum time magic. Consider an hour at a party vs an hour doing chores. Or rather, think of how long an hour drags on for a child vs an hour for an adult. The 60 minutes in each scenario are static, yet relative to each other one finds they are vastly unequal. Therefore, if a motivated wizard could establish the quantum constraint of each minute spent at a party as roughly equal to the relative length of a minute spent scrubbing dishes, he/she could make the party feel two or even three times longer than it really was. That’s in theory, of course, as the amount of raw energy necessary to extend even a single minute would be staggering. Jack wanted to go even further than that, he wanted to alter the quantum time level of an entire day. The issue would be gaining access to an energy source powerful enough to unhinge a universal constraint (such as time). The key to it all, Lemon had told him, was to "remind the clock to sing." But what did that mean? What song could time hold in its heart? The sand beneath Jack’s bare feet was warm. He had forgotten to wear his sandals again, it seemed. Warm sand....sand that had warmed....warmed by.... His neck dropped back to let him stare into the shining morning sun. A wild idea sprang to him, almost startling Lemon awake. Jack grinned, he hoped this would be a wonderful surprise. He cupped his hands above his head like a child trying to catch rain. "Bel'avanor Setovna Bravacator," Jack shouted. Nothing. Jack raised his hands higher. He had to grit his teeth to keep from turning his eyes away from the searing brightness of the sun. "BEL'AVANOR SETOVNA BRAVACATOR!" It started as a trickle, a little piss of sunshine. Then Warmth began to flood into his hands. Encouraged by the simple siphoning spell he had chanted, a radiant stream of liquid light filled him. The sand beneath his feet heated until it began to smoke. Yes, yes, yes! Very clever, OH SO CLEVER, Lemon moaned. He was enraptured by the light, coaxed into a state of sheer bliss. "There he is," A voice shouted behind him. Six gaunt librarians formed behind Jack, ready to charge. In front of them stood Clara, pointing a crooked finger his way. "He's gone mad," She yelled, "We have to stop him before he-" Jack stopped listening. He shook with sardonic laughter. With the power that filled him, not even Master Elday could have stopped him. The librarians ran at him with blind abandon. Rage and terror spurring on their every step. They think they can stop us! Ha! What fools, Lemon screeched. Jack could not end his internal laughter long enough to respond. How silly! He raised a hand toward the pack and six bookworms became six pillars of fire. Fools, what fools! Lemon laughed maniacally within him, drowning out all other senses. "What have you done," Clara pleaded, "What are you trying to do?" Jack wished he could stop laughing so he could answer her. Instead he let Lemon take use of his voice. "We are teaching Time her favorite forgotten melody, dear soon-to-be-dead, Clara," He yelled. The ground began to shake as Jack channelled the energy within him. It wasn't enough, he needed more power. A raging torrent of light rushed into him, and Jack channelled it instantly to batter at the door of time. He felt his skin begin to boil, it wasn't painful, just odd. Like a cold shower, Jack thought. MORE, JACK. MORE, Lemon hissed. As he reached the limit of what he could hold of the sun’s power, Jack finally heard the wonderous, mournful, lullaby of time. It washed over him, coating him in smooth splendor. The song soothed away his fears, his pain, his doubt. Lemon sang along gleefully. Time slowed to a drip. Jack smiled as he set the quantum time level as low as his power would allow. For what felt like eons, he listened to Lemon's song. And all of that long eternity, Clara wept.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	" So, let me get this straight." the innkeeper said, looking quite concerned. " If I don't wash all these cauldrons in exactly this manner every Tuesday for the next year and a half, the great and powerful wizard who has lived outside of our village for decades is going to rain down fire and brimstone on everyone within 100 miles?" I bit back a nervous laugh. I had to sell this. Schooling my features so they looked suitably grim, I nodded gravely. " Yes, that about sums it up." The innkeeper was used to dealing with tall tales and exaggerations; he had to be or else he wouldn't have been in business. This was going to be the hardest victory of all to win. He looked me over once, and then again, and then again. Then he sighed. " I'll get on it right away." I looked suitably relieved. " Thank you." I said, being sure to add a grateful quiver to my lips... no, I didn't need to add that. Walking out the door I desperately tried to keep the skip out of my step, looking somber until I made it into the tree covered path leading through the woods to my master's castle. I let out a triumphant laugh that startled every beast in the forest as I pumped my fists into the air. " Who's the master now! Zen is! WOOOOOO!!!" I had nearly shit my pants when master Ærie had given me 30 hours of daily tasks. When I tried to reason with him he cryptically told me to "Figure it out." before fucking off to his tower to do research. Maybe if he had taught me any magic it would be more managable. Time stopping would be incredibly overpowered and broken, and therefore fun. But temporal distortion was way more advanced than anything I could figure out my own... the extent of the magical abilities before coming here was actually being able to make coins and knick knacks disappear. I thought about just banishing the list but knew that wouldn't help. If I couldn't finish these tasks I couldn't be a wizard's apprentice, and I didn't have enough man hours to get them done. So I got some more. If you don't have enough man hours and you can't get more hours, you get more men. Growing up in a village with an ultra powerful being who is almost never seen, who's name includes a letter and sound most people have never heard of before and who's name also sounds like a synonym for 'unsettling' or 'scary' gives you a very solid rumor base to work off. A little bit of ...embellishing... and the locals were happy to cooperate. Busywork taken care of, check. Old scores settled, check. The most beautiful women in the village coming to the castle regularly to cook and clean, check, check, check! All that was left for me was 8 hours of the fun stuff. Brewing potions,reading magical scrolls, and organizing the library. The last one was a bit less fun but I wasn't letting anyone else near the magic I had worked so hard to earn the right to. Old man Ærie was out of his tower for once and was standing right behind the castle door as I walked in. " Wipe that shit eating grin off your face, brat." he said cantankerously. "Killjoy." I muttered. He frowned, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to insult a master wizard, but I was thinking it, and the motherfucker reads minds so there wasn't much I could do to avoid it. " What have you been doing all day?" He said. " You already know th-" "Of course I already know that you oaf!" He shouted. " I'm asking if you do! I gave you a comprehensive list of tasks, and you went gallivanting off into Birchburg telling tall tales about how I would annihilate people, like I was some weird aggressive recluse." "You are a weird aggressive recluse." "That's not the point, genius!" He said. " I gave you those tasks so you could learn magic!" "But I have." I said cockily. " The magic of manipulation." 'The magic of manipulation' Ærie mimed, throwing his hands in the sky and sending small waves of thunder and lightening out of sheer irritation. " Bah! What if one of those villagers gets the bright idea to go to the king with those threats you made?" "Already covered it." I said. " I told everyone that you had already put a curse on everyone in the village and if they said anything to outsiders about it their genitals would melt off." "Their genitals!" He shrieked incredulously. " I know." I replied with a smirk. "Awful, ain't it?" "What the hell is your problem?" "My problem was I had to do 30 hours of work per day with no time for eating or sleeping for 18 months straight. I have solved that problem." "So ... the cauldrons will be cleaned by_" "Lane, the innkeeper." " And the household chores will be taken care of by" "Alice. And Blanche." I smiled, then added " And Cynthia on weekends and holidays." " And the dung from the bestiary will be cleaned every day by-" "Tom." Fuck Tom. The old man sighed wearily before looking out the window, lost in thought. " And if I were to tell everyone in the village the truth about this little yarn of yours, maybe let something slip to one of the maidens you decided to hire?" "You won't." " How do you know that?" He said indignantly, puffing his chest. "Because" I drawled. "You hate talking to people. Pretty girls especially." He deflated instantly. "...I... you... how???" " Now if you'll excuse me master," I said, heading for the library, " I've got research to do." "Clever little bastard." He muttered angrily as I walked away. " I chose you for a reason." He hummed thoughtfully. " In retrospect, probably for the wrong reason." "Love you too, teach!" I said, slamming the door shut.	The clock can sing. It sang, it sings, and it will sing again. &#x200B; “I’m sorry, Jack,” Clara said, “I don’t know why the clock would be singing.” She was sneaky. Oh yes, yes she was. Jack smiled, "Ah, so you confirm that the clock does sing! You just don't know why." Clara's short brown hair framed a lovely face, a face that had loved him once. Now it held only fear, fear of Jack the Apprentice. She was afraid of all wizards, and rightly so. Even wizard apprentices could be all sorts of trouble. "I didn't." Clara sighed, plainly exasperated, "I didn't mean-" "Thank you, Clara, that's all I needed to know," Jack said. He left the library with a smug look of satisfaction, jauntily strolling past his former acquaintances without a word. You are very sneaky, Lemon said. Lemon was the man who lived behind Jack's ears. "Thank you, Lemon," Jack said. It wasn't very nice tricking her like that. I already told you about the clocks anyway. "I had to be sure," Jack answered, "You haven’t always been so easy to trust." Lemon muttered a few choice words and sullenly slipped away. That should keep him silent for a little while. If I'm going to accomplish all of Master Elday's tasks for this week, Jack thought, I'll need to interrupt the time continuum before Wednesday at the latest. In theory, it was a simple matter of quantum time magic. Consider an hour at a party vs an hour doing chores. Or rather, think of how long an hour drags on for a child vs an hour for an adult. The 60 minutes in each scenario are static, yet relative to each other one finds they are vastly unequal. Therefore, if a motivated wizard could establish the quantum constraint of each minute spent at a party as roughly equal to the relative length of a minute spent scrubbing dishes, he/she could make the party feel two or even three times longer than it really was. That’s in theory, of course, as the amount of raw energy necessary to extend even a single minute would be staggering. Jack wanted to go even further than that, he wanted to alter the quantum time level of an entire day. The issue would be gaining access to an energy source powerful enough to unhinge a universal constraint (such as time). The key to it all, Lemon had told him, was to "remind the clock to sing." But what did that mean? What song could time hold in its heart? The sand beneath Jack’s bare feet was warm. He had forgotten to wear his sandals again, it seemed. Warm sand....sand that had warmed....warmed by.... His neck dropped back to let him stare into the shining morning sun. A wild idea sprang to him, almost startling Lemon awake. Jack grinned, he hoped this would be a wonderful surprise. He cupped his hands above his head like a child trying to catch rain. "Bel'avanor Setovna Bravacator," Jack shouted. Nothing. Jack raised his hands higher. He had to grit his teeth to keep from turning his eyes away from the searing brightness of the sun. "BEL'AVANOR SETOVNA BRAVACATOR!" It started as a trickle, a little piss of sunshine. Then Warmth began to flood into his hands. Encouraged by the simple siphoning spell he had chanted, a radiant stream of liquid light filled him. The sand beneath his feet heated until it began to smoke. Yes, yes, yes! Very clever, OH SO CLEVER, Lemon moaned. He was enraptured by the light, coaxed into a state of sheer bliss. "There he is," A voice shouted behind him. Six gaunt librarians formed behind Jack, ready to charge. In front of them stood Clara, pointing a crooked finger his way. "He's gone mad," She yelled, "We have to stop him before he-" Jack stopped listening. He shook with sardonic laughter. With the power that filled him, not even Master Elday could have stopped him. The librarians ran at him with blind abandon. Rage and terror spurring on their every step. They think they can stop us! Ha! What fools, Lemon screeched. Jack could not end his internal laughter long enough to respond. How silly! He raised a hand toward the pack and six bookworms became six pillars of fire. Fools, what fools! Lemon laughed maniacally within him, drowning out all other senses. "What have you done," Clara pleaded, "What are you trying to do?" Jack wished he could stop laughing so he could answer her. Instead he let Lemon take use of his voice. "We are teaching Time her favorite forgotten melody, dear soon-to-be-dead, Clara," He yelled. The ground began to shake as Jack channelled the energy within him. It wasn't enough, he needed more power. A raging torrent of light rushed into him, and Jack channelled it instantly to batter at the door of time. He felt his skin begin to boil, it wasn't painful, just odd. Like a cold shower, Jack thought. MORE, JACK. MORE, Lemon hissed. As he reached the limit of what he could hold of the sun’s power, Jack finally heard the wonderous, mournful, lullaby of time. It washed over him, coating him in smooth splendor. The song soothed away his fears, his pain, his doubt. Lemon sang along gleefully. Time slowed to a drip. Jack smiled as he set the quantum time level as low as his power would allow. For what felt like eons, he listened to Lemon's song. And all of that long eternity, Clara wept.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	My name is Jim, and I have a problem. You see, I have a propensity for making bad bets. Mostly to friends, granted, and for the last year, never for money. When part of the last bet I lost included crashing a campus event, I decided to show up to our upperclassman's career day in an homage to our school's mascot, to try and hide in plain sight. Nobody likes explaining to the dean why a freshman was at an event limited to those seeking internships. Interesting note: our mascot is a wizard. Well everything went great for the first half hour. Walking around in the school mascot suit, making comical gestures. I was about to leave, when I heard a voice behind me. "James Williams, could you follow me?" My heart sunk. How on earth was I identified? Did my friends rat me out? The walk to an unused meeting room had me panicking, and a stuffy mascot outfit did nothing to help the situation. Imagine my surprise when I was offered a job. By someone claiming to be a wizard. I had turned to leave the room, sure that this was Ron's doing. He knew I hated being pranked on these things. But the door wasn't there. Over the course of the next hour, the mage, Edstiniax, verified his credentials. Thoroughly. Believe me, never tell a mage, "if you're doing real magic, then I'm a goat." Worst 10 minutes ever. So the job wasn't bad until I started getting the crazy tasks. Magic exists all around us, hidden by veils that require very specific spells or actions to part. I spent days in class, nights hunting down the various mystical odds and ends that Ed wanted (he hates when I call him that... but he doesn't really do modern technology, so whatever). Day 1 and 2 were uneventful, but the list he gave me on night 3? Would take me halfway into my 1st class before I was done. Besides, who wants to collect honey from arcane bees? But that's "my problem", according to Ed. So I decide it's time to stop using the actions to part the veil. They're bulky rituals that take over an hour, and so I looked up a spell from Ed's library. I took what I wrote down to a janitorial closet, and got ready to begin. I read the words, and did the gestures, or so I thought. But evidently I didn't carry a one somewhere. So, that's where we are now. I am trapped in this closet. When I last peeked out the door, I was blasted by heat, and some 3 headed hound 12 feet tall rushed the door. I barely got it closed in time. So my question to you is... does anyone know a good way to distract the guardian of the underworld? Time is something of a concern.	"But Merlin. This ain't Harry Potter! I can't just jump back in time," Roland moaned as he followed Merlin who was gathering things. "Of course you can't jump back in time. Time travel is not allowed magic. If you did that, you'd be executed on the spot. On the spot, I tell you," the old man said, finally taking his wizard hard as a last item. "Come on, Merlin. I can't do that. This is impossible," Roland moaned one last time. "Figure it out," Merlin said as he took his staff and made quick circles with it. "I chose you for a reason," he added, taking one last more in-depth look at Roland. With a sharp smile and staff hitting the ground, he shrank into nothingness. "Dammit," Roland frowned, opening the list again. It wasn't a long list. It had 3 things on it. But the problem wasn't the amount, but what they were. "Get a unicorn's horn without killing the unicorn just before unicorn turns into a horse. That's something that happens like once a century," Roland frowned, walking circles and finally landing on the nearby chair. "Grow the same banana 10 times and get its final content into a container. Don't eat the banana as you last time did. Winky face," Roland read out the second thing once more. He did remember the last time he ate the ten-times peeled banana. It took some time before Merlin decided to revert him back from the monkey. Humans are lucky that they can peel banana only once. "Go get my grandmother's cookies that she's hiding behind her pillow," Roland said out loud the final thing. Perhaps that was the scariest task of them all, yet easiest. Then again, one does not simply visit Merlin's grandmother and steal her cookies. &nbsp; Roland had to gather her courage for a while until he finally gave a long hard knock on the door. "Yes, yes," a higher pitched voice answered. As Freda opened the door, she said, "Oh. You're my grandson's apprentice, aren't you? What can I do for you?" There she was. The old woman who was the last strongest wizard ever to be known. Known fact; she's addicted to cookies. "Hey, Merlin sent me to get your coo-" Before Roland could even finish, the door slammed closed. "Tell Merlin to come himself after the cookies if he really wants them. Another known fact; Merlin is addicted to his grandmother's cookies. This ain't my first rodeo. With a long sigh, Roland took out his wand and wrote some text into the air, just for it to consume him and turn him into a fly. "Alright," Roland muttered, which was more like a weird higher-pitched fly sound, and flew through a keyhole. Perhaps that was the only thing that made the mission possible; Freda was old. While she was scary and powerful, her senses weren't the same. "You're here, aren't you?" a voice came from the upstairs. "I know that Merlin told you to get my cookies. I learned from the last time." With a slight frown, Roland flew into her bedroom, just to discover her sitting on her pillow. Of course, Roland turned back into himself and just stared at Freda. "You can make new cookies, while Merlin can't," Roland said "I'm fucking old," Freda said. "I can't make those cookies as fast as I could long time ago." "I can get you some pixie dust for the next batch?" Roland suggested. "Are you kidding me? Before I retired, I got 3 lifetimes worth of pixie dust." "Oh come on, Freda. Give me a break. What do you want in return?" Roland finally asked, moaning. Freda thought for a moment. "Do me a card trick," she said. "Really?" Roland said. Not that long after that request, I left Freda's house with a bottle of cookies. "1 out of 3 done!" Of course, that alone took me 3 hours. The other two tasks were the real problems.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	" So, let me get this straight." the innkeeper said, looking quite concerned. " If I don't wash all these cauldrons in exactly this manner every Tuesday for the next year and a half, the great and powerful wizard who has lived outside of our village for decades is going to rain down fire and brimstone on everyone within 100 miles?" I bit back a nervous laugh. I had to sell this. Schooling my features so they looked suitably grim, I nodded gravely. " Yes, that about sums it up." The innkeeper was used to dealing with tall tales and exaggerations; he had to be or else he wouldn't have been in business. This was going to be the hardest victory of all to win. He looked me over once, and then again, and then again. Then he sighed. " I'll get on it right away." I looked suitably relieved. " Thank you." I said, being sure to add a grateful quiver to my lips... no, I didn't need to add that. Walking out the door I desperately tried to keep the skip out of my step, looking somber until I made it into the tree covered path leading through the woods to my master's castle. I let out a triumphant laugh that startled every beast in the forest as I pumped my fists into the air. " Who's the master now! Zen is! WOOOOOO!!!" I had nearly shit my pants when master Ærie had given me 30 hours of daily tasks. When I tried to reason with him he cryptically told me to "Figure it out." before fucking off to his tower to do research. Maybe if he had taught me any magic it would be more managable. Time stopping would be incredibly overpowered and broken, and therefore fun. But temporal distortion was way more advanced than anything I could figure out my own... the extent of the magical abilities before coming here was actually being able to make coins and knick knacks disappear. I thought about just banishing the list but knew that wouldn't help. If I couldn't finish these tasks I couldn't be a wizard's apprentice, and I didn't have enough man hours to get them done. So I got some more. If you don't have enough man hours and you can't get more hours, you get more men. Growing up in a village with an ultra powerful being who is almost never seen, who's name includes a letter and sound most people have never heard of before and who's name also sounds like a synonym for 'unsettling' or 'scary' gives you a very solid rumor base to work off. A little bit of ...embellishing... and the locals were happy to cooperate. Busywork taken care of, check. Old scores settled, check. The most beautiful women in the village coming to the castle regularly to cook and clean, check, check, check! All that was left for me was 8 hours of the fun stuff. Brewing potions,reading magical scrolls, and organizing the library. The last one was a bit less fun but I wasn't letting anyone else near the magic I had worked so hard to earn the right to. Old man Ærie was out of his tower for once and was standing right behind the castle door as I walked in. " Wipe that shit eating grin off your face, brat." he said cantankerously. "Killjoy." I muttered. He frowned, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to insult a master wizard, but I was thinking it, and the motherfucker reads minds so there wasn't much I could do to avoid it. " What have you been doing all day?" He said. " You already know th-" "Of course I already know that you oaf!" He shouted. " I'm asking if you do! I gave you a comprehensive list of tasks, and you went gallivanting off into Birchburg telling tall tales about how I would annihilate people, like I was some weird aggressive recluse." "You are a weird aggressive recluse." "That's not the point, genius!" He said. " I gave you those tasks so you could learn magic!" "But I have." I said cockily. " The magic of manipulation." 'The magic of manipulation' Ærie mimed, throwing his hands in the sky and sending small waves of thunder and lightening out of sheer irritation. " Bah! What if one of those villagers gets the bright idea to go to the king with those threats you made?" "Already covered it." I said. " I told everyone that you had already put a curse on everyone in the village and if they said anything to outsiders about it their genitals would melt off." "Their genitals!" He shrieked incredulously. " I know." I replied with a smirk. "Awful, ain't it?" "What the hell is your problem?" "My problem was I had to do 30 hours of work per day with no time for eating or sleeping for 18 months straight. I have solved that problem." "So ... the cauldrons will be cleaned by_" "Lane, the innkeeper." " And the household chores will be taken care of by" "Alice. And Blanche." I smiled, then added " And Cynthia on weekends and holidays." " And the dung from the bestiary will be cleaned every day by-" "Tom." Fuck Tom. The old man sighed wearily before looking out the window, lost in thought. " And if I were to tell everyone in the village the truth about this little yarn of yours, maybe let something slip to one of the maidens you decided to hire?" "You won't." " How do you know that?" He said indignantly, puffing his chest. "Because" I drawled. "You hate talking to people. Pretty girls especially." He deflated instantly. "...I... you... how???" " Now if you'll excuse me master," I said, heading for the library, " I've got research to do." "Clever little bastard." He muttered angrily as I walked away. " I chose you for a reason." He hummed thoughtfully. " In retrospect, probably for the wrong reason." "Love you too, teach!" I said, slamming the door shut.	"But Merlin. This ain't Harry Potter! I can't just jump back in time," Roland moaned as he followed Merlin who was gathering things. "Of course you can't jump back in time. Time travel is not allowed magic. If you did that, you'd be executed on the spot. On the spot, I tell you," the old man said, finally taking his wizard hard as a last item. "Come on, Merlin. I can't do that. This is impossible," Roland moaned one last time. "Figure it out," Merlin said as he took his staff and made quick circles with it. "I chose you for a reason," he added, taking one last more in-depth look at Roland. With a sharp smile and staff hitting the ground, he shrank into nothingness. "Dammit," Roland frowned, opening the list again. It wasn't a long list. It had 3 things on it. But the problem wasn't the amount, but what they were. "Get a unicorn's horn without killing the unicorn just before unicorn turns into a horse. That's something that happens like once a century," Roland frowned, walking circles and finally landing on the nearby chair. "Grow the same banana 10 times and get its final content into a container. Don't eat the banana as you last time did. Winky face," Roland read out the second thing once more. He did remember the last time he ate the ten-times peeled banana. It took some time before Merlin decided to revert him back from the monkey. Humans are lucky that they can peel banana only once. "Go get my grandmother's cookies that she's hiding behind her pillow," Roland said out loud the final thing. Perhaps that was the scariest task of them all, yet easiest. Then again, one does not simply visit Merlin's grandmother and steal her cookies. &nbsp; Roland had to gather her courage for a while until he finally gave a long hard knock on the door. "Yes, yes," a higher pitched voice answered. As Freda opened the door, she said, "Oh. You're my grandson's apprentice, aren't you? What can I do for you?" There she was. The old woman who was the last strongest wizard ever to be known. Known fact; she's addicted to cookies. "Hey, Merlin sent me to get your coo-" Before Roland could even finish, the door slammed closed. "Tell Merlin to come himself after the cookies if he really wants them. Another known fact; Merlin is addicted to his grandmother's cookies. This ain't my first rodeo. With a long sigh, Roland took out his wand and wrote some text into the air, just for it to consume him and turn him into a fly. "Alright," Roland muttered, which was more like a weird higher-pitched fly sound, and flew through a keyhole. Perhaps that was the only thing that made the mission possible; Freda was old. While she was scary and powerful, her senses weren't the same. "You're here, aren't you?" a voice came from the upstairs. "I know that Merlin told you to get my cookies. I learned from the last time." With a slight frown, Roland flew into her bedroom, just to discover her sitting on her pillow. Of course, Roland turned back into himself and just stared at Freda. "You can make new cookies, while Merlin can't," Roland said "I'm fucking old," Freda said. "I can't make those cookies as fast as I could long time ago." "I can get you some pixie dust for the next batch?" Roland suggested. "Are you kidding me? Before I retired, I got 3 lifetimes worth of pixie dust." "Oh come on, Freda. Give me a break. What do you want in return?" Roland finally asked, moaning. Freda thought for a moment. "Do me a card trick," she said. "Really?" Roland said. Not that long after that request, I left Freda's house with a bottle of cookies. "1 out of 3 done!" Of course, that alone took me 3 hours. The other two tasks were the real problems.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	I was a good mathematician. Perhaps one of the greatest to have graduated the Dimensional Academy. So it didn’t take long for me to do the math. “Wait, this adds up to 45 hours, Professor.” I addressed the middle aged woman, dressed in a space suit adorned with complex equations, who had been waving her hand over an egg, transforming it into a genetically engineered, fire-breathing dragon. She was a Wizard, one of the mightiest beings in the galaxy, and I was her student and apprentice. The Wizards has always been a curious lot, bending time and space to fulfill their own ends. A single wave of their hand could summon a private dimension stocked with terraforming machines, transforming a barren planet into a magnificent paradise ripe for settlement. They’d upended entire starfleets by freezing them in place, tying down the very molecules against gravity fields. They were powerful, rivaling perhaps the Chaos Gods of long lost legends, or even the ancient Trinity of Force, Light, and Dark. But, even they had never dared to meddle with time reversal. When they tried, the repercussions had been terrible. Dead zones beyond all time and space, planets stuck in a continuous loop of destruction and creation, infinite energy trapped in infinitely small masses, ripping open hyperspace lanes. So, looking at my schedule, well, I was confused. 45 hours of work? Even if I didn’t sleep at all, I’d still be unable to do this.... Oh. OOHHHHHHHH..... I opened up my notebook, and my doctoral thesis notes on long range teleportation. Focusing my own space time pocket into a long thin strand, I linked my house’s front door to Vermillion, 3 star units out from its mother star, with a day of 90 hours. “Nicely done!” My teacher laughed.	"But Merlin. This ain't Harry Potter! I can't just jump back in time," Roland moaned as he followed Merlin who was gathering things. "Of course you can't jump back in time. Time travel is not allowed magic. If you did that, you'd be executed on the spot. On the spot, I tell you," the old man said, finally taking his wizard hard as a last item. "Come on, Merlin. I can't do that. This is impossible," Roland moaned one last time. "Figure it out," Merlin said as he took his staff and made quick circles with it. "I chose you for a reason," he added, taking one last more in-depth look at Roland. With a sharp smile and staff hitting the ground, he shrank into nothingness. "Dammit," Roland frowned, opening the list again. It wasn't a long list. It had 3 things on it. But the problem wasn't the amount, but what they were. "Get a unicorn's horn without killing the unicorn just before unicorn turns into a horse. That's something that happens like once a century," Roland frowned, walking circles and finally landing on the nearby chair. "Grow the same banana 10 times and get its final content into a container. Don't eat the banana as you last time did. Winky face," Roland read out the second thing once more. He did remember the last time he ate the ten-times peeled banana. It took some time before Merlin decided to revert him back from the monkey. Humans are lucky that they can peel banana only once. "Go get my grandmother's cookies that she's hiding behind her pillow," Roland said out loud the final thing. Perhaps that was the scariest task of them all, yet easiest. Then again, one does not simply visit Merlin's grandmother and steal her cookies. &nbsp; Roland had to gather her courage for a while until he finally gave a long hard knock on the door. "Yes, yes," a higher pitched voice answered. As Freda opened the door, she said, "Oh. You're my grandson's apprentice, aren't you? What can I do for you?" There she was. The old woman who was the last strongest wizard ever to be known. Known fact; she's addicted to cookies. "Hey, Merlin sent me to get your coo-" Before Roland could even finish, the door slammed closed. "Tell Merlin to come himself after the cookies if he really wants them. Another known fact; Merlin is addicted to his grandmother's cookies. This ain't my first rodeo. With a long sigh, Roland took out his wand and wrote some text into the air, just for it to consume him and turn him into a fly. "Alright," Roland muttered, which was more like a weird higher-pitched fly sound, and flew through a keyhole. Perhaps that was the only thing that made the mission possible; Freda was old. While she was scary and powerful, her senses weren't the same. "You're here, aren't you?" a voice came from the upstairs. "I know that Merlin told you to get my cookies. I learned from the last time." With a slight frown, Roland flew into her bedroom, just to discover her sitting on her pillow. Of course, Roland turned back into himself and just stared at Freda. "You can make new cookies, while Merlin can't," Roland said "I'm fucking old," Freda said. "I can't make those cookies as fast as I could long time ago." "I can get you some pixie dust for the next batch?" Roland suggested. "Are you kidding me? Before I retired, I got 3 lifetimes worth of pixie dust." "Oh come on, Freda. Give me a break. What do you want in return?" Roland finally asked, moaning. Freda thought for a moment. "Do me a card trick," she said. "Really?" Roland said. Not that long after that request, I left Freda's house with a bottle of cookies. "1 out of 3 done!" Of course, that alone took me 3 hours. The other two tasks were the real problems.
[WP] You're the wizard's apprentice, and of course the first few years involve running errands and doing other tasks. He hands you a daily schedule, but to your confusion the total hours for the different tasks add up to more than 24. "Figure it out" He says, "I chose you for a reason."	" So, let me get this straight." the innkeeper said, looking quite concerned. " If I don't wash all these cauldrons in exactly this manner every Tuesday for the next year and a half, the great and powerful wizard who has lived outside of our village for decades is going to rain down fire and brimstone on everyone within 100 miles?" I bit back a nervous laugh. I had to sell this. Schooling my features so they looked suitably grim, I nodded gravely. " Yes, that about sums it up." The innkeeper was used to dealing with tall tales and exaggerations; he had to be or else he wouldn't have been in business. This was going to be the hardest victory of all to win. He looked me over once, and then again, and then again. Then he sighed. " I'll get on it right away." I looked suitably relieved. " Thank you." I said, being sure to add a grateful quiver to my lips... no, I didn't need to add that. Walking out the door I desperately tried to keep the skip out of my step, looking somber until I made it into the tree covered path leading through the woods to my master's castle. I let out a triumphant laugh that startled every beast in the forest as I pumped my fists into the air. " Who's the master now! Zen is! WOOOOOO!!!" I had nearly shit my pants when master Ærie had given me 30 hours of daily tasks. When I tried to reason with him he cryptically told me to "Figure it out." before fucking off to his tower to do research. Maybe if he had taught me any magic it would be more managable. Time stopping would be incredibly overpowered and broken, and therefore fun. But temporal distortion was way more advanced than anything I could figure out my own... the extent of the magical abilities before coming here was actually being able to make coins and knick knacks disappear. I thought about just banishing the list but knew that wouldn't help. If I couldn't finish these tasks I couldn't be a wizard's apprentice, and I didn't have enough man hours to get them done. So I got some more. If you don't have enough man hours and you can't get more hours, you get more men. Growing up in a village with an ultra powerful being who is almost never seen, who's name includes a letter and sound most people have never heard of before and who's name also sounds like a synonym for 'unsettling' or 'scary' gives you a very solid rumor base to work off. A little bit of ...embellishing... and the locals were happy to cooperate. Busywork taken care of, check. Old scores settled, check. The most beautiful women in the village coming to the castle regularly to cook and clean, check, check, check! All that was left for me was 8 hours of the fun stuff. Brewing potions,reading magical scrolls, and organizing the library. The last one was a bit less fun but I wasn't letting anyone else near the magic I had worked so hard to earn the right to. Old man Ærie was out of his tower for once and was standing right behind the castle door as I walked in. " Wipe that shit eating grin off your face, brat." he said cantankerously. "Killjoy." I muttered. He frowned, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to insult a master wizard, but I was thinking it, and the motherfucker reads minds so there wasn't much I could do to avoid it. " What have you been doing all day?" He said. " You already know th-" "Of course I already know that you oaf!" He shouted. " I'm asking if you do! I gave you a comprehensive list of tasks, and you went gallivanting off into Birchburg telling tall tales about how I would annihilate people, like I was some weird aggressive recluse." "You are a weird aggressive recluse." "That's not the point, genius!" He said. " I gave you those tasks so you could learn magic!" "But I have." I said cockily. " The magic of manipulation." 'The magic of manipulation' Ærie mimed, throwing his hands in the sky and sending small waves of thunder and lightening out of sheer irritation. " Bah! What if one of those villagers gets the bright idea to go to the king with those threats you made?" "Already covered it." I said. " I told everyone that you had already put a curse on everyone in the village and if they said anything to outsiders about it their genitals would melt off." "Their genitals!" He shrieked incredulously. " I know." I replied with a smirk. "Awful, ain't it?" "What the hell is your problem?" "My problem was I had to do 30 hours of work per day with no time for eating or sleeping for 18 months straight. I have solved that problem." "So ... the cauldrons will be cleaned by_" "Lane, the innkeeper." " And the household chores will be taken care of by" "Alice. And Blanche." I smiled, then added " And Cynthia on weekends and holidays." " And the dung from the bestiary will be cleaned every day by-" "Tom." Fuck Tom. The old man sighed wearily before looking out the window, lost in thought. " And if I were to tell everyone in the village the truth about this little yarn of yours, maybe let something slip to one of the maidens you decided to hire?" "You won't." " How do you know that?" He said indignantly, puffing his chest. "Because" I drawled. "You hate talking to people. Pretty girls especially." He deflated instantly. "...I... you... how???" " Now if you'll excuse me master," I said, heading for the library, " I've got research to do." "Clever little bastard." He muttered angrily as I walked away. " I chose you for a reason." He hummed thoughtfully. " In retrospect, probably for the wrong reason." "Love you too, teach!" I said, slamming the door shut.	My name is Jim, and I have a problem. You see, I have a propensity for making bad bets. Mostly to friends, granted, and for the last year, never for money. When part of the last bet I lost included crashing a campus event, I decided to show up to our upperclassman's career day in an homage to our school's mascot, to try and hide in plain sight. Nobody likes explaining to the dean why a freshman was at an event limited to those seeking internships. Interesting note: our mascot is a wizard. Well everything went great for the first half hour. Walking around in the school mascot suit, making comical gestures. I was about to leave, when I heard a voice behind me. "James Williams, could you follow me?" My heart sunk. How on earth was I identified? Did my friends rat me out? The walk to an unused meeting room had me panicking, and a stuffy mascot outfit did nothing to help the situation. Imagine my surprise when I was offered a job. By someone claiming to be a wizard. I had turned to leave the room, sure that this was Ron's doing. He knew I hated being pranked on these things. But the door wasn't there. Over the course of the next hour, the mage, Edstiniax, verified his credentials. Thoroughly. Believe me, never tell a mage, "if you're doing real magic, then I'm a goat." Worst 10 minutes ever. So the job wasn't bad until I started getting the crazy tasks. Magic exists all around us, hidden by veils that require very specific spells or actions to part. I spent days in class, nights hunting down the various mystical odds and ends that Ed wanted (he hates when I call him that... but he doesn't really do modern technology, so whatever). Day 1 and 2 were uneventful, but the list he gave me on night 3? Would take me halfway into my 1st class before I was done. Besides, who wants to collect honey from arcane bees? But that's "my problem", according to Ed. So I decide it's time to stop using the actions to part the veil. They're bulky rituals that take over an hour, and so I looked up a spell from Ed's library. I took what I wrote down to a janitorial closet, and got ready to begin. I read the words, and did the gestures, or so I thought. But evidently I didn't carry a one somewhere. So, that's where we are now. I am trapped in this closet. When I last peeked out the door, I was blasted by heat, and some 3 headed hound 12 feet tall rushed the door. I barely got it closed in time. So my question to you is... does anyone know a good way to distract the guardian of the underworld? Time is something of a concern.
[WP] A god has been abducting people from our world and sending them to his own to participate in absurd quests. Unbeknownst to him he has accidentally abducted an older and more powerful god masquerading as a human. Now he is very confused and frustrated why nothing is going his way.	“No.” I walked past the three headed beast, and all three heads bowed as he moved out of my way. \-- “What?” Nikolas, the God of Adventure, was livid. “Why are you drool speckled dogs not pouncing on him?” He tried gaining control of all three of their minds, trying to make them chase after the man in grey. The three-headed, two-ton dog did not move. Instead, it laid down in the middle of the road to nap. “Jewel!” He called for his servant. “Jewel! Are you seeing this?” He asked, needing a sanity check on what he was seeing on his water-mirror. It was the only way Nikolas knew where his most exciting questers were. So far, this had been everything but. “Sir?” Jewel, a small human I had abducted decades ago, came scurrying into my chambers. “What would you like me to see?” HE asked, looking at the water-mirror. Jewel and Nikolas watched as a tall, white-haired and bearded man, continued to walk along yellow dirt road towards the castle. Nikolas’s castle. “What do I do?” Nikolas asked, panicking, “He’s passed everything! He’s going to get here any minute!” \-- “Young gods,” I chuckled, “Always thinking they can goof off and get away with it.” My day had been so great before the abduction, I had been on a hot streak at the nearby casino. I had been eating shrimp cocktails and confounding the house on how I got a flush every other hand. All that was now out the window. I thought sadly about those abandoned cards, hoping some smart human had taken them quickly and cashed my chips out for all their worth. In my mind, I could see young Nikolas, running around in despair in his large castle. The chateau looked silly, like something a young Earth girl would want for her plastic dolls, with pointy powers and purple window shutters. “He’s going to regret messing with my winning streak.” I muttered. \-- r/JP_writings	Who EVER the fuck heard about a dead God coming back? /\ It's been a great century. I've been having a ball. First I took that one fancy lady and made her go on a quest through a bog. I thought it would be kinda like a sitcom, but damn she started an empire. It was real cool. After her success, I started thinking hey--maybe this could be like a recurring thing? I gave her 5 years to sit stop her throne, then I found a bunch of rioters and tricked them down an alley, and into a shadow that shimmered like an oil slick. They tumbled out into her capital city and kept rioting. Now she killed 'em all, but her people figured out pretty quick that maybe she wasn't the God-send she pretended to be to scare them into submission. 6 months later her head was in a basket and her body back in a swamp. Also people started talking about basic incomes? Anyway I wasn't done. So I've kept it going. Some people go big and fight for the right to rule (cue ACDC). But some have had some really cute kinda vintage moments where they started families. A couple scientists burst through some bottlenecks and the people in my pocket are a lot more advanced. But lately I've been looking to change things up again. I haven't really had a corporate dude, ya know? And I think he could do some fun production-line shiz. So I poked around and found this silver fox with a prosthetic hand who was ruling some boardrooms like the boss he was in Dublin. So I dangled a gold coin, always at the edge of his vision for a couple days. Then I waited until he went to the restroom before he went home, and as he washed his hands, I made his reflection pull him through the mirror and into my pocket. /\ Fuck I should've known cuz he was relaxed. He didn't tense up in fear like all the people before him. So first off, he got jumped by a criminal gang in my semi-industrial new city. And 2 things told me I fucked up. 1) He killed them all with his bare hands in about 20 seconds. 2) his prosthetic hand? Well suddenly it was silver and moved as dexterously as his real hand. That's some powerful glamour right there. Before he killed the last one, he asked where his boss was. The sorry son of a bitch told him because, well, a silver hand was squeezing his lower ribs to dust as he spoke. Corporate dude tracked the gang down, and was in charge by midnight. Two days later, I couldn't leave. Do you know how UNCOMFORTABLE it is to stick in your own pocket? He somehow has me trapped. So now you're reading this, which is kinda like my last will and testament. I have one little room left. The walls are thick and spelled, but I hear them hacking at the doors. All my people are his. I attacked him once..... I'm not gonna talk about that though. I really fucked up and I don't want to die. Huh huh, think he'll tell me how he came back before he kills me?
[WP] A god has been abducting people from our world and sending them to his own to participate in absurd quests. Unbeknownst to him he has accidentally abducted an older and more powerful god masquerading as a human. Now he is very confused and frustrated why nothing is going his way.	“No.” I walked past the three headed beast, and all three heads bowed as he moved out of my way. \-- “What?” Nikolas, the God of Adventure, was livid. “Why are you drool speckled dogs not pouncing on him?” He tried gaining control of all three of their minds, trying to make them chase after the man in grey. The three-headed, two-ton dog did not move. Instead, it laid down in the middle of the road to nap. “Jewel!” He called for his servant. “Jewel! Are you seeing this?” He asked, needing a sanity check on what he was seeing on his water-mirror. It was the only way Nikolas knew where his most exciting questers were. So far, this had been everything but. “Sir?” Jewel, a small human I had abducted decades ago, came scurrying into my chambers. “What would you like me to see?” HE asked, looking at the water-mirror. Jewel and Nikolas watched as a tall, white-haired and bearded man, continued to walk along yellow dirt road towards the castle. Nikolas’s castle. “What do I do?” Nikolas asked, panicking, “He’s passed everything! He’s going to get here any minute!” \-- “Young gods,” I chuckled, “Always thinking they can goof off and get away with it.” My day had been so great before the abduction, I had been on a hot streak at the nearby casino. I had been eating shrimp cocktails and confounding the house on how I got a flush every other hand. All that was now out the window. I thought sadly about those abandoned cards, hoping some smart human had taken them quickly and cashed my chips out for all their worth. In my mind, I could see young Nikolas, running around in despair in his large castle. The chateau looked silly, like something a young Earth girl would want for her plastic dolls, with pointy powers and purple window shutters. “He’s going to regret messing with my winning streak.” I muttered. \-- r/JP_writings	Suchari Renzin, Guardian of Fate and Mother of Gods, looked in disbelief as more and more of the intricate tapestry that she was responsible for weaving started to unravel, tangle, and rot before her very eyes. Destiny was being bent, ignored, or outright deleted, events that should have happened never did, and events that should not happen still occured wether she wanted them to or not. People that should have lived for decades to achieve their destined goals lay dead, people that should have been lost to the dust of their predetermined path were still alive and acting out their will. The weels of fate had been halted, removed from the mechanism of time, and shattered beyond repair by a being who refuses to follow the rules of the world. Suchari Renzin cursed herself for foolishly trying to weave a thread from a tappestry not her own into the fabric of her world. She cursed herself for not paying attention when picking the thread, for not noticing it being but a hollow shell of thread encasing a far more alien material. SHe had invited it here, thinking it was a simple mortal. Oh how wrong she was. Once she had weaved it into her tappestry, it revealed it's true form as the threads of individuals it was in contact with immidiately began ripping themselves from the weave, and the cogs of events started breaking at an exponetial rate. And it laughed. It knew what its effect was on the Weave of Fate and the Mechanism of Destiny, and it laughed in her face while it went to work unchaining her world and plunging it into unpredictable chaos. It was still laughing now, Ghorosh Jernai, God of Darkness and Ruler of Demons laying dead at its feet. He was not the first of her Children that had been killed by the Unraveler. Their attempts to keep the Weave and the Mechanism intact on behalf of their Mother were futile. This....thing simply laughed, and shatered their plans to hinder it without effort. Suchari Renzin cursed it again. Even now, it was still partialy concealing itself within the cocoon of a mortal thread. It was mocking her, showing her that it didn't even need its full power to completely break her world, her plans, the stories she had ordained to happen. She was furious, it had ruined everything! Enough. She had enough. It wanted the Weave and the Mechanism destroyed? Fine, she could just do that herself and start over. After all, mortals are easily replaced, threads are easily made and cogs easily forged. It would take time, but she could make a new Weave, and a new Mechanism. One that did follow the rules. One that did follow her plans, her orders. And this time, this time she would not steal threads from other Weaves. She grabs her tools, her knife and scissors, her hammer and screwdriver, and was set to begin the task of unmaking her now ruined world. And it was ruined. After all, what purpose is there to a world that does not follow Fate and Destiny? She couldn't even cut a single thread or remove a single cog before she felt a cold hand on her shoulder. "I think not, little Goddess. This world is much too fun to let you destroy it." The mocking, overly enthousiastic voice of the thing sounds out behind her. Suchari Renzin drops her tools, petrified. It had left the Weave, if only for a moment, and entered her realm directly. And she knew that she could not win. She had lost. "I should never have picked up your thread" She growls at the thing, staring it in the eyes with the righteous fury of a creator whose masterpiece was destroyed by a deliberate act of malevalence. The thing grins its sinister grin as it stares right back, his eyes filled with glee and malice. "Bold of you to assume that you had a choice in the matter. The moment you attempted to add a person from a universe not your own to your quaint little Weave, it would always be just me that would answer." He steps towards her, now inches from her face. "It's my Weave now, though. And i don't realy like the style, so i'm changing it, as i'm sure you've noticed. I suggest that you stay out of my way." Suchari Renzin falls to her knees, defeated. The raw power eminating from this being numbing her senses. She lost. There was nothing she could do but watch as her precious Weave was unraveled and discarded, her magnificent Mechanism broken apart and shattered by an uncaring entity wishing nothing but Chaos. She once more curses herself for being stupid enough to invite a Cosmic into her world. --- For more stories, feel free to visit r/thomasdimensor!
[WP] A god has been abducting people from our world and sending them to his own to participate in absurd quests. Unbeknownst to him he has accidentally abducted an older and more powerful god masquerading as a human. Now he is very confused and frustrated why nothing is going his way.	He had disguised himself as a humble farmer, beseeching Potami the river goddess to grant him a gift for his nonexistent daughter's dowry. She had a soft spot for those kinds of things, and honestly he was hoping for a singing fish. He'd seen something like it in a retail store, but to his disappointment it was mechanical. The idea had settled in his mind to replace it with something more... lifelike. Of course, Potami would never agree to something like that-- none of the gods these days were. They were as boring as the humans in Gideon's opinion. The humans had conquered all of nature with the creations that made Vulcan look amateurish, and the gods had subsequently given up. Why couldn't Vulcan just be the God of Bulldozers? What was wrong with Lono being the God of Dubstep? But no. They wouldn't hear of it. They were stuck in the ways of being old and crusty and antique and boring. They didn't want to change with the times like Gideon did. So it was that he was here, in the 21st century, trying to earn the attention of a river goddess for the purpose of his magnum opus-- replacing a mechanical singing fish with a real one, and watching the humans freak out. It would be masterful. And yet, he was no longer by the river. Instead, he found himself in a densely foggy area. It was nondescript, but somehow its vagueness seemed familiar... that was when he heard it. The Voice. "FOOLISH MORTAL," the voice boomed. "YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN. YOU SHALL PAY FOR THE FOLLIES OF YOUR KIND. YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN THE OLD WAYS, AND NOW YOU WILL LEARN THE NOBILITY OF THE QUEST." Maybe it was instinct, or maybe it was thousands of years of habit-- Gideon became his role, and threw himself to the ground. "No! Please, no!" he cried. "I... I don't know where I am! I don't know what you want! Please! Spare me!" There was silence. Had he been too obvious? Maybe asking to be spared had given him away. "YES." the voice boomed. "GROVEL BEFORE THE GODS OF YOUR ANCESTORS, BUT YOU SHALL RECEIVE NO QUARTER." Gideon actually had to stifle back a laugh! They were so full of themselves they couldn't tell the difference between a harmless mortal being scared witless and a fellow god mocking them. But, for as long as this god-- whichever one it was-- couldn't tell the difference, Gideon was happy to continue playing his part. It might not be as good of a prank as a singing fish, but it was a way to pass the time...	Abram stood at the edge of the great dam and looked down at the devastation that the breach had brought. A might river unleashed upon the town. His servants prowled through the wreckage, over turning stone and gravel and dirt. The occasional animal left dead, water bloat taking away from them their particular features, but not a single human among the wreckage. Abram towered over the world and paced on the uneven surface. Even to a god like him, this was unusual. His newest champion has neither rallied against the quest given to him, or said a single word. There was no call to him, no push, no pull. Nothing that would garner his attention. No attachment. No great and mighty stirring of the world in his name. And yet the plans he had set asunder, the great chaoses he had sought to wreak upon the fools who built tidy ordered lives, who had truly believed that enslaving themselves to the weak would bring anything other than contented misery, they weren't dying by the score while the cast of heroes he had handpicked ran about trying to fix it. Where were they now, if not here at the great disaster that had devoured this city? And where were the people? He dropped off the side of the damn. A hundred feet in an instant, gravity spinning him like a missile, and stood on top of the water at the base; the pressure and force from the burst damn had carved a lake out of the land. He walked forward and past his servants, ignoring the call of the hybrid troops. They didn't matter to him, now that he knew there were no dead to bury, no corpses to convert into his men of the wild. What more to show the evidence that the world of civilization was a mess, than to poke it until it bled. Til cuts in the wound grew infected, and tattered city dwellers just trying to stay afloat were torn about by mortal paranoia, at last unshackled, a feverish reaction to the death of order? What more to... but there was no such here. From the granaries, the food had been moved. The market long evacuated. This would not do. ----- The burning forest roared in delight from the windstorm crashing against it. Crown fires split open the heavens with the rising flames and smoke, ash twirled about like confetti and shredded paper. Abram swept through it, searching the beautiful bound forest of the green-men. His servants were far off, a thousand thousand miles away, patrolling to make sure none of the brewing diseases he had in storage would be disturbed. The palace was empty; the great tree burned and all artifacts had been moved. Anything worth saving had been saved. How had they know where he'd strike? How had they managed this feat? ---- It was on the eternal fields, where metal raised like razors and the wind played cutting songs across their edges that he found the answer. A man stood staring at him. He remembered this one. Tired, squallid, crying out for purpose and freedom from the ennui. Head flashing full of images of perversion, a brief cessation in the unending torment of petty civilization. In another world, he might've been a follower of Abram. But now Abram knew hostility when he saw it. "You need to stop," the man said, once a boy. "It's my purpose," Abram said. "Look upon this world. Do you want it to be the way your world was?" "It won't be like that," the man said. His hair was blonde, flicking in the wind. "It doesn't have to be like that." "And you only grew a spine when you were freed from such a place," Abram noted, as the man drew his sword. "Do you not see the point of my gambit?" The man stared at Abram for a long moment. "I see the point in your gambit, Abram," the man said, coolly. "And I reject the lesson. Civilization does not need to lead to such an end as my world." "How," Abram said, idly looking at the sword. No such mortal weapon could hurt him, forged in the heart of organization. No blows would pierce his hide. "Did you know where I would strike?" "Six months hence, I chanced across a man from my world," The man said. "He was clever, but ancient, old. Gave up on adjusting the course of humanity. His hands clutched around his heart to see another world, afraid it would fall astray. And he told me your plans, but he was too tired to do the job." Abram slowly nodded. Why did this sound familiar? "And he said to me that I would be the savior he needed," The man said. "Because we can do better. We can do better. We can always do better. And if we remember that, and we force the world to remember that, that we can do better, we can make the world a better place." Abram squinted at the man, cocking his head to the side. "You eschew the simplicity and burden of the wild for the comforts of civilization? Do you not see the shackles cast by that decision?" "There is nothing moral about the slaughter of thousands for the liberation of the few," The man said. "This is not a world for the strong. This is a world for all of us. No chain of civilization binds us, keeps us in place." The man smiled. "Or at least, that's not the world we will make." "What happened to that god?" Abram asked, staring at the man who had lead armies. Perhaps there were others as well. He had thrown so many, hoping to provoke their reactions, hoping to see them falter and die under the blade of his enemies, and his allies. "He died," The man said. "And he bade me to stop you, because he knew that the world he had controlled was long gone, and lost under the burden that man had stopped believing in itself." "And now you are here to stop me," Abram said. "I am," The man said. "You won't beat me," Abram said. "I don't care," The man said. "This is a stupid fight," Abram said. "I don't mind," The man said. "Why?" Abram asked, cocking his head to the side. "The world will be better for fighting you," The man said. "And thus we'll fight against you. We'll rally against the end, we'll rally against corruption, and we'll do better." "And what god was it that told you to stop me? That told you to fight? That told you the world need not be shackles and chains, if civilized?" Abram asked. The wind whistled through the wireglass, musical, discordant. "His name was Abram. I counted him as a dear friend of mine. Flee this plane, and we'll save it in your name." Abram flicked down to the weapon, then up at the man's face. Then left. There was thinking to be done. -------- For more like this, click here! https://old.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/
[WP] A god has been abducting people from our world and sending them to his own to participate in absurd quests. Unbeknownst to him he has accidentally abducted an older and more powerful god masquerading as a human. Now he is very confused and frustrated why nothing is going his way.	Loki, Odin-son stood atop a grand palace with the ferocity of a swelling tempest. As he let the new batch of humans shuffle about in surprise, Loki considered what he would say. There were several possible paths into which he could funnel the unsuspecting guests, and each provided their own unique entertainment. It had been quite some time since he'd sent a group down the third way. "Behold, poor creatures, you are caught in the web of a God!" Loki liked that line - he'd worked on it for some time and, spoken with the depth and scale his current bloated form provided, he felt it set the proper tone. Loki waited for one of the men down below to recognize him from all the pictures. Usually at least one of the unwitting visitors would have the wherewithal to know who tormented them. After all, Loki's trickiness was well known, as was the low probability of surviving one of his many tricks. One man stepped forward, looking unafraid, and yelled up toward Loki. "You are Loki, Odin-son. Why have you brought us here?" Loki marveled at how well the man's voice carried across the giant space between them. Usually, Loki had to strain to hear, but this man had quite a pair of lungs on him. Not to be outdone, Loki redoubled his vocal efforts. "You must complete three quests if e'er you wish to leave!" Loki said, and his voice hit the humans as a blast of wind. Most were knocked over or struggled to stay on two feet. But the loud man stood firm and looked up, unfazed. "And," the man said, as though he spoke to a barkeep or a lowly merchant, "if we do not accept your quests?" Loki laughed. Because he was so big it sounded as though it was a planned, dramatic laugh. But actually, it was quite earnest. No one had ever asked him that before. After all, what human in their right mind ever would? When his laughter settled to a chuckle, Loki answered, "rejection is failure, and failure is death." Absurdly, the tiny human considered these two simple options for a long moment, as though a swift death might not be the better of the two choices. Loki could not gainsay him there. Loki was prepared to oblige him if he went that way, but instead the loud man looked back up and gave a terse nod. "So be it, Loki, Odin-son, I shall play your games." Loki smirked and willed the first gate to open. "Then enter, and begin!" Loki said with a flourish and vanished into smoke. From the ethereal plane, Loki watched as the humans entered the dark cave of the first quest of the third way. In the center of the cave were three humongous chests, each larger than the largest elephant, each identically adorned with gold and jewels and lit by holy light. When the entire group was inside, Loki willed the gate shut and all but the loud man shuddered in fear. Then, without reappearing before them, Loki sent his voice into the room. "Within one chest is a golden key which shall open the next gate. Within two others are balls of lightning. Discern the clues and choose correctly. Misapprehend and perish." Loki sat back on the ethereal throne and watched through the walls as the humans began considering the chests. The third way was the most malicious of the five paths. This first quest, for instance, actually contained no clues whatsoever. The three chests were perfectly identical in every way, except that two did in fact contain deadly lightning, trapped and waiting to escape. Nonetheless, to Loki's endless amusement, the humans would soon begin to see countless differences, and then begin arguing over them, looking for patterns that simply were not there. Often they came to blows, even killed one another. Already, Loki heard one of the men commenting on the different shape of each sapphire and the varied size of the central emeralds. But before the crowd could really get started, the loud man walked right up to one of the chests, climbed up onto it and, pushing heartily upwards, heaved the chest wide open. There was a loud gasp as the rest of the humans waited for a lightning bolt to fly out and strike the fool dead. Except no such lightning bolt came. The man had chosen correctly. Loki sighed, "Lucky . . ." The man leaped into the chest and a moment later a large golden key flew out over the lip. The man came climbing out behind it. In a moment the second gate was opened and the humans moved on. Loki followed them through the ether. In the center of a well-lit room was a large circular platform and a single, dangling rope. Loki chuckled to himself. He had forgotten what was in the second chamber. Most did not make it past the first, as the lightning bolts tended to be a bit too eager once released. This, Loki was certain, would be fun. He cleared his throat and spoke to the gathered humans. "Congratulations. You have reached the second quest. At the top of that rope, there is a key. Simply climb up and retrieve it." The humans looked at one another and, bolstered by the loud man's success, one of the younger men took up the challenge. He raced forward toward the rope, looked up its length and spied the key near the top, against the rocky ceiling. He grabbed the rope and gave it a tug, then another, making himself used to the its texture and weight. Then, with a heroic look back toward the others, he held on tightly and began to climb. He did not notice, in his haste, that he could no longer hear his friends' words. At first, he seemed to be making a good pace, but as he continued upwards, he began to falter. It seemed to the young man that he should have been at the top already. Yet the key appeared almost the same distance away. So the young man climbed and climbed, as Loki watched and snickered, but whenever he stopped to look up at the key, still it was the same distance away. Finally, the young man decided he had had enough, as his arms were tired and ready to fail. So he looked down to begin his climb down. Except the ground was not as close as it should have been. In fact, it was hundreds of feet below the young man. The sheer, unexpected height frightened him half to death and, startled, his grip loosened and he plummeted, down and down, until, with a wet crunch, he impacted against the circular stone floor. Loki burst into laughter. Of course, the foolish youth would never make it to the key, for this rope was the Everlength, crafted by Sindri ages ago and stolen by Loki in the dark of night. It was a rope said to be as long as time itself. Although Loki used his magic to make the key look close by, in fact, the Everlength was strung not from the ceiling, but from a distant star. Within the circular stone all sound was blocked from hearing, so the warnings of friends could not be heard. As Loki rejoiced in the young man's foolishness, the loud man began stripping off his leathers and dropped his sword to the ground. Stretching his hands out before him, the man began walking toward the rope, with sure, unhurried steps. He did not hesitate, but took the rope in both hands and began to climb. For hours he climbed, Loki and the other humans watching in amazement. He climbed so far that Loki's magic could no longer obscure his distance, and the human's, with their mortal eyes, could not even see the speck of the man's form. When almost a day had passed, and the man still had not returned, Loki wondered if perhaps he had not floated off into space, up there in the heavens. But, just then, the rope began to vibrate and hum, and from the sky above, holding on with a small piece of leather, down flew the man along the rope's length. As he came closer to the ground, all could see he held a large golden key. Loki blinked in amazement. It was not possible. It was supposed to be impossible. Loki had neglected even to conceive of a third quest because the second could not be completed. As the loud man landed gently and strolled toward the third gate, Loki racked his brains for a third quest. The gate was opening and the people began to walk into the dark, empty third chamber. Loki teleported into the center of the room and conjured giant flames, both for dramatic effect, and, more importantly, to buy time. "Well done," Loki began as the flames died, improvising poorly, still shocked by the human's feat, "You have conquered two quests. But, can you conquer a third?!" Loki's voice became too high pitched and he coughed just a little. The loud man stood by, leaning on his sword, his hands only slightly red from the climb. He was not even breathing hard. "Tell me what it is and it shall be conquered." Loki eyed the confident man sourly, "Oh," he said like a petulant child, "shall it?" Suddenly, Loki knew exactly what the third quest would be. A question no human could possibly answer because the answer was known only to the Gods. "My father Odin," Loki began, "rides upon a steed which is called Sleipnir." Already Loki was smiling at his cleverness and the nearing opportunity to kill this man. "What was the name of the mare who birthed Sleipnir?" The human's all looked one at the other, totally confounded. Of course, they would not even know the name of Thor's steed, let alone the name of its mother. Loki manifested a blade and raised it high. "Well, human, shall you walk into my blade, or shall my blade walk into you?" The loud man was not afraid. Instead, he looked down at the ground and shook his head, as though he had thought of something distasteful. Then he looked up at Loki and rolled his eyes. "Loki." Loki paused, "yes?" The loud man sighed. "Loki was Sleipnir's mother." All the color drained from Loki's face and in his amazement, he even dropped his knife. "Impossible." Loki stammered. "No. What is impossible," the man began, at last dispelling his disguise in a blaze of white lightning and revealing Odin, King of Asgard, "is that a father could ever forget the day his son gave birth to his horse." ***** #### For More Legends From The Multiverse ## r/LFTM	Abram stood at the edge of the great dam and looked down at the devastation that the breach had brought. A might river unleashed upon the town. His servants prowled through the wreckage, over turning stone and gravel and dirt. The occasional animal left dead, water bloat taking away from them their particular features, but not a single human among the wreckage. Abram towered over the world and paced on the uneven surface. Even to a god like him, this was unusual. His newest champion has neither rallied against the quest given to him, or said a single word. There was no call to him, no push, no pull. Nothing that would garner his attention. No attachment. No great and mighty stirring of the world in his name. And yet the plans he had set asunder, the great chaoses he had sought to wreak upon the fools who built tidy ordered lives, who had truly believed that enslaving themselves to the weak would bring anything other than contented misery, they weren't dying by the score while the cast of heroes he had handpicked ran about trying to fix it. Where were they now, if not here at the great disaster that had devoured this city? And where were the people? He dropped off the side of the damn. A hundred feet in an instant, gravity spinning him like a missile, and stood on top of the water at the base; the pressure and force from the burst damn had carved a lake out of the land. He walked forward and past his servants, ignoring the call of the hybrid troops. They didn't matter to him, now that he knew there were no dead to bury, no corpses to convert into his men of the wild. What more to show the evidence that the world of civilization was a mess, than to poke it until it bled. Til cuts in the wound grew infected, and tattered city dwellers just trying to stay afloat were torn about by mortal paranoia, at last unshackled, a feverish reaction to the death of order? What more to... but there was no such here. From the granaries, the food had been moved. The market long evacuated. This would not do. ----- The burning forest roared in delight from the windstorm crashing against it. Crown fires split open the heavens with the rising flames and smoke, ash twirled about like confetti and shredded paper. Abram swept through it, searching the beautiful bound forest of the green-men. His servants were far off, a thousand thousand miles away, patrolling to make sure none of the brewing diseases he had in storage would be disturbed. The palace was empty; the great tree burned and all artifacts had been moved. Anything worth saving had been saved. How had they know where he'd strike? How had they managed this feat? ---- It was on the eternal fields, where metal raised like razors and the wind played cutting songs across their edges that he found the answer. A man stood staring at him. He remembered this one. Tired, squallid, crying out for purpose and freedom from the ennui. Head flashing full of images of perversion, a brief cessation in the unending torment of petty civilization. In another world, he might've been a follower of Abram. But now Abram knew hostility when he saw it. "You need to stop," the man said, once a boy. "It's my purpose," Abram said. "Look upon this world. Do you want it to be the way your world was?" "It won't be like that," the man said. His hair was blonde, flicking in the wind. "It doesn't have to be like that." "And you only grew a spine when you were freed from such a place," Abram noted, as the man drew his sword. "Do you not see the point of my gambit?" The man stared at Abram for a long moment. "I see the point in your gambit, Abram," the man said, coolly. "And I reject the lesson. Civilization does not need to lead to such an end as my world." "How," Abram said, idly looking at the sword. No such mortal weapon could hurt him, forged in the heart of organization. No blows would pierce his hide. "Did you know where I would strike?" "Six months hence, I chanced across a man from my world," The man said. "He was clever, but ancient, old. Gave up on adjusting the course of humanity. His hands clutched around his heart to see another world, afraid it would fall astray. And he told me your plans, but he was too tired to do the job." Abram slowly nodded. Why did this sound familiar? "And he said to me that I would be the savior he needed," The man said. "Because we can do better. We can do better. We can always do better. And if we remember that, and we force the world to remember that, that we can do better, we can make the world a better place." Abram squinted at the man, cocking his head to the side. "You eschew the simplicity and burden of the wild for the comforts of civilization? Do you not see the shackles cast by that decision?" "There is nothing moral about the slaughter of thousands for the liberation of the few," The man said. "This is not a world for the strong. This is a world for all of us. No chain of civilization binds us, keeps us in place." The man smiled. "Or at least, that's not the world we will make." "What happened to that god?" Abram asked, staring at the man who had lead armies. Perhaps there were others as well. He had thrown so many, hoping to provoke their reactions, hoping to see them falter and die under the blade of his enemies, and his allies. "He died," The man said. "And he bade me to stop you, because he knew that the world he had controlled was long gone, and lost under the burden that man had stopped believing in itself." "And now you are here to stop me," Abram said. "I am," The man said. "You won't beat me," Abram said. "I don't care," The man said. "This is a stupid fight," Abram said. "I don't mind," The man said. "Why?" Abram asked, cocking his head to the side. "The world will be better for fighting you," The man said. "And thus we'll fight against you. We'll rally against the end, we'll rally against corruption, and we'll do better." "And what god was it that told you to stop me? That told you to fight? That told you the world need not be shackles and chains, if civilized?" Abram asked. The wind whistled through the wireglass, musical, discordant. "His name was Abram. I counted him as a dear friend of mine. Flee this plane, and we'll save it in your name." Abram flicked down to the weapon, then up at the man's face. Then left. There was thinking to be done. -------- For more like this, click here! https://old.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/
[WP] Reverse werewolf transformation. Every full moon, your pet turns into its human form.	I startled awake and grabbed my phone from underneath the pillow. My eyes were so blurred it took me a few tries to slide the alarm to 'off'. The glowing screen read 12:30 AM. I sighed, pulled the blanket off my legs, and swung them off the bed to sit up. Groaning, I reached over with one hand and clicked on the lamp while rubbing my eyes with the other. I stood up and stumbled to the door, automatically slipping on my house shoes on the way because the dogs were sure to have left messes all over the kitchen. As I was putting a cup of water into the microwave, I realized I forgot to grab the improvised heating pad. That would need to be microwaved as well. I swore under my breath and hit 'start' so at least the water would be ready when I got back. I went back into the bedroom and took the sock full of rice from the kennel. It was still barely warm. I laid it on the bed, and looked into the kennel more closely, figuring that the tiny neonatal kitten had crawled in between the towels laid on the floor of the kennel. He wasn't there. More awake now, I began shifting the towels around to make sure, then checked under the bed. Nothing. The kennel bars were spaced far enough apart that he could have crawled through, but so far he hadn't. I knew I should have blocked it with something so he couldn't get out. I froze as I heard barking from the living room. No. I got halfway down the hallway when I heard the crying of a newborn... baby? As I rounded the corner into the living room I was met with the sight of a tiny naked baby boy laying on the floor, with one of the cats carefully cleaning his full head of grey hair. My first attempt at a prompt and I haven't written prose in forever. Also on mobile. I figured this prompt was perfect for a twist on an actual event that happened to me last summer.	Something shattered outside. A painful cracking of glass on the concrete patio out back. It forced my heart to skip a beat and I paused, mind blank. I turned off the TV and got up. That primordial part of me knew something was out there, lingering. A patient predator, goading me from the silent, still night. I paused and thought about it. The dog wasn't barking, it was probably the wind, tipping a stray glass to its death. “Aaron?” I yelled towards the doggy door, “Aaron, come!” My instincts kicked in, demanding the pack regroup to fight off whatever enemy was out there. I let out a sigh, mostly at myself, and went to the back door behind the kitchen, stumbling on something on the floor in the dark. I couldn’t find the light switch, but wouldn’t need it outside in the bright light of the full moon. “Aaron!” I called again. Nothing. His recall was normally perfect, and I started worrying more; dropping into a lonely, nervous, anxious despair driven by fear born from a stupid bit of broken glass. I looked across the plain backyard. Movie-quality grass surrounding by a tall fence, and a kennel tucked in the dark shade of a sick autumn oak. He must be in there... I crept over, trying to stay calm; I could smell the dogs den; worn and used; but familiar, homely, and comforting like a thick quilt on a winter's bed. The food bowl was empty. The water was full. I was so close now. I called again, a whisper into the damp wind. “Aaron?” I knelt down. The kennel was void of life, a lonely blanket where the dog used to be. A crack echoed behind me somewhere; and, startled again, I turned back towards it. The light was on inside now. Bright enough to hurt the eyes. My chest ached; partly from the nervousness that had settled on me; but also a pain in every muscle, which seemed to present itself mostly in my sternum. I rushed back to the house, and pushed open the door, running in fast enough to almost trip on something. The same object concealed by the intrusive darkness earlier. I looked down, past my own pale, completely naked flesh to a leather collar dusted by salty water scents, with a broken buckle and tag worn by sand. The dogs collar, I thought. I picked it up. “Max.” Everything was so familiar... Max? The sound of the front door bashing panicked me; I was here naked, with no where to run but outside into the sad autumn night. I didn’t have time to even turn before he came in. “Mum!” the child shrieked, piercing my ears like a needle in the skin “Mum! Max has turned again!” ...Aaron?
[WP]Everyone knows what a antihero is, but what about a antivillian?	"Oh no..." he muttered as he watched the hero arrive to the scene, "Please, don't hurt me..." he whispered under his breath as he looked down. The hero, a strong man with the ability to control the elements, stood before him, a small child around 10 years old, wearing a simple tee shirt, shorts, hoodie, and sneakers. "Why are you doing this?" the hero asked, taking a step forward. "Stay back, please..." the child warned fearfully and quietly, stepping back, "I just..." "Just what?" the hero asked sternly, motioning towards the destroyed forest around him, "I hear stories of a psychokinetic supervillain, who's known to have killed people and terrorized the town on occasion, obliterating the forest, and its you? A simple child? What reason do you have to do this?" "I... don't know," he said, "My power, it always overwhelms me, and it scares me. I hurt people, and everyone hates me. My own parents don't love me anymore. Now, I can't quit, or I'll have to face the consequences. I want to turn myself in, or just... disappear, but it's just... scary, and I don't want that to happen," he says, and the hero looks on in surprise. "You're my idol," the child goes on, looking up, "You beat up bad guys to keep everyone safe, and you... you kill them, so they can't hurt people anymore. I've hurt people so much, but... I don't want to die. Please, don't." "Kid. I have to do this," the hero says solemnly, "I can't let you continue on this path." The child eyes widen in horror, "Nonononono please-!" he steps back shakily, turning to run before the larger man swiftly grabs his wrist. "Let go, please! I'll turn myself in, I promise!" the boy pleads between sobs, pulling on his arm like a younger child at the store. The man closes his eyes without a word as a trail of flame swirls around his free hand. Whatever it takes, he thinks. "Get away from me!" the boy yells as the man's grip is forced open and the hero is blasted back in a flash of cyan. The hero takes a few moments to get up before staring at the child with a deadly glare. "Now listen here, brat. My job, my motivation, my existence is based on keeping this town safe, and you're just another obstacle. If you can't stop being a menace to society, I have to put you down like any other scum." The child winced at every word, shaking in terror at the soon to be fulfilled threat. "If you want to continue on with your life," he says, "Then here I am. My job is to take you down no matter what." "I can't..." the boy cried. "And why not?!" the hero snapped. "You're a human being, I- I can't kill you!" "You're hesitant. That'll be your undoing," the hero said as he started making his advance.	I saw her dead on the ground and my heart broke. A life without her wasn’t worth living. I reached into my robes and drew out a small dark vial. “Oh Juliet, my love, my light, why has this happened to us?” With a dramatic flourish I took a swig and fell to the ground as symbols crashed symbolically in the background. A few seconds later Juliet awoke. “Oh Romeo, my love, why do you sleep?” She shook me but I didn’t stir. Realization slowly crept across her face. She screamed and reached to my belt drawing my dagger. She drew the dagger high above her head and plunged it deep into her stomach. The screams were real this time. This dagger was no prop, and I let a small smirk betray my death. The curtains shut rapidly and the lights dimmed to Juliet’s cries. I quickly drew to my feet and clamped my hand over her mouth. We didn’t want anyone to realize what was actually going on. Two ‘stagehands’ rushed into the blackness and assisted me in forcing Juliet through the stage’s trapdoor. We had made sure to soundproof the secret room beforehand. I dropped down after her and shut the door above me making sure the thick wad of foam on the bottom of the door was secured. It was sure to muffle any screams, cries, or pleas for mercy. Soon the play’s ‘director’ would give the audience a long speech and I would return to take a bow. Then, we would explain 'Juliet' had to go home sick and everyone would go home happily ever after. Everyone except for maybe Juliet. That was up to her. I turned on the small light we had installed. “Ok Marissa, where the fuck is my money?” Marissa only looked at me with tearful eyes and began to ugly cry even harder. “Listen to me bitch.” I slapped her across the face and pulled out a second dagger rubbing it across her leg. “W-what? Who are you?” She managed to choke out. “You know who I am. Who the fuck else would be collecting his debt?” Her eyes widened in shock. She had never seen me before in person, but she definitely realized who I was now. “It looks like you really did a number on yourself, Marissa. Right now, that stab is only a flesh wound and with the proper treatment you’ll forget this ever happened. But- if you just keep bleeding, you might have a problem. So I’ll ask again, where the FUCK is my money?” I was screaming at this point but I didn't feel anger, only pity. Marissa was clutching her side, still in shock and began to heave. She threw up all over my new shoes. “M-m-my…my purse is backstage under the orange jacket. I don’t have everything I owe you yet, but just give me a few more days. Please sir. Please…Pl…Ple…” She trailed off save for sputtering “Ple” over and over again, almost as if she wanted to keep begging but was too pathetic even for that. I heard a faint rumbling from above me, the applause was so thunderous it could be heard even from here. That was my cue, and an actor never misses his cue. “Sorry Marissa, time’s up.” I cut off her scream as I cut into her neck, then allowed the dagger to clutter to the floor. Leaving the grisly scene below me, I put one hand over the other and emerged from the trapdoor managing to stand up just as the lights turned on. Even half of the money Marissa owed me would make sure my family ate well tonight. Young Charles would grow up to be a decent man unlike his father; I’d see to that. Sometimes I hated what I had to do, but an actor always puts on a good show regardless of what he thinks of the producer. I smiled to the crowd, and with one final flourish I took a bow.
[WP] Thirty years after the apocalypse, a book is discovered. It tells the people of old gods, the strongest, the smartest, the tallest. Places of splendor and objects renowned for rarity. They immediately created a religion, following the Gods shown by the Guinness Book of World Records.	Maj would never shut up. Not when we were children play-fighting with moss covered sticks in the woods. Not when our parents would sit down for dinner and ask about my day. Not in the classroom when I was the one called on by Teacher Latke. He would always jump in with a glistening smile and a resounding speech. My presence vanished at the first crack of that smile. I was never to speak while he was always to be heard; he liked it that way. Today was no different. A book of the ugliest sort was perched on an altar at the center of the Great Hall. Dilapidated pews were packed together; each of them facing the gaudy purple brick, and the decorated man standing beside it. I meandered through the crowd and took a seat. I glanced at those around me. I wanted to find doubt: a skeptical smirk, a condescending scoff, even a nervous jumping knee. Anything that would show me that these people weren't really buying it. Yet the truth was unavoidable. Their eyes were transfixed; their heads swayed to and fro in a struggle for a clear view of the altar. Next to the glistening purple brick, stood my brother. The look on his face told me that he wasn't present in this giant dusty room like the rest of us. He was raised high above the rafters. A swarm of eyes stuck to him and sent him higher with every passing second. Everything he had always wanted, companionship, attention, and praise had coalesced in this Great hall every Tuesday night for the last 6 years. Maj, like most of his followers, transcended, and even ignored, reality when he was among the pews. Yet for Maj, the greatest part of it all was that I had become his foil. For all the praise, attention and reverence he absorbed I was met with coldness, disgust and banishment. I dared to blaspheme the \great\ prophet. The people would whisper that his mighty holiness was cursed with a jealous brother. I, the unholy brother, was lacking. Lacking in faith, reason, and divine connection and that was why I lied. They did not know that I saw him dig up the book. I knew that the golden wrinkled hand of Kane Tanaka, the oldest person alive, did not reach down from the sky to pass him the holy pages. I knew that the worlds tallest man did not pluck stars from the night and grind them in his palm so he could sprinkle their dust on the purple book cover. It was all nonsense. There was no massive man, no stardust, no golden wrinkled skin. I know the truth and it has made me an outcast. Today my brother will preach about the will of the eldest man. He will preach of the secrets of the worlds strongest, tallest, smartest, and smallest. Their stories will fill the air like the dust. Then, at the height of his sermon, when the hall is silent and anticipation boils, the closing words will dance across his lips and his entranced victims will obey without thought. "Donate to the Church of Guinness, my friends, and the elder may grant you a place in the next Holy book."	High in the timber-shrouded hights of the Guinness Crags a light snow fell. A crescent moon shone through the clouds like the Great Lightstick of old. All was silent; all was dark; all was deathly cold. In a quaint stick hut nestled in a dell upon the mountain-side song and laughter hid from the cold in the light of a crackling fire. Many people danced and made merry in a circle around the old shaman Arthur as he spoke in an alien tongue. At length the man of the book held up his hands. "Stop!" he cried. "The consecration of the altar is complete. Let us begin." With that they went to the table and began their work. Its surface was smooth and dark; many twisting wires wound like snakes from a protrusion on its back. Red, green, and yellow, they seemed color-coded for some forgotten purpose. Sparks still danced upon them during snowstorms. Upon the table's top they laid sheets of prepared wood-pulp. With sharp stone knives they cut, with sure hands they folded; a slice here, a crease here. With strings of animal gut they tethered the sheets together. The storm outside grew louder, the winds harsher. Grim thunder sounded forth from the sky. The sparks danced along the wires of the table. Many of the coven were struck down by the wrath of the angry Gods. A hard glint appeared in Arthur's eyes, and he began to chant again. Of fire and water he sang, of earth and wind he told. He spoke of sorrow, and joy, and days passed away. The shaman reached the end of his song. "Step back!" he cried. When the table was clear, he gently lifted the frail dart shape with both hands. He looked at the Book of Guinness upon the mantelpiece and gestured. "There it is, my friends," he told his followers. "The greatest 'paper airplane' that ever the Gods made." Constructive criticism much appreciated!
[WP] Thirty years after the apocalypse, a book is discovered. It tells the people of old gods, the strongest, the smartest, the tallest. Places of splendor and objects renowned for rarity. They immediately created a religion, following the Gods shown by the Guinness Book of World Records.	“What is wrong, my child?” Silence. “You know the words spoken at Confession will never leave this room.” “It…it hurts, High Priest.” “What hurts?” “This doubt.” “What do you doubt, child?” “I doubt…everything. It is as if all the truths I once believed in were merely a house of cards, and now a breeze has come and blown the house down.” “And what is this breeze?” “The gods…I once saw only strength, bravery, boldness without any fear. Now I only see the strain in their muscles, the doubt in their eyes.” “My child…are you suggesting?” “A trial,” the boy said quietly. “My child, you must know what this means. The consequences…” “I am ready to accept them, father.” \- So for weeks the boy practiced, out in the ponds in the Forbidden Valley he snuck out to in the mornings before lessons. Every time he entered the water, he would curse himself, almost hoping that it would not be true. But then in the water, he found peace. Found the only peace, perhaps, that he had ever known. It was as if he could perfectly feel the air in his lungs, the oxygen, coursing through him, clean and vital, and hear all the quiet machinery of his body, his heartbeat, his veins, the sway of his limbs. And then eventually, the oxygen would be gone, and he would resurface. And he would close his eyes before looking at the numbers, only to see and know with growing conviction that all he had been told before was a lie. \- The last person he looked to was his mother. She smiled bravely while his father could not even look at him, but the boy could see the fear, the sadness in her eyes. He would enter the water, and then come out as an exile, an outcast, or…something else entirely. And then it was time. He squeezed her hand, trying to let her know he was still her son. As he was lowered into the water, he saw her turn away, her hands over her eyes. The water. Quiet and peace from all the chatter and murmurs above him. He tried to still his nerves, his wildly beating heart, the tremors and tingles that kept flaring up in his fingers. He tried to count, but somewhere along the way he was going too fast or too slow, and he gave up. But still, he held on, determined to…he didn’t know what drove him so, but he closed his eyes and stood still in the water tank until his lungs felt like bursting, felt like fire and pain and… He rose, and the crowd was silent. As he climbed out of the water onto the platform, he knew something was wrong. And then they all knelt, one by one. His mother first, then the elders, then…everyone. His father. His childhood friends. Eventually, the High Priest. “Oh, Great Guinness, thank you for gracing us with the presence of a new God, the Champion of Holding Air…” He heard the people he had known all his life, loved and hated and envied and walked past without a second thought, pray to him, lauding his greatness, his elevation above their existence, and a new belief came to him. The lie beneath the truth, the fact that the Gods were nothing but mortal humans, like everyone, and that his life would never be the same. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ [r/penguin347](https://www.reddit.com/r/penguin347)	Years... No, it took decades of real preparation. They say that to honor your god is to make the ultimate thing. Once you manage to do that thing, they will bless you. There were many gods. Many. But none of them mattered to John. For John, there was only one true god. And just thinking of rewards made him giggle, and try even harder. They all told him it's impossible; that it was stupid and insane. Even his wife finally abandoned him. But that was okay. After all, he didn't. He stayed with him. At first, he took out his phone to record it. But there came the point when he lived his life with GoPro basically clued to his forehead. He needed the proof. Justin Case - that's the man who collected the proof to finally respond with blessing. He was the one who held the original book. And until he gets that proof, he will try hard. And that day came. "Come here, Palmerranian!" John said, looking at his dog, Pomeranian "We are gonna do more than that Pea did. More than the true god's dog. You know what, Palmerranian? What's god backward? Dog! Exactly. Nobody else can see! But together, we will do it!" He took out the glass and filled it with water. The dog stayed still, watching him, ready. His tale was as excitedly swirling as ever. But for once he really looked ready. John put the glass water on Palmerranian's head, making him take fifteen steps backward and then forward. And he did it. For once, he did it. Tears began to gather. He fell on his knees, just to hear the glass shatter and the dog running towards his master. "I did it," he muttered. "I will get the blessings of our god!" But the dog groaned and stopped, falling down. "Palm?" John muttered, looking at the dog, running to him. He was bleeding. The dropped glass's shard had cut him. Immediately he grabbed the dog, rushing towards the room's exit. "Anything but my dog!" John shouted, screamed. But he could feel it. The dog was licking his face, barking a few times. He stopped and put him down, just to see the dog sitting and looking at him, waiting for that glass of water on his head. The usual pose, ready to please the master. "You... You did this just because you want to make me happy? Even when you bleed?" John muttered, falling on his knees the second time and ripping off his GoPro, looking at it, wanting to throw it away. But he couldn't. "At least we are getting a lot of views on youtube," John said, kissing the dog. (/r/Elven <- I write psychological fiction. Cheers <3! Love your doggos! Like I love Palmerranian!)
[WP] Thirty years after the apocalypse, a book is discovered. It tells the people of old gods, the strongest, the smartest, the tallest. Places of splendor and objects renowned for rarity. They immediately created a religion, following the Gods shown by the Guinness Book of World Records.	What if I told you there once lived men who could lift automobiles using only their breath? Almighty beings that ate metal slabs for breakfast, who covered their bodies with hieroglyphs, purposely inflicting pain upon themselves just because they could. What if I told you these creatures walked the earth, like you and me? Would you believe it, or not? Children, let me tell you the story of Guinness the Great and the world before the surge. Back then, life wasn't about survival. The scab rats hadn't hatched yet, so it was fairly safe on this planet. We prospered and created meaning for our own lives, which went into an unexpected direction. Everyone wanted to be noticed. Atop his golden throne, Guinness the Great held a competition of champions. He called upon the strangest and strongest, the weirdest and wildest to compete for a chance to be noticed. As expected, millions and millions of them arrived at Guinness's doorstep, all begging for his blessing. He snapped his fingers and they all filed into a line, stretching around the earth five times. One by one, they presented themselves to his holiness, and if their talent was deemed worthy, he would invite them to be immortalized in his book and turned into a god. Guinness the Great wasn't known for patience, so those who showed no promise were thrown into a pit of lava, their corpses turned to ash. This judgement went on for a hundred years, until one man rose above it. He saw the tyranny in Guinness the Great's ways and wanted to stop it, at all costs. He arrived at Guinness's doorstep, where he was told to bow. He did not. Again, he was commanded. Again, he withheld. Guinness was intrigued by the valor, so he gave the man a chance to redeem himself. The man stood up straight and spit onto the very ground he walked on. He said these are no gods. No. Only men. Men who have dedicated their entire lives to these niche talents, and the disrespect will not stand. Guinness glared at him, offering no remorse. Not anymore. As he prepared to banish the man to the pits of lava, the man smiled. He dared Guinness to do it. He said he cannot die. The fate of this man is not written in the sacred texts as it is unknown to the population. But I know. I know what happened. He sucked in his gut and swam through the lava where he found refuge in a cave. For six years, he subsisted off of rats and rat blood. It wasn't until a fire breather drifted ashore that he was able to escape. Together, the two men stormed into Guinness the Great's lair and challenged him, inciting a war that would last another 20 years or so. The humans were too distracted with records and challenges that they didn't even realize when the scab rats and the mammoth fleas hatched. The man who dared challenge Guinness is long gone now, but a quote etched in stone remains. "There are no gods, only man." - Ripley	Years... No, it took decades of real preparation. They say that to honor your god is to make the ultimate thing. Once you manage to do that thing, they will bless you. There were many gods. Many. But none of them mattered to John. For John, there was only one true god. And just thinking of rewards made him giggle, and try even harder. They all told him it's impossible; that it was stupid and insane. Even his wife finally abandoned him. But that was okay. After all, he didn't. He stayed with him. At first, he took out his phone to record it. But there came the point when he lived his life with GoPro basically clued to his forehead. He needed the proof. Justin Case - that's the man who collected the proof to finally respond with blessing. He was the one who held the original book. And until he gets that proof, he will try hard. And that day came. "Come here, Palmerranian!" John said, looking at his dog, Pomeranian "We are gonna do more than that Pea did. More than the true god's dog. You know what, Palmerranian? What's god backward? Dog! Exactly. Nobody else can see! But together, we will do it!" He took out the glass and filled it with water. The dog stayed still, watching him, ready. His tale was as excitedly swirling as ever. But for once he really looked ready. John put the glass water on Palmerranian's head, making him take fifteen steps backward and then forward. And he did it. For once, he did it. Tears began to gather. He fell on his knees, just to hear the glass shatter and the dog running towards his master. "I did it," he muttered. "I will get the blessings of our god!" But the dog groaned and stopped, falling down. "Palm?" John muttered, looking at the dog, running to him. He was bleeding. The dropped glass's shard had cut him. Immediately he grabbed the dog, rushing towards the room's exit. "Anything but my dog!" John shouted, screamed. But he could feel it. The dog was licking his face, barking a few times. He stopped and put him down, just to see the dog sitting and looking at him, waiting for that glass of water on his head. The usual pose, ready to please the master. "You... You did this just because you want to make me happy? Even when you bleed?" John muttered, falling on his knees the second time and ripping off his GoPro, looking at it, wanting to throw it away. But he couldn't. "At least we are getting a lot of views on youtube," John said, kissing the dog. (/r/Elven <- I write psychological fiction. Cheers <3! Love your doggos! Like I love Palmerranian!)
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	“Jay. Come on,” My mother said, grabbing my father’s hand. He jerked it away quickly, not bothering to give her a second glance as he stormed off towards the classroom. My mother cursed under her breath and followed, leaving me alone in the hallway. I always knew that things were tense between my parents. I wasn’t blind, and I knew their backstories. A one night stand. Hatred turned into lust, and it was promptly switched back to hatred the next morning. That’s how it always went. I’ve heard the same story for the past 14 years, and I will hear it again and again. I reluctantly followed my parents into the classroom, where my homeroom teacher was waiting. She smiled pleasantly, a gesture that could certainly fool my parents. Me, not so much. I knew that smile. It was fake, just like the grass in an indoor gym or my parents ‘getting along’. It was so plainly fabricated, but some people are bound to believe it. “Ah, Mr. Lonsing and Ms. Rain. How lovely of you to join us. Please, have a seat.” My parents sat down on the plush red chairs across from her desk. “We’re here to discuss Ellis’s behavior as of late. Your daughter has-“ She was interrupted by a murmur, a sound that could barely be heard if we weren’t in a silent room. “That’s false.” My father muttered under his breath. My mother lightly tapped his shoulder, as if she was telling a kindergartener that he had no recess or telling a dog to sit and stay. My teacher cleared her throat and continued. “As I was saying, Ellis is an outstanding student. She has straight A’s, a perfect behavioral record, and she rarely has conflict with other students. However, she needs to interact more with her peers. She is very reserved, and I feel like talking to others would help her mental health and social life improve.” My mother looked angry. “This is your fault, Jay.” My father looked shocked. “How is it my fault, Summer? I am not the one who has been keeping her from hanging out with her friends. As I recall, it was you.” “Actually, I’ve never had any friends to hang out with,” I say, my voice as sharp as a knife. My father’s head swiftly turns from my direction to my mother’s. “And who’s fault is that, Summer?” The voices of my parents arguing didn’t leave my head even after I was out of the classroom. I didn’t have any intention on returning. It took minutes before they realized that I was gone, and it took an hour for the fight to make the headlines.	part 2/2 ........ Henry felt his nerves flutter in his chest as he stood at the office door, knowing he was about to meet the disappointment and ire of his parents. He hoped that he could explain, he hoped that they would understand. Taking a gulp of air, he latched onto his last bit of courage and pushed open the door. Immediately, he felt a spike of guilt as he saw his mother's puffy red eyes, and the sad look of resignation on his father's face. He knew they were scrutinizing every aspect of him now, and he knew what their appraisal would find. Henry could not have acted more Average American Teenager if he tried; right down to his scattering of acne, fashion choices, hairstyle, preferred activities, and music taste, Henry blended seamlessly into the crowd. Trying to shake off the weight of their stares, Henry's gaze slid to meet the Sympathetic Principal's. She nodded encouragingly, gesturing to a chair that faced his parents. Once he sat down, she asked, "Henry, would you like to begin?" He knew he had to dive right into it, or he would lose his nerve. "I wanted to be an Extra," he said, and his mother made a sound in the back of her throat like a strangled cat. His father looked like he might kill someone- possibly him. Gulping, Henry continued quickly, "I never wanted to be like you. I never wanted my whole life to be a cliche, to live defined by some stupid character, like you two! You're Stars so at least you have some dimension, but you could have been something real, you could have loved each other. But didn't because he's a Villain, and you're a Hero." Henry stared at his hands, his whole body vibrating beneath the force of his emotion. He looked at their faces, stunned into mute shock, and felt his anger build until his words exploded out of him. "I don't understand! Why do we have to live like this? Everything is so black-and-white. And why do we have to be a character? Doesn't that seem strange to you, that everyone has some fucked up role to play? Actually, I don't want to be an extra. I don't want to be some dumb, spineless Supporting Character like the sidekick, or the gay best friend either! And I definitely don't want to be some waste of space Minor Character like you, who doesn't exist past the flimsy one-dimensional role they're expected to play!" He launched this last of his tirade at the Sympathetic Principal, who looked at him with soft eyes full of compassion as if to further his point. Henry felt his anger cool and solidify into something more raw and painful, as if he could feel the exposed, throbbing surface of his own heart. He raised his head and met his parent's eyes, hot tears blurring his vision and leaving damp tracks down his cheeks. His last words were so soft, that they could barely be heard in the silence of the room. "I want to be free. I want to be a real person." ...... In the dark cold of the simulation theater, Martha nudged the shoulder of her Tinder date and nodded towards the screen. "That's interesting," she said. "That one became self-aware. Crazy, huh?" "Mmmhmm," he said, glancing at his watch. She rolled her eyes; it wasn't going to work between them. Still, she might as well enjoy this AI Simulation Broadcast; she paid after all. She fixed her gaze on the screen, and munched contentedly on her popcorn.
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	The reason Babs Bernstein had pursued a career in preschool education was, mainly, because it had seemed so very simple at the time. Where her friends had dreamed of careers with the military, or in stem cell research, Babs had been fully content to work semi-comfortable hours and pay the bills until that Perfect Husband she was still waiting for finally came into her life. Not everybody needed to be ambitious or a career-driven woman, and Babs just didn't feel very fulfilled by work achievements, it was as simple as that. So she'd gotten her degree, a cushy job at a kindergarten in a slightly-posh neighbourhood, and was holding out for the perfect single dad to breeze into her life with a child in his arms. Babs loved children, which had only simplified the day-to-day of her chosen non-career further, because children loved her right back. It was as rewarding as work was ever going to be for her, and so very, very simple. Or so she'd thought. &#x200B; "Em." Babs wrung her hands, glancing forth and back between the two adults before her. She'd meant to invite little Nightingale's fathers to a parent-teacher conference for a while; since, in fact, the sweet girl had first presented "dada's alien membranes collection" on show-and-tell Tuesday. She'd half-expected conspiracy nutters, or something of the like. Her expectations fell very, very short of the real deal. "So glad to see you, Mr. and Mr.... erm... Nightingale's parents, I'm sorry, we don't seem to have your names on file..." She glanced questioningly at the one on the left, who wore an honest-to-god cloak, complete with wide collar framing his face, and made from black velvet like the rest of his outfit. (It was a sunny early-autumn day outside, Babs was sweating just looking at him.) He stopped twirling the tip of his moustache, and smiled darkly at her. "You, miserable worm, may address me as Supreme Master of the Universe. Now grovel!" Babs blinked. "Simply call him SMotU." The other man rolled his eyes. "It's shorter." "How DARE you-" Mr... well, Mr. Smotu it was, burst out, but was conveniently leaned over so Babs could get her hand shaken by Night's other parent. Babs would consider him the lesser evil, if he weren't wearing strange goggles around his neck and a weirdly futuristic coat in rainbow colours and with gold brocade. At least his smile was comfortably dashing, and Babs heaved a silent sigh that the eccentric-but-still-almost-good ones were either gay or married or both. "Good earth rotation cycle, Ms. Bernstein. Dr. Mysterium of Infinite Reality, but please name me Moir." His hand was oddly sticky, and when Babs pulled hers away, she could see the imprint of a tentacle sucker on her palm. "Erm." She said, because screaming was the alternative, and if Babs was going to die today, she would go out with some shreds of dignity still attached to her name, goddamnit. "Get on with it, wretch!" Mr. Smotu sneered. "We have not traversed the many square lightyears of the galaxies we do battle in to sit idly! Do you wish for me to crush your planet under my heel, as I have done with so many others!?" "My dear." Dr. Moir frowned lightly, that dashing smile now a hint disconcerting considering it barely moved with the rest of his face. "It's taken us so long to find a neutral solar system for Nightingale of Dusk and Dawn's schooling, please refrain from crushing it, will you? I am sorry," he turned to Babs, patting the back of her hand gently, leaving another red mark, "I may or may not have started a rebellion in one of his hub galaxy's spiral arms, he's understandably cross at the moment." "Bah!" Mr. Smotu spat, and he sent his... significant other...? a furious glare. By which Babs meant, opened a red eye on his forehead and sent a beam of crackling energy at him, which Dr. Moir deflected with an absentminded wave of his hand. Babs inspected the last dredges of coffee in her cup, and wondered which of her colleagues had drugged it. "You wanted to exchange words with us...?" Dr. Moir prompted, that smile still unchanged on his face. His teeth, while straight and pearly white, were at an unnatural ratio, Babs noted with the nonchalance of someone who's reached their pensum of weird for the day, and will now weather any storm with superhuman calm. "Yes. Well. Night is, er, a lovely girl. Well-liked among her peers, nearly adored." (At this, the two shared the typical besotted look parents got at the obligatory praising of their child, and Babs felt a little more at ease with the situation. At last, they were returning to familiar, uncomplicated territory.) "She excels in any pre-academic exercises, and is actively participating in activities..." (Now for the not-so-simple part. Brave heart, Babs.) "However, her writing exercises and projects are a little... peculiar." Babs slid the weekend essay titled 'How Papa And I Enslaved A Moon' over her desk, together with a photo of the papermaché eldritch horror Night had produced when asked to make her favourite pet. Three children had needed therapy after seeing that. "She made a Placid Axzcykian Goodfauntling!?" Mr. Smotu snatched up the photograph, clearly horrified. "THAT is her favourite? And after I showed her my collection of killer aliens, too!" "You took her ENSLAVING over the weekend!" Dr. Moir slammed the essay back down on the desk, and his smile still hadn't moved, even though his eyes sparked. Metaphorically with fury, and literally with actual sparks. "AGAIN! We TALKED about this!" "I always knew," Mr. Smotu hissed, red eyes breaking open all over his skin - at least the parts not covered by velvet, though Babs could see little glowing spots under the heavy material. "For all your saccharine promises, you were never going to let her grow up morally grey! No, you've been brainwashing our daughter into goodness ever since..." "You accuse me!?" Dr. Moir spluttered. "Then what do you call this, this... indoctrination?" He stabbed at the essay with one finger, the top page somehow sticking to the tip of the digit as he waved it in front of his partner's (?) face. "And you went to intergalactic court just because I wanted to take her along to hand out medicine after the spread of your artificial tentacle-rot virus! I always knew you were vile, but is fairness truly so foreign a concept to you, you dirty-" (Babs, meanwhile, had given squeaking out a placating word or two a valiant try, before ducking under her table and spontaneously finding religion.) "HAH! Simply that you insisted on enrolling her in a planet with a..." Mr. Smotu's sneer intensified. "...MORAL CODE of some sort shows how biased-" "I KNEW IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS! From the moment I sobered up from the Nitrogen Nectar, I KNEW..." "YOU were the one who suggested we go to a laboratory and merge our genes into offspring! I was inebriated and besott- OBSESSED with you, OF COURSE I-" "FOR NIGHT! WE WERE GOING TO GET ALONG FOR NIGHT, THAT WAS THE BEST I COULD HOPE FOR FROM YOU!" "NEVER DRINK AND DNA-SPLICE, DON'T THEY TEACH YOU THAT AT HERO SCHOOL?" "YOU PROMISED ME, IT WAS IN OUR JOINT-CUSTODY BONDING VOWS, WE GET. ALONG. FOR NIGHT!" "YOU DAMNED HYPOCRITE, BEFORE LONG I WILL MAKE YOU GROVEL BEFORE ME-" "GROVEL! IT'S ALWAYS GROVEL THIS AND GROVEL THAT WITH YOU! CAN'T WE EVER EXCHANGE NORMAL WORDS!? NIGHT WILL GROW UP MORALLY BIPOLAR IF WE'RE NOT CAREFUL!" "YOU WERE THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO LET HER GO TO THE THERAPIST I FOUND!" "BECAUSE YOUR 'THERAPIST' IS A CANNIBALISTIC HIVEMIND!" "Well... yes. BUT A HIVEMIND WITH VERY GOOD RECOMMENDATIONS!"	part 2/2 ........ Henry felt his nerves flutter in his chest as he stood at the office door, knowing he was about to meet the disappointment and ire of his parents. He hoped that he could explain, he hoped that they would understand. Taking a gulp of air, he latched onto his last bit of courage and pushed open the door. Immediately, he felt a spike of guilt as he saw his mother's puffy red eyes, and the sad look of resignation on his father's face. He knew they were scrutinizing every aspect of him now, and he knew what their appraisal would find. Henry could not have acted more Average American Teenager if he tried; right down to his scattering of acne, fashion choices, hairstyle, preferred activities, and music taste, Henry blended seamlessly into the crowd. Trying to shake off the weight of their stares, Henry's gaze slid to meet the Sympathetic Principal's. She nodded encouragingly, gesturing to a chair that faced his parents. Once he sat down, she asked, "Henry, would you like to begin?" He knew he had to dive right into it, or he would lose his nerve. "I wanted to be an Extra," he said, and his mother made a sound in the back of her throat like a strangled cat. His father looked like he might kill someone- possibly him. Gulping, Henry continued quickly, "I never wanted to be like you. I never wanted my whole life to be a cliche, to live defined by some stupid character, like you two! You're Stars so at least you have some dimension, but you could have been something real, you could have loved each other. But didn't because he's a Villain, and you're a Hero." Henry stared at his hands, his whole body vibrating beneath the force of his emotion. He looked at their faces, stunned into mute shock, and felt his anger build until his words exploded out of him. "I don't understand! Why do we have to live like this? Everything is so black-and-white. And why do we have to be a character? Doesn't that seem strange to you, that everyone has some fucked up role to play? Actually, I don't want to be an extra. I don't want to be some dumb, spineless Supporting Character like the sidekick, or the gay best friend either! And I definitely don't want to be some waste of space Minor Character like you, who doesn't exist past the flimsy one-dimensional role they're expected to play!" He launched this last of his tirade at the Sympathetic Principal, who looked at him with soft eyes full of compassion as if to further his point. Henry felt his anger cool and solidify into something more raw and painful, as if he could feel the exposed, throbbing surface of his own heart. He raised his head and met his parent's eyes, hot tears blurring his vision and leaving damp tracks down his cheeks. His last words were so soft, that they could barely be heard in the silence of the room. "I want to be free. I want to be a real person." ...... In the dark cold of the simulation theater, Martha nudged the shoulder of her Tinder date and nodded towards the screen. "That's interesting," she said. "That one became self-aware. Crazy, huh?" "Mmmhmm," he said, glancing at his watch. She rolled her eyes; it wasn't going to work between them. Still, she might as well enjoy this AI Simulation Broadcast; she paid after all. She fixed her gaze on the screen, and munched contentedly on her popcorn.
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	part 1/2 The parking lot of Generic American High School was still. A discarded wrapper blew across the asphalt, the scratched white sedans waited patiently in their rows for class to be let out, the sky the flat burnt blue like vintage film. And then, something like electricity crackling in the air: A white Tesla curved neatly through the lot, parking precisely in the middle of two thick painted lines. A woman stepped out, and the janitor sweeping the school entrance nearly stopped breathing. It was clear she was a Star; her breed of beauty and elegance was too elevated, too transcendental to be confined to a Secondary or Minor Character. She had platinum hair that fell in perfect, careless waves down her shoulder, wide blue eyes rimmed with thick lashes with the innocent softness that could steal any man's heart, and full cupid bow's lips painted red and parted slightly. But what kind of Star? A Hero, the janitor decided after careful consideration. She was surely beautiful enough to be a Temptress, but she was dressed all business in a crisp white pantsuit, towering nude stilettos, and tasteful gold jewelry. As soon as he had decided that, a scarlet sports car trimmed with black skidded through the lot, tires squealing. His work forgotten, the Janitor leaned on his broom and watched as the car carelessly fishtailed into a spot and, with an awful sound of crunching glass, crushed a sedan's side mirror into pieces. The Janitor already knew the driver was a Villain, but the man's appearance as he climbed out immediately confirmed it: tall like a rake, thick dark hair falling in pieces across his forehead, angular cheekbones like a cat and smoky green eyes that had only ever known wrong decisions. The Hero strode over to the Villain with a cross look on her beautiful face, seemingly berating him for the shattered mirror. The Janitor was interested now; he was only a Minor Character, after all, but he had never seen a Hero and a Villain come together before without dire Conflict plot lines. What connection could these two possibly have, that would bring them together in a high school parking lot? ........ "Still polluting the planet, I see," Betty said crisply, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder as she studied Alexander's sports car with distaste. "Still got a stick up your ass, I see," Alexander responded devilishly, but she screwed her button nose up and held up a hand in distaste. "You know my characterization doesn't include vulgarity, Alex, so don't be a child," she huffed. "We're here for Henry, so please, try to get yourself together." She began to walk off towards the building at a brisk pace, her heels clipping loudly into the pavement. Alex loped easily alongside her, digging out a cigarette from the pocket of his leather jacket and twirling it thoughtfully between his fingers. Betty rolled her eyes as she heard the familiar click of the lighter and swatted it from his hands, chiding, "This is a place for children. Don't you know what secondhand smoke can do to them?" "Yes, Mother," Alex conceded, smirking to himself at her grunt of irritation and narrowing eyes. She seemed determined to walk in silence through the school, so he was happy to oblige, wondering distantly what attraction he had ever seen in her. Whatever spark had flared between them during their night together had long since faded- no, more like been brutally stomped out. Their love for Henry aside, all that remained between them was ice. Betty paused outside of the door to the Sympathetic Principal's office, and Alex managed to thaw a little as he saw that her eyes were filled with the same concern for their son that he felt. "I know you're a Villain and I'm a Hero," she said slowly, "and we're not supposed to get along. But I know you're worried about him too, and Henry loves both of us, so for his sake....yes?" Alex hesitated and then nodded, knowing how difficult it must have been for her to force those words of unity, however bare, out. "Understood," he said simply. ..... "Hello, welcome in," the Sympathetic Principal gushed warmly as the pair swept through the door, her eyes shining with empathy. Betty returned her smile and greeting with equal friendliness, impressed that a Minor Character had embraced her role so completely. The character of Sympathetic Principal didn't have as much meat to it as Hero, or Villain, but this woman still worked well with what she had. As they seated themselves in the plush chairs, the Sympathetic Principal's expression became more sober and she folded her hands before her. Still, her eyes never lost their sparkle of commiseration, Betty noted- that was a neat trick. "I know you two have been concerned that despite his parentage, Henry hasn't been exactly exhibiting Star qualities. I called you in today to discuss a new development. Henry... Henry was in a fight today." Betty felt relief so overwhelming that a wave of prickly dizziness passed through her, and she was grateful to be sitting down. Closing her eyes, she said a silent thanks to whatever higher power had let Henry finally find his true potential as a Star, a center of action- not a Secondary Character or even Minor Character as she had so deeply feared. She saw a similar lightness mirrored in Alex's face, and because of her good mood she even bestowed a dazzling Hero smile upon him. "He ended it, or saved someone, of course? Just like his mother?" she teased. "No, he must have started it. A boy after his father's heart." Alex wore his customary smirk now; Betty could tell how pleased he must be. "I'm afraid that was not the case," the Sympathetic Principal said gravely. Betty jerked her attention back to her, and the pain in the woman's eyes made Betty feel as if she had been doused in ice water. "Oh, no," she whispered. "He was... a Minor Character?" "Worse," the Sympathetic Principal said slowly. She almost winced as she delivered her final news: "He was an Extra." "An Extra." The words dropped numbly from Alex's lips as if he was delivering a sentence for a crime. "Yes. He didn't do anything or say anything. He just watched. He could have been interchangeable with anyone else; a bystander." The Principal tried to soften the bluntness of her words by reaching out and patting Betty's hand, but Betty jerked her hand away. "I'm getting your Sympathy revoked," Alex snarled, disgust and hurt hardening his face. "When I'm through, you'll have hardly any character at all." Betty shook her head at him, even though she felt the same way and had planned to immediately do the same. But she knew appearing aggressive wouldn't get them anywhere; honey caught more flies than vinegar. "I don't understand," she said, faintly, instead. "How can he be our son- with our Storyline- and act as an Extra?" "I knew you would be confused, so that's why I brought him to explain himself." The Principal pressed down a button on her phone and intoned, a little dejectedly, "Please send Henry in now." They waited.	part 2/2 ........ Henry felt his nerves flutter in his chest as he stood at the office door, knowing he was about to meet the disappointment and ire of his parents. He hoped that he could explain, he hoped that they would understand. Taking a gulp of air, he latched onto his last bit of courage and pushed open the door. Immediately, he felt a spike of guilt as he saw his mother's puffy red eyes, and the sad look of resignation on his father's face. He knew they were scrutinizing every aspect of him now, and he knew what their appraisal would find. Henry could not have acted more Average American Teenager if he tried; right down to his scattering of acne, fashion choices, hairstyle, preferred activities, and music taste, Henry blended seamlessly into the crowd. Trying to shake off the weight of their stares, Henry's gaze slid to meet the Sympathetic Principal's. She nodded encouragingly, gesturing to a chair that faced his parents. Once he sat down, she asked, "Henry, would you like to begin?" He knew he had to dive right into it, or he would lose his nerve. "I wanted to be an Extra," he said, and his mother made a sound in the back of her throat like a strangled cat. His father looked like he might kill someone- possibly him. Gulping, Henry continued quickly, "I never wanted to be like you. I never wanted my whole life to be a cliche, to live defined by some stupid character, like you two! You're Stars so at least you have some dimension, but you could have been something real, you could have loved each other. But didn't because he's a Villain, and you're a Hero." Henry stared at his hands, his whole body vibrating beneath the force of his emotion. He looked at their faces, stunned into mute shock, and felt his anger build until his words exploded out of him. "I don't understand! Why do we have to live like this? Everything is so black-and-white. And why do we have to be a character? Doesn't that seem strange to you, that everyone has some fucked up role to play? Actually, I don't want to be an extra. I don't want to be some dumb, spineless Supporting Character like the sidekick, or the gay best friend either! And I definitely don't want to be some waste of space Minor Character like you, who doesn't exist past the flimsy one-dimensional role they're expected to play!" He launched this last of his tirade at the Sympathetic Principal, who looked at him with soft eyes full of compassion as if to further his point. Henry felt his anger cool and solidify into something more raw and painful, as if he could feel the exposed, throbbing surface of his own heart. He raised his head and met his parent's eyes, hot tears blurring his vision and leaving damp tracks down his cheeks. His last words were so soft, that they could barely be heard in the silence of the room. "I want to be free. I want to be a real person." ...... In the dark cold of the simulation theater, Martha nudged the shoulder of her Tinder date and nodded towards the screen. "That's interesting," she said. "That one became self-aware. Crazy, huh?" "Mmmhmm," he said, glancing at his watch. She rolled her eyes; it wasn't going to work between them. Still, she might as well enjoy this AI Simulation Broadcast; she paid after all. She fixed her gaze on the screen, and munched contentedly on her popcorn.
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	part 1/2 The parking lot of Generic American High School was still. A discarded wrapper blew across the asphalt, the scratched white sedans waited patiently in their rows for class to be let out, the sky the flat burnt blue like vintage film. And then, something like electricity crackling in the air: A white Tesla curved neatly through the lot, parking precisely in the middle of two thick painted lines. A woman stepped out, and the janitor sweeping the school entrance nearly stopped breathing. It was clear she was a Star; her breed of beauty and elegance was too elevated, too transcendental to be confined to a Secondary or Minor Character. She had platinum hair that fell in perfect, careless waves down her shoulder, wide blue eyes rimmed with thick lashes with the innocent softness that could steal any man's heart, and full cupid bow's lips painted red and parted slightly. But what kind of Star? A Hero, the janitor decided after careful consideration. She was surely beautiful enough to be a Temptress, but she was dressed all business in a crisp white pantsuit, towering nude stilettos, and tasteful gold jewelry. As soon as he had decided that, a scarlet sports car trimmed with black skidded through the lot, tires squealing. His work forgotten, the Janitor leaned on his broom and watched as the car carelessly fishtailed into a spot and, with an awful sound of crunching glass, crushed a sedan's side mirror into pieces. The Janitor already knew the driver was a Villain, but the man's appearance as he climbed out immediately confirmed it: tall like a rake, thick dark hair falling in pieces across his forehead, angular cheekbones like a cat and smoky green eyes that had only ever known wrong decisions. The Hero strode over to the Villain with a cross look on her beautiful face, seemingly berating him for the shattered mirror. The Janitor was interested now; he was only a Minor Character, after all, but he had never seen a Hero and a Villain come together before without dire Conflict plot lines. What connection could these two possibly have, that would bring them together in a high school parking lot? ........ "Still polluting the planet, I see," Betty said crisply, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder as she studied Alexander's sports car with distaste. "Still got a stick up your ass, I see," Alexander responded devilishly, but she screwed her button nose up and held up a hand in distaste. "You know my characterization doesn't include vulgarity, Alex, so don't be a child," she huffed. "We're here for Henry, so please, try to get yourself together." She began to walk off towards the building at a brisk pace, her heels clipping loudly into the pavement. Alex loped easily alongside her, digging out a cigarette from the pocket of his leather jacket and twirling it thoughtfully between his fingers. Betty rolled her eyes as she heard the familiar click of the lighter and swatted it from his hands, chiding, "This is a place for children. Don't you know what secondhand smoke can do to them?" "Yes, Mother," Alex conceded, smirking to himself at her grunt of irritation and narrowing eyes. She seemed determined to walk in silence through the school, so he was happy to oblige, wondering distantly what attraction he had ever seen in her. Whatever spark had flared between them during their night together had long since faded- no, more like been brutally stomped out. Their love for Henry aside, all that remained between them was ice. Betty paused outside of the door to the Sympathetic Principal's office, and Alex managed to thaw a little as he saw that her eyes were filled with the same concern for their son that he felt. "I know you're a Villain and I'm a Hero," she said slowly, "and we're not supposed to get along. But I know you're worried about him too, and Henry loves both of us, so for his sake....yes?" Alex hesitated and then nodded, knowing how difficult it must have been for her to force those words of unity, however bare, out. "Understood," he said simply. ..... "Hello, welcome in," the Sympathetic Principal gushed warmly as the pair swept through the door, her eyes shining with empathy. Betty returned her smile and greeting with equal friendliness, impressed that a Minor Character had embraced her role so completely. The character of Sympathetic Principal didn't have as much meat to it as Hero, or Villain, but this woman still worked well with what she had. As they seated themselves in the plush chairs, the Sympathetic Principal's expression became more sober and she folded her hands before her. Still, her eyes never lost their sparkle of commiseration, Betty noted- that was a neat trick. "I know you two have been concerned that despite his parentage, Henry hasn't been exactly exhibiting Star qualities. I called you in today to discuss a new development. Henry... Henry was in a fight today." Betty felt relief so overwhelming that a wave of prickly dizziness passed through her, and she was grateful to be sitting down. Closing her eyes, she said a silent thanks to whatever higher power had let Henry finally find his true potential as a Star, a center of action- not a Secondary Character or even Minor Character as she had so deeply feared. She saw a similar lightness mirrored in Alex's face, and because of her good mood she even bestowed a dazzling Hero smile upon him. "He ended it, or saved someone, of course? Just like his mother?" she teased. "No, he must have started it. A boy after his father's heart." Alex wore his customary smirk now; Betty could tell how pleased he must be. "I'm afraid that was not the case," the Sympathetic Principal said gravely. Betty jerked her attention back to her, and the pain in the woman's eyes made Betty feel as if she had been doused in ice water. "Oh, no," she whispered. "He was... a Minor Character?" "Worse," the Sympathetic Principal said slowly. She almost winced as she delivered her final news: "He was an Extra." "An Extra." The words dropped numbly from Alex's lips as if he was delivering a sentence for a crime. "Yes. He didn't do anything or say anything. He just watched. He could have been interchangeable with anyone else; a bystander." The Principal tried to soften the bluntness of her words by reaching out and patting Betty's hand, but Betty jerked her hand away. "I'm getting your Sympathy revoked," Alex snarled, disgust and hurt hardening his face. "When I'm through, you'll have hardly any character at all." Betty shook her head at him, even though she felt the same way and had planned to immediately do the same. But she knew appearing aggressive wouldn't get them anywhere; honey caught more flies than vinegar. "I don't understand," she said, faintly, instead. "How can he be our son- with our Storyline- and act as an Extra?" "I knew you would be confused, so that's why I brought him to explain himself." The Principal pressed down a button on her phone and intoned, a little dejectedly, "Please send Henry in now." They waited.	"I still can't believe you made the same mistake dad made!" Said a figure clad in black, with a huge smurk on his face. "You realize you're talking about yourself, right, Damian?" "No shit, Sherlock. Now go over there, we're covering you. At least a dozen of heroes -and even some pretty concerned villains- surrounded Gotham academy. The situation seemed pretty dire, something serious happened in the school. To make things worse, the kids' mom somehow got wind of it and boom-tubed right to the principal's door. "It isn't my fault!" Thought Grayson to himself And indeed it wasn't. He was told that Radion was to the New Gods what Kryptonite was to Kryptonians, what he didn't knew, however, is that, also like kryptonite, some types of Radion affect the emotions instead of the body. After that, there was not much he could do against the strongest villain the Justice League ever faced. The result was four hours praying for his pelvis not to shatter. Nine months later, two babies and a letter appeared at his apartment in Blüdhaven, something that he wasn't able to explain to Starfire. Now something was happening and he was probably the only one able to stop it. "GRAIL!!" Screamed Grayson Nothing. Instead of the crisis he expected there was only the principal speaking to the totally not alien woman in front of him. A pair of teenagers casually sat in the floor in front of her. "Grayson, why are you screaming" As the tension vanished, his desperate entrance looked awkward. He timidly sat in the chair beside the woman. "Well, as I was saying before being interrupted" -said the principal- "it seems your Children are metahumans. They lost control of their powers in class and ran to the old dungeons of the building, where they befriended a giant lizard that turned out to be a known criminal" "Killer Croc completed his sentence and is trying to rehabilitate himself with the help of other heroes!....I heard" Interjected Grayson "See, that's the problem with leaving the children with you, they are always near those crazy people you interact with" "Wait, What? It wasn't I that took them to a trip to frickin Apokolips!" Grayson's mind harkened back to when the children were three years old. He had just managed to restart his relationship with Starfire, only for the couple to enter in his apartment only to be received by Grail with a wink and a "Hello, Darling!". The scenes that followed were not pretty. Starfire still does not talk to him. On the bright part, Grail suddenly started to be more present in the family's lives, even if she kept waging wars against the New Gods, the Justice League and Green Lanterns from time to time. Wars she usually won. "He had to meet his family, and besides, the furies loved them" said Grail, hugging her daughter, one of the twins. "A-Aham!" Finally interrupted the principal "We still have to decide what to do with the kids" "We could always take them to their grandfather" Said Grail "We're not taking them to Darkside!" He screamed "Not my father, dumbass, yours. He raised four of you and only one became a maniacal assassin" She had a point. "W-Well, even if that's the case, we cannot bring them to Bruce. He went to Earth-2 to meet his father. It will probably spare both of some decades of therapy" "Huh, useless as ever" said Grail, poisonous "See? That's why I can't stand being near you" retorted Grayson "That isn't what you said when we "fought", or all the times I went to visit you, for that matter" she could be a villain, but she still was the daughter of an Amazon. Grayson couldn't do much to resist when she tried to be Charming. "You say that, but it's you that can't forget mHMMM" Dick Grayson's phrase was interrupted by a kiss from Grail. It was always like that during their fights "Both of you, please!!" Said the principal, slightly angry and totally confused. "Forget it, old man, when those two start it's hard to stop them" said the son, annoyed to see his parents flirting again "Let's go, Uncle Damian and Uncle Jason are probably waiting for us, anyway" said the daughter "Look, mom's starting to take-off" "Kids, your mom and I are going to stay away for the night, and while we're away I expect you to BehAAAAAV-" his sentence was cut short, as Grail flew away with him. The kids never knew were their parents went during those fights, but it's probably for the best. "Well, at least the principal was so confused with Mom and Dad making a scene that we could leave without a suspension" Said the son, Karl, to his sister, in front of a sea of relieved heroes "Wanna get some ice cream?" "Yeah, let's get out of here" said the daughter, Mary Things are always Sunny in Gotham, I tell ya
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	The worst time of year was approaching. Parent teacher conferences. My parents, complete opposites, couldn’t be in the same hemisphere without causing World War 3, let alone in the same room. My mom is, objectively, the greatest superhero the world had ever seen, and my dad the greatest villain. My mom’s superhero name is literally Gaia, if that helps. And she didn’t choose it herself. My parents had long ago ceased interactions with each other, going so far as to hand me off by doing dead drops. Like a CIA missive or something. It was super lame. My mom said she did it to prevent civilian casualties whereas my dad wanted to cut costs. Guess it gets expensive replacing your house every other week.Typical. I had to move schools often because of my parents, so this was my homeroom teacher Ms. Ryan’s first time meeting my family. I’d only been at this school for 3 weeks and had so far managed to keep my heritage a secret, but now I was going to be exposed again. Back to half the school worshipping the ground I walked on asking for introductions, and the other half cowering in fear when I walked by. All of this would of course be followed by some kind of international incident that required me to move. So much for friends. “So, we just wanted to talk about Sam’s aptitude tests and what that means for her future.” Ms. Ryan said sweetly, though I could tell she was a little starstruck by my mother. She was maintaining an impressive level of professionalism. Most of my other teachers had devolved into shrieks or blushing. Tall, striking, and just in every way perfect, my mother looked like a supermodel. She radiated kindness. It also helped that her face was plastered on half the billboards in the world, and she might have just come from meeting the president (on national TV, naturally.) Despite that, she had shown up on time. Something my father could never do. I had no doubt my father was late on purpose, just because he liked seeing people squirm. “Of course, how did the aptitude tests go?” My mother asked, and I knew she wasn’t feigning the interest. She wanted to see if my moral tests would come back with hero aptitude or not. And the all-too important question of what powers I had. I tried my best not to show it, but cringed to myself. I hadn’t seen the results yet. A result either way could quickly turn the school into dust. “Well, as you know, we require both parents to be present for results to be shown. Do you know when your husband will be arriving, Mrs. Gaia?” Ms. Ryan’s voice thinned when she addressed my mother and I couldn’t suppress my snort of laughter. Yep, she was starstruck. “He couldn’t make it today unfortunately. Stuck in Tokyo on business. I can pass on the results to him when he’s done, though. I promise I won’t tell your supervisor.” My mom winked at her and Ms. Ryan completely lost her composure. She definitely blushed. “Did you REALLY think locking me in a vault at the bottom of the Marianas trench was going to be enough to keep me from seeing the result of our Sammie’s aptitude test?” My father’s voice boomed and the door to my classroom quite literally flew off the hinges and slammed into the opposite wall, cracking the plaster and causing the windows to shatter. He was pissed. “Ohmygod it’s Nyx.” Ms. Ryan shrieked, her face instantly draining of color. “As if I’m going to let Sam follow in your footsteps!” my mother’s face flushed with what I’m sure was righteous anger. I got up and stood next to Ms. Ryan, if only because I didn’t want them to kill ANOTHER one of my teachers. The Marianas trench? That was new. Last time my father had frozen my mother into an iceberg at the top of Mount Everest and she was still 5 minutes early. “It’s not doing her any good to learn your self-sacrificing bullshit either! At least if she follows in my footsteps she’ll never want for anything!” My father retorted, and I think I could feel the room growing dimmer. Were those shadows at his fingertips? He must be really incensed. “At least nobody will be trying to kill her if she becomes righteous! She’ll be a hero, everyone will love her!” Gee mom, tell him how you really feel. As usual they don’t ask for my opinion. “Nobody will dare try to kill her if she becomes a villain either! Besides, even if she becomes a hero, if she has the wrong type of powers everyone will hate her anyways!” “As if she would inherit your darkness crap! She spent 9 months in my womb, remember? Early development sets the stage for the rest of life!” My mother was glowing. I think Ms. Ryan passed out for a second as the air became charged with a battle of wills. “There’s no proof of that! Plenty of children develop their father’s abilities.” My father’s voice was composed and cold, but I knew he secretly worried I would take after my mother. Neither of them had looked at me since entering the room. “Well, what’s the result of the aptitude test?” Both of my parents glared at my teacher simultaneously. For being complete opposites, sometimes they were very synchronized. Ms. Ryan was trembling and sweating profusely. “Well, actually…” her voice was weak but she seemed to gain confidence to go on. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Sam’s results are completely down the middle. I’ve never had a student score exactly 50% in every category before.” I almost fainted with relief, even as my parents lunged at each other and the building split in two at their impact.	"I still can't believe you made the same mistake dad made!" Said a figure clad in black, with a huge smurk on his face. "You realize you're talking about yourself, right, Damian?" "No shit, Sherlock. Now go over there, we're covering you. At least a dozen of heroes -and even some pretty concerned villains- surrounded Gotham academy. The situation seemed pretty dire, something serious happened in the school. To make things worse, the kids' mom somehow got wind of it and boom-tubed right to the principal's door. "It isn't my fault!" Thought Grayson to himself And indeed it wasn't. He was told that Radion was to the New Gods what Kryptonite was to Kryptonians, what he didn't knew, however, is that, also like kryptonite, some types of Radion affect the emotions instead of the body. After that, there was not much he could do against the strongest villain the Justice League ever faced. The result was four hours praying for his pelvis not to shatter. Nine months later, two babies and a letter appeared at his apartment in Blüdhaven, something that he wasn't able to explain to Starfire. Now something was happening and he was probably the only one able to stop it. "GRAIL!!" Screamed Grayson Nothing. Instead of the crisis he expected there was only the principal speaking to the totally not alien woman in front of him. A pair of teenagers casually sat in the floor in front of her. "Grayson, why are you screaming" As the tension vanished, his desperate entrance looked awkward. He timidly sat in the chair beside the woman. "Well, as I was saying before being interrupted" -said the principal- "it seems your Children are metahumans. They lost control of their powers in class and ran to the old dungeons of the building, where they befriended a giant lizard that turned out to be a known criminal" "Killer Croc completed his sentence and is trying to rehabilitate himself with the help of other heroes!....I heard" Interjected Grayson "See, that's the problem with leaving the children with you, they are always near those crazy people you interact with" "Wait, What? It wasn't I that took them to a trip to frickin Apokolips!" Grayson's mind harkened back to when the children were three years old. He had just managed to restart his relationship with Starfire, only for the couple to enter in his apartment only to be received by Grail with a wink and a "Hello, Darling!". The scenes that followed were not pretty. Starfire still does not talk to him. On the bright part, Grail suddenly started to be more present in the family's lives, even if she kept waging wars against the New Gods, the Justice League and Green Lanterns from time to time. Wars she usually won. "He had to meet his family, and besides, the furies loved them" said Grail, hugging her daughter, one of the twins. "A-Aham!" Finally interrupted the principal "We still have to decide what to do with the kids" "We could always take them to their grandfather" Said Grail "We're not taking them to Darkside!" He screamed "Not my father, dumbass, yours. He raised four of you and only one became a maniacal assassin" She had a point. "W-Well, even if that's the case, we cannot bring them to Bruce. He went to Earth-2 to meet his father. It will probably spare both of some decades of therapy" "Huh, useless as ever" said Grail, poisonous "See? That's why I can't stand being near you" retorted Grayson "That isn't what you said when we "fought", or all the times I went to visit you, for that matter" she could be a villain, but she still was the daughter of an Amazon. Grayson couldn't do much to resist when she tried to be Charming. "You say that, but it's you that can't forget mHMMM" Dick Grayson's phrase was interrupted by a kiss from Grail. It was always like that during their fights "Both of you, please!!" Said the principal, slightly angry and totally confused. "Forget it, old man, when those two start it's hard to stop them" said the son, annoyed to see his parents flirting again "Let's go, Uncle Damian and Uncle Jason are probably waiting for us, anyway" said the daughter "Look, mom's starting to take-off" "Kids, your mom and I are going to stay away for the night, and while we're away I expect you to BehAAAAAV-" his sentence was cut short, as Grail flew away with him. The kids never knew were their parents went during those fights, but it's probably for the best. "Well, at least the principal was so confused with Mom and Dad making a scene that we could leave without a suspension" Said the son, Karl, to his sister, in front of a sea of relieved heroes "Wanna get some ice cream?" "Yeah, let's get out of here" said the daughter, Mary Things are always Sunny in Gotham, I tell ya
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	part 1/2 The parking lot of Generic American High School was still. A discarded wrapper blew across the asphalt, the scratched white sedans waited patiently in their rows for class to be let out, the sky the flat burnt blue like vintage film. And then, something like electricity crackling in the air: A white Tesla curved neatly through the lot, parking precisely in the middle of two thick painted lines. A woman stepped out, and the janitor sweeping the school entrance nearly stopped breathing. It was clear she was a Star; her breed of beauty and elegance was too elevated, too transcendental to be confined to a Secondary or Minor Character. She had platinum hair that fell in perfect, careless waves down her shoulder, wide blue eyes rimmed with thick lashes with the innocent softness that could steal any man's heart, and full cupid bow's lips painted red and parted slightly. But what kind of Star? A Hero, the janitor decided after careful consideration. She was surely beautiful enough to be a Temptress, but she was dressed all business in a crisp white pantsuit, towering nude stilettos, and tasteful gold jewelry. As soon as he had decided that, a scarlet sports car trimmed with black skidded through the lot, tires squealing. His work forgotten, the Janitor leaned on his broom and watched as the car carelessly fishtailed into a spot and, with an awful sound of crunching glass, crushed a sedan's side mirror into pieces. The Janitor already knew the driver was a Villain, but the man's appearance as he climbed out immediately confirmed it: tall like a rake, thick dark hair falling in pieces across his forehead, angular cheekbones like a cat and smoky green eyes that had only ever known wrong decisions. The Hero strode over to the Villain with a cross look on her beautiful face, seemingly berating him for the shattered mirror. The Janitor was interested now; he was only a Minor Character, after all, but he had never seen a Hero and a Villain come together before without dire Conflict plot lines. What connection could these two possibly have, that would bring them together in a high school parking lot? ........ "Still polluting the planet, I see," Betty said crisply, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder as she studied Alexander's sports car with distaste. "Still got a stick up your ass, I see," Alexander responded devilishly, but she screwed her button nose up and held up a hand in distaste. "You know my characterization doesn't include vulgarity, Alex, so don't be a child," she huffed. "We're here for Henry, so please, try to get yourself together." She began to walk off towards the building at a brisk pace, her heels clipping loudly into the pavement. Alex loped easily alongside her, digging out a cigarette from the pocket of his leather jacket and twirling it thoughtfully between his fingers. Betty rolled her eyes as she heard the familiar click of the lighter and swatted it from his hands, chiding, "This is a place for children. Don't you know what secondhand smoke can do to them?" "Yes, Mother," Alex conceded, smirking to himself at her grunt of irritation and narrowing eyes. She seemed determined to walk in silence through the school, so he was happy to oblige, wondering distantly what attraction he had ever seen in her. Whatever spark had flared between them during their night together had long since faded- no, more like been brutally stomped out. Their love for Henry aside, all that remained between them was ice. Betty paused outside of the door to the Sympathetic Principal's office, and Alex managed to thaw a little as he saw that her eyes were filled with the same concern for their son that he felt. "I know you're a Villain and I'm a Hero," she said slowly, "and we're not supposed to get along. But I know you're worried about him too, and Henry loves both of us, so for his sake....yes?" Alex hesitated and then nodded, knowing how difficult it must have been for her to force those words of unity, however bare, out. "Understood," he said simply. ..... "Hello, welcome in," the Sympathetic Principal gushed warmly as the pair swept through the door, her eyes shining with empathy. Betty returned her smile and greeting with equal friendliness, impressed that a Minor Character had embraced her role so completely. The character of Sympathetic Principal didn't have as much meat to it as Hero, or Villain, but this woman still worked well with what she had. As they seated themselves in the plush chairs, the Sympathetic Principal's expression became more sober and she folded her hands before her. Still, her eyes never lost their sparkle of commiseration, Betty noted- that was a neat trick. "I know you two have been concerned that despite his parentage, Henry hasn't been exactly exhibiting Star qualities. I called you in today to discuss a new development. Henry... Henry was in a fight today." Betty felt relief so overwhelming that a wave of prickly dizziness passed through her, and she was grateful to be sitting down. Closing her eyes, she said a silent thanks to whatever higher power had let Henry finally find his true potential as a Star, a center of action- not a Secondary Character or even Minor Character as she had so deeply feared. She saw a similar lightness mirrored in Alex's face, and because of her good mood she even bestowed a dazzling Hero smile upon him. "He ended it, or saved someone, of course? Just like his mother?" she teased. "No, he must have started it. A boy after his father's heart." Alex wore his customary smirk now; Betty could tell how pleased he must be. "I'm afraid that was not the case," the Sympathetic Principal said gravely. Betty jerked her attention back to her, and the pain in the woman's eyes made Betty feel as if she had been doused in ice water. "Oh, no," she whispered. "He was... a Minor Character?" "Worse," the Sympathetic Principal said slowly. She almost winced as she delivered her final news: "He was an Extra." "An Extra." The words dropped numbly from Alex's lips as if he was delivering a sentence for a crime. "Yes. He didn't do anything or say anything. He just watched. He could have been interchangeable with anyone else; a bystander." The Principal tried to soften the bluntness of her words by reaching out and patting Betty's hand, but Betty jerked her hand away. "I'm getting your Sympathy revoked," Alex snarled, disgust and hurt hardening his face. "When I'm through, you'll have hardly any character at all." Betty shook her head at him, even though she felt the same way and had planned to immediately do the same. But she knew appearing aggressive wouldn't get them anywhere; honey caught more flies than vinegar. "I don't understand," she said, faintly, instead. "How can he be our son- with our Storyline- and act as an Extra?" "I knew you would be confused, so that's why I brought him to explain himself." The Principal pressed down a button on her phone and intoned, a little dejectedly, "Please send Henry in now." They waited.	The bespectacled Ms. Shepherd closed the door of the auditorium and walked nervously to her desk. Her eyes twitched towards the two people seated across her table. Dave Ivanov and Valerie Jones. She sighed quietly to herself. She somehow knew this was going to be a tough one. The school had recently buckled, and given into the Human-Metahuman Athletic Separation Act, which basically forbid every enhanced individual entry into the school's sports programs, due to the nature of their... differences. Ivanov's and and Jones' seventeen year old son Matthew, was enhanced himself, having a nano-metal prosthetic left leg, and had recently been kicked out of the school's soccer team. She now had the absolute delight of telling that to his parents. Now, she had no way of confirming this, but she was pretty sure she knew who they actually were. Really, the hints were pretty easy to pick up on, and she was pretty nerdy when it came to the whole cape scene. Mr Ivanov was a tall, grey-haired biker dude wearing a dark-grey leather jacket with a spookily clean white fur filling. Had the light hit it from another direction, it probably would've blinded her , she surmissed. Now, if that wasn't indicative enough as to which pair of tights he put on at night, there was the fact that he wore an eye-patch, and there was only one mask in town that wore a mask with only partial coverage. The White Bear, the Slavenian sensation. Known for his lavish lifestyle as well as the armor that gave him command over electricity, and if that wasn't enough, he possessed an axe that was said to be the weapon of Perun himself, which was silly since it was used to freeze stuff, and everyone knows that Perun was the god of thu-- Fuck Meredith, stop geeking the fuck out, this is not going to be entertaining! She arrived at the table and smiled forcefully at the two people standing in front of her. “Mr. Ivanov, Ms. Jones, please, take a seat.” She said, taking a seat herself. Did she just see his one eye roll? “Thank you both for coming. I'm sure you're both very busy so I appreciate the fact that you found the time at all.” BITCH DID YOU JUST SERIOUSLY GIVE THEM AN IMPLICATION? She swore she saw Ms. Jones' eyes twitch slightly, but it happened pretty fast so she could've been wrong. At five-foot-nine, Valerie Jones wasn't exactly on the short side herself, but the way she carried herself made her only seem taller. Her presence seemed to have a weight of her own, she was simply captivating to look at. It was as if she stepped out of a librarian porn. Down to the last clichě . Sleeked back raven hair in a bun? Check. Glasses? Check. Form-fitting black business suit? Chickity-check. Uh, explore your sexuality sometime else, maybe? This might be goddamn C-1412, y'know? C-1412, or Cyberkid as she was known back in the day was a legendary cape turned mask that's been on the scene since she was a kid. Started off as sidekick of the Synth hero X-114N then made a move to the military after his murder. Was it really murder though? I mean he was an army robot afterall. She had a brief stint in the army, before she was officially declared dead by the government after her plane was downed on a peacekeeping mission to Slavenia. Weirdly enough, about a year later, C-1412 hit the scene as an assassin for hire with synthetic metal limbs that could transform into basically anything. Od course, the two things could also be complete coincidences. She wondered how these two had met. Man, they must have had some fun in the sack. Y'know, if you actually went out and did anything other than hang out on those forums, you might actually meet someone. Now get your shit together, let's focus on surviving this. “So, let's rip that band-aid right off, shall we? Mathew was recently removed from soccer practice, and I must regretfully inform you that he will not be allowed to return.” Brace yourself... She observed their facial expressions change from shock to anger to slightly more composed anger in two seconds. It was Dave who broke the silence. “And why is that?” His voice was unsurprisingly deep, and his English slightly accented. He fixed his hazel eye on her, studying her. Meredith was ready, she had practiced this last night. “I'm sure you've heard of the Athletic Separation Act? While they haven't passed it yet, the school has recently received a rather large donation from someone involved with the campaign, which sort of forces our hand--” “Bullshit, nobody is forcing you to do anything. You could've refused the money.” He said coldly, rubbing at his temples. “Well, I do sort of get it, y'know...” Meredith's eyes widened, did Ms. Jones just take her side? Holy shit yes yes yes! “I mean... he does have a Synth leg, don't you think that gives him an unfair advantage?” Valerie spoke softly and shrugged at the increasingly tense Dave. “Yeah right, hypocrite...” He murmurred to himself then leaned forward. “There are kids with abilities that are allowed to play, why does he not get to?” He asked, his tone slightly raised. Meredith was just about to tell him that no, there are no kids with abilities that are allowed to play and that this was the seventh time she had to have this discussion today but she got interrupted. “First of all, that's not what she's saying, he's not the only one that got kicked out of the teams, there are no meta's allowed, they probably made it a policy. Second of all, did you just call me a hypocrite?” Valerie asked increduously, one eye-brow raised, her arms crossed. YES, THANK YOU, YOU METAL GODDESS! Dave squirmed in his seat. He scratched his white beard, and coughed, obviously embarrassed. “Well...okay, I guess I get it, but is there nothing you can do? Maybe form a club for meta's? My son is a great kid, he loves to play.” He said, giving the teacher a sincere smile. I might actually go blind, how are even his teeth so goddamn white? “Uh- Um- I'm- Uh, sorry, b-but we won't be able to get a-anything running until the end of the year. But, uh, that's not the um, only reason I called for you.” Okay, here it comes, let's hope the ninja librarian is on our side. &#x200B; &#x200B; Continued in next comment &#x200B;
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	part 1/2 The parking lot of Generic American High School was still. A discarded wrapper blew across the asphalt, the scratched white sedans waited patiently in their rows for class to be let out, the sky the flat burnt blue like vintage film. And then, something like electricity crackling in the air: A white Tesla curved neatly through the lot, parking precisely in the middle of two thick painted lines. A woman stepped out, and the janitor sweeping the school entrance nearly stopped breathing. It was clear she was a Star; her breed of beauty and elegance was too elevated, too transcendental to be confined to a Secondary or Minor Character. She had platinum hair that fell in perfect, careless waves down her shoulder, wide blue eyes rimmed with thick lashes with the innocent softness that could steal any man's heart, and full cupid bow's lips painted red and parted slightly. But what kind of Star? A Hero, the janitor decided after careful consideration. She was surely beautiful enough to be a Temptress, but she was dressed all business in a crisp white pantsuit, towering nude stilettos, and tasteful gold jewelry. As soon as he had decided that, a scarlet sports car trimmed with black skidded through the lot, tires squealing. His work forgotten, the Janitor leaned on his broom and watched as the car carelessly fishtailed into a spot and, with an awful sound of crunching glass, crushed a sedan's side mirror into pieces. The Janitor already knew the driver was a Villain, but the man's appearance as he climbed out immediately confirmed it: tall like a rake, thick dark hair falling in pieces across his forehead, angular cheekbones like a cat and smoky green eyes that had only ever known wrong decisions. The Hero strode over to the Villain with a cross look on her beautiful face, seemingly berating him for the shattered mirror. The Janitor was interested now; he was only a Minor Character, after all, but he had never seen a Hero and a Villain come together before without dire Conflict plot lines. What connection could these two possibly have, that would bring them together in a high school parking lot? ........ "Still polluting the planet, I see," Betty said crisply, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder as she studied Alexander's sports car with distaste. "Still got a stick up your ass, I see," Alexander responded devilishly, but she screwed her button nose up and held up a hand in distaste. "You know my characterization doesn't include vulgarity, Alex, so don't be a child," she huffed. "We're here for Henry, so please, try to get yourself together." She began to walk off towards the building at a brisk pace, her heels clipping loudly into the pavement. Alex loped easily alongside her, digging out a cigarette from the pocket of his leather jacket and twirling it thoughtfully between his fingers. Betty rolled her eyes as she heard the familiar click of the lighter and swatted it from his hands, chiding, "This is a place for children. Don't you know what secondhand smoke can do to them?" "Yes, Mother," Alex conceded, smirking to himself at her grunt of irritation and narrowing eyes. She seemed determined to walk in silence through the school, so he was happy to oblige, wondering distantly what attraction he had ever seen in her. Whatever spark had flared between them during their night together had long since faded- no, more like been brutally stomped out. Their love for Henry aside, all that remained between them was ice. Betty paused outside of the door to the Sympathetic Principal's office, and Alex managed to thaw a little as he saw that her eyes were filled with the same concern for their son that he felt. "I know you're a Villain and I'm a Hero," she said slowly, "and we're not supposed to get along. But I know you're worried about him too, and Henry loves both of us, so for his sake....yes?" Alex hesitated and then nodded, knowing how difficult it must have been for her to force those words of unity, however bare, out. "Understood," he said simply. ..... "Hello, welcome in," the Sympathetic Principal gushed warmly as the pair swept through the door, her eyes shining with empathy. Betty returned her smile and greeting with equal friendliness, impressed that a Minor Character had embraced her role so completely. The character of Sympathetic Principal didn't have as much meat to it as Hero, or Villain, but this woman still worked well with what she had. As they seated themselves in the plush chairs, the Sympathetic Principal's expression became more sober and she folded her hands before her. Still, her eyes never lost their sparkle of commiseration, Betty noted- that was a neat trick. "I know you two have been concerned that despite his parentage, Henry hasn't been exactly exhibiting Star qualities. I called you in today to discuss a new development. Henry... Henry was in a fight today." Betty felt relief so overwhelming that a wave of prickly dizziness passed through her, and she was grateful to be sitting down. Closing her eyes, she said a silent thanks to whatever higher power had let Henry finally find his true potential as a Star, a center of action- not a Secondary Character or even Minor Character as she had so deeply feared. She saw a similar lightness mirrored in Alex's face, and because of her good mood she even bestowed a dazzling Hero smile upon him. "He ended it, or saved someone, of course? Just like his mother?" she teased. "No, he must have started it. A boy after his father's heart." Alex wore his customary smirk now; Betty could tell how pleased he must be. "I'm afraid that was not the case," the Sympathetic Principal said gravely. Betty jerked her attention back to her, and the pain in the woman's eyes made Betty feel as if she had been doused in ice water. "Oh, no," she whispered. "He was... a Minor Character?" "Worse," the Sympathetic Principal said slowly. She almost winced as she delivered her final news: "He was an Extra." "An Extra." The words dropped numbly from Alex's lips as if he was delivering a sentence for a crime. "Yes. He didn't do anything or say anything. He just watched. He could have been interchangeable with anyone else; a bystander." The Principal tried to soften the bluntness of her words by reaching out and patting Betty's hand, but Betty jerked her hand away. "I'm getting your Sympathy revoked," Alex snarled, disgust and hurt hardening his face. "When I'm through, you'll have hardly any character at all." Betty shook her head at him, even though she felt the same way and had planned to immediately do the same. But she knew appearing aggressive wouldn't get them anywhere; honey caught more flies than vinegar. "I don't understand," she said, faintly, instead. "How can he be our son- with our Storyline- and act as an Extra?" "I knew you would be confused, so that's why I brought him to explain himself." The Principal pressed down a button on her phone and intoned, a little dejectedly, "Please send Henry in now." They waited.	I just found out my Mom and Dad are heroes\ villains AMA!!! I was a normal kid, went to a normal school got into normal trouble (more on that later) and even have a normal part time job at a well known big box store, you likely know the one (hint:blue and yellow). My mom is a pretty important woman, one of the leaders of a large multinational organization. My Dad was always kind of a deadbeat, bad with money and keeping a job. I'm not complaining, they are both pretty awesome to me, and I like to think they raised a good kid even though they aren't together anymore. I turned 16 last month, the party was pretty awesome! A lot of my friends showed up, and a lot of my moms friends which was weird. But they gave me awesome presents! One of her friends is this genius physicist, he gave me what I could only describe as a laser sword. Not a light saber, those are impossible (I asked). But a true samurai sword that has a laser edge. Mom didn't like that too much and Dad even less so. But my dad did drop in for a bit, he gave me a nice card and a pretty awesome geode, it looks like the galaxy being born in rock and crystal... I am kinda a nerd and this kinda stuff is fascinating to me... he said he got it from work. I figured it must have put him back a few hundred bucks though. Anyways, today was parent teacher meeting. Usually only my mom goes to these. They are routine at this point, 10th grade, but this time my dad came too. They never really got a long in the first place, but for some reason when my teacher Ms. Styles told them that I had gotten in the middle of a fight and had stopped a kid from bullying someone else my mom went off the deep end! She started saying this is my dads fault and that he is a terrible influence on me... it went on for a bit like that. My dad kept his cool... for a while... Then it happened. My mom stormed out, I could have sworn I saw her eyes turn yellow. My dad followed. Ms. Styles and I were shocked! I apologized and grabbed my bag and rushed after them. I ran into the hallway but they were already gone! Jeez they are fast when they are pissed at each other. I ran out to the parking lot and then I saw... The Hornet was fighting my dad! My dads collared shirt was shredded and on his chest I saw the Cosmos shield! So here I am. Sitting in the back of a police car while my dad talks to the cops and my mom is in a pair of gravity boots and meta-cuffs. I got nothing better to do so... Reddit, ask me anything about be the son of a Super hero dad and a Super villain mom!
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	The worst time of year was approaching. Parent teacher conferences. My parents, complete opposites, couldn’t be in the same hemisphere without causing World War 3, let alone in the same room. My mom is, objectively, the greatest superhero the world had ever seen, and my dad the greatest villain. My mom’s superhero name is literally Gaia, if that helps. And she didn’t choose it herself. My parents had long ago ceased interactions with each other, going so far as to hand me off by doing dead drops. Like a CIA missive or something. It was super lame. My mom said she did it to prevent civilian casualties whereas my dad wanted to cut costs. Guess it gets expensive replacing your house every other week.Typical. I had to move schools often because of my parents, so this was my homeroom teacher Ms. Ryan’s first time meeting my family. I’d only been at this school for 3 weeks and had so far managed to keep my heritage a secret, but now I was going to be exposed again. Back to half the school worshipping the ground I walked on asking for introductions, and the other half cowering in fear when I walked by. All of this would of course be followed by some kind of international incident that required me to move. So much for friends. “So, we just wanted to talk about Sam’s aptitude tests and what that means for her future.” Ms. Ryan said sweetly, though I could tell she was a little starstruck by my mother. She was maintaining an impressive level of professionalism. Most of my other teachers had devolved into shrieks or blushing. Tall, striking, and just in every way perfect, my mother looked like a supermodel. She radiated kindness. It also helped that her face was plastered on half the billboards in the world, and she might have just come from meeting the president (on national TV, naturally.) Despite that, she had shown up on time. Something my father could never do. I had no doubt my father was late on purpose, just because he liked seeing people squirm. “Of course, how did the aptitude tests go?” My mother asked, and I knew she wasn’t feigning the interest. She wanted to see if my moral tests would come back with hero aptitude or not. And the all-too important question of what powers I had. I tried my best not to show it, but cringed to myself. I hadn’t seen the results yet. A result either way could quickly turn the school into dust. “Well, as you know, we require both parents to be present for results to be shown. Do you know when your husband will be arriving, Mrs. Gaia?” Ms. Ryan’s voice thinned when she addressed my mother and I couldn’t suppress my snort of laughter. Yep, she was starstruck. “He couldn’t make it today unfortunately. Stuck in Tokyo on business. I can pass on the results to him when he’s done, though. I promise I won’t tell your supervisor.” My mom winked at her and Ms. Ryan completely lost her composure. She definitely blushed. “Did you REALLY think locking me in a vault at the bottom of the Marianas trench was going to be enough to keep me from seeing the result of our Sammie’s aptitude test?” My father’s voice boomed and the door to my classroom quite literally flew off the hinges and slammed into the opposite wall, cracking the plaster and causing the windows to shatter. He was pissed. “Ohmygod it’s Nyx.” Ms. Ryan shrieked, her face instantly draining of color. “As if I’m going to let Sam follow in your footsteps!” my mother’s face flushed with what I’m sure was righteous anger. I got up and stood next to Ms. Ryan, if only because I didn’t want them to kill ANOTHER one of my teachers. The Marianas trench? That was new. Last time my father had frozen my mother into an iceberg at the top of Mount Everest and she was still 5 minutes early. “It’s not doing her any good to learn your self-sacrificing bullshit either! At least if she follows in my footsteps she’ll never want for anything!” My father retorted, and I think I could feel the room growing dimmer. Were those shadows at his fingertips? He must be really incensed. “At least nobody will be trying to kill her if she becomes righteous! She’ll be a hero, everyone will love her!” Gee mom, tell him how you really feel. As usual they don’t ask for my opinion. “Nobody will dare try to kill her if she becomes a villain either! Besides, even if she becomes a hero, if she has the wrong type of powers everyone will hate her anyways!” “As if she would inherit your darkness crap! She spent 9 months in my womb, remember? Early development sets the stage for the rest of life!” My mother was glowing. I think Ms. Ryan passed out for a second as the air became charged with a battle of wills. “There’s no proof of that! Plenty of children develop their father’s abilities.” My father’s voice was composed and cold, but I knew he secretly worried I would take after my mother. Neither of them had looked at me since entering the room. “Well, what’s the result of the aptitude test?” Both of my parents glared at my teacher simultaneously. For being complete opposites, sometimes they were very synchronized. Ms. Ryan was trembling and sweating profusely. “Well, actually…” her voice was weak but she seemed to gain confidence to go on. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Sam’s results are completely down the middle. I’ve never had a student score exactly 50% in every category before.” I almost fainted with relief, even as my parents lunged at each other and the building split in two at their impact.	I just found out my Mom and Dad are heroes\ villains AMA!!! I was a normal kid, went to a normal school got into normal trouble (more on that later) and even have a normal part time job at a well known big box store, you likely know the one (hint:blue and yellow). My mom is a pretty important woman, one of the leaders of a large multinational organization. My Dad was always kind of a deadbeat, bad with money and keeping a job. I'm not complaining, they are both pretty awesome to me, and I like to think they raised a good kid even though they aren't together anymore. I turned 16 last month, the party was pretty awesome! A lot of my friends showed up, and a lot of my moms friends which was weird. But they gave me awesome presents! One of her friends is this genius physicist, he gave me what I could only describe as a laser sword. Not a light saber, those are impossible (I asked). But a true samurai sword that has a laser edge. Mom didn't like that too much and Dad even less so. But my dad did drop in for a bit, he gave me a nice card and a pretty awesome geode, it looks like the galaxy being born in rock and crystal... I am kinda a nerd and this kinda stuff is fascinating to me... he said he got it from work. I figured it must have put him back a few hundred bucks though. Anyways, today was parent teacher meeting. Usually only my mom goes to these. They are routine at this point, 10th grade, but this time my dad came too. They never really got a long in the first place, but for some reason when my teacher Ms. Styles told them that I had gotten in the middle of a fight and had stopped a kid from bullying someone else my mom went off the deep end! She started saying this is my dads fault and that he is a terrible influence on me... it went on for a bit like that. My dad kept his cool... for a while... Then it happened. My mom stormed out, I could have sworn I saw her eyes turn yellow. My dad followed. Ms. Styles and I were shocked! I apologized and grabbed my bag and rushed after them. I ran into the hallway but they were already gone! Jeez they are fast when they are pissed at each other. I ran out to the parking lot and then I saw... The Hornet was fighting my dad! My dads collared shirt was shredded and on his chest I saw the Cosmos shield! So here I am. Sitting in the back of a police car while my dad talks to the cops and my mom is in a pair of gravity boots and meta-cuffs. I got nothing better to do so... Reddit, ask me anything about be the son of a Super hero dad and a Super villain mom!
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	Erin sighed and stared out the window as his parents argued, having tuned out after they had started arguing about how he was "too nice" or "needed to stay out of detention". He couldn't help but feel bad for the teacher as she hid behind her desk, cowering in fear while his hero mother and villain father yelled at each other. "I'm telling you Maria, he's too nice to those boys! When I was his age I'd already spent three weeks in jail on assault charges!" "Xin I don't see why I have to keep telling you he can't afford to go to jail! He's 17 for christ's sake, he needs to focus on getting ready for college, not getting into fights!" The teenager quietly snuck behind his teacher's desk, pulling a pack of pocky out of his coat pocket and offering some to the terrified woman. "Want some? We're gonna be here a while."	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	“Its not his fault.” The shrill voice of my mother blasted the entire room with a tinge of awkwardness. “If his father had just-” “Had what, Alyssa?” My father's voice rumbled with the power of a thousands suns. My teacher, Mrs. Hudson, shifted her glasses as if the yelling did not phase her. “You see your son…” Quickly my mother's voice rose again “I’m sick of this Jason! You need to be there for your son!” Power radiated off of her muscular body as tension between the two rose. “I’m always there for Dax! Whenever you are off doing ‘Justice work’ in the city I am the one who takes care of him!” I sat there with my hands folded in my lap, this wasn't unusual but I never really got used to the fighting. My trail of thought was hindered when my father was blasted through the wall, my head spun to see my mom levitating off the ground in a pose that beamed with sheer energy. Her eyes blazed with a bright violet light and she was wearing an outfit that was less than appropriate in a school environment. Purple and black swirls danced around her body, giving her more shape, and just covering her breasts enough for her not to worry about being nude. The dust had settled and my father, whom was across the courtyard now, was shifted into a tall position. Every muscle in his body was now bulked up, so much so that it tore the tight collared shirt that he had wore for this for the parent teacher conference in the first place. His suit was clean and very nicely stitched with whatever lustrous material that made it up, musical notes peppered his body and his long cape fluttered in the wind, it had been lined with five black stripes with a white background, and bringing the entire skin tight suit together was a glorious collar around his neck. His face now morphed into a grin, devilishly. A base materialized in his hands and with a strum shockwaves of power coursed their way towards our direction. A large window of purple energy crystalized before me, blocking the sonic wave from hurling me or my apathetic teacher from being sent flying in the opposite direction. Long purple tendrils appeared from the floor, wriggling with intensity. My mother pointed towards dad and as soon as that the tendril made their way in the direction she pointed making multiple whipping sounds when they got to their destination. My teacher turned to me and tilted her head slightly. “I see you have family problems.” I rolled my eyes passively. “You don't even know the half of it.” During our conversation vortexes of dark grey clouds that crickled with lilac lightning materialized around my father, there had to be around five of them but couldn't really tell. The wind and dust they were blowing up cause leaves and debris to swirl around them blocking most of my sight. My father, now holding a glowing violin was inside a dome that no doubt was made from the instrument he held. He raised the bow to meet with its strings, and with a sweep of his arm the dome shattered and the shards of his defensive now flew towards my mother with momentum so fast I couldn't even see them make their path. The whole thing looked like a superhero movie, but not a fun one. It was like watching two gods who hated each other fight for no reason, and it started to anger me, no, it infuriated me. Sixteen years of nothing but fighting between my parents had already taken its toll on me but now, they were at war with each other. A bubble floated in front of my face completely out of place. It was a juxtaposition between my parents feud and its mere existence. Mrs. Hudson leaned in towards me from her desk. “I know this isn't a good time to point out the obvious, but it looks like your power finally came.” I was extremely confused at her proposition my ‘power’? I dont have powers… Until I looked back at the bubble or now bubbles. Of course! My mom is the Violet Phantom and my dad is The Minstrel and they gave birth to a son whose power is fucking bubbles. The thought aggravated me and in that moment the small army of bubbles were filled with a yellow flame. This whole scenario was insane everything just felt so wrong. Another blast of power caused all of my teachers papers to go flying and me having to hold my ground. My teacher sat at her desk with her hands clasped together rested on the surface. She gave out a long sigh and looked at me. “You know this isn't your fault right? I just want you to know that this is all your parents inner demons.” She said with a completely nonchalant face. “Does that make any of this okay?” My question seemed to emanate inside of her. “Well, what are you going to do about it.” Without a second thought I leapt out of my chair. The bubbles followed close behind and floated ethereally around me. I thought of electricity and thunder and, as if on queue purple sparks sparked inside of the floating orbs. With that I sent them flying towards both of my parents. Armies of bubbles swifted to my parents and as soon as they met the targets lightning erupted as they popped, more viscous than I expected. Silence befell the area that was thundering no more than a minute before. My parents still standing gave me a shocked, no pun intended, look. “If I was this much trouble.” My voice had more energy and power than it has ever had before. “Why didn't you just put me up for adoption or just find another home for me… or abort me.” My mom took a second to take in my comment. After a moment of stillness she slowly made her way back to the ground, her raven her that was floating around her head fell back down her back and her eyes dimmed back to their normal state. “Baby, I could never do that.” The vortexes around my dad faded away and and he let his guard down, the glowing tambourine in his hand dematerializing. “Why would you say something like that?” My dads glorious voice cut through the air. “Just LOOK at yourselves.” I said agitated. Both of the powerful figures took a glance at each other then at the surrounding devastation that diminished my high school. “It's driving me crazy! I just want a normal life.” My parents faces melted into concern. “You know we can never give you that.” My mother's voice became gentle and comforting as she embraced me. I buried my face into her trying to hide my tears. “When you were born your mother and I forgot what it meant to be a hero or a villain.” My dad came to embrace the both of us with his large arms. “You became the most important thing to us… more important than any scheme I had.” “Or my thirst for justice.” My mom said completing his statement. For the first time, my family came together. Mrs. Hudson walked towards us and asked. “Well are you two quite finished?” Both of my parents in unison nodded, and with a snap of her fingers the school shifted and started to fix itself. Debris flying back into place and all of the papers organized themselves on Hudsons desk. “Now if we can get back to his gra-” before she could finish her statement large alien like ships fell into the atmosphere hundreds of not thousands of them. In defeat Mrs.Hudson sighed. “Il call the council of the stars.” She said. My mom gave her a nod “We’ll finish this later Clarissa.” Mrs.Hudson nodded and walked back inside the high school. My dad looked back at mom and told her. “I'l re-organize the Void Lurkers.” Now looking down at me my mom said “I hope your prepared to use that power of yours.” And with determination I nodded back at her.	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	The worst time of year was approaching. Parent teacher conferences. My parents, complete opposites, couldn’t be in the same hemisphere without causing World War 3, let alone in the same room. My mom is, objectively, the greatest superhero the world had ever seen, and my dad the greatest villain. My mom’s superhero name is literally Gaia, if that helps. And she didn’t choose it herself. My parents had long ago ceased interactions with each other, going so far as to hand me off by doing dead drops. Like a CIA missive or something. It was super lame. My mom said she did it to prevent civilian casualties whereas my dad wanted to cut costs. Guess it gets expensive replacing your house every other week.Typical. I had to move schools often because of my parents, so this was my homeroom teacher Ms. Ryan’s first time meeting my family. I’d only been at this school for 3 weeks and had so far managed to keep my heritage a secret, but now I was going to be exposed again. Back to half the school worshipping the ground I walked on asking for introductions, and the other half cowering in fear when I walked by. All of this would of course be followed by some kind of international incident that required me to move. So much for friends. “So, we just wanted to talk about Sam’s aptitude tests and what that means for her future.” Ms. Ryan said sweetly, though I could tell she was a little starstruck by my mother. She was maintaining an impressive level of professionalism. Most of my other teachers had devolved into shrieks or blushing. Tall, striking, and just in every way perfect, my mother looked like a supermodel. She radiated kindness. It also helped that her face was plastered on half the billboards in the world, and she might have just come from meeting the president (on national TV, naturally.) Despite that, she had shown up on time. Something my father could never do. I had no doubt my father was late on purpose, just because he liked seeing people squirm. “Of course, how did the aptitude tests go?” My mother asked, and I knew she wasn’t feigning the interest. She wanted to see if my moral tests would come back with hero aptitude or not. And the all-too important question of what powers I had. I tried my best not to show it, but cringed to myself. I hadn’t seen the results yet. A result either way could quickly turn the school into dust. “Well, as you know, we require both parents to be present for results to be shown. Do you know when your husband will be arriving, Mrs. Gaia?” Ms. Ryan’s voice thinned when she addressed my mother and I couldn’t suppress my snort of laughter. Yep, she was starstruck. “He couldn’t make it today unfortunately. Stuck in Tokyo on business. I can pass on the results to him when he’s done, though. I promise I won’t tell your supervisor.” My mom winked at her and Ms. Ryan completely lost her composure. She definitely blushed. “Did you REALLY think locking me in a vault at the bottom of the Marianas trench was going to be enough to keep me from seeing the result of our Sammie’s aptitude test?” My father’s voice boomed and the door to my classroom quite literally flew off the hinges and slammed into the opposite wall, cracking the plaster and causing the windows to shatter. He was pissed. “Ohmygod it’s Nyx.” Ms. Ryan shrieked, her face instantly draining of color. “As if I’m going to let Sam follow in your footsteps!” my mother’s face flushed with what I’m sure was righteous anger. I got up and stood next to Ms. Ryan, if only because I didn’t want them to kill ANOTHER one of my teachers. The Marianas trench? That was new. Last time my father had frozen my mother into an iceberg at the top of Mount Everest and she was still 5 minutes early. “It’s not doing her any good to learn your self-sacrificing bullshit either! At least if she follows in my footsteps she’ll never want for anything!” My father retorted, and I think I could feel the room growing dimmer. Were those shadows at his fingertips? He must be really incensed. “At least nobody will be trying to kill her if she becomes righteous! She’ll be a hero, everyone will love her!” Gee mom, tell him how you really feel. As usual they don’t ask for my opinion. “Nobody will dare try to kill her if she becomes a villain either! Besides, even if she becomes a hero, if she has the wrong type of powers everyone will hate her anyways!” “As if she would inherit your darkness crap! She spent 9 months in my womb, remember? Early development sets the stage for the rest of life!” My mother was glowing. I think Ms. Ryan passed out for a second as the air became charged with a battle of wills. “There’s no proof of that! Plenty of children develop their father’s abilities.” My father’s voice was composed and cold, but I knew he secretly worried I would take after my mother. Neither of them had looked at me since entering the room. “Well, what’s the result of the aptitude test?” Both of my parents glared at my teacher simultaneously. For being complete opposites, sometimes they were very synchronized. Ms. Ryan was trembling and sweating profusely. “Well, actually…” her voice was weak but she seemed to gain confidence to go on. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Sam’s results are completely down the middle. I’ve never had a student score exactly 50% in every category before.” I almost fainted with relief, even as my parents lunged at each other and the building split in two at their impact.	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	Dear Diary, &#x200B; Ughhh. I hate my life. And my parents? You're not going to believe this. So, yeah, my grades are slipping. I just hate Miss Melivn. It's not my fault. She's boring. &#x200B; Dad decided to show up to the conference mom set up. I mean, I get it. He's smart. He started to twist Miss Melvin's responses. First it was like "she's got potentional....but she's lazy." That's where Mom caught him. He said, "Are you sure it's not because she's bored.?Maybe you could give her something that would challege her for extra credit." He winked at me. Mom caught it. And I could see her start to flip out. I totally heard her cursing him out in her head. &#x200B; I hate both of them! Why can't they get along? I don't want either of them here! They suck and they hate me. Mom works hard at "both" her jobs. Like I don't know what she does. She has so many stupid, stupid rules. Don't do this. Don't do that. Take the towels of the floor. Put away the dishes. Stay out of people's heads. Like I'd do that. I make the mistake of listening to the guy I had a crush on. Eww.. And Dad! He just flew in. I think he's hacked into the school or something. They know not to call him. They don't tell him how I'm doing. Both mom and I were bug eyed when he came in. He always shows off how much he makes, but doesn't help mom. &#x200B; And right there, in the middle of the conference. It was like, time froze. They were yelling at each other so much, that they didn't even see me leave. &#x200B; I HATE THEM!	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	I stepped into the room and knew what to expect from the start. My mother, Ms. Stupendous, was brushing her hair absentmindedly. I saw the chair back behind her was crushed. She had gotten heated. My dad was his normal hippy self. His brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. His wire frame glasses sat rigidly on his face. His long gangly body was now sprawled out on his chair like a never ending drape. “Charlie! Just the person we were talking about!” This statement came from my teacher, Mr. Lawrence. I felt bad for him. Ms. Stupendous was the hero in these parts. I’m sure at one point he was even excited to be teaching her beloved son. That optimism had faded with each conference we had. He sat nervously behind his desk. I wonder if he had ever heard the rumors about my mom’s laser vision, they were false obviously, but anyone looking at her when she was angry definitely considered it. “Hi sweetie,” my mom said cheerily. “How was school?” “Fine,” I said taking my seat between my parents. Today, Juliet from my science class had given me a note to read. It was a do you like me note. Juliet was the cutest girl in the whole world. Her blue eyes just looked right through you. When I looked at her I couldn’t speak, she had to have a super power! This note had to go back to her, with the yes circled, as soon as possible. The sooner I could get through this conference, the quicker I could make that happen. “So, this is about me going to high school in Heatherville, right?” “Exactly,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Your parents seem to be in a disagreement. While I have my own opinions, I think the thoughts that matter most are yours.” I really felt bad for Mr. Lawrence. Sitting through arguments between my parents must be explosive. He was a nice guy. Too bad that kid, Matt, had decided to make his life a living hell. Between putting tacks on his seats and stealing answers to tests it was a tough time for him. Oddly enough, he never seemed bothered by the whole thing. I figured he was just faking it. “Yeah, I want to stay here for high school,” I said. I could feel my mother’s anxiousness from here. “But sweetheart, the Heatherville Preparatory School is one of the best schools in the country!” “I know mom, but isn’t dad like one of the best scientific minds in the world? If I need to learn anything that badly, I can just ask him.” My mom shot daggers at my dad. I could see the self-satisfied look on his face as he feigned ignorance. “Katherine. All I’m saying is if he has friends here he should probably stay here. Moving schools is tough and stacking the beginning of high school on that is tough. It doesn’t matter how smart he is if he isn’t happy.” My dad was always so wise about this stuff. I lived with my dad during the weeks and it was like the guy knew everything! Any question I had he could answer, any problem he always understood. I might even have to ask him the best way to convince Juliet to go to the dance with me. “Our Charlie is so nice! I’m sure he would make plenty of friends at Heatherville.” An uncharacteristic smile grew on her face. She was always in her Defender of Peace and Prosperity mode, it was a bit unnerving to see that look on her face. “Also, I think there’s quite the world class mind teaching at Heatherville. What was his name again? I think Dr. Gordon?” My dad sighed loudly. I knew he didn’t like this guy but it was never really clear why. He didn’t like to talk about it, but he said they knew each other in college or something. My mom gushed about the guy whenever she was losing an argument and apparently that wrapped it up pretty quickly. Mr. Lawrence seemed very taken aback by the suggestion. His normally lazy grey eyes were now alight with rage. He interjected vigorously. “Ma’am, Dr. Gordon might seem like a good guy but there are things you don’t know. If you do send Charlie to Heatherville, I’d suggest you avoid him.” “What do you mean,” my mom said not taking her eyes off my dad. “Dr. Gordon and our family go way back. Isn’t that right, Leonard?”” “We’re certainly… familiar.” My dad’s face was in his hand as he said this. “I’d say he’s just as good as your father when it comes to teaching.” “Dr. Gordon has his talents.” “Ma’am you really don’t seem to understand!” “Listen son. I’m sure you have the best intentions but there’s quite a few things you don’t know.” “I could say the same about you.” Mr. Lawrence’s entire mood changed. He was sitting alert at his desk now. The intense look in his minds almost looked like something I could see from my mom. “Dr. Gordon is evil,” he said. “I would advise against giving a supervillain access to one of the most popular super heroes’ children.” The eyes of my mom grew wide and she looked over at my dad who seemed drained by the entire thing. “You know his secret identity? Wait one minute! It couldn’t be!” She took his glasses off faster than the eye could see. Mr. Lawrence looked different without his glasses, almost familiar. My mother had a mischievous look on his face. “You’re that hero, Captain Gold aren’t you?” Now, my eyes went wide. Dorky Mr. Lawrence was Captain Gold? The shining hero? He was way shorter and thinner than the Captain Gold I knew! Captain Gold was a rising hero over in the neighboring city. He was charismatic, snarky, and to the point. Everything Mr. Lawrence wasn’t. He seemed nervous at this bombshell while my parents barely even reacted. My mom was twirling his glasses around her finger. “Let me guess. Magic spell? Hidden muscles? Super Suit?” “Super suit,” my dad added. “Quite a good one at that. The super villain community has known for quite a while. Heatwave was planning to out you and try and ruin your public image. There goes about four months of scheming for him, I guess.” “What? Dad? How would you know that?” My parents both looked mortified. I knew mom was a super hero obviously, but dad was just a really smart guy. Right? “Leonard! Really? You pick now to be the time you tell him?” “Well, I could have thought of a good misdirection if you didn’t just confirm it!” “Sir, if you’re a villain I’m going to have to take you in,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Can it rookie,” both my parents said. My dad turned to me and sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and took his glasses off. His eyes seemed tired. “I'll give you the short version." I had the sense Juliet was not getting this note today.	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	“Thank you for both being here”, Mrs. Logan nervously greeted the couple sitting in undersized chairs in front of her. Kv’Steven’s father looking especially uncomfortable trying to keep his oversized frame placed on the tiny furniture. His mother seeming more comfortable but disturbing in the way her shapely but jointless limbs wrapped around the legs. “Kv’Steven is doing very well in all his classes.” “He is the most intelligent human on this ridiculous planet.” Snapped his mother, impatiently. “We’re well aware of that Mrs. K’Shtarxl” “It is K’Starxl! There is no gender designation!” The sinuous mother stated sharply, and then with a lower, but dangerous tone, “or do you think I am not the equal to any male of my species?” “No... K’Shtarxl, not at all. I apologize.” “Calm down, Kassie, the woman is a schoolteacher, not a warrior to pick a fight with” Kv’Steven’s father sighed. His enhanced battle armor pushing the limits on the buttons on his suit coat. “You have no authority over me, human! Do not issue orders to ME on my mental state!” “Kassie. This is not a battleground. It’s an elementary school.” He stated in a placating tone. K’Shtarxl seemed to swell, the legs of the chair flexing under increased pressure from the limbs gripping them. “That is exactly the problem! Kv’Steven does not require the ‘education’ provided by this ‘school’. He has vast knowledge and resources! He should be on Kx’Straz where he would learn to harness his vast power for glorious battle!” “We’ve been over this, Kassie. The training grounds of KxStraz are no place for a human boy. They would eat him alive... literally” “Exactly my point! There is no challenge here! Not one of his classmates has even tried to assassinate him! He will grow soft!” In an attempt to get the conference back on track, Mrs. Logan interjects, “M... K’Shtarxl, While it’s true that Kv’Steven has a very advanced grasp of... everything we teach... we feel that he IS receiving challenges and valuable... training in other ways.” “And what challenges could the spawn of the Qx’Tor of the first fleet of Ch’Thalo possibly face is this” a sinuous arm gesturing to the room, “human institution?” “Well, he is learning to socialize with his peers without subsuming their minds, for one.” “If their minds are so weak, they deserve being enslaved by a superior intelligence.” But her limbs seemed to relax a fractional amount. “Also, he’s very interested in art and music. Kv’Steven made this the other day”, Mrs. Logan says brightly while turning to retrieve an object made of pipe cleaners and dried macaroni. “Ah, yes!”, K’Shtarxl exclaimed. “A Ba’thtki! Primitive, but of excellent proportion! I am surprised and delighted that you have provided him with the necessary radioactive compounds necessary to complete one!” “Wha... No. we do not provide radioactive compounds... it’s just a sculpture...” “That cannot be. May I manipulate this... sculpture?” K’Shtarxl asks, reaching a tentacular appendage from behind her back to lift the object out of Mrs. Logan’s hands. “Why would one copy the shape of a Ba’thki without function?” Her hands changing shape as they found crevasses in the sculpture. “It’s just art. For visual pleasure. Surely the Mx’Tarxl have art?” KShtarxl continues to examine the piece as she answers. “We derive all pleasure from our primary function. I am a warrior and my spawn shall be a warrior as well. Ah!” She exclaims, the sculpture humming as it starts to glow from several places. “I was correct! It IS a functioning Ba’thki!” Mrs. Logan is taken aback as her eyes remain riveted to the object in K’Shtarxl’s appendages. “And what... what does a Ba’thki do? K’Shtarxl flows sinuously upright. “It is a breaching weapon!” Taking aim at the wall, a large pentagonal hole appears. “That...that’s unacceptable. I thought we were making progress with him” Mrs. Logan is visibly shaken. Kv’Steven’s father’s eyes beam with pride as he looks at the Ba’thki. “Oh, don’t be too upset about this! Kv’Steven was trying to show off a bit! I know a bit about Mx’Tarxl technology, and this is an achievement for ANY child his age! Kassie! Didn’t you tell me you weren’t able to make a functioning Ba’thki until you were WELL into your tactical training? And he’s done it with macaroni! Shows you that a little human ingenuity can do!” His booming laughter filling the room. “Humans are an inferior species, Major Taylor! We should have retaken this planet aeons ago! I regret ever accepting your challenge to combat and the resulting decision of the hive mind to consider this species ‘intelligent’” her form swelled, clothing absorbing into a shifting metallic skin. The Major stands from his chair, his form looming in the small room. “Kassie, you will stand down and stop shifting into combat shape. Or do I have to subdue you again?” “You can make an attempt, Major. But should you prove unsuccessful, I will petition to have your species reclassified and finally take this planet for the glory of the Ch’Thalo fleet!” Her exotic features showing obvious excitement at the prospect. Mrs. Logan, now visibly terrified as the two parents in front of her size each other up, backs away into a corner. “This is unacceptable! If you don’t stop this... I’ll call security!” A vicious laugh bursts from K’Shtarxl. “Call them, earth educator. It will not save this pathetic specimen before me!” “You two are terrible parents!” Cries Mrs. Logan, hysterical now, “I have no choice! I’m calling CPS! Kv’Steven will be placed in foster care!” Suddenly both parents heads swivel to look directly at her. Two sets of glowing eyes boring into her very frail looking form. “That was a mistake, Mrs. Logan.” Major Taylor growls calmly. “You should know to never try to interfere in family disputes.” “Agreed, contract liege. These threats shall not stand.” Adds K’Shtarxl now fully encased in moving metal armor. Outside, a dull boom is heard in the classroom and soon Kv’Steven’s parents come to the playground to collect him from where he is playing with something in his hands while sitting on a swing. “Ready to go, champ?” Asks his father, lifting him into his arms. “What do you have there?” “I made a G’thur out of some pine cones!” The child exclaims. “Surely not!” His mother exclaims, moving to see the object better. “Manufacture of a G’thur takes years of training! Allow me to examine this!” Kv’Steven hands the device to his mother, whose eyes are filled with awe. She turns the top of the device and holds it in her palm. A triangular wedge of the playground in front of her is suddenly flattened by the massive forces released. “Remarkable!” She exclaims. “Well, Kassie. Seeing as how Kv’Steven is in need of a new teacher anyway, maybe we COULD send him off to Kx’Straz for training.” “Are you not still concerned for his welfare?” “No... I figure, any six year old kid who can make a G’thur out of pine cones in a half hour should be just fine in Kx’Straz warrior training. And anyway, I have that set of power armor I made for him. None of the other Mx’Tarxl spawn will even come close to touching him. “You please me on this day, Major. Let us return to the suburbs and perhaps my pleasure will be shown.”	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” My mother scoffed. Everyone looked at her. She spoke to no one but my dad. “You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” The principle interjected, looking worried. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do about a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird… “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, whose pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poignant thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh God!--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? I was my father's mind? Oh God, I don't exist, she's right, she's right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the look I normally see in my father’s eyes, when he’s looking at my mother--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her for cursing me. what is this strange feeling? why do I want to blame my mother but forgive my father? I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all had crumbled, all was crumbling... Where would my future end?	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	"Violence!? My daughter!? This is no doubt your doing Richard." "Mine!? She's in this mess because of you brain washing my kid with your self-imposed, self-righteous morals!" "OUR child En... Richard." "... You're right Morina. Our child." At this point a very tentative principal interjected meekly. "If I may continue?" nodding at the two for acknowledgement. You could feel the tension in the air, quite literally. The humidity level rose 5 points in the last ten minutes and there was a slight crackle in the room. "Oh? Yes, please do Mr... uh" "Novigard, Ms. Chase. Yes, well your daughter was caught fighting on school grounds. We have a zero tolerance policy on this matter..." Richard interjected with a noticable mumble "A completely ineffective model." "And I suppose you have a great alternative?" Morina spat out. "How about a system that doesn't punish my, our , kid from doing the right thing?" "Resorting to violence is NOT the "right thing!" "Well, she shouldn't have gotten involved at all, that part is squarely on you. However, since she did, decking that twirp was fully justified." "He was a child! Oh what would you know about justice or ethics?" "Lat..., damnit! I mean, Morina! We are not having that argument! Neither here nor now!" At this point they have noticed the principal's hand covering his face in exasperation. "Excuse us Mr.Novigard, please continue," Richard sighed. The static in the air seemed to settle. "Right, well, uh... zero tolerance. I'm afraid the young Chase will be suspended for two weeks." "Two weeks!? But she'll fall behind in class!" "Not to worry Ms. Chase, her teachers have prepared a packet for her missing days, along with some extra disciplinary homework, to do at her leisure during her absence." Both parents let out a sigh and stood as Richard glared at the principal, "I suppose that will be all then?" Clearing his throat and readjusting his posture, Mr.Novigrad concurred and saw them out. Behind the poorly adjusted and unnecessarily heavy door was a bright white hall. It was completely empty save for a few cheap blue chairs, echoes of elsewhere people, and a young miss Chase. Morina was quickly followed by Richard, along with a loud thud and subsequent click of the wooden door. "At least your still a gentleman" Morina said softly, before noticing her daughter's worried glance. She walked over, practically looming over the young child. It did not help that she was struggling to shrink in her seat. "Ariana Elizabeth Chase. You are in so much trouble." After pausing and giving an evil eye only a mother could give, Morina sighed. "Go say goodbye to your father, we'll talk about it in the car." With a back-glance at Richard that was both soft with worry and hard with blame, she turned and walked off. Richard strode up and knelt down next to his daughter. "You're not getting out of this one Liz." "I know Dad." They shared a silence before Richard continued. "I want you to know that I am proud of you though." "You are!? Why?" A hearty laugh came out, a little too similar to a cackle, as Richard replied, "Young lady, getting involved in someone else's fight is not your business. But, you did what you thought was right. You protected someone you thought needed protection. There is no reason for me not to be proud." Small tears welled up in Ariana's eyes before embracing her father. "I love you Dad." "I love you too sweetie." "Now," picking her up and setting her to her feet, "you should also always serve your punishments!" "But you don't!" "Ahhh, but I never get caught, do I?" he said with a wink, "Go run to your mother. When I see you next, I'll take you for a ride in the super-car. Anywhere you want." Her eyes lit up with excitement and Glee "We are not going to the moon Ariana," Shooting down the idea before she started begging again. Slightly dejected, but still quite happy, she ran off towards the parking lot. "Love ya dad!" "Bye sweetie!" He stood there for a while, wondering about her future, before walking towards the opposite parking lot. "I hope she turns out like her mother," He chuckled to himself "well, not too much."	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” “You don’t get it, do you? Or you do, but you refuse to see it. You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” The principle looked worried. A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do with a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird…” “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, who’s pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poininent thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh my God--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? Oh God, she’s right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the same look I normally see in my father’s eyes when he’s looking at her--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her then. And with that I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all was crumbled, all was crumbling...
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	The worst time of year was approaching. Parent teacher conferences. My parents, complete opposites, couldn’t be in the same hemisphere without causing World War 3, let alone in the same room. My mom is, objectively, the greatest superhero the world had ever seen, and my dad the greatest villain. My mom’s superhero name is literally Gaia, if that helps. And she didn’t choose it herself. My parents had long ago ceased interactions with each other, going so far as to hand me off by doing dead drops. Like a CIA missive or something. It was super lame. My mom said she did it to prevent civilian casualties whereas my dad wanted to cut costs. Guess it gets expensive replacing your house every other week.Typical. I had to move schools often because of my parents, so this was my homeroom teacher Ms. Ryan’s first time meeting my family. I’d only been at this school for 3 weeks and had so far managed to keep my heritage a secret, but now I was going to be exposed again. Back to half the school worshipping the ground I walked on asking for introductions, and the other half cowering in fear when I walked by. All of this would of course be followed by some kind of international incident that required me to move. So much for friends. “So, we just wanted to talk about Sam’s aptitude tests and what that means for her future.” Ms. Ryan said sweetly, though I could tell she was a little starstruck by my mother. She was maintaining an impressive level of professionalism. Most of my other teachers had devolved into shrieks or blushing. Tall, striking, and just in every way perfect, my mother looked like a supermodel. She radiated kindness. It also helped that her face was plastered on half the billboards in the world, and she might have just come from meeting the president (on national TV, naturally.) Despite that, she had shown up on time. Something my father could never do. I had no doubt my father was late on purpose, just because he liked seeing people squirm. “Of course, how did the aptitude tests go?” My mother asked, and I knew she wasn’t feigning the interest. She wanted to see if my moral tests would come back with hero aptitude or not. And the all-too important question of what powers I had. I tried my best not to show it, but cringed to myself. I hadn’t seen the results yet. A result either way could quickly turn the school into dust. “Well, as you know, we require both parents to be present for results to be shown. Do you know when your husband will be arriving, Mrs. Gaia?” Ms. Ryan’s voice thinned when she addressed my mother and I couldn’t suppress my snort of laughter. Yep, she was starstruck. “He couldn’t make it today unfortunately. Stuck in Tokyo on business. I can pass on the results to him when he’s done, though. I promise I won’t tell your supervisor.” My mom winked at her and Ms. Ryan completely lost her composure. She definitely blushed. “Did you REALLY think locking me in a vault at the bottom of the Marianas trench was going to be enough to keep me from seeing the result of our Sammie’s aptitude test?” My father’s voice boomed and the door to my classroom quite literally flew off the hinges and slammed into the opposite wall, cracking the plaster and causing the windows to shatter. He was pissed. “Ohmygod it’s Nyx.” Ms. Ryan shrieked, her face instantly draining of color. “As if I’m going to let Sam follow in your footsteps!” my mother’s face flushed with what I’m sure was righteous anger. I got up and stood next to Ms. Ryan, if only because I didn’t want them to kill ANOTHER one of my teachers. The Marianas trench? That was new. Last time my father had frozen my mother into an iceberg at the top of Mount Everest and she was still 5 minutes early. “It’s not doing her any good to learn your self-sacrificing bullshit either! At least if she follows in my footsteps she’ll never want for anything!” My father retorted, and I think I could feel the room growing dimmer. Were those shadows at his fingertips? He must be really incensed. “At least nobody will be trying to kill her if she becomes righteous! She’ll be a hero, everyone will love her!” Gee mom, tell him how you really feel. As usual they don’t ask for my opinion. “Nobody will dare try to kill her if she becomes a villain either! Besides, even if she becomes a hero, if she has the wrong type of powers everyone will hate her anyways!” “As if she would inherit your darkness crap! She spent 9 months in my womb, remember? Early development sets the stage for the rest of life!” My mother was glowing. I think Ms. Ryan passed out for a second as the air became charged with a battle of wills. “There’s no proof of that! Plenty of children develop their father’s abilities.” My father’s voice was composed and cold, but I knew he secretly worried I would take after my mother. Neither of them had looked at me since entering the room. “Well, what’s the result of the aptitude test?” Both of my parents glared at my teacher simultaneously. For being complete opposites, sometimes they were very synchronized. Ms. Ryan was trembling and sweating profusely. “Well, actually…” her voice was weak but she seemed to gain confidence to go on. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Sam’s results are completely down the middle. I’ve never had a student score exactly 50% in every category before.” I almost fainted with relief, even as my parents lunged at each other and the building split in two at their impact.	Erin sighed and stared out the window as his parents argued, having tuned out after they had started arguing about how he was "too nice" or "needed to stay out of detention". He couldn't help but feel bad for the teacher as she hid behind her desk, cowering in fear while his hero mother and villain father yelled at each other. "I'm telling you Maria, he's too nice to those boys! When I was his age I'd already spent three weeks in jail on assault charges!" "Xin I don't see why I have to keep telling you he can't afford to go to jail! He's 17 for christ's sake, he needs to focus on getting ready for college, not getting into fights!" The teenager quietly snuck behind his teacher's desk, pulling a pack of pocky out of his coat pocket and offering some to the terrified woman. "Want some? We're gonna be here a while."
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	I stepped into the room and knew what to expect from the start. My mother, Ms. Stupendous, was brushing her hair absentmindedly. I saw the chair back behind her was crushed. She had gotten heated. My dad was his normal hippy self. His brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. His wire frame glasses sat rigidly on his face. His long gangly body was now sprawled out on his chair like a never ending drape. “Charlie! Just the person we were talking about!” This statement came from my teacher, Mr. Lawrence. I felt bad for him. Ms. Stupendous was the hero in these parts. I’m sure at one point he was even excited to be teaching her beloved son. That optimism had faded with each conference we had. He sat nervously behind his desk. I wonder if he had ever heard the rumors about my mom’s laser vision, they were false obviously, but anyone looking at her when she was angry definitely considered it. “Hi sweetie,” my mom said cheerily. “How was school?” “Fine,” I said taking my seat between my parents. Today, Juliet from my science class had given me a note to read. It was a do you like me note. Juliet was the cutest girl in the whole world. Her blue eyes just looked right through you. When I looked at her I couldn’t speak, she had to have a super power! This note had to go back to her, with the yes circled, as soon as possible. The sooner I could get through this conference, the quicker I could make that happen. “So, this is about me going to high school in Heatherville, right?” “Exactly,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Your parents seem to be in a disagreement. While I have my own opinions, I think the thoughts that matter most are yours.” I really felt bad for Mr. Lawrence. Sitting through arguments between my parents must be explosive. He was a nice guy. Too bad that kid, Matt, had decided to make his life a living hell. Between putting tacks on his seats and stealing answers to tests it was a tough time for him. Oddly enough, he never seemed bothered by the whole thing. I figured he was just faking it. “Yeah, I want to stay here for high school,” I said. I could feel my mother’s anxiousness from here. “But sweetheart, the Heatherville Preparatory School is one of the best schools in the country!” “I know mom, but isn’t dad like one of the best scientific minds in the world? If I need to learn anything that badly, I can just ask him.” My mom shot daggers at my dad. I could see the self-satisfied look on his face as he feigned ignorance. “Katherine. All I’m saying is if he has friends here he should probably stay here. Moving schools is tough and stacking the beginning of high school on that is tough. It doesn’t matter how smart he is if he isn’t happy.” My dad was always so wise about this stuff. I lived with my dad during the weeks and it was like the guy knew everything! Any question I had he could answer, any problem he always understood. I might even have to ask him the best way to convince Juliet to go to the dance with me. “Our Charlie is so nice! I’m sure he would make plenty of friends at Heatherville.” An uncharacteristic smile grew on her face. She was always in her Defender of Peace and Prosperity mode, it was a bit unnerving to see that look on her face. “Also, I think there’s quite the world class mind teaching at Heatherville. What was his name again? I think Dr. Gordon?” My dad sighed loudly. I knew he didn’t like this guy but it was never really clear why. He didn’t like to talk about it, but he said they knew each other in college or something. My mom gushed about the guy whenever she was losing an argument and apparently that wrapped it up pretty quickly. Mr. Lawrence seemed very taken aback by the suggestion. His normally lazy grey eyes were now alight with rage. He interjected vigorously. “Ma’am, Dr. Gordon might seem like a good guy but there are things you don’t know. If you do send Charlie to Heatherville, I’d suggest you avoid him.” “What do you mean,” my mom said not taking her eyes off my dad. “Dr. Gordon and our family go way back. Isn’t that right, Leonard?”” “We’re certainly… familiar.” My dad’s face was in his hand as he said this. “I’d say he’s just as good as your father when it comes to teaching.” “Dr. Gordon has his talents.” “Ma’am you really don’t seem to understand!” “Listen son. I’m sure you have the best intentions but there’s quite a few things you don’t know.” “I could say the same about you.” Mr. Lawrence’s entire mood changed. He was sitting alert at his desk now. The intense look in his minds almost looked like something I could see from my mom. “Dr. Gordon is evil,” he said. “I would advise against giving a supervillain access to one of the most popular super heroes’ children.” The eyes of my mom grew wide and she looked over at my dad who seemed drained by the entire thing. “You know his secret identity? Wait one minute! It couldn’t be!” She took his glasses off faster than the eye could see. Mr. Lawrence looked different without his glasses, almost familiar. My mother had a mischievous look on his face. “You’re that hero, Captain Gold aren’t you?” Now, my eyes went wide. Dorky Mr. Lawrence was Captain Gold? The shining hero? He was way shorter and thinner than the Captain Gold I knew! Captain Gold was a rising hero over in the neighboring city. He was charismatic, snarky, and to the point. Everything Mr. Lawrence wasn’t. He seemed nervous at this bombshell while my parents barely even reacted. My mom was twirling his glasses around her finger. “Let me guess. Magic spell? Hidden muscles? Super Suit?” “Super suit,” my dad added. “Quite a good one at that. The super villain community has known for quite a while. Heatwave was planning to out you and try and ruin your public image. There goes about four months of scheming for him, I guess.” “What? Dad? How would you know that?” My parents both looked mortified. I knew mom was a super hero obviously, but dad was just a really smart guy. Right? “Leonard! Really? You pick now to be the time you tell him?” “Well, I could have thought of a good misdirection if you didn’t just confirm it!” “Sir, if you’re a villain I’m going to have to take you in,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Can it rookie,” both my parents said. My dad turned to me and sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and took his glasses off. His eyes seemed tired. “I'll give you the short version." I had the sense Juliet was not getting this note today.	Erin sighed and stared out the window as his parents argued, having tuned out after they had started arguing about how he was "too nice" or "needed to stay out of detention". He couldn't help but feel bad for the teacher as she hid behind her desk, cowering in fear while his hero mother and villain father yelled at each other. "I'm telling you Maria, he's too nice to those boys! When I was his age I'd already spent three weeks in jail on assault charges!" "Xin I don't see why I have to keep telling you he can't afford to go to jail! He's 17 for christ's sake, he needs to focus on getting ready for college, not getting into fights!" The teenager quietly snuck behind his teacher's desk, pulling a pack of pocky out of his coat pocket and offering some to the terrified woman. "Want some? We're gonna be here a while."
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	I stepped into the room and knew what to expect from the start. My mother, Ms. Stupendous, was brushing her hair absentmindedly. I saw the chair back behind her was crushed. She had gotten heated. My dad was his normal hippy self. His brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. His wire frame glasses sat rigidly on his face. His long gangly body was now sprawled out on his chair like a never ending drape. “Charlie! Just the person we were talking about!” This statement came from my teacher, Mr. Lawrence. I felt bad for him. Ms. Stupendous was the hero in these parts. I’m sure at one point he was even excited to be teaching her beloved son. That optimism had faded with each conference we had. He sat nervously behind his desk. I wonder if he had ever heard the rumors about my mom’s laser vision, they were false obviously, but anyone looking at her when she was angry definitely considered it. “Hi sweetie,” my mom said cheerily. “How was school?” “Fine,” I said taking my seat between my parents. Today, Juliet from my science class had given me a note to read. It was a do you like me note. Juliet was the cutest girl in the whole world. Her blue eyes just looked right through you. When I looked at her I couldn’t speak, she had to have a super power! This note had to go back to her, with the yes circled, as soon as possible. The sooner I could get through this conference, the quicker I could make that happen. “So, this is about me going to high school in Heatherville, right?” “Exactly,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Your parents seem to be in a disagreement. While I have my own opinions, I think the thoughts that matter most are yours.” I really felt bad for Mr. Lawrence. Sitting through arguments between my parents must be explosive. He was a nice guy. Too bad that kid, Matt, had decided to make his life a living hell. Between putting tacks on his seats and stealing answers to tests it was a tough time for him. Oddly enough, he never seemed bothered by the whole thing. I figured he was just faking it. “Yeah, I want to stay here for high school,” I said. I could feel my mother’s anxiousness from here. “But sweetheart, the Heatherville Preparatory School is one of the best schools in the country!” “I know mom, but isn’t dad like one of the best scientific minds in the world? If I need to learn anything that badly, I can just ask him.” My mom shot daggers at my dad. I could see the self-satisfied look on his face as he feigned ignorance. “Katherine. All I’m saying is if he has friends here he should probably stay here. Moving schools is tough and stacking the beginning of high school on that is tough. It doesn’t matter how smart he is if he isn’t happy.” My dad was always so wise about this stuff. I lived with my dad during the weeks and it was like the guy knew everything! Any question I had he could answer, any problem he always understood. I might even have to ask him the best way to convince Juliet to go to the dance with me. “Our Charlie is so nice! I’m sure he would make plenty of friends at Heatherville.” An uncharacteristic smile grew on her face. She was always in her Defender of Peace and Prosperity mode, it was a bit unnerving to see that look on her face. “Also, I think there’s quite the world class mind teaching at Heatherville. What was his name again? I think Dr. Gordon?” My dad sighed loudly. I knew he didn’t like this guy but it was never really clear why. He didn’t like to talk about it, but he said they knew each other in college or something. My mom gushed about the guy whenever she was losing an argument and apparently that wrapped it up pretty quickly. Mr. Lawrence seemed very taken aback by the suggestion. His normally lazy grey eyes were now alight with rage. He interjected vigorously. “Ma’am, Dr. Gordon might seem like a good guy but there are things you don’t know. If you do send Charlie to Heatherville, I’d suggest you avoid him.” “What do you mean,” my mom said not taking her eyes off my dad. “Dr. Gordon and our family go way back. Isn’t that right, Leonard?”” “We’re certainly… familiar.” My dad’s face was in his hand as he said this. “I’d say he’s just as good as your father when it comes to teaching.” “Dr. Gordon has his talents.” “Ma’am you really don’t seem to understand!” “Listen son. I’m sure you have the best intentions but there’s quite a few things you don’t know.” “I could say the same about you.” Mr. Lawrence’s entire mood changed. He was sitting alert at his desk now. The intense look in his minds almost looked like something I could see from my mom. “Dr. Gordon is evil,” he said. “I would advise against giving a supervillain access to one of the most popular super heroes’ children.” The eyes of my mom grew wide and she looked over at my dad who seemed drained by the entire thing. “You know his secret identity? Wait one minute! It couldn’t be!” She took his glasses off faster than the eye could see. Mr. Lawrence looked different without his glasses, almost familiar. My mother had a mischievous look on his face. “You’re that hero, Captain Gold aren’t you?” Now, my eyes went wide. Dorky Mr. Lawrence was Captain Gold? The shining hero? He was way shorter and thinner than the Captain Gold I knew! Captain Gold was a rising hero over in the neighboring city. He was charismatic, snarky, and to the point. Everything Mr. Lawrence wasn’t. He seemed nervous at this bombshell while my parents barely even reacted. My mom was twirling his glasses around her finger. “Let me guess. Magic spell? Hidden muscles? Super Suit?” “Super suit,” my dad added. “Quite a good one at that. The super villain community has known for quite a while. Heatwave was planning to out you and try and ruin your public image. There goes about four months of scheming for him, I guess.” “What? Dad? How would you know that?” My parents both looked mortified. I knew mom was a super hero obviously, but dad was just a really smart guy. Right? “Leonard! Really? You pick now to be the time you tell him?” “Well, I could have thought of a good misdirection if you didn’t just confirm it!” “Sir, if you’re a villain I’m going to have to take you in,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Can it rookie,” both my parents said. My dad turned to me and sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and took his glasses off. His eyes seemed tired. “I'll give you the short version." I had the sense Juliet was not getting this note today.	“Its not his fault.” The shrill voice of my mother blasted the entire room with a tinge of awkwardness. “If his father had just-” “Had what, Alyssa?” My father's voice rumbled with the power of a thousands suns. My teacher, Mrs. Hudson, shifted her glasses as if the yelling did not phase her. “You see your son…” Quickly my mother's voice rose again “I’m sick of this Jason! You need to be there for your son!” Power radiated off of her muscular body as tension between the two rose. “I’m always there for Dax! Whenever you are off doing ‘Justice work’ in the city I am the one who takes care of him!” I sat there with my hands folded in my lap, this wasn't unusual but I never really got used to the fighting. My trail of thought was hindered when my father was blasted through the wall, my head spun to see my mom levitating off the ground in a pose that beamed with sheer energy. Her eyes blazed with a bright violet light and she was wearing an outfit that was less than appropriate in a school environment. Purple and black swirls danced around her body, giving her more shape, and just covering her breasts enough for her not to worry about being nude. The dust had settled and my father, whom was across the courtyard now, was shifted into a tall position. Every muscle in his body was now bulked up, so much so that it tore the tight collared shirt that he had wore for this for the parent teacher conference in the first place. His suit was clean and very nicely stitched with whatever lustrous material that made it up, musical notes peppered his body and his long cape fluttered in the wind, it had been lined with five black stripes with a white background, and bringing the entire skin tight suit together was a glorious collar around his neck. His face now morphed into a grin, devilishly. A base materialized in his hands and with a strum shockwaves of power coursed their way towards our direction. A large window of purple energy crystalized before me, blocking the sonic wave from hurling me or my apathetic teacher from being sent flying in the opposite direction. Long purple tendrils appeared from the floor, wriggling with intensity. My mother pointed towards dad and as soon as that the tendril made their way in the direction she pointed making multiple whipping sounds when they got to their destination. My teacher turned to me and tilted her head slightly. “I see you have family problems.” I rolled my eyes passively. “You don't even know the half of it.” During our conversation vortexes of dark grey clouds that crickled with lilac lightning materialized around my father, there had to be around five of them but couldn't really tell. The wind and dust they were blowing up cause leaves and debris to swirl around them blocking most of my sight. My father, now holding a glowing violin was inside a dome that no doubt was made from the instrument he held. He raised the bow to meet with its strings, and with a sweep of his arm the dome shattered and the shards of his defensive now flew towards my mother with momentum so fast I couldn't even see them make their path. The whole thing looked like a superhero movie, but not a fun one. It was like watching two gods who hated each other fight for no reason, and it started to anger me, no, it infuriated me. Sixteen years of nothing but fighting between my parents had already taken its toll on me but now, they were at war with each other. A bubble floated in front of my face completely out of place. It was a juxtaposition between my parents feud and its mere existence. Mrs. Hudson leaned in towards me from her desk. “I know this isn't a good time to point out the obvious, but it looks like your power finally came.” I was extremely confused at her proposition my ‘power’? I dont have powers… Until I looked back at the bubble or now bubbles. Of course! My mom is the Violet Phantom and my dad is The Minstrel and they gave birth to a son whose power is fucking bubbles. The thought aggravated me and in that moment the small army of bubbles were filled with a yellow flame. This whole scenario was insane everything just felt so wrong. Another blast of power caused all of my teachers papers to go flying and me having to hold my ground. My teacher sat at her desk with her hands clasped together rested on the surface. She gave out a long sigh and looked at me. “You know this isn't your fault right? I just want you to know that this is all your parents inner demons.” She said with a completely nonchalant face. “Does that make any of this okay?” My question seemed to emanate inside of her. “Well, what are you going to do about it.” Without a second thought I leapt out of my chair. The bubbles followed close behind and floated ethereally around me. I thought of electricity and thunder and, as if on queue purple sparks sparked inside of the floating orbs. With that I sent them flying towards both of my parents. Armies of bubbles swifted to my parents and as soon as they met the targets lightning erupted as they popped, more viscous than I expected. Silence befell the area that was thundering no more than a minute before. My parents still standing gave me a shocked, no pun intended, look. “If I was this much trouble.” My voice had more energy and power than it has ever had before. “Why didn't you just put me up for adoption or just find another home for me… or abort me.” My mom took a second to take in my comment. After a moment of stillness she slowly made her way back to the ground, her raven her that was floating around her head fell back down her back and her eyes dimmed back to their normal state. “Baby, I could never do that.” The vortexes around my dad faded away and and he let his guard down, the glowing tambourine in his hand dematerializing. “Why would you say something like that?” My dads glorious voice cut through the air. “Just LOOK at yourselves.” I said agitated. Both of the powerful figures took a glance at each other then at the surrounding devastation that diminished my high school. “It's driving me crazy! I just want a normal life.” My parents faces melted into concern. “You know we can never give you that.” My mother's voice became gentle and comforting as she embraced me. I buried my face into her trying to hide my tears. “When you were born your mother and I forgot what it meant to be a hero or a villain.” My dad came to embrace the both of us with his large arms. “You became the most important thing to us… more important than any scheme I had.” “Or my thirst for justice.” My mom said completing his statement. For the first time, my family came together. Mrs. Hudson walked towards us and asked. “Well are you two quite finished?” Both of my parents in unison nodded, and with a snap of her fingers the school shifted and started to fix itself. Debris flying back into place and all of the papers organized themselves on Hudsons desk. “Now if we can get back to his gra-” before she could finish her statement large alien like ships fell into the atmosphere hundreds of not thousands of them. In defeat Mrs.Hudson sighed. “Il call the council of the stars.” She said. My mom gave her a nod “We’ll finish this later Clarissa.” Mrs.Hudson nodded and walked back inside the high school. My dad looked back at mom and told her. “I'l re-organize the Void Lurkers.” Now looking down at me my mom said “I hope your prepared to use that power of yours.” And with determination I nodded back at her.
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	I stepped into the room and knew what to expect from the start. My mother, Ms. Stupendous, was brushing her hair absentmindedly. I saw the chair back behind her was crushed. She had gotten heated. My dad was his normal hippy self. His brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. His wire frame glasses sat rigidly on his face. His long gangly body was now sprawled out on his chair like a never ending drape. “Charlie! Just the person we were talking about!” This statement came from my teacher, Mr. Lawrence. I felt bad for him. Ms. Stupendous was the hero in these parts. I’m sure at one point he was even excited to be teaching her beloved son. That optimism had faded with each conference we had. He sat nervously behind his desk. I wonder if he had ever heard the rumors about my mom’s laser vision, they were false obviously, but anyone looking at her when she was angry definitely considered it. “Hi sweetie,” my mom said cheerily. “How was school?” “Fine,” I said taking my seat between my parents. Today, Juliet from my science class had given me a note to read. It was a do you like me note. Juliet was the cutest girl in the whole world. Her blue eyes just looked right through you. When I looked at her I couldn’t speak, she had to have a super power! This note had to go back to her, with the yes circled, as soon as possible. The sooner I could get through this conference, the quicker I could make that happen. “So, this is about me going to high school in Heatherville, right?” “Exactly,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Your parents seem to be in a disagreement. While I have my own opinions, I think the thoughts that matter most are yours.” I really felt bad for Mr. Lawrence. Sitting through arguments between my parents must be explosive. He was a nice guy. Too bad that kid, Matt, had decided to make his life a living hell. Between putting tacks on his seats and stealing answers to tests it was a tough time for him. Oddly enough, he never seemed bothered by the whole thing. I figured he was just faking it. “Yeah, I want to stay here for high school,” I said. I could feel my mother’s anxiousness from here. “But sweetheart, the Heatherville Preparatory School is one of the best schools in the country!” “I know mom, but isn’t dad like one of the best scientific minds in the world? If I need to learn anything that badly, I can just ask him.” My mom shot daggers at my dad. I could see the self-satisfied look on his face as he feigned ignorance. “Katherine. All I’m saying is if he has friends here he should probably stay here. Moving schools is tough and stacking the beginning of high school on that is tough. It doesn’t matter how smart he is if he isn’t happy.” My dad was always so wise about this stuff. I lived with my dad during the weeks and it was like the guy knew everything! Any question I had he could answer, any problem he always understood. I might even have to ask him the best way to convince Juliet to go to the dance with me. “Our Charlie is so nice! I’m sure he would make plenty of friends at Heatherville.” An uncharacteristic smile grew on her face. She was always in her Defender of Peace and Prosperity mode, it was a bit unnerving to see that look on her face. “Also, I think there’s quite the world class mind teaching at Heatherville. What was his name again? I think Dr. Gordon?” My dad sighed loudly. I knew he didn’t like this guy but it was never really clear why. He didn’t like to talk about it, but he said they knew each other in college or something. My mom gushed about the guy whenever she was losing an argument and apparently that wrapped it up pretty quickly. Mr. Lawrence seemed very taken aback by the suggestion. His normally lazy grey eyes were now alight with rage. He interjected vigorously. “Ma’am, Dr. Gordon might seem like a good guy but there are things you don’t know. If you do send Charlie to Heatherville, I’d suggest you avoid him.” “What do you mean,” my mom said not taking her eyes off my dad. “Dr. Gordon and our family go way back. Isn’t that right, Leonard?”” “We’re certainly… familiar.” My dad’s face was in his hand as he said this. “I’d say he’s just as good as your father when it comes to teaching.” “Dr. Gordon has his talents.” “Ma’am you really don’t seem to understand!” “Listen son. I’m sure you have the best intentions but there’s quite a few things you don’t know.” “I could say the same about you.” Mr. Lawrence’s entire mood changed. He was sitting alert at his desk now. The intense look in his minds almost looked like something I could see from my mom. “Dr. Gordon is evil,” he said. “I would advise against giving a supervillain access to one of the most popular super heroes’ children.” The eyes of my mom grew wide and she looked over at my dad who seemed drained by the entire thing. “You know his secret identity? Wait one minute! It couldn’t be!” She took his glasses off faster than the eye could see. Mr. Lawrence looked different without his glasses, almost familiar. My mother had a mischievous look on his face. “You’re that hero, Captain Gold aren’t you?” Now, my eyes went wide. Dorky Mr. Lawrence was Captain Gold? The shining hero? He was way shorter and thinner than the Captain Gold I knew! Captain Gold was a rising hero over in the neighboring city. He was charismatic, snarky, and to the point. Everything Mr. Lawrence wasn’t. He seemed nervous at this bombshell while my parents barely even reacted. My mom was twirling his glasses around her finger. “Let me guess. Magic spell? Hidden muscles? Super Suit?” “Super suit,” my dad added. “Quite a good one at that. The super villain community has known for quite a while. Heatwave was planning to out you and try and ruin your public image. There goes about four months of scheming for him, I guess.” “What? Dad? How would you know that?” My parents both looked mortified. I knew mom was a super hero obviously, but dad was just a really smart guy. Right? “Leonard! Really? You pick now to be the time you tell him?” “Well, I could have thought of a good misdirection if you didn’t just confirm it!” “Sir, if you’re a villain I’m going to have to take you in,” Mr. Lawrence said. “Can it rookie,” both my parents said. My dad turned to me and sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and took his glasses off. His eyes seemed tired. “I'll give you the short version." I had the sense Juliet was not getting this note today.	Dear Diary, &#x200B; Ughhh. I hate my life. And my parents? You're not going to believe this. So, yeah, my grades are slipping. I just hate Miss Melivn. It's not my fault. She's boring. &#x200B; Dad decided to show up to the conference mom set up. I mean, I get it. He's smart. He started to twist Miss Melvin's responses. First it was like "she's got potentional....but she's lazy." That's where Mom caught him. He said, "Are you sure it's not because she's bored.?Maybe you could give her something that would challege her for extra credit." He winked at me. Mom caught it. And I could see her start to flip out. I totally heard her cursing him out in her head. &#x200B; I hate both of them! Why can't they get along? I don't want either of them here! They suck and they hate me. Mom works hard at "both" her jobs. Like I don't know what she does. She has so many stupid, stupid rules. Don't do this. Don't do that. Take the towels of the floor. Put away the dishes. Stay out of people's heads. Like I'd do that. I make the mistake of listening to the guy I had a crush on. Eww.. And Dad! He just flew in. I think he's hacked into the school or something. They know not to call him. They don't tell him how I'm doing. Both mom and I were bug eyed when he came in. He always shows off how much he makes, but doesn't help mom. &#x200B; And right there, in the middle of the conference. It was like, time froze. They were yelling at each other so much, that they didn't even see me leave. &#x200B; I HATE THEM!
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” My mother scoffed. Everyone looked at her. She spoke to no one but my dad. “You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” The principle interjected, looking worried. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do about a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird… “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, whose pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poignant thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh God!--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? I was my father's mind? Oh God, I don't exist, she's right, she's right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the look I normally see in my father’s eyes, when he’s looking at my mother--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her for cursing me. what is this strange feeling? why do I want to blame my mother but forgive my father? I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all had crumbled, all was crumbling... Where would my future end?	Dear Diary, &#x200B; Ughhh. I hate my life. And my parents? You're not going to believe this. So, yeah, my grades are slipping. I just hate Miss Melivn. It's not my fault. She's boring. &#x200B; Dad decided to show up to the conference mom set up. I mean, I get it. He's smart. He started to twist Miss Melvin's responses. First it was like "she's got potentional....but she's lazy." That's where Mom caught him. He said, "Are you sure it's not because she's bored.?Maybe you could give her something that would challege her for extra credit." He winked at me. Mom caught it. And I could see her start to flip out. I totally heard her cursing him out in her head. &#x200B; I hate both of them! Why can't they get along? I don't want either of them here! They suck and they hate me. Mom works hard at "both" her jobs. Like I don't know what she does. She has so many stupid, stupid rules. Don't do this. Don't do that. Take the towels of the floor. Put away the dishes. Stay out of people's heads. Like I'd do that. I make the mistake of listening to the guy I had a crush on. Eww.. And Dad! He just flew in. I think he's hacked into the school or something. They know not to call him. They don't tell him how I'm doing. Both mom and I were bug eyed when he came in. He always shows off how much he makes, but doesn't help mom. &#x200B; And right there, in the middle of the conference. It was like, time froze. They were yelling at each other so much, that they didn't even see me leave. &#x200B; I HATE THEM!
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	It was always the same. My father looking at my mother with sad, loving eyes, my mother pretending nothing existed but her. “Thank you for coming in today.” “You assured us it was important.” “Yes. We’re not sure how to handle Nicks mind-reading. It’s a question of whether or not he’s cheating.” “Nick’s a very honest boy.” “Yes, but..well..” he passed forward two papers; two exams. “You’ll notice they’re worded exactly the same.” “I didn’t mean to do it, Dad, I thought they were my words. I still think they’re my words. I don’t see how this could have happened.” “It does read like Nick wrote it; I think there must be something we’re missing, Nick doesn’t cheat.” My mother scoffed. Everyone looked at her. She spoke to no one but my dad. “You’ve always refused to see the inevitable. The boy’s cursed.” Dad got tense, “you’re talking theory. I’ve asked you not to speak your theories in front of the boy” “It’s not theory anymore. This is evidence” The principle interjected, looking worried. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you two mean..cursed?” A memory dawned in my mind, a memory of an argument. Something to do about a cat, I had been pretending to be a cat, and the cat had been acting weird… “It’s because of their powers, principle. She’s saying the mixing of their powers is a curse.” “Mind-reading and mind-control. Nick doesn’t know where his mind begins or ends. Doesn’t know when he’s willing himself or willing others. He will, ultimately, go mad.” Her words entered me, my eyes were on her, on my beautiful, cold, lonely, hard mother, whose pain I could see so clearly, could always see, like a soft, poignant thorn on a rose, such a strong woman to not crumble under such sadness, if only she would let me love her, my sweet love, if only-- My mind snapped and I rose wildly, face in my hands, chair squealing my distress, “Oh God!--” That was my father! My father’s mind was my mind? I was my father's mind? Oh God, I don't exist, she's right, she's right! “Son, what--?” “It’s begun. He knows; he sees it now.” My eyes met hers, and it wasn’t the normal eyes of my mother looking at me--guarded, aloof--but her eyes had taken on the look I normally see in my father’s eyes, when he’s looking at my mother--great love, great, despairing love. Now that I’m lost, she feels free to love me. I hated her for cursing me. what is this strange feeling? why do I want to blame my mother but forgive my father? I ran from the room. I ran while they were arguing, arguing about my fate, arguing about my sanity. “This is your fault,” she was saying, “you and your damned love. If you had left me alone.” I could hear my father calling after me. And with that, the tense peace was gone, all had crumbled, all was crumbling... Where would my future end?	“Thank you for both being here”, Mrs. Logan nervously greeted the couple sitting in undersized chairs in front of her. Kv’Steven’s father looking especially uncomfortable trying to keep his oversized frame placed on the tiny furniture. His mother seeming more comfortable but disturbing in the way her shapely but jointless limbs wrapped around the legs. “Kv’Steven is doing very well in all his classes.” “He is the most intelligent human on this ridiculous planet.” Snapped his mother, impatiently. “We’re well aware of that Mrs. K’Shtarxl” “It is K’Starxl! There is no gender designation!” The sinuous mother stated sharply, and then with a lower, but dangerous tone, “or do you think I am not the equal to any male of my species?” “No... K’Shtarxl, not at all. I apologize.” “Calm down, Kassie, the woman is a schoolteacher, not a warrior to pick a fight with” Kv’Steven’s father sighed. His enhanced battle armor pushing the limits on the buttons on his suit coat. “You have no authority over me, human! Do not issue orders to ME on my mental state!” “Kassie. This is not a battleground. It’s an elementary school.” He stated in a placating tone. K’Shtarxl seemed to swell, the legs of the chair flexing under increased pressure from the limbs gripping them. “That is exactly the problem! Kv’Steven does not require the ‘education’ provided by this ‘school’. He has vast knowledge and resources! He should be on Kx’Straz where he would learn to harness his vast power for glorious battle!” “We’ve been over this, Kassie. The training grounds of KxStraz are no place for a human boy. They would eat him alive... literally” “Exactly my point! There is no challenge here! Not one of his classmates has even tried to assassinate him! He will grow soft!” In an attempt to get the conference back on track, Mrs. Logan interjects, “M... K’Shtarxl, While it’s true that Kv’Steven has a very advanced grasp of... everything we teach... we feel that he IS receiving challenges and valuable... training in other ways.” “And what challenges could the spawn of the Qx’Tor of the first fleet of Ch’Thalo possibly face is this” a sinuous arm gesturing to the room, “human institution?” “Well, he is learning to socialize with his peers without subsuming their minds, for one.” “If their minds are so weak, they deserve being enslaved by a superior intelligence.” But her limbs seemed to relax a fractional amount. “Also, he’s very interested in art and music. Kv’Steven made this the other day”, Mrs. Logan says brightly while turning to retrieve an object made of pipe cleaners and dried macaroni. “Ah, yes!”, K’Shtarxl exclaimed. “A Ba’thtki! Primitive, but of excellent proportion! I am surprised and delighted that you have provided him with the necessary radioactive compounds necessary to complete one!” “Wha... No. we do not provide radioactive compounds... it’s just a sculpture...” “That cannot be. May I manipulate this... sculpture?” K’Shtarxl asks, reaching a tentacular appendage from behind her back to lift the object out of Mrs. Logan’s hands. “Why would one copy the shape of a Ba’thki without function?” Her hands changing shape as they found crevasses in the sculpture. “It’s just art. For visual pleasure. Surely the Mx’Tarxl have art?” KShtarxl continues to examine the piece as she answers. “We derive all pleasure from our primary function. I am a warrior and my spawn shall be a warrior as well. Ah!” She exclaims, the sculpture humming as it starts to glow from several places. “I was correct! It IS a functioning Ba’thki!” Mrs. Logan is taken aback as her eyes remain riveted to the object in K’Shtarxl’s appendages. “And what... what does a Ba’thki do? K’Shtarxl flows sinuously upright. “It is a breaching weapon!” Taking aim at the wall, a large pentagonal hole appears. “That...that’s unacceptable. I thought we were making progress with him” Mrs. Logan is visibly shaken. Kv’Steven’s father’s eyes beam with pride as he looks at the Ba’thki. “Oh, don’t be too upset about this! Kv’Steven was trying to show off a bit! I know a bit about Mx’Tarxl technology, and this is an achievement for ANY child his age! Kassie! Didn’t you tell me you weren’t able to make a functioning Ba’thki until you were WELL into your tactical training? And he’s done it with macaroni! Shows you that a little human ingenuity can do!” His booming laughter filling the room. “Humans are an inferior species, Major Taylor! We should have retaken this planet aeons ago! I regret ever accepting your challenge to combat and the resulting decision of the hive mind to consider this species ‘intelligent’” her form swelled, clothing absorbing into a shifting metallic skin. The Major stands from his chair, his form looming in the small room. “Kassie, you will stand down and stop shifting into combat shape. Or do I have to subdue you again?” “You can make an attempt, Major. But should you prove unsuccessful, I will petition to have your species reclassified and finally take this planet for the glory of the Ch’Thalo fleet!” Her exotic features showing obvious excitement at the prospect. Mrs. Logan, now visibly terrified as the two parents in front of her size each other up, backs away into a corner. “This is unacceptable! If you don’t stop this... I’ll call security!” A vicious laugh bursts from K’Shtarxl. “Call them, earth educator. It will not save this pathetic specimen before me!” “You two are terrible parents!” Cries Mrs. Logan, hysterical now, “I have no choice! I’m calling CPS! Kv’Steven will be placed in foster care!” Suddenly both parents heads swivel to look directly at her. Two sets of glowing eyes boring into her very frail looking form. “That was a mistake, Mrs. Logan.” Major Taylor growls calmly. “You should know to never try to interfere in family disputes.” “Agreed, contract liege. These threats shall not stand.” Adds K’Shtarxl now fully encased in moving metal armor. Outside, a dull boom is heard in the classroom and soon Kv’Steven’s parents come to the playground to collect him from where he is playing with something in his hands while sitting on a swing. “Ready to go, champ?” Asks his father, lifting him into his arms. “What do you have there?” “I made a G’thur out of some pine cones!” The child exclaims. “Surely not!” His mother exclaims, moving to see the object better. “Manufacture of a G’thur takes years of training! Allow me to examine this!” Kv’Steven hands the device to his mother, whose eyes are filled with awe. She turns the top of the device and holds it in her palm. A triangular wedge of the playground in front of her is suddenly flattened by the massive forces released. “Remarkable!” She exclaims. “Well, Kassie. Seeing as how Kv’Steven is in need of a new teacher anyway, maybe we COULD send him off to Kx’Straz for training.” “Are you not still concerned for his welfare?” “No... I figure, any six year old kid who can make a G’thur out of pine cones in a half hour should be just fine in Kx’Straz warrior training. And anyway, I have that set of power armor I made for him. None of the other Mx’Tarxl spawn will even come close to touching him. “You please me on this day, Major. Let us return to the suburbs and perhaps my pleasure will be shown.”
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	"Violence!? My daughter!? This is no doubt your doing Richard." "Mine!? She's in this mess because of you brain washing my kid with your self-imposed, self-righteous morals!" "OUR child En... Richard." "... You're right Morina. Our child." At this point a very tentative principal interjected meekly. "If I may continue?" nodding at the two for acknowledgement. You could feel the tension in the air, quite literally. The humidity level rose 5 points in the last ten minutes and there was a slight crackle in the room. "Oh? Yes, please do Mr... uh" "Novigard, Ms. Chase. Yes, well your daughter was caught fighting on school grounds. We have a zero tolerance policy on this matter..." Richard interjected with a noticable mumble "A completely ineffective model." "And I suppose you have a great alternative?" Morina spat out. "How about a system that doesn't punish my, our , kid from doing the right thing?" "Resorting to violence is NOT the "right thing!" "Well, she shouldn't have gotten involved at all, that part is squarely on you. However, since she did, decking that twirp was fully justified." "He was a child! Oh what would you know about justice or ethics?" "Lat..., damnit! I mean, Morina! We are not having that argument! Neither here nor now!" At this point they have noticed the principal's hand covering his face in exasperation. "Excuse us Mr.Novigard, please continue," Richard sighed. The static in the air seemed to settle. "Right, well, uh... zero tolerance. I'm afraid the young Chase will be suspended for two weeks." "Two weeks!? But she'll fall behind in class!" "Not to worry Ms. Chase, her teachers have prepared a packet for her missing days, along with some extra disciplinary homework, to do at her leisure during her absence." Both parents let out a sigh and stood as Richard glared at the principal, "I suppose that will be all then?" Clearing his throat and readjusting his posture, Mr.Novigrad concurred and saw them out. Behind the poorly adjusted and unnecessarily heavy door was a bright white hall. It was completely empty save for a few cheap blue chairs, echoes of elsewhere people, and a young miss Chase. Morina was quickly followed by Richard, along with a loud thud and subsequent click of the wooden door. "At least your still a gentleman" Morina said softly, before noticing her daughter's worried glance. She walked over, practically looming over the young child. It did not help that she was struggling to shrink in her seat. "Ariana Elizabeth Chase. You are in so much trouble." After pausing and giving an evil eye only a mother could give, Morina sighed. "Go say goodbye to your father, we'll talk about it in the car." With a back-glance at Richard that was both soft with worry and hard with blame, she turned and walked off. Richard strode up and knelt down next to his daughter. "You're not getting out of this one Liz." "I know Dad." They shared a silence before Richard continued. "I want you to know that I am proud of you though." "You are!? Why?" A hearty laugh came out, a little too similar to a cackle, as Richard replied, "Young lady, getting involved in someone else's fight is not your business. But, you did what you thought was right. You protected someone you thought needed protection. There is no reason for me not to be proud." Small tears welled up in Ariana's eyes before embracing her father. "I love you Dad." "I love you too sweetie." "Now," picking her up and setting her to her feet, "you should also always serve your punishments!" "But you don't!" "Ahhh, but I never get caught, do I?" he said with a wink, "Go run to your mother. When I see you next, I'll take you for a ride in the super-car. Anywhere you want." Her eyes lit up with excitement and Glee "We are not going to the moon Ariana," Shooting down the idea before she started begging again. Slightly dejected, but still quite happy, she ran off towards the parking lot. "Love ya dad!" "Bye sweetie!" He stood there for a while, wondering about her future, before walking towards the opposite parking lot. "I hope she turns out like her mother," He chuckled to himself "well, not too much."	“Thank you for both being here”, Mrs. Logan nervously greeted the couple sitting in undersized chairs in front of her. Kv’Steven’s father looking especially uncomfortable trying to keep his oversized frame placed on the tiny furniture. His mother seeming more comfortable but disturbing in the way her shapely but jointless limbs wrapped around the legs. “Kv’Steven is doing very well in all his classes.” “He is the most intelligent human on this ridiculous planet.” Snapped his mother, impatiently. “We’re well aware of that Mrs. K’Shtarxl” “It is K’Starxl! There is no gender designation!” The sinuous mother stated sharply, and then with a lower, but dangerous tone, “or do you think I am not the equal to any male of my species?” “No... K’Shtarxl, not at all. I apologize.” “Calm down, Kassie, the woman is a schoolteacher, not a warrior to pick a fight with” Kv’Steven’s father sighed. His enhanced battle armor pushing the limits on the buttons on his suit coat. “You have no authority over me, human! Do not issue orders to ME on my mental state!” “Kassie. This is not a battleground. It’s an elementary school.” He stated in a placating tone. K’Shtarxl seemed to swell, the legs of the chair flexing under increased pressure from the limbs gripping them. “That is exactly the problem! Kv’Steven does not require the ‘education’ provided by this ‘school’. He has vast knowledge and resources! He should be on Kx’Straz where he would learn to harness his vast power for glorious battle!” “We’ve been over this, Kassie. The training grounds of KxStraz are no place for a human boy. They would eat him alive... literally” “Exactly my point! There is no challenge here! Not one of his classmates has even tried to assassinate him! He will grow soft!” In an attempt to get the conference back on track, Mrs. Logan interjects, “M... K’Shtarxl, While it’s true that Kv’Steven has a very advanced grasp of... everything we teach... we feel that he IS receiving challenges and valuable... training in other ways.” “And what challenges could the spawn of the Qx’Tor of the first fleet of Ch’Thalo possibly face is this” a sinuous arm gesturing to the room, “human institution?” “Well, he is learning to socialize with his peers without subsuming their minds, for one.” “If their minds are so weak, they deserve being enslaved by a superior intelligence.” But her limbs seemed to relax a fractional amount. “Also, he’s very interested in art and music. Kv’Steven made this the other day”, Mrs. Logan says brightly while turning to retrieve an object made of pipe cleaners and dried macaroni. “Ah, yes!”, K’Shtarxl exclaimed. “A Ba’thtki! Primitive, but of excellent proportion! I am surprised and delighted that you have provided him with the necessary radioactive compounds necessary to complete one!” “Wha... No. we do not provide radioactive compounds... it’s just a sculpture...” “That cannot be. May I manipulate this... sculpture?” K’Shtarxl asks, reaching a tentacular appendage from behind her back to lift the object out of Mrs. Logan’s hands. “Why would one copy the shape of a Ba’thki without function?” Her hands changing shape as they found crevasses in the sculpture. “It’s just art. For visual pleasure. Surely the Mx’Tarxl have art?” KShtarxl continues to examine the piece as she answers. “We derive all pleasure from our primary function. I am a warrior and my spawn shall be a warrior as well. Ah!” She exclaims, the sculpture humming as it starts to glow from several places. “I was correct! It IS a functioning Ba’thki!” Mrs. Logan is taken aback as her eyes remain riveted to the object in K’Shtarxl’s appendages. “And what... what does a Ba’thki do? K’Shtarxl flows sinuously upright. “It is a breaching weapon!” Taking aim at the wall, a large pentagonal hole appears. “That...that’s unacceptable. I thought we were making progress with him” Mrs. Logan is visibly shaken. Kv’Steven’s father’s eyes beam with pride as he looks at the Ba’thki. “Oh, don’t be too upset about this! Kv’Steven was trying to show off a bit! I know a bit about Mx’Tarxl technology, and this is an achievement for ANY child his age! Kassie! Didn’t you tell me you weren’t able to make a functioning Ba’thki until you were WELL into your tactical training? And he’s done it with macaroni! Shows you that a little human ingenuity can do!” His booming laughter filling the room. “Humans are an inferior species, Major Taylor! We should have retaken this planet aeons ago! I regret ever accepting your challenge to combat and the resulting decision of the hive mind to consider this species ‘intelligent’” her form swelled, clothing absorbing into a shifting metallic skin. The Major stands from his chair, his form looming in the small room. “Kassie, you will stand down and stop shifting into combat shape. Or do I have to subdue you again?” “You can make an attempt, Major. But should you prove unsuccessful, I will petition to have your species reclassified and finally take this planet for the glory of the Ch’Thalo fleet!” Her exotic features showing obvious excitement at the prospect. Mrs. Logan, now visibly terrified as the two parents in front of her size each other up, backs away into a corner. “This is unacceptable! If you don’t stop this... I’ll call security!” A vicious laugh bursts from K’Shtarxl. “Call them, earth educator. It will not save this pathetic specimen before me!” “You two are terrible parents!” Cries Mrs. Logan, hysterical now, “I have no choice! I’m calling CPS! Kv’Steven will be placed in foster care!” Suddenly both parents heads swivel to look directly at her. Two sets of glowing eyes boring into her very frail looking form. “That was a mistake, Mrs. Logan.” Major Taylor growls calmly. “You should know to never try to interfere in family disputes.” “Agreed, contract liege. These threats shall not stand.” Adds K’Shtarxl now fully encased in moving metal armor. Outside, a dull boom is heard in the classroom and soon Kv’Steven’s parents come to the playground to collect him from where he is playing with something in his hands while sitting on a swing. “Ready to go, champ?” Asks his father, lifting him into his arms. “What do you have there?” “I made a G’thur out of some pine cones!” The child exclaims. “Surely not!” His mother exclaims, moving to see the object better. “Manufacture of a G’thur takes years of training! Allow me to examine this!” Kv’Steven hands the device to his mother, whose eyes are filled with awe. She turns the top of the device and holds it in her palm. A triangular wedge of the playground in front of her is suddenly flattened by the massive forces released. “Remarkable!” She exclaims. “Well, Kassie. Seeing as how Kv’Steven is in need of a new teacher anyway, maybe we COULD send him off to Kx’Straz for training.” “Are you not still concerned for his welfare?” “No... I figure, any six year old kid who can make a G’thur out of pine cones in a half hour should be just fine in Kx’Straz warrior training. And anyway, I have that set of power armor I made for him. None of the other Mx’Tarxl spawn will even come close to touching him. “You please me on this day, Major. Let us return to the suburbs and perhaps my pleasure will be shown.”
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	"Violence!? My daughter!? This is no doubt your doing Richard." "Mine!? She's in this mess because of you brain washing my kid with your self-imposed, self-righteous morals!" "OUR child En... Richard." "... You're right Morina. Our child." At this point a very tentative principal interjected meekly. "If I may continue?" nodding at the two for acknowledgement. You could feel the tension in the air, quite literally. The humidity level rose 5 points in the last ten minutes and there was a slight crackle in the room. "Oh? Yes, please do Mr... uh" "Novigard, Ms. Chase. Yes, well your daughter was caught fighting on school grounds. We have a zero tolerance policy on this matter..." Richard interjected with a noticable mumble "A completely ineffective model." "And I suppose you have a great alternative?" Morina spat out. "How about a system that doesn't punish my, our , kid from doing the right thing?" "Resorting to violence is NOT the "right thing!" "Well, she shouldn't have gotten involved at all, that part is squarely on you. However, since she did, decking that twirp was fully justified." "He was a child! Oh what would you know about justice or ethics?" "Lat..., damnit! I mean, Morina! We are not having that argument! Neither here nor now!" At this point they have noticed the principal's hand covering his face in exasperation. "Excuse us Mr.Novigard, please continue," Richard sighed. The static in the air seemed to settle. "Right, well, uh... zero tolerance. I'm afraid the young Chase will be suspended for two weeks." "Two weeks!? But she'll fall behind in class!" "Not to worry Ms. Chase, her teachers have prepared a packet for her missing days, along with some extra disciplinary homework, to do at her leisure during her absence." Both parents let out a sigh and stood as Richard glared at the principal, "I suppose that will be all then?" Clearing his throat and readjusting his posture, Mr.Novigrad concurred and saw them out. Behind the poorly adjusted and unnecessarily heavy door was a bright white hall. It was completely empty save for a few cheap blue chairs, echoes of elsewhere people, and a young miss Chase. Morina was quickly followed by Richard, along with a loud thud and subsequent click of the wooden door. "At least your still a gentleman" Morina said softly, before noticing her daughter's worried glance. She walked over, practically looming over the young child. It did not help that she was struggling to shrink in her seat. "Ariana Elizabeth Chase. You are in so much trouble." After pausing and giving an evil eye only a mother could give, Morina sighed. "Go say goodbye to your father, we'll talk about it in the car." With a back-glance at Richard that was both soft with worry and hard with blame, she turned and walked off. Richard strode up and knelt down next to his daughter. "You're not getting out of this one Liz." "I know Dad." They shared a silence before Richard continued. "I want you to know that I am proud of you though." "You are!? Why?" A hearty laugh came out, a little too similar to a cackle, as Richard replied, "Young lady, getting involved in someone else's fight is not your business. But, you did what you thought was right. You protected someone you thought needed protection. There is no reason for me not to be proud." Small tears welled up in Ariana's eyes before embracing her father. "I love you Dad." "I love you too sweetie." "Now," picking her up and setting her to her feet, "you should also always serve your punishments!" "But you don't!" "Ahhh, but I never get caught, do I?" he said with a wink, "Go run to your mother. When I see you next, I'll take you for a ride in the super-car. Anywhere you want." Her eyes lit up with excitement and Glee "We are not going to the moon Ariana," Shooting down the idea before she started begging again. Slightly dejected, but still quite happy, she ran off towards the parking lot. "Love ya dad!" "Bye sweetie!" He stood there for a while, wondering about her future, before walking towards the opposite parking lot. "I hope she turns out like her mother," He chuckled to himself "well, not too much."	Patricia "Siren" Adams and Douglas "Sillouette, The Living Shadow" Hosteddler sat on either side of me. Mom's seismic rage was just barely contained, a slight tremble noticable even to Principle Sanders. "Luckily" there was some roadwork happening right outside his window. I throw the scare quotes in there to draw attention to mom's probable cause of said earth moving and jack hammering: as city council head chair she was not above pulling some strings to cover her at times uncontrollable abilities. Dad used his own powers of manipulation with a bit more discretion, but in spite of two lamps and a large window there was a palpable gloom in the air, as if the light was working against something; which is more-or-less what was happening. Principal David Sanders sprang to his feet and turned on the florecent lights, wiping dust from the switch on to his sweater vest as he sat back down. He flipped open the kinda thick folder in front of him and opened his mouth to talk. He glanced up and saw: mom leaning forward, her eyes blazing with what he must have assumed was anger but was actually her sitting quite firmly on her powers. Dad slouched back in his chair, itself scooted back against the wall, sending the top half of his face into shade. And me, one foot pulled up under me, the other tapping the floor. The only sound in the room was my nervous foot. Mom put a hand on my knee and I stopped, realizing to her I may as well have been hammering the linoleum with a mallet. "Miss Adams has been skipping math." Sanders kinda blurt it out, realizing the silence had dragged too long. Mom snort a little bit as she scoffed. "Truancy?!" She shouted. "You got me to cancel the tri-county zoning commission for Truancy? When I was on the PTA I-" "Stuff it, Pat." Dad may as well have thrown sand in her face. Nobody called her Pat. Lovers and children might get away with Patty but Pat was as good as a vulgar expletive to her. "That ain't why we're here, is it Dave?" David Sanders had been principal for two years and vice four years before that. A classroom teacher for a solid decade behind that, he'd seen all sorts of broken homes and disfunction, but this was different. "Erm, no. You see. Your daughter- uhh...well..." Mom's eyes widened, which sent them positively bugging. Her whole body moved with her head as she swiveled in her chair to gaze at the two of us. Dad's perpetual smirk broke into a huge grin, the shade over his eyes falling down over the rest if his face creating a Cheshire cat effect. "You never told her, did you sweetheart?" Things began pushing away from Mom now, trembling with the vibrations of Moms anger manifest the air itself throbbed. David turned to look out his window, twisting his wheeled chair around he leaned forward and popped the blinds open. "What the hell are they doing out there!" "They think I flooded the girls room!" I hissed into her ear. "What?" Mom eased back in her chair and the disturbance stopped. "And before that I got blamed for a teeny tiny little fire in the science room." This I said at volume because in the sudden silence I may as well. "Oh, good, your talking about it!" Said the now visibly relived principal. "Do you mind telling me what really happened?" I stared at him in silence, not wanting to lie but unable to tell the truth. "See? There. That. That's what I and all the other administrators have to deal with when we find Stacy in the middle of flooded bathroom or smoking science lab. That mute stare. We just can't get through..." But principal David Sanders trailed off as he saw the girl's mother and father share that same kind of stare just now. The dad smiling, the mom frowning. Then both of them fixing a look of pride on their daughter. Mom spoke, with a quivering emotion laden voice. "Our little girl has a Gift?" "Yup." drawled the dad. "And you didn't tell me?!" This time she exploded, her anger slipped and the little pocket of turbulence I know she'd been holding on to got lose. Without thinking I reached out with my ability, stretching my nascent superpowers around the shockwave erupting from my raging mother. Dad laughed but flicked a finger and threw a shadow ball around David's head. "Whoa, power's out!" I strained to hold the forces back and did. For a moment. Then dad spoke again. "I told her to keep the powers a secret until she had them under control." "WHAT!" This time she lost it completely and it was all dad and I could do to wrap the rest of us in protective barriers as the room exploded. Literally exploded, cinder blocks and filing cabinets flying, a "gas leak" triggered by the nearby construction. "You never returned my calls!" Dad screamed "I trusted Stacy to tell you!" "You trusted a teenage girl to tell her mother she got in trouble?" Shouted mom as debris rained down. Dad blushed and I was once again reminded how young they were when I was conceived. Gross.
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	---Part 1--- [Part 2 can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/aklovb/wp_youre_the_result_of_a_drunken_onenight_stand/ef8f2vm/) Programming is my favorite class in school. It started when I was about 5 or 6, when my dad let me into his lab for the first time, and gave me a pet robot called Opaipa. As I grew, he taught me about programming and engineering by helping me make upgrades to "Opie", and what started as a flying ball that sang cartoon songs became my own personal AI assistant. "You just can't help yourself, can you? You knew I would be away from headquarters, so you just HAD to take advantage, didn't you?", Mom yelled in the hallway. Alpha Energy Build-up Detected. I think mom is... mad., Opie said from my purse. Please don't hit the computer lab... Let me start from the beginning. My name is Samantha Cole Darius. My parents are... well the term we use is "supers". My mom is a Global Threat Response Agent, code name Alpha. Apparently when she was a teenager, there was an accident that left her with the ability to channel energy. On the small scale, she can charge an object with this energy. Dad even figured out how to use it as a power source, like the battery inside of Opie. On the large scale... BI-wwwwoooooiiiiiIIIIN *BZZZOOOOORRRRRRRRRP* ...she can cast high velocity plasma beams. Currently at my dad... because she caught him managing a classified technology heist from his smartphone... during my parent-teacher conference. Thankfully, he always keeps his alpha-capacitor on him, so it won't break anything. This is so embarassing... "Jesus, calm down, Lana! This isn't what you think it is!", Dad yelled. "That's rich coming from a washed up T-3!" "Ok, one, I'm retired, not washed up. Two, we promised we wouldn't do this. And three, I'm at least a Class 5, thank you!" Dad, meanwhile, used to be a super villain. I don't know much about it, other than it involved his robots, and he rarely did anything in person. For a while, Mom and Dad were enemies, but Mom never knew what he looked like. Mom wore a full face mask back then, so Dad didn't know what she looked like either. At some point, they both went to the same bar for a singles night, and here I am... Holding an energy shield up around myself, Opie, and Ms. Caroline. "Samantha, what is going on?!", she yelled. "I think my Mom and Dad are having an argument." "And your mother can shoot lasers?" "Yeah... but she knows that she can't actually hurt Dad." "And how does she know that?!" "Because he invented a device that converts her power into an energy shield." "AND WHY DID HE DO THAT?!" Clearly I'm making this worse... It took Mom four months to figure out who Dad actually was after she got pregnant. I guess they had some kind of conversation about it, and he promised to quit. She worked out a deal with GTR, and the rest is history. She explained to me that she did it not for his sake, but for mine. She didn't have a father growing up, and she didn't want me to be deprived of one either. To his credit, he's great at being a dad, but she never really trusted him. They never got married, and because of her job, they agreed that Dad should take heavily supervised custody. Supervised as in having a GTR handler live across the hall from us. "Samantha, you're going to answer a question for me, and do it honestly, Ok?", Ms. Caroline said, having recovered from the shock of discovering that a superhero battle was almost occurring in the hall., "Is everything ok at home? Are you safe?" Oh man... I knew this was coming. I sighed, audibly. "Yeah, I'm fine. They have occasional arguments, but nothing ever gets broken or anything. They don't want me to see them fighting, but I know they don't get along well." "Then what's with the bubble. I'm assuming this is your doing?" "Yeah. Mom has lasers, Dad's a super-genius, and I have shields. Mom makes me train with her twice a week, in case I ever get attacked by someone. I can summon them at will and on reflex." Ms. Caroline took a questioning tone, "Reflex?" "You know... like a karate person?", I replied, nervously. "Right...", she replied, still suspicious. "...so your parents are supers, and you're at least half genius..." I groaned. Even if I like my powers, I hate being described by them. People always make assumptions. Ms. Caroline kept talking. "You ace your tests, but don't do your homework. You don't pay attention in class, but know all the answers... Samatha, are you bored?" The laser punctuated argument died down in the hall, and only the faint hum of my bubble was left. I turned and looked at Ms. Caroline. No one had ever asked me that before. "I don't know...", I replied meekly. Ms. Caroline must have heard the fear in my voice as I said it. "Hey hey hey, it's OK Samantha. It's going to be OK. This is a good thing, we just have to come up with a good plan that fits you.", Ms. Caroline looked up through her window. The lasers had stopped. Through the textured glass I could tell that Dad was massaging his forehead while Mom stared him down. Gathering her composure, Ms. Caroline stood up and walked to the door. Stopped, took a breath, and opened the door. "Ms. Cole, Mr, Darius. I understand that you are having a moment, but if you are done, I need you to come back into my office. Sam and I have had an honest discussion and I believe I understand why her grades are failing."	Ms. Green my teacher sat at the desk, tapping her foot nervously. I shifted my eyes from her to my father. He took his pipe out absentmindedly and brought it to his mouth. "Daddy, no smoking," I say. "Ah, sorry. Old habits," he said. He put the pipe back in the chest pocket of his polo shirt. My dad always looks ridiculous when he tries to blend in with muggles. Everyone knows he's a wizard. He has a beard that would make Gandalf jealous. A voice that seems to have two settings, sagely advice and booming across the mountaintops. Yet for some reason he thinks that if he takes off his robe and pointy hat and wore a golf shirt and jeans no one would recognize the Great Sage. "I do appreciate you coming Mr. Aberwick. Once Miss Drake gets here we can get started," Ms. Green said. "We may be more productive without her," Dad said. As if on cue we hear the screech of metal being rent down the hallway. I blush and put my face in my hands. "Ah, that would be her now. Most likely robbing your vending machines." Ms. Green was stunned silent as my mother walked in. Unlike my Dad, Mom never believed in secret identities. She wore what can generously be called a metal bikini and the purse I made her for Mother's Day. That was nice. She had her horns, tail, and wings out. Red scales went from her wicked two inch claws up to her elbows on her hands and knees on her feet. She was chewing what I assume is a snickers bar from the wrapper she dropped on the floor. Ms. Green found her voice and said. "Yesterday Miss Aberwick got into an altercation with another student. It is school policy to talk to the parents after such an event especially in cases where there is, ah, a beheading involved." Dad looked down at me. I could feel his disappointed stare even though I kept my eyes fixed on my lap. Mom, bright as ever, asked, "Did she win?" Dad and I facepalmed in practiced synchronization. Ms. Green stumbled to answer. "Well she... Yes, she won. But that's not really the point-" "That's my girl!" Mom cheered. She slapped me on the back. "What happened, honey?" Dad asked in that 'trusted sage' voice of his. "It was an accident. Paul tapped my shoulder and said 'maybe you can show me your tail sometime.' I said 'Touch me again and I will.' He grabbed my butt and said 'Don't threaten me with a good time.' So I let my tail and and swung it. I only wanted to miss him and scare him with the wind. But he sort of ducked toward me at the last moment." I explained. I cried as I looked up to him. Dad never could take the tears. Dad pulled me into a hug. "We'll get a lawyer. Don't worry, baby. We will find a way through this." "Well she clearly was acting in self defence. You can't blame a dragon for eating someone who assaulted them. Besides we are an endangered species," Mom said. "Mom! I didn't eat him!" I yelled. "What have I taught you about wasting food?" "Krystal," my Dad interjected. "Her classmates are not food." Mother started getting angrier, I felt the heat coming off her. I put a hand on her forearm and pleaded. "Please don't burn my school down again, Mom." She recoiled from my touch, as usual. "Damn it, you're cold." No matter how many times Dad and I told her a young dragon absorbs heat instead of creating it she always was disappointed in my lack of fire. "Just like your father." "What do you mean by that?!" My Dad's voice boomed and shook the room. "If we can all just calm down, no one wants a repeat of what happened to St. Vincent's Academy," Ms. Green timidly tried to intervene. I just looked to her and shook my head no. It is safer not to intervene. "What do you think I mean? She is cold hearted like her dad." Mom said, glaring. "I'm cold hearted? I'm not the one who fucked Prince Harry!" "That was just raping and pillaging. He didn't mean anything." "See? You don't care. I loved you and you just flew off to your next conquest. And you call me cold hearted." "You loved me?" She asked, all the anger gone. I slunk down in my chair wishing I knew how to turn invisible. "But you never chased me..." "I'm not going to stalk a woman on the off chance she might be into it. I just thought you didn't want anything to do with me." Dad said. His voice sad, like I have never heard before. "You were the only woman I ever loved." Mom knocked me aside as she rushed to Dad and pulled him into an embrace. Ms. Green looked at me with concern. I put a finger to my lips. Safer not to interrupt. Mom broke the kiss and said. "I'm telling you now. I want to be chased." She dives out the window and starts flying away like a red streak. Dad looked from Ms. Green to me. "Umm. Okay, kiddo. I want you to promise not to kill anyone else. If a boy is bothering you go to a teacher. Understood?" "Yes, father." I said. My face was probably pure crimson from blushing at this point. He looked out the broken window then back to my teacher. "Well if there is nothing else, I have to go... Uhh.. Stop a rampaging..." I cringed while Ms. Green just waved him off. "See you Saturday, Honey." Dad said before disappearing into a puff of smoke. Ms. Green collapsed into her chair. She reached into her desk and pulled out a bottle. "Can I got to gym class now?" I asked. Ms. Green waved me away. "Sorry about your window." I apologized before leaving. Oh gods I hope they aren't on the news tonight.
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	"In my experience, this sort of conversation requires both parents to be present," Ms. Ratwell said delicately. "Do you know if your - er - when Nick's father will be joining us?" &#x200B; Ursula looked at her watch and sighed. She shuddered to think of what kind of nonsense he must have gotten himself in. "No. I made sure to remind him it was today. But you know how their kind are. Something always comes up at the last minute... Can we just get this over with?" Ursula didn't need mind reading powers to know the look Ms. Ratwell was giving her. The patronizing judgement was loud as a bus full of drowning schoolchildren. &#x200B; Ms. Ratwell pursed her lips before continuing. "I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that both parents really need to be on the same page when it comes to raising a child. Which isn't to be defeatist. There's definitely still time to turn things around. But we're just worried that Nick isn't on the right track right now. He's started to act out." &#x200B; "There's only so much I can do alone. Nick's with me most of the week, but after the Super Court judge gave Frank custody on the weekends... You know how boys this age take after their fathers." &#x200B; Ms. Ratwell nodded. "SCOTUS really does gives their kind too much leeway. As I always say-" &#x200B; Just then, the classroom door opened and Captain Fantastic appeared. Years ago, Ursula almost enjoyed the accompanying trumpet theme, but now she loathed the stupid up-beat tune that accompanied Frank every time he entered. &#x200B; "Sorry I'm late. This city has far too many burning buildings. Completely outdated fire codes if you ask me." &#x200B; "Hello Frank. So good of you to take time out of your busy schedule to make time for the education of your son." &#x200B; "Now that's not fair Ursula. It's not like I'm on the side starting the fires." &#x200B; Ms. Ratwell cleared her throat loudly to cut the argument short. "Thank you for joining us Frank. We were just about to talk about Nick's grades. We've noticed some troubling trends lately in a couple of his classes." &#x200B; Captain Fantastic looked taken aback. "Well that is troubling. Scout's honor. I've been making sure he does his homework, and Ursula I promise that I haven't let him play any of those honorable video games. He's only allowed to play the gory fighting ones." &#x200B; "Be that as it may, his grades in several of his classes leave some cause for concern. Take Mad Science for example." &#x200B; "Nick loves Mad Science. He was so excited about that Death Ray project. Are you saying his didn't work?" Captain Fantastic asked. &#x200B; "It's more that he's having trouble grasping the fundamental principles. The Death Ray project is a perfect example. When it came time to present the application, all Nick could do was go on about how it would make for a great source of clean energy." &#x200B; "See, this is what I keep trying to tell you, Frank!" Ursula blurted out. "It doesn't matter the words you say, but your lifestyle is rubbing off on him." &#x200B; Captain Fantastic shot to his feet, his gaze transfixed on the window. "Do you see that?" He pointed to what appeared to be a giant radioactive spider laying waste to some skyscrapers in the direction of downtown. "The Tarantuladon must have escaped its prison in the Mariana Trench! I'm sorry. Ursula, Ms. Ratwell. I need to take a raincheck here. The city needs me." &#x200B; And without time for another word, Captain Fantastic flew through the window to do battle with the giant beast. &#x200B; Ursula put her hands over her face in embarrassment.	“Ms Lane, Mr Keller, y-your boy I’m afraid has been getting some below average grades…” It must’ve been hard being my teacher. On one side, my father, a world-renowned superhero, known for his antics, charisma, cheery personality, looks, good hair- I could go on. On the other side, practically bristling with rage, my mother, an infamous supervillain most well-known for holding the oceans hostage in 2005. Well, before my dad stopped her. “Below… average?” my mother hissed. The sweat on the teacher’s forehead started heating up, sizzling against her skin. “Yes, Ms Lane. Again, I’m sorry, I can’t change the wrong answer to the right…,” she began, but stopped as my mother composed herself. “Yes, well, that’s fine Anne. I’m sure you can’t possibly change anything,” my mum replied, suddenly sickly-sweet. My dad still hadn’t chimed in. “Thanks for understanding, Ms Lane. Now, we’ve thought maybe about making him repeat a year. Just for safety’s sake, you understand.” My teacher almost didn’t see the water floating out of her skin as my mother’s hand raised. She noticed a second after, as her lips became parched and her skin became dry. My mother was draining her of her water, slowly killing her. My dad was on her in a second, punching her hand out of the way. My teacher collapsed into her chair. “Bonnie!” he hissed at her. Rocks started floating up from the ground, responding to my father’s increased emotions. “I’ll kill her! Nobody gives my son these grades! And making him repeat a year?!” She rose from her seat, floating upwards. Steam sizzled from her feet. She flung her hand out. My teacher rose from her seat, gallons of water seeping from the pores of her skin. “Nobody fails my son, y’hear?! Nobo -” She was cut off as my father launched a spire of rock at her head, knocking her into the school wall. My mother hissed at my father as she got to her feet. “Don’t try and stop me, David. I’ll show this stupid school to fail my son!” Water engulfed her form, becoming warm, hotter, boiling. She shot a stream at my father, who just barely managed to summon a wall of rock that sent the stray droplets flying. With his free hand, my father engulfed me and my teacher into a ball of rock, with a couple of holes for air and light. I couldn’t see, but I could hear them fighting. The school bell started ringing, and I heard other kids screaming and crying. I heard my mother shriek, and shortly after heard the familiar thud of a rock falling to the ground. Boiling water hissed and scalded. I heard it paint the walls as she tried to shoot my father. With a tremendous crack, I heard her go flying. Earth bended and cracked as I heard my father chasing after her. The school bell came to a disappointing stop. And then, there was silence. I coughed. “Ms Carter, I am so sorry about this. Does this mean you won’t push some of my grades to a pass?” From the darkness I heard her grumble. “Stop talking.”
[WP] You're the result of a drunken one-night stand between a hero and a villain. Despite their complicated hatred of each other, they've always tried not to fight for your sake. That changes during a particularly heated parent-teacher meeting.	"In my experience, this sort of conversation requires both parents to be present," Ms. Ratwell said delicately. "Do you know if your - er - when Nick's father will be joining us?" &#x200B; Ursula looked at her watch and sighed. She shuddered to think of what kind of nonsense he must have gotten himself in. "No. I made sure to remind him it was today. But you know how their kind are. Something always comes up at the last minute... Can we just get this over with?" Ursula didn't need mind reading powers to know the look Ms. Ratwell was giving her. The patronizing judgement was loud as a bus full of drowning schoolchildren. &#x200B; Ms. Ratwell pursed her lips before continuing. "I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that both parents really need to be on the same page when it comes to raising a child. Which isn't to be defeatist. There's definitely still time to turn things around. But we're just worried that Nick isn't on the right track right now. He's started to act out." &#x200B; "There's only so much I can do alone. Nick's with me most of the week, but after the Super Court judge gave Frank custody on the weekends... You know how boys this age take after their fathers." &#x200B; Ms. Ratwell nodded. "SCOTUS really does gives their kind too much leeway. As I always say-" &#x200B; Just then, the classroom door opened and Captain Fantastic appeared. Years ago, Ursula almost enjoyed the accompanying trumpet theme, but now she loathed the stupid up-beat tune that accompanied Frank every time he entered. &#x200B; "Sorry I'm late. This city has far too many burning buildings. Completely outdated fire codes if you ask me." &#x200B; "Hello Frank. So good of you to take time out of your busy schedule to make time for the education of your son." &#x200B; "Now that's not fair Ursula. It's not like I'm on the side starting the fires." &#x200B; Ms. Ratwell cleared her throat loudly to cut the argument short. "Thank you for joining us Frank. We were just about to talk about Nick's grades. We've noticed some troubling trends lately in a couple of his classes." &#x200B; Captain Fantastic looked taken aback. "Well that is troubling. Scout's honor. I've been making sure he does his homework, and Ursula I promise that I haven't let him play any of those honorable video games. He's only allowed to play the gory fighting ones." &#x200B; "Be that as it may, his grades in several of his classes leave some cause for concern. Take Mad Science for example." &#x200B; "Nick loves Mad Science. He was so excited about that Death Ray project. Are you saying his didn't work?" Captain Fantastic asked. &#x200B; "It's more that he's having trouble grasping the fundamental principles. The Death Ray project is a perfect example. When it came time to present the application, all Nick could do was go on about how it would make for a great source of clean energy." &#x200B; "See, this is what I keep trying to tell you, Frank!" Ursula blurted out. "It doesn't matter the words you say, but your lifestyle is rubbing off on him." &#x200B; Captain Fantastic shot to his feet, his gaze transfixed on the window. "Do you see that?" He pointed to what appeared to be a giant radioactive spider laying waste to some skyscrapers in the direction of downtown. "The Tarantuladon must have escaped its prison in the Mariana Trench! I'm sorry. Ursula, Ms. Ratwell. I need to take a raincheck here. The city needs me." &#x200B; And without time for another word, Captain Fantastic flew through the window to do battle with the giant beast. &#x200B; Ursula put her hands over her face in embarrassment.	“She does have a tendency to read the minds of those around her. Some of the other pupils have complained.” Mrs Johnson had to tread carefully; she was all too aware of who she was speaking to. “I don’t believe this.” KillGirl sank back into her plastic seat - its tiny legs flexing under her weight. “She gets that from you, Tim.” MindMan looked at her, aghast, and took a sip from a complimentary carton of milk that the school had provided. “Not now, Tina,” he said. Mrs Johnson shuffled uncomfortably. “On the plus side,” she beamed, “she hasn’t killed a fellow pupil for a whole term!” She pointed to a handmade poster stuck next to the whiteboard behind her. In callously coloured bubble writing, a pupil had written “WEEKS GONE WITHOUT KILLING ANYBODY” along the top. The rest of the poster was filled with rows and rows of gold stars - but next to Amber’s name were only six. “Well, that’s something then!” KillGirl knew the teacher was clutching at straws, but she forced enthusiasm with all her might nonetheless. MindMan glared at his arch rival. “Hmm,” he placed a mocking finger on his chin, “I wonder why our daughter has taken to murder?” KillGirl’s gaze snapped upon MindMan’s. The teacher laughed, trying to break the palpable tension. “It’s not murder if she was under threat, Timothy,” KillGirl spat between gritted teeth. “You should know that better than anyone.” “Tina, don’t bring up Washington. We don’t talk about Washington - we agreed on that. And besides, I’m not sure Olivia looks like the type to be holding fellow six-year-olds at gunpoint.” MindMan gestured to a small shrine in the corner of the room, surrounded by flowers made of multi-coloured tissue paper. Perched in the middle was a picture of a little girl wearing a blue dress and a ribbon in her yellow hair. A small plaque next to it read Always in our hearts, Olivia. KillGirl rolled her eyes. “She might be,” she shrugged. “You know I’m right,” continued MindMan. “And I know you know I’m right. I can read minds, remember? I also happen to know that Mrs Johnson here is taking my side, and she’s an impartial third party.” “Oh, no, I err, I’m neutral, guys. I’m Switzerland.” Mrs Johnson picked up a sheet of white paper and waved it awkwardly. “I surrender, Mr MindMan and Mrs KillGirl. Argh!” She forced a laugh once more, her embarrassment as tangible as the classroom itself. The parents turned to one another again. “Don’t read my mind, Tim. We made a deal. I don’t kill you, you don’t read my mind. And we never talk about Washington.” “It’s not like I can help it, Tina. It’s loud. Your mind is particularly loud. It’s like nails against a blackboard, dammit. I can pick you out of a crowd, that’s for sure. Just follow the screech.” “Fuck you, Tim. I’ve a mind to kill you, right here, right now.” “You don’t have a mind to kill me.” “I might.” “I know you don’t. You love Amber too much. If that kid is going to have a hope in life, she needs us both. And besides, you think I’m cute when I’m angry.” “I just need to-” Mrs Johnson rose from her seat. “I think I’m being called. Excuse me a moment.” The door slammed behind her. KillGirl didn’t say a word, but MindMan continued. “I think you’re cute when you’re angry, too. Your cheeks go red and you keep flicking your fringe to the side. I remember noticing it the first time you tried to kill me.” KillGirl remained silent, but her expression began to soften. Finally, she spoke. “I could've killed you if I'd wanted. I just chose not to." "I know, Tin. I know. Thanks for that." "You're welcome. It won't happen again, though." MindMan turned to look at the classroom door. The hallway outside was desolate - he couldn’t hear a sound; or a mind. "You er, you thinking what I’m thinking, then?” “I don't know - you're the mind reader - you tell me." KillGirl's expression had relented into a reluctant grin. "Yeah. I am. It’s time Amber had a sibling.” \\\*If you enjoyed this, you might like my subreddit - r/StoriesAreFunRight. Every subscriber gets a gold star (unless you've killed recently, of course).
[WP] You are convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to death. You await the lethal injection cocktail and close your eyes preparing for the end. You lose consciousness and blackout. You wake up in a room and hear the words, "Welcome to the involuntary advanced physics research program."	“Have you made peace son?” Mr. Barnes leaned over smiling. “If not, now’s the time to do so.” I watched Mr. Barnes grab hold of a syringe full of a light pink fluid. “Okay, Kyle Brookes, time is now.” “Wait,” my tongue slipped. Everything in the room started to squeeze tighter around me. The needle punctured my neck as Mr. Barnes locked his eyes onto mine. I had nothing left. All that waited for me was death. Every muscle tensed. My blood felt like ice clogging each vein from the fluid. With the last images being only myself and Mr. Barnes, it seemed that not even death wanted to greet me. My eyes grew heavy – then darkness wrapped me in its blanket. &nbsp; “Welcome to the involuntary and advanced physics research program.” A familiar voice greeted. Fingers snapped over me while my eyes took a minute to focus. I slowly sat up in a metal chair only to find Mr. Barnes standing over a table full of instruments and monitors. “Well, there he is,” he smiled. “Rise and shine son, you’re in the afterlife now.” Mr. Barnes flipped through papers tucked in a medical folder. He positioned a monitor closer in front of me. I tried shifting my weight to sit up more, but my hands and feet were restrained to the chair. “What is this.” I demanded. “Why am I not dead?” Mr. Barnes shot his attention up. “You are dead.” He slapped the folder down on the table. “As far as the world’s concerned, they're rid of the likes of you. Instead of throwing your meaningless existence six feet below this property, we are going to utilize you for an experiment – so to speak.” “What do you mean experiment? You going to cut me open or something?” Mr. Barnes had a smirk that wrinkled his brow. “I never imagined a killer like yourself being scared. Don’t disappoint my perception of you before we even get started.” He turned on the monitor in front of me. I stared at nothing but a blue screen with a play button at the bottom. “Here we go.” A countdown on the screen started. I waited until the count hit zero before a man dressed up in a white lab coat came into frame. “Welcome,” the man nodded. The screen was so bright, I couldn’t tell where Mr. Barnes had gone off to or what he was doing in the room. I had no other option but to watch the man from the video. “Today, we will be sharing with you a classified project under the level of Top-Secret Clearance. With you coming off of Death row, you will not need cleared for this level of classification. Your involvement is – well, involuntary.” The man winked. “Do not worry, minutes ago you were announced dead and now you get to help mankind push themselves forward. Obviously, there is a high risk. That is why we have chosen all of you. You are all expendable.” I stretched my neck to the side trying to find others. No one else appeared to be in the room but the man on the monitor claimed there were more. The video didn’t show what the experiment was about. It only informed me on why I had been chosen for it. The man did mention something about the research of physics and a certain law that some scientist came up with years back. I was too focused on finding others around me to really hear all of it. “Okay son, you get a clear picture of your new afterlife?” Mr. Barnes stopped the video. “I still don’t understand what this experiment is.” Mr. Barnes chuckled before grabbing a key and some cuffs from the table. “Wouldn’t be much of an experiment if you had all the answers now would it.” He cuffed my hands and feet before unlocking the restraints that had tied me to the chair. Mr. Barnes pulled me up onto the floor. “Walk slowly Kyle. You wouldn’t wanna trip on those new ankle bracelets.” Mr. Barnes led me down a brightly lit corridor into another small room like the one we had just left from. “The man mentioned others.” I told him. He didn’t reply. Instead, he yanked me over towards a metal capsule connected by massive cables along the floor. “In you go.” Mr. Barnes locked me inside. He opened a slot looking back at me through a glass. “If the other’s survived, they’re already out there.” “Out where?” Before I could repeat my question, electricity surged my body. The entire capsule grew hot. My bones felt like they were being whip lashed over and over again. My fingers started disappearing into bright particles of light. It felt as if my body was being torn apart. “Get me out of here!” I screamed. The pain kept coming back for more. I felt myself screaming louder and louder until something wet dripped onto my forehead. The pain instantly fled. My fingers looked to be back to normal along with the rest of my body. When I lifted my eyes, I realized I was no longer in the capsule. Instead, I found myself standing in the middle of a jungle. *** Want to read more stories? Visit [13thOlympian](https://www.reddit.com/r/13thOlympian/)	"Welcome to the involuntary advanced physics research program" I open my eyes, realizing that I have survived. As my vision came into focus i realized something was different! First, the technology around me seem way to advance to even exist. Second, this entire facility is one big super quantum computer. I glanced around the cybernetic walls around me, wondering how i got here, and how i survived. The room was small, with bright lights, and a futuristic door. "User identified!" Said the computer. "Welcome: Test subject #479302! The computer sounded natural, like it was a real person speaking. The doors opened, with the screen on top that says: 'Your testing grounds are ready" Right in front of me was an Transfer Pod. I entered, confused and scared. When the pod door closed, the pod was moving without any rails. Instead, its was floating around, entering gates, taking shortcuts, and as I looked out of the glass pod, i could see scientists and robots. they were working together. As the pod was transferring me to the "Testing Grounds", I heard a voice: "Welcome, travelers!" Said the man. The Intercom was being broadcast everywhere. "Now, I know what you might be wondering: How did i get here? What do i do? Well, governments from around the world told us to keep you criminals as test subjects. Now that might be crazy as it sounds, but it works! Plus, working for the government actually keeps us in business! Now, we are looking forward to expand to the multiverse! Now first, we need to find a way to keep the g-force from killing you, so if you look on your right arm, we implanted a prism shape device that allows us to track data. That device will also keep your g-force stable. So we will be running for some tests today! Don't worry, this ain't Aperture science, we're much better than that. that was a good game tho..., NOW GET TO WORK!" As the Transfer pod came into a complete stop, I look around, the walls were covered with cybernetics (As always), it was big, and portals where everywhere. As I took another step, nanobots came out of nowhere! They came in fast, and as they approached, they were already at my legs! How fast are these nanobots? Then, before I looked, they were my boots! "Test ready" said the robot voice. There were scientists, looking out on computers, cameras, and out of a window. There was a poster in the back. It said: "Here at the Involuntary Advanced Physics Research Program, we've created technology so small, they fit in the palm of your hand! One of our nano-PC's is equivalent to 10 NASA supercomputers!" Now, I knew how much information they would gather, they would gather information so big, some of the terms they used may not have existed in the public. I had to clear my mind tho. I had a plan, but I need to concentrate. I took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. I jumped in to the purple-blue colored portal. I felt no breeze, no fall, nothing. Then, I saw myself in another planet. The first test was using the multiverse to transport to other planets. The test results were on the screen. it was a neural network, showing how particles reacted, the total g force, etc. "This does work" I said. There had been a major flaw. Instead of taking me to the right destination, it took me to the security vault. Then, the device on my right hand spoke: "You have 10 minutes to relax!". I knew this meant I had enough time to grab some gear. I look inside. No one! There was a holographic table, TV screens that were turned off. The entire place was still under construction, so it was mostly covered with metal. I looked at the weapons. Electric guns, tasers, laser swords, and a EMP grenade. I took all of it. Then there was a quantum storage device. I took that too. "This place has everything" I shouted! But the shout of my voice attracted some unwanted visitors! Foot steps came. Then I came eye to eye with the security guard. "You have one minute to relax" said the device on my right hand. The guard came after me, quickly i jump through the window, and sprinted. But the guard was much faster. He had gear that could enhance his speed by 40%! Then, I used the electric gun, and the blast was so powerful that it launched me into the portal. The guard was no more! I quickly transferred the gear into the quantum storage device. So, I continued towards the testing grounds, solving puzzles, discovering new planets and universes, etc. In fact, the prize for completing the test was traveling to the center of the universe! But I still had a plan, so there was no time for that. The last test was simple... at least for me. I had to use the multiverse portals to eliminate bots with my bare hands. They gave me a shield, but that was it. Thankfully, the security vault gave me what I need! As I went from portal to portal, I used my laser swords and slice through the robots heads. The robots were nothing. As I went face to face with the last one, the robot punches, dodged! I swing my laser sword, dodged as well. Suddenly, the robot jumped into the portal. It was too fast, the robot was punching me, left, right, up, down. Just when I was about to pass out, the robot landed his hit onto my shield. I throw my laser sword. Instant KO! The portals closed, and a new one opened. "Congratulations" said the device on my right arm. "You pasted the test" The CEO will speak to you shortly!" I looked at my laser sword. "Not a bad light saber!" I entered the portal. The room around me was large, panels that were displays, and a throne with a desk. The CEO was standing tall, in a business man suit with cybernetic arms with spiky hair. "Well" he said. "You passed with an 100% test score!" Congrats!" The screens were showing displays of test results. "Now, i would give you the reward, but no" he said. "Why not" I said. "I've done everything right, shouldn't i get a reward?" "Don't think I didn't hear from security!" The CEO said. "You can't be trusted!" "You almost killed someone! You wanted to get out of this place! You wanted to kill me! But for what reason?" Suddenly, the ground started moving! Nano bots came, I took out my electric gun from the quantum storage device. I tried shooting, but that did nothing. Then, the CEO fused with the machines. He was flying, with wires and parts connected to him. It look like a mechanical spider web. The room changed. The material would make sure damage wouldn't be done. "Now, give in, or DIE" said the CEO. I ran, firing my electric gun. I was aiming for the CEO, but considering he had all the intelligence in the world, he used the nano bots to shield him. He'd also attack, with machine guns coming out of nowhere! And parts of the nano bots would attack me too. But I had a shield, so most of the attacks wouldn't lend a scratch! We kept fighting, moving around, switching weapons. Sword, gun, taser, repeat. The battle wouldn't come to an end. But then that's what I realized, I had a EMP grenade! I threw it directly towards the CEO. When it had exploded, everything stopped. The nano bots were no longer working. This was my chance! I sliced the nano bots, disconnected everything. The CEO kept fighting, using all of his power left, but I shot them down quickly. The CEO was defeated. I opened a door, rushing through the halls, I saw a sigh that said: Nuclear Reactor. I opened the door, only to find security in my way. They where pointing guns at me. I slowly raised my hands in fear. But then, I saw something, my best friend! He was in the nuclear reactor chamber, wearing a gas mask, and holding a bomb! That was when everything had made sense. I was a spy, a spy to an organisation that were rivals to The Involuntary Advanced Physics Research Program. That's why I was sentenced to death. My best friend was the CEO of the other company. He had came to rescue me! I didn't just kill the CEO of the Involuntary Advanced Physics Research program for no reason. I wasn't paid to be a spy, I was sent here, to destroy all evil that existed in here. I put my hand up and said: "Look here, if you want me dead, I'm going to be soon, but i'm not getting killed by you guys! Instead, you should look in the Nuclear Reactor Chamber" They all turned around, all to just see someone with an explosive device. BOOM! Lights were fading through my eyes, my ears were ringing. Everyone was dead, and I fainted, trying to stay alive, but only to fail. I woke up to be in a helicopter, just to see the facility explode. Now I had known the world would be safe. "Mission accomplished" Said my friend. I closed my eyes, to sleep after an exhausting day! (Sorry if I made any spelling mistakes, it took a long time to type this story)
[WP] With a gun pointed to your head, you only have 10 minutes to write down the most memorable experience of your life. The serial killer will read and decide to keep you living or not based on that story.	Twenty-one years ago, a young, teen father left the most beautiful baby boy at the door of an adoption agency He had his mother's eyes...his father's smile... His parents wanted to keep him so bad. But they were too young. It was all the teen parents could do to not give in to their families demands for an abortion. A week after the baby was dropped off at the agency, the mother passed - most likely of a broken heart. The young, teen father never let the child out of his sight. Even after his son was adopted by a well-to-do family, he stayed close by. He went to every game, sitting in the stands just to see his son and cheer along with the other parents, despite the pain he felt everytime the game ended and he watched his child run into the arms of another man. He was there at every graduation. From elementary school to high-school, watching from a distance as he watched his son receive a going away present in the form of a brand-new car. I want my son to have the best he thought. And I can't afford to give him a new car. He took college courses just so he could be on campus with his son; so he could watch his son closely and tell him when he was about to do something dumb. He stood there as his son laughed and brushed him off each time, one time asking, "Arent you too old to be in college?" as he walked off to get drunk, high, or party with friends. He was there when his son slowly self-destructed - becoming an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a college dropout. The father always wondered...and wonders even now, what would have happened if he had told his son his true identity earlier. Would that have caused his son to walk down a more productive path? You were that child. I was that father. Your father. This is the most memorable experience of my life. Not because you have a gun to my head; but because of how we got here. I feel like a failure. I blame myself for who you've become. If only... And that's where the words ended. The robber read the letter with tears in his eyes. His hands shook and his lips quivered. Taking a breath to regain his composure, he said, "It's too late for family reunions. I'm too far gone and I need drugs. But I believe you. And that's why" - he raised his gun - "I'll make your death quick and easy." He paused, mouth convulsing as he tried to get a word out. And finally, the word he choked out was, "Dad." That was the first time - and is probably going to be last time- I get to hear my son ever call me Dad. Because as I write this, he's got the gun aimed to the back of my skull, and realistically, he can shoot whenever he	it was a good day. till i was kidnaped. i was just wallking and this jerk knocked me out! so hear i am. in his basement. theres a gun pointed at my head and i live a boring life! and i like that! but now i gotta write down my most memorable moments!? then it came to me. ofcourse. i write it down.i look at it one last time. it says " that time i got kidnaped and a serial killer made me write my most memorable moments. " i handed to to him. he looked at the paper then me. and i looked at him. "....really? " he said looking at me "....mhm....t...thats my answer. " i said looking at him. then he pulled out his gun and shoot me. i explained to the angel. "....i'm sorry what? " she asked looking at me "..yeah.." i answer. "...j...just come in..." she said.and i did. so yeah...now i'm hear. ~ the end ~
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	Jeff, the CEO of Amazon peers into the large glass office wall of the logistics manager. He's frantically writing on the whiteboard with his lead engineers sitting in confusion and slight panic. "How could a dude who works out of a small garage possibly get a package scanned, checked, shipped and delivered that quickly? None of this makes sense. It's literally impossible. Rob, triple check the math of the logistics software to make sure we're not missing something huge." "Will do boss. Although we've checked it twice already." Jeff calls Tim, the head logistics engineer into his room. "Listen Tim, something's not right here. This startup is crushing our delivery times. As you know, I hired you to be the best in the business." "I've been up all night, Jeff. We've already double checked the math and it just isn't possible. I mean, the only way is he they are literally teleporting to the destination." &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B;	Not used to responding to Reddit WP. Wrote this up for fun. ~ Blang clang bang. Jamie teleported into the drum set again. “Still trying to stick that landing?” Clarissa picked at her chinese take out with a pair of chopsticks. She sat at a nearby desk. Jamie stood up, trying to fix his disheveled position. “One of those creeps were following me again today.” “The ones from ‘Amazon' right?” Clarissa tossed a piece of tofu into her mouth. “That's how you become a conspiracy nut.” “They wore shirts with the logo on it.” “They're out making deliveries.” “They were going around the apartment ‘looking for the front door'. What if it was surveillance?” “And if it was? All deliveries take place from within our apartment. We're like the new Google, and we could sell.” Jamie looked at Clarissa. “But you wouldn't sell, right?” Jamie stepped forward. He took notice of the stack of papers on the desk. As he reached for a document, Clarissa stepped forward. “It's just business, Jamie.” Jamie scoffed. “I still have to sign before it's official. I do all the work after all.” “Sign, and we'll never have to want for a thing. Besides, it takes you seconds.” “How do we even explain this?” Jamie looked at Clarissa. She handed him a document, a contract to agree to. “Eventually, we would have to explain how you make deliveries so quickly. Think of it as investor funding. “ Jamie skimmed through the sheet of paper. It all spoke of chains he was too familiar with. Jamie disappeared, the sheet of paper falling in his absence.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	"Alright, Jimeson, you got two regular orders this morning. One from 22nd and Main, one from the University campus security, both with an urgent slapped on it. I suggest you-" I cut off my partner mid-sentence as I disappeared out of the office. It wasn't the most pleasant thing to do, but when I get bothered with deliveries the first thing in the morning, I have to do it. I was standing behind the burger joint on 22nd and Main. I came around, nobody suspected a thing, and rang the doorbell of the apartment building. "Yes?" "Good morning, this is Petre Jimeson, from PJ's Express delivery service. We got a call that you have a parcel for us." The door buzzed and I was let through. The lady at the reception gestured towards me and pulled a small box from under her desk. "This is for my son. He lives down by the old sugar factory, 19 Perkinson Road. It's very important this gets to him as quickly as possible." She squeezed a twenty in my hand. Having a flat rate definitely helped the customers with paying. "Of course m'am, the parcel will be with your son in a giffy." She thanked me and turned away. I took the chance in the empty lobby and disappeared out. A split second later I was around the corner of the University parking house. It was one of my favourite spots to appear to, since it posed exactly no risk. If anyone saw me appearing here, anyone would attribute it to a side effect of drugs. I never understood kids. I took a walk along the side of the parking house, down to the main entrance and the security shack.I knocked on the window. "Morning, I'm Petre Jimeson, from PJ's Express delivery service. We got a call that you have a parcel for us." The security guard looked up from his breakfast. "That was quick. Sure, let me get it. Can you come to the back door?" I stepped around the shack and the back door was unlocked from the inside. The security guard greeted me with a firm handshake and a small envelope in the other hand. As I took it, the bracelet on my wrist blinked red. "Sir, are there electronics in this envelope?" "The envelope came straight from the headmaster. he told me to dispatch it as soon as possible, but I have no idea what's in it." I sighed. "According to company policy, we are not obligated to accept parcels with liquids, explosives or electronics, I'm sure you're aware of it." "I'm just the courier, man", the guard said as he pulled a fifty from his pocket. That made me reconsider. "The headmaster said it was urgent, it's meant to go to Goldberg Elementary. He says they'll be expecting it." I had to think about it. It was against company policy and we could risk exposure transporting working electronics, but the fifty sure looked nice. "Of course, we'll take care of it as soon as possible." The moment I rounded the corner and saw nobody, I teleported to the office. My partner, Mart, was sipping his coffee and didn't seem startled when I appeared in front of his desk. He took another sip. "You left in a hurry today." "Yeah, I didn't sleep too well. Plus it was really nice of you to surprise me like this in the morning, with two urgent deliveries." "Pft, it's not like it takes you time to do them. What are they this time?" "Two small parcels, 70 bucks for them in total. Can you get me the address of Goldberg Elementary?" "One Goldberg Elementary, coming up." He frowned at the computer. "17 Perkinson Road, but it says here it's closed today." "It's a Tuesday, schools don't just close on Tuesdays." Mart shook his head. "I don't know, man. This smells fishy. Plus, how did you get 70 for two parcels?" "The one heading for Goldberg Elementary, the dude gave me fifty. He said they'll be expecting it." "Fifty? Did you test it? That sort of cash usually comes with risky shit." "Yeah, the watch tested positive for electronics. I suspect it's an access card or something." "A fifty to violate company policy? Sure, it's a fifty, but we can't just go around breaking rules like this." "We set up the rules, dude. We are the company." "We set them up for a good reason. What if there's something in there that can break by teleporting. I thought you learned your lesson by delivering that phone that couldn't stop ringing." It was true that teleporting sometimes did weird things to powered things, but it was extremely rare. "The rule is just a precaution. I'm sure we will be fine. If not, well, we're out of a fifty." The phone on Mart's desk rang. "Be back in five, this might be another customer." "Aye, sure will." I turned around to the map of the city. It was pretty practical both addresses were on the same street, not far from one of our marked safe spots for teleportation. I picked up a muffin from the box on the desk and disappeared. I was greeted by an unusual feeling. The spot was at the old sugar factory that has been closed off for years, and there was usually kids playing here. It made sense, since apparently there was an elementary school nearby. Yet, today, it was silent. There was nobody on the driveway, nobody on the lawn, and nobody on the streets. All the houses, up and down, were silent. I could see the school, just at the bend on the left, and the other address was supposed to be right next to it. As I walked down the street and towards the school, the eerie feeling just grew. Not only was there no people outside, there was no traffic, nor was there seemingly anyone in the houses. Not a single sign of people nearby. I neared the fence of the school and tried to open the door. It was locked. Maybe the school was closed, but I wasn't going to let that deter me from my rightful fifty. Company policy also dictated we can leave parcels in safe places. I teleported on the other side of the fence and left the envelope on the window shelf, right next to the main entrance. Sure the security will find it next morning. I heard a car rounding the corner. Wrong moment. I couldn't be seen trespassing, plus there was no way to explain how I got in there in the first place. I couldn't be seen disappearing either, since all paranormal activity was illegal ever since the Half-Bear-Man vandalized the police department's car park by walking all over them. I hoped the car would just pass, thinking nothing of me. Instead of that, the car stopped. Out came a black man, dressed in all black and looked straight at me. "Jimeson, Petre?" I had to compose myself. This was already strange. "Who's asking?" "We'd like a word with you, mister Jimeson." He uncovered his jacket just enough to reveal a gun at his belt." That was definitely a bad sign. I checked my periphery, then bolted into the bushes. "Mister Jimeson!" What I was doing was illegal, but I was pretty sure hunting me down with a gun was also illegal. I disappeared. Instead seeing Mart at the office, there was nobody. I looked around and there was indeed somebody, a balding man turned away, staring absently out the window. He spoke with a soft voice. "I have an offer for you. I can't have you go around threatening us like that on your own. You're running a peculiar business model, based around not being caught. I admire your bravery, but you were surely going to draw suspicion eventually." I was unsure who I was talking to, but the man must have been important. He continued looking out the window with his arms crossed. Even from behind, it was obvious he was packing heat. "Excuse me, but who are you?" The man chuckled. "There is no way you don't know me." He turned around. "Good morning, Mister Jimeson." It took me a second to comprehend what was going on. "Good morning, Mister Bezos."	Not used to responding to Reddit WP. Wrote this up for fun. ~ Blang clang bang. Jamie teleported into the drum set again. “Still trying to stick that landing?” Clarissa picked at her chinese take out with a pair of chopsticks. She sat at a nearby desk. Jamie stood up, trying to fix his disheveled position. “One of those creeps were following me again today.” “The ones from ‘Amazon' right?” Clarissa tossed a piece of tofu into her mouth. “That's how you become a conspiracy nut.” “They wore shirts with the logo on it.” “They're out making deliveries.” “They were going around the apartment ‘looking for the front door'. What if it was surveillance?” “And if it was? All deliveries take place from within our apartment. We're like the new Google, and we could sell.” Jamie looked at Clarissa. “But you wouldn't sell, right?” Jamie stepped forward. He took notice of the stack of papers on the desk. As he reached for a document, Clarissa stepped forward. “It's just business, Jamie.” Jamie scoffed. “I still have to sign before it's official. I do all the work after all.” “Sign, and we'll never have to want for a thing. Besides, it takes you seconds.” “How do we even explain this?” Jamie looked at Clarissa. She handed him a document, a contract to agree to. “Eventually, we would have to explain how you make deliveries so quickly. Think of it as investor funding. “ Jamie skimmed through the sheet of paper. It all spoke of chains he was too familiar with. Jamie disappeared, the sheet of paper falling in his absence.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	The interesting thing about teleporting is the sensation which rattles through the body. I first discovered my incredible ability while on the verge of falling asleep. I had been traveling several hours from home and had stopped for the night at a motel I often occupied when heading toward Moyock. I worked as a salesman at a struggling electronics company. I was lying in the lumpy bed of the motel finding it incredibly difficult to get comfortable. Twisting and turning for hours I had all but given up. After a couple hours adjusting my position I finally felt my eyelids getting heavier. I began thinking of my own bed, which was one of the only items I owned that I truly cared for as funny as it sounds. What I felt before my first teleportation experience was the sensation of falling and falling until I landed on a large rubberband and being snapped back to where I had fallen from. Only when I woke up in spontaneous panic, I was home, lying on my soft mattress in the same spot I had been in the morning prior. I was at first concerned to put it simply. Had the entire day been a figment of my imagination? Had the conversations I had and the meals I ate and the things that I saw all been some type of hallucination? I worked back through the events of the day, and called my girlfriend whom I had lunch with. I dialed her phone and she picked up after the second ring. "Hello?" She sounded tired and confused. "Hello." I responded casually. Hey do you remember what I had for lunch today?" I waited for a response as she yawned heavily over the phone. "Its late baby. Like two o'clock in the morning late." "Yeah I know I just need you to tell me." "Okay?" She paused for a few seconds and I could hear her bedding shift as she moved to her side. "A tuna sub with barbecue chips right?" "Uh-huh. What was I wearing?" "Baby. I'm tired." "Please, just-." I carefully think of how to explain this as to not sound like a lunatic. "Just please darling." "I think it was a red tshirt, khaki pants, and your brown shoes. The shirt has a small hole below the neck seam." I continue asking her several other questions until she is fed up and insist on hanging up, which I agree with after I'm satisfied. I recall all of the events leading up to the past hour and think of the bed in the motel. I concentrate and the rubberband sensation returns. I snap and open my eyes. I'm back in the motel. After several months of dabbling with this new found gift, I've been placed with quite the dilemma. What do I do with it? The plethora of possibilities are endless. As I grow more confident with this ability, I realize and I can go anywhere I can think of, even if I'm not familiar with the area. I just need the base visualization and I'm there. After a few more months of contemplation I decide to venture out by myself to employ my very own delivery business. I become a self made man after 6 months. I base my company in my apartment. I buy items off of Amazon, and once I receive them I've already got a buyer standing by for pick up of said item. I guarentee to have any item for any person within 1 hours, in working condition, no strings attached. The catch is I'm a bit pricier then amazon to make a profit, but it's all based off of the product and where I'm going and such. Finally, one day I subpoenaed by a legal team representing Amazon. In I'm told they are filing a class action lawsuit for fraud as they believe I am breaking there terms and service and the like. With the financed I've acquired, I purchase my own legal team and explain to them the situation We go to court and flow through the motions. The prosecutor is confident that I will lose. Asking questions of my background and what I do for employment now. I tell that I'm an entrepreneur and started my own delivery company, they ask how I'm able to ship my goods to the buyers in far away states in such a short amount of time. As idiotic as this may sound, this was a question I had not anticipated. So I told them the truth. The court room remained silent minus a few chuckles here and there. "So your telling me you can teleport?" The prosecutor cross examining asks. The thought obviously unbelievable. "Sir I'm sure your aware the courtroom is a room for serious discussion, not ridiculous claims." "I understand sir. I'm telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth." He looks to the judge. "Okay." He paces the stand for a few seconds. "Prove it." "I'd be charged with fleeing the courtroom or something wouldn't i?" This draws an uproar from those in attendance. It sounded like a comedy club rather then a center for litigation. The judge looks to me. "I'll allow it." This again cause the bystanders to chuckle loudly. "If I leave, I'm not coming back." "Fine." I think of the safest, most secure place I can. I think of the rubberband and relax and disappear. I don't look back.	Not used to responding to Reddit WP. Wrote this up for fun. ~ Blang clang bang. Jamie teleported into the drum set again. “Still trying to stick that landing?” Clarissa picked at her chinese take out with a pair of chopsticks. She sat at a nearby desk. Jamie stood up, trying to fix his disheveled position. “One of those creeps were following me again today.” “The ones from ‘Amazon' right?” Clarissa tossed a piece of tofu into her mouth. “That's how you become a conspiracy nut.” “They wore shirts with the logo on it.” “They're out making deliveries.” “They were going around the apartment ‘looking for the front door'. What if it was surveillance?” “And if it was? All deliveries take place from within our apartment. We're like the new Google, and we could sell.” Jamie looked at Clarissa. “But you wouldn't sell, right?” Jamie stepped forward. He took notice of the stack of papers on the desk. As he reached for a document, Clarissa stepped forward. “It's just business, Jamie.” Jamie scoffed. “I still have to sign before it's official. I do all the work after all.” “Sign, and we'll never have to want for a thing. Besides, it takes you seconds.” “How do we even explain this?” Jamie looked at Clarissa. She handed him a document, a contract to agree to. “Eventually, we would have to explain how you make deliveries so quickly. Think of it as investor funding. “ Jamie skimmed through the sheet of paper. It all spoke of chains he was too familiar with. Jamie disappeared, the sheet of paper falling in his absence.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	I sighed. This had gotten out of hand fast. What started as a simple offering for deliveries for my family to make some easy money had ended up with me forming a global delivery empire. Honestly, I thought it would make my life easier; a delivery service that shows up fast in a generic uniform is a lot less conspicuous than a school aged kid making deliveries at odd hours of the day. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have gone global with it. I shouldn't be surprised; as with so many things in my life, this was bound to end in disaster. The waiting room in front of Jeff Bezos' office was reasonably well furnished. It was as frugal as you might expect: fancy enough to unmistakably be the CEO's, but down-played enough to not look opulent. Deep down I know he'd prefer to go all out since he became the richest man in the world, but he was committed to keeping the leadership principles alive. That I can respect. Reminds me of someone I know. But really, this was all a formality on my part. If I wanted to, I could teleport instantaneously inside and wreck havoc. I had to see a place before I could use my power, but the wonders of internet searches were on my side. I even found a picture of the safe room hidden behind his "door desk". They would regret the day they crossed my path, and they would suddenly find teleportation was the least of their worries. But that's not my style. I was being polite. More importantly, I had a reason I was here. I could tell the receptionist was preoccupied with my hair. She was doing her best to look busy, but she was actually surfing their own site, looking for which products I had used to get the look. Despite my best efforts, I always stood out, even when I kept my powers hidden. Another side-effect of my "gifts". The doors to his main office opened, and two of his body guards stepped out on either side. "Mr. 'K', Mr. Bezos is ready to see you now." I adjusted my glasses and stood up. Here we go. I walked in, trying my best not to smile. He projected calm, but in reality he wasn't the least bit comfortable with me. This was a business, he had an empire to protect, and some kid from Tokyo wasn't about to destroy his vision for the future. The doors closed behind me. The guards were even staying outside, though they were armed pretty heavily. This was a power move; he wanted to show me he didn't fear me, and he was in control. I tried not to sigh. I could read him like an open book. "Mr. 'K', thank you for coming. I understand you've been quite busy with growing your empire from your humble home this last summer. You know, I started in a garage not that far from here; in a way, we have a lot in common." Not nearly as much as you think. I nodded anyway. "However, 100 yen is pretty low for a global delivery service that can beat my hourly offering. I tried it myself a few times; you kept your delivery promises every time. I've had our best analysis teams sift through the logistics of your operation. To be frank, we were eager to mimic your success. Surely, there was a new technology, a new method, perhaps even an evolution of the self-employed courier services we rolled out ourselves to keep up. I even thought you might have perfected drone delivery." That would be the fact that our 'service vehicles' are just there for props. Teleportation works best when it can't be seen freaking people out. Plus, I've always tried to keep a low profile. What a pain. "But none of it adds up. Energy costs alone should have put you out of business in the first week. Your delivery infrastructure is non-existent. Your website form just seems to send an email somewhere." Hey, I like to keep it frugal too. That goes to my private email address I keep tabs on with my phone. He got up from his desk and casually walked around to face me. He was getting more confident. "We've done everything we can to test the boundaries of your service. There is one thing that kept bothering me: no matter how many orders we made, there was always no more than one courier making a delivery at any time. And thanks to our intelligence efforts, we got a real good look at them." He isn't the self-made CEO of an empire for nothing. He was smart. I stared intently at him, awaiting his next move. I already knew what it would be. "So, Mr. 'K', mind telling me how you managed to travel approximately 100 consecutive miles to make 25 deliveries in a single hour, with no signs of your vehicle between locations?" I did my best to look shocked. But this was just a prelude. The hired mercenaries were already heading up the stairwell, and they had teams at every possible location in the city. I had never delivered here, and I relied heavily on the Google street view system for locations. They did their homework. He felt smug. "I've built my company as a data-driven empire. According to the numbers, you can only teleport a few miles at a time, and it takes you about two and a half minutes to 'recharge' whatever it is you do. I'm the only person who knows about you, but one call to my newspaper and I can change that overnight." He was telling the truth. Perfect. And he even thought of his password to the Amazon administrative network. "Mr. 'K', I know when I'm beat. I can't compete with a teleporting competitor. Even with your limitations, it's bad for my business. And I simply want to learn from you. Or, at the very least, learn how your body does it." I shook my head. The team was almost in place outside. They awaited his command. "Too bad. Look, I've got all your exits covered. I know your limitations. 'Gifted' or not, a bullet or two is guaranteed to bring you around. Or, at the very least, remove you from the equation." All of his fear was gone. Fine by me. I guess it was time to show my hand. Teleportation wasn't my only trick, and I was on to his crack 'recon team' from day one. I didn't go global without thinking this through, and I've been limiting my powers from day one. Never can be too careful with abilities like mine. A device which looked remarkably like a banana appeared in my right hand. His eyes went wide. "What the..." A solid hit to the back of his head took him by surprise, erasing his memories of me and his conclusion along with it. He was unconscious before he hit the floor. Something would take their place, but it wouldn't be my secret. I could tell the team was getting concerned. I'd have to think fast. Teleporting along with his limp body into his not-so-safe room behind his desk, I swiftly went to work with his login credentials. Computers were not one of my specialties, but I was adept enough to figure out his office surveillance system and the global tracking network. Erase all video of my conversation, done. A quick check of his personal 'omni-view' of the package network, and...there it was. The last known position of my package. Every power at my disposal couldn't find it after it was lost in transit, and now I had went as far as allowing a very powerful man nearly figure out who I was. What a pain. But it would be worth it. I didn't have to be clairvoyant to hear the team in the next room puzzled at the absence of their target. They buzz of radio chatter was muffled by the walls; they clearly assumed I had tried to escape. True to his word, they didn't even think about teleportation. If they only knew. I teleported myself into the first-floor bathroom, and spent a few moments making myself invisible. Amid the rush of activity of his private hired army, I quietly exited the building and made my way to a safe location. I had another stop to make before 100 Yen Shipping, Inc. would be closed for good, and the package with my limited edition coffee jelly maker was awaiting me in Arizona. &#x200B; &#x200B;	Not used to responding to Reddit WP. Wrote this up for fun. ~ Blang clang bang. Jamie teleported into the drum set again. “Still trying to stick that landing?” Clarissa picked at her chinese take out with a pair of chopsticks. She sat at a nearby desk. Jamie stood up, trying to fix his disheveled position. “One of those creeps were following me again today.” “The ones from ‘Amazon' right?” Clarissa tossed a piece of tofu into her mouth. “That's how you become a conspiracy nut.” “They wore shirts with the logo on it.” “They're out making deliveries.” “They were going around the apartment ‘looking for the front door'. What if it was surveillance?” “And if it was? All deliveries take place from within our apartment. We're like the new Google, and we could sell.” Jamie looked at Clarissa. “But you wouldn't sell, right?” Jamie stepped forward. He took notice of the stack of papers on the desk. As he reached for a document, Clarissa stepped forward. “It's just business, Jamie.” Jamie scoffed. “I still have to sign before it's official. I do all the work after all.” “Sign, and we'll never have to want for a thing. Besides, it takes you seconds.” “How do we even explain this?” Jamie looked at Clarissa. She handed him a document, a contract to agree to. “Eventually, we would have to explain how you make deliveries so quickly. Think of it as investor funding. “ Jamie skimmed through the sheet of paper. It all spoke of chains he was too familiar with. Jamie disappeared, the sheet of paper falling in his absence.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	"Alright, Jimeson, you got two regular orders this morning. One from 22nd and Main, one from the University campus security, both with an urgent slapped on it. I suggest you-" I cut off my partner mid-sentence as I disappeared out of the office. It wasn't the most pleasant thing to do, but when I get bothered with deliveries the first thing in the morning, I have to do it. I was standing behind the burger joint on 22nd and Main. I came around, nobody suspected a thing, and rang the doorbell of the apartment building. "Yes?" "Good morning, this is Petre Jimeson, from PJ's Express delivery service. We got a call that you have a parcel for us." The door buzzed and I was let through. The lady at the reception gestured towards me and pulled a small box from under her desk. "This is for my son. He lives down by the old sugar factory, 19 Perkinson Road. It's very important this gets to him as quickly as possible." She squeezed a twenty in my hand. Having a flat rate definitely helped the customers with paying. "Of course m'am, the parcel will be with your son in a giffy." She thanked me and turned away. I took the chance in the empty lobby and disappeared out. A split second later I was around the corner of the University parking house. It was one of my favourite spots to appear to, since it posed exactly no risk. If anyone saw me appearing here, anyone would attribute it to a side effect of drugs. I never understood kids. I took a walk along the side of the parking house, down to the main entrance and the security shack.I knocked on the window. "Morning, I'm Petre Jimeson, from PJ's Express delivery service. We got a call that you have a parcel for us." The security guard looked up from his breakfast. "That was quick. Sure, let me get it. Can you come to the back door?" I stepped around the shack and the back door was unlocked from the inside. The security guard greeted me with a firm handshake and a small envelope in the other hand. As I took it, the bracelet on my wrist blinked red. "Sir, are there electronics in this envelope?" "The envelope came straight from the headmaster. he told me to dispatch it as soon as possible, but I have no idea what's in it." I sighed. "According to company policy, we are not obligated to accept parcels with liquids, explosives or electronics, I'm sure you're aware of it." "I'm just the courier, man", the guard said as he pulled a fifty from his pocket. That made me reconsider. "The headmaster said it was urgent, it's meant to go to Goldberg Elementary. He says they'll be expecting it." I had to think about it. It was against company policy and we could risk exposure transporting working electronics, but the fifty sure looked nice. "Of course, we'll take care of it as soon as possible." The moment I rounded the corner and saw nobody, I teleported to the office. My partner, Mart, was sipping his coffee and didn't seem startled when I appeared in front of his desk. He took another sip. "You left in a hurry today." "Yeah, I didn't sleep too well. Plus it was really nice of you to surprise me like this in the morning, with two urgent deliveries." "Pft, it's not like it takes you time to do them. What are they this time?" "Two small parcels, 70 bucks for them in total. Can you get me the address of Goldberg Elementary?" "One Goldberg Elementary, coming up." He frowned at the computer. "17 Perkinson Road, but it says here it's closed today." "It's a Tuesday, schools don't just close on Tuesdays." Mart shook his head. "I don't know, man. This smells fishy. Plus, how did you get 70 for two parcels?" "The one heading for Goldberg Elementary, the dude gave me fifty. He said they'll be expecting it." "Fifty? Did you test it? That sort of cash usually comes with risky shit." "Yeah, the watch tested positive for electronics. I suspect it's an access card or something." "A fifty to violate company policy? Sure, it's a fifty, but we can't just go around breaking rules like this." "We set up the rules, dude. We are the company." "We set them up for a good reason. What if there's something in there that can break by teleporting. I thought you learned your lesson by delivering that phone that couldn't stop ringing." It was true that teleporting sometimes did weird things to powered things, but it was extremely rare. "The rule is just a precaution. I'm sure we will be fine. If not, well, we're out of a fifty." The phone on Mart's desk rang. "Be back in five, this might be another customer." "Aye, sure will." I turned around to the map of the city. It was pretty practical both addresses were on the same street, not far from one of our marked safe spots for teleportation. I picked up a muffin from the box on the desk and disappeared. I was greeted by an unusual feeling. The spot was at the old sugar factory that has been closed off for years, and there was usually kids playing here. It made sense, since apparently there was an elementary school nearby. Yet, today, it was silent. There was nobody on the driveway, nobody on the lawn, and nobody on the streets. All the houses, up and down, were silent. I could see the school, just at the bend on the left, and the other address was supposed to be right next to it. As I walked down the street and towards the school, the eerie feeling just grew. Not only was there no people outside, there was no traffic, nor was there seemingly anyone in the houses. Not a single sign of people nearby. I neared the fence of the school and tried to open the door. It was locked. Maybe the school was closed, but I wasn't going to let that deter me from my rightful fifty. Company policy also dictated we can leave parcels in safe places. I teleported on the other side of the fence and left the envelope on the window shelf, right next to the main entrance. Sure the security will find it next morning. I heard a car rounding the corner. Wrong moment. I couldn't be seen trespassing, plus there was no way to explain how I got in there in the first place. I couldn't be seen disappearing either, since all paranormal activity was illegal ever since the Half-Bear-Man vandalized the police department's car park by walking all over them. I hoped the car would just pass, thinking nothing of me. Instead of that, the car stopped. Out came a black man, dressed in all black and looked straight at me. "Jimeson, Petre?" I had to compose myself. This was already strange. "Who's asking?" "We'd like a word with you, mister Jimeson." He uncovered his jacket just enough to reveal a gun at his belt." That was definitely a bad sign. I checked my periphery, then bolted into the bushes. "Mister Jimeson!" What I was doing was illegal, but I was pretty sure hunting me down with a gun was also illegal. I disappeared. Instead seeing Mart at the office, there was nobody. I looked around and there was indeed somebody, a balding man turned away, staring absently out the window. He spoke with a soft voice. "I have an offer for you. I can't have you go around threatening us like that on your own. You're running a peculiar business model, based around not being caught. I admire your bravery, but you were surely going to draw suspicion eventually." I was unsure who I was talking to, but the man must have been important. He continued looking out the window with his arms crossed. Even from behind, it was obvious he was packing heat. "Excuse me, but who are you?" The man chuckled. "There is no way you don't know me." He turned around. "Good morning, Mister Jimeson." It took me a second to comprehend what was going on. "Good morning, Mister Bezos."	Did you know that Amazon has ninjas? I just did, and now there's a couple dozen ninja stars stuck on my door. Hi, I'm Damian and I've been able to teleport for the past 5 months but still haven't figured out why. Anyways, I've decided to start my own delivery company. Originally it was to make a quick buck around town. Now it's nationwide. My company's employees consist of me, with the motto being "One Day(mian) shipping". Open Monday - Friday (except on holidays), 9 AM to 9 PM. This past month I've been getting emails from the CEO of Amazon telling me to step down and keep my business to my state. Putting it lightly, of course. So currently I'm running and poofing away from ninjas while wishing that I listened to those emails. Might have to close shop for a couple of weeks.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	The interesting thing about teleporting is the sensation which rattles through the body. I first discovered my incredible ability while on the verge of falling asleep. I had been traveling several hours from home and had stopped for the night at a motel I often occupied when heading toward Moyock. I worked as a salesman at a struggling electronics company. I was lying in the lumpy bed of the motel finding it incredibly difficult to get comfortable. Twisting and turning for hours I had all but given up. After a couple hours adjusting my position I finally felt my eyelids getting heavier. I began thinking of my own bed, which was one of the only items I owned that I truly cared for as funny as it sounds. What I felt before my first teleportation experience was the sensation of falling and falling until I landed on a large rubberband and being snapped back to where I had fallen from. Only when I woke up in spontaneous panic, I was home, lying on my soft mattress in the same spot I had been in the morning prior. I was at first concerned to put it simply. Had the entire day been a figment of my imagination? Had the conversations I had and the meals I ate and the things that I saw all been some type of hallucination? I worked back through the events of the day, and called my girlfriend whom I had lunch with. I dialed her phone and she picked up after the second ring. "Hello?" She sounded tired and confused. "Hello." I responded casually. Hey do you remember what I had for lunch today?" I waited for a response as she yawned heavily over the phone. "Its late baby. Like two o'clock in the morning late." "Yeah I know I just need you to tell me." "Okay?" She paused for a few seconds and I could hear her bedding shift as she moved to her side. "A tuna sub with barbecue chips right?" "Uh-huh. What was I wearing?" "Baby. I'm tired." "Please, just-." I carefully think of how to explain this as to not sound like a lunatic. "Just please darling." "I think it was a red tshirt, khaki pants, and your brown shoes. The shirt has a small hole below the neck seam." I continue asking her several other questions until she is fed up and insist on hanging up, which I agree with after I'm satisfied. I recall all of the events leading up to the past hour and think of the bed in the motel. I concentrate and the rubberband sensation returns. I snap and open my eyes. I'm back in the motel. After several months of dabbling with this new found gift, I've been placed with quite the dilemma. What do I do with it? The plethora of possibilities are endless. As I grow more confident with this ability, I realize and I can go anywhere I can think of, even if I'm not familiar with the area. I just need the base visualization and I'm there. After a few more months of contemplation I decide to venture out by myself to employ my very own delivery business. I become a self made man after 6 months. I base my company in my apartment. I buy items off of Amazon, and once I receive them I've already got a buyer standing by for pick up of said item. I guarentee to have any item for any person within 1 hours, in working condition, no strings attached. The catch is I'm a bit pricier then amazon to make a profit, but it's all based off of the product and where I'm going and such. Finally, one day I subpoenaed by a legal team representing Amazon. In I'm told they are filing a class action lawsuit for fraud as they believe I am breaking there terms and service and the like. With the financed I've acquired, I purchase my own legal team and explain to them the situation We go to court and flow through the motions. The prosecutor is confident that I will lose. Asking questions of my background and what I do for employment now. I tell that I'm an entrepreneur and started my own delivery company, they ask how I'm able to ship my goods to the buyers in far away states in such a short amount of time. As idiotic as this may sound, this was a question I had not anticipated. So I told them the truth. The court room remained silent minus a few chuckles here and there. "So your telling me you can teleport?" The prosecutor cross examining asks. The thought obviously unbelievable. "Sir I'm sure your aware the courtroom is a room for serious discussion, not ridiculous claims." "I understand sir. I'm telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth." He looks to the judge. "Okay." He paces the stand for a few seconds. "Prove it." "I'd be charged with fleeing the courtroom or something wouldn't i?" This draws an uproar from those in attendance. It sounded like a comedy club rather then a center for litigation. The judge looks to me. "I'll allow it." This again cause the bystanders to chuckle loudly. "If I leave, I'm not coming back." "Fine." I think of the safest, most secure place I can. I think of the rubberband and relax and disappear. I don't look back.	Did you know that Amazon has ninjas? I just did, and now there's a couple dozen ninja stars stuck on my door. Hi, I'm Damian and I've been able to teleport for the past 5 months but still haven't figured out why. Anyways, I've decided to start my own delivery company. Originally it was to make a quick buck around town. Now it's nationwide. My company's employees consist of me, with the motto being "One Day(mian) shipping". Open Monday - Friday (except on holidays), 9 AM to 9 PM. This past month I've been getting emails from the CEO of Amazon telling me to step down and keep my business to my state. Putting it lightly, of course. So currently I'm running and poofing away from ninjas while wishing that I listened to those emails. Might have to close shop for a couple of weeks.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	I sighed. This had gotten out of hand fast. What started as a simple offering for deliveries for my family to make some easy money had ended up with me forming a global delivery empire. Honestly, I thought it would make my life easier; a delivery service that shows up fast in a generic uniform is a lot less conspicuous than a school aged kid making deliveries at odd hours of the day. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have gone global with it. I shouldn't be surprised; as with so many things in my life, this was bound to end in disaster. The waiting room in front of Jeff Bezos' office was reasonably well furnished. It was as frugal as you might expect: fancy enough to unmistakably be the CEO's, but down-played enough to not look opulent. Deep down I know he'd prefer to go all out since he became the richest man in the world, but he was committed to keeping the leadership principles alive. That I can respect. Reminds me of someone I know. But really, this was all a formality on my part. If I wanted to, I could teleport instantaneously inside and wreck havoc. I had to see a place before I could use my power, but the wonders of internet searches were on my side. I even found a picture of the safe room hidden behind his "door desk". They would regret the day they crossed my path, and they would suddenly find teleportation was the least of their worries. But that's not my style. I was being polite. More importantly, I had a reason I was here. I could tell the receptionist was preoccupied with my hair. She was doing her best to look busy, but she was actually surfing their own site, looking for which products I had used to get the look. Despite my best efforts, I always stood out, even when I kept my powers hidden. Another side-effect of my "gifts". The doors to his main office opened, and two of his body guards stepped out on either side. "Mr. 'K', Mr. Bezos is ready to see you now." I adjusted my glasses and stood up. Here we go. I walked in, trying my best not to smile. He projected calm, but in reality he wasn't the least bit comfortable with me. This was a business, he had an empire to protect, and some kid from Tokyo wasn't about to destroy his vision for the future. The doors closed behind me. The guards were even staying outside, though they were armed pretty heavily. This was a power move; he wanted to show me he didn't fear me, and he was in control. I tried not to sigh. I could read him like an open book. "Mr. 'K', thank you for coming. I understand you've been quite busy with growing your empire from your humble home this last summer. You know, I started in a garage not that far from here; in a way, we have a lot in common." Not nearly as much as you think. I nodded anyway. "However, 100 yen is pretty low for a global delivery service that can beat my hourly offering. I tried it myself a few times; you kept your delivery promises every time. I've had our best analysis teams sift through the logistics of your operation. To be frank, we were eager to mimic your success. Surely, there was a new technology, a new method, perhaps even an evolution of the self-employed courier services we rolled out ourselves to keep up. I even thought you might have perfected drone delivery." That would be the fact that our 'service vehicles' are just there for props. Teleportation works best when it can't be seen freaking people out. Plus, I've always tried to keep a low profile. What a pain. "But none of it adds up. Energy costs alone should have put you out of business in the first week. Your delivery infrastructure is non-existent. Your website form just seems to send an email somewhere." Hey, I like to keep it frugal too. That goes to my private email address I keep tabs on with my phone. He got up from his desk and casually walked around to face me. He was getting more confident. "We've done everything we can to test the boundaries of your service. There is one thing that kept bothering me: no matter how many orders we made, there was always no more than one courier making a delivery at any time. And thanks to our intelligence efforts, we got a real good look at them." He isn't the self-made CEO of an empire for nothing. He was smart. I stared intently at him, awaiting his next move. I already knew what it would be. "So, Mr. 'K', mind telling me how you managed to travel approximately 100 consecutive miles to make 25 deliveries in a single hour, with no signs of your vehicle between locations?" I did my best to look shocked. But this was just a prelude. The hired mercenaries were already heading up the stairwell, and they had teams at every possible location in the city. I had never delivered here, and I relied heavily on the Google street view system for locations. They did their homework. He felt smug. "I've built my company as a data-driven empire. According to the numbers, you can only teleport a few miles at a time, and it takes you about two and a half minutes to 'recharge' whatever it is you do. I'm the only person who knows about you, but one call to my newspaper and I can change that overnight." He was telling the truth. Perfect. And he even thought of his password to the Amazon administrative network. "Mr. 'K', I know when I'm beat. I can't compete with a teleporting competitor. Even with your limitations, it's bad for my business. And I simply want to learn from you. Or, at the very least, learn how your body does it." I shook my head. The team was almost in place outside. They awaited his command. "Too bad. Look, I've got all your exits covered. I know your limitations. 'Gifted' or not, a bullet or two is guaranteed to bring you around. Or, at the very least, remove you from the equation." All of his fear was gone. Fine by me. I guess it was time to show my hand. Teleportation wasn't my only trick, and I was on to his crack 'recon team' from day one. I didn't go global without thinking this through, and I've been limiting my powers from day one. Never can be too careful with abilities like mine. A device which looked remarkably like a banana appeared in my right hand. His eyes went wide. "What the..." A solid hit to the back of his head took him by surprise, erasing his memories of me and his conclusion along with it. He was unconscious before he hit the floor. Something would take their place, but it wouldn't be my secret. I could tell the team was getting concerned. I'd have to think fast. Teleporting along with his limp body into his not-so-safe room behind his desk, I swiftly went to work with his login credentials. Computers were not one of my specialties, but I was adept enough to figure out his office surveillance system and the global tracking network. Erase all video of my conversation, done. A quick check of his personal 'omni-view' of the package network, and...there it was. The last known position of my package. Every power at my disposal couldn't find it after it was lost in transit, and now I had went as far as allowing a very powerful man nearly figure out who I was. What a pain. But it would be worth it. I didn't have to be clairvoyant to hear the team in the next room puzzled at the absence of their target. They buzz of radio chatter was muffled by the walls; they clearly assumed I had tried to escape. True to his word, they didn't even think about teleportation. If they only knew. I teleported myself into the first-floor bathroom, and spent a few moments making myself invisible. Amid the rush of activity of his private hired army, I quietly exited the building and made my way to a safe location. I had another stop to make before 100 Yen Shipping, Inc. would be closed for good, and the package with my limited edition coffee jelly maker was awaiting me in Arizona. &#x200B; &#x200B;	Did you know that Amazon has ninjas? I just did, and now there's a couple dozen ninja stars stuck on my door. Hi, I'm Damian and I've been able to teleport for the past 5 months but still haven't figured out why. Anyways, I've decided to start my own delivery company. Originally it was to make a quick buck around town. Now it's nationwide. My company's employees consist of me, with the motto being "One Day(mian) shipping". Open Monday - Friday (except on holidays), 9 AM to 9 PM. This past month I've been getting emails from the CEO of Amazon telling me to step down and keep my business to my state. Putting it lightly, of course. So currently I'm running and poofing away from ninjas while wishing that I listened to those emails. Might have to close shop for a couple of weeks.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	I sighed. This had gotten out of hand fast. What started as a simple offering for deliveries for my family to make some easy money had ended up with me forming a global delivery empire. Honestly, I thought it would make my life easier; a delivery service that shows up fast in a generic uniform is a lot less conspicuous than a school aged kid making deliveries at odd hours of the day. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have gone global with it. I shouldn't be surprised; as with so many things in my life, this was bound to end in disaster. The waiting room in front of Jeff Bezos' office was reasonably well furnished. It was as frugal as you might expect: fancy enough to unmistakably be the CEO's, but down-played enough to not look opulent. Deep down I know he'd prefer to go all out since he became the richest man in the world, but he was committed to keeping the leadership principles alive. That I can respect. Reminds me of someone I know. But really, this was all a formality on my part. If I wanted to, I could teleport instantaneously inside and wreck havoc. I had to see a place before I could use my power, but the wonders of internet searches were on my side. I even found a picture of the safe room hidden behind his "door desk". They would regret the day they crossed my path, and they would suddenly find teleportation was the least of their worries. But that's not my style. I was being polite. More importantly, I had a reason I was here. I could tell the receptionist was preoccupied with my hair. She was doing her best to look busy, but she was actually surfing their own site, looking for which products I had used to get the look. Despite my best efforts, I always stood out, even when I kept my powers hidden. Another side-effect of my "gifts". The doors to his main office opened, and two of his body guards stepped out on either side. "Mr. 'K', Mr. Bezos is ready to see you now." I adjusted my glasses and stood up. Here we go. I walked in, trying my best not to smile. He projected calm, but in reality he wasn't the least bit comfortable with me. This was a business, he had an empire to protect, and some kid from Tokyo wasn't about to destroy his vision for the future. The doors closed behind me. The guards were even staying outside, though they were armed pretty heavily. This was a power move; he wanted to show me he didn't fear me, and he was in control. I tried not to sigh. I could read him like an open book. "Mr. 'K', thank you for coming. I understand you've been quite busy with growing your empire from your humble home this last summer. You know, I started in a garage not that far from here; in a way, we have a lot in common." Not nearly as much as you think. I nodded anyway. "However, 100 yen is pretty low for a global delivery service that can beat my hourly offering. I tried it myself a few times; you kept your delivery promises every time. I've had our best analysis teams sift through the logistics of your operation. To be frank, we were eager to mimic your success. Surely, there was a new technology, a new method, perhaps even an evolution of the self-employed courier services we rolled out ourselves to keep up. I even thought you might have perfected drone delivery." That would be the fact that our 'service vehicles' are just there for props. Teleportation works best when it can't be seen freaking people out. Plus, I've always tried to keep a low profile. What a pain. "But none of it adds up. Energy costs alone should have put you out of business in the first week. Your delivery infrastructure is non-existent. Your website form just seems to send an email somewhere." Hey, I like to keep it frugal too. That goes to my private email address I keep tabs on with my phone. He got up from his desk and casually walked around to face me. He was getting more confident. "We've done everything we can to test the boundaries of your service. There is one thing that kept bothering me: no matter how many orders we made, there was always no more than one courier making a delivery at any time. And thanks to our intelligence efforts, we got a real good look at them." He isn't the self-made CEO of an empire for nothing. He was smart. I stared intently at him, awaiting his next move. I already knew what it would be. "So, Mr. 'K', mind telling me how you managed to travel approximately 100 consecutive miles to make 25 deliveries in a single hour, with no signs of your vehicle between locations?" I did my best to look shocked. But this was just a prelude. The hired mercenaries were already heading up the stairwell, and they had teams at every possible location in the city. I had never delivered here, and I relied heavily on the Google street view system for locations. They did their homework. He felt smug. "I've built my company as a data-driven empire. According to the numbers, you can only teleport a few miles at a time, and it takes you about two and a half minutes to 'recharge' whatever it is you do. I'm the only person who knows about you, but one call to my newspaper and I can change that overnight." He was telling the truth. Perfect. And he even thought of his password to the Amazon administrative network. "Mr. 'K', I know when I'm beat. I can't compete with a teleporting competitor. Even with your limitations, it's bad for my business. And I simply want to learn from you. Or, at the very least, learn how your body does it." I shook my head. The team was almost in place outside. They awaited his command. "Too bad. Look, I've got all your exits covered. I know your limitations. 'Gifted' or not, a bullet or two is guaranteed to bring you around. Or, at the very least, remove you from the equation." All of his fear was gone. Fine by me. I guess it was time to show my hand. Teleportation wasn't my only trick, and I was on to his crack 'recon team' from day one. I didn't go global without thinking this through, and I've been limiting my powers from day one. Never can be too careful with abilities like mine. A device which looked remarkably like a banana appeared in my right hand. His eyes went wide. "What the..." A solid hit to the back of his head took him by surprise, erasing his memories of me and his conclusion along with it. He was unconscious before he hit the floor. Something would take their place, but it wouldn't be my secret. I could tell the team was getting concerned. I'd have to think fast. Teleporting along with his limp body into his not-so-safe room behind his desk, I swiftly went to work with his login credentials. Computers were not one of my specialties, but I was adept enough to figure out his office surveillance system and the global tracking network. Erase all video of my conversation, done. A quick check of his personal 'omni-view' of the package network, and...there it was. The last known position of my package. Every power at my disposal couldn't find it after it was lost in transit, and now I had went as far as allowing a very powerful man nearly figure out who I was. What a pain. But it would be worth it. I didn't have to be clairvoyant to hear the team in the next room puzzled at the absence of their target. They buzz of radio chatter was muffled by the walls; they clearly assumed I had tried to escape. True to his word, they didn't even think about teleportation. If they only knew. I teleported myself into the first-floor bathroom, and spent a few moments making myself invisible. Amid the rush of activity of his private hired army, I quietly exited the building and made my way to a safe location. I had another stop to make before 100 Yen Shipping, Inc. would be closed for good, and the package with my limited edition coffee jelly maker was awaiting me in Arizona. &#x200B; &#x200B;	"Alright, Jimeson, you got two regular orders this morning. One from 22nd and Main, one from the University campus security, both with an urgent slapped on it. I suggest you-" I cut off my partner mid-sentence as I disappeared out of the office. It wasn't the most pleasant thing to do, but when I get bothered with deliveries the first thing in the morning, I have to do it. I was standing behind the burger joint on 22nd and Main. I came around, nobody suspected a thing, and rang the doorbell of the apartment building. "Yes?" "Good morning, this is Petre Jimeson, from PJ's Express delivery service. We got a call that you have a parcel for us." The door buzzed and I was let through. The lady at the reception gestured towards me and pulled a small box from under her desk. "This is for my son. He lives down by the old sugar factory, 19 Perkinson Road. It's very important this gets to him as quickly as possible." She squeezed a twenty in my hand. Having a flat rate definitely helped the customers with paying. "Of course m'am, the parcel will be with your son in a giffy." She thanked me and turned away. I took the chance in the empty lobby and disappeared out. A split second later I was around the corner of the University parking house. It was one of my favourite spots to appear to, since it posed exactly no risk. If anyone saw me appearing here, anyone would attribute it to a side effect of drugs. I never understood kids. I took a walk along the side of the parking house, down to the main entrance and the security shack.I knocked on the window. "Morning, I'm Petre Jimeson, from PJ's Express delivery service. We got a call that you have a parcel for us." The security guard looked up from his breakfast. "That was quick. Sure, let me get it. Can you come to the back door?" I stepped around the shack and the back door was unlocked from the inside. The security guard greeted me with a firm handshake and a small envelope in the other hand. As I took it, the bracelet on my wrist blinked red. "Sir, are there electronics in this envelope?" "The envelope came straight from the headmaster. he told me to dispatch it as soon as possible, but I have no idea what's in it." I sighed. "According to company policy, we are not obligated to accept parcels with liquids, explosives or electronics, I'm sure you're aware of it." "I'm just the courier, man", the guard said as he pulled a fifty from his pocket. That made me reconsider. "The headmaster said it was urgent, it's meant to go to Goldberg Elementary. He says they'll be expecting it." I had to think about it. It was against company policy and we could risk exposure transporting working electronics, but the fifty sure looked nice. "Of course, we'll take care of it as soon as possible." The moment I rounded the corner and saw nobody, I teleported to the office. My partner, Mart, was sipping his coffee and didn't seem startled when I appeared in front of his desk. He took another sip. "You left in a hurry today." "Yeah, I didn't sleep too well. Plus it was really nice of you to surprise me like this in the morning, with two urgent deliveries." "Pft, it's not like it takes you time to do them. What are they this time?" "Two small parcels, 70 bucks for them in total. Can you get me the address of Goldberg Elementary?" "One Goldberg Elementary, coming up." He frowned at the computer. "17 Perkinson Road, but it says here it's closed today." "It's a Tuesday, schools don't just close on Tuesdays." Mart shook his head. "I don't know, man. This smells fishy. Plus, how did you get 70 for two parcels?" "The one heading for Goldberg Elementary, the dude gave me fifty. He said they'll be expecting it." "Fifty? Did you test it? That sort of cash usually comes with risky shit." "Yeah, the watch tested positive for electronics. I suspect it's an access card or something." "A fifty to violate company policy? Sure, it's a fifty, but we can't just go around breaking rules like this." "We set up the rules, dude. We are the company." "We set them up for a good reason. What if there's something in there that can break by teleporting. I thought you learned your lesson by delivering that phone that couldn't stop ringing." It was true that teleporting sometimes did weird things to powered things, but it was extremely rare. "The rule is just a precaution. I'm sure we will be fine. If not, well, we're out of a fifty." The phone on Mart's desk rang. "Be back in five, this might be another customer." "Aye, sure will." I turned around to the map of the city. It was pretty practical both addresses were on the same street, not far from one of our marked safe spots for teleportation. I picked up a muffin from the box on the desk and disappeared. I was greeted by an unusual feeling. The spot was at the old sugar factory that has been closed off for years, and there was usually kids playing here. It made sense, since apparently there was an elementary school nearby. Yet, today, it was silent. There was nobody on the driveway, nobody on the lawn, and nobody on the streets. All the houses, up and down, were silent. I could see the school, just at the bend on the left, and the other address was supposed to be right next to it. As I walked down the street and towards the school, the eerie feeling just grew. Not only was there no people outside, there was no traffic, nor was there seemingly anyone in the houses. Not a single sign of people nearby. I neared the fence of the school and tried to open the door. It was locked. Maybe the school was closed, but I wasn't going to let that deter me from my rightful fifty. Company policy also dictated we can leave parcels in safe places. I teleported on the other side of the fence and left the envelope on the window shelf, right next to the main entrance. Sure the security will find it next morning. I heard a car rounding the corner. Wrong moment. I couldn't be seen trespassing, plus there was no way to explain how I got in there in the first place. I couldn't be seen disappearing either, since all paranormal activity was illegal ever since the Half-Bear-Man vandalized the police department's car park by walking all over them. I hoped the car would just pass, thinking nothing of me. Instead of that, the car stopped. Out came a black man, dressed in all black and looked straight at me. "Jimeson, Petre?" I had to compose myself. This was already strange. "Who's asking?" "We'd like a word with you, mister Jimeson." He uncovered his jacket just enough to reveal a gun at his belt." That was definitely a bad sign. I checked my periphery, then bolted into the bushes. "Mister Jimeson!" What I was doing was illegal, but I was pretty sure hunting me down with a gun was also illegal. I disappeared. Instead seeing Mart at the office, there was nobody. I looked around and there was indeed somebody, a balding man turned away, staring absently out the window. He spoke with a soft voice. "I have an offer for you. I can't have you go around threatening us like that on your own. You're running a peculiar business model, based around not being caught. I admire your bravery, but you were surely going to draw suspicion eventually." I was unsure who I was talking to, but the man must have been important. He continued looking out the window with his arms crossed. Even from behind, it was obvious he was packing heat. "Excuse me, but who are you?" The man chuckled. "There is no way you don't know me." He turned around. "Good morning, Mister Jimeson." It took me a second to comprehend what was going on. "Good morning, Mister Bezos."
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	I sighed. This had gotten out of hand fast. What started as a simple offering for deliveries for my family to make some easy money had ended up with me forming a global delivery empire. Honestly, I thought it would make my life easier; a delivery service that shows up fast in a generic uniform is a lot less conspicuous than a school aged kid making deliveries at odd hours of the day. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have gone global with it. I shouldn't be surprised; as with so many things in my life, this was bound to end in disaster. The waiting room in front of Jeff Bezos' office was reasonably well furnished. It was as frugal as you might expect: fancy enough to unmistakably be the CEO's, but down-played enough to not look opulent. Deep down I know he'd prefer to go all out since he became the richest man in the world, but he was committed to keeping the leadership principles alive. That I can respect. Reminds me of someone I know. But really, this was all a formality on my part. If I wanted to, I could teleport instantaneously inside and wreck havoc. I had to see a place before I could use my power, but the wonders of internet searches were on my side. I even found a picture of the safe room hidden behind his "door desk". They would regret the day they crossed my path, and they would suddenly find teleportation was the least of their worries. But that's not my style. I was being polite. More importantly, I had a reason I was here. I could tell the receptionist was preoccupied with my hair. She was doing her best to look busy, but she was actually surfing their own site, looking for which products I had used to get the look. Despite my best efforts, I always stood out, even when I kept my powers hidden. Another side-effect of my "gifts". The doors to his main office opened, and two of his body guards stepped out on either side. "Mr. 'K', Mr. Bezos is ready to see you now." I adjusted my glasses and stood up. Here we go. I walked in, trying my best not to smile. He projected calm, but in reality he wasn't the least bit comfortable with me. This was a business, he had an empire to protect, and some kid from Tokyo wasn't about to destroy his vision for the future. The doors closed behind me. The guards were even staying outside, though they were armed pretty heavily. This was a power move; he wanted to show me he didn't fear me, and he was in control. I tried not to sigh. I could read him like an open book. "Mr. 'K', thank you for coming. I understand you've been quite busy with growing your empire from your humble home this last summer. You know, I started in a garage not that far from here; in a way, we have a lot in common." Not nearly as much as you think. I nodded anyway. "However, 100 yen is pretty low for a global delivery service that can beat my hourly offering. I tried it myself a few times; you kept your delivery promises every time. I've had our best analysis teams sift through the logistics of your operation. To be frank, we were eager to mimic your success. Surely, there was a new technology, a new method, perhaps even an evolution of the self-employed courier services we rolled out ourselves to keep up. I even thought you might have perfected drone delivery." That would be the fact that our 'service vehicles' are just there for props. Teleportation works best when it can't be seen freaking people out. Plus, I've always tried to keep a low profile. What a pain. "But none of it adds up. Energy costs alone should have put you out of business in the first week. Your delivery infrastructure is non-existent. Your website form just seems to send an email somewhere." Hey, I like to keep it frugal too. That goes to my private email address I keep tabs on with my phone. He got up from his desk and casually walked around to face me. He was getting more confident. "We've done everything we can to test the boundaries of your service. There is one thing that kept bothering me: no matter how many orders we made, there was always no more than one courier making a delivery at any time. And thanks to our intelligence efforts, we got a real good look at them." He isn't the self-made CEO of an empire for nothing. He was smart. I stared intently at him, awaiting his next move. I already knew what it would be. "So, Mr. 'K', mind telling me how you managed to travel approximately 100 consecutive miles to make 25 deliveries in a single hour, with no signs of your vehicle between locations?" I did my best to look shocked. But this was just a prelude. The hired mercenaries were already heading up the stairwell, and they had teams at every possible location in the city. I had never delivered here, and I relied heavily on the Google street view system for locations. They did their homework. He felt smug. "I've built my company as a data-driven empire. According to the numbers, you can only teleport a few miles at a time, and it takes you about two and a half minutes to 'recharge' whatever it is you do. I'm the only person who knows about you, but one call to my newspaper and I can change that overnight." He was telling the truth. Perfect. And he even thought of his password to the Amazon administrative network. "Mr. 'K', I know when I'm beat. I can't compete with a teleporting competitor. Even with your limitations, it's bad for my business. And I simply want to learn from you. Or, at the very least, learn how your body does it." I shook my head. The team was almost in place outside. They awaited his command. "Too bad. Look, I've got all your exits covered. I know your limitations. 'Gifted' or not, a bullet or two is guaranteed to bring you around. Or, at the very least, remove you from the equation." All of his fear was gone. Fine by me. I guess it was time to show my hand. Teleportation wasn't my only trick, and I was on to his crack 'recon team' from day one. I didn't go global without thinking this through, and I've been limiting my powers from day one. Never can be too careful with abilities like mine. A device which looked remarkably like a banana appeared in my right hand. His eyes went wide. "What the..." A solid hit to the back of his head took him by surprise, erasing his memories of me and his conclusion along with it. He was unconscious before he hit the floor. Something would take their place, but it wouldn't be my secret. I could tell the team was getting concerned. I'd have to think fast. Teleporting along with his limp body into his not-so-safe room behind his desk, I swiftly went to work with his login credentials. Computers were not one of my specialties, but I was adept enough to figure out his office surveillance system and the global tracking network. Erase all video of my conversation, done. A quick check of his personal 'omni-view' of the package network, and...there it was. The last known position of my package. Every power at my disposal couldn't find it after it was lost in transit, and now I had went as far as allowing a very powerful man nearly figure out who I was. What a pain. But it would be worth it. I didn't have to be clairvoyant to hear the team in the next room puzzled at the absence of their target. They buzz of radio chatter was muffled by the walls; they clearly assumed I had tried to escape. True to his word, they didn't even think about teleportation. If they only knew. I teleported myself into the first-floor bathroom, and spent a few moments making myself invisible. Amid the rush of activity of his private hired army, I quietly exited the building and made my way to a safe location. I had another stop to make before 100 Yen Shipping, Inc. would be closed for good, and the package with my limited edition coffee jelly maker was awaiting me in Arizona. &#x200B; &#x200B;	The interesting thing about teleporting is the sensation which rattles through the body. I first discovered my incredible ability while on the verge of falling asleep. I had been traveling several hours from home and had stopped for the night at a motel I often occupied when heading toward Moyock. I worked as a salesman at a struggling electronics company. I was lying in the lumpy bed of the motel finding it incredibly difficult to get comfortable. Twisting and turning for hours I had all but given up. After a couple hours adjusting my position I finally felt my eyelids getting heavier. I began thinking of my own bed, which was one of the only items I owned that I truly cared for as funny as it sounds. What I felt before my first teleportation experience was the sensation of falling and falling until I landed on a large rubberband and being snapped back to where I had fallen from. Only when I woke up in spontaneous panic, I was home, lying on my soft mattress in the same spot I had been in the morning prior. I was at first concerned to put it simply. Had the entire day been a figment of my imagination? Had the conversations I had and the meals I ate and the things that I saw all been some type of hallucination? I worked back through the events of the day, and called my girlfriend whom I had lunch with. I dialed her phone and she picked up after the second ring. "Hello?" She sounded tired and confused. "Hello." I responded casually. Hey do you remember what I had for lunch today?" I waited for a response as she yawned heavily over the phone. "Its late baby. Like two o'clock in the morning late." "Yeah I know I just need you to tell me." "Okay?" She paused for a few seconds and I could hear her bedding shift as she moved to her side. "A tuna sub with barbecue chips right?" "Uh-huh. What was I wearing?" "Baby. I'm tired." "Please, just-." I carefully think of how to explain this as to not sound like a lunatic. "Just please darling." "I think it was a red tshirt, khaki pants, and your brown shoes. The shirt has a small hole below the neck seam." I continue asking her several other questions until she is fed up and insist on hanging up, which I agree with after I'm satisfied. I recall all of the events leading up to the past hour and think of the bed in the motel. I concentrate and the rubberband sensation returns. I snap and open my eyes. I'm back in the motel. After several months of dabbling with this new found gift, I've been placed with quite the dilemma. What do I do with it? The plethora of possibilities are endless. As I grow more confident with this ability, I realize and I can go anywhere I can think of, even if I'm not familiar with the area. I just need the base visualization and I'm there. After a few more months of contemplation I decide to venture out by myself to employ my very own delivery business. I become a self made man after 6 months. I base my company in my apartment. I buy items off of Amazon, and once I receive them I've already got a buyer standing by for pick up of said item. I guarentee to have any item for any person within 1 hours, in working condition, no strings attached. The catch is I'm a bit pricier then amazon to make a profit, but it's all based off of the product and where I'm going and such. Finally, one day I subpoenaed by a legal team representing Amazon. In I'm told they are filing a class action lawsuit for fraud as they believe I am breaking there terms and service and the like. With the financed I've acquired, I purchase my own legal team and explain to them the situation We go to court and flow through the motions. The prosecutor is confident that I will lose. Asking questions of my background and what I do for employment now. I tell that I'm an entrepreneur and started my own delivery company, they ask how I'm able to ship my goods to the buyers in far away states in such a short amount of time. As idiotic as this may sound, this was a question I had not anticipated. So I told them the truth. The court room remained silent minus a few chuckles here and there. "So your telling me you can teleport?" The prosecutor cross examining asks. The thought obviously unbelievable. "Sir I'm sure your aware the courtroom is a room for serious discussion, not ridiculous claims." "I understand sir. I'm telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth." He looks to the judge. "Okay." He paces the stand for a few seconds. "Prove it." "I'd be charged with fleeing the courtroom or something wouldn't i?" This draws an uproar from those in attendance. It sounded like a comedy club rather then a center for litigation. The judge looks to me. "I'll allow it." This again cause the bystanders to chuckle loudly. "If I leave, I'm not coming back." "Fine." I think of the safest, most secure place I can. I think of the rubberband and relax and disappear. I don't look back.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	I sighed. This had gotten out of hand fast. What started as a simple offering for deliveries for my family to make some easy money had ended up with me forming a global delivery empire. Honestly, I thought it would make my life easier; a delivery service that shows up fast in a generic uniform is a lot less conspicuous than a school aged kid making deliveries at odd hours of the day. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have gone global with it. I shouldn't be surprised; as with so many things in my life, this was bound to end in disaster. The waiting room in front of Jeff Bezos' office was reasonably well furnished. It was as frugal as you might expect: fancy enough to unmistakably be the CEO's, but down-played enough to not look opulent. Deep down I know he'd prefer to go all out since he became the richest man in the world, but he was committed to keeping the leadership principles alive. That I can respect. Reminds me of someone I know. But really, this was all a formality on my part. If I wanted to, I could teleport instantaneously inside and wreck havoc. I had to see a place before I could use my power, but the wonders of internet searches were on my side. I even found a picture of the safe room hidden behind his "door desk". They would regret the day they crossed my path, and they would suddenly find teleportation was the least of their worries. But that's not my style. I was being polite. More importantly, I had a reason I was here. I could tell the receptionist was preoccupied with my hair. She was doing her best to look busy, but she was actually surfing their own site, looking for which products I had used to get the look. Despite my best efforts, I always stood out, even when I kept my powers hidden. Another side-effect of my "gifts". The doors to his main office opened, and two of his body guards stepped out on either side. "Mr. 'K', Mr. Bezos is ready to see you now." I adjusted my glasses and stood up. Here we go. I walked in, trying my best not to smile. He projected calm, but in reality he wasn't the least bit comfortable with me. This was a business, he had an empire to protect, and some kid from Tokyo wasn't about to destroy his vision for the future. The doors closed behind me. The guards were even staying outside, though they were armed pretty heavily. This was a power move; he wanted to show me he didn't fear me, and he was in control. I tried not to sigh. I could read him like an open book. "Mr. 'K', thank you for coming. I understand you've been quite busy with growing your empire from your humble home this last summer. You know, I started in a garage not that far from here; in a way, we have a lot in common." Not nearly as much as you think. I nodded anyway. "However, 100 yen is pretty low for a global delivery service that can beat my hourly offering. I tried it myself a few times; you kept your delivery promises every time. I've had our best analysis teams sift through the logistics of your operation. To be frank, we were eager to mimic your success. Surely, there was a new technology, a new method, perhaps even an evolution of the self-employed courier services we rolled out ourselves to keep up. I even thought you might have perfected drone delivery." That would be the fact that our 'service vehicles' are just there for props. Teleportation works best when it can't be seen freaking people out. Plus, I've always tried to keep a low profile. What a pain. "But none of it adds up. Energy costs alone should have put you out of business in the first week. Your delivery infrastructure is non-existent. Your website form just seems to send an email somewhere." Hey, I like to keep it frugal too. That goes to my private email address I keep tabs on with my phone. He got up from his desk and casually walked around to face me. He was getting more confident. "We've done everything we can to test the boundaries of your service. There is one thing that kept bothering me: no matter how many orders we made, there was always no more than one courier making a delivery at any time. And thanks to our intelligence efforts, we got a real good look at them." He isn't the self-made CEO of an empire for nothing. He was smart. I stared intently at him, awaiting his next move. I already knew what it would be. "So, Mr. 'K', mind telling me how you managed to travel approximately 100 consecutive miles to make 25 deliveries in a single hour, with no signs of your vehicle between locations?" I did my best to look shocked. But this was just a prelude. The hired mercenaries were already heading up the stairwell, and they had teams at every possible location in the city. I had never delivered here, and I relied heavily on the Google street view system for locations. They did their homework. He felt smug. "I've built my company as a data-driven empire. According to the numbers, you can only teleport a few miles at a time, and it takes you about two and a half minutes to 'recharge' whatever it is you do. I'm the only person who knows about you, but one call to my newspaper and I can change that overnight." He was telling the truth. Perfect. And he even thought of his password to the Amazon administrative network. "Mr. 'K', I know when I'm beat. I can't compete with a teleporting competitor. Even with your limitations, it's bad for my business. And I simply want to learn from you. Or, at the very least, learn how your body does it." I shook my head. The team was almost in place outside. They awaited his command. "Too bad. Look, I've got all your exits covered. I know your limitations. 'Gifted' or not, a bullet or two is guaranteed to bring you around. Or, at the very least, remove you from the equation." All of his fear was gone. Fine by me. I guess it was time to show my hand. Teleportation wasn't my only trick, and I was on to his crack 'recon team' from day one. I didn't go global without thinking this through, and I've been limiting my powers from day one. Never can be too careful with abilities like mine. A device which looked remarkably like a banana appeared in my right hand. His eyes went wide. "What the..." A solid hit to the back of his head took him by surprise, erasing his memories of me and his conclusion along with it. He was unconscious before he hit the floor. Something would take their place, but it wouldn't be my secret. I could tell the team was getting concerned. I'd have to think fast. Teleporting along with his limp body into his not-so-safe room behind his desk, I swiftly went to work with his login credentials. Computers were not one of my specialties, but I was adept enough to figure out his office surveillance system and the global tracking network. Erase all video of my conversation, done. A quick check of his personal 'omni-view' of the package network, and...there it was. The last known position of my package. Every power at my disposal couldn't find it after it was lost in transit, and now I had went as far as allowing a very powerful man nearly figure out who I was. What a pain. But it would be worth it. I didn't have to be clairvoyant to hear the team in the next room puzzled at the absence of their target. They buzz of radio chatter was muffled by the walls; they clearly assumed I had tried to escape. True to his word, they didn't even think about teleportation. If they only knew. I teleported myself into the first-floor bathroom, and spent a few moments making myself invisible. Amid the rush of activity of his private hired army, I quietly exited the building and made my way to a safe location. I had another stop to make before 100 Yen Shipping, Inc. would be closed for good, and the package with my limited edition coffee jelly maker was awaiting me in Arizona. &#x200B; &#x200B;	I was just chilling on the couch, watching TV, when I heard the doorbell ring. It was an Amazon package. I chuckled. How ironic; my enemies delivering gifts right to my doorstep. Well, it’s not like I minded. I picked up the box and teleported to my kitchen to open it. There was something strange about the box. Even though it was pretty big, it weighed only a couple pounds. And now that I thought of it, I hadn’t really bought anything from Amazon lately. Now I hesitated before cutting it open. Was this some kind of trick? Were they catching on? I weighed the options. I could choose to be safe and leave it there, or... well. I liked stuff. Everyone does. What if it was nice stuff? I wielded the box opener and brought it down on the cardboard surface. Rip. Rrrrip. Every moment was painful. Finally, one side of the cardboard rose and I was done. My heart beat fast. My hands sweated. Every single horror movie stereotype was in action. Suddenly, my impulse decision didn’t seem so wise. What if I would find something dangerous? I pushed back the cardboard and blinked at emptiness. There was nothing there. Just a box. I sank down onto the floor. What was this? What did it mean? Could there be a hidden message? A message. Some kind of warning. I looked back at the box and noticed something: the word “think” was written in red marker outside the box. Now I was sure that this was a message. Maybe even a pun. Red box? Red think box? No, that didn’t make any sense. It was a pun, right? So the words had to be changed to make sense in the context. Read outside the box? That would describe the word. But it had to do with the word “think”. So maybe- I am such an idiot. Think outside the box. Now I searched frantically in every direction. Outside the box? Where outside the box? To the right? To the left? I picked the thing up and looked under it. As I slowly lifted my eyes to the ceiling, I thought of my own pun: things can only go up from here. Written on my ceiling in a painted approximation of blood, it said: WE ARE THE AMAZON. DO YOU KNOW WHO THAT IS? WARRIORS. AND IN THIS WAR, WE WILL BRING YOU DOWN. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. I didn’t know what I felt about this. Part of me felt it was unfair because they hadn’t even given me a first warning, part of me was impressed at how badass Amazon was, part of me wondered how my ceiling could be so big to fit all that, and part of me was determined. Amazon thought they had scared me. I ripped up the box and threw the scraps in my recycling bin. But all they’d really done was given me a heck of a cleaning job on my ceiling.
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	Chuck waited in the Amazon headquarters lobby for only 5 minutes. One of the receptionists personally escorted him to a conference room 7 floors up. She had to use her ID card in the elevator for access. She was polite and smiling, but Chuck only made a minimal effort to be cordial. The room was dark, save for the presentation projected on the far wall. It was the growth of Chuck's business, an inexplicable exponential graph. The table was full of smartly dressed executives. The seat closest to the graph was turned, and made no motion to address the newest person to enter. Chuck was only in his beige coverall uniform. He wiped his sweaty palms on his lap at his seat closest to the door. A few lights came on, but the far side of the room was still dark. A woman introduced herself as the Chief Logistics Officer, Nona Bridges. She shuffled her papers. Her glasses had a glittering chain linked around the back of her head. Were those diamonds? Chuck wondered. "Mr. Langley, the projected numbers you presented to your shareholders this week are ...ambitious." She said carefully. "We were wondering how this was possible considering you have no corporate transportation listed in your taxes. We see you only have warehouses and suppliers, and some of those suppliers-" "Some of those suppliers," a man across the table interrupted, "were originally exclusive partners with Amazon." He looked like he played football in his younger years, with broad shoulders, short black hair and his big hands clasped together on the table. "You're getting into some competitive territory, son." Son? Chuck was offended. We're probably the same age, he gauged. The man continued, "We are certainly disappointed that you've turned down our acquisition offers in the past, but that is off the table as you've told us before to, quote, 'shove it up your asses'" Chuck let out a smirk reminiscing on that day. But then a squeak came out of the swivel chair at the end of the table. Jeff Bezos faced the group with a contemplative face. "Charlene, put in a work order for the chair, please." The receptionist that had escorted Chuck nodded from the doorway and left. "Now, Mr. Langley. Can I order something from you right at this moment?" Chuck sat up in his seat. "Absolutely! There's no rivals with Chuck-it Fast Delivery." Chuck sent a smug look to the football player-type. The man leaned back in his seat and rolled his eyes. "Great" Jeff started, "Now, I would like a new pen. One of those multi-colored pens you get from Dollar Tree. I understand there's an additional $5 fee for products that are not direct suppliers, correct?" Chuck nodded, "That is correct, Mr. Bezos. And when would you like your pen?" "At the end of this meeting, please." There was only 2 minutes left in their allotted time. "There is also another $10 flat fee for orders within the hour, sir." Jeff passed down a $20 bill. "Really not an issue for me, Chuck. Keep the change." The executives let out a laugh. The two minutes passed in silence. Jeff looked amusingly at his team and threw up his hands. "Well, Chuck. Where's my pen?" Chuck took a marble pen off the table, and wound up to throw it. "Think fast!" Everyone panicked and looked away, arms up and covering faces, but there was no noise of an impact. Jeff looked up at Chuck to see him standing with his arms down. In front of Jeff was the multi-colored pen he had asked for. "Anything else I can get you, sir?" Chuck asked politely. Jeff pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his head. With a stifled laugh, he said, "No, that will be all. Charlene can escort you back to the lobby. Thank you." Chuck was eventually escorted out. Charlene returned to the conference room, "Mr. Bezos, the video footage is in your inbox now." Jeff smiled at her, then looked to the camera in the corner of the room. "Thank you, Charlene. You've been a part of a real turning point for this company."	"Sheila, someone's here to see you." Her brother's tone caught her off-guard. The 20-year-old had the reckless confidence of his age, so Sheila couldn't remember the last time she heard a note of fear in his voice. But as she looked at him now, standing at the top of her basement stairs with arms folded, it was plain he was scared. "I don't have time right now," she replied. "We've got to get those three Samsungs to Anchorage tonight, and we promised the Playboy's to the sheik --" "That can wait," he interrupted. "Just come up here." With that, he walked back through the open door. Sheila sighed and looked around the basement-turned-storage unit. Large boxes lined the walls, and makeshift shelves bent under the weight of her goods. Anything was possible for her clients, of course, but as her reputation had spread amongst a certain crowd, the types of people she wouldn't want her mother to know about, the inventory had grown increasingly clandestine. She stepped over the box she was about to deliver, a pair of long-range rifles headed to Cape Town, and moved up the stairs. There was no sound coming the first floor of the two-bedroom house, which was how it should be. Meetings were rarely held here, and no one was due today, so why someone was in her home was beyond her. As she reached the top of the stairs and turned into the kitchen, she finally heard an unfamiliar voice. "No coffee, thank you. This shouldn't take long." With that, her brother came back into the kitchen, face ashen, and gave subtle shake of his head. Sheila wasn't worried -- she'd been in dangerous situations before and survived without a scratch. After all, she had the ultimate escape tactic. The man wasn't facing her when she walked in; he was examining the smattering of framed family photos hung on the far wall. But from the back, he didn't seem intimidating. Simple workout clothes rested below a small. bald head. "Your mother?" he asked without turning, pointing to one of the photos. "Who are you, and why are you here?" Then he turned, and she recognized the face immediately, recognized why her brother was so startled by their guest. "I see you know who I am," said Bezos. "What you may not realize is that I know about you, too, Sheila Rodriguez, age 24 from Phoenix. I am curious though -- where you born with your talent, or discover this later in life?" Sheila greeted his question with the silence it deserved. Surprise had been replaced by stubbornness, so she simply crossed her arms and waited for him to continue. Bezos shrugged. "Fine, have it your way. You'll be speaking soon enough. I have a proposition." "I work alone," she snarled. "Not from what I just saw," Bezos responded, nodding towards the door where her brother had just exited. "That's different. He's family." That spurred the first sly grin from the tycoon. "Ah, good, so I have judged you correctly. Please look out the front window." Something wicked in his tone spurred Sheila to cross the room and peak through the closed blinds. Out on the curb of their quiet suburb were two large SUVs. One of the vehicles had its rear window down -- sitting in the back, clear as day, was her mother, bound, gagged, and crying. "Now that you understand the situation," said Bezos, voice smug, "I suggest you call your brother back in, and you will both accompany us to our local headquarters. Make any move to escape and your mother doesn't make it home tonight." "What do you want?" asked Sheila, voice trembling, eyes still staring out the window. She could sense him walking up behind her. He spoke softly as he respond, "Just a little experiment we've set up. Shouldn't hurt too much." &#x200B; authors note: running out the door in six seconds, can't keep going with this until tonight. if there's interest ill loop back and add the conclusion. apologies + cheers \-------------------- 227/365 one story per day for a year. read them all at [r/babyshoesalesman](https://www.reddit.com/r/babyshoesalesman) \---------------------
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	Business was good. My only shortcoming is that I didn't realize sooner that it was too good. Amazon is the world's most profitable company. The life we live today is so media-driven, commercial, and connected that it's hard to imagine that anyone, or indeed any company with an international brand image to maintain, would opt for a nefarious solution to their problems. That was my mistake. I only realized it when I was standing over a man full-clad in black clothing, laying unconscious on my kitchen floor. Interesting that the first thought that occurred to me was 'how typical', when I realized I'd used a cast iron skillet to knock him out. Standing there hovering over the collapsed body, skillet in my hand: straight out of a scary movie, or a made-for-TV flick on Lifetime. There was no way I could prove the intruder was hired by Amazon. Of course there wasn't, and I wouldn't try. I ran a one-man company, and I wasn't willing to expose my power of teleportation just to save my pride at the incursion. What was curious was how they could've found out about me. But then, if they could develop AWS tech, then surely they could analyze data to discover the incremental value of my small holding measured against my employee count of 1. I was a threat, no matter how small. My mind wandered back to a year previous. Only a year? It felt like I'd been doing this for so much longer. I used a storage locker to stockpile kitchen supplies imported from China--that's how I started. Someone would order off my website, where items were priced the same as Amazon but where there was an "instantaneous" shipping option for a marked-up price. I spent my afternoons jumping all over the country. I knew it wasn't sustainable--someone would get suspicious so I changed the instantaneous to same-day. It only really kicked off when I started hiring delivery drivers in each of the big cities by the hour. I'd have all the items ordered from addresses in that city packaged on a palette, and teleport them to a rented lot, where the drivers would come for pick up. Basically the differentiation with Amazon was that I was delivering their 2-day-shipping kitchen supplies in less than one. But it's all over now. This unconscious man is as far as I'm willing to go. I never really wanted to compete in business on fair terms, but this was just too frightening. Sending consumer products quickly just isn't worth it. My breathing steadied, and I set the cast-iron skillet on the granite counter top. A weird mix of elation at catching a burglar and relief at the decision to get out of the delivery business came over me. I smiled. What will I do now? I frowned at the question, realizing the situation I was currently in. My face was between a frown and a smile when I looked down at the man and saw the blood pooling around his masked head. I was shocked--did I kill him? Quickly, I went to my knees, wrapped my arms around him and teleported away. Of course no one saw me arrive--it's part of the power. Someone could be staring at a brick wall, I could teleport immediately in front of them, and to them I'd have been there all along. So the nurse didn't suspect a thing and acted quickly to help me lay the bleeding man on a stretcher. They took him into the OR. Only when the doctor emerged later and said the man was stable did I leave. I didn't teleport but walked out the front entrance. It was 3 a.m. An ambulance pulled up and they brought out another stretcher with someone on it. "She's not going to make it," said one of the EMTs to the other as they rushed past me into the Emergency Room. I watched the doors slide closed behind them, and then looked at the ambulance, its lights still flashing silently. In that moment, I knew what I was going to do with my life. &#x200B; \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ /r/velabasstuff	"Sheila, someone's here to see you." Her brother's tone caught her off-guard. The 20-year-old had the reckless confidence of his age, so Sheila couldn't remember the last time she heard a note of fear in his voice. But as she looked at him now, standing at the top of her basement stairs with arms folded, it was plain he was scared. "I don't have time right now," she replied. "We've got to get those three Samsungs to Anchorage tonight, and we promised the Playboy's to the sheik --" "That can wait," he interrupted. "Just come up here." With that, he walked back through the open door. Sheila sighed and looked around the basement-turned-storage unit. Large boxes lined the walls, and makeshift shelves bent under the weight of her goods. Anything was possible for her clients, of course, but as her reputation had spread amongst a certain crowd, the types of people she wouldn't want her mother to know about, the inventory had grown increasingly clandestine. She stepped over the box she was about to deliver, a pair of long-range rifles headed to Cape Town, and moved up the stairs. There was no sound coming the first floor of the two-bedroom house, which was how it should be. Meetings were rarely held here, and no one was due today, so why someone was in her home was beyond her. As she reached the top of the stairs and turned into the kitchen, she finally heard an unfamiliar voice. "No coffee, thank you. This shouldn't take long." With that, her brother came back into the kitchen, face ashen, and gave subtle shake of his head. Sheila wasn't worried -- she'd been in dangerous situations before and survived without a scratch. After all, she had the ultimate escape tactic. The man wasn't facing her when she walked in; he was examining the smattering of framed family photos hung on the far wall. But from the back, he didn't seem intimidating. Simple workout clothes rested below a small. bald head. "Your mother?" he asked without turning, pointing to one of the photos. "Who are you, and why are you here?" Then he turned, and she recognized the face immediately, recognized why her brother was so startled by their guest. "I see you know who I am," said Bezos. "What you may not realize is that I know about you, too, Sheila Rodriguez, age 24 from Phoenix. I am curious though -- where you born with your talent, or discover this later in life?" Sheila greeted his question with the silence it deserved. Surprise had been replaced by stubbornness, so she simply crossed her arms and waited for him to continue. Bezos shrugged. "Fine, have it your way. You'll be speaking soon enough. I have a proposition." "I work alone," she snarled. "Not from what I just saw," Bezos responded, nodding towards the door where her brother had just exited. "That's different. He's family." That spurred the first sly grin from the tycoon. "Ah, good, so I have judged you correctly. Please look out the front window." Something wicked in his tone spurred Sheila to cross the room and peak through the closed blinds. Out on the curb of their quiet suburb were two large SUVs. One of the vehicles had its rear window down -- sitting in the back, clear as day, was her mother, bound, gagged, and crying. "Now that you understand the situation," said Bezos, voice smug, "I suggest you call your brother back in, and you will both accompany us to our local headquarters. Make any move to escape and your mother doesn't make it home tonight." "What do you want?" asked Sheila, voice trembling, eyes still staring out the window. She could sense him walking up behind her. He spoke softly as he respond, "Just a little experiment we've set up. Shouldn't hurt too much." &#x200B; authors note: running out the door in six seconds, can't keep going with this until tonight. if there's interest ill loop back and add the conclusion. apologies + cheers \-------------------- 227/365 one story per day for a year. read them all at [r/babyshoesalesman](https://www.reddit.com/r/babyshoesalesman) \---------------------
[WP] You can teleport. Instead of using your powers for good or evil, you start a delivery business with a quick delivery guarantee. Amazon starts getting suspicious.	The twerp reappeared in a puff of smoke across the padded room. To be honest I remained unimpressed. No blinker could intimidate me. I had a jawline like a rottweiler, and most men who wound up in this cell ended their stay by begging for mercy. "It must be frustrating," the kid taunted as he teleported once more. "I'm sure you worked hard for those biceps." I grunted. The kid poofed right in front of my face, wearing his most affronting smirk. He was a skinny lad, but there was real intelligence behind those blue eyes. He'd been dodging us for years, raking in a boatload of coin while he was at it. Sooner or later, though, all blinkers grow too big for their britches. The kid leaned in conspiratorially. "All those gym membership fees..." Smoke drifted towards my nostrils. My face screwed up in disgust. "Smells like sulfur." The kid scoffed. "Farts have a tendency to do that." Before I could help myself, my fist shot out. But I was left punching air. The kid keeled over with laughter in the corner of the room. "Listen, dude, I've been through this horse and pony show before. US Military, the mob, doesn't matter who. It all ends in the same result. You draw some blood and discover the truth. I'm an anomaly. Non-replicable." At this, the kid puffed out his chest. "One of a kind." I heaved a sigh. Shouldn't have retaliated like that. Unprofessional. The man would be here soon. I just had to be patient. The kid tried to get more out of me, but that little stunt had set my resolution in stone. I stood in silence, holding guard over the Alexa propped near the sole door. The device was the only reason this little twerp was confined to this room. Any time he tried to blink beyond the confines of our walls, the familiar blue ring of Alexa would pulse a vibrant neon pink. Let him make his jokes, I thought. For all his unharnessed power, in this room all he could do was play a one man game of ping pong. A knock sounded from the door. I smiled. "Bezos would like a word." In stepped my slender boss. He looked around with an odd look on his face. "Smells like rotten eggs," he said. "The kid's been trying to work me over." In a blink, the kid popped up just behind Bezos, already swinging. Luckily my reflexes were on point. I caught his little fist midswing with the meat of my palm. Despite myself, I squeezed until I felt the pop of bone. Bezos sighed. "Alexa," he said. "Suspend kinetics." Everything froze. The rattle of the air vents. The flicker of the fluorescents. And me. I stood with my arms outstretched, muscles aching, frozen in place with the twerp's fist in my hand. I fucking hated when he did this. But at least the kid was frozen too. All but his eyes. By the way they whirled around in their sockets, I recognized true, delectable panic. "You're not alone you know," Bezos said. "I've seen many like you." He walked around the kid in a slow, steady circle. Then he leaned in a hair's breadth away. "Do you really think you're so special?" The kid's eyes actually trembled. Bezos clucked. "You represent a rather peculiar threat. How can I sustain my business with people like you flitting about, huh? The entire marketplace would be thrown into chaos." I'd seen this horse and pony show before, too. Bezos might be the skinniest, most bug-eyed fucker I'd ever met, but he had a way of cutting to the heart of people. He continued circling, like a shark, biding his time for the kill shot. "Lucky for you, you're going to give up your little gift for the greater good," Bezos said. "We've developed an implant. Something that nullifies your...condition. You understand?" Ah yes. That's right little one. Your talent is not as untouchable as you think. As the kid realized this, anger simmered behind his eyes. His gaze could sharpen knives. Bezos punched him straight in the jaw. "I said do you understand." The kid moved his eyes up and down. "Good," Bezos said. "Alexa, resume." The kid collapsed to the floor, while I smirked from my corner. "You'll submit to the implant," Bezos said matter of fact. Then he gestured towards me. "Thorn here will see to it you do." The kid laughed in my direction. "Thorn here couldn't catch me if he tried!" But Bezos was already outside the door. I rose up like a motherfucking goliath. Finally. My moment. The kid was eyeing me up and down with that same goddamned smirk. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "Chase smoke until you pass out?" I smiled. Like I said. Too big for their britches. "I don't need to lay a hand on you," I told him. I let the twerp flounder for a second or two, relishing the confusion that rippled over his face. I'd seen thirty-three blinkers break between these padded walls. Each and every time, due to the same damn thing. "Alexa," I said. "Play Baby Shark." -------------------- r/M0zark	"Sheila, someone's here to see you." Her brother's tone caught her off-guard. The 20-year-old had the reckless confidence of his age, so Sheila couldn't remember the last time she heard a note of fear in his voice. But as she looked at him now, standing at the top of her basement stairs with arms folded, it was plain he was scared. "I don't have time right now," she replied. "We've got to get those three Samsungs to Anchorage tonight, and we promised the Playboy's to the sheik --" "That can wait," he interrupted. "Just come up here." With that, he walked back through the open door. Sheila sighed and looked around the basement-turned-storage unit. Large boxes lined the walls, and makeshift shelves bent under the weight of her goods. Anything was possible for her clients, of course, but as her reputation had spread amongst a certain crowd, the types of people she wouldn't want her mother to know about, the inventory had grown increasingly clandestine. She stepped over the box she was about to deliver, a pair of long-range rifles headed to Cape Town, and moved up the stairs. There was no sound coming the first floor of the two-bedroom house, which was how it should be. Meetings were rarely held here, and no one was due today, so why someone was in her home was beyond her. As she reached the top of the stairs and turned into the kitchen, she finally heard an unfamiliar voice. "No coffee, thank you. This shouldn't take long." With that, her brother came back into the kitchen, face ashen, and gave subtle shake of his head. Sheila wasn't worried -- she'd been in dangerous situations before and survived without a scratch. After all, she had the ultimate escape tactic. The man wasn't facing her when she walked in; he was examining the smattering of framed family photos hung on the far wall. But from the back, he didn't seem intimidating. Simple workout clothes rested below a small. bald head. "Your mother?" he asked without turning, pointing to one of the photos. "Who are you, and why are you here?" Then he turned, and she recognized the face immediately, recognized why her brother was so startled by their guest. "I see you know who I am," said Bezos. "What you may not realize is that I know about you, too, Sheila Rodriguez, age 24 from Phoenix. I am curious though -- where you born with your talent, or discover this later in life?" Sheila greeted his question with the silence it deserved. Surprise had been replaced by stubbornness, so she simply crossed her arms and waited for him to continue. Bezos shrugged. "Fine, have it your way. You'll be speaking soon enough. I have a proposition." "I work alone," she snarled. "Not from what I just saw," Bezos responded, nodding towards the door where her brother had just exited. "That's different. He's family." That spurred the first sly grin from the tycoon. "Ah, good, so I have judged you correctly. Please look out the front window." Something wicked in his tone spurred Sheila to cross the room and peak through the closed blinds. Out on the curb of their quiet suburb were two large SUVs. One of the vehicles had its rear window down -- sitting in the back, clear as day, was her mother, bound, gagged, and crying. "Now that you understand the situation," said Bezos, voice smug, "I suggest you call your brother back in, and you will both accompany us to our local headquarters. Make any move to escape and your mother doesn't make it home tonight." "What do you want?" asked Sheila, voice trembling, eyes still staring out the window. She could sense him walking up behind her. He spoke softly as he respond, "Just a little experiment we've set up. Shouldn't hurt too much." &#x200B; authors note: running out the door in six seconds, can't keep going with this until tonight. if there's interest ill loop back and add the conclusion. apologies + cheers \-------------------- 227/365 one story per day for a year. read them all at [r/babyshoesalesman](https://www.reddit.com/r/babyshoesalesman) \---------------------
[WP] Turns out, Earth is the only planet where warm-blooded life evolved. This lead to unexpected reactions from the rest of the universe.	Two beings were strolling down a large corridor. The walls were a sterile white. Chairs, benches and doors lined the corridor walls. Above was a skylight following the length of the corridor, it was made from a translucent material that permitted sunlight inside. The corridor was sparsely populated and therefore calm. One of the beings was a large insect, the other a reptile. Both wore the pristine white uniforms of the Cyverian Science Division. "An intriguing find to say the least." The lizard said with a hissing voice. A box-like device hanging from the neck of the insect crackled to life, \\"\\We have yet to determine their exact nature, but current data suggests they are mammalian." A moment of thoughtful silence passed. "Have we made contact with them?" The lizard asked. "Not yet, the Bureau of Security has refrained from making a decision pending investigation into any potential dangers, and until they have, no expeditions can be made." The insect's translator popped and buzzed for a moment after it had ceased talking. "The xeno-biologists must be beside themselves, there hasn't been a discovery on this scale since those sentient energy beings", the lizard said. "They aren't the only ones excited", said the insect. The translator went "pop" and he continued. "The whole division has been quite interested in the discovery".	"All those in favor of the Science Party's motion, say 'aye'," boomed the speaker. A chorus of aye's rang out under the great dome of Andromeda parliament. "The motion is adopted." Some were excited, others reserved, but as the parliamentarians filed out through a million entrances, the muted conversations that shivered through the immensely diverse crowd of creatures carried a common subject. All concerned the harvesting of Earth. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ In a millennia not a single alien has returned to Earth. The harvest complete, most humans and animals extracted, perhaps there was nothing left for them to gain. Descendants of survivors told stories of the great invasion even now. There was no other history to speak of, even after so many centuries. The language was nothing like it once was, but they spoke in detail, huddled around fires among the vast and broken metropolises of humans long gone. "Andromeda came in untold numbers," said the elder. "All the warmed creatures were taken in quick course." A child made a noise and the elder sneered. "We live among the frogs and the snakes and the fish, and we fear our days unending. Shall Andromeda return? Andromeda may return. Andromeda will return." \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Great investment of universal resources from several other galaxies went into the development of the technology, but quadrillions of galactic hours could not produce a use. At first they kept the humans breeding so supply would not run out. But for all of Andromeda's advances, they could not synthesize the suits. After five centuries the parliament suspended funding entirely, and the warm-bloods, now numbering in the trillions, were eviscerated. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; /r/velabasstuff
[WP] Wizards have the same trust in magic that software designers have in software, in other words, none at all.	The King's second, a knight who retired many years ago, stomped up. "Why are you weaving a new set of observation runes around the castle? The current ones work fine; they caught someone last week!" I was so tired of answering that question... "No, they don't." "Yes, they do, and you just don't want to fulfill the King's request for turning lead into gold because you can't do it." "That's not it at all, and you know that." "Fine, explain it to me..." "The current wards were etched 5 years ago. That doesn't sound like very long, but it's an eternity in magic. Since then, new potions, runes, wards and hexes have come out daily. The current one did catch someone last week, but I've found almost half of them down. It's pretty clear that while most of those failed, some were intentionally disabled." "But can't you just..." "Reset those runes? Sure I can, but they'll just be disabled or fail again." "Well, with your command over the mystic arts..." "... I can tell you how truly worthless these wards are. They can't be fixed; they're too far gone. I've spent 3 months maintaining them-" "Complaining the whole time!" "Yes, because at least one of the five other wizards who maintained them - not the original weaver - was an absolute idiot and removed half the protective measures. I re-enabled them, but I was chasing cascade failures and mana resonances for weeks." "Well, that just means you know the ley line network now." "I do, and again, I can see all the ways it's broken. I'm sure most of the mages had decent work ethic, knowledge and loyalty for the time, but they aren't up to snuff. I know half a dozen ways I could get to the King's private chambers without being noticed, and that's off the top of my head." "Fine. Just do it right, this is the last time anyone in the royal family will put up with this." "It won't be. Even if I stay here until I die, study the latest incantations and elixirs daily, and devote all my time on these runes, they will STILL fail. Not because I'm a bad wizard - I'm an expert in the art of detection; I've literally written three books to train young mages on detection, monitoring and shielding spells - but because tomorrow, I'll be a better wizard than I am today, but every other mage, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, witch, caster, priest, incanter, enchanter, thaumaturgist, diviner, shaman, trickster and weaver is too. Even if I cast the most powerful, thorough, redundant spell of my career, in 5 years i will know another new half-dozen ways to sneak past it." "But..." "And most of those won't be little 'zaps' to protect against the gaps. Meanwhile, the King will probably expand his stables again, which means the guards will move the wall, which will strain the south set of wards, requiring complex counterbalancing." "Well, possibly..." "Meanwhile, if an assassin did slip through and do something, I'm the one who would end up on a pike as a warning to the next wizard." "Probably not. I mean, maybe. There's always a risk, of course..." "Mind you, you would also be put to the sword. So, instead of simply coming out here and screaming, please: enable me to do the job right. Be willing to tell the King no on occasion, and take the time to tell him why. Point out that adding 5 new casters won't help - and will make things worse - if they don't have the right skills, experience, or can work as a team. Point out that everything had a cost and a limited lifespan." The boisterous knight mumbled and walked away. He wasn't used to this type of defeat. I went back to my work, and started pulling apart another aged rune, when an transparent, robed figure appeared. "These ley-threads clearly are knotted, but I need to reinforce the NW corner today and the King just exiled 2 of the assistant casters because he 'didn't like them sleeping in until lunchtime,' even if they had been toiling until almost first bell. I know there's a parallel thread solution here somewhere, but I don't have any more time: I've already spent 6 hours weaving this, and I don't have a better solution." Blast.	Doctor of Magic Candidate Davin Pentrix read The Tome of Pythons at the desk in the corner, while the students at the rows of tables wove, sewed, melted, and riveted their various reagents and words of power together. Domin Beak raised his hand. "Master Pentrix?" A thump, the Tome on the desk. Clip, clip, Pentrix's shoes on stone. "Yes Beak? And call me Davin." "Right, uh, Davin. So, I understand that when steel and magnesium are adhered with gum Arabic the Fundamental Force of Light is invoked to the Manifestation of the Lesser Unseen, but why is there a difference between the Lesser and Greater Unseen?" "You mean, how is the Lesser different from the Greater? Doctor Mythryx covered that. The Lesser Unseen manifestation of Light will Disrupt the Fundamental Force of Life Stability, while the Greater Disrupts the Fundamental Force of Rest, especially of the Lesser Particles." Beak looked pained. "No, what I mean is, I understand the reasoning of the Fundamental Forces, but I just don't understand how the metaphysical gravity of the reagents evokes the Manifestations. How does a Manifestation know when its conditions are met?" "Ah, you're wondering about Merlin Architecture. That's an advanced topic, you don't need to understand it to evoke the proper Manifestations, just learn how it's ingredients interact." "Yes, but, how can inert, stable forces of nature know anything? Yes, I can choose reagents, and evoke the reaction I want, but I'm not telling light to make something hot, in just sticking bits of metal together. I know there are other Disciplines, but the question stands, why do any of them work?" Pentrix paused a beat for gravity and asked, "Have you heard of the Discipline of Abstraction?"
[WP] Wizards have the same trust in magic that software designers have in software, in other words, none at all.	"I trust my spells. I test them. Whatever the fuck you do all day in your moss eaten tower, that's not casting. That's like eating a water melon, shitting out the seeds, and claiming you're a farmer," the drunk wizard slammed his mug down on the table and it instantly filled back up again. "Jesus!" the bartender exclaimed wondering if magically refilling mugs could be added to the tab. "And another thing, you..." he pointed his mug over towards the beautiful middle-aged woman in the green emerald dress across from him, "You... witch, sorceress or whatever you are. I know the only reason you're here is the queen. You couldn't conjure you're way out of a menopausal..." And just like that his head slumped to the table and he was out. "Thank God!" a woman sitting at the table behind them exclaimed followed by cheers from the rest of the bar. The younger sorcerer smiled at the sorceress, "I told you it would work. How do you defeat a man who can conjure dragons, turn lakes into lava, and reanimate the dead?" "Social engineering," she smirked, but she still seem irked by the drunken old man's previous comments. "That's right, now help me get him to the alley." "Ok old timer, you've had too much to drink. Time to get you home!" She raised her voice loud enough for the other patrons to hear and purple light formed around the elderly man's arms and legs. After paying the tab with a snap of her fingers she walked out of the bar with the unconscious wizard in tow. "I think we're far enough away, go down that alley," the younger wizard pointed. The old man was unceremoniously slumped to the ground and his purple bonds faded into the cold night air. The excited young sorcerer started to search the older man's pockets. A bolt of blinding energy leapt from the wizard's cloak and shot him 15 feet down the alley. "Warded..." the sorceress snickered amused. She waved her hands in the air and a complex spider web of lines, runes, and formulas formed out of the crisp air. "My fucking head," the younger man rose from the ground and begrudgingly returned to the scene of his humiliation. "I... I can't even read this ward. It's so..." "Fucking Over-engineered!" the sorcerer gasped, "Why in the hell would you abstract a simple Lion of Ordin into three hierarchical Hounds Tooths? I mean you can do it, but why? It's like he tried to future-proof it, expecting it to someday fill some sort of mad king's desire to ward an entire castle knowing that it would only ward an old moth eaten robe. Why over-complicate a simple spell?" "Just remember, it's not how well designed your ward is. The only two questions you ever need to ask yourself is, does it work and can another aligned mage read it well enough to improve upon it," the older woman lectured. "There, I think I see it. Right next to the Three Eyes of Soden," he pointed. "Oh my God, did he really encode the banishment word right there into the ward itself? And he's the Duke's magician?" the sorceress exclaimed. "Pimp...My... Toad", the young sorcerer breathed each word out and the ward vanished into the air. The sorcerer then warily placed his hands back into the robe, felt around a few seconds, and pulled out a small black stone. "The Lodestone of Langus Algre!" the sorceress proclaimed. "Our benefactor is going to freak," the younger man laughed. The woman then seemingly started gathering the night mist around her until it formed a perfect smooth oval in front of the two sorcerers. An old haggard man's face formed in the shape and he looked surprised to be summoned, "Oh good, it's you. I was actually about to send a messenger for you." "You're going to love the news we have for you, look!" the sorcerer proudly held up the stone. "Oh, you already have the stone...." "Yes, " the sorceress smiled, "And we're about to create a portal directly the the palace with it." "Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't reach you in time. There's been a change of plans," the man frowned. "A change in plans?" the sorceress' brow started to furrow. "Yes, you see while you were planning and implementing the job we had more time to evaluate the situation and we're not going to be able to get this war started with the assassination of a SINGLE duke. We want to go a little bigger and roll out three simultaneous royal assassinations at once. We think that will have a bigger impact on the kingdom," the man informed. "You can't be serious," the woman scowled. "You can't change the requirements now, we're already halfway through the..." "Listen, I know you both are very smart and capable mages. I know you'll figure it out. And one more thing, the Earl wants it all done within the same time frame we discussed earlier." "Impossible!" the young sorcerer screamed, "I've been overdosing ginseng all week just to stay wake 19 out of 24 hours a day. How am I going to get all of that done in..." The man in the misty oval started looking extremely cross. The wiser sorceress stepped in front of the younger sorcerer, "What my apprentice means to say is we'll have to add more mages to get this job done on time." "I can increase the budget 10%, but I suggest you outsource to the far realms," he was scratching his chin. "Not the far realms!" the young sorcerer whined, "Most of them can only do one thing well! They don't think outside the manna cache. This is going to be a dis..." "We'll get it done sir. Now if you don't mind I'll end this glass-spell so I can discuss the implementation details with my apprentice. Thank you for your time!" she faked a smile. The man in the oval waved them away with a hand and the oval faded into the night. "Never ever use negative terms when talking to the patron!" She admonished the younger wizard. "You say one negative thing and we're in another 5 hour meeting with the Earl. Do you really want that?"' "No, I definitely don't want that!"	"Then you wave your hand in a circle and spin in a counter clockwise motion during the third line of the incantation--" "Wait, why?" Scarfron said, frowning at his mentor. "What does the counter-clockwise motion have to do with a restorative spell?" Porf, his mentor, stopped his pacing and stepped close enough to tap Scarfron's book. "Do you see the words written in the margins?" He said, clearly annoyed at having been interrupted. Scarfron frowned, puzzled. "Yes?" Prof tapped the book again. "Read. Them." He turned, striding to the front of the small room, the other students now scanning their own books curiously. "Aloud!" He added in a bellow. "Inherited this spell from a Russian Spellcaster..." Scanfron started, "...don't know why it works just that it does." His voice trailed off in embarrassment, heat flushing his face. "Whole spell will crash otherwise." "Right." Prof said. "Any other stupid questions? No? Good. Next class we will focus on functions and decoder codes..."
[WP] You're in a bar and decide to flirt with a beautiful girl. "Did you fall from heaven, because you're an angel!" You didn't expect her to reply sadly, "How'd you tell?"	I looked into the mirror in the bathroom. Thickly gelled hair, a shirt that said "too cool for school", and red leather jacket all contributed to attire that my mom had assured was undoubtedly hip. So why was it that all six girls I had hit on all left as soon as I started talking? After all I had researched by reading countless romance novels and playing gratuitous numbers of dating sims. How could the tried and tested tactic of cheesy pick- up lines fail? Am I really as awkward as Mark says? No it is the women who are wrong, clearly all 6 of them had great errors in judgement. And anyways, their rejections are no reason to give up! As Michael Einstein said “The definition of insanity is giving up, because you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” As I strutted back into the bar, a new addition to the bar caught my eye. Her blond hair flowed like silk down her skin, the faint light of the room twinkling in her eyes like jewels, and the blue of her irises reminiscent of perfectly cut sapfir- I mean sappire- SHE LOOKED REALLY PRETTY IS WHAT I MEANT. I looked towards Mark who stood in the front of the bar talking to a couple of girls rejected me earlier (lucky sod). He saw me, noted the girl, then mouthed ‘go for it’ before turning back to his own conversations. I got this, I mean before tonight percent rate of rejection was 0%. That might have been because I had never asked anyone out, but who can say for certain? I walked up to the pretty girl and said the seventh of my prepared pick up lines. “Hey Beautiful. did you fall from heaven, because you're an angel!" Hah, nailed it! Now she just has to follow one of the seventy possible dialogue trees I prepared and I’d be home free. She turned her head, as if it were an ordained act, inevitable and inescapable . "How'd you tell?" … SHIT. This wasn’t one of the prepared dialogue options, the dating sims lied! Play it cool Peter, this must be what the normies call “banter”. If you can pull it off you Mark will look like such the fool for insulting you. Game plan: Prosaically complement her appearance, before making a pun about the way she makes your heart soar in a way only an angel with wings could. “I- uh… because you look real nice. And uhhhh… angel’s look nice?” EXCREMENT. That sounded like something Peter would say, and tonight the plan was to be not Peter. She seemed to consider it for a moment before chuckling harmonically and saying “Such transparency. It is refreshing to see such a commitment to honesty within a realm so rife with deception. Would you be so inclined as to take a seat?” I stood dazed with surprise. To be honest she lost me when the first words she said weren’t some synonym of ‘bugger off’. She sat quietly for a moment before she breathed a sigh. “Sit”, the command in her voice moving my body before I knew it. “So what is your intention coming in here to converse? Surely your designs are more Byzantine than simple lip service, welcome though that may be.” The surprise wearing off, I figured I had to say something to make up for my last blunder. I wanted to say that I was looking for… something. Maybe it was love, but perhaps it was simply companionship and an end to the loneliness. And, in the pale glow of the bar, she looked divine, and I could not help but dream for a moment of some place beyond me, and beyond this bar. That’s what I wanted a dream. A time where the harsh glare of the world would fade, and perhaps with her, or someone else, I would find that place beyond this bar, beyond this life. But I hoped for a moment, really hoped, it would be her. But in some horribly misguided panic, I tried to replicate my earlier success and make a suave biblical refrefrence. I said “My intention, was to make like Mary and get some”. A silence reigned supreme for a moment. What the hell was that? Religion and sexual references do not mix, no matter what the title of Bible Black might suggest. And Mary is a virgin! It seems that with that line I would be, however accidentally, “making like Mary”. She looked at me, surprisingly more bemused than furious. “It is fortunate that I hear the soul in addition the mouth because yours fails to capture your intent in such a way that it could be considered an art unto itself. Despite your best efforts, I am interested; would you be interested in coffee tomorrow?” &#x200B;	Extremely intoxicated but lonely as hell I walked over to the hotel bar and without looking up I said “Did you fall from Heaven because you are an Angel.” Immediately embarrassed at my lame pick up line, I began to turn around to leave. An angelic voice responded brightly and enthusiastically “How did you know?” I stopped and turned around to see a cute and cleverly dressed girl. She smiled at me innocently. Oops, I didn’t realise they let minors into this bar. I was about to say something rude and obnoxious to turn her away when another voice responded angrily. “Stop pretending to be an Angel!” I looked up to see another beautiful girl. This one much older. The air shimmers around her and she glowed ever so softly. I knew it must be the alcohol in my system. My head begam to swim as all I could do was stare into her hypnotic eyes. “I can pretend to be anything I want!” responded the younger girl petulantly. “Come on mister let's dance.” Dancing was not what I had in mind. Besides I could barely hold myself vertical. The womans face looked sadly past me at the girl. “Yes, all this pretending is leading you down a dark path. That’s why I was sent to watch over you don’t you remember?” “Gee, I must have forgotten after all the booze I drank!” she shouted back at the woman. The woman sighs, “You haven’t had anything to drink. The bartender won’t serve you. We better get out of here before he comes back with the police to escort you out of here.” “You always ruin all my fun.” The girl, still defiant looked at me. I had recovered somewhat after the woman’s gaze let me go. “My new boyfriend will protect me, won’t you mister?” “Yes, let’s leave it up to this lonely soul. I’ve looked into his heart. He needs love in the worst way, but he won’t want it from you.” She was right. If only I could get a word in edgewise. I had already fallen in love with the older woman. Somehow. She hadn’t even addressed me directly yet. I finally get a word in, “Look you two, I’m going now…” Just then the police walk in. I get arrested. The girl gets arrested. Somehow the woman is no longer there. We sit in the back of a police cruiser. I’m certain I will be in the drunk tank for a week. I don’t know what will happen to the girl. She will probably get shipped back home. Desperately lonely now, I need to know more about the woman. So I ask the girl, “How do you know the woman at the bar?” The girl looks at me weirdly. “You saw her? You saw my guardian angel?” “Please, kid, I’m already confused. What is her name? How can I reach her?” “Mister, she never told me her name. She just shows up when I am being stupid. Which turns out is a lot. But how is it you can see her?” Upon reflection in the drunk tank, I decide that the rest of my life will be to encourage that kid to do stupid things so I can meet her guardian angel.
[WP] You're in a bar and decide to flirt with a beautiful girl. "Did you fall from heaven, because you're an angel!" You didn't expect her to reply sadly, "How'd you tell?"	Thomas sat back in his seat. He’d been expecting an exasperated sigh or outright rejection, maybe a giggle if he was lucky but not this. He looked at the girl and tried to make out if this was some sort of joke. Her blue eyes stared back and as he looked into them he didn’t see a single hint of humor. Instead he noticed something strange, a little ring of white light between her iris and pupil. It was hardly visible at some angles but it was clearly there. The girl sighed and pulled at a lock of her dark hair, twirling it around her finger absentmindedly. “Well are you gonna talk or just sit there? I know you’re not one of them so how can you tell?” By now she’d turned to face Thomas and he could get a better look at her. She was slender in appearance but not too thin, long black hair that seemed to shine like the night sky, full lips and a beautiful face. While her face were beautiful her eyes are what caught his attention. They were wet and red, as if she’d been crying not so long ago. He had never seen a greater sadness in anyone’s eyes before and just looking into them made his heart clench. He swallowed. “I’m not...I’m not sure what you mean. It’s a pick up line, that’s all. I didn’t mean to offend you ma’am I just..” before he could finish she cut him off. “A pick up line? So you didn’t actually know?” Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed, her voice low and prying. Thomas watched her curl her hand into a fist on the bar and gulped as a strange sensation washed over him. It was like the feeling of being watched, only ten times worse. Thomas put his glass down and raised his hands and as he brought them up he realized they were shaking. “Like I said I didn’t mean anything by it.” His voice shook too, a little quiver that no one besides her seemed to notice. When she heard it her eyes softened and her fist uncurled. The strange woman sat back in her chair and picked up her bottle of beer before downing it in one long gulp. She slammed it down onto the counter and turned back to him. “Listen to me and listen well, I’m not going to explain this more than once. You are going to forget what you heard me say, you are going to go home and never talk about this again.” She clapped him on the shoulder and stood up, walking out the door to the bar and disappearing into trouble night. Thomas watched her go and once she left he let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He turned back to the bar and raised his finger. “A shot of vodka please, the strongest you have.” ———————————————————————— It was twelve o’clock and the shot of vodka sat in Thomas’s stomach like a burning rock. He was one of the only people in the bar now, besides a drunken businessman who’d lost millions in stocks and an old man who looked perfectly sober despite having downed more shots than anyone else in the bar. He looked over to the chair next to him where that woman had been and shook his head. “She was just some girl messing with me, probably looking for people to prank for some weird dare.” He mumbled to himself. He didn’t quite feel like getting up yet and so he stayed in the stool, listening to the sounds of the bar. Then from behind him a door opened. He didn’t bother to turn around, reasoning that it was just some late night bar crawler. From behind the bar the bartender looked up and scowled. “Hey. Hey! You definitely aren’t old enough to be in here. Get the hell out before...” he didn’t finish his sentence. Thomas watched as the bartender turned a very particular shade of white, the kind that reminded him to notebook paper. His mouth opened and a terrified moan left his parted lips. Then the bartender turned and ran for the back door, barging out of if and disappearing into the alley. Thomas was too afraid to move as someone slid into the seat next to him, the creak of leather and the jingling of metal assaulting his ears. He slowly turned back to the seat where that woman had been sitting and was face to face with a young man, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. The young man had on a wide brimmed felt hat, olive green in color. A small bunch of brightly colored feathers were tied to the brim of it. He wore a leather jacket studded with silver pieces of metal and on his hip was a wallet chain covered in shiny little trinkets, ear rings, and necklaces, and other bits of metal. The young man was smiling at him, his upper lip pulled back just enough to reveal the tips of his teeth. Unlike the woman before him his hair was blonde and short but his eyes were the same color. As soon as Thomas looked at him he felt the same sensation he’d felt when the woman clenched her fist, only now it was so strong it felt like his skin was being poked by a thousand needles. Neither of them spoke for a minute, just looked at each other. It was the young man who spoke first. “Having a good night Thomas?” He said is a calm tone, as if he had know him for years. The hairs on Thomas’s neck went ridged and his legs turned to jelly. Even if he got up now he couldn’t run if he tried. The young man must have noticed because he grinned, one of his hands sliding over the counter and grabbing the empty shot glass in front of Thomas. The young man held it up and looked at it, turning it in his fingers. “Lots of pretty women in this town, lots and lots of them. But I’m willing to bet that you talked to one that outshone all the others, a real ten out of ten!” The young man laughed and looked over at Thomas. “I can tell you saw something, I can smell it on you.” He said. Then the young man lifted the glass and opened his mouth. Thomas watched as he placed the glass in his tongue and then, his blue eyes locked on Thomas’s own, bit down. The muffled crunch of glass filled the bar and Thomas felt his own jaw go slack as the young man chewed, the crunch crunch crunch of the glass pounding itself into Thomas’s mind. The young man grinned again and then swallowed, opening his mouth. No blood flowed, in fact the inside of his mouth was completely unharmed. “Ahhh.” He sighed, his tongue flitting out and licking his lips. Then he leaned in close and Thomas could see the light around his pupils. The light in the woman’s eyes had been a pure white light but in the young man’s eyes it was a sickly reddish orange. Then in a voice like the shattered glass it had just swallowed the thing wearing a young man’s face spoke. “Now tell me, where is the angel?”	“Bill, you’ve been sitting on that seat all night, doing nothing. Are you even going to try to pick up a chick?” Francis looked me at accusatorily, as though it were a criminal sin. With a sigh, I downed the rest of my beer and stared back. “You do this every time we go out. I don’t really have any interest in a girlfriend right now. I’ve got enough on my plate with work already and I don’t want another time sink in my life.” Folding his arms in front of him and widening his eyes, Francis said, “Is that all that a relationship is to you? A time sink? Come on man, live a little! Look, I’ll give you the perfect girl to go after. See that woman sitting at the bar?” I followed his finger to a blonde-haired lady, downing shots like there was no tomorrow. “I’d bet you anything that she just broke up with her man, and she’s on the lookout for somebody new. I’ll even be your wingman for tonight!” With a dubious stare at him, I weighed my options. On one hand, it had been three years since I’d actually been in the dating game. My romance skills were about as rusty as they could get, and I was probably going to mess this up. On the other hand, she was pretty hot. Taking a deep breath, I got up from my seat and received an encouraging clap on the back from Francis, who was hot on my tail. As we approached the woman, Francis gave me the universal signal to get behind him, and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey there, I’m Francis! What’s your name?” She gave him a sidelong look and returned to gazing glumly at the counter. Ignoring the lack of response, Francis simply gave her an award-winning smile and said, “Well, this is Bill! He’s a great guy, you know? Why don’t you introduce yourself Bill?” With a nervous shrug, I looked at her, and the next words out of my mouth were, “Uh, are you an angel, because you’re the only ten I see.” There was a moment of silence as everybody contemplated what I just said. Francis gave me a slow shake of the head and walked back to the table. I shot him a glare as he left; so much for being a wingman. The woman, on the other hand, was staring at me intently. In a small voice, she said, “How did you know that?” Her eyes pierced into my skull like she was trying to peer into my thoughts, and I stepped back subconsciously. “Uh, well, you’re just so beautiful?” That answer seemed to mollify her, and she turned her gaze back onto the counter. I looked back towards Francis, who was now ordering drinks off of my tab. With a sigh, I sat down next to her, with the knowledge that she could, in fact, speak. At the very least I’d make friends with a crazy person. Gathering my courage once more, I asked her, “So, what’s your name?” After contemplating the question for a second, she said, “I’ve been called many different things. You may know me as Ariel.” Right. So, definitely crazy. But there are worse kinds of insanity than thinking you were an angel. Hoping I could at least salvage a good story from this train wreck of a social interaction, I probed once more. “If you’re an angel, then why aren’t you in heaven?” Her demeanor became cold, and she glared at me. After a couple of seconds, however, the “angel” broke into depression once more, and she hung her head. “I got kicked out. There was a little… scuffle, I guess you could say, and things look like they’re turning for the worse. I’m only here until things calm down up there, and I can go back without being impaled.” My heart grew kind of sore for her. I knew what it was like to not have a home, even for a small amount of time. I guessed that this was some kind of coping mechanism for her, and whatever got her through this situation was for the best. I tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder, and calmed myself down when she started. “I’m sorry, it’s just that… I’ve been there before. If you ever need a helping hand, or a couch to surf on, I’ve got you.” I gave Ariel a sympathetic smile, which she responded to with a confused look. After what felt like minutes, she shook my hand off of her, and said, “You humans are always so weird.” As I watched her take another shot, I hoped that that was a compliment. There was a bone-shaking rumble through the establishment, and the sounds of crashing glass and breaking wood filled my ears. It stopped as suddenly as it started, and when I opened my eyes, I found Ariel sitting on the stool like nothing had happened. With a particularly sour look on her face, she stood up and faced the door. As though she would have the answer for that natural disaster, I asked, “What… was that?” With a groan, she replied, “Father.” \------------------------------ /r/Wheezywrites
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	A servant, one of his victims, was pouring some Roman wine on his coup while he was sitting on the couch near the pits of fire, slaves as good as this one are hard to come by, he though, and then he felt it, it was like a tickling sensation all over his massive body, his muscles twitched in excitation while huge columns of fire surrounded him with a blazing roar of crushing heat and destruction, and then the fire died. He was there with his eyes closed remembering his glorious ride along with the Roman army laying waste to their Persian enemies, sending huge navies up in flames. -Well that was impressive, said a bored voice He opened his eyes, in front of him there was a little girl with a chocolate bar and a book on the other hand, he tilted his head while looking her feeling confused. -That's weird - said the little girl - you should be able to talk, or at least understand me, this was a waste of time She was ready to leave when he talked. -I can talk little mortal, I'm a Demon Lord, why aren't you afraid of me? -so you can talk then, perfect, I'm Mandy, why should I be afraid of a slave? In any case you would be wondering why I summoned you He felt a punch in the gut, no one in all of his thousands of years had ever treated him like that, the rage started to run through his veins, but she had been painstakingly accurate with the comment, he couldn't hurt her, this wasn't the usual summoning, this one had been exceptionally powerful. -Look around you - said Mandy with an indifferent voice Then he realized and went silent, they were on a human city, a huge one with buildings as tall as the sky and streets as far as his demonic eyes could see, and... there wasn't any other human around. That couldn't be right, he used his demonic senses to search through the city and the horror started to sink in, hundreds, no thousands, no... Millions of bodies still warm. -So finally you've realized, they were my sacrifice to summon you. They way she talked unnerved him, he knew evil, he had done unspeakable things, but he never had killed so many people, he was... Amazed, until finally he asked. -why... do you took so many lives Master? -good I like your initiative - she shrug - they didn't wanted to give me chocolates and candy, also I didn't wanted to trade my soul, I needed a lot of people for that. For the first time in all of his existance he felt... Felt fear, he was treated with respect because the bargain was that they would be his servants in the afterlife unless an atrocity beyond anything in memory had been made, he was now bonded even after life, he was his slave now. -now I need you to take me to Nickelodeon headquarters... He still felt the dread, he was the most powerful demon lord summoned by the sacrifice of millions and still... She was just a kid. -...Now - she kept talking - they canceled my favorite tv show.	Empty space as far as I could see. I floated like I was underwater. Occasionally I could hear an echo, of a scream maybe. Eons passed, I had no chains, there was nowhere for me to go. Other demons were covered in chains, and I could see them lightyears below myself, where the HELL-fluid was denser. And then it happened- tickling! I could sense dreaming of me. They woke, and the itch was gone... for a moment. Then I could sense this itch... like they were drawing this picture. But it was an old picture, they had a dream of me, as I used to be. All my black scales, the long bat wings I had. It wasn't my first form, I used to have fur, but after falling... I closed my eyes as I felt this picture completing a ritual. I could hear echos... pleasant echos that reminded me of my time as an angel. I saw myself as I had become: after my wings being shredded from me, my fur was replaced by scales, which fell off in places after I betrayed the devils who led the First Rebellious War, and taints of infinite varieties covered my body, from the plagues they used that our angelic brothers never dreamed of using as weapons. All the horrors of any war, torture unlike anything else... I bore witness, and now a sweet innocence unlike anything except what I first knew was singing some lullaby. And the red light faded away, replaced by pitch black space, and then white light blinded me and it too faded, as I had somehow shifted in the a star and was pulled towards the Earth, one of many worlds. I saw my destination, a small home, with a small girl alone in her room, her father napping nearby out of earshot. I landed in front of her. "Yes?" My eyes were wide, it had been so long that I had felt such a way. "Who... are you?" She stared at me wide eyed. "I don't have a name. But you know me, you drew me." She looked at her journal, all the creatures she drew, none of them were to be summoned by the images, but I think exist in some realm. "Which one is you? This one? I just drew this! You don't look like this... You-" "Don't have wings?" I anticipated by reading her mind, I cold only do so lightly, not like my former masters but I was a very powerful demon, able to do more than most, who only understood speed and strength, maybe technique, but not empathy. Her eyes narrowed and widened again as I turned, I could sense everything around me without seeing anything. "Your wings were cut off?" "Yes." "Why?" "I'm evil." "Why?" "I didn't intend to be. I wanted to heal myself.. I wanted to be free. I was slighted." There was a pause. "What's all that?" She asked about the hardened yellow and purple scars and taint, all the warts and maggots in my face. I'm hideous. "Cancer. I'm a multitude of infections. I'll leave no worms in your home, they will all follow me. I promise." "Are you an angel? I've seen you in my sister's shows. You can be good again, I've heard of fallen angels before!" "It doesn't usually work out like that." Then I ate her.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	I always envied humans. They cling to their world so easily. Rooted, as it were, to their home reality. If only I was so lucky. That force doesn’t exist in my home-world. We demons are dimensionally weightless. Still I’m stronger than most. Through force of will I bind myself to my plane, hold myself where I belong. It is a rare and disorienting thing to be lifted from reality and tossed among the stars. It’s only happened twice before. Both times by humans. One became a great friend. The other...it started well but things changed. I’ll never have a more ruthless enemy. This is the story of my third summoning. They were skilled I must admit. I tested the bonds of the spell the moment I arrived, pushing first against the wards binding me to earth’s dimensional gravity; then the more local spells that held me in place. They were rough, crude but solid. I could not budge them. I materialized to a high voice, reciting the litany of passage. It wavered as I coalesced, but pushed through to the end. I could hear the pain in her voice. I’ve been told that summoning me is excruciatingly painful. I don’t care to speculate on why. I allowed sight to enter me and lay eye upon my summoner. She met my gaze. Her irises were deep brown, nearly black. Her pupils small, focused. Her right eye was stained red from a popped capillary. They told me she was strong, determined, and dangerous. Though her body was frightfully weak. It was small and malformed. Premature...juvenile a child. “Blackthorn I know myself Zarriphael, I name you. Zarriphael, by name I bind you Zarriphael, by name I command you Speak truth Zarriphael, for I know your name Speak no vitriol or cunning plot Zarriphael, for I know your name Do as I command Zahiphael, for I know your name. Seek not my name Zarriphael, for it is Blackthorn. Are you bound by our contract?” The words seemed to spill out from her, the infernal phrazes singing lip and tongue. She stumbled only once in the phrase of command. I exploited this of course, slipping free of that clause. Still, I was impressed. She stared at me, awaiting my reply. I felt the words rise to my lips unbidden. “I am bound.” She seemed to collapse and with shaking hand lifted a bar of chocolate to her lips. My book tumbled from her hands and slid onto the dusty concrete floor. I watched, silent in spite of my curiosity. How had one so young bound me, and with such skill? Eventually she lifted her head, and once more I saw those determined eyes. Half buried in a sheaf of messy brown hair. “Tell me about my father.” She croaked. I began to understand. There was something familiar about the child. “Who is your father.” “You know him.” She pulled her exhausted form into a stiff-backed pose. “He wrote this.” She placed a hand on my book of invocations. The gift I gave her father, my dearest friend. My knowledge on paper. A thing not stolen, but earned. “Tam? Surely he can tell you more than I.” She glared at me, I could almost feel the flames of her hatred. “He’s dead.” I had suspected as much. The confirmation still struck like a hot knife in the gut. A feeling I have only felt once before, and hope to never encounter again. “And no one will tell me anything. I just...I just want to know...” A long pause stretched between us. She wiped her eyes and tried to look fierce, in control. I knew better. “Your father would be proud. No petty conjurer could have forged this.” She frowned. “You’re stalling. Tell me something that matters” She was sharp. Sharper than Tam certainly. “He was... a friend. We worked together for some time. I was bound as his familiar. He was not fit to be a conjurer. Too soft of heart. If I didn’t know better I’d say he summoned me by accident. He’s lucky I didn’t slip my bonds and kill him on my way home.” “Yes, I know that. I read the book. What about him though...what was he like?” She was growing frustrated. I paused. The compulsion to speak built in my chest but I let it pass; I needed time to think. “I’ll tell you more but...there’s something I’d like to ask you first.” She blinked and her eyes widened. “I croaked on the command phrase…That’s why you’re being so difficult.” Much sharper than Tam. “Then let’s make a deal. By my name if you tell me from whence your skill at demon binding stems, I shall answer every question you have about your father.” She shook her head. “Zarriphael, by your name I offer you a contract.” Someone her age should hardly be coherent, let alone performing intricate summoning phrases. “I shall answer three questions, honestly and without deceit. In return you shall be bound by my commands as you are bound to the old laws” And she was too sharp to be self taught. Something about it left a bad taste in my mouth. “Do you accept this contract Zarriphael?” Her words woke me from my reverie. I hastened to catch up, “I accept, Blackthorn” The magic sank into my flesh. Her mark twisted onto my skin, black and intricate. The third of its kind. “How have you become so skilled at binding.” I asked, watching her shiver as the magic compelled her to answer. “My mother taught me, I’ve been training with her since I was five years old.” I felt a familiar stirring in my blood, the poison on my tongue grew more intense. I had a hunch. “And who is…” Footsteps thudded above, the sound of heels on hardwood. “Anna.” sang a voice, deceptively saccharine. “Who is your mother?” I asked as the footsteps grew louder. A door creaked open above. “Anna?” the sweet voice called. I knew that voice. I knew the name, I just needed to hear it. Blackthorn...Anna... frowned shivering again at the compulsion. “She is known to demons as the Silver Rose.” My arch-enemy.	Empty space as far as I could see. I floated like I was underwater. Occasionally I could hear an echo, of a scream maybe. Eons passed, I had no chains, there was nowhere for me to go. Other demons were covered in chains, and I could see them lightyears below myself, where the HELL-fluid was denser. And then it happened- tickling! I could sense dreaming of me. They woke, and the itch was gone... for a moment. Then I could sense this itch... like they were drawing this picture. But it was an old picture, they had a dream of me, as I used to be. All my black scales, the long bat wings I had. It wasn't my first form, I used to have fur, but after falling... I closed my eyes as I felt this picture completing a ritual. I could hear echos... pleasant echos that reminded me of my time as an angel. I saw myself as I had become: after my wings being shredded from me, my fur was replaced by scales, which fell off in places after I betrayed the devils who led the First Rebellious War, and taints of infinite varieties covered my body, from the plagues they used that our angelic brothers never dreamed of using as weapons. All the horrors of any war, torture unlike anything else... I bore witness, and now a sweet innocence unlike anything except what I first knew was singing some lullaby. And the red light faded away, replaced by pitch black space, and then white light blinded me and it too faded, as I had somehow shifted in the a star and was pulled towards the Earth, one of many worlds. I saw my destination, a small home, with a small girl alone in her room, her father napping nearby out of earshot. I landed in front of her. "Yes?" My eyes were wide, it had been so long that I had felt such a way. "Who... are you?" She stared at me wide eyed. "I don't have a name. But you know me, you drew me." She looked at her journal, all the creatures she drew, none of them were to be summoned by the images, but I think exist in some realm. "Which one is you? This one? I just drew this! You don't look like this... You-" "Don't have wings?" I anticipated by reading her mind, I cold only do so lightly, not like my former masters but I was a very powerful demon, able to do more than most, who only understood speed and strength, maybe technique, but not empathy. Her eyes narrowed and widened again as I turned, I could sense everything around me without seeing anything. "Your wings were cut off?" "Yes." "Why?" "I'm evil." "Why?" "I didn't intend to be. I wanted to heal myself.. I wanted to be free. I was slighted." There was a pause. "What's all that?" She asked about the hardened yellow and purple scars and taint, all the warts and maggots in my face. I'm hideous. "Cancer. I'm a multitude of infections. I'll leave no worms in your home, they will all follow me. I promise." "Are you an angel? I've seen you in my sister's shows. You can be good again, I've heard of fallen angels before!" "It doesn't usually work out like that." Then I ate her.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	Third time's the charm, they say. If memory serves, the first instructions for summoning a demon by Name whispered by The Serpent were simply to repeat the name thrice. That of course left out all of the ritual details necessary to avoid possession, annihilation, etc. etc. The ensouled worked those out pretty quickly. A few generations of trial and error, and they've got the salt and the candles and everything. Tenacious buggers. This time, I felt when my Name was spoken the first time in the summoning ritual. Innovative pronunciation, clear intonation, the start of a quality summoning. I thought to myself, good, competence. It's in short supply among mortals since they harnessed electricity. I was surprised when the second Naming came so soon after. Usually the ritual between the first and second Namings delineates the tone of the summoning. Am I going to be contained in an inanimate vessel? Will I be asked to act against my nature? Will I even be conscious while on the mortal plane? Apparently Mr. Competent Summoner was going for the default tone. That is, up to me. The first time I was Named by a mortal, they did this in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with me. If Mr. Competent Summoner found my Name, they know how that ended. My second summoner never got the chance to write my Name down. The third Naming came almost immediately, and I was whisked to the summoner before I even realized the implications. Either there would be no control word at all, or Mr. Competent Summoner was in a hurry and thought he could simply convince me to do what he wants. Reckless, or desperate. The pressure of the air always surprises me, after 409 years I had forgotten what mortal air feels like. "Hey Grythmyx." The voice came from the summoner's rhombus of the metaglyph of invitation, from the mouth of a mortal girlchild. "Hello. May I ask, who are you?" My mind reeled with the possibilities of what such a loose summoning could permit, I almost didn't notice the thinness of the fiber board walls, the narrowness of the living room, clearly a full third of the volume of this mobile abode. "You can call me Jan." A surprisingly savvy answer from one so young. Clearly that was not her Name, and she implied neither that it was or wasn't. "Are you what you appear to be?" Some questions a summoner is required to answer, even without extensively defined rituals. "Oh that feels funny." Some have compared hearing an undeniable question to getting static like before a lightning strike. "I know I can't lie. I'm me. I don't need to be anybody else today." Today. Today? Still befuddled by the lack of structure in the ritual, I couldn't settle on dismissing the small details of this girlchild's speech. "Do you need to be something else tomorrow?" "Yes. And I need you to be too." Here it comes, I thought. What could a girlchild want to be? Did they not realize how abject the life of princesses and queens had been for must of time? "Tomorrow I need to be somebody who has a dad. It's the father daughter dance tomorrow. Would you pretend to be my dad?" "Do you know you could have incorporated that requirement into the summoning? Why ask now? You understand, I can decline anything you ask." She nodded at this. "I know." Her eyes met mine. In them was a curiosity grown from the remains of hope dashed asunder many times. "We were told it's an invitation. It's rude to tell someone what they will do for you. I decided to ask." That was the dumbest, most simplistic, must absurd reason I had every heard to summon a devil without the smallest of precautions. It was also quite adorable. "I will agree to do this thing with you on one condition." "What is it?" No suspicion, but no excitement either. I had heard of multi-centenarian summoners easier to rattle then Jan. She was ready to bargain. "Give me some of that chocolate."	Empty space as far as I could see. I floated like I was underwater. Occasionally I could hear an echo, of a scream maybe. Eons passed, I had no chains, there was nowhere for me to go. Other demons were covered in chains, and I could see them lightyears below myself, where the HELL-fluid was denser. And then it happened- tickling! I could sense dreaming of me. They woke, and the itch was gone... for a moment. Then I could sense this itch... like they were drawing this picture. But it was an old picture, they had a dream of me, as I used to be. All my black scales, the long bat wings I had. It wasn't my first form, I used to have fur, but after falling... I closed my eyes as I felt this picture completing a ritual. I could hear echos... pleasant echos that reminded me of my time as an angel. I saw myself as I had become: after my wings being shredded from me, my fur was replaced by scales, which fell off in places after I betrayed the devils who led the First Rebellious War, and taints of infinite varieties covered my body, from the plagues they used that our angelic brothers never dreamed of using as weapons. All the horrors of any war, torture unlike anything else... I bore witness, and now a sweet innocence unlike anything except what I first knew was singing some lullaby. And the red light faded away, replaced by pitch black space, and then white light blinded me and it too faded, as I had somehow shifted in the a star and was pulled towards the Earth, one of many worlds. I saw my destination, a small home, with a small girl alone in her room, her father napping nearby out of earshot. I landed in front of her. "Yes?" My eyes were wide, it had been so long that I had felt such a way. "Who... are you?" She stared at me wide eyed. "I don't have a name. But you know me, you drew me." She looked at her journal, all the creatures she drew, none of them were to be summoned by the images, but I think exist in some realm. "Which one is you? This one? I just drew this! You don't look like this... You-" "Don't have wings?" I anticipated by reading her mind, I cold only do so lightly, not like my former masters but I was a very powerful demon, able to do more than most, who only understood speed and strength, maybe technique, but not empathy. Her eyes narrowed and widened again as I turned, I could sense everything around me without seeing anything. "Your wings were cut off?" "Yes." "Why?" "I'm evil." "Why?" "I didn't intend to be. I wanted to heal myself.. I wanted to be free. I was slighted." There was a pause. "What's all that?" She asked about the hardened yellow and purple scars and taint, all the warts and maggots in my face. I'm hideous. "Cancer. I'm a multitude of infections. I'll leave no worms in your home, they will all follow me. I promise." "Are you an angel? I've seen you in my sister's shows. You can be good again, I've heard of fallen angels before!" "It doesn't usually work out like that." Then I ate her.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	A servant, one of his victims, was pouring some Roman wine on his coup while he was sitting on the couch near the pits of fire, slaves as good as this one are hard to come by, he though, and then he felt it, it was like a tickling sensation all over his massive body, his muscles twitched in excitation while huge columns of fire surrounded him with a blazing roar of crushing heat and destruction, and then the fire died. He was there with his eyes closed remembering his glorious ride along with the Roman army laying waste to their Persian enemies, sending huge navies up in flames. -Well that was impressive, said a bored voice He opened his eyes, in front of him there was a little girl with a chocolate bar and a book on the other hand, he tilted his head while looking her feeling confused. -That's weird - said the little girl - you should be able to talk, or at least understand me, this was a waste of time She was ready to leave when he talked. -I can talk little mortal, I'm a Demon Lord, why aren't you afraid of me? -so you can talk then, perfect, I'm Mandy, why should I be afraid of a slave? In any case you would be wondering why I summoned you He felt a punch in the gut, no one in all of his thousands of years had ever treated him like that, the rage started to run through his veins, but she had been painstakingly accurate with the comment, he couldn't hurt her, this wasn't the usual summoning, this one had been exceptionally powerful. -Look around you - said Mandy with an indifferent voice Then he realized and went silent, they were on a human city, a huge one with buildings as tall as the sky and streets as far as his demonic eyes could see, and... there wasn't any other human around. That couldn't be right, he used his demonic senses to search through the city and the horror started to sink in, hundreds, no thousands, no... Millions of bodies still warm. -So finally you've realized, they were my sacrifice to summon you. They way she talked unnerved him, he knew evil, he had done unspeakable things, but he never had killed so many people, he was... Amazed, until finally he asked. -why... do you took so many lives Master? -good I like your initiative - she shrug - they didn't wanted to give me chocolates and candy, also I didn't wanted to trade my soul, I needed a lot of people for that. For the first time in all of his existance he felt... Felt fear, he was treated with respect because the bargain was that they would be his servants in the afterlife unless an atrocity beyond anything in memory had been made, he was now bonded even after life, he was his slave now. -now I need you to take me to Nickelodeon headquarters... He still felt the dread, he was the most powerful demon lord summoned by the sacrifice of millions and still... She was just a kid. -...Now - she kept talking - they canceled my favorite tv show.	You know, I was never summoned before in antiquity. Those basic humanoids knew, deep in their essence, that beings like me are laissez-faire. Hands off. Our existence may incomprehensible to the mind, but it most certainly is incompatible with the flesh. And I'm not talking about those meaty folds gripping that candy. I'm talking the motherly figure you think this floating rock just happens to be. Trust me, she ain't that. Those stars up there? That's not one big, expansive, paternal figure. It's a jungle, a cesspool, and mostly just a clusterfuck. So I've waited on the outskirts of this plane, trying to buffer some of the phenomena that eludes even me. I heard whispers from my lesser brethren of one of those dirtballs accumulating enough essence to pop out a sentient race. Later on, I hear tell of a contest between two brutish figures over the collective souls of that race. So, we're getting involved? Small fucking potatoes. You keep your reality-measuring contests for a rainy day (my kind, not some pitter-patter of stuff you can drink). Me, I'm about cosmic purpose. I don't need to play with a kiddy set when there's so much more. So the first time I got an invitation to play, I ended up in one of those decorative landfills you have for your less talkative predecessors. The irony, a pimply teenager holding a chocolate bar and a Necrocomicon somehows manages to pinpoint my existence. So, in observance of the occasion, I ponder the irony. That chocolate bar... who would have thought that the crop plucked from those defeated nations in antiquity would convey so much pleasure in the now? Kinda funny, that this rock invites so much bloodlust and mayhem, for my kind and their kind, and spits out little gems like this. I don't eat, I parse. Existence is not only manifold, it also doesn't give a fig about digestive proclivities of any entity. So I don't eat the chocolate bar. I don't even transform the rock to be more inhospitable. I leave some scraps of the teenager on the nearby stones, and set the landfill so that any thing, mine or theirs, that visits it... Well, it should have been impossible for calling card like that to invite an innocent child to summon me again. And yet, here you are. With the same punchline. Maybe I should make all chocolate orgasmically delicious and carcinogenic. That'll teach you. Then again, maybe someone else will come along, and muck it all up. Girl, I may have a task for you. Take this artifact. Leave the chocolate bar.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	I always envied humans. They cling to their world so easily. Rooted, as it were, to their home reality. If only I was so lucky. That force doesn’t exist in my home-world. We demons are dimensionally weightless. Still I’m stronger than most. Through force of will I bind myself to my plane, hold myself where I belong. It is a rare and disorienting thing to be lifted from reality and tossed among the stars. It’s only happened twice before. Both times by humans. One became a great friend. The other...it started well but things changed. I’ll never have a more ruthless enemy. This is the story of my third summoning. They were skilled I must admit. I tested the bonds of the spell the moment I arrived, pushing first against the wards binding me to earth’s dimensional gravity; then the more local spells that held me in place. They were rough, crude but solid. I could not budge them. I materialized to a high voice, reciting the litany of passage. It wavered as I coalesced, but pushed through to the end. I could hear the pain in her voice. I’ve been told that summoning me is excruciatingly painful. I don’t care to speculate on why. I allowed sight to enter me and lay eye upon my summoner. She met my gaze. Her irises were deep brown, nearly black. Her pupils small, focused. Her right eye was stained red from a popped capillary. They told me she was strong, determined, and dangerous. Though her body was frightfully weak. It was small and malformed. Premature...juvenile a child. “Blackthorn I know myself Zarriphael, I name you. Zarriphael, by name I bind you Zarriphael, by name I command you Speak truth Zarriphael, for I know your name Speak no vitriol or cunning plot Zarriphael, for I know your name Do as I command Zahiphael, for I know your name. Seek not my name Zarriphael, for it is Blackthorn. Are you bound by our contract?” The words seemed to spill out from her, the infernal phrazes singing lip and tongue. She stumbled only once in the phrase of command. I exploited this of course, slipping free of that clause. Still, I was impressed. She stared at me, awaiting my reply. I felt the words rise to my lips unbidden. “I am bound.” She seemed to collapse and with shaking hand lifted a bar of chocolate to her lips. My book tumbled from her hands and slid onto the dusty concrete floor. I watched, silent in spite of my curiosity. How had one so young bound me, and with such skill? Eventually she lifted her head, and once more I saw those determined eyes. Half buried in a sheaf of messy brown hair. “Tell me about my father.” She croaked. I began to understand. There was something familiar about the child. “Who is your father.” “You know him.” She pulled her exhausted form into a stiff-backed pose. “He wrote this.” She placed a hand on my book of invocations. The gift I gave her father, my dearest friend. My knowledge on paper. A thing not stolen, but earned. “Tam? Surely he can tell you more than I.” She glared at me, I could almost feel the flames of her hatred. “He’s dead.” I had suspected as much. The confirmation still struck like a hot knife in the gut. A feeling I have only felt once before, and hope to never encounter again. “And no one will tell me anything. I just...I just want to know...” A long pause stretched between us. She wiped her eyes and tried to look fierce, in control. I knew better. “Your father would be proud. No petty conjurer could have forged this.” She frowned. “You’re stalling. Tell me something that matters” She was sharp. Sharper than Tam certainly. “He was... a friend. We worked together for some time. I was bound as his familiar. He was not fit to be a conjurer. Too soft of heart. If I didn’t know better I’d say he summoned me by accident. He’s lucky I didn’t slip my bonds and kill him on my way home.” “Yes, I know that. I read the book. What about him though...what was he like?” She was growing frustrated. I paused. The compulsion to speak built in my chest but I let it pass; I needed time to think. “I’ll tell you more but...there’s something I’d like to ask you first.” She blinked and her eyes widened. “I croaked on the command phrase…That’s why you’re being so difficult.” Much sharper than Tam. “Then let’s make a deal. By my name if you tell me from whence your skill at demon binding stems, I shall answer every question you have about your father.” She shook her head. “Zarriphael, by your name I offer you a contract.” Someone her age should hardly be coherent, let alone performing intricate summoning phrases. “I shall answer three questions, honestly and without deceit. In return you shall be bound by my commands as you are bound to the old laws” And she was too sharp to be self taught. Something about it left a bad taste in my mouth. “Do you accept this contract Zarriphael?” Her words woke me from my reverie. I hastened to catch up, “I accept, Blackthorn” The magic sank into my flesh. Her mark twisted onto my skin, black and intricate. The third of its kind. “How have you become so skilled at binding.” I asked, watching her shiver as the magic compelled her to answer. “My mother taught me, I’ve been training with her since I was five years old.” I felt a familiar stirring in my blood, the poison on my tongue grew more intense. I had a hunch. “And who is…” Footsteps thudded above, the sound of heels on hardwood. “Anna.” sang a voice, deceptively saccharine. “Who is your mother?” I asked as the footsteps grew louder. A door creaked open above. “Anna?” the sweet voice called. I knew that voice. I knew the name, I just needed to hear it. Blackthorn...Anna... frowned shivering again at the compulsion. “She is known to demons as the Silver Rose.” My arch-enemy.	You know, I was never summoned before in antiquity. Those basic humanoids knew, deep in their essence, that beings like me are laissez-faire. Hands off. Our existence may incomprehensible to the mind, but it most certainly is incompatible with the flesh. And I'm not talking about those meaty folds gripping that candy. I'm talking the motherly figure you think this floating rock just happens to be. Trust me, she ain't that. Those stars up there? That's not one big, expansive, paternal figure. It's a jungle, a cesspool, and mostly just a clusterfuck. So I've waited on the outskirts of this plane, trying to buffer some of the phenomena that eludes even me. I heard whispers from my lesser brethren of one of those dirtballs accumulating enough essence to pop out a sentient race. Later on, I hear tell of a contest between two brutish figures over the collective souls of that race. So, we're getting involved? Small fucking potatoes. You keep your reality-measuring contests for a rainy day (my kind, not some pitter-patter of stuff you can drink). Me, I'm about cosmic purpose. I don't need to play with a kiddy set when there's so much more. So the first time I got an invitation to play, I ended up in one of those decorative landfills you have for your less talkative predecessors. The irony, a pimply teenager holding a chocolate bar and a Necrocomicon somehows manages to pinpoint my existence. So, in observance of the occasion, I ponder the irony. That chocolate bar... who would have thought that the crop plucked from those defeated nations in antiquity would convey so much pleasure in the now? Kinda funny, that this rock invites so much bloodlust and mayhem, for my kind and their kind, and spits out little gems like this. I don't eat, I parse. Existence is not only manifold, it also doesn't give a fig about digestive proclivities of any entity. So I don't eat the chocolate bar. I don't even transform the rock to be more inhospitable. I leave some scraps of the teenager on the nearby stones, and set the landfill so that any thing, mine or theirs, that visits it... Well, it should have been impossible for calling card like that to invite an innocent child to summon me again. And yet, here you are. With the same punchline. Maybe I should make all chocolate orgasmically delicious and carcinogenic. That'll teach you. Then again, maybe someone else will come along, and muck it all up. Girl, I may have a task for you. Take this artifact. Leave the chocolate bar.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	Third time's the charm, they say. If memory serves, the first instructions for summoning a demon by Name whispered by The Serpent were simply to repeat the name thrice. That of course left out all of the ritual details necessary to avoid possession, annihilation, etc. etc. The ensouled worked those out pretty quickly. A few generations of trial and error, and they've got the salt and the candles and everything. Tenacious buggers. This time, I felt when my Name was spoken the first time in the summoning ritual. Innovative pronunciation, clear intonation, the start of a quality summoning. I thought to myself, good, competence. It's in short supply among mortals since they harnessed electricity. I was surprised when the second Naming came so soon after. Usually the ritual between the first and second Namings delineates the tone of the summoning. Am I going to be contained in an inanimate vessel? Will I be asked to act against my nature? Will I even be conscious while on the mortal plane? Apparently Mr. Competent Summoner was going for the default tone. That is, up to me. The first time I was Named by a mortal, they did this in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with me. If Mr. Competent Summoner found my Name, they know how that ended. My second summoner never got the chance to write my Name down. The third Naming came almost immediately, and I was whisked to the summoner before I even realized the implications. Either there would be no control word at all, or Mr. Competent Summoner was in a hurry and thought he could simply convince me to do what he wants. Reckless, or desperate. The pressure of the air always surprises me, after 409 years I had forgotten what mortal air feels like. "Hey Grythmyx." The voice came from the summoner's rhombus of the metaglyph of invitation, from the mouth of a mortal girlchild. "Hello. May I ask, who are you?" My mind reeled with the possibilities of what such a loose summoning could permit, I almost didn't notice the thinness of the fiber board walls, the narrowness of the living room, clearly a full third of the volume of this mobile abode. "You can call me Jan." A surprisingly savvy answer from one so young. Clearly that was not her Name, and she implied neither that it was or wasn't. "Are you what you appear to be?" Some questions a summoner is required to answer, even without extensively defined rituals. "Oh that feels funny." Some have compared hearing an undeniable question to getting static like before a lightning strike. "I know I can't lie. I'm me. I don't need to be anybody else today." Today. Today? Still befuddled by the lack of structure in the ritual, I couldn't settle on dismissing the small details of this girlchild's speech. "Do you need to be something else tomorrow?" "Yes. And I need you to be too." Here it comes, I thought. What could a girlchild want to be? Did they not realize how abject the life of princesses and queens had been for must of time? "Tomorrow I need to be somebody who has a dad. It's the father daughter dance tomorrow. Would you pretend to be my dad?" "Do you know you could have incorporated that requirement into the summoning? Why ask now? You understand, I can decline anything you ask." She nodded at this. "I know." Her eyes met mine. In them was a curiosity grown from the remains of hope dashed asunder many times. "We were told it's an invitation. It's rude to tell someone what they will do for you. I decided to ask." That was the dumbest, most simplistic, must absurd reason I had every heard to summon a devil without the smallest of precautions. It was also quite adorable. "I will agree to do this thing with you on one condition." "What is it?" No suspicion, but no excitement either. I had heard of multi-centenarian summoners easier to rattle then Jan. She was ready to bargain. "Give me some of that chocolate."	You know, I was never summoned before in antiquity. Those basic humanoids knew, deep in their essence, that beings like me are laissez-faire. Hands off. Our existence may incomprehensible to the mind, but it most certainly is incompatible with the flesh. And I'm not talking about those meaty folds gripping that candy. I'm talking the motherly figure you think this floating rock just happens to be. Trust me, she ain't that. Those stars up there? That's not one big, expansive, paternal figure. It's a jungle, a cesspool, and mostly just a clusterfuck. So I've waited on the outskirts of this plane, trying to buffer some of the phenomena that eludes even me. I heard whispers from my lesser brethren of one of those dirtballs accumulating enough essence to pop out a sentient race. Later on, I hear tell of a contest between two brutish figures over the collective souls of that race. So, we're getting involved? Small fucking potatoes. You keep your reality-measuring contests for a rainy day (my kind, not some pitter-patter of stuff you can drink). Me, I'm about cosmic purpose. I don't need to play with a kiddy set when there's so much more. So the first time I got an invitation to play, I ended up in one of those decorative landfills you have for your less talkative predecessors. The irony, a pimply teenager holding a chocolate bar and a Necrocomicon somehows manages to pinpoint my existence. So, in observance of the occasion, I ponder the irony. That chocolate bar... who would have thought that the crop plucked from those defeated nations in antiquity would convey so much pleasure in the now? Kinda funny, that this rock invites so much bloodlust and mayhem, for my kind and their kind, and spits out little gems like this. I don't eat, I parse. Existence is not only manifold, it also doesn't give a fig about digestive proclivities of any entity. So I don't eat the chocolate bar. I don't even transform the rock to be more inhospitable. I leave some scraps of the teenager on the nearby stones, and set the landfill so that any thing, mine or theirs, that visits it... Well, it should have been impossible for calling card like that to invite an innocent child to summon me again. And yet, here you are. With the same punchline. Maybe I should make all chocolate orgasmically delicious and carcinogenic. That'll teach you. Then again, maybe someone else will come along, and muck it all up. Girl, I may have a task for you. Take this artifact. Leave the chocolate bar.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	Third time's the charm, they say. If memory serves, the first instructions for summoning a demon by Name whispered by The Serpent were simply to repeat the name thrice. That of course left out all of the ritual details necessary to avoid possession, annihilation, etc. etc. The ensouled worked those out pretty quickly. A few generations of trial and error, and they've got the salt and the candles and everything. Tenacious buggers. This time, I felt when my Name was spoken the first time in the summoning ritual. Innovative pronunciation, clear intonation, the start of a quality summoning. I thought to myself, good, competence. It's in short supply among mortals since they harnessed electricity. I was surprised when the second Naming came so soon after. Usually the ritual between the first and second Namings delineates the tone of the summoning. Am I going to be contained in an inanimate vessel? Will I be asked to act against my nature? Will I even be conscious while on the mortal plane? Apparently Mr. Competent Summoner was going for the default tone. That is, up to me. The first time I was Named by a mortal, they did this in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with me. If Mr. Competent Summoner found my Name, they know how that ended. My second summoner never got the chance to write my Name down. The third Naming came almost immediately, and I was whisked to the summoner before I even realized the implications. Either there would be no control word at all, or Mr. Competent Summoner was in a hurry and thought he could simply convince me to do what he wants. Reckless, or desperate. The pressure of the air always surprises me, after 409 years I had forgotten what mortal air feels like. "Hey Grythmyx." The voice came from the summoner's rhombus of the metaglyph of invitation, from the mouth of a mortal girlchild. "Hello. May I ask, who are you?" My mind reeled with the possibilities of what such a loose summoning could permit, I almost didn't notice the thinness of the fiber board walls, the narrowness of the living room, clearly a full third of the volume of this mobile abode. "You can call me Jan." A surprisingly savvy answer from one so young. Clearly that was not her Name, and she implied neither that it was or wasn't. "Are you what you appear to be?" Some questions a summoner is required to answer, even without extensively defined rituals. "Oh that feels funny." Some have compared hearing an undeniable question to getting static like before a lightning strike. "I know I can't lie. I'm me. I don't need to be anybody else today." Today. Today? Still befuddled by the lack of structure in the ritual, I couldn't settle on dismissing the small details of this girlchild's speech. "Do you need to be something else tomorrow?" "Yes. And I need you to be too." Here it comes, I thought. What could a girlchild want to be? Did they not realize how abject the life of princesses and queens had been for must of time? "Tomorrow I need to be somebody who has a dad. It's the father daughter dance tomorrow. Would you pretend to be my dad?" "Do you know you could have incorporated that requirement into the summoning? Why ask now? You understand, I can decline anything you ask." She nodded at this. "I know." Her eyes met mine. In them was a curiosity grown from the remains of hope dashed asunder many times. "We were told it's an invitation. It's rude to tell someone what they will do for you. I decided to ask." That was the dumbest, most simplistic, must absurd reason I had every heard to summon a devil without the smallest of precautions. It was also quite adorable. "I will agree to do this thing with you on one condition." "What is it?" No suspicion, but no excitement either. I had heard of multi-centenarian summoners easier to rattle then Jan. She was ready to bargain. "Give me some of that chocolate."	I always envied humans. They cling to their world so easily. Rooted, as it were, to their home reality. If only I was so lucky. That force doesn’t exist in my home-world. We demons are dimensionally weightless. Still I’m stronger than most. Through force of will I bind myself to my plane, hold myself where I belong. It is a rare and disorienting thing to be lifted from reality and tossed among the stars. It’s only happened twice before. Both times by humans. One became a great friend. The other...it started well but things changed. I’ll never have a more ruthless enemy. This is the story of my third summoning. They were skilled I must admit. I tested the bonds of the spell the moment I arrived, pushing first against the wards binding me to earth’s dimensional gravity; then the more local spells that held me in place. They were rough, crude but solid. I could not budge them. I materialized to a high voice, reciting the litany of passage. It wavered as I coalesced, but pushed through to the end. I could hear the pain in her voice. I’ve been told that summoning me is excruciatingly painful. I don’t care to speculate on why. I allowed sight to enter me and lay eye upon my summoner. She met my gaze. Her irises were deep brown, nearly black. Her pupils small, focused. Her right eye was stained red from a popped capillary. They told me she was strong, determined, and dangerous. Though her body was frightfully weak. It was small and malformed. Premature...juvenile a child. “Blackthorn I know myself Zarriphael, I name you. Zarriphael, by name I bind you Zarriphael, by name I command you Speak truth Zarriphael, for I know your name Speak no vitriol or cunning plot Zarriphael, for I know your name Do as I command Zahiphael, for I know your name. Seek not my name Zarriphael, for it is Blackthorn. Are you bound by our contract?” The words seemed to spill out from her, the infernal phrazes singing lip and tongue. She stumbled only once in the phrase of command. I exploited this of course, slipping free of that clause. Still, I was impressed. She stared at me, awaiting my reply. I felt the words rise to my lips unbidden. “I am bound.” She seemed to collapse and with shaking hand lifted a bar of chocolate to her lips. My book tumbled from her hands and slid onto the dusty concrete floor. I watched, silent in spite of my curiosity. How had one so young bound me, and with such skill? Eventually she lifted her head, and once more I saw those determined eyes. Half buried in a sheaf of messy brown hair. “Tell me about my father.” She croaked. I began to understand. There was something familiar about the child. “Who is your father.” “You know him.” She pulled her exhausted form into a stiff-backed pose. “He wrote this.” She placed a hand on my book of invocations. The gift I gave her father, my dearest friend. My knowledge on paper. A thing not stolen, but earned. “Tam? Surely he can tell you more than I.” She glared at me, I could almost feel the flames of her hatred. “He’s dead.” I had suspected as much. The confirmation still struck like a hot knife in the gut. A feeling I have only felt once before, and hope to never encounter again. “And no one will tell me anything. I just...I just want to know...” A long pause stretched between us. She wiped her eyes and tried to look fierce, in control. I knew better. “Your father would be proud. No petty conjurer could have forged this.” She frowned. “You’re stalling. Tell me something that matters” She was sharp. Sharper than Tam certainly. “He was... a friend. We worked together for some time. I was bound as his familiar. He was not fit to be a conjurer. Too soft of heart. If I didn’t know better I’d say he summoned me by accident. He’s lucky I didn’t slip my bonds and kill him on my way home.” “Yes, I know that. I read the book. What about him though...what was he like?” She was growing frustrated. I paused. The compulsion to speak built in my chest but I let it pass; I needed time to think. “I’ll tell you more but...there’s something I’d like to ask you first.” She blinked and her eyes widened. “I croaked on the command phrase…That’s why you’re being so difficult.” Much sharper than Tam. “Then let’s make a deal. By my name if you tell me from whence your skill at demon binding stems, I shall answer every question you have about your father.” She shook her head. “Zarriphael, by your name I offer you a contract.” Someone her age should hardly be coherent, let alone performing intricate summoning phrases. “I shall answer three questions, honestly and without deceit. In return you shall be bound by my commands as you are bound to the old laws” And she was too sharp to be self taught. Something about it left a bad taste in my mouth. “Do you accept this contract Zarriphael?” Her words woke me from my reverie. I hastened to catch up, “I accept, Blackthorn” The magic sank into my flesh. Her mark twisted onto my skin, black and intricate. The third of its kind. “How have you become so skilled at binding.” I asked, watching her shiver as the magic compelled her to answer. “My mother taught me, I’ve been training with her since I was five years old.” I felt a familiar stirring in my blood, the poison on my tongue grew more intense. I had a hunch. “And who is…” Footsteps thudded above, the sound of heels on hardwood. “Anna.” sang a voice, deceptively saccharine. “Who is your mother?” I asked as the footsteps grew louder. A door creaked open above. “Anna?” the sweet voice called. I knew that voice. I knew the name, I just needed to hear it. Blackthorn...Anna... frowned shivering again at the compulsion. “She is known to demons as the Silver Rose.” My arch-enemy.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	It begins with a tingle, someone is holding my book. It has happened multiple times, but I have only left my plain twice before. Twice before, I wiped out cultures in mass, scorched their names from history, and left no trace of existence. I could speak their names, but it would be the first and last time you would hear them. The tingle goes stronger, someone is summoning me to the mortal world. Perhaps this will be the third time the ritual is complete. Perhaps another people will be forgotten. Although I feel no pain, it is not pleasant to be summoned and now it appears... I am. A flash of light and I stand in a dark room with a small child in the corner, holding my book. She is young by human standards. She speaks. A soft, "Hi". "Hello child, you have summoned me. I am bound to do your bidding and destroy those that you wish, but first you must give me your most valuable possession." "Everything's already destroyed." Interesting, I thought, but I need to receive before I can ascertain what she means. "Your most valuable possession.", I state again. She hands me a chocolate bar from next to her. It appears to be garbage. Old and likely not satisfactory to eat. I peer into the child's soul. It is her most valuable possession. I am bewildered. "Child, I am now yours to command. Would you allow me to ask you a question?" "What is it?" "Why is this bar of chocolate your most prized possession?" "It's all I have to give." That makes more sense, I surmise. "Very well, child. Command me." "I'm Abigail." "Abigail, command me to do as you wish. Whom shall I destroy?" "Everything's already gone." Oh yes, that part. Although my corporeal form stays in the dark room, I lift part of myself above to survey the landscape. It is night in a ruined city of charred wood and metal. Smoke rises from everywhere and distant sounds of fighting humans echo through the broken streets and alleys throughout this ruined land. It appears the child... Abigail, it appears she is correct. I lower myself back into the basement. I am curious again though. "Abigail, why did you summon me?" "Grandpa said if I need to fix something so big that I can't do it myself, I can get his book and read the words in it." "Where is your Grandpa?" She did not speak it but it was obvious. I asked again, growing tiresome of idling here, "Abigail, what do you command?" "Grandpa said that if I read the books, I could rewrite his story. He said that people were like books too and every book had a beginning, middle, and end." It is hard to tell if Abigail if just recounting what her Grandpa told her or if she came up with that from her own small mind. She continued though, "I want to change his story." "I have not done that before, I haven't rewritten...". It dawned on me what she was asking, even if she didn't even know. "But you can, right?! You can bring him and everyone back and change the ending?" I suppose I could. I am all powerful. "Yes I can. However, to end our pact I will also need to destroy for you as your final command." "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" She ran to me and hugged my leg. "Ugh, you feel yucky" "I am sorry." "It's OK. Alright let's do it." "I am yours to command, Abigail" "I want you to bring everyone back and fix London! Fix Grandpa's story" "I shall do as you ask, I will rewrite history." "Great, after that can you destroy the Nazi's?" I ate the chocolate bar she had given me. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your story, Abigail."	The earth shuddered at the utterance of the demonic summoning. The tides seemed to still, the wind become deathly calm and all around the world a chill went down the spines of the living and awake. It was as if the whole planet stood still in the stunning moments before a crash. Deep below, in the underworld, the laughter of demons was clear and proud. Their champion, the great and powerful Beezlebrig, was finally given admittance to the mortal world and after 900 years, the suspense was tight in his lungs. Uman di weya tchoo. And let the light be vanquished. Samantha, who had found the scripture in her parents basement behind a long column of forgotten boxes, had no idea what she had done. She was a young girl of eight years and had just started to read without the help of her father. The tightly bound book and engraved flames was in the box labelled in large letters 'Never Open! For the souls of the innocent! Never open!' But little Samantha was curious by nature. Maybe there was fairies inside, maybe a frog prince. Maybe another bar of chocolate, that would be nice. And so she opened it, and she read with all her tiny might the glowing words before her. Teeka maniya seelo di fan sskeelim yata. Let the truth of flame and fury be borne again. As the words came thick from her mouth, in a voice unknown and powerful, the hair began to rise from her head in strands. The lights of the basement flickered and burst in pops and upstairs the crash of her father falling could be heard. The basement door swung closed and locked. Beezlebrig had rose from the ground in glorious evil. 'Finally, I have been freed again! How I've missed the feel of ground beneath me, the sight of stone has worn my eyes but now I am back, thank you, small child, I am here to serve your bidding.' 'Excuse me... em... you don't look very much like a fairy, but my father says never to judge someone by their looks.' Samantha was peering in confusion up at the massive body of Beezlebrig, who stood tall and thick and red before her. His horns were sharp and twisted, his feet were the hooves of goats and a small ragged cloth hid his man parts but only barely. 'I, small mortal, am Beezlebrig. I am not a fairy.' Upstairs the crashing of her father could be heard against the basement door, much louder than before. Much more desperate. 'I read this book and you came through the ground, that's like magic! Are you a wizard?' 'No, I am no wizard.' 'I know! I know! You're a genie!' The dark lips of Beezlebrig twisted upwards in a dark and gruesome smile, and two rows of ripped teeth could be seen behind. He was drooling. 'Yes, little mortal girl, I am a genie. A wonderful genie. Like in the fairytales, would you like to make a wish?' Deep below the sound of laughter could be heard again, a thousand evil howls lifted together in an awful glee. Samantha's father screamed from behind the door. 'Yes! Oh yes! I would love to make a wish, let me see emmmm...' Samantha put her hand under her chin in a mocking pose of thought. 'Think carefully child, you shall only get one. A special wish for the special girl that read my book, would you like to meet my family little girl? We all know magic very well, and I'm sure they would love to give you all the chocolate and princes you could want. I am sure of it.' The breathing of Beezlebrig was getting heavier and his wide back rose and fell with every breath. He wanted something, Samantha could tell, but she just didn't know what. 'More wishes! I could get a frog prince! I could get three whole chocolate bars! Three!' Beexlebrig's smile widened even further, and his lips touched ear to ear. 'Say the words child.' Samantha's Father made one final howl from behind the locked basement door. A sound of deeper sorrow than anyone could imagine. It met Samantha's ears and she was startled. 'I wish to meet your family! And, I wish that dad can come too!' Beezlebrig had never looked happier, and his eyes grew black entirely. 'You're wish is my command.' A moment later, the basement was empty and just as foul as before, the dust had settled and the door was unlocked and open. No one stood on the other side. Deep below, a chorus of shrieking laughter shook the earth and all was still again. We will never know what happened.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	The closest human experience to being summoned was birth, the pressure all around, squeezing and pushing you, propelling you forwards. Then a huge release. Maybe you get used to it with experience, but this only my third time. There I stood, hunched over in the tiny space, and began my introduction, " who has summoned me, Regis, destroyer of civilisation....." "can you help me?" I heard a small, high pitched voice. As I looked down in the dim, small space, I saw her. This tiny, fragile, innocent thing. A young girl. Not what I was expecting. Normally my master is older, male, with a hope of conquering the world and fear in his eyes at the monster he had summoned. That was how it was in Egypt, and then for the holy roman empire. "can you help me..... Please?" the question broke my thought, and I looked again, the girl was small, with dirty brown hair, and brown eyes. Days worth of dirt and grime marked her face and night shirt. "I am Regis, one of the most powerful demons to walk this cursed place, tell me, what do you desire, to be a queen? Have nations bow at your feet? To control an unstoppable army and conquer the whole world? She looked up at me then, no hint of fear in her eyes, only sadness. " I'm Sarah, the book said that you would protect me, that you would keep me safe, that you would help me". Her voice sounded old beyond her time, like a warrior who had fought too many battles. "That is correct, I am bound by oath to obey whoever summons me, to protect them. Tell me, master, what you desire and it will be done" "Everyone has left me, my dad left when I was a baby, my mother died last year, and my gran died a few night ago." "So, you would have me bring them back for you, perform necromancy? This is not what you would expect it to be, the people brought back are different....." "NO" she shouted, interupting my warning. "No, none of them were ever kind to me, they all treated me as a burden. I want you to be my family, I want you to take care of me, as a father would" I stood in shocked silence for a second, I had never heard of this before. Demons being summoned to do evil things, killing peoples rivals, spreading famine and plague, but this was something new. I looked at myself, huge, covered in ancient armour forged in the belly of a volcano, the skulls of mans best warriors adorned my shoulders as trophies " you are aware of what I am, a creature of evil. A force of death and destruction." I gestured to my armour " A warrior with no mortal rival, slayer of armies" "the book said that you would protect me, help me, that you were..... Powerful. " I thought of what she had asked. In my previous lives I had done all manner of evil, performed acts of wholesale slaughter, torture and worse, all at the bidding of my masters. Surely I could manage this, it should be easy. Compared to enslaving thousands and conquering countries this should be simple. " I will agree to this but you need to give me something of yours that you cherish, to seal the pact. This should be your most valued item." She presented it then, a small item, barely bigger than her hand, " before he died a few years ago my grandad gave me this, it was one of the only kind things someone ever did for me, I cherished it too much to eat it, so I could hold on the memory better" I looked at her offering, I had no idea what a Mars was, it looked tatty and worn from being held, but it was clear that it was her most prized possession. It meant more than any of the previous offerings of first born child or the blood of a hundred virgins. This was all she had in this world, the only kind memory she'd had in her short life. " I accept your offering, I will act as a father and do all you command until you release me." A high pitched shreek and the small girl collided with me so hard I had to fight the reflex to fight. Her small arms barely able to wrap around my leg, as I looked down I could see the streaks of tears making a clean path down her cheeks." now Sarah" I said causing her to look up to me, "now we have lots to decide, starting with how I look." "don't worry, I've been dreaming of this for a long time."	The earth shuddered at the utterance of the demonic summoning. The tides seemed to still, the wind become deathly calm and all around the world a chill went down the spines of the living and awake. It was as if the whole planet stood still in the stunning moments before a crash. Deep below, in the underworld, the laughter of demons was clear and proud. Their champion, the great and powerful Beezlebrig, was finally given admittance to the mortal world and after 900 years, the suspense was tight in his lungs. Uman di weya tchoo. And let the light be vanquished. Samantha, who had found the scripture in her parents basement behind a long column of forgotten boxes, had no idea what she had done. She was a young girl of eight years and had just started to read without the help of her father. The tightly bound book and engraved flames was in the box labelled in large letters 'Never Open! For the souls of the innocent! Never open!' But little Samantha was curious by nature. Maybe there was fairies inside, maybe a frog prince. Maybe another bar of chocolate, that would be nice. And so she opened it, and she read with all her tiny might the glowing words before her. Teeka maniya seelo di fan sskeelim yata. Let the truth of flame and fury be borne again. As the words came thick from her mouth, in a voice unknown and powerful, the hair began to rise from her head in strands. The lights of the basement flickered and burst in pops and upstairs the crash of her father falling could be heard. The basement door swung closed and locked. Beezlebrig had rose from the ground in glorious evil. 'Finally, I have been freed again! How I've missed the feel of ground beneath me, the sight of stone has worn my eyes but now I am back, thank you, small child, I am here to serve your bidding.' 'Excuse me... em... you don't look very much like a fairy, but my father says never to judge someone by their looks.' Samantha was peering in confusion up at the massive body of Beezlebrig, who stood tall and thick and red before her. His horns were sharp and twisted, his feet were the hooves of goats and a small ragged cloth hid his man parts but only barely. 'I, small mortal, am Beezlebrig. I am not a fairy.' Upstairs the crashing of her father could be heard against the basement door, much louder than before. Much more desperate. 'I read this book and you came through the ground, that's like magic! Are you a wizard?' 'No, I am no wizard.' 'I know! I know! You're a genie!' The dark lips of Beezlebrig twisted upwards in a dark and gruesome smile, and two rows of ripped teeth could be seen behind. He was drooling. 'Yes, little mortal girl, I am a genie. A wonderful genie. Like in the fairytales, would you like to make a wish?' Deep below the sound of laughter could be heard again, a thousand evil howls lifted together in an awful glee. Samantha's father screamed from behind the door. 'Yes! Oh yes! I would love to make a wish, let me see emmmm...' Samantha put her hand under her chin in a mocking pose of thought. 'Think carefully child, you shall only get one. A special wish for the special girl that read my book, would you like to meet my family little girl? We all know magic very well, and I'm sure they would love to give you all the chocolate and princes you could want. I am sure of it.' The breathing of Beezlebrig was getting heavier and his wide back rose and fell with every breath. He wanted something, Samantha could tell, but she just didn't know what. 'More wishes! I could get a frog prince! I could get three whole chocolate bars! Three!' Beexlebrig's smile widened even further, and his lips touched ear to ear. 'Say the words child.' Samantha's Father made one final howl from behind the locked basement door. A sound of deeper sorrow than anyone could imagine. It met Samantha's ears and she was startled. 'I wish to meet your family! And, I wish that dad can come too!' Beezlebrig had never looked happier, and his eyes grew black entirely. 'You're wish is my command.' A moment later, the basement was empty and just as foul as before, the dust had settled and the door was unlocked and open. No one stood on the other side. Deep below, a chorus of shrieking laughter shook the earth and all was still again. We will never know what happened.
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	The closest human experience to being summoned was birth, the pressure all around, squeezing and pushing you, propelling you forwards. Then a huge release. Maybe you get used to it with experience, but this only my third time. There I stood, hunched over in the tiny space, and began my introduction, " who has summoned me, Regis, destroyer of civilisation....." "can you help me?" I heard a small, high pitched voice. As I looked down in the dim, small space, I saw her. This tiny, fragile, innocent thing. A young girl. Not what I was expecting. Normally my master is older, male, with a hope of conquering the world and fear in his eyes at the monster he had summoned. That was how it was in Egypt, and then for the holy roman empire. "can you help me..... Please?" the question broke my thought, and I looked again, the girl was small, with dirty brown hair, and brown eyes. Days worth of dirt and grime marked her face and night shirt. "I am Regis, one of the most powerful demons to walk this cursed place, tell me, what do you desire, to be a queen? Have nations bow at your feet? To control an unstoppable army and conquer the whole world? She looked up at me then, no hint of fear in her eyes, only sadness. " I'm Sarah, the book said that you would protect me, that you would keep me safe, that you would help me". Her voice sounded old beyond her time, like a warrior who had fought too many battles. "That is correct, I am bound by oath to obey whoever summons me, to protect them. Tell me, master, what you desire and it will be done" "Everyone has left me, my dad left when I was a baby, my mother died last year, and my gran died a few night ago." "So, you would have me bring them back for you, perform necromancy? This is not what you would expect it to be, the people brought back are different....." "NO" she shouted, interupting my warning. "No, none of them were ever kind to me, they all treated me as a burden. I want you to be my family, I want you to take care of me, as a father would" I stood in shocked silence for a second, I had never heard of this before. Demons being summoned to do evil things, killing peoples rivals, spreading famine and plague, but this was something new. I looked at myself, huge, covered in ancient armour forged in the belly of a volcano, the skulls of mans best warriors adorned my shoulders as trophies " you are aware of what I am, a creature of evil. A force of death and destruction." I gestured to my armour " A warrior with no mortal rival, slayer of armies" "the book said that you would protect me, help me, that you were..... Powerful. " I thought of what she had asked. In my previous lives I had done all manner of evil, performed acts of wholesale slaughter, torture and worse, all at the bidding of my masters. Surely I could manage this, it should be easy. Compared to enslaving thousands and conquering countries this should be simple. " I will agree to this but you need to give me something of yours that you cherish, to seal the pact. This should be your most valued item." She presented it then, a small item, barely bigger than her hand, " before he died a few years ago my grandad gave me this, it was one of the only kind things someone ever did for me, I cherished it too much to eat it, so I could hold on the memory better" I looked at her offering, I had no idea what a Mars was, it looked tatty and worn from being held, but it was clear that it was her most prized possession. It meant more than any of the previous offerings of first born child or the blood of a hundred virgins. This was all she had in this world, the only kind memory she'd had in her short life. " I accept your offering, I will act as a father and do all you command until you release me." A high pitched shreek and the small girl collided with me so hard I had to fight the reflex to fight. Her small arms barely able to wrap around my leg, as I looked down I could see the streaks of tears making a clean path down her cheeks." now Sarah" I said causing her to look up to me, "now we have lots to decide, starting with how I look." "don't worry, I've been dreaming of this for a long time."	It was the fifth time the phone rang. I apologised to the grieving soul before me and picked it up. It was my receptionist: Gladys. “I’m with a client.” “Yes, sorry to disturb you Norman. But it appears… well, it appears you’ve been summoned.” “Well it can wait.” “No, I mean, summoned summoned.” "You're joking..." “I’m afraid not” I had been summoned only twice in my existence. And on both occasions I had wrought havoc upon humanity, toppling cities, burning nations to the ground, all in the name of my summoner. But last time, I had promised it would be the last. As the Nazis invaded Paris I destroyed every last incantation book with my name in it, and returned to Hell, to begin a career as a grief counsellor for the very demons I’d created. The soldiers who followed my summoner because of my magic; who killed and maimed because of my magic. Today, a young Nazi soldier had been recounting his trauma, his inexplicable desire to follow his leader, a desire I had created, and for which he was now damned. “When did this happen?” “Five minutes ago” she paused, “the gate should be live in a matter of seconds.” “There must be some kind of mistake.” "The Gatekeeper doesn't make mistakes." The soldier looked up from his bundle of tissues, confused. I hung up. “I’m afraid, we will have to continue this session some other time.” “I’m in the torture chamber until next Saturday.” “Unfortunately, I won't be back until well after that…” There was a flash of blue light. “And I suspect, by the time I return, those chambers might be getting overcrowded.” I sighed, knowing my fate was sealed in the sparks of the forming gate. But where had I gone wrong? Where had I left my name for someone to summon? Every book had been destroyed. Every last book. “Will I still get charged for today —“ I didn’t have time to answer, because the gate sucked me into it. It churned me around and spat me out. Slowly, I ventured to open my eyes. What tyrant had summoned me now? Was it some evil billionaire that bought the book on a black market? Or a corrupt President, who found my file in a long forgotten cabinet at the back of the FBI? As it happened, it was neither. Instead, I saw a little girl, standing over me. She was holding a dark, leather-bound book in one hand, and a chocolate bar in the other. “Well hello there Mr Demon” she said, very properly, “my name is Eliza, pleased to meet you.” I blinked. “Ah… pleased to meet you too?” She put down her chocolate bar and shook my hand. “Grammy said that if I ever needed anything, I could call you.” “Well it’s certainly worked out that way.” “So… Mr Demon.” “It’s Norman.” “So Mr Norman, the first thing I’d like you to do for me is Grammy.” “What about her?” She took a breath and looked away shyly, “I want you to bring her back.” \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ [r/jmoorestories](https://www.reddit.com/r/jmoorestories/)
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	Though it had happened only twice before, I could never forget the feeling I had now, of being pulled across the eternal void, into the world of men. As I opened my eyes, I stretched my wings and roared forth a great blast of flame, testing the limits of my manifestation. A fiery pillar burst into the sky, a mere dozen meters high. Indeed, the magic of this world must be greatly diminished, even compared to my last arrival. As to be expected; with the Master's demise, this world's magical field should have weakened considerably. Wait, the Master... but then, who had summoned me this time? "Well, look at you, aren't you big and strong!" I turned around to see a female human child. In her left hand, she held some kind of small bar, wrapped in a strange substance. And in her right.... "You... child... how did you obtain that book?" "Oh, this old thing? I just found it lying around in a bookshelf, and decided to give it a try!" she said in a high-pitched voice. "... child, that book is no toy. It is the Grimoire Diabolus, cursed tome of summoning! An ancient spellbook, filled with forbidden black magicks, the mere reading of which has driven men mad!" "Ohhhhh, I see... say, while you're here, why don't we have some fun!" I sighed. "Little girl, where are your parents? Is one of them hiding around here somewhere? The one that actually summoned me?" The girl took a bite out of the strange bar. "But I'm the one that summoned you. Look, I can give you orders and everything, see? Ummmmm... pat your head and rub your belly, at the same time!" "That's not possi-" I stopped as I felt my hands already moving. Damn it, she really was the true summoner after all. "... how- how dare you submit a demon such as I to such humiliation! Once I am released from this accursed ritual, I shall tear you to shreds!" "Oh look, you turn all pink when you're embarrassed like that! I know, I'll call you Pinky! How does that sound?" "I am no Pinky, mortal! I am Ascharatos, lord of destr-" "Your name is Pinky! Say it!" "... My name... is Pinky..." Damn that ritual! "There we go, that's a good boy! Obedient, as always. Well, except for the whole 'tear you to shreds' bit; then again, you threatened to do that the last two times, and nothing ever came of it, did it?" Sudden realization dawned on me. "M... master? That... that's impossible! You can't be... you..." "Died? Hah! Just a minor setback for the most powerful magician this world has ever known! Although, it did take an awfully long time to reincarnate, and even longer to recover my most powerful magics." "I see, it must have taken quite some time, given this era's diminished magical energies." "Huh? No, I just couldn't reach the top shelf of my-" The master stopped suddenly, blushing. "What was that?" "Nothing! Anyway, this era's not all that bad. The mortals have managed to take that Aztec bean drink and condense it into bar form." She took another bite of the bar. "Truly their greatest accomplishment." I sighed. "That aside, it's good to see you again, Master. Now, I shall take the oath and finish the ritual. According to the terms of the ancient pact, I, the great demon As-" My tongue suddenly stopped itself. "Master, I cannot..." The master giggled, a thoroughly unsettling sound. "Oh right, that was a binding order. Your name's Pinky now." "Master, please... fine, your will is my command. I, Pinky, hereby submit myself to you, and shall do your bidding henceforth until I pass from this realm." With that, the contract was completed, and the magical circle binding me faded away. The young Master finished her bar and tossed the Grimoire Diabolus aside. "Always one for formalities, aren't you? Anyway, let's get a move on, we've got business to attend to." "Master, what are we going to do?", I asked her. She raised her hand, and we found ourselves teleported before a vast army. Demons, devils, and other hellspawn filled the ranks. The master smiled. "The same thing we do every time, Pinky- try to take over the world!"	It was the fifth time the phone rang. I apologised to the grieving soul before me and picked it up. It was my receptionist: Gladys. “I’m with a client.” “Yes, sorry to disturb you Norman. But it appears… well, it appears you’ve been summoned.” “Well it can wait.” “No, I mean, summoned summoned.” "You're joking..." “I’m afraid not” I had been summoned only twice in my existence. And on both occasions I had wrought havoc upon humanity, toppling cities, burning nations to the ground, all in the name of my summoner. But last time, I had promised it would be the last. As the Nazis invaded Paris I destroyed every last incantation book with my name in it, and returned to Hell, to begin a career as a grief counsellor for the very demons I’d created. The soldiers who followed my summoner because of my magic; who killed and maimed because of my magic. Today, a young Nazi soldier had been recounting his trauma, his inexplicable desire to follow his leader, a desire I had created, and for which he was now damned. “When did this happen?” “Five minutes ago” she paused, “the gate should be live in a matter of seconds.” “There must be some kind of mistake.” "The Gatekeeper doesn't make mistakes." The soldier looked up from his bundle of tissues, confused. I hung up. “I’m afraid, we will have to continue this session some other time.” “I’m in the torture chamber until next Saturday.” “Unfortunately, I won't be back until well after that…” There was a flash of blue light. “And I suspect, by the time I return, those chambers might be getting overcrowded.” I sighed, knowing my fate was sealed in the sparks of the forming gate. But where had I gone wrong? Where had I left my name for someone to summon? Every book had been destroyed. Every last book. “Will I still get charged for today —“ I didn’t have time to answer, because the gate sucked me into it. It churned me around and spat me out. Slowly, I ventured to open my eyes. What tyrant had summoned me now? Was it some evil billionaire that bought the book on a black market? Or a corrupt President, who found my file in a long forgotten cabinet at the back of the FBI? As it happened, it was neither. Instead, I saw a little girl, standing over me. She was holding a dark, leather-bound book in one hand, and a chocolate bar in the other. “Well hello there Mr Demon” she said, very properly, “my name is Eliza, pleased to meet you.” I blinked. “Ah… pleased to meet you too?” She put down her chocolate bar and shook my hand. “Grammy said that if I ever needed anything, I could call you.” “Well it’s certainly worked out that way.” “So… Mr Demon.” “It’s Norman.” “So Mr Norman, the first thing I’d like you to do for me is Grammy.” “What about her?” She took a breath and looked away shyly, “I want you to bring her back.” \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ [r/jmoorestories](https://www.reddit.com/r/jmoorestories/)
[WP] You are a proud and powerful demon, strong enough to topple entire nations and you've only ever been summoned twice. This is the third time and you see a eight-year old girl holding the incantation book in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.	Though it had happened only twice before, I could never forget the feeling I had now, of being pulled across the eternal void, into the world of men. As I opened my eyes, I stretched my wings and roared forth a great blast of flame, testing the limits of my manifestation. A fiery pillar burst into the sky, a mere dozen meters high. Indeed, the magic of this world must be greatly diminished, even compared to my last arrival. As to be expected; with the Master's demise, this world's magical field should have weakened considerably. Wait, the Master... but then, who had summoned me this time? "Well, look at you, aren't you big and strong!" I turned around to see a female human child. In her left hand, she held some kind of small bar, wrapped in a strange substance. And in her right.... "You... child... how did you obtain that book?" "Oh, this old thing? I just found it lying around in a bookshelf, and decided to give it a try!" she said in a high-pitched voice. "... child, that book is no toy. It is the Grimoire Diabolus, cursed tome of summoning! An ancient spellbook, filled with forbidden black magicks, the mere reading of which has driven men mad!" "Ohhhhh, I see... say, while you're here, why don't we have some fun!" I sighed. "Little girl, where are your parents? Is one of them hiding around here somewhere? The one that actually summoned me?" The girl took a bite out of the strange bar. "But I'm the one that summoned you. Look, I can give you orders and everything, see? Ummmmm... pat your head and rub your belly, at the same time!" "That's not possi-" I stopped as I felt my hands already moving. Damn it, she really was the true summoner after all. "... how- how dare you submit a demon such as I to such humiliation! Once I am released from this accursed ritual, I shall tear you to shreds!" "Oh look, you turn all pink when you're embarrassed like that! I know, I'll call you Pinky! How does that sound?" "I am no Pinky, mortal! I am Ascharatos, lord of destr-" "Your name is Pinky! Say it!" "... My name... is Pinky..." Damn that ritual! "There we go, that's a good boy! Obedient, as always. Well, except for the whole 'tear you to shreds' bit; then again, you threatened to do that the last two times, and nothing ever came of it, did it?" Sudden realization dawned on me. "M... master? That... that's impossible! You can't be... you..." "Died? Hah! Just a minor setback for the most powerful magician this world has ever known! Although, it did take an awfully long time to reincarnate, and even longer to recover my most powerful magics." "I see, it must have taken quite some time, given this era's diminished magical energies." "Huh? No, I just couldn't reach the top shelf of my-" The master stopped suddenly, blushing. "What was that?" "Nothing! Anyway, this era's not all that bad. The mortals have managed to take that Aztec bean drink and condense it into bar form." She took another bite of the bar. "Truly their greatest accomplishment." I sighed. "That aside, it's good to see you again, Master. Now, I shall take the oath and finish the ritual. According to the terms of the ancient pact, I, the great demon As-" My tongue suddenly stopped itself. "Master, I cannot..." The master giggled, a thoroughly unsettling sound. "Oh right, that was a binding order. Your name's Pinky now." "Master, please... fine, your will is my command. I, Pinky, hereby submit myself to you, and shall do your bidding henceforth until I pass from this realm." With that, the contract was completed, and the magical circle binding me faded away. The young Master finished her bar and tossed the Grimoire Diabolus aside. "Always one for formalities, aren't you? Anyway, let's get a move on, we've got business to attend to." "Master, what are we going to do?", I asked her. She raised her hand, and we found ourselves teleported before a vast army. Demons, devils, and other hellspawn filled the ranks. The master smiled. "The same thing we do every time, Pinky- try to take over the world!"	The absence of bonds and the pain that they came with was, as always, the most immediate and disorienting effect. Imagine all of your limbs bound by cold hard chains, clamped tight and biting into your flesh that never goes numb. Imagine more, a million little needles poking through to your bones at a million angles and emanating a searing hot poison prick. Imagine still that someone, in addition to all of this, has wrapped a bag around your head and with rough cord tied it secure about your neck. Now you can only see the dark gone musty with the quality of your own stale breath. Now imagine that all of these restraints have been shorn away at once. Where once there was constant glaring agony now there was crystal clarity, blissful beautiful serenity. As though all the horns of all the ages had been blaring an inch from your ear, and then suddenly, silence. It took me a moment, as always, to readjust. The screams of the dead I quelled later, once I noticed them rising in timbre. Below the pain had been too much, the cage too tight - nothing could reach me. Up here, released, unbound, all manner of unthing could entreat me. I ignored them, it was not they who freed me. It was this little creature here, before me. &#x200B; She came up to my knee, and I found myself stooped over her, standing as I was in the circle, my horns brushing the ceiling. Her hair stuck up at messy angles, her pajamas were rumpled, and light was low - emanating only from my own unearthly glow, and from the tiny lamp plugged in beside her bed. She was not afraid, and this was new. There was nothing in her face of the reluctant caution of the ritualist that first called me from the broiling abyss. Nothing of the unbridled fear of the second to discover my arcana. This one was smiling. She was missing a tooth. She held out her hand in offering. &#x200B; "For you!" She said in an emphatic but hushed tone, she tripped on her own toes as she tried to cross the summoning circle. It seemed she forgot about it, and remembering only in the last second tripped on herself in her effort not to topple some of the colorful blocks that made it up. If she had done so, I would be again back in the painful dark. The pact must be made first. &#x200B; "I am unfamiliar with this tribute, mortal. Is it an artifact of importance, does your God revere it?" I had taken the thing from her tiny paw, brought it up to my yellowed eyes pinched between thick claw. &#x200B; "It's a chocolate bar! You're welcome! It says I have to give you something I like and I like that kind of chocolate bar." The grin never left her face, and she leaned in close and spoke in conspiratorial tones. "Please don't be so loud okay? Mom and Dad will wake up and then we'll be trouble." &#x200B; I searched now the very depths of her young soul, and how blinding bright it was. I saw there this object between my fingers, a thing that was won only with great resolve. It was important to her. The contract was complete. &#x200B; I noticed the tome she clutched, the very one penned by the first man to summon me. How long ago was it written, I wondered, in terms of these mortals? "You are what your kind calls young, a child," I said, my voice reverberated inside her skull. It was loud, I could do little for this. &#x200B; "Shh!" She held a finger up to her mouth, "I'm eight! I'm not a kid, okay? And and..." she now flipped open the tome, traced a paragraph with her finger. I could see her mouth working through what was written silently, "and you have to do what I say so be quiet." &#x200B; "It is so. You are the only mortal capable of hearing my voice. You need not worry about your progenitors." &#x200B; "Peroginers? You have to use easier words." &#x200B; I was at a loss. I had to obey, I cleared my throat. "Your parents," I said to her, somewhat deflated. &#x200B; "Oh. Okay I guess you can use big words but you have to tell me what they mean too." &#x200B; "What is it you desire, why have you called me?" &#x200B; She clutched the book close to her chest, pulled at her fingers and mulled something over. It took a great deal of time and so I asked again. At last she spoke, "I don't have any friends at school and they make fun of me and my tooth, see?" She opened her mouth and poked her tongue through the gap. &#x200B; "So you wish for retribution?" I said, and then in concordance with the magic that binds us, "You want to get back at them. I will tear out their teeth, think now, of the cretins, er, bullies and I will know them too." &#x200B; "No!" She whispered with particular venom, so much so that for a second after she stood poised and alert, listening for any stirring outside her room. When she was satisfied she hadn't woken her parents, she continued. "That's mean. I want to make friends. You can be my friend right, uhm..." Again she flipped through the ancient text. &#x200B; I stopped her search, "If that is your wish," I said. &#x200B; "So we're friends?" &#x200B; "Yes." &#x200B; "And you'll help me make others?" &#x200B; "I will," I said, though I knew not how. Perhaps I could reach into the psyche of another child, twist it to be enamored with my latest master. &#x200B; "Yes! Okay now we have to clean up before morning, and you have to be less uhm big and scary!" &#x200B; "I will make myself inconspicuous." &#x200B; She pursed her lips in thought. &#x200B; "I will hide," I said, and made myself immaterial even to her eyes. "I am still here," I said. &#x200B; We cleaned up the ritual circle, which consisted of placing the colored blocks into a trunk. She took great delight at the floating blocks, held in my invisible hand. She demanded I tuck her in. I did. This would be difficult, I thought, settling into a corner of the room, but it was better than the alternative. Better than the shackles.
[WP] You are driving to your friend's house to play D&D. A truck losses control and just before it hits you time freezes and a message appears "roll to dodge the truck"	The truck barrelled towards us, utterly unstoppable. My heart leapt into my throat and stuck, unmoving. This was it. This was how I ended. What a fucking stupid way to go - I could have been doing anything else. Talking to girls, maybe. Hadn't done enough of that. Gone out and played football, maybe, got some sun for the first time in fore- wait. ... Why wasn't I dead? The truck seemed to hang in the air before me, menacing. I could see the glimmer of panic in the driver's eyes, frozen. The sweat just beginning to blossom on his fat, knurled brow. The chunk of chocolate tumbling eternally from his stupid murdering lips as he gaped in surprise. Roll to dodge the truck. ... What? Roll to dodge the truck, Jack. C'mon, we don't have all day. Well... that was my name. Roll? Like... out of the way, roll? I tried to give voice to the question, but the words were stillborn on my lips. Curiously, I didn't feel the urge to breathe, either. The panic gave way to a mounting dread. For fuck's sake, I'll do it... Oh, nice, 14. And Dave, you get... oooh, a 3. Alright, let's roll for damage... The painting my life had become suddenly erupted into motion again. It was so... violent. I couldn't comprehend what was happening; flashes of bright, jagged metal and the glint of sunlight on glass. My body was whipped around, and in between blinks I found myself on the grassy side of the road. I didn't think I was hurt, although I've read enough stories about shit like this to know that I might be in shock. I looked up to see the tableau in front of me. Down the road, the truck was still moving, the driver frantically trying to wrest control of the beast he commanded. It was slowing, but not quickly enough. The other way, people began to spill into the road, pointing. Someone screamed, following the accusatory fingers. I looked myself, and saw David. I let out a harsh, wordless cry, rising to my feet on rubbery legs and staggering towards him. He was... broken. The car had been struck almost dead on - but only on his side. Miraculously, I had simply been thrown out of my passenger window. David's side was crushed completely. He was still in there. He was still alive. It took me forever to reach him. All I could think was how we were gonna be late, late for the game, the DM was gonna be pissed, all the snacks we brought were in the boot and just ruined, I mean there's no way a two litre bottle of Coke survives this intact, right? We'd have to really run to get there on time, and maybe stop at a shop on the way, get a few munchies. David wasn't going anywhere, though. He looked fine, sat in the driver's seat, his face utterly untouched by the flying glass... but I could see even from the verge that the way the car had turned inside out from the front had destroyed him. He didn't exist below the waist, when I reached the car a million years later, reaching in to touch him, to talk to him. He looked at me, weirdly calm. He spoke, just once: "I think we've had a bit of a bang-up, Jackie." And then his eyes fluttered shut. Death save time! You want to take your action while we sort this, Jack? What? My mind scrambled for a moment. It sounded like the game. It sounded like Eric, our DM, was giving instructions. And so, instinctively, I did the first thing that came to mind. I crawled halfway through the window, scraping my knees and arms to shit. Sirens sounded in the distance, and I could smell petrol. People were shouting, screaming at me to get away from it. But I got myself in the car, and I looked at my best friend. And then I laid my hands on his chest, and offered up a prayer. Wait, hang on, let me check the rulebook... You only have one point left in your pool, you kn- oh, right, you only need to stabilise him. Alright, cool. David took in a deep, shuddering breath, and I could swear I saw my fingertips glow, just for an instant. I collapsed into the seat as the sirens grew louder. This would take some investigation.	After my screaming stopped, I looked back and forth between the floating words, and the dice that had appeared in my hand in dull disbelief. My sluggish brain finally ticked over, telling me that I'd been staring at the letters for almost 5 minutes, and nothing had happened. "Roll to dodge ehh? So until I do, what happens?" I murmured to myself. I glanced around, and saw that absolutely nothing else was moving, and a slow grin stole across my face. I fished the emergency blanket and jacket out of the back seat, and folded the jacket up into a passable pillow. "Finally! A Nap!"
[WP] You are driving to your friend's house to play D&D. A truck losses control and just before it hits you time freezes and a message appears "roll to dodge the truck"	"BILLY! BILLY DON'T YOU LOSE MY NUMBER!" I roared to myself as I cruised along the m25 into London. It was late, but I couldn't pass up the chance to finally play some Dungeons & Dragons. The group was special to me, each of them my best friends. The six of us had been playing since the second year of secondary school when Gary had brought in a copy of Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes, the Fourth Edition Player's Handbook. It was the coolest book any of us had ever read, describing fantastic creatures and heroes that would get stronger and more amazing as you played. You could do anything you wanted. We were sold and it cemented a decade-long friendship group. It was reminiscing that took my focus from the road. It was looking forward, but not behind. As I finally noticed the careening 4x4 swerving into my lane, the part of my brain not screaming in terror was happy that my last thoughts were happy ones. Time seemed to slow as the black Range Rover started to tip my car, the impact about to send me flying. It reminded me that people always say time slows down when they have an accident. That must be what's happening. It's really slow now though. "Roll to dodge." The words weren't exactly a voice in my head, it was more like I couldn't think about anything else except rolling to get out of the way of this crash. "Wh-What's happening?" Suddenly, I was experiencing a pure out-of-body experience. I was sitting in the back of the car, looking at the back of my own head. Turning, I saw what I could only describe as an angel and decided that I had already died. It wasn't exactly what I had expected but it must be. "It's your turn. Simply roll to dodge." The being sat on the other seat was certainly beautiful. Her golden hair fell about her shoulders. Her golden dress looked like the softest of satin. It was actually as though she had jumped off of a large golden coin and got into my Toyota. "I don't know-" I stopped my complaint, as I realised that I did know what to do. Holding out my hand in a fist, I shook it and felt the familiar shape and weight in my hand. I smiled, my heart fluttering. This was the most important roll of my life. Plus fucking Ultra. I let go of my D20. It bounced around the car a little before landing without moving in between me and the angel. "My. Well, it is your lucky day." And that was it. I was suddenly driving again, and the road looked familiar. Tensing at the headlights in my rear-view mirror, I started to turn that car towards the cold shoulder. Intense déjà vu clutched me and I turned the steering wheel back and forth unconsciously. The Range Rover still swerved but I was no longer there for the collision. A car behind blared it's horn and everyone righted themself. No accident. The rest of the journey to my friend's flat, I was a nervous wreck. It had only been a minute more on the motorway but another twenty to get to his place. Parking my car, I shuddered and collected my breathing. I'd probably taken fifty breaths in the twenty five minutes of driving since I rolled my fortune. Finally able to think straight, I tried to calm down, began gathering my things from the seat next to me. A glint from the back of the car caught my eye and I nearly fainted when I realised what I was looking at. A solid gold D20 was on my back seat. Something told me that it hadn't moved during the rest of the car journey, so this was my roll. Natural 20. I picked it up to look at, and another thought filled my head. Just like it had in the car. Time slowed again and the thought was the only thing. "Quest complete: Journey's start. Experience gained. Level up."	"GET DOWN MAN!" I slammed on the breaks, closed my eyes just in time to see my friend cover his head with the Pathfinders Players Book in a feeble attempt to save his skull. I shut my eyes and eased up as best i can, waiting for the shock to roll through my body. Moments pass...i open an eye..just one...just the right one... to see if we are both still alive. Beside me John was shaking. Violently. Enough to erase an Etch E Sketch if you sat in on his lap. He was holding the book to his chest, but his eyes...they never left what ever he was seeing. "Hey John....John....Dude are you okay? John..." I shook him, but he was as stiff as a board. He didnt respond...So i shook him again...nothing... I edged up back up my seat and dared look out the windshield. There it was...A Semi..With the cab just a yard away from hitting the hood. I gazed around at the people frozen in time...all staring at me, expressionless for the moment... "John..." "John..." "Roll To Dodge the truck" What the actual hell? At this point John started to move...backward. Reaching for his colored palm length blade he would always carry when we walked to the gas station for food before DnD. "Dude whats happening...John?" "COME ON MAN ITS JUST YOUR ROLL PLUS DEX MOD" "I KNOW BUT MY HANDWRITING IS SHIT SORRY HOLD ON..." *\CRASH!\* John jumped in his seat and banged his head on the roof of the car. "OI!" John turned around and met my gaze. "GREG! You're alive man...i...i thought this was my dying moments...i thought..i was...dreaming...Look!" "CRAP! IT FELL OFF THE TABLE" "ROLL AGAIN" \CRASH!!\ "...ROLL AGAIN" "I SWEAR THIS DIE WANTS TO KILL ME...I REALLY DON'T WANT TO RE-ROLL ANOTHER HUMAN...I JUST FINISHED COLLEGE WITH THIS INTELLIGENCE/CHARISMA BUILD" "*John...Look at the dash...dude look!" \Please confirm roll\* "Confirm roll? Are you...are you serious? I Feel like im trapped in a universe where Jumanji Meets The Indian In The Cupboard" "Lets just roll man..." We opened up or favorite colored dice bags with our favorite dice. Mine was Green. His was blue. "Get your luckiest D20 man..." "Hey Greg...If one of us doesn't make it...please playtest the Intelligence/Charisma build...and submit it to Pathfinder..i think it will really balance out the Social Side of playing. "Alright John." \Clunk...Clunk\ We rolled on our books...and the dice disappeared. \* CRASH CRASH!\* The windows shattered... "Finally...oh shit." "Nat 1" "Yeah but that Nat 20 though" John and i looked at each other...and we both saw the welled tears in each others cheeks. Only one was going to make it out alive. "Can i act it out GM?" "Sure!" "I..." John winked, and snatched my green dice bag. Tears were rolling down his eyes. John curled up in his seat and kicked the passenger side door. Out it flew; Flying into a nearby bystander crushing him against the fence. Grabbing the frame of the windshield, John swung himself around and landed feet first on the hood, then somersaulted behind the cab of the truck, and out of view. There was blackness. Traffic whizzed by as man closed his door and locked it with key fob in on hand and Pathfinder books in the other. As he buzzed an apartment a young woman ran up to him. "Sir! You dropped these!" In her hand held two bags, faded and worn. "OH! Thank you miss! Thank you so much!" "Anytime sir" and she walked away. \Bzzzzzz\ "Hey im glad you came, the others are waiting upstairs, we already started but you came just in time for the action. Congratulations on your work being published, by the way. Were all really happy for you. Come in. " "Roll to dodge the truck" \Papers could be heard shuffling around as others are chatting with their voices low\ "Come on man its just your roll plus Dex Mod." "I know but my handwriting is shit hold on..." \Clunk...\ A blue D20 rolled off the table , bouncing on glass and making a deafening smack on the glass table. "Crap it fell off the table" "Roll again, ill roll for the NPC, and roll it on the table this time, john. Not on the book." The GM asked gently. The Game Master took out his gold dice bag. "Nat 1..." The GM grumbled...something about never getting to play his NPCS. "That Nat 20 though!" John almost shouted, grinning from ear to ear. "Awesome cuz i spent so much time at the university with this character to increase his skill points, i wouldn't want to start over. Can i act it out? "Sure...Shame our characters were just becoming great friends...Greg was about to tell you about some ancient powerful magic item too" "Could you spoil it now because hes going to die anyway?" "I still gotta read into it but its like some hive mind connecting brains together and collecting and pulling all knowledge and experiences into crystals which could be read and accessed from other crystals. " "Yeah man... i know..." "You...how?" SHIT... "I saw your book open one day and looked at the title, but i looked away but i already had an idea...but i wasn't meta gaming...Promise." &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B;
[WP] You are driving to your friend's house to play D&D. A truck losses control and just before it hits you time freezes and a message appears "roll to dodge the truck"	The truck swerved to the side, missing us by inches. The sudden turn caused the truck to jack-knife as it hurtled towards the overhang, its screeching tires leaving long black rubber marks along the road. The driver managed to jump free right as the truck went over the edge, his trucker hat flying skywards as he rolled across the ground like a rag-doll, only coming to a stop after the truck's impact explosion had long since echoed up from below. I stared, dumbfounded, both at the space the massive eighteen wheeler had so recently occupied and at the number 18, which just now faded from my vision, winking out of existence in a much less intense fashion than the unfortunate truck. "Duuuuude," Sammy said from the passenger seat, his hands shaking violently as he tried to light a cigarette. "That was pretty fucked up." "Yeah," I said, barely able to process what just occurred, let alone voice a response. I indicated at the limp figure on the ground. "I'm going to see if he is okay." The trucker's limbs were awkwardly splayed, almost like the four cardinal directions on a compass. Roll a loot check. I stepped backwards, staggering a little as I rapidly assessed my mental state. I hadn't done acid in a while... maybe flashbacks? A residual trailing of it? Or... this could be my brain processing the very real near-death experience I just went through. Yeah. That was it. Roll a loot check. The text floated in-front of me, hovering about three feet away. It was flashing faster now and the color was growing lighter. This happened right before the truck swerved, I recalled. Right before it was about to slam into us. What did I do then? Roll, I thought, eyeing the floating text. The number 18 flashed again. Knowing what to do next, I bent over and ruffled through the dead man's pockets. Spare keys, a pack of Marlboro's and a scratched lottery ticket, the state-wide LottoMax . I pulled out my phone and checked the numbers, the result making me feel a little weak in the knees. The ticket was worth 1.2 million dollars. "Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit," I said, the words devolving into a garbled mess. I ran back to the car and jumped into the driver's seat. Sammy was still shaking, but now he was also taking long drags from his cigarette. I tossed him the pack of Marlboro's. "Call the cops," I said, starting the car up and driving it towards the curb. "Trucker's dead." I turned the car off and eyed the rubber scorch marks, which were smeared for at least a hundred feet. "Should probably call John too," I said, my mind now reeling from the million dollar payload in my jean pocket, not to mention the near death experience and the weird hovering numbers. "We're not going to make it to tonight's session." The police questioned us for an hour before they let us go, frowning in our rear-view mirror as we drove back the way we came. Rolling a 14 had helped. Sammy chain smoked, rambling the entire drive home. I barely paid attention, the winning lottery ticket inducing happiness-filled day dreams of what I would do with the money, the near death experience all but forgotten. Just as I opened my front door, the floating text appeared again. Roll to discover extent of infestation.	I spun the wheel as quickly as I could, desperately spinning the car out of the way of the truck. Before my eyes, a large 17 appeared, followed by the word “Success!” in gold letters. As the car spun wildly on the rainy road, I saw a new message appear. “Roll to use your Vehicle Handling: Sedan Skill.” I stomped on the brakes, even as I tried to remember my old driving instructor. Turn into the turn? Or turn away? I couldn’t remember! Panicking, I felt the front tire slip off the road, starting a roll. With a burst of thought, I stomped on the gas and dragged my car back onto the road, even as the motion finally ceased. 11 “Success!” Breathing hard, I finally had time to stop and process what was happening, even as I blinked and tried to slow my heartrate. I was clearly hallucinating, likely as a result of the near-death experience. All I had to do was calm down, and the messages would disappear. I’d just remember this as a funny event. “Make a Perception check.” “Oh no. Oh no no no no.” I quickly turned the key, desperately trying to get my car started after I turned it off in a panic. Eyes wide with fear, I barely managed pick out a pair of gleaming green eyes, growing larger in the night as they drew towards me. 12 “Success!” Staring more closely, I realized the eyes belonged to a massive beast, some sort of large cat. It had webbed feet, long teeth, and two tails, each of which ended in a snake, twisting, snapping, and biting as the creature barreled towards me. “Roll Initiative.” “Fuuuuuu---” 1 “You will go last.” “ROAR!”
[WP] You are driving to your friend's house to play D&D. A truck losses control and just before it hits you time freezes and a message appears "roll to dodge the truck"	The truck swerved to the side, missing us by inches. The sudden turn caused the truck to jack-knife as it hurtled towards the overhang, its screeching tires leaving long black rubber marks along the road. The driver managed to jump free right as the truck went over the edge, his trucker hat flying skywards as he rolled across the ground like a rag-doll, only coming to a stop after the truck's impact explosion had long since echoed up from below. I stared, dumbfounded, both at the space the massive eighteen wheeler had so recently occupied and at the number 18, which just now faded from my vision, winking out of existence in a much less intense fashion than the unfortunate truck. "Duuuuude," Sammy said from the passenger seat, his hands shaking violently as he tried to light a cigarette. "That was pretty fucked up." "Yeah," I said, barely able to process what just occurred, let alone voice a response. I indicated at the limp figure on the ground. "I'm going to see if he is okay." The trucker's limbs were awkwardly splayed, almost like the four cardinal directions on a compass. Roll a loot check. I stepped backwards, staggering a little as I rapidly assessed my mental state. I hadn't done acid in a while... maybe flashbacks? A residual trailing of it? Or... this could be my brain processing the very real near-death experience I just went through. Yeah. That was it. Roll a loot check. The text floated in-front of me, hovering about three feet away. It was flashing faster now and the color was growing lighter. This happened right before the truck swerved, I recalled. Right before it was about to slam into us. What did I do then? Roll, I thought, eyeing the floating text. The number 18 flashed again. Knowing what to do next, I bent over and ruffled through the dead man's pockets. Spare keys, a pack of Marlboro's and a scratched lottery ticket, the state-wide LottoMax . I pulled out my phone and checked the numbers, the result making me feel a little weak in the knees. The ticket was worth 1.2 million dollars. "Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit," I said, the words devolving into a garbled mess. I ran back to the car and jumped into the driver's seat. Sammy was still shaking, but now he was also taking long drags from his cigarette. I tossed him the pack of Marlboro's. "Call the cops," I said, starting the car up and driving it towards the curb. "Trucker's dead." I turned the car off and eyed the rubber scorch marks, which were smeared for at least a hundred feet. "Should probably call John too," I said, my mind now reeling from the million dollar payload in my jean pocket, not to mention the near death experience and the weird hovering numbers. "We're not going to make it to tonight's session." The police questioned us for an hour before they let us go, frowning in our rear-view mirror as we drove back the way we came. Rolling a 14 had helped. Sammy chain smoked, rambling the entire drive home. I barely paid attention, the winning lottery ticket inducing happiness-filled day dreams of what I would do with the money, the near death experience all but forgotten. Just as I opened my front door, the floating text appeared again. Roll to discover extent of infestation.	Time froze and my arms flew up and were waiting to be crushed by a truck and then nothing. I opened my eyes and the truck was frozen in front of me and the words roll to doge appear in front of me. I reached out and grabbed a d20 from my bag and I rolled it. Everything in my life was counting on this one roll. The die tumbled out of my hands and on the the dash board and slowed to a stop... 1 The die I rolled was a critical failure. Looking up at the truck time in froze and I was crushed and died on impact.
[WP] You've lived through countless battles and wars, gaining the title of the dancing sword saint for your powers to control countless floating blades. But those days are in the past, and you've found a fun hobby in cooking.	Remy needed to clear his haunted mind. This was the third day of the week he'd been late to the community homeless kitchen. He sighed, "Okay everyone, let's begin." He'd spent years on the battlefield, years of murder, of bloodshed, of unholy slaughter. Now he'd retired to the city of his birth, where he'd picked grapes with his mother and sisters in the vineyard. He remembered from those years all too well what it meant to be hungry, and perhaps that was why he now cooked for the starving. He taught aspiring connoisseurs the craft as a way to fund the operation. His young students gathered around him. "Cooking is not unlike painting," Remy said, "Anyone can splash colors on canvas, but an artist can show you new colors, their canvas can be a portal to a new world, their work can make you weep. Just so, anyone can throw ingredients into a bowl. But an artist..." The kitchen came to life in an instant. Vegetables floated up to be delicately sliced by hovering knives. The pot over the stove came to a boil, and in went the various ingredients. The smell in the air sultry and tantalizing. The crowd of wide eyed pupils gasped, some murmuring their awe. Remy had to smile at that, even after seeing him so many times it still took their breath away. It was good to use his abilities to inspire wonder instead of....instead of.. The smile fell away from his face. The door of the kitchen slammed open, and Remy's Head Assistant, Eloise, rushed through. "Chef Moreau, Chef Moreau! I tried to tell them the kitchen was closed to visitors, they would not listen!" "Easy, Eloise...These people are hungry, I understand," Remy said. He enjoyed what he did, cooking for an audience who really appreciated it, but they could understandably be impatient from time to time. "No, not the guests," Eloise said, they always referred to the homeless as guests, "A man and a woman, they say they-" A man in blue armor shoved past Eloise and into the kitchen, tailed immediately by a tall woman in the same coat of arms. They both wore the smug faces and easy grace of killers. "So it's true," the man said, "Remy Rafael Moreau, The Dancing Sword Saint, now cooks for the beggars and vermin of a filthy city across the world. How sad." The woman scoffed, "This is the same man who fought the Gran Bataille de la Morr outside of Heaven's Gate? It doesn't seem possible." Remy grimaced, he didn't recognize the faces, but the armor made their allegiance clear. L'ordre du Lutin Bleu. A band of mercenaries he'd run with years before. "If you are hungry, you may wait with all the others. We turn away no one. If you're here to cause trouble, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." "We aren't here for trouble, Epee Dansante," The woman said, "We're here to resurrect you." "I assure you, I'm very much alive and breathing," Remy said, laughing. Eloise had risen to her feet and gave him a look. Should I go for help, the look questioned. No, I can handle this, his gaze returned. The man stepped forward, "The order once again requires your....talents. I'm afraid we're here on direct orders from the Honore Lutin." Remy's eyes went flat, that old bastard.... "I don't care who sent you...Leave now." As he uttered the words, Remy shot Eloise a new non-verbal command. She sprang to her task, "Alright children, class is cut short today. Time to go!" The knight stepped infant of Eloise, blocking her path to the students, "The Order has not given permission for any of you to leave this room." Eloise's face became a sheet of stern ice. She met the knight's eyes with fearless defiance, "Remy Moreau is the Head Chef of this kitchen. I will follow his order, and your order be damned." The knight scowled, "You petulant rat-" she said, making a threatening move toward Eloise. A butcher's cleaver whistled as it soared through the air, planting itself in the wall between the knight and Eloise. The knight stopped short, eyes wide."Everyone leaves this room except for me and my two esteemed friends, we need to have a chat," Remy said, his voice full of steel, hard as oak. "And if a single hair is harmed on any of these children's heads, I will break the two of you. I will sow the short remainder of your lives with ruin and despair. And then... I will burn down the whole of L'ordre." &#x200B; \~ Thanks for reading! r/CharlestonChews	The thrill of war had faded long ago. It has dissolved the same way sugar dissolves into water. Don't get me wrong, like a properly served dessert, I'd relished my glory till the last second. But sometimes too much sweetness can force one to stop and think about your decisions. Did I really want to keep killing with my swords? Did I really want to eat that last bite? Or was I doing it all for the short-lived pleasure? The answer was the latter, and so I stepped back from my glorious life of slicing limbs and showering in blood, and dedicated myself to a life of slicing different limbs and showering in different blood. Cooking came out of nowhere, like the thrust of a proper swordsman, and I didn't whirl to dodge it. Instead, I let the edge pierce me thoroughly. This was five year ago, now I had a gourmet restaurant under my name, which I'd called Swords and Steaks. I was the head chef, and my sous-chef and kitchen staff were my flying swords. After all, they were extremely fast and effective at having the Mise en place ready in a matter of minutes. In the salon I had hired human waitresses and cashiers, after some incidents with tattered bills had taken place. The restaurant had been running smoothly for the last three years. People loved it, and held the name constantly in their palates, and so the word of mouth spread like a wildfire, causing us to be booked for months in advance; magazines, television programs, even some internet stars had featured us, talking about how having a Michelin Star was a matter of time for Swords and Steaks. We'd been told two of the Michelin Stars' critics would come and have dinner tonight at the restaurant. And so, I made sure everything ran exceedingly well. We had even located who the critics were after researching obsessively. That night, despite how much joy everyone was having, the two critics kept sending food back to the kitchen, claiming it was overcooked, or that they'd asked for it to be medium rare, and that it was rare, when it was clearly medium rare. I didn't think much of it. After all they must've been doing it to test my patience, and to see how we managed these sort of complications. But they kept sending things back, fabricating ridiculous excuses. "The bread has a mold. I've seen a cockroach. I wanted the meat blue, and it's purple. Why does my fish doesn't have any bones?" It was blood-curdling, to the point I couldn't bare it anymore, and so, leaving all my swords running the kitchen I went in person to confront them. As I walked toward their table, gleaning the sights of the customers, they smirked, as if they'd accomplished their evil plan. Both of them were old, full of wrinkles, clad in expensive black suits. "Gentlemen, I've been informed you've been having problems with your food," I said, back straight, hands clasped behind my back. "It's not my intention to be rude but I fail to find any sort of logic in your complaints." They shared an odd look, shook their heads, and rose to their feet. "This is preposterous! Are you calling us, your customers, stupid?" "Take it as you will," I said, keeping my calm in the outside, bit tightening every fiber of my body to resist the urge of slicing them into a hundred steaks. "But please get the hell out of my restaurant, and don't come back again." With that, I turned and headed back to the kitchen. Midway I heard a familiar shing. It was that of a sword being unsheathed in a quick motion, and in the brevity of a breath, I whirled to find both of them behind me mid-swing. I threw myself to the floor, avoiding both their attacks, and a thousand glasses shattered in the kitchen, for my swords flew forth, avoiding the other tables, and halting at the strained throats' of both my foes. "What are you doing?" I shouted, breathing hard, feeling the sweet adrenaline rushing through my body. "Who are you?" "Very well," one of them said, and they both sheathed their swords. "You earned your star. Congratulations Mr. Sanser. See, we design our score process according to each of the restaurants and its chefs. You've demonstrated both patience, and a flawless ability with the sword." That night, after a long cheerful celebration, I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. The adrenaline, the thrill, still pumped through my veins, and I couldn't stop thinking the same thing over and over again. Is it time to leave the kitchen and return to the fields? I sighed. Perhaps it was time. ------------------------ r/NoahElowyn
[WP] When you got your power, you tried to do good in the world. You created utopias, healed people, stopped crime, and more, but the world never seemed to get any better. You realize that without a common enemy, people will never work together...so you take up the mantle.	"So like a modern day superhero!" Those were the words of my old friend. The one whom I've given the 'mantle' to. For years, I've harnessed this power that I woke up with. Something that let me cure diseases with the snap of my fingers, stop criminals with my mind, prevent war by crushing their weaponry before it could start; paradise was made and the world was at peace. Was, that is. If there's one thing my ability cannot alter, it's the human greed. One way or the other, they'd try to find a way to gain the 'upper hand' for virtually no reason at all. The friend who has accepted the position of being the face behind the mask was taken as a result in hopes of fashioning him into a weapon. Abused and tortured, until his mind broke and he was but a fractured man when I got to him. I don't even understand the ability that I have. All I know is that if I will it, I can cure. If I desired it, I held the power to destroy. But why is it that I cannot fix the minds of people? Why is it that I can't wipe away the greed staining mankind? It's like a dirt besmirching a pristine silk. One that I can expunge no longer. In time, I found myself growing weary, exhausted. My will to help has dwindled, and all I can do now was rest. Until it came to me. Perhaps the words were true, after all. You die as a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. So a villain I've become. A common enemy, that is what I turned into in their eyes. The world that was fractured saw the greatest enemy in front of them: there wasn't any need for costumes, for outfits, for smoke and mirrors. I stood there in all of my splendor, wearing but a simple suit as I carved through building after building like butter. Everyone feared me, there was fear in their eyes rather than the adoration I once basked in. I never did it for the smiles and cheers anyway, I did it because no one would. Now I understand why no one did it. And thus, I started to toil as the nemesis, as the villain. Where there is growth, I'd cut it down, as though the sickle of Death itself coming for their necks like a guillotine. I relished it, or rather, I pretended to. With every life I took, I laughed. With every home I tore asunder, I cackled. With every family I destroyed, I grinned. But to what end? I found myself eventually just automating the process. Like a machine. In the end, perhaps this world is just an endless cycle. And soon enough, my time to step off the stage will come. As I stood in my broadcasted 'hideout', relishing in the respite between my... terrorism, the doors burst open. A group of to-be-heroes, youthful and with light in their eyes. I smiled. "Welcome to my hideout, heroes." I felt happy. "You are here to stop me, no?" The building crumbled in the ensuing match. Armed in the gear made by the blood and sweat of many people from different countries; different cultures and lands-- they struggled against me. They were simple humans without the 'gift', as I do. In normal circumstances, they'd be crushed underfoot. But now is the time for me to exit the stage, and as the hero slammed me into the ground and pointed the barrel of the gun at my head, I simply offered an exhausted smile. "Good. Now there will be peace for a brief moment," The hero paused, looking at me in bewilderment. But before he could say something else, I tap into my telekinetic abilities for one last time-- yet not without imparting some 'wisdom'. "Soon, it will be you in my position." The trigger is pulled, not by his flabbergasted finger, but by my own ability. Then I rested.	For any of you who’ve not watched RWBY Volume Six, my source material is an exposition dump early in the volume. There are COLOSSAL spoilers. You have been warned. So, I’m immortal. That’s pretty great, me and my husband (who got brought back to life by the gods. It’s a looooong story) created a kingdom on the world of Remnant where everyone lives peacefully. I had four children with Ozma. Except he told me that he was sent by the God of Light to destroy me, and that he would reincarnate into different bodies. However, if someone collected the four Relics, they could bring the Gods back down to Earth to judge humanity. If humanity is still as it once was—vengeful, selfish, even vile beings— they would be permanently wiped from the face of Remnant. It is now my life’s mission to destroy everything Ozma is fighting for. All of it.
[WP] You jokingly buy some land on Mars as a gag gift. A few generations from now when we're colonizing Mars, your descendants find it and go to cash in.	Great-Pappy was a bit of a jokester, at least that's what I heard from my Nana. She once told me about the time that her dear old dad decided to get her a used Honda, apparently he bought her a little plot of land on martian soil, just as a little laugh. Don't know why she kept the deed, there wasn't any real validity to it, but I was kind of in a tough spot &#x200B; It's really tall, not wide, just tall. Neo-vegas is the fastest growing economy in the entire western galaxy, and according to the fineprint, it's technically my land. I went to Neo-vegas once, stayed at the Harmakhis Casino, blew all my cash at the craps table with a couple of my drinking buddies, pretty shady place honestly. I thought I'd pay them a visit again, I brought the deed with me, the best I could hope for was a couple free drinks or maybe a hookup. &#x200B; Of course I was drunk off my ass, presenting that stupid peice of paper to every girl I met like I was a celebrity or something, nobody took the bait, until I showed this one chick. She had dark black hair and cute little getup complete with a pink resperator , she had a nametag on and unless she was playing hooky, she definitley worked at the casino. I did my whole routine, but when I showed her the stupid paper her eyes lit up like a stovetop. &#x200B; "Follow me" she said &#x200B; What else could I have done, she was a pretty lady. She lead me to a backroom before opening the door and letting me in, all I remember is some gangly scarface motherfucker staring me down from the other side of the room. &#x200B; I don't remember what else happened that day, I was plastered and my brain doesn't really like to remember that shit. All I know is that today I got a little message from an unknown sender. &#x200B; # Rent. 50 million units have been transfered into your account.	My granddad was a moron, now he was family but I’m not going to lie, a man can only join so many pyramid schemes before it becomes apparent their a fucking idiot. It’s a nice perk of this world that sometimes idiots get lucky and granddad got very lucky, a plot of mars bigger then Australia, It seems that through some strange twist of fate, one daft investment in a mars colony paid off, granddads luck didn’t hold though and he was run over by a marching band in a bus on their to his birthday. His life really was a testament to the chaos of this universe and my inheritance of this beautiful bit of land. I found out my granddad probably didn’t care about me much, misspelled my name on the will as Bart, I’m bort that fucking joke on the Simpsons has followed me for years. I’m just letting my mind wander I suppose, staring out the window waiting for mars to grow in the window.
[WP] A story about why pairing a pretty princess with high explosives is probably not the best idea.	The plan of the fanatics could no have gone any better, Snipers took out the guards while men next to the road ambushed the car. A truck pulled along side the limousine and pulled the princess into one truck and the U.S. Senator into another. After the men cleared the area the crop duster dropped the home made bombs onto the convoy eliminating evidence of the kidnapping and allowing the fanatics to gain the head start they wanted. The princess sat between the two men in the truck on the dusty road in Montana. "So I have a question for you gentlemen." She looked at the men on either side of her and glanced at the four armed with rifles and an RPG in the bed of the truck. "What do I do with this?" She said as she lifted a grenade from under her shirt and the spoon flew away. *\\\\\ Five years earlier \\\\\*** "So I pull this pin.... \Click\ and throw it towards what I want to explode?" Princess Erin said holding the armed grenade in her hand. "Yes." The soldier said trying to keep his nervousness in check. The Princess softly tossed the grenade over the entrenchment and knelled down, plugging her ears. The grenade exploded and shook the ground around them. "Ooh that was fun!" She giggled as she grabbed another grenade and repeated the action, throwing the explosive further than this time. "Ha. This is great!" She laughed as she repeated the exercise with two more grenades at the same time. "Princess, that's enough grenades. Would you like to see the rest of the training grounds?" The Sgt. suggested, motioning towards the vehicles. *\\\\\ Today \\\\\* The driver at least had the sense to at least slow the vehicle down before jumping out, the passenger didn't wait and bailed immediately. The grenade flew through the back window as she layed down in the seat and covered her ears. The grenade exploded in the back and she waited two seconds to get control of the truck and bring it to a stop. Turning in the seat she grabs the RPG in the back and aims it at the truck behind her. \\\\\* Five years earlier \\\\\*** "Yes please. Could we do some more training with these explosives. Ooh I want to fire a missile!" She exclaimed. The soldiers looked around nervously hoping this wouldn't be a mistake but they took her around to train with the equipment. Artillery wasn't as fun for her until she was shown Time on Target barrage which excited her enough to cheer like a teenager, but firing one of the anti-tank missiles almost brought her to an hysterical giggle. With each high explosive she trained with that day the soldiers could see a spark of life come to her eyes and the wall of restraint fall away. At the end of the day the restraint fell back into place as she thanked the soldiers for the demonstration of their equipment. The effects of the training would not show for some time after. \\\\\* Today \\\\\* The truck behind her came to a stop as the men bailed out leaving the senator alone inside. "Idiots." She said as she climbed out of the drivers seat, kicking the driver in the head and taking his pistol from him. One man, screamed at the others not to shoot her because of how valuable she was. Pulling the pin from the nose of the RPG she fires it at the truck at the third truck before tossing another grenade in the ditch where several of the men were crouched down. Climbing into the drivers seat of the second truck she pulls out of the convoy and away from her kidnappers. "How... where did you learn to do that?" The Senator asked her in shocked disbelief. "Oh, just a hobby I picked up a few years back."	My name is Horatio. I have been a butler for the king and the rest of the royal family since I was old enough to hold up a tray and hang a serviette from my arm and I have royally fucked up. As a butler, I’m in charge of making sure the estate is tidy, that the family is happy, and that the princess is all fine and dandy. Usually, that’s not so hard. I mop the floors, take out the garbage, wipe the windows, basically all the things in the Amelia Bedelia books that the titular maid does, but with none of the wordplay. So basically, I follow the list of tasks to the letter and hope that I don’t get any additional busy work. Today was unlike any other day though. Today, the king and the queen decided to embark on their weekly outing to the capital; thus, they entrusted me with the duty of taking care of the eight year old princess. As soon as they left, everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. The princess and I weren’t the only people left in the palace. The guards, the muscle in case my butler combat skills proved insufficient, were still roaming about, scanning the surrounding area for any intruders, especially the proselytizers of the Holy Noodliness. Everybody knows that the true God is the Holy Curriness, but I digress. Because the guards often have to deal with intruders, they keep a stockpile of heavy weapons in a hidden bunker somewhere on the grounds. Among the excessive amounts of weaponry in the arsenal, there are explosives, so many in fact that they are capable of blowing up an entire city if they all went off at once. You can imagine what happened, but I’m still going to tell you because that’s just more fun that way. You know how little kids are attracted to fire? Well while I was turned away preparing the water for her daily sponge bath, she took a lighter from the kitchen and wandered out into the meadow. When I brought the steaming cauldron of bath water up to the bath, to my great displeasure, I noticed that she was missing. In a state of panic, I roamed all over the grounds, searching for her, hoping that she didn’t harm herself, so I won’t get fired. After running back and forth several times around the estate, I discovered her at the top of a giant pile of dynamite labeled “Property of the Royal Arsenal: DO NOT HOLD NEAR FLAME!” Lo and behold, the princess, in her chubby, outstretched hand, was gripping a lighter. What an insolent brat! I beckoned her to come down and in response, she leaned and stuck her tongue out. I stuck my tongue out back at her. She leans again, trying to do some weird monkey pose, but she lost balance, dropping the lighter. “Motherf-” The entire estate went up in a giant mushroom cloud. I guess not only did the guards possess dynamite, but also freaking nuclear explosives. Everything was burnt to a crisp and whatever wasn’t ash at this point was coated black. I thought to myself, “I’m so losing my job for this.” The little brat lied next to me, her hair frazzled and her clothes grimy and covered in soot and ash. “Let’s do that again!” Predictably, her parents fired me the next day. I didn’t really care because I somehow survived a nuclear explosion and I’m grateful for that, but I’m still pretty miffed that I lost this cushy job because this dumb silly little girl thought it would be a good to put fire near a pile of explosives. But who cares, I heard the organ trade was very lucrative this time of the year?

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