by Oscar Reeds
“Huh?”
“You see, kid, I am power personified. However, you have to either ask or imply what power you want from me.”
“Yeah, pull the other one.”
“What?”
“Let me guess, you also make unicorns fart angel dust and little Cambodian girls loot banks on jet engines?”
“…I don’t know what any of that means, kid.”
“What I’m saying is that you’re lying.”
“I am most certainly not!”
“Suuuuuuuuure you’re not.”
“Norman never lies!”
“Suuuuuuure he doesn’t.”
“Make a request for a power right now! Right now, damn it!”
“OK, I wish I could hit you.”
A surge of energy suddenly shook me, but it was a small, slightly irritating surge that lasted for a second and a half. I felt…a little different.
“Done.”
“Really? That’s it?”
“Give it a try.”
I imagined hitting Norman, and indeed, he lunged to the side and bled…which I found odd, considering he was ethereal. But the sharp pain in my cheek made me realize that it was my own blood I drew.
“The fuck?!”
“Relax, kid. You and I are interlinked, so of course you’ll feel the same punches I feel.”
Figured.
“Okay, so I believe you. What now?”
“Now?” Norman looked genuinely disinterested. He even yawned. “Nothing. There will be time for things to do later. For now we mess around and relax.”
“So these powers…”
“No higher purpose, kid. I can just grant them to you.”
That seemed like a sketchy offer, if ever I’d heard one.
“Really, you want nothing in return?”
“I live again, kid,” he smirked grimly, “that’s what I have in return.”
And so I got up and started to pace the forest. I really had nothing better to do. Returning to the party would mean nothing to me, considering they turned tail and ran back in the minute they heard the wolf howl, so I imagined they didn’t much care for me being eaten alive. Returning home was, of course, not an option. However, I did want at least something, which did, in fact, include going back to that party.
“Say, Norman…” I asked. “You can literally grant any power?”
“Save for omnipotence or any rough equivalent, yes,” he added. “But I should warn you, I also don’t grant extremely powerful abilities right off the bat.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“Right. Well, let’s go this way all the same.”
And so I took my ethereal roommate with me to the party. Right from behind some bushes I could both hear and sense Janine’s whorish self, trembling from the thought of being mauled by a wolf. Haggard looked around, as did a few of his friends. They did not look happy when they spotted me.
“Genital?” Bob said, genuinely shocked to see me. “Aren’t you dead?”
“Nope, still kicking.”
“You wouldn’t know kicking if it…well…kicked you.”
A wordsmith.
“And you lot didn’t care if I got eaten, right?”
“Why would we, king Nerdo of Retardia,” Bob’s friend Rashasanthraharmasharphayheedandronesfeltehmenninoffskiliev the 5th sneered at me. “You’re better off dead anyway.”
“How come you aren’t dead, by the way?”
I have to admit, I was kind of amused by this question of Peter’s.
“Well, I mean, unlike you, I can handle a wolf.”
“Huh?”
“I said, unlike you—”
I didn’t even finish that sentence before Peter swung a rock at my head. And damn, did it hurt.
“Hey, Norman?” I mumbled, barely getting back up.
“What, kid?”
“I wanna hit him from far away.”
“Sure, kid.”
Another surge, and this time, I knew what was coming. So I clenched a fist. Peter laughing at me didn’t really make things any easier.
“What’re you gonna do with that? Protest?”
I wanted to wipe that smirk of his face, so I swung my fist imagining that I was hitting him. And I sure as hell did, since he jerked back in pain.
But so did I. My hand fucking ached!
“What the hell, Norman?!”
“What?”
“I told you I wanted to hit him from afar, not hit myself!”
“You did hit him from afar,” Norman sounded almost lackadaisical. “It’s not my fault your fists are pathetically weak.”
Ah, so that’s what I had to do.
“Right, I want to hit them from afar without any pain or damage caused to me.”
Another surge. I must’ve looked rather weird to the dickheads staring at me.
“You okay there, Pete?”
“Yeah,” Peter was waving off Haggard in response. “Yeah, Bob, I’m cool. It’s just… I dunno what came over me. It’s as if a woman slapped me all of a sudden.”
Next, I swung my hands like crazy. I could tell Peter was taking the brunt of it by all of the new bruises on his face, chest, neck, and shoulders. He was down, and Janine was screaming. Their long-named friend whose name I really don’t feel like repeating went away, scared but unsure of exactly what he was scared of. Only Haggard remained. Well, only Haggard of all the men, at least.
“The hell are you, Genital?!” he screamed, like I’ve never seen him scream before.
“I am… amazing.”
I kicked the air and fell on my ass because of how strong my swing was. Both Haggard and the downed Peter looked at me confused.
“Norman, the fuck?!”
“What?”
And that’s when I got it.
“Right. I want to kick them from afar.”
A surge. A massive kick which Peter felt. And of course, it hurt me too damn much that I began to limp.
“Ugh…I want to kick them from afar without any pain or damage to me.”
A surge. I then kicked the shit out of both Peter and Haggard from afar.
“How are you doing that?!” Haggard cried. “Are you a kung-fu master of air or something? Do you bend air?”
“Don’t be silly, Bob, I’m not a crappy Nickelodeon cartoon,” I replied, a little full of myself.
“We’ll get you for this, you little shit!” Haggard yelled, but one swing from my arm was enough to give him a slap from a distance. “We’ll get you!!”
Peter didn’t dare say anything. He merely rattled away like the snake that he was. Janine remained there.
“Erm, I…”
I decided to have a little fun. My first slap from a distance was directed at her ass. She squealed. My following sixteen slaps were also for her ass, each cheek receiving powerful pummels. She moaned hard. I then slapped her tits about. I must admit, it all felt very nice.
“Ungh…” she squealed. “Sorry, Conrad, I didn’t…”
But I wasn’t done. I remembered that she had a dog, so I approached the kennel and slapped it until it stopped barking, bowing to me. The collar came off, and the dog stared at me, confused.
“Don’t worry, boy,” I said, gently scratching its ear. The dog quickly warmed to me and followed me closely. “What’s its name, slut?”
“Danny…and I’m no—”
A slap from a distance.
“What was that?”
“…I am your slut.”
I giggled. I giggled even more when I put the dog collar on her.
“Where is the leash?”
“In the house.”
“From now on, you walk everywhere with that leash. Understand?”
She nodded. Now I had both a dog and a bitch.
“Now follow.”
She was walking on the ground next to Danny, whom I loudly proclaimed had a
bigger rank than her. Norman, however, was not pleased.
“You done?”
“Oh, not in the slightest,” I replied, and again, I have to be honest – I was a little brash with him. These few powers alone made me feel utterly great.
“You do realize we can do far more than torture these kids around, right?”
“Oh, but Norman, I have an entire life ahead of me filled to the brim with new opportunities.”
I could tell that Janine was wondering who I was talking to. A little slap on her ass was enough to get her to keep moving. A real slap this time, with my hand. The first time ever in my life to slap a girl’s ass. It felt good.
“You see, Norman, I have a few dozen scores to settle.”
He merely rolled his eyes.
In about fifteen minutes we were all at my father’s house. I tied Janine outside by the tree and ordered Danny to keep watch. The dog was far smarter than Janine, I could tell. Norman and I entered the house…well, I entered, Norman hovered next to me, and immediately I could smell the liqueur of my father. He was cocking a rifle.
“Did I not tell you to get the fuck out of my house?” he mumbled, stammering outside of his room. But I didn’t care. From afar, I slapped the gun out of his hands. He was stunned.
“How…?”
“You’re about to lose, old man.”
You’d think this blatant display of supernatural abilities would have stopped him. Yeah, I thought that too. But no. A war veteran doesn’t think like normal people do. Especially a war veteran with two pints of cheap booze and at least two shots of heroin. He shrieked like an animal and lunged for me. Naturally, years of terror had made me weak to his advances, so instead of fighting back with my new, amazing gifts, I shouted at Norman like a girl.
“Norman, I want to freeze him!”
“No can do, kid.”
“WHAT?!”
I barely escaped the lunge of my lunatic father. Next thing I knew, I was running every which way around the house, evading my dear old dad’s improvised projectiles – a vase, a plate, a slipper, a little figurine, a Ming vase which we for some reason had but never sold, etc.
“The hell do you mean ‘no can do?!’”
“Did you not pay attention?”
“What? Attention to what?”
“You’re really dumb, aren’t you, kid?”
And THAT’s when it hit me. Well, not the book my father flung, that didn’t hit me. The realization did. So I stopped.
“I want to slow down his legs!”
A surge. Sure enough, my father was now walking sluggishly towards me, his body yanking itself forward, as if he were bound at the waistline by a massive chain. He clearly wanted to run, but couldn’t.
“Right, now I want to slow down the rest of his body.”
A surge. Moments later and I could see every single bit of him walking almost in slow-motion, but with visible effort. He was sweating profusely.
“Now I want to freeze his movements, but allow him to breathe.”
A surge. And soon enough a stop. My father’s maniacal look was all that remained. I approached him, spat at his face, dropped my pants and pissed on his shirt, then went to the bathroom and filled a bucket of ice-cold water, splashing him from that distance and hearing him moan in utter discomfort.
“ASL ice water challenge, bitch,” I snickered.
“You done yet, kid?”
“No.”
“What’s the point of all this? Just kill him and get it over with.”
“Oh, I don’t plan on killing him,” I said while shaving most of my father’s hair that rested on the top of his head. “This is far more fun.”
“But it’s a waste of time.”
“It might be, Norman, but do you have anything better to do?”
“You have no idea, do you?”
I looked at him, my hands tying what was left of my father’s hair in a girly-looking bow.
“You’re right. I have no idea. You literally entered me today, and I can safely and honestly say that yes, you have a point, and that I have absolutely no fucking idea about anything!”
Norman was taken aback a bit by this explosion of rage which I exhibited.
“You see, Norman, up until half an hour ago I was a fat, ugly, virgin loser who was kicked out of his house and humiliated by his peers. With your powers, I’m still a fat, ugly, virgin loser who plans on making sure that everyone around me suffers.”
“Hah! He’s an incel!” Janine shouted from outside. I used my long-distance slaps to smack her pussy. Indeed, I loved the moan that came later.
“What’s an incel?” Norman asked me.
“Oh, it’s a loser who can’t get laid, but who decides that the whole world, especially women, is the problem, and that the only solution is to start killing.”
“So how is that different from you, kid?”
Norman was right. I started behaving like a proper incel. Something I really, really didn’t want to. I sat down, right next to the moldy cheese I slapped onto my father’s shirt and upper pants.
“Norman, look at me,” I began, and I’m ashamed to admit, there was some quiver in my voice. “I look like crap! No girl will ever look at me, no matter how many powers you give me! And both of my parents are horrible people. I don’t even know if I have any extended family, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they turned out to be pieces of shit as well! How will I ever succeed in anything?”
Norman merely sighed.
“Kid, did you figure out how the power gaining works?”
I nodded. Of course I did.
“You can try and fit that to any situation, as long as it’s not unreasonable.”
There was something to his words, but I chose not to pay attention.
“Look, I ought to go and have some rest. But first, I need to get my stuff from my new bitch’s house.”
Janine was restless.
“The hell? Come on, Conrad, let me go! I’ll do whatever you want!”
“Will you freeze?”
But she didn’t freeze. She was staring at me weirdly.
“Damn it, Norman!”
“What?”
“How come she isn’t freezing?”
“Well, you did ask only for him,” he was pointing at my frozen father. Of course, I had to let out a sigh.
“Fine! I want what I can do to him to be able to do to everyone I want to do it to.”
Norman was confused.
“I want all of the slowing and freezing steps for anyone I choose.”
A surge.
“Wonderful. But now I don’t want to freeze her anymore.”
Janine was still confused.
“Can you please tell me what’s going on here, Conrad? Please?”
I sighed again. I’d be doing a lot of sighing those first couple of days.
“Well, I suppose I could tell you, slut. It’s not like anyone’s going to believe you anything, either.”
She sat down, but I politely asked her with my hand to sit like an obedient dog.
“Now, slut, this is what happened. I found me this little necklace in the woods where I wound up after you and your gaggle of whores and manwhores humiliated me,” I was waving the little pendant as I was talking. It was still dirty. “Ugh, I must wash this. Anyway, it appears that I’ve been imbued with a weird Viking spirit or something.”
“I’m not a Viking,” Norman said.
“Shut up! Now this spirit, he gave me a ton of superpowers…”
In a millisecond, Janine snagged the pendant from my neck and clutched it hard.
“Yes! Yes! Now I have the power to hit people from afar!”
She waved her hands, but it didn’t work. Not particularly pleased, I waved my hand and slapped her breasts left and right.
“Owie…” she moaned. “Wait, but how?! I got the pendant!”
“Yeah, it appears the pendant was only there to transfer Nor
man into me,” I said, now deciding to actually grab and fondle her breasts. She didn’t dare complain. “So stealing it does nothing.”
Norman merely nodded at that.
“So how come I cannot see him?” Janine muttered, blushing.
“Well, I guess it’s an exclusive privilege of mine, slut. Just like it’s my exclusive right to do with you whatever I damn well please.”
Danny was getting restless. I decided to give it a little petting and a scratch.
“Good boy! Gooooood boy!”
Danny was a German shepherd and not an old one either. He was in full strength, able to maul a man’s hand clean off. But he was fiercely loyal to a pack leader – in this case, me.
“You see, Janine, I had to take a lot of shit…” I was getting up on my feet at this point, snagging her leash. “I was beaten by everyone, hated by everyone, insulted by everyone… This whole town will pay the price. And it won’t be death, oh no.” Janine, I could tell, was frightened by my grin. “It will be humiliation. Very public, very powerful, very intricate humiliation. I plan on bringing this entire damn town to its knees.”
Norman grinned a bit too. He enjoyed my performance, it seemed.
“But Conrad—”
“No buts, slut!” I slapped her ass again. “Well, maybe your butt. But no other buts.” I yanked her leash, and both she and Danny came along. “I have a duty, a duty to myself, to make you all feel like shit for making me feel like shit.”
“Well, isn’t this enough?”
“No, it isn’t, slut. These past eighteen years I suffered this crap. It will never, ever be enough.”
She bowed her head, like an obedient little tramp.
“You see, I want retribution, and retribution is what I will get,” I said, marching back to Janine’s house, determined to start the new day even more victoriously.
Chapter 3
It was a wonderful day, for me at least. People kept staring at me while I was walking Janine before me. She looked damn fine in that Japanese priestess outfit I made her sew. It was kind of unfortunate for me to find out that she already was a decent seamstress. One could never tell by her looks and behavior, considering she was always a total bitch to anyone she disliked. Danny wasn’t with me. I decided to keep him at home, which was now sparkling-clean. Again, who’d think that Janine was such a good cleaner? She even got some very old, very broken beer bottles my father kept flinging behind an old wardrobe.