“What’s the problem, Nova?” Aron asked.
[Our Henry’s Eye sensors detected a very large surge of mana headed west from your location. It stopped in a local store a few miles away,] she replied.
“Possibility of a false positive?”
[Low, sir.]
“I’ll check it out,” Aron said, then rose into the air and rocketed away in the direction of the mana surge.
......
Outskirts of Amarillo, Texas.
Greg Bauer hummed as he paced up and down the aisles in the Tractor Supply Co. in Amarillo. He was a farmer, but today, he was buying things that no farmer needed. Or rather, things that no farmer needed in the amount he was buying them in.
Every now and then as he came across something, his eyes would flash purple and, without thinking, he would dump it in his cart. He had already filled three carts and parked them at the front of the store for later checkout. It was to the point now that the employees had started giving him weird looks when they passed him while doing their routine tasks.
Suddenly, he grit his teeth and collapsed over his cart, moaning in agony as his eyes rapidly flashed between purple and their normal green. His body trembled as his jaw locked shut, preventing him from making more noise than a slight whimper.
Inside Greg’s mind, a war was happening; Rick’s consciousness was attempting to fully take over his body and make it his own!
Soon, he stopped shaking and stood normally. His face twisted into an enraged expression and, uncaring of the dirty looks from the cashiers, he stomped out of the store and into the parking lot, where he climbed into his truck and closed his eyes.
Greg had lost the battle and become Rick.
“God fucking DAMN IT!” he cursed, pounding his fists against the steering wheel. “All of that effort, all of my work, all gone!”
He continued his tirade for a few minutes before calming down and submerging his consciousness in the purple world.
As soon as he entered the familiar purple world, a voice said in a menacing murmur, §Yyyyyyoooouuuuuuuuu... fffffffffaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiilllled....§
“Failed what?” he asked, frantically looking around for threads of belief and finding none.
§Yyyyyyyyooooooouuuuu... fffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiilllled...§ the voice repeated.
Rick thought for a moment, then shouted, “I DIDN’T FAIL! YOU failed ME!!”
§Iiiii diiiiiiiiiiid nnnnnnnnnnoooooooothiiiinnnng!§ the voice replied, a hint of emotion—rage—in it for the first time.
“I did everything right!” Rick yelled. “I prepared to welcome the progenitors! I spread chaos! What right do you have to take my body from me!?”
§Iiiii diiiiiiiiiiid nnnnnnnnnnoooooooothiiiinnnng!§ the voice repeated, its rage becoming more evident.
“No... no, no, no no NO! I refuse to accept this!” Rick shouted, then closed his eyes and attempted to pull the threads of belief he’d had to his new body.
For what seemed to be a long time, he pulled and pulled, but to no avail. He tried visualizing different things, like in the imperial information he received before, but there was no result. His teeth ground together until his gums started bleeding and he screamed, “GIVE IT BACK! GIVE MY BELIEF BACK!”
§Taaaaaake iiiiiiiiiit theeeeeeeeennnnnnn,§ the voice replied. §Iiiiiiifffffffff yooooooouuuuuuu caaaaaannnnn.§
Rick struggled for what seemed like hours before, finally, a single thread of belief attached itself to him. He knew who it was the moment it anchored itself to his new body’s purple world—it was his faithful secretary and strongest believer, Katrina Markov.
Then, another thread attached to him, and another.... Soon, threads were attaching themselves to him in the tens, hundreds, even thousands at a time. The impact was intense, and in the real world, his body was writhing in pain, veins visibly popping in his skin like a bodybuilder after a hard workout.
§Yyyyyyooooouuuuuu ffffffffffooooooolllllll!§ the voice in the purple world sneered. §Fffffffffaaaaaaaillllllllllure meeeeeeeeans deeeeeeathhhhhh! Yyyyyyyyyyoooouuuuu ooooonnnnlllllyyyyyy brrrrrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnnnng yyyyyyooooooourrrrr deeeeeathhhh clllloooosssserrrr!§
Rick screamed as he began bleeding from his eyes and ears.
......
A sonic boom echoed through the parking lot of Tractor Supply Co. as Aron abruptly stopped in the air and looked down. His eyes turned gold as he scanned for mana signatures, then he looked up in shock. An enormous purple whirlwind of mana had formed above a new model pickup truck in the parking lot!
It was filled with the shape of faces and all of them screaming and wailing in fear, agony, and protest as they were sucked deeper into the whirlwind. Many more face-shaped blobs of purple mana were streaming in from the distance as well.
“What the...” Aron began, then trailed off as he stared at the thing that was so far out of his experience that he didn’t even know where to begin.
He dropped to the ground next to the driver’s side door of the pickup and looked at the man inside. He was an older middle-
aged man with white hair and a bit of paunch. But Aron recognized him immediately—he was the cult leader! Though he had no idea how the man had accomplished it, he had stolen someone else’s body and was undergoing a very, very rapid awakening process.
Aron couldn’t allow that to continue, so he snapped his fingers and a shield extended from him and surrounded the truck. It blocked the whirlwind outside of it and the new cult leader’s body within was forced to wake up; the time since the process had begun was far too short, so he had yet to fall into a protective coma.
“It’s... it’s you... tyrant!” the cult leader panted, agony still etched in his expression.
“Call me whatever you want, I don’t care,” Aron said. “Any last wishes?”
“They’re... coming...” Rick said. “And you... you can’t... hahahahaha!”
“I can’t what?” Aron asked.
Rick said nothing, only continued maniacally laughing as blood spewed from his mouth. He soon calmed himself, however, and tilted his head back to look up at the sky, then screamed, “I REGRET!”
He continued screaming his fury and hate to the heavens, even as his body began to crack and flake off in the breeze. He screamed until his vocal cords bled, until his lips, teeth, and tongue turned to dust. Even after he could make no more sound, he raised his fist to the sky as his body crumbled to ash in the driver’s seat of the pickup truck he had been sitting in.
Aron gazed at the ash for a moment, a complex expression on his face. Then he turned his gaze upward, where the purple whirlwind still remained outside his shield.
The face-shaped blobs had stopped coming to join the whirlwind and the vortex continued turning in the air, though more slowly now.
§Yyyyyyoooouuuu wwwwwwiiiiiiinnnnnnnn... ffffffffooooorrrrrr nnnnnnnoooooooowwwwww...§ the vortex murmured to Aron, growing more faint as it spoke.
“I’ll win next time, too. Now begone,” he replied, waving his hand as if he was shooing away a fly.
Soon, everything returned to normal, leaving Aron alone in the parking lot with his thoughts.
