Phoning it in 2

Despite the fact that the black koala can talk, he insists on pretending he can't, so he mostly communicates through hand gestures and saying dog noises occasionally. I'm guessing he wants my story.

"I amused some higher being or other and was given powers and dropped in a world where I was going to have to face a one on one fight with Godzilla in a month," I explained.

He raises an eyebrow and just looks at me, clearly thinking I'm crazy.

I hold up a fork we got from Sears when we raided it for plates and silverware. It's a heavy duty utensil made of stainless steel and moderately thick. I twist it around my finger like it's Playdoh, before pulling it off my finger and handing it to him.

He takes it between two fingers and straightens it just as easily, but he looks thoughtful while spreading chili on a sandal and eating it. He nods showing he believes I'm not quite like most people.

"Naturally my first thought was to escape, because any fight between me and Godzilla is going to end with me being stepped on at this point, so I used my power to walk through shadows to a world where time moved a lot faster and things were a lot quieter so I could figure out what to do," I explained.

He waved a claw at everything around him with an inquiring look, before eating another shoe, a left one. He seems to only eat left shoes I'd noticed.

"Why here?" I guessed and received a nod. "Well this world is called Night of the Comet, because the comet that passed by emitted some exotic radiation that reduced all humans to red sand. That means I can take plenty of time to rest and gather supplies before moving on to a friendlier world where I can train to beat Godzilla or more likely just survive him."

He nodded and ate the last of his shoes and then the box it came in before cleaning his hands on a napkin... which he then ate.

"I'm John," I introduced myself again, "What's your name?"

He opened his mouth like he was going to speak but then closed it again and shrugged.

I tried to think up a name for a mutant black koala who was pretending to be a dog but drew a blank, and then I recalled him always leaving right shoes alone while eating the left ones. "How about I call you Murphy?" I asked.

He considered that for a minute and then nodded.

I found myself yawning. Apparently even the small amount of shadow walking I'd done had taken a lot out of me and only after I'd gotten some food and truly relaxed had it hit me. "I'm going to crash in the waterbed store. We'll talk more when I wake up."

Murphy nodded as I got up and stumbled out the door of the appliance store. I could probably have just laid down anywhere and napped, but that would probably end up with me stiff and sore when I awoke so I soldiered on. The waterbed warehouse was just a few doors down. The AC hit me as I entered momentarily waking me enough that I could undress before climbing into one of the display models.

Happiness is a heated waterbed. I slept.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

There was a moment of panic when I woke up, as I'd reached down to scratch myself and discovered some major changes. Fortunately I quickly recalled that I had been de-aged to the point I was barely in double digits age wise. Opening my eyes I saw something I was not expecting, Murphy was zooming around the ceiling leaving a faint rainbow of color behind him that quickly faded. A strange ability but being some kind of alien or mutant animal I'm sure he had a few. If it was considered a super power I'd have been able to sense it, if I was touching him. The power manipulator ability was powerful but limited in its own way, too bad I couldn't modify it...

I felt like smacking myself in the forehead as it occurred to me that it could manipulate any power and that included itself. I quickly modified the ability to sense powers into a ranged ability extending to greater ranges if I concentrated on it. Immediately I sensed two individuals with powers not including myself, one was Murphy and the other was... a fish?

There was a rather fat, orange, tropical fish with two rows of blue spots on it, floating through the air and I traced the power to a goldfish bowl where the same fish swam serenely. Apparently it could project its astral form, had precognitive dreams, telekinesis, and a healing factor. A nice power combo, but in a fish?

Climbing out of bed I accidentally kicked my clothes and the clank of vials reminded me they were there and I could feel them calling me to drink them once more. Ignoring the call, I got dressed and checked on them. It seems I only have three vials now as it looks like Murphy drank Acceleration and fed Foresight to his fish.

Seeing me awake, Murphy lands at my feet looking guilty.

"The vials called to you?" I guess and he nods rapidly. "OK, I get that," I admitted. "I can't fault you on that, but why give one to the fish?"

Murphy rubs his stomach and points at the sky. I have no clue what that means, so I just shrug and examine the three remaining vials. At least I know what they do now.

There are three power sets left. Energy could be anything, Gravity was probably the most powerful vial, and Mass... Mass seemed the most promising. Vision from The Avengers' comics did some really cheesy shit with the ability to alter his own mass and his defensive uses of it were top notch. Decision made I pop open the Mass vial and down it. It tastes like... Mambo Number Five? I pass out.

Murphy shakes me awake and I can tell my guess on what the vial did was close. I can spread out my mass, turning into a cloud or condense it becoming small and super dense. This made it almost certain Godzilla can't kill me.

I pick up the two remaining vials, Energy and Gravity. They no longer call out to me, but leaving them lying around is just asking for trouble. I push them into my shadow. Being as weak and untrained as I am (despite having Merlin's memories) I can only store small items in my shadow and any half trained Amberite or Shadow Spawn could have pulled them out, but that should be safe enough for now.

I experiment turning into a cloud and then playing with my size a bit. It's actually pretty fun and Murphy flies through me a few times scattering my form a bit as I learn to reform and move around as a cloud. The fish watches us, his astral form floating around and through items as we play around. Murphy discovers a new use for his ability as he does a fair imitation of the flash on the ground.

After a few hours I reform into my normal density and get dressed. It's almost noon, meaning I slept for close to twenty hours, and I'm hungry once more. "Let's go eat," I tell Murphy, making a note to get a backpack to hold supplies.

Murphy places the fish bowl in a little red wagon that he pulls behind him as I hold the door open so he can follow me.

We hit the grocery store once more for cans of chili, frozen pizza, and picnic supplies. It feels a bit wasteful to use new silverware rather than plastic or wash the old ones, but as this world is nearly empty of people and it'll be centuries (if ever) before a human ever comes here again, I don't think anyone will complain.

Murphy also loads up on sandwich supplies, putting loaves of bread and lots of peanut butter and jelly in his wagon. I'm guessing that's his usual fare since he only watched me open the cans and work the microwave. Naturally he also stopped by the beach apparel area and grabbed a dozen left flip flops.

We return to the appliance store and I dump all the dirt dishes and trash from our last meal into a trash bag. I lay out everything for our next meal, while Murphy makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which he drops in the fish bowl. I've never seen a tropical fish eat a sandwich before but the fat little fish starts nibbling away at it, making a sizable dent in very little time. It's almost hypnotic. I go back to making a feast of greasy junkfood a couple of minutes later as my stomach reminds me I'm hungry. No I don't normally eat this way but junkfood stay fresh longer than most foods so it's safer to eat in these types of situations.

"I need some catalogs of jewelry and another of heavy duty clothing like hiking and mountain climbing," I tell Murphy.

Murphy gives me a confused look, not seeing why I would like such things.

"You'll see," I promise. "You get them and I'll show you something cool."

He nods and leaves while I mix up some lemonade. A slice of pizza floats off the table and drops into the fish bowl, following the astral projection of the tropical fish. Nice to know I have a fellow fan of Hawaiian pizza. Everything is ready by the time Murphy returns with a Sears catalog and one from Zale's Jewelers.

"Bar, bark," Murphy says, handing me the catalogs.

I paged through the Sears catalog and found a good sized backpack. Making sure Murphy was watching, I reached inside the picture and pulled it out.

A half eaten chili, pizza, and left thong sandwich falls out of his hands as he stares at me in shock.

I laughed for a minute before explaining, "Libromancers are people who can reach into books and pull things out. Now that ability has a lot of restrictions and downsides normally, however being an Amberite I sidestep a lot of them."

He almost looks like he's going to ask some questions, but instead just gestures to his ear.

"More?" I ask.

He nods his head eagerly.

I start pulling out Jewelry from the Zale's catalog while I'm talking, "Well, Amberites are fairly complicated to explain so I'll just give you a summary. There is Amber, the central pillar of existence, and there is chaos. Everything real or imagined exists between those two points and are referred to as Shadows. Now since my father is from Amber, I can walk through the Shadows to find anything I want."

"Ahhh," he said impressed.

"Now, Libromancers are much more limited, relying on the belief of mankind in general to fuel their ability and eroding the boundaries between their shadow and chaos to a small degree that rebounds on their personal existence rather than on their world. Since I'm more powerful than any of them can ever hope to be and can reach through Shadow for items unaided, I can use their abilities as a shortcut for my own, so I don't have to sit for hours in meditation to get specific items."

Murphy shrugs, not getting half of what I said, probably because he doesn't have the right background to understand it.

"I can reach into books and pull things out," I explain.

His eyes get comically wide and he runs out of the store.

"How much you want to bet he's getting a book?" I ask the fish.

The fish does not respond.

I'm just finishing my second slice of pizza when Murphy dashes in with a Star Wars novel. I grin knowing exactly what he wants.

"Lightsaber?" I ask.

"Yeah!" he agrees nodding rapidly and completely forgetting he isn't supposed to be able to talk.

Opening the book I reach in and pull out a lightsaber, feeling it shift to match the local reality as I hand it to him. "Here you go. Just try not to cut any bits of yourself off."

Murphy switches it on and a four foot beam of blue plasma forms above the hilt with a soothing hum. His grin is the evilest I've ever seen.

The astral projection of the tropical fish begins telekinetically pulling the little red wagon containing his fishbowl towards the door.

As Murphy laughs like a certain super villain I realize the fish has the right idea and follow him.

I'm sure Murphy will calm down eventually and how destructive can one little mutant animal be, even with a lightsaber?

Typing By: Abyssal Angel