Three Wishes?

Blues regarded Quick's unconscious body with mingled irritation, and amusement. His face reflected none of his feelings, though, as he stepped completely free of the shadow.

He'd wanted to give the wishes, and get out, back to his usual job. But it seemed things were going to take a little longer than that.

This wasn't his place, giving wishes. But it had really been entirely his own fault he'd gotten stuck doing it.

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I"You neglected to come to the planning meeting. Again." Blues stared into cold, fishlike eyes. A shriveled old woman, not human at all, but looking close enough, sat behind a large desk. It had a pad of paper, and one of the usual desk ornaments, a pendulum of iron balls. It was very... bureaucratic.

They both served the same force, but that was about all that was the same about them. And even that was suspect, since they differed in secondary force. Blues was chaotic. The Administrator was static.

But they both served the negative force, and in his few duties, he was under her control. He merely met her gaze, saying nothing.

She was good at staring contests, but with his visor, she could not win. She finally wrinkled her lips, and held out a paper. He took it, folding it.

"You should read it now." Blues tilted his head to one side, startled. She sounded... nastily amused. He slowly unfolded the paper, reading it.

Most was as he expected. A week guarding the WorldGate. A period where he would watch over and aid an anti-paladin. That was a bit dark for his taste, but a necessary duty given that the positive had assigned a godling to their paladin. A terrorist attack he would need to supervise… a neat note said it should fail, but one person in particular had to die during it. The humans would not know it, but a senseless death would be for the ultimate purpose… although Blues wasn't certain what purpose that was. Anymore than when he was sent to look after a disaster, to make certain some particular lives were spared.

But standing out among the others like a pretty flower in a toadstool ring...

"Grant three wishes to the winner of the cosmic lottery?!?" He stared at the entry. "What? That's not within my duties!"

"It is now." The Administrator said with a sour, satisfied smile. "I have mentioned before that part of meetings is the delegating of unpleasant tasks." Blues had to resist an urge to throttle her, and instead, spoke tightly.

"That isn't even within my sphere. I'm chaotic, and luck does come into what I do, but I'm also negative. Why isn't a chaotic godling handling this? And what's wrong with the usual one?" This kind of assignment could only mean that for some reason, the person who had this as a regular duty was unavailable.

"She is, unusually enough, pregnant." The Administrator looked at a paper on her desk. "She'll be eight months along with the lottery comes up. We don't want her handling that much power that late in her pregnancy. And you, not being present at the meeting, became the convenient victim."

"I… see." That was how the meetings worked… and he could understand why they wouldn't want the godling of luck handling it. Pregnancies were unbelievably rare… this was the second he could recall, in the several thousand years he'd been here… and they often changed the universe. And all that was needed of her replacement was a chaotic nature. His negative nature might make the luck a bit more prone to unpleasant nuances, but that was all. "Fine. I'll take care of it." It wouldn't take more than a day in any case.

"I knew you would." The Administrator gave him a sour, but approving smile. Blues just nodded, and turned to leave. The Administrator turned to a more problematic note, any concern for him and his duties out of her mind.

Unlike some others, Blues could be counted on to handle tasks he did not terribly care for./I

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So here he was, granting wishes. Blues pointed two fingers at the floor, cleaning up the mess of coke with a casual exercise of power. He wanted to get all of this over quickly.

And as for Quick...

He considered several options to wake up the slender robot, and finally settled on the simplest.

He walked over and casually kicked Quick in the ribs.

"OW!" Quick was jerked out of pleasant darkness by a painful sensation in his side. "What was that... for..." He stared up into the pale, expressionless face above him. It hadn't been a dream. It was real...

"What are your three wishes?" Blues asked the speedster patiently.

"Wh-wh-what..." Quick swallowed hard, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. The whole situation was overwhelming, but he was starting to get a grip on it. "Who are you? Wh-what are the limits on the... wishes?" This still felt so unbelievable... but being talked to by a commercial, then seeing this person hanging out of a shadow on the wall was making him a believer. Blues smiled slightly in approval. Quick was starting to think, and had asked a good question.

"I am Blues, the robot prototype." Quick's eyes widened at that... he'd never heard Wily or Light mention Blues... but Blues went on before he could speak. "There are a few limits on the wishes. The most important is that the wishes cannot affect the heart and soul of someone else. So while asking for world peace would be very altruistic, I would not be able to grant that request. Likewise falling in love with you. The other limit is that the wish cannot kill. Now, what do you want?" He asked again. He could wait for years, even decades if necessary, but he had no wish to. Although Blues sensed fine negative energy in this place... this company must have a terrible morale problem... he also sensed stifling static. This was the provenance of static decay, and made him vaguely edgy, especially when he was working on a purely chaotic mission.

"Um... I've never heard of you. Why didn't Wily and Light mention you?" Quick asked, confused. Blues tilted his head to one side, then answered with frank, brutal truthfulness.

"Probably because I was a failure to them." He said without rancor or bitterness. It was merely a fact to him. But Quick winced.

"...Like me..." His hands clenched into fists, as he looked at the floor. Suddenly he raised his head, red-brown eyes looking into the black shades. "I wish I was the best at everything I do!" Blues thought for a moment, ran that through his mind... and smiled. He suddenly crossed his arms over his chest, at the wrists, under his chin, two fingers of each hand pointing out. It was the pose he was working with strong forces. The crystal on his forehead flashed for a brief moment with black light.

Then he relaxed.

"Your wish is granted. Next?" Quick blinked, touching his own chest. He didn't feel any different...

What else did he want?

"Unh... tell me something? Do alternate dimensions exist? You know, different universes, different timelines?" He asked hopefully. Blues hesitated a moment, before nodding.

"...Yes... why?" That question made him a bit wary. He and the others like him had dominion over this universe alone... other universes were looked after in different ways, if at all. What could Quick want?

"I wish I could travel to new dimensions whenever I want." He said decisively. Blues blinked, but exercised his borrowed power again. The luck force was potent...

"Granted... but... why?" It was puzzling. Quick suddenly grinned.

"Oh, I wanna see lots of interesting places! And I have to leave THIS place... this whole world. They'll look for me if I just run away." He finished, a bit sad. Blues nodded thoughtfully. It wasn't a foolish wish, when he thought about it.

"And your third?"

"I... I'm not sure." Quick tried to think of something, and came up blank. What did he want...

Well, there was one thing he wanted. He brightened at the thought.

"I know! I know!" He chirruped, grinning again. Blues felt slightly relieved, anticipating going back to his usual duties.

"What do you wish for?"

"Nothing yet! I want you to come with me for pixy sticks, saki and lotsa pizza while I think about it!" He jumped up, grabbing Blues arm and proceeding to drag him out. "C'mon! Let's party!"

"Wh-what?!?" Blues was shocked... but let himself be dragged. He couldn't leave Quick until he made his final wish, anyway.

But what was all this about pixy sticks...?