Waving the Bible he carried even into football huddles, Luke stepped between Rot and the waiting students and faculty. "I know you, demon," the blond quarterback shouted. "You come to subvert our morals, to turn our faith from the ways of strength to those of deceit, to wrench purity from our women."
Purely by accident, Luke was hitting closer than he probably guessed. The new Rot had taken possession of the old Rot's body, was, in fact, attempting to spread a message that could be seen as antithetical to the primitive sexual mores of the earlier America. Could he, Rot wondered, be exorcised? Could version 2.0 be banished, leaving only the shy and easily picked-on version 1.0 behind? If so, Rot had killed his earlier self because there was no way the untrained earlier Rot could survive the coming days without Rot 2.0's help.
"So," Rot said, "I take it you're not here to learn martial arts? In that case, perhaps you'd step to the side and--"
"I summon the power of the almighty to banish--"
"Yeah, right. Because what, Luke? You think that the almighty is just sitting around waiting to listen to your orders?"
"You blaspheme."
"Seems to me that you're the one giving orders to the almighty, not me."
"The devil can quote scripture." He swung his Bible at Rot.
The wind from the Bible couldn't have been anything really but it knocked Rot back on his heels. "Psychological bullshit," he muttered to himself.
"Ha," Luke shouted. "The devil cannot stand against the word of the Lord."
"Give me a break, too-much-football-without-a-helmet. Just because you're a hypocritical religious wacko who wants to enforce rules on everyone else but doesn't bother applying them to himself doesn't make you special. Now, get the fuck out of my way."
"What did you say?" Luke turned a dangerous red.
"Oh, sorry. Was I taking the name of your God in vain?
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