Jake, Recent High School Graduate (Keir's Version)

Power Rules

Phase One: The Proposal & Acceptance (Cognitive Overwrite)

• Trigger: Jake proposes a bet or wager to a target. The terms, asymmetry, or unfairness of the stakes do not matter.
• Compulsory Acceptance: The target is supernaturally compelled to accept the bet immediately.
• The Rationalization Engine: The power forcefully rewires the target’s current logic. The target's mind will automatically manufacture a plausible, self-contained justification for why accepting the bet is a good, logical, or necessary idea (e.g., overconfidence, perceived leverage, or material compensation).

Phase Two: The Execution (Reality & Variable Manipulation)

• Guaranteed Victory: Jake possesses a 100% win rate for any active wager.
• Environmental/Biological Sabotage: To ensure Jake's victory, reality actively bends. This includes, but is not limited to:
• External Factors: Glitching technology, unprecedented luck, or sudden, severe incompetence from opposing forces.
• Internal/Biological Factors: If the bet involves a physical or biological contest, Jake’s body is temporarily augmented with absolute physical control, stamina, and insulation from failure, overriding his natural lack of skill.

Phase Three: The Resolution (Enforced Compliance)

• Absolute Enforcement: Once Jake wins, the target is supernaturally locked into fulfilling their exact end of the wager, regardless of how depraved, humiliating, or destructive it is.
• Retained Agency & Awareness: If the bet is aimed towards getting the target to do something (giving Jake all their money, having sex with him, killing someone for him) the target remains completely self-aware. They retain their original personality, morals, and emotions, though whether they are free to express those feelings depends on whether part of the bet involved them behaving a certain way.
• Reprogramming: Bets can also be geared towards making individuals feel something (ie. if Jake makes the prize of a bet be a girl falling in love with him, she will fall completely in love with him once he wins). In that case, the target will be reprogrammed, though how thorough that reprogramming is depends on the bet.

Phase Four: Post-Wager State (The Cooldown)

• Armor Deactivation: If Jake's body was augmented in phase two, that augmentation will end the second the terms of the bet are fulfilled. Jake’s supernatural protection and biological augmentations will instantly drop. He immediately reverts to a ****, exhausted, and normal human state, leaving him susceptible to the psychological or physical aftermath of his actions.

Chapter One

I lean back, letting the familiar scent of Eric’s basement—stale laundry and cheap air freshener—settle into my lungs.

We used to live down here every weekend until middle school hit, hormones kicked in, and his mom, Samantha, caught me staring at her and his older sister, Jenny. Samantha tried to ban me from Eric’s life after that. It didn't work, but the sleepovers stopped.

I still don't get why she flipped. The whole town stares at them. Jenny had been the head cheerleader at her high school, Prom Queen twice, and is currently signing with several modeling agencies, but even those accolades fail to capture how hot she is.

Samantha, on the other hand, looked like a riper version of her supermodel daughter with even bigger tits and a fatter ass, but at the cost of a slightly looser waistline and a few faint wrinkles. Even still, if Samantha started an OnlyFans today, she’d be a millionaire by midnight.

Sometimes I have this paranoia that the reason Samantha reacted so badly back then wasn't just because she caught me looking—but because she somehow knew exactly what I was fantasizing about doing to both of them. But if she actually knew, I wouldn't be here.

This is a one-time mercy exemption. Eric is heading to Columbia; I’m off to UC Berkeley. East Coast versus West Coast. Wall Street versus Silicon Valley. Neither of us is ever coming back to this dead Midwestern town, and our parents know it. It’s the end of an era, so Samantha made an exception so we could have a final send-off.

To us, that means two-liters of Pepsi, a bag of weed gummies, and a copy of Black Ops 3 that hasn't seen the light of day since junior high. The online servers are long dead, so we're stuck playing local bots on a glitchy split-screen. The nostalgia was great—until I lost three rounds in a row.

"You're fucking kidding me!" I yell, tossing my hands up.

"Dude," Eric hisses, his thumbs still flying across his controller. "Keep it down. Jenny’s asleep in the next room." He shoots me a smug grin. "How’s that dirt taste, by the way?"

"Shut up," I snap, intentionally keeping my voice loud. Half of me is praying Jenny wakes up and walks out here in whatever skimpy negligee she sleeps in. Seeing her in person one last time was half my motivation for coming tonight. "The sensitivity on this stick is trash. And the bots are pre-aiming. It’s rigged."

Eric snorts, leaning back into the couch cushions. "Excuses, excuses."

"Switch controllers with me. I bet you right now I can take five veteran bots solo."

"What are the stakes?" Eric leans in, his eyes gleaming. "Because if you lose, I get a free, unbraced kick square in your nuts."

I flinch, my junk already aching from phantom pain. I’m about to back down when Eric starts nodding his head. "What's the matter, Jake? Chicken?" He lets out a low, rhythmic clucking noise. "Cluck, cluck, Jake. Just take the L."

"Fine," I say, the heat rushing to my face. "You're on. But when I win, I want a pair of Jenny's panties as a trophy."

The words leave my mouth, and I immediately want to take them back.

Creeps have been hitting on Jenny since she was a preteen, and Eric has spent years playing the role of the psycho brother, chasing them off or breaking jaws. I brace myself for a fist to the face. I can already see the domino effect: Eric decks me, throws me out, tells his parents, and our families get into a massive blowout right before we pack for college.

Instead, a slow, dark smile creeps across his face.

"I'm going to enjoy kicking you in the balls," he says, his voice dropping into a low, menacing register that tells me he's dead serious. "I'm holding nothing back. Just for putting her name in your mouth." He slams his controller down onto the coffee table, stands up, and towers over me to snatch mine away. "Enjoy your last moments with your nads, Jake. I'm aiming to rupture something."

Fuck.

"I didn't mean—"

"Save it."

The match countdown ticks down. I wish it would move faster, just so Eric would look at the screen instead of burning a hole through the side of my head. Truth is, the controller wasn't the problem—I just suck tonight. Now I'm sweating, trying to figure out which outcome is worse. If I lose, my future kids are erased from existence. If I win... what then? Maybe losing is better. Maybe a ruptured testicle is a fair price to pay to keep him from telling his parents. Or worse, Jenny.

The match starts while I'm still trying to figure out whether I should throw the match, but the NPCs make the decision for me. They're usually ruthless, aim-botting nightmares, but now they're playing like they’ve been lobotomized. They practically line up in my crosshairs, wandering aimlessly into walls while I rack up headshots. When I stop shooting, they do my job for me, throwing grenades with such abysmal accuracy that they blow each other up without even touching my health bar.

When the green VICTORY screen flashes, I don't celebrate. I slowly turn my head to Eric. His face is turning a hideous shade of purple.

"You don't actually have to get them, you know," I stammer into the heavy silence. "It was a joke. Obviously. What do you take me for, a total creep?" I let out a weak, pathetic laugh.

Eric doesn't join in. He sits there, stone-faced, for three agonizing seconds. Then he stands up.

"This," he says, his nostrils flaring, "is total bullshit."

Without another word, he turns on his heel and marches straight toward Jenny’s bedroom door. I stare in disbelief. He isn't actually doing this. There’s no way.

Eric grabs the doorknob. It’s locked. He bangs his fist hard against the drywall. "Jenny! Wake up!"

The blood drains from my face.

For a half-mad second, I’d assumed he was playing along with the bet—maybe sneaking into the laundry room for a clean pair, or trying to swipe one from her drawer. This is way worse. This is a suicide mission, and he’s dragging me down with him.

"Dude, wait!" I scramble off the couch, my voice a frantic whisper. "I was kidding! It was a joke, man! Don't wake her up, please don't tell her!" I can already picture her face. She already thinks I'm a weirdo; if she hears that I wanted her brother to get me her underwear as a trophy, I’m dead.

Eric ignores me, pounding harder. "Jenny! Come out here! I need a favor."

He’s not stopping. I lunge forward, intending to tackle him away from the door—

Too late.

The lock clicks, and the door swings open. Jenny stands there, squinting into the dim light of the hallway.

A flash of disappointment hits me first—she isn't wearing a skimpy negligee. Instead, she’s in an oversized, vintage Taylor Swift tour shirt. But then my eyes travel down. The hem barely hits her mid-thigh, leaving her long, tanned legs completely bare. My brain immediately fills in the blanks.

She leans against the doorframe, shooting her brother a lethal glare.

"Eric," she groans, her voice thick with sleep. "If this is about the Wi-Fi again, I am literally going to delete your life."

"I actually need a pair of your panties," Eric says. Every inch of his face screams intense discomfort.

Jenny freezes. Confusion flits across her face, rapidly sharpening into pure outrage. She cuts her eyes from him to me, her expression hardening into a cold scowl.

"Is this a joke?" she demands, crossing her arms. "If you woke me up over some pathetic dare, I am going to end you. I have a juice cleanse at seven, Eric. I need my beauty sleep."

"I told him not to wake you!" I blurt out, ****. "I tried to stop him, I swear."

"I wish it were a joke," Eric says, his jaw locked so tight the words barely escape. He won't even look her in the eye. "We made a bet. If he won, he gets a pair of your panties. If I won, I got to break his face. The game glitched. The bots threw. So... you have to give them to him."

Disbelief and disgust flash across Jenny’s face, followed by a sudden, eerie wave of resignation. She scoffs, tossing her head back. "Are you literal trash, Eric? Fine. If I have to fix your stupid mistake, I will. But you are going to pay me back for this," she says, her tone dripping with venom as she locks eyes with her brother. "I don't care how long it takes, you are going to buy me that vintage Chanel bag I wanted, and you're going to clean my car for a year."

"Absolutely," Eric nods quickly, looking sick to his stomach.

Jenny turns her gaze to me, her lip curling into a sneer. "Then I guess there's no point in putting this off. Let's get this over with, pervert."

Without another word, she reaches beneath the hem of her oversized shirt. My breath catches. I watch, completely paralyzed, as a slip of baby-blue silk slides down the length of her long, tanned legs and pools around her ankles. She steps out of them daintily, bending at the knees to hook the lace trim with the tip of her manicured index finger.

She rises in one fluid, model-perfect motion, then flicks the fabric toward me like she’s tossing away a dirty tissue.

She deliberately throws it short. It crumples onto the carpet right between us, forcing me to drop to my knees and scramble forward to scoop up the treasure before it touches the dusty floor. It’s still warm. As I press it into my palm, a faint wave of her perfume hits me—something soft, floral, and wildly expensive.

A second too late, I remember she’s watching.

I look up from the floor. Jenny is staring down at me, pure, unadulterated scorn painted across her features.

"You tried to stop him, huh?" she scoffs, looking down at me as I clutch her silk underwear on the floor. A nasty, mocking laugh slips past her lips. "Look at you on your knees. Pathetic. Don't sniff them while I'm still in the room, you freak."

She spins on her heel, deliberately tossing her hair so it brushes against the doorway as she storms back into her room. As she turns, the hem of her shirt rides up just enough to flash the smooth curve of her bare ass, right before the bedroom door slams shut.

I’m still sitting there on my knees, completely stunned, my fingers tightly gripping the warm blue silk. My eyes are glued to the blank wood of her closed door, my mind reeling from the flash of bare skin she just left me with.

"I hope you're happy with yourself."

The words are a low, dangerous growl.

I snap out of it and look up. Eric is towering over me, his hands balled into tight fists at his sides. The embarrassed, awkward look he had while talking to Jenny is entirely gone. Now, his eyes are dead, locking onto mine with a cold, simmering fury. He looks less like my oldest friend and more like a guy deciding exactly where to bury a body.

I squeeze the trophy in my hand, suddenly wondering if a pair of silk panties is going to be worth the hospital bill.