The Showdown

"Not gods!" Diana said, taking a half step back. "Having power doesn't make you a god!"

"Does it not? I'd say that it's the very definition of it. Absolute power. The power to do what you want, no matter what. With a pencil, I could kill every living being in this college, and I could make the world forget they had ever existed. I could erase them from history, or change them all so much that they were totally different people. I could make them my slaves, or my army."

He turned to face her, and Diana saw Gordon properly for the first time. He looked to be about her own age. His skin looked like it had been pale at one point, but he'd been out in the sun a lot recently, and gotten a tan. He was muscular, his body was honed almost to the point of being superhuman in physique. His proportions were perfect, literally perfect in that Diana was one hundred percent sure that he'd used the rulebook to reshape himself. He had copper hair, bound into a ponytail, and blue eyes which sparkled as he spoke. His voice was firm and commanding, and his smile was handsome, like a dagger in your soul which made you want to follow along with every word he said. He was wearing a loose brown jacket and a pair of dark trousers.

"How much of you is real?" Diana asked. "How much did you change with the rulebook?"

"That's a silly question," He said, "All of me is real. That's the power that we possess. But if you mean how much did I change? All of me! That was one of the first things that I did. Why should I be bound by genetics when I can mould my body and shape it into any form that I desire? Look at me, Diana, am I not handsome? Commanding? Strong? Is it wrong to be these things? Wrong for me to seek them through the rulebook?"

"No..." Diana said, "I suppose not...

She bristled suddenly, remembering what the person before her had done.

"You're treating other people as things! You said that they don't matter, that they don't have free will, and what you did to Lisa! How can you stand there like that, so uncaring? Don't you feel any sort of regret, or did you tear that out too when you made your new body?"

"Other people are things." Gordon said, "They don't matter. They don't have meaning. They're toys to be used, puppets to dance to our songs. How can they have free will when any one of us can rewrite them with a single thought? How can they matter when we can change them so utterly, so completely? You're asking me to treat them like people, but they're not Diana. They're shadows, clay humans to be torn down and rebuilt as we like them."

Diana took a step back once more, seeing the look on his face.

"You really believe that, don't you?"

"Of course I do. It's the simple truth. Let me put it this way. A rulebook lets you alter fate. Destiny itself is yours to command. The moment that even one such item exists, the rest of the world is merely a toy to its wielder. You see? The rulebook rewrites destiny and reality, so what is free will to that? Free will means nothing, it can be overridden as simply as writing a sentence. I can take a person who hates me, and turn them into a lover in a few moments, and they will never have known anything else. Their history, their personality and their very existence can be changed, altered or even erased. Nothing about them is permanent, nothing can resist our power.

"Do you not see? Their existence has no purpose. Anything that they do, we can undo a thousand times more easily. Anything they accomplish is transient, existing only as long as we allow it. So long as this is true, their lives have no meaning, the only purpose they could ever truly know is a purpose we give them because only we are truly permanent. Their suffering, joy or pleasure matter only as much as we allow it to. Only as much as we care for it. We are gods to them, and they are shadows to us."

"That's not true!" Diana said, feeling herself growing more and more enraged by his blatant disregard for others. "Having more power doesn't make you a better person! Yes, we have the rulebooks, but that doesn't make us gods! If we were gods, we wouldn't need them! You're just high off your own power, acting like someone who has never been **** to confront their own failings. You've used your rulebook to change the world, to change your body, to make yourself feel like a god, but you're not, if you were a god, you wouldn't be hanging around some random college, would you? You wouldn't be getting off on Lisa's situation, would you? You wouldn't have trapped her and made her stay a ****!

"Just because the rulebooks exist, it doesn't mean that people don't matter. I can see how you came to believe that... it's so easy to use them to change people, to alter them into whole new people. And you don't want to feel guilty about doing it, because you basically just killed someone, so you tell yourself it doesn't matter. Freewill doesn't exist, and you have the right to do what you want, well...power doesn't equal right! Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean that you should do it."

She felt her hands ball into fists at her side as she growled at him, his too perfect face, his too perfect body, and his voice which made you want to melt into butter. Like a damned dream, like something that stepped out of some fantasy, a person who could never exist in a world without powers like the rulebooks. That was one of the first times in her life that Diana had ever truly felt hatred for someone.

"People have value! Intrinsic value! Their joys and sorrows matter to them! Maybe you stride above them like a titan, but what does that matter to those who will never know? To them, their lives are everything, their failures and their victories, their successes and their mistakes, they matter, they give their lives meaning. Power doesn't equal worth, and a tool like a rulebook doesn't grant you the authority to warp the world into some sick fantasy. It merely gives you the ability to."

"You say that," Gordon commented, "But was it not one of you who changed the world first? Who created a system of college sex slaves, women **** to endure **** and humiliation, and **** the world to accept it?"

Diana shuddered as if slapped, feeling his words drill into her.

"You're right..." She said slowly, "We did do that. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do. We didn't set out to hurt anyone, and mostly we didn't, except for poor Stacy and Lisa, which was more your fault than ours."

"But you warped people." Gordon said, "You made them accept it. You made it a part of their history, you made even those who would normally oppose the concept as evil see it as morally good. In other words, you acted as a god. You disregarded the opinions of the rest of the world, of all those who would die before allowing such a thing, and you **** them into an existence wherein they support it wholeheartedly, ignoring their prior stance. Many would literally die - or kill - before allowing college sex slaves to exist, but you stole that choice from them. You ranked your own right to choice above theirs, and decided that you and your sister were more important. Your desire to have sex and explore your fetishes was more important to you than their morality or deeply held convictions. That's shameful."

"Don't you shame us!" Diana snapped, "We may have started the ball rolling, you're right, but you were the one who made it so we couldn't stop it! You and your rulebook are more responsible than we are!"

"That's true," Gordon conceded, "But to me, those people are merely puppets and playthings. To you, they're real people. I twist them because I don't care about them except in relation to me, but you truly do seem to care... and yet you twisted them anyway. My actions were greater, but your guilt is deeper."

Diana closed her eyes, she could feel Gordon's words slamming into her, battering her body as if they were blows. The sheer conviction and power with which he spoke hammered his points in like a spike to her brain. It didn't matter that she knew his charisma was a result of the rulebook, she still felt it. Arguing with him was hard because he made it so part of you wanted him to be right. He was so good, so perfect, so beautiful, a superior being. Who you were, a flawed, pathetic human, to argue with him? What gave you the right to debate with a god?

But he wasn't a god, and she had to keep reminding herself of that. Even if what he said might be a little bit too accurate for comfort when it came to using people. Even if she and Lisa probably could have thought it out more, even if he had a point in some places, he was still the closest thing to genuine evil she had ever seen. Someone who had gotten so carried away with the rulebook, so immersed in its power that he genuinely didn't think of other people as human anymore. Only himself and only what he wanted mattered to him.

She had to stop him. She had to find a way to stop him.

Diana's eyes snapped open, her resolve hardening. She would do whatever it took.

"Let's quite the chatter," She said to him, "It's pretty clear we're going to disagree. And it's pretty clear you never wanted to be friends in the first place. What do you really want, Gordon?"

"Well, isn't that a question?" He asked with a laugh, "What do I want? Everything. What do I want that I cannot get for myself with the stroke of a pen? Almost nothing. But there is one thing, Diana. One thing which is very dear to me. My own survival. You see, you asked before why I hide in this college, well, it's because I am not the only one of our kind. There are others like us. Rulebooks have existed since the ancient world, did you know? People have gained them all throughout human history. And usually, they fight, or do something stupid and get killed or have their book taken off them. But sometimes, they are smart, and survive. They use their rulebook to grow stronger, to become immortal, and they become rather difficult to unseat.

"I am young." Gordon admitted with a shrug, "My rulebook came to me only three years ago. The others are older and stronger than I. If I were to face them, I fear that I would not be long for this world. Worse, since I am so young, they would likely take the chance to get rid of me before I could mature into something that actually threatened them, you see? This college is my little sanctuary, small enough to be out of the way, but large enough for me to have people with which to toy and play as my strength grows. Make no mistake, I don't intend to be here forever, just long enough that I am no longer easy pickings to the old ones.

"Now, you're probably wondering why I bothered you and your sister. Firstly, because your idea was absolutely glorious, and I fucking loved it. College sex slaves! Amazing! But secondly, and rather sadly, the same thing that applies to me and the older ones applies between me and you as well. You see, I'm far too young, and far too weak to allow someone so close with the same power as me. You might grow stronger, or become a threat. So I had to move to remove you before you caught up.

"By making your college sex **** system permanent, I was able to bait out the one of you who had the rulebook, and now I know who you are and have you right in front of me."

He gestured with one hand, and Diana saw a bag that he had placed on the floor before she arrived shudder. There was a blur of motion, and a rulebook emerged, rising into the air, and gently floating to his outstretched hand. True to his god complex, Gordon's pen was a bolt of thunder which flashed from the air be caught by his hand, and shrink into the size of a pen.

"I am truly sorry, Diana." He said, "If you had come about in another fifty years, maybe I'd take you as a student. But as it is, you're a threat to me and my power, so I am going to be sending you crashing back to the mud people. Back to just being a toy. Don't worry, though, you've caught my interest, so I'll be sure to play with you plenty in the coming years."

"That's not happening!" Diana snapped, her own hand went to her bag, and returned with her rulebook, which she flipped open, pencil in hand, she glared at Gordon, the two of them squaring up like old west gunslingers, only far more deadly, and far more confusing for someone who just happened to catch a glimpse of the sight. "I'm not stupid, I made the same sort of rules you did. Nothing you write can effect me."

"Oh, is that so?" He gave a wry smile, "Not you perhaps, but what about Lisa?"