Why do I have to be god?

You're not becoming god.

It's the power to do anything and know everything. It's god.

Ok, fine, if it makes you feel better you'll be god.

It doesn't. I don't want to be god.

And that's why you should be god.

That doesn't make any sense.

Sure it does. Anyone who wants to be god shouldn't be god.

...ok, fine, it makes sense. Still don't want it.

Again that's a good thing.

I came in here hoping I could get, like, perfectly cooked grilled cheese, or know every 5th question on any standardized test. What should I even do with something like this?

Don't know. That's for god to decide.

You're annoying, you know that?

I have been told. Now then, we are running out of time.

If we run out of time, do I get to not be god?

Nope, sorry. Just take it already. I'd prefer for this to be at least somewhat consensual.

Well it isn't.
Fine. If I blow up the world or erase our timeline or something it's on you.

Well, not on me really, but point taken. Good luck.

Yeah whatever.

This wasn't fair. I looked at the screen in front of me, a screen which should have shown a list of ten to twenty possible powers derived from the genetic test I had to submit last month, but there was only one option. It wasn't even a power I wanted. I briefly wondered what would happen if I refused and told the overseer that I didn't want any power but instead I tapped the only power shown and placed my right wrist into the large machine.

There was a gentle hiss as padded straps tightened to hold my wrist in place and then a sharp stab as I was injected with the accelerant. At school our teacher had warned us that there might be a mild burning sensation, some feverish symptoms or a sense of weakness and that all of those things were perfectly normal but aside from the pain of the needle itself I felt nothing at all. There were a stack of plasters next to the machine and when I was released from the machine's grip I stuck one over my tiny wound glumly before walking away.

Back in the classroom, the air was buzzing with excited conversations. There would have been no point even trying to run a lesson with something this big of a deal happening and so our school hadn't bothered. Nobody tried to ask me which powers I'd been offered or which one I'd chosen. Nobody even noticed that I didn't seem happy with whatever I'd been allowed to pick. Maybe if I'd known the other students better then I would've told someone but I move around a lot. I'd once only been in a school for a single month and at two and a half months, this one wasn't much better. I kept quiet and thought about my next move until it was time to go home.

"What happened at the selection?" my mother asked.

She sounded nervous and just like that any doubts I'd had that she would be as clueless as me were gone.

"You tell me." I replied coldly.

"I don't know wh-"

"My power selection was not normal and you know why. So tell the truth now. I'll know if you don't."

It was a bluff, but telepathy was one of the options for some people. She couldn't have known for a fact that it hadn't been for me.

"What happened?" she asked again and this time I decided to tell her.

"There was only one power on my list. Do you want to tell me why that is?"

She thought about her options. Maybe she was considering whether or not I was bluffing, maybe she was only trying to figure out the best way to tell me - since my power wasn't really telepathy I had no way to know. But in the end, she spoke up.

"Because you've been to your selection before." my mother said.

I tried not to let my face show any emotion but I couldn't fully surpress the feelings of alarm.

"You can't take part in a selection before you're eighteen though." I said.

My voice was level, as if I already knew the things my mother wasn't saying, but in truth I hadn't figured anything out at all.

"You are nineteen." she admitted, "I... changed your age so it would be easier to hide you. But the reason everyone is given a catalyst at the age of eighteen is because if their powers are allowed to develop without prompting then the results are less easy to predict. It can be violent and painful and I didn't know if leaving you to wait until you were a year older would be too late. So at this time last year I enrolled you in a school with the correct age, just that once. Only for long enough for you to be given a catalyst."

My head was swimming.

"Tell me why you had to hide me." I said.

"What power did y-"

"Now!" I yelled.

At this point I think she knew that telepathy was a bluff. But there are other powers out there that could allow me to get what I wanted out of her. Mind reading is one option but for everyone else there is always violence.

"Because you aren't- because some people think you aren't mine." the woman I used to think of as a mother said, "Because I took you away from people who didn't deserve you so I could love you more. Please, tell me what happened."

I felt sick and I couldn't catch my breath.

"One more question," I said shakily, "why don't I remember my first selection?"

I had a suspicion that I already knew the answer but I didn't want to believe it.

"My power is mental manipulation. I removed those memories from you and any others which could have upset or confused you. It was for your own good."

I walked towards the room's closed door.

"It wasn't your choice." I told the woman.

She didn't even apologise, she just looked at me. When she finally spoke it wasn't to say sorry or to try to explain.

"What power did you get?" she asked for the final time.

I opened the door and there was nothing beyond it. Not an empty corridor but literally just endless nothingness and darkness.

"The same as yours. I wonder why I picked it. Maybe I figured out what you'd done to me and thought this was my best option to get some answers but you wiped my memory before I had a chance. But this time I got to you first. None of this conversation has been in the real world. I needed to be sure that I could get some honesty out of you so I put you in a little room inside your head whilst we figured things out."

The woman panicked and I could tell that she was trying to control me right back but it didn't work with her locked away like this.

"I don't think you understand that what you did was wrong, that my memories were not things you had any right to play with. But I think that before I hand you over to the authorities that I can make you understand that.

Now where should I start?"

“Hey, kid. So, uh, I know this will be disheartening, but all of the kids before you had already taken all powers. I’m really sorry. But, the good news is, we still managed to save one power left just for you. Is it alright?”

It would be a lie if I said I’m not disappointed, but what else can I do?

“It’s alright”, I looked down to my feet, “I’ve already expected it.” I’ve known beforehand that I will be the last to choose my power. It’s a disadvantage for those who were born in December, we weren’t left with many choices. All the early kids had hogged up most of the cool powers. I guess that's just unfortunate for me.

The guide lady looked at me with pity, but seeing my calm expression, she didn't know what more to say. She walks over to the sealed container, pressing the code buttons one by one. The lid slowly opens, letting out a wisp of smoke, and from a distance I can see her taking out a crystal glowing with purple, no larger than a pea.

“So, what is my power?”, I question out loud.

“It will be postcognition.”

“Huh?”, I shot up my eyebrows, “Postcognition? As in, the ability to see one’s past?”

“Yes. You don’t like it?”

“No, it’s not that”, I waved my hands, “I mean, I think it’s a really beneficial power, how come no one wanted it?”

The lady shrugged, “How can I know? Most children prefer the power of flight, super speed or even precognition. They weren’t all that into history”, she then eyed me from head to toes, “Hmm... You seemed interested, I assume?”

“Yeah. I actually planned to major in history and classics in university, so this power can be quite handy.”

“Well lucky you. Now come here and take your gift.”

When I headed over, she placed the crystal in my hand, along with a glass of water and instructed, “Swallow it whole with water, imagine it’s candy. Do not keep it in your mouth, it won’t dissolve.”

“This ritual has a really high choking hazard”, I joked, before putting it in my mouth and chucking down the entire glass of water.

I closed my eyes as I felt the warmth rising up in my stomach, taking in the expanding heat as I absorbed the power.

A minute went by, then a second, then I opened my eyes again.

“Well?”, the lady smiled, “How are you feeling right now?”

I smiled back at her, “I know what you did last summer.”

"This isn't a power." The young man argued to a taller female.

She was of immense size, easily doubled his height. Her skin was covered in scales and fingers replaced by claws. Her glare could make the heartbeat of a lion stop and her roar could make a croc dive under water for cover. At present time she was picking her sharp teeth with her claws while chiding her student.

"Yes, it is if you've got a brain. I've taught you better than that. Besides, this is just the first one. You get another one at 21."

"Yeah, but you taught me to use martial arts and sword fighting. What use is affluence?"

"Oh, there's a use. You're just being stupid as usual and not thinking about it. I'm sure it will come to you later Slone. Don't bother me until it does." She waved him off before disappearing in a blur.

There he was left alone with this thought. Punching the wall out of annoyance and anger. She always talked down to him and he hoped he could finally be her equal today, but it was his own fault really. He pestered and begged her to take him on as a student... so far so he risked his own life to do it. Now, was his chance to prove himself. Stupid power or not. His brain raced as he made his way home.

Wrapped up in his thoughts, he was almost home when his phone dinged. One of the channels he liked on Clock Shock posted a new video. This time something about setting buzzers on people's doorknobs and watching them come home to it. It was childish, but it made him laugh. Astounding, how such a concept was raking in so many views. Even more mindboggling was the fact this channel got paid to show such simple things. I mean he could do the same with a camera and a...

The thought rang in his brain. Affluence huh? Taking very little time, he signed into his account to create his first video. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he needed to test his theory. The record button was hit and all he said was "Hi" before ending the video.

That's it. There was nothing else to it. Surely, he'd be proven wrong right?

Yet his phone pinged again and again and again. One thousand views in under a minute coupled with a message from the platform to monetize with them.

Making money is so easy. With funds like this I could live an easy life and finance in whatever I wanted to do. I could start a business, purchase stocks, or I could...

Another light bulb went off in his brain. He searched through his contacts and found Generys's name.

"What do you want kid? I'm kind of busy here." His teacher said sipping some sort of liquid.

A small smile formed on his lips as he said, "I figured it out teach."

In Jamestown there is no crime. When the residents reach the age of 18 they go to the town hall, a large building where you can find statues of muscular men and women. They choose a power from a select list of powers.

Manuel was greatly disappointed when he saw that he had only 1 power to choose. He knew what that meant: With the power to fly he would have to do the job of being a weather balloon. 2 years later he is fed up being a weather balloon. He is telling his wife Rylie, who with superhuman strength and a superintellect is working in the construction industry that he is going to go to Eastontown where the council of superpowers is located and tell them that his power is shit and he will stop doing the job of being a weather balloon.

"Fine" she said while leaning on a table which has a tablecloth in a red white checkered pattern. And so Manuel spent the rest of his days unemployed and he never even flew again due to being upset of having been a weather balloon.

“Alex, please enter the selection room,” A woman says, sitting outside a room.

The time is finally here! I get to choose my power from the great list! Maybe i’ll get the power of fire, like my mother or the power of reading minds like my father. The possibilities are endless! I get up and enter the small cold room. In the center of the room there was a metal gray table with a piece of paper, and a quill. I hold my breath as I slowly grab the magical quill. As soon as I touched the quill, I could feel such immense power as golden dust surrounded me. I look at the paper ahead of me with a goofy smile as I could see golden text appearing on the paper. The process soon ended as the golden dust disappeared.

Wait…

This has to be a mistake. Why is there only one option on the paper… I was always taught that there would be thousands to choose. My parents always told me how they could have been shapeshifters or speedsters.

I close my eyes tightly, shaking my head a couple times. I pinched myself, making sure I wasn’t imagining the very few words on the magic paper.

‘Maybe the list is on the back,’ I thought to myself.

I grab the paper, flipping it to see if I missed anything. What kind of cruel joke was this?

I sighed and look at the one option presented to me. I circled the golden text with a quill, sealing my fate.

‘The power to create easy decisions,’ the text read.

I headed into the building. It was the day we all get the power that we would wait on. Of course there's a traffic jam today- all the other 18 year olds head in. I see some people had camped out, raring to go, but of course my parents wouldn't let me do it. By the time it was there, I had to end up at the end of the line, waiting for hours. Finally, when I got into the building, I waited to see it.

"We're sorry, every other power but one was taken already. We're out of literally everything else, it's take it or...well, actually because everyone's required one power, you can't even take it or leave it. Sit down and get the power."

I looked at them. "Well, maybe it won't be fine...let me see the computer.

I looked and was shocked.

"My power is...you're the worst?" The people nodded.

"Yep. Your power is that you're the worst. At everything. You will be the single worst person in existence at everything you do."

"The worst at everything?"

"Yep. No matter what metric we use, you will be the single worst at it."

"Okay. So I have everything against me. I can build on this."

"No...no you can't. If you have a visible weakness you can't build on, you might actually be able to work hard to make it a strength or at least use it to build some character. You don't even get that...well, even if you did, you'd just fail miserably at it. You'll have nothing wrong with you on paper, but you'll just be the worst at everything."

"So I'm going to end up a villain?"

"Well, no...or, not unless you already are a villain. You're just...the worst at everything."

"Though it really wouldn't matter if you DO become a villain or not, since if you tried to be a hero or a villain, you'll just be destined to fail miserably at it. The whole...you're the worst...thing again."

I smiled.

"Well, that's great. I can just use this bad luck and try to succeed, and then fail in a way I get what I want to happen! I can build on this..."

"No, no, it doesn't even work that way. If you try to do the opposite of what you want, you're still trying something, so it'll manage to fail in a way you still don't get what you want. Again, you're the worst at planning too."

"So, that's basically it? I have nothing to hope for? Just sit back and accept life sucks and just do nothing..."

"Oh, no. Your dreams going unfulfilled goes even further than that. They'll be unfulfilled so even on the smallest level it'll fail. If something happens that is good for you, then it's a complete and utter fluke that would happen- and better- for everyone else."

"Well, what the hell power is this then?"

"Don't you see? Because you're the worst person at everything, you'll serve as a beacon of light for the rest of the world."

"Life...it's tough. A power doesn't change that every life has some hardships in it. No matter what you can do or do not do in life, you'll always have something go wrong in life and you'll have problems."

"That's where you come in. No matter how bad someone else's life is, no matter what adversity or hardship comes into someone's life, they will always be able to look at you and say 'this is bad, but at least I'm not THAT guy'...and then they'll realize they've still got some good things in life, and that this too shall pass."

"So, you serve a purpose, no matter how bad it looks. Anyway, take your power and go. Live your life. And remember. As bad as life seems, it can't get any worse than it already is."

I left the room. As I left, I heard some whispers.

"You think he caught on we don't have any powers to give?"

"No one else has ever caught on..."

Everyone was already giggling and laughing at me when I finally came out of the machine. They all had already chosen their powers and since I was the last one to receive mine, word quickly got around on what the last choice was.

"Hey Faron, CATCH THIS!" Shouted Hughie, the school bully.

As he spoke, snow began to emit from his hands which then took the form of a sphere, once the shape was complete, he chucked the snowball towards my head.

I felt the complete brunt of the cold and heavy impact of the snowball which made me fall down the ground with a big thud.

"That's it! everyone go back to your classes this instant, you have all received your abilities, thus Holden High School's Gifting Day is over!" Shouted the principal in a booming voice, not even caring to look at me.

Everyone slowly left as they made remarks and jokes on my absolutely lame power.

----2 days later----

"YOU BASTARD! WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?!?!"

I turned around with a big smirk on my face while, there he was, the school's own Ice king, Hughie, walking towards me with an extremely furious scowl.

"I'LL TEACH YOU A LESSON FOR CALLING ME A SNOW BRAIN YOU PATHETIC PIECE OF GARBAGE!!!!!" He yelled as he began to materialize several large icicles in the air all pointed towards me.

Everyone in the school grounds looked at the scene in fear, some with pity and disdain, no one dared to stop him, not even the teachers who were passing by and only looked at the commotion with a deep sigh of sorrow.

"Take This!" Hughie said as he telekinetically launched the icicles straight towards me.

The icicles only managed to reach the half the target's distance when suddenly they instantly melted and fell onto the floor as a small puddle of water before completely vaporizing.

"W-w-what-t-t!" Hughie said with his mouth dropped wide open in utter awe as he saw me ignite into a ball of flames.

My large baggy military jeans and loose sweater were immediately incinerated as they revealed a small complex mechanical device strapped to my chest with tubes and motors stretching till my arms and legs, the machine glowed a dark orange colour as it released another wave of intense heat.

"Hey asshole, did you ever realize that with enough prep time, a genius could destroy a superpowered king like you, I even had to make a special heat resistant protein just to use this bad boy on you." I said while laughing.

Man, why do idiots think Hyper Intelligence is a weak power?

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