Strapped 2

[WP] Upon returning home from your job as a security officer, you are assailed by a man dressed in all black. He misses and slices his sword through your car like it is tissue paper. "I am Reaper, Black Blade of the Crimson Edge of the Illuminati. Prepare to --" You shoot him in the face.

******

It took ‘Reaper’ a while to respond, possibly because he was seething with anger. But then, I saw holes begin to appear in his throat, at the site of his vocal cords precisely. And prickly vines began to grow out of them, choking him and causing him to sputter and cough. I felt that this was also a punishment of some sort, but what penance was this for?

“I- I can… I can g-grant you –“he struggled to utter the words while the vines continued growing, entering his nose and coming out through his ears. His head began to look purple, and the veins that were prominent turned blue. Cyanosis of the lips then ensued as he fell to the ground, struggling for breath and not getting any.

And then, like clockwork, the vines disappeared, and he coughed blood as he struggled to get back to his feet. The purpose of the torture was to put his brain and entire system under pressure, simulating death, and indeed taking him to the very edge, before bringing him back. It was obvious that this man could not die. But pain> He could feel it, at least as he was, and experience it to the fullest.

“Why did that happen to you?” I asked.

“Da-“he caught himself, wondering if there was also a punishment for swearing at me. I laughed inwardly, seeing how his situation was somewhat akin to mine. There was hardly anything I could do in the tiny box of a life I was living, and there were harsh consequences for trying to do something out of the box.

“It’s punishment, Master. There is a fifteen-second interval between the time you issue an instruction and the time I commence the execution of that instruction, and if I do not act within that interval, at the sixteenth second… well, that happens,” he said, sighing and rubbing his neck.

“Since when, and how did I get that much control as to issue commands which you have to obey unfailingly? With an interval too. When did that start?” I asked, genuinely confused yet making sure my delivery if those questions were borderline rude, just to see how far I could push this being, and what were the limits to which he could react.

“Since I made a huge mistake borne out of stupidity and exuberance, and got killed by you. That’s since when I made myself a bit more human for interaction with this world and being without any real stringent rules on my actions in this world, I went on a rampage, killing people to draw more energy. However, because I don’t fall under the jurisdiction of most supernatural bodies, my rules are a bit different. To make myself able to interact with this world, I had to take away some of my invincibility, making me more human than usual.”

I nodded. “So when I shot you in the face, you died for real?”

“Yes, the human part of me, which was about 75% me at the tiME died. But the new rules governing my existence are strange, and they stipulate that I now be e=bounded to you as a slave. That, Master, is how we got to this point.”

I laughed. It had been so long since something good happened to me. I had had my fair share of strange, disastrous happenings, and perhaps even a double helping at times, but here I was, having the upper hand, and some level of control over something, or someone in this case. How much more was I in control of?”

“What can you do?” I asked. “I’m thinking of taking your abilities for a spin, see how much I can do with it, but I need to know what you can do first. Let me know if this is a blessing or a curse.”

He stood eyeing me for a few seconds, probably wishing that he could kill me or that he killed me then, but that was a prayer said too late. “You’re not permitted to die until you state that you wish to. As the reaper of the Illuminati, I can grant you riches, power, and fame, as you so wish to. And lastly, you can control the level of consciousness, life or death people have. You can command me to kill someone, render them unconscious, you know, stuff like that.

“What’s the catch? All that power isn’t free, even a simple-minded man like me knows that much,” I said skeptically, raising one eyebrow.

“I don’t know what the cost would have been, but you paid for it by killing me then. I’m your slave until you wish to die, basically, and I can grant you everything I mentioned to you. So, Master,” he seethed, hating the very word. “What would you like to do?”

I smiled. That was a dangerous amount of power in the hands of a former side character like me.

“All of it,” I smiled maniacally, already scheming. “I want all of it.”

*****

THE END.