[ WP ] Everyone is given a superpower of their choice , but if two people have the same power they must fight to the death . You choose the only one that is unbeatable and , after mastering it , meet someone else with it .

`` Karen, what the helllllll izzz...'' says my boyfriend, then he melts into a puddle of fleshy slag before he can finish that thought. 
 
 `` God damn it, Sarah!'' I shout, as I pull out my own Tome and start writing furiously. `` Where are you, you cowardly little bitch?'' I shout. But I know she is n't going to come out voluntarily, so I quickly jot out a Command to reveal her to me. 
 
 The ceiling cracks, then crumbles away and Sarah comes plummeting through from the apartment above with an indignant shriek which ends abruptly as she hits the sofa with a woof of expelled breath and her Tome smacks into her forehead for good measure. She looks at me in a mixture of indignation and surprise. 
 
 `` Why are n't you a puddle!?'' she asks, then glances across the room and sees what's left of Richard. She makes a tsk'ing sound. `` Oh. Dear. God. Please tell me you did n't write that he loved you so much he would die for you?'' 
 
 `` Jealous much?'' I ask, and start writing my next Argument. 
 
 Sarah begins scribbling her Counterargument. `` As IF,'' she replies as an afterthought. `` And for the record, *I* dated him first.'' 
 
 `` Maybe,'' I concede, `` But *I* was the best he ever had.'' She wordlessly shrieks then continues madly writing in her Tome. 
 
 Thing is, we are n't really just escalating a feud here. We picked the same power, and so the law requires us to keep fighting until one of us is dead. I thought I had it all figured out: The pen is mightier than the sword, and all that jazz. Imagination is the most powerful superpower of them all, I figured. Trouble is, I might have had this conversation with my *former* best friend Sarah during a drunken girls night out, and she's a shameless airhead copycat who apparently tried to steal my idea without thinking through the consequences. 
 
 I momentarily disrupt her ability to write by turning the sofa into a bucking bronco, but Sarah was a gymnast back in high school and sticks the dismount, while never quite losing her grip on her Tome. She counters by having a tree spring out of the carpet in the middle of my living room knocking my Tome out of my grip and sending it spinning through the front window in a shattering spray of glass. 
 
 `` Ha!'' she shouts thinking she's got an easy victory now. That, of course, is where it pays to have been the first to think up the idea. You see, *I* actually know how my chosen power works. It does n't depend on the Tome specifically. The power centers around Writing, not writing *in* a particular book. But Sarah has n't figured that out yet; I have. I open the drawer of my desk and pull out a spiral bound notebook and a fresh pen. 
 
 Sarah laughs at my improvisation until the next few lines I write cause the coatrack to spring to life and smack her on the back of the head. `` Ow!'' she comments brilliantly, but the look on her face says that it's finally clicking in her brain that I'm not de-powered by the loss of my Tome. Then she hastily scrambles to write out her next move. 
 
 She writes something very large, and I can see her underscoring it several times. She turns and smirks at me and holds it up for me to read. It simply says: 
 
 _WHY DO N'T YOU JUST DIE! _ 
 
 I try to figure out what this means in terms of our powers. Does that count as a Command, or an Argument? The wording is sort of wrong for either, but... then I look down at my skin and notice the rot starting to form on the flesh of my arms. I try to say the words `` Oh, you f**king bitch!'' but the words wo n't form right as my tongue flops around in my mouth like it's not connected properly. Instead, I growl in frustration, and it comes out like an undead moan. 
 
 I hastily scrawl in my notebook, being careful to form the words because the numbness in my fingers makes it hard to write properly. It's not very original, I know, but I have n't got time to make my suddenly sluggish brain think of something better. In desperation I write: 
 
 **YOU** DIE! 
 
 And suddenly Sarah is likewise a sprawling garden of rotted flesh blooming across the face that she's always been a little too proud of and spreading down her neckline into that minimal valley she calls cleavage ( the poor thing was never very well endowed, and now what she's got is pretty gross, I must say ). I see her turn to look at herself in my decorative wall mirror and she tries to scream, but it comes out as a gurgle instead. 
 
 While this keeps her neatly distracted, I continue to write as best I can. My fine motor control is suffering due to rapid onset rigor mortis, but I manage to write a few precious words that quickly serve as a Modifier to my condition: A brilliant solution to a sorry problem, if I do say so myself. 
 
 Sarah turns to me and shouts something that would be practically unintelligible to the living, but I can tell what she's saying, if only because it's what I would be saying in her position. I quirk my mouth into a smile and feel some of the flesh ripping and falling away to reveal the jawline underneath making my smile into a ghastly rictus. 
 
 But at least with my recent Modification, my voice is back under my control, even if I can not make it do more than a whisper. I respond to her by saying: `` Not a **bitch**, dearie, a **lich**!'' She thinks about this a little too long ( her brain is still seized up in zombie mode, you'll recall ), and it gives me time to flex my new found lich powers to conjure up a fireball in the hand not holding the notebook and lob it in her direction. 
 
 The resulting explosion vaporizes my coffee table and recliner, but sends Sarah hurtling backwards and out the third story window. I would like to say it sends her to her death, but it is, after all, a little too late for that, is n't it? I hurry out the door and glide down the stairs to the front door of the apartment complex. I've still got my notebook in hand, and I am still writing new changes into my situation as I walk. 
 
 I emerge from the apartment complex to find Sarah on her feet, staggering toward the building, looking around frantically as she tries to figure out where her Tome has gone. She wo n't find it because it is still on the floor of my living room where she dropped it. But just when I am overconfident of my victory, she spots *my* lost Tome laying on the ground where her tree summons knocked it, and she begins an awkward zombie shuffle towards it. 
 
 But by now, the latest changes I have written in my notebook have taken effect, overwriting my last reality with a new one of my choosing. And this time, I have reached back into the pastimes of my misspent youth, emerging from the building in an olive green tanktop and skin tight khaki shorts, draw the twin 45's from their hip holsters and send an endless stream of bullets into the staggering zombie Sarah tearing her to shreds before finally making the headshot that terminates the undead magic animating her. 
 
 Blowing the smoke away from the barrels, I holster my endless repeaters and then walk across to claim my Tome. I scribble a few quick ammendments to my current look which returns me to my usual day time attire. As I walk back to my apartment, I tap the pen thoughtfully under my chin and muse: Tomb raider to tome writer? 
 
 Oh God no! Thank heavens I did n't commit that one to paper! 

