Consensus, Day 4-1: MORE.

“Oh great, you’re that next-door trollop, here to attack me again just like you did two days ago!”

“What!? No! I didn’t attack you, you attacked me! And stop calling me that word, I don’t even know what it means!”

Christina rewinded the tape.

“Oh great, you’re that next-door trollop, here to attack me again just like you did two days ago!”

Once more for good measure.

“Oh great, you’re that next-door trollop, here to attack me again just like you did two days ago!”

“Got you, sneaky little devil,” Christina spoke as if finally swatting a fly that had been buzzing around her for days. With one of her mind-controlled mooks reporting that they had spotted an interesting interaction during Howard Grove’s trip to the grocery store, she had to drop everything to witness and thoroughly dissect such a claim—and it did not disappoint. “Howard Grove may be a lot of things, but he’s not one to lie about events… as much as his interpretation may differ from reality.”

She then chuckled to herself. “But I suppose that means little. Reality can be whatever I want now. I’ve made it my little bitch.”

She extended her hand forward, a well-manicured index finger tapping the monitor of her high-end PC. Formerly a company laptop, Christina didn’t approve of the reality of her situation and so with a bit of Tessa’s power and Mabel’s manipulation, she made the world bend over backwards to her desire. But she wasn’t satisfied with just a superior computer, company money could get her that. What she wanted was for reality to give her something money couldn’t buy.

When her fingernail touched down upon the surface, the normally stationary solid screen rippled like a pond’s water from the first raindrop of a storm. Her finger continued into the static, now matching the lower quality of the security camera as her entire body slowly slipped into the screen. The world around her was now heavily saturated, nearly black and white with its quality. But Christina had done it, through a bit of reality manipulation she was now in the world of the past.

The strange, staticy world remained paused as she crawled through the camera in the top corner of the store. Using telekinesis to float down, her feet touched solid ground simply because she willed it to be so. Even though the camera was limited to one angle and grainy quality, Christina could now get a full 3D, high quality look at the scene from any perspective she wanted.

Her pristine body sauntered past the frozen shoppers, humming to herself without a care in the world even as the tones echoed ominously in the void around her. This manipulated camera world was cold and hollow, but Christina couldn’t care less. She was on a mission, and she was going to have fun while doing so.

“C’moooooon,” Christina lazily prodded at the paused facsimile of the unknown powered-up girl, demanding that she respond even though such a possibility was out of her limitations. She could merely explore this world, interacting with it was still a great unknown.

But upon obtaining a good look at the girl’s face, Christina’s eyes widened in surprise. “Holy shit… Violet!?”

The bulky body and height were new additions, but the face was unmistakable. That was Violet from 5th grade. A rather shy, unremarkable girl, only occupying space within Christina’s perfect memory due to the wheelchair she was always rattling around in. It had to be her. Howard Grove’s boost turning her from that into this lined up perfectly.

A snap of her fingers and Christina was back in the real world, satisfied with her findings. Traveling into a security camera was mere child’s play. Now, it was time to put her reality manipulation to the test.

She held out a lithe finger in front of her, pointing to the exact spot in the corner of her office where she’d like the person of interest to be generated. The world catered to her whims, slowly spawning in Violet from Christina’s memories. Only, therein lied the problem—it was only the Violet from her memories. The confused blonde was not the beefy beaut spotted in the camera footage, but instead the younger, wheelchair-bound 5th grader who began to panic as she looked around the room.

“Huh? Where am I? What happened to Mr. Brown’s classroom?” the younger Violet asked, only for her to scream in agony as a mix of Christina’s telekinesis and reality manipulation caused her to painfully disintegrate with a wave of the business woman's finger.

Christina sighed. “Alas, this is merely another step of the scientific method. It seems that I will have to approach this, like always, by myself.” The keys of her laptop then moved without her physical input, adding a new line to the very detailed document involving each of her new abilities.

• As hypothesized, Reality manipulation is limited to senses and memories. I cannot manifest that which I know nothing of currently.

She grunted in disappointment. Even powers that would make superman blush were not enough for her. Sure, she could summon Howard Grove all she wanted to make herself prettier and stronger, but that wouldn’t bring the newly-upgraded Violet before her.

Not to mention, she didn’t even know what the blonde’s powers were. They could’ve been anything from temperature manipulation to merely the ability to walk again. Not something Christina could discount outright, but she was beginning to suspect there was little in the way of unique powersets that could pose a threat to her with Mabel’s powerset under her belt.

“Ms. Atelier!” came one of the many men under her control, bursting into her office with breaking news.

“Make it snappy. I have matters to attend to!”

“We did as you told! We took a high-quality photo of Mae’s house and cross-referenced it to GPS coordinates!”

“Ah, excellent. The B-team’s investigation is complete. You are all of little use to me now, return to your stations and await further orders. This will not take long at all.”

“Yes ma’am!”

Carefully sealing a photo of her office into an envelope and slipping it into her back pocket, she held the picture of Mae’s house up to her face for careful inspection. Lifting up an endlessly long leg, her pencil skirt strained as she stepped into the photo, perspective be damned. Cool autumn air rushed across her face as she completed the move, of which she took a deep breath to savor. She had done it. This was not a simple facsimile of the real world, she had physically teleported to the location in the photo—right in front of Mae’s house.

She wasted no time savoring the moment. The sooner she could rid the world of another nuisance the faster she could make with ruling it. She deserved to be at the top, those who did not utilize their powersets to their fullest potential simply did not deserve them.

Locked doors were nothing to her. A mix of telekinesis and reality manipulation on her part peeled the front of the house open like an orange, allowing Christina to walk calmly into Mae’s property without breaking her stride.

“Wh-what the… who the hell are you!? Wh-what did you just do to the front of the house!?” Darius exclaimed from the kitchen, fixing himself an extra late breakfast.

“Where is Mae?” Christina asked calmly, though a hint of impatience was already growing within her voice.

“M-my wife? Y-you’re looking for my wife?” Darius asked, his stuttering voice as annoying as it was fearful.

“No, I’m talking about Mae Jemison” she replied sarcastically, already checking several of the rooms around her without waiting for his response. Her telekinesis split all of the wood paneling around the bathroom, she grew her body to the point where her head and bust broke through the ceiling to the second level, where she then used reality manipulation to make every wall on the top floor see-through.

Mae was nowhere to be seen.

Christina shrunk back down to her new normal height “Ah, let me guess, she’s off on her noble little mail trail? Pointlessly squandering her gifts?”

“Um, I-I suppose? Damn, you were really here for her? I thought it was for all the insane scalping I was doing online.”

Christina turned up her nose haughtily. “Jesus, did I even get the right house? Mae is seriously waaay out of your league. She could do so much better than some frightened, terminally-online weirdo.”

“Hey, fuck you, lady! I’ll have you know, I’m the moneymaker of the house here! So why don’t you show me a little respe—”

A lazy wave of her hand and Darius’ body was an unrecognizable stain that coated the walls. While his death seemed instantaneous, it was anything but. His last remaining blip of consciousness had been stretched out to eternity, meaning that every Planck second of pain would become their own eras in what remained of his shallow, shallow life. All at the mere cost of a background thought within the business woman’s head that was over as soon as it had begun.

“That’s no way to address your new leader,” Christina remarked, proudly puffing out her chest. “Now, I could just tell my subordinates to track down Mae’s route, but given the circumstances, I think I know exactly where she’ll end up…”

~

“Hello! Package for you!” Mae beamed. Her demeanor was much happier now that Grove’s incessant nagging was suddenly absent from her route.

“Oh! Wow! Awesome, thank… you…” beamed Violet as she gripped the small package in her larger hands, only for her voice to trail off as her eyes drank up the exquisite curves and chiseled musculature of her mailwoman.

Mae blushed, giggling to herself as she did so. She wasn’t into girls like that, but at least someone was appreciating her new assets.

Violet then realized she was staring, beginning to profusely apologize. “Ah! I’m sooo sorry! I-I didn’t… jeez, you’re just…”

“Don’t even sweat it, girl!” Mae replied with a cheerful hand wave, adopting a more chill tone as she found a pleasant conversation emerging. “You’re quite the beefcake yourself! If you’re surprised by this much musculature on a woman’s body you must not have a mirror in your house!”

Violet giggled. “Thank you, um, Mae,” she replied, reading the mailwoman’s name tag. “I’m just really nervous about later today, my mind is all over the place!”

“Ugh, tell me about it!” Mae replied with a knowing eye roll. “When I get home, I’m gonna strangle my husband to death! He’s been mistreating me for most of our marriage but I’ve finally hit the breaking point! Can you believe he forgot about our anniversary?”

“Woah, jeez. I sure hope my future husband isn’t that huge of a dick. I’ll be meeting him later today at the airport! Eeee! That’s why I’m so nervous!”

“Oh my god, girl! Forget about me, I’m so excited for you! Look, if he’s willing to move to this shitty country he must love you!”

“Aww, thank you. I sure hope so! After all, I suddenly became all ripped and muscular out of what must’ve been some higher power rewarding me for sticking through the shitty years of my life! Everything’s finally turning up my way!”

A sculpted eyebrow arose on Mae’s face. “Wait… did you say, you suddenly became ripped? Like, damn near overnight?”

“Well, it was more like ‘overday’ if anything, but yeah, it really was the strangest thing!”

“Did it start happening to you three days ago?”

“...Yes.”

There was an uncomfortable pause between the two of them.

“Were you then attacked by some crazy corporate lady trying to steal them from you?”

Now it was Violet’s eyebrow’s turn to raise. “Huh? Some crazy corporate lady? What, like some sort of secretary?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Can’t say I’ve been attacked by anything of the sort,” Violet replied, scratching the back of her neck. “I sure have had my fair share of verbal beratings from my piece of shit neighbor though.”

“Oh my god, you mean that Howard Grove guy, right?”

“YES, OH MY GOD FUCK THAT GUY!” Violet replied, raising her voice to a higher degree than ever before. Then she began to giggle softly, nearly on the verge of crying.

“Girl, are you okay?” Mae asked, switching to more of a supportive motherly tone at the sight of this younger woman crying.

“Better than okay! I feel… comfortable for the first time in my life. Like, I was this scared, weak, loser of a girl for so long and now… I’m making real outside connections and am about to meet the love of my life! Th-thank you, Mae. Thank you for being a pleasant experience.”

She brought Mae into an unexpected hug, one which the mailwoman accepted with little hesitation. Violet had closed her eyes, salty tears of happiness staining her cheeks and eyelashes.

But upon opening her eyelids, she saw something—no, someone—at the edge of her lawn.

“M-Mae… is that—”

“The crazy corporate lady? Yes, I’m afraid it is,” Christina answered for Violet, her ethereal voice sending shivers down both women's spines, even when dripping with smugness.

Mae immediately sprung into action upon recognizing the voice, but it was too late, both women were frozen in place from Christina’s commanding tone. “Ah, ah. You don’t need to break that precious hug of yours for my sake. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

She walked closer and closer, her high-heeled strut crossing the length of Violet’s yard in no time. She ran a sultry hand down the length of Mae’s frozen face.

“I’ll be taking these, if you don’t mind,” Christina remarked, a singular lithe finger hooking Mae’s headphones off of her belt before effortlessly crushing them in her palm with extreme prejudice. “No cheating from you this time.”

She then turned her attention to the other woman in the doorway. “Ah, Violet! Good to see you again! Long time no see!” she playfully taunted, dusting her hands of the headphone debris. “You’ve gotten quite the bod since I last saw you, though I must say, I’m sure that’s not all you you got.”

Her smile widened from ear-to-ear. “Since we’re such good buds who go way back, why don’t you tell me what else that pesky little Howard Grove gave you?”

A wave of her finger and Violet couldn’t resist spilling everything.

“Time manipulation. I have the ability to go back and forth in time at will. Even manipulating a specific object’s flow of time.”

Christina’s breathing quickened as a blush began to burn brightly on her face. It was like Christmas morning to her. The happiest she had ever been. The horniest she had ever been. “Y-you have fucking time under your control!? Jesus Christ, this… well, this changes everything. I thought reality manipulation was the peak… But with this one!?”

Christina’s laughing became more and more deranged as she finally felt that sense of happiness she had been yearning for this entire time. No more falling short, no more settling for mediocrity. She would finally get the ultimate power boost and become a goddess amongst all. The world wasn’t just her oyster, it was her sex toy.

She had become so caught up in hypotheticals, in fact, that she became ever so slightly distracted. Mae felt the faintest bit of control returning to her, a twitching fingertip slowly evolving into full arm movement—one which lifted itself up over Christina’s head and let gravity do the rest.

A punch from Mae would have killed any lesser person, but Christina was only mildly bruised by such a powerful attack. However, mildly bruised was enough for Mae and Violet to regain control of their bodies.

“Violet! Get out of this time!” Mae bellowed. Violet didn’t have to be told twice. Christina immediately attempted to subdue Violet with everything she had—body modification, mind control, telekinesis, reality—but none of it mattered. Violet escaped within an inch of her life to a time that Christina had no way of tracking or controling.

At least, not yet.

Christina remained reserved, but Mae couldn’t help herself. The mailwoman began to chuckle, knowing she was going to be killed at any moment but that she had saved an innocent life in the process of doing so.

“Oh… you think this is funny, don’t you? Well, Mae, let’s see if you’re still laughing after I make you kill Violet personally.”

With a combination of reality manipulation and mind control, Christina rewrote Mae’s entire personality from a clean slate after wiping her mind empty. No longer was she the sweet mailwoman who wanted what was best for those below her. Now, she was Christina’s loyal assassin, who was mindlessly motivated to kill and could adopt any personality to do so.

“It’s true, I’ve lost the element of surprise, thanks to you, Mae. But I will leave so much greater once you are reunited with your best friend, isn’t that right? She’ll do anything for her first real friend.”

“Yep, sounds like the Violet I know,” quipped Mae, her voice far more sinister now

She and Mae shared a laugh, the former mailwoman unable to do anything but regurgitate the thoughts of her new overlord.

“And the best part is…” Christina remarked, lifting up Violet’s package that had ripped open in all the commotion, complete with a return address from Zach. “You can tell me exactly where she’s heading.”

The two shared a laugh once more. But Christina knew that deep down in the darkest recesses of the mailwoman’s mind, Mae was suffering. The businesswoman hadn’t performed a complete and total reset of Mae’s personality, leaving just the tiniest sliver of her original consciousness alive and present within Mae’s subconscious. She’d be allowed to witness in horror as her body completely betrayed her intentions and undo all that she had desperately worked for.

“Now, let’s make haste. I don’t wish to waste another day of potential. I should have been ruler of the world by yesterday! And once you get Violet’s powers for me, I will have.”