With a deep exhale, Vinny prepared himself, feeling Jon do the same beneath him.
'Don't do this,' a stillsmall voice persisted, 'You'll lose your humanity. You'll become a monster..'
'Monster?' a more confident, stronger voice responded, 'If this is what being a monster is, I'll take it. Every damn day.'
And he let it in...the power, the energy, the knowledge. It came upon him like a torrent, washing over him, consuming him. He let out a cry, a wild, primal scream.
Jon was screaming as well, lifting himself to his knees across from Vinny, arms spread out.
Vinny could see his hands, pulsing veins crisscrossing them. His cock was erect again, practically brushing against Jon's own, sending waves of pleasure beyond anything Vinny had ever before felt through him.
And, unlike before, Vinny felt no shame.
"Yes! YES!" he screamed, feeling his voice deepen as he did, "Give it to me! ALL OF THE POWER!"
"SO MUCH STRENGTH!" Jon cried out, "I CAN FEEL IT IN ME, CHANGING ME.."
Vinny felt a weightlessness as the ground departed beneath him. Without knowing what he was doing, he had begun to lift off from the ground, Jon right across from him.
"MORE! MORE!" Vinny cried, "I WANT ALL OF IT! ALL OF IT!"
The surge kept on. Vinny felt every pore of his body filling with energy, with power. Everything Tyler had described and more. He looked down at his feet and saw, really appreciated, how different he looked. How much bigger, stronger...
Better.
He laughed, laughed aloud, feeling it all course through him, his humanity slipping away, his body becoming a god's.
"VINny..." Jon's voice, shifting in pitch, ,his eyes wild and crazed, "I...I can FEEL it...my BOdy...CHANGING!"
And Vinny saw. A faint glimmer, almost a light, but so faint you could believe you'd imagined it. It was moving over Jon, caressing him. And where the light touched, little changes would take place, things maybe that the several extra pounds of muscle had neglected.
Where Jon had a bruise on one knee from one particularly zealous lunge into the end zone, it faded. A bit of uneven hair between his pecs? Filled in?
Jon moaned euphorically as his hair got shinier, his teeth straighter, his dick girthier...
Vinny held his hands up to his face as he saw the light begin to work on him.
"Yes...yes, change me," he breathed, his voice quivering, "Change me, make me perfect, make me a god..."
His nails, bitten to the quick by years of nervous compulsion, grew back, full and ochre and shiny. His calloused feet became smooth, soft as if he'd never walked a step in his life. He felt his throat tighten as, gradually, his quaky, unsteady voice became smooth.
He'd never really paid any mind to any of these flaws before and yet, now, knowing they were gone, he felt an insurmountable relief.
And then, before Vinny knew it, he was on solid ground, standing beneath the open sky, as a fresh breeze, scented vaguely with the promise of rain.
In the distance, Vinny could make out the school building, hear the passage of cars on the highway beyond.
But...
There, chunks of masonry and tile. Bits of piping. A piece of red fabric he knew was his gym bag, now pinned uselessly between a dislocated stall door and a changing bench.
The locker room had been destroyed.
"Wh...whoa," panting and soaked in sweat, Jon rose from a crouching position in the thicket nearby, looking around, "Did...did WE do that?"
"I kinda blacked out, but..." Vinny nodded slowly, "I think so. Scary."
"Is it?" Jon shook his hair out, "Jesus, man... Look at you! Look at me..."
Vinny ran a hand down his body, admiring the perfect curve of his pecs, the hard, solid mass of his abs.
"Yeah, we're...pretty great, aren't we?"
"I'd have thought you've be a bit more excited."
Vinny paused. Did Jon really not remember any of what had occurred before? Vinny's panic, Jon's terror as he punched the floor... Had he thought what Vinny had thought? About his family, his friends, his past and future?
Did he care?
"Where do you think the other guys are?" asked Jon, cutting into Vinny's reverie, "Bet you they've gone invisible on us again, trying to get a rise out of my newly superhuman ass." he paused, a beautifully childlike grin spreading over his face, "Wait...you think we can do that too?"
"Wouldn't hurt to try, bro." he told him only to find, as soon as he did, that he was phasing out already. One second, present, the next, an invisible, formless mass.
"Vin?" Jon called, "Aw, sick!"
And, in a second, Jon had vanished too. Vinny could feel him nearby, moving around him, through him.
'Okay, this is fucking unreal.' Jon's 'voice' echoed over to Vinny.
'That's a word for it,' Vinny replied in kind as, in the near distance, police sirens started to sound.
'Beautiful,' Jon quipped, 'Been all powerful gods for five minutes and the Man is already cracking down.' he waited a beat, 'We still on for that GameStop shopping spree?'
Vinny laughed, which is a pretty strange sensation when you don't actually have a mouth, or a throat, or lungs.