Colin was quickly concluding that the problem with ultimate power, was doing ANYTHING! Maybe if his power had had a few more limits on how he could use it, he could have found interesting ways to abuse the rules. As it was, all Colin really needed was someone to have a conversation with. He admitted, the Ruby statue had been a favorite, altering reality so the woman WANTED to be a statue had been too perfect! The world was his oyster. Except he had no idea how to go about consuming it in anything resembling a satisfying way!
Of course... all it would take is one half wit rhetorical question to doom himself. ("Am I a joke to you?!"). So far Colin had been lucky. There was no telling when the slip up would happen. In this place, with him having fun on a day off from school he could have fun. What happened once he was being asked questions and expected to interact with several people? ... Ironically, this danger at least made his power somewhat exciting.
Who the Hell would've thought ultimate power could be so bloody uninspiring?! No wonder gods did a 'hands off' approach to things!
He actually felt grateful for that woman, being thwarted, even in a trivial way, felt actually refreshing when he could do anything. And, his questions existed in reality, not in a void, people were going to start thinking he was not right in the head for constantly asking obvious questions! True he could fix that too, but having ANY handicap strangely felt like a blessing!
The fact it HAD TO BE verbal, and HAVING to be face to face, at least gave some sense of there actually being some ground rules. You had the gut feeling in anyone else's story, you'd be the bad guy, or the plot device, but this was your story, and that made you the hero by default.
The logical thing to do would be to go home, and upgrade mom and dad into dragons. But first you had your friends and their property waiting for you. As funny as it sounded making them wait until nightfall or something, it almost felt a little TOO petty! You weren't sure what to do with the rest of the day, but you were sure you'd think of something.
You wondered if you'd face a nemesis or something soon. Then again, in all the stories you read... usually ones that weren't actually finished, anyone who had fun with ultimate power face first into something or someone with a bigger stick and beaten into the ground, or brow beaten into submission, and to be honest, those were WORSE than boring, they were AGITATING!
You wondered about paradoxes. Could you turn a family of four into quadruplets? Or would that not work because they'd be erased from existence? Or would they simply then have different parents and it would all work out? You were actually excited if it turned out it DIDN'T work... if only because another restriction on your power felt entertaining.
And after you'd changed Robyn, and what you'd done with Desire-In-Ruby, you were under no delusion that you were 'good' or what you were doing was anything other indulging your own selfish desires. Maybe you could MAKE a nemesis to make things interesting if things got TOO boring. (Every villain needed a hero after all.)
You walked towards your friends waiting at the bridge in a daze, obediently waiting under your command, and would think you'd been with them this entire time once you did.
That was when you saw them, a family of four. A mom, dad, two kids, playing with each other.
He walked over to the father and said, "Hello, will you and your family find nothing odd about me talking to you, or any of the questions I ask, nor will anyone seeing us?"
The family all droned yes.
Colin then felt clever and asked. "Are you about to tell me if the woman with you is your wife, and if the kids with you are yours and hers?"
The man droned, "Yes,", then replied, "Yes she is. Yes they are."
'Thank goodness that loophole worked!' Colin felt good at overcoming a challenge.
"Will all four of you line up in front of them, and stand at attention until I ask you break up? Do all of you feel safe with me?"
"Yes," they echoed. The family stopped what they were doing and indeed stood at attention, not showing any of the fear Desire In Ruby had before she became herself.
"Do all four of you wish you were dragons?"
"Yes." Was the echo. They four looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes, relieved at revealing this secret.
"Do the four of you wish you were closer than you are now? Do you wish you were in fact dragon quadruplets? Female quadruplets? All the same age? Who feel alike, think alike, are alike? Do the four of you wish you were extremely attractively adult dragonessses with figures that would be comical outside of anime? And none of you feel shame about this?"
There was a slew of 'yes' from all four.
"Even if reality changed, and you didn't consciously remember, you would still be grateful to me and swear loyalty to me?"
Another of yes'.
"Are you the dragoness' quadruplets as I've described?"