Jason stared in awe at the man who continued to pop in and out of the visible spectrum. The man had been completely normal from what Jason could tell and previously had not had any ability to change his visibility. And what was more, there was no sign of him once he disappeared. Often on television shows or video games, there would be a telltale sign of someone invisible such as a light distortion or shimmering of heat, but when the man disappeared, there was no sign of him whatsoever.

Kingston smugly looked at the awed faces and asked the man, “Sir, please provide us with your name and let the crowd know what your previous job was.”

The man reappeared and stammered: “B-b-b-bob Jones, and I was… was... an accountant.” Bob the Accountant looked like he was about to throw up, he was so nervous. “And this…” he stopped to look at his hand which faded in and out of sight, “this is incredible!”

Kingston looked at Bob and asked directly, “Mister Jones. Did you or did you not have the ability to turn completely invisible until this time.”

Bob looked up at Kingston startled, as if he had not expected the Director to talk to him directly again. He shook his head and said softly, “No, I didn’t have superpowers. Unless you count feeling completely invisible to everyone around me a superpower. I..” he paused, looking down at his feet and his lower torso disappeared. “I felt like I was practically invisible already.”

Jason nodded in understanding. He had a friend in high school who had been like that. Quiet, reserved and had no one else besides Jason to talk to. He couldn’t remember his name and he absently wondered where his friend had gone off to after high school. He resolved to look up where his friend had made it in life if he ever got out of this crazy situation.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kingston was pleased with herself. Many times the manifestation of superpowered abilities was extremely subtle and did not lend themselves to being revealed in a public forum. One reality had a superhero obsessed culture and had even had various presidents of countries dress up in costumes to “fight” each other for political supremacy. Yet despite their obsession with superpowers, many of the contestants from that reality had manifested subtle powers such as altering the general mood of a crowd or the ability to talk with snakes.

That season had been disastrous and Liquid Gold Corporation had lost billions upon airing the season. Viewership had plummeted as no one had wanted to watch someone stare at snakes for five minutes attempting to get them to understand the mechanics of opening a lock with their tails. How was she supposed to know that mood alterations would also be transmitted through the view screens of the broadcast as well? Thousands of books had been burned by the viewers when that particular contestant got angry because she couldn’t find a single book in a library and transmitted her anger to those watching.

The Overseers had then stepped in and the process of determining valid realities to pull candidates from had been overhauled and a viewing delay had been instituted to ensure that no emotional pulls would be enforced upon watchers again. From what Kingston was able to determine from interoffice memos, the determination process had tripled in length and nearly quintupled in cost. Each season was getting more and more expensive to produce and in turn, more and more dangerous for the contestants involved.

Kingston mentally shuddered at the thought of what had happened to the final team during the last season of SuperPowered Games in Reality 586-alpha. They had gotten to the final climactic fight with an arch villain who had been specifically prepared for the team and each of the four remaining members of the team had been thoroughly monitored in order to determine strengths and weaknesses. The villain had been altered to require all four members of the team to work together to defeat, and specific traps had been placed throughout the lair for the team to work through based on their powers.

In theory, the final battle should have been one of the biggest watched and heavily broadcasted events in the history of SuperPowered Games. All of the previous realities that had been on the show were being broadcast to and viewer count was through the roof. The team had been working well together and had made it through three of the four traps set in the way of the team before they made it to the final climactic battle. Everything was looking good for the team and they were on par to complete the final challenge with ease.

A slight mechanical malfunction in the final trap had caused it to go awry and the trap had ended up wounding one member of the team significantly and killing another member. Down to two members, the team had valiantly attempted to destroy the villain in a climactic battle, but with two members missing, the powered up final challenge was no match for the remaining team members. What was supposed to be an epic final battle ended with the final member of the team begging for his life on the floor before the villain speared him with a blade of ice.

Viewership immediately dropped after the season finale ended so poorly and Kingston was under a significant amount of pressure to make sure that this season went better. The initial introduction was usually the same: communication to prospective contestants, contracts and demonstration of her and her team’s powers. Sometimes the contestants would be compliant and throw themselves into the challenges immediately and other times they required a bit more proof to show what was being offered was real.

Kingston was authorized to provide one power stone at the beginning of a season if the contestants were rowdy and didn’t want to adhere to the rules set forth. After an individual received powers, that usually set the crowd eager and excited to throw themselves at a challenge.

The snafu with the dragon in the previous challenge should not have occurred. Kingston had specifically been warned that the challenges would be tougher this season in order to create additional drama, but she had not expected the first team to encounter such a powerful entity on the first iteration. She would have to have a chat with the Overseers to ensure that the difficulty did not have such a high spike that no team made it through preliminaries. As much as it pained her to see needless death, she was more focused on the bottom line and knew that seeing failure after failure would not make for good viewing.

Previous seasons had seen huge spikes in viewership when it seemed that teams would be defeated but at the last minute pulled off a win. The “underdog effect” as LGC liked to call it, had a remarkable effect on ratings and the days after an episode that aired with a team pulling off a narrow win would often see a major spike in chatter on the various news and social media sites in each reality.

It was Kingston’s job to not only coordinate and lead the contestants, but also to ensure that the teams and challenges were entertaining to the audience. Already she had noted a few individuals that she would have to keep an eye on and she flexed her mental connection to her information tablet. A quick thought allowed her to open her notepad on the tablet and another thought had the various names of the candidates written on the notepad. At the top read:

Jason Phantom

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Damon couldn’t believe his eyes. Not only had he seen a group of people enter a portal that entered another dimension, they had encountered a dragon.

A dragon.

That should not have been possible. Granted, given the infinite reality theory, there could always be a possibility of a reality containing creatures of fictional origin, but Jason always had thought that the infinite reality idea was more fiction than fact.

Now that his brain was faced with the possibility of not just dragons, but all potential mythical creatures, thought of and never before seen, the reality of it was staggering. Quickly Damon began formulating and calculating plans in his head. If he could potentially gain access to the reality portal, he might be able to have an advantage in these games that would help him in his agenda.

He quickly looked around the landscape surrounding him. There were the velocidiles to deal with if he wanted to potentially strike out on his own, but maybe they could be used to his advantage. From what Damon could see, even a single velocidile looked to be quite viscous and could cause quite a bit of harm. He filed that information away for later.

What really sent his head spinning was the very real possibility of obtaining superpowers. As Bob the Accountant had so demonstrated, superpowers were a very real objective in this twisted game show and Damon was determined to get his hands on some superpowers of his own.

A small smile fought to tug at the edges of Damon’s mouth, but he suppressed the expression. There was no sense in letting his teammates know that he was capable of anything beyond a few words here and there. Let them continue to guess about his true motives for being at the tryouts.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As Bob returned to his place among the crowd, making parts of his body appear and disappear at random and exclaiming in excitement at each change, Kingston turned to address the contestants.

“Contestants. As you can see, the offer of superpowers is not one that has been given out of falsehood or coercion. Each power stone has the ability to grant each one of you superpowers, but what those powers are, I cannot say.

“The unfortunate reality of power stones is that they only enhance certain internal properties of the individual who uses them. You can’t determine what superpower that you will get, only that it will be directed by numerous factors that we haven’t yet been able to determine. I know that many of you will attempt to alter the result of what powers that you receive from the stones, either by attempting to change your personality or thinking hard about what power you want, but I can say without a doubt, that has no bearing on what power you will get.

“Please be aware that while there is great risk for getting these power stones, there is great reward in getting superpowers. Also know that each tier of stone that you get beyond the initial primary challenge will see an exponential growth in power beyond the tier behind it. Each challenge tier will have greater risks, but also greater rewards.

“As I stated earlier, it is possible to leave the show and return to your reality after you complete the initial challenge and have received superpowers. However, know that you will not get any powers beyond what you would have gotten in the initial challenge and that there will be others who will return with greater power than you.”

Jason knew what Kingston was doing. She was providing a risk/reward model for the contestants that was standard for game shows, but also pitting teams against one another with the idea that they could become more powerful than the people around them. Well, I for one am not going to back down, thought Jason grimly. Bring on whatever challenge that this Liquid Gold Corporation can bring on.

Kingston continued with her speech, “I know that the possibility of death is something that can turn many of you away from the challenge before you. But know that the reward for stepping out into the unknown far outweighs the regret that comes from sitting at the edge of the cliff. I cannot say that the challenges that you will face will be easy, but know that there is a great reward that awaits you at the end of these challenges.”

Kingston put her hand to her ear as if listening to an earpiece and muttered a few times in response. Her eyes widened slightly at the end of the message and she turned to look back up at the crowd, smiling a cool, calculated smile.

“I have just been informed by the Overseers of this competition that the final prize of the competition has been amended. Rather than $1 million in a cash prize, a superpower of your choice and a reality pass, the prize has been amended to $1 billion in cash prize, three superpowers of your choice and a personal portable reality portal to use as wished. The updates to your contract will be provided in writing to you shortly.

“Additionally, I have been informed that not one, but two Power Stones will be awarded at the completion of the first challenge due to the initial difficulty of the challenge. This will allow the challengers to obtain two separate powers at once; something that has not been done in the history of this competition.

“That being said, do I have any takers for the next challenge?” Kingston inquired.

Almost every contestant’s hand shot up.