Green Lantern's Protégée

31: "I'm not hungry. My stomach is full of deceit."

"And you can remember more than a couple of dates!" Kailey exclaimed, walking over to an expensive stainless steel refrigerator, swiping a folded cream sheet of paper before landing it in front of Cyra.

The young blonde read it and her mouth fell open. She grabbed it and held it up to the light to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"I have all A's?" Cyra's voice rose a few octaves. "And a 4.0 GPA?"

"You always have," Kailey narrowed her eyes as if Cyra had landed from another planet.

"How?" Cyra didn't ask it as much as she demanded it.

"You're a natural genius!" Kailey exclaimed, and Cyra couldn't help but snort.

Her eyes scanned over the sheet again to be sure she wasn't just seeing her greatest dreams.

"How does it look?" a sneezy voice whispered harshly in her ear, causing Cyra's chair to squeal as she jumped up. The imp sat in the air, relaxing back nonchalantly. "All the simple teenager pleasures you can dream of."

Cyra blinked. The air was cleaner—sharper and he had whispered perfectly into her right ear. Cyra grabbed behind her throngs of hair and felt the crisp, undamaged ear stuck to her head. Cyra let out a laugh, clapping her hand next to the side of her head to find that the noise came through as clear as a whistle.

"Impressed?" he smirked. "I knew you'd like that one. Didn't even take a second. You could have it back forever just as easily."

Fighting against the euphoria flowing through her veins, Cyra grabbed a fork from the table and leveled it at him. "Stop messing with my mom," she barked savagely.

"Not good enough? Geez, kid, you have some high standards. You want more money? Everyone likes money." He snapped his fingers.

The house suddenly transformed into a three-story Victorian mansion, similar to that of the White House. The kitchen expanded five times its original size, ornate cabinets stretching across the walls with marble floors and a table that could easily fit their entire family—which was no easy feat.

Cyra had to fight against her heart screaming at her to just take it and check out the huge in-ground pool in the backyard, but instead, she turned to the magic man, her eyes scorching with rage.

"None of this is real!" Cyra brandished her fork in the man's face.

He rolled his eyes, snapping his fingers and the fork in Cyra's hand shifted into a small hamster. Cyra let out a shriek, dropping the hamster onto the table where it scuttled away.

"Of course it's real! What are you not getting?" He waved his arms, thumping a finger on Cyra's skull, and she yelped. "I'm changing reality—real is right in the name! This is all real and if I skedaddled right now, it would stay this way, this would be all you ever know, and no amount of weak quantum power can change it. I'll obviously have to skip through all the middle stuff of me having your school blow up or the Justice League bowing to you to something more interesting."

"Wait, let's go back to that last one—"

"Nope, you had your chance but someone has no patience! I could pop you up some of that too later. For now—"

He snapped his fingers and Cyra's whole world twisted upside down.

It was like everything came at her, like one of those black and white hypnosis screens, forming around her faster than she could blink, which wouldn't have been possible with the sparks that were flying in the space behind her head from pure wonder.

Then she noticed where she was and rolled her eyes.

"Why are we outside of Wally's house?" Cyra demanded to the skies. The fluffy white clouds made a familiar impish face, which laughed like cowbells before disappearing into a swift wind as her only answer.