Downfall of the Djinn

By Dru

Based on the Wishmaster movies from the 80’s

(I wrote this under a different name. It’s been hidden in the library at Diana’s for many years, and I recently rediscovered it. I thought a few readers might enjoy it)

The red stone rested on the table a long time before Tina moved. She had been warned of the dangers, but did not believe. Now the stone lay free on the coffee table. Sensing the awesome power, and feeling the watchful eyes of the ancient creature from deep within, Tina hesitated no more and reached for the blood-bathed ruby.

There was no flash of light, no puff of smoke, no hint of the bond created when she lifted the stone, touching the flawless smooth surface for the first time with her delicate fingers. A deep voice from behind frightened her, though she should not have been surprised.

“Ahh … you are a pretty one.”

Tina rose and turned, unsure what to expect. A shocked gasp escaped her lips, her hand dropping the box that had contained the Djinn’s ruby prison to rise and cover her mouth.

“I do apologise,” the hideous semblance of a man told her, through a deeply insulting sneer. “My appearance is unsettling, Tina. An unfortunate thing to someone as beautiful as you.”

“Are you the genie?” Tina asked, seeing the story her aunt had told her might not have been just to keep her from cheating in life.

“I am known so to some. My true name would be meaningless to you, but most recently my kind were called the Djinn.”

“Then you can give me wishes?”

“Of course I can,” the creature told her with a strange tone of distaste. “Three. Now tell me your hearts desire. What thing has been lacking from your life, Tina? It’s been months since Joe called …”

“How did you … ?”

“You’d be surprised what I know about you Tina. You and I are bonded until our, or should I say your, dreams are set free in the world of reality.”

Not caring now about the unsettling appearance of the genie, Tina made her first wish. “I wish I was big and strong.”

“How big?”

“I want to be six feet tall with muscles bigger than Joe’s.”

“How strong?”

“As strong as fifty men: Fifty big bulging bodybuilders.”

“Your wish is my command, Tina Louise Langley.”

The room swirled, and Tina found herself standing in a new environment altogether, and she was far from alone. Standing at the back of a crowded hall, Tina looked over the heads of two hundred people to see a stage, lit with bright energetic colour and decorated with the biggest men Tina had ever seen. The biggest muscles she had ever known belonged to her ex-boyfriend Joe, and every single one of these guys were twice his size.

“Sorry to leave you alone like that,” a strange man told her, stepping up beside her.

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry, Tina. It’s me, your ‘genie’.”

“What are we doing here?”

“Where else am I going to find fifty body-builders?”

Tina wondered what he meant, and was about to ask when the mysteriously human-looking Djinn made the question redundant. “It will require brief physical contact, and it could take a while, but these men are going to make you the woman you want to be.”

“Now wait a minute … will they get hurt?”

“It will be excruciating for them, unlike any natural death could ever be.”

“Death!?”

“It was your wish. Do not worry, Tina, you will feel the opposite of their agony.”

“I didn’t want to kill anybody! I made a wish about me, I never said anything about …”

“Your words were quite clear: ‘Fifty big bulging bodybuilders’.” His impression of her enthused voice was frighteningly exact.

“But …”

“I do only your bidding, Tina Langley. Please, let me fulfil your hearts desire.”

Tina felt a lurch and suddenly her feet rested on the boards of the stage, and around her the contestants went through their poses until one of them noticed her. He frowned, shaking his head as he spoke to the man beside him.

“You guys have to go!” she told them, waving them off as two of the men grabbed her arms. Security guards were on their way, but all Tina saw was the expression of shock on the faces of the two men that held her. The moment they had grasped her, the spell of the Djinn began its terrible magic. Their cries of pain were sucked back into their widened mouths and merged with the flow of their brawn into Tina’s suddenly thirsty muscles. Though she was revolted and horrified by the slow deaths of the men, she felt an ecstatic rush as their strength became her own … filling her body with unnatural physical power. As her muscles puffed out a gentle fraction, the two once proud contestants paled and shrivelled to shadows of their former glory. Finally they disappeared altogether, leaving Tina standing in circle of horrified onlookers. The men reacted as most would. Before Tina realised she had been smiling, they rushed her. The crowd was ushered out by efficient security guards as chaos erupted on the stage. Only one remained to see the whole show, as before long even the employees departed in horror … Tina tried to escape the strong men, and hit out at the closest face. It’s owner died as her increasingly powerful arm delivered a blow potent enough to merge his eye-sockets into one long hole. Stunned, she refrained from further assaults. Her assailants did not. But each blow only made her stronger, every touch of their flesh to hers tipped the scales more dramatically in her favour.

When the body-builders turned to flee, they were hypnotised by the Djinn. The sculpted competitors turned and took their turn giving Tina a firm hug. They disappeared into Tina’s body. In a world of her own, Tina watched her clothes come apart as her muscles destroyed them at the seams. She grew slowly, and steadily, until her body freed itself from clothes altogether.

“Nice rush isn’t it? And that was only twenty-three.” Tina felt the growth cease, and stretched her new physique. She closed her eyes and ran her hands up her ripped body, the terrible manner in which it had come momentarily forgotten. When her eyelids rose she saw before her a new hall, and a different audience. Around her stood a whole new batch of body-builders. With horror, Tina remembered those already trapped in her flesh, and tried to run away. But then time froze. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you feeling stronger?” “I feel horrible! This is not how I wanted it to be! I wish they didn’t have to die!” “Let’s make this one quick then, shall we? But I must protest, you are being most unkind to them.” Time flowed again as his words chilled her. Everything her aunt had told her had been true, and now she knew it for certain. There was no good in the Djinn at all. Twenty-seven of the thirty-nine competitors slumped to the ground and shrank to the size of G.I. Joe’s. Only these G.I. Joe’s were more like P.O.W. Dolls. At the same time, Tina grew greater in stature and strength, her every muscle doubling in size. With the growth came an orgasmic overload that nearly toppled all six feet of her incomparably powerful body. The room quickly emptied as Tina stooped over one of the tiny men whose lives she had ruined.

“It’s true,” she sighed, her new physical power giving her a calm resolve.

“What’s true?”

“You are evil to very core.”

“It depends on perspective, but I guess from yours I am beyond any evil imaginable.”

“And the rest of your kind will be free if I make any more wishes.”

“One wish, Tina. Only one.”

“You son of a bitch.” She rose to her full height, and crossed quickly to the Djinn to deliver a blow to his cheek. He fell, not expecting her attack, but only laughed as he rose. She punched again, but he was ready and caught her. “You didn’t think I’d be foolish enough to give you power enough to harm me?” he asked conversationally, his face mending. An idea occurred to her that seemed so simple it was almost enough to make her laugh. “I have all the power I need to finish you for good.”

“Oh yes. The final wish … what will you do with it? Want me dead? It can happen …”

“Oh no. Let me think a minute.”

“I have waited millennia. Minutes do not concern me now.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Okay. I think I got it.”

“That’s the spirit,” the evil creature told her, his grin enough to make her look away.

“I wish all the powers and abilities of every Djinn to be forever mine and mine alone, to use freely as I see fit.”

The ancient creature stepped back, his disguise instantly gone.

“No …”

She saw his fear, and knew she had won. “Yes …”

He fell to his knees, and the incredibly feminine mass of muscle that he made of Tina Langley stood over him with her hands on her hips. “It cannot be,” he whimpered, looking at his hands as he felt then saw the transfer begin. Silvery tendrils swirled from within him, entwining into one as they slowly accelerated into Tina’s cobbled stomach. He watched his potential pass into her with fading disbelief.

“I can feel it already …” Tina told him happily, withdrawing into her own experience as the Djinn felt his power abandon him. In his mind he heard the cries of his brethren as they too gave up their potential to the once mortal woman. Before half of the genie’s power had flowed into her, Tina Langley had become a thousand times more powerful than any of them had ever been. When the process ended, the Djinn looked up at her with wide eyes. He had never known fear, yet he was now petrified. Tina had closed her eyes. She was wallowing in the sensation of having become a god. Though her eyes were closed, she saw everything. Though she was not smart, her mind pierced any barrier. And though she was stronger than a football team, she did not need lift a finger to dominate all things. Tina’s brainwaves were now entwined with the fabric of reality, and her imagination was now the only limit to her power. She didn’t even need to open her eyes, but she did. The Djinn had fled by that time. Now a mortal being, he had to make his escape on foot. He had reached the nearby exit, but with a smile and an unnecessary wave of her hand Tina twisted the two panels into one, their fibres locking together.

“Going somewhere, handsome? I thought this was your party … aren’t you supposed to be celebrating or something?”

She turned her intimidating back to him, and the room changed dramatically into an open desert much like any other, yet something was very different about the sky, very wrong. The genie cried out when he realised where he had been taken. “No!”

“Yes. You know this place. Here your brothers wait for you. You, who were their only hope. Their only chance of escape.” Tina faced the evil creature, the odd light of the Djinn dimension giving her skin a golden hue.

“Once this was a beautiful place, wasn’t it?”

“How can you know?” the genie asked, his defeat filling his voice and his wandering eyes avoiding her, though Tina was the only beautiful thing to be seen. This place showed no sign of sustenance, only dead rocks and plains of dry cracked earth nestled among foreboding crags higher than any mountain.

“I have all your power. Your knowledge comes to me as once my knowledge came to you. If you had your way, all life would exist purely for your amusement. What you have done here in this universe is proof enough of your evil.”

The genie laughed, until Tina backhanded him in the jaw. The power of the muscles she had given him sent him tumbling off the high peak. He cried out, unable to save himself from certain death. Suddenly his fall stopped, and he was lifted by Tina’s unseen influence back to the top of the mountain.

“Don’t laugh about it. There’s nothing funny about wanting to turn our paradise into hell just because you fucked up your own universe. I don’t care how powerful you are, nothing gives you the right to threaten the existence of other living things!”

“We were first! Your paradise was always meant to be ours.”

“If it was meant to be it would be! Anyway, I know how to use the power you gave me, so why don’t you make a wish?”

“I wish my powers to be mine again.” Tina smiled, and granted his wish. There was a brief spark between them, and the genie stood tall again with his abilities restored. “Now I will show you the true power of the Djinn!” he declared, filling his dark body with titanic strength. He reached forward with a suddenly muscular arm and a blue bolt erupted from his open palm. He was attempting to take her incredible strength into his own body, and for a moment it was working. He felt her strength becoming his own, but then something went wrong.

“Mmm.” Tina was growing. The genie tried desperately to break off the beam, but he no longer controlled it. The creature fell to its knees again, shrinking while Tina gained even more mass. She relented, deciding she had become too muscular and stopped stealing his life-force, and stood over him with a satisfied smile.

“You forget. Even with all your power restored, you’re an ant compared to me.” She reached out her hand, and he grew taller and much more muscular than before, and he could feel his potential triple. Unsure what she was planning, he hesitated.

“Want some more?” Her raised eyebrow triggered another dramatic increase in his size and physical power. The genie buzzed with strength and influence, and realized that he had never been remotely as powerful as this in his entire existence. “And none of it will help you.”

She waited a moment, but when he did not attack as she had hoped he would, Tina took control of his arms and forced the genie to punch her much harder than he would have done himself. Tina had taken the liberty of increasing her molecular density. His fists hammered home on her stomach and, though she refrained from tightening them, her abdominal muscles shattered his knuckles. He tried to stop, but Tina didn’t allow it.

“That feels nice.”

“Stop!”

“If you wish …”

“I wish!” He fell on the cold rocks, and she stepped back. “You think you have us defeated,” he grunted. “But you will rot here with us forever.”

“Nonsense.”

The Djinn laughed. “You can pass into this place easily enough. Getting back is not so simple.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“We were cursed …”

“Well that’s very interesting.” There was a now familiar blurring of scenery, and Tina stood over him with the pyramids of Giza in the background. “Because I don’t have any trouble at all shifting through the barrier.”

The genie rose to his feet, clearly shocked.

“But this is not your home,” she told him, “And never will be. Now, how about a family reunion?”

“I wish I’d never met you!” the genie declared, the thought of meeting his brethren again after dooming them to mortality made him desperate.

“That’s nice, but I don’t have to grant any of your wishes. I was just being nice before.” This time when the world shifted, the genie travelled alone. As he went, he was restored to his natural stature and stripped of his powers once again. When the scenery became tangible he found himself in the last place he wanted to be. Home, surrounded by his own people for the first time in eons. Before a word was spoken he was slain. As the murderous mob stepped back, none better off for their violence, they heard a sound long forgotten by their decayed world. The sound of water falling on the stone streets. The rain grew painfully thick, and sky steadily darkened. Those looking skyward saw the black thunderheads materialize out of the air. None of them had ever possessed the power required to make rain on a planet with no moisture in its atmosphere. The ground shook beneath their feet in a sudden earthquake. Yet instead of making the ruined buildings crumble, the already fallen pieces of masonry rose up from the ground and took their old positions, piece by piece until the entire city had risen from ruin, and stood as it had before Djinn began their indulgent dominance. Water still fell, and crowd of once powerful creatures shivered as the temperature continued to drop.

“Who is doing this?” one of them demanded, but no answer came.

The rain stopped, and the sun came out. Patches of green appeared in the long neglected gardens, saplings thickened and stretched and in moments became twelve metre trees. Then a sound made the Djinn look skyward again. A bird flew high overhead, its call clear and its flight smooth.

Standing on a building in a city far from the gathering of the Djinn, Tina thoroughly enjoyed returning the home world of the evil race to its former glory. Using stolen memories, she restored as much as could. Simple life she could manage, but anything more complex than birds was beyond her. Tina spread her influence throughout the universe and restored the other worlds. She felt the process drain a vast amount of energy, yet she felt no fatigue when finished. In fact, within a heartbeat she felt even more powerful than before.

“That was easy,” she mused, lifting both feet and hovering out over the enormous city. She found the limitless power that the Djinn had given up to her invigorating, and now it was time to say thank-you. Tina intended to take her time …