Hours later, Jon found himself sitting on the edge of his bed, contemplating the stone and the possibilities it represented. It could do anything, literally anything, and there was perhaps nothing as tantalizing and terrifying as a blank slate. He held in his hands power, real power for the first time in his life. For as long as Jon could remember he'd been one of the masses, always in the background. He wasn't at the bottom of the social totem pole, but he was far from the top. He wasn't the most clever, the strongest, the most charismatic or talented in any particular way; he was and had always been average, and he was sick of it.
"It's like I'm a damn NPC, barely worth a mention," he muttered as he ran his hands over the rock, an idea slowly forming. "But with this, with this I could be a main character."
With the stone he could be anyone he wanted to be. He could change his life into any he could imagine, or .... he could simply exchange it for another. Hmm, that thought was actually rather appealing. Instead of making 'Jon' extraordinary, he could force someone from the top of the food chain into his average life, while he absconded off with theirs. The notion filled him with a perverse excitement. "I could be Biff, or Steve, or even Sarah..." Jon's eyes bugged at the realization; with the stone, he could be a woman as easily as a man and the thought was oddly appealing. After all, if he wanted to leave Jon behind, perhaps a drastic change was in order.
Jon was pacing by this point as he tried to order his thoughts, "Of course if I traded with any of them, I'd be stuck dealing with their friends." That would be a downside to the scheme he was rapidly developing. If he turned himself into Sarah, he'd be the beautiful queen bee of the school, but he'd also suddenly have to deal with having Biff for a boyfriend, and Tiffany for a rival/frenemy.
That was when the thought struck him; none of them deserved the privileged positions life had dealt them. By a quirk of birth, they lay at the top of the social hierarchy, while he and his small circle of friends were near the bottom, but with the stone he could change that. It didn't need to be just him who turned the tables, he could flip the whole system on its head. Shy Kyla could be soaring down the court as Steve; Clumsy Leonard could have Amber's grace, dirt poor Jay could wake up in the McMillan mansion.
Jon fancied to himself he'd be delivering justice, but in truth he was being somewhat driven by revenge. After years of being stomped underfoot by the people on top, he just itched for the shoe to be on the other foot. He'd have to go slow, and wish carefully to keep from causing a panic, but he could do it. Grinning madly, he held the rock up and said
"I wish I had the power to exchange peoples bodies by stating both their names then the word Switch." The rock shimmered and Jon felt an odd warm tingle, presumably the new power settling in him. (He decided to wish for the power rather than the swaps individually, so he could reverse them if something went wrong,)
Jon scratched his chin, he'd need a couple more wishes to pull this off. "I wish that my powers were intrinsic to my soul and mind, regardless of whatever body I'm in." The stone flashed again; it would be disastrous for whoever ended up in his body to usurp his ability. He was all set now to make the swaps, but he'd need to be able to smooth the transitions to keep from causing an uproar, so he made one final wish. "I wish I could use a hypnotic voice that people would find irresistible to resist." Jon smiled to himself, with that he could command the transferees to keep quiet about the changes. Now all that was left was figuring out, who was he going to be in his new world order?
