And I activated the Skill.

  A red tinge edged my vision and I felt my muscles engorge while my heart pounded in my ears. A feeling of limitless strength and power flooded me and I lunged at my name thieving tormentor intending to wrestle my name right back offa-him.

  I missed.

  And again. Miss. Miss.

  The blinking wisp wouldn’t stay still. Constantly bobbing about like a preschooler needing to go pee-pee. Stay still you fake Nige and I’ll pound the fake out of you. I could keep going at this all day. I was invincible and unrelenting.

  And then he did.

  And I bounced right off him.

  What! This is not right! But my brain couldn’t decode what or why things weren’t working out as they should with a good thrashing not being dealt out. I bounced off a few more or ten times. Nope. My rage skill eventually timed out and my cognition returned.

  Well, that was embarrassing. But also somewhat cathartic. Strangely I felt a whole lot better.

  “Well, I guess that’s helped clear the headspace.” I muttered.

  Nige fluttered nearby. Obviously unsure what to make of my somewhat unhinged actions.

  

  I was totally taken aback by this. The wisp was serious. It was quite a disconcerting change from his previous light hearted character. Now it was my turn to be unsure. If he was serious then this could be a major boon for me. He had ‘man’d up’, so to say, with a pretty decent apology. If he was sincere I’d be a complete tool to rebuff him.

  Having already vented my frustrations adequately I felt inclined to take the apology at face value. I wouldn’t magnanimously forgive him though. I was not feeling magnanimous at all. However, I could put my angst to one side. After all, us Nige’s have to stick together, even if his name was of my own foot mouthedness.

  “Okay… thank you. I think…”

  “I accept your apology. I too am sorry for losing my rag.”

  …

  “Let’s start our ‘start over’ again.” I suggested.

  “Hi… I’m Nigel Tait,” I paused with a small sigh and then continued “handle; Totally Awesome Dude!”

  

  

  He paused again, waiting on some indication of a response.

  

  

  …

  

  

  I sighed again, “No, Nige is good. We can stick with Nige.”

  “But… Can we change my name?”

  I wasn’t holding out much hope and this borne out when he shook side to side in a negative wobble.

  

  “How about ‘Tad’? I vaguely recall seeing this somewhere on one of my notifications already.”

  

  “Is it possible to fill in the [Blank] surname spot? It would be excellent to have my actual surname there if possible.”

  There was a prolonged silence.

   He wriggled uncomfortably.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He paused again.

  

  I left him hanging for a bit. A few more wriggles should do it. Yep, ha! That’ll balance up the griefing scales nicely.

  “Yes Nige,I think that is a good idea. How do we do this?”

  He flicked me a message.

  I accepted but to my surprise the System bumped the request.

  ”Are you seeing this?” I asked him, unsure how this would go down.

   a deflated burble.

  My ears pricked up. ”That sounds great.”

  I accepted and a few seconds later I felt the link slot into place. Waahoo, I had a minion. Winner, winner chicken dinner! I felt like doing a little dance. What a score!

  Nige brought up my Character Sheet.

   I could almost hear Nige rubbing his metaphorical hands together with glee,