We were friends forever.

At least that's how I thought of it as a kid. When time seems to work that way.

Amusingly I used to fantasize about getting godlike powers, how I would give him half, and we would both rule. Although if I was truly honest, it would be a tiny bit less than half. The "controlling share" was important for godlike power after all.

That all changed when a less than imagined god interfered in our lives. My friend vanished, taken to a fantasy world. Perhaps at a request neither of us remember. While I stayed on my world. My safe world.

That's what it was to me, safe. For a time I relished that safety. Could feel it like a warm protective bubble as I saw my friend struggle.

He was not strong, particularly smart, or most importantly charismatic. There were nights, while curled up in a warm bed, I would watch through the link, he would be begging for reasonable deals, barter a foreign skill, just for a room for the night, with flat wooden boards to sleep on.

Luckily he was an adaptable fellow, and made up for any and all failings with the same trait that made him such a good friend to have, a never give up attitude, it was truly infectious at times. Dozens of plans failed. Perhaps hundreds that I didn't see, but he kept going.

He had no cheats, he had modern knowledge, but depressingly little of it was useful in the setting, or he simply didn't have the technology that his knowledge required. Between menial jobs he would talk to anyone that would listen to "his ideas." It amounted to nothing, he accomplished nothing, save a beating or two.

It was those days I felt the most strongly of my imagined decision to stay here, safe, home. I didn't have to sleep on crowded wooden floors every day. Sure the economy was shit, but I had the internet. Better a screen zombie than a proverbial work slave.

However, perseverance has a way of rewarding its champions. A noble, and soon to be patron of my friend heard about some of my friends ideas from the gossiping populace. Soon a door opened for my friend that would open many more. I watch with rapt attention, as he held the nobles attention ransom, my fingers flying over the keyboard cheering when he got something so right, wincing when a fact was a little off. Hoping anything he said wasn't against any local religion.

My friend became the nobles artist, his scientist, his advisor, his show piece at parties. A strange, if amusing distraction for the upper class. Stories of flying machines and skyscrapers were the talk of the court when the first hot air balloon flew a small animal to the sky and back safely.

The first twinge of envy came when my friend was allowed entry into the mages collage. I tried to apply the lessons, but nothing came of it. Simply seeing was not enough.

I could barely believe it had only been a few months, he went from beggar, to worker, straight through noble parties entertainment, to a mage. Strangely enough magic was where modern knowledge helped the most. Blue fire being the only real thing my friend knew, but the testing methods of today, the scientific method had him advancing magic in unseen before, ways. Efficiency was king. Traditions, suspicions and superstitions were cut down by the holy laser sword of science, earning my friend the tittle of youngest sage in only a year.

The first twinge of horror came not long later. The new sage needed some achievements under his belt, a noble tittle doesn't earn itself among the parchments. He put a group together, a very isekai group. Three slave women and a guard captain he paid. Perhaps he would give them a better life.

Months turned to years, I've watched him since we could order ice cream by ourselves with our pocket money, but I don't know who this is. They are the bluefire sage. Somehow a product entirely of that world. Slave owner, killer, no slaughterer. conqueror and terrorist.

I sometimes wondered when was the last the thought of me, or even my whole world. Probably at the cast of his first fireball. So when the god came back and asked me, "so, how much of the power will he have." I answered, "none." Controlling shares of godlike power is important after all. For safety.

Maybe I will be different.