Summus Proelium

There was a time, incredibly recently in fact, when hearing that Pencil was about to be in the same area as my basically unconscious and completely helpless parents would have sent me into a completely mindless sprint that way without the slightest thought about anyone else who could help. Everything about my friends, my team, and anyone else would have completely vanished along with most of my capacity for coherent thought as my entire focus would have gone toward nothing but getting there faster.

But this time, after what had just happened with the Scions candidates and how easily I could have ended up dead along with my sister and friends if the rest of my team hadn't shown up to stop those reinforcements, things were different. Not drastically so, to be fair. I was still panicking, but I retained at least enough thought to open our group call with the rest of the team so I could shout (mostly coherently, which was a big plus) about what was going on and that I was going over there right fucking now.

At the same time, I was using both hands to shoot red-green paint at the corner of the window I had to come through and used that to rocket myself through the open room and back out into the night air. I heard Alloy behind me shout that she was coming and for Qwerty to jump on, before she shifted over to the conference call with the nearby police units to tell them where Fork was and that they needed to come take him before he managed to escape. Her words were a jumbled mess to my ears, but that was probably just because of my own panic because the cops sent an acknowledgement and said they would be right up with a containment unit. Some part of me knew that was good, since no matter how secure the porcupine-like man was with those stay-down cuffs, if he was left alone long enough I had no doubt he’d manage to get free to do God knew what to anyone he could get his hands (or quills) on. That small part of my brain knew he was dangerous, but all I could think about was the other danger. The one facing my parents, while they had absolutely no way to protect themselves.

By that point, I had passed through the window, even as the rest of the team assured me that they were right behind me as well. I barely heard them while free-falling through the air for about fifteen feet before managing to send a shot of red at the corner of the building across the street to yank myself up that way. As I went flying, barely touching down on a blue spot I’d hit that bit of wall with before using that to launch myself forward and higher, I was already shifting over to a private call with That-A-Way. Breathlessly, I told her what was going on while landing on the edge of another building to run along the brick wall there. I hurriedly told her about how it had sounded like whoever was protecting the building was already being overwhelmed and that someone had to get there right now.

Amber promised she would get free from the fight they were already in right then, and get over there with the rest of the Minority the second they could. She also promised to contact Caishen and spread the word just in case no one else had picked up that message so more reinforcements would be on the way. I didn't know if that would be soon enough, but I had to hope. Hope was all I had right now. Pencil was a psychotic, mass-murdering piece of shit who thought it was fun to torture, maim, and kill innocent people at the best of times. That was when he was in a good mood. Right now, he would basically be like a rabid animal. His sister was in trouble and his latest plans to deal with that had been foiled, resulting in the capture of all his new recruits as well as his established teammate. Technically I wasn't actually sure if Pencil gave the slightest shit about Box, but at the very least, he probably saw the man as an asset to help his sister. And he definitely cared about her. All of that had gone wrong, his sister was still in trouble, and now he had been ejected from the building he should've been safe in. Worse, from his perspective, he probably had absolutely no idea where his sister even was right now. He was already about as panicked about her as I was about my parents, and unlike me, he didn’t know how to find her. He had all that rage and fear about what might be the only person on the planet he actually cared about, no way to help her right then, and a whole building full of helpless people in front of him.

Yeah, with those thoughts running through my head, I was even more terrified about what that bastard might do. He was always unpredictable, and right now? Right now he might just want to burn down the entire city with everyone in it. He definitely wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone he ran into over there. Hell, the second he figured out where he was, the fucker would probably think it was Christmas. Seriously, he wanted hostages that the rest of the city would actually negotiate for and give him anything he wanted in exchange? He probably couldn’t have landed in a better place if he tried. Every vulnerable Star-Touched, every authority figure, every important person who had been in that building when the Sleeptalk attack happened (including the richest couple in the state) were in there. Forget just helping his sister and giving her back to him, if Pencil managed to get that building and the people in it under his control, he could demand anything he wanted. Unless we managed to get there in time to stop him.

I had no idea who else had actually heard that message before it was cut off. I didn't know what exactly was going on in that place, what other Touched might show up to help, or how bad the overall situation was. All I knew was that I had to get there and stop Pencil, no matter what it took.

By that point, Alloy had caught up with me. I jumped sideways off the building I had been running along, landing on the open spot of the wide hoverboard she had made. A quick shot of green sped the thing up before I pointed. “That way, between those buildings!” I had been visiting that place enough, and just generally painting my way through the city, that I knew the best route.

Immediately, she sent the board that way while Qwerty jumped off her shoulder and over to mine. I reached up to scratch him while doing my very best not to tell the other girl to hurry up. She was going as fast as she could. I knew that, I knew it. I also knew that if I used all my paint trying to get myself to the building even faster, I wouldn’t have anything left in the tank to actually help anyone once I was there. No, hard as it was, as panicked as I was, I had to breathe. I had to hope that the guards in that place could keep things under control long enough for us to get there this way. The rest of the team was coming, That-A-Way and the Minority would be on their way, and everyone else would have been alerted by now. Someone would get there in time. Someone would be able to stop Pencil before this turned into the sort of tragedy that--

An image went flashing through my mind. I was standing on Anthony’s back patio, seeing his dead mother, seeing Anthony himself just before he was shot in the head. I was seeing his entire family and the rest of the household staff. I was seeing all of them dead, murdered in cold blood. I saw them, and I saw my own family. I saw what Pencil would do if he had the chance. An animalistic noise escaped me as I half-doubled over right there on the flying marbleboard. Faster, faster, we had to go faster! I shot another bit of green at the board to speed us up again, while Peyton promised she was pushing it as hard as she could. Only then did I realize I was mumbling, ‘faster faster’ out loud, and made myself stop.

We really were going incredibly fast as far as flying on a board like this went. Qwerty was clinging to my stomach while I held him with one arm, and I had to crouch down a bit to brace myself. Peyton had formed a binding up and over her own feet as well as mine, like what you buckled your foot into on a snowboard to make sure you stayed attached to it. Part of me wondered if that was as much to stop me from running off on my own again as it was to stop me from falling. But either way, it worked.

Paige called in, letting us know they had the van and were on their way. Apparently they even had a few cop cars with them. And in the distance, I could see a police helicopter swinging around to head for the same place we were going. They’d gotten word too. God, I hoped it would be enough. I hoped the guards in that building could hold off Pencil and whatever goons he’d managed to take in there with him. Whatever--

Wait. Hang on, how did Pencil end up in that building with some of his people? That teleport thing was supposed to send everyone to random locations, right? What were the odds that it would just happen to send Pencil himself into the worst possible location he could have ended up in at all, let alone him and what was apparently a not-insignificant number of his own people? Something felt off about that, but I couldn’t decide if I was just being overly paranoid because of the whole situation with my parents, or if there was actually something wrong. Pencil couldn’t have planned for this, right? What if he deliberately set up the forcefield to have that weakness so it could be exploited to send him right to that specific location as a backup plan? But if he did that, why would someone like Fork have ended up somewhere completely different? And it wasn’t just him, there were Scions people and former hostages showing up all over the place, going by several radio calls that had been going out.

Oh right, a distraction, obviously. I was seeing the effects of that right now as the people who were being told that there was a problem back in the Conservators building were too busy to easily pull themselves away. If I was right, if this really was all part of Pencil’s plan, he’d managed to get all the other teams spread out all over the city dealing with all that, while he and a select group were sent straight into the most vulnerable building in the whole city. And if that was the case, Cup was probably right there with him, where--

Oh shit. Right where he could force the best doctors in the city to give her the best possible treatments. This whole thing, it wasn’t about panicking. He hadn’t panicked at all. It was all part of his plan, all of it from the very start! Locking himself in an apartment building had always seemed stupid and pointless. But he made everyone look at him, he set up the shield so that we’d think he was trapped, then made us come up with the only way of getting him out. A way he had actually planned on and left open specifically so he could be sent where he wanted to go. I had no idea how he pulled that off, if there was something about the forcefield he was able to adjust and then stand in a certain spot so the teleportation feedback sent him to a specific location, or… or what. I wasn’t sure. But the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that this was all intentional. It made too much sense that way. Far more sense than the idea that he had actually been accidentally and randomly sent there.

With all that running through my head, I opened the phone line to the rest of the team and told them, along with Qwerty and Alloy right there with me, what I was thinking. Partway through, I felt like a paranoid loon raving about aliens. But then as I went on, my certainty grew once more. Saying it out loud might’ve sounded crazy at first, yet as more and more of my reasoning came out, my doubt vanished. This was it. This was what Penci’s entire plan had been from the start. He’d always intended to trick every Star and Shield who was still active into spreading ourselves thin across the city, then getting himself transported over to the Conservators headquarters so he could take it over. And just like that, he would have everything he needed to help his sister, plus a whole building full of hostages like the chief of police, vulnerable Star-Touched, and my parents.

At first, the others seemed just as doubtful as I had been when the thought had occurred to me. But when I was finished summing it up, there was a brief pause before Sierra cursed colorfully. That was almost immediately followed by Paige cursing even louder and more colorfully. Unfortunately, knowing that those two clearly believed me wasn't exactly reassuring. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted everyone to point out a dozen flaws in my reasoning so I could believe that I was just being stupidly paranoid and let it go. Instead, Paige said she was sending a message about what we thought to every other team and the police dispatch center, and telling Caishen that the entire plan might’ve been compromised from the very start. I didn’t know how she or that Four guy would take the idea that they’d been played that effectively, but I had to hope they’d recover quickly and send everyone to that building before Pencil managed to pull this off.

And speaking of sending everyone, I took a breath before using my phone to make one more call. This one to the Ministry. As soon as someone picked up, I started talking. “Yeah, it’s Paintball. You probably know this already, but Pencil’s in the Conservators headquarters. Yeah, with all those bigwigs. If you don’t want him to start lighting them on fire or something, you should probably send everything you’ve got over there.” My voice sounded… oddly calm to my own ears. I thought it was probably partly because I knew I had to get my point across, and partly because I was so stressed I’d looped all the way around again. Or maybe I’d lapped myself repeatedly. Either way, I got all that out, trying to ignore the way I’d mentioned Pencil potentially killing my own parents so seemingly casually. I couldn’t let on just how much anyone in there meant to me. That was another reason my voice was flat. I was trying very hard not to give away my own emotional investment.

Finally, I disconnected after making sure they got the message. By then, we had just come around the last turn. The marble board came to a halt right above the roof of the place across the street from the building in question. We all stared that way, Qwerty clambering up on top of my helmet to get a better look. The building looked empty. There were no snipers on the roof, no guards at the gate or any of the doors, and no one gathered in the lot. It all looked quiet down there. Which somehow scared me even more than if the place had been full of gunfire and screaming. It was like a graveya--

No. No, Cassidy. Don’t even finish that thought.

After telling my brain to shut the fuck up, I started focusing even more on what I was seeing. No guards, no signs of violence, nothing. If there had still been people outside, they’d either left or been lured inside somehow. Probably the latter. They’d tried to help the people like my parents, and… and either they were still fighting without any signs escaping the building, or the fighting was over. At the very least, I was pretty sure the building was soundproof and shielded in various ways, so just because we couldn’t hear or see anything from out here didn’t necessarily mean anything. I had to remind myself of that as my heart tried its level best to pound its way out of my chest.

Peyton lowered the board so we could step off onto the roof of the other building. I wanted to fling myself that way immediately, but we had to at least try to get a better idea of what was going on in there. And, with any luck, go in there with more than just the three of us. If I was right about Pencil having this planned out so extensively, he would be even more dangerous. He hadn’t been taken by surprise, he’d gone into this whole thing knowing what was coming, so he would have all the weapons and special toys he needed. He would be ready to hold out against anyone trying to get in there and stop him.

Honestly, our only hope was that he hadn’t managed to completely secure the place yet. As long as they were still fighting in there, as long as he didn’t have everything under control, there was still a chance to salvage this whole situation.

Even as I was focusing my gaze on the area I was pretty sure held my parents, That-A-Way appeared. And she wasn’t alone. Not only did she have Fragile, Wobble, Carousel, Syndicate, and Raindrop with her, but the rest of my team as well. Apparently they’d met up somewhere along the way.

“He’s really in there, isn’t he?” Wobble muttered, stepping next to me as he stared at the building. His voice cracked a bit. “They told us about your theory. You think he planned this whole thing?”

“I do,” I confirmed. “And I think if we don’t get in there and stop him right now, he’s about to have a whole bunch of the most important people in the city as hostages, along with every bit of research they have into the Sleeptalk cure.”

The others all exchanged looks, as the severity of the situation settled onto all of us. It wasn’t just about saving my parents. If Pencil pulled this off, no one would be able to get in that place. They wouldn’t be able to risk it, not with those hostages and the research Pencil could just destroy. If we were going to stop him, it was now or never.

“Well,” That-A-Way started, “what are we waiting for?

“Let’s figure out how we’re going to get in there and save the city.”