Summus Proelium

A riddle almost killed me. And, ironically, a riddle also saved me. Or rather, Riddles.

Yeah, the lizard-bird came flying out of nowhere, slamming right into Cup’s face and clawing at her with a deafening screech. The impact knocked backwards, throwing off her aim just enough so that the bullet, as she pulled the trigger, went flying a few inches to the right of my head. It passed through the wall, leaving a neat hole there. Which was a hell of a lot better than the neat hole it would’ve left in my head.

Even then, it took a couple seconds for the question she’d asked to stop commanding all of my attention. I finally physically jerked as my mind came back to the actual situation in time to see Riddles beating her wings against Cup’s face just as her beak bit down hard on the girl’s hand, drawing a shriek of surprise and pain from her.

Realizing just how close I’d come to death in that instant, I almost fell to my knees and sobbed. Actually, pretty much the only thing that stopped me from doing just that (and probably curling up into a ball for awhile) was the sight of Cup’s other hand reaching up to grab the lizard-bird by the neck. Quickly, I shot a bit of red paint out to Riddles’ back, yanking her to my raised arm, where she clung tightly. “Hey buddy,” I started while taking two steps forward, painting my arm purple.”Thanks for the–” My fist lashed out, punching Cup in the face while she was still recovering. “–assist!”

It may have looked like cloth, but that mask around the bottom half of Cup’s face had to be armored in some way, because it didn’t give nearly as much as it should have considering the force I was punching her with. It felt like hitting a pretty solid wall. Which made sense, considering how many people probably tried shooting her in the face for everything she was responsible for. Still, she was knocked to the floor with a new cry of pain, and I saw blood. Two bits of blood, actually. One from her nose and another on her hand where Riddles bit her. Even better, the gun went sliding across the floor away from her, ending up under a pile of overturned chairs.

On the far side of the room, I could see Pack and the rest of her menagerie (apart from Holiday, who was still upstairs) busy trying to deal with Box and the remaining Scion troops who weren’t already down. Pack was favoring one arm, holding it cradled to her side while directing Mars Bar and Twinkletoes, who were doing the majority of the damage. Tuesday kept popping in from the sides to hit the troops while they were trying to focus on the obvious threats. Even as I glanced that way, I could see him rip a good chunk of flesh out of one man’s arm with his teeth, sending him to the ground with a scream of agony. Good. He tried to blow up sick little kids.

Cup had scrambled up to her knees by then, and was starting to say something. She was cut off, however, as my quick shot of black paint hit the psycho bitch right in her chest, instantly muting any sound. “Yeah,” I snapped, “I think I’ve heard just about enough out of you, thanks.”

Then there was a new problem. The gun that Cup had been holding was gone, yes. It was still somewhere under that pile of chairs. Unfortunately, as it turned out, that wasn’t the only gun she was carrying. I know, right? Psycho evil cult supervillains, who expects them to carry two guns?

Yeah, I might still need some experience with this. Either way, she produced that second gun. And while she couldn’t actually talk, her eyes, burning with hatred as she brought it into line with me, screamed everything that needed to be said. She was going to kill me, and enjoy doing it.

Or, well, try. Because even as she pulled that trigger, I had already activated the orange circles along the sides of my torso that I’d put there before we came in this room. The first bullet simply bounced off my chest. It stung pretty bad, and would definitely leave a bit of a welt. But that was all. The subsequent two shots that she fired off quickly also stung, drawing a gasp from me. Then I was there, painting my arm purple once more as I tore the pistol from her grip. My other hand caught hold of her arm, and jerked her up and over. With a grunt, I deliberately twisted that arm until I felt something break. Just like when I’d hit her mask, it took a lot more force than it should’ve. Her costume was definitely armored. But not enough to stop me from snapping at least something, before I threw her face-first into the nearby wall. She collided hard with it and fell, sprawling out on the floor where she lay still, visibly breathing but not doing much else.

Just to be on the safe side, I shot another bit of black paint to keep her silent. Gliding over my head, Riddles made a screeching noise at her fallen form.

By the time it was clear that she was staying down, I was already spinning to run and help Pack. Unfortunately, as I did so, my feet went out from under me, and I ended up sprawling across the ground with a yelp.

“Hey, asshole,” a new voice snapped, and I looked that way from my fallen position to see another figure approaching. He wore a parody of a superhero costume. It was basically red footie pajamas (which was a real bold fashion choice) with a white, hand-drawn image of a tiny fish on the chest. A blue blanket of some kind was attached to the shoulders like a child’s idea of a cape, and he wore a simple black domino mask over his face. His hair was red and spiky.

This was Anchovy. And as absurd as he looked, his power, as I understood it, was still a pain in the ass. Despite making himself look like some goofy, toddler parody of a hero like Superman, his gift wasn’t exactly superstrength and flight. No, he ruined things. Or actions. Basically, if he focused on a person, things they did tended to go wrong. They might choke on a bit of food they were eating, sprain their ankle kicking someone, accidentally jerk the wheel when driving and run someone over, or whatever. The list went on. The point was, he focused on someone and actions they took had negative results. Meanwhile, physical objects he focused on would fall apart or break or whatever. Guns jammed, walls simply crumbled as if they were much older than they were, computers broke down, so on and so forth. He focused on people or items and bad things happened. Such as me falling flat on my face just from turning around. Jackass.

“Boss is gonna be pretty pissed with you for hurting Cup,” Anchovy informed me while taking a pistol of his own from the belt around his one-piece pajamas (Fuck, how could I take him seriously like that, even with a gun? This wasn’t fair.), which he pointed my way. “But when I tell him I put a bullet in your brain, maybe he’ll get over it.”

Quickly throwing myself to the side, I snapped my hand up to shoot a wad of red paint that hit his gun. Unfortunately, his power must’ve kicked in then, because when I yanked the gun away from him, it missed my hand entirely and smacked me right in the visor of my helmet. At least it didn’t hit my face, thanks to said helmet, but I was still very briefly stunned, jerking backward reflexively. Which was enough time for Anchovy to cross the distance between us and tackle me. I landed hard on my back with the man on me. He’d produced a knife from somewhere, which he was trying to shove into my ribs while holding me down with his other hand.

But Riddles was there, diving in to grab the knife out of the man’s grasp before he could shiv me (was it still called shiving even with a normal knife?) and carrying it away with a hard flap of her wings. Of course, that brought Anchovy’s attention to her, and the lizard-bird abruptly flew straight into an overturned chair before falling to the floor. Which left Anchovy free to produce a second knife, preparing to shove it as deep into my gut as he wanted.

I, however, didn’t really like that plan. At all. And he’d taken his focus off me for that brief moment, so I used it by painting my legs purple and kicking out hard. The guy was sent into the air and backward to slam high up into the wall with a loud blurted curse. As he started to fall, I hit him in the face with a wad of white paint, triggering it instantly to leave him blinded just before he hit the floor hard enough to make him yelp.

Hoping that not being able to see me would mean he couldn’t use his power on me, I lunged that way. Throwing myself onto the man, I used refreshed purple paint to rip the blanket-cape from his shoulders, then tore it in half before wrapping the first bit tightly around his head while he was still recovering. He cursed and spat at me, but I managed to shove the man over onto his stomach, using the other half of the cape to tie his hands behind his back.

Okay, okay, he was down. He was secure, for the moment at least. Jerking myself up from him, I stumbled a little in my rush. Gaze snapping over toward Cup just in case, I found her still lying motionless. Totally out of it and in no position to fight, thank God.

Right, Cup was down. Anchovy was down. Box… my gaze snapped that way in time to see the man himself lying very still on the floor. Twinkletoes had his arms held out above his head, while Mars Bar was crouched over him, mouth open to growl very dangerously directly into his face, those enormous teeth like rows of daggers. Yeah, the guy wasn’t interested in moving.

Correction, he was very interested in moving. He just wasn’t stupid enough to try it.

The rest of the thugs seemed to be down for the count too, or just staying very still to avoid attracting attention. Looking around the room, I didn’t see any more threats. They were down. They were done. We… we actually pulled it off. Holy shit, we actually pulled it off!

“Riddles, watch these guys,” Pack ordered her bird-lizard, who had recovered by then. “If anyone tries to move, rip their eyes out with your beak.” She waited for a confirming squawk before turning to me, panting heavily. Her shotgun lay nearby, bent at an angle that told me she’d used it to hit something pretty hard. “This hero shit is for the birds,” she informed me, still cradling her arm with a wince. “Fuck.”

Before I could say anything to that, That-A-Way came through the door. “Aww, and here I was hoping you’d enjoy this so much that you’d switch sides. Cooome on, being celebrated and cheered instead of hated and run from is a lot more fun.” She came up, glancing around the room while adding, “Plus there’s the whole ‘not being arrested’ perk. Here.” With that, the girl tossed a couple pairs of stay-down cuffs to me. “Let’s make sure the Touched assholes don’t get ideas.’

Catching the cuffs, I moved to where Cup was still laying sprawled out. “Cover me?” I asked Pack. “Pretty sure she can only affect one person at a time with that power of hers.”

She came, producing a small pistol in place of that broken shotgun with her uninjured hand. Tuesday came with, growling low and baring his teeth. As we neared the fallen woman, she shifted a bit, then yelped out loud as the monkey-lizard literally jumped on her back.

“Yeah,” I muttered, “that’s what I thought, faker.” Reaching down, I quickly cuffed the woman, making sure they were tight. “We should probably gag her or something, just in case.”

“Let’s go with ‘or something’, Pack announced. “Tuesday, if she makes a peep, punch her in the back of the head until she stops moving. Riddles, if she says anything to Tuesday, rip her throat out.” To me, she added, “Her power’s good at distracting, but shit at doing actual damage.”

From the way Cup lifted her head and glowered at that, she wasn’t happy with the assessment. Too bad. I looked away from her in time to see That-A-Way finish cuffing Box while Mars Bar and Twinkletoes reluctantly moved out of the way. Anchovy was still bound and blinded by his own blanket cape.

“Wow, I… I think we actually pulled it off,” I murmured incredulously, looking around the room one more time. “What about the hostages?”

“Safe and sound,” That-A-Way replied easily. Her mouth opened to say something else, but she was interrupted.

“Oooh, what kinda sound?” The voice came from the nearby doorway, and we all spun that way to find a figure coming into view. A figure who wore a tweed suit and a sackcloth mask with a long blond wig attached to it.

“Was it sorta like… ‘garrggggnnnlllurggull?’” Pencil asked. “Cuz that’s basically the sound they were making a few seconds ago when I left ‘em. It was pretty hilarious.”

Wait… Oh no. Oh no, no, no…

“Wha-what?” That-A-Way blurted, her eyes widening as she snapped her taser up to point at him. “No, we… I… I left them somewhere safe.”

There was a brief inhale from the masked psychopath as he rocked his head back and forth as though debating before shaking it. “Yeeeeeah, not so much, Cupcake. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t kill the kids because… well, nature’s already doing that for me and how am I supposed to compete with something that makes ‘em that miserable for so long and then kills ‘em anyway? Actually, that’s a bad question, I could totally do it better, but I was in a bit of a hurry. And that whole hurrying thing is why I didn’t kill all of the adults. Just cut a throat or two, disemboweled a couple more, and basically left the survivors up to their ears in blood, entrails, and psychological trauma. Oh, and the fact that I got to do that right after you told them they were safe and then left? That was probably my favorite part. Thank you for that, really. I’ll send you a fruit basket or so–”

In mid-sentence, he was suddenly interrupted as That-A-Way appeared beside him, shoving the taser in his stomach with a scream while lashing out with her other hand to punch him. At the same time, Pack snapped that pistol of hers up and fired off several shots, and Mars Bar hurled himself that way with a roar.

The taser did nothing. Nor did the punch. Or the bullets from the gun. Even as I was telling myself to move, trying to lunge in to help, Pencil snatched the taser from the other girl while driving his knee into her stomach. She doubled over, and he pivoted, catching hold of her neck to throw her into the incoming Mars Bar, who plowed into the girl while struggling to slow himself. That-A-Way hit the ground and rolled with a cry of pain. Mars, meanwhile, was suddenly hit with some kind of green cloud that exploded in his face. The big bear roared in agony and dove to the floor, rubbing his snout on the tile to get whatever it was off.

Still pivoting to come all the way back around, Pencil threw that taser at Pack. It hit her with a sharp, visible jolt of electricity, and she hit the floor as well.

Covering my legs with green paint for speed, I threw a puddle of blue at the floor by Pencil’s feet just as he focused on me. It launched him upward, and I had the satisfaction of hearing a surprised yelp from the man. Then I hit him with red paint while he was still flailing in the air, while also hitting the furthest wall with the same color. Activating both sent him flying across the room to slam hard into that wall.

It did nothing. He fell to the floor, and that seemed to do nothing as well, of course. Nor was he actually hurt when the invisible Twinkletoes yanked him off the ground and spun to slam him into that same wall again.

Nothing hurt him. Nothing. We could do this all day and it wouldn’t matter. But trap him? Contain him? Maybe we could do that.

“Hold him!” I blurted at Twinkletoes while scrambling that way. I still had one of those sets of cuffs. “Just hold onto him!”

The gorilla-lizard tried. He really did. But Pencil managed to get a hand into his pocket, throwing some kind of pellet up and back. It exploded in the animal’s face, creating a another small cloud of green smoke similar to the one that had hit Mars Bar. This one that left Twinkletoes staggering and moaning in pain, releasing the man.

I was there, painting my arms purple for strength as I tried to grab onto him. I couldn’t hurt him, but I could hold him long enough to cuff him.

Or not. He smoothly evaded as I tried to grab him. Worse, he laughed at me. Spinning on one heel like we were dancing as I lunged that way, he also ducked under the shot of red paint I sent at his face. The next thing I knew, his hand was on my shoulder, his foot hit my ankle, and the floor came rushing up to smack me in the visor.

“Probably a good idea to wear a helmet in this line of work,” he commended. Before I could move, his foot came down on my wrist, pushing against it enough to send a sharp shock of pain all the way up my arm, making it really hard to focus on anything else. “Too bad y–”

It had taken me a second, but I managed to concentrate enough to paint my wrist blue. Pencil was launched away from me, and I quickly rolled over on my back as he came down by a pile of chairs. My arm (the one that wasn’t currently throbbing) snapped up to shoot red at him, but he threw one of those chairs in the way, making it catch that instead.

“Hey, Dingaling!” a female voice blurted, and my gaze reflexively snapped that way in time to see Cup, standing up and no longer cuffed (how the hell had she managed that?!) as she called, “Is a dragonfly a dragon to a fly or a fly to a dragon?”

Is… wait, no hold on. I was fine, I could totally answer this. I could. This was easy. It was a dragon that… hold on. Wait…

In the background, I vaguely noticed Cup and Pencil both heading for the exit. Fork had gotten back to his feet to join them, but they’d had to leave Box and Anchovy behind. Still, they wouldn’t get away. I could catch up. I just had to finish this question. It was…

“Paintball!” A hand smacked me across the helmet, as Pack popped up into my field of view. “What are you doing?! What–are you–”

Snapping out of it, I waved both hands frantically, ignoring the burst of pain. “Stop them, stop them!”

That-A-Way was already back on her feet, and we, along with the lizard-beasts (Twinkletoes and Mars Bar had recovered) went running after the pair. We crashed through the exit of the hospital and out onto the front walkway to find… nothing. They were gone.

“Yooo hooo!”

Or not. We spun, stumbling a bit in our rush before looking up toward the roof of a low, one-story building at the edge of the lot straight ahead. Pencil, Fork, and Cup were there, the first waving a cell phone in one hand.

“You know, fucking with my bomb upstairs was really rude!” Pencil called down. “Made it so much weaker than it should’ve been. Now I can’t knock the whole building down and teach those kids about the fleeting futility of life. Though I did get to slit their doctors’ throats right in front of them, so maybe they’ll work it out on their own!”

“Teleport?” I quickly asked That-A-Way.

Her head shook, voice cracking a bit. “They’re south of us, I… I can be intangible at him, but… but…”

Reaching out to grab her arm so I could launch at least the two of us that way, if not Pack and her animals, I stopped abruptly as Pencil held that phone up.

“Oh well,” he announced, “if I can’t take down a whole hospital, at least I can take out one floor.”

“No!” That-A-Way shouted, suddenly disappearing from my side just as Pencil hit the button on his phone. There was a second delay, before…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

With a terrifying, deafening crash that blew out all the windows of the floor high above, the bomb went off. The force of it set off dozens of car alarms, and shards of glass and other debris rained down on us from above. I caught a brief glimpse of the Scions disappearing from the roof, while Pack and I both staggered, along with her animals.

Her animals, that was, except for…

“Holiday!!!” Pack screamed in horror and panic, her head tilted back to stare up at the burning, totally destroyed hospital floor in shock and horror. The flames were spreading rapidly. Maybe the rest of the hospital could be saved if the firefighters got there quick enough, but anything on that floor would have been completely annihilated by the blast.

Screaming Holiday’s name again, Pack went to run back into the hospital. Quickly, I grabbed her wrist. She spun, screaming in my face about getting the hell away from her while lashing out with a kick that took me in the stomach. I staggered, and she shoved me away from her before spinning back that way, intent on running into the hospital.

Then she stopped, as two figures emerged from the smoke. One human and one very much not.

“Hey,” That-A-Way managed after coughing a few times. Her hand came down on Holiday’s head. “Sorry, managed to teleport up and then out with her, but we had to walk back. You guys o–”

She was stopped then, as Pack threw herself that way. “Thank you!” the girl blurted, embracing That-A-Way tightly while basically outright sobbing. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved her. You saved Holiday. Thank you. Thank you.” She just kept repeating that, clearly openly crying before releasing the Minority girl so she could fall to her knees and hug Holiday just as tightly. If anything, she was crying even more.

Sirens. I looked to the street and saw fire trucks, police cars, SWAT vans, ambulances, and more. They were all screaming their way up to both the hotel and this hospital. There were Touched flying around in the air above, and appearing on the streets.

“Go,” That-A-Way snapped quickly toward Pack. “Get your animals and go, before you get arrested in all of this.” Then she looked to me, voice cracking. “H-he really did it. He killed four of the people I left with those kids. T-two doctors, a n-nurse, and an orderly. I don’t… I don’t know what–I was trying to… I… I…”

“I’m sorry,” I managed weakly, knowing it was inadequate. Pathetically so. What was I supposed to say? What could I say? People were dead. We hadn’t saved all of them, not from that… that piece of shit. It wasn’t our fault. It was his. Pencil’s. That psycho fuck. He killed them, just because he couldn’t stand to let us save all of them. He killed them for no reason. Murdered them just… just to murder them. Just to make sure we didn’t save everyone.

“Hey.” Pack spoke instead, standing there surrounded by her animals even as the fire trucks reached the edge of the hospital lot. “I… I’m sorry about what happened to those guys. But don’t umm… don’t blame yourself.” She sniffed, hand clutching Holiday’s neck. “You got them out, you got those kids out, and a lot more of ‘em would’ve died if you hadn’t done that. You… did the right thing. You did the best you could.”

It looked like she wanted to say something more, just from the girl’s body language. But in the end, she turned and fled with her lizard-creatures, while the fire fighters were approaching with their hoses.

“I–I’m going back to the kids,” That-A-Way stammered. “There’s people there with them already, but… but I… I have to…” She shook her head then, looking to me. “Are you…”

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I’m good, but do you want some he–”

She was gone, teleporting away. Which left me standing there on the front grass of the hospital while firefighters raced past me to focus on the flames burning high above, trying to stop them from spreading. I saw a small figure in a blue bodysuit with silver panels floating above them. Raindrop, the youngest of the Minority. She was sending water through the shattered windows as well, clearly directing it through the building to the worst of the fire. Even as I watched for those few seconds, she had doused most of the flames almost by herself, directing thousands of gallons of water through the place with just a wave of her hand.

Good. Good. They had this handled. And with Pencil gone, the situation back over at the hotel was definitely under control. Things were–

Wait. Oh. Oh shit. Things were under control. The hostage situation was over.

My family would be looking for me.