Summus Proelium

Four years ago

“You’re not special, you know.“

The words were addressed to a family of four (a mother and father with a teenaged child of each sex), who were sitting bound and gagged on a couch in an innocuous-looking living room. They were a very all-American suburbanite-looking family. The father’s formerly thick, dark hair had passed the midpoint of balding and he was a bit saggy around the gut, though his bright blue eyes remained fiercely intelligent and sharp. Beside him, the man’s wife retained much of the beauty of her not-so-recent youth, with long blonde hair that only needed a bit of help retaining its color and shine thanks to quite wonderful genes. Her own eyes were dark, and were currently filled with tears.

Their teenage children, meanwhile, each quite resembled their opposite-sex parent. The girl had long dark hair like her father’s had been some time before, with eyes whose brilliant blue matched his with the added youthful spirit. A spirit which, at the moment, seemed entirely broken by terror. And her slightly older brother was very clearly his mother’s son, with hair that might have been much shorter than hers, but was no less blond. His eyes too were as dark as hers, his rage and helplessness seeming to mask a revulsion and terror that was indescribable.

All four were staring at a man in an ill-fitting brown tweed suit who stood nearby. He wore a sackcloth bag over his head as a mask with holes cut in it for his eyes and mouth. A wig of long, luxurious blond hair had been attached to the bag-mask, making him look quite normal from the back.

The source of the family’s terror, beyond their imprisonment, was visible on the recliner chair beside their couch. An uncle who had been visiting, and who had thought to rebel against this intruder when he arrived, lay in that chair gutted from waist to throat, his insides spilling out as his dead horrified gaze seemed to stare accusingly at his family.

Tears fell freely from the four as they fought not to look at the body. Both teenagers had been sick over themselves and the smell from it was competing with that of the body. They kept their attention rigidly locked on the man in front of them as he casually flipped a bloody knife between his fingers.

“Everyone wants to think they’re special,” the man continued. “Especially victims. And you, uh, you’re pretty victimy. People like you, they want to think that something’s happening for a reason, that they were chosen for some… purpose.”

He paused then, head cocked as though considering. “Actually it’s the survivors who really like to think that you’re special. They need you to have done something to deserve this. Or at least something to draw the attention of whatever made it happen. They need a cause-and-effect, because otherwise it could happen to anyone. It could happen to them. And, well, that’s just too terrifying a thought to consider.”

He stepped over, stopping in front of the mother. Her eyes widened with terror while her husband made repeated grunting sounds, trying to draw their attacker’s attention.

Slowly, those eyes in the sack mask turned a bit to look toward the father. A low, raspy chuckle escaped the man as he spoke again. “Like I said, everyone thinks they’re special. They’re not. You’re not. Do you know why you’re here? Do you know why I’m here, why I chose you? It’s because I flipped through the phonebook and landed on an address. This house is where my finger stopped. Random, huh?”

He offered them a shrug, his gaze moving back to the mother. “But here’s the thing about randomness. It can go both ways. If I wanted to be truly random, couldn’t I just turn around and walk out that door right now?” He gave another raspy chuckle as their eyes moved hopefully to the front entrance. “Yeah, I could do that. I could leave. And then maybe I’ll find you again in a year, or maybe I’ll wait until the girl over there has a munchkin of her own and then take the kid.” His hand waved idly toward the fifteen-year-old girl, causing a muffled scream of outrage from her parents.

“I could do a hell of a lot of things,” the man continued with a casual, musing tone. “But you know what sounds like a lot of fun? A game.“

With that, he reached out quickly, grabbing the mother by the arm before yanking her up. His knife was pointed toward the father to keep him docile while the masked man wrestled the mother up and over, making her straddle her husband. Humming, the man used the knife to cut the mother’s bonds, but kept it close to her side to prevent her from moving very much. He then took hold of one of her hands, extending it toward her husband. A cord was produced next, with a loop at either end. The man looped one end around her wrist, before looping the other end around the father’s neck. It kept her hand close to his throat.

That done, the masked man lifted her husband‘s hand and repeated much the same to put his hand near her throat. Then he bound their opposite arms together to keep them locked that way. Husband and wife were now tied together, hands close to each other’s necks.

Next, the man produced a pair of small revolvers. There was a collection of muffled shouting, but he spoke over it. “Now, now, let’s all hear what the rules of the game are before we start interrupting. Don’t be rude.” He made a show out of ejecting all of the shells from each revolver except for one in each. Then the man carefully placed one of the revolvers in each of the parents’ hands that were tied close to their partner’s neck before using a roll of duct tape to secure them in place, making sure they couldn’t move the barrels anywhere else.

“Okay then,” the man announced, “we’re off to the races. The question we’re asking here today is which kid do you love the most? See, at least one of these kids has a fighting chance of walking out of here, if not both. If Daddy shoots Mommy, then his beautiful baby girl gets to leave completely untouched. If Mommy shoots Daddy, then their bright-eyed, bushy-tailed boy gets to survive. Maybe he’ll write a book about it. And, well, I suppose if both Mommy and Daddy shoot each other, the kids win the grand prize. Which is sort of a lifetime of nightmares and thousands in therapy bills. But hey, they’ll be alive. Which is more than I could say for the contestants.”

Turning, the man pointed to a camera that had been set up on a tripod in the corner and had been recording throughout his explanation. “And if you can, try to spray some of the blood toward our friends in the future audience. That’ll really give it a nice, visceral feel for the inevitable TV movie and true crime episode about this little hiccup in your lives. I mean, I’d say regular movie because, let’s face it, I’m pretty damn good at this. But I just don’t think you’re that important.”

He let them consider that for a brief moment before adding, “And just to make it interesting, let’s say that if neither of you have shot each other by the time that cuckoo clock over there goes off, I’ll just kill one of the kids myself. We’ll make it an Eenie Meenie situation.”

A handful of seconds passed as the man looked toward the clock before turning back to them with a small smile. “Would this be more or less nerve-racking if you could actually see that clock and had any idea how close it was to going off? I’m genuinely curious. Always looking to make these little visits better, you know? I thought of having comment cards, but I just don’t feel like you’d be honest. Oh, whoops, you’re probably trying to decide how much you love your kids right now, right? Well, I’ll let you get back to it, for the next… well…” He glanced toward the clock before offering them a shrug. “However long you have.”

Mother and father fought uselessly against their bonds for a few seconds, pleading through their gags for mercy while their eyes snapped back and forth between each other and the clock, whose face they couldn’t see. In the background, the masked man made a soft ticking sounds with clear amusement, occasionally glancing toward the camera while making pantomime gestures as if to ask, ‘Can you believe it’s taking them this long?’

The mother and father looked toward their bound and gagged children, a keening sound of desperation escaping the mother before she snapped her eyes back to her husband. A brief moment of silent communication passed between them and both slumped a little as they came to a mutual decision.

“Ohhh, ladies and gentlemen and tied up offspring currently sitting on the couch,” the man started, “ I believe we have a—“

Two terrifyingly loud bangs filled the room as mother and father shot one another in the head, spraying blood and brain matter in every direction. The echoes of the shots were followed by barely muffled screams from both teenagers. Wails and sobs flooded from the pair to form a distinct soundtrack of horror against the grisly sight. Their violent, wretched grief, painfully visible on the camera for a moment, was blocked then as the masked man knelt in front of it.

“Well, I guess that’s it for today. But don’t worry, we’ll see each other again. Maybe some of you sooner than you think.” With a wave of one hand, he used the other to reach out and turn off the camera.

“Holy shit!” The new voice filled the room as soon as the camera was off, as the teenage boy lunged to his feet, his ‘bonds’ falling as he ripped the gag from his mouth. “Holy shit! That was amazing! That was so fucking cool! Wasn’t it, Manda?”

He turned a bit, seeing his sister on the couch, still staring at their parents’ bodies. “Amanda?”

With a loud, gleeful squeal, the fifteen-year-old girl spat the gag in her mouth out and sprang just as energetically to her feet, fake bonds falling to the floor while she threw her arms around her sixteen-year-old brother. “Nick, Nick, that was so great! Did you see the look on their faces before they did it?! Oh, that was incredible. That was the most beautiful thing ever! That was amazing!”

She continued to hug her brother tightly for a few seconds before turning to kick her mother’s lifeless leg. “Who doesn’t get a new phone now, bitch?!”

Nick tugged her back by the shoulder, barely sparing their parents a glance. “Come on, Manders, our little scene here looks pretty good, and the video’ll help. But we need to call the cops soon or it’ll look suspicious.”

The girl wound herself up to spit on their parents before Nick covered her mouth. “It’d look pretty weird to find your saliva on their bodies. Just saying.”

The two turned away from their parents, walking past their dead uncle without a glance or care before stopping in front of the masked man, who had stood there watching the whole time.

“Good job,” Nick congratulated, “you sounded perfect.”

Reaching up, the man pulled off his mask, revealing a fairly normal looking pale man with red hair. “Shucks, all I did was follow your script. That was pretty fucked up, man, I ain’t gonna lie.”

Nick shrugged. “It’ll convince the investigators that our parents’ deaths were absolutely not our fault. So the inheritance and life insurance should pay right out. Hell, we’ll probably get donations from concerned citizens who just want to help us get past the grief.” He chuckled then, before reaching into his pocket to pull out a bundle of wrapped hundred dollar bills, which he handed over to the man. “Five thousand, just as promised. The remaining forty-five will be after we get paid. You know how it is.”

Amanda was already standing over next to a nearby door. She’d opened it to reveal stairs leading down. “Come on, you’ve got to go out through the cellar so the neighbors don’t tell the cops which way you went. There’s a trap door near the bushes at the edge of the fence.”

Nick nodded, heading that way first. “Yeah, I’ll show you how to get past the junk.” He patted his sister on the head before clomping down the stairs, with the other man descending after him.

Reaching the bottom, the man paused at the crinkling sound as he stepped off the last stair and looked down. “Hey, why is there plastic on the—”

That was as far as the man got before Amanda, using the greater heights of standing on the stair above him, suddenly leapt on the man with a banshee shriek and drove a knife into the side of his throat. He screamed, the sound turning into a gurgling mess as he collapsed to the floor with Amanda on his back, cackling madly. The man choked and died there on the plastic wrap as the girl whispered sweet nothings in his ear.

Finally, he was dead, and Amanda rose to reveal the plastic apron she had put on to protect her own clothes from his blood. “See?” she directed toward her brother, “Told you I could do it.”

Nick gave his sister a high-five before they rolled the body up in the plastic. He took the time to pick up the wig-covered mask that the man had dropped, looking at it for a moment before tucking the thing away. Together, they dragged the body in the plastic across the entire basement, past mounds of boxes and random junk until they reached the far corner, where a dresser stood. Brother and sister moved the dresser, revealing a hole that had already been prepared. In that hole was an old freezer. The two of them dumped the body into the freezer, added the mask and Amanda’s apron and knife before closing the lid, then dragged the dresser back over to cover the hole. Working quickly, they took a minute to stack random junk all around the dresser, making it look like no one had gone over there in quite some time. Once a bike with one wheel was shifted in front of the pile, the two of them ran back up the basement stairs to re-join their murdered family members.

“Ready?” Nick asked his sister. Getting a quick nod from her, he reached out to pick up the phone, dialing 911. It rang twice before being answered, and he immediately began to sob about how they needed help, while Amanda provided a chorus of tears and pleading in the background.

Soon, the sound of sirens filled the air, while brother and sister looked to one another. “Nick,” Amanda murmured with delight, “that was so amazing! We have to do that again.”

The boy chuckled. “Well, it’d be pretty hard to do that again. That was kind of a one-time thing. But don’t worry. We will definitely find ways to entertain ourselves.”

With a grin, Amanda started to respond. Then she paused, head tilting as she stared past him. “Hey, Nick…

“What’re those glowing orb things?”

********

Present Day

“So that’s how my sister and I got our powers and got rid of our parents at the same time.”

Nick, or Pencil as he was now known by the world at large, stood in the middle of the convenience store, surrounded by kneeling, sobbing figures. The now twenty-year-old wore the same sackcloth mask with blonde wig that he’d had their parents’ killer wear four years earlier, having retrieved it from the freezer before he and Amanda disposed of the body.

Smiling under the mask, Nick gestured to the kneeling people. “Thanks for letting me get all that off my chest. I don’t know why, but I really felt the need to talk about it with somebody lately. And it’s not really the kind of story you tell the therapist. I mean yeah, sis and I are super-motivational speakers. You should see the way we get worked up in all the schools about overcoming adversity and shit. It’s just… I don’t think they’d accept this particular nugget. But let’s be honest, you guys aren’t gonna tell anybody. You’ll be dead.”

His words brought a renewed round of sobbing from the group of employees and customers, before one tried to lunge to his feet in a desperate bid to either escape or attack.

Unfortunately, the man barely stood before Nick casually buried a knife in his stomach. The man choked, looking down at all the blood with a whimper.

“There there,” Nick murmured. He withdrew the knife from the man’s stomach, turned it around, and placed it in his hand. The man was slumping against him, whining as he closed his fingers around the knife.

“You wanna try it?” Nick offered. “I know, I know. You’ve heard all about how nothing can kill me. But go ahead, give it a try. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

There was a brief pause, before the man rammed the knife into Nick’s stomach. Nothing happened. The knife passed in and out of his body with no apparent effect. No blood was drawn, and no wound was left behind.

“Well, that’s unlucky,” Nick murmured. “Why don’t we try again?” With that, he waved his hand, and the wound in the stomach of the man he had stabbed was abruptly healed. There was no damage whatsoever, as the guy gasped in surprise while straightening up.

Covering his mouth in mock surprise, Nick then explained, “Yeah, see, I’m not actually completely invulnerable. The truth is, everything I do to someone else, I become completely immune to. But it only works three times for every time I do it to someone else. And it’s super specific. Like, a stab in the arm won’t protect me from a stab in the head. Or if I set someone on fire, the only parts of me that are protected from burning are the parts of them that burned. So I tend to be pretty thorough.”

With a sudden curse, the other man tried to cut Nick’s throat. Again, nothing happened.

Nick, with a roll of his eyes, drove a knee into the man’s groin, dropping him to the ground. “Dude, do you have any idea how often I’ve stabbed people in the throat? Yeah, I’m only protected three times per. But I’ve stacked like… pffft, hundreds by this point. It’s pretty ridiculous.”

Stepping over the man, he continued, addressing both him and the rest of the kneeling, crying people. “You’re wondering how I healed you, right? That’s the kicker. See, every time I do something to someone else, I get three slots of immunity from that thing. But I can spend one of those slots to heal anybody else from that specific thing. Yeah,” he laughed, “Probably one of the best healers in the country is a goddamn Abyssal-worshiping serial killer. Isn’t that just profoundly fucked up?”

Getting no real response from the terrified group, he sighed. “You people are no fun. Oh well, let’s—”

He was interrupted by the chime of the front door of the shop, as a uniformed police officer burst in with his gun raised. “Get your hands up! Get them up!”

Rather than comply, Nick simply turned to watch. Just as the police officer started to shout again, Amanda casually stepped out from behind a nearby shelf. Cup, as she was now known by their naming rules of using completely mundane objects for their ‘supervillain’ titles, wore a white bodysuit with a matching white cloak and hood. Her white mask was cloth, covering the lower half of her face. Pure white, the color of innocence. She thought it was funny.

Stepping by the startled cop, she spoke up casually. “If a balloon floats up in the air, will it float down under water?”

The cop turned his pistol to her with a gasp. Then he stopped, his mouth moving as he repeated the question under his breath. A frown furrowed his brow and he repeated it again louder. His shoulders slumped, as the gun lowered.

This was Amanda/Cup’s power. She could ask any nonsensical question, and a person’s entire focus and attention would be completely taken up with trying to answer it. They would become obsessed with the question for a short time, depending on just how absurd it was. The more ridiculous, the longer they would be distracted.

Cup plucked the gun from the cop’s hand, checked it, then shot the man in the face. He collapsed while everyone in the store screamed.

With a sigh, Pencil regarded his sister. “Really? Now we have to hurry, and I can’t enjoy myself.”

Shrugging, Cup replied, “The rest of the Scions are waiting for us anyway, dude. It’s time to pray to Typhon.” It was a thing neither of them actually believed in, actually ‘praying’ to some poor fucked up loser who ended up turning into a monster. But it freaked people out, and they thought that was hilarious. Plus, most of the other Scions actually went for that stuff, so the siblings played it up.

Checking his watch, Nick blinked. “Huh. Guess you’re right. Time really flies, huh? Oh well.” He turned back to the gathered group with a bright smile. “So…” he started while reaching out to pick up a jar with warning labels plastered all over it out of a nearby bag.

“Which one of you wants to add to my acid immunity?”