Summus Proelium

I was on my knees in a gray void, staring at blank rocky ground under me. A thick fog coiled around my body while I breathed slowly in and out several times. Frozen. Time was frozen back out in the real world. I remembered that from what Rubi and Peyton had described about the situations when they had Touched. And, of course, from the first time this had happened to me.

The first time. The first time. I was here again. I had Touched that glowing Orb again. I’d heard of this sort of thing before. It wasn’t exactly common, to say the least. But some Touched did manage to Touch again. From what I’d heard, there were several different ways something like that could play out. In some cases, your powers completely changed to something entirely unrelated to what you’d had before. Some people had had one set of powers, Touched the orb again, and came out of it with a completely different set that had nothing to do with what they’d had in the first place.

No. No, absolutely not. Maybe some people would have been excited by the prospect of Touching again, of getting new powers. But the very idea of potentially losing my powers left my head shaking frantically. No, no, no, whatever happened, don’t let it be that. I loved my powers. They were my powers. My paint. Please, God, don’t let me lose them. I didn’t care if whatever came next made me stronger, or was better overall. I wanted my powers. I wanted to keep my paint, damn it. They were mine, they were part of who I was. I couldn’t just change that. I didn’t want to.

That wasn’t a foregone conclusion, thankfully. Otherwise I probably would have panicked even more. I hadn’t even intended to touch the Orb, to be honest. I hadn’t thought about what I was doing at the time. Just like the first time, it was as though simply seeing it so close to me had been sort of hypnotic. I had forgotten about everything else going on in that moment, and the only thing that had mattered was reaching out to Touch. It was like the rest of my brain had shut off. But now it was active again, and the very thought of losing these powers made me almost hyperventilate. It was like I was being threatened with losing an arm. Not exactly the same, since technically I would get a different arm in place of it, but still. Even though I’d only had these specific powers for a few months, I didn’t want to lose them. They were part of what made me, me. They had become an integral part of my life as I’d learned so much more about who I was.

The other options about what might happen, as far as I understood them, were that someone who Touched for a second time could get added powers on top of what they already had, or their powers could be mixed up somehow. Technically they would be the same powers, but details about what they could do, limitations and strengths, that sort of thing might change. The established powers would be essentially remixed in some way. It could be as simple as the specific paint colors I had mixing up which of them did what (which would be so incredibly confusing both for me and for everyone else I was sure), or completely changing what effects were available entirely. That possibility was--yeah I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, to be honest.

Was I just being stupid or weird to obsess this much over how I didn’t want to lose my powers? Very few people ever Touched at all, and fewer still Touched for a second time. I was being given an incredibly rare opportunity, and the thought that kept bouncing through my mind was that I didn’t want to lose the powers I already had? Something about that sounded incredibly selfish, but I couldn’t help it. My paints were mine. They were part of who I was. Whatever came next, I desperately hoped it wouldn’t involve losing the paints that had already become such a huge part of me.

Climbing to my feet, I told myself to just focus on what was in front of me. Whatever came next, I would deal with it. No matter what changed about my powers, I was still me. And what really mattered was getting through this and back out there into the real world so I could stop those bombs from going off. Things might have been frozen out there, or maybe time just didn’t pass in here, or whatever, but I still needed to be ready. Even if part of my brain was screaming about how much more complicated this actually made everything. The situation had already been difficult enough as it was when I was using powers I was actually familiar with. Now I was supposed to go back out there and stop those bombs when the… the powers I had access to might be completely different and unfamiliar? It was a thought that made me shiver, even as I tried to force it down. It didn’t matter. Whatever happened, whatever I came out of this with, I would deal with it. I would find a way to use that to stop those bombs and save the people in that building, and the cure. Even if I had to do it with completely new powers I didn’t understand at all.

Left with those lingering thoughts in the back of my mind, I took a step forward while looking around hesitantly. The last time I had done this, I saw images in the fog. Images of what had led me to being in that particular situation. This time… yeah, I still saw images. They floated into view through that fog. I saw myself as Paintball jumping off a building before using red paint to pull myself across to a billboard before bounding off of it. I saw myself skating along the side of another building. I saw myself fleeing from Cuélebre, getting hit by Pencil, helping Paige escape from my family’s people, saving Peyton, meeting Wren, fighting Janus, and so much more.

I saw brief glimpses of everything that had happened over the past few months. Not just myself as Paintball, but as Cassidy too. I saw myself with Izzy, getting to know my new sister. I saw us in my bed, talking quietly about all the private things we couldn’t let the rest of our family hear. I saw myself in school, talking to all those people who couldn’t know the truth about my life. I saw myself eating lasagne with Ryder, sitting on the roof talking to Paige, skating by myself in the park. I saw all of that and more, everything about what my world had become in these past months. And in the end, I saw myself writing on that piece of paper in the hospital, recording myself as nonbinary, finally coming to an acceptance of who I was after so many years of that being shut off from me thanks to the memory wipe. Everything that had happened, everything I had learned and experienced over these months, had led me to becoming who I really was.

“Cassidy Evans,” I murmured softly to myself while looking through all those fog-images, “this is your life. Sure hope you’re ready for it to become even more ridiculous, because boy do we have plans.” After giving voice to the hypothetical figures behind all this, I swallowed hard and took another step forward. “Okay! Whatever you’ve got in mind, I’m ready for it! I get the point. I didn’t choose what happened to me before, and it ended up making me a better person. Even the bad stuff was worth it, just to know what I do and to have experienced what I have. It’s scary and exhausting and all that, but it’s mine. It’s my life. Whatever you’re about to hit me with, I’ll roll with it! I’ll take what you’ve got, do my best, and find a way through. I’ll save those people, I’ll save the cure. I’ll help my parents and everyone else who was infected. I’ll do what I need to! No matter what happens, no matter what you change my powers to, no matter how hard it gets. I’m ready.”

As if in response to my words, the images in the fog started to shift more rapidly, spinning up and around me. The rest of this gray world fell away, as the images took over everything I could see. They grew larger and larger, like movie screens coming toward me from all sides. They covered me, filling up everything even as that woman’s voice spoke those same two words I’d heard before. The same two words everyone who Touched heard in these moments.

“Summus Proelium.”

With those words, every other image fell away, and I saw myself. I saw Paintball, standing there in costume, in the fog. I saw who and what I was right then, the way others saw me, with all those colorful designs all over my suit and helmet. That was me, the person I had become over these past few months. So much had changed already. After a few more months passed, how different would I be?

The larger, more relevant question right now, of course, was how different I would be in just a minute. I had Touched for a second time. Would that change my powers entirely, mix them up, or give me additional ones? I had no idea, but I would deal with it either way. Part of me was still afraid of losing what had become such an integral part of who I was. But watching those images of myself from these past months had reminded me that I could deal with change. No matter what happened, I would still be myself. And whatever I was capable of once I came out of this, I would do whatever it took to stop those bombs.

As that thought filled my head, the fog fell away. Everything around me vanished, and I found myself back in the real world. The orb was gone, and most of those troops were still retreating. They were leaving because the bombs were about to go off. Well, most of them, anyway.

Even as I processed that, a new concrete wall came up in front of me, trying to block me in. Worse, a chorus of squeaks filled the air as dozens of rats and mice leapt at me, biting into my costume and yanking me to the ground. The rodents were obviously too strong for their size, able to keep me pinned against the ground. That rat-controller guy had joined the fray.

As if having two Touched trapping me wasn’t enough, that third one had just shot himself in the side of the head and was extending his hand as he prepared to hit me with the kinetic energy he had absorbed. Three Fell-Touched, all of them stopping me from getting to those bombs. All of them stopping me from saving the cure that would help my parents and all those other people.

No, not anymore. They weren't going to stop me. Even as that determination came over me, I was suddenly free from the rats. They had let me go.

Wait, no, it wasn't that. They didn't release me. They were still trying to hang on with their little teeth. But they kept slipping right through me. Even as I looked down in confusion, I could see several of the rats try to bite me again. Where they were biting, my costume distorted and moved out of the way, like liquid. Not just my costume, but my body underneath as well. It was like I wasn't solid, like they were trying to bite into a puddle or something. It was like… like…

Like I was made of paint.

In that second, the guy in the green costume sent his concussive blast my way. I had just enough time to make a sound of worry before the blast slammed into me. Just like that, my body blew apart into hundreds of droplets. It was a baffling, almost indescribable experience. I saw through every piece of myself at once. I was every droplet of my entire body as it burst like a water balloon under that assault. Or, more accurately, like a balloon that had been filled with paint.

All I could think in that second, as hundreds of pieces of me were exploding in every direction was that I wanted it to be in one piece again. And just like that, the droplets snapped back together and I was me once more.

The guy who had hit me with that blast was just making a horrified sound at the sight of my body exploding into droplets like that, before it became a noise of confusion when I reformed.

Without thinking, I extended my hand and hit him with a shot of red paint. To my immense relief, it worked. I hadn't lost my other powers. The paint smacked the guy in the face before another shot against the distant light pole yanked him that way while he was still trying to come to terms with what he had just seen.

That was when I felt a bite at my ankle, followed by more around my legs as the rats tried to yank me down again. Wait, I could feel them again. They could physically bite me once more. Or at least, they could for a second, before I felt something shift in my head and the ones trying to climb up my leg fell through as it turned to a liquid state once more.

Then I realized the truth. Whatever these new powers, whatever my body had turned into, I could shift between that and my old form. And I could only use my regular paint in my solid body. Which I shifted into right then, to make sure I could do so on command. If I wanted to shoot paint and use the old powers, I had to be in my normal physical state. But on the other hand, if I shifted myself to be made of paint…

A thought shifted my body once more, back to that state just as the guy who manipulated concrete sent a wide fist made out of it flying toward my face. The concrete hit and passed through me as my body, costume included, transitioned to that liquid form. Which left that guy gaping at me in confusion.

My head twisted around, looking over my shoulder at the concrete fist that had just passed through me. It was covered in a mixture of my paint. The entire construct was painted. And seeing that made something click in my head. An instinct or whatever. My hand extended that way, and the paint that had covered the construct was yanked off of it. But it stayed in the form of that oversized fist, a colorful fist made of paint. But this paint wasn’t liquid. It had adapted the same physical characteristics as the thing that passed through it. In this case, concrete.

Before the man who had sent that fist at me could even start to recover from what he was seeing, my hand snapped out. With a thought and that motion, I sent my own concrete-like paint fist flying at him. With a heavy thud sound followed by a cry of pain, it collided with the man's face and knocked him to the ground. He’d been hit by what amounted to a taste of his own medicine.

All of that had happened in just a few seconds, but that was a few seconds too many when bombs were involved. Bombs that were about to go off and wipe out all the work that had been done on that cure, while killing all those people making it.

With a backwards swipe of my arm, I sent my paint-fist sideways to smack one of those bombs right off the side of the building, sending it flying off to the far side of the lot. That would still damage the area, of course. But I wasn't thinking about that. All I was thinking about was getting those bombs away from the building itself. To that end, I lunged that way with the help of a shot of blue under my feet after shifting back to my solid self. Several quick shots of red hit a few more bombs attached to the wall before I hit that far side of the lot with another shot to yank them over there to join the first. By then, my blue-assisted leap had carried me to the corner of the building, as I sent a spray all the way down the line of bombs there to yank them off as well and send them out of the way.

Too slow, too slow, too fucking slow! I had to move faster!

The man responsible for the rats was standing at the opposite end of the building, near where more bombs had been placed. More bombs I couldn't see from here. Without thinking, fueled by instinct and desperation, I pointed at him and sent a stream of paint that way. But this wasn't red paint, or even blue or yellow. This seems to be every color at once in a single stream. It was a spray of rainbow paint that smacked into the man and knocked him backwards.

Then I was there. I was the paint that had just hit him, the paint I had just sprayed that way. The rainbow blob of paint that had just hit the man transformed into me. In the background, I could see my old self, the body I had been, collapse into a puddle on the ground. It was like I had literally sent myself that way through the paint itself, like I had possessed my own paint and reformed myself out of it. I could change my body into paint and reform it anywhere I could shoot. Including hitting other people with it.

Knocking the rat guy down as my body finished reforming and colliding with him, I rolled off the guy and hit every bomb I could see along that wall with more red paint to yank them off.

Just like that, three sides of the building were done. The bombs weren't disabled, but they would do much less damage if they weren't attached to the building itself.

Unfortunately, that still left one wall full of those bombs. Which might not be enough to take it down, but would still do a lot of damage, and people could still die.

I had to run, had to get there, had to--why were my legs so long? Only then did I look down and see that I had changed again. My body had shifted and grown. I was wearing a long gray raincoat. Why was-- Wait, that guy, the one I had hit with that rainbow spray of paint, the one that became myself. I hadn't turned into myself at all. I had turned into him, a physical copy of him. I could transform into physical copies of the people I hit with that rainbow paint and create paint constructs that mimicked the physical properties of what they touched?

Even as I had that realization, my body shimmered like ripples going through a pool, and I became myself once more.

With the next step, I turned the corner to face that last wall, desperate to get those bombs off of it. But instead of seeing what I expected, I found myself facing Blackjack, along with several of his people. They were all taking the last of those bombs off, while their leader stared at me. For a moment, the two of us just stayed like that, before the man spoke in a low, curious tone.

“Well, heh. Isn’t that interesting?”