The fifth day in a row of fires and terrorist attacks meant a mass exodus from the city of Atlaan. Hotels everywhere were desperate to fill their empty rooms. People were fine with relinquishing the deposits, their lives were much more important.
Only the very brave were left, most of them young, believing they were invincible.
Another young person believing they were invincible, namely Levi, was able to rent out a much nicer hotel room, at the Sunshine Hotel, and Ace hated being there, at the same place in which he was accused of murdering a man he had never met.
Ace refused to go unless Fenton came, his apartment ruined as well.
All complaints of returning to the scene of a crime vanished once they arrived at their multi-room suite. It had two bathrooms, both with a shower and a tub, a full kitchen, dining room, four bedrooms with personal minifridges, and king-sized beds.
Instead of television in the living room, they had a high-end holo-screen instead, saving room, and from whichever side someone viewed it, they could see whichever show that was on at any angle of the room.
The wooden floors were decorated by several lavish rugs, large vases with bold colors made their homes in the corners, and real plants were placed in the suite, an attendant would come by to water them once a week.
Fenton was nervous to touch anything, afraid that he would break anything by looking at it. He was also kept quiet once Levi replaced their phones, having them delivered by drone, put into a delivery robot that came to their hotel door.
The doorbell rang, Ace blinked to the front door, opened it, and frowned. The white robot’s blue screen imitating a friendly smile was being held captive by Mary Jane who had hunted them down, able to see all card transactions made by her husband on his phone.
“Hey,” Ace said weakly.
“This is you,” Mary Jane said, pointing at the defenseless delivery robot.
“This is your scalp once I find my husband.”
She tore off the upper hatch of the robot’s head, it let out a wail, and Ace let out an audible eww , its noise too human to not be concerning. She flung the hatch across the hallway, and it lodged into a vending machine, sending glass flying.
Ace remembered his dream and suddenly his leg started to ache.
“He’s here but he can’t speak to you right no—”
Mary Jane took her pinky, pushed it into his abdomen, hard, and he screamed, pushing up against the wall, sweaty and in pain. The small woman walked past him, ignoring his cries, and wandered the large suite.
She entered the kitchen and Fenton nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected visitor. Mary Jane was not worried about her husband’s safety, she was furious , and Fenton could see her aura, red, tall, growing, curling on the ground and consuming his own.
Mary Jane came in wearing jeans and a pink tank top, her hair up in a bun, unlike her usual dress-up clothes for anywhere she went, because she had rushed over. Her fear of his death turned into anger by the time she had arrived once she realized he was perfectly fine if he rented out a room at the nicest hotel and never called her.
“He’s in the living room,” Fenton said.
She nodded, said nothing, and found her husband, smoking on the couch, ignoring the hotel’s rules about not smoking, all rules to him simply how much I need to pay after breaking them.
He was deep in thought, writing something in a grey notebook, and looked up to see her. She wanted to hit him, she wanted to throw Ace out the window, she was angry, angry that here he was, sitting as if nothing happened, smoking a cigar and…
“Who are you,” Mary Jane asked.
“I’m Levi, who else?”
She took two steps back from the couch, his voice still the same, yet something was different, his face unchanged, but everything just not quite right.
“You look like someone colored you in,” she mumbled.
“I’m still the same person, just better. ”
The word, better , made her skin crawl, her toes curl, her body shiver. Levi saw her reaction and smiled, promising her that everything would change.
“I’m sorry I never called, everything has been so hectic. I had to buy new phones, they should be coming by delivery soon.”
“It’s fine,” said the killer of the innocent delivery robot.
“It’s good that you’re here. We can finally clear the air.”
The cigar went out, much to Levi’s dismay, the smell of smoke left the air, and Mary Jane started to play with her hair, nervous, not sure what to do. Ace and Fenton entered the living room, and Mary Jane held out her pinky, making the threat known.
Ace held an ice pack underneath his red shirt and Fenton was holding the rescued phones from the mangled corpse of the murder victim in front of the door. The poor delivery robot 789384-U would never return to its docking station that night.
Levi put his cigar in the ashtray and tried to carefully choose his words, still unable to know if his ability was on or off, and used the notebook as an aide if he was afraid to say certain words.
“Whatever I speak comes to be. I have my grandfather’s ability,” Levi said.
“That’s impossible. You already have an ability, liar,” Mary Jane replied.
“He’s not lying Jane,” Ace said.
“This isn’t about you! Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” she said.
“You’re a violent person, don’t tell him what to do,” Fenton replied.
They started shouting, screaming over each other, and Levi wasn’t very patient, time was of the essence.
“Shut up.”
They all closed their mouths suddenly, unable to speak, and now Mary Jane was a believer as Levi gave his first super villain speech.
“Everyone, sit on the couch.”
Ace did not fight back and sat on the couch immediately. Fenton let his body go limp, thinking that it would not work if he didn’t move.
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Instead, his body was dragged on the ground, picked up, and placed neatly on the couch, and he was shaking, heaving, unable to express his terror in sound, as Levi was in full control, and would continue to take and take until nothing was left.
Mary Jane stood longer than anyone else, her body started to vibrate. She held her chin high as Levi waited patiently, and she lasted the longest, a full thirty-five seconds, until another invisible force pushed her from behind, and onto the couch.
“You can talk once I’ve said what I’ve had to say, but you can’t leave until I’m done.”
The sound of all the windows and doors locking in the house could be heard while Levi got up from the couch and told everyone his master plan.
“Now that I can literally kill my father with a few words I’m not afraid to speak the truth anymore,” Levi said.
“He’s been threatening me for years, and now I understand why because he wants what I can do now. He knew for years and kept it from me. ”
They nodded, smiled, agreeing with whatever he said, and Mary Jane sat up straighter because a feeling came upon her. The same feeling she had in the apartment when she found the dead corpses of former Levis, that something would be learned that could never go away.
“He wiped Ace’s memory to keep me quiet as a child. He forced me to marry Mary Jane and told me to give him a child. Now he’s going to try something worse and you’re going to help me stop him.”
He paced around the living room, and everyone’s looks were clear; they had many questions, but they still couldn’t talk. He wasn’t done , because again he needed to find the right words.
“I’m tired of lying, but I’m not sorry for doing it.”
Fenton didn’t need to use his ability to know if it was a lie, and it disgusted him
“I know about what Kerkylas told you, Ace. What I don’t know is why you never trusted me enough to tell me and it hurts. You can’t lie to me ever again. ”
The pact was sealed and Ace never could. He could feel his tongue sizzle, and he opened his mouth, a seal branded on it. He shouted, still no sound coming out, and Levi shut his own mouth, realizing what he had done.
“Sorry. I'll take it back. You can speak now.”
The brand on Ace’s mouth healed, and he sighed, discomfort gone.
Then came the voices.
All of their voices, rushing back.
Voidless, hanging in the air, they came crashing down, thick, heavy like syrup, dripping on the walls, coating them, seeping out like green slime, their own voices screaming back at them.
It was unsettling, no one liked hearing the sound of their own voice, and it was coming from the walls, from a filthy substance, screaming their pain and anger, shaking the walls and the couch, rattling the lamps and the windows.
I hate you, you’re a liar, you’ve never loved me, fuck you.
This isn’t fair, I can’t take it.
Why do you people wrap me up in your nonsense-
And you’ve always been crazy, always crazy, you’re a liar,
Why did he hurt me?
“I’m sorry for lying but you need to stop! All abilities have bad side effects, you can’t keep saying whatever you want,” Ace pleaded.
“He’s right. If this is what happens when you tell us to shut up, what has happened from the other things you’ve said earlier,” Fenton asked.
“Don’t be jealous!”
“Nobody here is jealous of this. I don’t want an ability that would hurt me,” Mary Jane shouted. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you!”
She got up to leave again, she had seen enough, no answer was worth whatever new lies would replace them, but Levi wouldn’t let her leave, she couldn’t leave him, no one does that.
“You can’t do this to me again Jane. Come back here!”
She heard him shout all the way from the kitchen, grabbed onto the sink on her way out, and gripped it with all her strength, but she was still being pulled. She shrieked, over and over, and now she was fully horizontal, and it pulled out the entire sink.
She held onto the fridge on her way out the kitchen, and it dragged along with her, and thankfully, it was too wide to pass the doorway from the kitchen into the living room, but she was still being pulled, jerked up and down in the air like a wrench that couldn’t screw something on right.
Ace sighed, got up from the couch, and Fenton was surprised he was so calm, so composed, unafraid of the unstoppable one-man army. Levi was starting to lift off the ground, eyes flashing brighter than headlights, his incisors growing, blood lust on his mind.
Ace walked over, grabbed Levi’s hand, and he looked down, and softened once he saw the disapproving face.
“You’re doing it again,” Ace said. “I don’t like it when you get like this. We’ve talked about it.”
Mary Jane was dropped to the floor, Levi came down, and a crisis was averted because a man cared more about what his boyfriend thought of him , his issues bubbling over from another fight they had in the past.
“I didn’t mean to do it. Sometimes everything just gets different.”
“I know, I know,” Ace sighed.
“Are you serious,” Mary Jane screamed.
She flung the fridge to the side, right through the wall, and Fenton moved to the left, his place on the food chain suddenly very apparent in the room filled with quick to anger apex predators.
“For years I have tried to get this man to calm down, and yet somehow you’re able to do it! Seriously!”
“My dad used to get like this, so I would help him,” Ace admitted. “Sometimes he would get really angry, and he would be different. The war made us different.”
“We’ve been talking about it in private,” Levi mumbled.
Mary Jane took a deep breath and smiled.
She took off both her rings, carefully, as she always did, always nervous she would accidentally bend them like plastic.
Next, she brought her hand up, and threw them with all her might, right to the ground, and they went through each and every floor of the Sunshine Hotel, a loud boom heard with each ceiling and floor it hit, and she smiled at Acheus, her silent threat received once more.
“I’ll be back to deal with Acheus later.”
Mary Jane went home, ignoring the screams of the guests of an entire hotel, leaving three men terrified in a room filled with green slime, a broken refrigerator, and a gaping hole in the floor and wall.
“At least it's over,” Fenton sighed.
The Rock appeared, flashing, now all that was left was its sparkling core, glittering, and it landed on the couch, letting off little dings , another show was here, it had a grand entrance, trying to say, I’ve missed you.
“Of course this is how it works,” Fenton groaned. “ Because why not?”