“I’m sad. I just wanna see my mommy.”

“I like punching things! I’m good at punching!”

“I love my boyfriend.”

The three Thomases had all struck various poses in the courtroom hallway, the first one lying on the ground in the fetal position sobbing away, the second producing several phantom hands and punching the wall, and the third staring off into space as he talked about how much he wanted to bone Dominic. Which was deeply distressing to his sister, who was standing outside of the women’s washroom attempting to corral the nastiest triplets.

Every single passerby was looking over at the quarter of idiots, a veritable circus of assholes. The four of them looked like a sideshow attraction titled “Behold the Scared Mom and Her Three Triplets Who Are All Crazy and Older Than Her (Somehow).” “Oh my God. I know you’re gay, Thomas. You sound like every other gay person I know. STOP IT!” Aria screamed.

“Did somebody say ‘Thomas?’ My name isn’t ‘Thomas.’ It’s Phantom Limb! Boom, crash, kapow!” Thomas Two shouted, clapping his hands as he made various superhero mouth noises.

“I know. ‘Phantom Limb.’ Whatever. Wait a minute. Where’s your brother?” Aria asked, darting her head around, looking for Thomas One—the sad Thomas. Suddenly, she saw him slowly walking out of the courthouse in a daze. Right towards a set of train tracks. Aria didn’t know what would happen if one of the pieces of Thomas perished, but she didn’t want to be the one responsible for giving her brother’s boyfriend permanent brain damage . . . or worse. “Thomas!” she shouted, sprinting out of the courthouse and after him. But unfortunately, he was already too close, and she couldn’t catch up to him normally.

“Maybe my parents will be on this train? God, I’m sad and want to do drugs,” Thomas One mumbled, shambling towards the train tracks.

“Hey, Thomas, your legs look stupid!” he heard someone call.

“Yeah, I guess they kind of do. All of me looks stupid, really.” Suddenly, Thomas One felt his legs transform into a swarm of meat cubes, carrying the rest of his body away from the train tracks and towards Aria.

“That’s better,” Aria said, feeling extremely proud of herself.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Aria turned to see one of the courthouse guards shouting at Thomas Two—the Thomas who was currently holding a heat gun and waving it around, attempting to figure out how to fire it.

“Whee! I love fighting and also guns even though they’re deeply problematic! WHEEEEEE!” Thomas Two shouted before attempting to fire it at a nearby wall before suddenly he felt a pen pierce through his hand as a meat cube crawled up onto it. And then the hand holding the heat transformed into meat cube drones as well, dropped the gun onto the floor before carrying it over to the guard.

“Don’t worry about him, Officer! He just has a bit of a hero complex—that’s all! You’re a cop. You should relate!” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that last part, as true as it may be, Aria thought. After dealing with both Thomas One and Two, Aria scanned the courthouse, attempting to find the third Thomas. Then, she suddenly heard a terrible phrase.

“I’M GOING TO MAKE A PHANTOM WEINER!” Aria heard the shout coming from . . . well, it seemed to be coming from all around her.

“Oh God no,” Aria whispered, panic filling her voice as she sent out her two eyes to travel down opposite ends of the hallway.

“I’M GOING TO DO IT! AND THEN I’M GOING TO SEE MY BOYFRIEND DOMINIC! WHO I LOVE SO MUCH!” Aria heard it again. Where was it coming from? Her eye cubes couldn’t see anything as they scrambled around across the fancy floors, disturbing and alerting the very serious people passing through, several of whom attempted to step on Aria’s eyes.

Then Aria heard one of the guards yell. “Sir, get off of the chandelier, how did you even get up there?”

“OH GOD NO!” Aria shouted. She had no way of getting up there. And she couldn’t see anything either. Then she turned towards where she assumed Thomas 2 was. “Uh, Phantom Limb, there’s a bad guy on the chandelier! I need you to safely pick him up and get him down!”

“Ooh, a bad guy?”

“Yes, Thomas, a bad guy. Now just don’t hurt him and—”

“I’m going to fucking end him!” Thomas Two shouted before sending a volley of phantom hands up to the chandelier and forcibly punching Thomas Three off with a flurry of purple blows to the face and ribs, sending him falling limp about thirty feet from the top of the chandelier to the hard metal floor. Aria knew she could catch him with the drones from Thomas One’s legs, but she had no idea where Thomas Three was going to fall, as her eyes were still coming back.

“Uh, Thomas, tell me how much you love Dominic as loudly and clearly as possible!” Aria shouted.

“I love him thiiiii—” Aria heard him shout. Bingo. She sent Thomas One’s leg drones over to where she heard him scream and formed a large spring made of leg meat underneath his position. As Aria’s eyes returned, she saw Thomas Three safely boing off of the meat spring and onto the ground before standing up, and she returned Thomas One’s legs back. “iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—”

“SHUT UP. Oh my God! Shut the fuck up, Thomas. I know you want to kiss my brother. STOP TALKING ABOUT IT! Phantom Limb, I know you think you’re cool and strong, but you’re just annoying and weird—and so violent. Thomas,” Aria said, individually singling out each clone of Thomas and dismantling their personality until she arrived at Thomas One when she realized that all three were staring angrily at her. “Um, sorry guys, I got a bit carried away . . .”

“Get her.” the three said in unison, and Aria sprinted off down the hallway with the three Thomases following close behind, screaming in anger as the group tore through the crowds of suited individuals.

“PHANTRANA!”

“PHANTRANA!”

“PHANTRANA!”

The three Phantom Limbs shouted in anger, filling their legs with energy and making a dive towards Aria, who quickly turned into a set of cubes on the floor, causing the Three Thomases to fly overhead and crash onto the ground, before turning around as though nothing had happened.

“PHANTRANA!”

“PHANTRANA!”

“PHANTRANA!”

Suddenly, a dozen phantom hands appeared behind each Thomas, prepared to turn the meat-cubed Aria into ground beef. Apparently, the one thing that is transcendentally Thomas is a knack for violence and anger. Can these guys even feel pain? Aria thought before unscrewing and slopping into an air vent. The mass of meat cubes that was now Aria looked behind her as her little entree army scuttled through the air vents. Right before realizing they couldn’t fit, she saw all thirty-six phantom hands along with sets of eyes fly into the air vent and begin chasing her, hands open in an attempt to grab and crush her in hot pursuit.

Aria quickly came to a fork in the road with several different pathways leading to other rooms in the courthouse. Aria decided to send a few down each vent, with the majority going down the one in front of her, hoping to mislead the hands while she tried to escape by getting back to the front of the courthouse.

It seemed to have worked, aside from Aria feeling several of her cubes being crushed violently as she slimed away towards the exit, with several hands still behind her. She needed to somehow reverse what had happened to Thomas. She needed to find Roswell. Aria had managed to escape through the front of the air vent, reforming as an almost full Aria in the main hall, though there were several chunks missing from her arms and legs. Roswell should’ve been in the courtroom right in front of her. She ran across the huge front hall as fast as she could, which unfortunately wasn’t as fast as the Three Thomases, who had rounded the corner on superpowered legs. Aria didn’t know who would get to the door first. Let alone if she could even survive as a second horde of hands descended on her from behind the screaming Thomases. Then, she heard an explosion, and the hands stopped.

* * *

Pepper Morgan had stood up, her handcuffs gone as she stared into Dominic’s eyes with murderous intent. Dominic was slowly walking backwards, an expression of fear having crossed his face as he was slowly cornered by the looming Pepper Morgan. Suddenly, the table she was sitting at had turned black. Completely black. And then a few seconds later, it exploded, sending white-hot flames into the viewing section, lighting the benches ablaze, a white fire that began to engulf the courtroom. A similar fire was in Morgan’s eyes.

Dominic looked around. The guards hadn’t drawn their weapons. They were evacuating people as the fire spread to every bench and chair in the courtroom. Did they know that she couldn’t be beaten? Was Dominic going to die? Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten so personal. He looked around again for Thomas and Aria, but they were gone. Missing. Dominic had told them not to go after the Civ user, but they had left anyway. Now, Dominic was going to die. Unless he played his last card.

“Ever since I met you that day, when you were my prosecutor, I hated you. I fantasized about crushing your skull—turning you into nothing. I wish I had gone to kill you myself, instead of sending all of those assassins.” Morgan was smiling wickedly as the flames danced around the two. “So weak and slimy. Of course, I have other reasons. Getting to your family was a big one. God, not even going to fight?”

“Yup, that’s me. I have no plans to fight you,” Dominic lied, subtly reaching into the back pocket of his suit. Feeling for the box.

“Then suffer my Civ,” Pepper Morgan hissed, a black and red hand suddenly appearing on her shoulder. Then, Dominic felt the chip. He felt the skin on his index finger open up, the chip moving inside, crawling up his finger and into his arm . . . into his shoulder . . . and into his brain. Then, Dominic’s eyes went black, and he collapsed on the floor.

“W-what? What’s happening? This was s-supposed to be my finishing m-move!” Dominic said, his elbows on the floor, struggling to hold himself up.

“Pathetic,” Morgan said, and the hand began to extend.

“DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HIM!” Thomas shouted, standing in the doorway to the courtroom with Aria right behind him. Thomas’s hand was glowing with the power of thirty phantom hands, with five flying overhead and travelling towards the near-unconscious Dominic. “PHANTRANA!” roared Thomas and plunged his radiant fist into the metal floor, sending a powerful purple shockwave across its surface. Pepper began to fall backwards, stumbling just long enough for Thomas’s other hands to grab Dominic and pull him over the fire towards the duo.

“Is that all you have?!” Pepper shouted, and suddenly spikes began to appear from the ground, the plates below her rising out of the ground and imprisoning her briefly as Aria and Thomas, carrying Dominic, ran from the courthouse. They could see the spikes turn black and vanish, sending even more fire into the pale inferno that was consuming the building.

After exiting, the group watched as more pillars began to fall. The building was going down, despite being made of metal. “That has to have killed her. You’re a nurse. That has to have done it, right?” Thomas asked Aria as the two watched in awe at the damage her Civ had done, though they were still worried about what would happen if she came after Dominic again.

* * *

“Somebody’s coming after us, huh?” Dr. Nero asked himself as he sat alone in the sewers. He had received intel from his boss that the Krokodil Crime Family was sending an assassin to kill them. “As if.” Nero was wearing a white and blue lab coat as he sat in a small alcove that had been carved into the sewer walls—an area that had effectively become a small apartment. “The feats of man are no match for the power of nature . . . or, by extension, my Civ.” Nero looked down at a dog he had muzzled in the corner of his hideout. Then, he looked over at a massive twenty-foot-long cage. Something inside it was making reptilian growls. “Rainbow in the Dark.”

User: Dr. Nero

Civ: Rainbow in the Dark

The user is able to turn injured biological material into prisms. For example, if the user turns a person’s wounded hand into a prism, that wound will take on a glass texture. When another organism’s biological material comes in contact with that prism, the organisms combine into one. The organisms’ traits carry over to this new organism, including intelligence and physical ability. The user possesses minor control over them in most cases. The user can also diffuse their own biological material into seven copies, one for each distinct colour of the rainbow. If they diffuse themselves at the shoulder, they can have seven fully articulate glowing arms coming from that part of their body. When something strikes one of these glowing body parts, its damage is reduced to 1/7 when the body parts recombine.