Justice THE HAMMER White Chitrains the thirteenth ended up landing on his face, as most noobs in the art of time traveling do, but that wasn’t the worst of his troubles, no. Seconds after Justice had departed from her office, Fluorine had decided she didn’t want to be responsible for bringing all his shit to the dump, so she threw all of his possessions that he had dragged to her office into the wormhole after him. And they proceeded to fall on his head, all like thunk, ka-thunk-thunk-thunk.

After a moment of stillness, Justice stood, getting to his feet and brushing himself off as if nothing strange or painful in any way had just occurred. “I’m alright,” he said to no one. It was then that he realized he was in a school classroom setting. Desks and chairs were abundant. Fluorescent lighting was shining over him. He turned, realizing he wasn’t alone.

“GOD bless!” he said to the soldiers at the end of the room.

The only greeting he received was a large, flying projectile that knocked him over again upon impact. THE HAMMER felt like a bowling pin. He removed the parcel from himself to find it was a green, canvas duffel bag embroidered with his name. He turned to the soldiers. “You left out THE HAMMER.”

“Go,” said the soldiers. “You’re late already.”

“For the crusade?” Justice’s face shone with unrepressed glee.

“Um… sure.” As one of the soldiers spoke, a few others went to THE HAMMER’S other possessions and started going through them. “You take what you have on you… and you use it to kill other people your own age. If you can’t kill them all within three days, you die.”

“Um, how? And MY CHURCH doesn’t approve of you touching MY STUFF. >:C,” Justice said.*

The soldiers going through his shit ignored him.

The soldier who had been addressing him came up and punched him in the face. Justice fell over. While he was down, the soldier kicked him a couple times. At this point, Justice was trying to crawl away, but the soldier stuck a handy-dandy KILL YOU IN THREE DAYS necklace on Justice.

“Jewelry? On a man?” Justice frowned, his nose bleeding. “THE HAMMER does NOT approve.”

“This is us not caring,” said the soldier who had ruffed him up. He then pushed Justice, who had by then gotten to his feet, out the door and threw his shit after him. (Justice gets pelted with things a lot. This is because no one likes him. They don’t like him one bit.) As Justice got to his feet for the third time that day, the soldier said, “Now go kill some bitches.”

And he was off.


***


THE HAMMER was in pain. GOD ALMIGHTY’S great sun was high in the sky, beating down on him, devouring the white, VIRGIN flesh on the tip of his nose. He had tried to find shade and camouflage among the adobe buildings in square F-2, but his many, many possessions made it difficult to find a convenient hidey-hole.

“I wonder why I decided to carry around so many things,” Justice Chitrains said to himself, panting. “They are so… HEAVY!” He lunged forward, deciding to sit and take a break from his trek. He pulled out what seemed to be a plastic milk jug, and took a sip from the cool, refreshing liquid inside. “Mmm,” he moaned, “Nothing tastes better than holy water on a hot summer’s day.”

He then looked up. Something was not right. There was a faint scent of something very… un-JESUS-y in the air. Also, he heard a twig snap behind him. So he spun around. “Aha!” he called out. There was a young man standing before him, wearing an outfit that totally wasn’t a school uniform. “Who be-eth thee?” he called, deciding to rip on old English. “You do not smell one bit like my JESUS candles.”

The young man said nothing in response, and crept onward towards THE HAMMER even though he had lost the element of surprise. He carried a tiny vial in his hands. THE HAMMER wondered what it was. “Is that a soul you have there, man of few words? Is that a soul you have in that teeny tiny bottle? Are you a demon? Are you going to devour my soul? I bet I taste delicious… and very much like JESUS.”

The man still walked toward him. By now he was only a few feet away.

“WAIT!” Justice screamed. “Let me get my soap box out so I may preach to you! I have the whole Encyclopedia Biblical right here!” He dove to his bag, reaching in and pulling something out. “HA! But I have tricked you!” THE HAMMER said, startling his victim. “I wasn’t getting an encyclopedia volume at all! I am a tricksy bitch! I am so clever! I have here my secret weapon!” He punched forward with a small object clenched in his fist, causing the other man to flinch in defense. “Look, and behold what I am about to show you! GENESIS! My magical pet panther! Yes! Oh, you can’t see him now. But soon enough! Soon enough—”

Justice kept rambling. His opponent, the man of few words, was cautious of him. There was something clearly wrong with him, thinking that a—was that a keychain? Thinking that a keychain was a panther. It was very strange.

But it would have to be overlooked. There was business to be done here. Earlier that day he had deduced that the contents of his bottle were none other than hydrogen cyanide. He could tell from the bitter, almond-like smell. Good thing, too, because it would have been careless to drink from the tiny bottle without knowing what it’s contents were.

Realizing what they were, he decided that to kill his first victim, the cyanide was his best bet. He was not a man of broad shoulders. He was lanky, and he wasn’t sure if he was physically capable of beating someone to death. He was mentally able… but that was beside the point.

THE HAMMER was still prattling on. Yelling something about charity, and pillars of goodness. He flailed his keychain like it would save his life.

His opponent narrowed his eyes. All he had to do would be to get close enough. He ran at Justice, protecting the bottle of HCN in his fist. Justice stumbled backward and fell—mid-sentence. The man of few words took this opportunity to launch himself on top of THE HAMMER.

Justice squirmed underneath him. “Ew. Do not want.”

“Hold… still,” said the man of few words as he tried to dump the contents of the bottle into Justice’s mouth.

Justice took this opportunity to thrash harder. He looked as though he was having a seizure. “GET OFF! THE HAMMER DOES NOT APPROVE!”

In a last, frenzied attempt to shove the cyanide down THE HAMMER’S throat, the efforts of the opponent of not many syllables were destroyed by millimeters. THE HAMMER knocked the open bottle out of his hand, inevitably splattering them both with hydrogen cyanide.

There was a howling, wretched screaming wail that came forth from the lips of the man of few words. Justice, too, cried out in pain. His jaw and neck had been sprayed with droplets of the poison, and they were doing a number on him. He felt blisters rise up on his skin, deforming his VIRGIN flesh. But in the midst of the crippling pain, he realized that a great weight had been removed from on top of him, and his opponent, now standing, was screaming louder than GOD ALMIGHTY.

Justice watched. The man of few words held his hands over his eyes, screaming. When he removed them, trying to look around, Justice realized the man had gone blind. There was a wild, pained look about him, now.

THE HAMMER cringed. His left shoulder was beginning to burn. The poison must have gotten onto his clothing. He ripped off his jacket and tossed it toward his bags.

The man who didn’t say much, and wasn’t wearing a school uniform, and was THE HAMMER’S opponent, had fallen onto the ground crying. He was quieter now—a man defeated by his own means. Tears fell silently from his empty, blinded eyes. Justice could see now that the cyanide had been dashed more so on his opponent’s face than his own. It was possible that, if his opponent had swallowed any, he could be paralyzed for life. Justice considered himself a lucky fuck.

He dragged his belongings over to the pained man, tapping him on the shoulder. “Hey, man of few words. Are you okay?”

There was no response. Justice dumped the contents of his green duffel bag and picked up a throwing star. “Hey, GOD, is it okay if I put this poor guy out of his misery?”

Yes! hissed GOD from Justice’s head. Kill the boy!

“Well alright then.”

Justice dragged the ninja star across the neck of his opponent. He felt the blade run through every cord and muscle. Blood gushed out to the rhythm of the man’s dying moments.

“That’s gross,” Justice said. “Well, good luck in the next life!”


***


“That was a close one, Genesis!” THE HAMMER said to his panther friend. They were walking cautiously through the trees of square E-3, long since departed from the scene of Justice’s first kill. They were heading toward the infirmary in G-5, hoping there would be something to help with the painful blisters on THE HAMMER’S face and neck. On the way, they made small talk.

“He could have easily poured that demon spirit down my throat, and it would have consumed my soul!”

The panther shifted into the form of a beautiful young girl. It was Genesis’ more casual form. “That would have been quite awful,” she said, tossing her ebony hair. “Hmm. What did it feel like to slit his throat?”

Justice regarded the girl, “It felt… strange. I’ve never killed anybody before. What do you think? Self defense?”

“Yes,” Genesis replied. “It’s always self defense in a crusade.”


***


Some time later, THE HAMMER and Genesis had arrived at the infirmary. All was quiet except the waves falling against sand in the distance. They trudged up the ocean-grayed steps and into the building. When they stepped inside, they realized someone had been there before them. There was a trail of gauze on the floor leading down a darkened hallway.

Genesis held a finger to her lips, gesturing for Justice to follow her. They would take on the intruder together. THE HAMMER nodded and followed her without a sound.

They crept down the unlit hallway like ghosts, their feet making no sound. Turning a corner, they found the intruder sitting in the middle of a room, his back facing them. He was tiny, blonde, and making eating noises.

“He smells like… metal,” Genesis whispered. She scrunched up her face.

“Hey, kid!” Genesis held his panther keychain at arm’s length in defense. “What chu eating?”

The little blonde boy turned. His eyes were wide. “Um… staples.”

“Holy Little Baby Jesus in The Manger, Genesis!” cried THE HAMMER. “He’s eating staples.”

“Yeah,” said the frightened-looking blonde. “I found them in the gauze.”

“Hear that, Genesis?” Justice turned, “He found them in the…” His face went blank, realizing his dark-haired friend had gone.

The little boy on the floor asked, “Who are you talking to?”

“Genesis!” THE HAMMER answered. “Damn you, you made her run off somewhere."

“I did?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t stay long when other people are around. She is a shy panther.”

“Right…”

Justice extended a hand of FRIENDSHIP. “What’s your name, young whippersnapper?”

“Um… Ostracized John.”

“Well, Johnny boy! You can call me THE HAMMER OF JUSTICE!”

“… Do I have to?”

“Yes. Now let’s go.”