Holy Energy, as it turned out, was monstrously intelligent. The [Prince of Wonders] class, as it also turned out, was optimized for using Holy Energy.

Ben discovered this fact earlier, when he’d been psyching himself up to do something, he didn’t know what yet, to demolish Precinct Six without going on a killing spree. Ben didn’t know much, but he did know that killing sprees weren’t really his thing. While psyching himself up, he’d glanced at the Skimmer and grimaced. It was, he tried to convince himself, a perfectly practical way to get around a mega-city, even if it did look extremely silly. It wasn’t, he thought, a good way to make an entrance. He might not know exactly what he was going to do, but he knew he was the [Prince of Wonders], and that if he was going to take himself seriously enough to pull this off, he’d need to-

And then it had happened. The holy energy inside of him, his holy energy, read his intent and provided a solution. It reminded Ben of when his Utility Pocket had been adapting itself to his needs way back when, a week ago, during his stint of being stranded in the middle of the ocean. He suspected, in some far away, muted corner of his mind, that the ‘latent holy energy’ inside of him had been interacting with his Utility Pocket, but that was speculation.

Reality was the golden cloud of holy energy that had formed in front of Ben. It was like a fragment of an Earth dawn, the color of glorious sunrise. It hovered in front of Ben, and words echoed in his mind.

[Freeform Skill Created!]

[Holy Energy Skill: Golden Nimbus]

Ben wasn’t going to pretend that he’d never seen Dragon Ball. He made a mental note to himself to actually create Dragon Balls or some equivalent and scatter them about his kingdom, when he had one, as a nice quest for his citizens. He’d just grant the wish himself if he couldn’t rope an actual dragon into doing the job. Alternatively, he could just bind Vivi to the Slug Balls, and make him grant wishes.

Ben grinned, not sure how serious he was, and approached the [Golden Nimbus]. “Yeah,” he said, feeling the bouncy, cottony texture with his hand, “that’s the right way to make an entrance.” Ben frowned, “Now just what the hell am I going to do?”

While Cragg, Vivi and Red all loaded up on the skimmer, Ben gave into Short Bus’s shameless begging and created a second [Golden Nimbus] for the man-shark to ride about on. Short Bus immediately went inside the golden nimbus, hid his arms and legs inside the golden fluff, made sure his fin was sticking out top, and impersonated the Great White Shark he used to be. Impersonated it rather well, actually, with his head sticking out front. They flew into the air ahead of everyone else. Ben was sitting cross legged in the [Golden Nimbus], sunk into the construct of Holy Energy up to his hips, a frown on his face as he thought, and as the cloud basically intelligently flew itself to his destination.

Short Bus, who had his caudal sticking out the back of his oblong [Golden Nimbus] and who actually did sort of look like some sort of cloud-shark, was ‘swimming’ through the sky with a blissful expression on his face. Ben, meanwhile, had thoughts running through his head like ‘I wish all the Grays in precinct six had lava instead of blood’, or ‘I wish all the Grays in precinct six would explode’ or ‘I wish precinct six was thrown into an alternative dimension full of-’ then Ben cut that thought off, because it was particularly dark.

That, then, was the problem. Every solution he could come up with was, well, extremely dark and violent. Even his non-wish based solutions basically boiled down to ‘Slaughter everyone’, and the only variation was on how he was going to slaughter everyone. It wasn’t, Ben felt, a smart or sustainable solution to his problems; slaughtering everyone who slighted him that was. Plus, Ben reflected, humanity had already attempted, historically, to apply the solution of ‘Mass Murder’ to pretty much every problem they’d ever encountered. More than once! Probably more than ten times!

It didn’t work. Worse, it was one of those things that appeared to work, but actually just made the problem worse in the future. Ben might have been able to pull it off, but he’d already lost his bloodlust, so now if he committed mass murder, he’d be doing it with a completely clear and sober mind. Ugh, no thank you.

Ben sighed and blew a long and lip-flappy raspberry, using an entire lungful of air. It was unavoidable that it would make him, or any human being, feel better for a little while, but soon the raspberry ended and Ben wasn’t any closer to a solution, and was much closer to his problem; Precinct Six.

Ben sighed, and Short Bus ‘swam’ over to him, his eyes closed as he reflexively swayed his body like he was underwater.

“It’s a tough problem,” Short Bus commented, “but I’d just kill ‘em all.”

“You know,” Ben said, “I thought of a good name for our party. Ready? Team: No Privacy.” Short Bus laughed, not sorry at all for telepathically snooping, and Ben sighed for what felt like the hundredth time since getting on top of the [Golden Nimbus].

“Ok,” Short Bus continued, getting serious, “well what do you want to do about it? I mean, you’ve got to do something, right? Otherwise we lose Cragg, plus, those little jerks deserve it.”

“I don’t know,” Ben said, then started again, “What do I want to do about it? Well, I’d like them to just, like, be sorry for being so horrible. I want them to stop being creepy little monsters and. . .”

Ben blinked, and Short Bus telepathically whistled.

“Oh shit,” Short Bus said, “that’s fucked up.”

“You think I could-” Ben said, and then his Holy Energy responded with a resounding ‘YES’, but without words. The response came in the form of knowing exactly how to do what Ben had thought of. The best part was, it didn’t even require a wish. Holy Energy was uniquely suited to the punishment Ben had come upon.

“That’s dangerous,” Short Bus said, breathing hard, “I’m reading that holy stuff just the same way you are, and you’ll have to get right up to one of their leaders. It’s got to be someone in charge.”

“I can do it,” Ben said, breathing hard, “Best part is, I don’t even need to kill anyone.” Short Bus chuckled darkly.

“Ben? I think this is worse.”

--

Precinct 6 was what Grayport 3 would have wanted to become, if it had been allowed to grow up. Everything was made of a smoky, gritty looking concrete, and as a consequence, nothing looked clean. The buildings were tall, blocky, architecturally unimaginative, and had no windows. The line of demarcation between ‘pretty interesting fantasy mega-city’ and ‘fucking grays’ was sharp and distinct and the moment that almost visible barrier was crossed, the sheer chemical smell of the place would assault anyone with a nose.

Red wrinkled her nose, her energy eyes scanning around, an expression of disgust on her face. “What revolting little monsters,” she commented, and nobody had it in them to disagree.

“Always hate coming here,” Cragg commented, “they don’t talk, so it’s always so fucking quiet. Hey!” Cragg bellowed as loudly as he could, “Fuck you!” his challenge was met with only silence, “See? Fucking hate it here.”

“Oh, it’s not quiet,” Short Bus said, occasionally sticking a finger in one of his ear holes and poking at it, “they’re just talking telepathically. I’ve blocked our minds from theirs, so nobody will be able to detect us. . .” Short Bus shuddered, “These guys are the worst.”

“Grays are very easy and rational to deal with,” Vivi said, slugging along proudly, “you always know exactly what they are going to do, when they are going to do it. I admit they are frightening,” Vivi said suddenly, changing gears, “with their frozen, expressionless faces. . .” the Aeon Slug shuddered, which due to his size and the strength of his muscles, actually had an audible sound, like a very quiet, low, extremely fast rumble of thunder.

“Am I the only one with reservations about this, I hesitate to call it a plan?” Ghost Ears said, flying around, clearly nervous. In a precinct with literally tens of millions of Gray Aliens, they were completely alone on the streets. “You’re just going to walk into Precinct 6 and-”

“Turn myself in, but only if I get to speak to their leader.” Ben finished for Ghost Ears.

“Where you will then do something, which neither you nor the clown-”

“I miss [Fist of Joy],” Short Bus lamented, his clown costume looking worse for the wear, making him appear vaguely terrifying, “Ben, next free wish you get, could you-”

“You got it buddy,” Ben said, and then the two of them fist bumped.

“The fist bump is the real [Fist of-”

“Be serious,” Ghost Ears hissed, interrupting, “you’ve declined to share your plan with me, your [Royal Vizier], and if you die, we all die. Remember?”

“I’m not going to die,” Ben said, “and this is going to work out exactly like how it should. I’ve-” got this terrible, awful divine wrath that’s older than me, wiser than me, cruler than me, Ben thought, then actually said “I’ve got a good feeling about this.” Ghost Ears sighed.

“Then I leave it in your capable hands.”

“No, I’m with, uh, the fairy-” Cragg said, but was then interrupted by everyone present

“Ghost Ears,” they all said at once.

“Fuck all right all right, Ghost Ears,” Cragg said, “But I’m with Ghost Ears here. I’ve got no doubts about your ability to majorly fuck someone up, but, simultaneously and it’s the weirdest thing, I’ve also got doubts, because as I see it,” he pointed at his rocky eyeballs, “you don’t exactly seem in the correct frame of mind for what could be innocently called combat.”

“I’m not killing anyone,” Ben said, and Cragg raised a ridge-brow.

“I’m extremely interested in how these two concepts, namely ‘Annihilating the Precinct 6’ police station and ‘not killing anyone’ mesh together.”

“Listen, everyone,” Short Bus said, taking the heat off of Ben, “by the time he’s done with them, they’ll wish he killed them. He never said it out loud, and apparently saying it out loud will disrupt the Holy Energy,”

“Thank you,” Ben said quietly.

“No problem, but you’ll have to just have a little faith. Ben’s bringing out the big guns for this.”

“Well,” Cragg said, then took a deep breath, “O.k.”

Precinct Six was arranged in a grid, and in the geometric center of it, was their Police Station and Precinct Hall, basically their two most important buildings, where all the important aliens did all the important things. Ben considered starting a time-loop with his pocketwatch, but from the way his Holy Energy seemed to boil at the thought, somehow it seemed like a Bad Idea. No do-overs for this one.

Team No Privacy had been expected, because no less than a hundred Precinct Six police officers were arranged out to meet them. One of them stepped forward and pointed at Cragg. “He goes no farther,” the Gray said aloud, his voice flat and monotone. “What is your business here?”

“Grayport 3,” Ben said, stepping forward. To describe the reaction of the assembled Grays requires the proviso that they displayed no emotional reaction to the statement, at all. However, they did react, oh yes, they reacted. It was like the electricity, the intensity of their focus suddenly cranked up an entire order of magnitude.

“Speak,” the spokesgray commanded.

“Not here. The information I have is for your leader only. I cannot risk it being told to anyone else.”

“What is known to one of us is known to all of us,” the spokesgray said, and if he’d had emotions, he would have sounded annoyed. But he had no emotions, and his face was flat, unmoving. Big black, blacker than tar, blacker than pitch eyes, a tiny mouth and a bulging head atop a tiny body covered in corpse gray skin. Ben was unafraid.

“Even if that’s true,” Ben said, “and even if your leader immediately tells everyone, I still refuse to give this information to anyone else.” There was a moment of hesitation, of silence like communication was occurring.

“Do what you must, come with me. Alone,” the spokesgray said, and Ben nodded.

“I expected as much. Everyone, please wait here. I should be out shortly.” Ben smiled at everyone reassuringly, which made everyone nervous. Still, they shuffled away and found comfortable-ish locations to lean against or sit on and wait.

Ben, meanwhile, was escorted by five Grays, who marched in a pentagon formation with him in the center. Ben laughed. “Well this is familiar,” he said, shaking his head, remembering his barefoot walk on the beach, escorted in a similar manner. Ben felt one of them reach out for his mind, and then, curiously, flinch away the moment it almost made contact.

“Humans,” the gray muttered, “your minds are incomprehensible.” Ben didn’t respond, content to simply put one foot in front of another. He was getting the pre-event jitters, and it really didn’t matter what the event was; job interview; first date; confrontation with a hostile gray alien leader- the jitters were always the same. His heart was beating way too fast, his mind was slipping all over itself, and he kept trying and failing to bring himself back to baseline, back to a comfortable ‘feeling normal’.

The Police Precinct was clearly constructed for Grays, which is to say it was all narrow hallways, low ceilings and small rooms with very little to no lighting. Honestly, it was like something out of a nightmare. Ben used a bit of Holy Energy to make himself softly glow and give himself something to see by. That got a couple of expressionless looks, but no comments. The holy light didn’t bother them because-

“No,” Ben said, interrupting his own thoughts, “not yet.”

Eventually, Ben was brought to a room that was clearly meant for non-gray visitors. This meant that there was somewhere to sit, and a light in the room. Ben very consciously chose not to stop glowing, sat down in the chair clearly meant for visitors, and waited. Grays lacked many qualities, but punctuality was a trait they had in abundance. A new gray emerged from the door behind him, this one walking briskly.

“I’d like to preface this meeting with a simple fact,” the Gray said, sitting down and staring at Ben with his expressionless, black eyes, “killing me is a futile gesture. I, along with all the members of my species are clones. The moment I die, I will simply be placed into a new body. You will not even be charged except for the minor expense of growing a new body.”

“You’re in charge around here?” Ben asked, but he knew the answer was yes.

“I am the designated leader of Precinct 6, representative of Gray Capital 1. I speak with the full authority of my species. Grayport 3 was destroyed a little more than a week ago and represents a significant loss of property and life. Whatever destroyed them managed to prevent them from being reborn. What do you know?”

“Do you care that they died?” Ben asked, searching the alien for. . . anything at all.

“Their deaths represent a flaw in our technology that must be fixed.”

“They tried to kill me, you know,” Ben said.

“Is that why you were present during the destruction of Grayport 3?”

“They tricked me,” Ben said, “not that it was hard, but they still did it. They got me to activate my leveling system and then captured me when I was a fairy. They were going to turn me into a soulgem.”

“This is irrelevant,” the gray interrupted, “what sort attack wiped Grayport 3 out?”

“The worst part was,” Ben said, “they didn’t even care. They, you, none of you care at all. You don’t care that you attacked Mice Labs, do you?”

“We were well within our legal authority to seize property and take prisoners from the illegal corpse processing facility known as Mice Labs.”

“But it wasn’t right,” Ben said, still searching for a spark of anything at all. But the Gray’s face was unmoving, except for his mouth. “You killed innocent people, you brought those Dark City fuckers in there- why?”

“They paid us,” the gray said, “now tell me exactly what happened to Grayport-”

“Man, fuck Grayport 3,” Ben interrupted, “you creatures are fucking horrible and you don’t even know it. I just want to be able to move past this, you know? I just want to be able to forgive this and move on with my life, but I fucking cant. I fucking can’t, and you know why?”

“I don’t care why,” the Gray said simply.

“No, of course you don’t. But you will,” Ben said, “so I’ll tell you: because there’s no chance you’ll ever figure out what you did was wrong. There’s no chance you’ll ever fucking repent for your actions, or get better.” Ben was breathing hard, staring deep into the black, pityless, dead depths of the aliens eyes. Then, Ben smiled, “But I figured out why,” Ben said, in almost a whisper, “and now I’m going to fix you.”

Ben held out his hand to the side and holy energy, golden and shining, pooled out from his arm and condensed down into a small sphere about the size and shape of a grape. There were no lies, no justifications, no illusions when using Holy Energy. There were no boundaries, no restraints either, and Ben’s eyes were wide with both hurt and fury, unshed tears of frustration nearly spilling over. By instinct, Ben’s most powerful wish rose from his ring and entered the construct of Holy Energy. The Gray watched it all without expression or emotion.

“As I’ve said, killing me is a futile and pointless gesture-”

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you,” Ben said, his face a mask of wrath that, almost disturbingly, settled down into a mirror of the Gray’s face. “This is my Judgement. [Holy Curse: A Plague of Conscience, The Knowledge of Good and Evil.]”

The little golden grape shot forward and shoved itself down the Gray alien’s throat. He swallowed, and there was nothing but pure silence between them for a few long moments. Ben was breathing hard, sweaty and emotional.

“What a useless-” the Gray began, and then coughed, “how pointless-” he coughed again, and his thin little arms lifted up. He stared at his hands, which started to tremble. His breathing grew ragged and erratic, and then. . . his face began to move. His eyebrows raised, his mouth stretched and his emotionless mask was shattered as the Gray’s face twisted into an expression of malice, yes malice, rage, obviously rage, and grief. He began to scream, and it was an awful sound, high pitched and terrible.

He paused to take a breath, and then screamed again, but louder this time, better practiced. He took another breath, and this time, his scream was perfect. Ben’s [Magical] skin was ridgid with goosebumps, and all the sudden, he had regrets about his actions. The Gray started clawing at his own face.

“I HAVE NO TEARS AND I MUST WEEP!” he screamed, and his scream was psychic and physical in nature. It vibrated the air and covered the world in static, it rang and it hurt. Several Grays burst into the room with weapons pointed at Ben- bad luck for them, because it was a plague. The moment they came into psychic contact with the infected Gray, they contracted the Curse of Conscience as well. They froze in place, undergoing the same transformation from expressionless, to faces contorting in horror and rage.

Ben decided it was a good time to get the fuck out of there.