It was the third time they'd come calling, and as I saw it, that was three too many. The first time, I'd told them in no uncertain terms to fuck themselves and get off my land. I'd been less civil after that. The second time I'd taken a warning shot over their heads with an old revolver I owned.

Not because I needed or wanted a revolver, but everyone else in Texas had a gun, and I was enough of an outsider already to ignore etiquette.

But the second time had done it and now here he was back for a third. Had a friend and a lawman this time with him, and I knew that couldn't be good news. Just the sight of him made my blood boil, and my hands twitched with wanting to cut him into pieces on the spot.

His friend spoke first, thin man hiding behind a suit and glasses.

"You are hereby being served with summons related to a suit being filed against you by my client, Mister Rothersford. These papers contain all details pursuant to the suit and the requisite files for the court."

I glared at the man behind the lawyer, the three-time intruder, Mister Rothersford. "And on what grounds do you have to sue me, you rat?" I barked at him.

"Mister Rothersford suffered traumatic emotional damage after making a good-faith effort to communicate with you on an arrangement of mutual benefit, being afraid for his life when you assaulted him with deadly force."

"You scum bastard," I screamed, my temper flushing my face even before I could take steps towards him. "I told you to get the fuck off my property or I'd kill you! Here you are back again, with a goddamn lawyer? I'll kill you this time, I'll do it!"

The cop was up in an instant, his firearm at the ready. I looked down at him and the black hole of the pistol in his hands. "Not another step closer!" he shouted.

Outrage joined my fury at the officer's intercession. I wasn't the one out of line here, this man had come to my house, uninvited, and been told in no uncertain terms to piss off. I fired at him, but he was warned, he trespassed, more times than any man should have to put up with. And now he came to trespass again. And this time, the law would side with him?

"Get the hell off my land!" I screamed at all three of them. "Get the hell off, don't you ever come back. I'll shoot you, I'll shoot all three of you. I don't care if you're a lawyer or a lawman. And if I ever see you again, Richard--" I pointed at Mister Rothersford "--you best hope you see me first."

"Thank you very much. It's been very enlightening," said the lawyer as he scrawled some notes. "I will leave your papers here." He dropped the sheaf of papers in the dirt, and then very slowly, each of them returned to the car, casually as they could without turning their backs to me.

And then, kicking up a plume of dust like Satan's own cigar, they drove off, leaving my head pounding and my heart racing. I stood there for a long time, watching them go.

When I went to where they'd stood, it wasn't for the papers. I scrabbled in the dirt for a moment and came up sweating and swearing. The ground all around them was fractured just under the dust, where I'd almost lost control and my powers had scored it open. Tendrils of ice and ash radiated in geometric lines all around, all pointed towards where they'd been.

They hadn't seen. I was safe. I let out a deep breath and felt my blood boiling.

Not that they deserved to live. I thought about it a few minutes longer, feeling a swelling inside me as I envisioned all the ways they could die. I should have done it, should have ended them once and for all. Nobody would have missed a crooked cop, a lawyer, or a land speculator. They were all just filthy parasites, worse than me by a mile.

I bent down again and picked up the papers, shaking them off from where the car had buried them in dust. As I scanned over the words and then reread them, I felt a scream rising in my throat.

The papers surged into flames in my hand for a moment before I could put them out. Two-hundred and fifty thousand credits? That slick prick was suing me for two-hundred and fifty thousand credits?

Fuck him, I only had a few thousand to my name and he knew it. He was trying to wring blood from a stone here...a whole fuckload of stones really, given the state of my fields. The bull-piss moron couldn't get a damn thing from me, but to think that he considered being a little scared by gunfire worth two-hundred and fifty thousand.

I should have killed him, I thought. I wonder how much that would have cost me. Cost me two-hundred and fifty thousand just to miss. What kind of goddamn emotional trauma could that have been? Pissed his fanciest underpants and handing me the dry-cleaning bill?

His smug face kept coming up in my mind, and I saw frost in my breath and realized I was in trouble. I went indoors and closed the blinds, double-checked the lock, and once I made sure I was alone, kicked aside the kitchen rug and threw open the hatch I'd cut crudely.

I dropped into a hole. There was no other word for it. I'd made it myself with my powers, and it was cramped and dark. And quiet, and alone. It smelled of earth and confinement.

Here, I was alone with the quiet.

Here, I could step away from the world above and all the bullshit in it.

Richard Rothersford's face swam in my vision as my mind blurred with hate. I saw him, in my mind's eye, in the moment he'd stepped out of the car. He was smirking at me, in the most condescending, shit-eating way possible. He knew what he was about to hand over, his fucking consignment of his dick up my ass. So fucking cocky and self-assured.

Here, I couldn't be seen.

The ground around me fractured in geometric patterns, let loose by rage. Fires scoured the walls in growing circles. Trails of frost and obsidian daggers criss-crossed through the air. Reality shuddered as I leaned on it, tore into it. Empty spaces, filled with things beyond my understanding, things that existed in the places between nothing. Flashes of light, so bright, so scalding that they burned my shadow into the dust, exploding all around me.

And then nothing. Quiet. The peace of the Earth. Alone and quiet, though I felt neither.

I was breathing raggedly. Anger still moved my fingertips beyond my control, but I wasn't at my breaking point anymore. I'd let it vent for now.

But the thought of his smug fucking face came back into my mind and I roared as my powers exploded outward again.

He deserved to die. He deserved to die. I was wrong. I was right. He was a parasite. Feeding off me and others. He deserved to die. Next time, I'd kill him, just like this. Just like that. A million ways to do it, all so easy. He deserved it.

It took me hours to climb out of the hole, somehow feeling more energetic than when I'd entered. I was too worked up, wouldn't be able to sleep. I might spend all night in the hole if I had to. But it was late, and I was hungry. I threw open the back door, forgetting it was locked and tearing a piece of wood straight out of the frame.

Not that it fucking mattered. It wouldn't be my house soon, if that parasite had his way. Sue me for more than I'm worth, take my land, build his fancy whatever bullshit. The goddamn parasite. He'd been leaning hard on everyone who lived out here. Moral-less, worthless, scum of a man.

I flew out the door, my feet lifted into the air, and my body shooting out like an arrow. It took me mere seconds to find an animal -- a rabbit, standing in a field under the velvet of dusk -- and an instant to kill it. With fire, another few moments to cook it from within.

The flesh was gamey and tough under my teeth, but it was food and I was hungry. I was a predator, and it was a prey. It didn't have to taste good, it was serving its purpose just by existing, by being eaten.

Unlike a parasite, which had no purpose.

I pounded down the better half of the beast until I was satisfied I'd gotten the best parts of it and then flew off again.

I came back late that night and could not stop my mind or heart from racing. Every time I closed my eyes, I thought of all the ways I'd do it, all the ways he deserved to die. I wanted to do it now, to fly off to wherever his home was, maybe his family was there, a bunch of whelps raised up on filthy money--

I stopped, battling my thoughts through the veil of rage. I wouldn't kill his family. Even if it would hurt him, even if it made him beg and cry, that was sick. All of these fantasies were sick, and they were making me act out. They would make me get caught, and then...and then I'd have to go into hiding again, or worse.

I spent the rest of the night wrestling with myself mentally. I was losing it, I knew. All I wanted was to be left alone. Rothersford was kicking on a beehive he couldn't comprehend. One even I couldn't comprehend sometimes.

I spent a lot of nights wrestling with myself like that. Every day was a battle. But every day I kept myself reeled in, kept myself safe and hidden, that was a victory. And I won more days than I lost.

But I knew, no matter how I pretended, it wouldn't last. Because coming up, and soon, was a court date. And I knew I'd see him again, and the next time I did, I'd have to decide if I was a liar or not; If I'd keep my word about killing him.

A few days later I had my answer: I didn't. Smug as he looked in that suit, I told myself this was a court of law, and justice would side with me.

He was right there, though. Almost within arm's reach. Sitting with his lawyer between us like a shield. If I wanted, that wouldn't protect him, and it felt like he was challenging me just by trying. I wanted so badly to prove him wrong.

The judge looked up at me and spoke. "Mr. Liev Bareletti, do you have council to represent you?"

"I wasn't told I needed one."

She shook her head and went back to reading paperwork. I found myself thinking what an enormous bitch without having any real reason to. But then again, I had to wonder how she enjoyed this position of power. I bet she made a lot of money just sitting up there, telling people how they were wrong all day. She of all people benefited most from there being scumbags like Richard sniffing around -- without dips like him, she'd be out of the job. Another kind of parasite.

"Mr. Bareletti, I have to tell you, speaking as someone who's seen a lot of cases, yours doesn't look very good. You probably want to find legal council, but even so, there's full transcripts here of you threatening not only the plaintiff, but also the officer of the law that had accompanied him. Your actions so far have seemed rash and unprepared, and I think it's only fair for you to know that your best option right now is probably to settle with Mr. Rothersford out of court."

I was on my feet and she stared at me. "Sit down," she said.

"That's bullshit," I yelled at her. "This piece of shit trespassed on my property three times--"

"Control yourself--"

"And I told him, every time--"

"Mister Bareletti, this is not the time to make your arguments. I was merely offering my counsel as having seen a lot of cases. You will be heard at your trial and will be given a chance to speak and defend--"

"It's BULLSHIT."

"Mister Bareletti, one more outburst and I will place you in contempt of court. Control yourself."

"No, you control yourself," I spat, kicking over the desk in front of me. "What, you think because you've presided over a hundred cases where assholes like him just get to steamroll victims like me, that's how it is? Tell me I've lost before I even spoken? Maybe that's just how it is in your courtroom because you're a shit judge."

"Mister Bareletti, you are now in contempt of court. Bailiff--"

"Fuck you. Go contempt yourself, bitch." She was pounding her gavel and shouting at me, but I couldn't hear it anymore over the pounding in my ears.

The bailiff approached me, hand on his holster, cuffs in his other. Before he could reach me, two others were on me from the sides, holding my arms down to put the cuffs on.

I snapped my arms right back up, throwing both off me effortlessly. Everyone was muttering now, everything was going to shit. I was blowing it, I knew. I had to stop now or everything would be ruined forever. I had to accept those cuffs, accept that bitch, accept that my house and my fucking tomato plants were done for. I had to take it, or I'd be put away. Or run away. Or worse.

And then I did the stupidest damn thing and looked over at Richard.

He was grinning as he watched. He was getting off on me fighting off the bailiffs. He thought, I was throwing away my chances and the trial would be handed over to him and he'd won.

His eyes gleamed with avarice, and my fuse...what little I had, all went up in ash in that single glance.

Without even thinking about it, I pulled him to me, drinking in, savoring, the growing confusion and fear on his face as his body moved despite himself. His arms and legs jerked in the air as he drifted up and over the bailiffs and his lawyer, who I pinned to the ground like insects. He screamed.

The judge shrieked, banging her gavel as though by instinct. People were running out of the room. People were running into the room. I heard gunfire, but loud as it was, it seemed outside my concern. This was a minute for just me, and Dick.

I ripped off one of his arms with a thought, and could see his pulse racing with every squirt of blood that gushed from him. And then I ripped the gavel from the judge's hand and recombined it into a wooden lance, which I drove right through his scrotum.

He screeched as it impaled him, and twice as loud as it burst into flames inside.

"You worthless parasite," I told him. "You made a career of bullying and hurting others, never even considering their pain or their anger. I thought the system would protect me, but I was wrong. I don't need it's protection. You do. You've wormed your way in and hollowed it out and use justice like a cheap whore so you can keep on sucking the life out of others."

He twisted in my grasp, finally looking as pathetic as I always saw him. "I will kill your family," I decided. "There is nothing about you which deserves to live."

"P-please--" he groaned, and I knew he wasn't begging for their lives. He was too pathetic a creature to care about anything but himself.

I walled up his throat so his breathing came through the tiniest of tubes, gasping for every breath, his chest seeming to collapse into his lungs as they struggled to find air to fill them. I turned his stomach to ice, and then twirled it once or twice within him, twisting his guts with knots that made him bulge and waste his precious breath to scream. I pulled an eye from his head and distorted it so that he could see himself suffer through vision torn and skewed.

And once he was done for, hanging there with all of his entrails out, suffering through his long, last, few minutes of life, I turned to his lawyer. I turned to the judge. I turned to the bailiffs who thought they could subdue me. And then the people who thought they could get away. The shell of justice, writhing with parasites.

And I'd never felt so happy. I wondered if, perhaps, this was the first time justice was ever being served in this building. I wondered if the would would celebrate, as the parasites were flayed and shredded. I wondered if everyone could just see...see a world where nobody could get away with bullshit...where there was always someone to rise up and put the abusers back in their place...what kind of world would that be?

But mostly, I just felt happy. I'd ignored my powers for so long, been angry for so long, it felt like every day, from the moment I woke to the hours I couldn't sleep, I was strangling myself slowly. And to let them go, to see those eyes on me, filled with horror and fear. To hear nothing but the sounds I could create, silent of the prattle and lies of others. To feel so many lives in the palm of my hand, and weigh them, to be the justice that this world needed to weed out the evil.

I was flushed. I was breathless. I felt a fire within me that burned better and hotter than the anger which I'd battled so long. The anger was there, but I realized it was just kindling compared to how brightly now I blazed. I was aflame with power, with glory.

With justice.

There were sirens outside now, and the sound of them pulled me back down to reality. I thought back to last time I'd fled, four years ago. When people I'd known and trusted had called the XPCA to turn me in. They had said they wouldn't, they had said whatever lies they thought of, anything, I believed, to get rid of me.

Well it had worked. I'd ran. I'd fired myself into the air and kept on moving until I came to a place where nobody knew who I was. I'd worked hard, I'd worked honest, and then liars and parasites had shown up again to ruin it all for me one more time.

I tore a hole in the world and put Richard in it, the way slamming shut with a tremor which shuddered reality. I didn't know what was on the other side, and I didn't care. He would die, in a horrible way of the universe's own choice. The universe itself could decide his judgement, decide how long and how slow his suffering should be. Perhaps he would take years to die, as would be only fitting.

I ripped more holes in the air and put more people inside. Some might live, some might die. The universe would sort them out. It was like handing them over to Saint Peter early. But I doubted any in this room deserved better than death.

And then I was gone as well. Not through the holes...I wasn't sure if even I would survive that. But simply by launching myself through the ceiling, up into the blue sky of a beautiful day.

Down far below me, I saw the black of the XPCA massing. Already half a dozen vans and a couple of choppers. Even if they were like ants, the last time we'd clashed, I'd felt their sting. My mind winced at remembering before, no matter how much stronger I was now. I'd been too confident last time we'd met, and I'd paid for it. Never again would I let them catch me.

Besides, my head was much clearer now. Up here in the wispy heavens, nothing around me but brilliant blue and birdsong, the city looking like a scar on the land more than being all of it, my need for vengeance was met for the moment. It was quiet and clear up here. Peaceful. Light and breezy.

I spent only a minute soaking in the sun and the peace before I left. They would be coming if I stayed, and I did not want to taint my first reckoning with a war. Justice had been served today, and it was through action, not through battle.

I could act again, and again, and again, I thought. I could suss out all of the evil in the world and destroy it without effort. Any who lied, any who were a parasite, any who oppressed or built upon the systems of oppression...I could purify them all, I realized.

And nobody could stop me.

But that was for another day. Today, I simply drifted out, out, out, until I found the ocean and threw myself over it. The pollution of man washed away from my sight and all I could see was the endless expanse of water beneath me.

For once, I was at peace, and so I rested. Even God had taken a day to rest, and I was no god yet.

The images of Richard in my mind brought me joy instead of rage now, and so I was content with my work. I smiled at thinking of those who may benefit from his death, and what new judge could fill the robes of the awful one, perhaps someone young and aspirational, someone with ideals, who would be willing to step up, while the parasites cowered with their vaults of ill gains.

But mostly I just smiled. The sky was blue and the grey of the city was gone from my sight. In time, I would return. One villain and one corrupt judge were nothing to the evils of the world. Nothing but a start.

And feeling the sun on my skin and the breeze in my hair, the smell of salt wafting up to where I sat above the clouds, I reflected.

It wasn't a start, I decided, my smile broadening. It was going to be an end.