Disclaimer: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and its characters are copyright Jhonen Vasquez. The Original Characters in this story are mine, not yours. Enjoi.
For any youth, school is hard. For the Anti-christ, school is fun, a fine chance to hone one's extortion and organization skills, mostly of others organs. For the Anti-christ's adopted brother, school continued to be an ordeal. This time, however, he has the power of passive intimidation behind him, as well as a few scalped zombies for protection.
"Pepito?" Tod asked as he walked the halls with his brother. "Do these thing have to follow me all the time?"
"No" Pepito responded, "but I think it's a good idea for them."
"But,they follow me everywhere, including the bathroom" Todd complained.
"This is junior high school" Pepito said darkly. "Swirlies are still the number one cliché administered to threatening persons in a group mentality. You, hermano are a quite important person to me..."
"Why?" Tod asked.
"Because you're my brother" Pepito honestly answered. "That should be enough of a reason."
"Oh" Todd realized. He felt a bit bad that he arrogantly questioned his brother's goodwill, and hung his head accordingly. Pepito was smoking in the halls, despite the obvious laws, and often blew smoke at the faces of scowling students and a few random older guys. They all just turned away and retreated without causing an upstart to the little devil.
"TODD!!" squealed young Lena. She appeared from nowhere and ran up to his side, giving him a hug and inhaling deeply along his neck. Todd awkwardly stared at her and tried to move away. "Mmm, you smell good today. I'm tempted to take a bite of you..."
"Don't" Pepito growled. "Anyone harming my brother gets an instant death penalty."
"Oh, lighten up, Peppy" Lena sneered. She turned cheerful and draped Todd's arm around her shoulder as they all walked through the long hall to their next class. "What are we going to do today?" she asked.
"The same thing we do everyday" Pepito began.
"Try and take over the world?" Todd joked. Lena snickered at the obvious joke but Pepito just apathetically dragged from his stick.
"Nah" he replied, "I have a whole life of work ahead of me for that shit. Let's open a betting pool and fuck with the odds instead."
"Yay!" Lena shouted, jumping up and down while holding the uneasy Todd. "Cheating at things is fun! Especially betting!"
"Uh...sure?" Todd said, unsure. He got through the rest of school with the vampiress clinging to him like so much static. He had discovered that there was nothing he could do short of letting her drain his blood to get her off of him. He also discovered that, even though she was only fourteen like he, she had many boyfriends before. They all mysteriously became lethargic and mindless around her for some unknown reason. She called it vampiric zombification. Todd called it 'creepy'.
At the end of the day, the varsity football team was set to play against an opposing district in the state. It was a home game, which meant good news for Pepito and his bracket, which he set up by the school gates. Using a nether-worldly disguise kit, he set up the charade of a toll guard who demanded some unorthodox information. Of course, most of the sheepish moms and miscellaneous relatives that came to watch their favorite player play the best game (and win) gave their information willingly. All of it was recorded on a parchment straight from Hell, binding all who signed it to a contractual obligation to pay cash money for an untaken bet.
"How do we do this again?" Todd asked once the game started.
"It's easy" Pepito explained. They sat up in the highest bleachers to avoid discussion with anyone/ "Whoever we get a profit from, we make them lose. Then, when they lose, we get the profit and spend it...or we don't. The end."
"Wait, that's it?" Todd said. To Pepito's surprise, he sounded rather surprised. "Don't we have to actually do something?"
"Nah" Pepito lazed. "Regardless as to how this all pans out, we'll get the money. It's all being wired to my account. As soon as the game's over, these people will all be out for quite a bit."
"That seems...way too easy" Todd noted.
"Well it is" Pepito said. "That's why it isn't our main activity. There's no challenge involved." Todd looked at his brother with a very curious look. He felt like he was being mislead to think that there was no real information available for him to really believe. Still, they watched the game with only half-hearted interest and waited for the money to come in.
"Ha!" Pepito sounded as he entered the door. "$276, hermano! Tell me that's not good!"
"I can't" Todd admitted. "It is pretty good for one night."
"Son?" Satan said from behind in his parental tone. "Have you been illegally acquiring money through rigged betting pools again?"
"Yes" Pepito proudly answered.
"You'll be a very good ender of days when you grow up" Satan praised. "How are you doing in school, Todd?"
"Very well" Todd answered respectfully, though very modestly.
"'Very Well' is a addendum to a statement, often a sarcastic one" Satan said. "It's not a good answer to a question..."
"Oh" Todd said, gathering another word to define himself with. "I'm doing good." Satan patted him on the head with his hot, bony hand and gave him some fatherly praise.
"Good" Satan said. "You boys play nice now. Don't make me get the broom up there."
"Yes sir" Todd called as he ascended the stairs. Satan glided off in his own direction to the living room while the boys retired to their own rooms.
"Hey hermano" Pepito said from Todd's bed, much to Todd's surprise. "That cabrone RoninMusashi12 wants to be your friend. Should I sick some wolves on him?"
"No" Todd said, snapping away the control that was rightfully controlling his game at the time. "I'll see what he has to say..." Todd secured a headset to his face and clicked into the port on his controller, then he accepted the request and invited his new digital friend to a chat. He was invited first, so he accepted the invite.
"Yo!" a young man's voice greeted. "What's up, dude?"
"Not much" Todd responded. "I noticed you playing the other day. Is this sort of a clan thing?"
"Nah, clans are for fags" the other man said. "I just wanted to get you on my side."
"Wait" Todd said, "side for what?"
"You don't know?" the guy asked. "The power-geeks are going to be playing for the top rankings in the next week and I want to stop them. I can't do it alone, no matter how much I want to, and you seem to be the best at the 'Killer' game modes. With my tactile brawn and your homicidal brain, we could stop them all!"
"Well" Todd started, "why would you want to stop them?"
"Because" he began, "I like the top to be lonely. I'm very introverted. Right now I have the top ranking, and if more than twenty have the same rank, they all get divided based on recent achievements. That means for me, a guy who has already achieved everything in the game, I would have to wait a long time to get back up to the top again."
"But that's the point" Todd said. "You can't stay at the top forever..."
"...true" his friend admitted, "but at least this way I can stay up here for longer. What do you say?"
"Well, I guess so" Todd modestly agreed. "I have been looking for another reason to play beyond just rankings. But, one more question. Why me? There are plenty of great players out there besides me."
"No there aren't" the man casually argued. "There are plenty of great players, but I've seen you play. You don't just play it like a game, you play it with real...feeling. Real skill. It's like you're really out to kill the people you kill in the game. You treat it like a real killer would treat his life." Todd had nothing to say to that, and he certainly didn't agree.
"Well" Todd began, slowly, "I don't believe that...really. I just play it..."
"But you're really good at it" his friend said. "I'll prove it. Let's go into a game." Todd was now suddenly in his party, without even accepting an invite that he remembered to do so, and waited as the game loaded. It was a game of 'Wolves', the very game type that Todd was being praised for as a virtual murderer. "You'll see" the voice said. "No one's as good as you in here."
In some odd way, Todd was able to believe his new friend. Together, they started playing as best they could, staving off the hunting maniacs and slaughtering their victims in turn. Each round had the same victors, with Todd on top and his friend directly under him. The highest ranking player and his massively skilled friend played on through the night, discouraging so many people that the lobby was eventually reduced to the same ten people every match. As reluctant as Todd was to say so, he was the only one who was ever really winning. His team tried, but he always beat them to the proper point. Todd really was a great killer...in the game.
"OH MAI GAAHHDDD!!!" screamed a shrill and paranoid voice. Up on a hill, outside the city limits, in a planetarium and astronomical research station, a skinny, pasty scientist with a large head had fallen off his high perch and onto the cold floor of the lab. His associates quickly ran in to see him shaking and pointing from the floor at the telescope he had just fallen from.
"What is it!?" a fat, stubby doctor with goggles shouted.
"Oh" a skinnier, androgynous man or woman said with a nasal voice. "It's just him again. Let's go back to Hockey."
"You guys!" the startled scientist pleaded breathlessly. "I've seen it!"
"What?" the fat one started. "The light at the end of your ass?"
"Seriously, guy" the tall one said, "you need to get some help. All the time it's 'aliens' or 'zombies' or 'alien zombie-virus' bullshit. Enough. Let us get some sleep already."
"I'm positive this time!" the crazed one pleaded. "I have proof! I have high-speed camera pictures of something entering the atmosphere! I calculated the trajectory too, and it's coming from another planet outside our solar system!" The other scientists, while amused by the wild rantings of their colleague, scoffed him quietly and slipped out of the room unnoticed. "Something, someone has found us! If it doesn't burn up in entry it'll most likely land in the mountains! We need to call the FBI! They need to know about thi-" of course, now he realized that he was barking madly at the moon. He twisted his face with anger and stomped over to the telescope again. After a careful adjustment, he was locked on a sharply descending light in the sky.
"Mock me all you want" he lowed to himself "but I'm right. I know I'm right. That's an alien, just like the ones that tried to kill me when I was a boy! They're back, and they're probably looking for their friend's body in my basement!" Then, shocked, he looked up from the telescope and made an astute observation of the word 'basement' and correlated it to 'home'. "OHGAHGOD! MOM! I have to warn her!" He ran out, slipping on the floor again as he left, and slammed the door. The rock in the sky, seen only by this one, unknown and unreliable man, continued rapidly towards its destination in the mountains, undetected and unseen. It was a rock of black-steel with a red tint, black so much that the fire refused to illuminate it against the already black sky. It was just big enough to crush a house if there was one in the hills, and it carried something evil within. What it was...
...who could say?