Peace XII and Chance

d’Neronique

Part I

My loyalty to the Insurrection of the Twelfth Peace was more fate than anything.

When I was ten years old, I drowned my little brother in the pool. It wasn’t an accident, wasn’t premeditated. In fact, I liked my little brother more than I liked any of my other siblings. There was just a moment when my mother went inside the house to answer the phone that left my little brother and I alone and I just had this inescapable need to kill him – so I did. I just grabbed his little six-year-old head, smashed it a few times on the side of the pool and held his unconscious head underwater for a few minutes. While I watched myself do it, I had been filled with this immense clarity unlike anything I had felt before. Afterwards, I didn’t feel guilty so much as terribly shameful – what would mom say? – so I got out of the pool and left before she returned. That same night, just a few hours later, there was an explosion in the part of the city I had run to; it was the first explosion of the Twelfth Peace.

It wasn’t a particularly large explosion since it only affected about two or three localized shops. Small as it was, however, it did create a lot of chaos – a lot of chaos that a scared, murderous and still-in-bathing-suit ten-year-old boy like me didn’t know how to handle. Close to the explosion, I had been knocked to the ground, shattered glass digging into my naked arm and shoulder, and an unwelcome amount of smoke and dust forcing itself into my eyes, nose and throat. As a half naked ten year old looking at his own shredded arm and hearing screams all around him, I had been so certain that it was God’s punishment for killing my brother. At the sounds of sirens I remember forcing myself to get up – as much as it hurt, I was frightened even more by the thought of being found by the police or fire department and being brought back home. It was easy to slip away in all the commotion and chaos. I’ll never forget what happened next.

Just as I turned a corner, a van pulled onto the sidewalk right in front of me. Although it had just begun to screech to a stop, one of the doors had been opened and three men jumped out while it was still moving. These men were large, carried guns and were wearing identical black masks and black shirts that had the number ‘12’ written on it in broad, red, blood-resembling letters. Their shape and movement mesmerized me as they ran around the corner past me. I was only taken out of my strange hypnotic stare at the sound of gunshots. Not ten seconds later did two of the three men run back around the corner, one of them running right into me. There was a solid second of confusion as I had the wind knocked right out of me and the man in black completely halted as though my very presence was the most absurd thing he could imagine at the moment. At the sound of more sirens, the man inexplicably grabbed me and dragged me into the van as it not-so-slowly accelerated away.

Even though I was bleeding, half-naked, in the arms of a complete stranger in a van that was being driven rather obnoxiously, I don’t remember being afraid. In fact, I don’t even remember being confused. These men could have been Satan’s demons to take me away to the deepest circle of Hell and all I could feel was the sincerest peace of mind about my future.

What seemed like hours later, the vehicle had slowed to a stop and the people inside began to vacate. During the ride home, after some amount of stability had been acquired in the handling of the van, I recall hearing conversation around me, asking the man that had pulled me into the van who the fuck I was. Being unable to answer for me, and myself being in a strange catatonic daze was unable to answer for myself, the conversation around me shifted more towards the events that had just taken place – the success of the explosion, the losing of Ferdinand, and Steart’s reasons for pulling some random kid into the van. I vaguely recall being told to exit the van but I can’t remember actually doing it. Blindly following and being told what to do, I found myself in the care of some shady appearing medical facility. Tending to the glass embedded in my arm was the man who had pushed me into the van with him. He was without a mask now, and I could see that he was oldish. Although probably only in his forty’s, to my ten year old mind, he looked ancient. Ancient, but powerful. He was well-built, a sternness to his jaw, thinness to his lips and heaviness about his brow, but not completely frightening. Framed by his half-grayed receding hair-line and tedious appearing circles were eyes that bore wrinkles that indicated he smiled often.

“Am I in Hell?” I had asked, finding the courage to speak to this man I had a strange unconditional trust for. “Is this my punishment?”

The man looked at me, a little curious and a little annoyed that I had chosen to finally speak. “No.”

Not discouraged by his lack of communication, I continued on. “That’s good. Where am I?”

“I shouldn’t tell you that. Not if you want to go home. It’s just some fucking – some stupidity on my part that you’re here.”

What the man was doing to my arm stung, but my eyes didn’t gather tears. “Oh, well I don’t want to go home. That’s why I was running.”

“That wasn’t from the bomb?” The man let out a disgruntled sort of grunt, skeptical.

I shook my head. “No, not really. I was running away from my mom. I – I guess I just drowned my brother, and I didn’t want to get yelled at. I thought the bomb was judgment from God. Killing makes Him mad, I guess.”

Looking back, I’m not sure if he believed me right away or was just humoring me. Either way, his response didn’t lag. “You don’t sound very guilty.”

“That explosion – was that you?”

The man smiled and looked me in the eyes. “Might as well have been.”

I shrugged, trying to be a smart ass. It didn’t work to well because shrugging made me wince from the pain in my arm. “You don’t sound very guilty.”

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Chance. What’s yours?”

“Steart. Jim Steart. How’d you kill your brother?”

I nodded, pleased to learn the name of the man who I assumed was my savior of sorts. “I drowned him. In the pool – that’s why I’m still…”I gestured to my bathing suit, which was covered in my own blood. “Are you going to make me go home? Can I stay with you? Why did you bomb that place? I won’t tell anyone, I just don’t want to go home.”

Not in the least overcome by my barrage of questions, Jim Steart – or simply ‘Steart’ as I would come to know him – calmly began to answer my questions, one by one. “Do you remember hearing about the ‘Peaces?’ In school maybe?”

I shrugged, not really answering the question. I’d heard the adults around me talking about the bombs and the terrorists and even a brief mention or two about ‘The Peaces.’ I remember being laughed at when I asked ‘Pieces of what?’ “Kind of.”

“It may not make sense to you now, but we’re trying to make a new one. A twelfth one. That explosion I just took you from? That was our first. This is new, a brand new revolution, and today is our official grand opening.” There was a brief pause as he looked at me with his deep and wizened eyes. “If you don’t want to go home, you don’t have to. Just realize you can never go back.”

I was ok with that. I was a ten, bleeding, murderous and in awe by the sheer power of this man and I was ok with never seeing my parents again. In fact, I didn’t want anything more than to dedicate the rest of my life to this weird exploding Peace of the twelfth ordinal and this strange, powerful man. I suppose the rest was just history.

The rest of the Twelfth Peace seemed to think favorably of me, though for some it took a while. I was just some weird kid that Steart apparently decided to keep around, like a pet. For a good two or three months, I was exactly that: a pet. They’d feed me, clothe me, pet me, talk to me and bathe me. They called me ‘Chancles’ and ‘Chancey Boy’ and ‘Chanchan.’ Since I was running from the law right the rest of them, I didn’t have to go to school, and I spent large amounts of the day just playing video games or watching TV or listening to the stories of the other 12th Peace members, my new family. It wasn’t until I was there for nearly eight months did Steart and a few others decide to use me in their cause.

They started me off slow. I was used as a sort of messenger boy at first. I’d deliver notes and messages to like-minded Peacers across the city, effortlessly weaving my way through the rush-hour crowds and heavy security. They’d have me drop off mechanical items at certain places to be picked up at a later time. When it was proven that I was efficient and trustworthy at these tasks, my usefulness was upped a few notches and I was allowed to actually place the bugs and trackers and cameras myself. I loved being useful. I loved it when anyone praised me, but especially if it was Steart. As I aged, my political awareness also grew a bit. I still didn’t understand the reasons behind the actions, but at least I know that the actions were happening. What the world was while I was with the Peace seemed like a completely different place than with my parents, safe at home, with our chlorinated pool and supervised activities. Steart liked to talk about how The Movement was growing, how support for the Peace was growing – not in lowbrow society where they were known primarily as terrorists and were deeply despised, but where it counted, like government officials and military allies.

“That’s how it works,” Steart had explained to me. “People look back in history and always wonder why there have been so many ‘Peace’ movements. They look at them and think ‘they all fail, every single one of them.’ But they’re wrong. The movement wins, but the people fail. You and I, we’re just pawns for the greater good. We work as terrorists, rumble up the tensions and gain allies who also think things need to be changed. Then the political weather changes high up, the regime changes, usually naturally and with the great support of the people of this nation. To justify the change, the terrorists are demonized and killed – but as the original orchestrators of the Peace, we understand that it is our place to do so. To sacrifice ourselves for society. That’s what it means to be part of this, Chance. You have to accept love for your country over fear of death.”

I, of course, didn’t really care at all at the time. I just wanted to do my chores and be useful and be praised by Steart. The notion of something grander and nobler than anything I could have imagined was out of my ability to understand. This long term plan of grandiose sacrifice was too trustworthy and faith-based for my ten year old mind to take much stock in. Death was something only old people and sick people had to worry about. I was neither.

My chores for the Peace became tasks and those tasks became missions. As an inconspicuous child, the members of the Peace had no trouble finding things for me to do. Terrorizing complete strangers was satisfying. Killing them was even better, so much better than killing my own brother, which had been based on whim only. But these missions I was given – wow, just merciless planning went into them. I would get in these attack mind-sets and want nothing else than to do my kill and do it well.

The bombs Steart would have me plant were relatively harmless at first. He wanted me to practice, he had explained. He’d have me drop little buttonbombs in front of random places, like a library or coffee shop or insurance agency. It got to a stage where I was allowed to choose for myself where I wanted to put them. Of course, armed with this new power, I got a little over excited and went right for the people instead of just locations. I’d stick the fuckers under a cushioned seat and watch until someone sat there. I’d fool around for a minute before leaving, making sure to detonate it on my way out. The buttonbombs made small explosions, like a quarter stick of dynamite or something. Enough to fuck up whatever was next to it pretty bad, and enough to cause significant confusion, but nothing to really cause mass-destruction. So I’d detonate it on my way out and I’d get a glimpse of some stranger’s ass being blown on the window before I’d turn the corner. By the time the police came, I’d be long gone. If my victim didn’t die, they’d never be able to sit the same way, ever again.

I also liked to place the bombs in people’s pockets as they walked past me, in garbage cans so they’d light fire when they went off, and if I was felling especially good, in baby carriages or hidden in the sandbox in the playground. I was a good terrorist, and I was proud of it. For my twelfth birthday, Steart and a few other members told me that I was to be given jobs that required the handlings of more dangerous devices than just a buttonbomb. I was given a handgun, wrapped in a bow. It was perfect, I was so happy.

By the time I turned thirteen, the Twelfth Peace had moved across the country, in many cities. Steart often stressed the importance of keeping mobile, so I often found myself forcing my evil shenanigans upon people of differing cities. Despite the availability of more effective weapons, I still loved the ease of buttonbombs. It was a good way to explore a city, just walking around and finding a good place where I could place it and stay long enough to watch without looking suspicious. Specific orders sometimes came down through Steart to me to specifically assassinate someone. I was so excited at my first assassination order, I wanted to run through the city streets and shoot randomly at the hobos and junkies in the alleys. I was thirteen.

It was some woman that had been somehow elected into some office in some random city, and the Peace wanted her dead for some reason I didn’t care about. Wildly discussed without my presence, the crevice in which would be best to hide in assassin was too small, even for a small man. It was perfect, however, for a small boy. Grateful for the opportunity, I didn’t argue, even when Steart explained that I was to wait in said small crevice for hours until given the order to sniper the bitch into oblivion. The hardest part of that job, if I remember correctly, was not killing the bitch before the orders were given. Sitting there and waiting, I felt it so many times – that strange jumping rush and need to just kill. It was that same feeling I got right before I killed my brother, those three some-odd years ago. It felt like ancient history, but I still honored it as the first moment of my life.

Also when I was thirteen, Steart began to make it obvious his approval of my usefulness. When alone with me, Steart would get into these long speeches about how proud he was of me, and how glad he was that he decided to keep me. He believed, like me, that our meeting was fate, and because of that, the Peace was somehow blessed by a higher power to succeed. During these speeches, he’d get to petting me and touching me and pulling me closer to him. It often ended abruptly, usually with Steart looking at me strangely and walking away with a whimsical look on his weathered face, leaving me feeling somewhat dejected.

The news of the assassinated woman was huge. Unfortunately huge. The feds had found the supposed hiding place of the assassin, and decided that the only person able to fit into such a small space was a child. With this new information, they had gotten analysts and investigators to review all of the past attacks of the Peace, and realized that so many of them which had previously stumped them made sense in the context of them being carried about by a child. All those buttonbombs were backfiring on me like some sort of perverse retroactive aftershock.

They analysts went back to every single witness account recorded of the many small incidents, and to every blurry and visually-useless camera that had caught a mini explosion linked with the Peace. They began to notice similarities. The witnesses often recalled seeing ‘a boy, about ten, thin, with dirty blond hair’ came up more than once. The black-and-white camera films occasionally showed the same.

They had found me. They were condemning the Peace for using a child in their terrorist acts instead of directly condemning me, but they had still found me and I was terrified. I was terrified that the Peace would no longer think me of as ‘safe’ enough to use anymore. I was found, the gimmick was over, and they wouldn’t want me anymore. I’d heard stories from other Peace members about assassins being killed once their usefulness was shot – it seemed funny to me at the time, but now I was horrified. I didn’t want to die. I had run crying and begging to Steart. “I don’t want to die. I can still work. I’ll be careful. They won’t find me. God, Steart, please! I can still be useful.”

Steart had taken me unconditionally in his arms then and just hugged me, kissing my head and cheeks, trying to say comforting things, only managing to minimally calm me down. When his efforts didn’t seem to work, he carried me over to a table and sat me atop of it, moving his kisses from my cheeks to my lips. They were soft pecks, surprisingly gentle for a man as strong and tough looking as Steart. The pecks began to linger, and they got wetter and more intense. By this time, I had stopped crying, completely amused and intrigued by the feeling of Steart’s rough chin rubbing against my own smooth and boyish one. I wasn’t revolted at all. In fact, I quite adored the feeling. Steart was working his mouth, gently trying to open it with his own open mouth, managing in phrased like “I won’t let them hurt you, Chance” and “You’ll never be useless” to make me feel especially loved and needed. That’s right, needed. I let him in, my lips parting just enough to breathe as Steart nearly wet himself at the opportunity to push his tongue into my mouth and tried to seek own out.

Steart’s hands had suddenly found my fly, frantically trying to open it. On instinct, I had rushed my hands down there to stop him, almost regretting it as soon as I did so. Part of me trusted the man unconditionally and wanted him to continue, the other part of me was embarrassed to admit that I frequently touched myself down there in antisocial lust, and was timid to let my mentor do the same. Steart, who had stopped kissing me, just looked at me with pleading eyes. “Chance, I need you.” And I was sold. He needed me. I was useful.

When it was obvious that I wasn’t going to resist any more, Steart placed my hands on his shoulders and replaced his hands to my crotch and his lips to my face. I became something like putty when Steart’s callous hands found my privates. I couldn’t even kiss back properly and just let the older man lick and nip at the side of my mouth. I was in pure amazement at how good the man’s hands felt on me. My breathing increased, I became hot and sweaty. My erection bore the early desperation of puberty. My hands on Steart’s shoulders naturally found their way to his head and I just held on for dear life. I was so excited for the future.

The future did not disappoint. As Steart had promised, the Peace still found me useful. My hair was dyed brown, and I was given a stern talking to about where I used the buttonbombs, but nothing other than that.

Every night, either I’d go to Steart or Steart would come to me. For the first few weeks, it felt like everything we did together was completely new. One night, Steart had started off with his hands, and ended with his mouth engulfing my dick. It was perfect. The sandpaper of his chin on my balls, most likely giving them an awkward redness that my face had begun to sport from all the kissing we had been doing. One night, I was the one to give the handjob, completely fascinated with the maturity of the older man’s sexual organ. It was the epitome of manliness. On another night, I had been on my stomach on my bed, my hips lifted up by my pillow, and Steart thoroughly eating out my ass. As time went by, Steart became specifically more ass-oriented. Even when he gave me blowjobs, he’d make sure to enter in a finger or two from behind, my bottom half completely belonging to him. Fuck, I didn’t care. It all felt so good.

In retrospect, I suppose most would consider what Steart did to me morally revolting. Then again, the same could be said for my fondness of watching the hands of children explode at the playgrounds as the buttonbombs went off, their shocked and frightened tears running down their faces as their parents, mortified, ran towards their child, screaming along with them. To Steart’s credit, he didn’t properly fuck me until I was fourteen, and my voice had completely dropped (most of the time).

Time went by particularly fast. As I aged, my worldly knowledge grew, and I liked to read the newspaper and watch the news, becoming involved in the emotional chaos that was politics. Since my missions on behalf of the Peace had not ceased, the anti-XII-Peace investigations were fond of connecting evidence to my involvement – whether they were actually there or not. They called me ‘Boy X’ and as I aged, my faceless and infamous television personality grew with me. At first, I was ‘nine to twelve’ years old. When I was fifteen, I was simply in my ‘early teens.’ I had red hair, black hair, brown hair, blond hair, of varying lengths and differing styles. I was sometimes dressed preppy, sometimes geeky, or whatever seemed appropriate.

As a fifteen year old, I was murder-obsessed and sex-craved. All I could do was fuck, kill, fuck, kill. I often got in trouble when I took risks – sometimes I wanted my victims to get a clear and unfailing view that I was Boy X right before they died. The adrenaline of running for my life when I realized someone had called the cops because they had realized who I was too and was not dead (yet) was just the most exhilarating thing in the world. Though rarely given high-profile assassinations, I often took on the satisfying task of injecting pure terror right into the veins of society by killing off the most random of people. A bus driver here, a teacher there. A man selling hotdogs on the street would drop dead, a bullet cracking open his skull. A student listening to music as she walked to school, dropping to the ground, screaming as she witnessed her guts fall out from under her. Buttonbombs too expected now, I often resorted to other methods, like poison and knives. I loved stabbing people. In the dark night, if you were stupid enough to be wandering around on an isolated street, I’d just walk up to them, and stab them, twisting the knife around, repeating the act multiple times like the knife was my cock and their flesh was some exotic virgin cunt. To make sure they know it was me, I’d carve ‘XIIp’ on their forehead.

With Steart, I was getting almost too sexually adventurous. I loved it when he fucked me, his experienced and throbbing manhood filled me so well. I was obsessed with the feeling of my ass stretching to meet the growing needs of his cock. I’d go to Steart with a list of positions I wanted to try, and I wouldn’t leave until we’d do them all justice. I wanted him to use sex toys on me, fill me up with dildos and anal plugs and vibrators. I wanted to be tied up and just be sexually abused. I felt that I began to freak Steart out a bit when I began to ask for freakier shit – to be peed on, for bestiality, for threesomes. I wanted to feel the revolting twist of a python or boa all up and confused in my enormous, stretched asshole. I wanted – expected – Steart to bring me to new planes of pleasure. Most often, he succeeded. I was a feral, sexual and murderous being and I loved it. I was spoiled rotten.

The other Peace members were remarkably good at turning a blind eye to Steart and my sexual relationship. We kept it professional enough while discussing Peace activities, but it was hard to keep secret when nearly every night for years we’d get together and fuck. I may be a bit of a screamer as well. Like I gave a fuck. No one does half the things I do for the Peace. They needed me. Steart especially, but every single one of them needed me, and every day, they needed me more.

I am now sixteen. Someone high-up in the Peace had gotten the great idea to exploit my rampant sexuality. Steart obviously objected since he’s overprotective of me sometimes, but I’m okay with it. More than okay with it, I agree with it completely. After I heard what the mission entailed – how could I not be okay with it? It was perfect, like the ending scene for a movie.

Things were getting intense for the Peace. I began to hear it more and more from those around me – “It will happen soon.” Despite the worldly distaste for our tactics, there were a decent handful of generals, senators and political advisors that understood the grand vision that the Peace was trying to achieve. While the masses were blinded by their anger and made stupid with their ignorant version of how the world works, the knowledgeable leaders of the nation could see past the bombs and murders and all that bullshit.

“Now is the most important time for us,” Steart had explained after fucking one night. I had already cum, and my nether-regions still had that beautiful heavy and satisfied feeling, and it made everything in the world make sense. “We’re in the political danger zone. There are those who support our Vision, and those that don’t. Those that don’t are starting to sense, like we do, that the change is about to come, and they’re afraid. To stop us, they’ll use our unpopularity and make it a political witch-hunt: ‘Who is sympathetic to the Peace? Who dares to agree with these terrorists?’ They’ll use that and the massive hatred of their constituency and just crush our help.”

One such man hell-bent on silencing our support was Senator Berlin. He had caught wind of a few of his peers discussing some questionable legislation and felt it was his business to openly testify against it, to list the names of known-Peace supporters and to declare them all criminals of humanity. Senator Berlin was my target.

A little investigation of our own led to the dirty secret that the Senator had a taste for underage flesh. Female flesh, to be exact, but that wasn’t really important. I was underage, I was horny, and I looked great in drag – I was also used to giving blowjobs to over-the-hill men. To the genius people planning this shit for the Peace, it was a no brainer: Have Chance put on a skirt, seduce the fuck, and silence him.

Boy X was about to become Boy XX.