The room was pure white. Not the white of snow, or of a cloudy sky, but the sheer pristine white of a sterile hospital. The white of emptiness. The mansion was pure white and it glowed with an almost ethereal power.

Inside one of the many rooms, a toaster pinged with excitement, flinging toast into the air. A pearly white hand caught it in midair and put it onto a plate – also white.

“We’re out of butter.” said a voice on the other side of the room. Xerxes turned and glared at his sister, his bright red eyes giving him a terrifying stare. The similarly snow-skinned figure sat at a table on the other side of the room met his gaze with her yellow eyes.

“And why the FUCK,” Xerxes spat. “Would you tell me this AFTER I’VE ALREADY MADE SOME FUCKING TOAST?!”

“Well, interesting question.” Aspasia replied. “I think mostly it was because you didn’t ask.”

“I hate you.” replied Xerxes, bringing his toast to the table without butter. He began to eat it, sullenly glancing at Aspasia every so often, who just smiled and continued staring at the pages of her book. She wasn’t reading it, Xerxes knew. An omniscient being like her already knew how the book ended and every single word on every single page – she just did it to annoy him.

He finished off his toast without a word and began walking back to the worktop to put the plate on the side.

“Oh, silly me, how could I have forgotten?” Aspasia said. “We actually did have butter.”

Min, the third and final occupant of the white mansion, heard Xerxes’ furious scream from downstairs and sighed quietly to himself. Time to intervene.

“HOW CAN YOU BE SO FUCKING PLEASED WITH YOURSELF ON THIS ONE?! YOU’RE OMNISCIENT, SURELY YOU KNOW FOR A FACT THAT YOU’RE AN AWFUL PIECE OF SHIT?!” Xerxes was yelling at a laughing Aspasia as Min walked in. Min had to speed up as he saw Xerxes pick up his weapon – a heavy wooden staff topped with a carved cake design that he affectionately called the ‘midnight smack’ – and swing it at Aspasia. He darted forward and lifted his hands, creating a glowing white barrier of energy that the midnight smack bounced off.

“Get. Out. Of. The. Fucking. Way.” Xerxes said. Min sighed.

“I’d just like you two to get along for a little while.”

Silence.

“Please?”

Silence.

“Maybe.” Xerxes said.

“Sorry, Xerx. Didn’t mean to ruin your breakfast.” Aspasia replied with a friendly smile. “Just messing with you in my lovably facetious way; you know how scurrilous I can be.”

“NO. Stop with the big words already. It’s… it’s fine.” Xerxes replied. Min could see he was really making the effort to be nice. “So, do we or do we not have butter? And what else do we have?”

“We don’t have butter, I was telling the truth. We’re kind of running out of food – we have more than enough until the next batch, don’t worry.”

“Shall we watch a film tonight?” asked Min. That would keep the pair of them from murdering each other for a little while longer.

“Yes!” Xerxes cried. “One of the ones with the excellent human man who hurts people!”

“Liam Neeson.” Aspasia said.

“…You want to watch Taken again? I wasn’t a particular fan of it… it wasn’t very nice, was it?” Min replied with a worried tone.

Aspasia responded without looking up from her book. “We could watch a rom-com instead.”

“FUCK ROMANTIC COMEDIES.” Xerxes said. “MIN.”

“Don’t look at me!” cried Min. “…Uh, I guess we could watch… I don’t know, a romantic action comedy?”

“…They’re a thing?” asked Xerxes. “Why have you never mentioned this before?”

“Scott Pilgrim.” Aspasia suggested before Min could even respond to Xerxes.

“YES!” Xerxes said vehemently. “I ALWAYS FORGET ABOUT THAT ONE. As romantic comedies go, that’s the only good one.”

“…It always seems to be Scott Pilgrim.” said Min.

“It’s great, though, that’s why.” Aspasia replied with a wry grin.

With the decision made, Min returned upstairs. Aspasia continued to stare at her book without speaking and Xerxes sat staring at her.

Several minutes passed.

“You are no fucking fun, you know that?”

“I am aware, yes.”

“FUCK YOU. I’m going to the living room.” Xerxes announced.

“Xerx. I really don’t care what you do.”

Xerxes stormed off, dragging the midnight smack behind him. Aspasia chuckled to herself. Her omniscience was an excellent way to annoy people, that much she knew. The power of omniscience was one befitting a being like herself. She knew everything she could possibly know – though, it had to be said, omniscience had its problems. One such problem was that every game of chess or backgammon she ever played was highly dull, as her victory was always assured. Even without her omniscience, she knew she could probably beat Xerxes at either game, or even both at the same time as they often did to spice things up. She had often considered that omniscience would be more fun if she could turn it off some of the time.

The other limit of her power was that she did not know everything about Xerxes and Min – they were somehow immune to her omniscience, so whilst she knew everything about the dimension they resided in, the universe and even everyone in it, she had a blind spot where Xerxes and Min were concerned. She could know where they are, what they were doing and how, but their minds were locked off to her. This was why she enjoyed to mess with them; their reactions were unprecedented and she never knew what they were going to do. For an omniscient being, it was a lot of fun to experiment with the surprise reactions of the other two. This was especially true of the rash, pugnacious Xerxes. Then again, what other qualities could one expect of the omnipotent one?

Xerxes was terrifying. That much was immutable fact. He had access to incredible destructive capabilities and when he could power up the midnight smack, every strike could crack a continent. However, Aspasia was never particularly worried about him, because his omnipotence had the same limit as her omniscience – he could not use his omnipotent abilities on her or Min. He could hit her with the midnight smack, as no omnipotence was necessary to hit someone with something, but he could not infuse it with his limitless strength anywhere near her or Min. Xerxes was also particularly unimaginative, so his omnipotence, unlimited though it was, was never used to its fullest potential in his hands. Another blessing in disguise.

And Min… Min probably had the worst quality: he cared about the pair of them way, way too much.

The actual name of this quality was, of course, omnibenevolence.

Technically, he also suffered the same limitations, as Xerxes and herself were immune to his powers. He wasn’t strictly required to love either of them – he did for every other living being in the universe, though – but he was such an annoyingly nice guy that he loved them anyway. Aspasia didn’t find him too irritating, but his insistence on having her and Xerxes get along could often be grating.

He was useful, though. His defensive abilities, used to protect others, had been applied to every room of the house so Xerxes would struggle to damage it, even at full power. This was a good thing, because the walls of the mansion made up the boundary of their entire dimension, and to shatter them would have strange consequences.

Aspasia cocked her head. She knew that Xerxes was about to have his third tantrum of the day in just a few moments, and she smiled.

Right on cue, there was a blast of power from the living room and the entire house shook.

“WHERE IS THE FUCKING SCOTT PILGRIM DVD, ASPASIA?!”