Spoilers: BR

Rating: T

Warnings: Violence, gore

Notes: I decided to re-write Genesis. I've got a different perspective on A.J.'s life now. It's not as cartoony and much more... erm... dramatic, I guess.

Genesis: Reborn

Noun: genesis (geneses)

1. a coming into being

2. the first book of the Old Testament: tells of creation; Adam and Eve; the Fall of Man; Cain and Abel; Noah and the flood; God's covenant with Abraham; Abraham and Isaac; Jacob and Esau; Joseph and his brothers

Chapter One

The waves were a dark, deep blue color. I leaned over the grassy edge to get a better look. The white foam at the tops of the waves crashed onto the rocky shore in methodical, gentle pulses around the big, black boulders wet with fresh water and covered in moss. The rocks were stationed randomly along the shore of the lake.

My eyes focused upward, to the ominous, black clouds that lingered low overhead, threatening to pour out buckets of rain at any moment. The wind kicked up around me, whisping my feathery, black hair around my face as I stood there.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the sweet smell of the small sea below me. It was a good day to die.

It was as if Mother Nature knew what events were to take place today and had prepared this funeral- the only funeral I would ever get- of nature for me. I appreciated the effort, but I was not deserving of it. There should be no funeral for a monster. Funerals were for loved ones, for friends. I was not loved. I had not been loved for seven years.

I smiled to myself. Surely this would work. The shore was several yards beneath me and if I aimed my jump correctly, I might just be lucky enough to bash my skull against a boulder or crack my spine on one of them. There was no way I could bounce back from this like I had all the other times. I was sure of it.

Feeling a bit self-concious, I pulled my sleeves back down over my bandaged wrists and flexed my fingers. I was prepared to die. I needed to die. The world would be better without me.

With these thoughts in mind, I leapt from the cliff, diving toward the biggest rock I could reach.

I felt the searing pain almost immediately. Never had I felt so much physical pain in my life and although I screamed out in agony, I welcomed the torture. My vision blurred, but I knew that I had cracked my head on the boulder as I had wanted. A warm, crimson liquid trickled from my head wound into my eyes. I tried reaching up to knock the irritating liquid away, but my arms wouldn't move. Had I hit my spine too? I couldn't recall. There was a blankness between the time my feet left the ground to the moment my broken body lay on the sand below, staining it red. Was I going to die?

A thrill of hope surged through me. I attempted to wiggle my toes, just to make sure, but found that I was not able to. Perhaps, then, I had actually accomplished something to better the world.

I felt my lips curl upward as my vision faded to black.

"Damn it, Ashley." The man hissed as he flew through the air. The wind whistled through his jet black hair shaped into devil's horns. His usual angry, crimson eyes were scanning the ground below worriedly. He stopped, mid-air, and hovered just above the cliff, his eyes focusing on the broken figure below.

"Ah, hell." He spat as he dove toward the ground. He landed next to the body as two rings of black energy expanded from his middle and stretched outwardly toward his feet and head. His black hair became white and pulled into a ponytail lying on his back. His red eyes became a grayish-blue color, rimmed with purple shadows that made him look bruised in the eyes. His skin turned from the ghostly blue color to a porcelain white shade and his white, caped suit changed into his usual evening outfit of a black suit jacket, slacks and a white shirt.

The man sighed as he eyed the girl on the ground. Her black hair was tousled out, soaked in crimson blood that pooled around her broken body. Her snow-white skin was stained with the color, along with her clothes and shoes. Her eyes were closed, but he'd seen them enough in the last month to know how bold a green they were.

Vlad Masters pursed his lips at the girl, furrowing his eyebrows. He bent down next to her cold, motionless body. He reached out with a pale hand and pressed two fingers to her throat. A soft, slow beat pulsed under his fingers.

Vlad smiled. "Good. I wasn't done with you yet." He shifted his hands beneath her body and lifted her into his arms. Her head fell backward. "Anubis is good for one thing, at least," he whispered as the rings of energy burst from his middle again and transformed himself into his alter ego, Vlad Plasmius. The ghost took to the air, flying back toward his mansion.

As he sped through sky, the girl twitched in his arms. He glanced down to see her eyelids open ajar. Her glassy eyes focused on him. "Welcome back to the living, Darling." Vlad chuckled, the low rumble in his chest vibrating against the girl's body. Her eyes closed again and she sighed as she fell back into unconsciousness.

As if life weren't mocking me enough.

The thought drifted slowly into my mind as I gently came back to consciousness and realized with great disappointment that I was still alive. My plan hadn't worked after all. I mentally winced at the pain that came with the sudden clarity of my mind. My body hadn't fully healed itself yet... and with the amount of damage I had sustained... it was likely going to take a very long time before I was well enough to complete my work.

The thought made me smile. At least, if I couldn't stop myself permanently, I could stop myself temporarily. I needed at least a week before every bone in my body would fuse back in place, before every severed nerve would sew itself back together, before every gash in my skin and muscle would seal itself up completely. A week of no working. A week of no Anubis.

Anubis didn't bother visiting me when I was not useful to him, which often gave me a bit of peace of mind. But when I was finally repaired, like a favorite toy that had been lost, he would come back in full force and torture me again.

My eyelids twitched. I wanted to open my eyes so badly, to see where I was, but my eyelids were too heavy. I tried moving my fingers. They twitched, but just barely. I could feel something around me that I didn't understand. It felt like liquid. Why would liquid be surrounding my body? Had I drifted further into the lake? If so... why didn't I feel like I was drowning? Why were my nose and mouth dry?

Instinctively, I tried to open my eyes, to understand this strange circumstance. My eyelids barely opened a pinch. After blinking a few slow times, I cleared the blurriness enough to realize that I was surrounded by liquid. But not lake liquid. The water around my body had an eerie, green tint to it. My eyebrows furrowed as I tried to comprehend what was going on. I looked down to see a plastic covering over my nose and mouth, feeding me oxygen.

At once, I realized what was going on. I hadn't died. I had been saved.

Vlad Masters leaned back in his chair, holding the mug of hot liquid in his hands. He stared into the fireplace, where orange flames crackled and licked up around the starter log. The fireplace was set deeply into a mahogany wall lined with classy portraits, house plants and busts of himself. A bear rug laid out beneath the chair, the brown bear's mouth open to the flames. Vlad sighed as he sipped at the tea in his hands.

"Cupcake," a feminine voice called behind him. Vlad smiled at the nickname and turned in his chair to see the holographic woman stride up to him. She was a petite woman with chin-length brown hair and lavender-colored eyes. She smiled sweetly at him before her image fuzzed out for a fraction of a second.

"Yes, Maddie?" Vlad replied, sipping at his tea again.

"The subject is awake, Dearest." The hologram giggled and shrugged her shoulders sweetly as she stood there.

Vlad practically leapt to his feet. "She is?" The grin planted on his face was not one of loving relief, but rather mischief or amusement. He hurried to his fireplace and set the mug down on top. Then, quickly and precisely, Vlad turned the head of his bust to the left and pressed down on it. There was a clicking sound behind the wall before the fireplace began to rumble. Vlad took his mug again and stood back. The flame in the fireplace blew out as the hearth moved backward and then to the side, revealing a secret passage behind it. He smiled as he sauntered down the steel steps in the concrete hallway to the room below. As he made it into the laboratory, Maddie appeared in front of him.

"Vitals are stable, Vladdykins." She giggled.

Vlad gave the hologram a strange look at the new nickname before continuing to the giant supercomputer in the center of the lab. Statistics came up on-screen for him when he walked up. Vlad smiled and sipped his tea.

"Thought you could escape, Child?" He called out. His voice echoed through the room, but there was no response to his question. Rather than continuing with his banter, Vlad just laughed once without humor and took another drink. "How bad was the damage?" He asked the Maddie Program.

The hologram disappeared and reappeared next to him. "Extensive, Sweety. She will not be functional for at least three more days."

Vlad narrowed his cold eyes on the images flashing onto his computer. "Little brat..." He murmured. He about-faced and strode across the lab to the opposite side where three large, cylindrical containers stood. Two were locked securely with steel surrounding them, but the third pod was brightly lit with green liquid. Vlad stepped up to that pod and began typing on the small control panel in front of it.

The bright green lights slowly dimmed down until a figure was revealed in the liquid. A broken figure. One with no clothes but plenty of bandages to cover her body. Her black hair floated up, away from her pale, fragile-looking face. An oxygen mask strapped around her sunken cheekbones to the back of her head, pumping oxygen into her nose and mouth. The girl's eyes were barely open a slit. Vlad gave her a once-over, noting the twitching in her fingers and toes, before he took another sip of his tea nonchalantly.

"Is this what you wanted?" He asked quietly. "To be broken? To be in so much pain? Is this what you desire, Ashley?"

The girl didn't respond and if it weren't for the random twitching of her limbs, she looked dead.

Vlad sighed, set his mug down, and pinched the bridge of his nose out of stress. "I have tried to be good to you, Daughter. But you continue to refuse my hospitality." He looked back at her. "You have broken the last straw, Ashley."

Her eyebrows furrowed a touch.

"I am fed up with trying to teach you. I have given my time and resources to you and you still refuse. I don't know how it's possible, especially with Anubis helping me along."

At the mention of "Anubis", Ashley's eyebrows raised and her eyes opened a touch wider.

"Perhaps he has a better approach to these things." Vlad grinned. "Perhaps I should take his example." The man took his mug up again and turned away. "You will do as I say, Girl. You will." He promised as he slowly sauntered away.