The first Murder, legacy of Cain, born of rage and death, looked upon the face beneath him.
and giggled when his adopted mother blew a raspberry at him.
"Whee!" Summer shouted as she quickly brought the baby up above her head, the infant giggling and laughing at the games his mother played with him. Summer brought the baby to her chest, and tickled its nose "Who's the cutest baby in the world! You are! You are!" More giggles earned more tickles.
Little feet quickly ran into the room, accompanied by a mop of golden hair. Yang quickly ran to Summer's side, eager to stare at the newcomer.
"Bubby!" Proclaimed the young girl, little golden pigtails bouncing in time with her own excited movements.
Summer turned to the girl, rubbing her hand against her hair. "That's right Yang! This here is your new bubby! Isn't he the cutest!"
"Summer...he's not that cute." a new voice said.
Taiyang stood in the doorway, leaning into the door frame. He regarded summer with soft eyes, almost apologetic at what he has to tell her.
In Taiyang's eyes, the baby was not 'Cute'.
Pale skin that looked like it had never seen the light of day accompanied sunken milky-white eyes. Stringy, black hair topped his head.
The child honestly looked like it was dying, Taiyang knew he would have assumed so if not for the healthy laughs the infant gave off.
Taiyang suppressed a shudder as a brief image of a pregnant summer screaming as she found her new baby dead in his crib.
Summer huffed, pouting as she gave a bottle of formula to her child.
"You leave poor Brutus alone! I found him on the ground in the dark, out in the cold! It's a miracle he isn't sick!"
Taiyang sighed. "Well, at least you're not breastfeeding him."
Summer snorted. "With teeth like his? No freaking way, Tai."
The child, Brutus, indeed had another abnormality, his canines had already grown in, too much so for a child his age. Brutus popped the bottle out of his mouth, giggling even as it fell to the floor. Summer scoffed "Don't do that! You should appreciate what you have."
"Wise words from the woman who is already raising a kid and about to have her own."
Summer rounded on him so fast, he feared that she would toss the baby. "What's that supposed to mean?" She said, her voice tinged with accusations.
Taiyang ran a hand through his hair, blowing out a breath of air as he did so. "Summer.." He began.
"Should we keep him?"
Summer recoiled as if struck, her mouth gaping in an effort to form words. "What do you mean should we keep him!? Of course we should!"
"Summer." Taiyang stepped closer to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and bringing him closer to her. "We already have Yang, and soon we'll have Ruby too. Don't you think three kids will be a little much? We can always take him to an orphanage."
Summer looked down at Brutus, her eyes tearing up as she stroked his face. She sniffed as a tear fell down her cheek. Taiyang was right, three kids would be hard, and with them being hunters, they would hardly be around to help raise them, and Yang wasn't old enough to help them.
She cupped his chin in her delicate fingers, his wide, wonder-filled eyes bouncing between her and Tai as his mouth cracked into a sweet smile.
But could they give him up? He had already been abandoned, so his own parents, damn them, didn't want him.
But why?
Sure, he was sickly looking, did they do it because they thought he was going to die? Yes, his hair looked ragged, and his eyes were cloudy and sunken. But those were all aesthetic, and she could tell that he would become a great person, and do great things. His smile and giggle were so happy, so filled with emotion, that she couldn't believe how a child so marred could be unaware of his own unfortune.
If they gave him up, no one would see him as she did.
"We can't..."
Taiyang sighed, bringing summer in closer. "Summer...I know you want to keep him bu-"
"Tai...He's been through so much, if we give him up now, no one will adopt him, he'll grow up in that orphanage, the other kids will make fun of him, he'll be alone. He'll never be happy, and he'll live a joyless life. I can't force that upon him."
Brutus's hand reached up and slapped against Taiyang's chest, his eyes closing as he let out a tired yawn while he reached for Taiyang.
Tai's heart melted at the sight, his arms reaching down to take him from Summer.
"Okay...We'll keep the little guy."
(@)
Brutus sat on the porch of his home, hands idly exploring the roughness of the stone in his hand. The rock was mundane, it's gray color the antithesis to interesting. The only thing interesting about the rock, was what it was.
"You stare any harder and you'll bore a hole right through it."
His attention broken, Brutus sighed as he regarded Yang, his older sister as she was so fond of reminding him.
"Quite, that explains the hole in the wall of your room as well sister, a fly catch your fancy?"
Yang laughed, her shoulders shaking lightly as she did so, though it did have a nervous tinge to it. "You talk weird you know that? Like you're some old man or something."
"I do not, I am fourteen years old, talking like an old man requires a vast amount of experience I do not have yet."
Yang groaned, crossing her arms as she sat next to him. "You're jokes suck you know that?"
"I think they're hilarious, as does Ruby."
"Ruby finds everything funny."
"Yes she does, but I am first on that list."
He returned his attention to the rock, turning its gray mundane skin over in his hand.
"Yang. Tell me what you see in this rock."
Taking the rock from his hands, she quickly turned it over, before tossing it back to him.
"It's a stupid rock, nothing special that I can see."
Brutus's face maintained his typical stoic form, his mouth drawn taut, and his brow always furrowed.
"Exactly. This stone is unremarkable, no mark, no blemish or anything. Just a normal rock."
Yang eyed her brother suspiciously, Brutus was always going on about things like this, he was weird in his own way. "Yeah, it's just a normal rock, what about it." Her tone was apprehensive, like she knew her brother knew something she didn't.
Brutus turned the rock over in his hand again. His fingers holding it tightened, then relaxed, before repeating the process again.
"Nothing about it at all, my dear Yang, nothing at all."
"pfft. You're weird. We leave for signal in a month, and while you should be making a weapon, you're out here playing with rocks."
"I'm weird? So says the girl who catches fire."
She didn't respond to his retort as she got up and walked away, likely to go find Ruby to play with.
Brutus turned the rock over in his hand again, Yang was right, the rock held no remarkable feature in its appearance.
It was what she couldn't see that had him so interested.
Brutus could see it however, like faint wisps of smoke coming off it's surface, dull glowing lines spiderwebbing across its surfacen the weakest hum that he strained to hear.
Something was very special about this rock.
Once again, Brutus turned it over in his hand, the lattice work of lines shifting and convalescing in ways that amazed him.
He could feel the rock calling to him, as if its true nature was hidden behind a curtain. A pull coming off of the stone, like a weak current, lured him in like a fish with a worm. The space around the stone blurred before settling back to its transparency.
This was one strange stone.
Focusing on the lines, Brutus looked closer, his eyes narrowing in intense concentration, the lines were shifting again, forming intricate patterns, he could feel whatever energy that was in the stone aligning similarly before the lines dispersed back to their chaotic migrations and whatever energy had shown itself fizzled out.
But Brutus was not so easily satisfied.
He needed to know what secrets this stone held, and why the energy was doing what it was. He gripped the stone tight, his fingers straining and knuckles turning pale with exertion. He could feel deep down in his being that the energy this stone had was not enough.
But not enough for what?
He concentrated on the lines in the stone, trying to will them to align as they once had. He forced down every other thought, squashed any other idea, annihlated any other whim. There was only him and this rock.
The lines shifted.
They moved like snakes, albeit drunk ones, but they moved none the less.
The rock began to vibrate and hum with energy, and pale lines grew brighter. The hum focused, turning into a deep bass that shook the air around it. The space around the stone shimmered, like heat waves off a stove.
Reality's flesh tore, and Brutus fell into the wound.
(@)
The world swam, a feeling of weightlessness surrounded his body as he floated through wherever he was. An expanse laid before him, infinite in distance, and unbound by any worldly means. Veins of color danced around him, winding their way through the air around him, their paths held a serenity about them, as well as a sentience that he did not understand. They wound and crawled, swam and ran about him, their colorful bodies darting this way and that in frivolous exchanges of motion. He did not understand where he was, or where he could be.
He glanced around him, the porch of his home was gone, exchanged for a mind numbing expanse of colors he could not name. It was like being in an ocean with no water and no sky. His own being seemed small, yet overly huge amongst them, like a planet dwarfed by a sun, but dwarfing its moon in turn.
He floated for an unknown time, content to stare and wonder and contemplate the colors that blitzed their way around this place.
He realized the rock was still in his hand.
He stared down at the stone, the lines that had so greedily captured his attention were vibrant where once they were deathly faded. Idly, as if though his actions might be akin to poking an ursa, he glided the stone through a band if vibrant crimson that lazily passed by him. The color disappeared, the stone carving a great gouge through the ghostly vein. Bringing the rock out, he found that the stone did not cut.
It had absorbed the vein itself.
The stone felt heavier, like its very foundation had been changes, like its form was changed somehow. Brutus could feel the stone's power, idling with contempt and potential just beneath the surface, trapped as it was in its own body.
Brutus turned his attention back to the vein of power, and in a move that his logical side called stupid, and his curious side called satisfying, he swept his hand through it.
Instantly, his hand was enveloped in a feeling of power, constant in its flow. He felt as if he could climb a mountain, jump off, and survive the fall down.
He felt powerful, and his body was filled with a energy he had never felt.
Soon, the vein was gone, and he felt like he was born anew, he felt...
Like he had just eaten.
Whatever this energy was, it made him feel wonderful.
But how to get back?
The stone was still in his hand, but the lines that once danced across its surface in lazy patterns, now raged in violent storms. The stone held power, but it was new power, something he did not feel could accomplish his goal. The energy within the stone was great, but it seemed ill suited to his purpose.
This world, this Aether, was accessed using a scalpel, whereas the energy in this stone was more akin to a hammer. He would not get out the same way he got in.
However, in this ocean without water, he could swim, and if he could swim...
He could dive.
Where he would exit from however, was a different matter altogether. He had moved through the Aether, and movement was movement, so it made sense that the more he moved here, the more he would move in the real world.
'So I'm stuck?'
The thought came unbidden, and the flash of annoyance that followed it made him ball his hands into fists at the notion.
He was Brutus Rose, and He did not get stuck.
Anger welled up within him, and he clenched his hands tighter, his anger desperate to lash out. The energy in his body bashing against his skull, bouncing around in his cranium like a caged beast.
'Calm down, you won't find a way out like this.'
That was true, and he released his anger through clenched teeth. Anger and rage would serve no purpose here.
He tried to remember how he got here.
The lines, the stone, and the...
and the what?
There was no other factor, no other object he had used.
The only third ingredient in this Petri dish of frustration was him. He had concentrated on the lines of the stone, he had willed them to move.
Then it clicked, he had willed himself here, so maybe he could will himself out?
He moved through the aether, gliding like a revenant as he willed himself further along, it all came so easy, so natural, like he was made here.
He knew he had the power to leave this place, he had the power to enter, so he had the power to leave.
He spared a glance to the stone.
It had been thoroughly crushed in his fist, what was supposed to be unyielding stone had molded like clay in his hand, parts of it squishing between his fingers.
He brought his other hand to the stone, and crushed it between his palms. The stone squished and stretched in ways that should not have been possible, that would have been insane to even attempt to comprehend. Idly, his hands moved about the stone, crushing and shaping, breaking and molding it to his will. Before long, he held a long knife, its blade reminiscent of the serrated service knives he had seen soldiers in movies use. Gone was the grainy grey of a stone, and in its place was a smooth finish of gunmetal. The edge had been pressed and sharpened, the simple movements of his finger had shaved off entire chunks, leaving behind a razor's edge.
He was amazed, even his father could not break stone in such a way. Yet here he was, the simplest push of his finger parting stone like water.
It was as if physical substance was weak here.
Tucking the long knife away in his belt, Brutus turned his attention to the space before him.
He concentrated hard, staring into the empty space just ahead of him, he poured more of his will into the fabric of the aether, and like fabric, the veil that separated the aether stretched thin, and he could see through it like a silk sheet pulled taught.
People buzzed to and fro, plastic bags on their arms filled with food and groceries between concrete buildings.
'Wrong place.'
He willed his vision to move, seeking a sign of where he was. He weaved between crowds of people, threaded between a couple engaged in conversation and past a large clock tower.
Eventually he found a sign, far on the outskirts of the town.
'Anvil? That's just outside patch, right? To the south right?'
So Brutus turned his shade north.
He went on, zipping far above the trees and lakes, until finally he was at his destination.
Flying high above his home, he could see Ruby playing in the front yard, a scarlet piece of cloth tied around her head as she twirled a long stick in intricate patterns. Yang hovered just outside the door, shifting nervously to and fro, as if afraid to take her eyes off her younger sister.
Brutus glided down, setting his shade just behind the house.
And willed his way through to the material universe.
Reality stretched, and like a zipper being undone, it split apart, and Brutus stepped through. Reality snapped shut behind him, not happy about being violated as it licked its wounds.
Brutus quickly made his way around the house, and to the porch that Yang stood on.
"Good evening, Yang."
The girl's head snapped around, her hair flying in a frenzy.
She ran and tackled Brutus, knocking them both to the ground. Her eyes had tears in them as she wrapped her arms around him. Sobbing as she held him tight.
"Where were you?!? I haven't seen you since two days ago!"
Brutus blinked at that.
'Two days?How long was I in the aether for?'
"Yang...I was still here. Just not...here."
"What does that even mean?!" She growled, beating her fist against his chest.
To be honest, Brutus didn't know either. Standing up, he held yang close to him, calmly stroking her back as she sobbed.
"Look, Yang, I know you want to know where I was, but I was safe,and besides.."
Yang looked up to his milky eyes, wiping the tears from her face, staring into the grin on her brother's face she had rarely seen since their mom had died.
"I know what to make for a weapon."