Disclaimer: Only the bad guys are mine. The rest isn't! :(
Author's Note: I know, I know...I said it'd be up in August...but technically this is still kinda the first week of September...
Anyway, school's started, so I might be a little slow on the updates, but I'll try to keep it once a month still. It'll be a challenge, but I'm def going to keep on updating, so don't worry about that.
This chapter introduces the villains...so (as a heads up) Train and Sven won't have an appearance in this chapter...sorry to disappoint... Next chapter will make up for that...promise. I was gonna put in another chapter in this one's place, but...I changed my mind because I felt that this one should go first. Its about time everyone kinda gets a feel of what's going on. So...let me know. :)
Enjoy!
My Brother's Keeper
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
Genesis 4: 8-9
-
A Year Ago:
"Has she woken?" asked the baritone voice of a man.
"Soon." a gentle, feminine voice.
"What are the reports?"
"She is already part of the main infrastructure. She cannot escape."
She cannot escape.
The words echoed in Eve's mind.
"Where am I?" she whispered, eyes shut against the pain in her abdomen.
She felt a hand caress her cheek.
"You are in Paradise."
Then, there was darkness.
"Wake up. Wake up Princess..."
Eve was engulfed in warmth. A liquid surrounded her body...seeping in her pores...but it was a sweet feeling...as comforting as a mother's touch. Or so she imagined. She never had a mother.
She opened her eyes.
Her body was soaking in a fragrant bath. Mists of steam swirled over the surface, spreading scents of cedar and rose. She was in a bright room whose walls were overlaid with tiles of various shades of indigo, white, and gold. The ceiling was an oval skylight made of glass that illuminated the room in pale sunlight.
Under different circumstances, Eve might have enjoyed herself.
She heard a trickle of water and turned her head to the right. A graceful black-haired woman sat beside her. She held a water soaked sponge. Although she was dressed in a fitted black material that covered her body, she did not appear to mind that it soaked in water with each swipe of her hand.
Eve gasped when the realization came over her that the strange woman was bathing her. She tried to cover herself and turn away, but the woman placed two fingers against Eve's forehead in response.
"Forgive me, but your wounds will reopen if you move."
Eve involuntarily sighed, and suddenly her body felt heavy. It was not unpleasant, it was merely inconvenient...like accidentally sleeping in on a day where there are many errands to run. It was comfortable and disquieting at the same time.
"Z should not have hurt you so. I apologize for his indiscretion."
She held the sponge over Eve's arm and squeezed, passing the foamy water on the skin of her shoulder and neck.
"W—Why..?" Eve choked out. She could hardly move her lips.
The woman's eyes opened slightly in surprise.
"You can still speak?"
She passed the sponge down Eve's chest to her abdomen. Dried blood disappeared from her skin and into the deep bath.
Eves hair floated in fluid, soft curls around her body, covering and revealing her with each wave.
"Why..." she began again with more power. "Why am I here? What do you want me for?"
Y's eyelids lowered sadly.
"Princess, you must rest."
Eve suddenly thought of Train. In the last moments before losing consciousness, she remembered speaking to him...and Rins...she could have sworn she heard Rins' voice...
"Don't call me that," she commanded forcefully. "Where are my friends? What did you do to them?"
The woman's hand stopped for a moment, but she recovered and continued to bathe her.
"Please, I beg you. Rest."
Eve frowned.
"Can you at least tell me who you are?"
Her words were followed by a silence. The water soaked in the rays of sun that filtered through the glass above them. When Eve thought she would get no answer, the woman spoke.
"I am Y, your servant."
My...servant?
"I don't understand," replied Eve softly. She felt confused and lost...she only wished to go back home...but she could do nothing against the powers produced by this strange, benign looking woman.
Y's covered arms lowered into the water under Eve's body and pulled her out of the bath. Eve tried not to lose consciousness at the suddenly heavy feeling of gravity coupled with her forced paralysis. Water trickled from Eve's naked body as she carried her over to a bed with a towel and a fresh change of clothes. The woman dried Eve with care. Eve endured it in silence as she was dressed in a flowing white gown. With a sigh, the woman closed her eyes and the water droplets hanging from her clothes separated themselves and floated in the air. Eve gazed curiously.
The drops fell to the floor at once, and Y stood before Eve with dry clothes-as if she had never touched the water. Having finished, Y knelt beside Eve's bed and placed a hand on Eve's forehead.
Suddenly the room grew dark and all she knew vanished. Darkness enveloped Eve until she saw a red light in the distance. When she neared the light, two white bodies appeared. Infants...one boy and one girl. Before her eyes, they grew to what could have been three year old toddlers...and a laboratory setting appeared, surrounding them.
It had been a top secret government experiment many years ago. Eve heard the lilting echo of Y's voice. She continued.
They had originally aimed for a female, but were surprised to find the artificially inseminated egg cell produced twins—one the female they had expected, and the other an unwanted male. Once the children were born, they decided to wait and see if that child would be useful.
"This one doesn't speak..and his powers haven't even surfaced," said a man in a white lab coat.
"It's a shame. He seems to have been born mentally deficient," said another.
"We can keep him in the back for further monitoring. Just in case," suggested the first.
"Yes...that should be fine. Put him with the others."
Her eyes followed the men who picked up the boy and walked to a dark room in the back.
The wall was covered from floor to ceiling in cages. Each cage was filled with a misshapen inhabitant. Animals whose DNA compositions had been altered to form hideous creatures were placed into this room.
It was the room for failed experiments.
He climbed the ladder in front of the cages until he found one that was unoccupied...or rather, its owner had perished. The beast was taken from the cage with one hand and tossed to the concrete below. It fell with a sickening thud. The boy in the scientist's arms cried out and began to struggle, but he could not do anything against the man who held him. The man pulled the boy's hair and slapped him until he stopped his struggle, then he threw him unceremoniously into the cage.
Eve gasped.
It was decided that he was not...and so, they discarded the "lesser" male into a cage while they trained the female.
A girl, a few years older now, ran across a field where objects were being thrown at her—cement bricks, bullets, knives—but as they neared her, a pink light surrounded her body, and she disappeared. The projectiles landed where she stood moments before.
"Well done 6667," said a scientist who was recording data on a clipboard. She reappeared in front of the pile of objects.
The wind picked up and blew her long black hair across her face. She heard a a scream from a window on the building facing her.
Her golden eyes glanced at the window.
"Tell them to silence the child," the man said under his breath to another. He nodded and left quickly.
The scene changed and Eve was back in the room with the cages and the small boy. His shoulder-length wavy blond hair covered his face and his eyes were shut, but he was crying...lost in the labyrinth of a nightmare.
"Be quiet!" a black haired man with glasses reached in and beat the child with a steel rod.
Eve shook her head. She remembered how she was mistreated at Torneo's mansion...but they never had gone this far. A strangled cry began to rise from inside her.
"Stop!" she cried. Eve reached her hand out to stop him, but her hand passed through his as if it was not there.
The man continued hitting the child like he had heard nothing. He struck him several times until the small boy woke and his cries were properly suppressed.
The man closed the cage again and the boy dared to open his dark eyes. They were frightened and full of despair.
The scene changed again.
"Sir, a shipment came in from the Catholic Orphanage of the Holy Saints."
When the man he spoked to raised his eyebrow in question, the assistant explained further.
"The brick church down the street." He pointed to several large boxes. "What do we do with all of these?" One of them was already open. It was full of heavy, leather-bound books with ornate gold crosses on the covers.
"Why would they send this?" The scientist sighed and shook his head—as if he did not have the patience to find out. "Senile old women... Never mind. Just use them for the cages. We're running short of newspapers."
His assistant nodded his head and rolled the boxes into the small room.
The Bibles were ripped into pieces and put into the cages. Last of all was the boy's cage. They finished and left, locking the door behind them. His stare remained vacant until, by chance, he noticed the red lettering on the pages. He tilted his head and fingered a flapping page in front of him.
"I am the way the truth and the light..." he whispered.
He picked up another page. The letters on this particular page were all black.
"In the beginning..."
It was then, on that field, when I heard the human cry of a child that I remembered another like me...who had been taken from my side years before. So that night I went to investigate.
Eve saw the little girl with the black hair open the unlocked door of her room in the laboratory.
She had never given the scientists who kept her a reason to lock it. She obeyed every word they said. Her feet padded down the hallway to the cramped, yet large room in the far reaches of the laboratory. The scientists needed a great deal of room for their "mistakes."
The door was closed shut, but it was unlocked. She entered.
A long shadow appeared in the doorway of the room he was being held. The creatures in the cages were asleep...all save one.
She felt his eyes on her even before she could sense where he was.
The girl looked up and to the right...and saw him. He held the bars of his cage in his tiny hands while he gazed at her with large, black eyes.
His eyes did not leave her as she walked to the sliding ladder by his cage and climbed it, finally reaching him.
For a while they said nothing at all. They just...observed each other...
"What is your name?" he spoke first, his voice sounded hollow in the quiet room.
She tilted her head in thought, remembering the numbers the scientists used to refer to her.
"I...am 6667."
She paused.
"What is yours?"
He smiled...Eve could not help but think that it looked strange...misplaced. Like a wilting plant...still green but dying.
He inclined his head as if sharing a very well kept secret.
"Adam."
I remember thinking...'What an odd name.' But, it sounded so beautiful...this self proclaimed name of his.
"I am your brother. Like Cain and Abel were."
"Cain and Abel?"
He picked up a page from the cage he sat in and pointed to a few lines.
"They were brothers. Sons of Adam, the first man. They were the first brothers."
"Oh..."
He glowed blue and the pages in his cage gathered together in his hand to form one book.
"I have assembled most of the pages," he said.
Though he had named himself Adam, he was really more like Eve. Both of us were. We were made after the first man...were perfected by men's own hands. Though they saw us as abominations, we're better. We both had been given powers. He had the power to change matter...the physical. And I had the power to alter minds..the intangible.
He looked up and glanced inside the cage he was held in.
"I have spent the time by learning and listening to my surroundings. Sometimes, I saw you. Watching you comforted me."
Eve was astonished. Though the boy was perhaps six or seven, he spoke with clarity and sophistication. She was sure that part of his DNA had been to create a super intelligent life form. While it was in her genes through Tearju—intelligence had been fed to them genetically though other scientific means.
He reached his little hand out and caressed his sister's cheek. Her eyes opened in surprise.
"I'm so glad you came," he smiled again, but sadness hid in the corners of his mouth.
His eyelids fluttered as he felt something on his hand. He looked up to see that it was covered by her own. She was smiling back at him.
He blushed.
"I'll take you with me if you want sister. We can take care of each other," he said, barely above a whisper.
She nodded, beaming.
It was an unfamiliar emotion I felt at that moment as a seven year old child. Later, I found that the name...that glimpse of something foreign and wonderful...was called happiness.
He looked down for the briefest of moments.
"I need a little more time. I can do little things like bend matter...but the things I alter don't stay that way for long. I need to get stronger before we leave."
As if on cue, the pages he assembled to form the semi complete Bible that laid beside him, fell apart and went back to lining the cage.
His eyes lowered in embarrassment.
"But--" she began.
He stopped her and put his other hand over hers through the bars of the cage.
"You look tired." He frowned. "You should return. If they find you here, you will be punished."
Though she could not see it, Eve could sense Y frowning.
A jingle of keys sounded. Both children stiffened as they heard two muffled voices on the other side of the door.
"Could she be in here?"
"Probably not, but check anyway."
"Do something!" Adam whispered. "I've already used most of my powers...I don't think I can do anything else..."
The girl gripped the edges of the ladder in fear. It was no drill...she knew how to act quickly during a test...but she could not prepare herself mentally to react in time for this.
The door opened and they as soon as they entered, they saw her.
"What are you doing here?" said one, his voice was dangerously low. Eve recognized him as the man who beat Adam earlier.
The other man reached up and grabbed the girl from the ladder, pulling her to the ground. The man who had spoken had a silver rod in his hand.
Eve closed her eyes, but she could still hear the cries of the girl as they struck her mercilessly.
Adam snarled from inside his cage, shaking the bars from his cage violently until he began to glow a bluish color. The cage's bars twisted and warped until they left a hole large enough for him to fit through.
Open your eyes.
Eve did not wish to, but her eyes opened against her own will—as if by some spell.
Adam had already escaped from his cage and begun attacking the scientists to defend his sister. Distracted, they attempted to defend themselves, but they were held at bay. The little girl jumped up and attempted to run away, but one grabbed her arm before she could and held her there against her will. Before her brother could try to defend her, he felt a sharp pain run through his body, and he tumbled to the cold tile with a hard thud. The black haired man with glasses loomed over him, a sizzling tazer gun in his hand. The boy watched him helplessly as his small, electrocuted body trembled uncontrollably.
The girl crawled next to Adam slowly. She began to shiver, but it seemed to be more from fear than pain.
"Little brats. This is why I hate kids," said the other scientist, slowly standing up from the ground and cleaning himself off.
The scientist who towered over them smiled.
"I think I know the perfect punishment for their disobedience."
The man adjusted his glasses, its lenses shined in the dim light.
"Number 6667."
The girl looked up fearfully.
"I want you to kill him."
She opened her eyes wide and backed away.
The other laughed.
"She never disobeys an order," he said contemptuously to Adam.
"Kill him!" the scientist with the glasses repeated, picking her up by the shoulder roughly.
The girl looked at her twin brother. He was barely strong enough to hold his head up. His eyes were full of pain.
She shook her head.
He dug his fingernails in her shoulder.
She whimpered and her knees weakened.
Adam only stared up at her, confused and in distress...
The girl held out her hand.
"What are you doing?" Eve whispered.
Her fingers were inches away from his forehead.
He closed his eyes.
"No..." she murmured.
She stopped abruptly, lowered her hand, and knelt.
His eyes were still closed, but he breathed lightly—almost peacefully as her aura glowed pink around her.
Her arms wrapped across his shoulders and the back of his head. Weakly, he lifted his arms and returned her embrace. Tears formed in her open eyes and glowed by themselves...falling like bursting sparks from her face to his body. She touched her fingers to his forehead and his body relaxed. He breathed one soft sigh and was gone.
"No!"
I killed my brother.
Tears fell from Eve's wide eyes as she witnessed the scene.
Y appeared next to her.
Eve watched with her as they tossed Y's younger self into the cage that previously held her brother.
She landed in the steel cage with a muffled cry.
The bars he bent to let him slip through had returned to normal.
That cage was my home for three years.
She closed her eyes. I felt his presence in that cage. In every bolt. In every paper that lined it. In those bars.
Her hand raised as if she was inside it again, tracing the vertical metal with a deep sense of concentration.
I came to know my brother more in that cage than anywhere else. It was like his soul had molded with mine.
She stopped suddenly. Her hand lowered...and she smiled.
Three years later, on the anniversary of that very same day...I escaped.
The young girl, now older, pushed the door of her cage open. The scientists had grown careless over the years. They forgot to lock her cage. She got up and walked to the cage next to hers. The genetically altered animal in this cage, like all the others, was disfigured. In torment and very malnourished.
"I will deliver you from your bondage," she whispered.
She repeated this as she went down a line, touching each one as she passed. They all fell and closed their eyes as if in a deep, peaceful sleep.
"Are you ready?" Eve heard a voice coming from a dark corner of the room. The voice sounded familiar, but it had changed...she could not see who it was.
The animals were all dead in their cages.
"Yes," the girl replied.
Their surroundings changed.
It was pitch black outside...only the wane stars shined dully in the sky. A loud explosion sounded and an alarm went off. People started to shout, scream.
"She's gone!" heard Eve in the disorderly upheaval.
Several spotlights turned on, scouring the grounds outside. A group of scientists—perhaps ten or fifteen—rushed out of a side door.
"Its on fire!" cried one, pointing to the brick building.
"Forget it, just find them!" responded another.
A blue light appeared suddenly. It glowed, casting an eerie light on the faces of the men.
Eve gasped.
There, in the midst of the gnarled branches of an orchard, were two little figures. One glowed a soft, light pink color and the other a royal blue.
"We have come to pass judgment," said the boy who glowed blue in the darkness. His face shined with fierce vehemence.
"Adam," Eve whispered.
The girl behind him was passive, her eyelids were lowered halfway, as if in concentration.
"What...what are you doing here?! You were supposed to be dead!" yelled one scientist.
"You little bastard! I burned your body myself!" shrieked the other, with glasses. His fists were clenched and he stepped forward menacingly.
Adam grinned. His canines glinted in the light of the rising fire and the spotlight that suddenly found them.
"I am omnipotent," he answered simply. "Your little attempt at killing me was fruitless."
He tilted his head to the side.
"I came here to deliver you to the gates of death."
With his confession, he put his hand forward and aimed it at them.
For a few seconds, everything was silent and the scientists began to look at each other with dismissal for the child and haughty arrogance. There was nothing that this child of, now ten, could do to them.
Then...the ground shook.
A hole was forming underneath them...a black abyss.
Some of them cried out, some cursed, but they all were afraid in their hearts as the ground began to swallow them whole.
One scientist, Eve noticed—the one with glasses—was hanging from the edge. He was the very last one left.
"Number 6667!" He screamed. "You never disobey an order. Kill him! Kill him now!"
She walked to the man with the glasses slowly, contemplatively. Her brother stayed fixed to his spot, watching her in silence.
She knelt before the man with the glasses and touched his forehead.
"What the hell are y—"
His words gargled in his foamy mouth. He never finished. The man died with his eyes wide open and rolled back, his blood vessels exploded and trickled down his face. His mouth was slack jawed and he paled an unhealthy shade of white. She unceremoniously pushed him into the abyss with the rest of his companions.
Eve's skin formed goosebumps at the scene. She didn't know Y was capable of such a thing.
"That may have been a bit excessive of you sister," said Adam as he made a fist and closed up the hole abruptly.
She bowed her head.
"Forgive me."
He looked around. Several guards were coming for them.
"We should leave. These men are not worth our time. Once they realize the building and the scientists are gone, they will be out of an occupation."
She nodded once.
"Yes brother."
Y walked to him and knelt. He put a hand on her shoulder and she closed her eyes. With a flash, they both flew into the air and vanished into the night.
Eve stood silent as the night steadily turned into morning. She was at the opening of a cave—next to Adam and his sister as they witnessed the fruits of their work in the light of day. Nothing was left. Only rubble and charred wood left evidence of all that was there before.
"We will reshape this world," said Adam, unshielded eyes open against the harsh light of the morning. "We will turn it into paradise."
He turned to his sister, who immediately knelt at his feet.
"Brother, I vow to stay by your side until you deem it unnecessary. I humbly ask you to let me pledge myself to you. I swear to serve you well," she said in a soft voice.
At first, he said nothing..but kindness and compassion soon emanated from his eyes. He placed a hand on her head.
"I accept."
He helped her stand. Years in a cage made her too weak to do so by herself for very long periods of time.
"I will name you."
He held her face in his hands and appraised her golden eyes, her pale skin, and her straight black hair and bangs.
"In Greek mythology, Gaia was the daughter of Chaos, but she was the good and green of this world. I will call you Gaia."
She nodded.
"I am in your debt."
He walked further out to the mouth of the cave.
"Together sister...we will find Eden."
The scene ended...faded like the end of a film. Eve found herself in the large, illuminated room for the baths.
"We named ourselves X and Y. Two anonymous letters that meant nothing and meant everything. When we met our final member in the rubble of that building, we named him Z. Z has no other name than Z. X and I will be the only ones in the new world with names christened by X himself."
"Well," she added. "You are the exception. He named you."
"What are you talking about?" Eve asked. A cold shiver went up her spine.
Y went on as if she never had asked a question.
"My brother will find paradise...if not, I will help him create it."
Eve tried to move, but found that her body in its present state was still under Y's paralysis.
She struggled.
"How was he...how could he have lived? I saw him...I saw it happen..."
"He was alive the entire time."
Y pointed to herself.
Eve frowned.
None of this made sense to her—and she realized Y's cryptic, puzzling answers would not illuminate her present, dangerous situation.
"Your brother attacked me and my friends. He wants to destroy the world...How can you stand by and let him do all of this?"
Y blinked once, as if to say the answer was simple.
"He is my brother. His will is my will. I am his to rule. "
Eve expression showed she was troubled.
"I don't understand...your brother died..."
Y smiled.
"No. He's alive."
She paused and looked at the skylight.
"Nothing I could do would be enough to repent for my great sin...so I pledged my life to him. If I must repent in this way...I will. Gladly."
Y stood slowly. Silent, like a sentinel over Eve's body.
"You will help achieve his wishes."
The golden light of the setting sun cascaded over her body and her long, black shadow stretched away from her.
Eve lay helplessly at their mercy. She had no idea what they wanted from her...but she knew that she wouldn't like it.
Next Chapter: Sven and Train go to Tearju and find out a few things about Eve's situation in the present...they find that a few sweepers and ex-Chronos assassins have reunited to help save Eve and the world. There might be a chance to save Eve...but are they prepared to sacrifice a life...?
