Title: The Never-ending Cycle: A Broken Fairy-Tale
Author: Serpentine Wisdom
Rating: PG
Author note: This is my first story and I wrote it simply because, well, Kai and the Demolition Boys have had several stories about their tragic fate and how it made them who they are, but Balkov must have had a past too and while it is more pleasant it can't be all that good either.
Summary: Everyone has their story, even Boris Balkov
Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade nor any of its characters, I'm only borrowing them Please don't sue me, I can honestly promise you won't get any money out of it.
The Never-ending Cycle: A Broken Fairy-Tale
"Come here little grandchild of mine."
Bare feet running on wooden floor.
"You want to hear a story, don't you?
Eager laugh.
"Alright I'll tell you one, one you've never heard before."
A pause.
"Just don't tell your mother that it was I who told you it, she'll skin me alive!"
A nod and brightly shining eyes.
"She thinks you're too young to hear this story and to be honest, I think she might be right. But if I don't tell you now, no one ever will. And I can feel my health failing me. I haven't got much of a choice, and don't you listen to anyone who says it isn't true because it is. Trust me on this, I ~know~."
Impatient sigh.
"You see, our tale began…
Once upon a time, a long while ago, in Russia, there were a young boy with big hopes and beautiful dreams. Though they seemed to be rather simple ones to others. He wanted to become a doctor, a scientist. He wanted to travel the world and save lives, it was all he had ever wished for.
It was such a long time ago; I can't seem to remember his name.
Anyway, the boy's mother and father were not very happy people. Neither of them worked and what little money they managed to scrape together went directly to alcohol and drugs. For you see, not everyone has a loving home, like you do.
They didn't bother much with their only son other than to beat him up or yell at him for making them do such stupid things as drugs. For they said he was such a horrible son that it was their only escape, then they would add later that it was his responsibility to get more of it to them. After all it was his fault that they needed it in the first place.
He died a little then.
The boy did as they wanted and worked illegally from daybreak to after nightfall, as he was too young to get a proper job. Never did he get a single thank you when he came home, late at night, for his parents were already passed out from some substance he didn't always recognize. It hurt him terribly that they never waited up to give him a hug or to simply tell him that they'd missed him.
What was worse was that sometimes he had to sell drugs himself, most of the time to kids not much older than he himself. He always charged more than he had paid for it himself, he had too, to be able to show some profit from his ~business~ to his parents in the morning. He could only hope it was enough for them not to beat him.
And he died a little more.
Never did he complain, he had learned the hard way that it didn't matter what he said anyway. Many a night he cried himself to sleep. Hopeless tears that he hated himself for, they were of no use other than to make him seem weak.
You might wonder why he never went to the police?
He did. They didn't care, just like everybody else. It wasn't their problem if an unimportant brat had some problems at home. They had other things to do, other cases to investigate.
And he died a little more.
When the young boy started school things became slightly better for him. He excelled at almost everything he did, with the exception of physical education that is. His teachers would sing his praises in all his works, amazed at his quick understanding and intellect. But not all were so impressed…
The young boy's classmates envied him. Every chance they got they tormented him; stole his homework, accused him of cheating, spread nasty rumors that banned him from several well-known places, beat him until he passed out, screamed that such weaklings such as he didn't deserve to live.
The young boys teachers never saw any of it and if they did they quickly looked the other way. They dared to do nothing against it, the neighborhood was rough and they feared for their own health.
And so he lived, year after year. An outcast in school because of his genius, hated at home simply for being alive.
And he died a little more.
But he had a small hope burning in his heart of hearts; soon he would be eighteen and free from them all!
Freedom came and for the first time in his life he knew what ~happiness~ felt like. He had endured it everything to fulfill his dream, to help people. He continued to study with renewed vigor.
He was free!
Free from abusive so called parents, free from oppressive classmates, free to be himself like never before!
But everything which goes up, has to come down again…
…and get crushed against the ground if the piece is too fragile.
The boy, now a young man, had recently received an admission to a highly respectable university, the last open spot, and was on his way to collect the last of his meager belongings from the place he had never called home.
Our young man walked right into one of the numerous violent arguments between his mother and father, as per usual he didn't interfere and only snuck around them, eager to get away from there.
When he came back into the room of the argument, his mother lay dead by his father's hand.
Horror struck and wide eyed he immediately rushed to her side, in order to see if he could help her, strictly because he felt obliged to do so. What kind of doctor could he become if he let his own mother die? Even if he loathed her.
His hands became smeared with her blood, and when the police stormed in that was what they saw; a young man known to hate his parents, covered in his mother's blood.
And when the young man's father testified against his only son, he condemned him to a eight-year sentence in prison. No one believed our young man, it was easier to do so.
He died a little more.
The years in jail wore hard on our young man and drained him of much of his life force. But despite it all, he continued all his studies while incarcerated.
It was, after all, the only thing he had left.
But now he studied more of the art in manipulating the human body and its genes and his former ideals started to slip away. His thoughts were turning dark and bitter. Why should he spend his entire life trying to help those who would never do anything but try to push him down?
And he died a little more.
No, he would show them. He would show them what he could truly do and then they'd be sorry for what they'd done.
When he got out from prison, freed three years early due to good behavior, he found that no school would accept him and not many men, nor women for that matter, would employ him. He was, after all, a condemned murderer. And with no money, he couldn't pay for either rent or food.
He would swallow what little pride he had left and begged and pleaded for a job, despite how demeaning it was, but a resounding no was all he ever got. Desperate and hungry he was forced to turn towards the streets.
And he died a little more.
Life seemed determined to screw him over, and it was undeniably doing its very best in it too.
While living as an homeless in Russia's harsh streets he lost many of his previous scruples, as he saw the weak perish and the cruel master the art of surviving in their empty half-lives. It was there he committed his first true murder.
Not that he'd had much of a choice. He was no longer that scrawny little boy that anyone could overpower and beat down. He was tall and strong now, his years in jail helping him build up past the gangly young man he'd once been.
The shock over what he had done lasted for several weeks, never before had he taken a life! Now he truly deserved those years of being imprisoned. He couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep. He could only see those eyes before him, those horribly haunting eyes.
And he died a little more.
When he finally pulled himself together, he felt stronger somehow. It wasn't long before he had another's blood on his hands and another's and another's…
Every time he would fall apart and rebuild himself; stronger, tougher and more callous. Better.
Never had he felt so strong before, no longer would he be the victim! He had learned the rule of the streets; the brutal lived to see another day, while the weak would simply disappear into the shadows of long forgotten memories.
It would haunt him for the rest of his life.
And he died a little more.
One day, about two years after his release, he met a man. Strange and undoubtedly a criminal, but not one of the lowlifes that could usually be found in the slums. Curious, he followed, and saw more than he should have. Much more.
He was discovered while trying to leave. And at first he thought his death was nearly impending, but it was not as it seemed, for the man he had followed proved to be an old classmate of his.
This old classmate still remembered the young but brilliant fellow that he'd despised so much in his youth, and thought that his boss might want to have such a man in his ~staff~.
Our own young man, now in his midtwenties, was desperate and accompanied his old tormentor to this boss of his.
Every step felt heavy and difficult.
And he died a little more.
When they reached wherever they went, our young man was left to ~talk~ with his soon-to-be employer. He retold his life as it had been to the older man, who seemed indifferent to whatever suffering he had gone through.
When he was finished the cold-hearted old man had an decidedly unpleasant smile on his face as he accepted our young man into his fold. In the years to follow our young man learned more and more about the science that he loved and then he began to create several little experiments of his own.
He was a great asset for the old man.
And he died a little more.
Then one day came the request. The old man asked, couldn't our young man help him with a small matter of his? Our young man, now in his early thirties, was weary of trusting his benefactor and asked what this small favor could be?
His benefactor wanted soldiers, and he wanted them to be stronger, faster and generally better than normal ones. For the old mans dreams, which others might call nightmares, were grander than our young man could ever have guessed, and the malicious old man needed force to back them up.
Soldiers that would stand up and fight again after to others fatal injuries. Soldiers who would never give up. Soldiers black holes instead of hearts, ice instead of blood and broken shards instead of souls.
Our no-longer-so-young man thought about it, if he didn't do as the old geezer wanted he might very well find himself back out on the streets and that was not what he wanted, he was beginning to get too old for that. But he wouldn't have a choice, decent people wouldn't hire a murderer and the underground wouldn't want one who wasn't good enough to go professional.
With many a doubt about this matter he said yes.
And he died a little more.
They began with normal soldiers and found that the younger the soldier was, the bigger chance of the experiment's success. The old man ordered the use of children then, children no older than a few years, and the success rate climbed higher and higher. But they were still having trouble with getting the young experiments to be ready and willing to do violence.
It was then, at that moment that he made a decision, a terrible decision; in the streets the weak had been sorted out through brutality and survival instinct, perhaps they should do the same?
And he died a little more.
At first the violence was tentative, no one was comfortable with the idea of harming a child. But that didn't last, how could it? They would all be overcome by the beast that overcomes every man, the one called Greed.
It made our no-longer-so-young man feel sick at heart at what he did, but with time it eased. His conscience was not as large as it had once been and easier to subdue. He told himself it was for the best.
And he died a little more.
When he was in his late thirties he managed something unbelievably. He created super-human spirits, spirits god-like in their power and fully designed for war. But these spirits needed people to control them, and not just any kind. They would only allow the strongest to wield the ultimate might of their force.
And just a year later, he made the first three artificial humans ever, not cloned, ~made~.
He wasn't allowed to become attached, they were after all meant to be the elite of the elite, and that meant their training would be even more agonizing than the others'. He was meant to call them by their numbers: 2841119, 21518919 and 2521189.
2841119 had one or two genes from the old mans dead son and was therefore, in a way, ~grandson~ to the despicable old geezer and was given an additional name; Kai, a Japanese name meaning sea. Fitting, as 2841119 would be as cold, deadly and unforgiving as the ever-raging sea.
Our no-longer-so-young man in secret gave his other two charges names as well, it only felt right; Boris meaning fighter for 21518919, for that was what he'd be, and Yuri meaning farmer for 2521189, a contradiction since this young boy would never make anything grow, except maybe the mortality rate.
As he held them in his arms, little babes no older than a couple of days, he wondered if he could in truth make them into merciless killers, killers who would rejoice in death and violence and be not-that-human-at-all?
And he died a little more.
His eyes turned cold as he looked out into the dreary and grim world he lived in, and decided that, yes, he could.
And then, the last part of his soul, it died.
The sweet little boy he had once been, the one who wanted nothing more than to be accepted and loved, who wanted to save everyone he could, was no more. Those hopes and dreams had been torn apart and spat at a long time ago by none other than Reality herself.
He had died.
Those once innocent little babes grew up and became soldiers in the old mans army, and with their help they conquered the world.
He tried to make more of their kind, but not one of the new would ever be as great. For he no longer had the spirit, the passion for life that he had once had. And without it no experiment could ever be as grand. But they were still more than the unpleasant old man had ever expected.
The horror stories of those once innocent babes are countless and they still live, despite it being many a century since their birth, never aging a day over twenty and keeping the entire world in fear, along with their lesser companions.
The Damned Ones, they're called and it is said that should you ever look one of them in the face, which they usually keep covered with black cloth, your body will start to decay around your still-living soul and mind until that's all that is left.
Silly stories when compared to reality.
But they and our dead-man-living, the one who gave them their long lives to begin with, are the ~living~ proof of the never-ending cycle:
The victim might someday become the victimizer. Never forget that."
A long-drawn silence.
"A hope you understand the significance of this story?"
Another nod.
"Good. Now off to bed you little rascal. I'll tell you the story of the Damned Ones another day."
Footsteps echoing away.
Silence.
The end.