I've noticed a few reviews stating that Primarchs must eat the brains of organisms to gain memories. This is untrue. In Konrad Curze: A Lesson in Darkness we see Curze eat the heart of a ship's captain and gaining knowledge of the ship.
Anyways, onto the story.
The Boy Who Would Be King
0817 hours, 6th Axial Rotation of Joo'Lie, Valean Time
Western Sector, Commercial District, Vale
"Stay here," said the boy. Cynthia could distinguish no malice in his voice, but she could tell that there was a tired quality to it. She nodded fervently, both grateful for his protection and terrified by his strength and explosive violence.
The boy leapt from wall to wall in a display of acrobatics that appeared to defy physics. The brickwork buckled and cracked under the immense weight of his musculature. He caught up to Devon and Tom in a heartbeat.
Tom turned to look. He did not see anyone but his victim, cowering in the distance. There was a flash of silver. The boy's newfound machete imprinted a fleeting figure of eight in his eyes as it flashed through the air. It was the last thing he would ever see.
The boy ignored the headless body as it toppled. He backhanded Devon into the brick wall on the left as the gangster turned in alarm. The boy listened to the mushy snap of ribs and cartilage turning to powder, and the tremendous bang as the man's muscular body smashed against the vandalized wall with enough force to liquefy his organs, shattering the warm red surface of the alleyway's brick wall.
Miraculously, he was still alive. The man gulped precious air in staggered wheezes through a bloody trachea, and his face twitched maddening tics as he stared down the boy, who approached the dying man with hatred burning in his eyes.
Devon appeared to have been paralyzed, though it was unclear where the spinal fracture had occurred. The wall was a mural of gore, and the man's shirt was turning dark with blood. His back was bent at an awkward angle, and it was a miracle that he was alive at all.
The man spat at the boy's shoes. The boy came to an ominous halt. He stared at the disgusting blob of saliva that sullied the dirty floor. And then, he spoke.
"You invited death and destruction upon yourself by daring to commit the greatest of sins. And yet, here you are, surrounding yourself with an air of righteousness, defiant until the very end. Your hubris…is beyond reckoning," said the boy. His face was unreadable — no paler than marble, no more alive than stone. "You are truly an animal deserving of extermination."
"L-Look…w-w-who's talk—"
The pain was immediate and searing. The man screamed as the worst pain he'd ever felt radiated from the ruin of his face to the rest of his body. The man screamed as the acid ate away at his face, his eyes, and scalp. The man screamed the best he could without a tongue or any teeth, a flesh red skull attached to a body that was very much alive.
The acrid stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils. It was the smell of justice. The man's screams must have torn his vocal cords to shreds, for all that remained was a pathetic whimper.
Cynthia heard the screams of her assailant in the distance. It belonged to the sheep Faunus. She saw the boy looming over Devon's body. She saw him lift the man over his head with contemptible ease. The boy's muscles flexed, and the man was torn in two.
The boy squatted over the corpse of the Faunus named Tom. Cynthia watched as his hand plunged into the man's chest with ease that appeared to defy physics. His hand emerged with the man's dead heart grasped in long red fingers.
Cynthia closed her eyes, sobbing, feeling the heat of her saltwater tears streaking down her cheek. Despite everything they did and would do to her, she couldn't help but feel a shred of sympathy for them. If what the boy said has been true, they had truly led miserable lives as the dregs of society. Nevertheless, there had always been a choice for them to do the right thing, and if the creature had been honest about anything, it was that their deaths were far too quick and painless for the weight of their sins.
Cynthia felt a cold hand upon her shoulder. She flinched. A wet hand covered her mouth before she could scream. Cynthia opened her eyes and stared into a pair of cold black orbs. The boy did not wait for her to speak.
"I apologize for dirtying your clothes, but I'm certain that we are deep in White Fang territory. The animals I just dispatched were members of a particularly violent offshoot of the White Fang," said the boy, taking a bite out of the heart and removing his hand from her mouth. "An intimidation force, it seemed. They seemed to have been off duty. The mindless brutes would have raped you for sport for the sin of being human. What occupation do you hold?"
She saw crimson flashes of bloodstained teeth through the boy's geisha red lips as he spoke. Cynthia recoiled at the ferric stench of death in his hot breath and backed away from him.
But the boy suddenly seemed much calmer, more rational now. His grip on her shoulder was deceptively gentle, and his voice was mellifluous with warmth. It filled her with courage and lifted her spirits. She found the strength to stand immediately, but the pain of the cuts and scrapes on her knees and her legs kept her from doing so. A politician could practice for a thousand years and not achieve a fraction of the boy's charisma.
"I-I'm just a software engineer. W-W-Was there no other way?" she asked, her voice quivering with emotion. The boy smiled, and by far it was the most terrifying thing Cynthia had ever seen. His teeth were stained a vivid crimson that juxtaposed sharply against his white marble cheeks. The boy licked the blood off his teeth with a long, wet tongue, and they glittered like diamonds in the dark.
By far, the most stunning thing about the boy was his beauty. He divine, utterly perfect in all aspects imaginable to mankind. Perfection made flesh, and wrath incarnate. A terrible sight to behold.
"They were animals. Beasts, more appropriately. I could have handed them over to the authorities. But the punishment meted out for the sin they would commit was too small, far too…lenient," said the boy.
"So, killing them is the correct way?" asked Cynthia.
"Yes. Some deserve to live, others do not," explained the boy.
"And who are you to decide?"
"It is my duty, as a creature above and beyond the ones of this world. Don't you want justice to take its course? Every sin will be punished accordingly. That is the law. That is justice. These men would have committed the gravest of moral transgressions against you, and I have committed the gravest of moral transgressions against them. That is the very essence of the Lex Talionis, the law of retaliation, or, to put it bluntly, 'An eye for an eye'," explained the boy, his eyes narrowing into predatory slits. "It is an axiom of Justice itself. Countless human cultures have embraced it, either out of sheer, survivor's necessity or because of their contrived and 'elegant' and 'intellectually rigorous' rationalizations, and you may reject it out of ideals that you believe to be moral and enlightened, but it is a precept that is marrow bound to your species and mine."
The boy paused and inclined his head curiously at the woman's form.
Well, he kind of sounds like someone with a god complex...notwithstanding the fact that he might actually be one, thought Cynthia.
"Yes, this is what I have believed in, ever since I witnessed my first crime," said the boy, who inched closer and closer to Cynthia. "But it is true that to preserve the state, as it is commonly understood, laws must be severe and justice must be swift. For in the state of nature the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. That is why we have all signed a social contract. That is why we live in a society in accordance with an agreement that establishes a series of moral rules of behaviour known as the Law."
"I-Is that what you think? That the concept of justice is merely a…a veneer of enlightenment and elegance?"
The boy smiled. He loomed over her in a gargoyle's crouch, and she felt his hot breath against her body.
"Yes. Justice connotes enlightenment and elegance, but it hides an ugly truth. That is what we all agree with, one way or another," hissed the boy.
"Why are you here? On this world, I m-mean?"
"I don't know," said the boy. "It is perhaps the only question I have failed to answer. If you stumbled upon a watch in the wastes of Vacuo, you would be a fool not to question the origins of its apparent contrivance and design. You would, however, not be a fool if you did not have ruminations of a similar nature after stumbling upon a rock. In other words, you would be a fool to believe that there would be no watchmaker, and I'd be a fool to believe that I had no intended purpose."
"O-Oh…" muttered Cynthia. "I-I-Interesting analogy. You adapted it from Eliezer's t-teleological argument, I presume?"
There was a look of innocent surprise on the boy's face.
"Indeed. I derived a spark of inspiration from the seemingly profound, and yet… fallacious witticisms of that human philosopher," mused the boy, his sibilant voice rising and falling like waves on a beach. There was a hint of derision in his voice, though it was not directed at Cynthia. "You are well-read."
"T-thanks. I-It's required reading as part of t-the literature module in the AIT," said Cynthia.
"You're from Atlas?"
"Y-Yeah. Moved here a few months ago after graduating. The market for software programmers is saturated over there with fresh grads, and I only had a second-class degree. The salaries here are good for AIT grads due to competition for skilled workers," explained Cynthia.
There was a pause as the boy examined her face. Micro-expressions that lasted for a fraction of a second were easily spotted. He read her like a book. She was telling the truth.
"I see."
"But…A-Animals. Why do you call them that?" whimpered Cynthia. The boy did not reply. He stood up to his full height and examined her body. She was nearly naked, clinging to rags of her clothes to preserve her dignity.
While he ate the heart of her assailant, he did not feel the desires that turned men into raving beasts and fiends as his eyes flashed over her body, scanning for injuries. He listened to her ragged heartbeat and breathed in the scent of her dirty sweat that sullied her rags and soiled her skin.
Now that the boy got a good look at Cynthia, his mind began cataloguing her characteristics at breakneck speeds. She was of average height at roughly five feet and seven inches, six inches taller than himself. She possessed a slim build and a pale complexion. She was twenty-one or twenty-two years old, perhaps. Cynthia wore a pair of black glasses, and a spiderweb's fracture streaked across one of its lenses.
"Simple lacerations. No sign of internal bleeding. Aside from a slight risk of infection, these are not dangerous injuries," remarked the boy. "I don't have any spare clothes, so you'll have to be naked for now. Your heart is beating rather quickly."
That was the least of Cynthia's worries. She was, however, curious as to how the boy could listen to her heartbeat.
"So, what now?"
"The Whit—"
The boy groaned and collapsed with a feeble whimper. He placed ten red fingers to his hair matted temples.
"What's the matter?" asked Cynthia, visibly concerned. She hobbled to his side and shook him, noting the incredible hardness of his lean muscles. There was a short pause before the boy regained his focus. He got back to his feet and regained his regal form.
"Their cronies are arriving. They have guns. You won't be able to dodge their bullets," whispered the boy.
"How do you know? Where are they?" whispered Cynthia, an obvious panic in her voice.
"No time to explain. There," hissed the boy, pointing to the junction ahead of them, where two paths fed into one. "Too late to run. Three will come from the left and two will come from the right. Five more are coming behind that…hnnghhh…initial wave. They'll reach us in approximately eleven-point forty-five seconds and counting. Hide behind that dumpster and do not reveal yourself until my return. Go!"
Cynthia broke out into a dead sprint, alarmed by the urgency in the boy's voice. She made a beeline towards the massive dumpster behind them, and slid behind it, away from the view of anyone who looked in from the junction.
The fastest of them arrived in roughly eleven seconds, just as the boy had anticipated.
The scream had sounded like Devon's, and if anything had happened to him, there would be hell to pay for the one responsible, friend or foe.
Just twenty minutes ago, he and his lieutenants said that they saw a pretty woman wander into the White Fang's territory. They went, of course, propelled by the hormonal drives that turned men into pigs — just a method of stress relief by taking it out on a human — but when they didn't call or report back after fifteen minutes, his cronies couldn't dispel the urge to investigate.
As they got closer, they heard a scream. A woman's scream. The White Fang thugs snickered amongst themselves, taking a sadistic glee in hearing the plight of the human. Three minutes later, they heard a sound that chilled them to the bone. It was a scream.
Unmistakeably, it was Devon's.
The fastest of the twenty men arrived in ten seconds. The slower ones noticed the spreading confusion on the faces of their brethren, whose footsteps had halted mid-stride. Something was on the other end of the alleyway. It was a boy.
A boy sat on the concrete floor, back faced to them. His clothes had been drenched in what appeared to be blood. The boy appeared to be eating something. Something that crunched like an apple as he bit into it and had the consistency of flesh.
And then they saw it.
Rested on the floor, next to the boy, was a large machete. Every single one of the gangsters knew who it belonged to. The crude carvings on its blade had told them so.
Their eyes slowly turned to the alley, even further beyond the boy. Three bodies. Their necks terminated in bloody, sometimes messy stumps. One had been torn in two. Gore decorated the walls. The boy had not a scratch on his body, but their mates had been mauled so viciously that, had this not occurred in the confines of a city, the cause of their deaths would have been hypothesized to be a Grimm attack. It was then that they came to the instant, terrible realization as to what the boy truly was.
The men unsheathed their machetes, soiling their grips with anxiety. With his back faced them, the boy listened to the silent thunder of their speeding hearts and smelled the stark scent of their sweat. Everyone had a unique scent, but the muscone odour of Faunus-kind irritated him the most. Half of it he appreciated on a level he would never understand — the human part — and the other half he despised.
The boy finished eating. There was no more information left to glean. He got up to his full height, the height of the average twelve-year-old. He turned and stared at the men with a look of hatred that could kill. The boy picked up the machete and made a graceful flourish, an act so elegant that it was undeserved by such a crude weapon, as though he were mocking the previous owner of the weapon.
There was a scream. A bull Faunus gave a maddened roar of anger. Emotions clouded his rationality — if he possessed any in the first place — as he raised his machete and charged towards the boy with all the inelegance in the world.
"Bert, wait!"
His gangmates screamed out in unison alarm, but it was too late. Bert roared, and his machete swung down at the boy with enough force to cleave a man's body in half, a deadly grey blur of crude scrap steel.
Too slow.
The boy did not speak. He stepped to the side with unbelievable grace and ease, and Bert's machete struck empty air. Warriors traded height for strength, and muscles for speed. This one belonged to the latter category.
Bert was a large bull Faunus of six foot one. His muscles were vast, as was typical for most Faunus by virtue of their impure heritage. By some stroke of luck, his street smarts had earned him a place in the White Fang's intimidation forces. Many a maidenhead had been lost at the point of his sword, in his many campaigns against Atlesian corporations.
He gave a cry of hate and swung the crude blade at the boy's midriff. It flashed through the air and struck opposing metal. The boy stared on impassively, holding up his machete with a single arm while the Faunus used both of his. His biceps barely flexed as the man bore down with all the strength he could muster, all while grunting in rage and frustration.
The boy disengaged. He moved with impossible speed, appearing at his back before the latter could react.
The blade of his machete fell lightning-fast, cleaving through flesh and muscle like a knife through smoke. The killing edge severed the muscles of Bert's trapezius and eliciting a spray of red that drenched the floor with gore. It immediately became apparent to the boy that the man had not yet unlocked his aura.
He was lucky, then. He wasn't sure if there was a certain way to defeat aura empowered beings, a chink in that aetheric armor, or if wearing them down by brute force was the most efficient way to break an aura. Either way, he would be at a major disadvantage if he'd ever had the misfortune of engaging an aura empowered human or Faunus, like a huntsman.
Weakness flooded the Faunus' left arm as his friends watched on, reluctant on entering the fray for fear of what might become of them. Bert's back was bare to the bone — his teammates caught glimpses of pink raw ribs as his muscles tensed and slumped — and his shirt was utterly drenched in red.
The man stumbled around in a daze. He was in shock, mentally and physically. He had never seen a person move with such quickness, such finesse, save for a couple of hired huntsmen he had the misfortune of running into in the past. The pain barely registered in his adrenaline loaded nervous system, but instinctually he felt his life draining away, gushing madly out of him as the weakness consumed him. He felt a terrifying wetness on his back, and at last, he felt sleepy, so very sleepy.
Bert stumbled around, swinging his blade with an arm that drooped with hypoxic weakness. His friends watched on in horror. The boy stalked to his right; blade raised in perfect posture, the pose of an executioner before the final act.
It was over in an instant.
Bert never saw the blow that ended his life. Only a drop of blood had entered his right ventricle when the killing edge of the machete smashed into his neck and freed his head from its torso. In place of the man's head was now a bleeding stump and the upward gush and fall of arterial red.
Bert knelt, headless, as the boy flicked the blood off the blade of his machete. Such was the boy's speed, that the onlookers had barely registered the blow even as the man's severed head landed on the dirty concrete floor.
There was a calm after the storm. The boy cleaned his blade with his shirt as the gang studied him warily. He knew they wouldn't attack.
He knew that he would. The boy waited for them to reply. He studied them curiously. He listened to their speeding hearts and watched the hairs rise on their arms and legs and necks in a primal display of fear.
It was the one thing that humans and Faunus alike had in common. It was so predictable. They all did the same things, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. They pissed and shat in their pants and their hearts would beat like parade drums.
"W-Who a-a-are you?"
They spoke at last, and the boy stared at the one who raised the question. Disgust was painted all over his face in the colour of blood. The hardened gangmate shifted uncomfortably under his piercing gaze.
The boy raised his arms and spread his wings, rearing to his full height as he stretched his tendons. Though he was much shorter than them, the gangsters and bandits trembled as they felt the pressure of his being. It bore down on them with the weight of a mountain, so immense that they might as well have been ants pushing against an elephant. And then, when his sneer faded, the boy's face was a portrait of hatred and serenity — utterly indecipherable.
Moments passed, and at last, the boy regarded the hesitant gangsters with glacial black eyes and spoke—
"Justice."
The boy charged.
The fastest of them saw him as a blur of red rags. The slowest of them did not see him at all. All perished the same under his machete in a matter of heartbeats as he weaved between their ranks, taking the killing edge of the crude blade to their necks. Ten heads rolled within the first second, and the light brick walls turned dark with their impure animal blood.
The boy was already advancing along the wide alleyway before their corpses hit the floor. He caught sight of the bird Faunus at the end of the corridor. He was raising his gun, just as the painful visions had foretold. More faunus were beginning to pour into the alleyway. The boy counted eight, a number that was rising steadily.
The boy caught sight of the bullet as it left the barrel through a white-hot muzzle flash. It was a rust-brown projectile, its sides burnished with soot. He saw the shockwave blooming in the air as the bullet sailed towards him in stark uniformity to the chaos around him. He saw it as time hung in the air, as meaningless as a snowflake in a blizzard, as the world stood in timeless tableau. The boy was already moving — already turning by the time the dust round had cleared three feet.
Jeffrey and his cronies had the fleeting impression of a blur of red and white as they fired at the child. He had dodged the bullet, of course. Jefferey fired again, but the boy smashed the three bullets aside with contemptible ease.
Jeffery had no other choice but to keep firing and hope that his bullets were faster than the blades of his men. Bright gold sparks erupted into the air as they were smashed aside yet again, all as the attack came from both sides as the gang rushed him as one.
The boy was faster. He weaved under the gangsters and brought the machete deep into their abdomens, disemboweling them with a silvery figure of eight. The two men collapsed. Six more to go.
Jefferey screamed in fear and anger as the boy drew closer, unstoppable in his pursuit of justice. He plucked a magazine from his breast-pocket and slapped it into the well of his pistol. He heard the pained screams of his men as the boy killed them one by one. This wasn't a fight. A fight was not a one-sided affair. This was a slaughter.
He fired. Jefferey winced at the saltwater sting of sweat as it streaked down his cheeks and eyelids. He blinked it away.
Red flashed like lightning as the boy sealed the distance before his eyes opened. He slapped the pistol away and then Jeffery felt a searing pain blooming in his chest, a hot knife to a nerve, a pain that was so indescribably bad that his mind locked up instantly, drowned in the morasses of world-shattering agony, even though he knew full well what had just happened.
Jefferey inclined his head to see the dirty hilt of the cold machete. The blade was through one of his lungs with a dozen centimeters to spare. It had been buried to the hilt. It was gripped by a bloody, dirty hand. It was the hand of a boy. The hand of a teenager. A perfect hand that ended in five raking talons, long and dirty. He traced the arm to the void black eyes of the boy. Their eyes met for the last time. His face was no paler than alabaster, no more alive than stone.
The boy clicked his tongue as he brought Jeffery down to his knees. Their faces were centimeters apart, so close that they could have kissed, so close that Jeffery could feel the boy's hot, ferric breath upon his own chapped lips. The stench of death was overwhelming. The boy noted the man's youthful features. Jeffery was around eighteen or so, one of the younger members of the gang. A life of crime was coming to a close.
"There are no survivors," he said.
The boy's arcane biology regenerated the tiny cuts and scrapes that he'd incurred in the act of slaughtering the gangsters. He felt himself swelling with power — energy that seeped freely from what appeared to be cracks in the very fabric of reality if such a crude analogy could be applied. The boy bathed in the sorcerous energy that flowed freely throughout the planet, feeling it enrich himself tenfold more than —
The voice from the nights before whispered again. The boy's focus snapped back to the present as he resisted.
"D-Die, monster," hissed Jeffery through bloodied teeth and lips. The boy inclined his head curiously to look at the blood choked countenance of the bird Faunus. He felt something cold and hard pressed against his chest, and his glazed opal eyes sheened with the blooming, white-hot flash of gunfire.
Even the posthuman body of the boy did not allow him to keep up with his arcane reactions. He saw the explosion blooming. A hot flash of pain radiated across his belly. He began to turn, but it was all too late. The shockwave rippled through his flesh, severing tissues, and disrupting neural bundles. But the bullet…the solid sphere of lead and copper merely sent a hairline fracture across his fused ribcage, travelling less than halfway through the arcane matrix of gene-forged osteoblasts and ultra-dense bone.
Jeffery's eyes widened in horror as the boy remained before him, as unmoving as a statue, his grip on the machete's hilt unfaltering. The boy smiled; his teeth stained by blood that did not belong to him. He tore the secondary weapon from fingers that offered no resistance and crushed it into shards of sharp black metal under a heavy foot.
"N-No…" wheezed Jeffery through weak jaws. Defiant till the end, just like Devon.
"Yes," croaked the boy. "I have survived."
"O-Our leader w-will kill y-you…"
"Your leader. Adam," repeated the boy, casting Jeffery a level stare. "Adam Taurus."
"H-How did y-you know?"
"I learned it…by eating Devon's heart," he explained. He did not wait for Jeffery to speak.
+ Your leader is nothing. I will kill him. I will kill Sienna Khan. +
The boy spoke without speaking. His thoughts were hammered into Jeffery's cerebral cortex, driven like nails through wood. Jeffery's eyes widened in fear, but slowly they closed in acceptance. The criminal remained defiant, sneering weakly.
"Y-You…will a-always b-b-be…a…k-k-ki—"
The boy jerked the blade to the left, severing Jefferey's spinal cord with a stark, mushy crunch. The man's face and arms and legs spasmed involuntarily, dancing a marionette's jig atop a bundle of dead, misfiring nerves. The boy withdrew his blade, and the corpse collapsed to the ground like a wet sack of bones, flesh, and spilt intestines. The boy rose from the floor, feeling the flare of pain as the bullet ground against his fused ribcage as his muscles shifted.
"King," finished the boy, staring down at the corpse of the gangster and wiping the dirty blade with his shirt. "I will be your king. I have grand plans for this kingdom, beast, and it will be built on the blood of animals and…hnnghhh…sinners like you. Of course, I would then be no different from that which you so earnestly wished to classify me as. A necessary evil I embraced the moment I saw your friends attempting to commit the most devious of crimes against the woman."
The boy flicked the blood off his machete, and he squeezed his hand, watching the blood trickle onto the face of the corpse. It was forever frozen in a state of twisted, pained surprise. The boy tasted in his nostrils the scent of the man's stool and urine. The breaking of Jeffery's spine had caused his sphincters to lose control. Jeffery's bowels had voided involuntarily.
The boy reached into the grievous injury and ripped Jeffery's heart from its sinewy foundations. Then, he bit on it.
"Jeffery is it?" he asked. He was silent for a while.
"It is to my great disappointment that my...friend disagrees with my methods. Trust me, I'd love to exterminate your kind. The Faunus kind. But I like to think of myself as a…doctor. My human friend may disagree with my prescription, that all Faunus should be destroyed by virtue of the fact that they are disgusting, vile, abhorrent abominations of nature, but she cannot disagree with the premise that my prescription is predicated upon, that is, my diagnosis — that is, that Faunus are disgusting, vile, and abhorrent abominations of nature. A doctor has his code of ethics. Prevention is always preferred to cure. Thus I must prevent the things you do to humans from ever happening again," said the boy.
He frowned, staring into Jeffery's dead eyes, the eyes of a corpse atop its funeral pyre — glassy and unblinking.
"Am I making a faulty generalization here? Should I not destroy all of the Faunus, but only the White Fang? Are all the Faunus not disgusting, vile, and abhorrent abominations of nature? Surely, the logicians in the crowd will accuse me of committing a faulty generalization, the most egregious of logical fallacies. Surely, there are one or two good Faunus in the population? What is this sheer, unadulterated hatred that I feel towards all Faunus-kind?" mused the boy. "Where is the justice, you may ask, in my crusade against the Faunus? The Faunus, after all, were imprisoned and enslaved and tortured by the humans before the revolution, weren't they? Am I not a paragon of virtue and justice? Am I thus not aware of the transgressions that Mankind has committed against the Faunus? Thus, why do I not care? Where is the justice, the equality, you may ask again?"
The boy stared at the corpse.
"I promise you this, Jeffery. I will not kill them, but neither will I rest until every one of these creatures is chased back to the island of Menagerie. If there is not enough land, then the island will be expanded. Many will come to hate me in this endeavor, humans and Faunus alike. They will believe that I bring death and destruction to their lands and kingdoms. They will not understand, these creatures with small minds and pitiful intellects. But if all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends. There will be sympathizers in the crowd, too afraid to support my cause. But in time, they will come to know the method to my madness. And when they do, they will know that I bring only illumination. The blood of the White Fang is on your hands."
Cynthia listened hard. The sounds of slaughter had died down. She peeked cautiously over the reeking dumpster and saw the boy returning from the right side of the junction. He was wearing a different pair of clothes, an oversized black hoodie, and a pair of khaki trousers.
He stank of blood, and his hands of alabaster were stained a light red hue, blood that did not belong to him. Slowly, she emerged from behind the dumpster, instantly relieved by his presence. He did not say anything when he saw her. He simply smiled. But Cynthia noticed that his gait was different. He walked with a limp and clutched his chest in concealed agony.
"You didn't leave," said the boy. Whether or not he wanted to express it, there was delight in his voice.
"After all you've done for me?" said Cynthia. "Wait, why are you limping? You didn't get shot, did you?"
There was no reply as the boy sat down, propping himself against the brick wall. He took off his shirt, revealing a finely chiseled lattice of abdominal musculature. His eyes flashed over his chest and spotted the site of the injury. The wound had already healed, thanks to his rapid regenerative powers, but the bullet was a different story. Even his physiology could not dissolve lead and copper.
"Is that…"
"An infection," explained the boy, his bloodstained fingers flowing deftly over the hot red patch of skin. "The wound has already healed. The bullet, however, was the host of the myriad microorganisms my body is now responding to. This is the initial immune response, roughly the same on the outside as that of baseline humanity, but completely different on a molecular level. The bullet will not dissolve. A hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years, it will still be there. In theory."
"Already healed…" said Cynthia, her voice trailing off with disbelief. "How is that even possible? What do you intend on doing with the bullet?"
"It must be removed," said the boy. "One way or another."
"But how?"
"This is how," said the boy. Before Cynthia could stop him, he plunged his dirty nails into the site of the injury. The boy winced in pain, but a strained smile creased his face as his fingers closed around the flattened bullet. It never made it any deeper than an inch. He took a deep breath and ripped the shard of foul metal from the reopened wound.
"Aren't you afraid of an infection?" asked Cynthia wondrously, staring at him.
"I have no need to be," replied the boy calmly, putting his shirt back on. "The police will be here any minute. I have to go."
"Where to?" asked Cynthia, looking at the boy as he sat before her. He was silent. "Do you really want to be running all your life?"
"What do you propose?"
"Well, do you want to come to my house?" offered Cynthia. "We can't go to the police because…well, you know…so you can stay at my house for the time being."
There was a long pause. A look of genuine surprise filled the boy's eyes.
"Really? Have I told you what I intend on doing in the years to come?" raised the boy. His tone darkened. "Can you fathom the depths of my ambitions?"
"N-No, but…wouldn't it be lonely all on your own?" suggested Cynthia. "And as long as you won't do anything bad, I'll let you stay, free of rent. It's the least I could do for your help."
"Bad?" The boy chuckled. Suddenly, he grunted, losing his regal composure for a moment. He gave a displeased groan as he stood. Much of the pain that radiated from the wound had subsided by now, and the heat of infection flared in a great, blooming red, but the wound still tingled whenever he moved.
"The claim of the argument from design was the existence of a creator and a purpose attached to the object. I am that object. What is my purpose? I cannot find one," said the boy softly. "My strength and speed are supreme, my intelligence surpasses your finest intellectuals to the degree that they surpass apes, and my ability to inspire fear and command respect is supreme, even amongst your politicians and kings. What do you think I am?"
"You are my saviour. Our saviour. You will rid the world of crime. You will be the protector of the weak," said Cynthia softly, without an inkling of fear. "Where you come from doesn't matter. I believe what you said — that you didn't find any inherent purpose in your arrival and existence on this planet. But the way you placed yourself in harm's way just to protect someone like me…you're just as human as any of us. Perhaps more human. I can see it in your eyes. You aren't a monster. You aren't the biological weapon that Atlas is making you out to be, all over the news."
"A noble task," affirmed the boy. "But I was never in any harm right from the start. Neither do I care about anyone's interpretations on my purpose here. That is for me to discover."
"Geez, that's cold. Anyways, my house is more of an apartment, actually. It's nearby, ten minutes by foot," said Cynthia.
Apartments. The boy knew that there were a few in the Western Sector, but they were mostly dilapidated condominiums in shady neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods in the upper-class and the residential district were far safer, but safety was a luxury that came at a great price. Cynthia looked at herself, and her heart sank. "Oh, right. Clothes. I can't go out like this in public."
"Did you happen to bring any?" asked the boy.
Cynthia grabbed her backpack that lay a few feet away from them. She opened it and smiled. Aside from her laptop and water bottle, there was a skirt and a black shirt.
"Dress quickly. We don't have much time to spare," said the boy as he eyed the end of the corridor warily. "I can already hear the sirens in the distance."
"I don't but I'll take your word for it," said Cynthia as she removed whatever remained of her clothes and dressed into the fresh attire. There was no underwear, but that was really the least of Cynthia's concerns.
"Now, before we proceed, I need you to tell me this — according to Section Ten of the Criminal Code of The Kingdom of Vale — Whoever, owing allegiance to the Kingdom of Vale, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the Kingdom of Vale or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall be banished from the Kingdom's grounds or executed," recounted the boy ad verbatim. "Therefore, if you are convicted of treason — which you are henceforth liable by virtue of the fact that you will provide me with shelter — you will be banished from the Kingdom. Do you truly wish to take this risk?"
Cynthia gulped at the harsh punishment. It was to be expected of the crime of such a magnitude, but her mind was made the instant Richard perished under his foot. She would follow him.
"Yes," said Cynthia. "I desire, with all my heart, to take this risk."
The boy smiled, but there was great sadness in his eyes.
"Very well then. But first, I must ask you, woman — what is your name?" he asked.
"Cynthia. Cynthia White."
0840 hours, 6th Axial Rotation of Joo'Lie, Valean Time
Western Sector, Commercial District, Vale
"My goodness. What on Remnant happened here? Grimm?"
"Don't joke around, Detective. A bladed weapon was used," said Sergeant Logan Gray. "And I can see only human footprints."
"Rhetorical question, Sergeant," sighed Solomon Wong. After the trip by car that took a little over ten minutes from the VPD Western Sector HQ, Wong's hardened gaze panned over the bloodiest scene he'd ever come across in his ten-and-a-half-year career. He cautiously approached the first victim, who lay in two pieces beside the brick wall. The corpses had all been covered in large, opaque plastic sheets.
"This is Devon Bisque. His face is too badly damaged by what appears to be some kind of superacid for facial identification. So is Richard Steel over there," said Logan as he pointed towards a corpse far away from Devon's. "We had to use fingerprint cross-referencing with the registry of citizens."
"Tell me about it," said Wong, walking towards the last corpse in this area of the alleyway that was yet to be named. He pointed at the head of the cleanest kill. "And this one?"
"Tom Slate," said Logan.
"Any criminal records?"
"Yes. Devon Bisque was convicted in 75 AGW of robbery along with these two, and was sentenced to three years of jail," said Logan, pointing at Richard and Tom. "Other offenses include — grand theft auto, shoplifting, burglary, and related felonies. His first crime was committed at the age of ten, but that doesn't mean he has broken the law before that. He and these two are low-ranking White Fang members with ties to Adam Taurus."
"Live by the sword, die by the sword," mused Wong. "Who, or what do you think did this?"
"Huntsman, probably," said the sergeant.
"That would be my guess at first. They certainly have the strength and speed to do something like this," said Wong. "Black market huntsman, perhaps. But something doesn't add up — if they were indeed hired huntsmen, who would want a bunch of low-level thugs dead? It certainly isn't worth the price."
"That's what I thought too," said the sergeant. "I thought it was some kind of hired huntsman. Till I saw this."
Sergeant Gray removed the opaque cover, and what Wong saw shocked him to the core.
"What the — Where's the heart?"
The sergeant snapped his fingers. An assistant brought forth a transparent evidence bag, along with a few other large, airtight bags. She handed them to Logan, who held one clearly in front of Detective Wong.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"A bite mark," confirmed Logan.
"But it seems…human," said Wong. "Look at these teeth marks. Oh…god."
Wong's worst fears had become a reality. The creature from the pod was loose in a densely populated area, and it had already begun killing. He decided against these thoughts with the rest of the crew, but the likelihood that they had stumbled upon the same notion was rather high.
"Did it destroy that camera too?" said Wong, gesturing at a surveillance camera positioned near the roofs. It was a broken, dilapidated machine.
"Nope, White Fang did it," said Sergeant Gray with a chuckle that elicited an odd stare from Wong. "It's almost ironic if you think about it. Also, we found a set of anomalous fingerprints on the shirt of Devon Bisque. We were able to determine that the fingerprints belonged to a female. Possible assault victim?"
"Probably. How did she get away?" asked Wong.
"Don't know. Found a bunch of possible shoeprints around here. Possible vigilante?" suggested Gray, gesturing at the corpses.
"What kind of vigilante eats hearts and has the strength to rip a man in two?" mused Wong, staring sullenly at the corpse of Devon Bisque. It moaned silently from slack, skinless jaws that spoke of perpetual suffering. Sergeant Gray did not reply. He was busily typing something on his scroll. A report to the higher-ups, perhaps.
"Rapists or not, they deserved a fair trial. Not justice delivered at the hands of a madman," said Wong.
"Well, if you ask me, these fuckers deserved it," said Logan, nonchalance rising in his voice. Wong ignored him as he ventured into the crime scene, his boots wrapped in plastic covers.
Bright lemon markers had been placed near several sites of interest throughout the alley. Armed policemen were on standby not only because the scene was fresh and there was a high chance that the killer was still around, but also because this was a hotspot of White Fang activity.
Wong squatted before a latent footprint. It had not yet been treated with aluminum powder, but from his many years of experience in cataloging the various types and brands of shoes, Wong could tell that it was some kind of slipper or a sandal, but it had no brand. Perhaps it was one of those flea market products. None of the dead wore such a shoe.
So far, two shoeprints that belonged to missing shoes had been found. Both were from cheap brands, judging by the lack of brand initials on their soles. One was small, around a size four. The other was adult-sized, around a size eight. Sandals and running shoes. Judging from their size, the owner of the running shoes had been the owner of the torn clothes.
Wong stared around him at the bodies strewn across the concrete floor. It was an utter massacre. It couldn't have been a coincidence then, that the size of the footprints corresponded to the shoe size of the sandals. The sandaled shoeprints were spaced five meters apart — utterly inhuman for what seemed to be a nine-year-old. There was no doubt about it — the creature from the pod had been here.
"Detective Wong?"
Wong turned at the sound of the familiar female voice. It was Sabrina Carmon, his assistant.
"What is it?"
"We got a hit on the anomalous fingerprints found on Devon Bisque's clothes. Cynthia White, here on a Work Permit from Atlas. Degree from AIT in Software Programming. Works as a software programmer at a tech company here in the Western Sector. Lives at #02-01 Azalea Condominium, ten minutes from here. No friends, family, or relatives living in Vale, but her brother, Augustus White, is a Lieutenant in the Atlesian Military. Parents are deceased. Unmarried. No past criminal records," said Sabrina.
Solomon's mind processed the information lightning fast.
"Sabrina, check the police database for any calls that have been dialled in the past hour. You already know which one I'm looking for," said Wong.
"On it, Detective," said Sabrina, whipping out her scroll. "Hmm, there were eleven calls in the past hour. No record of 'Cynthia'. No anonymous callers either."
"Alright. Let's pay Miss Cynthia's residence a visit," said Solomon, his voice high-strung with urgency, "Tell the sergeant to request a search warrant for Miss Cynthia's apartment from the Sector Judge immediately for the possible sheltering of an enemy of the state. I'll be sending him my report in order to prove that there is a probable cause for the search."
"Enemy of the state? W-What are you talking about, Detective?" asked a flustered Sabrina.
Solomon gritted his teeth in frustration and cursed under his breath. They were always so slow to catch up, Sabrina, Logan, and the rest of the incompetents on his team.
"The creature, Sabrina. The damn creature from the pod. It's been here, and it's killed these men, and I'll bet you a thousand lien that Miss Cynthia is sheltering it!" shouted an enraged Solomon.
"There's no evidence to support your theory, Detective!" shouted Logan.
"No evidence? Look around you, Sergeant! No evidence? Look at the shoe size, Sergeant! Four! Guess what else has a shoe size of four? That's right, the monster from the pod!"
"So, what if it is the creature? That doesn't mean that Cynthia is sheltering it!" shouted Logan. "A bit of a stretch, don't you think?"
"It's just a precaution," said Solomon, calming down.
"Well, whether you like it or not, the court doesn't hand out search warrants for 'precautions'. The court hands out search warrants for probable cause that can be logically demonstrated." said Logan, his voice firm and unyielding.
"Alright, Sergeant, let me list down all of the evidence you need in case it hasn't gotten into that thick skull of yours. Cynthia did not call the police. That is an immutable fact based on the call records. Two, the footprints of the creature corresponded perfectly to these shoeprints. Now tell me what kind of child is able to do this amount of damage to an adult male faunus?" asked Solomon, gesturing at the bodies. "What kind of child can rip a man in two? What kind of child has a stride length of five meters? I'll tell you what kind of child does that — a monster dressed in the skin of a child."
"Then where do you think Cynthia is now?" asked Logan.
"I don't know, but I've got a damn good guess where she is. For all we know, she could be fish food at the bottom of the harbour, but she could also be with the creature, and we need to search the most probable areas. That is why I proposed we search her house, damn it!" said Solomon.
Logan sighed. The detective's intuition would always get the better of him, but in matters such as these, intuition was not evidence and thus could not be used in place of evidence in an affidavit supporting the issuing of a warrant.
"How about this — we analyze the footage of all surveillance cameras in a ten city-block perimeter, as well as the footage outside of Cynthia's apartment complex," proposed Logan.
"Fine, but I need to interview Cynthia. Ask her to come in for an interview if you find her. Don't force her if she refuses — just keep an eye on her movements," said Wong.
"Very well," agreed Logan.
The Boy Who Would Be King
0830 hours, 6th Axial Rotation of Joo'Lie, Valean Time
Western Sector, Commercial District, Vale
"So, what happened? Why were they assaulting you?" asked the boy, his footsteps echoing loud and clear as they resonated across the walls of the empty alleyway. There was a long pause as Cynthia gathered their thoughts. Her heartbeat quickened, and the boy felt as though he had committed an egregious mistake by asking the question.
"I decided to take a shortcut to the cinema after reading the map of the Western Sector. Then these three guys came out of nowhere and began hitting on me," said Cynthia.
"They hit you?"
"No, no," giggled Cynthia. "No. It's a colloquial term. It means...flirting or…making sexual advances towards someone."
"I see," said the boy.
But you don't understand, thought Cynthia.
"Why are we running?" asked Cynthia, struggling to keep up with the inhuman stamina of the boy. He looked ahead, navigating the alleyway with mysterious confidence.
"I'll explain later," said the boy. "So, what exactly did they do?"
"They wanted to have a few drinks with me at a nearby bar. I said no, and then they blocked me…did not allow me to pass. They became…angry and shoved me to the ground. That's when I screamed. Then they began to tear my clothes off, and then…you came," said Cynthia.
"I see," said the boy. He looked up at her, examining her body curiously. By the standards of the humans, she was rather beautiful, which explained the undeniably lustful nature of her assailant's motivations. But that was only half of the equation.
"Did you tell them you're from Atlas, not Mantle?" asked the boy.
"Well, yeah, now that I think of it. They thought I wasn't from around here. Must have been my skin colour that made them ask," said Cynthia.
"I understand," said the boy. It made perfect sense now. They were jealous of her Atlesian heritage.
"You're not exactly talkative, are you?" asked Cynthia. The boy did not reply. "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about why they did what they did," said the boy.
"Well, don't worry too much about it. It's part of human nature to do these things to each other," explained Cynthia.
"That is no explanation. They were Faunus, Cynthia. They were jealous of the privilege and power you possess. Privilege and power, Cynthia. Tell me, did you come from a wealthy family?" asked the boy.
"Well, not exactly. My parents died when I was little, and I was placed in an orphanage, along with my brother. When we took the aptitude tests as kids, my brother and I got into an excellent school because of our results," said Cynthia.
"They would fault you for your inborn talents. For hatred is marrow bound within their pedigrees, Cynthia. They hated you, Cynthia, from the moment you told them of your origins, notwithstanding the hardships you have endured and the good you have done throughout your life. Any transgression acted against the Atlesian kind would be a display of power. They revel in this power, Cynthia," said the boy softly.
"Well…that's a bit of a stretch. So, what do you plan on doing about it?" asked Cynthia, visibly curious.
"I plan on killing the leader of the White Fang, Sienna Khan. Without her leadership, the White Fang will be fractured into a hundred warring cliques. A struggle for power will ensue after the creation of a power vacuum within the organization. After a while, most of the White Fang members will be killed off in the civil war, and I will return and destroy the rest. But there is another figure within the organization. Adam Taurus. He is stronger, faster, and far more charismatic than Sienna. He is a leader who has won the hearts of many members of the White Fang. The animals I killed earlier were of his faction. I will have to kill them both in order to destroy the White Fang," explained the boy.
"I…see. And how are you going to do that? Nobody's able to find the headquarters of the White Fang, not even Atlas," said Cynthia.
"Unfortunately, I do not yet know of the headquarters' location. The men whose hearts I ate were low-ranking grunts. They could not be trusted with such invaluable information," explained the boy. "I will have to do my own research in the days to come."
"Oh. Well, that's…boring," remarked Cynthia. "And what if you do destroy the White Fang's leadership?"
"Then I will kill every one of their members. It will be easy," said the boy.
"Well, I suppose that will be easy for you," remarked Cynthia.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"W-Well, given how you're so into justice. So, where are we going again?" asked Cynthia. She glanced nervously around the brick walls of the alleyway, into the shadows that lay just a few meters away.
"Azalea Condominium, just as you said. This is the safer route," said the boy. "There are no cameras here, and it is quiet. I can hear all things. The beating of your heart. The movements of the creatures in the dark. The flapping of a moth's wings from ten meters away."
"That's…extremely creepy to know. But, safer? Yeah, totally. It's not like I got…you know…in a similar alleyway twenty minutes ago," said Cynthia. "Do you really know where we're going?"
"I know where we're going. It's just round this bend," said the boy as he turned around the corner, and Cynthia followed suit. Ahead of them was a tall, greyscale building with small, steel-grilled windows. The building was neither dilapidated nor fresh, just brutally plain on the outside. Azalea Condominium, it read in violet neon lights, like the cheesy wall-mounted labels of a love hotel.
"That's the …the building. So that's where this opening led! I never bothered to check it out before! How on Remnant did you know how to get here?"
"I read a map," said the boy blankly. "The condo looks more like a hotel from the outside."
"Really? Never thought of it that way," said Cynthia. "When did you read the map?"
"Two days ago, at the library," said the boy. "It was a map of the district from 78 AGW."
"The entire district? Did you remember the whole thing?" asked Cynthia incredulously as they neared the opening, avoiding the festering morasses of rubbish in the alleyway.
"I think so," said the boy. They came to a standstill, just before stepping onto the open junction, onto the concrete pavement. The alleyway was wide and allowed an open view of the entirety of the building's face. Beyond the opening was a silent, empty road. "Don't move. Don't step into the opening."
"Why?"
"Because there are two cameras aimed directly at this intersection zone," said the boy. "Shouldn't you know?"
"I never paid attention," admitted Cynthia. "Any weird abilities would really come in handy now."
The boy gathered his thoughts. "I could destroy the surveillance cameras with a thought."
"How?"
"I don't know how," said the boy. "But that would be a big mistake."
"Why?"
"You haven't called the police, have you?" asked the boy.
"N-No, why?"
"Did you remember to take your torn clothes and put them in your backpack?"
"Y-Yeah?"
"Good. But there is still a chance that they have your identity," said the boy.
"How?"
You touched your assailants' clothes, did you?" said the boy.
"Y-Yeah, I did, when I resisted," said Cynthia.
"Chances are that the first thing they will think of upon matching your fingerprints to your identity would be to check the CCTV footage from outside your apartment. During my journeys throughout the Western Sector, I destroyed many of their cameras with my thoughts out of pure necessity," said the boy.
"Telekinesis," gasped Cynthia. "A powerful semblance."
"I wouldn't say that they're analogous to a semblance. A semblance must be unlocked before it can be used. I did not need to unlock my abilities," said the boy. "But back to the topic — if they watched the footage of the two cameras outside your apartment, and the footage suddenly cuts to black, it will be evident beyond a reasonable doubt that I have associated myself with you."
Cynthia listened. The boy's reasoning was simple but rock-solid, his logic undeniable.
"That makes a lot of sense," agreed Cynthia. "But isn't it already obvious from the state of the bodies and the footprints you must have left behind that you intervened? And couldn't they issue a search warrant?"
"Yes, but you could always lie to them about how I departed shortly afterwards. A search warrant cannot be issued without a probable cause to search for and seize a person or property," said the boy. "Right now, the picture you paint is of a victim of a horrible crime rescued by a vigilante. That's all. If they decide to interview you, do not decline their request."
Cynthia gave a nod of agreement. "So, do you have a plan?"
"I do. Which floor do you stay on? What's your room number?"
"Floor two, room one," said Cynthia.
"Hmm," the boy muttered. He looked up at the building's many windows. It was more thin than wide. Four rooms across and eleven rooms up. In determining the location of her apartment, too many assumptions had to be made. The likelihood of a fallacious line of reasoning was too high for comfort. Asking her would therefore be the simplest - and safest - solution.
"Can you point it out from here?" asked the boy.
"Sure," said Cynthia. She pointed towards a window on the far-left corner of the building.
"Hmm…" The boy gave a displeased growl. "Does it have a balcony? I can't see it from here."
"There are four apartments on one floor. Two on the front side, the other two behind that. Mine's facing the front with a balcony on the left side."
"I see," said the boy. He noted the height of the roof of the building that stood adjacent to the apartment complex. "This is what we're going to do. On a count of three, you will run towards the door at roughly 50 percent the speed at which we were running, enter the building from the main door, and go to your apartment. I'll meet you on the roof, and I'll tell you when I'll be there."
"You're not talking about jumping onto the balcony, are you?" asked Cynthia.
"That is exactly what I'm going to do," replied the boy. "Are you ready?"
"How are we going to stay in contact?"
"There is a way, but you have to go now," urged the boy.
Cynthia took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts.
"Three, two, one — go!"
Cynthia took off, running towards the doors of the apartment. She unlocked the door with a swipe of her key-card and stepped within, through the heavy steel door that swung open with hydraulic silence. She felt the relieving blast of cold air against her greasy forehead, and stood at the lift lobby, panting heavily for a few seconds.
+ Cynthia. +
The voice intruded her thoughts as she closed the door behind herself. It was the boy's. A faculty she never knew existed was crystal clear to her with terrifying spontaneity. It was as though she was blind and could now see.
+ Can you hear me? +
Human language could not describe the aetheric principles that guided Cynthia's formation of her first sentence.
+ I-Is that you? +
She waited nervously for a reply, and the voice returned, powerful and booming like distant thunder and more familiar than ever.
+ Who else could it be? Where are you? +
+ How am I doing this? How are you doing this? Are you a telepath as well? +
+ I'll explain later. Get moving. Where are you now? +
+ In the lift lobby. I'm entering the lift. +
+ Good. There aren't any cameras here. The arrangement of the surveillance cameras in this area is horrendous. So many blind spots. A child could bypass them. Is your apartment the one with the tall blue pot with the disgusting plant on the balcony? +
Cynthia smiled.
+ Yes, that's the one! +
+ Alright. I'm waiting. +
The lift gave a ring as it reached her desired floor. The steel doors opened, and Cynthia hurried out onto the granite flooring.
She turned left and saw the reassuring sight of the wrought-iron grilles that separated the rest of the world from her stainless-steel door. She unlocked it with a brass key. It was a simplistic mechanism, but a reassuring one. The grilles closed resoundingly behind her.
A fingerprint scanner blinked green as it authorized her entry, and the steel door before her unlocked with a pneumatic hiss. She pushed it open, revealing the interiors of a simple studio apartment. Minimalistic. There was a living room before her, equipped with the bare necessities — a sofa, a TV set, and a dining table. Ahead of her, a firm wooden door lay to the left of the apartment, partitioning off her bedroom and toilet, and to her immediate left was a simple kitchen.
But Cynthia was most interested in her balcony now. She stopped, dead in her tracks when she felt a feeling that disturbed her to the core. Something was watching her from the rooftops beyond her balcony. She caught sight of it immediately. It stood twenty meters away, a stark white figure against the aged outcrop of the blackened rooftops, hunched over in a gargoyle's crouch.
+ Open the glass door. +
Cynthia hurried over to the sliding door that partitioned her apartment from the rest of the world. On the outside, it was guarded by an impenetrable lattice of wrought-iron grilles. Glass and iron slid as one as she opened the door. The cool morning wind billowed into Cynthia's apartment, and she caught sight of the boy, his quaint height folded over in the posture of a crone.
+ Step away from the door. Here I come. +
She obeyed, and backed away into one corner, watching the boy's form unfold through a glass window adjacent to the balcony's door.
+ Are there algae on the ground? +
The boy inclined his head curiously.
+ Yes. I won't bear down too hard on it. +
+ What? +
+ Is that not what you meant? If I step too hard on the algae, it will leave footprints. +
+ I…didn't think of that. No, that's not what I meant. I just wanted to tell you that the floor might be slippery because of the algae. Well, whatever floats your boat, right? But how are you going to prevent footprints from forming? +
+ They won't form. +
With that, the boy charged, covering the twenty meters in under a second. He was as light as a feather. He leapt across the chasm of concrete and vaulted over the wrought-iron balustrade, landing with a feline's finesse in the centre of Cynthia's living room.
Cynthia had barely registered his movements, and yet again she was reminded of the inhuman speeds at which the child could move.
"Sorry for the mess," said the boy. He stared down at the dirty footprints he'd left on the floor as he made his way over to the shoe wooden shoe rack.
"It's alright," replied Cynthia, who closed the door of the balcony immediately, locking it behind her. "You've done so much for me in the past half hour. Use these slippers."
Cynthia threw a pair of large yellow slippers at the boy's feet. He removed Jeffery's boots and slid into them nimbly.
"So," said the boy, looking around the living room. "I take it that you don't live with anyone?"
"No, why do you ask?" asked Cynthia.
"Do you have any relatives in Vale?" asked the boy.
"No, but I have a brother in Atlas," said Cynthia, mopping the dirt off the floor. "Why do you ask?"
The boy was silent. He washed his hands in the steel basin, watching the cracked carmine dissolve into the water. He dried his white hands with a cloth before turning to Cynthia.
"I'm curious," he said. "When do you think the police will come knocking on your door?"
"I don't know…maybe in half an hour?" replied Cynthia, who stared at the beads of water on the clean floor. "Wait, did you touch anything?"
"Not yet," said the boy. Though I did touch the tap's handle. It wouldn't matter. I have a plan for that."
Cynthia gave a grunt of disapproval. "Well, so what now?"
"You don't happen to have any spare clothes, do you?" asked the boy.
"They'd be oversized for you," replied Cynthia.
"That's fine. I'll be oversized for them in a matter of weeks," said the boy. Cynthia looked at him strangely. "Well, I'm taking a shower," said the boy, opening the door to Cynthia's bedroom. "It's in here, isn't it?"
"Yes, you can use the shampoo and soap to clean your hair and body. But…what about the police?"
The boy looked at her oddly. "What about them?"
"They're coming, aren't they? You know it."
The boy glanced at the clock on the wall. He weighed Cynthia's words carefully.
Here he was, staring at the clock at eight fifty-six in the morning, just as he had foreseen. Here he was, thinking of the recursion that inundated this very moment, just as he had foreseen. He fancied hearing the grains of time run out as the seconds passed.
He had seen everything from start to finish, but now the future was murky. He was blinded. He was uncertain. Cynthia wouldn't understand, but everything was on the line now. Everything. He had set the entirety of his computational prowess towards orchestrating everything, from fingerprints he had left behind on the skin and clothing of the brutes, to engineering the speed at which they ran through the alleyway to the, to the very inflexion of his voice.
Every action he had planned, however minute. It all boiled down to the few hours that would come to pass. The boy looked at Cynthia, and said with a sigh —
"They will come."
AN: I should really give the Primarch a name. I'm tired of calling him 'the boy'. But I can't find one.