...
...
...
[ Location: Same Place... ]
He checked his phone. 9:15 PM.
He had lost another span of his precious time thanks to these idiots. But as he adjusted his grip on the plastic bag and continued his walk home, a highly satisfied smirk could be seen on his face.
...
...
Cassius was halfway out of the body filled arena, snack load held tight in his grip still, perfect and unbloody.
Until the atmosphere switched.
Tik!
"DIEEE!!!"
A shadow detached itself from the side. Yelling a ironic word as a shing~! Sounded.
Some twitchy-eyed, bloodlusting brat popped up in Cassius's peripheral vision.
The boy, from what Cassius could easily make out with ease, looked around sixteen, with a scrawny, stick like build, looking as if he'd been marinating in cheap speed for the pass few minutes. The boy had lunged out from the depths, a knife held tight in his hand.
The boy was shaking. Even as he lunged, he was shaking so hard the blade did aswell. It was pathetic, really. Pathetic and slow.And as for the strike? Well, said "strike" would be easy for any functioning human to dodge just by... leaning slightly to the left.
That easy. The stike lacked true drive, even with the weak killing intent.
Cassius, however, wasn't interested in being a functioning human being. Because come on now, this wasn't Cassius. He doesn't associate with the word "normal".
What he was actually more interested in though, was still being a show boating dumbass.
So Instead of dodging, instead of slapping the knife away, he simply watched the blade's trajectory with the detached curiosity of a bored sloth. With a calculated, theatrical flourish, he snapped his hand up, stilling it just infront of his mug (face).
SRPLAAT!!
"Huh?" The blade welder let out, confusion taking over his paranoid expression.
The steel tore through the center of Cassius's palm with a smooth, grisly slide. The tip cleanly erupted through the back of his hand, halting just a meeere millimeter from his left eyeball.
The kid's breath hitched, a stuttering, broken sound as he watched the blade slide through. 'W-what the hell...'
The boys mind flew off course, the brain cells he had driving into confusion. He had, with his whole heart, expected a dodge, a weave, a scream. Cause even he knew his strike wasn't going to land. He literally watched this dude dodge attacks simultaneously.
How the fuck could his attack possibly land? That was impossible.
What was even more confusing than his hit landing, something that even his brain couldn't comprehend, was that he expected Cassius to at least drop to his knees and beg for his life like every other victim in this piss-stained part of town. At least scream in agonizing pain, winch at the pain spiking his system.
That was how it normally went.
He had a fuckin' knife through his hand for godsake! He should be screaming right now!
But there was no scream...
Because Cassius felt... absolutely nothing.
To him, pain was a concept he'd discarded years ago, somewhere between the first time he was beaten into the dirt and the tenth time he'd crawled back up. And also... because of his #@%&.
To him, the steel in his flesh felt like a mild, inconvenient pressure. That's all.
As the knife sat there, inside of his palm, Cassius couldn't be bothered to pull away. He just stared through the gap between the blade and his own pupil, his expression flat and unimpressed.
"Is this it?" Cassius asked the welder, his voice a low, taunting sound. "All that effort. All that time I let you hype yourself up... just for a piercing~? That's so ass, bro. I'm very disappointed in you. Veeery disappointed."
'I at least thought he'll have a gun or some shit... mannn, fuck. I could of had me another free gun... damn.' Internally, Cassius was highly unsatisfied. All that three minute prep wasted for nothing. He had all his hopes up for this kid, but now that didn't mean anything.
He slowly rotated his wrist, forcing the knife, and the kid's white-knuckled hand still attached to the hilt, closer to the boy's own face. 'For disappointing me... I'll hand you free nightmares for now.'
He wanted the brat to see his own handiwork, which is why he pushed his hand closer. He wanted the remaining thugs, the ones still conscious enough to groan and gaze his way, to witness the lack of humanity in his eyes.
Drip~ Drip~ Drip~
The thugs watched in a paralyzed, uncanny silence. Their faces masks of horror, eyes darting from the blood dripping onto the concrete to the blonde freak who was acting like he'd just been tapped on the shoulder.
The kid tried to let go. His fingers uncurled from the hilt, trembling so violently he looked like he was having a seizure. He tumbled backwards, his sneakers skidding on the grime.
"W-w-what the fuck are you, man. " the boy stammered, his vocal chords cracking into a high-pitched sob.
But there was no response from Cassius. In all honesty, he had a far better idea then mere words. Something way more "demon-tier~ "
He tilted his head, his eyes locking onto the kid with a mischievous glint. He brought his hand up to his face slowly, simultaneously opening his mouth aswell, and clamped his teeth onto the warm hilt protruding from his palm.
Slowly, with a deliberate, grating sound of metal sliding against bone and flesh, he pulled the knife out of his own hand using nothing but his jaw.
Sllurrp! Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip!
Tuaa~!
Once fully out of his hand, he spat the blade into his bloody palm, the metal wobbling against the hilt. He didn't even look at the hole in his hand, because he'll still feel the same.
He just rolled his eyes, a lazy, dismissive gesture at the boys fear.
"My turn," he whispered, the two words traveling to the boy's eardrums.
Before the kid could turn to run, swOOOSH! Cassius blurred forward. He took that same blood-slicked knife and drove it down, sticking the metal deep into the boy's thigh, twisting it violently to ensure the scar would be a lifelong souvenir.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"
A loud scream ripped through his throat, tearing down both sides of street, making the conscious men groan louder at the sheer volume.
Cassius stood back to his full height, watching the kid repeatedly collapse and clutch his leg as he back away.
On Cassius face, there was no shred of remorse, no feeling of guilt at what he just did. In fact, he felt a bit of a buzz from it. It was a hypocritical high. The kind only a monster who hunts other monsters can truly enjoy.
But unlike other monsters, Cassius has already acknowledged that was just as much of a piece of shit as they were. He would even go so far as to say; he was worser.
He has already accepted that about himself.
He looked around at the broken men littering the ground, gave a final, mocking half-smirk, and resumed his walk onde again. The streetlights hummed with a low-voltage vibration, somehow syncing up with the pulse in his hand.
He adjusted his grip on the snacks load, squinting at a black-and-white CCTV camera mounted above a defunct laundromat.
'Wonder if that caught my good side?' he thought to himself.
"I hope the guy who watches that has good quality," he muttered, checking the makeshift napkin-bandage he had put on his palm as he walked. "It'd be a crime to waste that fight on grainy 480p."
And yes. Cassius knows what he's doing. He knows, okay.
He knew leaving them alive was what a "good observer" might call a colossal fuck ass move. A very "merciful" move.
Understandable.
Because in every movie he watched, every anime he has seen, every novel he has read, the villains just crawl out of the hospital, or whatever place they end up in, three weeks later for that villain revenge bullshit.
That cliché always, always happens.
No matter which world, timeline, or whatever, it was a guaranteed must.
Leaving them there was, in the grand scheme of survival, exceptionally stupid. So highly retarded that you just face palm in disappointment. One of those little shits was bound to have an older brother with a larger gun and a shorter temper.
Or, even the gang they roll with, who'll probably be ego hurt from the soon-to-be famous video if the laundromat owner decides to up load it.
Their name and reputation will be mocked and laughed at from the internet trolls. Which will lead them on a relentless drive to find Cassius.
But, unfortunately, the camera changed the math. If he'd finished the job, if he'd turned that alley into a bloodbath, the police wouldn't see a charming teenager defending his right to fight. They'd see a massacre. A killer. A high risk suspect on the loose.
He'll have to go on the run, face all over the news channels around the world, putting his family in even more harm.
And while Cassius was fully committed to his villainous aesthetic, he wasn't ready for the "High-Security Prison" arc. Not yet. He had things to do outside of walls.
"Self-defense," he whispered to himself, a small, smug smile on his face. "Borderline-psychotic self-defense. But the law is a flexible mistress. Plus, in this world, the government's are still the same just like on 'earth',"
'Pedophiles.' He added internally. 'Can't trust none of 'em.'
Besides, there was a secondary benefit. He really, really wanted that footage. He could just see it now: him sitting on their couch, feet up, narrating the fight to some onfused and sleepy siblings while eating the very chips he'd fought to protect.
That was just... so tempting to him. But sadly, he had no-way of getting that footage, since this was the age of technology. Those cameras were probably app commanded, so he couldn't simply steal it from inside.
As Cassius walked, the street of bodies growing smaller and smaller behind him, the smile on his mug... dimmed slightly.
Cassius wasn't merciful. Mercy was a luxury for people who didn't grow up in a meat grinder. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He just had a schedule to keep maintained.
'Ah-Rin's situation first,' he decided, 'win that bet, kiss boom that cute human, secure the bet goods. Then...'
Then he'd come back for the heads. In the daylight or night, he didn't care. Because honestly, who gives a fuck about a few missing gang members? The world had plenty of them.
He'd do it cleanly this time, without the cameras, and without witnesses. He knew too many ways to stop a heart using nothing but a thumb and a bit of leverage, and none of them involved getting blood on himself.
So he was cooling for now.
...
...
...
[ Hours later: 8:33 AM ]
[ Location: Park Family Residences. ]
"Puppies... battle pup... paw squad..." A voice murmured. Followed by lazy snoring.
Hrrrrrrgghh-glk~~shhhh~~
The person currently muttering about battle dogs in his sleep, and snoring soundly, was non-other than Cassius.
The morning light was, at this very moment, being an unwelcoming intruder, cutting through the gap in the curtains to land in a sharp, blinding strip across the bed.
The golden light Illuminated the faded green face of Shrek on the duvet, making the ogre's smirk look particularly judgmental in the early hour. Beneath the layers of tangled cotton, Cassius was a heavy, motionless shape of limbs and clothes.
As for his blonde hair, usually styled with willpower alone, was now a matted disaster of strands pointing toward the ceiling.
He was deep in that heavy, thick sleep that usually follows a night of doing things best left unsaid. The type of sleep that needed a titanic horn to flip them out of bed.
His left hand was tucked awkwardly against his chest, now engulfed with a black cycling glove, designed with a skeleton hand on top. Beneath the glove, the small bulk of a bandage remained hidden.
When he gotten home, he had wrapped it up himself, navigating to the bathroom with unhurried steps at 9:28 PM.
Under the bandage, string of stitch material was professionally done on it, which were meant to keep the slice across his palm closed, and from staining the sheets, or, more importantly, from catching the sharp eyes of his grandmother.
Because nothing went passed her eyes unseen, Rachel could spot a lie (unless your too good at it) or a limp from across a field; a bloody palm would be a death sentence of questions he wasn't ready to answer. Seeing her worry aswell wouldn't be good for his youthful health.
But let's not focus on that right now. Currently, something else was brooing at this very moment.
Creeek~
Outside the door, the floorboards gave a treacherous, low creak.
"You're gonna spill it, dimwit. Hold it properly," a girl's voice hissed. It was low, sharp with the kind of anxiety that only a nine-year-old could fully muster up.
"I am, 'dim~wit'. Just... stop pushing me, Haze. Or I really am gonna spill it," Daemon whispered back, just as low in tone as she was.
The reason why they were arguing quietly was quite simple.
It was cause of the plastic souvenir cup from a local diner, the one he was currently holding with vice grip tightness. It was filled to the precarious brim with tap water and three ice cubes that rattled against the sides with every trembling step.
"If he wakes up before you dump it, I'm running," Hazel warned. She stood a few feet back, her arms crossed tight over her chest. "I'll tell him it was your idea. I'll even tell him you made me help, so shush."
Daemon shot her a look of pure, sibling-fueled betrayal. "Why you lying? You wanted to do this just as much as I did. So you can't tell me to shush and lie. Your just as guilty!"
"Shhhh! Just open the damn door, you crybaby."
Daemon was already reaching out, his fingers fumbling with the brass knob, "I already was, so stuff you, skid mark..."
(Note~ skid mark means: Shit stain in a underwear if you didn't know.)
He turned it with agonizing slowness, click~ the click of the latch sounding like a firecracker in the quiet upstairs hallway. They froze, holding their breath until their lungs ached, waiting for the giant inside to stir.
"....."
"....."
When only the sound of heavy, loud breathing met them, Daemon resumed his movements by pushing the door open further, and crept into the room.
The air in the bedroom smelled of old sneakers, stink feet, and nice smelling cologne.
Cassius looked annoyingly peaceful, his face smoothed out of its usual mischief smirk. To Daemon, it felt like a cosmic injustice that someone who caused so much trouble could sleep so soundly.
This was their motivation, their reason for this prank, all because of the injustice of their older brother getting golden boy treatment. Hypocritical of them, since their more spoiled then he was, but they didn't know that. They didn't know they were being hypocrites. They were still too young.
Daemon approached the bedside, his heart thudding against his breastbone, thrill bubbling up as he gazed at Cassius. He raised the cup, his hands shaking so much that a small splash of water escaped, dark spots blooming on the carpet.
'Okay, daemon, you got this, you got this, don't wuss out now. Just tilte and run, tilte and run...' In the boy's mind, he egged himself on, calming his nerves and putting more fuel into his buzz of the prank.
'One... two..... THREE!!'
He tipped his wrist.
SSPLAAAASH!!
The ice-cold cascade hit Cassius squarely on the cheek and neck, wetting the entirety of his face and hair as the ice cubes slipped into his shirt.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Just silence and sharp intakes of breathe from both siblings. They held their breaths, waiting. Then, the transformation kicked in. Cassius didn't blink or groan awake; his eyes just snapped open, wide, blue, and startlingly focused.
"H-hi, brother," Daemon whispered.
Claack-T-t-t-t-t!!
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!!
He immediately dropped the cup and bolted. His sneakers squeaked on the hardwood, his legs churning like a cartoon character before he finally found traction and shot toward the door.
"HAZE! RU---?! WHERE'D YOU GO!?"
"BYEEE!" Hazel shrieked, already halfway down the hall. She hadn't even waited to see the whole spill and impact, her footsteps were already thundering toward the stairs before he tipped the cup.
"OH, YOU WUSSY!" Daemon yelled, his small body whipping out of his brothers bedroom door.
Cassius surged out of the mess of blankets. He instantly threw his legs over the side of the mattress and stood, water dripping from his chin onto his soaked shirt. At this very moment, he looked less like a brother and more like a prideful person that had just been insulted.
"YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!!" He yelled out to them, his voice deep with sleep-grit but carrying a weight that made the windowpane rattle.
He lunged from his bedside towards the door, his gloved hand catching the frame to whip himself around. As his hand slammed onto the doorframe, there was no flinch or even a winch when his injured palm hit the wood.
He still felt nothing.
He reached the side of the stairs and stopped. He could clearly hear them below, the frantic, clumsy sounds of two kids realizing they were in over their heads. From what he could gather in that short time, was, they were heading for the kitchen, probably hoping Grandma Rachel's presence would act as a magical shield.
Fortunately, the kitchen was still pretty far. (Long hall way.)
Cassius decided on not taking the stairs down. He looked at the wooden horizontal line banister overlooking the hallway just a gap away, a shortcut he'd been warned about a thousand times. He took three massive steps back, then three more massive strides forwards and... vaulted.
For a second, he was flying. Airborne like a beautiful bird.
Only to have the world correct itself. Correct itself with something he totally forgot about.
A wrought-iron light fixture, a heavy thing with sharp edges that Rachel loved, hung directly in his path. BONK!! His forehead met the metal head on.
The impact sent his focus, and him, spinning mid-air, his momentum dying as he clipped the railing with his foot. He hit the hardwood floor of the first story with a crash that seemed to vibrate through the foundation of the house.
He lied there, face now kissing the ground, while jeeping himself perfectly still.
Crrrink~! Crrink~!
The light fixture continued to swing, its chain creaking in the sudden silence.
Scureeek!
Scureeek!
Daemon and Hazel skidded to a halt at the end of the hall, having just made it down the long staircase, their eyes widening as they stared at the still frame of their brother.
Seconds went by....
"....."
"....."
Followed by five more seconds of pindrop silence.
"C-cass?" Daemon asked, his tone small and shaky. "You... okay?"
From his side, Hazel took a tentative step forward, her arms outstretched sideways like a criminal tip-toeing, as she took cautious peek over. "Is he dead...? Daemon, did we just kill him?"
Another five more seconds passed. Till a solid ten joined the train.
The silence was still heavy, broken only by the drip of water from Cassius's hair onto the floor.
Unseen by the siblings, his fingers twitched.
THUD THUD!
With a sudden, explosive movement, Cassius slammed his hands down and popped upward. Like a human spring boosting upwards.
There was no struggle to his feet, or, pain as he pulled the move off; he simply launched himself into a standing position, as if he was nothing but a feather, with his jaw set and a red welt already blooming on his forehead.
He let his half-lidded gaze fall onto them, a twitch at both corners of his mouth, as a smirk appeared slowly.
"Nah... but yous are dead," he calmly said. "Hmphf~!!"
SWOOOooosh!
"KYAAAAA~!!!"
The scream that left Hazel's throat was genuine. A scream so sudden, she unconsciously did something that was top ten saddest moments ever to happen in this house.
As Cassius lunged forward, she grabbed Daemon's shoulder and gave him a hard, desperate shove directly into their brother's path.
"HE DID IT! NOT MEEE!" she yelled, already darting toward the lounge with the adrenalines help.
"YOU TRAITOR!!"
Daemon cried out with disbelief, the hurt slipping in just as he was stumbling forward. He had no time to stand upright and run. So, he hit the floor and slid, his small frame passing right between Cassius's legs like a baby penguin. He felt the rush of air as a hand swiped at his feet, missing him by a hair.
"I'M SORRY, BROTHER!" He yelled to Cassius.
He scrambled up on the other side and tore after the kitchen's safely.
BUMP!!
They, the two young siblings, met at the kitchen doorway, both trying to fly through at the exact same time. At the speed they were heading, it only did what it was bound to do sooner or later.
CRACK! Their heads collided with a sharp crack, a forehead-to-temple impact that sent them both sprawling onto the kitchen with pained groans.
"Owwww! Awww, that's sorwww!"
"Ouuuch! Dammit!"
They came to a perfect stop at the feet of Grandma Rachel.
Cassius's bare footsteps hit the floor wood as he approached the kitchen.
He stood in the doorway a second later, blocking the exit fully. He had no intention of moving forward since this place was a danger zone for him. He just brought his right hand up, messing up his hair to shake the water off it while spray of drops flew to floor.
He watched them with an unreadable expression as he messed up his hair, the red mark on his head looking like an Indian dot.
"Move over, you're hurting my damn arm, " Daemon hissed, trying to wedge his head behind Rachel's sturdy calf as he held his throbbing forehead.
"I was here first!" Hazel hissed right back, her eyes watering from the bump on her head. She tried to pull more of Rachel's apron over her shoulder, tugging the apron out of her brothers grip. "And you're the one who hit me! You almost got us caught, you idiot!"
"Oh, C'mon! You hit AND pushed me first! You literally used me as a shield, Hazel! That's so mean!"
"It was a diversion, duh! It's what you do in an emergency!"
"Use your damn self then! Not your goddamn brother!"
Above them, Rachel had zero focus on the two arguing siblings. She just kept stirring the scrambled eggs, her spatula moving in perfect circular motions.
The kitchen was warm, filled with the scents of breakfast and the quiet, heavy tension of a standoff.
"If either of you gets a smudge on my clean floor," Rachel said, her tone completely calm, "you'll wish you stayed in bed."
The bickering momentarily stopped as both siblings looked up at their grandmother.
...
...
...
The kitchen air was overflowed with the hazy golden light, the bright light currently seeping through the curtain, painting the kitchen in gold. All while the eggs and cooking bacon fat and the sweet, heavy scent of pancake batter hung in the air.
Giving the kitchen that... aura. That aura of a home filled with love and brightness.
Even while a sibling standoff was happening in 4k. It still held that warming aura of home.
Grandma Rachel moved within the cloud and gold, her spatula scraping the cast iron with a sharp, metallic ring that seemed to keep time with the chaos. She still hadn't taken her eyes off of the cooking breakfast.
Her focus too much to even look up as the two smaller bodies collided with her legs, clinging like baby koalas.
"Grandma, please, you have to tell him," Daemon pleaded from below. He had his face pressed into the print of her apron, his voice muffled by the stiff fabric. "He's standing in the doorway like... like he's deciding which one of us to eat first. Look at him! He looks spooky!"
"I'm too busy, Daemon," Rachel muttered. She flipped a pancake with a flick of her wrist, watching the golden-brown disc cook into the sizzle. "And stop wiping your nose on my apron. That's yuck. You aswell, Hazel."
Hazel was on the other side, her fingers locked around Rachel's leg.
She was smaller, more prone to wide-eyed stares, and currently, those eyes were fixed on the shadow looming at the edge of the kitchen. "He's too scary, Grandma, I just can't help it. Okay! So please don't move, Ma!"
Cassius was obviously still there, still hovering ominously at the door. He was now leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, his damp shirt clinging to his shoulders in dark patches. A single bead of water rolled from his messy blonde hair, tracking down his cheek, but he made no move to wipe it away.
He just watched them, a quiet, heavy presence that made the kitchen feel like a hot and cold battle for dominance.
Rachel sighed, the sound long and weary. She set the spatula down inside of pan and turned, her hip bumping Hazel gently to the side. She looked and double taked Cassius, her gaze moving up and down with her head. Then she finally looked down at the two trembling anchors at her feet.
"Cassius," Rachel called.
"Yeah, Ma?" He tried to sound casual, but there was small evidence of stiffness there.
"If you don't move your backside out of my doorway and get a towel for that mess, I am so gonna smack a spoon across your ass..."
The threat hung in the air, familiar and weighted with promise.
Cassius straightened out his posture a bit. The unreadable expression he'd been holding flickered, then crept into confusion.
"But why? I'm just standing here," he muttered, though he finally pushed off the frame. "And plus, they should clean it. Not me."
"Tough luck, son~son. You make it, you clean it. Now off you go." Rachel turned her attention back to the stove, but she reached out and ruffled Daemon's hair with a hand that reeked of flour and salt. "And you two. If you spend another second under my feet, you aren't getting a single bite of these pancakes. So get on out of here. Now."
Cassius grumbled something under his breath, mostly about the unfairness of his grandmother, before he went toward the laundry room.
Luckily, It was only few steps away, a cramped little alcove off the main kitchen, but that didn't stop him from moving like he was walking to a funeral.
The two siblings stayed frozen for five heartbeat, ignoring their grandma's shooing entirely. They watched Cassius disappear behind the doorframe.
Like two owls,
They turned their heads to look at each other, slow and in unison. No words were exchanged, or even needed. Because their was wide-eyed, frantic flickers realization were the words alone.
The path to the front door was finally clear.
With a nod of understanding, they flew up and ran for the heavens gates.
Not even trying to be quiet mouses.
As soon as they scrambled for the hallway, Cassius emerged from the laundry room, a crumpled towel in his hand.
As he entered the kitchen again, he had just caught the blur of their heels disappearing through the door.
"Motherfuckers!" He murmured.
Without a waste of ime, he flattened the towel up with quick flicks of his wrist and launched it with pinpoint accuracy, letting it thump onto the wet patch he'd left behind before hauling ass after them.
By the time he reached the midpoint of the long hallway, the heavy thud of the front door echoed against the walls, which told him he was already too late.
Outside, the siblings were already off the porch and on the street, fueled by the kind of adrenaline only sibling terror can provide.
...
...
...
[ Outside. ]
The screen door slapped against the frame behind him, a tinny rattle that signaled the end of the kitchen's standoff.
Cassius stepped onto the porch, the humid morning air hitting his flawless skin. The surge inside him (pause), that icy, electric jolt from the bucket of water and the sharp crack of his skull against the floor, was finally beginning to ebb.
In its place, a heavy, syrupy fog settled into his limbs.
He watched the two small blurs of his siblings vanish around the corner of the fruit shop, their sneakers slapping the pavement in a desperate, and now, fading rhythm.
"Ahhh~!"
With a slow, bone-deep exhale, Cassius scanned the porch lazily and found a pair of his grandmother's rubber slides --- they were two sizes too small and a garish shade of light pink --- he shoved his massive feet into them anyway, the heels hanging off the back slightly, and began a sluggish, heavy-footed trot toward the streets.
By the time he rounded the corner where the crates of Korean pears and apples were stacked high, the road was a desert. There were people on the main street, but Daemon and Hazel had already got away into the labyrinth of those said people.
Cassius slowed to a halt. His damp white t-shirt clung to the broad planes of his shoulders, turning even more black in patches as small drops fell from his "still" wet hair.
His basketball shorts hung low on his hips, sagging just passed his kneecaps, and his blonde hair was now flat.
Now, instead of the prideful person look, He seemed more like a college student who had been rudely evicted from a nap.
A wet one~.
The drive to hunt them was slowly leaving his system. Even if he went through all that effort, it was too humid for a vendetta now, and the headache was starting to throb behind his left eye.
He decided, with a lazy shrug of his shoulders, that he would find them eventually. They had to come home for breakfast, after all.
'Not like they can stay out here forever, sooo...' He internally noted to himself.
With that being said, he set into a slow, confident swagger, his grandmother's slides thwacking against his feet.
He decided to go to a small corner mart, a local place where he and Grandma Rachel usually went to bye stuff.
Minutes passed by just like that.
Cassius was halfway to the corner mart when he realized he was actually talking to himself. He had actually forgot why he wanted to go to the mart, the morning sun and small sleep fog, making him forget why he wa walking that way.
It was only after his body, which was slowly drying up, told him it needed water.
Basically kicking his ass so it can feel the blissful sensation of "hydration" once again. His mind was just a repetitive, thirsty loop of water-water-water-water bouncing around in his skull.
Tik~! He kicked a loose pebble, watching it skip into the gutter, and shoved his hands into his pockets.
He finally made it to the corner mart, his thirst building up more, as if it could feel the water near.
Ding~!
The bell above the door gave a gentle, but dying ding as he shoved his way inside.
At first, he didn't look. He was already aiming for the back coolers, his G-ma's slides smoothing on the clean floor, until the tension in the air founds its enemy, and bitch slapped him.
It felt like walking into a desert that was cold.
Weird and unnatural.
"Hurry the fuck up! Empty it!" A voice roared from infront of him.
At the counter, some twitchy guy in a jacket three sizes too big was waving a pistol around, certainly looking quite goofy as he did it.
The two cashiers were backed up against the lottery ticket display, looking like they were praying to dissolve into the floor.
Fear etched across their faces.
"Put the... put the money... fuck! Put the cash in the bag, man! Hurry!" the robber, because that was quite obvious, demanded frantically.
His voice was doing that embarrassing cracking thing that happens when you're trying to be scary but your ballsacks haven't fully dropped. That thing.
Cassius stopped dead in his tracks, blinking repeatedly at the scene currently blessing his eyeballs.
He just stared, his head tilting to the side slightly.
'Oh, wow,' he thought, a genuine, stupid grin forming. 'A daylight robbery..... what a start to a day... again. Alsoo..... I FOUND MY FATED GUN!! YES! FUCK YOU, MY SON FROM LASTNIGHT! FUCK YOU!'
Internally, Cassius was stooked. Because just last night, he had been very, very disappointed. All because he couldn't have the satisfaction of stealing another man's gun.
But now.... now hecould.
"Yoooo~," Cassius dragged out, his voice loud and too annoyingly casual for what was transpiring right now. "You're holding that shit all wrong, bro. You're gonna sprain your wrist if you shoot, y'know that right?"
The robber jumped, frightened by the sudden voice. He spun around, his eyes bugging out. "W-who the fuck are you! No, wait! Hey!Get the fuck on the ground! Or I'll... I'll shoot you, I swear to God!"
Cassius chuckled, the threat flying harmlessly over his head.
"With what? That toy? You can't even keep your hand still, mate, how the fuck are you gonna hit me~?" Cassius scoffed while rolling his shoulders.
"And you know what? Fuck you, give it here. You're clearly stressed and making a clown out of yourself."
"Just get the fuck dow---!!?!"
The guy started to scream something else, but the words got stuck in his throat. Cassius didn't "move" in the way normal people move.
Nah...
One second he was ten feet away, complaining about the guy's clown show; the next, he was a blur of motion.
Swissssh!
He wasn't going to use a takedown technique, since this was Cassius after all. So instead of the woosh-Ka-chow! He just appeared beside the guy and plucked the gun out of the man's hand with the same impatient energy he'd use to grab a bag of chips.
"Thanks, man," Cassius cheerfully chirped.
He stepped back, tossing the weapon up and catching it by the grip, his thumb immediately finding the safety. He felt a sudden, ridiculous rush of warmth, like one might feel after finding a long-lost pet.
He slid his index finger into the trigger guard, before casually, with a confidence so radiant it could blind, started spinning the gun smoothly around his finger.
"But dude, seriously," Cassius said with a deliberate slowness, looking at the robber, who was currently staring at his own empty hand in total shock. "You have no idea. I've been, like, vibrating with depression since last night and you, my friend, just cured it. Fate sure is being such a bro today, am I right?"
As if Cassius's voice was the golden key, the robber finally found his own voice. "W-wait! G-give... give that back! That's my---whoa, whoa, whoa, hey wait!!"
BANG!!
Cassius shot him.
The sound was sharp, like a very heavy book hitting the floor type sharp.
The robber let out a high-pitched "GLAAAH!!!" and hit the deck, clutching his foot with horror in his eyes. He started rolling around, sobbing and making a wet, pathetic mess on the tile.
"Ugh, come one," Cassius groaned, looking genuinely annoyed by the man. "It's a flesh wound, dude. You're fine. Well, you're not fine, but you're not dead, either. Just... I don't fuckin' know. Breathe?"
Ignoring the wailing man, Cassius wandered over to the cooler. To his actual mission.
He spent a good thirty seconds debating between sparkling and still water, eventually grabbing a bottle of the expensive stuff because, hey, it was a celebration today.
He walked back to the register, stepping over the robber's thrashing legs with a huff of irritation. He pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket and slapped it onto the counter. The cashier was still trembling. Trembling so hard his glasses were slipping off his nose.
"He's all yours, nerd dude," Cassius casually told the cashier, gesturing vaguely at the guy on the floor with "his" new gun. "Call the men in clue, or whatever. I don't really care."
With his help not needed no more, he shoved the gun into his waistband, the metal cold against his skin, and threw his white shirt over to cover the killing machine.
"Thanks for the water!" he called out over his shoulder.
The door dinged again, and Cassius stepped back out into the light, whistling a tune that was wildly out of key, leaving a very confused crime scene behind him.
"What the actual flipping fuck did I just witness?"
The one who muttered that, shaky and shocked filled, was the other worker there, the one who had been silent this whole time just watching. The girl Clark went back and forth, her eyes moving from the robber to the door, then back to the robber.
"I don't know," the nerdy cashier whispered, already pressing the shop phone to his ear as his glasses slid down more. "I don't know anything at this point..."
The line clicked. A calm, professional voice broke through the static.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"Uh, yes, hi. I would like to report a crime...."
...
...
...
"Hhhh... haaaah~. Fresh air."
Click~!
He cracked the seal on his water bottle, took a long, slow pull that drained half the bottle, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Ahh~
The rest of the water he held onto with a petty, calculated grip. He could already see it: the look on Daemon's face when a cold stream of water hit the back of his neck just as he thought he'd be "safe" for now.
The thought alone brought a faint twitch to the corner of his mouth.
He turned onto the main thoroughfare. The robbery already forgotten, irrelevant in his now bored mind again.
Still satisfied. But his boredom was like arch nemesis to his daily life, a thing that had no time or even waited for time. Just show up and that's it.
Only a certain amount of things can block it. But those things were currently else we're.
That didn't stop him, though, he still looked the same, and as he walked deeper, away from a crime scene, people started noticing.
Even in this state, disheveled, and wearing feminine footwear, he moved with an inherent, quiet magnetism. It was the kind of presence that made the bustling morning crowd of the Seoul suburb stutter.
Women and girls in neat clothes whispered behind their hands, throwing glances at the so called "prince" who looked like he'd just rolled out of a dream.
"He's so hot~!"
"I know riight! I wonder what his name is~?"
"If only I could marry someone like that... haaah~." A middle-aged woman muttered.
"You say something, mama?" A little girl asked with confusion, looking up at the middle-aged woman with a head tilt.
"No, dear. Just eat your ice cream."
Elderly men paused their walks to squint at the tall, blonde anomaly navigating their neighborhood with such indifferent ease.
Cassius saw none of it. He was too busy calculating which alleyway Hazel would pick, since she was the brains out of hem. From a distant memory, Cassius knew that she always favored the one with the most stray cats.
'Yeah, like that's any help at all.' He thought. 'That could be all of them.'
He reached the major intersection, the signal light flashing a steady green. He stepped off the curb, intending to cross and double back toward the residential blocks.
Only for the world to completely slid sideways.
It wasn't a physical shift, but a sensory one. His ears, tuned to a height far beyond the hum of city traffic and distant bus brakes, caught a sound.
It came from blocks away, muffled by concrete and glass, yet it arrived in his mind with the clarity of a bell.
It wasn't the shrill, playful shriek of a sibling game for hide and seek.
Not even close.
It was a raw, visceral sound, a tearing of the throat born from the kind of terror that leaves no room for breath.
"CASSIUS!!!!!!"
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the lazy teenager in the slides was gone. His spine straightened, his eyes sharpening with a flicker of,
Killing intent passing through them.
A group of pedestrians was still looking at him, a young woman mid-sentence as she pointed him out to her friend.
"He's over there. Look. You see him?"
They blinked.
In that mere blink, the space where the blonde boy had been standing was empty.
There was only a sudden, violent gust of wind that kicked up a handful of dried leaves and a discarded candy wrapper.
A faint, receding crack of stone echoed through the intersection, marking the spot where he had launched himself forward with a force that defied the laws of the street.
He was, once again, a blur of motion already far away, moving toward the scream at a speed that made sports cars look slow.
<><><><><><>
END.