Julian…
Before he came to this world called Erebus ten years ago, and before all the chaos that unfolded after his father Stefan died, Marcus lived with him as if he were a part of their family.
Or at least, that is how he saw it.
The Bronx, year 2013.
He had asked his father if he could convince William to train him in martial arts just like he was doing for Marcus.
At first, William seemed open to the idea given that his first practice sparring with Marcus left him with a broken nose and shattered expectations.
He clearly never would have accepted the proposal of training Julian as well if Marcus didn’t give him the opportunity.
Not to mention the fact that Julian was three years older than him and much physically stronger.
Yet when the two of them did get around to doing a bit of practice sparring, the disappointment and boredom showing on William’s face was all too clear to him.
While Julian was left groaning and short of breath from being slammed down onto the mat, William looked down at him while shaking his head.
“Eh...I don’t know. It seems like a waste of my time and effort to train you,” he said bluntly.
“W-What? No-” he said in between coughing, “Give me another shot!”
William shook his head as he said, “Sorry kid, but it doesn’t look like you understand any of the most basic forms of hand to hand combat and I’m not interested in teaching you from scratch. Go ask someone else.”
He then turned around and was about to walk away as Julian managed to stop his coughing fit as he asked, “Then...why are you teaching Marcus? He’s younger than I am. There is no way he knows more about fighting than I do!”
William paused before he turned his head just enough to look back at Julian and said, “I have three reasons why. First and foremost, Stefan is paying me to train Marcus, he is not paying me to train you. I simply humored him because he asked me to. Second, just because you are stronger and older than him doesn’t mean all that much if you have no skill to back it up. Lastly, despite his age, Marcus actually does understand basic hand to hand combat. I even would go so far to say that he’s a genius. He picks up on things and adapts faster than anyone else I know. However, if you really still want to learn how to fight, why don’t you ask Marcus himself to teach you?”
Not long after, Marcus did finally show up for his training as he and William got to working on various drills that made little sense to him, but was absorbed almost immediately by Marcus.
Julian watched as he tried to learn something, anything from their exchange.
A whole hour eventually passed, with William and Marcus both sweaty and exhausted from training so long and hard that they decided to end things for the day.
Just as they were all about to leave, Marcus turned to look at Julian and asked, “Did you learn anything useful?”
He had said that with such a mundane tone that Julian couldn’t tell if he was being rude or genuine about his question.
“I...I don’t know,” He answered honestly.
Marcus sighed as he said, “Well, come on then. Lets go home. Your father is probably waiting on us right now.”
As soon as they made their way home and stepped into is father’s office, rather than look at Julian to greet his son back home, he looked at Marcus first.
“How’s your progress with William so far? Are the lessons easy enough to understand?”
Marcus nodded to him and said, “Yeah, I’m able to grasp everything alright. William is a good teacher.”
“Uh, Father...how was your day?” Julian asked, trying to get his attention.
“Yeah, give me a moment…,” he responded absentmindedly before returning full attention to Marcus once again.
“What about all the textbooks and information I told you to read up on. Were you able to memorize it all?”
“Yes sir. It didn’t take me that long to get through all of it and I was even able to look up some textbooks a couple grades ahead of me and memorize them all too,” Marcus said, the corner of his mouth twitching as he seemed to suppress the urge to smile.
Stefan’s eyebrows rose, as if impressed as he asked, “That’s all well and good but...just because you were able to absorb all that information doesn’t mean that you can seamlessly put it to use right away. Try putting what you’ve read into practice to solve some problems so you can really understand what you’re learning.”
“What do you suggest I do?”
Father scoffed as he said, “I don’t really know how computer programming works. I guess just start writing some code and see if you can make use out of it.”
“Okay. I’ll come up with something and let you know,” Marcus said before he left the room.
“Now Julian, you were saying something earlier?”
“I...was just asking how your day went.”
His father paused for a moment, as if waiting for him to say something else but was disappointed by his silence.
“Is that all? That’s all you have to say to me? In that case, as for how my day went, it was the same as any other normal day. Now tell me, how did your session with William go?”
Julian looked away in shame as he didn’t want to answer that question.
“That badly, hmm? So what happened? I went to the trouble of asking him to see if you were worth training as a personal favor of mine. Don’t tell me that it was a giant waste of my time.”
“Well...William said that Marcus is some kind of genius compared to me. He doesn’t think I’m as smart as Marcus to be worth training.”
Hearing this, his father sighed and leaned his chin on his fist as he said, “Shouldn’t that be painfully obvious? Of course you’re not as smart as Marcus.”
“W-what?” Julian stammered.
“As a matter of fact, neither am I. I’m man enough to admit that Marcus is far more intelligent than I am. However, the biggest differences between him and I is that not only am I his benefactor, but I am also many years his senior. It is only though my years of life experience that I can claim to be smarter than him in any regard and be capable enough to show him guidance.”
Julian took a moment to think about everything his father said.
“Does that mean that I-”
“All it means is that because you are three years Marcus’s senior, you have this opportunity given to you to be a good role model to him, though I doubt he will really need one. If you are desperate to feel useful and important, then strive to be the kind of man that you think would set a strong example for others.”
With those last few words ingrained into him, his father left his office and escorted him out.
For the next several years since he heard those words leave his father’s mouth, he had tried to find meaning in what being a strong role model was.
Unfortunately, every time he tried, he was met with the unrealistic expectation of trying to match up to Marcus’s capabilities.
Any time he tried to ask his father for guidance about how to do better, he half expected him to say, ‘try to be more like Marcus!’
Yet his father never once compared the two of them.
In fact, he barely had the patience to be bothered to address anything that Julian attempted to achieve.
Having Marcus around made Julian feel like a failure of a son, one of such insignificance that it felt like their roles within the family had been switched the moment he showed up.
During that time, it was Marcus who seemed to get the respect and nurture that a proper son would receive from a father rather than himself.
It made Julian feel resentful towards Marcus, but he knew that he couldn’t do anything to him. Especially if he was always working for his father.
If Julian ever did anything to threaten that investment, he would be in seriously deep shit.
It came as a surprise to find that when Marcus left for Japan in the early spring of 2015 that he hadn’t returned when his father expected him too.
Of course, Marcus’s little sister was still in his father’s care and would remain so until they found his corpse.
Even still, during the time that Marcus was gone was the best time of his life. There were no unreasonable expectations that Julian felt he needed to match up to, little to no stress in his life.
He felt free to do as he pleased within his family and his father was able to be more active with the him and his older sister Maria.
Things started to look up.
They really really did…
But then, in the winter of 2016, after disappearing for almost two years, he started to tear the very fabric of his family apart once again.
This time however, Marcus started making demands of his father. He started talking about canceling business deals in Japan, where his father had sent him specifically to take care of something for him.
He started having private conversations with him and becoming more and more distant with everyone around him.
Something was off…
Julian tried to warn his father, even tried to investigate what was wrong with Marcus, but his father said no. Told him to stay out of it for his own good.
And then, around the year 2019, Marcus completely snapped.
He tore down everything that Julian’s father worked so hard for all these years to build, disregarded the generosity that was given to him and his sister, and killed him.
Burned him alive in that warehouse and forced Julian’s mother and sister to go into hiding.
They hid so well that he was never able to track them down.
For that...for killing his father and tearing his family apart, Julian would tear apart his and kill him in the most excruciating way imaginable.
Now…
His opponent Gomori looked at him with a glint of curiosity in her eyes as she said, “For a human, your soul is mildly impressive.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asked as he tightened his grip on his baseball bat.
“Most humans that live on this world in this day and age have pitiful souls in comparison. They may live an average of one hundred and twenty years at the most before their bodies whither away and die. In some cases, the most healthy of humans may be able to prolong their lives to up to three hundred years without any outside influence. However, the humans that live the longest are those with souls blessed or cursed by gods. King Razel, and all those of his lineage are blessed with extended life and power from the God of Wrath. He has lived for four centuries and will likely continue to live many more centuries. However, when I look at you, I see that your souls is untainted by the interference of gods or any other being. In spite of that, the power emanating from your soul could rival that of Razel’s lineage. I can’t imagine what kind of world Terra has turned into to force the soul to manifest such strength without the influence-”
In the very next instant, there was a loud crack as Julian’s bat slammed into the side of her face.
“You talk too much. Shut up and fight,” he said.
Gomori slowly turned her head to look at him and he noticed that there was barely a scratch on her.
“Very well. Prepare yourself,” she said as she readied her lance.
She took in a deep breath and then lunged forward with frightening speed as her lance ran through the space in which Julian stood.
A powerful burst of air pressure was released from the tip of her lance that eviscerated everything in its path, yet it failed to hit its mark as Julian had vanished before her attack could land.
Her head turned just in time to come face to face with the barrel of Julian’s shotgun as he pulled the trigger.
As the shells exploded in her face, Julian realized it had little to no effect on her at all beyond temporarily blinding her.
When trying to capitalize on her blindness, she was still able to react to his attacks just fine as she parried away the swing of his bat with her shield.
“Tch, this thing’s fuckin useless,” he cursed as he threw his shotgun to the side and held his bat with both hands.
He swung his bat at her head once again only for her to duck just in time while pulling her arm back and thrusting her spear towards his midsection.
He vanished once again before reappearing behind her and held his bat high over his head as he swung down with all his might and heard another loud crack.
When he pulled his bat away from her to get a good look at it, he found that there still wasn’t a single drop of blood on it, nor was there a single pulled hair tangled in the barbed wire wrapped around it.
“What the hell kind of magic do you have? Invulnerability? How the hell can you tank those hits without getting injured even slightly?”
Gomori chuckled as she said, “Oh, there is no magic involved. It is simply the strength of my soul as opposed to yours. You are simply too weak to deal any significant damage to me.”
“Yet you can’t seem to land a single hit on me,” Julian spat back at her as he vanished for a split second before reappearing right in front of her as he swung his bat underhanded towards her jaw.
Her eyes widened as she noticed the fabric of space time bending around his bat and slam into her.
For the first time since the fight began, she seemed rattled. She stumbled backwards and rubbed her jaw as if massaging the soreness felt in it.
“I felt that...and I can tell that its not at its peak strength. Perhaps I should put more effort into this,” she said as she readied her lance once more, “Alluring Fate: Release 25%”
Julian shouted a war cry and his soul began to resonate with greater strength. He then disappeared and reappeared on her left as he tried to swing at her neck once again only for her eyes to already be pointed towards him.
She knocked away his strike and tried to stab him only to strike the air as he teleported away once again.
When he reappeared behind her and tried to strike her from behind once again, she quickly spun around and swung her lance in a wide arc.
Her attack connected with his neck but instead of knocking it clean from his torso...it stopped a mere few inches away. It was as if some kind of invisible force was pushing it away.
“What? How?” she said with frustration in her eyes.
Julian simply sighed as he said, “Damn...I was hoping to end this fight without revealing that right away but, I guess the cat’s outta the bag. Whatever.”
Gomori then took a step back before jumping into the air so fast that Julian couldn’t react fast enough.
He turned his head to look around to try and find where she went but he couldn’t see a thing.
“Son of a bitch...where did she go?”
A few seconds passed before he noticed something strange about the clouds above him, as if moving aside from something powerful smashing through them.
“What the-” he said before Gomori’s lance suddenly appeared in his face, nearly about to run him through but stopping short of him.
“Oh shit!” he yelped as he jumped back in shock.
She had been suspended in air before her attack could get to him but had now dropped to the ground.
She then landed on the ground in front of him and sighed in disappointment as she said, “How disappointing. I won’t be able to show the limits of my strength to the one I serve. I’m afraid I must concede.”
Julian sounded genuinely surprised to hear that as he asked, “What? Why? We just barely got started.”
“The reasons are quite simple. You do not seem to have any kind of magic, yet you have rune formulas marking your skin which allows you to warp the fabric of spacetime. You can teleport from one place to another, bend space time to accelerate your strikes, and you can infinitely slow down an attack before it reaches you to the point that it looks like you have an impenetrable shield all around you. Its a very technical kind of magic, but very efficient as it does not demand much from the user. However, you do not have the strength necessary to take me down as you have proven. We are at a stalemate, and so I concede the fight. I yield.”
As she admitted defeat, the spatial battlefield lifted and Gomori curtsied to him briefly before turning around and walking away.
“What a let down,” Julian said as he folded his arms and frowned.
He then looked up to where Thalia had been sitting before and noticed that she and the two elves that were with her had already left.
He then smiled as he took his leave.