Chapter Text
Greg Veder - 1
"—That's what you get for talking back to me, Veder," the guy he talked back to spat and kicked him while he was still curled up on the ground in pain.
Pain from the beating the tall boys from his year and upper years gave to him for talking back to one of them when they tried to get him to cough up some lunch money.
He thought things would be different this time around. What if he didn't run? What if he didn't hide? What if he didn't plead? What if he tried to stand firm, to confront instead of being the coward he usually is? He thought things would be different if he was more confident.
He thought things would be different if he finally said no.
If he tried to stand firm... it doesn't change.
It didn't matter if he let himself get pushed around or tried to push back.
They'd still beat him up.
They'd still get what they wanted.
Because they're still boys bigger and sportier than him.
And he's still the nerdy loser Greg Veder…
He waited until they finally left to uncurl. When they finished laughing, mocking, and giving him extra kicks. He was pretty sure they took pictures and videos, but it didn't really matter, the whole school would know anyway. They always do.
He groaned from the aching pain he felt across his body as he tried to stand up and failed twice.
'You're hopeless, Greg,' he thought to himself as he wiped his nose and saw the blood on his fingers. Of course his nose was bleeding, those boys gave him a broken nose after all, so what was there to be surprised about?
He took a look at his left hand, specifically his left pinky finger, and saw that it was slightly bending the wrong way. He didn't panic.
He did breathe through his mouth faster. But he didn't panic, he tried not to anyway... and he learnt that trying doesn't guarantee anything.
'Mom and Dad are out tonight, you can try and fix this and come up with an excuse next morning, Greg,' he yold himself as he lowered his left hand and began limping back towards his house, and out from this alleyway near Winslow where the bullies took him to.
He couldn't stop crying as he limped home.
He really couldn't, even if he tried to, he wouldn't stop.
The pain he had gotten from getting beaten by the E88-affiliated boys — they were white, some of them were blonde-haired, maybe dyed, and blue-eyed, they were tall and sporty, and he saw a tattoo on one of them that looked like a Nazi insignia— was too much. They didn't break anything aside from his nose and left pinky finger, but he's gonna have a lot of bruises from this.
And he won't be able to fully lie to his parents, falling down the stairs doesn't get you this much bruises. Unless you're an old person.
'Shouldn't have opened your fat mouth, Greg,' he thought to himself as he tried to wipe the tears falling down his face. At least it was somewhat dark out on the street — it was kind of early into the evening — and his house was close to Winslow too.
'Maybe if you exercised some more, you wouldn't get pushed around so much, Greg,' he limped along the sidewalk, before turning his head around to check for cars before crossing the street. 'Maybe if you picked up on those lessons your Dad taught you, you wouldn't look like a loser, Greg. Maybe if you did something with your life aside from playing games and scrolling through PHO, you'd actually get some friends, Greg.'
He seethed at his thoughts as he saw his house in the distance.
There weren't any cars in the driveway. Good, he was right, his parents were out tonight. They wouldn't know how beaten up he was until next morning.
He didn't dwell much on his shitty thoughts as he got to the front door of his house, fumbling slightly as he got his keys out and let himself in. He made sure to lock all the locks as he closed the door behind him.
After he got some paper for his bleeding and broken nose, some Band-Aids for any cuts he got, and an ice pack for his broken pinky finger, he went to his room and locked the door.
He didn't turn the lights on.
The light from his computer was all he needed.
He was searching the internet on how to make a temporary splint for his pinky finger, but he got sidetracked a bit and surfed PHO as Void Cowboy.
Void Cowboy. It was edgy, he won't deny it, but it was cool too. Imagine a cowboy with a space/void-themed getup, with old Wild West guns with a space/void twist to them.
And a lightsabre too, don't forget the lightsabre.
He loved Void Cowboy, because Void Cowboy was what he wanted to be if he was a Cape. It started off as a cool name for his PHO handle, it became a Cape OC, and then it became his dream — his wish; a better him.
Then he fucked it up, trolled around, and made everyone on PHO hate that name.
He was a lot of things, but being stupid isn't one of them despite what a lot of people think. He knows people don't like him on the internet just as much as — if not more than — people in real life.
He ruined Void Cowboy's name. And he continued to run with it.
God, he was a fuckup.
A nuisance.
A burden.
'I really am hopeless, aren't I? I really am a burden, aren't I?' He cynically thought as he closed the PHO tab after some surfing — there wasn't anything new — and got back to the guide on how to make a makeshift splint for a broken finger.
'Can't even stay focused too, I really am a fuckup. huh?' He read through the instructions and struggled to understand it. Sure, he understood the necessary items/materials part, but he struggled with the making of it. 'God, can't even do anything without needing to see it done too.'
He went to search for videos on how to make a splint for a broken finger.
But then he stopped mid-typing into the search bar. He hunched over as he sniffled into her hands, he started crying again. He started thinking again. He started to think about maybes and what-ifs.
What if he did this, would it have changed his life?
Maybe if he did this instead, he'd be better now?
What if he said this, would he have friends?
Maybe if he said this, they wouldn't have beaten him up?
But he didn't. He didn't and now he has to live with it.
'You could start now. You could start now, and get better. By the end of your stay at Winslow, you're going to be different, you're going to be better.' He thought to himself, steeling up some resolve. 'If you start now.'
But this wasn't the first time he had these thoughts. It was all the same, he'd made promises to be better, but he'd just go back to the way things were as always. Like a coward.
'Yeah right, like you'd do that... like you'd try, because you never do. You never try anything. You never do anything right. Because you're a fuckup, a nuisance, a fucking burden to everyone you know and knows you...'
He closed his eyes as he stained his hands with tears, stifling his sobs even though there wasn't anyone else home to hear him.
'You're a fuckup, a nuisance, a burden.'
Things could've been different. Things could've been better. But it wasn't, because he didn't try.
Because he couldn't even try to make his life better.
'I'm a burden.'
He accepts it, he accepts that fact and lowers his hands as he straightens up on his chair, eyes still watering as he brings his hands away to wipe off the tears on her pants. He wished everything was better, he wished for a life he didn't have. He wished for a new identity, to be without burden.
He really needed to make a splint for his pinky finger now.
But as he stared at his computer monitor, he noticed something else in front of him, just below the keyboard.
It was a grey, wax-ish book with smoldering words on the front cover, emitting an orange glow.
He couldn't help but read the words aloud.
"The Book of Philip..."
Something drew him to the book — a voice telling him to reach out and touch it, to take hold of it. Yes, yes He'll take it — it will help him, it will won't it? That gentle voice assured him, he only needed to take it. His thoughts distorted as desire flooded his mind, all the while that voice sang to his ears.
He raised his right hand and was unable to stop his shaking as he reached out to the grey book.
Once the tips of his fingers lightly touched the book's cover, light erupted from them and expanded across his body so fast that by the time he even noticed it — he couldn't see anything.
He didn't know what was happening — what was happening to him.
He should really be panicking.
But he didn't, he didn't panic in the slightest.
Because that voice told him that it was gonna be okay, that it wouldn't hurt him one bit.
He believed it, he wanted to believe it. So he embraced the light, he let its warmth envelop around him and comfort him.
He let it make him better.
He woke up on his bedroom floor in a daze, utterly bewildered as to what had just occurred to him after his fingers graced that book. But his bewilderment only lasted momentarily as he gave a dismissive shake of his head and stood up with relative ease.
Studying the time on the digital clock on his bedside table, he'd concluded that it hadn't been that long since he passed out from the light enclosing itself upon him.
'07:23 PM... 19:23. It's only been six minutes.'
He felt off... he felt really off. Something wasn't right, something isn't as it should be.
He reached a hand up and brushed across his nose, feeling that it was no longer broken — but straightened, and perfected.
He lowered his hand slightly and stared down at it. He gasped in surprise as he found his right hand hidden away in a sleek, fitting, and professional black glove; he had barely felt the fabric against the skin of his hand.
Bringing up his left hand, he'd find it gloved in the same manner as well — his pinky finger healed to boot.
Tracing his eyes down slightly, he saw that he had sleeves. He had been wearing a t-shirt earlier, so why were there beige sleeves upon his arms?
Feeling fed up with his slowness, he flipped the light switch to his room and welcomed in the brightness — the one coming from his monitor wouldn't work for this.
Turning to the mirror in the corner of his room, he would find himself standing dumbly as his sight was greeted by someone who couldn't possibly be the nerdy loser Greg Veder.
For one thing, he wasn't as thin as he had been before — his frame filled out admirably, in his humble belief that is.
He was an inch taller as well.
'170 cm. 5'6".' He supplied to himself.
His face was... straighter, sharper yet retained a softness to it, somewhat older — dispossessed of a bit of baby fat, lacked freckles, and seemed to affixed in a natural light frown.
His hair, light blonde and framed in a grown-out bowl cut with curves to his strands, appeared more appealing than it previously did.
His blue eyes had lost their shine, now greyish blue with a hint of gold permeating from the depths of his pupils, shielded behind a pair of square glasses.
Looking down, he'd see a sense of fashion that wouldn't have previously fit him in the slightest.
A black turtleneck that complimented his new glasses and black gloves, matching well to the black trousers he also now wore, and above the turtleneck was a two-button beige blazer with masterful tailoring — tailoring for him specifically. Looking down further, he had practical boots with beige soles, made with comfort and durability in mind.
Greg Veder couldn't have afforded this.
His parents couldn't even afford this.
Yet here he stands, dressed in expensive and fashionable clothing — dare he say it, absolutely living up to the look.
But he felt... plain, at the same time. Somehow, he felt that he wouldn't truly standout, always in the back. Always behind...
It was then that he discovered a sheathed sword wrapped with leather straps hanging by the left side of his waist. A short sword. A product of Stigma Workshop.
His main weapon, one he had many experiences with.
No, that was wrong, he never held a sword in his life — as much as he liked to pretend that long sticks were swords, and toy swords are certainly nothing like real swords.
Something was wrong, and it was because of that book he touched — the light! The voice!
He was transformed! He turned around to face his computer desk and found that the grey book wasn't there, as though it was merely an illusion — a trick of the mind during his vulnerable state. But it wasn't an illusion.
The book was real. The light was real. The voice was real.
Because standing in the middle of Greg Veder's room wasn't Greg Veder.
It was Philip! The book he touched turned him into Philip!
But he didn't... he hadn't... he still...
He still felt like Greg Veder. He thinks of himself as Greg Veder. He refers to himself as Greg Veder. He remembers everything about Greg Veder.
He also remembered everything about Philip though... Master Salvador... Y-Yuna...
He felt numb, he felt disgraced, he felt unworthy.
Turning to the mirror again, he saw Philip — not Greg Veder's imitation of Philip, but Philip himself. The man was taller than the boy masquerading as him by two inches, with a much more fit frame. The man shared no resemblance with Greg, but a few with Greg's imitation of him.
'You... was everything I remembered real?'
He couldn't help but question Philip in his thoughts as he slowly drew closer to the reflection in the mirror.
'Yes. All of it. Not a single detail falsified.'
Philip responded with a solemn smile as he stood relaxed, yet still at attention. A stance that was mimicked subconsciously by Greg.
'Then you...'
He didn't want to say Philip was like him, that his feelings were like his.
'I'm not like you. You are not like me. Just as no one is truly similar to each other.'
Philip explained through their... psychic bond? He probably labelled it wrong, seeing as Philip's solemn smile shifted into an amused grin.
'You may call it however you like, Greg. But back to the matter at hand,' Philip firmly continued, the amusement dropping. 'Our thoughts, our feelings... It isn't the same. But it is alike, very or slightly so, it is still alike... you know this, I know this.'
'So I offer you this, Greg,' Philip extended out a hand, and it suddenly felt as though they were no longer in Greg's bedroom. No longer was Philip merely a reflection, no longer was he and Greg separated by a mirror.
The mirror no longer separated them, they were no longer restrained to his bedroom — they stood face to face upon a marble bridge held up by strong pillars, as the blinding sun's light settled on them both, and the pantheons of white settled across the bridge, expanding onwards until Greg couldn't see them anymore. Where were they...? No, he knows where this is, Philip knows where this is...
'My burden... Your burden... I will help you with it. No, you will help yourself, and I am to help as a tool.'
He didn't know what to say to Philip's offer. It was simple, it was straightforward, it was...
It was perfect. It was what he wanted. To be helped. To help himself. To change himself. To be changed. To become better. To be better. To no longer be a nuisance or a burden, not to anyone else, not to himself.
'I... accept your offer, Philip,' Greg gave his sincerest answer as his hand reached out, grasping around Philip's in a firm hold. 'With you... I no longer will... no, I will still carry the burden that is myself. But no longer will it be so pathetic, no longer will I be pathetic... With you, I will mold my burden into something better, I will mold myself into something better...'
'And so I shall no longer inconvenience others.'