Chapter Text
It's been years. Years since Rudo has fallen from the City called the Sphere.
He remembers it like it had happened only yesterday. His wrists tied together painfully behind his back, screeching his lungs out as his Father was dragged away from him as well, made to watch as his Son was finally done and dealt with by the Rich Folks.
Words of no longer being able to handle knowing that a Murderer’s Son was still alive and well on their “Holy Ground”. Even if it was the slums, Tribesfolk had practically witch hunted the young albino and had ripped him away from his Father’s arms. The man begging with all his might to not take the young boy away, he’d be able to help him. To fix him, as Regto said. Giving him a chance at life to not end up like his real Father.
They didn’t listen, and Regto had even been arrested.
Dragging the young child away and towards the edge of the City where the Pit met the Edge.
Rudo was merely 10 when he was tossed into the Pit, the sobs of agony the only thing he heard from his Father amidst the chanting for him to be tossed to the Pit.
Reds catching treaty eyed Blues as the boy took his descent into the void filled Rudo with such a determined fury in his little soul, all he could manage was an angered shriek as he cursed all of humanity in the City that he’d come back.
He’d come back and kill them all, make his Father proud and shove it all in their faces. He’ll come back, on all of their souls he will.
\
The Darkness that encased him as he fell was cold, was so freezing he thought he’d die before he even hit the ground of trash below. Where Hell awaited his entrance.
But as the young boy fell, he made eye contact amidst the darkness and stared into three eyes of red, probing his head with pain before warmth.
A coo rumbling his body as he fell, the gloves his Father gave him held tightly to his chest and all he felt was warmth. Like arms embracing him as he descended down. And while his own promise rang in his head, he wouldn’t have minded staying here.
Where it was warm, and it felt like love. The very feeling he felt when Regto was caring for him. Love.
\
When the boy had woken up from the dream, he blinked his eyes open to find himself tied up. Just as he was in the City, but this time with chains and not rope or cuffs. His arms held above him and a bandana around his face, thick enough to block his face but not entire to muffle his noises. Wherever he was tumbled slightly, chained down to a wooden bed in something that felt like a wagon(?)
His body jerked and jolted with each second and Rudo’s lucidity hit him hard. Red bleary eyes widening before he starts struggling, pulling at the chains that hold his arms up and he screams behind the bandana. Kicking out his legs enough to feel that they too, were chained down, but not enough for them to be tucked under him.
Kicking his legs out was enough to knock down boxes that were piled around him. Keeping him hidden possibly. Falling with a loud crash and the wagon(?) had come to a sudden halt. Jerking him harsh to the side and pulling at the gloves of his, almost off and a shrink of fear occurred.
Sure, he’s had the gloves for only two years, but two years was enough for a child like him. Someone so young, to be thrown down into the Pit right when he thought he had found family in someone who was truly worth it. Getting attached to the gloves his Father gave him that's left of his down here was pretty easy to do.
“What the fuck did you do back there!”
A voice startles Rudo from his fussing and shrieks, looking up with a slight hiss when the tarp of the wagon (now he knows its one), is lifted to show a mask covered face. Wide, black eyed behind the goggles and Rudo shivers at the look the person gives him.
“Stop fussing, you mangy thing. Can’t have you all banged up when I take you back to the market.”
The man huffs nasally, coming into the wagon bed to restack the boxes and even sit Rudo up on his knees. The boy only glaring darkly at the man who lets out a gurgly chuckle at his face.
“Look at that, yar a feisty one.. Didn’t think they’d have feral up in tha Sphere.”
Sphere? The city! Rudo thinks as he looks up at the man fixing what seemed to be tradeable goods. Re-organizing what Rudo had kicked down, and a silence fixes between them. Only because Rudo was too busy staring at the outside of the tarp of the wagon.
All he saw at the outside of the wagon was-- trash. Just trash.
That’s all it was.
Piles of trash as far as his little bleary eyes can see. Some even piling up so high in towering pillars he thinks one of them could even reach up to the Sphere.
“I don’t understand how you survived the fall. You Sphereite’s never survive the fall, and we all had to scrap for yer remains n’ clothing. You’d fetch a pretty penny once I sell you.. Ya’know.”
The man catches Rudo’s attention, glaring red eyes staring up into a blue-ish green. Though, even with the dangerous words the man is saying, he never looks too far from the solemn disgust he wears. Nothing else behind those eyes and Rudo thinks, even for his small age, that’s a good thing.
“You fuckin’ Angels all toss yer trash down here n its been killin’ people. Your kind is a great way to relieve that anger y’know.”
Ore words fall from the man’s mouth and Rudo hangs onto them, letting them simmer in his little brain.
The trash that the rich folks upstairs toss trash likes is nothing, even if it were brand new. Even if it still had uses and begging to be used rather than to be tossed. Rudo had realized every little object, every little thing had a soul. His dad told him that they all do, and Rudo had a good eye for catching them.
Tears well in his eyes staring out at the outside of the wagon, all that trash out there. All sorts of objects that cry out to him, the need to be used. To be useful. Wanted. All sorts of emotions reach out to him and all the little boy could do is struggle against the chain that holds his wrists above him as he tries to push himself forward and towards the outside of the wagon. To see all the calls to him.
Well, til a hand grips his hair harshly and he yelps at the pain. Dark eyes staring down at him with an anger that he’s so used to but it feels entirely different.
“How many times do I have to tell ya to stop movin’! It's the same for all you Angels, huh?! Think you can do whatever ya want jus’ coz yer from Heaven?!”
Rudo’s heads spinning with the onslaught of overwhelming emotions. From the man. From the trash outside. From himself. More tears well in his eyes as he’s shaken by the man and so suddenly, he blinks rapidly to find his face turned aggressively to the side. His cheek was stinging in pain.
Oh, he’d been hit. Slapped, his mind adds.
Wide red eyes look back up at the man who’s visibly sweating, panting in his anger as his hand was held up. Relaxed before it clenches into a fist and is brought down onto the boy’s bandana covered face, a crack resonating in the boy’s skull as his eyes throb in colours. A wet feeling dampening the bandada held against his face, sticky with blood.
A weep forces its way from Rudo’s lip when a second landing of the man’s hand comes down onto his face again, the child kicking his legs out from under him to kick at the man’s knees, earning a hissed grunt as the man falls. A shriek of anger and tears rips from Rudo’s chest as he tries to lunge at his capturer, but he could only get so far.
Especially when a boot makes contact with his little body, smashing against the wooden wall of the wagon and the man yells something obscene that the boy can’t catch. Not when he shrieks again, more animalistic than before and he lunges once more. A clanging crack from the chains that held the child back shuts the man up, but gets him to stand once more in a rage that nearly matches the child’s.
“You little bitch! You’ll pay for that! I don’t care if ya woulda costed a pretty penny alice, I’ll teach you a fuckin’ lesson!”
The angry yell that leaves the man is matched with another feral screech from the child who pulls at his restraints with enough strength to make them chip from the hold they give him. A near escape that would’ve happened.
Truly, it should’ve happened.
Til the tarp covering the wagon is ripped from the roof, silencing both humans when mechanical howls and yips surround the area. The man’s angry demeanor shifts into utter horror as he screams in terror. Rudo’s eyes wide and staring up at what seemed to be monsters.
Beasts made of trash.
Tearing apart the wooden wagon like nothing, a hoard of them surrounding the boxed confinement that holds both humans. One washed in utter terror that sends Rudo dizzy with overwhelming fear, and one that isn’t from himself. He watches as a trash made face of the beast comes down and clamps pipe-looking teeth around the man who howls in utter agony.
Squirming ferociously against the metal teeth that are clamped inside flesh, Rudo watches the man struggle as another trash made face of yet another beast shows up beside the one that holds the man within its maw. A wet sounding yowl comes from the beast as it moves quickly to clamp down on whatever else is exposed to the man. His screams cut off so suddenly, so quickly it freezes Rudo in shock.
Not even people who were thrown to the Pit were silenced so quickly, their screams echoed as they fell. A slow descent. But watching someone, a man, even if he were attacking him, be so quickly killed in the mouths of monsters?
Rudo felt fear.
A primal feeling that only enchanted when smaller looking trash monsters hopped into the cart of the wagon, clearly looking for scraps that the two bigger ones must’ve dropped and only made eye contact with the boy. Red eyes could only get so wide with fear and tears as the monsters came near him, maws open and wet with oil(?), ready to attack. To pounce.
And Rudo wasn’t ready to die. A fighting flame still in his chest as he clenches his jaw tightly.
Once close, too close for comfort. Faces of trash near his own, Rudo let the feral shriek he’s been holding roar in the beast's face. Promptly watching it flinch and hiss at him, a noise he returned just as ferociously.
The beast stops, staring right at him, into his eyes. Even the ones above him that fought over the man stopped and looked down into the cart, and Rudo’s fight dispersed immediately. A flicker of fear washed over him but he sucked it up, his teeth bared behind the bandana, a low growl deep from his chest. From the deepest bit of his belly. If the boy was going to die, so be it, but he won’t go out in fear. The fear of a human.
He’ll go out with the fear of an animal. Hissing and yowling before he’s put down.
Red eyes watery as he hisses and growls at the beast of trash in front of him, all around him. Picking up a fuss at the herd as they tilted their heads at him, watching him kick and huffs. Too animal to be a human, the beast that sat and watched Rudo closely opened its jaw and the boy froze for a moment. Then shutting his eyes, ready to be eaten.
But nothing came.
No sudden bursts of pain. No cold and wet metal digging into his flesh. No yowls of excited cries.
Only a deep, gurgling purr coming from the beast. Yellow eyes staring into the boy’s now open red ones. Whatever that was made up of the eye of the beasts’ pupil was blown wide, its tail swishing behind it. It wasn’t looking at food anymore, a prey to hunt. It was looking at a baby. A little small thing that needed protection.
Rudo only blinked at the animal as it looked behind itself and snorted, then yowled. A grumble was emitting from his trashy body as more little monsters hopped into the cart. And instead of lunging, they snapped their gear littered jaws at his chains, freeing the boy from his restraints.
As the young albino landed rather painfully on his chin, a tiny whimper from his lips, the beasts had taken it upon itselves to suddenly lay on the boy. A pile of big, cat-dog looking creatures(?) had curled around him, protecting his little boy from the now freezing breeze since the tarp was no longer covering the wagon. The one that gave the other beasts order laid on top of the boy, deep and loud rumbles and purrs escaped the pile of trash beasts. The larger ones above the cart had taken a stance after tearing the man to shreds.
Rudo is ridden in shock and confusion, a smidge of fear and. A sense of belonging amongst the beasts made of trash. They absolutely thrum with life, a warm energy under his gloved hands and he lets out a chirping giggle. Eyes wide as he watches a purple flame in all the beasts quiver and thrum with a soul. Something his father had explained to him back up in the Sphere.
Everything around them had a life. Had a soul. If it had a purpose, it was alive. Everything breathed life as long as it was used, they had emotions and feelings. Objects can become alive if well taken care of, well used and well loved.
Rudo guesses that that’s what these trash animals were made of, maybe. They’re alive, meaning they had a purpose. And from Rudo can see, with a wasteland of trash and garbage, they found purpose to thrive and live in a Hell that's just of trash. Rudo may have been thrown into the Pit, but a sense of yearning filled him. He felt belonged in the heaps of trash, the piles of garbage towers that piled so high they could reach the heavily clouded sky.
The young boy can only stare up at the dark purple-ish blue of the sky, moving the blood sticky bandana from his face. The towering trash beasts above the pile of animal beasts looked down at him and Rudo could catch the glowing purple inside their bodies. Also thrumming with life.
An energy so potent Rudo thinks he can reach out and touch it, to grab and hold it. A feeling that must’ve been so strong, enough to be sensed, that one of the larger beasts had even leaned down. Its bone white muzzle gently hovering over his body, Rudo really does reach his gloved hand up and lay it against its face.
A laugh of excitement rips deep within his chest as the beast rumbles loudly at his touch, sparkles of energy emitting from his gloves and encasing the beast’s head in a chain of red. Wrapping around its ready body in what looks like a harness, something similar to a saddle rested at the top of its bony looking head.
“Jus’ like a big puppy…” Rudo mutters to himself, voice tired from all the strain he’s put on his vocal cords.
All the yelling, shrieking, howling. The animalistic sounds he had made to ward off another human, to keep himself alive. Come to think of it, there was a human down in the Pit, and if there were one human, that means that there are many more. Maybe around, maybe nearby?
Either way, there were humans around. And if they were anything like the one that had kept him captured and chained up in the wagon cart, they all meant bad news. They weren’t going to be of any help to him.
But these trash beasts will … of course they will. With how they’re curled up all around him, the bigger ones even kept watch. They’ll watch over him, and if Rudo has to start acting like some sort of feral animal, to protect himself from other humans? Well, then so be it.
Rudo’ll keep himself safe, and if not himself, the beasts will. His, his new, new family.
Family of beastly animals.
“Will I become like one of you …?”
The boy asks himself, petting down the back of one of the beasts that lay against him, keeping his small body warm from the freezing breeze as the darkish blue clouded sky turns into a deep bleeding purple. Night time. The chilliness of the night doesn’t reach the bed of the cart wagon with the beasts surrounding the young boy.
A yawn comes from Rudo’s mouth as he stares up into the dark sky, eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness. The sounds of winds overlapping in his ears and a dark purple mist encases the wagon. An odd scent that he couldn’t place his finger on.
Something similar from the City.
A familiar stink he’d used to.
“Maybe… Maybe I can figure it out.. When I wake up..”
Whispering to himself in the darkness, he blinks before snuggling into the warm garbage made bodies of the beast, shutting his eyes as he curls his gloved hands into his tiny chest. A deep yawn and a bidded goodnight.
“‘Night… Regto.”