The Path of Rust

The beginning

Distantly, the injured villain could hear the heart monitor start racing and Thunder call for a doctor, but Ciel couldn't take his eyes off of the feather, his feather. Even as his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest, even as he felt his stomach drop to the floor, even as he felt the way his body started shaking, and even as he saw the edges of his vision start to turn black, Ciel couldn't take his eyes off of the feather that was stolen from him.

~~~~~~~

The second time Ciel woke up, he became aware of things similarly to the first time, except certain details were different now. For one, the villain wasn't handcuffed anymore, but there was also the small details that the twin heroes-in-training, Frost and Phantom, were sitting next to Thunder, all three were asleep, and that while Ciel did have his outfit on, he was missing his mask.

With the memory of what happened last time he was awake, Ciel got the sudden energy boost he needed to sit up and look at his wings. After breathing a sigh of relief because his wings were still there and healing, Ciel noticed that perhaps they were healing too well. The villain knew logically that he was probably on painkillers and that's why he couldn't feel his wings before, but he also had very fresh memories of just how mangled they had been, of how he couldn't even make them twitch, and of how the pain they caused was so horrific that he had quickly become numb to the pain clawing and yelling at him all over his body. How had they healed so well? How long had Ciel been in the hospital?

Ciel's train of thought was thrown off by a gasp of "Rusty!", and he didn't have any time to react before someone was... hugging him? "You're finally awake!" sobbed the mystery person, who he now could see was Phantom. Tears were streaming down the girl's face and her loud sobbing quickly woke her brother and Thunder, then Ciel had all three of his enemies hugging him and crying. The villain wrapped his arms around the trio as well as he could and tried to force a smile, but honestly didn't know what was happening. Never before had the teen hero called him 'Rusty', never before had any of the heroes cried over him.

A quiet, slightly hesitant comment of "hey, little golden-heart, what happened? Did I have a panic attack?" didn't get the villain any answers, but rather caused more questions when the twins giggled a little inbetween sobs and Thunder jokingly said, "Only you would cuss out a villain while choking on your own blood and call it a panic attack, Rusty. Glad to see you're doing okay."

~~~~~~~

The third time Ciel woke up only confused him further, because Ciel didn't wake up inside a hospital this time, he woke up in a house. A very familiar house that he could've sworn he'd sold a few years back. Ciel tried to ignore the creeping sensation of dread and the overwhelming pressure of confusion as he got dressed and ready for the day like he used to all those years ago, but those feelings only got worse when he went downstairs and found a bunch of kids. A trio of kids, to be exact, that all greeted him with a "good morning, dad!" followed by the only girl asking "what're you making for breakfast?"

The eldest of the trio had brown eyes and ginger hair while the younger two, twins by the looks of it, had blonde, almost white, hair and bright blue eyes; despite calling him 'dad', none of them had Ciel's mostly black hair with a white strip that liked to hang down infront his face and none of them had his green eyes. The oldest Ciel could even imagine these kids being was 15 years old for the ginger and 6 years for the twins. Their voices though... Ciel had never seen Thunder, Phantom, or Frost without their masks but he knew they were much younger than him and had heard their voices enough that he felt he'd be able to recognize them anywhere. The villain supposes he was right, but doesn't understand why his heroes are so much younger now than they were before or why they believed he was their dad.

As Ciel made some eggs and bacon for his kids (Christ, that's a weird way to think of the trio idly chatting in the background), the villain pondered his situation.

Ciel had been born into a family where both powers and villainy ran in the family. Just like everyone else in school, he had been taught on the first day of middle school that around 7% of the population were born with a power and that there's ways for people born without powers to gain some, but it's very risky and you should always say no if someone offers. Except, unlike most people, a girl in his class had asked about the stories of heroes with multiple powers and why they had multiple but everyone in her family only had one. The teacher had explained something called pre-mortem mutation; a phenomenon where, if someone who was born with a power gets into a near-death situation, there's a chance a brand new power will spontaneously mutate in order to save the person's life.

Ciel didn't expect to experience the phenomenon, it has a very low chance of happening and Ciel had never been a very lucky person, after all. However, what other explanation was there?

There wasn't one.

The fact of the matter was this: Ciel had a pre-mortem mutation, and the power he was granted somehow allows him to jump between realities every time he falls unconscious. 'Well,' Ciel thought as he looked over at his dear heroes, his happy, darling children, 'I might as well try to get used to this. It seems as if this'll be my new normal from now on.'

If the burnt bacon was any indication, getting used to this new normal wasn't going to be easy. Ciel smiles anyways, because he can feel the flames of pure joy in his veins and he already knows he would never give up his second and third chances at happiness. Perhaps if the burnt bacon is an omen of the challenges ahead, the fact that they're eaten anyways and with seemingly endless smiles everywhere Ciel looks is an omen of just how worth it this will be.