5: The Beginging

"Open up, Kaon!" JJ brought the spoonful of baby food to his lips, and baby Jay ate it up.

Resistance is futile, so he might as well enjoy it. This morning, a few minutes after his disassociation with the system, JJ woke up. The first thing she did was check his diapers and give him a change.

Despite being from an 'elite family of scholars' according to the system, JJ knew her way around the baby, saving Jay his dignity. Well, she doesn't know he's a grown man trapped in a baby's body, and she's doing her best to clean him with the little material they have.

"Good, good!" The girl congratulated him after he's done with his meal. "Now it's my turn to eat."

Baby Jay was given a small Rubik's cube to play with while JJ began chewing on a piece of dry meat and some noodles in a thermos bottle.

The Rubik's cube was old and worn, very loved by whoever owned it before him. In his past life, Rubik's cube was something he never considered solving, but right now, it's the only form of entertainment he had besides watching his female caretaker eat.

He didn't manage to solve anything, not even a color, and the baby began to feel defeated. Looking from an outsider's point of view, it's an adorable baby who's fascinated by all the pretty colors. After putting her food away, JJ sat down next to Jay on the food, and she lifted him up to sit on her lap.

"This is green." The girl pointed at a block of color. "Green needs to stay with other greens. Greens together strong."

Jay let out a laugh from her meme reference. She wouldn't understand it since all she saw was a happy baby.

"See? This is blue." JJ giggled as she moved on to the next color. "Green. Blue. Red."

BOOM!

In that moment, a bomb was heard going off not far from their tent. The teenage girl yelped, and she began gathering her stuff into her backpack. Another bomb went off, even closer this time, and Baby Jay began panicking.

What the hell is going on?

Even when she's busy with getting the essentials in her backpack, mostly baby supplies, her deep blue eyes never leave the baby. Once she had the backpack on her back, she picked up Jay and threw on her cloak.

The baby was secured in her arms when the third bomb went off, too close for comfort. JJ was agile and quick on her feet. Within seconds, they're outside of the tent.

In the daylight, the place they called home was worse than Jay expected. They're camping underneath a foundation of what remained of a house, and the mismatched fabric was the tent's walls. There's smoke coming from the tree a few meters away from the tent, and some leaves were burned.

Fuck, did someone try to attack them?

"You're alive." A male voice came from behind them, and suddenly, Jay screamed as his caretaker dodged something being thrown at them.

That something turned out to be a grenade, which hit the tent and created a decent sized hole.

"What do you want?" JJ shouted at the man who attacked them.

The man looked to be in his twenties, with a scruffy beard and dirty blonde hair. He's wearing camouflage pants and boots, but it seems like he doesn't belong in the military. There are a few other men in the woods behind him, so they're outnumbered.

"Whose baby's that?" The man took a step forward, only for JJ to take a step back. Her arms tighten around Jay, and the baby let out a yelp.

"He's mine, Tegan. Don't you dare touch him!" The girl growled back.

The men laughed, and one of them sneered at her. "You're twelve, Jay Jue. You're telling us you had a kid with some bastard?"

"I'm a lot older than I look." JJ sneered back. "What do you want? Get out before I kill you."

"Oh, I'm so scared." The man, Tegan, mocked her back. "You know what we're looking for, sweet pea. Give the child to us. Lady Red's bloodline—"

Jay's eyes widened when two of the men behind Tegan suddenly dropped to the floor, screaming in pain. Tegan himself snarled, in a blink of an eye, he threw a grenade towards a random direction to scare off the attacker. The last two standing henchmen were blown into the trees by an invisible force, and Tegan did feel bad wasting another grenade.

It was at this moment when Jay realized that Tegan's superpower is subspace. He looks like he's conjuring grenades out of thin air, but he's actually taking them out of his wrists, where he also took out a handgun.

The handgun somehow slipped out of his hand, too. Before Tegan could reach for it, he was kicked away from the gun.

"Lady Red's bloodline ended with her and the child in her womb." The Red King picked up the handgun and pointed it at Tegan. "That's my son, you asshole."

"You fucked the other Jay?" Tegan let out a demeaning laugh as he touched his wrist. In a blink of an eye, another gun came into his hand. "Good story, buddy. No idiot's gonna believe that—"

JJ covered Jay's ears when Tegan began shooting. The girl was also mumbling something under her breath, but Jay was too focused on watching the bullets going towards the Red King.

Just like in the original work, none of the bullets hit the Red King. Either they went off course or the Red King skillfully dodged it. It's kinda impossible to dodge all ten consecutive bullets at once, but it's the Red King, anything is possible.

"Five." The teenage boy began counting down, and Tegan suddenly screamed.

"Four." Red King got back up on his feet.

"Shit, have mercy! You don't wanna kill an old friend, do you!" Tegan's breathing became hoarser, and he was clenching his chest.

"Three." The countdown didn't stop; red eyes glowed a little brighter.

Jay shallowed. This is the Red King from the original work. Not gentle, no mercy. He literally makes people explode by counting down, and Jay is about to witness it first hand.

"Two."

"I believe you! I believe you! The kid is yours—"

"One." The Red King snapped his fingers.

Darkness came over Jay's vision, and he realized that it's JJ shielding him from all the gore. He could still hear the sound of bones being ripped apart from the flesh, but at least he's saved from seeing it.

"You have five seconds to run." The Red King's booming voice scared away the henchmen, and Jay heard footsteps running away.

Counting to five in his head, the baby squeezed his eyes shut when he heard bone breaking and flesh being ripped apart.

Once the darkness was taken off him, all Baby Jay saw was red. Red on the ground, red soaking the leaves, and worst of all, red on the Red King's hands. One of the henchmen was left alive, covered in red but he's running away into the woods.

"Tegan destroyed the tent." JJ's arms still held on to Jay for dear life as she made her way towards the teenage boy. "Did you find a better place?"

"Kinda." Red King sighed. "Let's salvage what we can."