And if it's not too much spoilers. When will be the next time?
Oh what a LOVELY ask we have here! ✨
He stopped crying during his first year under Leska, which is to say before he turned five.
In that time, Rhuls conditioned him out of the crying response (not intentionally, he had no idea what he was doing, but sure was glad it happened).
The result is, Kev doesn't hold himself back from crying, it just doesn't happen at all. He couldn't if he wanted to. At the moment he thinks it's a learned skill that he was never taught ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
which come to think of it could be an interesting idea for future whump, demanding he do that or else [insert bad things]... oh maybe even when hurting someone he cares about... hm... 😈😈😈
About next time... spoilers? kinda?
I'm gonna be honest, I really don't know. I'm on the fence if it may or may not happen at the final climax of his character arc. It's more likely that he'd just get teary eyed at most ngl.
It might happen later on, and I mean After The End Of The Story, with a lot of years of therapy. It might never happen again.
I present you today: the adventures of an unstable young teen and the poor kid he's stuck babysitting. And with this, this little backstory extra is completed! Yayyy!
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Masterpost here
CW: implied crazy militaristic society, living weapon whump, child abuse and neglect, emotional manipulation.
---
The small runt baffled Rhuls.
More time only served to confirm he was smaller and more uncoordinated than he should have been at his age. More than the others that came before, at least. He was ridiculously prone to getting sick. In the first four months, he was sick more often than not. But through strain and injury and illness, he stubbornly refused to die.
The kid cried so much at first. Not the shrill, ear-piercing crying the other two had been torturing Rhuls with, more of a soft miserable sobbing. It made Rhuls want to hit him harder. That didn’t work.
He switched tactics. Every time the runt as much as sniffled, he dragged him into an empty room and locked him inside. He did not keep shouting at him to shut up, just went back to training and came to get him when he was done, at the end of the day.
Soon, the kid stopped crying. For good.
---
Rhuls had to admit, Kev learned. Pretty fast, too. Soon he could read letters, then short words. Even if he was shit at moving his body, he understood instructions and did not get sidetracked as much as the other kids. Rhuls could leave him with the interactive kinesthetic training modules and focus on his own work, without constantly having to stop and scold some water-brained toddler wandering off.
It was one week before month six, when he heard the familiar chime of a module fully completed with a good score. He stopped halfway his workout sequence and turned to the kid.
“Finally!”
Kev flinched. Raised his scruffy head, with that terrible haircut he didn’t seem able to fix at all, and looked up at him with a confused expression, narrow eyes opened wide.
“See, told you it was a matter of practice. Ancients, about time you had something to show for the end-year assessment!”
The kid looked dumbfounded. Rhuls realized he’d probably never seen him in a good mood before. He crossed his arms.
“Well? Go on, start on the next. It’s basically a variation of this one, should be easy. Well, maybe not for your clumsy ass…”
The kid didn’t react. He almost never talked if not addressed, barely reacted to things. But by now, Rhuls knew he understood way more than it seemed. He nodded towards the shimmering projected screen on the wall. Kev turned and gestured at the big NEXT button right under his completion score, booting up the exercise.
---
By the end of the following week, Kev had successfully completed module two. The assessment went as well as could be expected: the kid still lacked coordination on movements he had not practiced, but was pretty good on learned stances. Better than many six year olds, for sure.
Renkoi Leska topped it off calling for a sparring. Rhuls absolutely thrashed the little thing, obviously. But the kid managed to take hits well enough, kept his guard mostly solid, if a bit shaky, through the whole thing. That was what the first two modules were about. He proved able to apply what he learned in a real life situation – ‘cause Rhuls was sure as hell not pulling his punches more than strictly necessary in a non-deadly match. He would not have the Renkoi think he was slacking off, or taking it easy on the project.
“An adequate result,” Renkoi Leska commented to Rhuls, while the kid scurried off to his room to fix his sprained wrist and bleeding nose.
“Thank you, Sir.”
Rhuls beamed, proudly puffing his chest. “It’s been a lot of work, but he’s on the right track now. I’ll make sure he stays on it.”
The High General nodded. “I’ll be handing you a timetable with minimum requirements to be met. I’d expect a good instructor to be able to push the student at a faster pace than required.”
“Yes, Sir. It will be done.”
“And keep in mind, this is a weapon in the making. One subject can’t take it, the project will simply restart with the next.”
“Of course, Sir.”
---
That evening, Rhuls got himself a bar of dark chocolate with his State allowance. He was still running on the high of the Renkoi’s positive feedback, and the bittersweet treat was the feather on the arrow.
He found the runt sitting on the floor of the main room, practicing his letters left handed. The bandage on his right wrist was a hilarious mess. Rhuls scoffed, more amused than pissed.
“How are you still so bad at bandaging yourself? With all the practice you get!” He plopped on the ground at his side. The kid flinched, but tried to mask it. He was starting to get better at that. Rhuls grabbed his right arm and fiddled with the knotted bundle of gauze. “I told you, you gotta compress it” he chided, redoing it quick and careless, “If it gets worse, sucks for you, I’m not changing the schedule just ‘cause you’re shit at first aid. You hear me?”
Kev nodded. He didn’t make a single grimace at the rough treatment, not even when Rhuls tested him on purpose, pulling the medication way too tight for a moment. His only reaction was to tighten the grip on his pencil. Good progress on that, for sure.
The sheet of paper caught Rhuls’s eye. He did a double take. The letters were still shaky, still lopsided, but already looked very similar to what the kid would write with his right. Probably better than Rhuls could do with his left.
“Seriously,” he huffed, “You gotta stop fucking up your right hand. You’ve probably had more practice with your nondominant, this is ridiculous.”
Kev looked at his freshly re-bandaged hand. Looked at Rhuls. Tried to switch the pencil into his unsteady right fist.
“Not now!” Rhuls smacked him on the back of the head, “I said to stop hurting it every other day!”
The kid didn’t flinch this time. Just picked up the pencil and quietly went back to his letters.
Rhuls huffed again, rummaging through his pocket for the half-eaten chocolate bar. He snapped a small block.
“Here. You did well today.”
Kev raised his head and stared at his outstretched hand. Blinked. Gingerly reached to take it. Looked back at him.
“Yes, I said it’s for you,” Rhuls groaned, “It’s chocolate. You eat it. Ancients, you’re so dense sometimes.”
The kid slowly brought the sweet to his mouth, still staring at him. Bit into it. Suddenly, his blank expression morphed into a comical look of wonder, shoulders straightening up, eyes wide as shields. He chewed much faster.
Rhuls couldn’t help but laugh, taking a big bite from his bar as he got up to his feet.
“Finish your sheets before you go to bed. And don’t put weight on that wrist!”
---
“Permission to speak, Sir?”
Renkoi Leska glanced up from the documents neatly piled on his desk, allowing Rhuls his attention.
“Granted. Rest.”
The boy shifted from attention to rest position, clearing his throat.
“I wish to report on the progress status of the project.”
A curt nod.
“Today, the weapon has completed his first proper unarmed fighting module, score 98. That officially puts us six months ahead of schedule, and with a higher score than prospected.”
Rhuls could not contain the pride in his voice. Six full months ahead was a huge achievement. To get to this point, he’d pushed the runt as hard as he could through the last year, and the kid had been responding well. Tonight might be time for one more bite of chocolate, maybe even two.
“Six months ahead,” Renkoi Leska repeated. There was a thoughtfulness to his tone, an inflection Rhuls did not expect. “He is now five and a half, yes? That would mean he mastered it one year before you did.”
Rhuls immediately deflated. “I-“ He tripped on his words, blood rushing to his face, “I, I took way less time, Sir! We didn’t even start on fighting modules until I was almost six and a half!”
“Yes. Which is why this is a special project.”
Rhuls opened his mouth to speak, but could not think of any retort. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his mind, unable to string together anything of value.
The Renkoi’s gaze quickly grew cold. Impatient. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” he stammered, “No, Sir.”
“Then you’re dismissed.”
---
Rhuls walked back to the training grounds in a daze, barely aware of his surroundings. He had not thought of that. Six months ahead of schedule, a schedule already optimized for specific skill building, cutting out all socialization, general culture, festivities, mandatory official events, entertainment and idle time. A schedule more intensive than the fastest élite training. One day, the kid might catch up with him.
“He’s marked, Sir,” Handler Garhi’s voice resonated in his head, “Fifty-fifty chance of it manifesting.”
What if it did? What if his body betrayed him, and he proved no longer up to the High General’s expectations? What if-
No. The kid was to be nothing but a weapon. Rhuls was to be an actual, functional member of the army, trained to lead, raised to command. He was to be the next High General. So what if a weapon could, in time, catch up with him on fighting alone?
He stalked into the training grounds with purpose, charged, ready to put himself through one of the hardest free modules. He barely had the time to boot his screen up, before the runt silently walked to his side.
“Ancients!” he jumped, finding him there out of the blue, “What do you want?”
Kev quietly raised an arm, pointing.
Rhuls followed the little finger to the golden hue of a celebratory screen. Score 99, New Record. The kid looked up at him with that blank stare of his, empty but somewhat expectant.
Anger seized Rhuls. “So what?” he shouted, shoving him flat on the floor, “You haven’t even mastered it! I mastered this like ten years ago, it was so easy! It didn’t even take me a month! You think you’re good? Get up.”
Kev scrambled to his feet, immediately reading the situation, raising his arms in guard. Always so quick, on that. Not that it would matter. Rhuls stepped forward and punched him in the face, breaking through his fast but feeble attempt at parrying.
“Not so good, now, huh?” he taunted as the kid rolled away at a distance and got back up, one cheek already red and swelling. Rhuls marched forward and smashed a kick into his stomach. The slippery thing almost evaded it, but not quite. Not yet. He smacked into a wall and once again bounced up, coughing from the impact.
Rhuls snarled. “You’re still nothing, you hear me? Nothing!” He spit on the ground. “You finish one module, you start the next. That’s all you have to do. Do not distract me!”
He turned his back to the limping kid, noticed him quietly going back to his screen.
Rhuls wished he’d die, like the others. From sickness, from exhaustion, from the High General’s harsh tests and harsher punishments.
From that day on, so many times he got right to the brink. Every time it looked like this time, for sure, he would.
I wrote something offhandedly in a comment and now I’m curious. Does Vekta/wherever Kev&crew are play chess? I imagine they have strategy/war games, but it might not be real earth chess. Relatedly, who among the characters can play chess (or Vektan not-chess), and are they any good? Can Kev even comprehend a board game?
Not sure if chess as we know it would have survived (I like having random things that somehow got preserved), but if not they would certainly have an equivalent! Still have to decide on the specifics.
If it is OUR chess, rules might slightly change in Vekta compared to the classic version broadly played in most of the civilized world. Since the White Queen (being Death) has a huge significance in their culture, the queen would be swapped with a different piece, probably the General, that functions the same. They might have a clause that, once you've lost your General, a pawn that manages to eat the enemy's General is promoted and yours comes back on the board (and so on and so forth). Strategies would shift to account for that.
Bishops would have a different, military-related name (to be fair, in many rl languages it's not called bishop either)
Now about playing!
(whether it's chess or an in-world equivalent)
Leska does not care for games.
Rhuls is surprisingly a decent player who can think up solid plays, but he's impatient. Frustrating/pissing him off will provoke him into making mistakes, getting more angry, and making more and more mistakes. Really dependent on how much he manages to keep a cool head.
Kev has never played it, but! A straightforward, one on one competitive board game like chess would be the easiest kind to grasp. While he finds it overcomplicated, it has clear rules, an objective, a winner and a loser. That makes sense to him - it's games where you're just supposed to "play together" and "have fun" that he doesn't get.
I think he would be pretty good at it. While not making elaborate strategies, he'd intuit the opponent's intentions a lot and, with practice, quickly pick up patterns and how to thwart them. His own playstyle would stay quite simple, but he'd be 100% cool minded and very very rarely make mistakes or leave openings.
A very good player would still beat him with strategies he can't see until it's too late, but he'd have a fair chance against players more advanced than him that are prone to slips while focused on their grand plan.
Well this got long... hope it answered your question!
7: Whumper, what is the worst thing you've done to whumpee? Whumpee, what do YOU think the worst thing they did was?
For Rhuls!!
Hiiii! ngl these were hard to answer, very good for me to do some character work!
For reference, I’m setting this interview roughly at the time we currently are in the story. As in, just before the undercover chapter :3
[Interview game here!]
Prev | Next
Pt 1B (Leska special)
7: Whumper, what is the worst thing you've done to whumpee? Whumpee, what do YOU think the worst thing they did was?
Rhuls: “I’m not allowed to do what I’d want…Tho I did fuck him up pretty bad a few times” Chuckles darkly. “He’s learned how to take a serious beating well, if nothing else”.
Kev: “Nothing much, without Leska’s orders. He’s repetitive.”
R: “I’ll give you repetitive. Should shove a staff down your throat, all the way out the opposite side”.
K: “That’s. Not how it works.”
R: “Then shut up before I fucking try!”
18. What do you dislike about yourself?
(asking this to Rhuls, as requested! Here's the answer for Kev btw)
Rhuls grits his teeth, straightening his back to his full height - a good 6′2” - his posture and demeanor turning menacing.
R: “I am an extraordinary warrior. Envious spawn of weak lineage can talk all they want, I will crush every one of them in combat!”
23. What triggers whumper?
Rhuls: “Huh? What does that mean?”
Kev: “As in, make him lose his shit? What doesn’t.”
R: “That’s it!”
There’s a confused flash for a moment as Rhuls charges and Kev darts to the side. Nothing is visible for a few seconds. Then a blur, and the camera cracks and falls to the ground, turning to static.
would rhuls and leska recognize human limits, like what no human could push past, and let kev stop or is it always down to kev to push until he physcially can't?
The answer here is layered. Let's start from Leska!
Leska (kind of, not very accurately to be fair) knows human limits, however the point of the project is precisely to push those as much as possible.
It is not on Leska to make sure one specific project succeeds. While there is some sunk cost in Kev being already a 10+ year project, he is not concerned with time. Too much, it broke? He'll start over.
Rhuls, on the other hand... here's the thing, on paper, Rhuls is just Leska's hand. He's supposed to make sure Kev keeps up (mostly when he was small, by now Kev manages himself and his own training) and put him under pressure. He is not allowed to kill Kev - let him die if he can't overcome something, yes, but not actively kill him.
Problem is, Rhuls has very complicated feelings about Kev, and terrible self control. You could argue that, while less scary, he is sometimes more dangerous than Leska, on account of acting on impulse. Leska likes it this way because it keeps Kev on his toes in his absence.
So, yeah. They're ✨ very unreasonable ✨
It's on Kev to make do, either straight up pushing through it, or figuring a way to make the humanly impossible task not humanly impossible.
It's a mix of challenging human limits, and problem solving!
Related to whumping or not, what is Whumper's biggest dream or goal in life?
Oh, let's see
For Rhuls, his life goal is to become the next Renkoi / High General, which is the highest military ranking in Vekta, and second in power only to the King. (On paper. There are cases one could argue the Renkoi actually holds more power than the King).
He is Leska's chosen pupil for exactly that purpose, and has been busting his ass for it all this time!
In pursuit of all this, he'd really love to get rid of Kev. Not necessarily for him to die, but certainly to be finally relieved of his duties as... well, by now Kev manages his own training, so, glorified watchdog.
As for Leska... he doesn't quite have a life goal, he's very much in a fuck around and find out phase of his existence. At the moment, his goal is to prove a point. And Kev is instrumental to the point he's trying to prove :3c
What freaks out your Whumper? Do they have any triggers or phobias?
Thanks for the question!
Doing Rhuls for these because as a mostly non-emotional nonhuman, Leska would be boriiiing :D
Rhuls's biggest fear is starting to show symptoms for the degenerative disease his father had. That would destroy everything he's worked for his whole life, AND his whole sense of self with it.
He gets... I don't know if it can be called triggered, when the distress is expressed through rage instead of anxiety, but definitely has strong, mostly uncontrolled reactions to insinuations that he's "defective" and fated to the same end.
He also has a fear of needles. Hates hospitals so much :D
4: How long have you been together? How do you feel about that?
7: Whumper, what is the worst thing you've done to whumpee? Whumpee, what do YOU think the worst thing they did was?
10: What is something you admire about the other?
16. How do you cope?
<3
For reference, I’m setting this interview roughly at the time we currently are in the story. As in, just before the undercover chapter :3
[Interview game here!]
Prev
Pt 1B (Leska special)
4: How long have you been together? How do you feel about that?
Rhuls: “WAY too long. He was what, four? when this started. Can’t wait to be rid of him, focus on what matters. I should be much higher in rank already, but I’m stuck with this cursed runt half the time, away from the battlefield! I don’t get why the Renkoi-“ He stops himself, exhaling through gritted teeth. “I don’t question Renkoi Leska’s judgement, of course. That’s not my place. I just.” Gestures at Kev, “It’s his fault! He won’t behave and forces me away from my real duties.”
Kev simply raises his eyebrows, his face saying it all.
7: Whumper, what is the worst thing you've done to whumpee? Whumpee, what do YOU think the worst thing they did was?
Answered here!
10: What is something you admire about the other?
Rhuls scoffs. “He’s damn hard to kill, I’ll give him that.”
K: “He sure is loyal to Leska. More than you’d think.” It sounds much more like an insult than a compliment.
16. How do you cope?
R: “A warrior is forged through hardship. You gotta trust in your betters.” A grimace. “I’m better than most of those decorated sacks of air, but the Renkoi is different. He earned his place and can see real potential. He has grand plans, for me too. He knows what he’s doing.”
