The year was 3XXX, the world was, and has been fucked for a very long time. The world once knew the difference between right and wrong, empathy and sympathy, love and lust. But that time is long gone. Justice had become a drugged-out failure, crushed beneath ambition and greed. Products known as "Bio-Girls" acted as both a synthetic option to biological women, and to a darker note, they were known as "reusable" resources, toys to be broken more than they already had been when tossed away. The city was run by enforcers of the Amoral business practices. Gangs of a racist race of chibi creatures known as the "Confederation of cuties" roamed the streets acting out their own beliefs of brutality on anything that wasn't "cute or nice enough" which just meant anything that wasn't them.
In a rundown home, a young boy whom features were strange and otherworldly. Runt had looked out into the home of his friend, an older boy he knew, Asaoka, a half-japanese person who had lived nearby to him. he knew Asaoka as an older brother figure, they had met during late nights, becoming brothers through their shared hardships. He was too young to pronounce his friend's name correctly so he would often call him "Asa". The strange pronunciation always seemed to make the sad older boy smile, reminded of his own old happiness, and as the two began to meet more and more, the boys became like brothers, in those brief moments at night, they were family. However one time late at night, Runt saw his best friend stare down in the rushing waters, standing on the edge of the bridge, rushing over to check on Asaoka, to see and hope that he was ok. Asaoka eyes, blood shot and lidded looked at the otherworldly boy and smiled. "I'm sorry I can't be stronger, I'm nothing to her anymore, they took her from me. I'm sorry for being too weak to have been there for you." Asaoka smiled, but his eyes gave away the depths of sadness the older boy felt. "Promise me you'll be stronger than me, that you won't let people hurt you and hurt the people around you, please Runt." The boy whose name was Runt reached out a small gaunt hand to his friend, he lunged to the railings of the bridge where his friend had stood, the only person who hadn't been afraid of him.
He was too slow. too far away. Runt saw his bestfriend throw his life away.
His glowing eyes lidded, his mouth full of sharp teeth gritted. He had let out a heart-breaking, hallowed cry, releasing his hate, his despair and his fear into the cold night. To the city, to the world, this death meant nothing. But to Runt, He had lost his family.
He wept. He had one friend, and that friend was gone, disappeared. The boy put coverings on, to hide his unusual features as he left his home to wander the night once more..
---
When the boy became a man. He hadn't just grown. He had taken a name in honour of his fallen brother, Smiley. He swore he would never forgive what Asaoka's father and brother took from him, that someone who saw the boy as a boy who wanted friends, who needed a guide, they had taken his friend's life through their actions. He had learned what happened, that when they had taken Asaoka's girlfriend, when they had broken her over and over infront of him, he had fallen apart, perhaps he was selfish, but he couldn't help but remember the sadness in the face of his friend. No. His brother.
A friend was all he ever wanted. His only regret was that he was not been strong enough for both Asaoka and himself, that in his darkest moment he was too weak to pull him up from the darkness that he fell into. He swore that he would never let someone, especially himself, lose a friend to evil. That he would do everything to hurt those who tried to take his friends away..
His grey, scaly, skin. His elongated fingers and his even stranger faceless features, his sharp shark-like teeth, and his glowing yellow eyes were hidden behind heavy layers of clothing, scarves and a gasmask covering his freakish face. Most people assumed he had been one of the mutants that prowled at night to hunt for those who they believe had slighted then. assumptions of him such as that he was one of the demons that converted others into the mindless cogs of demon-hood. The last made him curious, they had said he was one of the freakish loners that had traveled the night searching for something.
That had made him wonder if there were others like him, who had something good taken from them.
As he sat in his chair, staring at the tethered home phone, he began to hear the voice of an old friend creep into his ears. "Runt, my boy!" the voice had called out, with no true origin point found, his heart sped up. Smiley had heard this voice once before as a child, and he hadn't wanted to hear it again.