The Aberrations of S.I.D.E.

No. 4: Julian

Macklemore.

"You're---you're Augustus's brother," Virgil stammered.

Julian let out a little laugh. "Uh, yep. That's me."

"But you're dead," Logan blurted. "You have to be dead. A third-degree burn on the side of your face and your hand cut off---nobody survives that without medical help."

"Yeah, well, Nero and Augustina had enough humanity to tell a couple of the maids to take me to the hospital," Julian said, looking down at his prosthetic. "I moved to Boston after I recovered." He smiled slightly, fiddling with the ring on his necklace. "And me and my wife got married a few months after that."

Patton gasped. "Oh, that's right! The non-Anomaly you got engaged to! Augustus told us about you!"

"Her name's Kayla." Julian's eyes traveled over to Janus. "Is that... is that the shapeshifter? The little one with the vitiligo?"

"I have a name, you know," Janus muttered.

"Right. Janus." He cleared his throat. "I, um, I heard about... well, what my brother did to you. I know it might be a bit of a shock to see me, since I've been told I look a lot like him---"

Janus held up a hand. "Your hair is brown, you have a burn scar and a prosthetic, you're blind in one eye, you're taller, and you're not wearing sunglasses. I think I can differentiate."

Julian blinked. "Oh. Okay. Good."

Roman raised his hand. "Mr. Marshall---"

"Please, call me Jules," he said. "Mr. Marshall's my father-in-law."

"Why exactly are you here?" Roman asked.

"And how come you knew about last spring?" Virgil added.

Jules looked over at Emile. "Dr. Picani? Mind answering that question?"

Emile leaned forward. "Last spring, when Janus mentioned that Augustus believed that Julian was alive, I hired a few tech-savvy ops to look for him. It took them a while, but they eventually discovered that in 2015, a law student named Julian Macklemore attended Harvard---and for the vast majority of his time there, he was seeing a fellow law student by the name of Kayla Marshall, who lived in Boston." He shrugged. "I decided to call Kayla up to ask if she'd heard from him, and, well, I found out that they were married."

"And he filled me in on everything that happened," Jules finished. "I came up here as soon as I could."

"Why?" Janus asked, folding his arms.

"Why, what?"

"Why did you come here?" Janus said. "You clearly don't want to be associated with the Anomaly world anymore, or you would've refuted your parents's claims about you dying."

Jules sighed. "Well, when you hear that your kid brother was using his pretty-destructive powers on another kid, and that the woman who was involved in your conception kidnapped said kid, you kind of have to show up. Besides, I have insider knowledge of the Divinity Circle---Nero and Augustina did intend for me to run it someday."

Virgil registered that Jules was deliberately avoiding calling Nero and Augustina his parents. Understandable, he thought. If my parents did shit like that to me, the last thing I'd call them would be "Mom" and "Dad."

"So... you're here to help?" Remus concluded.

Jules nodded. "It's the least I can do, honestly. I couldn't prevent Auggie from turning out the way he did---and it was a pretty big shock for me, since the last I saw him, he still hadn't grown out of that tiger plushie---but I can prevent Augustina from causing any more pain."