4 Volume 1 Episode 4
"Well, this isn't what I expected.."
Lin Hamill sighed as he looked at the mess that was in front of him. The whole room was filled with the stench of blood and meat.
Experiment 1: Failure
Reason: Unknown
As he wrote down in his logbook, Lin recalled what happened before….
************** 2 hours earlier **************
The panther moved.
So did the man.
As the panther closed in on its prey, the man as if a last attempt at escape, punched at the Panther. It was at this moment that the miracle that Lin was hoping for happened.
The man's hand started to glow bright red, and flames started forming around his whole arm. The panther, surprised by the sudden appearance of the flames tried to move out of the way, but the flames just exploded at that moment, devouring both the man and the panther.
As he looked at the remnants left on the floor, Lin thought, "Where did it go wrong?"
He thought, but found no answer.
Exhausted with the experiment, he went back to the apartment to get some shut eye and drifted into sleep as soon as he dropped on to the bed...
"You want me to destroy the world?"
"Not THE WORLD, but A WORLD."
"What's the difference?"
"Well the world I'm asking you to destroy will end up being destroyed regardless of my interference."
"Then why do I need to do it?"
"Because looking at how things are going.. it appears that they will devour your world with it as well."
"WHAT!"
"Yes, this world ends up being destroyed in 2,000 years and with it so will your-"
"Hold up! 2,000 years? I'll be long dead by then. Why would I care? No, why SHOULD I care is the question."
"Do you honestly think these worlds exist in the same timeline? I just told you of a world that is parallel to your own.. Do you think that sort of miracles can be explained by what you people call common sense?"
"..."
"It might happen now. It might happen tomorrow. It might even happen yesterday. Time is irrelevant to such miracles. So I'm asking you…. Would you, Mr. Lin Hamill save your world by sacrificing another?"
.
.
.
.
"... No."
****************************************
"Did you wake up yet?"
Lin heard a cute voice floating over as he woke up from his sleep.
It seemed he would not be able to continue the experiment today.
"Hey, you damn rascal!" the girl finally got around and smacked on Lin's thigh according to the contours of his blanket.
Rin Emerson.
Daughter of Raymond Emerson and Koharu Emerson.
Part of the powerful Emerson Family.
She is also a Gifted; a user of Fire Magic. A damn good one at that. Popular and beautiful, she is the childhood friend of Lin and is secretly in love with him.
She believed that Lin didn't know it, and was an airhead but he did in fact know about it. It was actually extremely obvious to anyone watching. There was just one problem.
"I hate her."
Lin didn't like Rin. She was annoying, a bully, and gets mad at even the most silly matters. And to add to that, she was also a tsundere.
But what Lin hated the most was her face which was seemingly brimming with confidence and positivity. It would easily fool others, but Lin knew her long enough to figure out what was real and what wasn't. He knew.
She was fake.
*********** 6 years before ***********
"Little Lin, little Lin."
"Yes Mr. Emerson," Lin, who was young at the time answered.
"Ha ha.. you just need to call me Uncle you know," Raymond laughed at the politeness of Little Lin.
"Haha.. okay Uncle," Little Lin laughed alongside him. From the outside it looked like Little Lin was flustered by Raymond's straightforwardness. But Little Lin knew.
Little Lin had seen it.
Little Lin saw the pathetic look he had given him. It was after his second test which showed he was talentless. Not long after that Raymond had come over with Rin for her to play with Lin. He wouldn't have known. Not even some of the family members knew that he was talentless. But Little Lin had seen it.
In Raymond's eyes he saw pity.
His eyes told Little Lin that he was looking at something that would never achieve anything.
And Little Lin knew pity. He had seen it before. There were only two looks the family members had given him: Contempt and Pity.
And he hated both.
It was the reason why he never went to Raymond's house even after he invited him. He had seen Mrs. Emerson's eyes. It was the same. So was Rin's. It seemed that she also knew. But she played with him because she felt pity for him. And eventually it resulted in her developing feelings for Lin. That's why she tried to be positive around him.
But Lin had seen the pity in her eyes. It might've been reduced, but it still existed. And everytime she came around he was reminded of his talentless life. It made him mad. It made him want to cry. It made him want to give up on life. He hated that feeling.
But he never told her to leave.
She was the only one who considered him as a friend. And if she left he would've had none.
He felt pathetic.
But not anymore. He knew he had a purpose. And who knows she might be useful too. After all, he would have the support of two of the powerful families. It wasn't a bad decision. Just enough to get him to his goals.
" Leave me alone Rin," Lin, having decided to play the part of the naive and clueless friend, asked her.
"Get up dumbass, you had promised me a date if I could beat you at the sword fight. You lost and now you owe me."
That's right. He had forgotten that.
Rin likes to fight and challenge Lin to make him do whatever she wants with her. It was her way of enjoying his company. But Lin hated that she used such methods. He always lost because she was better at everything than him. Everytime she beat him, it reminded him the fact that he was inferior to the so called Gifted people. And after everything, she would have the audacity to give an inspiring speech that he too could beat her if he tried. He bit his lips as he listened to her 'inspiring' words, resisting the urge to beat the hell out of her, even though he knew he couldn't.
How would she know?
The whole reason she could fight more efficiently was because she was a Gifted. Being Gifted allowed her to have faster reflexes and enhanced senses. She also had the advantage of having a faster train of thought. She only had to spent less than 3 months in combat training, compared to him who had trained for a year. The Gifted had better and faster understanding than normal people so of course she could learn faster than him.
************ 3 years ago *************
Lin and Rin was in the dojo as usual, training with each other.
"I beat you again!"
Rin slammed Lin down on the ground, and Lin let out a groaning voice.
"Ouch, let's go one more round!"
Lin didn't want to give up yet, and got back into the mat to fight once again.
"Guess you haven't finished losing yet, huh?"
Rin smiled and got back up her feet as well, and both of them got into their battle stances. Lin looked straight at his opponent, reading her body, figuring out what move she was going to make.
Suddenly, Rin moved. She was extremely quick, but Lin had caught a glimpse of her moving her arms, readying for a punch.
'Focus.'
He waited, trusting his instincts. According to his observation, she should definitely be going in for a punch, and he waited for the perfect timing to strike back.
'Now!'
Lin moved right before Rin stretched out her hands, avoiding the attack pathway, knocking one of her legs off balance, forcing her to lose control.
Lin then grabbed her other hand and used the force of her falling to further help him throw her down on the ground.
He was going to win.
Until...
Lin saw what had happened clearly. It was for a split second, but his eyes were clear. Rin used her fire powers to boost her speed just a little to escape his grasp. She then grabbed hold of his stomach from behind and threw him back, causing him to fall on the mat with a loud noise.
Lin still couldn't believe that she used her magic in the dojo, where the fight was purely based on skill. It was the rules. As he was getting up, he saw Rin walking towards him.
'Please, admit it.'
Lin wished desperately for her to admit it. Admit that she was unfair. Admit that Lin beat her, a magic user, just once.
Rin stretched out her hand, and spoke with an innocent smile.
"Guess you lost again, huh?"
***************************************
Lin could still remember that innocent smile plastered across her face to this day. He couldn't forget it. How could he?
It was that day that he understood that Rin didn't consider him as her friend. No, he was a sort of trophy for her, an object to remind her that she was better.
Because behind all that positive, all smile persona, all she was was a paranoid, delusional hypocrite who believes that she was better than everyone else.
"You're the same no matter which world you're in huh?" Lin whispered to himself.
"Did you say something?"
"Nope. Not a word."
"Really? Well anyways, let's go now, shall we?"
Rin hopped to the door, and Lin looked at her back moving away from him. At that moment he had made a resolution. He promised himself that he would surpass her completely. And then…
Lin's lips curved into a smile, "I'll make you experience despair.. the same way you did."
As he made up his mind, he moved to follow Rin outside. That's right, he wouldn't be doing the experiment today. But he had started another experiment at the same time. One that would span months… maybe years... and he knew…. That he would enjoy it very much.
