You know when you think of torture, you usually think of someone operating on you while you're awake, chainsaws to your leg, skin removal, all the fun stuff. But never did I think it would entail a boring questionnaire. But as it goes that's exactly what Jarvis intended on torturing me with.

"What do you do for living slash study ?"

He sat on a chair facing me with a notepad in hand. The computer behind him showed 5 pictures, 1 of which was me and the 4 others of my basement buddies. There was some data under our pictures that were mostly speculatory because I definitely wasn't 23 years old. At least I thought I wasn't 23 years old. This situation I was in was weird enough if you didn't count the fact that superpowers were probably real now.

"I studied computer science."

He stared at me for a second.

"Studied ?"

"Well yeah, 'studied'. You're probably going to kill me after you're done with this right ?"

Jarvis shook his head and took off his slim glasses.

"We're not going to kill you. We're merely going to experiment on you. Some experiments will be painful, some will not. It all just depends on you."

"And what will happen after you're done with these experiments."

He looks at me with pity.

"We don't know if they'll ever finish, you guys are practically a new species."

"Are you telling me I have to stay here and be experimented on for the rest of my life ?"

My voice shook a little. Of course, I was mad. Of course, I was angry. These assholes said shit like this with a straight face, and I didn't want to think about what they would do to my basement-buddies after they found out I wasn't exactly special material. I really wanted to punch this guy but I wasn't exactly in what you'd call peak condition and any energy I used was crucial seeing as my leg was still broken.

'fuckin hell'

Jarvis eyed me with a sympathetic look in his eyes. Maybe he wasn't as bad as the other guys who had kidnapped him but he was still a massive piece of shit for even working with people whose morals were so skewed that if you were to personify their morality it would be one of a fucking obstacle course, as opposed to a compass. They jumped leaps and bounds in logic to justify their acts and it

pissed me off.

"By the way, if you're going to question me at least let me ask you a few things seeing as I'm apparently going to be here for the rest of my shitty life."

He stared at me with pity-ridden eyes and nodded.

"I won't be able to answer and grant everything but I'll at least give you a few things."

I sighed.

"Well, first thing's first. You wouldn't happen to have my phone, would you? I'm not going to call anyone I just need some music to listen to because this silence is just really not a pleaser to the ears."

He shook his head. Well, I expected him to say no to that question so I wasn't too surprised. But I was serious about the silence. I didn't like it. I'd always been listening to music from the day I remember getting myself my first phone. I listened nonstop; day and night, while awake and asleep, In class and at home, in public and in private. It replaced the horridly loud silence that overlayed the voices of the relationships and bonds I didn't have, or maybe sometimes even amplified it. It all depended on how I was feeling that moment.

But without the music, I was back to listening to the silence.

Jarvis shook his head lightly.

"Do you really only want your phone for music or are you trying to contact the authorities. Look kid, I'm trying my best to accommodate you here but this isn't going to help."

"Look dude, you don't have to give me my phone, I just want something to fill this silence, anything, can't you play some music on your computer or something, it shouldn't be that hard right ?"

His eyes scanned my expression once more before he wrote down what I could only guess was my request.

"Any other questions ?"

"So . . . I don't suppose you could tell me . . . where we are exactly ?"

He brought his hands to the bridge of his nose and squeezed it.

"No I'm afraid that's not something I can tell you, and that'll conclude the questions you can ask me."

'Not sure why I asked this question, even if he did what would I do with that information.'

"Now then, since I'm a man of my word what type of music do you like."

"I'm fine with anything, to be honest, just try to choose you think would fit this situation."

He turned his head in slight confusion before turning around. He typed something in a search bar, scrolling for a couple of seconds before choosing something he deemed appropriate. He started the song which I recognized.

"Barefoot In The Park by Shiro Sagisu ? I never took you for an anime soundtrack type of guy."

"Well, I guess people aren't always what they seem."

I didn't take myself for someone with perfect memory, but when it came to music I might as well have been. I had always wanted to be a musician; make music that people could listen to, to feel what I felt, and hear what I deemed to be musical and rhythmical sharpness. I had dreamed it, but my parents, unfortunately, didn't feel the same. Music to them and the large majority of people was an industry for only the most masochistic and struggle hungry people. They told me that if I wanted to starve on the streets as a 20-year-old music major dropout then they'd indulge me. I sadly didn't indulge them on the offer, but where music creation was stripped from me, the act of listening to music was the band-aid on the injury and it was a damn large one at that.

All the time I would've spent creating music was spent listening to it, memorizing each and every one of my favorite singers and songs. Whenever I felt a certain way, I would quickly open my phone up, recall every song that made me feel that way, make a playlist out of it, and listen. I listened to some songs hundreds of thousands of times across periods of days, months, years.

So much so that whenever I felt an emotion, I didn't recall the event that caused me that emotion but the music I listened to afterward to lengthen and recall it. So when one of the songs from my repertoire found its way into a new moment of my life, I couldn't help but be taken back at the implications of why Jarvis would pick the song.

I was taken back by it...

But also the screen that had suddenly appeared in front of me.

[ Melomaniac Awakening Complete ]

[ System Integration Complete ]

'Huh, I guess I am special after all.'

'Ehhh, Melomaniac kinda makes me sound like a crazy person though'

Since I had seen these before in front of my basement-buddies I wasn't too taken back to the point where It would change my expression but...

Now that I thought about it why didn't it pop up earlier when everyone else's popped up? Was there some type of thing I had to do before it became available to me?

'Hmm, I was contemplating something music-related earlier'

But before I could think about it anymore Jarvis spoke.

"So since we're over that let's get on with the questions shall we?"

I couldn't be bothered to put much energy into my reply so I went with a curt:

"Sure."

And so he indeed went on with his questions some general, some a bit more personal.

Since he had shown to not be a complete dickbag I answered some of his questions truthfully. After all, I wasn't going to tell him seriously how many relationships I had been in. Clue: It was zero.

"Alright seems we're done with this part of today's activities, let's go on to the next one."

He walked over to help carry me seeing as my foot was still broken so I obliged. Except when I tried standing up, my leg no longer hurt as it had before. Almost as if it had healed. I thought about it for a second before deciding to keep that to myself just in case it could help me later. After all, I still hadn't given up finding a way to escape for myself. I wouldn't have given myself over if I didn't think there was still a way out of this.

Jarvis carried me over to the door but before he could open it, it opened on its own revealing Mr. Ugly-Old-Fat-Fuck himself. How endearing.

"Alright, Jarvis let me handle this little dick."

'Was he waiting for us by the door ?'

I try to make a quick little jab at him but Jarvis starts talking before I can get one in.

"Hugh you should stop. I get you don't like..."

He looks at me for a second.

"...His species but that doesn't mean you should actively try to mess with them. He hasn't even been a seedling for a full day yet, and you're treating him like he's already a wild animal."

"That's because he is, I don't care I'm not going to take my chances in leaving him to his devices. And plus you've seen them too haven't you Jarvis, You remember what that freak did to my buddies. They're violent mindless animals, and you saw how he headbutted Charlie, I wouldn't be surprised if he's mindless by tomorrow morning."

Jarvis stared at the fat fuck whose name was Hugh apparently.

It felt he stared at him for a full minute but he finally spoke.

"Have you not realized that we're just as bad as them now? And actually, who's to say they're all like that, I mean we're kidnappers Hugh, we're kidnappers for god's sake! Has that even ever crossed your mind ?!"

The 'Hugh'ge dick spoke back seemingly not thinking before he did.

"And ?"

At the reply, it seemed Jarvis had snapped.

"What the fuck do you mean 'And ?', are you listening to yourself, Hugh? I'm tired of your mental gymnastics...Just fucking leave...Let me do my job and I'll let you do yours-

The old-smelly-fat-fuck of course interrupted.

"That's right you'll do your job and I'll do mine. You do your creepy experiments-"

Jarvis interrupted.

"They're not creepy, they all have their purpo-"

Since what goes around comes around he was interrupted once again.

"I don't care, let me talk. I do my job and you do yours, and my job is to make sure none of these little fuckers try to escape."

I don't know what took me but I just had to launch a quick jab at him.

"Not before you die of Type-2 diabetes, god shut up already."

They both looked at me. Jarvis with an incredulous look on his face as if he was unsure he had heard me correctly, and Hugh with the expression I had wanted him to wear this whole time. Anger.

He was pissed, and I guess he wanted it to be known.

"Shut the fuck up."

I flippantly replied.

"Yeah Yeah whatever, if you're gonna kill me get it over with, if you're going to experiment get it over with, I'm kind of getting annoyed by this meaningless conversation. I'm human if you say so, and I'm a monster if you say so. I don't really give a fuck what you think either way so get it over with."

Hugh must've felt that his anger didn't get through to me so he continued with his incessant blabber.

"You talk an awful for someone who claims to not care."

"Well, I guess that tends to happen when you get kidnapped don't you think ?"

Hugh tried a rebuttal but Jarvis as if he has a fetish for it interrupts him again.

"That's enough Hugh. How about you do what you keep telling me to do, and I'll do what you keep telling me to do and we go about our business."

Hugh starts again.

"Sure, but let me get one thing in."

Hugh stares at me, Of course, he would want to get the last word in.

"Just know that as soon you outlast your use, I'm going to push your shit in kid"

I didn't know why if he hated me because I headbutted his buddy, or because someone like me killed his buddy as he said, or because he was trying to get to Jarvis for some reason, but I didn't really want to care.

I breathed.

"Whatever dude."

He walked away

--

Getting kidnapped is not fun and it's just as scary and demoralizing as it's portrayed in movies, but that's probably already pretty obvious. I was on campus when it happened. Walking around with my sister seeing as we both wouldn't have class any time soon. Then.

The crash.

I was slammed into a wall, and I'm positive I stopped seeing and feeling anything for a solid 30 seconds before opening my eyes to the most mind-boggling experience ever. A holographic screen in front of my eyes. I looked to the left, it went to the left, I looked to the right, It went to the right.

'Yep, that's definitely real.'

Something about being slammed into a wall by a random explosion kind of made me not care as much as I would, that and the fact that-

'Where's Evelyn...'

I started looking around to see her a couple of feet away from me. It was bad, really bad. The skin from one side of her face was burnt off, and her arm seemed to be bent the wrong way.

"No-No-No, Evelyn w-wake up."

I dragged myself through the somehow still intact concrete towards her ignoring all the pain that might come after, and not bothering to check if I was in the same condition. All that mattered was getting her somewhere to be treated, and fast.

[ Undying Brawler Awakening Complete ]

[ System Integration Complete ]

Suddenly I felt much lighter and less groggy, so I stood up and ran towards her, only to see her wounds magically fixing themselves.

'Okay, something really weird is going on.'

She stared into empty space for a second.

'Is she seeing the same screen as I am ?'

Before I could ponder further her eyes glossed over me to something behind me before they widened. Then my vision went dark.

That was pretty much how we ended up in this basement. It sucked, and it sucked bad. We were there for maybe a full day before they threw in two more people. Talking to them told us that they'd been gathering people through who'd been hit by the seeds we'd been seeing on the news. They fed us once a day by bringing in a couple of meals. Surprisingly clean ones at that considering the place we were in.

From what I could gather they were keeping us alive to eventually experiment on us. That was the only reason I could honestly think of, and from what I was witnessing now it seems I was right.

The weird boy they had brought in today was just like us, or rather it seemed he was around our age.

'Does this thing only affect people from a certain age group? That would suck for old people'

He seemed pretty normal until he opened his eyes. I watched him look around for a second before he broke down into tears.

'Ah . . . I wonder what they did to him.'

The only other person who seemed as hopeless as he was the girl who called herself Chizu. Well instead of hopeless, I think unstable would be the word to describe it. Every time the guys who kidnapped us walked in, she'd lose all sense of reason and try to attack them. Luckily for her, they rarely visited so she usually stayed pretty calm otherwise.

Well ever since we had come here, I'd been staring at my status wondering whether I should share this information with the rest of the people here so as to see whether they were the same as us, so when Evelyn had agreed with me the night before to share this I complied. At first, I kind of didn't want to. The crying-dude was kind of getting too close to my sister for comfort, but since she asked I couldn't just do it. That would make me a bad big brother after all.

As I showed my status to these other people and my sister once more, I stared at it briefly.

Status

Name: Adam Holyfield

Fate: Undying Brawler

Class: Regular lv. 0

Stats

-Vitality: 9

-Focus: 2

-Strength: 7

Fated Skills

Passive:

(none)

Active:

(None)

Class Skills

Passive:

(none)

Active:

(none)

General Skills

Earthling Language lv. MAX

Titles

434th Region Seedling [Generation 0]

'Undying Brawler huh . . . I wonder why this thing thinks this is my fate.'

[ Your curiosity is rewarded ]

Congratulations you've unlocked [ Fated Skill: Unfeeling Fist ]

A surprised expression creeps on my face, but before I can communicate what just happened to me, the kidnappers enter. Chizu goes crazy and loses all sense of reason trying to attack them. This time it doesn't seem like they've brought someone new to throw in, but that guy with the lab coat is back.

'Seems as if they're gonna start the experiments'

I'm later proven right, but the way they go about it is really weird. It's as if the big guy wants to see us suffer. Well, can't be too surprised they did kidnap us after all, can't expect them to be saints.

They continue to ask one of us to volunteer, but as I'm about to the new guy suddenly does it.

'Well can't say I expected that, but it'll buy us some time for something at least.'

Some violence ensues but as he's eventually helped out seeing as his leg is broken, he turns back and smiles.

'Huh...He was buying us time for sure.'

The door closes.

The boy with the eyepatch who introduced himself as Alastor speaks first.

"Was he trying to buy us time ?"

Evelyn's head falls.

"Yeah, I think he was."

'Is she feeling down . . . ?'

'Ah well, she always was empathetic . . . '

I try lifting the mood by sharing what happened before Natalius, well, 'sacrificed' himself.

"I don't know why he did that or anything about him, but if he left us a chance... I think we should take it."

Chizu frowns looking at me with helplessness and a bit of anger in her eyes.

"How? If you couldn't tell we're pretty tightly locked with these chains."

"I think my window gave me an ability."

Their eyes widen. Alastor's the most.

"Woah dude no way! How? Wait can we see it?"

"I actually haven't tried it yet.. I don't even know what it does."

Alastor's interest seems only to rise at each of my words.

"Does it have a name ?"

"Yes, it's called [ Unfeeling Fist ]."

Alastor and my sister seemed pretty excited about this. Though Evelyn hadn't said anything, I could tell by the way she was smiling. That's the look she gave when she was excited but didn't want to be excited because she felt guilty about something.

'Probably because of Natalius huh..'

I check my skill.

[ Active: Unfeeling Fist ]

Your fists remain unfeeling as you pour your all into strikes of bone and meat. Regeneration and Pain Resistance in your arms are boosted by 500%.

'd-damn'

'Is it saying I won't feel 500% of the pain or just..Hmm'

"It says regeneration and Pain Resistance are boosted by . . . 500%, and seems to make my punches more powerful"

Alastor whisper-screams.

"Jesus Christ, 500% percent ?!"

Evelyn's eyes go wide.

"W-Wow how'd you even get it, why now ?"

"Well, before.."

I looked at the door briefly.

"Those guys came. I was looking at my status thinking about what it meant by fate, and it said something about my curiosity being rewarded when the skill appeared."

Alastor's eyebrows went up practically almost merging with his hairline.

'Seems like he's really into this.'

'This would probably sound crazy to them but I feel like I could break these chains off.'

'I think I'll mention it after they calm down.'

After that bit of information, it seemed like everyone started checking their statuses. About a minute passed when suddenly Evelyn suddenly stood up, the excitement in her face had gone from restrained to genuine in a matter of seconds.

"Guys... I can get us out of here."

Everyone turned to her.

She continued.

"My skill's a portal."

This time Alastor screamed for real as he jumped up.

"YES!"

'Oh wow, I won't even need to break the chains off.'

A rare stutter came out of her as she continued.

"W-Wait I think I know how to do it. I-It showed me how to in my head.."

'In her head ?'

'I didn't do that for me though. Weird.'

She pointed towards the center of the room and centered her left hand in front of her in a fist while spinning her right to the side, when suddenly..

A light sizzle was heard.

Chizu faltered out a sentence.

"H-Holy shit.."

It was understandable really. After all, the laws of physics were being broken right in front of us.

Right in front of us, the space in the middle of the room looked as if it was being crumpled into a tight circle. It kept going until Evelyn widened the radius of her spinning right hand, and surely as if controlled the small circle widened to the size of a door while keeping a semi-circle shape. Its sides wavered as if to tell us to hurry up.

Evelyn beamed at her successful attempt at breaking the laws of nature and spoke.

"Ok, guys I feel like I can hold this for maybe 20 more seconds."

This time Chizu followed up instead of Alastor.

"Wait what about that guy, can't we like maybe wait for him and then do the portal."

Everyone was silent.

We were so excited to have found a way out that we totally forgot about the guy who gave himself up to buy us time.

I could understand where she was coming from. We suddenly found a way to leave, but it was only a bit after he had given himself up to give us time.

Alastor was the first to talk.

"Dude, Honestly I don't know."

I nodded and replied.

"Yeah I he gave himself up so we could have time but, I don't know.. I think we should take advantage of the time he gave us."

Alastor nodded.

"Yeah shit dude, I feel bad, but I don't wanna spend another second here."

Chizu sighed, before looking back at the door, and back to the portal.

"Do you at least know where this thing will lead us..."

Evelyn nodded back.

"I think so. When the skill was shown to me in my head, It told me to think about my destination, so I chose the backyard of our parent's house."

'Huh that was a good choice, It's empty and no one ever looks there. But I'm kinda worried about maybe teleporting a wall.'

'Hmm.. I'll keep that to myself.'

Alastor, the closest to the portal, stares at Evelyn before nodding and slowly starting to walk into the portal.

"Welp guys, I'll see you on the other side."

His face bloats as he holds his breath. His feet enter the portal, and just like imagined it they disappear as his whole body follows. Chizu follows, and before I do too, I pat my sister's head and jump into it.

The feeling of jumping through feels like a rollercoaster that's compressed into a millisecond, and as my feet land onto the familiar grass I hurl whatever was in my stomach before. I don't even bother to look up at the face of the persons' feet I'm throwing up on as it keeps coming out.

When my energy and whatever was left in my stomach seem to have finished emptying themselves I mutter to myself trying to get rid of the bitter aftertaste.

"God..damn.."

Alastor whimpers.

"My shoes.."

"Sorry about that."

"Ahhh, It's okay. I don't blame you-"

He proceeds to hurl on my shoes. Chizu follows but seeing as she's farther away my shoes are spared from two stomach discharges.

I tap Alastor's back a couple of times before hearing a pop behind me as the portal closes, and I see a wheezing Evelyn.

"I wew-ah I feel like just ran a marathon."

She collapses.