Eureka!

BANG! a loud noise, along with splinters of what seemed to be the remains of a wooden bed, ricocheted against the walls. Within the dark, chilly room a young boy lay silently.

"Just what are those dreams?" He quietly pondered.

It had been almost a year since Pain had encountered his lucid dreams. It was always the same scene; a surreal hand that seemed to stretch past his conciousness with a fiery desire to snuff out his little life, he felt danger, he felt fear.

In an attempt to 'protect' his life from the evil hand, Pain had smacked it away with all his strength, it was completely by reflex. In spite of the threat he felt, reality always prove his intuition wrong, he woke in his own sweat with no large, scary hand in sight.

Fortunately, it was just a bed he destroyed this time. The other time it was the old fogey's favourite set of test tubes, yet surprisingly, he did not get violent at the time. He just swept the tube remains with melancholy; poor Pain hadn't had a good night's sleep since, who knows when Dante Bell would exact his revenge on him? As if on cue, footsteps rapidly approached the door to his room.

"Pain! if you broke something again f*ck! I'm going to skin you alive!" The fast approaching figure yelled after angrily kicking down the door.

"What are you yelling for old fogey? are you not the same person who gave me fermented corn for broth yesterday?"

"So what if I gave you fermented corn? the ethanol was not concentrated enough to cause drunkeness or lucid dreams! I'm done, fix your own bed later. Come here, let me see what it is this time around."

Although he had an extremely bad temper with frequent outbursts, Dr. Bell had always shown concern for Pain, albeit a bit unconventionally. It was understandable though, considering the generation he was born in; it was basically survival of the fittest. As a result, expressing genuine emotions was not one of his strongest fortes.

"No, don't come here old fogey, don't you dare think for a second I don't know where those hands of yours have been." Pain resisted. He had once seen the eccentric scientist conducting several disgusting experiments deep into the night.

Dr. Bell eyed Pain with a glint of mischief in his eyes as he unceremoniously approached his victim. Dressed in what seemed to be an apron and black leather gloves, Dr. Bell resembled something out of a horror movie.

"You... what do you plan on doing? Go back!" Pain shuddered at the thought of being touched by those gruesome hands.

"Oh stop making such a fuss, I haven't started experimenting yet."

Dr. Bell begun examining Pain, after which two visibly apparrent "II" appeared between the "mad scientist's" brows as he made a shocking discovery.

The number of connections between the neurons in this little kid's brain had increased significantly again, surpassing the 1,000 trillion mark a human could attain.

In fact, he initially thought the laser screening machine had malfunctioned. The number of neural connections were far too many! It was just asburd!

Pain, who was oblivious to the qualitative and quantitative change in his brain begun to feel irritated by the eccentric doctor's piercing eyes.

"What? don't tell me you've changed your sexual orientation now, old man."

"..."

"..."

Silence, absolute silence.

"Are you even still human? the neurons in your brain are already capable of forming over 1,000 trillion connections and you're still spouting bullsh*t like a brain dead animal. Are you a pig that never learns?" Dr. Bell playfully retorted as he finally gained control over his bodily functions again, he was simply amazed. The examination results were far too outstanding.

The average human brain could only form a maximum of 1,000 trillion connections. This number already far surpassed the number of stars in the galaxy. Yet, this kid who was still in puberty had already broken loose and freed himself of human shackles that led to so many limitations.

Subsequently, Dr. Bell administered some pills to minimize the side effects as a result of his neural connections spiking to high levels. After the side effects had subsided completely, Pain had to undergo a series of mental tests to fully grasp the extent of his capabilities.

Science had already discovered that it was possible to increase a human's Intelligence Quotient (IQ) if more neural connections could be established within the human brain. The procedure to do so was exactly what the Personality and Neural Enchancement Programme intended to outline 17 years ago before it was prematurely shut down.

After running several tests, the world renowned scientist was shocked to his bone marrow. He had anticipated an increment in Pain's computational abilities, but the figures displayed on his quantum device was unbelievable.

These were above standard tests even PHd holders had difficulty in solving for Christ's sake! Each question was a millenial puzzle! Underlying each test question was an extremely complex combination of the recent theories unearthed in physics, mathematics and chemistry. Without several tens of years of constant studies one would absolutely not understand a single thing. An average person would go insane from just reading them and professors actively avoided them.

Dr. Bell quickly rushed out to analyze the results, leaving Pain to his own devices.

'a classic mad scientist' thought Pain.

Initially, he had not felt any changes, with the exception of the lucid dream he had - which the old fogey had confirmed was a side effect his neural boost - everything else felt normal. But as he begun to read through the test questions presented before him, his brain seemed to have eaten an aphrodisiac, and questions that were meant for the next millenium were solved by him within the seconds it took for the old fogey to let out a fart, and if anyone knew Dr. Bell as well as he did, they would agree instantaneously his farts were as quick as they were silent.

After all the racket had subsided, all Pain wanted to do was lie down and sleep. He was exhausted, mentally and physically. Lacking a bed to lay on, Pain took to the porch of the wooden shack he and Dr. Bell had built four years ago.

All those years they had gone "missing" they were actually within the death lands, far away from the reach and influence of the UOP. They finally decided to return to the outskirts of Vir after they were certain they would not be discovered or recognized.

It was Bell's desire to slowly introduce Pain to human society and civilization. To him, the kid was not a test subject, he was the half-dead baby he picked out of the alley, he was his son.

Dawn had yet to break, the stars were aligned beautifully in the endless expanse of the universe. As if seeking to announce the arrival of the duo that would cause world shaking events, they shone ever brightly in different spectrums of light.

Before Pain could completely loose himself in admiration of nature, and the history of how humans nearly destroyed this beautiful planet.

BANG! A loud sound rang out for the second time that evening.

"Success! Eureka! I finally did it!" Dr. Bell's hideous laughter resounded across the flatlands upon which the rugged house stood.