Between a great forest and a range of mountains, far from any human settlement, a serene villa proudly stood, looking down at the sea of trees before it. The villa was built in harmony with its surroundings, giving it a certain beauty. The villa was a home to a family of three, but most of the time the only one that stayed there was a 17 year old youth by the name of Acma Heart. His name was Acma Heart.

His parents were famously known as the Mad Couple, a nickname they received because of their strange obsessions. His father was a retired super soldier turned mercenary while his mother was a scientist specialized in genetic engineering.

“Alice, can you get me some water?” Acma asked the hologram beside him.

Alice was the personalized artificial intelligence that managed the villa. All of the house chores were dealt by Alice and her minions, the robots. She also handled all of Acma’s needs such as preparing his meals, washing his clothes and everything else. It seem like she only adapted at handling house chores, but Acma knew in his heart that this A.I wasn't so simple. Given his parent’s backgrounds, that could procure a military grade A.I. with ease, Acma was never sure what capabilities the A.I. named Alice truly held.

“Here is your water, Master”, Alice said softly as a robot placed a glass of water next to Acma.

“Thank you Alice,” said Acma.

He quickly took a sip and returned the glass to the table, focusing on the video playing upon the huge screen before him. The video showed how a certain project, known only as 'The Experiment,' progressed.

He had always been fascinated with the idea of multidimensional existence, so The Experiment fit right into his tastes. He wished the project would succeed solely because he wanted to go on adventures in different dimensions.

The countdown started, and he didn't dare to blink in the fear of missing something.

Ten…

Nine…

Eight…

Seven…

Six…

Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One...

“Initiate The Experiment!” The voice of the Chief of Crazy Scientists reverberated throughout the room.

Acma had long since forgotten to breathe in his excitement and unconsciously leaned towards the large screen, as if doing so would give him a better view of The Experiment’s results.

But instead of seeing another world, a bright light filled the television screen.

Acma froze in shock and unconsciously let out a small, "Huh?"

The blinding light had yet to fade when the show suddenly cut off.

Acma hurriedly tried to reconnect with the channel, but no matter what he did he couldn't bring The Experiment back up.

Left with no other choice, Acma could only wait patiently in front of the screen in the hope that the show would continue.

He sat there for a whole fifteen minutes before something changed. A shock wave swept past his villa, causing a power outage and shutting down Alice along with her robots.

What happened? That shockwave seemed like a EMP. I should check on Alice. I hope she is ok, Acma thought .

"Is this shock wave related to The Experiment?” he questioned.

Acma couldn't think of any other answer for the strange shockwave, but his instincts were screaming at him that something was horribly wrong.

While he was still pondering about the origin of the shockwave, he felt the floor beneath him shaking. It's nothing serious at first, but gradually the tremors turned more and more violent.

The shaking continued and there was no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Luckily the tremor wasn't hard enough to shake the foundation of the villa, so he didn’t have to worry about the house falling down around him.

First, that blinding light at The Experiment. Then the shockwave. Now these continuous tremors. Something is definitely happening. I should get prepared for the worst.

Acma headed to the underground vault where his parents kept their equipment. The vault contained weapons, armor, food, water, clothes, tents, everything he would need to survive for at least two years.

When he opened the vault, Acma could see a lineup of both cold and hot weapons to his left.

His father was an accomplished super soldier that had mastered countless types of weapons, enabling him to survive in countless battlefields. However his accomplishments did not depend solely on modern technology. He was also an expert in ancient techniques such as martial arts, breathing techniques, and yoga.

Acma could barely remember when his father first started training him to inherit his techniques. He could still feel his hand shaking from the 10 thousand sword swings his father forced him to do every day. How many times had he fallen while running with a weight on his back across 5 kilometres of thick rainforest? How many times did his bones almost break while ‘learning’ a martial arts technique from his father?

Reminiscing about the past made Acma smile and forget his current predicament. Although those days of training were harsh and unforgiving, Acma actually enjoyed it. Watching his father's back as they hunted were one of the fondest moments in his life. In his mind, his father was unbeatable. So he endured any form of training he was put through, solely because he wish to become stronger than the strongest.

Oh, I almost forgot about mom’s medicinal bath, Acma thought with a frown.

In the past, whenever he finished training, his mother would give him a medicinal bath that made him feel as if he was being sliced by a thousand swords. However back then he would grit his teeth and not make a sound, wanting to show his parents that he wasn't weak. The medicinal bath was indeed painful, but its benefits were worth the pain. After each bath, his sore muscles would feel relieved, his wounds would heal faster, and the pain caused by the bath toughened his mind.

No pain, no gain, he mused.

“I miss you mom,” Acma muttered while looking at the picture of his mother hanging on the wall.

“Ah... I shouldn’t worry about those two monsters. Even a nuclear blast wouldn’t kill them,” Acma whispered to pull his mind from worrying about his parents.

I can survive if I hole up in this villa. But as father said, the best course of action is to always prepare for the worst. I might have to scout the perimeter, so I’ll need weapons to keep myself safe, he thought.

Until Alice rebooted, he couldn’t make head or tails about the current situation. Acma decided to go through all the possible situations he could think of and make suitable preparations for each one. Normally he would’ve depended on Alice to do this, but this time he could only depend on himself.

“Terrorist attack,” he started, “less than a 5% possibility.”

“Aliens vs Predators,” he laughed. “Half the weapons inside this vault would be useless.”

“Hmmmm... How about beings from another dimension? This situation happened after The Experiment gave off that blinding light, so it is possible. But what kind of beings will emerge,” Acma muttered while lightly scratching his head.

While talking to himself, Acma had lined up his favorite pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, combat knives, throwing knives, swords, and katanas on a metal table. He examined them one by one, making sure that they were ready for use.

“Should I use FREEDOM?” Acma muttered before walking towards a pitch-black metal cupboard not far from the weapon shelves.

FREEDOM was a military grade full body exoskeleton suit that consisted of two armored layers. The inside layer was a liquid armor that hardened on impact in order to disperse energy over a larger area, yet still remained flexible enough to allow for free movement. This layer was capable of regulating the body’s temperature, allowing the operator to work in any kind of weather.

The outer layer was made from graphene, otherwise known as the strongest material on earth. Its greatest ability to absorb impact and spread out kinetic energy.

Looking at the suit, Acma murmured, “If I use FREEDOM, my survival rate will increase 300%. But I need Alice’s help to use this. Connecting the armor to my spinal cord also needs her assistance.”

Am I too paranoid? What if nothing happened? he thought.

It had been an hour since Alice shut down. Acma knew that he didn’t need to manually restart Alice, but he still worried.

With nothing to do after he finished examining his equipment, Acma showered and took a nap.

After 90 minutes of deep sleep, Acma woke up when he sensed that Alice finally came back online.

“Master, I apologize for taking such a long time to reboot. I had to double check my systems to make sure there were no abnormalities before restarting,” Alice spoke softly.

“It’s ok Alice; please give me a report on your current status.”

“The main database was secured without issue, but the secondary database is lightly damaged. It is recommended to change several processors. Most of the autobots operating during the blast were damaged, but the villa's operation will not be affected,” Alice explained.

“How about the outside world? Is there any problem, because I can still feel the tremor from the blast even now.”

“I don’t have any information about the world since the blast. I apologize, Master. I can’t connect to any network.”

Acma stroke his beardless chin, “Hmmm… we are blind then. It seems we need to go outside. Alice prepare to connect FREEDOM and please change to your main database. We need your full processing power,” Acma ordered.

“Yes, Master. Let’s proceed to operation room,” reply Alice.