1 Failure Again

Naos had been around for a while.

Some say he is a part of history, others say he is history. But if you asked him, he would say he is tired. After all, who wouldn't be after they've seen the things he's seen and done the things he's done? But most importantly, he lost the things he had.

Naos is a man who has seen and done everything and has watched even more fall to dust and crumble away.

So, instead of living a sedentary lifestyle again, or becoming a world-famous actor, politician, soldier, or scientist, he decided to create his ending.

He started Project Flair on a whim. After all, his only goal was to die, so there was no rush. In all honesty, he got bored of the project after a while but only continued out of curiosity. Just imagine how interesting it would've been to create an abnormal being like himself, someone who might have the power to end him, created by his hand.

Sure the people that were working with him all seemed like mad scientists, who cares? Although Naos did not have the best morality, it was enough not to do what they had himself. After all, kidnapping a child to experiment on was pretty outside of his principles.

Nevertheless, he persisted.

The child was someone they called "The Subject" and was about 10 years old when she was taken.

She was chosen for this cruel fate out of her control because she had fit all the criteria. Being, 1) no one would notice or care if she went missing, and 2) young and malleable.

Naos could not care less if they were noticed because if they were caught, he would be put to the death penalty again, then they would find he couldn't die, and then he would be locked up for a while.

Boring.

But he didn't stop his subordinated mad scientist and they continued working. Naos found it boring calling the girl "Subject" so instead gave her a name, she said she didn't have one when they met and called her Astra.

Astra was a strong girl. She refused to cry at the torture of his goons that even an adult three times her age would bawl her eyes out at.

Naos found this quite interesting, resolving himself to interact with the girl more and more, and she grew somewhat fond of him.

He knew that she was oblivious to the simple fact that he was the cause of all of her suffering, trauma, and horrendous abuse. Somewhere in his heart, he didn't want her to know.

As time progressed, so did their research. The scientists were provided with samples of abnormal human blood from an unknown source—Naos—and used that as a base. There was something in the sample's blood that caused a unique mutation that was unexplainable using modern science, or the laws of physics for that matter.

Naos took a step back from the project and observed it more than working on it. Then another step back. Soon he was merely a sponsor.

Because of this, the head scientist started pushing Astra further and further into a corner, ramping up the intensity of the experiments.

Finally, after half a year of sleep-depriving work, they had made a breakthrough.

The sample blood and Astra's blood were compared and found that after a specific scarring experiment, the unique element in the sample blood had been transferred over to that of Astra's.

And this was only the start. The dam had broken and the scientists were growing hungry for results.

They intensified the experiments to the point of nearly killing Astra, then stopping and waiting for her recovery and starting again the next day. Naos simply watched.

After weeks of those experiments, the rooms used had changed color over time to a deep red, and Astra began showing strange phenomena.

These phenomena were extremely abnormal, just the kind that they had been looking for.

Naos watched with great scrutiny.

Then one day, it all went wrong. Astra lost control of her ability and the windows shattered with her screams, floors cracked and dented with her falling to the floor, and people were killed with a simple swipe of the arm.

Naos was interested in the new development but felt a slight apprehension, and decided to end the experiment for the day.

He used his authority to call the armed mercenaries that were acting as their guards and had them attempt to suppress Astra, so less damage would be done. After all, he was the sponsor.

The mercenaries went in with their tasers and attempted to sneak up on the bizarre girl and force her to submit via the electric shock. Unfortunately for them, the attempt failed miserably.

Astra looked at them with puffy and empty eyes, like she wasn't conscious, unaware of the damage being dealt. With a twitch of her finger, the lead mercenary was beheaded gruesomely. The others saw this and pulled out their guns to avenge their comrade by killing the monster in front of them.

Naos saw the escalating situation and started to run towards the chamber, only to witness the massacre of the mercenary corps that he had hired personally. But this only further worried him

Bullets were floating in midair as if they had been frozen, then they were sent out in all directions at a faster speed than any gun could ever send them.

The rebounded bullets started bouncing on all the walls killing anyone who was near the walls. But if a ricocheting bullet neared the girl who sent them, they would be caught and the cycle would repeat.

Naos, who had been in too many battles to count, had hit the deck to lower his chances of being hit by the ricochet. Nonetheless, he was shot in the leg. Wincing slightly, the man looked towards the injury and noticed that it was a wound that had pierced the bone and gone all the way through. He frowned to himself before looking back at the one who caused the disappearing injury.

"Astra!" He called out, "Stop this chaos now!" His words had fallen on deaf ears as the waves of force emanating from Astra intensified more and more by the moment.

Seconds seemed like hours as Naos felt the pressure keeping him on the ground grew more and more until it was nearly crushing him. But suddenly, the pressure stopped.

Naos stood up in a heartbeat and began to rush to the girl. He nearly reached her, but the unconscious Astra slowly turned her head to him. Her eyes were completely white and the formerly brown hair draping down below her shoulders had a silver strip that he didn't remember.

And then everything went black.

...

A military helicopter that belongs to the USA flew over the crater 50 meters across. It was gruesome, to say the least, and sickening to even these professionals.

"We've spotted a child in the middle of the crater, sir!" A man in the chopper holding binoculars shouted.

"Send in the squad," ordered the superior, "recover the girl."…Naos opened his functioning eye. After finally regenerating himself, he looked around the area. What he saw was a blood-soaked crater that was all that remained of his base.

...

"Another failure." Naos sighed.