Chapter 178

Xentus Viri… Again

Xentus Viri pounded down on the control panel in front of him. Sparks flew as he easily crushed the reinforced metal supporting the panel. “ARRGGHHH!!! WHY CAN’T I FIGURE IT OUT!!!!”

A calm synthetic voice came from the speaker nearby. “That is because the data of the anomaly is insufficient for research purposes.”

 He picked up a piece of metal and threw it at the speaker. With a loud crash, it made a hole in the wall where the speaker had previously been attached. “I DON’T NEED SOME STUPID COMPUTER TO TELL ME THAT!!”

Xentus Viri frustratedly threw himself down in a nearby chair. Covering his mouth, he looked at a complicated diagram in front of him. As he stared, a tear trickled down his cheek.

It had been six years since Lucas had disappeared from his laboratory. When he found out they were missing, Xentus Viri went on a rampage. He immediately gathered as much data as he could from the various scientific instruments that had been active when they disappeared.

Unfortunately, the data collected was far from enough to even attempt recreating the anomaly. The only thing he could make out was the fact that it was some kind of controlled wormhole that had opened up in his shop.

Based on the fact that it couldn’t be a natural phenomena, Xentus Viri desperately searched throughout the entire known universe for some clue. He tried looking for various enemy powerhouses or terrorist organizations, hoping beyond hope that they had kidnapped Lucas somehow.

For three years he attempted this. Finally, he had to conclude that Lucas wasn’t being held hostage and that something else had happened. That whoever took him had some other purpose. 

Xentus Viri had been avoiding another possibility for some time and he was finally forced to believe that it was true. That his experiments with black holes had caused the phenomena that had taken Lucas away from him. Upon coming to this conclusion, he was ate up with guilt that he had been the one to cause this.

For the next four years, he attempted to recreate everything that he had done. He tried and tried and tried to create another phenomena just like the one that  Lucas away. Again and again he faced failure.

In one of the failures the black hole suddenly expanded by a tenth of an inch. The increase in gravity exceeded his s.h.i.+elds and caused half his lab to be destroyed. Luckily he had fail-safes that included shutting down the black hole and teleporting himself to Sparta.

Ignoring the risk though, Xentus Viri continued working. If before he had been called a madman, he had truly become a madman now. Due to his eccentric personality, the Sparta council members hadn’t realized anything was wrong yet. Rumors had started though and they were becoming suspicious.

If he was right, then he was working on borrowed time. Already Xentus Viri had heard of a proposal by one of the council members to ask for a record of all the experiments that he had done for the past couple years. Luckily the other council members rejected the proposal but the fact that some were doubting him was impossible to ignore now.

Xentus Viri had truly fallen into despair. He had tried everything he could think of to get his son back and nothing had worked so far. He had failed. He failed his adopted son. He truly was the worst father possible.

As he laid in his chair, tears pouring from his eyes, he heard a sound. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. It was the sound of someone walking down the hallway. Upon hearing it, Xentus Viri straightened up and wiped the tears from his eyes. In a matter of seconds, he was back to the gruff inventor everyone came to expect.

The door to his lab opened, revealing a large muscular man. Xentus Viri glared at the man. “What is the meaning of this!? Out, get out you oversized monkey!”

The muscular man looked at Xentus Viri with tender eyes. “Dad.”

Xentus Viri, who had started pus.h.i.+ng the overgrown ape out of his lab stopped. He looked up at the man. “That’s Lucas’ voice.” He said in a calm voice. “Where did you get the code for it? I designed it myself.”

The man paused before grabbing Xentus Viri in a bearhug. “I missed you so much dad!”

Xentus Viri struggled but couldn’t break out of the man’s arms. “Let GO of me you monkey!”

After a little while the man put Xentus Viri down. He glared at the man. “Lucas has been gone for seven years. Why would I believe that you are him, you don’t even look like him.”

The man looked down at his body before laughing. “Sorry dad, I just forgot. My original body was destroyed but I built my own afterwards. Here, you can check out my brainbox, that should prove it.”

The man’s chest split open, revealing a black box. Xentus Viri gasped as he saw the familiar piece of hardware. Reaching down he took the black box, gently unplugging some of the wires that lead out of the back of the black box. Hooking it up to a console, he ran some diagnosis.

After a minute, Xentus Viri calmly plugged the brainbox back into the hulking sh.e.l.l. The robotic body had slumped over now stood upright now that it had someone back in control. Xentus Viri took two steps forward before wrapping the man in a bear hug.

“Lucas, oh Lucas. I missed you so much. I missed you son.” Tears trickled down his face. Lucas merely smiled sadly. Once more he cursed himself for not putting tear ducts in his body.

After some time, Xentus Viri calmed down. “What happened Lucas?! Where did you, what have you been doing? Are you alright, did anything happen? You said your original body was destroyed, how did that happen?”

Lucas smiled. “Just as curious. I guess we both have that in common huh. Anyways dad, let me explain quickly.”

“Chu Shen is from a different dimension. He gained a mysterious artifact that randomly takes him to other dimensions. He came to ours on accident and when he disappeared from ours he took me along on accident. He knows how to control it better now so I can stay here instead of going off again.”

“The other dimensions are so weird and the people in almost every other dimension can manipulate energy with their mind. While I was there, I got into a fight that destroyed my original body. Luckily, Chu Shen took a fabricator and I was able to make another body using that.”

Xentus Viri rocked backwards at the immense info Lucas gave him. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the important part of the story. 

“So, Chu Shen is the one to blame for taking you away?”