Prologue: The Fragile Psycho
The world was built on power.
Heroes walked the skies, armored in strength gifted by science. Villains stalked the shadows, wielding weapons carved from corruption. And in the middle of it all sat Alex Xela—twelve years old, brittle bones strapped to a wheelchair, with the weight of a dying body pressing down on him.
Doctors called it Inferior Genes.
To most, it was a death sentence. To Alex, it was chains.
His bones were weak. His body thin, malnourished, trembling under the effort of simply existing. The disease was born of Dark Genes otherwise known as Xill, a glitch of humanity itself, a parasite that smothered the Zorin—the superior genes that allowed people to grow strong. Without Zorin, his life would not stretch past fifteen years.
But Alex was different. He had done the impossible: forced the Xill upward, into his brain. It granted him clarity sharper than any human mind could endure. He thought faster, saw clearer, and planned further than his peers. Yet it stripped him of what made others human. He could not cry. He could not feel love the way humans do but he knows that he cares for his family. Fear was a foreign language.
The kids at school had names for him.
Psychopath on wheels.
Fragile psycho.
Zombie boy.
None of it mattered.
Because Alex dreamed of being a hero, however he had too many challenges to conquer before he saves the world from the corruption it faced.
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Chaper One: The Xela Family
John Xela was not just a father. He was a genius. His work at one of the world's most powerful tech companies kept him from home more often than not, but when he was present, his heart never wavered. His mind had built exosuits, gen-enhancers, and pills that elevated men into heroes.
Beside him was Shira, Alex's mother, the calm in the storm. A Japanese woman with soft hands and quiet eyes, she did what she could to shelter Alex from the cruelty of the outside world. She cooked, she smiled, she worried—and she prayed that her son would live to see sixteen.
But John cared mostly for his son's well being and he refused to accept the fate that awaited him.
The only thing to save his son was EDEN'S APPLE.
A prototype unlike any before it, designed to erase Dark Genes in seconds. It was the answer to every weakness, every illness, every scar inflicted by corruption. But it was unfinished, locked away in the highest secrecy of his company's labs. It lacked one crucial piece: fresh Dark Genes blood from a living host.
Such blood was almost impossible to obtain. One in a million carried it, and fewer lived to fifteen. The moment their bodies failed, the blood went with them.
Alex was the perfect source.
And John never knew it , until today.
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Chapter Two: The Gift
On his twelfth birthday, John came home with a box. Inside was not a toy, not a suit, not medicine—but a headset. Sleek, black, humming with forbidden technology.
"This," John said, placing it on Alex's head, "is freedom."
It was a military-grade VR device, built for training soldiers in war. Bullets felt real. Death felt real. But John had modified it, altered its pulse. Within the headset, time stretched. One hour in reality became one day in the virtual world.
To anyone else, it was a weapon.
To Alex, it was life itself.
The moment he connected, the world shifted. He could stand. He could walk. He could fight. And for the first time, he tasted what it meant to live.
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Chapter Three: The Secret Training
Days became weeks. Weeks became months.
Outside his room, Alex was a fragile boy dying slowly. Inside the headset, he was limitless.
He hacked the system with surgical precision, slipping past firewalls meant to keep out governments and thieves. He found files buried deep, sealed under blacklisted tags: assassination drills, special ops routines, forbidden martial arts. He copied them, uploaded them, and drowned himself in their lessons.
His father believed it was escapism. His mother feared it was obsession. But Alex felt alive for the first time.
He was preparing.
With the help of his father's office machines, Alex designed something new with the help of his father's ai robots: a nano muscle-memory chip. It linked the VR to his nerves, feeding combat data directly into his body. Each strike, each stance, each kill learned in the simulation etched itself into his bones.
Outside, his body trembled.
Inside, he was becoming a weapon.
And every night, as the world slept, the fragile psycho sharpened himself in silence.
Chapter Four: Eden's Apple
[Time: 08:42 AM | Date: March 15, 2147 | Location: Zenith Corp Headquarters]
The glass doors of Zenith Corporation hissed open as John Xela stepped inside. The building was a monolith of steel and light, the heart of all technological progress in the city. He had walked these halls countless times, but today felt different. His chest was tight, his mind uneasy.
Project Eden's Apple. That was the name of the pill he was tasked to refine. A pill that could erase Dark Genes forever.
John tightened the strap of his satchel and made his way down the corridor toward his office. As he turned the corner, he froze. Voices drifted from an open conference room.
He recognized them immediately.
Victor Drazen, CEO of Zenith Corp.
And beside him, his shadow—Elric Vann, his assistant.
John held his breath, leaning slightly against the wall.
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Victor Drazen: "…after all this time, we've finally found a viable candidate for Eden's Apple."
Elric Vann: "Are you certain, sir? The genetic markers matched?"
Victor Drazen: "Yes. After combing through every hospital record, there's only one. The boy has active Dark Genes. His name is… Alex Xela."
John's heart slammed against his ribs.
No… not him.
He clenched his fists, forcing his face into calm before stepping away from the door. He walked quickly, acting as though he had heard nothing. By the time he reached his office, his hands were trembling.
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[Time: 09:07 AM | Same day | John's Office]
John shut the door behind him, locked it, and immediately called a colleague. The holo-screen lit up with the face of Dr. Keiran Maves, an old friend in the research division.
John: "Keiran, I need answers. Why… why are we really making Eden's Apple?"
The man's face tightened. He leaned closer to his screen.
Keiran: "You mean… you don't know?"
John: "Know what?"
There was a long pause before Keiran spoke, his voice low, careful.
Keiran: "It's not about the world, John. It's about Enzo. Victor Drazen's son. He's the reason Eden's Apple exists."
John's brow furrowed. Enzo… Drazen?
Keiran: "The boy was born with low Zorin. Weak. But Victor spoiled him rotten, bought his way into herohood, forced more gene pills into him than anyone should've survived. During one of the last enhancements… something went wrong. His body broke. His Dark Genes are consuming him, day by day. Doctors say he has five years left. Eden's Apple is meant to stop that."
John: "…and no one told me?"
Keiran's eyes darted away, shame flickering across his face.
Keiran: "Victor hides the truth. To the world, Enzo is a rising hero. But to those who've seen him up close… he's a devil. Arrogant. Cruel. If it were up to me, I'd shut this experiment down myself before releasing him back into the world. But…" he swallowed "…I have a family to feed. My hands are tied."
The line went dead.
John sat in silence, the weight of the truth pressing down on him. His son's name, Alex, still echoed in his ears.
They wanted to use him.
They wanted to take him.
And Victor Drazen would do anything for his spoiled brat.
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Chapter Five: The Father's Gamble
[Time: 02:11 AM | Date: March 20, 2147 | Location: Xela Household – Basement Lab]
The house was silent, save for the hum of machinery. John hunched over his workstation, equations and chemical models glowing across the holo-screens. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling from exhaustion, but his mind burned with determination.
He had spent days researching Eden's Apple. What he discovered chilled him.
The pill required more than Dark Gene blood,it was a project that required death in the end meaning after extraction of Dark genes the body gives out leading to death. It demanded something else: endurance.
The body of the subject who takes it needed to withstand unimaginable stress during the transformation. Without it, the pill would tear the host apart from the inside. John found that if Alex were to take it, it would activate automatically because he already had Xill in his body but.
Alex couldn't survive it.
Not yet.
But there was a loophole.
John whispered to himself as he scribbled on the glass board.
John: "If I can't steal the recipe… I'll steal the pill itself. And before I give it to Alex… I'll give him the strength to endure it."
The answer was Endurance Pills.
Unlike enhancers, these were brutal, unstable. They pushed the body's pain tolerance to near-inhuman levels, but at a cost: rapid Zorin depletion. For those with strong gens, it left them drained and broken. But for Alex…
John: "…he has no Zorin. Which means nothing to lose."
He stared at the formula glowing before him. It was madness. Dangerous. Reckless.
But it was the only way to save his son.
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