An uncertain future

Under the curious gaze of Pain, the 'mad' scientist burst through the front door of the wooden shack. Overwhlemed with joy, he danced haphazardly and although his movements were quite rigid and unfitting of his messy appearance, he didn't give a d*mn.

So many years had gone by, yet it was not until today that he became fully confident of their safety.

Alas, with insight from some answers provided in the earlier test he'd given him, he had finally been able to complete it! The principle behind the bizzare theory of transfiguration had been completely comprehended by him.

Bell tightly held in his hand a metallic, cubed shaped device which granted the ability to manipulate the facial tissues of any living organism. With this device, he was one hundred percent confident, that even he wouldn't recognize himself.

"Old man, you're ruining my view. What are you so happy about? Did something good happen?"

"Hahaha, my boy, we're free! we're finally free! after 17 years of hiding we can now go out to roam the world! I'll bring you to so many fun places, just you wait."

"Oh? what happened?"

"Boy, thanks to you and your big brain, I was finally able to construct the Alteration module unit. With it, I can completely transform my appearance, absolutely no one would be able to recognize me!"

Because of the lofty status he enjoyed within the academic and political circles, Dr. Dante Bell was easily recognizable. For this reason, it was virtually impossible for him to bring Pain anywhere near human civilization.

As a loving pseudo-father, he felt extremely unsatisfied with keeping Pain far away from society. He'd toiled day and night and he had been able to construct almost seventy percent of the Alteration module unit. However, he soon reached a bottleneck. The problem lay in his approach to extracting the amount of energy required, for the device to work on larger organisms; specifically for this purpose, he had searched endlessly. By stroke of luck, within some metal ore he chanced upon, he discovered gradium-1; one of the most unstable elements on Terra. Yet he faced another bottleneck. He could not find an appropriate method to stabilize the element for safe use.

Realization dawned on him when he glanced through Pain's answers to the questions related to transfiguration.

While constructing the transfiguration technology, he had taken into account the ability of the device to effect transfiguration by the use of accelerated particles to knock off weak tissues, resulting in a different look. It was a simple "shaving off" method which consumed the gradium-1 element slowly.

Loads of tests later, Bell was left utterly confused as to why the energy source kept becoming unstable. In order to preserve the gradium-1, he decided to temporarily it away, until he could discover what exactly was causing the element to become unstable. On the other hand, Pain's method actually manipulated the tissue itself by swelling, contraction or expansion. He was finally able to understand why his method would not work.

The gradium-1 element was a highly unstable one. A little interference in its energy flow would cause the element to start heating up. After heating up to a certain temperature, it would explode. However, would the same scenario occur if the energy required was so much that the gradium-1 element energy source was instantly depleted without giving it the chance to even react? No. The only way to utilize the gradium-1 energy source was to deplete instantly. As simple as it may sound, a world renowned scientist was left completely helpless when faced with this dilemna.

"Come boy, we no longer need to live in the wilderness. I will bring you to see Vir, the home of men. But first, follow me, Let's see if this device really works."

After making a few calculations, it became apparrent that the best specimen to test the device on, were mice. Since they were naturally small in size, the energy required for successful activation was almost negligible. For this, the gradium-1 element would not heat up too much, so it was relatively safe.

Although the tests were successful, because the facial tissues present in mice were quite distinct from those present in humans, the results were quite undesirable. However, Bell had nothing to worry about, even if the experiment was inaccurate, he would get Pain to compute the probability of success from observing the effects on the rodents.

Numerous mathematical computations of probability, were being processed simultaneously within Pain's head. With the results derived from the tests carried out on the mice, he sought to validate the success of the device.

"It's completely safe old man. Unless you have mice genes or any other non-human genes embedded in your DNA, the device should work." Pain announced merely a few seconds afterwards.

"F*ck, little brat, are you cursing my ancestors?!" The old scientist immediately became livid. His temper was like an active volcano, ready to erupt at any time.

"No way, I was merely stating the facts." Pain said innocently.

The angry old fogey cursed for a while before lifting the device towards his temple. Another downside to the device was, it could only be operated manually. The complexities involved in its construction made it extremely difficult to engineer it to be receptive to brain signals; which would allow the user to effect his or her desired transformation by thought. After a few attempts at engineering it to accomodate this function, Bell gave up. Constructing the device up to here was already extremely difficult. It had taken him almost a decade it was no joke!

"Before I start the device, if anything happens I want you to-"

"Nothing will happen, I already did the math thoroughly the probability exceeds ninety percent. I am certain of it." Pain ruthlessly cut off the old fogey's speech, by once again, spewing out figures in a matter-of-fact way.

Bell suddenly became aware of Pain's care for him and was deeply touched. To an ordinary person, the kid's response may have seemed a little rude, but the scientist was intelligent as well, he knew the interjection was merely as a result of denial.

With unwavering resolve, he manually adjusted the parameters of the image to be transfigured into. Subsequently, he unhesitatingly activated the device.

With a few beeps and an extremely bright glow, the transfiguration device immediately drained the the gradium-1 element of all its energy instantly.

Time seemed to have frozen in place. Whether or not a smooth future lay ahead, it all dependend on this exact moment and for a moment, nothing else in the universe mattered.