Alex was pissed. For real. At everything and everyone. But mostly at himself.

He was pissed at the emperor for killing him with a cheap trick, but he was furious at himself for falling for it. A split second of loosing concentration in a fight of that level was inexcusable and he payed the price.

That alone would’ve been if not acceptable, then at least tolerable. But with how promising the fight went, he never even thought about focusing on his plan ‘b’. And that led to the biggest problem – he got reincarnated to the world related to his last thoughts.

While there was the bonus of him verifying one of the most important theories related to the reincarnation, he was born in Melrose, in the f*cking New York suburbs! Even in his mother’s womb he could smell how this place stank and the lack of Qi made him suffocated.

The obvious reason was that in a metropolis like New York and similar cities all around the Earth the force of nature was incredibly weak. It was no wonder the martial arts of this world were so primitive – no one could even cultivate Qi properly to not speak about any techniques!

Alex wanted to kick and punch a wall, but all he heard was his mother-to-be giggling happily feeling him move around and it made him even more upset. What was worse – the guy, probably his father, was a total moron and all he did was curse her, order around and watch TV.

Even before his birth Alex was pissed at them, especially because they had no clue what diet should a pregnant woman have. Usually he couldn’t wait to get out and grab a tit so he could grow faster, but in this case he seriously began to consider ways to ‘change’ his parents and a potential adoption.

‘Why the hell I can’t get normal, caring parents more often?’ Alex complained to himself, ‘Do the other kids around the worlds have the same problem?’

Realistically only in his last life his parents actually cared for him and showed true parental love. And even though Phil died before Alex was born, he was already concerned for his son and thought about his future. And Demy’s sacrifices didn’t even needed to be mentioned. On the other hand the current two punks were on the same level of retardedness his parents in the Holy empire were and this fact made him even more pissed!

‘This a modern world! Read a book, you two idiots! Maybe you’ll learn what it means to have a child!’ Alex cursed.

Indeed, he was back in the same world he lived his first three lives in. And from what he could discern from the faint sounds coming from the TV, it was the end of the nineties.

‘How the hell is that possible? First I died in o’ four and was born right after as that god damn spider. But then I was born when the twin towers were still up … so … few years earlier? When the hell did that attack happen? F*ck! … f*ck! How can it be that this time I’ll be born even earlier? Is the time flowing backwards for me for some reason?’ Alex had few months till he was born, but already felt he was loosing sanity.

In the end he decided that he was also pissed at the time itself. And clocks. And calendars. He was really pissed.

Unfortunately he couldn’t maintain such aggressive mindset although he really wanted to. Every time he woke up, his thoughts sooner or later returned to Nabia. But the moment it happened he felt as if someone was cutting out a piece of his soul. It hurt so badly!

Alex had never really been ‘in love’ before and he thought it was a silly concept for those without self control and common sense. He had romantic relationships, but none of those were so deep. In fact, he had no idea how to describe the one he had with Nabia since they didn’t really live together or make any future plans in order to create a family. They only met in the afternoon, cultivated and made love. And in the free time discussed the esoteric aspects of their development.

Was this ‘love’? He couldn’t tell. But he was certain that there was no corner in his mother’s womb where he could hide from the pain of missing her. And then he also hated his mother for not having corners in her womb so he could actually try it.

Alex spent the pregnancy months in a tornado of anger and pain, and it only led to a complete apathy after he was born. Out of pure habit he continued to cultivate, although he couldn’t really understand why since the amount of Qi was so pitiful and it was most likely impossible to improve his soul brand in this life.

But even the casual practice lead him to grow healthy and develop much quicker than the other children despite the horrible diet he was forced to have.

He was the only child, at least for now, of a young couple – Buck and Wanda Sanders. His father was a mechanic or a technician of sorts and a sadistic idiot, but his mother – a retarded masochist who worked as a cleaning lady in a hotel.

Watching the relationship of his parents made Alex think he somehow landed in a nest of completely different species – the contrast with what he just lost was so big. Buck didn’t shy off to smack his young wife the moment he didn’t like something, but Wanda only kept apologizing while holding back her tears.

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At first Alex didn’t care for that, but after a couple of weeks became annoyed and from then on the moment his father intended to raise his hand, for some weird reason he immediately fainted. It was much too easy to use mind techniques he learned in the Academy of saints on the people without the protection of soul brands even with the puny amount of Qi this world had. But if in any other life Alex would’ve enjoyed playing around this way, now it only made him upset.

Alex didn’t feel the least amount of pity for Wanda – if she didn’t like it, she should’ve just left him. He even wouldn’t mind if the two simply died since obviously neither parent actually wanted him in their lives. In addition, he was thrown in some kind of an illegal daycare few months after the birth and had to spend long days with a bunch of stinking newborns and toddlers in a basement that had never been ventilated from the day it was built.

It was clear he would’ve had it better if social services picked him up, but for some reason he could not bring himself to kill his brainless parents, although it was a simple thing to do.

At first Alex spent his time amusing himself by making his father pass out in awkward positions and mentally controlling the children in the daycare, but soon these exercises got boring and he became apathetic from the lack of entertainment. And the moment he could not focus his mind on something else, thoughts about Nabia returned in an instant and the terrible pain assaulted him again.

Time flew by and with every day Alex became less and less interested in anything that happened around him. According to his standards noteworthy events only transpired inside of his own consciousness and the surrounding people actually didn’t have anything to do with him. His apathy grew to the extent that even his parents noticed the abnormality and brought him to the therapist who actually diagnosed him with autism.

Obviously Alex didn’t care about it. His mother did, but apart from shedding few extra tears there was nothing she could do. His father was annoyed by the thought his only son was ‘damaged goods’, but then he got an idea – the kid might be retarded, but physically he was incredibly developed! At the three years of age he could easily be perceived as a five or a six year old and if he continued to grow like this, there was an area where he would excel in addition to fulfilling all the dreams of his parents, that is – Buck’s, at the same time.

He began to force Alex watch baseball on TV, but the latter ignored it and every time when father intended to spank him, for some reason he instantly fainted. Despite the lack of success Buck got so hung up to the idea he even took Alex to the Yankees game in order to make him fall in love with the ‘best sport in the world’, but all he got was his son falling asleep.

After the game, probably because the Yankees actually lost, father was so angry he barely could hold himself back from teaching Alex a lesson in public.

On the way out the stadium he kept cursing, “I’ll make an athlete out of you, little bastard! Doesn’t matter if you want it or not!”

Alex looked back at him, and said with a grin, “Wanna bet?”

It was the first time in three years he actually said anything to his father and Buck froze in shock. Alex on a whim made up his mind – since even father considered him a ‘bastard’, there was no need to stay around.

Not too far from them there were a couple police officers maintaining the order of the crowd and Alex sent out two weak streams of Qi calling them over. Both inadvertently moved towards the father son pair when Alex began to cry.

“Please, daddy! Please don’t punish me!” He begged while sobbing, “I promise I’ll behave, just don’t hit me!”

Needless to say, not only the crowd became furious – the police officers arrived at their side in a split second. When Buck tried to explain himself, Alex immediately ‘helped out’.

He said, “Mommy says – daddy hits me only because he loves me. It’s my own fault for being naughty. But I promise, I’ll behave!”

Few hours later in the police station Alex was picked up by the child services. Earlier he ‘unwillingly’ showed the fresh bruises on his back and forearms that he easily created with swirls of Qi while no one could notice and there was no way anyone would ever let him close to his parents again.

Alex didn’t care for their fate and was only upset with himself for his own unwillingness to cause them both brain seizures. He cared even less for the fate of the illegal daycare that was closed during the investigation. The problem was – he didn’t care about anything at all.

Seeing the other damaged kids in the orphanage made him apathetic again and before he was adopted, he was once again diagnosed as autistic. God knows how long this would’ve went on if not for his new two parents – Irene and William.

The couple was a pair of weirdos who believed in making the world a better place and were living on means one of them inherited from their rich grandparent. Apart from Alex, they had previously adopted three other actually disabled children and worked their ass off helping them to develop.

The change happened several months after Alex joined the strange family. On that day Irene was trying to play with him, patiently continuing with the therapeutic process she invented herself.

She sat with him on the floor, organizing toys in front of him, patiently explaining how they worked. Even though the subject was silly, she spoke seriously as if they discussed important matters and more importantly – she talked to him as if he was an equal grownup.

“Don’t worry, Alex. You see, even though the other cars encircle this little red one, it doesn’t have to stay there forever. You can simply take it out the loop it can’t escape itself and put it somewhere else where it can drive around freely as much as it wants to.” She said.

Alex looked back at her, inwardly skeptically shaking his head. How in the world any kid would be capable of grasping the subtle symbolic meaning? And was there even a cure for autism that made her believe she could develop him into a normal human being?

‘Right … even though you somehow hit the nail on the head, there is no way for me to get out of this loop.’ Alex sighed to himself clenching his fists.

He was stuck between the permanent feeling of agony from missing Nabia and not being able to do anything about it. He couldn’t even commit a suicide as it wouldn’t change anything, but rather make it worse. And even if he lived this life to the natural end – then what? If he’ll be born in the previous world again, there was already another him she loved and missed. Then what the hell was he supposed to do? Forget her? Easier said than done! If only the last life was the only he had and the rest never even began.

But at the last thought Alex jolted as if hit by electricity. Right! What if he could make the whole loop to stop? Or rather – tear it apart from the inside? What if it never started to begin with? All that he needed … was to kill the Old Tony before he killed him in the first life!