Chapter. 20

"Cleanse!" Vincent held out his blaster and fired a massive beam, vaporizing the building in front of him. "I hate everyone and everything. Burn it all!" Rebecca appeared in Vincent's mind again and his beam died down. Vincent had spent four days in the unlimited field trying to learn the incarnate system. Lyle and Corina left after one day of watching. Levi stuck around for another day before she left as well. Leaving only Catherine and Jade to help him.

"What's the problem?" Asked Catherine. "You can start the attack but you can't keep it going."

Jade stepped up to speak. "You need to have an image and to hold it. It seems like you can make an image to start but something is keeping you from holding it."

"What are you thinking about?"

"How much I hate everything." Vincent tightened his fists.

"Then why can't you keep thinking about it?"

Vincent groaned. "Let's stop for now, I'm starting to get a headache."

Jade sighed. "Fine, but when you reach level four you better be coming to the unlimited field to practice and prefect the incarnate system. That's an order."

"Understood." The three headed for an exit point and returned to the real world.

They awoke up in reality to see Levi, Corina, and Lyle waiting for them.

"Finally." Levi huffed. "Now can we get back to why we're here?"

Catherine wrapped her arm around Vincent's. "You saying meeting my man isn't good enough of a reason for you?" Vincent turned to Catherine with a murderess stare. Causing her to let go.

"No. I have summer homework to do."

"Oh god don't remind me." Catherine laid back on the sofa then looked to Lyle and Corina. "How about you two?"

"We finished it all in the first week." Answered Corina.

"Shit! Brain Burst took up so much of my time I forgot about it." Vincent stood up and walked out.

"What's up Vinny?" Catherine watched him leave as he kept quiet.

Outside Vincent saw his helmet on the ground and picked it up. "Wonder if Rebecca is doing any better." Climbing onto his bike Vincent opened his contacts and called her, getting an response in a few seconds.

"Hello?"

"Hey Rebecca, it's V."

"Hey Vincent! How are you?"

Vincent smiled, hearing her voice caused his chest to feel lighter. "I'm good. I called cause I wanted to check on you. How's your summer work going?"

"It's okay I do a little at a time. I have most of it done now."

"How about we get together and get it all done? I'll come by and pick you up, help you with your work and you can see what mine is and be ready for next year."

"Okay! I'm at home right now!"

"On my way." Vincent hung up and drove off.

...

Vincent arrived outside of Rebecca's house just as she was running out. "Someone's in a hurry."

"Hello Vincent!"

"Hey Rebecca, you ready?"

"Ready?"

"We're going to my place. My sister's home and you haven't lived to you had her cooking."

"Okay." Rebecca climbed on the bike and Vincent drove home, slower then normal for Rebecca's comfort.

...

Reaching his house Vincent pulled up the garage. Tuning off the engine Vincent and Rebecca climbed off the bike then entered the house. "Hey sis you here!"

"I'm here Vince stop shouting!" Elizabeth walked out of the living room to greet her and stopped in her track when she saw Rebecca. "Hello."

"Hello, I'm Rebecca."

"I'm Elizabeth. Thank you for looking after my brother."

"No, no. It's Vincent that looks after me."

Vincent grins as he shakes his head. "My room up the stairs and third door down the hall. I'll get us some water and we'll get started."

"Okay, thank you." Rebecca nods and walks up the stairs.

"Seriously Vince, how many girls are you going to bring home?"

Vincent ignored her and two water bottles. "Call us when lunch is ready."

"Asshole! Don't ignore me!"

Vincent didn't respond and went upstairs. Opening the Rebecca turned away from his computer and to him. "Nice right? Built it myself."

"You have a nice room Vincent."

"Thank you. Maybe you could show me yours sometime."

"I, I don't know, I mean-"

Vincent let out a light laugh. "It was a joke Rebecca." Vincent handed her a water bottle and sat on his bed. "Let's get started, shall we?"

"Yes!" Rebecca sat at Vincent's deck, hiding her face from him.

The two opened their linkers to begin.

Three hours had passed, Rebecca was putting the finishing touches on her work while Vincent in the middle of his. Whenever he got stuck Vincent would glance over to Rebecca, calming his nerves and give him the boost he needed to focus.

As he worked Vincent would look at Rebecca more and more. As he watched he started to pick up on her habits, her typing had more flourish when she was in a good mood or when she would keep brushing her hair past her ears when she was frustrated, at which point Vincent would get up to help her.

Wanting to take a break Vincent lowered everything from his view, just as he was about to shut off his linker he saw the Brain Burst icon. He thought back to early that day when he learned the incarnate system. "Hey Rebecca, how's your Brain Burst life going?"

Rebecca waved her hands down to lower her programs then spun to Vincent. "It's been fun. Though I still don't like hurting people in the real world."

"You ever think about your avatar's name?"

"What do you mean?"

"Our dual avatars are made by our fears and desires. It's like we're wearing our weakness." Vincent thought back to what Levi told him. "My name is Eminence Tyrant. Eminence means proven superior and tyrant is a bad ruler."

"What does it all mean?"

Vincent held his hands together and glanced to his fencing swords. "Eminence, proven to be superior. I'm the best on the fencing team. Everyone can see it but I wasn't made the captain because I'm not a people person."

"What's the tyrant part?"

"A bad leader. I always thought about what would be best for the team as a whole, not what was best for each person. I always thought that being a leader is about what people needed not what they wanted." Vincent let out a long sigh. "So that's my avatar. It's not enough that I'm better then everyone, I want everyone to know it." Vincent laughed dryly. "A selfish body for a selfish person."

"... not true."

Vincent heard Rebecca mutter to herself as she looked at the floor. "So what about your avatar? What makes you Prism Rose?"

"I don't know how the whole system works."

"Tell me about your life at home then. If you can."

"My parents are both doctors, I only see them four times a week. They want me to study up so I can be like them."

"Do you want to be a doctor?"

"I don't know. My Aunt is a lawyer and she wants me to be one too. My cousin owns a business and he's been showing me how it works."

"Do you want to do any of those things?"

"I don't know. I don't want to let anyone down so I study as hard as I can to learn about each field."

"You'll burn yourself out if you keep think like that. Though all of that, let's see." Vincent raised his hand to his chin as he stared up at the ceiling. "You study to keep up with the demand, that's blue. You're goal is to not let your family down, that's red. Together that's purple. You tell each of them you want to go into their workplace, deceiving, that's yellow. You do it to protect them, that's green."

Vincent snaps his fingers. "Add them all together and it makes white. White has no combat ability on its own. So by trying to everything you end up as nothing. Colorless. A prism."

"I'm worthless." Rebecca sinked back into her chair while she held her arms.

"I didn't say that. You know the tarot cards?"

"Sort of."

"At the start of the cards is the fool which is zero. It's empty, but has limitless potential. That's what your avatar is, it starts with nothing but can become any other color." Rebecca silently looked up at Vincent. "you're avatar has great potential and beauty."

"And great hideousness."

"A dark desire... So what do you want to do?"

"What?"

"Forget what your family wants, what is it you want to do for yourself?"

"I can't just tell them no."

"Of course you can! My parents wanted me and sis to go into real estate but I told them no I want to go into professorial fencing, sis wants to go into programming. Were they upset? yes. However they were understanding. We all have our dream, the things we want to do. If you don't chase your dreams then what's the point of living. Working some nine to five? That's not living, that's surviving."

"I..."

"So what is it you want to do? How do you want to live?"

"I, I..." Rebecca started to choke up as tears rolled down her face. "I don't know." Rebecca covered her face and began to cry. "I don't know!"

"Rebecca..." Vincent was at a loss for words seeing her break down and cry. "It works for sis when she crys." Vincent stood up, he grabbed Rebecca's arms, pulling her to her feet and held her.

"I'm sorry... I don't know. I'm-"

"Shh. It's okay. I've got you." Rebecca threw her arms around Vincent waist and cried into his chest. "You've been keeping this in for a long time, haven't you." Vincent gently ran his fingers though her hairs. It smelled like pine trees, making him think of winter.

After a couple of minutes Rebecca pulled back but still held onto Vincent as she looked up at him. "Thank you, Vincent."

"Call me V, and anytime." Rebecca and Vincent continued gaze at each other. Rebecca's heterochromica eyes were puffy from crying but to Vincent still found them to be enchanting.

Vincent leaned closer as Rebecca's eyes closed.

"Hey you two in there?!" Elizabeth pounded on the door, causing the two to separate. Elizabeth opened the door to step in. "Oh, you two are still dressed."

Vincent crossed his arm. "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Do I need to, whatever. Lunch is ready you two. Come down if you can pull away from each other for more then an minute." Elizabeth laughed as she walked away.

Vincent turned to Rebecca. "You okay now?"

Rebecca wiped her eyes. "Yes, thank you, V."

"Anytime, Reby." Vincent rubbed her back and they went downstairs.

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