CODE ZERO EPSILON

It was a cold morning at the Vermillion estate. The snow was still visible although it had stopped falling the previous night. "Why's it so,damn cold today?" Stella Vermillion shivered. She was wrapped up in a bundle of two blankets but still felt like she'd been abandoned some where in Antarctica. "When's this snow ever gonna let up anyways? It's so cold I think my blood's gonna freeze at this point." She looked out the window and flinched when she spotted Roy, her brother walking towards the forest that was east of their mansion.

She immediately jumped out of bed and ran out of her room and down the stairs. "Roy! Roy where are you going!?" She ran after him. He didnt seem to hear her and continued walking. Stella kept running till she caught up with him. Just when she was about to grab him, she tripped and fell face first into the snow. Roy heared her fall and turned to look at her. She raised her head out of the snow and sat up. "What the hell are you doing out here on such a cold day in such skimpy clothes?" Roy asked staring at a shivering stella. She was wearing a pair of extra short shorts and a sleeveless top. "Where are you going?" She stood up.

"That, Stella is none of your business."

"What do you mean none of my business? As your sister I have every right to know where you're going and I want to come with you."

"Alright, Ill answer you. But first, can you do me a favour?"

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Go ask mother before you come. If she allows it then you can come with me." "Fine, wait for me." She ran back to the house.

"Stella, where have you been?" Mylene, Stella's mother asked. "I was going after Roy. He was walking towards the forest and I wanted to go with him. Can I?" Stella answered. "No, you can't." Mylene said.

"Why not?"

"First of all, look at how you're dressed dear. You cant go anywhere dressed like that in this weather and come back alive. Also, you have to go for the entrance cremony at school, you cant miss that just to follow Roy around."

"Hey, Roy has to go for that ceremony as well."

"Look Stella, you can't catch up to Roy even if you went full speed. And I doubt hell be waiting for you when you get to where you left him." Another lady walked into the room. She had straight long black hair and eyes like rubies which contrasted with her sister stella who had aqua hair and eyes and roy who had white hair and silver eyes. Her dress was just as dark as her hair. She was Vanessa Vermillion, first daughter of house vermillion. Meanwhile, In the noble house Crimson............. "Shut up Mikey!! I dont wanna here it so shut your trap!" Vermeil Crimson yelled at her brother. "Hey now, dont be so noisy we both know what Im saying is true. Anyways as I said, hurry up we need to get going." Mikey answered.

"Sheesh, Its not like the academy's gonna disapear or anything, so why are you in such a hurry?"

"Im not in a hurry, youre just slow."

"What the he-! You know what, never mind. Lets go." Vermeil walked out of the mansion and Mikey followed. They went to the Royal academy of magic in the capital for the entrance ceremony, the same one that Roy and Stella went to.

At the academy all the students gathered in the auditorium. A red haired green eyed elf went on stage to give a speech.

"Listen up you brats! Im Flair Elgrin. The boss of this place since it was started up twenty years ago and I always will be. This means that I am the rules and whatever I say goes ya hear me. End of speech. Now go for apraisal and be quick about it. We dont have all day!" She said and walked off the stage.

"Well she's rude." Stella. comented about Flair. "I dont know, I think all elves get like that when they grow old." Roy said. However, Flair didnt look old. She looked to be only around twenty five at most. Anyways they all went for apraisal. "Alright, all you have to do is touch this black crystal and it'll measure your mana capacity." A male instructor said signaling to a huge spherical black crystal. The students went for apraisal one by one. Roy came second last of the students. When he touched the crystal, it showed negative digits suprising every one except Stella. However, when Vermeil saw the digits on the crystal, she smirked. "Interestin' very interestin." Her smirk got wider. She walked straight to the instructor. "Put him in my class." She said to him. "Pardon?" The instructor asked. Now Vermeil was a very short tempered girl and once she got mad, things were never so pretty."I said put him in my class." Vermeil repeated. "You are Vermeil Crimson, correct?" The instructor inquired. "Yeah." Vermeil's face was twiching by then. "I believe your mana capacity is great even before you are apraised. But the young man you are requesting me to put in the same class as you has a mana capacity less than zero. Since classes are asigned according to mana capacity, your request is impossible to achieve." The instructor explained. Vermeil had snapped by then. "Look, I don't really care how you do it or what the hell you have to go through to do it, but you have to. Also, this is not a request. If I hear even a whisper from the wind that you intentionally did not do as I told you ... well, let's just say things will get really really ugly." She then reached her hand out to touch the crystal and It shatered before her hand reached it. It is unknown whether the instructor fainted from fear or shock, but he fainted. "Oops, did I threaten him a little too much?" Vermeil checked his pulse. "Atleast he's not dead. If that were to happen it would be trouble for me." She stood up. Fortunately, she was the last so they didnt have to get another crystal.

After a while, "A-alright, c-classes start tommorow." The instructor who had just regained consiousness stuttered still in shock. The next day, all students reported to their asigned classes. Roy as expected,was put in class S with Vermeil and Stella and Mikey and...... many others. For the first few minutes of the day there was no instructor in class and everyone was just chilling. Roy was reading some book, Vermeil was busy staring at Roy and Stella was staring at Vermeil wondering," Who is this girl and why is she staring at Roy so much? She have a crush on him on something?" Vermeil then walked to Roy's seat. "Hi there, I'm Vermeil Crimson. What's your name?" She said to no answer. Roy didn't even look away from the book he was reading. "Rude, atleast say hi or something." Vermeil complained. "His name is Roy Vermillion." Stella interrupted. "What are you? His spokesperson?" Vermeil spat at Stella.

"No, but I'm his sister."

"His sister huh,well does your brother have a specific reason for not answering me?"

"I don't know, Roy rarely talks to anyone."

During that conversation, an instructor finally walked in. "Alright class get settled." She clapped twice. "I am Catherine Royce, your current homeroom teacher. Now that I've introduced myself, I'd like to hear a decent introduction from you guys. Let's start from the front to the back in every column from right to left." She said. The whole class intoduced themselves and lessons started. "I'm sure we all know that we are in an academy for mages. However we handle phys-ed and gen-ed as well. Those two will be handled by someone else entirely. I will be handling magic." Miss catherine started. "Let's start with the basics. We all know that magic is everywhere in the environment. This environmental magic has no form or atribute, it is known as prima materia. Prima materia in our bodies is what most of us know as mana. Prima materia and mana are the same thing, the term 'mana' was only created to differenciate prima materia in the body and the prima materia outside the body. Prima materia consists of codes known as materia codes. Materia codes are normally disorganised and have no form. To perform a spell, one must filter the codes to leave only the codes neccesary for the spell in question. Filtration of materia codes happens in the part of the brain known as the ingrum. Once a spell is specified in the brain, the ingrum automatically filters the co-" Miss catherine posed when she noticed Roy spacing out. "Hey! When you're in my class, you listen to me!" She shot a piece of chalk at him. If that chalk had been shot at a normal person, they would've died and it would've been described as death from a gunshot through the brain because that piece of chalk was moving even faster than a bullet. Suprisingly or not, Roy caught the piece of chalk between his index and midle fingers and crushed it just like a cookie, it crumbled into dust . He then looked up. His silver hair covered his left eye leaving only the glowing silver of the right eye to be seen. Most of Roy's face was covered with a black mask so basically, only his right eye and the area around were visible. Anyways, back to the main story. The fact that Roy actually caught the chalk pissed miss Catherine off big time. She walked to Roy . With a twitching smile she thought to herself, 'Just who does this brat think he is?' "What's your name?" She asked. Roy just stared at her for a moment and looked back out of the window. "His name is Roy Vermillion." Vermeil answered on Roy's behalf. "I didn't ask you so shut up." Miss Catherine called Vermeil off. "Oh come on, I was tryna be helpful teach." Vermeil mumbled. "So, you're a Vermillion, huh? Figures. Now get this straight mister Vermillion, your noble status doesn't matter at this academy. You are here for the sole purpose of education and I am your teacher here making me the only person that can help you to improve your magic so if yo-" "Improve my magic?" Roy interupted her. "I'm sorry but did I hear you say you wanted to help me improve my magic?" He was snickering through his words. "Yes, that is what I said and I don't see what's so funny about it." Catherine walked to his seat.

"What's funny is the fact that you want to improve the magic of someone who doesn't need it."

"I'm sorry?"

"Just who does this boy think he is talking back at miss Catherine like that ?" Cecilia Roseblade thought to herself. She stood up and walked to Roy's seat as well. "Excuse the interuption. I am Cecilia Roseblade. You are Roy Vermillion, correct? I have a little qustion for you." She started. "What?" Roy asked. "Just what makes you think you don't need magic?" Cecilia asked. "You're not a very good mathematician, are you?" Roy laughed.

"Pardon?"

"What do you get when you multiply a negative by a positive?"

"Um... well, a negative?...I'm sorry miss Catherine, but I believe he's right this time." Cecilia sighed. "Tell me something I don't know." Miss Catherine answered. "Anyways, back to business. What was I saying again?"

"Something about ingrum or whatever." Vermeil said. "Oh yeah. So the ingrum automatically filters the codes once the spell is specified in the brain. There are four main attributes in this world namely: fire, water earth and wind and the others are the super rare light and dark attributes. There are also sub attributes created by joining two or more different atributes but we're out of time so we'll talk about those next period .That's it for this period. My time is almost up anyways. Use the rest of it to try out what you've learnt. I'll see you whenever the world feels like it." Miss Catherine concluded then left. The rest of the day went on normally and before long, it was time for lessons to end. Roy was the first to move out. Stella followed but by the time she reached outside, he was gone. "I cannot believe that jerk left me behind." Stella complained as she walked home. She whispered a curse at every cricket that made noise. It was dark by the time she got home. To her suprise, the mansion was empty. "Hey, is anybody home!" Stella called out to no avail, all she could hear was her voice echoing back at her. She entered the mansion and walked around for a while. "There's really no one here. Just where is everyone?"

"Over here Stella, stop wandering around and follow me." Vanessa whispered to Stella from the door across the room. Stella,followed her outside. The walked for a while towards the forest, "Where the heck are you taking me?" Stella snaped at her sister out of the blue. "Just shut up and follow me for crying out loud." Vanessa snapped back at her. They walked up to a small settlement in the middle of the forest. "I didn't know this was here, when did people start living in this forest." Stella,wondered as she briefly scanned the area. "Oh, I guess there aren't any people living here after all." She added after the realisation that the place looked like a ghost town. "Why or when people started living here? I'm just as clueless as you. But as for why there's no one here, please just keep following me." Vanessa practically forced the words out of her mouth. She sounded disgusted and disapointed at the same time. Stella hesitantly followed her sister. They reached a spot where every one of the Vermillion estate had gathered, servants and all including Mylene. Stella spotted her first,"Mother! What exactly is going on here? She ran towards her mother as she got closer, she noticed what everyone was staring at in horrid silence. Her face morphed in terror. "Wha-What happened here?" She stattered as she stared at the pile of dead bodies infront her. Her heared plumited into a sea of all kinds of negative emotions when she noticed the male figure sitting on top of the bodies, she recognised him. "R-Roy? Roy is that really you? What is going on?" She cried in a fit ofconfusion and frustration. The most perplexing thing was how Roy wasn't paying any attention to the people staring at him, instead, he was more worried about how much of a pain in the ass it was gonna be to clean the blood off his sword and suggesting to himself to cut faster in order to avoid the blood. "Why did you do this Roy? If they'd done anything wrong you could'be had them punished. But.... killing them this way.....this merciless for-" "Just so you know, they aren't dead. They're just imobile. My sword cannot damage a demon enough to kill it." Roy finally spoke interupting his mother. "Anyways, I leave the rest to you. You can destroy the whole forest for all I care." Roy added then left. Mylene walked nearer to the bodies and checked their fore heads. There was a red mark on their heads. It was like a a man with a goats head sitting on a creepy throne made of skeletons. The goat sticking it's tongue out exept that the tounge was a snake also sticking it's tongue out. "The sign of the demon lord. If that brat was going to fight demons he should have informed me. It would've saved me,a lot of time and trouble." Mylene mumbled. She then dismissed the crowd and everyone left the forest. Once she stepped out of the woods, a blue flame at her command engulfed the whole forest.

The next day, "Good morning class." Miss Cathrine greeted. "I seriously don't have much time with you guys so let's cut to the chase. I won't be repeating anything so pay good attention. Last time, we briafly talked about sub attributes of magic. Basically you add two attributes or more to make anothe completely different attribute. For example when you add fire to water, you get mist the attribute. You should experiment and find out the rest on your own. I have a lot to do today so unfortunately, I'll have to stop here." Miss catherine seemed to be rushing off to somewhere because she literaly ran out of class staring at her pocket whatch. Roy followed after her shortly. He went to the rooftop of the school building. He stood there for a while until Vermeil walked up behind him. "Why are you looking all confortable in such a ridiculously high place." Vermeil asked. Roy turned and just coldly looked at her. "Look, could you stop minding my business and start doing that for yours." Roy said after a while of staring. "Ouch! That, just so you know was uncalled for. It's not even such a big secret. You know what, never mind, different question. Why are you always in a mask." Vermeil was persistent no determined to find out more about Roy.

"You really are pesky aren't you? Don't you have anything better to do other than bothering other people?"

"I'm not pesky and I do have stuff to do. However, I can't lull my curiosity so I must know the mystery behind the mask."

"If I show you, will you stop bothering me for the rest of your life?"

"Sure, I can tottaly do that."

"Somehow I doubt that but it's whatever, it's not something I necesarilly want to keep a secret." Roy pulled his mask down to his neck. The first thing Vermeil noticed how hot Roy was. Her attention however switched to how enormous his aura was. Her eyes went wide as she fell to her knees, before she knew it, her nose started to bleed and she started to cough up blood. She was under such great pressure that she couldn't think straight. She was getting dizzy. ' Am I...... dying?' The thought crossed her mind as her life flashed before her eyes. Just when she was about to pass out, Roy pulled his mask back up. In a frantic frenzie of coughs and gasps, Vermeil vomited blood. When she finally calmed down she cleaned her face and stood up. She stared at Roy, terrified open mouthed and wide eyed. She wanted to ask what that was but she was petrified and for a moment had lost the ability to speak. "So, how did it feel? Staring death in the face." Roy's voice was abnormally cold and deep. Even with his mask on, the air around him was thin. It was like he wasn't the same being anymore. Vermeil stepped backwards as slowly as she could. 'He, he's not human. He is...' That's all Vermeil's brain could manage. Roy chuckled and threw himself off the edge leaving a petrified Vermeil behind.