Second Genesis

Despite the blood seeping from between his teeth, Grey grinned. The Relentless’ Dominion was crushing his Quasi Dominion inward from every direction, his Holy Energy trembling beneath the pressure, but there was one problem with all of that. Dominion Class weapon or not, it was still just a weapon without its master, and Grey didn’t believe for a fucking second that it could give everything it had to him while maintaining the same pressure on Brad.

Brad swayed.

The change was immediate. Whatever invisible mountain had been pressing down on him for the last several days suddenly vanished, the cancerous tendrils spreading through his Linear Frame loosening as the hammer redirected more of its attention toward Grey.

Brad’s knees buckled beneath him, his entire body pitching forward as though someone had cut the strings holding him upright, and Grey understood why. Going from carrying a mountain to carrying nothing was too abrupt a change. The sudden relaxation could have the opposite of the intended effect.

"STAND TALL!" Grey roared, blood spraying from between his teeth. "You want a chance to be the one out of ten, right?!"

Brad’s ear twitched.

He couldn’t really hear anything anymore. His mind had sunk so deep into exhaustion that the world came to him in broken pieces, distant sounds, flashes of light, the ache in his fingers. He could feel his tongue cracking, scraping for some moistness against the roof of his mouth and finding nothing. When was the last time he had eaten something? When was the last time he had had something to drink?

Yet somehow, those words made it through. No... part of them had.

"One out of ten..."

Brad remembered.

It had been the conversation he had had with Grey on that balcony out of The Boundless’ ship. They had talked about how most people would be one of the nine out of ten, but hoping to be the one out of ten every time was a foolish endeavor.

You only needed one chance to be right, to do the right thing. Just one chance to be the stand out.

Brad had spent most of his life being one of the nine of ten.

Back on Earth, Brad had been average in almost everything except his size. He wasn’t stupid, at least he didn’t think he was, but he wasn’t one of those people who could look at a problem and suddenly see twenty answers either. Sometimes he got a light bulb moment and felt like the smartest bastard alive for five minutes, but then the world would make sure to remind him of his place.

The shitty part was that Brad had always wanted to be that kind of person.

He thought philosophers were cool as hell. Poets too, painters, writers, those Renaissance guys who somehow knew how to sculpt marble in the morning, argue about the meaning of life over lunch, then invent some bullshit machine before dinner.

Brad had wanted that, wanted to paint something beautiful because he felt like it, write something profound because the thought had come to him, then sit around talking about why people were the way they were.

His genes had apparently looked at that dream and laughed.

What Brad was good at was lifting heavy shit.

So he did.

From fifteen years old to twenty, he hadn’t missed a day in the gym unless someone physically stopped him. He ate when he didn’t want to eat, trained when everything hurt, measured food, counted sets, chased numbers, and at seventeen he even started sticking needles in his ass because that was what the professionals did.

Five years.

Then he entered his first bodybuilding competition and came fifth.

Fucking fifth.

Brad had stood backstage staring at himself in the mirror afterward, bigger than almost everyone around him and still somehow not good enough. The judges said his proportions were wrong, his insertions weren’t ideal, his waist wasn’t narrow enough, his muscles didn’t flow properly, whatever the fuck that meant. Apparently growing huge wasn’t enough, you had to grow huge in an aesthetically pleasing way for a bunch of gaylord judges holding clipboards.

That had been the first time Brad understood there was a ceiling grit couldn’t break.

He could work harder than everyone else and still lose because somebody else had been born better.

Then he came here, and somehow it got worse.

The one thing Brad had always been proud of became worthless almost overnight. Stella was half his size and stronger than him, and after they left her behind, Mauve’s mind ended up carrying them through situations where Brad’s muscles meant fuck all. Every time he thought he had finally found a place where what he was good at mattered, someone appeared who did it better with half the effort.

Then he saw the hammer. Brad had known exactly what it was asking for.

Unlike Grey, he hadn’t walked in blind. He knew he had a Linear Frame, knew the Guardian path had been built from the failures of Paladins, and knew that the hammer was designed for people whose Frames could resonate outward into the world. He had understood from the beginning that he shouldn’t qualify.

He touched it anyway.

Because he wanted it.

For three days he had stood here pulling, refusing to release the handle even after he realized he couldn’t, and somewhere along the way the truth had become impossible to ignore. There was no amount of grit that would turn his Linear Frame into something it wasn’t, no number of repetitions that would change what he had been born with, and no grand breakthrough waiting for him just because he wanted one badly enough.

Once again, Brad had reached his genetic limit.

He was fucking tired of it.

Tired of being useful only until someone better arrived. Tired of watching other people become exceptional while he followed along carrying bags, breaking doors, or standing in front because at least his body could take a hit. Tired of being average in every way that mattered and exceptional in the one thing the universe seemed determined to make worthless.

No.

Fuck that.

Brad’s fingers tightened around the hammer.

If the only thing he had ever truly been good at was lifting heavy things, then he would lift the fucking thing. If all his body understood was grinding out one more repetition after every sane person would stop, then that was what he would do. He didn’t need to be a philosopher, a genius, a Paladin, or whatever else the hammer wanted him to be.

He just needed one more rep.

Brad roared.

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