Second Genesis

Grey couldn’t tell what was happening around him anymore. There was only blackness, an endless nothing that swallowed every direction until his mind felt like a tiny flame floating alone in a universe without stars.

Even his own Neural Frame felt infinitely far away, and somehow that was worse than losing his sight, hearing, touch, or any other sense The Immovable had stripped from him.

How could it be far away? His Neural Frame was the entire reason he had power in this place.

Without the talent he had been born with, Prometheus would have never chosen him, and Grey probably would have died on that first day from a blade buried in his gut. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Dying to a Russian midget with a god complex. He could practically hear his gramp’s howling in laughter.

He had always treated his talent like it was simply another part of him, something so natural there was no point thinking about it, but only now that someone was slowly peeling it away did Grey realize how much of himself he had built around it.

He walked around like he didn’t give a fuck about anything, said whatever he wanted, made whatever choice felt right, then dealt with the consequences afterward.

But Brad’s words about the nine out of ten had never really left him, neither had Amunet’s when she told him that not everyone could afford to make the choices he did, not everyone could simply decide to be free because they didn’t have the power to survive the consequences.

Grey had laughed, argued, probably said something offensive afterward, but somewhere beneath all of that he had known they were right.

He was lucky.

Grey had been handed possibilities most people would never get close enough to even understand. What good would all his ideals have been if he had died that first day and stayed dead? What if the only reason he could keep bashing his head into walls, picking the stupid choice, refusing to compromise, and doing it all over again was because Prometheus kept putting him back in front of the same wall?

Maybe Grey really was too stubborn to change, but anyone else would have been fucking dead.

And now some old woman was slowly stripping away the one thing Grey had apparently needed to protect from himself, forcing him into an existential panic attack he hadn’t thought himself fragile enough to suffer.

No wonder he was so pissed.

He cared about his talent far more than he had ever admitted. He liked looking at something everyone else found impossible and understanding it anyway, liked acting lazy and crude because nobody ever expected the idiot making dick jokes to have already noticed half the room’s secrets.

He liked being underestimated, liked knowing that the person laughing at him was usually three conclusions behind while Grey was busy pretending he hadn’t reached the first.

’Fuck.’

Grey really was an arrogant prick.

Maybe somewhere deep inside, he had always known that too.

Then, strangely enough, the anger disappeared.

Grey remembered something his grandfather used to say. Sometimes you’ve just got to piss on your own grave.

The old codger said a lot of stupid shit, enough that Grey had spent half his childhood wondering whether there was wisdom buried somewhere underneath or if Benn had just been drunk when he made half of it up.

Grey had always interpreted that one simply enough: even if something was going to kill you, go down swinging, and if death already had your name written on a headstone, piss on the bastard before you climbed inside. It had become his favorite saying in these Genesis Games.

But maybe there had always been more to it.

Maybe sometimes the grave was something you dug for yourself.

Maybe pissing on your own grave meant looking at the ugliest pieces of yourself and deciding whether you were going to bury them forever or embrace them so completely that nobody could ever use them against you again.

Grey didn’t know which answer was supposed to be the healthy one.

But he knew which one he wanted.

If he stripped away this arrogance, stripped away his confidence in his own talent, stripped away his need to live however the fuck he pleased, then some enormous part of Grey Temolt would disappear with it.

He wanted to say what he wanted, wanted to make whatever stupid choice he thought was right, wanted to carry burdens for his friends because he could and because he would rather break himself than watch them do it.

He wanted to punch some asshole in the face for looking at his completely imaginary wife like she was a piece on a game board.

And preferably face no consequences afterward.

’Yeah.’

Grey’s tiny flame of consciousness stopped flickering.

’Fuck becoming a better person.’

Something solidified within the darkness.

Grey couldn’t feel his Neural Frame, but suddenly he didn’t need to. His mind wasn’t separate from it, his spirit wasn’t some little passenger riding inside a body and a collection of Frames anymore.

It was him.

All of it was Him.

The darkness trembled.

—

[Mind Enhancement {Last Paladin Spirit} has fused with Mind Resistance {Center of Balance} and {Mental Fortitude}.]

—

[Evolution Complete: {Center of Spirit}]

—

[Lv1 {Center of Spirit} > Lv31 {Center of Spirit}]

—

Grey opened his eyes.

At the exact same moment, The Immovable coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Her small body launched backward like she had been struck in the chest by a cannonball, feet leaving the ground as blood sprayed through the air. She flew directly into Xerchen just as he was calmly walking forward, her back smashing into his chest hard enough to send both of them sliding several meters.

Silence fell across the courtyard.

Grey stood exactly where he had been before, Brad still hanging from his shoulder.

His crimson eyes glowed.

"Oh," Grey said slowly. "That’s embarrassing."

Grey cracked his neck and shifted Brad on his back.

"Get up, you old bitch. I don’t care about whatever grooming techniques you’ve been honing to get young men into your bed, but this is my no-no square, so don’t fucking touch me there."

Grey pulled his rod from his back and point its tip right at her head.

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