Second Genesis

Grey woke with a start, his eyes snapping open as half his mind tried to convince him that whatever had happened before he passed out had been some bizarre dream.

Unfortunately, reality was considerably more embarrassing than a wet dream, because Elowen really had kissed him, and Grey had responded to finally getting that lucky by immediately losing consciousness.

He slowly sat up in the unfamiliar room and began cursing beneath his breath, wondering what sort of cosmic asshole timed things that perfectly.

He could still remember the softness of Elowen’s lips and the faint scent clinging to her even after everything they had been through, which made absolutely no sense considering the blood, smoke, shattered stone, and general apocalypse they had spent the last several hours swimming through.

Grey leaned back against the headboard with a grin as the memory replayed itself, mostly because he still couldn’t believe the tiny Princess had actually been hiding those level of knockers. Who would have thought? Who would have thought?

"I apologize, I wasn’t familiar with your game either."

When Grey had first met Elowen, she had been practically drowning inside oversized robes that barely looked tailored for someone her size, and since then her fashion sense hadn’t changed much at all.

He had always thought she was unfairly pretty anyway, enough that she sometimes looked like some little fairy floating around while everyone else was busy trying to murder one another.

Grey normally had a habit of running his mouth around attractive women, but apparently Elowen had found the one method guaranteed to shut him up. Kiss him once and wait for his body to betray him.

This might have been worse than a premature nut. Okay, no. Maybe not that bad, but it was getting pretty fucking close.

"That’s fucking embarrassing," Grey muttered with a laugh, rubbing at his chest as he remembered the collision. "I’m never living that down."

"It has been five minutes," the angel lady said from The Virtueless, her tone somehow managing to sound exhausted despite not currently possessing a body. "You have spent all five sitting there reminiscing about little girls. Have some shame."

Grey scoffed. "First of all, I’m the only minor here, lady. Elowen is a grown... very grown woman. Second, the age of consent where I come from is 16, and I’m well above that, so don’t you dare start calling my wife a body snatcher. And third, let a man in a dry spell fantasize. You were stuck in a statue for who knows how many years and you can’t sympathize? How ironic, your husband literally just a rod and he can’t even fuck you."

The angel lady was rendered truly speechless. If she had had a face at that point it would have been looking at Grey with nothing but undisguised weirdness.

The quickfire counters to her jeering and the practiced retorts almost made it sound like Grey was the one who should be put on a list somewhere.

"... Maybe you’re the body snatcher," she mumbled.

Grey scoffed and opened his mouth to launch into a defense, but the door suddenly burst open before he could get more than a breath out. His eyes immediately lit up as he looked toward it, only for the excitement to collapse when Brad stepped through instead.

Brad stopped halfway through the doorway and stared at him. "Well, don’t look too happy."

Grey looked him up and down before scoffing. "You weren’t exactly who I was hoping to see."

"Somebody out there appreciates me."

"I’m sure they do."

Brad rolled his eyes and walked farther into the room, though there was obvious relief beneath his irritation. "Whatever, it’s good you’re finally awake."

Grey raised an eyebrow because something about the words immediately caught his attention. "What do you mean, finally?"

Brad hesitated for just long enough that Grey’s amusement disappeared.

"You’ve been unconscious for about two weeks."

Grey stared at him.

The number settled into place, and the first thing that flashed through his mind wasn’t Elowen, Mauve, the Goddess, or even the fact that his body had betrayed him a lot worse than he expected it to have.

Three days. The Territory quest had given him three days. But almost five times that had passed. They were fucked. Truly and utterly fucked.

"Fuck."

Brad frowned. "What?"

"Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Grey threw the blankets aside and shot upright, only to nearly fall straight back down when his head swam from the sudden movement. He caught himself against the bedframe and forced his vision steady while remembering the notifications that had appeared after the Goddess died, especially the warning that Melix needed a new Representative within three days or the Territory would lose its protection.

He had been asleep for two weeks.

Grey’s expression slowly twisted. Then an even worse realization hit him.

"The Mech Soul."

Brad’s face changed slightly.

Grey looked toward him. "I never put the fucking Mech Soul into the formation."

He had killed the Goddess and practically stood at the finish line of the Arc, but instead of taking the final step, his body had shut down before he could finish what he had come here to do.

Without the Mech Soul, the Palace formation couldn’t have been properly completed, which meant there was every possibility the Arc was still sitting there waiting for him while the rest of the Genesis Games continued moving.

Grey dragged both hands down his face and groaned.

"Two fucking weeks."

He had missed the Territory deadline, hadn’t finished the Arc, and apparently had no idea what had happened to Melix while he slept through all of it. Worse, if the Territory really had lost whatever protections the Genesis System had been warning him about, then there was no telling what kind of bullshit had been allowed to happen in the meantime.

Grey slowly lowered his hands and looked at Brad with increasingly suspicious eyes. It almost looked like he wanted the truth and yet wanted Brad to lie to him on purpose if the news was truly bad.

"Tell me everything isn’t on fire."

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