Second Genesis

—

Energy Reserve: 0.0/10.1

—

Grey looked at his status screen out of the corner of his eye. He saw exactly what he expected to see. That small spark seemed insignificant, but it had wiped out what he had left.

The iron jaw had probably already crumbled to pieces.

Wait. That wasn’t true. If it had, it should read "N/A" again, not show him "0.0". The fact the "10.1" was there should mean that the mech was still intact.

Grey didn’t even know why he was wasting time with such useless thoughts. Esmeralda had already appeared before him. With a wave of her hand, he was pulled up from the ground by a mysterious force. His neck was squeezed in her palm, the writhing veins beneath her scars looking almost like violet flood dragons beneath the dim lights.

Every fiber of Grey wanted to spit in her face, but he couldn’t control any of the muscles in his neck at all right now.

’Fuck. Why do I need my neck to spit, fuck you.’

Grey wheezed out a chuckle, the world spinning around him. His blood was only pouring out faster like this. He probably didn’t have more than a few seconds before he bled out completely.

The only thing he could give her was a wide grin, and even that was limited by how much his neck could move.

Spots of black began to appear in his vision.

"RETURN THEM!" she roared.

Maybe it was an illusion, but Grey could have sworn he saw her teeth lengthen.

Grey felt his arm sputter as though a faucet not quite turned off all the way. To think this was how he’d know he was running out of blood.

Somehow, this still felt better than being burned from the inside out by the Genesis System. That had truly been the worst experience of his life.

If only he could talk and really tell this witch how much he hated her guts. Then he might even elevate this experience to one of the best.

Even now, the phantom pain from the Genesis System’s cruelty was still running through his veins. It was like it hadn’t just wanted to kill him, but instead to erase his very existence, like he had no right to live after disappointing it.

’What a dick...’ Grey thought.

"You think death will save you?!" she growled. "I will rip it free from your Cyber Space. I will have them one way or another!"

Grey’s pupils constricted and he cursed inwardly. It didn’t actually go in there, right? If it did, his final ’fuck you’ would be real flaccid. He couldn’t go out with a limp dick, could he?

’Dammit, dammit, dammit!’

Grey pulled on his Cyber Space. There had to be a way to erase things from in there, right?

Half of Grey expected it not to work at all, but with the last dregs of his mind, he yanked his thoughts into his Cyber Space to find a sea of white that was collapsing at the edges.

The grid lines were warped, the space looking as though it might fall in on itself any moment now.

’Where is it, where is it?’

Grey felt his consciousness fading, but all he could think about was the slimy grin this old hag would have when she found what she wanted in his Cyber Space.

He refused.

If he was going to die, he was going to make her life measurably worse.

At first, Grey’s Cyber Space didn’t react at all. He would have panicked had he had the energy for it, but luckily for him, there was just the slightest pulse as the blackness continued to collapse in on his mental world.

A list formed in front of him. It was formed of 14 total, but all but two of them were greyed out and had a little tag that read: [Inaccessible] added in as a suffix.

The first two were recognizable, though.

—

Ball Bearing Eye

Glass Rotating Eye

...

—

’Come on, come on, delete, delete, delete!’

It didn’t respond to Grey at all, so instead, he clicked through, hoping that some more options would appear after the fact.

—

Ball Bearing Eye

>Complete Diagnostic: 10 Energy Units

>Complete Form: 50 Energy Units

>Complete Load: 200 Energy Units

>Complete Intent: 2000 Energy Units

—

’What the fuck is this!’

Grey didn’t want any of this, he just wanted a way to delete, a way to end everything and not give the witch a chance to succeed. But as things stood here, if he went ahead like this, there was still a chance she could gain it back from his corpse.

He didn’t have any Energy Reserve left, what good was any of this to him right now?!

Grey couldn’t stand this.

A rage was bubbling up in his heart. His consciousness was racing toward darkness, and his fury only seemed to make it worse.

He couldn’t allow himself to go out like this. He refused.

A light of madness filled his crimson eyes as his gaze snapped back to reality. His face was going completely blue, but at this point, maybe he had to thank Esmeralda. She was holding onto his neck so tightly his blood wasn’t leaving his skull just yet. But that wasn’t stopping his oxygen from running out.

He should have long since passed out. But something was keeping him awake.

A burning fury for revenge.

His arm reached up as nothing more than a stump.

Esmeralda released a laugh of pure derision, looking down at the stump that was smearing blood over her arm. She had taken Grey’s reaction as proof that what she wanted was in his Cyber Space. In that case, she would just watch this little rat bleed out and take what she wanted afterward.

As she laughed, the last of Grey’s blood pooled outward. The floor had grown so thick with the crimson liquid that it soaked through Esmeralda’s soles, but she didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

She had only just looked up to sneer in Grey’s face one final time when the latter’s one good remaining arm swiped up.

Esmeralda didn’t notice until it was too late. How could she when Grey had swung his arm from the side of her blind eye, plunging two fingers right through her socket and clawing down.

A scream shook the roof of the cabin.

He was leaving this world with something.

"Burn, you bitch." Grey wheezed out.

His fingers were coated through with his blood. He had no idea if blood was a good conductor or not. But what he did know was that he refused to allow this to fail.

He had experienced burning together with the Last Goblin Swordsman before. Back then, he had relied on the gel in his hair. But since then, he had long since washed it out of his hair. Even if he hadn’t, there was no way he could get away with wiping his head first and then doing this.

Catching the witch off guard was too difficult. If she wasn’t blind in an eye, he would have never succeeded.

And now he was just hoping his blood could fill in the same role the gel had in the past.

Grey pulled on every fiber of control he had over his Neural Frame, reaching out and connecting with the witch’s through her eye.

He didn’t even have to think about what he wanted to do. All he had to do was mimic the phantom pain ripping through his body right now. The same pattern, the same pulses, the same harrowing hell that was plaguing his thoughts even as he faced another death.

’Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn.’

It was all he could think, and he pulled on everything he had to make it happen.

He thought about his death. He thought about the Nexis Suit wrapping around his legs. He thought about his blood. He thought about connecting his Neural Frame with hers.

He didn’t know or care whether one or any of them would work. But he demanded that they did.

And then he felt his Neural Frame catch on something.

In those last moments, he felt like he was a moth to a burning frame.

Bitterness consumed him.

Esmeralda’s Neural Frame... it was like a burning sun. So large, so all-consuming, such violent currents of electricity that it felt like a field of death and destruction.

How could he... burn something like that?

He barely touched the faintest edge of it and he was ripped apart.

BANG.

His body exploded, flesh and blood erupting in all directions.