Another kick landed. This one clipped my side. Pain flared, sharp and deep, nothing like the distant, drowned agony I remembered from before. This was close. Personal. Small. Too small.
As I lay there, curled up, trying to remember how the hell I'd gone from underground tunnels and abominations to… this. I heard it. Not outside. Inside my head.
"FUCK...!"
The scream was raw. Human. Panicked.
"...THIS FUCKING HURTS! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WEAK ASS MEATSACK MADE OF?!"
My eyes snapped open. For half a second, I forgot about the foot crashing into my ribs.
Gen?
I thought recognizing the female voice that no longer sounded artificial but pure human. Silence followed. Another kick landed. My vision flickered, white static dancing at the edges.
"…Drac?"
The voice came back quiet. Hesitant as If she didnt expect to meet me or more like she wasnt sure how to react to me knowing her big secret is out. My breath hitched.
Before I could respond, laughter washed over me again.
"Oh my gods, he's twitching."
"Did we break him?"
"Nah, look at him. He's just an orphan. They're tougher than they look."
I rolled slightly, vision clearing just enough to see them. Girls. Three of them.
Eighteen something. School uniforms tailored within an inch of decency. Shirts unbuttoned too low. Skirts riding too high. Knees locked, arms crossed, faces painted in thick makeup and cruelty.
They were pointing at me. Recording with theyre smartphones. Laughing like they were watching a comedy show.
"This is hilarious,"
One of them said, covering her mouth like she wasn't enjoying it.
"Just look at that orphan loser."
Another leaned closer.
"Hey, does it hurt?"
She asked sweetly.
"Does it?"
A shadow loomed. Another foot lifted. Something inside me snapped into place. Not memory. Instinct. I rolled.
The kick whooshed through empty air and slammed into the floor where my head had been a second earlier.
"What the...?"
A surprised voice echoed as I scrambled, hands slipping on the tile, coughing as blood spilled from my mouth. It tasted wrong. Coppery. Fresh.
I pushed myself upright, legs shaking, chest burning as I automatically assumed cqc stance.
"Fuck me... what the fuck is going on?"
My voice sounded wrong too. Way too younger and Immature still not hardened by years of shouting and smoking. I spat. Red splattered the floor. Then I looked up.
Three guys stood a few steps away. One glance was enough to categorize them as delinquents. There was no mistaking it. Cropped hair. Loose ties.
Sleeves rolled up to show scars and cheap tattoos. The kind of posture that screamed ownership of whatever space they occupied. One cracked his knuckles. Another grinned.
"Well shit,"
He said.
"Looks like the loser's got a spine after all"
I swallowed, wiping blood from my chin with the back of my hand as I locked eyes with the three of them. My heart was pounding. Fast. Young. Too fast. Flooding my body with adrenaline.
Only for Gen's voice to explode in my head.
Genesis third person POV.
...
"DRAC WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU GET US REINCARNATED INTO?!"
Her scream detonated inside his skull like a flashbang.
"WHY IS EVERYTHING SO SMALL AND WHY DO MY BONES FEEL LIKE THEY'RE MADE OF PAPER?!"
If Genesis had a physical form, she'd be pacing.
Instead she ricocheted through neural pathways that were insultingly narrow, tripping over synapses like a tank trying to drift through a parking garage.
"This body... this..."
She choked, fury spiking.
"THIS ISN'T EVEN BATTLE-RATED. WHO DESIGNS A SKELETON LIKE THIS? IT'S ALL STRESS FRACTURES AND BAD DECISIONS."
Another spike of pain flared as a memory of a near-miss kick echoed through the nervous system.
"Oh. Oh I felt that."
Her voice dropped, dangerous.
"Yeah. No. Absolutely not."
She went on a tear.
"No armor. No augmentations. No combat stims. No pain dampeners. No physical conditioning."
A beat.
"…Also why the fuck do we have acne?"
Then silence. Not gone. Focused. Genesis stopped screaming and listened. Heart rate: unstable. Breathing: shallow. Posture: reactive, not proactive. Muscle tension: chaotic. Fear: present.
She exhaled slow, deliberate and forced the body to follow.
"Oi,"
She said, suddenly calm, sharp as a knife edge.
"You hear me, my meatbag?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
"Good. Because we're doing this my way."
Something shifted. She reached not like a system command, not like code but like instinct wrapped around instinct. She didn't override him. She guided.
"Slow your breathing,"
She ordered.
"In through the nose. Four count. Hold. Out through the mouth."
The lungs obeyed before the brain did. Heart rate dipped, then she pushed it back up, controlled this time.
Adrenaline dumped clean and hard, not panicked, but purposeful. Blood pressure rose. Body temperature climbed. Muscles warmed. Vision sharpened.
"Ohhh,"
She muttered, almost pleased.
"There we go. That's more like it."
She adjusted micro-movements he didn't even realize he was making. Feet planted wider. Knees bent. Spine aligned. Hands loosened, then curled not into fists, but hooks.
"CQC fundamentals still apply,"
She said.
"Bones are weaker, sure. But so are theirs. Physics doesn't give a shit about bravado."
She felt the delinquents movements through him. Weight shifts. Bad balance. Overconfidence. Sloppy aggression. Amateurs. Her voice dropped, intimate, viciously fond.
"Alright, Drac. You gods-damn disaster of a host."
A pause. Then, with absolute conviction.
"Ice these assholes. We'll talk later."
MC POV
"Yeah we better I got a shitload of questions ready..."
I muttered as I felt the pain from my injuries lessen.
"Yeah, yeah less taking more punching and kicking asshole"
Genesis cursed as my breath slowed, deepened, like someone had reached inside my chest and turned a dial. My heart hammered, but it wasn't wild anymore.
It was steady. Heavy. Each beat felt like a countdown. The noise around me faded. Laughter blurred into background static.
The hallway stretched, straightened, lines snapping into place like a firing range. The three guys in front of me shifted, sensing it.
"…What's with that look, loser?"
One of them muttered. I rolled my shoulders once. Heat pulsed through my limbs. My hands tingled, not weak, primed. The world felt lighter. Faster.
"Nice, whatever you did"
I muttered under my breath as I instinctively cracked my knuckles and neck.
"Feels like I just got a dose of combat stims"
The closest guy, half a head taller, stepped forward, a sneer fixed in place.
"Don't get cocky, you cunt"
He didn't finish the sentence. I moved. Not fast like a movie. Fast like efficient.
I slipped inside his reach as his arm came up, pivoted on my lead foot the way my body knew how to, well, technically used to and drove my shoulder into his chest.
He stumbled back, breath exploding out of him in a startled grunt.
"Fuck...!"
Another rushed me from the side. Bad angle. Wide swing. I ducked under it without thinking, felt his arm brush my hair, and slammed my palm into his sternum.
Not hard, precise. He folded with a wheeze, eyes wide.
"What the hell...?"
The third barked, suddenly unsure, too late. I stepped in again, foot hooking his ankle just as he lunged. He went down hard, the sound of him hitting tile sharp and final.
For a second, there was silence. Not the kind that means it's over.
The kind that means everyone's reassessing. I stood there, chest rising and falling, knuckles stinging, blood drying at the corner of my mouth. For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
The three guys were on the floor in various states of shock, one on his ass gasping like a fish, one curled around his chest wheezing, and the last sprawled flat staring at the ceiling like it had personally betrayed him. The chicks stopped laughing.
Phones were still up, but no one was narrating anymore. No giggling commentary. No fake sympathy. Just… silence. One of them blinked, hard, like her brain had desynced from reality.
"What the fuck…?"
She finally said, not performative this time. Real. Small. Another took a half-step back without realizing she was doing it, her heel clicking against the tile.
Her phone dipped, camera no longer centered on me but on the guys on the floor, then back to me, like she couldn't decide what was more unbelievable.
"He..."
She started, then stopped and swallowed.
"He didn't even..."
The third girl's smile had frozen halfway on her face. Her eyebrows were drawn together now, confusion bleeding into something uglier. Fear. Not screaming fear.
The kind that crawls under the skin when a story you've told yourself stops making sense.
"That was a fucking fluke,"
She snapped, too fast. Too loud.
"You guys are idiots."
None of the guys answered. One of them tried to get up and immediately thought better of it, groaning as he rolled onto his side. I exhaled slowly, shoulders loosening just a fraction.
My hands were still up, loose, ready. I could feel eyes on me, too many of them, but I didn't look at the girls.