Grey didn’t expect it to hurt so much. It wasn’t quite to the level of the vindictive asshat of a Genesis System, but it was just shy of how bad it had hurt the first time the Genesis System killed Grey.
This was almost certainly Grey’s fault. Trying to integrate with a Vector Class mech while he was just in the Established Class was asking for too much.
’Fuck me.’
What Grey didn’t realize was the fact that it wasn’t just this. While the pressure of a Vector Class mech was exceptional, the real problem he was facing was that Prometheus was too powerful. Which meant that in order to accommodate the new access to power it had gained...
It had to make room in Grey’s body.
Under normal circumstances, Grey would be finished. He had skipped far too many steps and had underestimated the sheer might of his own Spirit. Whether or not he would revive from Prometheus killing him mid-integration with a vessel was hard to say, but it was certainly not a guarantee.
But what saved Grey this time was none other than the Buddha.
Fat fell off of him in waves, his skin snapping back as though elastic bands. At some point, it even felt like Prometheus had gone too far, sucking his skin down to the bones and folding his flesh over its points and protrusions.
Grey let out a gasp as he collapsed back into his egg gaming chair.
’Fucking hell...’ he took deep, heavy breaths, his body not quite listening to him at the moment. It almost felt like he was floating on a cloud, his thoughts drifting endlessly before he realized that the pain was done.
He looked down at his body and his eyes lit up.
"AHA!" Grey let out a cheery laughter, slapping at his body and getting the reverb of solid abs back. He had never thought he would miss being fit so much. What a pain in the ass being fat had been.
Grey quickly reached up to his head and then froze.
"No, no, no, no, no!" Grey pushed the Cyber Mat off the table and wiped a hand across the stainless steel. It wasn’t as clear as a mirror would have been, but it was clear enough to tell him that his head was still very much bald.
"No, no, no, no, no, no! WHY ME?!"
Grey had gone from one problem to another. Or, more accurately, he had just forgotten about this problem. It was easy to forget you were bald when you were fat. Who cared, both were issues already, and one was more pressing.
But now that he wasn’t fat anymore, being bald was just unacceptable.
It took Grey a long time to calm down, his thoughts swimming with annoyance and frustration. Prometheus had taken pretty much everything this time, there was no more of his body left to integrate in the first place.
That probably meant that the only way to get rid of his baldness would be to go and clear that Buddha Trial.
"Fuck me."
Grey tipped his head forward and stretched out the smooth skin on his scalp to get a better look at the white tattoos etched into it.
’Hm...’
The white tattoos were clearer now than they had been before by a good margin. Back when he was super fat, his scalp was prone to rolling up. The fleshy skin wrinkled, scrunched up, and rolled into itself, making a lot of the pattern not too clear to the naked eye.
Even when Grey saw it on Joaquin, it had been the same. In fact, if he recalled correctly, Joaquin had been even fatter than himself when he first transformed. It was hard to say if that was because Joaquin’s method was just different, or if it was a talent difference, but Grey had barely been able to make out Joaquin’s tattoos at all.
Honestly, back then, he hadn’t thought they were that special until he noticed similar patterns in the armor that Giyoto was preparing. But by then, it was already too late to go back and check Joaquin’s corpse, and the armor that Giyoto had was somewhat beyond Grey’s ability to analyze.
When Grey tried to copy it into his Cyber Space, the cost to do so was actually more than the Cyber Cores he had left, and that was saying something considering the sheer number he had stored.
But now he had his own copy of the tattoos on his forehead. He just couldn’t see them quite clearly enough, and when he had tried to sense them before in the past, he sensed nothing special at all.
It was like the tattoos were just normal tattoos, but they couldn’t have been that. That didn’t make sense in the slightest.
Grey rubbed his bald head and then clicked his tongue. "Fuck it. Let’s see what this helm frame can do."
—
Sync Rate: 0.32%
Energy Reserve: 12,100.1/12,100.1
—
Grey whistled. He didn’t even know what he could do with all that energy. He was used to walking around with just a handful of energy units to spare, and now he was looking at five digit units. That was insane to him.
’Let’s start simple, then.’
Grey swiped a hand over his face and the grates of the helm frame flickered to life in dancing pixels, a crimson energy connecting them.
Then, Grey summoned the Skrill Mask to his hand.
’Show me what you can do.’
Grey pressed the Skrill Mask to his face and the helm frame buzzed with life.
—
[Integration Begun]
[Cost: 35 Energy Units]
—
There was a small suction of energy and the Skrill Mask vanished into pixelated lights right before Grey. Then, he felt a darkness bloom from within it.
—
[First Helm Selected: Call of the Skrill]
—
Grey clicked through the options and soon a new screen had popped up showing him the changed abilities of the Skrill Mask.
He grinned ear to ear, the grates and crimson energy of his helm frame forming a roaring of teeth forged from crimson energy. He had never looked more menacing.