Airing something live, especially in the Genesis Games, was extremely risky. Grey had gotten a warning just for pissing, and he hadn’t even been on screen at the time.
What the audience saw was meant to be hyper-curated and fit a particular narrative that the hosts wanted to match. But this was also what had always made the Great Udon difficult to work with.
He fancied himself a tortured artist, the sort of Shakespearean wizard who didn’t want his work to be cut or spliced together by anyone else. He was extremely confident in guiding the narrative as he wanted, manipulating the emotions of people like they were puppets on a string.
Grey had seen it in effect before. He didn’t even have a chance to argue the last time the Great Udon appeared. Not only was he labeled a criminal, but an entire mob of people came after him.
You weren’t even allowed to kill within city limits, yet Grey was publicly decapitated in front of everyone.
It could be said that Joaquin had risked using his edict back then not because of skill that was his own, but because he was sharp enough to ride the wave that the Great Udon himself had kicked up.
One could imagine that the Great Udon’s sense of self-importance was as high as it could be.
He had expected Grey to react one of two ways. Either he would freeze or he would react with rage. Either way, it would be great television.
What he didn’t expect was... apathy.
In reality, Grey was just human. There was only so angry he could get, and he had certainly gotten angry...
Over and over and over again.
It felt like there was something new to piss him off around every corner, and this was just another thing on the list.
He wanted to kill Joaquin. He wanted to kill that Captain Terran. He wanted to use the Great Udon’s floating head like his own personal porcelain throne.
But he was tired. He needed rest, he needed water, he needed food.
These things could wait. He would have his bloody murder in the morning.
...
The Great Udon’s rambling speech paused, the rowdiness of his crowd taking him somewhat off guard. He knew he was doing well, but it wasn’t this well.
At most, the Joaquin and Grey subplot was just that—a subplot.
A Cracked World was especially entertaining in the early game. This was because veteran Races had the early game all planned out and optimized. They knew exactly how to react depending on what Tutorial Zone they were given and what type of City Zone they were spawned into.
Until Zones began to be pitted against one another, it was just the same monotony again and again.
This was why Cracked Worlds were so great, because there was some novelty to it all. You would see things attempted in an unoptimized fashion that either led to unique breakthroughs or the funniest of bloopers.
If death could be called a blooper.
But there were thousands of Zones designated for just Earth alone. Zone 234 just happened to be the most curious one for now, but there were many others that had more intriguing long-term prospects for entertainment in the Great Udon’s opinion.
In the Great Udon’s experience, these sorts of wild reactions only happened when a story had brewed for a long while. The crowd wouldn’t react like this to a quickly fabricated story for characters they didn’t even care much about—and that was exactly what Grey and Joaquin were right now.
But there was an exception.
The crowd might react like this if something unprecedented happened.
There was a reason the Great Udon hadn’t been hired in so many seasons, a reason why he was seen as difficult to work with by most hosts.
He insisted on too much live filming, and that had led to many fumbles in the past that he was forced to quickly react to and deal with on the fly.
But this... how should he deal with this?
Grey was just there, knocked out on a toilet, his pants around his ankles, his snoring moving his Adam’s apple in wild, fluctuating vibrations.
His iron jaw rattled, a member between his legs hanging as loosely as the worms of his Skrill Mask.
There were very few times in his career that the Great Udon had been rendered speechless. Every time, he went back and studied what led to the moment, and he was more than ready the next time. He was always learning, always improving.
His one redeeming quality was how much he loved his job.
But this...
The Great Udon began to laugh. He laughed uproariously and seemed to join in with the crowd.
Yes. This was what he wanted. This was what couldn’t so easily be replicated when you curated moments and spliced them together.
"This is it, ladies and gentlemen! The peak of disregard! He killed! He pillaged! He raped! He snatched! He stole!
"And now he sits on his throne, having cleared out his guts and pissed his bladder clean, snoring in the face of your fury, sleeping in the face of your rage.
"He cares not for what you or I feel! He cares not if he is a commoner and you a King. What he wants, he will take from you with his blade!
"Your pride. Your friend. Your Sabrina!"
The Great Udon’s laughter became mad, and his audience followed in kind, their feet stomping, their throats sore from their roaring.
"You’ve seen it yourselves, candidates of Zone 234. Does the Human Race of Earth have heart? Do they have pride? Do they have dignity?!
"Or is it that you allow just anyone to trample over it? Even the masked murderers of the world?
"Show me, Zone 234."
In the crowd, a young man with skin the color of dark chocolate gripped his fists hard, a shoulder brand burned in a spiraling pattern on his 18th birthday practically pulsing beneath his Nexis Suit.
On another end, a shorter woman who was barely five feet tall on a good day had a fire light up in her eyes. Her hair was a furious red, her freckles dancing with her emotion along her cheeks and nose.
Finally, there was Joaquin. He wasn’t so easily stoked by the Great Udon, but his fury was lit by Grey nonetheless.
How dare he be so unbothered after all of his efforts?
All three of their auras flared and their notifications flickered.
These three were the original top three of Zone 234 before Grey appeared.
And every one of them was pissed off now.