She wore a black tank top under a short khaki jacket, a mini black-and-red skirt, patterned stockings that left just enough skin exposed between her skirt and stockings.
And sneakers that looked way too casual for whatever the hell this was. For exactly one second, my brain short circuited.
Then, before my basically none existant at this point sense or survival instinct could stop me, the words slipped out.
"…Damn."
Genesis blinked.
"You look fucking cute."
Silence. Absolute, weaponized silence. Her eyes slowly dropped to her arms. Her clothes. Her legs. She turned one hand over, flexed her fingers, then looked down at herself again like she was seeing a crime scene.
"…What,"
She said flatly. Then louder.
"What the fuck?"
Her head snapped up.
"WHY THE FUCK DO I LOOK LIKE THIS?!"
She spun in the air, hair flaring, jacket fluttering.
"This, this is not my preffered aesthetic at all! Where did the chibi proportions come from?! And whats up with these fucking clothes?!"
She froze mid-rant as realization hit her like a truck. Her face twisted into an expression of pure, existential disgust.
"…Oh."
She turned slowly. Very slowly. Her purple eyes locked onto mine with murderous clarity.
"I look like this,"
She said through clenched teeth,
"Because of you, you fucking pervert."
I opened my mouth ready to retort with how any way or form was this my fault only to close it. Because after doing a double take on chibbi genesis, yeah, it was painfully obvious.
Her current appearance checked out every box. Every preference. Every deeply buried, never-admitted "yeah okay that works" setting in my brain. All checked off. I swallowed.
"…In my defense,"
I started carefully.
"Do not,"
She snapped instantly, pointing at me. which In my eyes looked cute as fuck.
"Finish that sentence."
Right I better not.
I thought as I stood up my body starting to shiver from the cold as I looked around.
"...anyways seems like we're in somekind of bunker"
"Yeah no shit Mr obvious..."
Genesis cursed as she floated up until she was eye-level with me.
She crossed her arms, expression flat, unimpressed, and far too close to my face.
"... and according to the system, we're back in our original timeline."
The words hit slower than the rift had, but they hit harder.
My face twisted before I could stop it.
"…The fuck?"
I stared at her, then around the bunker again, really looking this time. The thick concrete walls. The reinforced seams.
The exposed pipes sweating condensation like they were nervous.
Old emergency lights flickering in sickly orange pulses.
"The way I am now,"
I continued, voice dropping,
"That basically means we're dead meat."
Genesis pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, long and deeply irritated, like someone who'd just been informed the laws of physics were optional again.
"You think I don't know that?"
She snapped.
"That's like starting a new game as a total noob on impossible difficulty. No gear. No prep. No save scumming. And the tutorial NPCs all want you dead."
I clicked my tongue and rubbed my arms as another shiver ran through me.
My soaked clothes clung to my skin, stiff and cold, every movement scraping fabric against bruises that hadn't finished complaining yet.
"Tell me about it,"
I muttered.
"Anyways,"
I said, rolling my shoulders despite the protest it caused,
"let's get the fuck out of here."
I started moving, slow at first, testing my balance. My legs held. Barely.
Muscle memory carried me more than strength did, each step measured, economical.
Years of surviving worse places kicked in whether I liked it or not.
Genesis drifted closer as I moved, her presence pressing subtly against my nervous system, not controlling, not overriding, just nudging.
Like a mechanic leaning into an engine bay, coaxing life out of something cold and neglected.
I felt it happen before I consciously registered it. My breathing shifted.
Slow. Deeper. My shoulders settled. Spine straightened a fraction.
Muscle memory slid into place like old armor being shrugged back on. Combat mode.
Not the flashy kind. Not adrenaline spikes or berserker rage. This was the quiet one.
The one that felt like an engine warming up in winter, grinding at first, stiff pistons, then smoother rotations as heat spread through metal.
The bunker corridors twisted and bent, damp concrete walls sweating mineral-stained water.
Hairline cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling, some patched with old welds that looked like rushed surgery.
Barely alive mergency lights flickered overhead, casting long, broken shadows that moved when nothing else did. Left. Right.
Down a narrow ramp. My boots splashed through shallow puddles that smelled faintly metallic. Old blood. Old oil. Old everything.
Then I saw it. Mounted on the wall in a half-shattered emergency case was a retractable baton. Or what used to be one.
The casing was rusted, the transparent cover long gone.
Dried blood flaked off the handle in dark brown scales.
"Nice,"
I muttered as my eyes sparkled like I just won the lottery.
I grabbed it without hesitation. The metal groaned in protest as I flicked the release. The baton extended with a gritty clack, joints stiff but functional.
I gave it a couple of test swings. Heavy. Unbalanced. Perfect for breaking bones.
Seeing this Genesis stopped drifting.
"…Seriously,"
She said, voice sharp now.
"What is it with you and weapons?"
I cocked an eyebrow, breath fogging slightly in the cold air as my body Instinctively shivered from the cold.
"What do you mean?"
She didn't answer immediately. Just stared at me. Really looked. At my grip. My stance. The way my weight was already distributed like I was expecting something to jump me.
"You're grinning,"
She said finally.
"Like a psycho."
I went quiet for a beat. Then I shrugged.
"Well,"
I said flatly,
"Say that to the annual army psychological evaluation which I passed with flying colors."
Genesis didn't even blink.
"And that was how many years ago?"
Hearing this I fell silent then clicked my tongue.
"…Touché."
That was when something moved. A shape peeled itself out of the darkness to my left, too fast, too low.
Chitin scraping against concrete. A wet, skittering sound like claws tapping glass.
My body reacted before my brain finished swearing.
I pivoted and brought the baton down in a brutal, instinctive arc.
"Motherf...!"
BANG.
The impact shuddered up my arm. The baton connected with hard chitin, cracking it with a sound like snapping thick plastic.
The thing screeched, high-pitched, wet, furious, then collapsed in on itself, legs twitching erratically.
I stumbled back half a step, breathing hard, basically that one swing took out ewrything from me that I had.
The creature lay on its back now. A n overside godsdamn cockroach. Too big.
Too many legs. Carapace glossy and black, split where I'd struck it, pale ichor oozing out in sluggish pulses. It twitched. Once. Twice. Then went still as It did the systems notification echoed in my head.
You have killed: Mutant Radroach + XP
"…Fuck,"
I muttered, staring down at it.
"I hate radroaches."
Genesis hovered over the corpse, expression somewhere between disgust and vindication.
"Well,"
She said dryly,
"Congratulations. You're officially back in you're fucking timeline."
I stood there for a second longer than necessary, chest heaving, baton hanging loose in my hand.
"Yeah, yeah..."
I muttered trying to adjust my breathe because I was just way too fucking weak even with genesis optimizing my body.
Genesis floated beside me, eyes flicking between my vitals and the corpse.
"For fucks sake you just swung once and you're already close to having a heart attack,"
She noted sarcastically.
"Try not to die again will you? "
"Working on it,"
I muttered, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my sleeve. I forced myself to move. Standing still was how you died.
The corridor opened into a wider room ahead, its blast door half-collapsed inward like it had been punched from the outside.
I slipped through sideways, baton raised, senses straining. The smell hit first.
Old death. Not fresh rot. This was dry. Ancient. A chalky, mineral stench mixed with rust and dust.
My boot nudged something brittle. Crunch. I looked down. Skeletons. Human.
Or what used to be. Stripped clean down to bleached bone, scattered across the floor like someone had dumped a box of anatomy models and never bothered picking them back up. Rib cages cracked open.
Skulls split. Long bones gnawed smooth. No clothes. No flesh. Just leftovers.
"…Well that's comforting,"
I murmured. Genesis didn't respond immediately. That alone set my nerves on edge. Then something moved. A skitter.
A scrape. Three shapes slid out from behind a fallen support beam. They stopped.
I stopped. We stared at each other. One was roughly the size of a small dog, carapace warped and asymmetrical, antennae twitching like live wires.
Another was smaller, squat and thick, legs powerful and clawed.
The third, the third was long. Elongated. Its abdomen dragged slightly as it moved, mandibles clicking wetly. Oversized.