Greed God chapter 221

April 11th 2016 Brightedge City, Old Wayne Mining Headquarters, 7:00 PM EDT

I  couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. My brain was on fire and there was a  weird tightness in my chest and stomach that I'd never experienced  before. "What did she just do?" I muttered to myself. "What just  happened?" I wasn't sure why I was asking that. I knew the answer, but  my brain just wouldn't...click. It would form the response, and then I'd  think about what just happened and it would glitch back to that same  question.

My reflection snarled  in annoyance, clapping his hands in front of my face. "Nick!" He barked.  "Stay with me. You need to calm down. You're spiraling and it's causing  me to fracture. If I break you're going to lose your last shred of fae  blood and your emotions are going to come back. If you think this is bad  you haven't seen anything, so you need to CALM DOWN."

I  focused on my other self, eyebrows furrowing. "What? You never told me  that." I wasn't sure how to take that information honestly. It might  have effected my decision to make him a body, or it might not have. On  the one hand I didn't particularly want or need normal human emotions,  but on the other hand I also didn't want to be dependent on some piece  of broken soul to function.

All  of that was irrelevant though, because that meant he'd been hiding  something from me, which meant he could be hiding OTHER things from me.  He saw my face and scowled. "Ok, yes. I probably should have mentioned  that, but you know very well you wouldn't have if you were in my place.  Right now it doesn't matter though. You haven't prepared at all for  this, you don't want your first  real human emotion to be a wave of  unfathomable grief. You can still avoid this, just clear your mind and I  can help you reinforce the seal."

But  he'd aroused my suspicions, and once that happened I started to go back  over some of the other things that had happened. "You knew this might  happen." I said tentatively, feeling something out. "You're been pushing  me to distance myself from the girls since day one. You were worried  I'd get too attached and one of them would die and then THIS would  happen."

The  other me groaned in frustration. "Yes, that's true. Now can we please  focus on fixing this. You won't be able to handle what's coming. Not to  mention the aftermath. Do you really want to turn into one of those  bleeding heart do-gooders? You're going to end up just as stupid as the  rest of them. You don't want human emotions, we can figure out a way to  prevent them from coming back when you rank up next time, but that'll  have to wait."

"Bullshit."  I snapped. "Morality is a learned behavior. Even if I get my emotions  back I won't change. I might feel different about some things, but I  won't turn into fucking superman. There are plenty of assholes who do  terrible things among normal humans." I narrowed my eyes at him. "You  know that though. Because I know that. You're trying to manipulate me. I  know what that looks like, I do it all the time."

With  that new puzzle piece, I started mapping out information in my head.  How the reflection had been pushing to isolate me from everyone. How it  had been so casual about waiting to be released. How it had demonstrated  and was currently demonstrating abilities it had never admitted to  having before. How it had waited for me to make contact when it had  almost definitely shown it could do that itself.

One  by one, things clicked into place. Looking at it from the outside in, I  could see how much of the reflection's word I'd taken for granted  because it looked like me. Because I thought the only person I could  trust was myself. It had baited me. Guided me. It was baiting and  guiding me right now. This entire conversation stank of altruism, and I  was never altruistic unless there was something in it for me.

Sure  it would be destroyed if the seal broke, but it wasn't agitated or  angry. If it had been me I would have been scared shitless and putting  pressure on the person who could save me. But the reflection was being  patient, was being nice, was being helpful. These were things I NEVER  did without an ulterior motive. So either the reflection had some bigger  game going on, a goal in mind even more important to it than its own  survival or...or it wasn't me at all.

"Who  are you?" I asked coldly. This thing lived in my head for my whole  life. It had time to study me, to see how I ticked, and it had known the  one person I'd listen to most easily would be myself. I'd been played  like a fucking fiddle and I wanted to know by who.

It  froze, staring at me for a second. I saw it consider trying to play it  off, trying to pretend I was crazy. But it knew as well as I did that I  wouldn't ever trust it even a little bit again. It closed its eyes and  sighed. "Shit. What gave me away?"

I  sneered, the pain in my head receding as I focused more on this than on  the slow degradation of the last seal keeping out my humanity. One  thing at a time. "This." I said, gesturing around. "Showing up to help  makes sense, since your ass is on the line, but you're worried, not  scared. You're being too helpful. I'd be freaking out in your shoes, but  you're just trying to be of use."

It  clicked its tongue. "You know." I said with an inscrutable expression.  "You really are a lot smarter than you look. Like, as my first real bit  of honesty to you, I'll admit it. I'm impressed. Seeing you bumble  around thinking you were clever and letting your dick decide what you  did with your life was almost painful, but you DO have the odd moment of  accidental competence. "

As  it spoke, the reflection started to change. It began to shrink, figure  rounding, skin paling to chalk white and hair growing out and shifting  to a flaming red. "I guess you get that from me." Said the being that I  was almost certain was my mother.

"Fuck."  I said succinctly. "You wanted me to make you a new body. So you could  escape." I paused, thinking things through even more. "None of this was  an accident. Not one bit. You specifically tracked dad down because you  wanted to give birth to a child with the Greed System. You knew it would  cannibalize my fae heritage and arranged for that last little piece of  you to stick around, waiting."

She  grinned widely, baring incredibly sharp pearly white teeth. "Oh well  done." She said, clapping slowly. "Yes, I had all this planned." She  grimaced. "Well, most of it. I assume that meddling bitch Lilith got  wind of things somehow and decided to stick her nose in my business. I  never liked her much, always so snobby, not that her husband or that  dumb little slut he left her for were much better."

That  was it. The reason for all this. The reason Mary killed my dad in front  of me instead of negotiating. The reason she waited for us to arrive,  the reason she escaped and left behind all those books. It was this. To  fragment the last piece of my mother and make sure she couldn't come  back. Everything we knew about Lilith coming back we learned from Mary,  from that prophecy. Not that she wasn't here or anything, my appraisal  confirmed that, but her resurrection had never been the main goal.

My  mother nodded sympathetically. "Yeah. They fucked you good. So are you  really going to let them win? Going to give them what they want? Work  with me to mitigate the damage. We can patch up the fragment and seal  your emotions back up and you can go back to being your old horny  oblivious self."

She  was right, of course. If I broke the seal I'd have to live with what  happened here. I'd have to get used to so many new things about myself. I  wouldn't become some namby pamby superhero or anything, but it would be  complicated and painful...and it would be my choice.

My  face must have hardened because my mother narrowed her eyes at me. "Now  Nicky. I know you're upset with me, and I understand, but don't cut  your nose off to spite your face here. You don't want your humanity.  Especially not this early. Be a good boy and help mommy patch up the  seal."

"Fuck  you." I said bluntly. Her eyes flashed with anger, but I kept going.  "I'm not an ambitious person really, or at least I wasn't, I don't have  any strong principles because why would I need them. But dad taught me  one thing above every other lesson. We're Lords, and Lords are in  charge. We do what's best for us and we don't take shit from anyone."

"Listen  you little shit." Snarled the fragment of my mother. "You aren't the  only contingency plan I have in place. I WILL get out, and if you aren't  part of the solution, that makes you a problem for me. You don't want  to see what I do to my problems."

I  just snorted at her. "Bitch please. You already tipped your hand. I was  disposable from day one. Otherwise you would have mentioned me getting  my humanity back once I made you a body." I could still feel phantom  echoes of that tearing pain in my chest, that knot in my stomach. But I  could feel more too. I could feel my humanity, my true nature...and it  was an ASSHOLE.

Fuck  this bitch. Fuck her plans. Fuck her grand design. She'd screwed with  my life, with my dads life, and she hadn't cared what happened to us. My  dad was dead, and she hadn't even flinched. She didn't care that he'd  been murdered just to fuck with her, because why would she. I wouldn't  have either. But I fucking did now.

"I've  seen a lot of shit about feelings in my life." I said slowly as I  stared her down. "And people talk a lot of shit about the power of  friendship. Which is fucking stupid. But I have to admit that right now,  I can understand why they say humanity is a strength. Because I've  never been more motivated than at this exact second. But it isn't  friendship or love that's motivating me. It's fucking SPITE."

The  cracks on her began to grow as I fed more into that vortex of building  resentment. "You see mom. You have to CARE about things to really hate  them. To really fucking despise something it has to matter to you. And  trust me, I care a whole shit load right now. It hurts, and it sucks,  but that's fine. Because fuck you, you stupid fairy cunt. I don't care  if Mary gets her way, I'll kill that bitch in a minute, but for now, get  the fuck out of my head."

The  reflection screamed as I drowned myself in fucking pure hate and the  cracks widened, shattering both the reflection itself and the weird time  stop state I was in. I was returned to normal time just in time to  watch my dads body vanish into the pool, which began to pulse with  energy. Huh, guess the resurrection thing wasn't bullshit. But that was  fine. I was glad Lilith was going to show up. I really wanted to fucking  kill someone right now, and I didn't think Mary was going to be enough.  I reached into my pouch as the energy filled the room. If I was going  to kill this bitch I needed more power, and with the ten million points  from the suit of sorrows I had enough. Time for another upgrade.