"Not. Fair." Tessa panted, collapsed against Greg's chest.
"Hey, at least I didn't finish too fast." Greg replied with a chuckle.
"You finished. And then you finished. And you never stopped finishing." Tessa groaned.
"Hidden benefit of never getting tired. Who knew?" Greg shrugged, pulling the exhausted Tessa closer with a satisfied grin as she began to doze off, before turning to his own thoughts. Things with Tessa had… progressed, much faster than he thought either of them had intended. Not that Greg had much of an issue with premarital sex, especially when he wasn't even sure marriage was a thing anymore… it definitely wasn't a legal thing anymore, that was for sure. However… going from 'hey, I like you' to balls deep on the training room floor was a bit quick in his opinion. It was just… once they started, they just couldn't stop. First Tessa's bra went, then his shirt, then her pants, and then all his clothes had poofed into smoke and it was on. Then… Well, they'd quickly realized that Greg didn't need to stop. Ever. Which led to where they were now.
While Tessa drifted into unconsciousness, beginning to snore lightly, Greg sent out bits of smoke to clean up their mess. Well, Tessa's mess at least. The list of benefits of being a smoke man grew to include the fact that everything about him was smoke, which meant that his… excretions could simply be turned back into smoke as well, just like everything else about him. The obvious bonus, besides the quick clean up, was that he didn't have to worry about getting Tessa pregnant unless he wanted to. Of course, what a child born of smoke sperm would actually be like was another question, but… well, that could wait till later. Greg also dissolved Tessa's clothes, before using his smoke to reclothe the both of them.
The next thing he had to deal with was… what now? The two of them were obviously together now, but… how together? Should he move into her place? Well, 'move in'. With his great big pile of nothing, it'd really just change where he sat on the couch to read. Even still, that seemed a little fast, but then again, so had what they'd just done, and he didn't regret that, so… Eh, maybe he should just wait to talk to Tessa about it. No sense in making plans without her.
Tessa shifted comfortably in his arms, snuggling deeper into him, not looking like she was going to wake up any time soon. Not that he could blame her, really. She just went through two rather intense workouts in a row. She deserved some rest. Greg snuggled back, sighing in satisfaction as closed his eyes, before moments later they snapped open, a panicked look on his eye. *Oh no… I'm getting bored!* Greg tried to resist it, he really did, but the longer Tessa slept, the more he felt the urge to do something. *Okay, okay, Greg, you cannot leave Tessa right now. Sleeping with a girl and then running off is the definition of a dick move.* Greg chastised himself as he attempted to force himself to just stay still. It wasn't working. He was bored. *Okay… okay, how about this, I'll use the smoke to create a new body, then we'll… wait, no, then she'd just wake up to a fleshy sack that just looks like me.* Greg frowned. *Hmmm… maybe… if the other body is an exact replica, I could switch my consciousness between them? I mean, this body is just smoke, that body is just smoke, what's the difference?* Greg theorized, before letting out a sigh. *Okay, yeah, it's dumb, but I'm desperate, so…* Greg sent out a large cloud of smoke, enough to make himself a new body. He wasn't exactly sure how much smoke he actually had, but it seemed like the more he dissolved stuff, the more he got, so he had quite a bit at the moment. The body quickly formed, lying on the ground so it didn't just flop over. *Alright, and now I just-* Greg began, preparing to will his consciousness over to the other body, when suddenly, the body sat up.
Greg stared at the body. The body stared back at Greg. ""Uhhhhh… huh."" They both grunted simultaneously. ""So- uh, you- no- wait- gah!"" They both tried to speak at the same time. ""You (I'll) go-""
"Ooh, divergence! Neat, cool, I'll talk." Greg finally got out. "So… you're me."
"Obviously." Greg rolled his eyes.
"Which means… we can be in two places at once!" Greg exclaimed.
"Or more. How much smoke do we have?" Greg continued.
"Not a whole lot… maybe enough for two or three more bodies?" Greg frowned, considering his smoke supply.
"Or a bunch of those little fairy bodies." Greg suggested.
Greg's eyes widened. "Right! Huh, we could make a ton of those. But why though?"
"Hm, fair." Greg nodded along.
"Why are you talking to yourself!" Tessa groaned, cracking an eyelid to glare at him.
""It'd be rude not to?"" Greg answered in unison.
Tessa's eyes immediately went wide as she looked over at Greg, and then back to Greg, and then again and again, trying to process the fact that there were two of them! "Please, please, tell me you have a twin brother." Tessa groaned.
""Nope!"" Greg replied, letting the new body turn to smoke and reform, proving he was still the same person. ""Apparently creating new bodies with the smoke makes a new me. Neat, huh?"" Greg paused. ""Actually, not really a new me, more of an… extension of me. I guess all my smoke is, just this(I) one(have) has(a)- gah!"" Greg cut off, glaring at himself. ""Don't do that! You did it! Well, we both did it… okay, I'll(you) just talk now."" Greg shook his heads, before turning back to a stunned looking Tessa. "So, anyway, this one has a brain, which, I guess, gives him- me, independence. Sort of. There's still a bit of… interference, as you can tell. But, I mean, I literally just learned I could do this, so I'm still kind of figuring everything out."
Tessa looked between the two of them again, before letting out a weary sigh. "You- just- ugh, I give up." She collapsed against his chest again, the surge she got from the surprise wearing off as her exhaustion returned. "Just take me back to my room then go off and do your bullshit." She mumbled.
Greg didn't need to be told that twice. He received a few strange looks as he carried the sleeping Tessa through the streets, but at this point no one questioned weird things happening in case they ended up crossing a super, so the trip was otherwise uneventful. He tucked Tessa into bed and briefly said hello to Jennifer, Sarah, and Tina, promising to come by and hang out later, before heading back to the training room, rejoining his other self.
"Alright, so… what's up with this?" Greg asked as he walked in.
"Well, basically, it looks like whatever one of us does, the other knows. For example, I remember taking Tessa back to her place, despite never leaving the training room." Greg replied.
"And I remember waiting in the training room, getting bored, and beginning to play with magnets." Greg nodded along.
"Right. Also, it seems like when we aren't around each other, the interference becomes a non issue… it must be because we're both attempting to react to the same stimuli or something." Greg added.
"The deja vu of 'wait, I already did this' as you're doing it… makes sense." Greg agreed. "So, we just don't put too many bodies in the same place, and we're good, right?"
"Essentially? I guess?" Greg shrugged. "You know as much as I do."
The two looked at each other, before simultaneously beginning to laugh. "Right, I just have one more question. What happens when one or both of us turn to smoke?"
"That's a good question…" Greg frowned, before shrugging "Well, better just go for it, see what happens." He immediately poofed into a cloud of smoke.
The moment he did, Greg frowned, considering the cloud. The independence was gone, but… not entirely. It felt more like he suddenly had an extra limb than an extra self. He could see out of the cloud, like he normally did when he transformed, move it around, send it places, and it didn't feel burdensome. It was like the cloud processed all that information for him, and he just had to give it direction. Greg realized that this was what he'd been doing instinctively when he attached pieces of smoke to ferals. He just told a piece of himself to stick with the feral, and it did.
Suddenly, it hit him. Greg wasn't a smoke man, he was just smoke. All the smoke was him, and he was all the smoke. There wasn't any distinction. His body was just a form the smoke could take, and his brain was just a way for the smoke to process information! Of course, even as smoke, he could still think… How did that work? Did the smoke act as a brain as well? Just a decentralized one? So it didn't need to be connected, and it all just ended up as his thoughts? Greg frowned, trying to wrap his brain around that concept for a moment, before shaking his head and giving up. Still, once it became clear that all the smoke was essentially him, or at least parts of him, it made sense why he could tell where it was, or when it broke. Who wouldn't know where their hand was, or if someone broke their toe?
Now the question was… what should he do with this information? He could be in multiple places at once! What should he do with it? Explore the city? The world? Read more books? Well, obviously he'd read more books. Wasn't even a question. Hell, he should be reading more books right now! Greg paused. Maybe not right now. First, he had to figure out just how much smoke he actually had.
First, Greg made a fairy body, then turned it into a brick of stone. Then, he turned the rest of his available smoke into identical blocks of stone. He ended up with four hundred and forty-four bricks. "Huh… that's a lot of fairies." Greg muttered to himself. He then made a body for himself, which used up eighty-four bricks. "So, just five of me… well, six, including me." He then made the scorpocroc, his heaviest form, which took a whopping two hundred and twenty- four bricks. "Well shit… I can't even make two of those… wait, right, I still have this one." Greg remembered the body he was currently using again, which would make his actual total five hundred and twenty-eight fairies. Plus, he was only about four fairies off even without his current body. He could go out and dissolve a random slab of concrete in the city and have more than enough for two scorpocrocs to run around. Hell, he could probably get up to three… Greg hadn't really been focusing on dissolving things, since he hadn't had much use for the extra mass, but there was a lot of debris out there he could turn into smoke if he wanted to. Hell, he could take down entire buildings! Sure, it'd take him a bit, but once he was done he could have an entire army of scorpocrocs!
Stolen novel; please report.
Greg paused, shaking himself from the megalomaniacal delusions for a moment. This sort of solved his issues with how to take care of the ferals, didn't it? Before, he was stuck between living with humans, and taking care of the ferals. He couldn't be everywhere, so he needed people to help. But now? Well, maybe he could be everywhere.
*
Once he was done cataloging his smoke, two Greg's exited the training room, one heading to Tessa's place, the other towards the edge of the safe zone. Greg had to keep his promise to hang out with his three dependents, while the other Greg was planning on getting a bit more smoke, and maybe visit some day ferals. He'd never actually interacted with any of the ferals who were active during the day, and he kinda wondered what they were like.
He sent out a cloud of smoke as he got near the gate, sending it underground and through to the other side, making himself another body in a small room, before dissolving the old one and doing the same. Now that there were multiple of him, unless he wanted to bother one of his other selves, this was how he had to travel. It was a bit annoying, but his smoke moved quickly, so it wasn't that bad.
Once he was past the walls, Greg turned into his sharkman form, before immediately yelping as he was practically blinded by the heat of the sun. "Fuck!" He cursed as he immediately turned back into himself, blinking several times at the memory of the entire world going white. "Ugh, I guess that's why that guy only worked at night." Greg shook his head. He then turned into his Cheetahman form, and began sniffing the air, looking for some ferals. It wasn't as accurate as tracking using the lingering heat they left after passing by, but he still had a general direction to go.
He caught a recent scent trail, and began meandering towards it, idly sending clouds of smoke out to dissolve some random debris as he did. He didn't put too much effort into the whole 'be everywhere' plan just yet, because he'd realized another issue. When he was bringing Tessa back to her apartment, his other self got bored. That was a problem. If what one Greg was doing couldn't keep the other Gregs entertained, then he'd just have an army of bored Gregs running around, doing who knows what! One bored Greg was bad enough, but ten? A hundred? A thousand? That sounded horrible for both him and everyone else. No, he needed to make sure each Greg could be properly occupied before he began sending them out.
Greg was following the scent trail, when he turned the corner and suddenly came face to face- well, face to chest with one of the deadliest looking ferals he'd ever seen! Instead of arms, this guy had two tentacles coming out of each shoulder, but not like the tentacle man's tentacles. These tentacles were hard, whip-like, and spikey. They looked like they could rip your skin off in seconds. And the spikes didn't end there. The dude's entire body was like a cheese grater! Even its face! Between this guy and the scorpocroc, Greg didn't know who would win. It depended on how easily those tentacles could tear through the scorpocroc's scales. "Uh… hi?" Greg greeted the feral as it looked down at him, cocking its head, as if confused by his sudden appearance.
"Hm, a night-kin, yes? What brings one of you into the light?" The feral asked in a strange, scratching voice, which sounded almost… disappointed? As if it'd opened a present to find an empty box.
Greg blinked a few times, not expecting the response. Most ferals either ran or attacked on sight. Or at least, they prepared for a fight. This guy… he just stood there, looking almost relaxed. "Uh… curiosity? I've never actually met a… day-kin? before, and I was wondering what you guys were like." He finally replied.
The feral looked almost taken aback, before it suddenly began to chuckle. It continued to laugh until the chuckle turned into a full on belly laugh, causing the feral to hunch over as it released its mirth. "You- you brave injury, death, or even worse, for mere curiosity? My my, what an interesting little creature you are!" The feral commented as it laughed, before suddenly freezing mid laugh, straightening as a serious look came over it. "You wonder what we are like, do you? It is simple. We are feral! We fight, we kill, we take whatever we want, and we love it! It is what we exist for! We live beholden to our basest instincts, in true communion with nature, with the world! And in return, the world grants us power! Strength!" The feral clenched its tentacles together as a force burst out of it, launching Greg down the street!
Greg skidded to a halt, sending up puffs of smoke as his skin scraped along the pavement, quickly getting to his feet, eyes wide as he looked back at the feral. It stalked towards him with a chuckle, its tentacles rising as it poised to strike. "Do you regret your curiosity, night-kin? Do you feel fear?"
Greg paused, cocking his head. "Not really, no. I'm kind of immortal, so… still, you're really strong, aren't you? How'd you do that burst thing? Was that your superpower?"
The feral paused, giving Greg a strange look. "Superpower? You believe a simple stretching of my ability to be a superpower?" The feral chuckled, clearly amused as some sort of barrier surrounded it. "This is simply the byproduct of my ability, the evidence of its energy flowing within me." Suddenly, a crushing force descended upon the street, as if gravity had suddenly increased by ten times, pushing Greg to one knee with a groan. "This is my power!" The feral snarled, spreading his tentacles as he began to float in the midst of the gravity field. "To bring down the crushing weight of reality on all who oppose me!"
Greg groaned as he felt his entire being get crushed under the pressure. *That's a new type of pain.* He groaned internally as his body went through a constant cycle of healing and destruction, unable to speak as all the air was forced out of his lungs. Thankfully, he didn't actually need to breathe. *Ugh, if this was a cultivation novel, I'd be getting super strong from this.* Greg grinned in amusement. Unfortunately, that wasn't how his ability worked. There wasn't any 'rebuilt stronger' function, just… rebuilt.
Greg shifted into his scorpocroc form, the pressure getting slightly easier to bear, but he still felt like he was carrying a building on his back, unable to actually move. *Ugh, this isn't working.* Greg grumbled, wondering if he'd just have to turn into smoke and leave. The feral was just staring down at him with a bemused expression at this point, showing no indication of stopping any time soon. But… this guy was definitely an asshole. He couldn't just leave and let him continue to hurt people.
Greg turned into his fairy form, thinking that even if it was crushed, he could still control his smoke, letting him do something, but the moment he did, he realized… it was fine? Greg paused, standing up, walking around a bit. Flying was definitely out of the question, but… the weight didn't feel so bad at this size. Shit, was the fairy stronger than the scorpocroc?!? At least, proportionally? He'd never actually seen the fairy do anything other than fly, and he'd never tried anything himself either. He'd have to explore this later.
The feral grimaced, coming back down to stand over Greg, glaring down at him. A tentacle reached out, wrapping around him and pulling him up to the feral's face. "You seem to refuse to die, strange night-kin." The feral growled.
"I did say I was immortal." Greg replied, sneaking out a few wisps of smoke, sending them towards the feral's chest. With the gravity field, there was no way Greg would beat this guy in a fight. His only option was to use smoke to dissolve something important, like its heart. However, as the smoke reached the feral's chest… it stopped. Greg frowned as the smoke encountered some sort of barrier, preventing him from actually sending it into the feral's body! *That… is a problem.* Greg groaned as the tentacle holding him tightened, tearing through his body, smoke leaking out between the gaps, unable to reform until the tentacle released.
As the feral let Greg go, watching the small body reform, it growled in frustration. "Why won't you die!" It yelled, slamming Greg to the ground and stomping on him in frustration! "Die, die, die!"
*This is not going well.* Greg sighed in the periods between when his brain was crushed. *Okay, so, my smoke can't enter it for some reason, which… weird, but we'll deal with that later. I can't fight it… no smoke… shit, how am I supposed to beat this guy?* This was the first time since the sharkman that Greg felt absolutely helpless against an opponent. Thankfully, this time, no one was in danger, but what if he'd run into this guy when he was out with the Squad? They weren't strong enough to face something like this.
*Okay, fuck it, let's do something stupid.* Greg finally gave in, sending out all his smoke, creating an army of mini-Gregs. "Alright men! Let's group up, and hit it till it dies!" Greg yelled, raising a mini set of claws to the roar of the crowd as they charged at the feral, jumping at it and digging their claws into its legs, latching on, though not actually doing much damage. The feral let out a roar of its own as the small army swarmed over it, releasing another pulse that sent them all flying away. *Oh right… he can do that.* Greg groaned.
"I tire of these games, night-kin!" The feral spat. "Your little tricks will not save you! You shall feel the weight of my wrath!" The feral roared, the gravity suddenly doubling.
The Greg army turned to smoke, condensing back into one as he stared at the feral with a twisted expression. "You know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. What part of 'I'm immortal' do you not understand?" Greg retorted, considering the feral for a moment. *I wonder if I can just crush him?* Greg thought.
The feral roared in frustration. "No creature can resist my wrath! I am power! Strength! I am the weight of the world crushing down upon-" *Splat!*
"Crushing down on your fucking head, asshole." Greg groaned, returning to his original form as he turned the large slab of concrete that had crushed the feral flat back into smoke. "Fuck, that was annoying!" Greg grumbled as he paced over to study the feral's remains. He knew there were some strong guys out in the city but damn! He hadn't expected something like that! Were all the day ferals that powerful? That couldn't be right, right? He'd probably just gotten unlucky. Really, really unlucky. Shit, this dude was weird.
Greg crouched down, sending some smoke towards the remains. There was still some… resistance, but it seemed to be slowly dissipating, like whatever had been keeping his smoke out of the feral was slowly draining, letting it fill in the gaps. "Interesting…" Greg muttered, wondering just what that was about. The feral had been ranting about communing with nature, gaining power by following its instincts, the power filling him… was that what had kept his smoke out? The feral's power? Greg sat back on his heels with a thoughtful expression. The only other time he'd encountered something that could actually affect his smoke was when Patrick shot him with his light beams. Whatever that… force the feral emitted was, it seemed to be something similar, but… the feral claimed that it wasn't its ability, just a byproduct… What did that mean?
Greg sat there, considering everything for a long moment, before sighing and shaking his head. He wasn't going to find any answers just sitting here. He dissolved a portion of the feral, which he now dubbed the cheese grater, taking its form as he stalked off in search of other day ferals. He'd see how common this feral actually was, and if he could figure out just what was up with its ability.