3. The Big G

Kai was dreaming. 

He swam on his back through a swimming pool filled with gold coins. The laws of reality were completely disregarded in his dreamscape as he splashed around and dove through the solid coins.

Just as he was about to pull off an awesome cannonball, he heard a faint snapping noise.

*Snap Snap Snap*

Ignoring it, he went back to frolicking in his Scrooge McDuck style pool.

"Did you kill him?" 

Kai heard a faint voice with a joking tone in the back of his head.

"You know I didn't. He's snoring like an old lady with sleep apnea! Seriously though, I think his drool is staining the carpet. Are you completely sure he's one of your creations?"

Someone was talking shit about him! Kai's face became resolute as he viciously pinched his arm.

Snapping out of his dream he whipped his head upright and exclaimed,

"I do not snore! That is slander!"

Looking at his surroundings, Kai quickly realized that he was not in his penthouse anymore. Instead, he found himself in a tastefully decorated office with gold accents everywhere. There was gold wallpaper, gold ceiling lights, and even a gold chair! Kai was definitely not jealous at all. Although if it was Kai's office he would probably add a door, kind of weird that they forgot about those.

Sitting in the golden chair was a man with a caramel complexion and mahogany colored hair, wearing neat white robes. His skin suffused a light glow what was overshadowed by the blindingly bright halo floating over his head. Kai felt a massive headache when he tried to make eye contact. Though the warmth in his smile seemed to make the ache fade away.

Standing to the man's side was the ruffian angel, with a scowl on his face. At his feet lay a pile of scorched computers obviously taken from Kai's apartment.

Seeing both individuals just staring at him, Kai asked,

"Any chance I could be un-paralyzed? My legs fell asleep a while ago. I mean I'd love to talk but I can't feel my-"

Scowl deepening, the ruffian angel waved his hand and Kai crumpled to the ground for the second time that day.

Unable to see past the desk, Kai called out from the floor,

"So … am I being kidnapped?"

"No, young one, you are not." A silky smooth voice responded, like a mix between Morgan Freeman and Sir David Attenborough. His voice was way smoother than the ruffian, must be the halo-guy.

"Really? Can I go home then?" Kai asked, obviously not believing them. 

"Unfortunately not." The ruffian angel curtly responded.

"I think we have different definitions of kidnapping." Kai grumbled.

At this point, Kai was getting quite upset. His routine game-development process was interrupted by some ruffian angel who proceeded to beat him up and paralyze him. Even worse was that he sent in a team of science-angels to loot his place and kidnap him! This day couldn't get any worse.

As if sensing the barrage of verbal obscenities about to emerge from Kai's mouth, the halo-man started speaking with a light chuckle.

"Let's start with some introductions. I am the God of your world, and before you ask it is a capital 'G.' Though I won't take offense to 'halo-man.' The 'ruffian angel' to my side is called Apollyon, Watcher of the Abyss."

If he was trying to shut Kai up then he succeeded. It was pretty obvious in hindsight but still a lot to take in.

Kai lay on the floor and tried to brainstorm methods to escape, though he quickly gave up. Even without God's pesky mind reading Kai was pretty sure his chances of escape were zero.

What kind of god (especially one with a capital G) pulls some random mortal in for a chat anyways? Especially one that allegedly caused a breach in the fabric of reality. Even Kai could come up with a better excuse for kidnapping someone.

Interrupting his thoughts, the voice rang out again,

"No need to overthink, you aren't in trouble. The situation is just a little complicated. When reality was breached, you were less than ten feet from the epicenter. A pulse of anomalous energy escaped from the space between worlds and Apollyon here was not quick enough to catch it."

At this, Kai could hear a scoff coming from the ruffi- Apollyon. Weird, aren't angels usually more respectful in the myths? Maybe this one is just a bad apple.

Ignoring Apollyon, God continued,

"Regardless, your soul has been saturated with outside energy and is slowly being rejected by this world."

Hearing this Kai grabbed the desk's edge and pulled himself up, peering over the desk with his lower body splayed out on the golden carpet. Despite God's calm and welcoming demeanor, Kai couldn't help but exclaim,

"So you're telling me I'm being evicted? I demand a two week notice! Aren't you supposed to be omnipotent or something, can't you 'un-do' a little bit of energy? Besides, I still don't understand how a weak and frail mortal like myself can bust a hole in the world itself. I am not guilty!" 

God simply smiled and continued, "I am the God of this world, my domain stays within its confines. I could try to pull the energy out of you but who knows what could happen. Do you want a bunch of tentacles or a few new eyes?"

Kai squinted his eyes and seriously considered it. As an internet veteran, Kai was well acquainted with the utility of tentacles. It might even get him a girlfriend if he tried hard enough.

Besides, God was obviously bullshitting him. They weren't even outside of his domain at the moment, omnipotence isn't for show in a world of his own creation. Kai had half a mind to give God some lessons on constructing excuses.

Seeing the pensive expression on Kai's face, God quickly spoke up, 

"There are other options of course, I take it you're familiar with the concepts of reincarnation and transmigration?"

Both Kai and Apollyon's eyes went wide hearing this, which Kai noticed in the corner of his vision..

"Despite your character, you haven't really sinned and I would feel quite bad casting you into Hell to be purified. Instead I can send you off to another one of the worlds populating the multiverse. Are you interested?"

Kai was very interested, but also skeptical. It was pretty obvious from Apollyon's reaction that reincarnation is not usually offered for someone like Kai. As a lover of all things internet, he has read enough fanfics to know that some of the ROBs are devious tricksters who love to give out backhanded gifts like candy.

Besides, not all reincarnations are equal. Kai would certainly not enjoy being sent to a world of horrors like Warhammer or to spawn in with a brain parasite like in Worm. 

Or even worse, he could be stuck with some intelligent system scheming to steal his fate or something.

"Can you tell me more about these other worlds? You're asking an awful lot of me, you know? I am living a comfortable life right now and still have a few months left on my lease and I was about to finish my magnum opus…"

God's facial expression twitched slightly,

"Speaking of your magnum opus, could you tell me a bit more about your newly developed game? Our angels couldn't seem to make much sense of it."

Kai picked up on the deflection but his pride couldn't pass up the opportunity to boast,

"Of course! I taught myself to code using the internet, some of it was really hard so I stuck to what I learned and jumped straight into development. Honestly I don't get why those online forums try to recommend confusing techniques like loops, I just copied other peoples solutions! If there are any bugs I just look them up and copy/paste whatever seems good. Rinse and repeat until the red text goes away! I spent three months chained to a desk and managed to complete the final iteration earlier today. The hardest part was keeping the computers in one piece, they never seemed able to handle the genius of my code and would blow up. Crazy right!"

Apollyon' jaw dropped for the second time that day,

"You're telling me that you cobbled together 400,000 lines of code without checking for compatibility issues at all and you're surprised that it bricked thirty computers in a row?! No wonder reading the code gave one of our heavenly analysts a seizure."

God's face dawned in understanding,

"I get it now, by some miracle your spaghetti code actually ran on the computer and the sheer number of conflicting codes and bugs punched a hole in reality."

Kai was offended, "My code works just fine thank you very much!"

God shook his head, "Regardless, what's done is done. I am willing to send you to another world of your choice, just write down the request on this paper. I'll give you a moment."

Suddenly, Kai was alone in the room. 

A piece of paper fluttered down and landed on the desk in front of him. 

Kai grabbed a pen off the desk (gold obviously) and started to think.

..

(God & Apollyon POV)

The pair stood suspended in space. Twinkling lights of distant stars surrounded them as they conversed.

"Can you tell me what's going on? Why don't you just cleanse that imps soul and toss him back to the mortal world? Even the imp doesn't believe you can't pull the energy out harmlessly." Apollyon asked God.

God Responded, "Calm yourself, my child. Your time guarding the void had left you with a temper. Take a look,"

God waved a hand as a screen of light appeared. On it, one could see the life of an infant progress to a young Kai. He ran up and down the halls of an orphanage holding sparklers and accidentally set some drapes alight.

Suddenly, Kai could be seen giving a speech inside a school. Rallying a group of twelve year olds to start a coup in the school and seize the means of grading assignments.

The scenes continued past his computer exploding and eventually showed the release of his game. Simply hosting the program was enough to take a server down or brick a computer. The damage caused was in the order of billions of dollars and crippled the economy. 

"Oh wow, so he's an idiot. Why not just toss him in the pit and be done with it?" Apollyon asked.

"He appears to be a minor source of chaos, every choice he makes changes the predetermined fate of others. I can't throw him into Hell, as his soul will likely start a riot and crawl out. I can't leave him in the mortal world either, I prefer my ineffable plan intact."

"What about heaven?" Apollyon asked rhetorically.

"He definitely isn't going to heaven. A better solution is just to give him some middling parting gifts and send him into the multiverse to bother someone else." God explained with a carefree smile.

"What about going all Old Testament on him and just smiting. That seems much easier."

"The believers are all about peace and love these days, gotta keep up with the times. Besides, my days of fire and flood have long passed." God said with reluctance.

Apollyon could only nod his head and hope the imp wouldn't get homesick.