Is it morning... already?

Quick shoutout from me, Sinful Cyanide, the author of the little tale I’m about to tell. Just wanted to remind you that though this will take place in the same sort of multiverse as Twisted’s, it is it’s own standalone story that will have its own unique take upon the idea of a gender bending gamer. Differences between his and mine are likely features and not bugs. Please enjoy.

Lex groaned as he slowly woke up. He felt stiff and his head was pounding. As he went to lift his head up he could feel his cheek slowly peeling off the plastic keys of a keyboard. He groaned again as he realized why he felt like this, he had fallen asleep at his desk, again. This was beginning to become a regular problem for him. Sometimes it was because he didn’t want to stop playing the latest game, but lately it was a far more dull reason.

Lex had gotten a position working online as customer service for a conglomerate in order to earn enough money for his next school year. The hours were somewhat flexible so he had high hopes of working one or two days a week even after starting college. Still, Lex knew that thinking about why he was currently uncomfortable wasn’t going to fix it and no amount of waiting was going to make the stinging pain from first opening his eyes any more bearable.

Lex leaned back in his computer chair and swiveled to the side so he’d at least be facing the wall and not directly at a glowing screen of pain. He slowly opened his eyes and was met with a different type of glowing screen. It was sorta bluish and somewhat transparent. It reminded him of a video game and though that wasn’t exactly impressive since many things in life did, this one took that familiarity to a whole new level.

Lex closed his eyes and shook his head. Perhaps it wasn’t a hallucination, just some residual information from his dream brought to life before his sleep-addled mind. He opened his eyes and was met with the floating box despite his doubts about its existence.

He sighed and swiveled so he was facing the door to the office. It stayed centered in his field of vision. In fact, the box grew larger and started blinking as if demanding his attention. He grit his teeth and barely fought off his desire to growl at the thing. Apparently it wasn’t going away and did not care that he thought it wasn’t possible to be real. He decided to just give in and see what the damn thing had to say since it apparently wasn’t going anywhere. The box stopped blinking and grew until it was big enough to easily read.

Achievement: Chosen by a goddess to gain powers!

Congratulations, you’ve been hand picked to have your latent abyssal potential fully unlocked without any harmful side effects instead of the slap-dash method that messed up your physical and spiritual growth during puberty. I’ve also chosen to rectify their past mistakes while I’m at it. That brings us to a choice their interference upon you.

Lex felt his body tremble as he read those words. He couldn’t have read that right. There was no way this was real. He saw the box slowly fading and immediately panicked. He wasn’t ready for this level of choice! He had barely lifted his head off his desk, now was no time to be making life changing decisions and there was so much information implied in that message, he wasn’t ready for it to go anywhere either! Again, the box reacted as if it could sense his will and instead of disappearing snapped back into view. If anything the box was more solid this time and less see-through.

He didn’t know how long this would last so he read through it a few more times, trying to think about it from different angles. The first thing that he figured out, which was kinda obvious in retrospect, was that someone wrote this and not just someone, but a Goddess. Not just any Goddess either, one powerful enough to easily, and remotely, unlock his potential, while also fixing it.

The second one, was that someone had been trying to do this and had fucked up. Apparently some portions of his unattractive nature was someone’s fault. He wanted to be the bigger person, they had supposedly been trying to give him some sort of power after all, but considering the amount of ridicule he went through and the fact that he never got a date because of it, he was having a hard time being the bigger person about the whole thing. The only thing that gave him pause was the fact that they were powerful enough to manipulate it to begin with. Not that he knew how difficult that was, but it sure sounded difficult.

No matter how many more times he read it, he didn’t see any other information standing out to him other than the obvious so he let it fade away. He hoped the choice would at least be something easy to start with, but somehow he doubted that. It only took a few seconds for a new window to appear in his vision. This one he didn’t try to evade and simply read it.

Achievement: Noticing the obvious!

Seriously, this shit was spelled out right in front of you kid, try to keep up without keeping me waiting next time. Hopefully this will help with that.

Reward: 1 wisdom and 1 intelligence, a Goddess’s slight irritation

Lex gulped. He didn’t mean to annoy the one handing out his powers. In fact, that was just about the last thing he desired to do. Especially since they could still change their minds. He put his hands together and thought as hard as he could. ‘I’m sorry great Goddess, please forgive me.’ This was one of his most sincere apologies too, he almost always tried to explain himself when apologizing. For a moment he got a strange sense of calm, almost as if someone was trying to communicate without words that he was forgiven. That made the power of them even clearer to Lex, but the residual effects kept him from panicking about it, instead he was just happy to have someone that powerful no longer irritated with him. The next box popped up instantly.

Quest: Choose Gender

Because of the interference of some nosy so and so your soul has both male and female elements. To rectify this, I’m providing you with a simple choice; Male or Female?

Note: Either choice will cause irreparable changes to your current form, causing it to be permanently lost and will cause permanent metaphysical changes as well.

That message vanished and in its place were two screens taking up the entirety of his vision. The left box simply had the word male in it and the right one was the same with the word female in it.

Lex couldn’t believe his eyes. He had always been made fun of for looking a touch feminine and not acting very confident or manly, but in all his years he never actually believed he had residual female elements, or at least, he never let himself think about it long enough to come to that conclusion. His gaze drifted from male to female as he tried to decide.

Just yesterday, if someone had asked Lex if he could instantly become more masculine if he wished it he would have instantly told them he’d do it. In fact, many times he had silently wished he was so that he’d be better accepted by those around him. Now that he could, he was having trouble settling on that decision though. He knew if the female one hadn’t been there he’d have chosen male happily, went through the changes and never regretted it, but there had always been a not so small part of him that was curious about what it’d be like to embrace what people said about him and try out being a woman for a day or two.

This wasn’t a day or two though, this was a permanent decision, one that would haunt him if he chose wrong. Just because he had been curious, just because he had done a few online erotic rps as a woman, just because he had almost bought a dress a few times, that didn’t change the fact that he had always referred to himself as a man. He had always found women sexy and only on a rare occasion had been tempted to kiss a man.

Then Lex saw the number 5 flash above the choices in it’s own, separate, brand new narrow textbox. It reminded him a bit of those timers he’d occasionally see when a game you to quickly pick a choice. The number disappeared and a 4 flashed on-screen in its place. Lex’s heart started pounding in his chest. No! No! No! This affected his entire future, it wasn’t fair for this to be a timed event. Not when choosing meant - The number 3 flashed on-screen and cut off his panicked thoughts. He just needed to focus, he could do this, it was just a simple choice, was he a man or woman? Just that, man or - The number 2 flashed on-screen and he flailed his arm out towards the choices, more afraid of finding out what happened when it hit 0 than he was of the choice itself anymore. The number 1 appeared on-screen and then froze.

Lex took a deep breath before letting it out. He had done it, he had made a choice. Then his blood went cold. He had done it, he had made a choice, a permanent life altering choice. But what choice had he made? Did he choose male or female? Any benefits to his choice? Drawbacks?