Gregory "Greg" Hilkinson had a smile on his face as he looked at the friends one of his best clients brought with her. While all of them had peculiarities about their appearance, he didn’t think too much of it.
He himself was covered in tattoos and scars while also having an eyepatch that gave him a thuggish appearance but he was anything but. In fact he was a former Professional MMA fighter who once upon a time had a meteoric rise to fame as a fighter. During his short but colorful career, the media had conveyed the opinion that he had the makings to be the Greatest of all time.
However, due to a combination of his own foolishness and overconfidence, one elbow caught his eye socket and fractured it during an important match. While he had acted as if it was no big deal, his doctors at the time had told him that it was likely that if he continued to fight, there was a strong chance of reinjuring it and potentially losing vision in his eye.
They told him to retire but how could he stomach that news? He was on track to being one of the best if not the greatest in the history of the sport. So it was inevitable that he ended up ignoring their advice and stepped back into the ring only for things to end in tragedy.
A stray hook clipped his eye and he lost vision in it completely and he was forced into retirement. For a while, he wallowed in the misery of having his bright future being taken away from him. However there was no pill more bitter than the truth and no medicine for regret. If he had listened to the doctors, he would still have his eye and maybe would have had a chance of some sort of recovery.
It was his mentor and coach who pulled him out of his despair. As someone who had a rough childhood, his Coach had been like a 2nd father to him and was always there for him even in his darkest hour. It was the Coach’s idea that Greg take over the gym. While he may not be able to fight anymore, he could train the next generation and still leave his mark on history.
With the same passion that he had for fighting in the ring, he devoted himself to training others and he didn’t limit himself to just MMA. He began to run Fitness Courses, Self Defence Classes and even acted as a personal trainer.
One of his first and longest running clients was Luna so when she called asking for favor in letting her and her friends use the gym for a while after everyone had gone home, he was more than happy to oblige. In fact he was a little optimistic and believed that maybe he would be able to secure a few new clients through helping her.
Yet her supposed friends had very striking appearances. They were cute, sure, but not quite normal.
’Monkey ears? Green hair? Wings? Maybe they were into cosplay. Or some kind of performance art.’
Even Luna had changed since the last time that he saw her. The snow white hair and the red eyes gave an edge to her beauty that he couldn’t quite understand.
"Are you guys getting ready for some sort of cosplay event?"
He couldn’t help but ask as he looked at the beautiful girl who was nonchalantly walking around with a blindfold on.
Luna sheepishly laughed as she scratched her cheek.
"It’s kinda hard to explain honestly. Will make us look a little crazy if I tell you."
"Whatever it is you have to say, I will believe you. How bad could it possibly be~?"
Greg laughed cheerfully as he waited for what he expected to be an embarrassing story or getting addicted to some sort of new video game and they are going to cosplay as characters from that game but are self conscious about their appearance or something.
"Well there’s this new VR game..."
He nodded his head with a knowing smile. It seems that he was right.
"You remember how sick my brother was right? I showed you that photo, right?" "
"How could I forget..Poor kid..How’s he doing? Everyone at the hospital treating him well?"
"He was actually discharged...He made a full recovery...of sorts."
"What do you mean by ’of sorts’?"
"Well...Some People who have been playing this game have been experiencing uhh ’mutations’ in reality. My brother, my friends and even I have experienced these effects."
Greg’s expression froze in disbelief for a brief moment before a jovial smile broke out on his face.
"Hahaha! Very funny~! Almost had me there~!"
He laughed, convinced that Luna was messing with him like some sort of offseason April Fool’s joke.
Aria let out a cute sneeze as she leaned forward. The unexpected sneeze broke her concentration and her condensed wings instantly became bigger and within a few seconds returned to their original majestic size.
Greg froze on the spot, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of someone who had wings growing from their back.
’Some kind of magic trick or–’
"That was a really adorable sneeze Aria~!"
As Rachel scrounged through her pockets for a tissue, the black ’belt’ around her waist subtly twitched and then slowly unraveled, revealing itself to be a long, prehensile tail.
’Was that... a tail?’
While his thoughts were trying to catch up, his mouth was frozen in pure disbelief.
"He doesn’t believe us, let’s follow my suggestion and get some ice cream instead!"
The Green haired girl pouted and raised her hand, causing her sizeable assets to jiggle slightly while the most normal looking one, a cute girl wearing a hoodie spoke with a sigh.
"We are already here Lily. We can get ice cream after..."
The girl’s eyes glittered as she immediately shouted back
"Are you serious Leo?! You promise?!"
’Leo? That’s an odd name for a girl..’
"Why are you so deadset on ice cream?! Are you allergic to exercise?"
"Yes I am. Glad you noticed!"
"Ugh. Don’t try to finagle a promise out of my brother like that! I won’t stand for it!"
Luna hissed at Lily while Greg was frozen on the spot, a professional smile still on his face despite the vacant look that seemed to be growing in his eyes.
Luna glanced back at Greg and seeing his smile sighed in relief
"I’m glad to see you are taking all of this pretty well..."
Rachel having given up on finding a tissue looked at Greg and remarked
"Nah. I am pretty sure he is mentally crashing out."
"Totally valid reaction."
Crystal waved a hand in front of his face after he continued to be unresponsive.
"Seems like he has passed out..."
Three years after the end of his MMA Career had come to an end, Greg finally had a chance to rise again, he just didn’t know it yet.