Here it is folks, the next chapter for ANVH.

I know I was talking about angsty character development in the last chapter but I felt like doing something funny first.

Don Socrates: I'll try but as my profile says "All good things must come to an end."

MecromancerFTW: I think that you may enjoy this chapter.

Phaedrolous: Chill, dude. You'll just have to wait and see.

Antrxx: Could be worse, dude.

Zero612: Your review contains probably one of the best descriptions of Gen's personality yet. For those who are curious here's the review:

"A well made original character? chock-full of equal parts scientific

intelligence, sadistic insanity and childish mischief? Oh my this will be a

verrrry fun story."

Disclaimer: What…the fuck…just happened?

Chapter 10: The Coffee Shunner

"Axton, you know that he asked us specifically not to."

"What the kid doesn't know won't hurt him or, more importantly, me."

Gaige blocked Axton's path down the stairs, a stern look on her face. "You are not spiking Gen's drink with coffee. Remember when he first came to live with us."

FLASHBACK

"I have only two requests," Gen said, holding up two fingers, "One: Don't touch my lab equipment. Two: Never, ever, ever give me coffee. Ever."

END FLASHBACK

Axton shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"He could have an allergic reaction to the coffee and die." Gaige exclaimed.

"Awww, how cute. The girl is worrying about her crush." Axton mocked, smirking.

"Whuh…I don't….we're just….Shut up Axton." Gaige growled. The Commando smirked and walked past her, heading for the lounge area. The other Vault Hunters, minus Salvador who'd vanished earlier, were gathered there when they walked in.

"Here you go, guys, drinks for all." The others eagerly reached for their respective drinks except for Zer0, who didn't seem to ever need food or drink, and Gen, who was distracted by a small vial in his hand whose contents were starting to glow ominously. "Hey, are you going to drink or what, kid?"

Gen waved a hand at him dismissively. "Yeah, yeah. One sec." he murmured, examining the contents of the vial.

Gaige shot its contents a worried look. "Uhh, Gen. What is that?"

Gen shrugged. "I dunno." He said and tossed it over his shoulder as turned towards the others. There was a loud bang from where the vial had landed. They all turned and saw a meter-wide, smoking crater in the floor where the vial had landed. "Oops."

The others shrugged, already used to Gen's mildly destructive nature. Axton could now find his way blindfolded down the hallway without tripping in any of the craters left by one of Gen's experiments, Zer0 had learned to ignore Gen cursing followed by explosions when he was doing whatever it was he was busy with, Maya hadn't been disturbed since she'd threatened to Phaselock Gen if he ever woke her up in the middle of the night again and Salvador could sleep through a heated fire fight anyway.

Gen reached for his drink, eyes never leaving the crater in case the vial had had or was going to have another reaction. He cautiously sipped it and froze, eyes widening in what appeared to be horror. He shot up and threw the mug away with a look of mild panic on his face.

"What's up with you?" Maya asked, raising an eyebrow at Gen's odder than usual behaviour.

"Who put coffee in my drink?!" he yelled, ignoring the Siren. Gaige immediately pointed at Axton. As Axton was opening his mouth to deny the accusation Gen suddenly went rigid.

"You guys might want to hide." He muttered before collapsing in a heap on the floor. Seconds later he was up again, an overly large and insane grin on his face. His form seemed slightly blurred to the others and it took them a few seconds, time enough for Gen to get a dangerously crazy glint in his eyes, to figure out that the Splicer was literally vibrating on the spot. Suddenly, the subject of their collective worries zipped into the kitchen. The Vault Hunters were exchanging worried looks and Gaige was starting to back away towards the relative safety of her room when Gen yelled, "Axton, I'm going to reverse the gravitational polarity of the toaster!"

"Wha-" Axton started to turn, just in time to be hit in the side of the head by said toaster, which Gen had thrown with pinpoint accuracy. It was almost comical that as the appliance impacted upon Axton's head; two slices of toast shot out and landed on the table. After that all hell broke loose. Gaige turned and darted into her room, slamming the door shut and locking it behind her. She winced at every crash, smash and bang she heard, wondering just how annoyed Roland, Mordecai, Brick and especially Lilith were going to be when they got back.

"Gen, cut it out right now or so help me-" Maya never finished her threat, her voice suddenly cutting off. A few minutes later Gaige heard something heavy land on the roof and decided that really, really didn't want to know. She stiffened when she heard something, presumably Gen, go past her room at high speed and then again a few minutes later.

She actually shuddered when she heard Gen yell the words, "Pink ninja!" followed by loud splashing noises, interspersed with a few crashes and bangs. Then, everything went quiet, scarily so. Gaige slowly stood up and hesitantly approached the door, placing her ear against it to listen for anyone waiting for her on the other side.

"What are you listening for?" Gen whispered from right behind her. Gaige shrieked and swung around to find him standing there, his face barely an inch away from hers. She once again cursed her hormones as she felt a blush build up on her face. Gen suddenly blurred and moved to the centre of the room, hands behind his back, and it was only then that Gaige began wondering something.

"How the hell did you get in her?"

"Window." Gen said simply, pointing.

"But it's barred….." Gaige trailed off as she noticed that all the bars around the window, as well as the window itself, had been melted off. She turned back to Gen to find that he was now holding a hammer in one hand and a bag of nails in the other. Her eyes widened and she shook her head. Gen got that crazy grin from before and nodded. The Mechromancer turned and bolted for her door but hadn't taken even two steps when she felt a blow on the back of her head and everything went dark.

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Gaige woke up and the first thing she noticed was that her head hurt. A lot.

"Definitely the hammer." She murmured, guessing that Gen had made use of the construction tool to knock her out cold. She then noticed that all her possessions and furniture appeared to be on the roof. She wasn't quite sure how Gen could have accomplished that with such a small bag of nails but she didn't really care. The third thing, which only occurred to her about a minute later, was that her shirt seemed to be riding up. This led her to another, rather important realisation. It wasn't the room that was upside down; it was her. She immediately reached down (or was it up?) to push her denim skirt into place, blushing red and hoping nobody had walked past her room recently. The door appeared to have been knocked right out of its frame and lay in the hallway.

She heard somebody groan and a few moments later staggering footsteps getting closer. Gen suddenly appeared in her doorway, staggering slightly when his hand found empty air instead of a wall and holding his head.

"Fuck. My. Life." Gen groaned before suddenly seeming to notice her. "Need some help Gaige?"

She shook her head, face going even redder, if that was possible. Gen seemed confused for a moment before a look of realisation appeared, along with his own blush; which turned his cheeks an interesting brownish-red colour.

"Oh…uh…right. I'll go and…uh…get Maya." He mumbled, embarrassed.

"Thanks." She said quietly, equally embarrassed. Gen gave her a small smile and walked off, still holding his head and occasionally cursing when he stumbled. He made it to the lounge, or rather, the remains of the lounge. The couch appeared to have been split in half, the table was in pieces, there were large chunks of the walls on the floor and large, pink splash marks on the walls with a human shaped clean patch in a few of them. The room's only other occupants were Axton, who was trying to simultaneously hold an icepack to his head and scrape something out of his boot, Salvador, who was trying to clean his gun, which seemed to have been filled with something brown and slightly moist, while muttering curses in Spanish, and Zer0, whose entire suit had been covered in bright pink paint.

"What the fuck happened to you guys?" Gen asked curiously. Axton grunted, Salvador shot him a dark look and Zer0 gave a :( emoticon on his faceplate.

"You know exactly what happened, amigo." Salvador sneered, "Why don't you fill me in."

"What the hell are you talking about? And can you please keep the noise down. I swear, I haven't had a headache this bad since some douche bag slipped me coffee..." Gen trailed off, a look of realisation on his face. He rounded on the others, glaring. "Who put coffee in my drink?" he snarled. Zer0 pointed at Axton. Gen pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Next thing you know, somebody'll be touching my lab equipment." He muttered. He raised his head and said, "I assume that I am responsible for all of this mess."

"You don't remember?" Axton asked sceptically.

"Nope. One of the side-effects of coffee on my system is memory loss from a few minutes before it entered my system to when I wake up with a massive headache." Gen said, followed by a groan as another wave of pain hit him. "By the way, have you guys seen Maya?"

They all shook their heads. "Haven't seen her since you knocked me out with the toaster."

Gen shot him a dumbfounded look. "Since I what?"

"You threw the toaster; It was a perfect headshot; A true sight to see." Zer0 said quietly, never breaking haiku.

Gen shook his head, instantly regretting it when the motion sent another wave of pain lancing into his skull. "Anyway," he groaned, "have you tried calling her ECHO?"

Zer0 shook his head, answering for all three of them. Gen pulled out his ECHO and tried to contact Maya's. The signal was excellent, which probably meant that she was close.

"This is Maya."

"Hey there, Maya. What horrible torture did I inflict on you during my coffee-induced rampage?" Gen asked.

"You glued me to one of our Technicals."

"Where are you?"

"On the roof."

"But I thought you said that I had...Oh. All the way onto the roof, huh?"

"Mm-hm. Can you hurry up and get me down from here already."

"Sure thing. I'll be up in a few." Gen promised, hanging up. He turned to the others. "Okay, so I hit you with the toaster," he said pointing at Axton, "and painted Zer0 bright pink. What did I do to you, Sal?"

"As far as I can tell," the Gunzerker said, "you filled my gun with chocolate mousse."

"You also filled my boots with noodles." Axton said.

Gen seemed confused. "Where the hell did I get chocolate mousse and noodles from?"

His question was destined to go unanswered, because at that moment a very angry Brick charged in. His burning gaze found the Splicer, who immediately wished that he could remember what he'd done wrong. Judging by Brick's face, it was pretty bad.

"Now, Brick, I know you're mad but let's not do anything hasty, huh?" Gen said, backing away from the enraged Beserker, "What exactly did I do to you?"

Brick swung around, lifting up the back of his vest as he did so. There, in incredible detail on his back, was a tattoo of two skag pups in a boot.

"Well, shit."

As if things couldn't get much worse for the poor Splicer, Lilith chose that moment to walk in. Strangely, she seemed completely calm at the sight of Gen. "Hey Gen." She greeted.

"…Hey, Lilith. Didn't I do something horrible to you?"

"No, you just chased me around Sanctuary for half an hour trying to hit me with one of the Xs from Moxxi's sign."

Gen cringed and asked, "She mad about that?"

"Actually, she said that any drinks you want for the next week are on her for the entertainment."

"What entertainment?"

"Something about you running in and knocking Brick unconscious so you could put a tattoo on his back." The red head seemed only then to notice the Beserker and his new body art. "Ooooh, that's what she was talking about."

"Yeah, well I've gotta go get Maya off the roof, so ciao."

"Hang on, what did you do to Gaige?" Axton asked curiously.

"I nailed her to the ceiling."

Salvador leered at that comment, which confused the Splicer. "What's with that loo- Oh you dirty bastard! No! Hammer and nails!"

"Is that what they're calling it nowadays?" Axton joked, enjoying teasing Gen.

"Fuck you Axton! You're just sad 'cause you never get any." The Splicer just made it out of the door in time to avoid the first salvo from Axton's turret.

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About ten minutes later, after Maya had been removed from the Technical, she was busy helping Gaige get off of the ceiling. She'd decided to simply unlace the boots and catch the girl as she fell.

"I can understand why you didn't want Gen to help you get down." She said understandingly, "I mean, I wouldn't want any crush of mine practically staring at my panties or anything."

Gaige's mouth opened to protest but at that moment Maya finished unlacing the second boot and Phaselocked the Mechromancer to stop her hitting the floor. She dropped the Phaselock and helped Gaige up. Gen poked his head in, hand over his eyes. "Is it safe to look?" He asked cautiously.

"Yeah, go ahead." Maya said.

Gen smiled and held up a new pair of boots for Gaige. "Thought you might need another pair." He said sheepishly. Gaige smiled and thanked him.

"Any idea where Roland or Mordecai are?" Maya asked.

"Roland: no, Mordecai: yes. I dumped him in a convoy carrying rakk ale. He seemed quite happy when we managed to make contact with him, offered me some target practice with him."

"You just gave him more rakk ale than is probably healthy, no wonder he's thankful."

Suddenly, their ECHOs came to life. "This is Roland to any Vault Hunters who can hear me, is anyone there?"

"Hiya Roland. What did I do to you?" Gen asked cheerfully.

"I'm in my underwear, tied up and on top of the Z in Zed's sign."

"Yeah, well, Lilith can deal with it. I'm exhausted from today. I think I'll get an early night." Gen said, yawning and switching his ECHO off before Roland could reply.

"That sounds like a plan." Gaige said, stretching, also ignoring Roland's unfortunate situation, "I could use a good night's sleep after today."

"Well then, g'night you two." Gen said, waving and walking off.

"Night Gen." Gaige said. Maya walked out to tell the others where Roland was and Gaige curled up in bed, fully clothed since her door hadn't been fixed. She'd have to fix that at some point.

2495 words baby! WOO-HOO! Longest chapter so far! Don't start to expect this length since I'm not even sure how this one ended up so long. I'm not so happy with the ending, it just seems a bit forced but I couldn't figure out how to end it.

Give praise to the amazing Red Velvet Fox for her drawing of Gen. The link is on my profile so take a look when you get the chance.

Read and Review, people. I love finding new review and PM notifications in my email so please send me more.

Until next time,

Elemental Hybrid