[b]Revenant Demigod Solus' Mansion 7:21 PM[/b] Zi felt a wave of uncertainty wash over her as Mairyell turned to leave but she didn't try to stop him. She was a big girl and she had to be brave. Still, she wanted to get everything over with as soon as possible so as soon as the door was shut she brushed the tears off with her sleeve and got to work. She walked over to a window and opened it, leaning on the frame. Ideally she would go outside and stand in an open space with nothing in proximity. In this case, however, she didn't dare expose herself like that. Even if she was in the presence of someone as powerful as Solus, what she was attempting was monumental. She shut her eyes and breathed in, concentrating. First she had to extend her influence - to mobilise the essence particles from the air around her and spread them out, subduing more and more until the air itself became her eyes and ears. Slowly, her senses extended to a kilometer, 10, 100, 10 000. Sights, sounds, and mostly feeling filled the darkness behind her eyelids until it felt like she had a thousand eyes. From then, she had to proceed to look around. To focus her gaze on what was important. Not the colossal essence of Heaven and Hell, but the tiny ones of separate individuals. Not the ones of the living, but the stale ones of the dead. Not the bright ones of angels, not the pale ones of humans or the dim ones of demons. What she was looking for was completely different. And she saw one bright beacon, Hazumi, comfortably sitting in her castle. Truth was, Zi wasn't even entirely sure what she was looking for. She had very few memories left from her immortal days and she couldn't recall her sister Gatekeepers' presence. But she could imagine it. She could see Hazumi's essence and she could use it as a sample. Slowly, clumsily, with a lot of metaphorical squinting, Zi made out Luciana's essence. It was quietly drifting in the unseen currents - stardust over the entire Earth. Loosening her concentration enough to restore some motor function in her body, Zi raised a hand and made a scooping motion in the night-air outside the window. Thousands of miles in every direction, her invisible hand touched the tiny particles and brought them to herself. The process was so overwhelming that when the essence finally reached her, it snapped her web of influence and her eyes shot open. Zi stared at her hand and saw her trophy - a droplet of essence no bigger than a roe egg. She groaned. "I hope you have a garage-full of coffee, because this is going to take days." "Days, huh?" Solus asked in thought as he stood over her shoulder. "How much power do you need to do it in an hour?" "Ha! Maybe you should have turned to my stronger counterpart." She sneered before giving the question a more serious thought. "You would need at least a hundred of me to get it done that fast. It's not an easy process - first you have to harvest, then assemble everything - put it in the right place." Talking about it made her despair so she just concluded. "It's impossible to make it in a day." Solus tilted his head as an idea sprung up in his mind. "I can easily rectify that..." "Easily?" Zi turned around to look at him. "Is everything in your life easy, Solus Grim?" "Heh, I wish." Solus croaked. "This way." Solus beckoned her to follow as he left the room. Still sceptical but now somewhat hopeful despite herself, Zi squeezed her fist over her little victory and followed. --- He led her through the house towards the basement, in which a large runic door awaited them. The elevator stopped and pinged, grinding to a halt on level -99 of the Vault for a second time today. The doors slipped open and both Zi and Solus stepped out. They were presented with a large blast door that Solus saw earlier. "Alright..." Solus said. “We’re here.” On the right, was an alphanumerical keypad. He stepped up to it and typed in what seemed to be a phrase. The doors suddenly clanked, unlocking, and sliding open with a hiss. He walked through the gap the door made and was presented by what appeared to be a control room, and a massive bulletproof window, showing what appeared to be a Black Sphere, with millions of cables, big and small, plugged into it. The walls surrounding it were strange and impractical in their design, covered in tubes and appeared to be sculptures of human body parts. Not actual body parts, just sculptures. It was like a massive piece of abstract art. "The Essence Sphere. Power Core. Whatever you wanna call it." Solus stated. "There it is." He stepped over the control panel, that seemed alien in design. It had no buttons, just holes for pushing fingers into, hundreds of them. “You can syphon power from here…” Zi stared, jaw clenched, trying not to betray her surprise at the wonders around. The thought of a chimera and a vampire working together in an underground laboratory to save the world crossed her mind and made her smile. Her and Azel used to be like that once, except they were a human and a demon. Part of her wondered what Azel was up to. Part of her didn't want to know. He was an opportunist and she could never be entirely sure if he's fully on her side. Or on anyone’s but his own, for that matter. They had been a good team once, though, they'd achieved some great things. Not as great as this though. What even was that black thing? Leaning forward Zi squinted, trying to comprehend what she was seeing. Looking through its material shape she could make out numerous pieces of angelic and human essence circling the core of the sphere. As they did, they bumped in each other with a flash of released energy and flying backwards. An essence-based nuclear power plant? Ingenious. "Did you build this?" Zi gasped. “The Blood Reavers did…” Solus replied, looking at the marvel of demonic ingenuity before him. "Is it safe?" “Safe enough.” Nekro replied with a smile. Zi frowned but nodded anyway. Cautiously, she extended a tendril of her own essence towards the orb. She expected a jolt of electricity, but in actuality what happened was the opposite. Upon touch, instead of pulling away or pushing her away, the particles instead accepted her, swirling around the tendril as if expecting orders. Zi smirked. This was a pleasant surprise. So she poured in more of her essence and extended her will to view the whole world and seethe out what she needed. The effect was instant and dazzling, a huge halo-like spark signifying the newly created link to the visible world. In a moment it felt like she was everywhere at the same time: under water, in the air, inside living being's bodies... And it was amazing. A grin appeared on Zi's face as she observed the places only she could see, her body slouching slightly as if it had lost a soul that made it rigid. Zi wasn't aware that it could keel over any moment and break her nose - there was too much else to experience. It took her a few seconds to get back to earth (literally) and remember what she'd come to do. Trouble was, when she actually started looking she suddenly couldn't spot Luciana's essence anymore. Perplexed, she looked again and again, in every corner of the three realms and still couldn't find anything. Deciding she must have mistaken something with the sample, Zi narrowed her vision again to take another look at the sample she held in her physical hand. It was then that she stumbled upon the obvious. There it was, all of it. Over 250 meters above ground stood the almost completed Luciana.. And she wasn't alone. Zi came back to her physical body with a loud gasp and a stagger backwards. She pulled away the remaining of her essence from the sphere and watched it continue its usual activity. Then she turned to Solus, voice both annoyed and unsettled. "She's upstairs. Both of them. And I pray she has good intentions." “Who?” Solus asked, slightly concerned. "Luciana and Hazumi both." Zi groaned. "Well, I guess we will need to see what that silly bitch wants.." Solus grumbled as he turned back, with Zi in tow, heading to the surface. --- Hazumi was expecting them at the entrance of the Vault, much to Solus' disdain. In her arms lay the unconscious shape of Luciana, her outlines limp, transparent and slightly deformed - like it was a suit made of water ready to spill. "Hello, Solus, sister." Hazumi greeted, a sweet smile playing on her lips. "I saw you were struggling so I thought I'd lend you a hand." [I]Bitch[/I] Zi thought, and let it show on her sour expression. "Good to see you still interfering in God's affairs..." Solus said off handedly, staring at Luciana's incomplete body. "Is that what they call you now? I thought that was me." Hazumi laughed. "Furthermore, I thought it was you who asked me to." Zi shot Solus a look as if he was two-timing her. Which he sort of was. "That was two fucking months ago... You were taking your sweet time." Solus replied to the so called [i]Essence of the World[/i]. "I had other matters to attend to. Epidemics and all that, I don't know if you've heard." Her smile only became sweeter which told Zi it was insincere. She didn't say anything, though, stung by the fact that her huge effort from before was so easily overshadowed. . . And ignored. Hazumi didn't even bother to address what had once been a part of herself and still shared so much. It was even the very first time they met, for crying out loud! And the fact that Solus had only turned to Zi [i]after[/I] Hazumi had declined didn't help. Then she remembered how suddenly both Emmet and Mairyell had left as soon as they were finished with her and she felt pissed at the whole world. Hazumi felt her anger - and pretended not to. Carefully, she placed Luciana's incomplete body on a nearby sofa and turned to Zi. "Alas, I need to leave you two to it. Zi, you can do the honours of adding the last piece to the puzzle. Solus," she turned to him, "I'm still mad at you. Not that you give a damn. I'm speculating but I believe your blood will be needed to give our sister a physical substance. Unless you have a decent body conveniently tucked away that she could occupy." She smirked, not really dismissing the possibility, and waved her hand. A gust of wind lifted all fabric and paper up in the air and made the windows rattle. Within it, the shape of a translucent lion formed. Without another word, Hazumi got on it's back and left, the creature sprouting wings as soon as it stepped out the door. "She just loves to show off, doesn't she..." Zi ground out, not realising she'd said it out loud. She looked like she'd sucked on a lemon. "You should see her when she's pissed. It's hilarious." Solus chuckled to himself, picking up the ghostly soul of the Gatekeeper of Surface, and carrying her out into the lounge, where a table had been prepared for her. He laid the spirit down and awaited for Zi to add the final piece of her consciousness, before Solus would provide her with the body she need to awaken. Zi tried to keep up with the man's stoicism and be professional. She'd have time to indulge in her own insecurities later. Following the man through, she leaned over Luciana's remains and looked. In her hand, the little droplet if essence was breaking down to its components and one by one, Zi added them in the missing spots where they belonged with surgical precision. She didn't have the habit of boasting about her skills like Hazumi did and didn’t make the essence visible, so the entire operation must have looked rather odd to Solus, but it didn't matter. In the end, no matter how it was achieved, a Gatekeeper's soul lay restored on the table of Solus' Mansion. Just where he wanted her. Grabbing a large, menacing knife that was stabbed into the table, Solus cut open his left palm, and squeezed it over where Luciana's heart should be. "Here goes..." He said quietly as the ground below their feet began to vibrate, and the air around fluxed and bent the light. Solus whispered alien phrases as his blood dripped from his hand. The first drop stopped at the center of Luciana's ghostly torso. Solus moved his hand further down, with the second drop floating in her abdomen. That was all he needed. Grabbing a roll of cloth to cover his bleeding hand with, Solus began to speak. His voice twisted the room. The dimensions of the house distorted in Zi's vision as the power that Solus employed was more than visible, even if it was just words. Words unknown to her. Needless to say, the girl didn't appreciate any of it. How many times today was the control taken from her just when she thought she had it? All today was supposed to be was a nice date with Emmet. None of that supernatural stuff. As the world around her twisted and her pulse surged, all that kept her in place was the stubbornness to prove that she was beyond being surprised by now. Even though she wasn't. Zi's attempts to stand in place had forced her to lose focus on what was actually happening. The two drops of blood had begun to violently fluctuate and increase in size, until moments later, wet cracks and slurps echoed in the room. Right before Zi's eyes, organs, muscles, nerves and bones twisted out of the droplets. Grotesquely joining eachother, forming a skinless female body. Solus was bleeding out of his nostrils. Whatever he was doing to form a body from scratch was straining his body in more ways than one. But despite that his casting continued, even with the pain that it induced in him. Luciana's flesh began to form, covering the naked, raw musculature that had formed moments earlier. If Solus' memory served him right, he sculpted her in the image of the person she was before, when she sacrificed herself in order to shatter the Essence of the World 180 years ago. The last of the skin formed, and before them, lay an unconscious Demigod.