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As Sam lead Herryk down, she continued to chatter on a few topics. The first was the general state of hygiene of her peers, and then explaining a few simple things: power hierarchies, being overworked, how noone appreciated her, creepy guys from something called the Life Division who were in sore need of a shower and no matter how one looked at it, really not that hot, because who was kidding themselves when it came to nerds spending their time nursing or handling electronics. She'd take a manly Sun or Moon at any time of the day, even though Mists were versatile, so on so forth.

They finally stopped at a very well-lit hallway, the tiny Hunter knocking on the door a few times before opening it. It was empty and had the neccessities, a table followed by two chairs. She took a seat and gestured for the student, crossing her arms and pulling out a lighter. "Don't mind if I do, figure if I'm going to pick up bad habits here, might as well do it before my premature death." She gave a wry smile as she thumbed out a cigarette from the package, taking a moment longer to initiate stress relief. Herryk's newly printed file was opened. "Alright so, standard procedure. You've made it, you've taken the biggest step forward. But you are not there yet. Before you can take the biggest step, I do have a couple of questions." Another inhale and then exhale. "First, what would you like from us."

The door behind them was still open, leaving, and marked on the scribble board: Occupied, on-hand monitors needed.

"That's a good step, good answer." She ticked off the first item on her list and moved to the second question. "Now that I know what you want from us, I do have to tell you there are some things we expect from you. Now, I like you a lot, you're- " she paused as she tried to think of some sort of positive adjective -"Very strong and big and... full of spirit. That means I have high hopes for you, and it means no matter what, no matter how much you want to give up or how hard the struggle is to get there, the more you endure, the bigger your reward will be at the end. You can do that for me, for yourself right? Fight to get your reward?"

With Thackery escorted out with the rest of the students without a hair harmed on their heads (just some rather sarcastic words and an emphasis on things like usefulness and self-preservation and headquarters security), Stormy felt a bit wayward in her walk through Deus. It was still largely in part unexplored, and she had taken a liking to wandering the halls. After all that had happened, though, in their vastly contrasting ends of positive and negative (dying, exploding and nearly dying, exploding something else, and Allan's gifts), Stormy felt particularly emotionally drained and was ready to either sleep or find something else to distract her.

The words on the scribble board caught her eye. Could trainees help? It didn't specify, but . . . She took a peek and saw the woman - Sam, she remembered - speaking with the large black-skinned thing from before.

Not thing, she reminded herself. Just a big guy. A really big guy. A really big scary-looking guy.

Thane's clipped tone interrupted her assessment. < < Move in, Hatchling. I want to see this. > >

So Stormy slipped in as quietly as she could, back against the wall, hands clasped before her, watching curiously. A wall flower for all intents and purposes unless the specialist decided to start addressing her as an overgrown child again.

The longer that the whole interaction took, the more agitated that Herryk seemed to get. He followed her blindly, almost desperately. Standing idly by while Sam worked at the machine, Herryk crossed his arms over his chest and watched her without really seeing her. He was so deeply lost in his own thoughts that soon enough the apprehension was levelled out by anticipation. He watched the percentage climb. Fifty, sixty. So close.

When Sam turned to Herryk, he shot a glance towards the boil she spoke with before he turned towards the machine.

Part of him really didn't want to think about what would happen. It would be a short ordeal, a mere bump on his road to a new life. A second chance.

He stepped inside.

The machine thrummed around him. Herryk could almost feel the vibration of the energy around him, all the way to his teeth. It was a tense sort of discomfort that bordered on pain - nothing he couldn't handle. He'd do whatever it took.

The exhaustion was taking a toll on him. The constant cycle of rage, hate, fury pain, despair, core-deep tiredness. He was done with it. Finished. He wanted nothing more from this life. Not because he'd lost her, but because he couldn't keep on the way he was. He couldn't handle never being able to grasp what was really lost to him - memories of the time before. Herryk would never be able to understand how anyone would want to live forever, dissipation after dissipation. Perhaps his reasons for wanting this were selfish, but did it matter? He was the only one who mattered when it came down to it. He was the one who suffered, felt loss, felt pain, felt love. His shoulders drooped. A flash of blue eyes, the sweet texture of silken blonde hair.

Never again would he be tormented by these memories, and beyond that, the almost memories. The ones he'd never been able to fully grasp.

The door closed with a quiet tssssh.

92%

He thought, for a moment, of Freya - first and foremost. He'd been filled with so much adoration for the ghoul. Their time together had been a thing of beauty - and while he wasn't proud of some of the things he'd done, he'd have done them all over again. Her smile had always been something precious to him. Something sweet and pure. She hadn't been perfect, but she'd been his, and to Herryk that had been enough. They'd lost one another in a painful, desperate way. Too much loss, too much confusion.

He blamed Medea. He blamed himself - and a part of him blamed Freya, too. Why hadn't they tried harder? Why hadn't they made things work, why hadn't they been enough, been strong enough? Herryk didn't know. He couldn't say.

94%

JD, too. A good friend, and towards the end of Herryk's days, something more than that. Both so lost in their own loneliness - a common pain, shared between them. Herryk hadn't been kind to the boil, but perhaps that savage need had been enough to keep the loneliness at bay. Herryk had demanded so much from the demon, and JD had given all that he could. It had been short and explosive, but for that short time it had been enough, for Herryk, at least.

Could he have done more to be a better friend to the boil? Could he have made things less lonely?

It was unlikely. Herryk's own brutality had brought them closer, and JD's need for companionship had filled an emptiness in Herryk's chest.

96%

Mort. Herryk still felt guilt over the poor friend he'd been to the boil. In distancing himself from those he cared deeply about, Herryk had missed out on so many things in their lives. It was incredibly depressing, and Herryk had anguished over it. He'd found no answers in his solitude, and he'd never wanted to trouble those closest to him. They all had their own issues, and Herryk hadn't been equipped to deal with his enemies, his inner demons, the issues that tormented him. He hadn't been able to fight back.

98%

Perhaps, in this, he would be a more effective force when it came to the horsemen. A fresh slate. A new start. It was what he wanted.

100%

The humming reached its peak. Herryk closed his eyes.

There was a surge of intense pain the likes of which he'd never felt before in his entire existence. It started in his fingertips - the sensation that he was being unravelled piece by piece, inch by inch - consuming him with rapid precision. His feet and hands. He felt a surge of panic, a sense of 'what have I done' - and by that point, it was already too late for him to change his mind.

It had been too late from the very moment he'd talked to Sam.

This had been what he'd wanted.

It crept up his arms and his legs, his chest, his torso: that acute pain, and it was then that the excruciating agony registered. He let out a bellow of distress, the Fear composition of his body coalescing into a beautiful mass of nothingness. He would have clawed at the door of the machine if he could have. There was a brief flash as his entire shape grew fuzzy, disjointed - a bright, glowing light of pure energy.

More and more layers stripped away. The fringes of Herryk's reality became blurred as he was fought to keep conscious. The agony was such a pure, pure thing. There was no denying it, no way to keep it at bay. It consumed him - and then shifted. The mass grew in size and seemed to throb, to pulse like a beating heart.

It was everything that he was.

His core. It was all that was left, and it shimmered briefly for a moment before it pulled apart, most of the mass shifting to form a large, broad misshapen circle. It didn't take long for a handle-like protrusion to erupt from the base. The shape of the weapon became more defined - a huge, deadly-looking axe, double bladed. Smaller details came together - a chain, reminiscent of one that the draugr himself once wore with such pride. A tuft of fur at the head of the axe, skulls at the base of the handle. Runes flashed, bright and blue, across the face of the axe - the color the same ghastly azure as Herryk's eyes.

He'd make a fine weapon. Brutal and barbaric, so very much like the boil he'd been.

She waited until the light had died down some before pulling down her safety goggles against the flash of light. The cylindrical conversion epicenter was quiet, and as the glare died down, Sam chanced a step forward. She gave the dubious Life tech a smug smile. 

"What do you know, another success for me." The only trainee occupant in the room just received an impatient sigh. "Hun, just hand the papers over to me, try not to think too much on it." Plastered smile with perfectly placed lipstick. "You shouldn't put your fancy words where you might hurt yourself, maybe you should go to some more lectures and make your gills a little, just a little, less green. Let me know when you stop believing in souls, and graduate from your toddler set, and then we can almost talk as equals, okay?" A sort of derogatory glance was also aimed at Stormy's current clothing choice. 

 She turned, though didn't quite rush to pick up the newly converted weapon quite yet though, not when it wasn't quite dormant: there lingered something in newly converted weapons, a strange sadness that could not be shaken off, a feeling of loneliness perhaps. It wasn't something she wanted to dwell on, and instead, the Death Hunter occupied herself with filling more forms. Name, duration of, success rate, tick tick tick. 

She looked up for a second, almost expecting a giant hulking black figure just standing there drinking up each of her words. A blank moment, and then a wry smile. 

"Well, big guy, looks like you got what you wanted."