Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Thank you," Eamon told her sincerely. "T'morrow seems best fer startin' tha'. If ye ever decide no' to go about things this way, let me know. Yer no' foolin anybody. Well, least no' me. I am sorry I didn' handle that properly. I am, on some level, at fault fer Niko's death. The... other one, too. Uso, righ'? I s'pose there's nay much point in worryin' about apologizin' to him now. Still. Thank you." Eamon turned and left, irritated but satisfied. He'd kept it under control. No need to get angry now. He wanted to still. He still was, really. Not at her, really, when he stopped to think about it, loath though he was to do so. She was easy to be angry with, no question, but she wasn't really what he was angry about. Plenty of time to get pissed at her later.

Eamon turned back and grunted. "Stare long 'nuff into tha abyss and it stares back into ye. Yer speakin' of us as though we're still human." Eamon chuckled sadly. "Tha's not really th'way 'tis anymore. Tha's what war is, doc. Nobody's a hero."

"Being a soldier does not make one inhuman, Mr. O'Byrne," Rachel of course returned comment. "Nor does being an addict. What makes one inhuman is turning your back on your own humanity. I do not expect you to be heroes but I do expect at least a shred of humanity in my subjects. As does SOUL. Or we wouldn't go to the lengths we do in order to keep you human. We would put every one of you on ice and thaw as needed. But, no. We offer counseling and recreation. We attempt to manage your symptoms. We are even looking for a cure, Mr. O'Byrne," She paused to let that sink in before going on.

"I don't know who your last counselor was but they did you a great disservice if they allowed you to think yourself not human. Stare into the abyss, as you say, and become it but the inverse is also true. Stare into the light and shine, Mr. O'Byrne. I have confidence that each and every one of you can," The chill in her voice did break and let a little conviction through in the last.

She truly did believe it. She had to or she would have given up on these poor bastards a long time ago. The majority of the other researchers called it naive because so many of them had given up. So many of them considered the Illuminated little more than weapons and most of their attempts at humanization were to make the staff more comfortable rather than help the agents. Rachel though was one of the few that had managed to cling to her ideals and still see them as human. Nathaniel and Nikoli were partly responsible for that. Despite their individual problems they actually responded to her treatments and had managed to retain some level of humanity. It was enough to give her hope for the rest of them.

"Then yer the ones we need. But there ain't no heroes. No' here." Eamon shrugged. "Thanks. I s'pose ye have testing to do?"

Nathaniel smiled, "Right, won't touch anything. Cross my heart." he made the motion over his chest and slipped inside. He watched as Uso prepared himself for the testing, extremely excited to watch. The thin man chuckled as Uso got in the lab tech's face about the time. Nathaniel was entertained by this kid. He was a bit of a punk sometimes, but he sure could... punch the s**t out of things. Nathaniel liked it when Uso punched the s**t out of things. Or threatened to. It was extraordinarily hilarious in his eyes. Nathaniel stood next to Rachel after she arrived in the observation booth. His job was to keep her safe now, right? He would do just that. Then, she pulled the lever and the world exploded into light.

Nathaniel squinted, recognizing that the light was coming from the flames in the blast chamber. He laughed out loud as the destructive power of the flames engulfed Uso. He may have hated himself for wanting to destroy, but he found destruction that he did not cause utterly hilarious and endlessly entertaining.

The jets of flame found their power hijacked as they crashed against Uso; they'd started relatively light, but rapidly progressed from glorified lighters to barbecue to legitimate weapons-grade flames. In the end, though, it was just heat, and that meant it was more or less his plaything; near the end of those 30 seconds, he found himself simply near capacity; the heat had to go somewhere, and "into him" was no longer the place for it. His capacity to hold stolen might would no doubt progress as he fed on more souls, as would his ability to augment himself substantially without crippling his ability to heat sink.

With the fire stemmed, Jake opened his eyes. The first thing he- and in fact anyone who looked in- noticed was the fact that he was showing quite a bit more skin. All of his skin, to be more precise. He was naked, to be perfectly frank. His frame was lean, and his muscles were shaped but lacking the size and embossed tone of your typical fighters. Other than his head and crotch, body hair was sparse.

"Well now..." he mumbled, surprised. He'd have to do a little tweaking to avoid that in the future. Even so, Uso wasn't embarrassed or ashamed. He wasn't even uncomfortable, just adjusting to the unanticipated scenario.

No longer distracted, his body and mind quite bluntly reminded him of all that excess energy dwelling in his... spirit? It certainly wasn't physically in his body- or was it? No matter. It needed to go, preferably with explosive force. NOW. Jake drew his forearms across his chest, one over the other, then flung them outward violently. With the motion came a ring of fire, rushing out in all directions like the halo of a mushroom cloud, stopping only when met with physical resistance. To travel much beyond his body, the flames fed on the soul energy that had previously ensnared it. If it were not released, both the fire and the soul energy would have slowly deteriorated into nothingness within him, wasted.

The ring had not been quite what he was going for, and it left him still feeling near the point of physically rupturing. Uso gathered his concentration once and more, and clutched tightly the idea of a bomb, an explosion, an exodus of destructive power.

"AAAGH!" His shout, despite its incredible volume, was engulfed like the rest of the room by the sheer force, intensity, and overwhelming power of the inferno that erupted. It filled the room from end to end with fire for almost two seconds. Then the flames withered, died, and left the brawler still standing nude in the middle of the room with about half of the initial absorption still contained.