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17. Wounded Souls

Shoy hardly used his Rez, however, being so talented, he was unlike Q in that he knew how to use his Rez just as effectively as Edmond Dantes or Tali. Alone in the room, Shoy, inside Q's body, began to walk forward to his old, now limp, body. Shoy was similar to the Soul Stealer, in that he could transfer souls. But only his own. While his soul had overtaken someone else's body, his own body was left open to attack. That and his own morals left him to use his Resonance Soul very rarely. Taking over another person by force just wasn't right. Everyone should have their right to free will. But while he was in someone else's body... They didn't. He could feel their thoughts, moods, and even them fight against him. But it was like a dream. The will and soul of the host he obtained couldn't touch him.

Reaching his own body, he picked up the limp suited form and sat him against the wall, sitting up. Much like how Edmond could order people with his Rez, Shoy needed eye contact to posess someone... and return to his own body. As Shoy was thinking how interesting it was to look at his body being helpess, Roy and Amigo came back through the door, with Sin, the Androgyne, in a wheelchair. It(Sin) only had a blanket over it. Even though Sin had a flat chest, Shoy wanted to think of Sin as a girl. He didn't know why, but as Sin rolled forward, Amigo behind her, Q's tail instinctively began to wag. Shoy didn't notice. Amigo chuckled a bit.

"You still have a hold on him?" Amigo confirmed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Shoy, inside of Q, nodded, turning to Tali, who still lay on the floor on her back. While Shoy could possess anyone, he did have a time limit. Amigo was just looking out for him.
"Shall I start now, then?" Q's voice rang out. The way his vocal chords rubbed together almost made it painful to speak. Shoy briefly wondered why, but knelt next to Tali anyway, placing his hand on her chest.

"Wait," Roy interjected. "The books said that When the Soul Stealer steals a soul, it goes into him, and they merge. If your soul is in the Soul Stealer's body, too, won't you be merged with him too?" Valid question. Shoy lifted Q's hand up for a moment in thought. Rummaging around Q's brain provided no easy answers. Finally, he decided to go with, "Well... I feel normal now. If any soul in his body is to merge together then... I should've begun to merge already, right? I feel no different." Every time he spoke through Q's mouth he wanted a lasange. He'd have to figure out why that was later, he couldn't bother wasting time figuring it out now.

"Just..." Amigo shifted his weight, unsure. "Be careful. All right?"

Shoy nodded, and placed Q's hand back on Tali's chest. Shoy, also like a Soul Stealer, could use the host's Rez while he was possessing them. He stared intently at the girl with the hole in her head, and almost immediately he was overcome with warmth. He smiled, and the slow influx went from loving to harassment in 200 degrees. He knew he had the Phoenix Soul inside Q, but he felt like he was dying. Burning from the inside out. Well, Q felt like he was dying. Shoy only felt a far, faraway piece of it. It was still rather painful, however. In a sympathetic way. He fell backward. Others would notice his body glowing a bright white, which soon turned into flames around him. It felt like there was a tornado inside Q's soul. Shoy would've wondered if this is how it felt like every time Q stole a Soul or only because this was the Phoenix. He would've, that were, if not for Amigo shouting at him. Something was going horribly, horribly awry.

Shoy couldn't hear anything over the sound of roaring flames. Outside, the rain stopped, and Amigo attempted to build precipitation inside the room, to make it rain inside, or at least let there be gusts of wind. The wind was there. The torrents of rain, oddly absent. Roy had jumped forward, and pushed Q's body onto Sin. Both Roy and Sin were continually regenerating while being burned. Shoy could hear their cries, as if they were miles away. Roy, if he could touch someone, could also regenerate them. He should've been a doctor. Too bad he was crazy.

Everything had gone white for Q's eyes. The sunglasses were no help for the hot power of the Pheonix. Out of all the madness outside, it was strangely calm for Shoy. And then, suddenly, the glass veil was broken, and Shoy heard, felt, smelled, saw.... Everything.

As if pulled into the chaos of Q's body, he was now fighting for control over his host. This never had happened before. He was able to make out some words. Something like "Shoy" and "Sin" and possibly "Now". Out of the corner of his eye, he could barely make out his old body seizing up, blood coming from its mouth. Wait...! If his real body died...?!

Overcome by confusion and horrendous emotional pain and psychological need, Shoy had hesitated far longer than he needed to finally shove that torment and uncontrol inside of Sin's body. Sin had no soul. She was a body designed specifically for this purpose. To be the ultimate lifeform.

As soon as it was done, the explosions, the white, the pain, it all stopped, and Shoy, in Q's body, was literally blown to the other side of the room. Everything went black.

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The Soul Stealer's Rez and ki had flared up several times that night. Each time, it awoke Teddy and Tootz and made them double check the rain, sometimes triplecheck. They questioned themselves as to why they weren't attacking yet, and looking to the rotting zombie for assistance did not help, as she was still painfully absent.
Then, Q's Rez flared up incredibly. Moreso than it ever had before. It was frightening, and Teddy and Tootz both woke up from their slumbers, clutching eachother. The rain was dying down. They had to leave now.

"Get up!" Teddy scrambled over the floor to the sleeping boys. "Get up!!" She screamed.
"They're still under my spell," Tootz proclaimed, worried.

"We have no time to wake them up completely...! Argh!" In a fit of anger, Teddy sent out a large electrical shock through the entire room. Everyone (aside from Insom) was immediately awoken.

"What the f--" Askasa began to ask, when he was sorely interrupted.

"We have to go-- Now!" Teddy ran from the house, toward where she felt the pressure of Q's Rez. Tootz followed, and Askasa slowly after, though he did catch up within a few minutes. Ismaru, when he woke up, had remarked "..Tali!" before he simply disappeared. The others had no time to worry about the Wind Soul. They had more important things to be thinking about.
Askasa could feel it too, though. Tali's soul. Something was horribly wrong with their friend. Was it the Soul Stealer??
"Why did you wait until now to leave?! How could we have been sleeping for so long?" Askasa yelled as he ran.

"No time to explain," Teddy replied, "We just need to get to wherever they are-- Quickly!"

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Roy woke up just as Sin pushed him off its wheelchair. Sin's hair was still the same red as Roy's, however, it now had white and orange streaks. Sin's face had changed as well. It was more rigid, much less innocent. Sin was no longer merely Roy and Amigo's child. Although the creation's muscles had atrophied (Or rather, simply never grown) it seemed the soul was using its ki to strengthen Sin, who was no stepping out of the wheelchair. The blanket slipped off, revealing the naked, sexless form, and the long, mostly red hair, that fell to past its hips.

"Why..." Sin looked at its hands. "Why am I in this form?" The voice was feminine, though also slightly... Ethereal. It was hard to describe. But it was as if the voice were not bounded by physical law. It echoed around the room regardless if the sound waves should have been bouncing or not. Roy looked up from the floor in awe.

"Why am I not in the TALVIAN?!" Sin's hair flared upward, as if there were wind, but there was none. The air around the body crackled with pure kinetic energy.

"We.. I... put you inside Sin. That other form would not hold you... Look at what happened... Now you are safe..." Roy whispered. He didn't know what a talvian was, and as far as he knew, he was the only one not unconscious. He swallowed before he got the guts to say, "You owe us a great deal."

Sin turned to Roy, who looked like a little worm on the floor. "I owe you nothing!" Sin spat. The voice was full of disdain. "My power has been crippled in this body! I was so close to being free... You ruined it!" Sin lifted up a hand toward Roy, "Tell me why I should not kill you. Beg me for mercy, you pitiful child."

Roy swallowed again, looking to Amigo, who was unconscious, to Shoy's body, that was bloodied it was probably dead, and then finally, to Q's body, which has obviously seen better days, but has still only blacked out. Roy needed help. He sat himself up, brought his knees to his chest and put his thumb in his mouth. It wasn't supposed ot happen like this. The Pheonix should be greatful to him!
"I, I..." Roy sucked on his thumb, trying to come up with an answer. "... I gave you the perfect body, don't you see?! You, as the great Pheonix, no longer are chained by earthly bounds of human sex..." It was all he could come up with. But he meant it.

Sin's hand went down, and its hair also seemed to calm, though the air around the body still seemed to crackle with heat as it looked down at its pale, naked skin. "I have climbed one step upon the steep stairs, this is true. But this is still a body, and you have still weakened me. I am the Pheonix. And my brother, he is no longer doing his part. I am stuck inside this body. I cannot garner new souls this way. You have handicapped me so much so, I cannot even break free from this body by force as the so many others."

"I... I... I can help you fix it," Roy stuttered. "I can. I invent things. I made this body, I can make it better..!"

Sin's eyes saw Roy but its body was looking toward Q's. "All your toiling will lead to nothing but failure. You cannot." The rage had subsided and had gave birth to pity. What had happened here? Roy had captured the Pheonix... Is this what Amigo had wanted all along? Amigo had never told Roy the true reasoning behind this.

"Brother Talvian?" Sin was hesitant as it spoke, Q's body taking a deep breath, and finally coming alive. The sunglasses were still on him, so one could not see his eyes. Q, with a groan, stood up, only to let out the high-pitched whine of a dog, and a gasp shortly after seeing Shoy's body.

He immediately looked at his hands, then ran over to Shoy's body, shaking it. "No no no no no...!!"

"You are not He..." Sin muttered to itself. "As I suspected." The naked sexless body turned around, and walked back to the wheelchair, where it sat with an exasperated sigh.

Q had thrown his sunglasses to the side and was staring at Shoy's dead eyes intently. Nothing was happening. Q shook Shoy. Then more staring. Finally, it seemed as if Q had given up, but he plunged his ear onto Shoy's chest. At hearing no heartbeat, Q let out another high-pitched noise, and pounding against the wall.

Shoy was stuck inside Q's body. And the worst part of it was that Shoy could feel everything. This body, although it wasn't his, felt like his. He knew he'd never be able to get out of it. His original body had died. Shoy had his skepticism when it came to what would happen if his body died while he was inside someone else. The two most likely theories were he would have to share a body with another soul or he would die with his body.

But he was alone inside Q. He had Q's instincts, and Q's ki. His Rez was nowhere to be found. His brains, history... Mind, Soul? Gone. Shoy was alone in this body. He pounded the wall a few more times, Q's-- no, now it had to be his -- ki erratic. He eventually leaned his whole upperbody against the wall and slid down it, crying.

"You are in just as an unlikely position as I, Possessor," the Pheonix Soul stated, looking down to Tali's now officially dead, now and forever more, body. "We are in the same sad place."

Roy looked down at the floor, sucking his thumb, rocking back and forth. "Amigo, Amigo... Father..." he cried to himself.
Amigo wasn't hurt much, which Roy was thankful for. But the man was still out cold, and had no signs of coming to anytime soon.

There was a banging on the door outside. Once, twice. The door swung open and four people ran in.

"I was expecting a Monte Cristo," Sin stated in the wheelchair, its back to the doorway. "As Seekers, you have done a poor job."

Teddy shot a lightning bolt at Sin, but it dissipated before hitting. Possibly due to the atmosphere around it. It was no matter, Teddy and Tootz quickly diverted their attention toward Q.