Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had taken so many years of research to do it, but that did not change just how proud she was of her success. She had created a golem that could use every ounce of her power, including being able to summon and wield her weapon. They said it couldn't be done. They said it was an abomination. The naysayers had fought her tooth and nail every step of the way, going so far as to keep her from funding and refusing her test subjects.

Well. She'd showed them.

She'd funded the project on her own dime, and she'd used the only test subject she needed - herself.

And here she was, patrolling the perimeter of the island, while still safe and sound inside of her pod. Andeon hemmed and hawed with warning, refusing to believe that he could be summoned from by a golem body, but she just knew she'd perfected the golem bonding process. There was no doubt in her mind that she'd made history, and this was her chance to prove it.

So she marched right out of the building, without a single person realizing that the perfect clone of Riley was actually a golem. She felt the grass under her bare feet when she took her shoes off outside, and she laughed.

No one would ever have to die again.

Because she hadn't just temporarily transferred her consciousness from the pod, to the golem. She wasn't still tethered to the inside of that pod holding her body, at all.

She'd transferred her mind over to the golem completely.

She'd beaten Death.

She'd created the Immortal Hunter.

She laughed again, constantly surprised by the sound. And when the crack of a weapon hit her back, leaving a sharp, brown mark instead of a bloody gash, she still laughed. She laughed as she took Andeon out, summoning the weapon into her hands.

And then she stopped laughing, because Andeon was screaming, and she couldn't quite tell why. He was screaming, and the last thing he'd said was I told you so, before he exploded in her very hands. The bond broke; broke her; broke her body; broke her mind.

She was gone, soon to be remembered for nothing but failure. And the only one left behind to laugh, was Death itself.