"Kid… did you just stop time?" Leo asked.
He and Morgana had slipped into the battlefield while the fight against Mr. Bones had finally turned in the favor of the combined might of Ath3na's and Argonaut's teams.
Leo walked right up to Argonaut who was in the midst of wrestling the last remaining skull knight to the ground and waved his hand over Argonaut's face.
"I didn't know you could do this…" Leo commented.
"Reapers work in the space between moments, Leo," Morgana explained.
She too was walking around, but unlike the dumbfounded expression on Leo's face, Morgana's face was set with grim purpose.
"Don't you think it would be weird if the dying could see us coming?" she laughed her tinkling laugh. "The fear it would cause… the confusion…"
Leo looked up from his inspection of Argonaut's frozen form and noticed that Morgana was standing next to Ath3na now.
Ath3na was standing over Mr. Bones with her foot on his throat and Red Death still piercing his chest. The lesser lich looked to be at death's threshold which Leo supposed was why he and Morgana had interrupted the end of the battle.
"You're here to reap Mr. Bones," Leo realized. "Tell me it's not because he pissed you off?"
Morgana turned her face toward Leo, and after seeing the violet glow of power in her eyes, for the first time in a long time, he felt a twinge of fear for the reaper who'd murdered him too.
"This is the first time I've brought you with me to watch me work," she commented. "I can understand your unease, Leo. But, you don't have to worry… I'm an old hat at reaping lesser denizens' souls."
A thought brushed against Leo's mind. "Did you reap the Decapitator too?"
Morgana turned her attention back on Mr. Bones.
"Yes," Morgana answered.
She knelt beside the lesser lich's head.
Something about the whole morbid situation caught Leo's interest, driving him to come closer to the reaper and her prey.
"Death comes to all things, Leo… even to us denizens of the Abyss," Morgana explained.
"What happens to those who die after death?" he asked curiously.
"Nothing… only the embrace of sweet oblivion," Morgana answered just as she raised a hand up and snapped her fingers.
A puff of smoke later and her obsidian baseball bat was in her hand.
"So… the moment you reap him is the moment Ath3na kills him?" Leo confirmed. "That's how it works?"
"You're about to find out," Morgana grinned.
Then she slammed her bat down on Mr. Bones' face.
For a split second, Leo could swear he saw Mr. Bones' eyes turn in her direction. It was just before the bat struck.
Mr. Bones shattered into a thousand glass pieces, but unlike the usual step of coalescing into a single soul stone, these pieces floated suspended in the air.
Morgana shut her eyes. Then her mouth moved as if to speak in what Leo guessed was some form of silent prayer to a Lord of Death that was no longer around to listen.
When Morgana opened her eyes once more, she scooped up a bit of the floating glass. Just enough to fit one hand.
"So what now, kid?" Leo asked.
"Now, we have a bit of fun," Morgana answered.
She crushed the shards of glass in her hand by making a fist. When she opened her hand again, instead of the many bleeding cuts Leo was expecting, a glowing yellow soul stone sat on her palm.
"That's…" Leo leaned toward her hand.
"The rarest of all soul stones… one that carries the lesser lich's will for battle," Morgana confirmed.
"An ability soul stone," Leo understood.
He frowned.
"Lyghtning's evolution wasn't just all about luck, was it?" Leo guessed.
"I may have had a hand in ensuring such a stone appeared for one of them," Morgana admitted. "I wanted to see how a soul would react to a stone that carried its own will."
"Could have gotten her killed…" Leo's frown deepened.
He wasn't actually mad with Morgana's experiment. He might have done the same if he'd had the choice. But he was annoyed that she hadn't told him what she was planning.
"Don't get snippy, Leo," Morgana countered. "I simply nudged things in a certain direction… and it turned out alright, didn't it?"
She smiled sweetly at Leo, the kind that told him she wasn't done with her nudging things.
"And now it's your turn," she said.
Morgana offered him the soul stone.
Leo pulled away.
"You know how I feel about consuming more than I need, Morgana," he said with a shake of his head.
"This is different, Leo," she insisted. "This won't affect you the way regular soul stones would."
Morgana got to her feet and stepped toward Leo. She shoved her hand, the one that carried the soul stone, onto his chest.
"Trust me… I would never do anything to compromise your mind or the dream you're chasing," she promised. "After all, our dreams are why we're on this mad journey in the first place."
"I can sense a 'but' coming," Leo replied, although his hand did come up to fold over her own hand, the one that was currently pressed to his chest.
For the first time since they'd snuck into the battlefield, Morgana actually frowned.
"Mr. Bones… the Decapitator… our enemies are getting stronger, and I can't be everywhere at once," she admitted in an almost worried tone. "I would rest easier knowing my partner had more to defend himself with than minor illusions."
She raised the soul stone to an inch away from Leo's lips.
"This ability gives you the power to protect yourself," she revealed.
"You know what it does?" Leo asked softly.
He was staring into Morgana's violet eyes now, and a part of him — the part that thought about the things men and women do behind closed doors — wondered how different things might be between them if Morgana looked just a little bit older.
Morgana's devilish smile was back. "Absorb it and find out."
Leo wasn't sure if it was just the close proximity of her pretty teenage face that was muddling his brain. All he knew was that she'd caught him off guard just enough to entice him into doing what she wanted. After all, he always was a sucker for a pretty face.
"Alright," Leo said.
He shut his eyes, and after a final moment of indecision, he took in a deep breath and absorbed the essence from the stone.
Leo could feel the power flowing through him, the kind he'd never tasted before. It sent a heady feeling into his brain that threatened to make him swoon.
Luckily for Leo, his mind warred with such an outcome, refusing to give in to the most embarrassing situation he could think of — falling unconscious into Morgana's arms.
After he was done absorbing all the essence from what was now nothing more than crumbling a piece of glass marble trapped between Morgana's fingers, Leo felt an otherworldly presence wrap around him. It lasted only for a few seconds, but he could swear he'd heard Mr. Bones cackling laughter at that time. Then the presence was gone, and Leo was alone with Morgana within this moment between seconds.
"Wow," was all he could say for he didn't have the words to express just how awesome he felt.
Then a new notification window appeared in the space between him and Morgana, forcing both of them to pull away from each other, and ruining this almost-intimate moment they shared.
[CONGRATULATIONS, GAME MASTER, YOU HAVE CONQUERED THE WILL OF THE LESSER LICH, MR. BONES. YOU NOW HAVE ACCESS TO THE POWER THAT WAS HIDDEN DEEP WITHIN HIS SOUL.]
This window vanished seconds later only to be replaced by another smaller window.
[YOU NOW POSSESS THE ABILITY: [SUMMON UNDEAD]]
"F*ck me," Leo whispered.
"I knew you'd find it interesting," Morgana laughed.
He tapped on the ability's window.
[SUMMON UNDEAD: You call forth the restless spirits who've been consigned to oblivion and give them a chance to live again in exchange for serving you. The spirits manifest physically into whatever form they once possessed, but it is within your power to give them strength by feeding them more soul energy. The summoner can summon a total number of undead equal to your current INT score. Stronger undead will require more of your power, thereby lowering the number of undead that can be summoned at the same time. [WARNING! The undead may turn against the summoner if he or she is not strong enough to resist their whispers.]]
"Well, this is going to be interesting," Leo said.
And despite his earlier unease, a huge smile appeared on his face.