"Copy One. Two and Four en route, be there within five minutes." Esone flicked off his comm, turning back to Marina. She wanted to meet the Yozi? That would be... problematic. He'd been able to convince the Althing that he was waiting for the perfect moment to try and convert the Solars, playing for time. But here Marina was, all but offering herself up to a process that would make her into a demon's plaything.<br/><br/>To become an Akuma was to trade all free will for unlimited power. The Akuma-to-be was wracked with agonizing pain as pure vitriol from Hell’s heart poured into her body, warping and reshaping it to suit her patron’s twisted aesthetic. Nor were her mind and soul safe. The process reconfigured and re-edited the Akuma’s life experiences, cutting her memories apart and reshaping them like the artistry of a demented child. This phase of the process took several torturous hours and required the restructuring of the Akuma’s body, soul and mind. Every positive experience from the Akuma’s childhood might be twisted into a memory of horrific abuse in order to reduce her Compassion and harden her Conviction and Valor. Her entire body might literally be turned inside out to better allow the demon to rearrange her musculature to convert Appearance into Strength or Dexterity. A lifetime’s experience spent sailing the high seas might be stripped away in order to make room for better skill with a sword.<br/><br/>What comes next was even worse. While the physical and mental changes were achieved in just a few hours, the Akuma must then spend days suffering the rape of his soul, as his personal Essence was extracted, alloyed with vitriol and then restored to his body. In addition to tainting his Essence with the resonance of the Yozi, the Akuma also suffered a total loss of self. Oh, he retained his former sentience, after a fashion. But a newly forged Akuma lost the ability to choose a destiny for himself.<br/><br/>Esone had no desire to expose the Twilight -or anyone for that matter- to that abomination. He loved the power of his Infernal exaltation, but the Yozi were undeniably insane. He planned on redeeming them if he could -the ability to customize new charms for his charm-composite masters was a glorious thing- but they were still mass-murdering psychos. But how to deflect her...<br/><br/>For that matter, how was she seeing his Urge change? It was intrinsic to his Exaltation, something internal. And he certainly wasn't an Akuma, for Sabaton's nattering was still there. Perhaps Eddie's power had left something residual?<br/><br/>"Ah... Well, you see... my exaltation is... different from yours. More... primal. What you're seeing is a residual effect of my learning a new charm." With a grunt he conjured a zone of unnatural darkness a few feet away, just out of the way enough that no dock workers would be hindered by the impenetrable opaque shadow. Praise the progenitors he'd yet to unveil all of his eldritch powers. "I could introduce you to the primal forces that I am an apostle to, but the result would not be to your liking. They're generally intractable and capricious."<br/><br/>In his head, Sabaton was screaming. Esone could actually<span style="font-style: italic">feel</span>the Limit building.<br/><span style="color: #000000">Five minutes since you've been reconfigured, and you're <span style="font-style: italic">already</span> going against your Urge? What is wrong with you?! We both knew you were going to defect, but <span style="font-style: italic">surely</span> you were going to wait for a better time.</span><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I regret betraying Adorjan's faith, but they're nuts. All this does is bring up my timetable by a year or two.</span><br/><br/>Esone began to move towards the ship, motioning for Marina to follow.<br/>"Making your own exaltation though... There are theories about that. The process had to exist for us to be empowered, and 042 is living proof that there are synthetic variants. Some of the Defi- I mean, some Exalted scientists I know think that if a god petitions the Unconquered Sun, he can grant them the power to bestow a spark of their Divine Fire on mortals. They also think that a Celestial exaltation that reaches a sufficient potency of Essence could do the same. You and I couldn't do it for centuries yet; to reach 'Essence 10' we'd need to refine our flows for at least a thousand years. Atop that, the cost would dear. Probably a corrosion of our Essence ranking, bringing you down to 'Essence 9' and forcing you to refine it again.<br/><br/>"If you're just looking for ways to make mortals more powerful, you could Enlighten them. Most mortals can't channel Essence, and don't even have any mote pools. It's possible to give them the ability, but the process is usually time-consuming and strenuous.<br/><br/>"There are two known methods, actually. One just immediately and permanently blasts open a willing mortal’s doors of perception, opening him to the world’s currents of Essence. The other creates a recursive, heritable mutation that enlightens a mortal and all of their descendants. It's not that different from Biotics, all things considered. The Protheans are supposed to have done the latter, but most modern attempts I know of make the mutant a 'Creature of Darkness' - any Holy effect you Solars use will burn them like a spark among kindling."<br/><br/>They arrived at the ship as Esone finished his ramblings, coming to attention in the Commander's presence.<br/><br/>"Sir."<br/><br/>Noting the new tech Bau had been outfitted with, Esone grinned. Hard-wire datajacks were rarely seen anymore, and mostly resided in roleplaying games.<br/><br/>"Nice chrome, omae. It's good to know that our resident Spider is well-equipped to handle all the Black Ice the Matrix can throw at him. Just don't turn into a vatjob on us."<br/><br/>Bau made the salarian equivalent of waggling his eyebrows, but didn't dignify the Lieutenant with a verbal response. Esone chuckled, turning back to the Commander.<br/><br/>"So what's the deal up at Vancouver, boss? Last I heard, Mass Relays are blowing up and Reaper fleets are bearing down on all life as we know it. Shouldn't we arming for war and readying the planet, rather than moving to a combat-sim station?"<br/><br/>Sabaton's displeasure was still palpable, but the one-time demon deigned to give it's two cents on the matter.<br/><span style="color: #000000">Last intelligence the Yozi shared suggested that the fleet is going to hit Earth first - make an example of the race known to have severely hampered Neverborn efforts in the past. On the other hand, the Protheans at the height of their power lost. We may need some bigger guns. Or a reeeeeeealy big weaponized manse. Or several manses, weaponized and linked together to make an even bigger war-manse.</span>