Words filtered across the ether, words tinged with a familiar tone of Sayuri, but against the raging tempest of her mind Corrine barely caught them before they were swallowed up under the weight of her mental exertion…<br/><br/>She felt it coming…. The sudden slice through the crackling arc of energy as she expended the weight of her psionic ability to lift the behemoth clean from the ground, it whistled past her head and she could do nothing to stop it, a simple single round… and the sizzle in the air behind her as Elohim charged for the decisive strike was suddenly gone, leaving only the faintest wash of charged molecules to wash over her.  Corrine snapped her mind back, tearing the psychic tendrils that had ensnared Frankie and dropping him back to the earth.<br/><br/>Corrine twisted about, already dreading the sight that would greet her… but not prepared for the weight of emotion that suddenly speared through her when she met the shattered gaze of the dark angel… her mouth fell open… all thoughts of battle fled from her as she rushed to her side, dropped to her knees and cradled the mechanical females head against her chest… the chill from the silver that flowed from her shattered eye laced her breast with its caress… she looked down… water pooling in her gaze as the gentle flow of tears trickled down her cheek and pattered softly against her…<br/><br/>“I am sorry…Elohim….” Her voice cracked under the weight…<br/><br/>Her gaze snapped sharply back towards Frankie, her look dripping with purest hatred… and then she looked past him, her eyes burning against the distance, using the knowledge laced within the planet to seek out her target, and for a briefest moment she met his gaze… but as her mind feathered, there was a sudden arcing of energy from a portal that ripped at her thoughts and cast her into its cold depths before opening back into the Abyss…<br/><br/>Corrine was breathless… when the portal reappeared; she dropped to her knees, Elohim at her side, amidst the familiar surroundings of the dark laboratories.  She was aware of figures around her, their expressions shocked at their appearance… Corrine pulled herself to her feet and grabbed the nearest dark scientist around the throat and drove him against the wall, her body shivering with the depth of emotion coursing through her blood…<br/><br/>“You will repair her… you will bring me back my Elohim, or else I will obliterate…<em>everything</em>” she hissed and then released him and dropped to the side of the mechanical maiden, cradling her once more, her fingers gently brushing the golden strands of hair from her cheek and feeling the soft chill of her flesh and the spearing ice of the fluid that leaked from her frame…The laboratories were given to concentrated activity, but all this was lost on Corrine, her eyes were fixed upon her, as her mind reached to the quiet heart that lay within her.<br/><br/>“I cannot… will not let you go…” a tear slipped from her and sizzled against the flow of quicksilver leaking deeply from within her…<br/><br/>Corrine knew the depths of pain, she could reach out to every single tortured soul as it was twisted through the writhing energy of the planet… but this was far more than she could bear, far more than she wanted to feel… she felt weakened by it, emotionally taut, and there was one who sought to take advantage of it…<br/><br/>Corrine felt the faint blistering touch of the Mayan within her…<br/><br/><em>…. Faint fingers lay across her shoulders, a familiar presence… one that never left her.  “You know the wealth of pain child, we both do…” her caress continued… “What matter is the world to you, you are linked to the tides of the planet… imagine the peace you would have once every living thing is purged and consigned to oblivion. The true age of transition”<br/><br/>Corrine sighed softly… “I do not want to feel <em>this</em> pain…”<br/><br/>“Then release me my child…allow me to walk this earth in your stead…” she continued to caress and soothe the tempest   “What have they done to deserve your <em>mercy</em>...” the ancient reached out and brushed her fingers against her cheek, there was the faint soft sizzle as the heat of her touch turned the tears rolling down her cheek into vapour. “For too long we have found ourselves at odds… but I know your darkest dreams, your hidden hate… I could give you the eternity of peace that you seek, an eternity you can spend in your chambers sealed from the dead planet… you would not have to be alone…”  </em><br/><br/>Corrine felt both of their gazes shift to the sight of Elohim as the technicians began to furiously work about her…<br/><br/><em>Corrine looked back into the flaming orbs of the ancient Mayan, she felt her resolve weaken a little.  This world had bought her nothing but pain… and now the greatest pain of all crushed through her as she stood and watched the sculptured form of the one thing in this world that gave her peace...<br/><br/>“Fate and death child… both are inescapable… both embody me.”<br/><br/>Softly Corrine nodded… “Perhaps….” Her voice trailed off a little… her eyes flicked up at the ancient Mayan goddess… a madness beginning to seep into the piercing pools of azure that had once been able to hold her back, now she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to anymore… </em><br/><br/>Her mind pulled back into the conscious and kept a sharp vigil on the technicians working around her.  She felt her mind drift to the dark secret within her chambers that contained ‘both’ of their hearts… she closed her eyes and felt the soft trickle of a tear feather across her cheek…<br/>