Laura sat up in bed upon feeling the horrible sensation of Celestial Energy. She frowned in annoyance, not appreciating the fact she was being bothered so late at night. This was her and Zenesha's time, and she despised the Angel bothering her.
Getting out of bed, being careful not to wake the sleeping fox, she changed into her street clothes. With a long drawn out sigh, Laura teleported to the roof. There was Allan staring off into the distance as he waited for Laura.
When she appeared he slowly turned around to stare at her.
"I heard you were injured." He said. "Covered in black blood from a Hollowed One."
"How did you hear about that?" Laura asked, glaring at the Angel.
"I just visited the area and listened." He explained. "While it wasn't confirmed it is rumored you were injured at some point. Some of your soldiers did see you covered in black blood dragging a man behind you after all."
"That blood came from the bug."
"So goes the official story. But Condor Iris from Zari and General Newman from New Veroso both saw you."
"I doubt they would speak so openly about something like that." Laura said. "That means you were most likely eavesdropping."
"I was simply in the right place at the right time."
Laura rolled her eyes at Allan's attempt to justify their actions. She wasn't interested in the first place, only wanting to make him squirm a little for disturbing her rest. But it was clear he's been spying on her and her actions.
From a distance of course since she would've sensed him if she got too close. They couldn't hide from each other.
"Anyway, what do you want, Angel."
"I want to kill those two Forsaken hiding in the White Ash capitol."
"You say that, but shouldn't your Angel friends be finished with their stuff? Or take the time to help you by now?"
"... As I said the-"
"Bull shit."
"Just get on this as soon as possible." Said Allan. "Also good luck with your… experiment."
"You touched my stuff." Laura said with zero surprise, but still sounded annoyed.
"So I did. Have a good night Forsaken."
Wings spread from the Angels back, pure white feathers with a slight holy glow to them. He took off into the air and was soon out of sight thanks to the darkness. Laura thought she would see him thanks to the glowing wings, but she ended up being wrong.
"What is he doing to hide himself like that?" She wondered for a second before remembering he had powers.
She was almost certain that she was being tested in some way. If they truly wanted those two Void Sapiens dead, they would've found a way to do it, with or without her. What the test was for, Laura didn't know or care.
"So long as I'm able to live my life with Zenesha, they can do whatever they want."
=======
"Looks like the witch agreed to meet with us." Zenesha said to Laura looking at her phone.
"When?"
"Not an exact date, but within the week."
"That's… fast." Laura said feeling surprised.
Zenesha shrugged. "She has no reason to refuse us."
"I suppose. I guess I just wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly."
Laura was hesitant to get outside help from a stranger, but she also knew she needed it. She didn't know everything, nor did she have the actual knowledge to recreate what she was trying to do. Having someone with her to help figure out the gaps could be useful.
"Well there's no point in worrying about it right now." Zenesha said, snapping Laura out of her thoughts. "Today is our day off."
"You say that but we still ended up doing work in the morning."
"It's still our day off." Zenesha insisted. "We only worked this morning, we can do whatever we want for the rest of the day."
Laura's expression was dead pan as she looked at the fox.
"It was you who said I should take a day off." Zenesha continued. "Now you're complaining?"
Laura rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner and patted the fox on the head with a smile. She was cute.
"Stupid Wolf." Zenesha muttered with a blush.
"Fine, today is our day off." Laura conceded, looking amused. "What should we do then?"
Zenesha thought about it for a second and then stood up from their bed. She motioned for Laura to follow her as she left the room and walked down the hall. Eventually they ended up in the living room and the fox made a beeline to the television.
Laura watched as the fox took out two console controllers with a smile. Well it was a very small smile, but the wolf was starting to notice the micromovements of her princess's face.
"You like racing games?" She asked.
"I've played them once before." Answered Laura. "Though you have to remember I spent most of my life traveling so not a lot of opportunities to try stuff like this."
"Understood. I don't play a lot of car games myself."
Laura didn't think that was as comforting as the fox thought it was. After all even if she doesn't really play racing games she is still much more familiar with videogames than her. The wolf chose not to point this out however and let Zenesha continue setting things up.
Once the game was on the fox handed Laura the controller. She took it and the game began.
Zenesha had called it a racing game, but it was a lot more open world than just a simple racing game. You drove around a city and with different challenges and races. Since it was street racing, you could even take out other cars and keep the wreckage.
While playing, Laura's mind was on their problems. The first of which was those Forsaken in the white Ash. At this thought one of the NPC cars ran into her, causing her to hit the wall, but she didn't crash.
She also needed to deal with this Void Beast. How they could just give them to mortals was baffling. Another car rammed into the back of her vehicle. She needed to figure out just how many Hollowed Ones were brought into this world.
She turned a corner in the game. Then there was Allan. He's testing her somehow and she was sure he would kill her without hesitation if she failed whatever he's testing. The back of her car brushed against the brick wall as she turned, but that was all.
She still needed to figure out how to Make Abyssal energy. It was distinctly different from Void and Celestial energy, but also being the same. There was a good chance that if she managed to make it stable she'll create a new entity similar to how the Void and the Universe where sapient.
With this she over shot a turn and had to take the next one, this made her fall behind slightly.
Laura was most worried about this one. Neither the Void nor the Universe were kind to their creations. The Void was slightly more direct, but the Universe would create copies of planets, and add or subtract something from it just to see how the people reacted.
Earth is a great example. There's one with nothing magical or supernatural apart connected to it, one does have magic and another has the supernatural like vampires and werewolves. That's not even getting into parallel worlds either. All three of these were within the same physical Universe.
What if by creating the Abyss energy she's creating another one of these entities. Energy like this will create its own realm simply by the amount of power coming from it. If that went wrong….
Laura crashed, and had to wait a few seconds as the game reset her car. When she was back again, she found that she's fallen to last place. She frowned, and tried to focus on the game.
There was also the chance she would become the avatar for the Abyss. It's a new type of energy and if she made it so she was the mind in control of it, then there shouldn't be anything to fear.
She started to pass a few of the other racers and was getting closer to Zenesha who was in first place
She hoped anyway.
A car rammed into her side and slowed her down, letting Zenesha and the two other cars ahead to pull further away.
If she fails, maybe she will never see her again.
"I won!" Zenesha cheered as she crossed the finished line startling Laura.
The wolf shook her head and gave the fox her best smile as she passed the finished line, just barely getting third place at the last second.
"Nice job Zen." Laura congratulated her. "Another game?"
"Yeah, just let me grab some snacks first."
Laura watched the fox leave the room for the kitchen. When she was out of sight she faced forward and leaned back against the couch with a heavy sigh. Creating Abyss energy is necessary. She needed to be cut off from the void, but she couldn't deny the risk.
Suddenly Laura's apprehension about letting a stranger help her figure it out disappeared. Things needed to be perfect. Maybe she could try going back to the void and finding her parent's research notes…. If they weren't already destroyed.
"I've been on the run for just under two decades and for some reason I feel more stress now than when I first escaped the Void." She muttered.