After All

"I don't know how else they would be there," she murmured as she stared at the puckered and discolored flesh. She flexed her fingers, then paused. "At least the arthritis is gone..."

That didn't stop the confusion in her eyes. She now knew the scars shouldn't be there: Martin had never seen them before, but they looked just like they had ever since that fateful capture.

"Do you think you could...?" she asked slowly, willing to believe that by trying again, he could remove the scars that upset him so badly.
 
"Arthritis?" He blinked, staring at her in surprise "Didn't think you people could even get that. Who knew."

He was still lost in is own thoughts when she asked him to try again, eyes widening and giving a rapid nod "Sure. Sure. I'll get right at it."

Instead of the protean mass, Martin's humanoid body reached forward, and as he touched her arms, his own dissolved into the same primordial, black sludge. It clung to both her arms as Martin's form suddenly froze up, the hive mind too caught up in concentration to fix her arms
 
It felt strange, him engulfing her, and the sight of it... it made her breath stop. It was so strange, what he'd become, but... he seemed more mentally whole than he had in a very, very long time. Before the video, he was a young man who couldn't handle reality, so substituted his own fantasy into it. During the video, he was... a wreck, pure and simple.

And now, standing before her, he was confident and handling surprises very well. He was being constructive rather than trying to hide behind a silly mask.

"You've grown up," she murmured, her praise quiet.
 
"Yeah." Came his one-word return, pulling away and giving her a first glimps of his weariness, before it slipped away back into a calm smile "I.. had a lot of time to get my shit together. Lots of years just.... Being. With myself, and all those little voices that the Unifiers gave me."

He shook his head clear of his memories, smiling down at her arms "How's that?"
 
Her arms, once more youthful and unmarred, moved easily as he freed them. She flexed them and turned them, seeing smooth skin for the first time, and smiled slightly.

She was about to make a self-depreciating comment about her prior looks, when she looked up to notice the wear on his face and heard his words. It made her heart hurt, and she ignored his question of how the fix worked and instead stared into his eyes for a few long moments.

Elizabeth stood and wrapped her arms about him and cradled his head to her shoulder. One hand stroked his hair, and the other squeezed his shoulders.

"I wish I could have saved you from having to grow up that way," she murmured as her arms tightened around him. "You didn't deserve what they did."
 
The gesture didn't get a typical reaction. Instead of yelping, or anything like that, Martin's body went slack, falling into her form. There was a long time of silence as he simply tried to process what she just said, the main mass outside the temple vibrating with enough force to cause tremors.

Finally, a sigh escaped Martin, and a calm smile spread across his lips. He pushed up and looked at her with affection "Then I wouldn't be where I am now. I'm not saying the Unis were in the right.... Just..."

He shrugged "Fact is, I don't know where I'd be if that didn't happen. All that matters is now. Today. Today and tomorrow are all days you can live for."

A small smirk escaped his lips "That, and making the fuckers pay for your misery."
 
Elizabeth pulled back, gripping him by the shoulders as she did, and smiled slowly at his words. "You've come a long way," she murmured, "And I'm proud of you, but I wish it hadn't been so painful for you, as well."

She cupped his cheek in one hand and rubbed her thumb along his cheekbone.

"Now," she pulled her hand away and rested it on her hip, "Don't think I didn't see how tired you were after fixing these arms of mine. You need rest, don't you?"
 
"No, No I really don't." He spoke, smiling to her in his same calm confidence "That small moment was me being emotionally tired. That happens sometimes. This body, though? Optimized. To the extreme. I'm a primordial ooze with the ability to function 24/7 and I have the creation potential limited by my maniacal imagination and my genius mind."

He didn't bother hiding his cocky smirk "Why'd you think all those universe spirits were so desperate when they found Beryl again? I was raising all kinds of hell, they didn't know how to deal with me, and half the time they didn't even know what the hell I even was
 
She laughed quietly. "Well, Beryl must have gotten your messes sorted out, because she didn't need us to clean up after you." She couldn't help but shake her head. "Such a cocky young man," she accused, eyes narrowing playfully before she let her shoulders sag.

"Honestly?" She pulled her gloves back on, "I've been exactly that—emotionally tired—for so long that I'm surprised I can still feel at all..."
 
"Yeah, well I did my best to avoid collateral. I wiped ever *hint* of the Unifiers off more Universes than I could care to count, then I just... Killed almost everything that I was, opened another portal and just... Moved on."

He shook his head for a moment, giving her a smile "We're old, Liz. That's why. Best thing we can do is keep moving. Keep that weariness a step away from our happiness."
 
"Eliza," she corrected with a small smile. "I never did much like being called 'Liz', remember?"

It was her way of saying 'let's do that'.

"So, where to?" she asked as she slowly stretched her limbs. "I'll let you decide where to take me."
 
He blinked, then smiled at her order. He gave her a small mock bow "Of course, lady Eliza" before the entire form he used to talk to her melted away, the black sludge that he became moving in to the larger orb. The entire mass started to vibrate as it turned itself into a portal generator, opening a hole in space.

Rather awkwardly, a hand sprouted out of the large mass, then pointed to the portal
 
His melting jarred her. She stood still for several moments before she looked toward the larger form as it vibrated.

Her subordinate was a massive sludge-thing, now... that was right. It didn't feel real until that moment, and she nodded numbly as the hand pointed, her movements slightly unsteady as she walked, her sense of balance still off.

She paused before the portal and looked back at the blob-and-hand, then smiled slightly as she decided she would just have to get used to it, and... in a way, it was better that he was so different now. It would be easier for her to remember that the past was out of reach, and the future held new things.

She returned her gaze to the fore, took a deep breath, then stepped through.
 
The moment she stepped through, the smell of high-oxygen air hit her like a truck. All around her, flora bloomed with virulent life, the air practically smelled alive as creatures walked around Eliza, without a single care in the world of her presence.

As the black sludge oozed in, they just gave a quick once-over, shuffled a safe distance away, and kept about their business. After the size of a small truck squeezed out of the portal, it snapped shut and left the remainder of his body to die.

Martin's human formed stepped out of the mass, looking towards the place fondly "Figured You'd appreciate the change of scenery."
 
Elizabeth went still as the overwhelming amount of sights, sounds, scents, and more overcame her. She could only stare, mouth agape, at sights she might only have seen long, long ago.

She only remembered to breathe when she heard him speak, and she turned her head slowly to look at him.

"It's... so much," she murmured, eyes wide and nostrils twitching subtly, not quite sure if she had the words for it anymore.
 
"Oh." He sounded out, the mass vibrating as he realised that he overwhelmed her. In an instant he started to spread out a haze through the air, the cold mist obscuring the sights, the light, the scents, all of it, to a far duller level.

"Sorry.... I didn't expect the sensory overload." He stated, sighing slightly. "SHould've seen it coming, but I didn't.
 
For a moment, she just tilted her head and blinked and looked around, then looked to him again.

"Stop that," she chided with a small smile. "I'm sure you have a quiet place I can go when I need a break, but don't dull it for me."

Her smile faded as she once more looked around. "If you want me to experience things, let me do so to the fullest, rather than in half-measures."
 
Martin's form remained still as the mass vibrated, before he gave a small nod "Yeah... Just... I want to protect you, is all." He stated, and almost instantly the mist fell from the air and into the earth, slowly collected by the mass that he was

"Sensory overload is no laughing matter, Eliza. Worst possible way to get disabled, in my opinion."
 
She smiled slightly. "Just give me a minute. It's awful, but I'm... not giving this up." She continued to look around. "There's so much... it's been so long."

For a long time after that, she didn't speak, but her posture slowly eased. She closed her eyes to concentrate on hearing and smelling, and smiled as she looked at the vibrant colors and interesting life.
 
The protean mass vibrated softly all the time she tried to take in the chaos of life, finally silencing when Eliza started to smile.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" He asked with awe, smiling slightly as he observed the world "I gave this world its first life, ya know? Just being here? I wanted a base of operations to target another planet, seeded this place with life. Met the World Spirit and everything!
 
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