Examination

Emmia sat in front of Sophia with her lowered.

"Why is head lowered?" Sophia asked, confused as to why Emmia was apologizing.

"I- uh- I mean- I keep ending up in here...." Emmia stuttered awkwardly.

"At least you know..." Sophia muttered softly.

"Anyways, you should take care of yourself more, I feel like you should know when and where to push your limits and not recklessly endanger your body," Sophia continued to lecture Emmia with concern.

Emmia did her best to listen to every concern and advice put out by Sophia to the best of her ability.

'I know it's my fault....but do I have to listen to such rants every time?' Emmia wondered to herself as her thoughts wandered. She felt an intense sense of deja vu

at the moment.

"Emmia are you listening?" A sharp tone broke Emmia out of her thoughts.

"Huh? I mean yes!" Emmia's voice rose in pitch at the end.

"Haah, what will I even tell your sister," Sophia muttered to herself.

"No! I mean, it's not necessary to tell Seril!" Emmia hurried to say. "I'll take better care of myself! I swear it."

Sophia raised an eyebrow at Emmia's pleading. The last thing Emmia wanted was for Seril to know that Emmia had ended up in the nurse's office two days in a row.

"...fine," Sophia relented after looking into Emmia's puppy dog face.

Before Emmia could sigh in relief, Sophia continued, "But if you end up back here in the next week, I tell your sister everything...and I mean everything." Seril warned Emmia.

Emmia felt a cold sweat form on her back and she hurriedly nodded.

'Well, shit....' Was the only thought on her mind as she watched Sophia nod in satisfaction.

"Now I need to run some tests on your body ok? Just lay down on the bed over there," Sophia started gently.

"Okay," Emmia agreed easily. This was a regular occurrence anyway.

Laying down, Emmia started to feel drowsy as Sophia's gift took effect finally leading to Emmia falling unconscious.

Sophia activated her gift to its fullest extent and information flowed into her head. All the information from Emmia's heartbeat, to the current condition of the body, to what sort of impurities were currently in her body, all sorts of information flowed into Sophia's head based on the blood flow in Emmia.

Sophia made her universal energy pulse in Emmia's body, acting like a sonar, and started to count the number of nerves that Emmia had.

'Yes, it's the same as before.' Sophia noted after a few moments.

Stopping her universal energy, Sophia proceeded to test Emmia's blood levels, sugar, pressure, and many other conditions.

'All of them are in the acceptable ranges...' Sophia concluded after getting the feedback.

'I need to check her eyes,' Sophia thought as she directed some of her universal energy into the blood flowing to the eyes, more specifically the optic nerves and the area around them.

'Interesting.....' Sophia trailed off as she noted something amazing. Part of Emmia's optic nerve had crystallized forming some sort of crystalline structure right behind her eyes. At the moment, it was just the size of a baby pearl, around 1 mm in diameter.

'It's really embedded in there,' Seril noted after probing it with her universal energy.

'It doesn't seem to cause any pain to Emmia if I probe it,' Seril confirmed after seeing the reaction in the blood surrounding the crystal.

'Hmm, this could have some peculiar functions, I'll have to ask Emmia if she knows anything about it,' Seril concluded with a sigh. She was going to get nowhere by trying to figure out the function of the crystal ball by herself. It was better to let Emmia see how she felt about it and figure things out herself. After all, people had some very nonsensical powers due to their gifts, not to mention beasts which were in a whole another domain in itself.

Seril relinquished her gift and let Emmia return to normal. Seril sat back down at her desk and wrote down the observations of whatever she had seen in Emmia's body.

"*Yawn*," Emmia let out a yawn as she regained consciousness.

"What're the results, Ms. Sophia?" Emmia asked with bleary eyes. The whole check-up process was harmless for Emmia like always.

"Your body is fine as far as I've seen," Sophia started out. "But I have detected an anomaly inside you."

Emmia heart skipped a beat as she sat down in front of Sophia.

"Part of your eyes have crystallized," Sohpia continued before Emmia's imagination ran wild.

"What?" Emmia asked shocked.

'Crystallized? What does that even mean? Is it related to my gift...maybe...but I don't have it active right now....and what even is merged with my eyes if it is on unconsciously....' Emmia's thoughts started to run wild, trying to figure out what was the cause of this crystallization.

"Calm down," Sophia soothed Emmia as she circulated universal energy as a precaution after seeing Emmia's increased heart rate.

Emmia took a deep breath trying to stabilize herself.

"I haven't detected any problems due to the crystallization. In fact, it's just a tiny part right behind your eyeball inside your optic nerve," Sophia explained calmly. Emmia after hearing Sophia's soothing voice and seeing the steady demeanor of the doctor, calmed down to digest whatever Sophia had informed her about.

"As I've said, there are no problems that I've been able to detect. Hence I want you to keep the existence of the crystal balls in mind whenever something abnormal happens to you. I want you to take note of such events so that I can make further observations okay?" Sophia assured Emmia and gently asked her a favour at the same time.

"Okay, Ms. Sophia," Emmia nodded her head in agreement.

"By the way, we already have a clue that those crystal balls are related to your ability to view universal energy," Sophia shared her hypothesis with Emmia.

"So just keep that in mind whenever you try to see universal energy."

"Okay," Emmia nodded as she got up to leave, her mind a turmoil of thoughts.

---------------------------------------------------------------

No. 7 clutched her body's chest as a cough racked through it for the thirteenth time so far. Her personal assistant, Kyla, fretted over her without pause.

"Doctor! I keep telling you to not exert yourself so much! I'm going to tell the hospital to make sure that your workload is decreased from now! This amount of work is a disgrace for someone of your stature," Kyla huffed angrily as she rubbed the doctor's back.

'Annoying.' No 7 thought in between coughs.

"It's fine dear. *cough* I can handle my*cough*self. All I need is a little *cough* rest today," No 7 coughed out.

"It's not fine! Just look at your health doctor! They are just overworking you at this point! I really think it's too much! You really need to take care-"

Kyla suddenly shut up as a jolt of lightning struck her, paralyzing her and leaving her mind blank.

"Annoying." No 7's raspy voice rang out as her eyes glowed from the activation of her gift.

"Looks like *cough* I need to adjust some parameters in her," No 7 grit her teeth as she tried to control her coughs. A sickly smell started to fill the room as a series of coughs rang out in the room.

Kyla just stood blankly as No 7's eyes glowed prompting her universal energy started to trickle out from her and into Kyla's head.

Kyla's body shuddered as the foreign substance entered her brain and started to change some fundamental things. No 7 ripped out the core aspects that made up Kyla and started to replace them however she wanted to.

The whole process took under a minute, and at the end of it 'Kyla' just stood there blankly with a string of drool coming out from the side of her lips.

Suddenly with a jolt, 'Kyla' snapped back. Calmly wiping the drool from her face, Kyla just bowed and quickly exited the room.

"Finally, *cough* peace and quiet," No 7 muttered indifferently to Kyla's sudden change.

"Damn No 2," No 7 cursed as she grits her teeth, the sickly smell increasing in power suddenly.

No 7 activated her gift and triggered the instructions inside the subjects that she had infected. Time was slowly ticking away, and inching towards the day of the test, the day when they would reveal their presence to all of Aster City...