What the hell is this thing?! Abby stared at the pitch-black figure. This was supposed to be her duplicate? Was Thea joking? The thing looked like someone had dumped a bucket of ink on it—if it closed its eyes and mouth, you couldn't even see its face!
"This thing looks... weird..." Beast Boy glanced at the shadowy figure's... uh, lower region. It didn't even have the necessary parts. Could this thing even function as a person?
"It's just a placeholder. It doesn't have a brain—don't look at me like that. I mean it literally has no brain. No heart, spleen, stomach, or kidneys either. No circulatory system, no blood production. Your blood is essentially a passport, Abby. The Rot doesn't need blood. What matters is your soul."
Thea watched them circle around her three-minute creation, examining it from every angle. Even Batman and Zatanna leaned in curiously. She hurried to explain—this wasn't a matter of skill. Those organs simply weren't necessary.
"For us, a human face is an identifying feature. But to the Rot, it's all about blood and, more fundamentally, the soul. I'm right about that, aren't I?" She turned to Swamp Thing and Animal Man for confirmation.
Both felt like she was explaining something beyond their full understanding, but they nodded anyway, pretending to get it.
"Step two: extracting blood! Abby, please lie down inside it." Thea produced her signature medical pod—a device now ubiquitous worldwide. Thanks to it, seventy percent of the world's medical professionals had been forced to change careers. But the upside was that everyone was used to seeing it.
Abby didn't hesitate. She lay down without protest. In less than ten minutes, ten percent of her blood had been extracted. The pod didn't just draw blood—it simultaneously injected a serum that stimulated her body's blood production. Even after losing a tenth of her blood, Abby emerged looking perfectly healthy.
Soul division wasn't something to perform publicly. Since this was Thea's base, she led Abby into a side room.
Dealing with villains would be simple—just rip the soul out. Morgan le Fay's grimoire had plenty of spells for that. But Thea's heroic image required a gentler approach.
Fortunately, that wasn't a problem. She activated the hypnotic function of her wealth-based divine power, entering the deepest recesses of Abby's mind.
"This is nasty." Inside the mental plane, Thea observed Abby's soul. Her mortal-level mental strength had been corroded beyond recognition. Countless nightmare creatures roamed her mental world. Decay, rot, and the stench of death saturated everything.
Even as a god, Thea nearly gagged at the putrid aura seeping from Abby's soul. This wasn't a matter of moral corruption—it was something fundamental. The essence was so vile that even her incorporeal spirit could smell it. The Rot had penetrated deep.
She synchronized their souls, then gently exerted her power, drawing Abby's soul out of her body.
A smell a million times worse than rotting garbage or spoiled eggs began to permeate the room. Thea nearly stumbled from the assault on her senses. She quickly erected a barrier around Abby's soul.
If this stench spread through Metropolis, at least a third of the population would die.
Once the barrier was in place, she finally had a chance to examine the soul properly. "Horrifying" didn't begin to cover it. Normal human souls were colorless and transparent. Some mages' souls reflected the color of their magic, a result of their essence being partially saturated by magical energy.
But Abby's soul was murky and foul, like sludge or some expired product left to rot in the sun. The only good news was that her head remained relatively clear, which meant the plan could still work.
Using the Sword of Victory would purify her completely—and probably kill her in the process. Godslayer would be equally fatal. Against something this tainted, the Father Box's righteous fire would incinerate her in seconds.
Thea had to use the slowest method. Divine power could be applied to any situation, including this delicate surgery.
She couldn't just cut randomly—hacking away at the soul would destroy Abby completely. Even the Highfather himself couldn't piece her back together. The better approach was to redirect the corruption rather than simply sever it.
Mages were notorious for their reckless experiments, and Thea had just the right spell for this. It was a technique modern mages had developed based on the concept of tower spirits—constructs housed in wizard towers to serve as assistants or apprentices.
The spell had nothing to do with combat, but it was perfect here.
Thea created a massive soul construct outside Abby's body to hold the decayed portions.
Once the two were connected, she could see the Rot actively trying to infect the new soul. Without hesitation, Thea began using fine threads of divine power to push the corrupted parts out of Abby's soul and into the construct.
Cut off from the Rot itself, the tainted fragments in Abby's soul were like water without a source—no match for Thea's divine power. They began transferring into the new construct.
Thea swept through three times, driving every last trace of corruption into the new soul vessel. The originally spherical construct, now bloated with filth, began warping into an irregular shape. Bolstered by the influx of decay, the fragments started clamoring again. If left unchecked, they'd soon counterattack and reclaim Abby's body.
Concentrating ten percent of her divine power, Thea made a clean cut at the connection point. She gently pushed Abby's purified soul back into her body, then focused entirely on stabilizing the corrupted mass.
"I feel dizzy... Was that really inside me?!" Less than three minutes later, Abby woke up. Years of burden lifted in an instant. Though her head still spun, her spirits were higher than they'd been in ages.
Dazed, she looked around and finally noticed the grotesque, writhing mass Thea was manipulating. It radiated malice, horror, and hatred for the living. Instinctively, she knew—that was her. Or at least, it had been part of her.
"I was really that evil?!" Abby covered her mouth in shock, as if afraid the thing would come back for her. She scrambled backward on her hands and feet, putting distance between herself and the abomination.
Thea didn't bother explaining that white wasn't synonymous with justice, nor was black synonymous with evil. For someone like Abby, who only wanted to live as a normal person, a simple black-and-white worldview was best. Simplicity wasn't a bad thing.