Cinder slowly moved to sit cross legged on his floor. Closing her once hazelnut eyes in a weak attempt to staunch the flow of black fluid dripping from her face like a stream.
“If I manage to get one of the stones, I can find someone who can responsibly handle the power, contain, hide, and analyze it. What concerns me most right now is the doctors plans..”
Cinder trailed off, coming to a decision. If she could save just one life, then maybe she was more than a monster.
“If he has a stone, I need to get it before he kills off half the human population- If not for my bs, then for Azura. Only thing is… I can’t break the amulet myself…. If I tried I would die”
While Aku remained doubtful that Cinder could successfully attain one of the stones, her demon might very well cause some mayhem for anyone else who might have their eye on the stones, particularly the stone that resided inside Azura’s soul. As Aku thought of the potential chaos he could unleash, a wicked grin spread across his face.
“I see,” he said. “And you want me to do the honors.” How kind of her. Destroying what remained of the amulet would be a very simple task.
“Very well. Then I shall do it.” As he spoke the amulet left Cinder’s palm and floated upward under Aku’s silent command. As it hung in the air, Aku reached down to touch the cracked amulet. A mere tap of the tip of his claw was all it took and the amulet shattered.
“Yup!” Alysa then pulled out something from behind her back, it was a bouquet of beautiful bright red roses. She then began to blush as she held up the bouquet to him.
Aku was a bit surprised to see the bouquet of flowers. They weren’t exactly edible… or were they? He looked at the bright color and recalled how the Beast had told him that the colors of flowers had different meanings.
“Alysa…” he said, lifting his gaze to the human’s reddened face. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“New toy?” Aku leaned down for a better look. “What does it do?”
“Hehe,nothing too special really.“She said proudly.
"It just transforms the user into any intelligent lifeform from this galaxy and many others!Aaaand believe it or not,it even has your DNA sample!Look!”
Then she pushed a button,rotated the dial and selected the ‘alien’.In an instant,a feminine version of Aku appeared in front of him,wearing the Omnitrix symbol on a spiky belt attached to her waist.
“It has WHAT?” No. It couldn’t! …Except a turn of the dial proved that it did have his ‘DNA’ on file.
Aku blinked his eyes and craned his neck, staring at the other ‘Aku’ before him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this yet other than startled. The demon looked Yerena up and down, then he leaned back and gripped his beard thoughtfully.
“It has the power to replicate my appearance,” he observed. “But can it replicate my powers?”
Cinder looked up at Aku, holding out her amulet for him to see. Pulling her hood back, black fluid was pouring from her eyes, her free hand constantly wiping the flow off her cheeks. The frail teen hesitated before speaking once more, in a soft voice.
“It’s cracked…. I couldn’t tell Azura… She’d freak.. But if this thing gets free, maybe I can somehow control it… Either way, I’ll be screwed six ways from Sunday.. But maybe I can help Azura with those… Those rocks-”
Aku’s gaze shifted away from the page to settle on the amulet in the girl’s hand. The crack was visible enough that he could see it without bending closer and from the way her eyes bled with inky tears, fixing it looked to be a lost cause. He could see why Cinder was prepared to do something reckless. There was an overwhelming possibility that she would never be able to control the beast once it was unleashed, but Aku saw no reason to mention this. She already knew.
The demon turned to her with his full attention, letting the tome ascend back to the library from whence it came. It was funny how Cinder should bring up the stones since he had been searching for information about that very subject in his extensive book collection. Unfortunately, he hadn’t yet found what he was looking for.
He studied the fading human in silence for a moment, his expression dubious.
“And how do you intend to do that?” he asked, mostly in an effort to gauge how serious she was. Did she have a plan or was she going to fly into things by the seat of her pants, as they say?
“That depends. Are you going to try and destroy my machine that’s meant to wipe out all of humanity?”
“Of course not! I am simply a man who admires great technology.” Despite his devilish grin, Aku did indeed have an interest in great technology, especially that which he did not fully understand.
“I am curious, Doctor. How does your machine drain from humans the will to live? Do you suggest that ‘determination’ is something more than an intangible emotion?”
The Shogun of Sorrow 