00158. Soul damage.

00158. Soul damage.

With the first batch of people done, Theo decided to wait on making more. The main reason was he wanted to see how long it took for his soul to heal properly. While a single piece didn't take long, he created over a hundred and fifty this time. So over the next week, Tao and Agatha checked his soul each day to make sure it healed correctly and how long it took.

Just before the week passed, Theo’s soul was completely healed. With that new information, Theo planned to make the next batch of bodies larger. He had Orochimaru create a thousand bodies this time. They already had the facilities to complete the task, so it only took a week for all the bodies to be ready.

Once everything was ready, Theo spent most of a day as he added a soul to each body. By the end of it, he was so tired and drained that he basically collapsed into his bed once he arrived home. Sleeping all night helped him recover a little, but he still felt off the next day like he didn’t get enough rest. The whole day he was lethargic and had almost no energy. Once he came home from school he created a clone and then headed down to his training center to get checked out.

Theo was seated in the lotus position as Tao and Agatha examined him with magical spells. It took about half an hour and once finished Tao said, “Your soul is healing, but it's a lot slower than the last time.”

Agatha nodded in agreement before she added, “My soul healed the same way after I created Ebony. I would suggest doing smaller batches from now on.”

Theo let out an exhausted sigh before he asked, “Is that why I also feel so worn out?”

“Your soul is so robust, I'm actually surprised you're having difficulties at all. I could barely get out of bed when my soul was split in half and you haven't even used a quarter of yours.” Agatha said.

“Helpful, this feeling doesn't last long. I'm not motivated to do anything right now.” Theo said as he laid down on his prayer mat.

He lazily glanced at his clones as he said, “At least my clones don't seem to be affected by it.”

A shadow fell over Theo as Tao said, “You might not be motivated, but that doesn't mean you can just skip practice.”

Theo gulped as he looked up at Tao who smiled down at him. The next few hours turned into pure agony for Theo as Tao forced him to practice until he passed out. The next morning Theo awoke in his bed and couldn't help but want to pretend to be sick, so he could spend the day sleeping in bed and not go to school. That is kinda what he did, since he created a clone and sent that to school for the day while he rested in bed and ate snacks.

The rest of the week went pretty much the same way until the weekend. On the weekends, Theo tended to cut back on his training and would visit Hela, Tony and anyone else he needed to. On Saturday night Theo felt slightly better, he was still overly tired and had no real motivation to do anything. But as he got used to the feeling it wasn’t affecting him as much as before.

Since it was Saturday night, he went out to get food, drinks and some desserts for his movie night with Hela. Once he collected everything, he met up with Tao in Genosha so she could portal him over to Hel. As Ezekiel walked out of the portal, Hela turned to greet him before she froze.

The hint of the smile on her face fell and her eyes narrowed as she studied Theo for a few moments. Ezekiel missed her reaction as he went to pull the food out of his storage seal and said, “I was feeling lazy, so I brought pizza today.”

A moment later the ground shook and Ezekiel stepped back in shock as he felt a palpable blood lust radiating from Hela. The chains that bound her in place strained and almost looked like they would snap as she asked in a soft tone that promised violence, “Who did it?”

“What are you talking about? Who did what?” Ezekiel asked in confusion.

“Who was the scum that hurt you? Tell me who dared to injure your soul?!” Hela asked in a tone of cold fury.

Ezekiel’s eyes widened as he remembered Hela could see his soul and before he could respond, Hela struggled against the chains again as she said, “Tell me who it was, I’ll kill them!”

“It was me?” Ezekiel said as he awkwardly smiled at Hela.

The bloodlust disappeared in an instant and Hela stopped struggling against the chains as she asked in surprise, “You injured yourself?”

Ezekiel rubbed the back of his head as he said, “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Why would you intentionally injure your soul?” Hela asked with concern in her voice.

“You remember the soulless people who came with me the first time I visited?” Ezekiel asked.

Hela nodded so Ezekiel said, “I am in the process of giving them proper bodies and souls. The only problem is I need to give them a tiny piece of my soul for it to work properly.”

Hela frowned as she asked, “Why would you do something so dangerous for someone else?”

“It's a long story, but I’m kinda the reason they are soulless in the first place. So it’s only right I help them out. Besides, it's not that dangerous, I just overdid it this time and created way too many.” Ezekiel said.

“Overdid it? You are missing almost a quarter of your soul! What happens if you can’t heal properly?!” Hela asked in concern.

“We tested everything before I did this. My soul healed completely on the first tests and I’m being monitored each day to make sure nothing goes wrong. I should be completely healed from this in three months with how everything is going.”

Hela’s face went back to her normal, almost stoic appearance as she turned away from Ezekiel and said, “Fine, but don’t do that again. It’s not good to injure your soul.”

Ezekiel moved to his chair and sat down before he said, “I still need to give everyone else a soul, so I can’t stop till I’m finished.”

Hela glanced at Ezekiel as she asked, “And how long will that take?”

Ezekiel shrugged as he said, “A couple years at this rate.”

Ezekiel pulled out some drinks before he looked at Hela and said, “Thanks for being concerned about my wellbeing though, I appreciate it.”

The tiniest hint of red touched Hela’s cheeks before she turned away from Ezekiel as she said, “You’re welcome.”

Ezekiel spent longer than normal with Hela as they watched a bunch of classic action movies and chatted. With Ezekiel having no motivation to do much else right now, he figured it would be a better use of his time, compared to lazing around his house and doing nothing. Plus he had a clone active, so he wasn’t worried about coming back anytime soon. He ended up spending all of Saturday night and most of Sunday with Hela before he finally left to go eat dinner with his family.

Once he was home, he found his clone in his bedroom. It was busy on his computer as it worked on the program for his dad’s shop. He had the clone dispel itself before he saved it’s progress and then headed upstairs to see if his dad needed help with dinner. To his surprise he found Milly and Issac being watched over by Daniel as they made something and Jacob prepared dinner.

“What are you two doing?” Theo asked as he moved towards the kitchen table.

Milly glanced up from the recipe book in front of her with a large smile on her face as she said, “We are making dessert.”

“Yeah, we are making chocolate chip cookies!” Issac said with a grin.

Theo smiled back as he asked, “You want any help?”

“No, we can do it ourselves.” Milly said.

“You can help me if you want.” Jacob said as he finished chopping some vegetables.

Theo headed towards the sink to wash his hands as he asked, “Okay, what do you need me to do?”

The next half an hour passed quickly as everyone worked in the kitchen to prepare dinner. Just after they sat down to eat dinner, Daniel placed a large cookie sheet in the oven to bake. By the time they finished dinner, the cookies were pulled out of the oven and left to cool on top of the counter.

As they waited for the cookies, Theo helped his dad wash the dishes and once finished he asked, “Dad, I’ve been meaning to ask. But have you thought about expanding the shop?”

Jacob glanced over to Theo as he asked, “What brought that up all of the sudden?”

“Well you and uncle Ben always complain about certain tools that the shop doesn’t have or that would be nice to have. We just need more room and we could get those tools right?” Theo asked.

Jacob shook his head lightly before he said, “Most of those tools are a lot of money. Plus even if we had the space for the tools, we have no idea how to use most of them properly. We would either need to learn how to use them or hire someone who knows how to use them.”

“So? That doesn’t sound that hard.”

Jacob rubbed Theo’s head as he said, “It’s a lot more complicated than that. Besides, we don't have the money for it.”

“I do.” Theo said.

Both Jacob and Daniel shared a glance before Jacob said, “That’s your money and you should save it for when you’re older.”

“But I can always make more money. Plus it’s not like it would be a waste or anything. I would be helping out the family business.” Theo said as he glanced between his parents.

“True, but it would be better to invest it and save it for your future.” Daniel said.

“But what if I want to take over the shop when I’m older? I would be investing in my future that way right?” Theo asked.

Daniel shared a questioning glance with Jacob before she asked, “I thought you wanted to be a programmer?”

“Programming isn’t that hard, so why can't I do both? Besides, I like working on cars, it’s fun.”

Jacob laughed as he picked up Theo and asked, “You like working on cars uh?”

Theo nodded his head as he said, “Yeah, it’s fun and interesting. But I’ll also create programs to help me work on cars too.”

Jacob had a thousand watt smile as he looked over towards Daniel who let out a defeated sigh before she asked, “But I thought you liked programming?”

“I do. But I think working on cars is more fun.”

Jacob placed Theo down as he asked, “What kinda programs would you create to help you work on cars?”

“Well, Peter and I are already working on a project that should be able to help out with the shop.”

“Really? What is it?” Jacob asked in interest.

Before Theo could respond, Milly interrupted as she said, “Can we eat the cookies now?”

“Yeah, let's eat cookies!” Issac added.