Aside from being unusually wet, death was also stupidly dark.

You'd think the afterlife or whatever would have some sort of fanfare to it, other than a black void at least. Neo tried, in that moment of dopey awkwardness, to move... and shockingly she did. She could feel pressure against herself, and whilst furrowing her brows, she came to discover just why it was so dark: her bloody eyes were closed.

Shoving down the feeling of being a bit of a dunce, Neo carefully cracked them open, and thus revealed that the afterlife as a whole was not pitch black, but a rather blurry purple. This didn't make much sense either, but at least there were teasing's of other colors spread about the purple: like white, and gold, and sets of arrays of other shades similar, but tube-like.

The more her eyes began to adjust, the worse and less sensible it got.

Scratch that, the image itself made sense: a series of tubes lining infinitely ahead, perpendicular to one another on both sides, with a stretch of nothing straight down her line of sight. And then, she lifted her hand to reach out and press against the glass of her own tube, caught off guard by the nudity of both it, and her now visible reflection. Neo looked down to see herself bare as the day she was born, and with two individuals on the other side of the glass and below her at a roughly 60 degree angle, the outside flat of what was very quickly beginning to form the image of a laboratory due to its tiling metal floor as sleek and sterile as everything else.

Two men looked up at her with intrigue, one taller and sporting deer antlers who seemed to be working a console before her, and another shorter guy with ram horns who had his arms crossed and met her eyes. Neo could see their lips flapping, but heard nothing.

Soon though, noise blared through the liquid which encased her, and she began floating down as her tube drained.

It was here where Neo questioned how she'd been able to breathe in the fluid, but that got put on the backburner of her priorities when the glass looked to fade into sparkles, as if it were never even there.

"This is new," ram-man commented, snarky with his words and sporting a cheeky grin. His complexion was a touch darker than his pale partner, and his hair a sleek black which nearly blended with his horns - had they not the faintest tint of purple. He walked over, raising one arm and extending his hand to her.

Neo wanted to bounce away, but found herself being levitated from her spot on the pedestal of science and slowly guided overhead of the two. She flailed a little out of pure surprise, only to settle as her apparent captor spoke.

"You know, I can't put you down easily if you fling around like that; unless you want me to drop you."

Neo, baffled by everything, decided to stop her little moment of panic, hearing him mutter "thank you," before she'd been placed harmlessly on the ground. Whipping around, she saw the man return to his cocky stance, but this time with his partner now facing her directly. This new guy, deer-dude as it were, had purely white hair, and a perfectly trimmed and attractively tight looking goatee. His horns too blended expertly with said hair, but like the other, there was a shade overlapping them; this tint being gold.

Two men in lab coats overlooking a tube with her in it... What was this? A freaking sci-fi horror?

"Greetings, Neo Politan," Began deer-dude, taking a step forward and giving her a little bow. "We are glad to meet you in good health."

"Good health, he says," joked ram-guy, rolling his eyes and blowing his partner off. "I, personally, wouldn't go that far. She did just die, after all."

"Perhaps..." deer-dude admitted slowly, hiding an underlying amusement. "But this is hardly the first time."

Neo wanted to know many, many things right at that moment, however her brain was short-circuited when her eyes looked... pretty much anywhere besides the scene of her entrance.

"Oh, well would you look at that." She heard from ram-guy. "It appears our guest has noticed the others."

Oh boy did she.

Those lines of tubes which were fuzzy from the grape-juice bath stood in startling clarity out here, and Neo was granted audience to an endless expanse of other, still slumbering, Neos. Every cylindrical chamber for as far as the eye can see contained what looked like another slumbering 'her,' and to say it broke her mind wouldn't be an over-exaggeration. As the light of a true pure-white void shined from above, these test-tube looking pods were lit up to better display the Neos in all their various poses. Some slept curled up soundly, some spread about as if free-falling in a dream. Some had smiles, whereas others sported fear and unimaginable pain. Every pose and every expression littered everywhere at once, and yet all were indistinguishable replicas of one another, and all were asleep.

All of a sudden, Neo wasn't as much of the oddball she'd thought herself to be, and throughout all of this, only one thing came to mind: a question that covered every aspect of what she could ever hope to ask.

"What the fuck?"

Instantly her hands clamped over her mouth at the foreign, yet very much female voice who'd echoed hauntingly across the landscape of flat metal and pods. That wasn't her; that couldn't be her. Her lips never moved; mouth never opened. But that voice... that voice was a woman's voice, and so far only she and the faunus duo were present in the lab - unless there was someone else?

Cautiously, she released her mouth, clenching it tightly, but so unsure of what was real that she couldn't help but wonder-

"Was that me?"

It was, but it wasn't coming from her.

"Miss Politan."

Neo locked up again, the pair was still there, and they'd been trying to speak to her before, weren't they? Slowly, her body fought against its own rust and screeched as every part moved to bend, twist, and adjust to focus on them. She wasn't hiding it anymore: Neo was scared, and she didn't give a damn about how pathetic it made her look; she just wanted answers.

"Miss Politan?" deer-dude asked again, his expression at least seeming acceptably concerned for her health. "Do you need a moment?"

Neo let her expression do the talking, but it was joined by that voice again, which was this queer mix, so similar - strangely - to Ruby's, albeit a tad deeper and sultry.

"What do you think?"

This seemed to get ram-guy chuckling.

"She's got you there." Settling down and receiving a look from the snow-haired man - which he promptly ignored - her apparently more 'aware' host laid things out clearly. "Just woke up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by copies of herself; I'll be honest, if I were mortal, I'd be scared stiff too."

At least one of them got it- "Wait, did you just say 'mortal?'"

"That I did." Slipping on an overly proud and smug smile, ram-guy took a deep and overexaggerated bow, spouting off, "Rejoice, for you stand before the divine presence of the God Of Darkness." He raised his eyes, which had a glimmer to them. "Feel free to prostrate and pray as much as you please~"

Neo blinked. "What?"

"Forgive my younger brother," deer-dude sighed, shaking his head while said brother shot a short dismissive glare, rolling his eyes as the former explained, "It has been some time since we've held audience with mortals, and he tends to get over-excited."

"Always one to shut down the fun." The supposed God Of Darkness rolled his eyes before falling into a crude and casual stature.

"Now then, I believe you have quite a few questions, but perhaps it's best we take this somewhere more comfortable."

With the literal snap of his fingers, everything washed away into a ludicrously bright white, only to replace itself with clear skies. Several buildings, all beige and tipped with orange tiles spread out across in a ragged cityscape, yet all were evenly aligned to a grid. She, apparently, stood upon an outstretched balcony, with a marble-carved railing threaded similar to vines separating her from the drop only two steps away.

"There." And in came the deer-dude again, walking up from behind and breathing easy at the sight of his apparent work. On the horizon she could spy what looked like the sun, halfway dipping into the edge of the land and mere minutes away from ending the day. But considering what just happened, she didn't expect it to move. "A far more relaxing scene for a chat."

"What... are you?" Neo didn't care about her voice being spoken around her anymore, she just wanted… No, she needed some justification for everything around her.

"Well, considering my brother's declaration, I assume you have a decent idea already. But for the sake of clarity, and perhaps as proof we mean you no harm, I shall introduce myself." The man, now adorned not in lab-wear, but instead a golden suit with a pearl undershirt, took a deep and polite bow - kind of like those stereotypical butler types she'd seen so many times in movies. "I am the one known to those of your realm as the God Of Light: master of order, and father to half of your people's potential." A pleasant smile split his cheeks. "But you may call me Kobos, and my brother Wilem."

"Or lord, or master, or whatever else you creatures consider noble or powerful," called Wilem - apparently - from inside the building. Looking in, Neo could see the aforementioned tending to a rather luxurious looking bar against the right wall, and even though there were merely edgings of furniture bleeding into sight from the left of the opening, she could swear she saw velvet.

"It is your choice," said Kobos, again looking on with miniscule bother at his brother, before returning his voice to her with professional serenity. "Either way, we are now ready to tend to any lingering concerns and questions you might have."

Yeah, she had a few, and seeing as she didn't have her scroll on her - although she appeared to be rocking this sick Vacuan ribbon-dress - Neo made use of her newfound voice; she could have signed, but honestly, she was partially intrigued by her apparent voice. She didn't need to move her mouth, as merely directing her thoughts did the trick.

"What were those other 'me' back there?" She hardly liked the idea of two men having hundreds of naked copies of her on any day of the week, but seeing as these two were supposedly gods, they probably had a reason as to their existence - now whether it was an acceptable reason or not was something she'd be learning right now.

"Not the most reassuring of sights, I know, but they are to your benefit." Kobos cast his eyes to the city again. "Miss Politan-"

"Neo," she was getting a little sick of that crap. "Just call me Neo. Miss Politan sounds weird coming from you."

"Very well then, Neo. Tell me, how much do you know of your unique soul-magic? The ability collectively dubbed a 'semblance' by your people."

Neo paused for a bit to think before giving her answer as simply as possible.

"It lets me avoid dying when I should, and... I can feel when others around me are going to die."

"Yes, you certainly can." Okay, now he was starting to sound condescending, but when he looked her in the eyes again, Neo knew to bite back anything she wanted to bitch about and listen. "Unlike anyone else to walk the face of your realm, you alone possess the power to both read and avoid the pen of destiny."

It was an interesting feeling, to have your idea for how some crazy shit worked actively validated by a god, but that left her a little impatient, and with a bit more courage required of her than she'd like to admit, Neo prodded Kobos.

"Uh huh, but what does that have to do with the bodies?"

"Everything." Ooooohh, oof, that was hard. His eyes, while still warm, somehow froze her solid. He wasn't looking at her any different than before, but his serious tone raised every little hair along the back of her neck. "Your semblance lets your soul avoid the reach of Remnant's chosen security system: fate. However, the same cannot be said for your body."

What? Okay, so apparently she could still have private thoughts; they just needed to be aimed inward and at herself.

"Care to explain?" she actually vocalized this time. "I'm stuck in the dark, and you're not exactly twisting in the bulb here."

"Have you ever wondered why your aura needs to completely refill after using your semblance?"

"No," Neo said, flat-faced. "Why would I? Semblances just... have costs sometimes, don't they?"

"They do," Kobos agreed, only to spit on her preconceptions. "But yours does not."

"Excuse me?"

"Your semblance merely ejects the soul from your body. Aura expenditure is often seen in semblances who use the magic expelled from their soul to change the world around them. The soul is the source of this magic: this aura of yours. To eject it isn't going to cost anything when it's all going in the same direction. If anything, had you returned to your body, your aura would immediately attempt the futile process of healing your fatal wounds."

Hearing this left Neo with, understandably, no idea what was going on - and she made sure he knew that.

"That doesn't make sense. When I go back into things, my body is instantly healed."

"No," Kobos stopped her again. "Your body is not 'healed,' it is instead replaced." That warmth in the air, radiating off of him so blatantly before now simmered into a low spread, almost vanishing completely. "When you first stepped outside of fate's constraints and into the realm between life and death, beyond Remnant's control, we felt it."

"And considering our space was supposed to be occupied solely by us, that's saying something." Called Wilem as he stepped into view, his purple tux with black undershirt slightly ruffled from his overly careless pace. Leaning against the rim between the inside and out of the building they occupied, the God Of Darkness gave his two lien. "Like shattering a mirror in the middle of an empty concrete room; your entrance was loud enough to wake the dead... or at least a couple of gods."

"When we laid eyes on your soul as it watched from the outside, we were able to read its core functions. Should you have hopped right back into your body, you would have continued to bleed out before quickly perishing. And so, I made a difficult choice."

"He gave you a new body." Kobos sent an irritated look to his brother, who shrugged it off. "Oh please, you're the one who broke your own rules; I'm not the guy who made them."

"I... huh?" Neo's head spun round and round the merry-go-round, bumbling every which way as she began piecing it together. "You made me, me, a body?"

"A new one, yes." Kobos heaved smoothly in an attempt to seemingly steady his own nerves - seems gods too could get a little flustered and such when interrupted. "At the very second you returned to Remnant's hand, I replaced your old body with a new one. However, seeing as it was a brand new form, even if it looked the same, your soul still needed to fill it out, which is why your aura, to you, appeared as though it needed to recharge."

"It was breaking in a new body?" A horrifyingly terrible and creepy concept. But this was more than just a concept, wasn't it? This was the truth, it had to be, because why would the gods - the literal creators of Remnant - need to lie about something like this to a mortal?

Unless they really were just nasty perverts, but Neo had since abandoned that idea the second Kobos mentioned her bleeding out. Her first death was not a happy one, but it was definitely the one to help her escape her old life, and because of it she finally had the chance to send her old "home" up in flames and meet her new dad.

"Yes," the God Of Light nodded. "When entering into a mortal form, the soul needs to adjust and spread itself within its vessel. Normally, this happens at birth, and is never noticed or seen. However, because of the alterations made to your soul, the 'unlocking' of your aura, this adjustment period can be read out as your aura recharging itself, when in actuality it is your soul claiming a new body. Eventually, due to how frequently destiny seemed to want to kill you, I set in place a system that would automatically replace your body with a new one every time you re-entered into destiny, by linking it to your soul, drawing it towards the newest body in line. I believe that is how you ended up here: with your body completely erased, the failsafe kicked in, and the newest available body pulled your soul from the mortal world and into itself within our realm."

A small thump came up from her tooshie. Neo's legs had given out then, unable to stay strong when her everything was in such a swirl. Every inch of skin quivered, afraid of what this meant for her. Lifting her hands to look upon them, Neo had to wonder: was she even really herself? Did these bodies of hers share the history she'd been born into, or were they cheap replicas of a woman so dispensable you could buy her from a vending machine?

As her lower lip rattled against her will, her vision began to blur, and it was here Neo noticed how she'd begun to cry. Crying turned to weeping, and finally full blown sobbing, all of which was thankfully silent, allowing her to keep at least some mono crumb of dignity.

Neo Politan, the dreaded and feared Ghoul Princess, was nothing more than destiny's private punching bag, to be beaten up and torn before ordering another one - easily replaceable with next to no effort.

"All the subtlety of a horn," Neo felt a set of arms wrap around her, hoisting her up and carrying her like a princess. Wilem spat out a sigh, dismissing his brother's supposed concern and carrying her inside. "Don't mind him; if he was a proper dad, we wouldn't have Remnant slamming the door in our faces every time we knocked. So, Neo, let me ask you something real quick..."

Neo blinked, keeping quiet as she got a hold of her sobbing - at least enough to not shake so much.

"You ever had a god serve you whisky on the rocks?"

Neo shook her head no, and was promptly seated on a soft stool before the bar. Its shades of deep violets and little licks of navy nearly tamed her nerves, relaxing her, as though she was getting ready for bed in a cozy oversized comforter. Sporting his cocky, cheshire grin, Wilem twirled a bottle between his fingers, only to let it go mid-air. It stopped, floated above a small glass which flew across from the right, and poured her a little over a shot.

"Now, let me show you how a god ought to tend to guests~"

Author's note

…

Well… it's happening: plot.

Kind of strange, sure, but nothing off brand for this story. So, Neo was partially correct about how her semblance works, but not entirely right - considering she was merely guessing, I'd say she did a fine enough job.

Thousands of bodies awaiting a master: a pretty unsettling thought.

Personally, I feel I could have worded this whole thing a little better, but this chapter is expository enough already - any more and things will begin slowing. So, Neo's met her makers, now the real question pops into play: what will they do now?

Until next time.