After the emotions had simmered down, the plan had been revealed.

It was simple. All I needed from Shae was a sample of her blood. Admittedly, it had been difficult to get everyone that was required to make this work on board. Convincing Michael that, yes, injecting me with the fatal disease was a good idea was what I wanted was an interesting conversation.

No-one, aside from maybe Rethi and Mayer knew the extent of my abilities, and even then it wasn’t entirely clear. I hadn’t necessarily gone out of my way to make Mayer or Rethi aware of precisely how good my regeneration was, mostly because they had ample time to stab me and figure out that way.

Instinctively I knew things about my body, what it could and couldn’t regenerate from. It was the main reason that I had allowed Alena to play around in my brain. I logically knew that it wouldn’t kill me, even if she had disintegrated my brain, though letting her actually do it was something else entirely. It was the one of the few times that I had sweated from nervousness since, well… becoming a Demigod, I guess. Maybe even before that.

That is to say, I know that Rhy disease had about the same likelihood of killing me that Rethi had my jamming a butter knife through my heart.

I’m almost entirely certain I couldn’t be killed by mortal means at all. Which was an interesting idea to sit on, certainly made me more paranoid about shifting and people with access to divinity.

Anyway, the plan is simple, all things considered. I was going to treat myself as a dummy patient, who would be injected with the disease and let it grow inside of me. Obviously it was a little more complicated than that, with me being effectively immune to disease.

However, I had made myself stop healing more than once before and I have a sneaking suspicion that it’d effect my power from ‘cleaning’ my body. It was made more complicated even then because, as I was so kindly informed by the elder Gram, ether naturally did a similar thing as my body already naturally did. I assumed that this also applied to divine power.

So, to be able to play the part of the dummy patient, I’d need to shut off my body’s own regeneration, not shift any ether at all, and close myself off to divine power. Which is a whole lot harder than it sounds, seeing a significant portion of my being houses my divine power, and me walking or moving shifts ether due to the Sharah.

So here I was, laying completely still on a bed inside surgery room in Gram’s Apothecary, letting the disease that had been injected run rampant.

It was an interesting experience for sure, my awareness of my physical state was much better than I had thought so I could actually perceive what the disease was doing inside of me. Its modus operandi at the moment seemed to be reproduction, and insanely quickly. I’m not sure if it was only because I was the perfectly immunocompromised target, but it was spreading like wildfire.

Gram had told me it was going to take at least a week for it to propagate throughout my body to where Alena could sense it. I was starting to seriously doubt that. The entire experience was mightily uncomfortable, feeling it spread through me and start to insidiously leech into organs.

I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to understand what was actually being done to me, but it was targeting organs and slowing everything down. It had only been two days, but I could see how Shae was in such a bad way now. It’d slow everything down to the point where organs started to die, especially with it preferring the intestines, probably making it difficult for the body to get vital nutrients and necessary components to keep the body well enough to continue fighting the disease.

It was lucky that, underneath all of the regeneration and various sources of power, I was still basically human with physiology to match. Though I probably wasn’t a good representative case of anything, I could be tested on with little to no harm.

“Alena! Michael!” I called, feeling a subdued wave of ether wash over me, ever so slightly for daring to move at all. It was surprising just how pervasive the Sharah had become in my movements. I’m not even sure how talking would be considered part of the Sharah, but it’s be the breathing and the diaphragm if I had to place a guess.

Following my call there was a short silence before a rapid thumping of feet trailed down the steps from the Gram’s living area, down the hall to the door of the surgery room, which promptly swung wide open.

“Master Max!” Alena said, worry laden in her voice. For some reason they were still worried about my health, even after all my convincing.

“What’s wrong?” Michael said, his voice a great deal calmer, assuming the medical physician role that he was accustomed to, ready to face whatever came his way.

I kept quiet for a moment, trying to figure out a concise sentence. I didn’t want to monologue and have wasted all this time, just to hear myself talk.

“Check condition.” I said, settling on a commanding tone towards the doctor. He didn’t even bother asking for specifics, and got to work checking temperatures, heartrates and a battery of tests I wasn’t strictly familiar with but seemed to confuse the older doctor with their results.

“What is it?” Alena called, straining to see over her father’s shoulder as he worked, the top of her unruly dark hair bobbing up and down.

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“He has a significant fever already, his heartrate is high…” Michael mumbled more to his daughter, thought I didn’t bother to listen in too hard.

“Alena.” I said, breaking to two from their discussion. I knew that it was progressing fast, which just means that I want to waste less time sitting around and doing nothing. Alena looked to me questioningly, her father doing the same. I examined myself for a moment, then looked back to her, face full of stoic commandment.

“Wait… already?” She asked, clamming up in an instant as she realised what I was asking from her. Michael didn’t do much better, placing a hand on her shoulder, maybe in support or just out of reflex, to show that he was there at all.

Alena continued to be the largest hurdle in all of this. She was resistant to use her shifting on even me, let alone with the future promise of using it on a person who couldn’t heal from anything.

I kept my gaze on her, silent and patient. Turns out that I didn’t need divine powers to make the room go quiet. It took her minutes to acknowledge what she had to do, and at least another before she dared to place a hand on my arm.

I could feel her own energy wash through me in that moment. It wasn’t an energy capable of searing the disease from my body like my own powers would, it was a diagnostic power. It gave her an understanding of my condition and an image in her mind, of sorts.

I wouldn’t be able to tell if it was as comprehensive as some of the scans that were available on Earth, but it seemed to give Alena what she was looking for. She took her hand off of my arm and stared at me in the face, the worry and anxiety being pushed to the very back of her mind, replaced with a facsimile of her father’s own guise.

“Are you sure you want me to do this? I… I can’t predict what will happen.” I didn’t respond. She hadn’t asked for me or my comfort, but for her own. After a moment she grimaced and turned to her father.

“Test one; altering the disease itself.” Her father nodded at her and pulled out his own notepad with a rudimentary pencil, poised to take notes. Then she reached out and gripped my arm.

Everything changed in that moment. I could feel the effects of what she was doing to the disease instantaneously. The symptoms that I was experiencing went from minor to extreme in mere moments, I could feel the disease reproducing so quickly that I’d swear that it was going to overtake my body.

However, I waited. I could feel the inside of my body being torn apart, the veins and organs being destroyed at the hands of the rapidly reproducing virus, the diseased cells working at a breakneck pace to destroy me.

I gave it five minutes of exponential growth before I called it. Alena couldn’t stop herself once she was locked into a path. Maybe with experience she would be able to shift courses in the middle of a treatment, but all I could do was to break the cycle.

I let loose a stream of divine power from my soul, the Hearth domain within me sighing in relief, having been itching to sooth the ills of those that sat around its fire. Namely me, in this case. It couldn’t very well have the holder if its flame be made uncomfortable by sickness, now could it?

The gentle flame washed through my body, eradicating the disease in its entirety, healing my damaged organs while it passed through. I could feel the jolt of surprise as Alena was forcibly booted from the depths of her focus.

“You did well, though I decided that I couldn’t let the disease live, in the off chance that it somehow spread.” I said softly. I knew that Rhy disease was only transferable by blood, or a few other bodily fluids, but I couldn’t allow the risk of a disease that deadly.

“I–” I held up a hand to the dark-haired teen, who was still clutching my arm, and looked deep into her eyes, filled to the brim with tears. Her dark hair obscuring her face slightly.

“We talked about this. I am not expecting you to succeed the first try.” I paused, trying to give the words as much significance as I could, “You cannot significantly hurt me, Alena.”

“I know I can’t!” She said, almost snarling the words out, “Even still, it’s terrifying to do that. In a moment I created a disease that would kill someone in a matter of days, a whole town could die to that disease! How is that not terrifying?”

“Am I terrifying to you, Alena?” I asked calmly, keeping myself restrained from launching into a whole song and dance.

“Well, sort of?”

“You don’t seem very sure about that.” I said smiling.

“Well, you can do scary things… regenerate from anything, fighting. That’s all terrifying...” She paused, looking to me to try and glean what I wanted from her answer, but found nothing. She lifted her hand from my arm and wiped frustratedly at her cheeks “But–”

“But what, Alena?” I said, breaking the girl from her response.

“I don’t know!” She said, frustration worming into her voice. Her father placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her. I looked to him and, though he looked pained, he chose not to speak to her merit.

“There are no buts, Alena. You say you could kill a town with that disease?” I asked rhetorically, “I could easily do the same with my fists. I could walk around town and kill each and every individual in or near town in the span of maybe a few hours.”

“But you wouldn’t…” She replied, hesitantly. Maybe a little apprehension in the mix there. That stung a little.

“Of course,” I agreed, “no more than you would intentionally release a deadly disease into a town for no reason.” I grinned at the young girl as she positively fumed.

“An ability as dangerous as the one you possess should be treated with care, yes. But to let it rot with the fear of what damage it might cause is foolish.” I didn’t bother engaging with the girl further, despite her desperately trying to continue the conversation. It’d only spiral into an endless argument.

I said what I needed to say, and the next time I suspect I’d have to say it again. I motioned for Michael Gram to restart the process once again, leaving the teenage girl to storm out of the surgery room, slamming the door behind her in a flurry of dark hair and stark white clothing.

The room was quiet as Michael Gram prepared a portion of the blood sample from Shae. The injection, though the syringe used was a monster of a thing, was relatively painless all things considered.

My inaction was extremely important in the beginning, as any movement or leak of divine energy could easily burn the extremely small sample of the disease from my body, and that was when Gram decided to speak.

“I understand why you push my daughter like this.” He said calmy, tucking away the notepad he had used in his pocket, “I can see the potential, just as well as any other doctor could. With even your rudimentary understanding of the possibilities, it’s clear as day.” He looked away from me for a moment, searching the plain walls of the room for an answer. After a long moment of contemplative silence, the man stood and walked towards the firmly shut door. His already slight frame looked worn and weary.

“I just wish that Alena didn’t have to be the one to bring those possibilities to life.” He whispered morosely and left the room.