How insidious is evil? Can it become genetic? Can good be genetic? Where does that leave freedom of choice?
I AM NOT USING 'THE QUESTION AS A CHARACTER.The treatment that was used on Stephanie was called the question treatment. Any resemblance to The Question is just that- a resemblance. This is what Steph looks like when her power kicks in.

Steph actually looked really, really angry. "Jeez Dani, I didn't realise you were such a drama queen. You go off to New York without telling anyone to get this imaginary feminisation surgery, you stay there for three weeks without even a phonecall and you've been lying to me." As she had been saying these things her voice had been rising. Finally she screamed, "Some kind of friend you are!" and she just burst into tears.

Dani pulled Stephanie toward her, leading her inside and into her arms at the same time giving her a comfoting hug. "Tell me Steph, have you ever wondered why your emotions are so intense. I mean, I know that if a friend did this to you last year you would have shrugged it off instead of letting it get to you so much." She led her to the couch where they sat.

"You're right," she said in surprise.
Dani nodded. "I thought so."
"And it got even worse after you left." Stephanie continued.
"Do you want to tell me what else happened after I left?
Steph frowned pausing before answering the question, like she was considering how to reply. "I've got as much right to my secrets as you do Danielle," she said in a firmer tone.
"Yes you do Steph but would you tell someone those secrets if you were dying?"
'What kind of question is that?" Stephanie 's voice rose.
Ah, so you knew something was wrong, Dani thought but she didn't say anything. Instead she said, "It's time for some of those secrets to end."

"Let's have a cup of tea," she suggested. She was unsure why she said that but it felt right. She poured cups tea and carried them over, gave one to her guest and sat down. They sat in silence while finishing their tea. If you were to ask them why they didn't talk at that time, maybe they would say they didn't have anything to say in that moment. They might have said that they needed to relax before they started talking again. They might have told an observer that they had just been lost in their own world gathering thoughts.

"Steph, what I'm about to tell you is very important, please don't get overexcited if I seem to know things that you might have told only one other, none of your friends have gone behind your back. This new ability of yours to seek out the truth and know when someone is lying to you, it's exciting, yes?"
Stephanie nodded wondering how Dani knew what was going on.
"And how have you been feeling when you aren't using your ability?" She prompted.
Stephanie got a thoughtful look on her face. "I've been run down, I'm tired when I don't use it and by the time I get home I feel like I'm going to drop from exhaustion. The only thing that keeps me awake is becoming what it allows me to be, it's only then that I feel awake again."
Dani nodded and continued, "I suppose when you go to sleep you wake up tired, but not tired enough to stay home from work?"
Stephanie'smouth had dropped open, "How do you know this Dani?"

"Steph, I'm going to tell you a story." Stephanie couldn't believe what she was hearing, she had thought Dani was a spy, that she was doing work for some government. It turned out she practically governed a part of nature.

"Now I want you to understand that because of who I am and the nature of my work I won't tell you everything. I must ask you to respect this and not try ti investigate what I don't tell you. If you do, I may need to oppose you not because I'm not your friend but because I have to protect an aspect of humanity. I hope you understand that." Dani said sincerely. She continued, "I tell you this because the nature of the chemical that bonded to you makes you more curious than an ordinary person would be. Being human you were given free will, Steph strengthen that will to overcome the negative traits that you will find that you have picked up because of this man- made bonding."

"I don't know why you're telling me this if the bonding of this chemical is killing me. I mean I'm grateful to you for sharing your secret with me. Although I doubt strength of will can keep me from dying."
Dani smiled, "Would you be surprised to know death is only one possibility. I told you about Finch, would you like to meet her?"
"Here? Steph gasped in surprise.
Dani's laughter pealed out, "I don't want the unit to burn down, I'll take you and mum to a place where we can meet the others."
Once they were in the car, they headed toward the one of the beaches situated in the northern beaches district of Sydney. Finch had told Dani that one of the small beaches near Avalon was desserted and the lines of probability showed that it would remain so for the remaining hours of daylight.

They walked onto the sand right at the edge of the ocean where the waves could lap over their feet as they fell. Dani asked her mother to move about 15 metres away from them and then told Stephanie, "Steph the more you use your power the sooner you're likely to die. Even if you don't use it, we predict you only have about 6 months left."
"Jeez Dani," Stephanie cried "I'm just holding myself together, are you trying to depress me further?"

'She's taking it better than I would,' thought Marie- Elise. Looking into her daughters eyes as she had the thought and Dani nodded grimly.
"I just need you to know that before I tell you this. There is a chance that I can burn the impurity that's affecting you out of your system. There is a 50% chance that you will become healthy again but also a 50% chance that you will die straight away."

Stephanie looked pensive as she said,"You told me you would introduce me to Finch. Can I see her before I decide?"
Dani smiled, "Of course." She could just ask Finch to appear but if Stephanie did pass on, Dani wanted to see an awesome sight before she did. She took a breath and let herself be the Angelus in all It's glory. Calling for her Host to appear. Finch appeared, with all the warriors lined in an honour guard. Both her mother and her friend had dropped to their knees. 'Oh shit I do so not need this crap' she thought.

"Please don't do that," she almost snapped but she kept her voice calm. Finch stepped forward and said to Stephanie, "I'm Finch and I'm glad to finally meet you in person. I think there's a question you want to ask."
Dani blinked and then she finally saw the body language that Finch saw. Dani smiled internally, Her lover had always been better at reading people than she had.
"Dani told me how you died if I die can you do the same for me?"
Finch looked concerned as she said I don't know if we could do that once you have passed over. It only worked for me because I had already arranged for that contingency in the new contract. With the Angelus before it gave itself to Dani."
Steph didn't really understand the whole contract thing but, it seemed she had her answer. Surprisingly Finch called out, "Flame."

Howard Stern had chosen the name Flame for his new life as an Angelus Warrior. Angelus warriors seemed to lose the capacity of sexual lust and so they could go anywhere without being trapped by a baser emotion. So what Flame felt when he saw Stephanie was definitely not lust. He saw right through her, saw her heart, what she was and all her potential. He saw his first true love, his love at first sight. However he also saw that she didn't see what he saw.

"Flame was once human and was in service to a very bad man who had ordered him to kill Dani. He wasn't a bad man but had found himself in a bad situation. Dani offered him a way out and he chose to become one of us."
Dani picked up from there, "So in both cases the people only became Warriors when they chose to before they died. If I try to burn the impurity in your body you might not continue to live in a human body although your spirit will go on. But it's also a different process to making an Angelus Warrior so you might not live as one either. Steph you have to decide this for yourself."

"Do I have to decide now?' she asked.
'Poor child' Finch thought imagine having to make that sort of decision at this age. At Dani's mental snort she came out of her reverie feeling rather abashed.
"Take all the time you want Steph." Dani encouraged. "Would you like to go home now?' she asked.
"Let's stay here Dani, I just want to sit somewhere alone and think," Stephanie said and she wandered off down the beach alone.

As Stephanie wandered off Dani turned to her mother, "What all this nonsense about kneeling before me?" she said.
"My dear child," her mother said "You have no idea what you are do you?"
"I am the original Light, from which all other light comes. I doubt that makes me Divine"
Her mother sighed, "Oh Dani, from everything I've read everything points to you being the First Fire Elemental. You may not want to acknowledge it, but you are a goddess. "
Dani looked troubled, too many people were looking at her as if she were Divinity. "I may be a goddess of a small part of nature," she said "but I certainly do not deserve to be worshiped as Creator. I was born as a human, how can you or anyone think of worshippng me. I mean if I were True Divinity wouldn't I be omnipresent, onniscient, omnipotent?"
"You are part of that and the Creator sent the Angelus to help in creating. Have you spoken to Finch about this, she may help you find perspective in this."
"If you think it will help me mother, I will do that." She replied formally without even realising she did.

* * *
Dr. Szasz was insane but that didn't stop him from achieving his goals. The search to find the one holding or containing his lost experiment had finally been achieved. His teams had finally tracked the experiment down to Australia. Went Charles Victor found out that the person who held his experiment now worked for the French Government he actually threw a temper tantrum.

A mad scientists temper is truly something amazing to behold, it is like a child's but it involved total and utter destruction. By the time he had calmed down his lab had been destroyed and half of his assistants were dead, the other half cowering under a table at the far end of the lab. That is odd, he thought. 'They shouldn't have run away, they should have just stood and let me kill them. Perhaps this is a good thing thatI see this now because I've put off their slave treatments for too long.' With that in mind he began making up a new batch of slave gas and forgot all about the other experiment and the search for it.

* * *

Stephanie walked to where the rocks on the beach turned into cliffs and she could walk no longer. After listening to everything that she had been told she was unsure of her purpose in life anymore. It seemed as if she had grow up to overcome obstacles, and now that she had she was going to die.

Although she wasn't really afraid of death, she just wondered at the purpose of her life. Stephanie had always had an interest in the metaphysycal aspects and explanations of life and so her thoughts to turned to the possible metaphysical reasons for her life.

Was it just to overcome a sickness that would eventually kill her no matter what? What a waste. Why would the Universe do that? It could have been that her purpose in life was to show others how strive, to overcome their problems. That was all very well and good, helping other to see that they could achieve what they thought was not possible was to her mind a noble thing to do.

It's good to help other people, but what about doing for myself? If my whole life has been spent by helping other's metaphysically, shouldn't something be given to me so that I can enjoy life? But then, maybe I'm not looking at this properly, maybe I am being given another chance. I just need to choose which life I want. I could be an Angelus warrior but, do I want to spend my life in service to to something, someone else or do I want to live having made the choice to be surprised no matter what I do?

That final choice might mean risking her life on earth. If she didn't survive cleansing the toxins out of her system it would mean her death. 'Well death is just a part of life,' she thought. She then got a smile on her face as she thought of Peter Pan saying, "Death would be a wonderful adventure!"

She was sitting on a rock looking out at the sea when a hand covered her mouth and stuck a cloth that really smelled disgusting under her nose. She struggled, she tried to break free but she was unable to. She was unable to breathe air and she felt herself growing faint from the chemical on the cloth under her nose. She had to do some thing but had no control over her body's coordination, the handkercheif under her nose was both preventing her from breathing properly and thinking clearly. She was out of her depth and wondered how she could escape? What could she do?

As the question of what she should do passed through her mind, a chemical process began to take place in her body. Normally she was able to retain enough control to prevent the change that the question formula invoked from occuring but, now she was half unconscious from a minutes struggling and lack of fresh air. The change occured without her conscious command. As her legs collapsed her pituitary gland began to produce a pheremone that could counter the substance that was being used to confuse her mind and hamper her body.

The person holding her cursed and let her go, actually she was dropped. As she fell to the ground her body seemed to know what to do and her arms shot out assisting her to reclaim her balance. Even as her mind was becoming clear again her body took control and began acting. The chemical bonding of the compound may have destroyed Stephanie's metagene but her dealings with the Angelus had awoken something within her.

The bonding of the chemical to her DNA was complete but there was one frayed strand in each cell and this is what was causing her body to overextend itself. Everyday more of her cells would die and her body was having trouble replacing them. Her dealings with the Angelus had slowed the weakening of her body by smoothing these frayed edges slightly with a miniscule of the First Light. However this wasn't enough to prevent her eventual death.

What it had also done was give her body the agility of flame and this is what she used to physically overcome her captor. In fact, the pheremones that were being released by her also had a very large impact on the way she managed to free herself. The man fell unconscious allowing Steph to untangle herself and run free, but she got ten steps away from him and collapsed.

* * *

Flame had been watching Stephanie as she had struggled with her would be kidnapper, he'd wanted to help but the Angelus wouldn't let him. He didn't understand why and he was frustrated with his perceived impotence to help her. He just had to trust that She knew what She was doing. She probably had a reason and he wasn't going to going to argue with her.

When Stephanie collapsed after she had escaped the Angelus called him forward. "Now we'll go to her and see how she is."
They walked toward her and Dani leaned over her prone form to check her vital signs, Flame was about to touch her face when Dani just glared at him. "If you care for her" she snapped, "You won't touch her."

When he was Howard, he was very stubborn and had to have a reason why he was told to do something, as Flame that part of him had not died with his physical body. Dani saw the look that crossed his face. She sighed, "I will explain this to you but in future you need to obey me implicitly, you may question my decision but I have good reasons for all I do."

"You are a being of flame just as you name implies. If you touch her now you may kill her" She said. "If she chooses to join us I shall give her the opportunity to decide whether she wants you to transform her."

Flame hadn't be a very passionate man when he was human but ever since his transformation his passion toward everything had become extreme. The Angelus had put her consort in charge of his training as she had been human once as well. Howard had never been the most open to new things, and had been homophobic. Although with his transformation an understanding that the only thing that matters is Love didn't change years of conditioning.

This homophobia had carried over to who he was now and although he knew that the Angelus was human and Divine at the same time, he didn't know she had once been a he. Funnily enough, if he knew about the transgender issue it wouldn't have mattered to him as much. 'Oh well,' he thought, "If I want redemption for all I've done I'm going to have to change my views on things. This thought didn't stop his disgust and anger at The Angelus and her second-in-command.

* * *

Stephanie dreamed. At least if she were asleep it would have seemed a dream but it was actually a vision of something that had happened in the not so distant past in and a short distance from a small town in Arizona, in the United States.

A man who seemed to be in the clothes of a sports team was driving a ute with a group of boys out of a town to a warehouse nearby. However as they drove, the man's face began to change from a tanned Native American to a seemingly cultured European. The boy next to the man was older than those sitting on the outer- back of the ute. He appeared a teenager around 16 or 17, did not seem surprised at this change — just depressed.

Then the scene changed and she saw all the children appeared to sleeping in a cirle painted in red. She saw the man handing a girl, who looked like she could be the older boys sister a dagger and pointing toward her probable brother. She seemed to go slightly pale but nodded and walked toward him and raised her dagger.

The scene changed again to show that same boy surrounded by shadows, sitting miserably with a different Native American man in front of a camp fire.

* * *

Stephanie became aware of the sound of the ocean and opened her eyes to see Dani kneeling beside her. She felt as if she had been hit in the head by something really heavy and seemed to have trouble focusing on Dani's face. She tried to sit up but as soon as she even thought of moving it seemed to her like her head would explode. Her ears were ringing and she thought back to her talk with Dani. 'Oh My God, it's true I'm dying' She thought.
She became aware of Dani stroking her face. "Hey," Dani smiled down at her "You gave us quite a scare there."
Stephanie looked at her and spoke not realising she had been feeling this way more and more frequently since her birthday, "I'm scared Dani."
"Don't worry Steph I'll be with you no matter what." She continued, "Let's get you home."
"It hurts when I move, I think you'd better call an ambulance."

Finches light communication flashed through Dani's mind and Stephanie saw her frown, "What," she said, "what's is happening to me?"
Dani sighed miserably, "It seems that you've exerted yourself too much and moving you may begin to destroy cells in your body at a faster rate. Finch thinks that you may have to make that decision that we were talking about now."

"I'd already come to a decision before I was attacked" she said as her vision dissapeared completely. "Oh no," she said in a whisper.
"Whats wrong Steph?" Dani sounded concerned.
"I'm blind Dani."
"Then let's stop putting this off" she said. Stephanie didn't answer, she had lost consciousness again.

The next time she awoke she heard one of the Angelus Warriors talking to Dani. "You said if she chose I could do it." To her ears he sounded aggressive and she absently thought that she wouldn't want him to serve her if she were the Angelus.
"She hasn't spoken to me yet, wait!" There was a loud pop and suddenly Dani was holding her hand again.

"Who were you talking to?" she asked.
Dani sounded puzzled, "You heard me talking to someone?"
"To one of your warriors."
Now Dani sounded really surprised, "You heard that?"
Stephanie just smiled, it seemed she had made the correct decision. She asked Dani to lean forward so she could tell her what she had decided.