Match of the Millennium

Description: A short time after the fight between Daniel and Zabel, Dr. Tessitore undergoes the task of plucking the latter party's remains out of the dead pool. Luckily for her, the process is made smoother with the aid of Zabel's trusty companion...

[DR. TESSITORE]
Slosh, slosh. Dr. Fio Tessitore has been at this for over an hour now, trawling the depths of the Dead Pool to find bones that could be identified as belonging to an associate of hers, Zabel Zarock. It wasn't long ago that the undead rocker was dismembered and tossed into the Dead Pool by yet -another- associate of hers, Agent Daniel Little of Interpol. The Italian spider was of mixed emotions about that -- on the one hand, she wants to support Daniel's endeavors as best she can, but on the other, she has to work with Zabel.

At least the scientist is used to the putrid stench of death. Being stuck here on the acid-bleached stone is hard enough on her keister as it is; if she weren't already used to the nauseating smell from her own cadaver experimentation, she'd likely be vomiting non-stop.

The blue-skinned Italian had already managed to fish up legs, hips, feet, ribs -- most of them -- and arms. Each of the bones has been laid out in a neat array, like a hangman puzzle just waiting for the next screwup.

Next to her on the bleached stone is a small phone. Normally it would be connected, somehow. But now, here in the vast internet-less wastes, it is doing one simple task: Playing music.

Zabel's demo tape -- in mp3 form, at least. Tess had pretty much no idea how she was going to infuse the lifeless bones with the Spirit of (Za)Rock, so the first thing that came to mind was to start -thinking- like he does.

And it's not going so well. The music isn't really her jam, even though her foot had started tapping with the extended exposure.

She turns the crank on the winch once more.
*thonk*
She turns the crank just a bit more, and then reverses direction. "Please let this be you, pleeeease let this be you..."

Her patience is rewarded as a familiar skull bobs up to the surface of the acidic waters, the hook having caught along the upper jaw. "Hello again!" she chirps, standing by the side of the pool and letting her long spider legs reach in to draw Zabel's skull out to safety.

Turning the skull over to begin draining the acid out of it, she muses aloud... "Okay, -now- what...?"

[ZABEL]
The bones are in pretty rough shape, though not quite as bad as might be expected from the acid bath. The surfaces of some are looking rather pitted, and some of them are cracked, but the actual substance of the bones doesn't seem to have become spongy or brittle. The music doesn't seem to be doing much so far, other than providing a suitable atmosphere. Zabel would probably appreciate that.

As Dr. Tessitore is fishing the skull, a spot of stone on the floor near Zabel begins growing a purple shadow, which suddenly expands upwards into a small... creature. A little somewhat frog-like demon with a single huge eye. It scurries over toward the doctor, then begins hopping up and down and pointing at the skull. He doesn't always show himself when Zabel's around, but Le Malta probably isn't too shocking an appearance for anyone who's paid much attention to Zabel.

[DR. TESSITORE]
As one of Majigen's newer citizens, it was kind of necessary for the Italian to just kinda... take some of the macabre sights and sounds for granted. Thinking too much about any one thing -- anything that isn't her current working priority -- is just not her style.

"Oh! H-hello!" announces Tess with a sing-song tone. She inclines her head to the side -- the creature is familiar, but -where- has she seen it before? After a moment, she realizes that it wasn't just a happy coincidence -- the creature is familiar with Zabel.

She holds up the skull with a grin. "Yes! Yes, you know him, don't you?" She beams, kneeling down beside the rest of Zabel Zarock's remains as she looks back towards the garish little creature with renewed enthusiasm. "You probably would know better than I would -- does this happen often to our good friend Mr. Zarock?"

As she reaches out to place the skull in its rightful place on the top of the spinal column, a five-pointed necklace spills out from the neckline of her dress, dangling in front of her red-irised eyes. It swings back and fro, the six inlaid rubies glowing faintly with their proximity to the rocker's remains. Distracted momentarily, she tucks the necklace back out of her way as she turns her attention to fixing the joints back into position. "Do you happen to know where your friend is? I really -would- like to get him reunited with his body, if possible..."

The red rubies flare in her hand, practically warm to the touch. Left unspoken is her thought -- that she doesn't quite know -how-.

[ZABEL]
Le Malta rubs his chin for a moment, then makes a 'so-so' gesture with his hand. Which Zabel probably would not appreciate. Sure, his body has gotten quite severely battered on occasion, but it's not like he makes a habit of dying. He went to a lot of trouble to avoid that kind of thing!

Even with the skull back in place, nothing happens for a few moments. But then Le Malta picks up the phone playing some of Zabel's music. He taps at the screen for a few moments, then nods in approval at the available selection, queueing up the song "Sacrifice", from Zabel's post-mortem album.

It still takes some time before anything happens... the song starts off a bit slow, but then begins to pick up. The light in the room dims a little bit, a brief cold chill blowing through... and then a faint spark of red light appears in one of the skull's eyesockets. Bones begin to twitch and shudder as the light grows brighter, soon joined by another in the other socket. Muscle tissue begins to form around the bones, tendons starting to knit them together, while smaller bones that weren't recovered from the pit begin regrowing, like bits of hands and feet.

Zabel's body comes together enough to at least be considered a corpse rather than a pile of bones, but he's still pretty skeletal at the moment. His skull turns slightly to look at Dr. Tessitore, though without a tongue or lungs, he doesn't have any comments to share just yet.

[DR. TESSITORE]
Tess can't help but grin in response to Le Malta -- what he lacks in verbosity he makes up for with expression.
She does show a brief look of alarm as the creature reaches for her phone, but all things considered, those things are a lot more replaceable than the darkstalker in front of her. As soon as the song changes, she realizes -- yeah. "Oooh, I see what you're going for."

The circumstances of Zabel's initial transition into unlife was not one that the Italian had paid a whole lot of attention to at the time, but it starts to make sense now, upon hearing the tones. Music can be a powerful shaper of emotions, but combined with a deadly axe and the skill of a consummate master, it can be a potent implement of change.

Tess grins back at Le Malta, nodding her head in a vague and somewhat off-key rhythm with the music. Still not her jam, but she can definitely begin to appreciate it. "Nice touch," she comments, as the chill breeze blows through, stirring her bloodstained lab coat and the glowing, ruby-inlaid necklace into motion.

Her grin grows broader as the muscle tissue begins to form. Whatever Le Malta did seems to be working well -- though the doctor realizes that some of the pieces were misaligned. She gives the leg bone a little nudge with the toe of her high-heeled shoe, helping the process in the best way she knows how.

When the skull turns to face her --
Well, gosh, even with all that buildup, it still manages to send a chill down her spine. "--geh! Oh. Hi there! Welcome back! I hope I didn't misplace anything -too- badly..."

Tess puts a bit more of her weight on the four spider limbs sprouting out of her back -- which is to say, she's getting a bit tired of standing on her two human legs. "... Good to see you moving again! You can thank your little friend here for the assistance!"

She'd pat Le Malta on the head, but reconsiders that thought. Non-humanoids are even more confusing than the humanoids.

[ZABEL]
Le Malta has what appears to be a self-satisfied grin on his face as he holds out the phone for the doctor. Zabel, meanwhile, doesn't have enough face yet for his emotional state to be readily apparent, although his eyes don't appear to be particularly happy. More flesh is starting to fill in, though, at least enough to start holding him together and allow him to push himself up to a sitting position. He opens his mouth, but his jaw hangs to the side at an awkward angle. He reaches up and with a couple snapping noises jerks his jaw from side to side, then manages to start opening and closing it smoothly.

What organs Zabel has are largely vestigial, but his lungs do actually still get some use. They aren't completely grown in yet, but he's got enough function to get some wheezing out. "...thanks..." He's a jerk and an inhuman monster, but Zabel isn't completely without a sense of gratitude. I mean, he might not go out of the way to pay back any favors he might owe, but he can at least say thanks.

[DR. TESSITORE]
Tess accepts her phone back with an eager grin, holding it up for Zabel's appreciation for a moment before clipping it back to the beltloop on her lab coat. "Guess it's a good thing I decided to pick up your album! The sound of the chain jangling about while I was trying to fish up your parts was driving me -crazy-." It's far from the only album on the Italian's playlist -- she has just about filled the poor device with music of any number of genres.

"That is =truly= remarkable, by the way. Most patients I have to graft meat back onto the bone all by myself. And then I gotta get the boss-man to infuse the soul back inside." As the zombie rocker begins to become more substantial, Tess is ... apparently turning into quite the chatterbox.

Though, when he says 'thanks,' that does get her to remain quiet for a blissful moment. She dips her chin, nodding in enthusiasm. "Aw, it was nothin'! I figured if you were fighting Daniel --" Yes, she's on a first-name basis with the opponent. "-- then I'd better be ready to work."
The gemstones on her necklace begin to hum with intensity, finally drawing Tess' attention. She touches it absently with her hand. "Oh, hey, here's something. Do you remember Lotus? She actually -killed- someone while you were fighting. Some swordswoman that was giving Lord Dohma issues a few months ago..."

[ZABEL]
There's enough of Zabel's face back for him to frown at the mention of Daniel and needing to be prepared for a situation like this. "...Yeah, right. Well, he'll get what's coming to him." And at this point his legs have grown back enough for Zabel to shove himself to a standing position. He wobbles for a moment, but the muscle is visibly growing back in even as he steadies himself. And then Zabel side-eyes Tess for a moment at the mention of Lotus, not sure if the phrasing was a jab at him or not. "Well, good for her."

He cracks his neck a few times, then accepts a pair of pants that Le Malta has retrieved from somewhere, pulling them on before enough recovers to be akward. The material sticks a bit to exposed muscle, but it doesn't appear to bother the zombie. "I'll rack up some kills before this is over." He flexes the muscles of one hand, watching his fingers extend into bone claws and then back, nodding in approval. "Just need a bit to get back to 100%. Easier than I thought to get back up, though. Doesn't look like you even brought a sacrifice. Guess it must be the ambience." He runs a hand back through hair that is also growing back in, looking around. "Think that crazy wizard running this thing is gonna cause any trouble over this?"

[DR. TESSITORE]
Fio Tessitore never really finished her medical degree. She'd gotten to apprentice at a hospital, but it was as a lab rat. She'd never gotten to develop a proper bedside manner aside from her senseless prattle.

So when she manages to stumble into -two- potential sore spots for the recently-revived Zabel Zarock... she shrinks back away from him visibly. "... I ... I didn't mean it like -that-, I just mean that it seemed weird, out of place for her. She likes to play with her food, but never really goes for the throat." She laughs nervously, holding both of her hands up as she takes a few steps backwards, transferring weight back onto her high heels.

"G-good, good!" Lots of kills will be much glory for Outworld! And for Lord Dohma, of course. "There's still plenty left to kill, though I -am- kind of sad that the Princess managed to take down who she had. Was looking forward to choking the life out of him myself." She laughs weakly, flashing a grateful grin over to Le Malta.

"Why would he cause any trouble? We're fighting on his side and taking out Earth's champions. Only trouble I can see is that he might've wanted to -do- something to your corpse."

Tess starts taking a step towards the exit, but stops with a glance back towards Zabel, turning the volume on 'Sacrifice' down a few notches. "I mean, that might've been fun to watch, but I'm sure he's got other things on his mind. Anyway -- gonna see if I can't scare up some lunch, you want me to snag you anything?"

[ZABEL]
Zabel waves a hand distractedly. "Gonna be a while before I can have a stomach." Then the rocker turns to Le Malta, who has taken up a position by his side, and crouches down. "Thanks for the assist, little dude." And he reaches out and gives the little imp a fist bump. It would almost be sweet, if he wasn't still a mostly skinless monstrosity. He then straightens up, and glances around the room. "Let's get out of here. Think I've had enough of this place for a while."

Log created on 21:08:10 10/08/2016 by Dr. Tessitore, and last modified on 23:57:09 10/08/2016.