Miss Planner and her assistant Black Smoke ended up spending the whole day together, her taking care of various mundanities of everyday existence at the Tower and him observing, helping only when he felt like it. She didn't mind, of course. She was happy just to have some company. Black Smoke thoroughly enjoyed his time with her too, chuckling to himself the entire day like a madman.

"Looks like everyone's... heading home. Cough."
"Are you going to go back to your condo?"

"Well. We haven't... had dinner yet. Haha."
"I'm not hungry. I was thinking I'd finish these e-mails. You don't have to wait around if you don't want to. You can go eat, or wait in your room... I can come get you when I'm done."

"If you don't mind... cough... I think I'll stick around. I don't have anything to do tonight, anyway..."
"Hehe. Suit yourself."

Miss Planner stretched and slid into her leather office chair with a contented sigh. She was a little tired, but she figured she could get something done if she tried. The responsibilities just kept piling up. She never quite managed to catch up on all the work she missed while she was out sick, but she was going to try her hardest to finish as much as she could as quickly as possible to show everyone else in the Tower that she was back on her feet and ready to get back to work.

There was a lot to do. But Miss Planner had a lot of help. Erica was doing great work on the Soul Shell. The Hands of Light were the heroes of the recruitment division, filling up all the slots for the Grand Temple training camp in what felt like no time at all. The new batch of executives were starting to put their business experience to work and found a couple of easy ways to boost Nuke sales, especially in Challebon where business was starting to plateau.

It was nice having so many trustworthy people around. Miss Planner would probably have a heart attack if she had to do everything herself. It didn't help that she was still recovering from splitting her soul, which was sapping her energy as well as causing some emotional instability and memory loss. It was going to take a little time before she was completely back to her normal self.

Honestly, Erica could probably take over most of her responsibilities at this point if she bothered asking her to. It would certainly help her out a lot with her recovery. But Miss Planner wasn't going to ask her to do that. At least, not yet. She wanted the Soul Shell finished as quickly as possible, even if it meant she had to suffer a little. Even so... light desk work was just about all she had the energy for right now.

"You're working hard. Anything... interesting? Cough."
"Hm? I wish. I'm writing an e-mail for the security division... going through Donovan's reports, picking out team members worthy of recognition. Trying to keep morale up. Milly's bringing them bagels on Friday."

Miss Planner leaned back in her chair and yawned. Then she closed her eyes and began typing away at her keyboard, letting out long, deep breaths as she worked.

Suddenly, the phone on her desk started vibrating, making her jump.

"Who... is it?"
"It's the Psydeath team. Just a second. I've got to take this."

She picked it up, holding it against her ear as Black Smoke watched intently from across the room.

"This is Miss Planner speaking... Corina? Everything all right over there? Yeah... uh-huh... Uh-huh... oh... that's fantastic! Did it work? It worked. Excellent job... okay... yeah... okay, thanks for letting me know! See ya!"

Miss Planner hung up and turned around with a big smile on her face.

"They figured out Psydeath's weakness!"

Black Smoke's eyes went wide and he laughed uncontrollably, then coughed and covered his mouth with his hand.

"Cough! Cough! Hahahaha!"
"His powers are defective somehow. He's losing aura faster than he can generate it. The Cut Throats are keeping him isolated so he can't absorb more..."

"Grrrgghh! Cough! Hahaha! Ahh... damn it... never thought I'd... cough... laugh about this... but... good riddance... hahahaha!"
"Hehehe!"

Black Smoke wiped away a tear as he stared at the floor, shaking his head.

"Hahaha! Hahaha... heh... the rest of the guys are going to be... happy to hear this. Hahaha. Cough. Cough. I'm... I'm impressed... I honestly thought we'd have to send one of the Elders after him before he... grew out of control... ggrrrghh..."

Black Smoke gurgled, barely stifling a cough in his throat. He was tired from laughing so hard, and he started wheezing. Miss Planner got up from her chair and patted him on the back to help him catch his breath. He swallowed a couple of times before continuing.

"He was... he was a lot of fun to be around, back in the day... sometimes I think about what would have... happened... if we tried a little harder to help him get his powers under control, but... I guess that's all in the past now... cough. Cough. Cough!"

"Easy now. Breathe in, breathe out. Take it easy."
"Yeah... grrgh... sure."

Black Smoke slumped back into his chair, staring at Miss Planner. She rubbed his back for a second, and looked away.

"What happened to him wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known. You were just trying to help a friend."
"Yeah... I guess... didn't work out like I hoped, though... hahaha. Cough. Cough. You know, I was the only one... he really talked to. Everyone else was scared of him. No... I'm the only one who actually cared about him... and he knew that. Even at the very end, when I took his powers away... he could have stopped me, but he didn't. I think he knew what I was planning to do... I still don't know why he liked me so much."

"I'm glad you didn't kill him, Black Smoke. That would have been... really sad. I know it doesn't seem like it now, but I'm sure you made the right choice."
"Hah... well, I'm not so sure about that... but what's done is done. Let's just hope this plan works so we can settle things one way or another... and... be done with it. Cough."

"I think it would be nice if you two could be friends again."
"Grrgh. Hah... not gonna happen... maybe in some other life... cough... but not this one. Hahaha... “