Sarah followed Rinoa around Timber, met a few people, watched the woman make comments and talk the talk and set up code names and so on and so forth. And, thanks to the woman insisting that Sarah wear more concealing clothing (AND making her promise to remove the 'disguise' once back at home base), it went pretty smoothly.
Though apparently getting the ball rolling was a slow process.
Heck, they had a fairly long conversation about what Sarah COULDN'T do, more than anything else.
No, Sarah shouldn't instantly restore the damaged areas. It could attract military attention.
No, she shouldn't just generate goods, equipment, and material while outdoors. At least, not more than the miniature amount of inventory space the Junction systems could normally provide.
No, she couldn't build a house or rent something. Because it was super important that she stays near Rinoa for really important reasons and she was going to remove this disguise later, right? Right.
It was a fun if slightly confusing experience… And it also demonstrated how Rinoa was the backbone of this city. Even the military soldiers seemed to be trying not to salute the 'normal, just ignore me' woman as she checked that the injured were given access to medical spells and treatment, that the poor had escaped danger, that various plans were on various schedules.
But eventually Sarah was 'safe' at Rinoa's super secret headquarters and no longer 'disguised' and time passed as they talked a bit.
Was this the most efficient way to get things done? No.
But Sarah was having fun seeing how many ways she could tease her new friend.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Rinoa coughed, but tried to ignore the recent innuendos and become slightly more calm. Because she was NOT on her game today and she wanted this to go well.
Her potential Harem Member (One down, seven more to go! Eight was like the perfect number.) sat at her favorite table in her headquarters, attentive and oh so distracting.
Wait, no. She had asked a question, right?
Rinoa winced. "Well, there are some [[Draw]] points near Timber, but in town itself? We only have a weak point for [[Cure]] and another that the military watches that stores up [[Blizzaga]]."
She grumbled. "THAT one caused a lot of people to freak out when it stabilized, because the stupid [[Draw]] point is inside a famous magazine headquarters and they wouldn't compromise and I had to use some pressure to make sure the military wouldn't just blow the place up or something…" Sigh.
Sarah blinked. "Well, I've got any ice magic and [[Water]] covered by now… Is there really nothing else but [[Cure]] around here?"
No. Of course not. How common did she think [[Draw]] points were? "Like I said, we can trade for what you need easily enough, I know people. I can do this! Totally!"
Still, Sarah's disappointment stung. "And at least the [[Cure]] point is just outside the pub? It's common enough that most people don't bother to regulate those places too. And after we get some money it will be easy enough to trade around for what we need. Super duper easy!"
After all, each person could only equip a certain number of units when it came to magic, depending on their compatibility with their GF, how often they used certain spells and abilities, and how hard they train their bodies to endure the energies. Even after storing up some reserves, most kingdoms didn't bother heavily regulating most normal spells from being bought and sold on the black markets too hard.
Sarah hummed. "Well, I only need to get a few samples to work with and I can make do. What Guardian Forces are available here?"
Crap. "For trade or purchase?" Basically none. Still. "The Galbadian forces tend to use [[
GF: Cerberus]] for their Junction systems, it's the one I use since Dad pulled some strings. He lets you Junction a lot of magic to various stats, like strength and magic and status effect resistance. Good for combat, basically."
Could she get Sarah access to Junction him? Or any other one even? How easily another Junction system could [[Draw]] a GF from a monster or foe was heavily dependent on how compatible the target and the user were during the attempt, how long the target had been Junctioned to the GF, and all kinds of stuff. Nearly impossible to do in the field normally, unless you had access to the GF directly.
And she only really used [[GF: Cerberus]] so that Angelo could help out with her Limit Break attacks and boost her skills. Rinoa wasn't compatible enough to even summon the creature directly, not that she had tried too hard. Hadn't really bothered to try at all!
After all, almost no one could actually Summon their GF's in a combat situation or every soldier with a Junction system would abuse the hell out of it in every fight.
She sighed. "GF's in general are watched carefully. And anyone I would have been alright with robbing had already been reassigned away from Timber… Most GF's don't tend to be equipped for new soldiers via shipment or at their mission locations, they mostly send our military to Galbadia Garden directly to get them set up."
[[GF: Cerberus]] was so popular because, even if some random fighter couldn't call forth his full power? He still was great at supporting most of the more uncommon Junction system stats, and most users at even the basic compatibility levels were able to prevent the more dangerous status effects too. He wasn't super powerful or deadly, just great support. A backbone of the war effort.
Could she share her GF with Sarah? But then she would be drastically weaker, and it could even cause Angelo problems. No, if she had two maybe, but not giving up her only access to spells.
Sigh. "So I can't get you access to one in Timber. But…" Oh! Wait, that could work! "We could go to talk with Cid!"
Sarah blinked. "Who?"
Right, all powerful Sorceress stuck on the moon for years. "Balamb Garden's Headmaster, Cid Kramer. He's tried to help the rebellion cells here in Timber and other frontline areas, to hold back the Galbadian war front. And I think Balamb Garden has like two or three GF's, either secured in the facility itself or located nearby!"
The Bone Sorceress blinked. "Oh? That does sound more convenient than wandering around the wilderness looking for things that have [[
Scan]] and hoping to stumble on more GF's."
That original plan was terrible and Sarah should FEEL terrible. Rinoa had broken out of her own embarrassment loop in shock when the beautiful moron had sat at her table and explained her 'brilliant' idea to basically wander around forever and hope to find what she needed.
GF's were RARE, and even [[Draw]] points were either restricted or very slow to replenish.
Hell, most monsters only had maybe one or two spells to [[Draw]] from unless you were really compatible with the ability they had!
And even visiting known locations to get some magic reserves could be tricky. Places without active occupation forces still had normal(ish) people drain the local [[Draw]] points from the towns and force outsiders to wait for them to restock, and that is despite the towns being founded half the time ON good magic build up locations in the first place!
Although places like the Gardens tend to get the best spots. "I think Balamb Garden also has all sorts of magic [[Draw]] points? I know Cid mentioned they had reliable [[
Esuna]] and the more common stuff like [[Cure]], not many places can provide both status recovery magic AND health recovery magic in one location."
Not to mention the creatures nearby, right? Right! "They also raise some monsters and manage the local creatures outside the area to mostly generate a wide range of magic in general, like [[Sleep]] and [[Blind]] and other stuff needed for combat like [[Thunder]] or whatever."
Seriously, she heard rumors of giant monsters that had [[Fire]], [[Thunder]], and even [[Quake]]! All in one creature, all INSIDE the scary place, just to help SeeD members train and more easily gather the magic they needed to grow! Hell, sometimes they could even grow strong enough to have [[Fira] or [[Firaga]] and similar!
Sarah blinked. "Ah. So make sure I have [[Enc-Half]] activated so they won't see me and flee this time?"
Sigh. "Yes." Also so you won't cause another near calamity for nearby regions. Was bone white the new blonde? No, don't do that Rinoa, that's a stereotype. Right, focus. "Though as a mercenary company, they might have the [[Draw]] points on cooldown."
Still, Cid was a nice man. He had tried to help her in the past, and had offered assistance in the future in return for resisting her dad's military forces. "I'm pretty sure they will have extra units of most types of magic there, and since you are now a member of the Forest Owls? They should be happy to help us get a few samples for you to work with!"
Sarah gave her a small smirk. "Oh, I am a member now, am I?"
Confidence! Sexy goddesses like confidence, right? Probably! "Yes." Mine!
An unexpected voice made her jump. "Oh she is, is she? How surprising."
Eep! "Watts! When did you get back!?" Shit, he hadn't seen anything did he!? They were both uh… Just having a normal conversation. No failed attempts at slow seduction here, no sir! She coughed. "I mean, uh. Hey, glad you came back so quick!"
He gave her a look. "I've been gone for hours."
Fuck. "I mean quick in a relative way?" How long had she spent half helping Sarah plan out a new black market trading empire and how long had she wasted staring into those damn sexy eyes!?
Sarah giggled. "I assumed he was a friend of yours when he showed up an hour or so ago."
And the man blushed. "I stopped staring! And I got coffee!" He pointed at his cup as if that absolved all sins.
What!? "Watts, NO! She's MY girl! I saw her first!"
...Uh.
He gave a solemn nod. "Right, and calling dibs is important in all serious relationships."
Fuck it, she'll do it live! "Yes. And I called dibs. On her and any future sex deities I stumble upon in the future." Cover those bases girl! Remember the harem plan!
Sarah blinked. "Oh! Right, you should meet Shiva."
Uh. "What?" Wait, wasn't that one of the GF's Cid mentioned?
The silver haired woman waved to one side. "She's sort of my GF? And part of me? It's complicated, but I should bring her up now since it could be surprising later."
What?
Sarah lit up in glee! "Actually, let me do this right! Give me a second."
And she warped into nothingness.
And the world warped away.
She and Watts were now on an endless plane of reality, where the floor was a few inches stolen from her home base but infinite in length and width. Where the room was endlessly far away, and the ceiling was nearly too distant to see.
And suddenly, glowing in the sky, was Sarah.
S̙̫̞̣o̠̠r̪c͔̬̻͔͍̟ḙ̟̝̜̬͎̯r̞es̺̺̳̦s͙͕ ̣͙͖̙̗ọf ̘͖̮B̬o̟͔̤n̖̖̳e̹̳̗͖̰̟̻,̞ͅ ̗̫͍̦̤̯Q̺͈u̯͇̞͖͉e̩͖̤̱͍̗͖e͚̫̙͚̰n̟̪̹͚̦͔ o͓f̦͕̲̝̼ ̞͉̯the̮̼̝͚̟͍ ̪̳̝̹̘̮ͅL̠̼͔̼͈u̳̭͎̪͔͕ͅn̯̜ͅa͈̥̖̬̼̜̤r̳ ̘͇͇͉K̘͍̞̩͕i̝͈̯͈̺̪ng̲̤̦͚͖d̫͚̗ͅͅo̤m͍͖̭̬̫̪.͔̠
She floated with a soft smile, one hand held forth while massive wings of floating bones, each one carved from S̛̀p̢҉͏͞a̵͟͢c̢̡̡̕e͟͏̴͢͡ itself, seemed to cradle reality directly.
Her body glowed with silver flames of raw Magic.
"From the frost of the night, the quiet of the grave..."
Watts seemed locked up.
"From my mind and my heart, the id of my ego!"
Well, it was official. Terrified arousal was certainly a thing.
"I bring forth the forces that guard the moon and her people."
Colors formed as if malformed glass danced in the air, the warping of dimensions creating a rainbow of light.
Silver eyes bṷ͕̜̙̜r̺n̳͓e̞̹͖̻d̮͙̻̺̬͎̠.̣̠̫̮̖
A cage of bone seemed to weep crystals of impossible clarity.
"[[
Summon: Shiva.]]"
A SPIKE of ice pierced to the heavens!
From within? A frozen
angel of the sea.
And the world stilled.
"Arise, my lady of Ice."
Floating through the many crystals like illusions, perfection opened her eyes.
Rinoa gulped. "D…"
Watts seemed to be nearly having a stroke.
You can do this! "D…"
A soft hand reached to her face, while distantly she could see Sarah grinning like a loon.
A soft voice. "Hello, Rinoa. My name is Shiva."
By the power of love! "DIBS!"
Oh thank the Sorceress, she had held it together!
Watts seemed to be choking for some reason, but he was a big boy and he could handle it.
And then everyone was back to normal and far too powerful chilled limbs pulled her into the BEST HUG EVER! "Eee! She's perfect! How dare you keep her away from me, Sarah!"
The other woman seemed to absently flicker away her impossible translucent bone wings. "You know I was going to introduce you two anyway. Otherwise we'd only get to hang out during fights when we call you to freeze something."
Watts jerked at how close the two women were and stiffly walked away. "I'mma go do important stuff so bye Rinoa we can talk tomorrow and I'll see you later alright? Alright." And he was gone.
Shouldn't she like… Try and plead for help? Or attempt to escape this? Or something?
Sarah chuckled as the man fled. "I like that guy. Bit tense though."
Shiva twisted to see where Watts had gone, not bothering to stop her nearly nude vertical cuddling in the process and basically wrapping Rinoa to her side in the process.
Screw it.
If she died in this hug, it was a life worth living. Though, despite the ice woman's bust size, it was more embarrassment than suffocation. How lovely.
Some distant talking. Not important, got hug.
Louder talking. Still got hug.
"...good girl?"
She jerked. "Rinoa is a good girl!" Wait, what!?
Sarah chuckled. "Alright, she seems better now. You can let her go, Shiva."
What!? No! "I can be a good girl AND get snuggles! It's a law or something!"
Yeah yeah, logic and brain and future embarrassment, whatever. Hugs!
Rinoa went to her happy place, and uh. Yeah, the rest of today was probably a wash. But that was a problem for future rebel leader of the Timber resistance network.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sarah blinked as Rinoa giggled quietly in Shiva's embrace. "You broke her."
The other woman pouted. "Oh come on, you got to tease her for hours! AND you got dessert first! Let me have this."
Well… It was freaking hot. "Fine. But if she's going to be out of it anyway, let me try and scan her."
Without [[Harvesting]] her new Harem leader, of course.
"[[
Phase Pierce]] and [[
Scan.]]"
It was just the template building scanning units, she didn't have the magic [[Scan]] para-magic itself yet… But it was easy enough to feed the results into the Junction system as input.
And… Nope. Errors. "Hang on, I need to finagle this."
Shiva smirked, pulling a happy but mumbling Rinoa over to the nearby couch to get more comfy. "Take ALL the time you need. More than that, even."
Yeah, snuggling with Shiva was all the fun of normal cuddles without overheating. Although getting sweaty wasn't all bad either… No, focus.
Looks like the first try was too much data. Her own mind handled the flow easily enough, but this thing, as complicated as it was, couldn't parse the data stream.
Sigh, with Adam's stupid 'Research' cheating methods, this would have likely already been parsed and formatted optimally in the background before she even considered the potential problems. Maybe she was getting lazy? Taking the extra assistance for granted?
Meh, she could still do that stuff, it was just much less instant and intuitive.
Right, let's make a subtemplate. Something to parse out the data and try to optimize this and any FUTURE data to best integrate with the Junction software and hardware.
Of course, a good chunk of the problem is that this hardware is supposed to use GF's as cheat codes. A good half this mess doesn't actually know what it's doing, it just passes data to the GF used to operate everything and assumes it can figure out how the results will come out.
It was why Shiva could eventually duplicate every GF skill and ability out there… Any of the Guardian Force magic frameworks theoretically could. Just… Not in ways the Junction System could reliably interpret. Or interface with.
And Sarah's enhanced and redesigned Junction System was still BETTER than most examples now. After all, her attempts to give it wrong and malformed data to detect para-magic gave errors and warnings… The official version would just shove it all to the GF.
Which would then… Do something. Sometimes explode. Or cause containment issues. Like, this equipment WAS brilliant, but it was still mad science levels of brilliance… Not focused on safety or reliability or cautious and staggered improvement stages.
At least her improved system would just let you know it wouldn't work. And whatever Adam kept doing in the background was at least improving it constantly as she sent him data, even if he refused to interact with this Jump actively now.
...Then again, maybe he couldn't? She knew that one of herselves had told him something and did something and she couldn't remember not remembering to not remember it. Or something. Point was, maybe she told him not to get involved right now?
Seems likely.
Ah! Here we go, didn't fix the issue but now it was passing it to Shiva before it was hitting errors. "Hey, what's the issue with the data this time?"
Shiva hummed, having pulled a now sleeping leader of the Forest Owls into her lap. "There is contamination. Basically the natural auras of living beings, Rinoa in this case, is slightly modifying the detected patterns from the GF she has Junctioned and the magic she is employing."
Huh. Well that explained some stuff. "Which would be why modern Junction systems can only read three or four para-magics accurately from foes, or one or so from a [[Draw]] point."
Because people naturally use some abilities or skills more than others. Or have some spells equipped to boost their health or something defensively for so long the user's aura shifts slightly to match it, making detection easier.
Well, she could work with that. "Right, let me add a unit to detect the target's personal aura signature first so the scanning units can try and filter that interference out directly."
Shiva nodded, having made some sort of ice brush and started gently working on Rinoa's hair. "Don't forget to add an ambient location aura signature filter too. Together that should hopefully get rid of a lot of interference and limit us to other monsters and non-targeted individuals nearby."
Right. And hey, that could easily enough be used to detect hidden enemies too, right? If her systems could filter out ambient magic, the energies from her teammates, AND the target's signature… Anything else would be a possibly unknown or hidden foe or friend.
Hmm. "Her signal is all wonky."
Shiva hummed. "Don't forget that it is blended with [[GF: Cerberus]], even if it is a weak compatibility bond."
Oh right! And her improved systems didn't need to find and Junction a billion GF's to improve Shiva's skills, just study how an existing one operates so that 'Research' can determine how hers should function.
Now that she wasn't trying to read two magical frameworks as a single woman, it was much easier to get clear data! Let's pass 'Research' the data for [[Maj-J]], [[Spd-J]], [[Hit-J]], and the Status attack and defensive options. Looks like four status para-magics could be hooked up with this data, after it got reviewed…
And with magic, speed, and warping reality to ensure accurate hits covered, Shiva would only need to scan something with [[HP-J]], [[Eva-J]] and [[Luck-J]] to complete the most well known sets of enhancements!
Though Sarah might not require more damage soak, not with her defenses and skills, boosting evasion and luck might have some fun implications later in life. Not to mention that [[ST-Def-Jx4]] might help 'Research' figure out the elemental equivalent ability, [[Elm-Def-Jx4]] as suggested by the code.
No luck as far as more item to magic refinement skills though… But still, Sarah was able to send [[Expendx2-1]] and [[Auto-Haste]] for study and maybe reduce magic spent when casting units on multiple targets simultaneously.
Although… Her eyes drifted to her magic stores.
Yeah, with 35,333 units of [[Blizzard]] para-magic already, with more being converted automatically and stored away in her Warehouse over time? Using one instead of two units of magic when dual casting might not be that big a deal.
Because yeah, she had less of the more powerful stuff. After conversion and generation rates were calculated, [[Blizzara]] was around half that amount and [[Blizzaga]] and the powerful [[Water]] only managed to build up a few thousand total… But did it matter?
Not like she could junction all that at one time to any stat anyway. For now she was limiting herself to 10 units per stat, to give her more time to test and gather data… Or at least she would be, when she got more variety of para-magic to work with than just four.
Right, filter out the ambient patterns, filter out Shiva and Sarah, filter out [[GF: Cerberus]], filter out Rinoa herself! Let's [[Draw]] some magic! Four samples aren't remotely close enough!
And that number wouldn't be going up right now. Sigh. "I don't think Rinoa has any para-magic enhancing her skills." Not according to this scan, anyway.
Shiva hummed. "No, like I said her compatibility with [[GF: Cerberus]] is abysmal. Check her reserve stores, her connection is good enough to cast stuff from there."
Oh, right… Normally the Junction scanning systems weren't delicate enough to do that. Right, what did we get? Ooh! That will save a walk. "Welp, let me just snag one of these [[Cure]] to work with. At least it is practical para-magic to build up."
The ice woman nodded. "Plus, after you test your [[Draw]] accuracy a bit I think the local soldiers will have more to work with. They may be low powered people, but the military does give them all a GF for a reason… And they should have [[Scan]] to catch problems during patrol and some attacking magic, most likely."
Sigh. "Probably more ice magic, with my luck."
The snow elf grinned. "Ice magic is cool."
Sigh. Yes, yes, I got the pun, stop wiggling your eyebrows like a moron. "Maybe we can find another magic refinement GF skill in the city, but most likely we will have to head over to that Garden place. Probably should do that anyway."
Rinoa seemed to wake up. "Nooo! Cuddle time."
Huh… Well, it was a convincing argument. "Fine, it is getting late anyway."
Shiva grinned at the sleepy girl and her lazy dog already sleeping in her little doggy bed, tired long ago. "Seriously Sarah, she's super cute."
Yeah. A wave lifted both her GF and her 'boss' towards one of the bedrooms. "Should we make breakfast in the morning? We only had snacks because of all the running around we did when we came into town."
The other woman paused… And frowned. "Have them make it there, then bring it local. I don't think people around here would react well to your metallic zombie bone butlers."
...Alright, fair enough.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Rinoa shifted… Then stretched. That was like… The best dream ever!
But she must be seriously pent up to have such a sexualized mind trip. Hot moon Sorceresses that summon ice waifus? Sheesh!
Slept like a baby though. And these covers were both perfectly warm AND perfectly chilled. And soft but… uh.
Arms?
She was being hugged. By some VERY curvy people.
Oh
yeah baby no!
Cautiously opening one eye… She saw gleeful silver beauty smirking back at her. "Morning!"
Eep!
Flinching back was a bad idea because the cool arms suddenly wrapped her in soft teasing hell. "Mmm, nice to see you too dear. Did you sleep well?"
Rinoa has hit a critical overflow in the embarrassment registers. "Flurgle?"
And now silver eyes were SO CLOSE and warm arms easily wrapped her prison in even more squishy torture. "Yes dear, sweet dreams?"
Rinoa has critically crashed, please do nothing to address the situation. "Gahd."
Some strange part of her mind was actually impressed she could turn this color and not explode. The rest of her was conflicted. "...Hi?"
""Good morning, our glorious leader!""
Two sensual voices were SO NOT FAIR!
The bone Sorceress was grinning as she snuggled. "We should get up, you mentioned quite a work schedule for today."
What? Work? Huh? It was like her mind couldn't catch up.
Wait. No, she was the leader! (Right?) She should be directing this train! Right?
Right! Let's get up and seize the day!
Any time now!
The soothing cold voice was whispering in her ear. "Or not. I vote we stay in bed for a while." And she was squeezed.
Nope, brain unplugged. "
Kay."
She could be the mature and responsible leader later.
A shiver ran down her spine as lips nibbled her neck.
Much later.