While it is true @Ap0c4L1PS1S. She is getting a lot of benefits and boosts without the same amount of tribulations. I counter with two issues Alchemis is an adult that feels responsible in a nebulous sense to jinx and keeps pulling her into the game as such keeps her in mind when power gaming advantages currently, she has been resiving a lot of boosts. However, much of Alchemists' "playstyle" is a slow build and crafting build with a healthy dose of magic shenanigans; he is not the in-your-face character many MCs are. He does not go and punch the dragon lady in the face; he turns her into a frog and steals her shit type of character. He boots straps pocket dimensional retreats so he can grind in a dungeon. He abuses weapon enchanting and buff mechanics to shoot sniper rounds with particle beam force. He develops tricks and cascades advantages to get what he wants, like a Wizard or an Artificer in Dnd they only grow deadlier as they develop a very large bag of tricks. Jinx, in comparison, is a Sorcerer or a Warlock; she only grows more powerful through the help of her patron [Alchemist]. She does not Develop new powers or advance her magic ability independent of Alchemist. If anything, whatever she can do Alchemist can do better either due to better understanding or higher skill level. While her base stats and stat gain are higher compared to Alchemist, which is most likely a short-term state since, as the gamer, he can pull new abilities or powers from any possible fiction through insta-quests.
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
I will give you an example, in the fight against the Dragoborn, Jinx was by far the most powerful person around, but she did nothing and Alchemist nearly died.
Having great power means pulling your weigh, if her stats are double that of Alchemist, and she only sits around without helping, it is really annoying.
The only useful thing she has ever done was distracting the Dragoborn for a second to give Alchemist a opportunity, which is really little compared with how powerful she is.
If she fought side by side with Alchemist against the Dragoborn, he wouldn't have lost a limb or nearly died.
You may think it is not a big deal, because Alchemist is the MC and got plot armor so he wouldn't have died, but imagine you are fighting for your life in RL and the most powerful/skilled person does nothing and you nearly die, you wouldn't be happy.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Peacock Guy above makes very valid points. Wasn't Al eyeing up a new powerup quest thingie before Jinx sprung the Golden Saucer Retreat?
Maybe that might shoot his development his abilities and skills up into new territory
Maybe that might shoot his development his abilities and skills up into new territory
What a profound phrase, "Alchemist redefines reality. Jinx changes how it's experienced."
I hope that wording gets used in-story at some point.
Still not a heavyweight?
Maybe another sparring session with Wonder Woman or Superman, got to stay humble and not get arrogant.
Alchemist: (in a full-body cast)
Alchemist: (channeling Heath Ledger) "Wanna know how I got these scars?"
Jinx:
"You shouted "COME AT ME BRO!!!" at Superman."Alchemist: "Yep."
Now that i remember the battle against the Dragoborn, wasn't the draconic growth perk for defeating the Dragoborn?
Why does Jinx have access to it? The one who defeated the Dragoborn was Alchemist.
The more I think about this the worse it becomes, I am trying to remember another character from any other story that got more undeserved power ups and I'm drawing a blank, not even those Xianxia power wish fulfilment got it that easy.
It seems that Jinx shouldn't have access to that perk, because the requisite is defeating the Dragoborn, which she didn't do.
Why does Jinx have access to it? The one who defeated the Dragoborn was Alchemist.
The more I think about this the worse it becomes, I am trying to remember another character from any other story that got more undeserved power ups and I'm drawing a blank, not even those Xianxia power wish fulfilment got it that easy.
It seems that Jinx shouldn't have access to that perk, because the requisite is defeating the Dragoborn, which she didn't do.
While true that the whole with great power comes great responsibility.
Also, I don't think that the MC has plot armor beyond the story will go on. He very well could die. Think about it this story started with Tera reincarnating the Alchemist, and the universe he lives in is DC; Death is a peppy goth girl/eldritch abomination that is super accepting generally and canonically has a soft spot for Alchemist after he gave her a hint to what happened with Despair and Delerium. I can completely see him dying and then Tera and Death giving him a quest to return to life either in DC or somewhere else, sort of like. Well, Tera would Death would probably be more resistant depending on how Alchemist felt.
One of the things you should consider is that Jinx is a teen girl. While that might sound hollow considering Robin and the others, she quite literally got picked up off the streets a few months ago in the story, if you count the time in the instant quest. If you don't, it's about a few weeks; even if you count the instance quest time, she only has "technical" or theoretical knowledge and street savyness for the most part. I will concede that jinx should have stepped up more, considering her general personality should probably have more than she has been. However, in regards to the fight with the dragon born, if you consider that the others were equally effective, at least from what I remember, please be free to correct me.
Also, I don't think that the MC has plot armor beyond the story will go on. He very well could die. Think about it this story started with Tera reincarnating the Alchemist, and the universe he lives in is DC; Death is a peppy goth girl/eldritch abomination that is super accepting generally and canonically has a soft spot for Alchemist after he gave her a hint to what happened with Despair and Delerium. I can completely see him dying and then Tera and Death giving him a quest to return to life either in DC or somewhere else, sort of like. Well, Tera would Death would probably be more resistant depending on how Alchemist felt.
I don't know about you but Author trumps all and if Alchemist is the least dragonkin then he is the least dragon kin until MC shenanigans happen. Complaining that Jinx got better stat changes after her more informed apoptosis is silly; a complaint about that end part makes so much more sense to me. I don't know if the author ever addressed that particular point and would be very interested in knowing why the unlock disscrepency unless it was a system-wide unlock for Alchemists and Jinx's system.
Here's the timeline for the dragonborn fight.
Alchemist teleports Jinx, Dinah and the Hellhounds away from the fight.
Alchemist pulls himself together after getting Fus-Roh-Dah'd/ Jinx gets herself back together after the forced teleport and Dinah runs off to the console.
Alchemist begins testing Sindri's defenses/ Jinx starts checking the party menu to see what's going on.
Sindri counters haste with Slow Time and starts to actually hurt Alchemist/ Jinx begins freaking out and talking to the other kids at base.
Alchemist takes real damage and gets poisoned but manages to Toad Sindri/ Jinx teleports herself, Megan, Robin and Player One back to Dinah's house.
Sindri is beating Alchemist to death with a Dragonbone Club as a werewolf/ Jinx teleports the team and herself into sight of the fight.
Jinx intervenes and hits Sindri with a Hexbolt of bad luck and distracts her from Alchemist. Sindri threatens to soul-trap the girl and begins to incant the shout for Fire Breath when Alchemist rams an Ebony Spear through her from behind.
No Jinx means no distraction or bad luck, means Alchemist leaves dragon brains all over the ground. And that there's a very pissed off Dragonborn stuck in the world of DC and she's got a penchant for murder and soul-theft.
Yay Jinx. The dragon born sounds awesome and vaguely Metal till you think of all the murder and canablism. I.e. eating dragon souls, so extra bad cannibalism. Also thank you for clearing up why jinx has that unlocked. I assume that any other character that gains a dragon form through Alchemis spells will not have that perk option unless something similar happens.
Absolutely correct. One-time bonuses make for major advantages over people who join up later.
Well... He'll tell the kids and assume Batman either already knows or gets himself a recording/transcript of what goes on anyway.
"I assumed you knew everything already, and were feigning ignorance as part of your preparations."
Fortunately, her INT and WIS stats are her highest, which may mitigate some of the recall rot that the lack of Gamer's Mind doesn't protect against.
I know that she hit the Dragoborn once, but I supposed that you needed to do waaaaay more for it to count.
I mean, some random dude could have thrown a rock at the Dragoborn, distracting her and it would have counted, which is rather silly.
This is another example of how messed up the hard work=reward ratio that is happening in the last chapters.
Let's put it in perspective, Alchemist got a limb chopped of, a lot of other injuries and nearly died to fight against the Dragoborn.
Jinx just throws one attack, and receives the same rewards with several more power ups on top.
Sight, the decisions in the last chapters doesn't make sense, is it really worth to make Alchemist look like a joke and all his efforts meaningless, just to buff Jinx through the stratosphere?
The lesson of the last chapters is, hard work doesn't pay of, the best strategy is to find some person to carry you.
Alchemist should find his own Alchemist, then maybe for once he gets stuff the easy way too.
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Counter Jinx shot a Hexbolt of bad luck, a power that warps reality in the immediate vicinity. I don't know how you define participation, but any ability or attack that warps the space/time/magic continuum should count towards something. Also, while this is a gamer fic, risk does not necessarily equal reward in reality, and this gamerfic has a hefty dose of reality, or at least DC flavored reality. Alchemist does not get a quest or mission for every little thing he does and does not live life via that sort of logic. Like in the first part of the stories where he discusses classic issues with gamer fics turning the MC into a sociopath for quests.
I think the min-maxing/metagaming is being taken a bit too seriously here. Whether Jinx has higher stats or better Perks or whatever is kind of meaningless; Alchemist literally does not care, so acting like it's a problem feels like it's missing the point.
The guy has access to his own personal Hyperbolic Time Chamber, limited only by his capacity for loneliness, which he doesn't use. He'd literally rather throw his perk points away than spend them. He could have hit the level cap the same day he transmigrated, if he were so inclined.
If he wanted to be the Strongest Gamer, he would be. As it stands, he seems quite comfortable where he is.
The guy has access to his own personal Hyperbolic Time Chamber, limited only by his capacity for loneliness, which he doesn't use. He'd literally rather throw his perk points away than spend them. He could have hit the level cap the same day he transmigrated, if he were so inclined.
If he wanted to be the Strongest Gamer, he would be. As it stands, he seems quite comfortable where he is.
True, and I was trying to support that line of thought with my past post; sorry if that was not clear enough.
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's kinda silly, yes, but it's in line with how video games work: every PC who contributes to the fight generally gets the same share of the XP and rewards, regardless of how *much* they contribute, or every member of the Party does. Either way works with what's there. That's necessary in MMOs and the like because of the difficulty of setting up perfectly fair systems in that regard with differing levels, quality of equipment, roles, and the like. It's not strictly necessary in a real life situation, but it seems like the kind of thing that would carry over into a gamer power. And while Jinx's contribution wasn't anywhere near as big as Alchemist's, it did make a meaningful difference.
I was commenting generally on the ongoing conversation, not to you in particular. I didn't even see your most recent message before I posted.
Lordamnesia
What are we doing again?
I see where your coming from, but I'm absolutely sure your looking at this the wrong way. In every part of this story it is pointed out that the MC is an ADULT. A parent, lover, husband. And he was shanghai'd into doing this, he didn't choose to be a gamer. He knows, through the various fictions about DC, that Jinx almost always gets the short end of some sort of stick, rarely getting a fair shake in the world, and when she does it makes her into a very surprisingly useful hero.
Plus, she's a barely teenager when the MC finds her, and that pulls on his heartstrings even more. So why wouldn't he help her? Which is exactly what he did. I also think your forgetting that he didn't intend to make Jinx a gamer like he is, she literally tripped and fell into him making him hit accept on a quest he wasn't even sure he was going to do. He invited her to the group and trained her up because she wouldn't have lived though that psuedo world without it, or that was his worry.
Now, is he assisting and buffing up Jinx to a frankly rediculous level? Yes! Because if you could make sure your friends and dependants would be much more safe with just a little more work, you would. Or rather, any competent decent guardian / parent would.
Plus it's not like Jinx doesn't care about what he's doing for him, but remember she's what, 15? She's noticing what the MC is doing now, and has started to ask to help him. Even at the most scinical of opinion, the effort in buffing her up has started to pay off. Which I don't prescribe to.
You know this is a gamer fic? Saying that the gamer system is meaningless is negating the raison d'etre of the story.
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The problem is not that Jinx is gaining powers, is the way how she is gaining them.
The forced mechanics of the system is the problem, it seems that there is the objetive of buffing Jinx and to hell everything else.
The power ups feels clunky and out of nowhere.
It is rather easy to understand that by giving Jinx ridiculous power spikes out of nowhere, it would make all the effort that Alchemist put in 100+ chapters seem irrelevant.
And effort is important, from old Folktales to recent media makes that quite clear.
Out of nowhere power ups with little explanation and paper thin justification seems just forced.
For example the author decided that the perk is not retroactive, why? Why is it not retroactive? There is no narrative reason or established mechanic that says that it can't be retroactive.
It seems that the only reason for it not being retroactive is so that Alchemist doesn't gains it's full benefits.
That is the problem, out of nowhere arbitrary reasons that seem to want to railroad the story in a particular direction.
The powers that Jinx is gaining is not the problem, the problem is the how and why she is gaining them.
Jinx isn't the problem, she is the symptom. The first arc ended and it seems there is no direction for the plot, Leslie is alive and Alchemist got a body.
There is no sensation of danger, or pressure and there is no overarching objetive anymore, thus the mess with Jinx.
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Chapter 118
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 1.1.8
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Lucrecia Crescent, Jinx decided, wasn't actually a bad looking woman. Not for being 'dead' for the last twenty or so years.
She and Alchemist, both using Bilocation, had teleported directly to the entrance to these Cystal Caves. A duplicate pair was also riding north on that loud, rumbling, beastly motorcycle Dio had given them.
Alchemist had offered to teach her to ride, and she was really, really looking forward to it!
"So..." But back to the part that actually mattered. "How did she get put in the giant crystal? While wearing a dress? In that pose?"
"Honestly?" Alchemist pulled the Second Hand out of his inventory and charged it with Holy Weapon. The shadows inside the cave, encroaching on the duo, recoiled as though struck. "I've got no idea. I think she did it to herself, but the how escapes me."
The cave they were in was filled with crystals. They lined the walls, crawled down in stalactites and the woman, Lucrecia, was encased in an absolutely massive stalagmite of clear blue-ish Materia.
Parting under their feet, though, was a black mist. And brackish red puddles could be seen from the corner of her eyes, until she actually looked. Then it was just... Gone.
"She came to the Shrine of Chaos because she lives and breathes guilt." Alchemist waved his staff around and Jinx had to shield her eyes as he cast Holy, burning the shadows clinging around them with unfettered Light. "She happily experimented on her own unborn son with the goal of turning it into a kind of messiah... That she would hand over to a weapons company. Her husband murdered the one man who argued against the entire thing, and he was the same man that was the son of her mentor, who sacrificed himself in this very cave to save her life."
Alchemist spun his staff and slammed the butt of it into the ground, teleporting the woman out of the crystal.
"Quite frankly." The woman began screaming, clutching at her abdomen, her womb as Alchemist continued to speak in the same, even tone. The one he used when he was trying to keep his spite and dislike to himself. "If I didn't have a use for her, I'd gladly leave her here."
He slammed his staff into the ground once more and Jinx could see the subtle light surround the woman, the visible aura of Heal.
"And, rather than offering her husbands victim a measure of kindness and putting him out of his misery, she instead forced into him an immortality of suffering and the fate of one day being the last living thing on a barren rock as the very essence of life disappeared off to the stars. Him, and her, alone together with their suffering. For all eternity." Alchemist stepped forward to the woman and crouched down, exhaling that toxic hatred in a slow huff.
Jinx had a different job. She was keeping an eye on their surroundings, watching the writhing, angry darkness. It was keeping back, staying away from them... But she could see the shadows testing their boundaries, creeping closer and closer.
"Hello, Lucrecia." Alchemist crouched down, roughly even with the panting, exhausted woman. "I'm here to bring the Nightmare to a close, but I need your help."
"Why?" Her voice was shaky, scratchy and raspy from years of disuse. "Why... Doesn't it hurt anymore?"
Jinx swallowed thickly at hearing her. Alchemist hated the woman, and Jinx understood why, she really did... But it was hard to hold on to the image of some monster that would experiment on babies when the woman was just pathetically holding herself and shivering.
"There are ways to Heal the infection, but they're few and far between." Alchemist gently reached out, putting his arms around the woman. She clutched on to him, a stranger, as though he was a figment that would fade away at any moment. "I need to get the rest of it, but I need your help and we don't have much time. Can you be strong for me? For just a few more hours?"
"What? Who-" The woman, Lucrecia, choked out a sob that was some mix of relief and longing and anguish. "My- I- I had a son. His name was Sephiroth do you- Do you know of him? Anything? Is he okay? Is he safe? Is he- he- he even alive?"
Alchemist tightened his arms around the woman, Jinx saw tears prickling at the edges of his eyes. "He's alive." He told the woman in his arms. "He's alive, but he's not safe. He's not okay. And it's all going to fall apart soon."
He pulled the woman away from him, looking in to her eyes. "That's why I need you to be strong. It's not about the world. It's not about the rest. He needs you to be strong."
The woman, Lucrecia, met Alchemist's yellow eyes with her own brown ones and finally, shakily nodded once.
"That's great, guys!" Jinx shouted, before bringing her hands together in a clap and casting Holy. Pushing back the crawling shadows in the dark, at least for a moment.
Without manifesting into a full and proper form, the wisps of Chaos filling the cave couldn't really be killed. Just... Rebuked, for a moment.
"But can we get moving before these things decide they're not actually afraid of the light?!"
-----
Lucrecia was a woman prone to extremes.
She knew it. It was a trait that was surprisingly common in a world constantly at war with itself, with monsters waiting for any opportunity to strike. It was a trait that had brought her immense joy, as well as deep, terrible sorrow.
She brought a hand to her belly, pressing against the empty space where her son used to be. Where the agony that could never decide if it was infected fire or cystic acid had once been.
The people of Nibelheim didn't recognize her. And, being fair, she didn't recognize them either. Walking through the streets from the entrance of the modest village to the long-abandoned Shinra mansion, very little had changed.
Oh, the well in the middle of the city ran on an electric pump now, and there was a broken down car next to the main gate, sure, but the houses barely looked any different!
It was hard for her to believe it had been twenty years.
She'd had dreams, sometimes. After she'd sealed herself away. Sometimes she saw him, a tall, strong, proud man with long silver hair and wielding a long sword. She would try to go to him, to hold him, but the images would fade away into mist, leaving only mocking laughter to keep her company.
She was pulled from her spiraling thoughts when they reached the gates to the mansion and the man, Alchemist according to the girl, held his hand up, snapped his fingers and the old, rusted lock sprung open.
"How did you do that?" She asked, her curiosity finally pushing through the malaise of dark memories.
"I have transcended the realm of normal Knock-ing." Was his entirely unhelpful answer. The pink haired girl that was with him thought it was funny though.
"Is it some kind of Unlock Materia? I've never heard of one, but..." She trailed off, falling into a series of murmurs as she thought on the mechanics of how that would work.
One understanding of Materia, though heavily disputed, was that it was a sort of crystallized memory of the world. That by charging the strange little crystals with magic, you could force the world to recall the phenomena locked within.
The explanation worked... Only in so far as 'Magic' and 'Summon' Materia were involved. Once 'Support', 'Independent' and 'Command' Materia got factored in, the explanation fell apart.
Hojo had hated it when she brought logic into his arguments.
"There's more magic than just what Materia offers." The man did it again, snapping his fingers and opening the mansions front doors with an ominous creak. "Eyes open, Jinx. Monsters have settled in."
"What do you-" Lucrecia cut herself off from asking when the man pulled a gun from seemingly nowhere. A gun that was much, much too large to have been cleverly hidden anywhere.
He slid a magazine into the rifle in his hands and worked the action, cold eyes scanning the dust and shadows.
The girl, Jinx, brought out a handgun that was not hidden, but holstered openly on her thigh.
They went up a set of stairs, then right through a doorway into a bedroom. It was also where Lucrecia saw the monsters in the mansion for the first time.
Floating napkins with little pumpkin heads. Two of them.
There was one second where Alchemist was in front of her, then the next he was gone. His fists seeming to reach into the strange little monsters- Before coming back out holding a Turbo Ether.
As soon as his hand was free, Jinx put two bullets into it and Alchemist moved on to the next one. It breathed some kind of pink gas into his face, but it didn't stop him from Stealing from it as well.
"What...?" Material type monsters? Those tended to show up in places where nature had reclaimed a building or settlement. The background Mako would first 'animate' guardians to secure the location before more and more 'organic' monsters would crawl out of the primordial soup of life.
Lucrecia swallowed heavily. It really had been decades, hadn't it?
"Alright, keep your ears open." The man said as he cracked open the secret wall inside the bedroom, revealing the spiraling staircase going down to the basement. "There's an undead downstairs, and they can get pretty strong if pushed the right way."
"...What do you need in the Shinra basement?" Lucrecia finally found her tongue enough to ask midway down the rickety wooden railing.
"An extra pair of eyes and a spare gun arm." Alchemist made his way down carefully, the wood bowing far more than normal under his feet.
They eventually came to a rotting wooden door that Alchemist started banging on. "Vincent! Vincent Valentine! Stop cutting yourself and writing emo poetry!"
"...Was this just some elaborate prank to insult me?" The woman found herself asking after a few moments of continued silence.
"No." The man took a few steps away from the rotting wood of the door and rolled his arms. "That'd take too much effort and have too little payoff. Step back a bit?"
Lucrecia looked to Jinx, who nodded, and both girls took a few steps away from the door.
Alchemist, in a full suit of armor, charged shoulder first into the dry-rotted wooden barrier which gave way with a mighty crash.
Lucrecia timidly stepped through the splintered wood, Jinx just behind her, and found herself in a room full of coffins.
One of which, it seemed, would contain her once friend and former experiment, Vincent Valentine. She hoped, somehow, that this -was- just a cruel prank of some kind and that the man had finally expired. Without the agony and grief and -something- clouding her mind, she could see that embedding the controlling portion of Chaos and its protomateria into a person might have been a horrendously bad idea.
It would cripple the Weapon and likely torture the human, assuming they even survived the integration process.
And Vincent never woke up before she hid herself away...
Alchemist lined himself up to the side of the central coffin and leaned over, pushing the lid off. Lucrecia, hesitant, walked up to the side of it too.
Vincent lay there. Dressed in black clothes, he'd found a red cloak made of torn and tattered-
Was that... Made out of the baby blanket she'd gotten for Sephiroth?
She'd thought he was a well-preserved corpse for a moment... Until she heard him snoring.
"He always was a deep sleeper." Lucrecia found herself mumbling. Shocked that he was alive and moved by the sentimentality he'd always tried to hide.
"Any tips on getting him up?" Alchemist seemed ready to try some more of that odd magic of his, but Lucrecia did have an answer for him.
She cleared her throat and said the one sentence that she knew would get Vincent out of bed.
"Who wants pancakes!"
The results were immediate. Vincent rocketed forward into a sitting position, wine-red eyes open but yet unseeing. His mouth open, as if in reflex to say something. "Pan-?!"
Then he cut himself off, seemingly coming to. He brought his right hand up and palmed his forehead, matted hair hanging around his head like a filthy curtain.
"Just-" He mumbled to himself. "-Another night... What?"
Lucrecia leaned down, a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. Vincent was alive, and awake and... This was the weirdest, best dream she'd ever had and she didn't know what to- No, that wasn't true. She knew exactly what to say.
"Good morning, sleepyhead." She practically pulled him out of the coffin in her hurry to wrap him in a hug. He was so thin, and he felt cold but- He was real, and alive and...
Filthy.
"Jinx?" She heard Alchemist speaking from behind them. "Why don't you take them upstairs and get them into the demi-plane? We're not in so much of a hurry that they can't get cleaned up and some hot food in them."
"What are you going to do down here all by yourself?" The girl sounded almost accusatory... But Lucrecia was focused on something completely different.
When was the last time she'd eaten anything? Her stomach was growling at her and saying it hadn't had anything in it in almost twenty years.
"Looting everything to the bedrock and putting the experiments to rest."
-----
Vincent Valentine was clean. He was fed. He was even warm!
He'd forgotten how all of that felt, hidden in the dark. Locked into an unaging body, sleeping with his nightmares.
He didn't quite understand all of what was going on. He'd been woken up by Lucrecia and that... Should have been impossible. The woman had barely aged a day, in fact she looked healthier than he'd last seen her!
The two companions she'd found... Or, judging by her story, had found her. Either way, the man and girl were odd, incredibly so. His instincts, old and new alike, were both telling him there was something wrong here. Deathly so.
The one wearing plate armor, a major oddity even back in his day, set his instincts off the worst. That didn't mean the girl, wearing dark blue cloth and leather gear, was kind and friendly. Well, that wasn't fair. She was very friendly, very bubbly and liked to smile.
It's just that her smile unsettled something deep in his soul.
Before leaving the little village of Nibelheim the man, Alchemist, had stopped by a house inhabited by an older blonde woman. Her face was marred with worry-lines, but the man had simply given her a book- A limit break tome!- and told her it was 'A gift for your boy whenever he gets up the courage to come home.'
From there, they'd gone north. Up and into the mountains.
It was a long and winding path, but it only had one destination.
"You know Shinra is going to hunt you down just for what you've taken from the manor." Vincent was at the front of the group alongside the man, Alchemist. "If you tamper with what's inside the reactor, they'll stop at nothing to find you."
"I'm aware." He'd said it very simply, his head tilted to the side enough to show Vincent he had his attention. "Shinra will be quite upset, and Hojo will lose his mind if he figures out what I plan to do with his mistress."
...Hojo and that grotesque -thing-? Vincent shivered at the mental imagery.
Made all the worse because he couldn't actually deny it. The man had been fixated when he'd come up to the reactor to collect samples.
The girls behind them were quietly conversing about something. Vincent was catching snippets about how Materia worked and the different kinds outside the norm. Lucrecia was doing a good job explaining about how Independent Materia often worked by warping reality as opposed to directly altering things and the girl was asking how it worked with her Gil Plus Materia.
Vincent focused forward, the explanation getting too technical for him.
They made surprisingly good time, suspiciously good time. More than once he'd seen a Dragon in the distance, watching them speculatively. More than once he'd heard a shrill, distant shriek before the air went still and all sounds silent.
They reached the reactor unmolested.
"Alright." Vincent could hear Alchemist inhale heavily as he stepped up the stairs to reach the door. "There are... Things, in here. Experiments, rejects. Strong, angry, twisted things. Even if someone in the town called Shinra, we should still be ahead of the Turks by a few hours, we made good time coming up. We might have to fight our way in, might have to fight our way out. Vincent, Jinx? I need you to keep Lucrecia safe."
Vincent nodded once. He hadn't been told the plan, not really. Alchemist seemed to think that detail retention was an important part of information security.
Even though it irritated him, he still approved.
"I'll take lead. Be careful and pay attention to your instincts. The target is a strong psychic manipulator and a biological infohazard. Any last minute suggestions, comments or concerns?" Alchemist asked the group.
"Question?" The pink haired girl, Jinx, raised her hand. "How many people are going to die because of this?"
"...Hopefully none. Realistically?" The mans shoulders dropped as he continued. "Likely a few dozen people and countless abominations and experiments. This is the cornerstone for most of Shinra's biotechnical research. That's... Between Shinra and I, and I will have a reckoning for it."
That part... That part Vincent disagreed with. At least in part.
If there was going to be a reckoning, it was going to involve himself, Hojo and his gun.
-----
Alchemist exhaled quietly once the party got situated. Three fighters and an MVP, triangle formation wherever possible.
So basically nowhere. The reactor, he remembered, was incredibly narrow.
He cast Knock on the door and it slid open silently. Quality construction, it had been made to last and keep on working.
Stepping inside, he absently wondered how long the Shinra family had been operating. Historically, they were a weapons company. The reactor, though, had to be close to thirty years old. And these things weren't built overnight, especially when the location was factored in. Construction alone would have taken years. So President Shinra likely inherited his ambitions from his own father, much as Rufus did and...
Actually, thinking on it, Alchemist kept coming up blank. What was President Shinra's first name?
He shook his head and dismissed the though once they got to the catwalk and area where they would have to climb down a chain to reach the lower level.
He sincerely hoped that whoever designed this place had been fired. He really did.
Rather than deal with that eating half an hour, he turned around, tagged everyone, and simply Teleported down to the lower floor, directly in front of the door.
"I still don't understand how you do that..." Lucrecia spoke up from behind him, curiosity clear in her voice. "Exit Materia does not work this way- Wait! You mentioned magic beyond Materia is this-?"
"I will be happy to answer your questions." Alchemist interrupted the excitable woman. "When we are in a safe location not prone to enemy action."
He cast Knock on the door and stepped through, his hands tense around his gun. This was one of the two rooms he'd been worried about. There were rows upon rows of pods, all of them filled with monsters that had once been human. Humans filled with Jenova cells and pumped full of Mako until there wasn't anything left aside from bones and agony. Monsters forged in suffering.
Makonoids, strong, fast and so incredibly angry.
"Don't look in the pods." He said to the people behind him. He was straining his ears to listen, to hear anything beyond the subtle hiss of machinery and the hum of the lights.
Nothing. Yet.
"What is- What are they?!" Jinx almost, almost screamed before catching herself.
He had warned her.
"The precursor to Shinra's Soldier program. Failures, all of them." Powerful creatures with skin like bark, where they still had any. A significant amount of it had been burned away by the Mako, leaving exposed muscles to perpetually regenerate in the caustic fluid.
He didn't know where Shinra had gotten the victims for this, and he didn't want to find out. If he did, the answer was likely in the research library he'd stuffed in his inventory, stolen from the manor.
They continued up the stairs, the door ahead locked and sealed.
Alchemist very politely Knocked on it, forcing it open.
Up ahead, the lights activated on their own. All of them focused on what looked like a head and chest made of steel, suspended by cables in the air before them.
The Jenova Puppet, filled with blood harvested from the mother of monsters hidden just one layer deeper.
He held one hand up, stopping the group behind him, and turned around. He met their gazes, briefly, and began casting.
Mind Blank, Protect, Shell and Life Bubble, a fresh layer for everyone.
Lucrecia was, it seemed, barely holding herself back from asking questions. Barely.
That done, he resumed what he'd been doing. Ascending the tubes leading down from the puppet, he put his hands on the facades face... And pulled!
With Berserk, it was almost easy for him to rip it free of its connections! Fouled blood leaking from the machinery, he threw it aside.
Exposing the tube. Exposing Jenova.
"Oh my god!" Jinx whispered, disgust obvious in her voice.
Alchemist couldn't blame her. Jenova was, at least the obvious, visible parts of her, almost beautiful. A sharp face, her visible eye was a striking, almost pretty yellow. Getting lower, though, things became more grotesque and obviously wrong.
Her 'Breasts' were exposed, though instead of a nipple there was an eyeball on one. The other was completely smooth and untextured. Her arms joined together behind her back at the elbows into some strange, almost coral like organ that was gently pulsing in tune to the heart... That was significantly oversized and resting at her feet, connected to her body by a massive tube coming out of her abdomen. Aside to that tube was her small intestine, pulled free and wrapped around to her back, connecting to various other out of place organs.
Like another eye.
"Hello, Jenova." The eyeball on her breast blinked at him. The one connected to her small intestine rotated to look at his faceplate. Her head, however, didn't so much as twitch.
Briefly, he wondered what she was planning... Then he moved on. Giving her time was a fools choice. He snapped his fingers-
And she was teleported, organs and all, into the middle of the floor in the center of the chamber. The organic horror collapsed to the floor, looking for all intents and purposes as though she were dead.
Alchemist snapped his fingers once again as the pods outside the room began to hiss, the victims inside began screaming.
They would find, in short order, that a Wall of Force would prevent them from interfering.
Perhaps, if he were truly confident in his plan, he would take the time to gloat. To tell the 'Corpse' what he was about to do.
Unfortunately for it, he would rather just get on with things.
The first spell he cast wasn't even on Jenova, it was on Lucrecia. The woman jumped a little bit when she felt -something- pass over her, and Vincent was distracted for a second to look at her.
But only one. He was well trained and very focused, his gun leveled on the Alien thing in front of him.
Alchemist had never looked away from it. He'd paid attention as the eyes were leveled on him. He recognized when their curiosity had turned to hunger.
The first few times he tried to cast Polymorph Any Object on it were resisted and he could tell that it was, in some way, amused by his failures.
The fourth time he cast it, this time with Pierce, Jenova was no longer curious.
With Pierce and Lock and Entanglement, he latched on to the connection between Jenova and Lucrecia, the shared blood they had in their child, and he twisted it.
He'd tested the spell, as much as he could. Without Lock, a polymorphed object would revert to its original form when damaged. And even with Lock, magic would still consider the polymorphed object to be its true form. But... With Lock, he had polymorphed metal into wood, and he'd burned it. He'd watched, he waited, but it never reverted to metal. The ashes had remained ashes, the scraps had stayed wooden.
Jenova's blood became Lucrecia's blood. Jenova's body twisted and shaped itself into Lucrecia's body. Her cells became Lucrecia's, and her son...
Her sons became Lucrecia's sons.
And the monsters, banging futilely against an impossible, invisible wall, were suddenly filled with all too human cells. Cells that failed to hold up against the toxic amounts of Mako in their bodies.
Alchemist swallowed heavily as the notifications started to ping against his ears. Of the monsters, once strong, now dying in droves as their bodies failed them.
He swallowed heavily as he pulled out the absurdly large painite crystal he'd made during his stay in the Gold Saucer, ensorcelled with Trap the Soul cast through Shades, and began to cast the spell on the nude, confused form of Lucrecia-that-wasn't-Lucrecia.
This part of the nightmare, at least, was over.
The rest had just begun.
-----
Jinx followed behind Alchemist at a distance on their way back down the mountains.
He'd been... Subdued? Definitely quiet and sullen since they finished dealing with that -thing- inside of the reactor.
After it had been swallowed by the brownish-green crystal, he'd wrapped that in silk, coated it in lead and then finally put a darksteel cage around it. Jinx almost thought he was paranoid. Almost.
"The only reason it didn't try to kill us from the start." He had told her while they waited in the viewing chamber as the mutated monsters outside slowly died. "Is that it didn't think we could really do anything to it. It survived being struck directly by an extinction-event Meteor, what were a few humans going to do?"
Well, apparently a few humans were going to transform it into something that didn't have access to an entire books worth of supernatural abilities!
He'd fielded a few of Lucrecia's questions as they were walking, but Jinx was sure the woman had noticed Alchemist wasn't exactly focused on her. He was looking through his menus instead, though Jinx couldn't fault him for it.
She was doing the same thing.
Apparently, making so many monsters that were artificially empowered, well, mortal counted as contributing to their deaths. The number of monsters that were 'Slain' was absolutely massive. There were also about fifty or sixty entries for enemies that had simply been 'Defeated', like when she would turn something into a toad.
She didn't know what an Angeal or Genesis were, but Sephiroth was the name of Lucrecia's missing son... And Alchemist had remotely 'Defeated' him.
It had raised them both to level one-hundred and five. If they gained experience off of defeating 'Worthless' opponents, they may well have hit their current level caps!
She finished distributing her points and purchased a perk called 'Lucky Researcher'.
'Lucky Researcher: Digging through musty tomes and disorganized notes is just as much luck as it is skill. Your Luck bonus will now activate when researching topics and trying to find information!'
She was looking for a perk Alchemist had described the other day, Bound Armory, when her search was interrupted.
"We got incoming." Alchemist's voice rang out from the front of the group, his hand held up high, one finger pointing towards the sky.
Jinx took a second to look up, her eyes adjusting to the darkness of the coming twilight, but she gasped when her sight cleared.
Dragons! Dozens of them! All circling around the group!
"Vincent?" Alchemist asked, the inventory open in front of him. "Will you be alright if I send you somewhere safe?"
"...You'll need help." The taciturn man responded, a non-answer.
"And Lucrecia needs to stay safe." Alchemist pulled a bag out of the inventory, one filled with Gil, and threw it at the man. "Jinx and I will join up soon."
He snapped his fingers, sending Vincent and Lucrecia away even as the woman started to object.
Jinx unholstered her handgun and swallowed nervously. Looking at the dragons, the Libra effect on her ring told her that none of them were particularly strong... But there were a lot of them.
"Where did you send them?" Jinx asked as the dragons began to descend.
"Place called Cosmo Canyon. It was on my to-do list, but... It should be safe. Especially with Vincent there." Alchemist still hadn't drawn his own gun, seemingly unconcerned as the dragons began to land around them. "Do they seem hostile to you?"
Actually looking at the various dragons, some old and scarred, some blue and others black. One dragon, a red one, lumbered its way over towards them, crawling down the stone slopes with preternatural ease.
Curious. Cautious. But... No, not hostile.
"Children." The red dragon rumbled, once it was close enough. Now that it was close enough, Jinx could see that it was ancient, easily the oldest of the dragons that had arrived.
There was a brief moment of darkness, Alchemist likely preserving his modesty, and then he sat before the red dragon in his own dragon form. The size disparity between them was painfully obvious.
Jinx hesitated for a moment before she transformed as well, he clothes dangling and tangled on her now much smaller body. Until they were placed in the inventory as well.
"Elder." Alchemist greeted the dragon, his voice smooth and echoing unnaturally. "To what do we owe this honor?"
"The father has beckoned." The elder dragon spoke, her voice felt like summer days and nights around the fire. "And bid His children aid those who would act."
It started as a roar, coming from a distant dragon. One of the green ones, native to the mountain. But it slowly worked its way down, countless dragons pitching together voice and magic.
"You have slain a great foe, one far beyond the both of you." The red dragon brought her head down to look at Jinx, clouded eyes meeting her own glowing pink. "One that would hunt, kill and devour relentlessly if ever it escaped. So He has said, and so we are thankful. We are to gift you a treasure, at His command. One that will aid you in your journey and teach you, truly, the pride and Royalty of our kind."
There was something, a heady haze of magic that was thick in the air.
"I understand." Alchemist said, before bowing his head.
Jinx was pretty sure he was lying, because she didn't understand at all!
"Very good. I've not the strength to repeat His words." The great crimson creature reared up on to her hind legs-
And buried her claw in her own stomach!
"What!? What are you-?!" Jinx tried to run forward, but ran into Alchemist's claw instead, holding her back. He was staring at the display, his eyes wide and muscles tense.
The dragon, the elder, held her claw out. A Crimson Materia, pristine in her bloody claws and glowing with a brilliant light, was drawing in the magic of the countless dragons in attendance.
She fell forward, her body breaking apart into magic to fuel this bloody ritual and the Materia glowed brighter, and brighter still! Jinx felt her eyes watering, but she refused to look away.
She couldn't, she couldn't just pretend the sacrifice wasn't happening in front of her. No matter how much it hurt.
Soon enough the light faded, and the Materia was gone. Replaced with a large, black dragon egg.
A new roar began to fill the air. It began with smaller dragons, hiding among the crags, no bigger than Jinx herself and each of them colored the same red as the Elder had been.
It was a sorrowful sound. Heartrending, as family and friends lost a piece of history that was Ancient as Ancient could be.
"Go on." Alchemist encouraged her, his voice soft and low. "I think this one was meant for you."
Jinx carefully stepped forward, each step difficult in this form. Still, after a few stumbles and falls, she reached the egg. Reaching out, she placed a claw against the egg and-
~~ Special Familiar Egg Acquired! ~~
~~ Dramut Egg! ~~
~~ A child, perhaps, but still an avatar of the great Bahamut's will. With time and care, it will act as Bahamut's hand in the mortal world. When it speaks, it speaks with his wisdom. When it acts, it does so with his authority.~~
~~ Tip: They love fish, and Bahamut finds them incredibly embarrassing because for all that they've inherited, they're still children. Treat it with care and it will love you forever! Literally. ~~
~~ Notice! Restricted Item! Please be careful, restricted items have not been tested and may have unintended effects on the Gamer experience! ~~
-felt warmth, settling itself into her heart. Something she was especially familiar with from when Cinder would jump up on her when she got home from school.
She placed the egg into the inventory and looked up, tears prickling against her eyes. The various and countless dragons were all taking to the skies, flying away. Some just went to other parts of the mountain range, yet still others were flying north.
Once more to their vigil as guardians, tending to the planets wound.
She and Alchemist stood there, side by side, and watched the dragons in flight... Seeing it, Jinx felt something, a longing in her chest.
She wanted to join them, in the sky.
"Alchemist?" The void dragon tilted his head, one eye locked on her. "Will you teach me how to fly?"
He chuckled, softly, and simply said "Of course."
Edit: Corrected some spelling.
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Lucrecia Crescent, Jinx decided, wasn't actually a bad looking woman. Not for being 'dead' for the last twenty or so years.
She and Alchemist, both using Bilocation, had teleported directly to the entrance to these Cystal Caves. A duplicate pair was also riding north on that loud, rumbling, beastly motorcycle Dio had given them.
Alchemist had offered to teach her to ride, and she was really, really looking forward to it!
"So..." But back to the part that actually mattered. "How did she get put in the giant crystal? While wearing a dress? In that pose?"
"Honestly?" Alchemist pulled the Second Hand out of his inventory and charged it with Holy Weapon. The shadows inside the cave, encroaching on the duo, recoiled as though struck. "I've got no idea. I think she did it to herself, but the how escapes me."
The cave they were in was filled with crystals. They lined the walls, crawled down in stalactites and the woman, Lucrecia, was encased in an absolutely massive stalagmite of clear blue-ish Materia.
Parting under their feet, though, was a black mist. And brackish red puddles could be seen from the corner of her eyes, until she actually looked. Then it was just... Gone.
"She came to the Shrine of Chaos because she lives and breathes guilt." Alchemist waved his staff around and Jinx had to shield her eyes as he cast Holy, burning the shadows clinging around them with unfettered Light. "She happily experimented on her own unborn son with the goal of turning it into a kind of messiah... That she would hand over to a weapons company. Her husband murdered the one man who argued against the entire thing, and he was the same man that was the son of her mentor, who sacrificed himself in this very cave to save her life."
Alchemist spun his staff and slammed the butt of it into the ground, teleporting the woman out of the crystal.
"Quite frankly." The woman began screaming, clutching at her abdomen, her womb as Alchemist continued to speak in the same, even tone. The one he used when he was trying to keep his spite and dislike to himself. "If I didn't have a use for her, I'd gladly leave her here."
He slammed his staff into the ground once more and Jinx could see the subtle light surround the woman, the visible aura of Heal.
"And, rather than offering her husbands victim a measure of kindness and putting him out of his misery, she instead forced into him an immortality of suffering and the fate of one day being the last living thing on a barren rock as the very essence of life disappeared off to the stars. Him, and her, alone together with their suffering. For all eternity." Alchemist stepped forward to the woman and crouched down, exhaling that toxic hatred in a slow huff.
Jinx had a different job. She was keeping an eye on their surroundings, watching the writhing, angry darkness. It was keeping back, staying away from them... But she could see the shadows testing their boundaries, creeping closer and closer.
"Hello, Lucrecia." Alchemist crouched down, roughly even with the panting, exhausted woman. "I'm here to bring the Nightmare to a close, but I need your help."
"Why?" Her voice was shaky, scratchy and raspy from years of disuse. "Why... Doesn't it hurt anymore?"
Jinx swallowed thickly at hearing her. Alchemist hated the woman, and Jinx understood why, she really did... But it was hard to hold on to the image of some monster that would experiment on babies when the woman was just pathetically holding herself and shivering.
"There are ways to Heal the infection, but they're few and far between." Alchemist gently reached out, putting his arms around the woman. She clutched on to him, a stranger, as though he was a figment that would fade away at any moment. "I need to get the rest of it, but I need your help and we don't have much time. Can you be strong for me? For just a few more hours?"
"What? Who-" The woman, Lucrecia, choked out a sob that was some mix of relief and longing and anguish. "My- I- I had a son. His name was Sephiroth do you- Do you know of him? Anything? Is he okay? Is he safe? Is he- he- he even alive?"
Alchemist tightened his arms around the woman, Jinx saw tears prickling at the edges of his eyes. "He's alive." He told the woman in his arms. "He's alive, but he's not safe. He's not okay. And it's all going to fall apart soon."
He pulled the woman away from him, looking in to her eyes. "That's why I need you to be strong. It's not about the world. It's not about the rest. He needs you to be strong."
The woman, Lucrecia, met Alchemist's yellow eyes with her own brown ones and finally, shakily nodded once.
"That's great, guys!" Jinx shouted, before bringing her hands together in a clap and casting Holy. Pushing back the crawling shadows in the dark, at least for a moment.
Without manifesting into a full and proper form, the wisps of Chaos filling the cave couldn't really be killed. Just... Rebuked, for a moment.
"But can we get moving before these things decide they're not actually afraid of the light?!"
-----
Lucrecia was a woman prone to extremes.
She knew it. It was a trait that was surprisingly common in a world constantly at war with itself, with monsters waiting for any opportunity to strike. It was a trait that had brought her immense joy, as well as deep, terrible sorrow.
She brought a hand to her belly, pressing against the empty space where her son used to be. Where the agony that could never decide if it was infected fire or cystic acid had once been.
The people of Nibelheim didn't recognize her. And, being fair, she didn't recognize them either. Walking through the streets from the entrance of the modest village to the long-abandoned Shinra mansion, very little had changed.
Oh, the well in the middle of the city ran on an electric pump now, and there was a broken down car next to the main gate, sure, but the houses barely looked any different!
It was hard for her to believe it had been twenty years.
She'd had dreams, sometimes. After she'd sealed herself away. Sometimes she saw him, a tall, strong, proud man with long silver hair and wielding a long sword. She would try to go to him, to hold him, but the images would fade away into mist, leaving only mocking laughter to keep her company.
She was pulled from her spiraling thoughts when they reached the gates to the mansion and the man, Alchemist according to the girl, held his hand up, snapped his fingers and the old, rusted lock sprung open.
"How did you do that?" She asked, her curiosity finally pushing through the malaise of dark memories.
"I have transcended the realm of normal Knock-ing." Was his entirely unhelpful answer. The pink haired girl that was with him thought it was funny though.
"Is it some kind of Unlock Materia? I've never heard of one, but..." She trailed off, falling into a series of murmurs as she thought on the mechanics of how that would work.
One understanding of Materia, though heavily disputed, was that it was a sort of crystallized memory of the world. That by charging the strange little crystals with magic, you could force the world to recall the phenomena locked within.
The explanation worked... Only in so far as 'Magic' and 'Summon' Materia were involved. Once 'Support', 'Independent' and 'Command' Materia got factored in, the explanation fell apart.
Hojo had hated it when she brought logic into his arguments.
"There's more magic than just what Materia offers." The man did it again, snapping his fingers and opening the mansions front doors with an ominous creak. "Eyes open, Jinx. Monsters have settled in."
"What do you-" Lucrecia cut herself off from asking when the man pulled a gun from seemingly nowhere. A gun that was much, much too large to have been cleverly hidden anywhere.
He slid a magazine into the rifle in his hands and worked the action, cold eyes scanning the dust and shadows.
The girl, Jinx, brought out a handgun that was not hidden, but holstered openly on her thigh.
They went up a set of stairs, then right through a doorway into a bedroom. It was also where Lucrecia saw the monsters in the mansion for the first time.
Floating napkins with little pumpkin heads. Two of them.
There was one second where Alchemist was in front of her, then the next he was gone. His fists seeming to reach into the strange little monsters- Before coming back out holding a Turbo Ether.
As soon as his hand was free, Jinx put two bullets into it and Alchemist moved on to the next one. It breathed some kind of pink gas into his face, but it didn't stop him from Stealing from it as well.
"What...?" Material type monsters? Those tended to show up in places where nature had reclaimed a building or settlement. The background Mako would first 'animate' guardians to secure the location before more and more 'organic' monsters would crawl out of the primordial soup of life.
Lucrecia swallowed heavily. It really had been decades, hadn't it?
"Alright, keep your ears open." The man said as he cracked open the secret wall inside the bedroom, revealing the spiraling staircase going down to the basement. "There's an undead downstairs, and they can get pretty strong if pushed the right way."
"...What do you need in the Shinra basement?" Lucrecia finally found her tongue enough to ask midway down the rickety wooden railing.
"An extra pair of eyes and a spare gun arm." Alchemist made his way down carefully, the wood bowing far more than normal under his feet.
They eventually came to a rotting wooden door that Alchemist started banging on. "Vincent! Vincent Valentine! Stop cutting yourself and writing emo poetry!"
"...Was this just some elaborate prank to insult me?" The woman found herself asking after a few moments of continued silence.
"No." The man took a few steps away from the rotting wood of the door and rolled his arms. "That'd take too much effort and have too little payoff. Step back a bit?"
Lucrecia looked to Jinx, who nodded, and both girls took a few steps away from the door.
Alchemist, in a full suit of armor, charged shoulder first into the dry-rotted wooden barrier which gave way with a mighty crash.
Lucrecia timidly stepped through the splintered wood, Jinx just behind her, and found herself in a room full of coffins.
One of which, it seemed, would contain her once friend and former experiment, Vincent Valentine. She hoped, somehow, that this -was- just a cruel prank of some kind and that the man had finally expired. Without the agony and grief and -something- clouding her mind, she could see that embedding the controlling portion of Chaos and its protomateria into a person might have been a horrendously bad idea.
It would cripple the Weapon and likely torture the human, assuming they even survived the integration process.
And Vincent never woke up before she hid herself away...
Alchemist lined himself up to the side of the central coffin and leaned over, pushing the lid off. Lucrecia, hesitant, walked up to the side of it too.
Vincent lay there. Dressed in black clothes, he'd found a red cloak made of torn and tattered-
Was that... Made out of the baby blanket she'd gotten for Sephiroth?
She'd thought he was a well-preserved corpse for a moment... Until she heard him snoring.
"He always was a deep sleeper." Lucrecia found herself mumbling. Shocked that he was alive and moved by the sentimentality he'd always tried to hide.
"Any tips on getting him up?" Alchemist seemed ready to try some more of that odd magic of his, but Lucrecia did have an answer for him.
She cleared her throat and said the one sentence that she knew would get Vincent out of bed.
"Who wants pancakes!"
The results were immediate. Vincent rocketed forward into a sitting position, wine-red eyes open but yet unseeing. His mouth open, as if in reflex to say something. "Pan-?!"
Then he cut himself off, seemingly coming to. He brought his right hand up and palmed his forehead, matted hair hanging around his head like a filthy curtain.
"Just-" He mumbled to himself. "-Another night... What?"
Lucrecia leaned down, a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. Vincent was alive, and awake and... This was the weirdest, best dream she'd ever had and she didn't know what to- No, that wasn't true. She knew exactly what to say.
"Good morning, sleepyhead." She practically pulled him out of the coffin in her hurry to wrap him in a hug. He was so thin, and he felt cold but- He was real, and alive and...
Filthy.
"Jinx?" She heard Alchemist speaking from behind them. "Why don't you take them upstairs and get them into the demi-plane? We're not in so much of a hurry that they can't get cleaned up and some hot food in them."
"What are you going to do down here all by yourself?" The girl sounded almost accusatory... But Lucrecia was focused on something completely different.
When was the last time she'd eaten anything? Her stomach was growling at her and saying it hadn't had anything in it in almost twenty years.
"Looting everything to the bedrock and putting the experiments to rest."
-----
Vincent Valentine was clean. He was fed. He was even warm!
He'd forgotten how all of that felt, hidden in the dark. Locked into an unaging body, sleeping with his nightmares.
He didn't quite understand all of what was going on. He'd been woken up by Lucrecia and that... Should have been impossible. The woman had barely aged a day, in fact she looked healthier than he'd last seen her!
The two companions she'd found... Or, judging by her story, had found her. Either way, the man and girl were odd, incredibly so. His instincts, old and new alike, were both telling him there was something wrong here. Deathly so.
The one wearing plate armor, a major oddity even back in his day, set his instincts off the worst. That didn't mean the girl, wearing dark blue cloth and leather gear, was kind and friendly. Well, that wasn't fair. She was very friendly, very bubbly and liked to smile.
It's just that her smile unsettled something deep in his soul.
Before leaving the little village of Nibelheim the man, Alchemist, had stopped by a house inhabited by an older blonde woman. Her face was marred with worry-lines, but the man had simply given her a book- A limit break tome!- and told her it was 'A gift for your boy whenever he gets up the courage to come home.'
From there, they'd gone north. Up and into the mountains.
It was a long and winding path, but it only had one destination.
"You know Shinra is going to hunt you down just for what you've taken from the manor." Vincent was at the front of the group alongside the man, Alchemist. "If you tamper with what's inside the reactor, they'll stop at nothing to find you."
"I'm aware." He'd said it very simply, his head tilted to the side enough to show Vincent he had his attention. "Shinra will be quite upset, and Hojo will lose his mind if he figures out what I plan to do with his mistress."
...Hojo and that grotesque -thing-? Vincent shivered at the mental imagery.
Made all the worse because he couldn't actually deny it. The man had been fixated when he'd come up to the reactor to collect samples.
The girls behind them were quietly conversing about something. Vincent was catching snippets about how Materia worked and the different kinds outside the norm. Lucrecia was doing a good job explaining about how Independent Materia often worked by warping reality as opposed to directly altering things and the girl was asking how it worked with her Gil Plus Materia.
Vincent focused forward, the explanation getting too technical for him.
They made surprisingly good time, suspiciously good time. More than once he'd seen a Dragon in the distance, watching them speculatively. More than once he'd heard a shrill, distant shriek before the air went still and all sounds silent.
They reached the reactor unmolested.
"Alright." Vincent could hear Alchemist inhale heavily as he stepped up the stairs to reach the door. "There are... Things, in here. Experiments, rejects. Strong, angry, twisted things. Even if someone in the town called Shinra, we should still be ahead of the Turks by a few hours, we made good time coming up. We might have to fight our way in, might have to fight our way out. Vincent, Jinx? I need you to keep Lucrecia safe."
Vincent nodded once. He hadn't been told the plan, not really. Alchemist seemed to think that detail retention was an important part of information security.
Even though it irritated him, he still approved.
"I'll take lead. Be careful and pay attention to your instincts. The target is a strong psychic manipulator and a biological infohazard. Any last minute suggestions, comments or concerns?" Alchemist asked the group.
"Question?" The pink haired girl, Jinx, raised her hand. "How many people are going to die because of this?"
"...Hopefully none. Realistically?" The mans shoulders dropped as he continued. "Likely a few dozen people and countless abominations and experiments. This is the cornerstone for most of Shinra's biotechnical research. That's... Between Shinra and I, and I will have a reckoning for it."
That part... That part Vincent disagreed with. At least in part.
If there was going to be a reckoning, it was going to involve himself, Hojo and his gun.
-----
Alchemist exhaled quietly once the party got situated. Three fighters and an MVP, triangle formation wherever possible.
So basically nowhere. The reactor, he remembered, was incredibly narrow.
He cast Knock on the door and it slid open silently. Quality construction, it had been made to last and keep on working.
Stepping inside, he absently wondered how long the Shinra family had been operating. Historically, they were a weapons company. The reactor, though, had to be close to thirty years old. And these things weren't built overnight, especially when the location was factored in. Construction alone would have taken years. So President Shinra likely inherited his ambitions from his own father, much as Rufus did and...
Actually, thinking on it, Alchemist kept coming up blank. What was President Shinra's first name?
He shook his head and dismissed the though once they got to the catwalk and area where they would have to climb down a chain to reach the lower level.
He sincerely hoped that whoever designed this place had been fired. He really did.
Rather than deal with that eating half an hour, he turned around, tagged everyone, and simply Teleported down to the lower floor, directly in front of the door.
"I still don't understand how you do that..." Lucrecia spoke up from behind him, curiosity clear in her voice. "Exit Materia does not work this way- Wait! You mentioned magic beyond Materia is this-?"
"I will be happy to answer your questions." Alchemist interrupted the excitable woman. "When we are in a safe location not prone to enemy action."
He cast Knock on the door and stepped through, his hands tense around his gun. This was one of the two rooms he'd been worried about. There were rows upon rows of pods, all of them filled with monsters that had once been human. Humans filled with Jenova cells and pumped full of Mako until there wasn't anything left aside from bones and agony. Monsters forged in suffering.
Makonoids, strong, fast and so incredibly angry.
"Don't look in the pods." He said to the people behind him. He was straining his ears to listen, to hear anything beyond the subtle hiss of machinery and the hum of the lights.
Nothing. Yet.
"What is- What are they?!" Jinx almost, almost screamed before catching herself.
He had warned her.
"The precursor to Shinra's Soldier program. Failures, all of them." Powerful creatures with skin like bark, where they still had any. A significant amount of it had been burned away by the Mako, leaving exposed muscles to perpetually regenerate in the caustic fluid.
He didn't know where Shinra had gotten the victims for this, and he didn't want to find out. If he did, the answer was likely in the research library he'd stuffed in his inventory, stolen from the manor.
They continued up the stairs, the door ahead locked and sealed.
Alchemist very politely Knocked on it, forcing it open.
Up ahead, the lights activated on their own. All of them focused on what looked like a head and chest made of steel, suspended by cables in the air before them.
The Jenova Puppet, filled with blood harvested from the mother of monsters hidden just one layer deeper.
He held one hand up, stopping the group behind him, and turned around. He met their gazes, briefly, and began casting.
Mind Blank, Protect, Shell and Life Bubble, a fresh layer for everyone.
Lucrecia was, it seemed, barely holding herself back from asking questions. Barely.
That done, he resumed what he'd been doing. Ascending the tubes leading down from the puppet, he put his hands on the facades face... And pulled!
With Berserk, it was almost easy for him to rip it free of its connections! Fouled blood leaking from the machinery, he threw it aside.
Exposing the tube. Exposing Jenova.
"Oh my god!" Jinx whispered, disgust obvious in her voice.
Alchemist couldn't blame her. Jenova was, at least the obvious, visible parts of her, almost beautiful. A sharp face, her visible eye was a striking, almost pretty yellow. Getting lower, though, things became more grotesque and obviously wrong.
Her 'Breasts' were exposed, though instead of a nipple there was an eyeball on one. The other was completely smooth and untextured. Her arms joined together behind her back at the elbows into some strange, almost coral like organ that was gently pulsing in tune to the heart... That was significantly oversized and resting at her feet, connected to her body by a massive tube coming out of her abdomen. Aside to that tube was her small intestine, pulled free and wrapped around to her back, connecting to various other out of place organs.
Like another eye.
"Hello, Jenova." The eyeball on her breast blinked at him. The one connected to her small intestine rotated to look at his faceplate. Her head, however, didn't so much as twitch.
Briefly, he wondered what she was planning... Then he moved on. Giving her time was a fools choice. He snapped his fingers-
And she was teleported, organs and all, into the middle of the floor in the center of the chamber. The organic horror collapsed to the floor, looking for all intents and purposes as though she were dead.
Alchemist snapped his fingers once again as the pods outside the room began to hiss, the victims inside began screaming.
They would find, in short order, that a Wall of Force would prevent them from interfering.
Perhaps, if he were truly confident in his plan, he would take the time to gloat. To tell the 'Corpse' what he was about to do.
Unfortunately for it, he would rather just get on with things.
The first spell he cast wasn't even on Jenova, it was on Lucrecia. The woman jumped a little bit when she felt -something- pass over her, and Vincent was distracted for a second to look at her.
But only one. He was well trained and very focused, his gun leveled on the Alien thing in front of him.
Alchemist had never looked away from it. He'd paid attention as the eyes were leveled on him. He recognized when their curiosity had turned to hunger.
The first few times he tried to cast Polymorph Any Object on it were resisted and he could tell that it was, in some way, amused by his failures.
The fourth time he cast it, this time with Pierce, Jenova was no longer curious.
With Pierce and Lock and Entanglement, he latched on to the connection between Jenova and Lucrecia, the shared blood they had in their child, and he twisted it.
He'd tested the spell, as much as he could. Without Lock, a polymorphed object would revert to its original form when damaged. And even with Lock, magic would still consider the polymorphed object to be its true form. But... With Lock, he had polymorphed metal into wood, and he'd burned it. He'd watched, he waited, but it never reverted to metal. The ashes had remained ashes, the scraps had stayed wooden.
Jenova's blood became Lucrecia's blood. Jenova's body twisted and shaped itself into Lucrecia's body. Her cells became Lucrecia's, and her son...
Her sons became Lucrecia's sons.
And the monsters, banging futilely against an impossible, invisible wall, were suddenly filled with all too human cells. Cells that failed to hold up against the toxic amounts of Mako in their bodies.
Alchemist swallowed heavily as the notifications started to ping against his ears. Of the monsters, once strong, now dying in droves as their bodies failed them.
He swallowed heavily as he pulled out the absurdly large painite crystal he'd made during his stay in the Gold Saucer, ensorcelled with Trap the Soul cast through Shades, and began to cast the spell on the nude, confused form of Lucrecia-that-wasn't-Lucrecia.
This part of the nightmare, at least, was over.
The rest had just begun.
-----
Jinx followed behind Alchemist at a distance on their way back down the mountains.
He'd been... Subdued? Definitely quiet and sullen since they finished dealing with that -thing- inside of the reactor.
After it had been swallowed by the brownish-green crystal, he'd wrapped that in silk, coated it in lead and then finally put a darksteel cage around it. Jinx almost thought he was paranoid. Almost.
"The only reason it didn't try to kill us from the start." He had told her while they waited in the viewing chamber as the mutated monsters outside slowly died. "Is that it didn't think we could really do anything to it. It survived being struck directly by an extinction-event Meteor, what were a few humans going to do?"
Well, apparently a few humans were going to transform it into something that didn't have access to an entire books worth of supernatural abilities!
He'd fielded a few of Lucrecia's questions as they were walking, but Jinx was sure the woman had noticed Alchemist wasn't exactly focused on her. He was looking through his menus instead, though Jinx couldn't fault him for it.
She was doing the same thing.
Apparently, making so many monsters that were artificially empowered, well, mortal counted as contributing to their deaths. The number of monsters that were 'Slain' was absolutely massive. There were also about fifty or sixty entries for enemies that had simply been 'Defeated', like when she would turn something into a toad.
She didn't know what an Angeal or Genesis were, but Sephiroth was the name of Lucrecia's missing son... And Alchemist had remotely 'Defeated' him.
It had raised them both to level one-hundred and five. If they gained experience off of defeating 'Worthless' opponents, they may well have hit their current level caps!
She finished distributing her points and purchased a perk called 'Lucky Researcher'.
'Lucky Researcher: Digging through musty tomes and disorganized notes is just as much luck as it is skill. Your Luck bonus will now activate when researching topics and trying to find information!'
She was looking for a perk Alchemist had described the other day, Bound Armory, when her search was interrupted.
"We got incoming." Alchemist's voice rang out from the front of the group, his hand held up high, one finger pointing towards the sky.
Jinx took a second to look up, her eyes adjusting to the darkness of the coming twilight, but she gasped when her sight cleared.
Dragons! Dozens of them! All circling around the group!
"Vincent?" Alchemist asked, the inventory open in front of him. "Will you be alright if I send you somewhere safe?"
"...You'll need help." The taciturn man responded, a non-answer.
"And Lucrecia needs to stay safe." Alchemist pulled a bag out of the inventory, one filled with Gil, and threw it at the man. "Jinx and I will join up soon."
He snapped his fingers, sending Vincent and Lucrecia away even as the woman started to object.
Jinx unholstered her handgun and swallowed nervously. Looking at the dragons, the Libra effect on her ring told her that none of them were particularly strong... But there were a lot of them.
"Where did you send them?" Jinx asked as the dragons began to descend.
"Place called Cosmo Canyon. It was on my to-do list, but... It should be safe. Especially with Vincent there." Alchemist still hadn't drawn his own gun, seemingly unconcerned as the dragons began to land around them. "Do they seem hostile to you?"
Actually looking at the various dragons, some old and scarred, some blue and others black. One dragon, a red one, lumbered its way over towards them, crawling down the stone slopes with preternatural ease.
Curious. Cautious. But... No, not hostile.
"Children." The red dragon rumbled, once it was close enough. Now that it was close enough, Jinx could see that it was ancient, easily the oldest of the dragons that had arrived.
There was a brief moment of darkness, Alchemist likely preserving his modesty, and then he sat before the red dragon in his own dragon form. The size disparity between them was painfully obvious.
Jinx hesitated for a moment before she transformed as well, he clothes dangling and tangled on her now much smaller body. Until they were placed in the inventory as well.
"Elder." Alchemist greeted the dragon, his voice smooth and echoing unnaturally. "To what do we owe this honor?"
"The father has beckoned." The elder dragon spoke, her voice felt like summer days and nights around the fire. "And bid His children aid those who would act."
It started as a roar, coming from a distant dragon. One of the green ones, native to the mountain. But it slowly worked its way down, countless dragons pitching together voice and magic.
"You have slain a great foe, one far beyond the both of you." The red dragon brought her head down to look at Jinx, clouded eyes meeting her own glowing pink. "One that would hunt, kill and devour relentlessly if ever it escaped. So He has said, and so we are thankful. We are to gift you a treasure, at His command. One that will aid you in your journey and teach you, truly, the pride and Royalty of our kind."
There was something, a heady haze of magic that was thick in the air.
"I understand." Alchemist said, before bowing his head.
Jinx was pretty sure he was lying, because she didn't understand at all!
"Very good. I've not the strength to repeat His words." The great crimson creature reared up on to her hind legs-
And buried her claw in her own stomach!
"What!? What are you-?!" Jinx tried to run forward, but ran into Alchemist's claw instead, holding her back. He was staring at the display, his eyes wide and muscles tense.
The dragon, the elder, held her claw out. A Crimson Materia, pristine in her bloody claws and glowing with a brilliant light, was drawing in the magic of the countless dragons in attendance.
She fell forward, her body breaking apart into magic to fuel this bloody ritual and the Materia glowed brighter, and brighter still! Jinx felt her eyes watering, but she refused to look away.
She couldn't, she couldn't just pretend the sacrifice wasn't happening in front of her. No matter how much it hurt.
Soon enough the light faded, and the Materia was gone. Replaced with a large, black dragon egg.
A new roar began to fill the air. It began with smaller dragons, hiding among the crags, no bigger than Jinx herself and each of them colored the same red as the Elder had been.
It was a sorrowful sound. Heartrending, as family and friends lost a piece of history that was Ancient as Ancient could be.
"Go on." Alchemist encouraged her, his voice soft and low. "I think this one was meant for you."
Jinx carefully stepped forward, each step difficult in this form. Still, after a few stumbles and falls, she reached the egg. Reaching out, she placed a claw against the egg and-
~~ Special Familiar Egg Acquired! ~~
~~ Dramut Egg! ~~
~~ A child, perhaps, but still an avatar of the great Bahamut's will. With time and care, it will act as Bahamut's hand in the mortal world. When it speaks, it speaks with his wisdom. When it acts, it does so with his authority.~~
~~ Tip: They love fish, and Bahamut finds them incredibly embarrassing because for all that they've inherited, they're still children. Treat it with care and it will love you forever! Literally. ~~
~~ Notice! Restricted Item! Please be careful, restricted items have not been tested and may have unintended effects on the Gamer experience! ~~
-felt warmth, settling itself into her heart. Something she was especially familiar with from when Cinder would jump up on her when she got home from school.
She placed the egg into the inventory and looked up, tears prickling against her eyes. The various and countless dragons were all taking to the skies, flying away. Some just went to other parts of the mountain range, yet still others were flying north.
Once more to their vigil as guardians, tending to the planets wound.
She and Alchemist stood there, side by side, and watched the dragons in flight... Seeing it, Jinx felt something, a longing in her chest.
She wanted to join them, in the sky.
"Alchemist?" The void dragon tilted his head, one eye locked on her. "Will you teach me how to fly?"
He chuckled, softly, and simply said "Of course."
Edit: Corrected some spelling.
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Cindar
Probably a lurker
- Location
- Canada
Are the baby dragons going to get dragonfly companions? How independent are baby dragons when they hatch? Will it be like a humain child (in need of constant care and attention) or will it be independent and just need someone to teach them tricks/morality/custom and pull them out of trouble?