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Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
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Jinx wasn't sure what was going on, but she woke up to the sound of Alchemist vomiting.
Like, hard.
She spent a few minutes disentangling herself from Yuffie, who had found her way to the cot Jinx slept on. Again. And then climbed silently down the ladder set into the wall to see what was going on.
Vincent, also sleeping downstairs... Was still asleep.
Seriously, nothing ever seemed to wake that man up!
She knocked on the door to the bathroom... But got no answer.
Jinx slowly pushed the door open and poked her head inside, finding exactly what she expected. Alchemist, clutching on to porcelain with one arm and looking incredibly pale. He was shaking, there were chunks of something clinging to his chin and Ash was leaning against him and whining, held in place next to him with his other arm.
"Alchemist?" She stepped in and closed the door behind her. "Are you okay?"
His eyes flicked over to her, but he didn't answer. Just continuing to breathe heavily.
She crouched down next to him and put a hand on his back, rubbing circles through his shirt. Her mom had done this for her, when she was sick.
At least, Jinx thought she did? The memories were distant and faded.
Eventually his shaking came to a stop, the trembling in his hands settled to something manageable. He reached up and flushed the toilet before he started casting spells to clean himself up.
He managed to get himself up until he was sitting on the toilet, then he just dropped. Bent almost double and staring at his hands.
"Jinx?" He croaked, his voice scratchy and his throat burning with bile. "Jinx, I killed people."
She swallowed thickly. She... She hadn't actually thought about what this quest demanded, not after what he'd told her. But, well, she wasn't as surprised as she wanted to be.
Alchemist had known. He'd been aware of this eventuality.
The two of them had tried to leave the quest, once. They'd gotten on the shuttle leaving the Gold Saucer, once, and they hadn't been teleported back to base like her quest page said they'd be.
She'd caught him mumbling that, at the least, it should have let her go.
"Are you okay?" She wanted to ask if they deserved it. If it had been justified. But that never actually mattered.
"They- none of them had a chance to do anything. I didn't let them." He couldn't even bring himself to look up, away from his hands towards her. "Just-just took out the lights and worked my way up. They-this-this stupid, godawful design had them all locked in. Everything was electric, even the door locks. Just stuck in and trapped like-like-like rats!"
She'd never heard him stuttering this badly.
Ash was busy working her head under his hands.
"That was them." Jinx wedged herself to the side, between the toilet and sink so she could place her hands on his back. "I asked about you. Are you okay?"
Sometimes... Sometimes there were fights, among the homeless. For food. For safe places to sleep. Sometimes even for drugs or alcohol, but those were much less common than people seemed to think. She'd had friends who'd been forced to kill, before. And she'd lost friends, over what amounted to nothing more than molding cardboard and a half-eaten burger pulled out of the trash.
"I... I don't know." It sounded like it was hard for him to admit that. "They never touched me. But I... I had a list. I only dealt with the people on that list. And I had to keep going. Finish it all at once. Because I, I don't think I could have tried a second time. Anyone that wasn't on the list, anyone I ran into that didn't need to go, I teleported to the lobby. Maybe I could have... Could've just turned them into toads, turned them into stone. Just kept them I..."
Jinx got back around in front of him and slowly pulled him up to look at his face. It didn't help much. Mentally, he was still in the middle of what he'd done.
"You wouldn't have been able to let them go, would you?" She hadn't asked about who he'd killed, but she was guessing Hojo had been on that list.
Lucrecia and Vincent were going to be upset.
"No." Alchemist mumbled. "They would have just started over. Sold their knowledge or expertise to, to someone else. Started their experiments or wars all over again. Unless I put them somewhere with no people, but that's just killing them slowly. That's... Worse. These people needed to go. And I'm not- I don't agree with torturing people until they die, it's just, that's a line I won't cross. I won't! If I'm going to be responsible for someone dying, if-if that's what has to happen I'll do it but- Quick. Clean. For me, that's for me. Not them."
He was starting to pet Ash, starting to come to a bit.
"So they would have been in the inventory forever. Stuck waiting until something happened to you, or you forgot who they were and just got rid of them." She kind of felt like she was advocating their deaths...
Which really wasn't what she wanted to say.
But Alchemist was rarely vulnerable like this. He hated being exposed like this.
"Same as being dead." He didn't seem happy, but all things considered she couldn't blame him. "This... This is more honest. Whatever is waiting on the other side will handle them."
"Alright." Jinx slowly pulled him into a loose hug. "Is this over? Are we done, can we go home?"
"Almost." He hesitantly wrapped his own arms around her. "No killing, though. I, I'm done killing for this. Different plan. Better plan."
Ash had wormed her way up in between them.
"Did they deserve it, then?" He was coming back enough that she thought she could at least ask him that.
"Yes." He said, with absolutely no hesitation. "Each of them. They killed for fun, for money, for convenience. They were willing to experiment on their own unborn children and torture people beyond death. I-this-"
He inhaled slowly, the tremors in his chest abating. "I've never intentionally killed someone before, Jinx. And the first time I do... It was almost a dozen people. It's... It was so easy, and a part of me is disgusted. But there's another part. Almost proud, that I made a rough plan and executed it successfully. They're both... They're both right. It's just, I've never done this before. I haven't learned how to handle it. This- All of this, it's just hitting me all at once."
"What's the new plan?" She should have asked about the old plan. Maybe they could have come up with a better idea? She would have offered to help, somehow, if he'd asked.
"Need to find a girl, her name's Aerith." His voice was firming up as the thought started to solidify in his mind. "Aerith. In the slums."
He pulled away and she got a good look at his face.
His eyes, still clouded with doubt and memories, had started to regain that cunning edge.
"She'll be the key to dealing with the last piece."
-----
Vincent and Lucrecia had not been idle these last few days.
They'd been hunting for work and an apartment. A two-bedroom unit that they could share.
Alchemist's demi-plane was an absolute marvel... But the repurposed shed he'd turned into a cabin was a bit crowded at four people and a child, with two very energetic dogs.
The two of them were relaxing at a little family diner, now run by the daughter of the woman who ran it back in his day.
The menu was different, but a lot of the flavors had stayed the same. A needed comfort for a pair of people out of time.
Vincent was just bringing his mug of coffee up to his mouth when the television, which had been airing a feel-good piece about something, was suddenly interrupted.
The screen shifted to show a large unit of infantry in a parade, different classes showcasing their specialties. Gunners, grenadiers, flying and special mobility units all got a few seconds to showcase an action piece before-
"And now, a special live broadcast from Rufus Shinra, the new President of the Shinra Electric Power Company!" The new president?
Did the old man step down, finally?
A young, blond man dressed in a white suit stepped up to a podium covered in microphones. He looked serious and determined.
"To the people of Midgar, Junon and our other associated territories, I regret to inform you that a grievious assault has taken place against Shinra." Cameras were going off and Rufus looked grim.
Vincent simply sat and quietly drank his coffee while he watched, though Lucrecia was enraptured.
"Late at night, just a few days back, an unknown group managed to infiltrate and assassinate my father and the board of directors."
"Ah." Vincent realized. "It's a notice of succession."
"What?" Lucrecia was hung up on the words the boy on screen had said. About the board of directors. "That-that includes Hojo, doesn't it?"
"This represents a terrible loss. Not just to Shinra, but to the world at large! Our cutting edge science and military developments have revolutionized monster control and containment worldwide, and it's unlikely for us to see the likes of Heidegger, Hojo or Scarlet again. That was the true mark of my father's work. The ability to find and nurture some of the greatest minds the world has ever known." Well, the boy onscreen had just answered Lucrecia's question.
"Seems like it." Vincent agreed, an odd feeling in his chest. He'd wanted Hojo dead. Wanted to be the one to kill the man, to see the light leave his eyes! But...
It was an old Turk maxim. The job was done when the job was done.
He'd wanted Hojo dead. Now Hojo was dead. That was done. That was over... Now what?
"That... Bastard!" Lucrecia, however, was not a member of the Turks. "He did this, didn't he?"
"Probably." Alchemist had been acting off, the last few days. Staring at nothing, getting distracted more easily than normal when he was back from the slums where he'd been doing something with Jinx and the little Wutain girl, Yuffie.
It... Irked Vincent, on some level, that this was how he discovered things. He felt he was due at least an explanation for what had happened. That Alchemist should have brought him along...
But his overall goal had been accomplished. Hojo was dead.
It was never going to be enough, but Vincent knew he was going to have to live with it.
"Current theories suggest this was a strike from Avalanche. Following a large-scale digital attack that wiped out countless man hours of- Who are you!?" Rufus, onscreen, was interrupted by a large man in a suit of black armor literally appearing behind him and tapping him on his shoulder.
"The man that killed your father." The man in armor, Alchemist, literally just brought his hand up to Rufus' face and flicked him on the forehead. "Doink. You're now an Ancient. Have fun with that."
Vincent brought his empty mug of coffee up to his mouth and tried to take a drink when Alchemist disappeared and mayhem broke out. There was some screaming and shouting before the screen cut off with a picture of Stamp, the Shinra Dog holding up a cue card saying they were currently experiencing technical difficulties.
Lucrecia said it best, really, when she said "What the Hell?"
-----
Aerith Gainsborough liked to think she was fairly happy with her life.
She had a roof over her head, food in her belly and she knew where the few good spots were in the Sector 5 slums to find clean air, clean water and clean soil.
Selling flowers wasn't always the most profitable, but it did more than just bring in gil. It brought in smiles!
And under the plate? Those were priceless.
She'd... Been kind of worried, though. Lately, she hadn't heard a word from that nice boy in Soldier, Zack. The last she knew there was some kind of quarantine and then nothing.
And the voices, from below, had been oddly silent lately, too.
Something was going on and she didn't know what.
Aerith Gainsborough liked to think she was fairly happy with her life, but lately she'd been getting kind of nervous.
Especially when one of her regular customers, an aging woman who made a living selling Potions and other medicines, had told her that there had been people asking about her recently.
A man, a young woman and a little girl.
Not what she normally had to deal with from the Turks, but Shinra could be clever when they wanted to be.
She'd kept her eyes open and strained her ears all day, but there just... Hadn't been anything. She'd sold her flowers, talked to people, helped with the little school in the slums and nothing bad had happened!
But the day was over, and she'd gone home to have dinner with her mom and maybe put something on the television.
She and Elmyra had nearly been done cooking when there had been a knock on her front door.
Her mom looked to her, Elmyra must have noticed her hands trembling as she held on to a cooking knife in a white-knuckled grip... Before the older woman simply nodded to herself, hid a knife in her apron and went to open the door.
Aerith could see the people in a mirror in the living room. A tired looking man with brown hair and yellow eyes wearing simple work clothes. A girl with pink hair and pink eyes wearing a bright ensemble, a yellow blouse and striped leggings under a pair of blue shorts. And a little girl, from Wutai, wearing one of their signature oversized shirts with a pair of shorts and sandals.
"Hello!" The man sounded like he had more energy than he looked. "We're from the church of Jenova's Witnesses and we were wondering if you've heard of our lord and savior, the One Winged Angel?"
Aerith... Put down her knife.
"I'm sorry, what?" Elmyra sounded just as confused as Aerith was.
"My apologies." The man sounded amused as he spoke. "I understand that our congregation isn't especially well known. Jenova, also known as the 'Calamity from the Skies' came down to the world thousands of years ago and she taught man the secrets of the heavens. But she was attacked by the people who didn't understand, and was sealed away. Deep in the frozen lands, buried in the Promised Land."
Aerith... Suddenly didn't feel so good.
"And you just... Felt the need to come knocking on my door?" Elmyra did not sound amused.
"Well absolutely! Jenova's Witnesses go through an immense amount of training, learning to spread our words to the uninitiated! We even have a special training facility where we practice for countless hours learning to knock on doors! We-!" The man suddenly cut off, bending over and laughing.
The girls with him were both looking unimpressed.
"I-" He hissed, trying to get himself under control. "-I'm sorry. Sorry. Just had a rough few days, needed something to laugh about."
"I don't appreciate someone come foolin' at my door while I'm making dinner, mister." And now Elmyra was getting upset. She had her arms crossed in front of her.
"Listen-" The girl, the one with pink hair shoved her friend to the side. "-I'm sorry for my friend here. He's been... Stressed, lately. We actually came here for something important. Is Aerith here?"
"There's nobody named Aerith in this house!" Aerith winced from where she was in the kitchen at the volume Elmyra shouted that at.
"Ah." The girl, the one from Wutai was nodding. "So she's out right now?"
"Nobody named Aerith lives in this house!" If Elmyra wanted them to believe that, she probably shouldn't have been shouting.
"Geeze." The guy sounded less than impressed. "Is she even eighteen yet? And you already kicked her out? I get that she wasn't your kid, but goddamn."
"Mom." Aerith stepped out of the kitchen and into view. "It's alright. I'll deal with them."
"Aerith..." Elmyra's face had turned red, and it was creeping down her neck. That couldn't be good for her blood pressure. "Alright. I'll be right here, though. So no funny business!"
She turned around and waved her finger in the mans face, but he was just grinning. "I'll be good. I got it out of my system. Mostly."
Elmyra went back to the kitchen, though she kept half an ear on them. Aerith appreciated it, she didn't know who these people were or how they knew she was adopted.
But they didn't look like Turks.
"Who..." She actually took a second to get a really good look at the eclectic group. "Are you people? What do you want with me?"
"I'm Alchemist, that's Jinx and the little kid is Yuffie. She says we're her retainers until she goes home because she's a princess." The man held his hand out for her to shake. "And I'm planning to teach Rufus how to have sympathy since he'll be taking over the family business now that his father is dead."
"I'm... Sorry?" Was she supposed to know someone named Rufus? "But who is Rufus?"
"Rufus Shinra. His dad died a few days ago. Sudden onset of lead-related issues." Shinra?! Shinra was dead?! Why hadn't she heard anything!
"How do you know about Shinra being dead, I haven't heard about it!?" And that was big news! She should have heard about it!
"I'm the reason he had sudden lead-related issues." Was he seriously saying he killed President Shinra?! "I'd like to keep his kid from following his footsteps and I've got an idea, but I need some help."
Elmyra had finished making dinner and sat down at the table, placing Aerith's plate at her seat. She turned on the television, which was quickly taken over by a special announcement by a striking blonde man in a white suit.
"That'd be him, I think. Nasty little tyrant, takes after his father." She had no idea what that had to do with anything.
"I'm not going to help you kill someone!" What did he think she was!?
"If I wanted to kill him, I wouldn't need your help. I'm actually trying to avoid that, if I can." Good. That was good. She could work with that.
"What do you need from me, then?" If he could sneak into Shinra and kill the President, she really couldn't imagine what use he'd have for her.
"I'm planning on turning him into a Cetra and I need a second of your time to get a template." He answered easily enough.
"What?" She couldn't have heard him correctly. You can't just turn someone into a Cetra, can you?
"It's completely non-invasive and will take, like, ten seconds of your time. Yes or no?" That-That was an outrageous claim!
"If- What- Yes?" She could feel a subtle push coming from the planet, but this had quickly gone insane!
"Fantastic. Hand please?" He held his own out, and she placed her hand in his.
There was a soft tickle, almost like healing magic, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
"Fantastic! Thank you!" He held up his hand and snapped his finger and another man literally appeared out of thin air!
This one, though, was wearing a full suit of imposing black armor, his face completely obscured. Then, as quickly as he appeared, he disappeared!
"This'll be good, check the TV." He was leaning to the side to see around her, so she turned around herself.
The man that had been right next to Alchemist a second ago was somehow in Junon, right behind Rufus! He just... Flicked Rufus on the forehead, then disappeared!
"That- That- How did you do that?!" She could already hear him, hear Rufus screaming at the Planet! All the way from Junon to Midgar!
And he wasn't alone. There were dozens of other voices, people who had likely been nearby and caught up in whatever Alchemist had done!
"Witchcraft." Alchemist answered her, and he sounded honest. "I appreciate your time, Aerith. If you have any pressing questions, this is my PHS number."
He handed her a card and she looked down to check the number.
...That wasn't a personal card, with a number on it. He'd just handed her a Gil card with-
She looked back up, her eyes wide and wild, but Alchemist, Jinx and Yuffie had all disappeared!
Aerith stepped out her front door and looked around, but nobody was around. Just her, her mom and the flowers as far as she could see.
She stepped back inside and closed the door, slowly making her way over to the table and her dinner.
"Are they gone?" Elmyra asked when she sat down.
"Yeah." Aerith answered, still looking at the card she'd been given.
"Shinra goons. Keep getting weirder and weirder." Elmyra shook her head and brought her fork up to her mouth.
"I don't think they were with Shinra." She wasn't even sure how to start this conversation...
"Mom?" Aerith slid the card over to the older woman. "They gave me this. Is... Is it real?"
The woman put her utensils down and picked up the card.
Then nearly dropped it once she saw what it was.
"One-Million Gil?!"
-----
Vincent and Lucrecia eventually made their way back to the demi-plane, their efforts for the day coming up short.
All anyone would talk about was the announcement and what happened during it. Job interviews and house-hunting ended up being something of a wasted effort.
Stepping back into the cabin inside the demi-plane, they quickly found that Alchemist was in the kitchenette. Doing something at the stove.
Vincent shared a glance with Lucrecia, giving her a very pointed look.
She huffed, then sat down at the bar.
"Alchemist." Vincent was the cooler head, but he could be incredibly forceful if needed. "Why didn't you tell us that you were assaulting the Shinra Headquarters?"
Rather than immediately answer, the man motioned over his shoulder for Vincent to come closer.
Coming up next to the man, he saw he had a small silver cauldron on one of the stoves two burners and a handful of herbs on a cutting board next to it.
Some strange beans, some lavender, chamomile and another plant he didn't recognize.
"Have I ever told you that you're an attack dog, one that's only good for hunting and killing, Vincent?" Alchemist asked him, pouring honeywater into the silver cauldron as he did so.
"...No?" Alchemist had literally never said anything to that effect during the entire time they'd known each other.
"Good. Good. That's one part of why I didn't." Alchemist added one bean to the water that had quickly come to a boil. "I wasn't there just for Hojo, Vincent. He was just one name among many."
"I wanted to deal with him." Vengeance, Vincent thought himself. He'd wanted vengeance. Just as Lucrecia did.
"Would you have let him talk, Vincent? Let him yammer and pace and think while you waited for him to finally shut up so you could shoot him?" That... Was a rather pointed question, giving Vincent pause as he thought about it.
"...In all likelihood, yes." Vincent wanted to know. He wanted to understand. Why had Hojo decided to torture him, turn him into an abomination filled with horrors?
"He probably would have used the time to try and trick you, make an escape or else set off some kind of trap. People like him are always confident because they think they're smarter than everyone else. They think they've already won." Alchemist used a slotted spoon and pulled the bean, now cracked and wrinkled, out of the boiling water. He quickly added in the stalks of lavender and chamomile, tied together with some kind of string before sprinkling in the coarse-cut remains of another herb.
He began to stir it as Vincent thought about what he'd said.
After seven turns, he took the silver cauldron off the active burner and set it on the inactive one to cool.
"...You think he would've escaped." That's really what it came down to, Vincent thought. Alchemist didn't trust him to-
"I think he would've managed to make you doubt yourself, somehow. Hojo wasn't charismatic, but he was very good at dehumanizing people." Alchemist busied himself with setting up some kind of strainer above some glass vials, not looking at Vincent at all as he spoke.
Was it a fair concern? There were days where the beasts inside felt restless, where Vincent already felt like he was less than human.
Only the Galian Beast was especially active and Vincent was glad for that. The creature was simple, in its own ways. The occasional stirrings from the others...
"I created a window of time to accomplish everything, but it was limited. I nearly ran past it because Hojo wasn't where I thought he'd be. If I didn't have a spell to force doors open and another that let me see in the dark, I wouldn't have found him before Shinra re-routed power from another reactor to the building. Then things would have gotten a lot more difficult." Alchemist still wasn't looking at Vincent, just staring at the concoction he'd made as it slowly changed to a deep, almost royal purple.
"Did you think it would be the only opportunity?" Lucrecia asked from where she sat. "If he did escape, we'd have just kept hunting him!"
"Do not!" Alchemist turned around and glared at the woman, the bags under his eyes standing out sharply. "Ever give your enemy time to plan around your actions! Hojo may not have been as smart as he thought he was, but he was still clever and dangerous! The most dangerous resource people like him can get is time!"
Vincent put a hand on the mans shoulder as Alchemist brought a hand of his own up to cover his eyes. He breathed deeply, once.
"...I'm sorry." He said, and the wizard sounded sincere. "I know you wanted to deal with him. Make him pay for what he'd done to you. Both of you. But if he'd gotten away, found another sponsor or taken the time to implant monsters or Materia into himself, everything would have gotten more and more difficult."
"I guess..." Lucrecia didn't look happy, but she seemed to accept what he'd said. "You're probably right, if what you've said about his hobbies was true. I'm not satisfied, I'm not happy about it but... We'll just have to move forward and try to live our lives now. Without his shadow looming over us."
It hurt Vincent, seeing her cover her abdomen with her arm. The woman probably didn't even realize she was doing it.
Things went silent, for a good while. The only noises they could really hear were coming from outside the cabin, where Yuffie and Jinx were playing with the dogs.
Vincent had sat down next to Lucrecia after a few minutes when Alchemist had begun to decant his creation into a pair of vials. A deep, purple liquid that almost looked like the night sky at the end of dusk.
"...What are you working on?" Lucrecia asked him, her scientific curiosity finally getting the better of her.
"Huh? It's a potion. Called, uh, Dreamless Sleep. It's supposed to make sure a person gets about six hours of uninterrupted sleep. I've... Been having a lot of nightmares, lately." Alchemist always seemed surprised when someone asked him what he was doing and actually listened when he spoke.
Although, what Alchemist just described had definitely piqued Vincent's interest.
"I don't suppose you've made enough for two doses?" The former-Turk asked him, looking intently at the purple concoction. He had his own demons, and they made sure his sleep was rarely restful.
"Sure, that's not a problem." Alchemist capped off the two bottles he'd filled, then handed one to Vincent. "Do you want me to teach you how to make it yourself?"
"I think I'd like that." Vincent had never given much thought to making medicine, but he'd be willing to give it a try. It'd be nice to have a backup option if he couldn't find a good bounty-hunting job.
"Can I learn, too?" Lucrecia actually seemed excited at the prospect of learning a new skill as well!
"Let me go get the others." Alchemist pulled a book out of wherever he hid them. "And we can all learn together."
-----
A few days after the announcement, Lucrecia and Vincent managed to get their new lease on life figured out so Alchemist, Jinx and Yuffie moved on.
The current goal was Wutai, so they could return to sender the very energetic child that had adopted them.
He'd been tempted to use it as an opportunity to teach Jinx how to fly, but there was a bit to do and Alchemist didn't really want to drop her in the ocean. He'd already played that card with the Little League kids.
Instead he teleported to Nibelheim after everyone got situated in the demi-plane and headed West. He'd managed to stop by a cave that wasn't actually hidden at all and picked up the Mime Materia, then headed North.
If some people noticed a relatively small (Compared to the normal specimens) black dragon flying above Wutai, Alchemist didn't notice. Everyone down below had just been going about their day as though nothing were wrong.
It would have been funny to just drop down, to see the people scatter as a great monster was suddenly amongst them... But he did have some restraint. Terrorizing strangers just for the hell of it was only slightly amusing. Terrorizing people he actually knew, however, could be hilarious!
Returning to his human shape and putting on a disguise, he teleported to the edge of Wutai and entered the city properly.
It was... Very Japanese. Traditional Japanese. Tiered pagodas, temples, sliding doors everywhere. Beautiful, though.
Sliding doors, however, did not work for accessing the demi-plane. Which meant he'd need to find someplace to set up his own door.
The hidden caves in the massive statue carved in the image of their gods, right into the side of a mountain. That seemed like a good spot.
And if he snagged the Steal-As-Well support Materia? Well, they shouldn't have tried hiding it in a fire.
Inside the demi-plane Yuffie was busy trying to ride Cinder, who was too small to properly carry the child. Jinx was taking pictures.
"Hey!" Alchemist called to them. "We're here!"
Cinder came to an abrupt halt which sent Yuffie flying, and Jinx just kept taking pictures until the girl got up.
"Finally!" The little ninja shouted, her hands on her hips and head back. "Now we can get some real food! And you can all learn how awesome Wutai is!"
"Yep." Alchemist stepped to the side as the girls all ran past him, before he put the door away again. "Raw fish and salt-sauce, love Japanese food."
"Oh! Sushi! I haven't had sushi in months!" Yuffie literally ran out the cave and down the mountain, Alchemist, Jinx and their familiars trailing along much more sedately.
"...This is going to go badly, isn't it?" Jinx asked him about the time they were halfway down the mountain.
"Oh yeah." Alchemist agreed with her. "Emperor's daughter shows up out of the blue, dragging along a couple of strangers? These guys talk a lot about honor, but really it's all about exploiting other people and managing their reputation. I'd put even odds on them trying to kill us outright."
"Has anyone ever told you that you're a pessimist?" She was side-eying him, a grin tugging on her lips.
"Well." They were nearing the bottom and they could see Yuffie down there yelling at people. "Nobody has ever really called me an optimist."
Yuffie ran off towards one of the larger buildings, several men in official looking uniforms trailing after her.
That girl had a bad case of the zoomies. She was worse than the hellhounds!
They could either try and follow her. End up embroiled in some inane and utterly pointless political garbage or...
"Want to go and find a ramen stand?" He hadn't eaten yet today, and they'd stick out badly enough that if Godo, Yuffie's father and the 'Emperor' of Wutai wanted to find them, he could.
"You mean, like, the instant noodles? You can't seriously think that'd be better than whatever we can cook, right?" Jinx seemed honestly confused. She'd never had actual ramen?
That wouldn't stand.
"You'd be surprised. Come on, I know there's a place called Turtle's Paradise around here somewhere."
-----
Jinx was actually enjoying her ramen, a thick broth filled with noodles, pork, bean sprouts and a runny egg when a man came to get them. He was wearing a full suit of cloth armor with what looked like hardened leather along the arms and legs, and carrying a glaive of some sort.
She was sure it had a proper name, she just didn't know what it was.
"Lord Kisaragi has demanded your presence!" The guy sounded older than her, but he was probably younger than Alchemist looked.
"Alright." Who agreed with the man... But just continued eating his own ramen.
Jinx was enjoying hers, but the sticks she was expected to eat with made it difficult. She'd always just used a fork and spoon, even when she'd eaten Chinese takeout.
"...Now, outsiders!" The boy had reached behind himself and grabbed his weapon, though he hadn't brought it around yet.
"If you're going to be a rude little toad, I can make it so you're just a toad." Jinx giggled at Alchemist's threat. They both had a general sense of how strong people were, due to the Libra effect on their rings of infinite magic. None of the people here that she'd seen were strong enough to worry them.
The guy growled, actually growled at them! That was almost cute! After several terse moments where Alchemist and Jinx simply continued eating their meal, the man sat down on a nearby stool with a huff and a glare.
Jinx would say it didn't take long for them to finish up. She would say that, if she felt like lying. Instead it took a good bit of time because, seriously, eating with chopsticks was hard!
So it was actually like fifteen minutes before they got up and followed Mister Growly to Yuffie's dads house.
It was the biggest building and kept separate from the others by a good margin, meaning he was probably important. Something she already knew from how Yuffie and Alchemist both referred to him as an Emperor, though the tones they used had been very different.
For Yuffie, he was just her dad. For Alchemist... The man would swing back and forth between dismissive and subtle contempt.
She had thought it might be racism at first, but he was never especially rude or mean to Yuffie. And while he -had- threatened their escort, it was only after he'd made some threatening gestures towards them first.
So there was something else going on and he didn't have the patience to deal with it.
They were lead through a handful of sliding doors before being stopped, a couple of retainers standing on either side of what she assumed was the last door.
"You will disarm yourselves before you are permitted to meet with Lord Kisaragi!" The one on the right shouted at them.
Alchemist looked to her and blinked. Slowly.
"I don't have any weapons on me." Jinx said, holding out her arms and spinning about slowly in place.
The attendant on the left grunted.
Alchemist... Started pulling weapons out of his inventory.
Assault rifles, pistols, riot shields. A couple dozen maces. A half dozen spiked maces that sparked when he pressed a button. Grenade launchers, but no grenades.
Swords. A lot of swords. Then knives...
The pile on the floor was almost as tall as Alchemist himself and he wasn't stopping.
The cherry on top was a grenade. Just one. Balanced precariously on the flat of a sword.
"Alright. That's everything." Alchemist lied to the attendants who'd gone very silent and very still.
Jinx knew it wasn't everything, or even remotely close. She'd pulled open the inventory to watch, and he hadn't pulled out all of anything, just spares. And he hadn't touched his ammunition stock piles at all.
"Very... Very good. Sir." The attendant at the door sounded nervous.
Jinx wondered how he'd feel if Alchemist brought out the tanks?
Regardless, the shaking attendants put a hand on each door and pulled, exposing a small yet grandly decorated room. A man with a goatee sat high up on a pedestal on a purple cushion. Godo, Jinx assumed. On a smaller cushion to his left was Yuffie, fidgeting and trying to look serious.
"These are the people who cared for you on your journey, Yuffie?" The man didn't even wait for them to fully enter the room before he addressed his daughter.
Jinx was pretty sure that was rude.
"Yeah, dad." And Yuffie was looking more uncomfortable as she answered... Jinx was wondering what was going to happen next.
The man exhaled slowly and fixed Alchemist and herself with a glare, supposedly thinking.
Making them wait. Some kind of little powerplay?
"My daughter has told me..." Jinx could hear a soft click coming from various locations around the room. Small panels being pushed out of the way in some unseen locations. "That your treatment of her is most unbecoming for the future empress of these lands!"
"Okay." Jinx said, cutting off Alchemist. "And?"
There were windows in the room, and she could see outside. Where plumes of smoke were slowly rising in the distance.
"And this insolence will not stand!" Godo stood up and withdrew a sword that had been hidden behind him. Around the room, various ninja were coming out of their own hiding places.
"Counterpoint?" Alchemist offered, waving at the window. "Wutai is on fire."
"What?!" Godo shouted, looking to the window himself. "What have you done?!"
"Took in the sights, enjoyed some local food, let our hellhounds off their leashes so they could go pee where they wanted. Normal tourist things." Alchemist placed a hand on Jinx' shoulder and continued talking. "I'd help you deal with that and all, but I don't actually want to. Buh-bye now."
He snapped his fingers and teleported the two of them away as hidden ninja started to surge through the paper walls, teleporting back to the Turtle's Paradise bar. Once they'd landed, they headed off to the clearing where Ash and Cinder had last been playing chase together.
"Is everybody in this reality an asshole?" Jinx asked him as the hellhounds ran up to greet them.
"Just the people in charge." Alchemist answered, the ceremonial pagoda in the middle of Wutai burning merrily behind them as they left the village. "I'm kind of surprised they didn't demand all of our Materia. I know Yuffie was after it."
Looking back, watching everyone trying to put out the burning building where the Wutaian people held a celebration to their Five Gods, Jinx kind of felt bad.
But only a little.
-----
~~ Quest Update! ~~
~~ "Seek out my heart, in the deepest reaches. The route you choose is up to you. Will you traverse the barren tundras of the far north and gaze upon my might? Or seek the route hidden beneath the trees of wisdom.
When you find me, I shall gift you your reward in person." ~~
Getting that message had been relatively surprising for Alchemist. He'd sort of expected the quest to conclude the normal way. With him getting some snarky answer from Terra and a handful of stat points.
Actually, he hadn't heard a single peep from Terra during the entire time they'd been here, and that left him feeling just a little bit nervous.
Regardless, he'd had a few options. From the message he'd gotten, they could either go north towards Icicle Inn and then go find the entrance to the deep caves under the Northern Crater or they could go to Banora, near Mideel and figure out how to get into the caves from there.
He and Jinx had settled on Icicle Inn. There were a few things up north that could be important and he'd rather collect them than hope to find alternatives later.
However, that meant he was going to have to work on making some proper armor for Jinx, so she could properly survive the enemies up there. They'd avoided the truly dangerous monsters on Gaia so far, but underneath the Northern Crater lay the Caves of Wonder, filled with the kinds of monsters so heavily empowered by being close to the avatar of Gaia that Sephiroth in his prime would struggle with them.
He'd been intending to upgrade his own gear, anyway. Sort of. He had one addition he wanted to add.
Baleful Polymorph, a spell he didn't have, was used to enchant equipment with the 'Wild' property. It would let a Druid retain his armors benefits when in Wildshape. There was not, that he could recall anyway, an enchantment that would do the same with Dragon Form.
He'd tested it with a spare shirt, however, and discovered that Polymorph Any Object would add the 'Perfect Fit' property to something, and he'd had that shirt grow to fit his Dragon Form perfectly.
He'd added it to everything he wore using Synthesis, then kept at it until he had duplicates of everything. He did consider marking the suits in some way, but decided it didn't really matter. They were identical and would resize to fit the wearer.
They'd stayed in Icicle Inn for a few days, asking about the local legends, talking to experts on mountain climbing (Which they ended up cheating their way up using Transmutation to make proper hand and footholds, but that was later on) and Jinx spent a good bit of time chatting with some of the local girls about something.
Alchemist hadn't been around for that part. He'd been making copies of the videos from Gast's home.
...And burying Ifalna's corpse, stolen from the Shinra Science division in the cold, unforgiving soil next to her husbands headstone, with one he made just for her.
He didn't know if Aerith would ever come here, ever learn of her family.
If she did?
At least she'd find that someone had been willing to pay their respects for what the girl had lost.
Making their way down to the Great Glacier had been... Interesting.
They'd gathered a significant number of items, even one that would improve one of their attributes by one point if they drank it. An accessory called a 'Safety Bit' that would prevent instant death attacks, some support Materia called an All and an Added Cut...
Then they met a woman, in a cave. Huddled and shivering in the cold.
Alchemist had asked her to hand over her Materia.
She, Snow, had refused.
Rather than attack her or try to steal it, Alchemist instead had asked what she would be willing to take in trade for it.
After a bit of back and forth, they settled on a pair of Ruby Rings, from Bitterblack Isle. They'd increase the woman's heat resistance by a total of fifty percent.
She'd literally thrown the red Alexander Materia at Alchemist and run out of her cave, crowing about 'Finally getting a damned drink at Icicle Inn!'.
After that had been going further and further north. Scaling a great wall and delving through caves, they found a Javelin with five materia slots, four of which were paired and it offered double growth on Materia, so he swapped out the slightly stronger but less useful Spirit Lance for it. Deeper in they ended up grabbing another stat boosting item and a true and proper Ribbon that would defend against all status defects.
Excluding instant death!
Grabbing another, unimproved Enhancing Sword and finally dealing with a two-headed abomination...
Well, actually, watching as a small flight of Blue Dragons dealt with a two-headed abomination.
Alchemist made sure to leave them with a lot of meat while Jinx was cooing over them and rubbing their eye ridges, the great and noble creatures practically thumping their legs like dogs while she did so.
Beyond the Gaea's Cliff was the Whirlwind Maze. Filled with nasty, evil little creatures and great storms of Mako and magic.
And also, thankfully, more dragons to aid them. Ironites, small pink dragons and what looked to be Wind Drakes and their riders.
Alchemist... Had no idea who the hell the riders were, or what they were doing here. But there they were, and they were helping out, so he wasn't in the business of complaining.
The only object of real note to them was the MP Turbo Materia, another support orb.
Finally, finally they reached the core area. Great tendrils of crystallized Mako covered everything. Nearby, buried under a mountain of Materia was a great beast. In the future that would hopefully never come to pass, Sephiroth would find his way here, brought by the currents of the Lifestream. The creatures eyes were closed but still it breathed. Slow and even.
Ultima Weapon, most likely.
Hidden near its claw, though, was the entrance to the caves they were searching for.
"This... Is going to suck." Alchemist said to Jinx, already exhausted.
"Should we take a break once we get inside, set up the demi-plane?" Clad in black armor, she had her hands on her knees as she bent over. Getting here hadn't been terribly difficult, but it had been slow and physically demanding none the less.
"Yeah." Alchemist wasn't much better off. He'd been taking lead, shooting and stabbing. Steal-As-Well connected to Double-Cut in his gauntlets let him hit hard, hit fast and take everything... And get hit a lot as well. Jinx had been primarily casting magic, though that wasn't to say Alchemist wasn't doing so as well.
He'd been casting Dark, until it had evolved at level thirty-three into Darkra. After the last few days, it was already up to fifty-five.
Faith and Bravery, spells he kept up constantly on Jinx and himself, were only at twenty-five each.
"Let's regroup and get ready. Jenova was excavated from that cave, and it's filled with the worst things Gaia could fit into it." He walked under Ultima Weapon's claw without any real concern. "We'll eat well, sleep well then dive deep into Hell."
Jinx walked alongside him. The revolver, Outsider, held firmly in her hands.
He didn't want to admit it...
But he kind of preferred dealing with monsters over people.
At least they were honest about why they were trying to kill him.
AN/ So, fun fact, there are Harry Potter tabletop game books out there. It's the only source I've been able to find for a recipe for Dreamless Sleep. A potion featured in the Goblet of Fire.
