Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 3.1.8
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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21/07/2003 (TT, Earth-12)
Standing atop a guard rail next to a busy road, Yuffie shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked out to the giant "T" shaped tower in the Jump City bay. The girl wore her red and blue scalemail along with a backpack that she had hung over her chest.
"Arr, we be after the island stronghold, aye?" Foxy asked, his fuzzy red head poking out of the backpack. The little doll had its eyepatch flipped up and was staring at the tower with narrowed eyes. "Plenty to plunder, I reckon."
"We've got to deal with the traditional three-man party inside," Freddy said, its voice muffled from inside the backpack with the rest of the dolls. "You know there's a barbarian, mage and rogue in there. Variant classes, too!"
"Know what that sounds like to me?" Chica asked as she pushed Foxy to the side to poke her own head out. "That sounds like low Wisdom scores and no Perception ranks!"
"So we can definitely sneak in..." Yuffie muttered, ignoring the honking car horns as people passed by her. Nobody was yelling or anything else of that nature for the simple fact that they were next to a long stretch of road and people were more interested in passing by than in slowing down, rolling down their windows and actually engaging with the girl in a costume. "We just need to figure out how to approach."
"...Fast is visible," Goldy said as it forced its head up next to Chica and Foxy's. "But slow is risky. More chances to get caught. We cannot use Boko."
Yuffie awkwardly worked her arm around the backpack to put her hand to her chin and nodded in thought.
The Plush Party were inexperienced and sheltered, yes, but they weren't stupid.
Yuffie's eyes slid along the bay for a moment as she thought on how to get to the island. She could stand on the water but actually walking on it with any kind of speed was still beyond her, so sneaking over the water was out. But...
Yuffie reached down to her side and pressed her hand against a pouch, against a large orb of Materia that was hidden inside.
"What the-" Bonnie shrieked from inside the backpack as Yuffie jumped over the ledge, landing in a crouch on the surface of the water below. "What's going on?! I can't see!"
"I've got an idea," Yuffie said as she turned toward the rocky shallows further out from the city and started walking. Or stumbling. Regardless, she was moving! "But we need some privacy."
Walking over the water wasn't the same as walking on solid ground. It shifted underneath of her, going up and down, moving back and forth.
So... maybe Yuffie had to stop a few times to get her rolling stomach back under control.
And, at one point, she was kind enough to feed the local fish population with what she'd had for lunch.
"So, lass," Foxy asked once they'd traveled far enough that the tower was out of sight. "What'ya be plannin'?"
"I'm gonna try doing something like what Dad would do," Yuffie explained as she stepped off of the water and on to a rocky shore.
Solid land! Her best friend! Her only, true, friend!
"Magic?" Bonnie asked, the purple rabbit doll shoving her way up to look around.
"Yeah," Yuffie said as she dropped down to sit on a rock, jostling the plush constructs. "But a special kind of magic."
The girl reached down to the pack, specially sealed so that her treasures would always be safe and secure on her person, and pulled out a red Materia.
"Summoning magic," Yuffie continued as she charged the orb and held it in the air. It shone with an internal light-
Dark, heavy clouds swiftly began to fill the once-clear skies and rain began to come down in sheets. The sea, languid and calm if not placid and still, began to rage as the waves churned and fought, slamming into the shore with more and more force.
"Master of waves, lord of whirlpools and father of the seas!" Yuffie shouted as the red orb glowed white. "Greatest god in the lands of Wutai! I, Yuffie Kisaragi, heir of the Coral Throne, call upon you! Come, Leviathan!"
The waters surged, the surface tension held like a bubble before popping in a spray of sea foam and salt as a massive serpent's head rose from the waves. Blue scales shined with a divine light as the great creature turned it's massive, red face down to her. The giant, beaked face came down and Yuffie reached out, placing one hand on the side of the god-serpents face.
Just like she'd done when she'd been a little kid, back when things seemed... happier in Wutai.
Yuffie wanted to squeal and hop in place! She'd seen Leviathan summoned a few times, Godo would call upon the god during a few special ceremonies, but it'd been almost five years since she'd last seen him!
In fact...
The last time Godo had summoned Leviathan had been to give Kasumi Kisaragi a royal burial at sea...
Great, yellow eyes turned to the side. It was too close for him to see but Yuffie was sure that Leviathan was looking at Mule, the Ra-Seru on her arm.
"...You have changed, my child," the serpent whispered, his voice slipping through Yuffie's bones like river water through a canyon. "This is not Gaia. What foreign waters have I been called to?"
"It's some weirdo planet that the people named 'Earth'," Yuffie began to explain, quite ignoring the cowering dolls in her backpack. They'd all huddled in and sealed the bag up tight the second it started raining. "May as well have just called it 'Dirt'!"
"...Earth?" Leviathan hissed, its great eyes widening in surprise. "I had heard that two of our number had been called to Earth. Do you know of Odin and his favored warrior?"
"You mean my dad?" Yuffie asked with a wide grin. "He's the best! He's been teaching me all kinds of things and giving me so much fun stuff to do!"
"...Oh, my child." Leviathan's voice turned sad. For a moment there was silence, aside from the sound of the waves and the pitter patter of the rain.
Then, with a twist in the space, Leviathan shifted and changed. Gone was the incredible serpent, gone was the great god of the seas.
Instead, a man stood on the water in front of Yuffie. An old man with a long, white beard wearing a purple robe held shut with a fine rope inlaid with lapis lazuli stones.
"It's been some time since you've prayed to me," Leviathan said as he turned to look over the roiling seas. "And the lands of Wutai do not venerate the gods, not as they used to."
"...Sorry," Yuffie apologized, her voice small. She hadn't really thought about Leviathan as a person. She'd just kind of been expecting that she could summon him and he'd just help out. "Wutai went to war and things got... bad."
"So it seems, my child. You've found your way into another world, connected to forces I do not recognize, and you consider someone else more fitting to fill Godo's role." Leviathan sighed and turned his head up, the rain somehow failing to hit his wrinkly, upturned face. "Well. You didn't call upon me just to talk, now did you?"
"...We can," Yuffie said, a wave of homesickness pushing away her motion sickness. "I mean-"
"Soon," Leviathan said, denying the girl. "I want to hear everything, Kisaragi. But you called upon me, here and now, for a reason. You will tell me what it is and I shall see what assistance I can offer."
"Oh, uh, okay," Yuffie got out, stumbling over her words. "I, uh, I wanted to get a ride. Underwater. There's this island I gotta get to but I don't want the people on it seeing me."
"That's all?" Leviathan asked, a wheezing chuckle in his voice. The man stepped out, on to the water-
-and the great serpent returned, its beak upturned in a grin. It lowered its head directly before the young ninja.
"Get on, then, and hold on tight. Together, they'll never know we're even there!"
-----
The hustle, the bustle, the quiet background noise of the people of Jump City...
The Teen Titans had definitely missed it.
For them, it felt like they'd been gone for two weeks and change. For the rest of the world? The Teen Titans had been seen out and around the day before, scurrying about as they tried to put together a plan to retake the tower that they'd been thrown out of.
It was... disconcerting and unsettling. The Teen Titans had been disconnected from the world but the world didn't know, had just kept moving right along with absolutely no concern or care that the heroes were different.
Settling in at the pizzeria, the quintet still found themselves working their way back into routines, falling back into roles and masks that they hadn't quite forgotten how to wear, just that they needed to be resized a bit to fit their changes.
Robin had watched a man practice what was functionally mad science... for the sake of saving people that he had no connection to.
Raven had found people who were powerful and dangerous, firmly entrenched in magics that she'd never seen or heard of. And they were, if not happy, then comfortable and content.
Beastboy had been offered forms, powerful and magical and threatening in ways he didn't have words for. Some of which he'd declined out of a sense of deep, primordial fear.
Starfire had found equals. Four of the five warriors actively practiced martial combat, to different styles and degrees. Alchemist practiced with the sword and spear, Tiffany with a pair of short blades, Yuffie with the shuriken and pole and, finally, Kar'Yashlan seemed to have a mastery that dwarfed the former three combined.
Friend Kary was the most powerful of the four in that regard, readily manhandling Starfire and even challenging her in the skies. The fallen angel was not especially agile in the air but the woman could accelerate or stop with almost no warning, offering her a distinct but linear flying style.
Cyborg had found the group interesting, though the lone man among them was the one he'd most connected with. They'd spent time discussing the merits of using various materials, mostly exotic, and while Alchemist wasn't an engineer he nevertheless was willing to back up different ideas with actual numbers. The debate about making stronger tools out of heavier metals had turned into an argument over whether or not it was even necessary but hadn't been some mean spirited 'I have to be right!' kind of argument.
Neither side had really reached a conclusion. Alchemist had admitted that the materials he was working with had mostly only been used within limited or pre-industrial settings, so he was missing practical data. Cyborg, in contrast, had admitted that while he was experienced in a lot of practical engineering, he was hardly an expert in all the different ways that different industries could make use of new materials.
They had all learned new things, discovered new facets of their own skills or abilities.
"...Dude," Beastboy muttered as he melted in his chair. The July heat in California was oppressive to begin with. And being next to the Pacific Ocean might come with a nice breeze but it also meant high humidity which made the heat even worse. "I wanna go home. It's where all my stuff is!"
"...I need to consult my library," Raven said, as close as she usually got to agreeing with him.
"Same. Sorta," Cyborg agreed as he leaned over the table the quintet were seated at. "I've got a couple a things I need to fix that I couldn't work on where we were. And I really want to put a few things through a few tests."
Robin, like Beastboy, was practically melting in his seat. The place they'd been staying for the last few weeks felt like it never went above twenty-one or twenty-two degrees. At current, it was twenty-five degrees in Jump City but, with humidity, felt closer to twenty-eight.
Starfire didn't seem to mind the temperature. The girl was just glancing between everyone as she used a straw to loudly drink her container of... mustard.
Nobody was quite sure what sort of foods Starfire ate on her home planet. It wasn't that they hadn't asked, either. They did. And Starfire was very happy to answer.
By describing fruits, vegetables and animals that didn't exist on Earth and using words from Tameran to describe things. Which just further fed into the confusion because, somehow, the only people that understood her had been the five Outsiders from other realities.
The teens did perk up, however, when the waiter, balancing both of the ordered pizzas in one hand each, made his way over to their table.
One vegetarian pizza and one supreme. Because Cyborg was more willing to compromise and have some vegetables added to his meat pie than Beastboy was about pig or chicken ending up on his pizza.
"So," Robin started off as he snagged a slice of Beastboy's pizza. "Anyone got any ideas on how to take the tower back?"
"Kinda thinking Al mighta had a point," Beastboy said as he took a slice for himself. "Star can just break through the doors. Or Rae can phase through one and open 'em from the inside. Or I could just, y'know, crawl in through the vents. Fighting a hacker through the computer sorta feels like they oughtta be expecting that, y'know?"
"And now that we know what powers our most formidable foes have, we can face them properly," Starfire added in as she reached out to take her own slices of pizza. "The foul Gizmo could be bested by Friend Robin in a battle of weapons or Friend Cyborg in a challenge of technology. The wicked Jinx would most easily be defeated by Friend Raven or myself. And the great Mammoth, strong though he may seem, must still root himself to the ground. I could fight him in hand to hand or else Friend Raven might simply lift him above the ground with her magic, robbing him of his incredible might!"
"Uh..." Beastboy hesitated, cheese dangling from his mouth. "What about me?"
"You are most flexible, Friend Beastboy!" Starfire told him, a wide smile on her face. "Challenging the Mammoth as a gorrilla or rhino would be a great test of strength! Or becoming a chimpanzee or lemur would let you be more nimble than the Jinx! And... I do not think you need to change at all to fight the foul Gizmo, Friend Beastboy."
The group was distracted from their discussion and the food as clouds filled the sky. Thick and heavy, they rolled in fast and had some strong winds to accompany them.
"...I thought it was supposed to be clear today?" Robin asked as he struggled to balance one of the pizzas and his plate in his very limited number of arms.
They ate outside to enjoy the good weather, after all, but the restaurant did have inside seating.
"...It was," Raven said, the dour girl putting up the hood of her cloak. "I thought I felt some kind of magic but it vanished before I could focus on it."
"Yuffie?" Beastboy asked as he carried the veggie pizza with him, his plate just stacked on top of it.
"She's not that magical," Robin disagreed as they shuffled into the restaurant.
"...Weather Wizard?" Cyborg asked as they found an unoccupied table and got things put down. "He's some guy from, uh..."
"Central City," Robin supplied as he sat down. "I'll give Kid Flash a call when I can, see if he knows anything."
With a vague plan of action decided on, the group continued to converse. The comfort and familiarity of being back in Jump City masked their unease and doubt.
For a moment, just one, they were a group of teens. Not heroes with tragic backstories. Not afraid of the future. Not concerned with the rain splattering against the windows.
Not aware as a great, powerful serpent swam through the waters of the bay, its approach on their tower masked by the rain and waves that preceded his calling.
-----
Jinx shivered slightly as she and Kary reappeared somewhere else, somewhere completely different, the second that Kary hit 'Purchase' in the System menu.
The location they'd been brought to was... white. White and black.
Familiar.
The pitted surface they were on, the backdrop of stars in the far distance. Looking up, Jinx saw an orb of white and blue and green hovering high above.
They were on the moon.
"...Huh," Jinx muttered as her gaze slid back down, to the cloaked figure that stood on the opposite end of the field from them.
The man was massive. Equally as large as Kary, perhaps even larger, and garbed in thick, black plate armor with gold accents. And spikes. Sweet Jesus, the guy had spikes on his big-ass pauldrons and a pair of great big horns on his helmet. Then there was the cloak. It was dark purple on the outside but every step the man took sent it fluttering, revealing dark blue on the inside.
"Kary, we need to be careful!" Jinx exclaimed as she shifted into her human form, her hands going for the gun strapped to her hip.
"...Why?" Kary asked, her tone unimpressed as she drew her blades.
"Because we're dealing with a bonafide edgelord!"
"Perhaps it would be best if you took this seriously," Kary said with a deep sigh in her voice. "The man bears the title of an Epic Dark Knight. Such would not be issued lightly, I do not think."
"...Maybe," Jinx agreed, though there was doubt in her voice. The girl pursed her lips in thought as she kept a steady eye on the approaching figure, her left hand sliding along the bracer on her right wrist, touching over the softly glowing Materia orbs.
Yellow, green, blue...
"You've come here seeking power!" the armored man, Theodor shouted at them as he came to a stop only about five meters away. "You will leave here as corpses!"
"And who do I have the honor of addressing?" Kary asked as she held out the blade in her left hand, the tip pointed at the edgiest of edgelords.
"I am Golbez, herald of Zemus!" Golbez declared as he reached around to his back with his left hand and pulled a long, thin, black sword free. He levered it over his head with that one hand to point directly at Kary's face.
Then growled, loudly, as he heard Jinx struggling to keep her laughter in.
"Does something amuse you, whelp?" Golbez, clad in darkness, demanded of her.
"Gobbles!" Jinx shrieked out, giggling despite her best efforts. "Look, Kary! It's the edgelord, Gobbles!"
"My name-!" Golbez shouted as he lunged toward the girl, swinging his blade down. "Is Golbez!"
The tip of the black blade slammed into the lunar surface, missing Jinx by a hair.
The smile had never left her face but her manic grin had given way to something sharper, something darker.
"Yoink!" Jinx declared as she activated her Steal Materia and grabbed Theodor's sword, sending it to the inventory. "And doink!"
"What?!" Golbez shouted, fury in his voice-
Before the man lunged back, avoiding a small but wicked knife thrusting for him from his shadow.
A pair of green flippers pulled out of the black spot that Golbez had left behind, followed by a brown, sack-cloth sleeve as Jinx's Tonberry was summoned into reality.
Not that the tiny harbinger of karma had much of an opportunity to do anything as Kary accelerated at Golbez, her blades swinging in something that almost looked like a dance as she chased after the man.
Sparks flew from his bracers as the disarmed knight did his best to block but, all too often, simply came up short. It wasn't until Kary stumbled over a loose rock that Golbez had enough breathing room to teleport further back.
The man held his arms down and against his body as magic crackled furiously around him. After a brief moment, he thrust his arms forward and unleashed the power he'd accumulated.
Fire exploded, lightning crashed and great, thick sheets of ice tried to swallow the two women whole!
Golbez panted, his breathing shallow as he tried to recoup his stamina from the onslaught of high level magic he'd just unleashed.
"Sad," Jinx said from directly behind the man as she reached out and Stole his armor. "Pretty sure I could do better than that back when I was still a human."
Underneath of his armor, Golbez was...
Actually pretty ripped. Like, six pack abs, long and flowing silver hair, a lot of definition in his legs and arms...
The snarl on the man's face, though?
Zero out of ten.
"You will suffer for this indignity!" Golbez growled as magic built up around the man. A worryingly strong intensity, the man lifted his arms into the air-
*Doink!*
And dropped to the ground as Jinx's Tonberry stabbed him in the back with its kitchen knife.
Jinx looked over to the small, green monster and sent it a thumbs up. The Tonberry, lacking actual digits, simply raised its little lantern in her direction before it began sinking back into its own shadow.
"No..." Golbez wheezed, blood pouring from the ragged wound the summon had left behind. "Not like... this. I have... more... to..."
The naked man held his hand out towards Jinx and a pittance of magic flickered around his fingers. The spell, weak and small, completed...
"I... drink of your... blood..." Golbez wheezed before his eyes widened in shock as a small, flickering orb of crimson flew from him and into Jinx.
~~ +1 HP! ~~
"...What?" Jinx asked as Golbez collapsed and disappeared. The surroundings shifted, turning back into the torn up space where she, Kary and Alchemist had all been practicing. "What just happened?"
"...I believe his spell backfired, dear," Kary said as she sheathed her blades. "Let's open the log and see, shall we?"
"Uh, yeah. Alright."
Dismissing the notice that they'd gotten a quartet of the Limit Break Augments, Jinx opened the System log and checked through the last few entries.
~~ Tonberry (Jinx) used Keen Kitchen Knife!
Critical Hit!
Golbez survived through pure grit!
Golbez cast Drain!
Target (Jinx) was healed for 1 HP!
Golbez has expired! ~~
"...Huh," Jinx mumbled, her lips forming a thin line as she read, then re-read the log. "That's... huh."
"Well. At least now we know why our foe died the way he did," Kary offered, sounding almost as lost as Jinx felt.
"That's... good. I guess." Jinx reached up and closed the window, then turned to face Kary. "You remember how Alchemist was really insistent about getting Drain Touch instead of a normal copy of the Drain spell?"
"I recall it rather vividly, yes."
"Do you think he was worried about this exact thing happening?"
"...I believe so," Kary said after several seconds of thought. "He specifically mentioned that Drain could be reversed if cast upon a target that absorbed the damage inflicted by the element of darkness."
Jinx chewed on the inside of her lip, debating things for a moment.
"...I kinda thought he was worrying over nothing," Jinx admitted before she shook her head and turned to walk back to the house.
"He does have a habit of doing that," Kary told the girl before she placed a hand on Jinx's shoulder, stopping her in place. Turning to look at her, Jinx saw a soft smile on Kary's face. "But he worries because he cares. You learned the spell right alongside him, and I'm sure you would have done the same if he'd wished to learn a lesser variant."
"...Now I feel bad about letting him go off alone." Jinx's face twisted into a scowl as she found a new reason to beat herself up.
"Don't," Kary said with a shake of her head. "I remember well his condition when we first ventured up through the mountain in the world of Demon's Souls. He was putting Darkness to great work, Jinx, but the ability wore at him terribly. If he is practicing with Freikugel in an Item World, it will do the same to him. If not worse. Giving him the space he needs to be a foolish man will assuage his pride... though I doubt he's even aware of such things."
Kary sighed and looked to the workshop, fondness in her eyes.
Jinx... didn't understand. Not really.
But she supposed she did recall how he tried to hide away and not be a burden when something left him feeling bad. And, though she'd only experimented a little bit, any sort of ability that was cast from HP absolutely sucked.
"...You think he'd like some cookies when he gets back?" Jinx asked as they started moving again.
Threading her hands behind her head as they carried on, Jinx wondered as to what she needed to do next.
And, belatedly, realized that the answer was probably 'Do her homework'.
-----
Alchemist's head was absolutely killing him. It had gone beyond just pounding in tune with his heartbeat at some point and he'd started seeing auras surrounding things.
The man was used to headaches. He had more than a little experience with migraines.
Cluster headaches, however?
That was new!
The mage lurched to the side, his shoulder impacting one of the absolutely random fixtures inside of the Enriched Ebony Ingot. He wasn't even sure what he was leaning against, to be honest. Some sort of giant shield? A massive sword?
He didn't know. Nor did he particularly care to find out.
Using Mimic to learn Megido from his wraith had been a quick and easy affair. The spell was actually familiar, after a fashion. It was similar in some respects to Ultima although completely different in many others.
Megido was a complete spell. Fully realized and finalized, with no open areas for it to grow beyond channeling more and more magical power. Alchemist expected that the greater forms were likely built upon Megido in some way but, once the man understood the bud of supreme magic, he couldn't really see too many ways to alter it.
Ultima was made of hooks and tethers, drawing fragments of power into itself from the mastery of other spells. It would continue to grow even if it were left alone and untouched so long as Alchemist continued working on other magics. It had adapted in ways that Alchemist hadn't ever considered possible as it evolved beyond the original limits it was once constrained under.
Freikugel? Freikugel was the source of Alchemist's current agony.
The man raised one shaking hand and a dozen copies of himself formed in the area surrounding him. Some of them hissed, the most noise he'd heard come from them, and he regretted making them in his current state.
"Keep watch," Alchemist said aloud to the group. "If I fall asleep, wake me up before you time out."
Sliding to the ground, Alchemist took off his helmet and tilted his head back against whatever he'd sat against.
Freikugel was... intended to be one of Alchemist's many pocket aces. It wasn't a spell and it drew its power from his Strength rather than Intelligence or Wisdom. Which looked like it was completely contrary to most of what Alchemist had been building towards.
Which was fine. It was the unexpected wildcard that flipped the game, after all.
It was a beam attack- Another beam attack. To go with Energy Beam, Thunderstorm, Void Ray and Tis Rozain. Because he absolutely needed to add yet another one to the list.
Alchemist pulled his gauntlet off of his right hand and then pressed that palm against the middle of his forehead.
It didn't help.
The key difference, the part that mattered, was its element. The Almighty element was a rarity. It was an element, an attribute that transcended the normal bounds and limitations applied to magic or magic-adjacent abilities, in the case of Freikugel. To Alchemist's knowledge, only Lucifer could resist it and nothing could block it. The Almighty element had a lethal reliability that made it the go-to option for many of the highest powers across countless pantheons.
Alchemist closed his eyes and breathed deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
The problem was the cost. The spells demanded copious amounts of magic to use, which wasn't a problem, and Freikugel demanded an exorbitant amount of his own life with every use.
Which was a problem.
'But Alchemist!' Alchemist thought to himself, mockery in his internal monologue. 'Why don't you just use Mana Wall and let your MP eat the hit instead?'
And the answer to that would be that, while a fantastic and effective solution, Mana Wall would prevent Alchemist's passive abilities such as HP+ and Vitality+ from leveling up as he took HP damage. And those were gaining multiple levels with every single use of Freikugel just from how much HP he had to spare.
Or the healing spells he was using that, after dozens of floors, could only just -barely- take the edge off of his discomfort. Using Freikugel backed up by Darksider ate twenty-two percent of his HP per use and while Full-Cure, Heal and the various Restore spells helped? Cycling from full to nearly empty and back to full again had eventually built up to a point that even healing magic couldn't fix the growing discomfort.
Suffer now to survive later, as some might say.
And Alchemist expected that, like Darkness, eventually he would get used to the hit in case he, for whatever reason, ever had to use Freikugel in a serious situation where he wouldn't have access to his magic.
The man's head tilted to the side and his mouth hung open as he cracked an eye and looked at his duplicates. Some were sitting. Some had pulled water bottles out of the inventory and frozen them to hold against their heads or the sides of their necks.
Alchemist closed his eye and brought his hand back up to press against a few spots directly above his eyes.
That one helped. At least, he thought it did.
Alchemist already knew that the Demi-Fiend had balls of steel and an adamantine spine. The kid punched an avatar of Marduk to death, after all. But to think the teen managed that after a journey where he'd been hosting more and more spiritual parasites, having his blackened soul bloated with the collected energy of countless worlds by Lucifer and all the while just throwing around all kinds of attacks that, like Freikugel, were cast from his Hit Points?
God damn. Literally, but...
God damn.
Time seemed to slip away for the man as he just sat and recovered. He didn't know if his suffering was induced by the constant loss and refilling of his HP or if Freikugel was just doing something funky to his third-eye chakra.
He knew that the Shin Megami Tensei series had deep roots in Shinto, Taoism, Daoism and Buddhism. He also recalled that, if one tilted their head slightly and squinted a bit, the story of the Demi-Fiend actually looked a lot like a cultivation story.
Didn't Marogareh, the first Magatama that Naoki came across mean something like 'Core Formation'?
Alchemist couldn't quite recall. And, stuck midway inside of an Item World, he couldn't just look it up.
It was a shame, Alchemist thought as the throbbing in his skull slowly abated. Marogareh had one very interesting property that he'd been trying to imitate and really only came close to. The final skill within the Magatama, sealed by Lucifer, was the ability to Pierce through any defense.
There was no other...
Wait...
There was... one other source of that power. Difficult and dangerous to get to. Surrounded by the echoes of spirits, demons and gods. Held within the soul of a corrupted god, twisted and tainted and filled with purpose.
Alchemist's teeth clicked as he shut his mouth and opened the System shop, looking for...
No such luck, Alchemist found. While there were numerous entries listed for Girimekhala within the shop, none of them matched his memories.
The wizard yawned as he stood up, his migraine reduced to a tolerable enough level. He needed to keep going, keep working on Freikugel until he -didn't- have to shoot the laser out of his face, and worry about taking a nap when he got home.
Although, stepping through the portal that would lead him to the next floor, Alchemist did find himself wondering just how Yuffie was handling her task.
-----
The amazing ninja Levia-Chan held on for dear life as the great serpent, Leviathan, sinuously flowed through the choppy waters. She clutched to his tail, swinging left and right, to and fro, as the god of the seas circled the island she'd directed him to!
And, yeah, her stomach was way beyond empty now. Yuffie had thrown up just from shuffle-walking over the water earlier, which meant she'd lost her lunch. Then she threw up again while clutching on to Leviathan's tail for dear life, but that was pretty much just pure stomach acid and felt way worse than throwing up the first time did.
Finally, Leviathan slowed down. His head broke the surface of the water for a moment before returning to the murky depths.
"I hope you're ready, Kisaragi," Leviathan rumbled, his voice deep and powerful. "My time wanes short. Remember your promise, child. I expect to hear from you soon..."
The sea serpent's tail coiled for a moment before lashing up and out of the water, cracking like a whip in time with a bolt of lightning. The action sent Yuffie flying through the air, aimed directly at the massive, T-shaped tower in the middle of it.
Flipping end over end, the world spun around and around as Yuffie flew through the-
-as Yuffie lost her battle with motion sickness mid-flight and started dry heaving, her stomach fully empty after upchucking twice already in way too short a time frame.
Though, that did nothing to stop the girl from twisting in the air, landing in a three-point crouch and sliding across the rain-slicked roof of the tower!
"...Are we there yet?" Chica asked from within the waterproof bag, still strapped to Yuffie's chest.
"Yar, quit bein' a chicken and take a look!"
"But we might still be underwater!" Chica the chicken exclaimed, panic in her voice. "I can't get all soggy and wet! We'll take hours to dry out!"
"Guys!" Yuffie exclaimed, her voice a harsh whisper as she made her way towards the roof access of the building. As she walked, the girl reached into the inventory and extracted a set of lockpicks. "Heads in the game!"
Freddy, the brown teddy-bear, poked his head out of the bag and looked around. Unlike Chica, he didn't seem bothered by the rain.
Probably because, unlike Chica, he was wearing a hat.
"Yeah," Freddy said as he popped back into the sack. "We're here."
With a quiet click, unheard over the rain and thunder, Yuffie opened the door that led down, into the tower that'd been claimed by the Hive.
A wide, wicked smile spread across the girl's face as she stepped through and closed the door behind herself. She dropped the bag to the ground and the five dolls rolled out, each of them serious and ready to go.
...This was gonna be fun.
Well. Fun for Yuffie, at least.
