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02/08/2003 (TT, Earth-12)
Within the kitchen of the Titan's tower, Starfire scrubbed and scrubbed at a bowl that had, until recently, been rather full of the Pudding of Sadness.
Friend Beastboy's apology the day before, during their running battle with new friends Thunder and Lightning, had been most uplifting.
But the Pudding of Sadness was a complex dish made of many layers. Many of which clung to the sides of the bowl most furiously.
"Hey, Starfire?" Friend Robin's voice broke through the girl's maudlin thoughts, pulling her attention away from the ritualistic task before her. She turned to look at the boy and her hands froze at his condition.
Friend Robin had a great, big black eye on the left side of his face and he was holding his side with one hand. When he stepped into the kitchen to make his way to the fridge, he did so with a limp!
"Robin!" Starfire exclaimed, her feet rising from the ground as righteous fury began to fill her. "You are injured! Who would dare?!"
"It's from sparring," her friend told her, waving one hand towards her dismissively. "Things got a little rough but... y'know, it helped me clear my head."
Righteous fury gave way to worry and confusion.
Robin's head was still very opaque, was it not?
Her friend turned away from her as he opened the fridge and began to rummage through it.
"...Hey, Star?" Robin asked, as he came back up with something in his hand. He rather specifically wasn't looking at her, however. "I... wanted to say I'm sorry."
Starfire looked down at the bowl in her hands, at the stains that refused to vacate the sides.
"For what are you sorry, Robin?" Starfire chose to ask, very deliberately keeping her mind on the task at hand.
Humans were so... difficult. The boys seemed to be ashamed of their emotions while so many of the girls reveled in being mean-spirited and petty.
Perhaps it was just her general mood but that observation often left Starfire feeling... rather sad. For all of her friends.
"For Blackfire," Robin explained as he opened a can of Soder cola with a loud 'Psht!' "For getting so caught up in her... everything. For ignoring how all of that made you feel."
Setting the bowl down in the sink and shutting off the water, Starfire decided it might be best to just throw away the now-permanently stained bowl.
As was tradition.
The redheaded alien approached her friend, noting with discomfort the way his shoulders subtly hunched in on themselves with every step-
And wrapped her arms around the boy in a tight hug, pulling his head agains her chest as she rest her chin atop his head.
"I do not blame you, Robin," the girl gently explained. "For I, too, wish that Blackfire were a friend. I am often guilty of forgetting that her mind is sharp and cunning like a knife but lacks a hilt, that it has cut her family as often as it has cut her foes..."
Starfire inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of Robin's hair.
"But I most appreciate your apology, Robin," Starfire continued after a moment. "And I do accept it."
"Starfire..." Robin whispered hoarsely as he reached up, putting one hand over Starfire's own. "Can't... breathe..."
-----
03/08/2003 (TT, Earth-12)
Yuffie's back slapped against a broken stone pillar, metal grating on the material as she slid down until she was sitting on the ground.
"Da-ad..." Yuffie piteously whined as the monster they'd killed together, some kind of floating sigil thing called a 'Blue Elemental' that threw around water magic, faded into a bunch of little balls of light. "I'm hungry."
"...Yeah," her dad agreed as he walked just around the corner of the pillar they'd broken in the fight. "Me too."
With a sound that was just like her own metal armor grinding against the stonework, she could feel him sliding down the wall to sit near her.
"Granola bars sound good?" he asked, his hand reaching out to hold up a box of paste-filled breakfast bars.
Rather than verbally answer him, she reached out to pluck the box from his hands.
She kind of wanted something savory but the girl also knew well enough that, if she ate anything too heavy, she might throw it back up. Which would suck, super hard.
"...Hey, dad?" Yuffie began to ask as she pulled a trio of bars out for herself. "You ever think of going back to Wutai?"
"...Sometimes," he admitted as he took the box back from her. "You?"
"Yeah- Of course!" Yuffie immediately amended, forcing more energy into her voice. "I'm the heir, even Leviathan says so! They're my people. And..."
The girl sighed as she worked one of her granola bars open, the wrapper crinkling loudly in the dead silence of the realm.
"...It's where my mom's ashes are."
The two sat in silence for a long moment, the only sounds inside the item world of the Water Crystal being the two eating their snacks.
"...Do you want to be the empress of Wutai?" Alchemist asked, his voice quiet.
"Of course I-" Yuffie began to say before she closed her mouth with a click.
She was used to being asked that question by her tutors whenever she was caught slacking off or not paying attention. Like it was her fault that they were boring, or that they seriously thought she had to stay inside and stay all cooped up when it was nice outside.
But her dad wasn't asking her the same way they did. He wasn't using the question to accuse her of anything.
It was just curiosity. He wanted to know what it was that she wanted.
And, actually given a choice...
"...I don't know," Yuffie admitted after swallowing a mass of dry bread and potentially-blueberry flavored paste.
"We could visit," Alchemist offered. "Talk to the people, see how Wutai has been doing. Do you want that?"
"...Just you and me?" Yuffie asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
"Just you and me," Alchemist agreed. "And maybe Ash and Reis."
Yuffie took a moment to chew on her second bar of food to think on that.
That sounded... okay.
"...Can we get my mom's ashes?" Yuffie asked. A part of her felt like she was starting to ask for a lot, but...
It was important.
"Of course we can," her dad told her, as though the answer should have been obvious. "I bet she'd rather be with you, anyway."
...The answer really had been obvious, hadn't it?
"Can we go tomorrow?" Yuffie asked as she leaned over and twisted around to look at Alchemist, just around the broken pillar they were sitting against. She tilted her head a little bit to try and give him the same puppy-eyed look that Ash did when she wanted whatever had been cooked for dinner.
Alchemist just reached over and flicked the visor of her Platinum King Helmet closed.
"I promised Kary we'd go into a Fire Crystal tomorrow," Alchemist told her as Yuffie re-opened her helmet. "How about the day after that?"
Yuffie crossed her arms with a hearty clank and huffed. "Fine..."
Leaning back, Yuffie tilted her head up towards the strange sky of the Item World, an ominous black vortex hovering high overhead in place of any star or sun. She ate her granola bar as she thought about what she wanted to do on her trip.
First thing first?
She needed to buy some coral.
Her mom would've appreciated a little decoration on her shrine, Yuffie was sure of it. A little coral, maybe some jade...
And Leviathan would -definitely- appreciate a little bit of coral on the shrine she hadn't built yet.
-----
04/08/2003 (TT, Earth-12)
Kar'Yashlan laughed. A high-pitched shriek, wordless in its revelry and joy as her hands, so much smaller than her foe's, squeezed until the great demon she was fighting dropped to its knees in agony.
Fire danced around the fallen angel, reflecting madly in her vibrant green eyes. The beast within her grip screamed, flames jetting from its maw with every breath in a failed bid to hurt her, to push her away.
The woman twisted, her wings flapping harshly under the haze of heat, to swing the great, scaled demon over her head to slam back down into the cracked stone, pitted with slag.
"Can you hear it?!" the woman demanded of the avatar of flame. "The howling of the Hells? The cries of the Heavens?! Look upon the fury that would blind the gods themselves and suffer! Megidolaon!"
The feeling-
The magic.
Every type of magic had a unique feel to it. In casting it, in being struck by it. In holding the spell, waiting for the right moment to force it upon reality.
Almighty magic?
Kary held one hand up in the air and, as Ifrit struggled to right itself, hissing and spitting the entire time, she closed her fist and slammed it down.
Around the great demon of flames a white, transparent sphere took shape. From the borders of it, purple rays of light darted inwards, striking at Ifrit before the magic destabilized in an explosion of purple light!
The blast wave washed over Kar'Yashlan, blowing her raven hair back with so much force it would have easily knocked over a lesser warrior.
And the Ifrit? Whether it was a unique individual, some kind of echo, an extension of the great beast slumbering within the primordial fires...
Its body hissed and steamed, the flames cooling as its body, battered and broken, began to turn to ash-
"My turn," Alchemist declared as he stepped around Kary's side, as lights descended from on high to soak into the dying Godling, revitalizing it and restoring life and flesh that she'd worked so hard to strip away.
A second Alchemist appeared next to the first and the two began to act upon different objectives. One of him kept his unseen face locked upon the titanic beast before them, teleporting it back into place over, and over, and over again.
The other- the original? If such a connotation still mattered, with the mastery her beloved had put into his spell? He held his hands before him and a cloud of bright, yellow light formed in front of him. Easily wider than himself, his hands shook as he grabbed the edges of the raw power and squeezed, compressing it down, down, and down again until the great orb of power fit into the palm of one trembling hand.
The mass fought him, fought against his control as he carefully held it out before himself-
And a lance of light, of Almighty power so intense that it was edged in the black distortion of erased reality, lanced out and cleaved cleanly through the most potent foe that guarded the very end of the item world within the Fire Crystal.
"...You've made it functional, love," Kary observed as the Ifrit fell over, now quite thoroughly dead.
"Barely," Alchemist grumbled as he wrung out his hands. At his side, the second instance of her lover faded away. "The wind-up on it is terrible and keeping it from exploding takes more focus than aiming it."
Kary pursed her lips in thought and nodded.
The Almighty element, the Supreme element, it felt right to her. It felt... natural to her. She did not know if it was her lineage connecting directly to Chaos itself or if it came from her donor, Lucifer Morningstar.
An existence that, according to her lover, was the sole master of the strongest Almighty spell across countless myriad realities. Named after himself, fitting for the King of Chaos, Lord of Pride.
The Morningstar.
And then there was whatever Ability her lover was trying to create. His mastery of Freikugel had grown swiftly, owing to his constant delving into the item world over the last few days. It was clearly the starting point to his current endeavor, an even stronger attack that was condensed and controlled so tightly that it would shatter any defense.
"Are you ready to return?" Kary asked, concern filling her heart as her lover took off his gauntlets, revealing the broken, shattered ring that remained from his summoning of Alexander.
Her concerns were quickly assuaged when the man just worked the ring free, revealing red, irritated flesh underneath.
He had spares. That hadn't burned out. She'd no idea why he insisted on trying to get used to wearing the broken ring. Well... she supposed she did know.
Stubbornness, like as not.
"Actually?" her man asked as he considered the broken piece of ebony. "I was kind of hoping we could take a minute to talk. Privacy has been a bit..."
Kary blinked once in pleasant surprise at Alchemist's request.
"Of course, love," Kary told the man, warmth in her tone. "What troubles you?"
"A few things. Yuffie asked to go back to Wutai and she wants the trip to be just the two of us." Kary could guess as to how such a request might bother the man. "And... I don't regret summoning Alexander but I know the kinds of people in DC. Someone, somewhere, is probably working on a ritual right now that they expect will let them 'steal' it from me."
Kary crossed her arms and looked up, thinking, as Alchemist began to strip out of his armor.
Her lover was, in many ways, a terrible summoner. Oh, he was powerful. That was never in doubt. But he would summon the spirits unbound, trusting in their natures to act as he needed. It was cost efficient, technically, but it also meant that Alchemist did not have direct control of the creatures he called upon.
Just the original request he fed into the calling and the belief that the world-rending forces were willing to act upon it.
And such forces, called upon in as close to full capacity as reality could handle? It would take quite the mage to usurp their free will...
"Which do you wish to speak of first?" Kary asked as she mulled those concerns over. "Your daughter and the requested trip to her homeland? Or your plans to counter a radiant god of Light?"
"Alexander is easy," Alchemist said with a snort as he pulled his helmet off. His face was slicked with sweat and his hair, when he pulled back the hood of the jerkin protecting his body from the ravages of his own armor, was flattened down and plastered against his head. "I know the name of its counterpart, Ark, and I know how to access them. Just need to..."
Alchemist opened his system menu with his ungloved hand and began to hunt and peck at the menus until his hand came back with a stone...
That tried to float up and away from him when he opened his hand.
Alchemist's hand snapped out, catching the Levistone before it could escape, and the man tossed it directly into his mouth. It clearly took a moment for him to realize that, just because he could fit it past his teeth, that did not mean that he could actually chew on the object he'd just tried to eat.
Kary stifled a giggle as Alchemist relaxed his hold on his magic, transforming into a half-armored dragon. Then, with a crunch, he bit down and through the floating stone.
"Well..." Alchemist's voice resounded through the air as he continued to chew. "That's one of my Quest Tickets down."
"And Yuffie, love?" Kary asked, one hand still in front of her mouth.
"...She's a ten year old child," Alchemist began to explain as Kary watched the mass of masticated stone travel down his gullet. "I think, at least in part, she wants to know if Wutai misses her. If Godo misses her."
...Ah.
Alchemist may have been a dragon, now. His emotions may have run deep, run quiet, but she knew they were there all the same.
The fallen angel stepped up to the dragon and wrapped her arms about his neck, holding him against her.
"You're worried about her choosing to stay behind," Kary observed as she ran one hand down the hard, black scales between his wings. "Of her leaving you behind."
"...Maybe," Alchemist admitted. "But I'm more worried about what it could do to her if the people of Wutai are fine without her."
Kary's fingers froze as she considered his concern.
That... would be worse, in some ways, now wouldn't it?
The fallen angel's lips pursed in consideration, then in frustration.
She didn't have an answer for her lover's concerns, unfortunately. All she could do, then, was offer him what meager comfort she could as she held him.
New Summon Acquired: Ark, the Dark Fate
New Ability Unlocked: Megido Ark (Prototype)
