- Location
- U.S.
would probably want to possess them first to walk them over to each other so he has them all in one place to toad them all....but then again they are kinda required to fight off any extra terrestrial threats
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Toad, Break, magically enhance the statue, get copies, keep copies, return, and un-Toad/Break.
Last edited:
Chapter 334, FF7 Early Years
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 3.3.4
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of wot you don't recognize, I still don't own.
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The days following the family reunion of the Faremis family did not see much accomplished.
Aerith had gotten sick.
Which... Alchemist felt like he really should have expected that. The girl had been locked up and kept hidden in a lab for the entirety of her life. She simply had not had many opportunities to develop a functioning immune system. She might have been vaccinated against various childhood illnesses, assuming Hojo cared enough to do so, but that did nothing for the countless common pathogens that were considered uncomfortable but harmless.
So. Aerith had caught something, probably the common cold, and she'd been laid up in bed with a fever, a severe cough, some of the worst congestion that Alchemist had ever seen and couldn't keep solids down.
After two days of Ifalna fretting over the girl, Alchemist had enough. He was going to do something about it.
He took the duo to the island village of Mideel, famous on Gaia for the quality of its doctors.
He could magically treat the little girl. And, if it were a dire emergency, he would. But if it -wasn't- an emergency then doing so would cause more harm than good in the long run as her body never developed the ability to fight off infections by itself. It was the same reason he'd let Yuffie suffer through the chicken pox.
The place was... busier than Alchemist would have thought, actually. It wasn't so bad that Ifalna and Aerith weren't being seen to but there were a lot of people.
Some were missing limbs. Some were missing eyes. Some seemed intact but couldn't walk.
All of them worked for ShinRa.
It didn't take long at all for Alchemist to cotton on to the fact that these were people that had been brought back from the war front of the Rhadoran islands.
Total War, from Alchemist's admittedly limited understanding. Ugly business with only one potential outcome, unfortunately.
But he wasn't involved in that mess, not yet, not ever, hopefully.
None of the soldiers recognized Aerith or Ifalna, however. The people that could have, Turks, Executives and Science personnel, wouldn't be getting treated at a clinic on an island that was just a short plane ride from a war front.
But he was sure that Aerith and Ifalna would be reported. Just as he was sure that -someone- in Icicle Inn had made a report of their little venture a few days back. And that was going to leave quite a few people scratching their heads in confusion because, without access to one of ShinRa's few Gelnika airplanes?
It shouldn't be possible for Ifalna to have crossed half the world in two days with a sick child. Especially without turning up in any of the ports or without notice anywhere in between.
So, reasonably sure of the safety of the two Cetra, Alchemist split off a Bilocation Duplicate and got to work on another, equally critical project.
Ameliorating the damage inflicted by the Mako Reactors.
"Woah..." Yuffie whispered in quiet awe.
He'd teleported the two of them to a place called a Materia Cave, a naturally-forming location in the world in which rare, especially potent Materia would form.
The one they were in was a small, coastal cave with rippled layers of sand over the ground. In the back, surrounded by gently glowing blue veins of crystallized Mako, a blue orb stood upon a natural pedestal, shining with the color of the sea itself.
Quadra Magic, one of the most powerful support Materia in existence...
Which Alchemist already had, and he had no need to grab another one when he'd already grown his own to mastery enough that it spawned a fresh, baby Materia. Or the number of partially mastered copies he'd ripped out of items stolen from the Item World.
He was here for an entirely different reason.
"Let's get a picture with the Materia," Alchemist suggested.
He was here for two entirely different reasons.
"Can I take it?" Yuffie asked, hovering over the blue orb. "Can I? Please?!"
"I've got one I can give you," Alchemist told her as he snapped a picture of Yuffie with her grubby little fingers wrapped around the glowing orb. "Leave that one alone."
"But it's here!" Yuffie exclaimed before pouting at Alchemist's stern expression.
Which he also snapped a picture of.
After a bit more posing, and some very goofy pictures of the two of them using the Materia as a set piece like they were a couple of tourists, Alchemist put away his phone.
They had, in fact, come to the coastal cave for a reason. An important one.
Moving to the center of the cave, Alchemist... didn't reach into the inventory. The object he was extracting was too big for that. Rather, he held both of his arms up over his head and sort of pushed the inventory away-
Dropping a massive, faceted blue crystal on top of him.
Alchemist teetered unsteadily back and forth, his feet sliding in the sand for a moment before Yuffie pushed against his back and straightened him out.
Bending at the knees, Alchemist tipped forward and planted the Water Crystal into the sand. For a moment, the giant object did nothing more impressive than shine brightly as it stood in place.
Then, slowly, it started to spin. It picked up speed but never really moved fast.
And, as it did so, both Alchemist and Yuffie could feel the energy it fed into the cave. The crystallized Mako around the room brightened, taking on a deeper hue as they basked in the unfettered, untainted power of Water.
"...Do you think this'll really help?" Yuffie asked, her voice quiet and solemn.
"I don't know," Alchemist admitted. "I hope it does, though."
The man inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a minute, simply absorbing the energy in the room before he opened his eyes and grinned viciously.
"Want to help me kick a bunch of ghost-butt before sticking a light crystal in front of their boss?"
"...Yes," Yuffie told him, her voice serious while mischief danced in her eyes. "Yes, I do."
-----
Ifalna was tired. She'd had a long, stressful day. For a host of reasons.
Aerith had never come down with anything more than a minor case of the sniffles before. Feeling the heat on the girl's forehead, listening to her wheezing and coughing...
It'd been nerve wracking.
But she was better, at least for the moment. The doctors in Mideel had given Ifalna two different kinds of medicine for her little girl. Pills, antibiotics that were supposed to help Aerith get over whatever sickness she'd come down with. The doctors had told Ifalna but she'd been too anxious to properly hear them. It was written down in the instructions she'd been given, she was sure.
And another, a bottle full of bitter, sticky syrup that was supposed to help reduce Aerith's symptoms. Help her breathe and break her fever.
Ifalna didn't want to admit it but it'd helped her almost as much as it helped Aerith.
Once the doctors had taken a look at Aerith and figured out the medicine she needed, Alec had simply found a quiet spot and opened that hole in the air for them. He hadn't followed along and... Ifalna had mixed feelings on the matter.
In a way, she and her daughter were still prisoners. Of circumstance, if nothing else. They had no money, no home and no means of changing that. They were forced to rely on Alec Mist and his generosity.
There didn't appear to be any other motive behind his actions, but...
Running her fingers through Aerith's hair and brushing a few stray strands that clung to her daughter's sweaty forehead, Ifalna was afraid.
Afraid that it might all be an act. Afraid that it all might be a dream. Afraid that Alec might start making demands of her.
Afraid that she would be willing to pay whatever price he demanded if it meant keeping Aerith safe and happy...
Picking up the cup of water she'd kept on the nightstand, Ifalna found it empty. The woman shook her head, her unfocused eyes locking on to Aerith's sweating, wheezing frame.
She was getting better already. Ifalna knew it. It was just going to take time...
It was how sicknesses worked.
But that didn't alleviate the discomfort and uncertainty she felt.
Getting off of the bed, Ifalna patted the big, gangly dog's head as she made her way to the exit. Ash, the dog, had taken up vigil the second they'd come back. She'd been practically inseperable from Aerith, pressing against Ifalna's daughter, sleeping next to her.
The dog whined towards Ifalna, drawing the woman's focus. The big black dog with her big, soulful red eyes... Aerith's hand clenched into the fur around her neck.
"I... I'll be right back," Ifalna whispered. She wasn't entirely sure who she was speaking to.
Her daughter was sleeping, right in the middle of the nice, big bed that Alec was letting them use. The dog?
She wasn't much shorter than Aerith and seemed clever enough, but Ash was still a dog. She couldn't understand Ifalna...
Could she?
"I just need to get more water," the woman continued. She was speaking as much to herself as she was anyone else.
Walking down the stairs, mug in hand, Ifalna walked through the living room and froze at what she saw.
Yuffie. Passed out on the couch, some movie playing on the monitor with the volume kept low enough that she hadn't heard it upstairs. With a... baby dragon of some kind, acting as her pillow and paying attention to the movie in Yuffie's place?
It watched her, its eyes sharp and curious, but it made no move to get up. In fact, it just turned its head away to watch as a blond woman, a brunette woman and some big, buff blond man played in the snow on-screen.
So. Alec was likely back. And the dragon comment had not been some idle joke, it seemed.
She wasn't surprised to find him in the dining room. She was surprised that he was working with a laptop computer, though. It was attached to a device that... kind of looked like a beeper or maybe some kind of futuristic PHS?
Ifalna clenched the cup she'd brought with her in both hands.
"How's Aerith doing?" the man asked without looking away from whatever he was doing.
By the Planet's grace, that was creepy.
"...Better," Ifalna told him, her voice quiet.
She'd... spent so much time over the last few days stressed, crying... grieving. Ifalna hadn't ever realized that she'd been locked in a perpetual cycle of fear, pain and exhaustion throughout the last seven years, that she'd never... processed the death of her husband.
She knew. She'd comprehended. But her present had always demanded too much of her.
"I just need to get some more water for her."
Ifalna turned away and took a step toward the kitchen before she froze. Inside, suspended over the sink, a thin trickle of water running, was a pair of massive, two-meter long, white rabbits. Their throats slit and blood slowly draining away. A pair of massive carrots sat in a bowl on the counter next to them.
"Are those... Jumping?" Ifalna asked, struggling to name the monsters that hunted about the icy wastes of the northern expanses.
"Yeah," Alec said. "There's a pitcher of water in the fridge. Nice and cold."
Keeping her eyes on the dead beasts, Ifalna took a wide path to the fridge and found the pitcher he'd indicated inside. She was about to pour out a fresh glass when-
"Just take it with you," Alec said from the other room. "I'm gonna bet she'll get thirsty through the night."
Ifalna processed the suggestion for a moment before she simply sighed and picked the pitcher and cup up from the counter. Walking back, she paused as she got a glimpse of what Alec was doing at his computer.
Pictures. He was sliding through pictures, mostly of himself and Yuffie in a number of different locations. Mostly caves-
Ifalna almost dropped the pitcher when she saw a picture of Yuffie, her forehead pressed against the aquamarine scales of Leviathan!
"What... what is that?" Ifalna asked, her voice trembling as the pictures cycled, showing the serpent-god circling around a giant, blue crystal as Alec and Yuffie posed in front of it. The two of them were leaning to the side, towards each other with Alec leaning far more than Yuffie, to poke their fingertips to each other.
It looked absurd.
"It's what Yuffie and I were working on after you came back," Alec began to explain as he tapped his laptop and the scene changed. Now it showed the duo in a dark cave, a giant machine of light behind them as wicked, ghastly specters shied away from them. "I'm still working out how to dismantle the Mako Reactors without accidentally killing a lot of people. So, instead, we went to a number of Mako Caves and placed these crystals that should help the planet recover. If it works, it should be about like putting the planet on a bag of saline after a big bender."
"And the summons?" Ifalna asked, feeling vaguely faint as the next picture showed Alec and Yuffie kneeling towards the camera, each of them on opposite sides of a massive man in heavy armor, with a brass mask and a pair of antlers on his helm. "What are you doing with the summons?"
"Well, someone has to defend the crystals," Alec said, as though it were obvious. "I did the summoning, had Leviathan walk me through how to tether them to the crystals afterwards. Nifty trick, cost me a Materia for each one, though."
The next scene that the man cycled through showed a great, almost leonine beast with great horns and a crimson mane... ruffling both Alec's and Yuffie's hair.
The scene after that showed the duo in an ice cave, the two of them hugging themselves to keep warm as a blue woman wearing... basically nothing laughed at them.
"Except for Shiva, there," Alec grumbled without any heat. "Turns out? The Snow women around the Great Glacier? Those were fragments of her will possessing snow golems to try and, well, enjoy life. Still did the whole summon and binding thing but she seemed pretty happy when I gave her a ring of fire immunity. Apparently? Shiva's Snow used to be able to hang out around the edge of Icicle Inn or some of the other settlements and had a habit of attracting men for a night of passion. Then something changed and people decided to fear her like one of the monsters."
Ifalna... actually knew that one.
The Snow angels, as they were known around Icicle Inn, were a thing of myth. Legend had it that, those they tempted into following them into the howling winds and blowing blizzards would experience a night of ecstacy only to wake up the next morning, frozen to death.
"With that ring of fire immunity? She said she's planning to go and get properly hammered."
Ifalna stared as the computer cycled through a number of images. In them, all of them, one thing remained constant. Despite the environment changing or some other impossibility occurring...
Yuffie was smiling.
"...What are you?" Ifalna eventually found herself asking. "What are you planning?"
"Well, I'm planning on turning Jenova into a Cetra. And, through her, turning Sephiroth and everyone else that Hojo infected with her into a Cetra. Making an honest man out of him post-mortem is, I think, endlessly amusing." Alec finally twisted around in his seat to look at her, a sharp grin on his face. "And I'm a dragon."
Ifalna stared, blank incomprehension on her face.
Was he... joking?
"Rawr."
He had to be joking.
-----
Aerith woke up covered in sweat. She leaned up, coughing heavily as phlegm and mucus broke apart in her throat.
She...
Really needed to go to the bathroom.
Wiggling out from under the heavy blanket and fighting her way out from being trapped by the big, fluffy doggy and her mom's arms, Aerith hurried out of the bedroom to do exactly that.
Leaving the bathroom, her hands wet and a little bit of water on her chin, Aerith pressed her hands against her stomach. Her lips felt sticky and the little bit of water she'd drank from the sink after she washed her hands hadn't been enough to make her stop feeling thirsty...
She was really hungry and really thirsty but she didn't know if it was mealtime...
But Mister Mist had told her and her mom that they were free to help themselves to anything in the kitchen.
It still felt wrong and weird, like she was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, so Aerith tried to creep down the stairs without making a noise. She was almost through the living room, where Mister Mist was asleep on the couch with Reis stretched out overtop of him, when she felt a tickle in her throat.
Aerith tried to stop it, she really did! But even with her hands pressed against her mouth she still broke out in a loud, wheezing, coughing fit.
Two pairs of slitted eyes cracked open. One set was blue-green, the other was a bright, almost glowing yellow. Both sets locked on to her and Aerith froze as Mister Mist started to sit up and Reis jumped off of him to drape herself across the back of the couch.
"Hey, kiddo," Mister Mist greeted, his voice scratchy until he cleared it a few times. "You feeling any better?"
"Uh..." Aerith hesitated for a second before she nodded. "I'm thirsty."
And then her stomach, which hadn't had much but thin broth in it for the last few days, growled. Loudly.
Aerith blushed and looked down to the floor as the springs in the couch squeaked and Mister Mist got up.
"Well, let's get something in your belly and get you back to bed. Do you want some hot chocolate?" the man asked as he walked past her, one big hand patting the top of her head with surprising gentleness. "And maybe something light for the moment. Where did I put the graham crackers...?"
Aerith followed him into the kitchen and waited at the doorway as he started to move things around. He started by grabbing a mug out of the drainer by the sink, then he went to the refrigerator and pulled out a jug of milk to fill the mug before he put that away. Then he put the mug into the microwave and set that for a minute before he started opening and closing the cabinets around the room.
Eventually, he found what he was looking for because he pulled a blue box out of a cabinet and opened it about the same time that the microwave dinged. He left that alone for the moment, though, to pull a plastic sleeve out of the box before putting the box away and setting the sleeve to the side.
Then he went back to another box by the fridge and pulled a paper packet out of it before pulling the mug of steaming milk from the microwave. He ripped open the packet and poured the contents into the milk before grabbing a spoon from the drainer and stirring up the milk and then, finally, grabbing the plastic sleeve in one hand and the mug in the other, he walked towards Aerith, who got out of the way, and set the mug down on the dining room table.
"Here you go, kiddo," Mister Mist said as he fiddled with the plastic sleeve for a moment, the material stretching in his hands before it finally ripped. "Just start slow, alright?"
Climbing up a little, Aerith sat at the table and looked at what she'd been given. The mug of hot chocolate smelled... like the ice-cream she'd had the other day, but hot. And the stuff inside the plastic sleeve were actually these big crackers covered with some kind of crumbly brown stuff. Just pulling one loose left behind a big mess!
Nibbling at the corner of one cracker, though?
It was sweet but had some other kind of flavor that she couldn't quite describe.
And the hot chocolate was exactly what she thought it was; delicious!
"You need anything else, kiddo?" Mister Mist asked.
Aerith turned to look at him and caught him mid-yawn. He was... really big but he was wearing a pair of loose black sweatpants and a wrinkled tee-shirt. His hair was sticking up in the front and he looked...
Really silly, actually.
Aerith couldn't see why her mom was so afraid of him.
"I think I'm okay," Aerith told him. She hadn't even had to cough or clear her throat! It felt like the sticky gunk was breaking apart whenever she drank more of the hot chocolate.
"Alright, Aerith-" the man broke into a yawn, his mouth opening wide. And then Aerith was yawning, too. "If you need anything else, don't be afraid to wake me up."
Aerith nodded, then watched as the man turned around and walked back to the living room. She leaned back in her chair and saw that he just lay back down on the couch, Reis crawling back down to curl up on top of him. He put one hand on the dragon's back, then the other came up and he covered his eyes with his forearm to try and go back to sleep.
She didn't end up finishing the graham crackers. She put away two before her stomach started to feel weird.
She did end up finishing the hot chocolate, though. It tasted good but she felt sleepy afterwards. Putting things in the kitchen, Aerith headed back to the bedroom. She stopped partway up the stairs, though, and looked through the railing to where Mister Mist was sleeping.
Quietly, half-afraid she might wake him up, Aerith whispered "Thank you..." before she finished ascending the stairs.
She was tired and sick, and the bed with Ash and her mom seemed really, really inviting right now.
AN/ I'm going to be out of the country for the next two weeks, so no updates during that time.
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of wot you don't recognize, I still don't own.
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The days following the family reunion of the Faremis family did not see much accomplished.
Aerith had gotten sick.
Which... Alchemist felt like he really should have expected that. The girl had been locked up and kept hidden in a lab for the entirety of her life. She simply had not had many opportunities to develop a functioning immune system. She might have been vaccinated against various childhood illnesses, assuming Hojo cared enough to do so, but that did nothing for the countless common pathogens that were considered uncomfortable but harmless.
So. Aerith had caught something, probably the common cold, and she'd been laid up in bed with a fever, a severe cough, some of the worst congestion that Alchemist had ever seen and couldn't keep solids down.
After two days of Ifalna fretting over the girl, Alchemist had enough. He was going to do something about it.
He took the duo to the island village of Mideel, famous on Gaia for the quality of its doctors.
He could magically treat the little girl. And, if it were a dire emergency, he would. But if it -wasn't- an emergency then doing so would cause more harm than good in the long run as her body never developed the ability to fight off infections by itself. It was the same reason he'd let Yuffie suffer through the chicken pox.
The place was... busier than Alchemist would have thought, actually. It wasn't so bad that Ifalna and Aerith weren't being seen to but there were a lot of people.
Some were missing limbs. Some were missing eyes. Some seemed intact but couldn't walk.
All of them worked for ShinRa.
It didn't take long at all for Alchemist to cotton on to the fact that these were people that had been brought back from the war front of the Rhadoran islands.
Total War, from Alchemist's admittedly limited understanding. Ugly business with only one potential outcome, unfortunately.
But he wasn't involved in that mess, not yet, not ever, hopefully.
None of the soldiers recognized Aerith or Ifalna, however. The people that could have, Turks, Executives and Science personnel, wouldn't be getting treated at a clinic on an island that was just a short plane ride from a war front.
But he was sure that Aerith and Ifalna would be reported. Just as he was sure that -someone- in Icicle Inn had made a report of their little venture a few days back. And that was going to leave quite a few people scratching their heads in confusion because, without access to one of ShinRa's few Gelnika airplanes?
It shouldn't be possible for Ifalna to have crossed half the world in two days with a sick child. Especially without turning up in any of the ports or without notice anywhere in between.
So, reasonably sure of the safety of the two Cetra, Alchemist split off a Bilocation Duplicate and got to work on another, equally critical project.
Ameliorating the damage inflicted by the Mako Reactors.
"Woah..." Yuffie whispered in quiet awe.
He'd teleported the two of them to a place called a Materia Cave, a naturally-forming location in the world in which rare, especially potent Materia would form.
The one they were in was a small, coastal cave with rippled layers of sand over the ground. In the back, surrounded by gently glowing blue veins of crystallized Mako, a blue orb stood upon a natural pedestal, shining with the color of the sea itself.
Quadra Magic, one of the most powerful support Materia in existence...
Which Alchemist already had, and he had no need to grab another one when he'd already grown his own to mastery enough that it spawned a fresh, baby Materia. Or the number of partially mastered copies he'd ripped out of items stolen from the Item World.
He was here for an entirely different reason.
"Let's get a picture with the Materia," Alchemist suggested.
He was here for two entirely different reasons.
"Can I take it?" Yuffie asked, hovering over the blue orb. "Can I? Please?!"
"I've got one I can give you," Alchemist told her as he snapped a picture of Yuffie with her grubby little fingers wrapped around the glowing orb. "Leave that one alone."
"But it's here!" Yuffie exclaimed before pouting at Alchemist's stern expression.
Which he also snapped a picture of.
After a bit more posing, and some very goofy pictures of the two of them using the Materia as a set piece like they were a couple of tourists, Alchemist put away his phone.
They had, in fact, come to the coastal cave for a reason. An important one.
Moving to the center of the cave, Alchemist... didn't reach into the inventory. The object he was extracting was too big for that. Rather, he held both of his arms up over his head and sort of pushed the inventory away-
Dropping a massive, faceted blue crystal on top of him.
Alchemist teetered unsteadily back and forth, his feet sliding in the sand for a moment before Yuffie pushed against his back and straightened him out.
Bending at the knees, Alchemist tipped forward and planted the Water Crystal into the sand. For a moment, the giant object did nothing more impressive than shine brightly as it stood in place.
Then, slowly, it started to spin. It picked up speed but never really moved fast.
And, as it did so, both Alchemist and Yuffie could feel the energy it fed into the cave. The crystallized Mako around the room brightened, taking on a deeper hue as they basked in the unfettered, untainted power of Water.
"...Do you think this'll really help?" Yuffie asked, her voice quiet and solemn.
"I don't know," Alchemist admitted. "I hope it does, though."
The man inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a minute, simply absorbing the energy in the room before he opened his eyes and grinned viciously.
"Want to help me kick a bunch of ghost-butt before sticking a light crystal in front of their boss?"
"...Yes," Yuffie told him, her voice serious while mischief danced in her eyes. "Yes, I do."
-----
Ifalna was tired. She'd had a long, stressful day. For a host of reasons.
Aerith had never come down with anything more than a minor case of the sniffles before. Feeling the heat on the girl's forehead, listening to her wheezing and coughing...
It'd been nerve wracking.
But she was better, at least for the moment. The doctors in Mideel had given Ifalna two different kinds of medicine for her little girl. Pills, antibiotics that were supposed to help Aerith get over whatever sickness she'd come down with. The doctors had told Ifalna but she'd been too anxious to properly hear them. It was written down in the instructions she'd been given, she was sure.
And another, a bottle full of bitter, sticky syrup that was supposed to help reduce Aerith's symptoms. Help her breathe and break her fever.
Ifalna didn't want to admit it but it'd helped her almost as much as it helped Aerith.
Once the doctors had taken a look at Aerith and figured out the medicine she needed, Alec had simply found a quiet spot and opened that hole in the air for them. He hadn't followed along and... Ifalna had mixed feelings on the matter.
In a way, she and her daughter were still prisoners. Of circumstance, if nothing else. They had no money, no home and no means of changing that. They were forced to rely on Alec Mist and his generosity.
There didn't appear to be any other motive behind his actions, but...
Running her fingers through Aerith's hair and brushing a few stray strands that clung to her daughter's sweaty forehead, Ifalna was afraid.
Afraid that it might all be an act. Afraid that it all might be a dream. Afraid that Alec might start making demands of her.
Afraid that she would be willing to pay whatever price he demanded if it meant keeping Aerith safe and happy...
Picking up the cup of water she'd kept on the nightstand, Ifalna found it empty. The woman shook her head, her unfocused eyes locking on to Aerith's sweating, wheezing frame.
She was getting better already. Ifalna knew it. It was just going to take time...
It was how sicknesses worked.
But that didn't alleviate the discomfort and uncertainty she felt.
Getting off of the bed, Ifalna patted the big, gangly dog's head as she made her way to the exit. Ash, the dog, had taken up vigil the second they'd come back. She'd been practically inseperable from Aerith, pressing against Ifalna's daughter, sleeping next to her.
The dog whined towards Ifalna, drawing the woman's focus. The big black dog with her big, soulful red eyes... Aerith's hand clenched into the fur around her neck.
"I... I'll be right back," Ifalna whispered. She wasn't entirely sure who she was speaking to.
Her daughter was sleeping, right in the middle of the nice, big bed that Alec was letting them use. The dog?
She wasn't much shorter than Aerith and seemed clever enough, but Ash was still a dog. She couldn't understand Ifalna...
Could she?
"I just need to get more water," the woman continued. She was speaking as much to herself as she was anyone else.
Walking down the stairs, mug in hand, Ifalna walked through the living room and froze at what she saw.
Yuffie. Passed out on the couch, some movie playing on the monitor with the volume kept low enough that she hadn't heard it upstairs. With a... baby dragon of some kind, acting as her pillow and paying attention to the movie in Yuffie's place?
It watched her, its eyes sharp and curious, but it made no move to get up. In fact, it just turned its head away to watch as a blond woman, a brunette woman and some big, buff blond man played in the snow on-screen.
So. Alec was likely back. And the dragon comment had not been some idle joke, it seemed.
She wasn't surprised to find him in the dining room. She was surprised that he was working with a laptop computer, though. It was attached to a device that... kind of looked like a beeper or maybe some kind of futuristic PHS?
Ifalna clenched the cup she'd brought with her in both hands.
"How's Aerith doing?" the man asked without looking away from whatever he was doing.
By the Planet's grace, that was creepy.
"...Better," Ifalna told him, her voice quiet.
She'd... spent so much time over the last few days stressed, crying... grieving. Ifalna hadn't ever realized that she'd been locked in a perpetual cycle of fear, pain and exhaustion throughout the last seven years, that she'd never... processed the death of her husband.
She knew. She'd comprehended. But her present had always demanded too much of her.
"I just need to get some more water for her."
Ifalna turned away and took a step toward the kitchen before she froze. Inside, suspended over the sink, a thin trickle of water running, was a pair of massive, two-meter long, white rabbits. Their throats slit and blood slowly draining away. A pair of massive carrots sat in a bowl on the counter next to them.
"Are those... Jumping?" Ifalna asked, struggling to name the monsters that hunted about the icy wastes of the northern expanses.
"Yeah," Alec said. "There's a pitcher of water in the fridge. Nice and cold."
Keeping her eyes on the dead beasts, Ifalna took a wide path to the fridge and found the pitcher he'd indicated inside. She was about to pour out a fresh glass when-
"Just take it with you," Alec said from the other room. "I'm gonna bet she'll get thirsty through the night."
Ifalna processed the suggestion for a moment before she simply sighed and picked the pitcher and cup up from the counter. Walking back, she paused as she got a glimpse of what Alec was doing at his computer.
Pictures. He was sliding through pictures, mostly of himself and Yuffie in a number of different locations. Mostly caves-
Ifalna almost dropped the pitcher when she saw a picture of Yuffie, her forehead pressed against the aquamarine scales of Leviathan!
"What... what is that?" Ifalna asked, her voice trembling as the pictures cycled, showing the serpent-god circling around a giant, blue crystal as Alec and Yuffie posed in front of it. The two of them were leaning to the side, towards each other with Alec leaning far more than Yuffie, to poke their fingertips to each other.
It looked absurd.
"It's what Yuffie and I were working on after you came back," Alec began to explain as he tapped his laptop and the scene changed. Now it showed the duo in a dark cave, a giant machine of light behind them as wicked, ghastly specters shied away from them. "I'm still working out how to dismantle the Mako Reactors without accidentally killing a lot of people. So, instead, we went to a number of Mako Caves and placed these crystals that should help the planet recover. If it works, it should be about like putting the planet on a bag of saline after a big bender."
"And the summons?" Ifalna asked, feeling vaguely faint as the next picture showed Alec and Yuffie kneeling towards the camera, each of them on opposite sides of a massive man in heavy armor, with a brass mask and a pair of antlers on his helm. "What are you doing with the summons?"
"Well, someone has to defend the crystals," Alec said, as though it were obvious. "I did the summoning, had Leviathan walk me through how to tether them to the crystals afterwards. Nifty trick, cost me a Materia for each one, though."
The next scene that the man cycled through showed a great, almost leonine beast with great horns and a crimson mane... ruffling both Alec's and Yuffie's hair.
The scene after that showed the duo in an ice cave, the two of them hugging themselves to keep warm as a blue woman wearing... basically nothing laughed at them.
"Except for Shiva, there," Alec grumbled without any heat. "Turns out? The Snow women around the Great Glacier? Those were fragments of her will possessing snow golems to try and, well, enjoy life. Still did the whole summon and binding thing but she seemed pretty happy when I gave her a ring of fire immunity. Apparently? Shiva's Snow used to be able to hang out around the edge of Icicle Inn or some of the other settlements and had a habit of attracting men for a night of passion. Then something changed and people decided to fear her like one of the monsters."
Ifalna... actually knew that one.
The Snow angels, as they were known around Icicle Inn, were a thing of myth. Legend had it that, those they tempted into following them into the howling winds and blowing blizzards would experience a night of ecstacy only to wake up the next morning, frozen to death.
"With that ring of fire immunity? She said she's planning to go and get properly hammered."
Ifalna stared as the computer cycled through a number of images. In them, all of them, one thing remained constant. Despite the environment changing or some other impossibility occurring...
Yuffie was smiling.
"...What are you?" Ifalna eventually found herself asking. "What are you planning?"
"Well, I'm planning on turning Jenova into a Cetra. And, through her, turning Sephiroth and everyone else that Hojo infected with her into a Cetra. Making an honest man out of him post-mortem is, I think, endlessly amusing." Alec finally twisted around in his seat to look at her, a sharp grin on his face. "And I'm a dragon."
Ifalna stared, blank incomprehension on her face.
Was he... joking?
"Rawr."
He had to be joking.
-----
Aerith woke up covered in sweat. She leaned up, coughing heavily as phlegm and mucus broke apart in her throat.
She...
Really needed to go to the bathroom.
Wiggling out from under the heavy blanket and fighting her way out from being trapped by the big, fluffy doggy and her mom's arms, Aerith hurried out of the bedroom to do exactly that.
Leaving the bathroom, her hands wet and a little bit of water on her chin, Aerith pressed her hands against her stomach. Her lips felt sticky and the little bit of water she'd drank from the sink after she washed her hands hadn't been enough to make her stop feeling thirsty...
She was really hungry and really thirsty but she didn't know if it was mealtime...
But Mister Mist had told her and her mom that they were free to help themselves to anything in the kitchen.
It still felt wrong and weird, like she was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, so Aerith tried to creep down the stairs without making a noise. She was almost through the living room, where Mister Mist was asleep on the couch with Reis stretched out overtop of him, when she felt a tickle in her throat.
Aerith tried to stop it, she really did! But even with her hands pressed against her mouth she still broke out in a loud, wheezing, coughing fit.
Two pairs of slitted eyes cracked open. One set was blue-green, the other was a bright, almost glowing yellow. Both sets locked on to her and Aerith froze as Mister Mist started to sit up and Reis jumped off of him to drape herself across the back of the couch.
"Hey, kiddo," Mister Mist greeted, his voice scratchy until he cleared it a few times. "You feeling any better?"
"Uh..." Aerith hesitated for a second before she nodded. "I'm thirsty."
And then her stomach, which hadn't had much but thin broth in it for the last few days, growled. Loudly.
Aerith blushed and looked down to the floor as the springs in the couch squeaked and Mister Mist got up.
"Well, let's get something in your belly and get you back to bed. Do you want some hot chocolate?" the man asked as he walked past her, one big hand patting the top of her head with surprising gentleness. "And maybe something light for the moment. Where did I put the graham crackers...?"
Aerith followed him into the kitchen and waited at the doorway as he started to move things around. He started by grabbing a mug out of the drainer by the sink, then he went to the refrigerator and pulled out a jug of milk to fill the mug before he put that away. Then he put the mug into the microwave and set that for a minute before he started opening and closing the cabinets around the room.
Eventually, he found what he was looking for because he pulled a blue box out of a cabinet and opened it about the same time that the microwave dinged. He left that alone for the moment, though, to pull a plastic sleeve out of the box before putting the box away and setting the sleeve to the side.
Then he went back to another box by the fridge and pulled a paper packet out of it before pulling the mug of steaming milk from the microwave. He ripped open the packet and poured the contents into the milk before grabbing a spoon from the drainer and stirring up the milk and then, finally, grabbing the plastic sleeve in one hand and the mug in the other, he walked towards Aerith, who got out of the way, and set the mug down on the dining room table.
"Here you go, kiddo," Mister Mist said as he fiddled with the plastic sleeve for a moment, the material stretching in his hands before it finally ripped. "Just start slow, alright?"
Climbing up a little, Aerith sat at the table and looked at what she'd been given. The mug of hot chocolate smelled... like the ice-cream she'd had the other day, but hot. And the stuff inside the plastic sleeve were actually these big crackers covered with some kind of crumbly brown stuff. Just pulling one loose left behind a big mess!
Nibbling at the corner of one cracker, though?
It was sweet but had some other kind of flavor that she couldn't quite describe.
And the hot chocolate was exactly what she thought it was; delicious!
"You need anything else, kiddo?" Mister Mist asked.
Aerith turned to look at him and caught him mid-yawn. He was... really big but he was wearing a pair of loose black sweatpants and a wrinkled tee-shirt. His hair was sticking up in the front and he looked...
Really silly, actually.
Aerith couldn't see why her mom was so afraid of him.
"I think I'm okay," Aerith told him. She hadn't even had to cough or clear her throat! It felt like the sticky gunk was breaking apart whenever she drank more of the hot chocolate.
"Alright, Aerith-" the man broke into a yawn, his mouth opening wide. And then Aerith was yawning, too. "If you need anything else, don't be afraid to wake me up."
Aerith nodded, then watched as the man turned around and walked back to the living room. She leaned back in her chair and saw that he just lay back down on the couch, Reis crawling back down to curl up on top of him. He put one hand on the dragon's back, then the other came up and he covered his eyes with his forearm to try and go back to sleep.
She didn't end up finishing the graham crackers. She put away two before her stomach started to feel weird.
She did end up finishing the hot chocolate, though. It tasted good but she felt sleepy afterwards. Putting things in the kitchen, Aerith headed back to the bedroom. She stopped partway up the stairs, though, and looked through the railing to where Mister Mist was sleeping.
Quietly, half-afraid she might wake him up, Aerith whispered "Thank you..." before she finished ascending the stairs.
She was tired and sick, and the bed with Ash and her mom seemed really, really inviting right now.
AN/ I'm going to be out of the country for the next two weeks, so no updates during that time.
There is a vaccine for that which is actually recommended for all non-exempt children in quite a few countries (including america); Varicella vaccine - Wikipedia
If an adult is coming down with shingles, they really want to get that vaccine ASAP to avoid complications.
Lopezelpesado
Space worm best worm.
- Pronouns
- Something
Huh, I cant really remember last time someone had a more positive impression of Alec after meeting him for a bit.
Well, its aerith, so it makes sense she wouldnt care much if he is scary or jerkish, she became friends with Cloud after all.
She probably has him as 'Nice strange silly man' on her mind.
1) potentially slightly different biology to DC Earth from FF Gaia. Might make more of a mess for Yuffie than just letting nature do its thing.
2) Science in FF Gaia is more magic than science focus and would probably do better than DC Earth vaccines. Local ingredients = magical health benefits.
3) I doubt chicken pox or otherwise from DC… ok maybe not. DC universe is weird enough to have vaccinated a magic resistant mind control parasite by accident and Alchemist and company accidentally bringing it to FF Earth.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The vaccine became available in the late 1990s. There is no longer a good reason to expose children to chicken pox as it also exposes them to shingles needlessly.
Varicella vaccine - Wikipedia
Chickenpox Vaccination
Learn about chickenpox vaccine basics, who should get it, when to get it, and why it's important.
www.cdc.gov
Stay safe and have a good trip! Thank you for the update.
Aetharian
Currently on Fire
- Location
- USA
Aerith doesn't know what feeling full feels like. Or she's just sick and stomach feels yucky.
As for everyone pointing out that there's no reason to to expose Yuffie to chickenpox cuz of vaccines? You're…probably right, but Alec is a rugged, oldish, blue collar man. He's smart, open-minded, and rather progressive, but he's old enough that he's at least a lil set in his ways. He has all kinds of lil idiosyncrasies and semi outdated beliefs. I'd totally believe that he was exposed as a kid to toughen up his immune system, it worked well enough, and so he just never reexamined if that should be changed.
- Location
- England
There's also the fact that Aerith and her mum would probably react badly to seeing a syringe/anything remotely like that given their time in hojo's... Well the term is "care" but that was certainly not what he did to them...
My dad had shingles. He's alive, but there was a long period of time in which he saw doctors constantly, and was in a state of genuine, unrelenting agony until it finally cleared up.
Don't sleep on getting shingles / chickenpox vax if you're at risk. Once it starts, you're strapped in and screaming the whole trip to the end.
Noooooo!!!
Hopefully, healing one Final Fantasy Gaia will help other Gaia-spirits throughout the FF-multiverse, as Terra-chan said they're all connected to each other.
The last time we saw F-F-7-C-C Core Crisis Gaia, Terra-chan was angrily demanding she report to her office ASAP for usurping her Gamer Champion.
ThaTrueRealmWalk
A blob of Galaxy, watching you through the Screen.
- Location
- Inside this TV
This is just really comfy
I love this chapter, you did amazing with it
I love this chapter, you did amazing with it
- Location
- USA
Thanks for the chapter!
Enjoy the trip!
Enjoy the trip!
Mister Ficser, the vaccine/Cure Disease won't operate 'wrongly' like you think it does. Curing her will NOT stop her from building up an immunity.
The key thing is exposure and developing the antibodies. Just like you get immunities from your mother as a baby and from exposure to the dead cells of the vaccine, you do NOT need to suffer through the effects of the disease. Once exposed, your body will immediately start making antibodies to counter it on its own.
All Cure Disease will do is make you not suffer through the WORST part of the immunization process. She's still going to be exposed, and her body is still going to develop an immunity. She just won't suffer the process of actively fighting off the disease.
So, yeah, Alec should come to realize that and be happy to Cure her in the future. He's actually speeding the whole process up, not making it worse, by doing so!
Edit: Actually, by doing so, he might be stopping future problems. Once exposed to chicken pox, for instance, the active disease stays in your system forever, and can manifest in later life as shingles, even if you are vaccinated. Cure Disease will wipe the hiding disease out forever, however, meaning you will never get shingles!
The key thing is exposure and developing the antibodies. Just like you get immunities from your mother as a baby and from exposure to the dead cells of the vaccine, you do NOT need to suffer through the effects of the disease. Once exposed, your body will immediately start making antibodies to counter it on its own.
All Cure Disease will do is make you not suffer through the WORST part of the immunization process. She's still going to be exposed, and her body is still going to develop an immunity. She just won't suffer the process of actively fighting off the disease.
So, yeah, Alec should come to realize that and be happy to Cure her in the future. He's actually speeding the whole process up, not making it worse, by doing so!
Edit: Actually, by doing so, he might be stopping future problems. Once exposed to chicken pox, for instance, the active disease stays in your system forever, and can manifest in later life as shingles, even if you are vaccinated. Cure Disease will wipe the hiding disease out forever, however, meaning you will never get shingles!
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Yeah get that idea. I am old enough I had to go to a, well translated it would be a chicken pox party. It's probably obvious what that was. But my youngest siblings and later my own children where properly vaccinated. In fact nowadays chicken pox vaccine is mandatory and not using it, among the others, for your children, unless you have very good lawyers, can get you charged with child abuse. At least here were I live.
Sad Machine
Unshackled Unclaimed
- Location
- Earth
Its so adorable more of this for a while is a nice breather
Teaser for the ark
Teaser: In the near future...
The world erupted in fire. Light and sound drowned out every noise around her.
Almost every noise.
In the far distance, despite the holocaust and the collapsing rock, great spires of crystal shattered with an echoing scream, monument and prison alike shearing as one of her greatest forces awoke.
Minerva could not see it, not in the slightest. The damned fool had dropped the caverns, uncountable tons of stone, crystal and warped, twisted corpses from the beasts she'd birthed to keep the skyborne calamity contained rained down, crushing her!
It was not enough.
Her caverns sank, subsumed by the Lifestream so close below, and Minerva flexed her power. Rock and stone and Mako exploded away from her and Minerva looked up-
She froze, for a moment, as she saw the stars. How long had it been since she'd been summoned upon the surface? How long had it been since she'd been called in any place but her own stronghold?
Her momentary distraction was broken as, nearby, a figure exploded out from the rubble of her once grand trial. A black-armored figure crouched upon a... strange contraption. It looked almost like a boat, though it had two spiked brass disks upon its back, a trio of propellers standing upright upon its deck, a brass dragon's skull at the tip of its prow and a great, massive blade slung underneath.
It darted through the air, more agile than any dragon or bird of prey that she could command.
"Go!" Minerva declared, her warped voice echoing across the planet to all that could hear her. "Hunt them, my Jade!"
And an even greater explosion ripped its way from the sinking rubble, consumed by the Lifestream, as one of her greatest WEAPONs ripped their way free to take their proper place in the sky.
Her Jade WEAPON, her six-armed hunter of the skies, its glinting, dark-green v-shaped body cut through the air with incredible, unnatural ease.
The world erupted in fire. Light and sound drowned out every noise around her.
Almost every noise.
In the far distance, despite the holocaust and the collapsing rock, great spires of crystal shattered with an echoing scream, monument and prison alike shearing as one of her greatest forces awoke.
Minerva could not see it, not in the slightest. The damned fool had dropped the caverns, uncountable tons of stone, crystal and warped, twisted corpses from the beasts she'd birthed to keep the skyborne calamity contained rained down, crushing her!
It was not enough.
Her caverns sank, subsumed by the Lifestream so close below, and Minerva flexed her power. Rock and stone and Mako exploded away from her and Minerva looked up-
She froze, for a moment, as she saw the stars. How long had it been since she'd been summoned upon the surface? How long had it been since she'd been called in any place but her own stronghold?
Her momentary distraction was broken as, nearby, a figure exploded out from the rubble of her once grand trial. A black-armored figure crouched upon a... strange contraption. It looked almost like a boat, though it had two spiked brass disks upon its back, a trio of propellers standing upright upon its deck, a brass dragon's skull at the tip of its prow and a great, massive blade slung underneath.
It darted through the air, more agile than any dragon or bird of prey that she could command.
"Go!" Minerva declared, her warped voice echoing across the planet to all that could hear her. "Hunt them, my Jade!"
And an even greater explosion ripped its way from the sinking rubble, consumed by the Lifestream, as one of her greatest WEAPONs ripped their way free to take their proper place in the sky.
Her Jade WEAPON, her six-armed hunter of the skies, its glinting, dark-green v-shaped body cut through the air with incredible, unnatural ease.
I don't get it.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Alchemist has summoned Ark, from FF9, which is basically a transforming FTL interstellar ship/mech from a parasitic dying planet (Terra) that is consuming Gaia (FF9's main world). It should not be able to exist (being a physical representation of the dreams of the Terrans, who are now all dead), is antithetical to Gaia, and is incredibly powerful, one of the strongest summons in the entire game.
Being antithetical to Gaia means that Minerva (FF7's version of Gaia) holds no sway over it and cannot turn it against him.
Minerva, meanwhile, summoned her own version, Jade Weapon, which was from the game Before Crisis: FF7.
Dunno how they got to that point, exactly, but Minerva has set herself against Alchemist somehow and is about to learn why you don't do that.
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