A/N: Ok…just to be clear on this, this is just a pet project that I don't really plan on ever finishing. Ideas and plots come and go in my head. I don't like them, I drop them. I like them, I follow them up to the point where everything gets too ridiculous and impossible, and then drop them. So don't expect me to actually finish this. I'm just following my Imagination around.

Edit:3/1/13 Fixed a couple of small mistakes.

Relative Relations

Chapter I

Jade sighed.

It was at times like this that he wished he was a simpler man. One without his scientific genius or his status as the infamous Necromancer or even a Colonel of the Malkuth military.

Pushing his glasses above his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Attempting to ignore the ranting voice and stomping boots pacing in front of his desk. It was almost physically impossible to resist getting up and tossing Peony outside of his office.

Jade winced as the voice reached a higher octave and he wonder just when he would be left alone to finish his ever-growing piles of unfinished paperwork.

Or manage enough time to maybe go through some of those old reports about fonon activity after the Planet Storm was terminated, the researchers in Belkend will be needing those back at some point. They can't have sensitive material scattered around.

And now that he thought about it, he could do with some research himself. Fomicry, while still banned, was no longer feasible so simply studying it isn't too much of a crime. And replicas around the world might need special attention now that the seventh fonons are quickly becoming rare.

In the medical aspect, replicas are physically the exact same as humans. And since humans are, like all living things, made up of the different fonons, replicas are essentially the same. After all, the seventh fonon is the amalgamation of the first through sixth fonons, so replicas end up as humans plus seventh fonons.

Now, the average person does not need to take in fonons to survive. They are born with their fonons, they live their whole life with them and die with them. Even fonists, who use fonons for their artes, do not need to absorb them to survive.

Of course, since they are so used to taking in fonons through their fon slots, they start doing it subconsciously. But that does not have an impact on their system, other than maybe getting tired a little easier than most.

By recycling fonons they use up energy, so they get tired. But should they stop all activity involving fonons, they would be just another average person. And with no more fonons being made and artes quickly becoming a far away dream, fonists will also cease to exist. Which also means that he will no longer need his glasses. A disheartening thought.

Very soon, he won't be able to loom over people and intimidate them with a piercing, crimson gaze. Well, he would just have to get used to his old, light brown again.

"…and I am just so-Jade are you listening?"


It was ironic.

Now, he's known Peony for a good part of his life. So he's had time to watch him, study him. He knew well enough that the man was, while not spoiled, certainly used to getting what he wanted.

He wouldn't expect others to work so he could have it, no. He likes to get his hands dirty to make it to his prize. And may Lorelei help anyone who gets in his way.

Nowadays though, he is campaigning. Unfortunately the one causing, listening and being the object of said campaign was Jade himself. He could see it, just like he had been for the past two months.

Peony, face split into a grin, pacing around in his office and ranting, loudly, about how Jade has been neglecting him. Never mind that the population of the whole floor was gathered outside his door. Or that the council was breathing down both their necks for not doing their jobs properly.

No, never mind them. Jade has been back for months and doesn't even drop by to say hello to him. Him, his best friend, his Emperor no less. His Jade was avoiding him. That, was simply unacceptable.

The events following Peony's decision to remedy that resulted in many sleepless nights to finish piles of paperwork for Jade. Sore feet and scratchy voices for the Emperor. Jade developing a resistance to painkillers used against migraines caused from listening to hour long rants. And finally, utter humiliation for Peony by way of Jade kicking him out the HQ gates.

Now, a week after the scandalous event of the Emperor being dragged out of the military buildings by his "lover"- which Jade had apparently become without knowing, no doubt the work of the rumor mill- the Colonel was packing.

The day previous, he had decided to make Peony's "demand" reality by actually dropping by the man's office in the palace. Lest the blonde think that another campaign was necessary.

It was unfortunate that, by the time he was five feet from the door, it was opened by a member of the Palace Guard sent to fetch him.

The man stopped upon seeing him not three feet away, turned back to his Emperor, reported his mission as complete, excused himself and left. Peony was left to look dumbfounded at Jade, hand poised to sign a document.

"Are you a psychic as well as a mad scientist Jade?"

Jade chuckled, and stepped in the room, closing the door behind him, watching curiously at Peony as the surprise melted from his face, being replaced with mild seriousness.

And it was ironic, that the one time he decided to visit Peony in his office, the man sends him, personally, off on a mission.

It was official, he was going to the Absorption Gate.