Shinra threw the blueprint towards the trashcan after ripping it up just enough so that no one would be able to decipher what he had been working on if they went picking through his wastebasket. He burnt the thing at the end of the day anyway, but you could never be too careful…
A boy of eleven now, he was working on an apparatus that could possibly stand the level of power it would take to harness a small amount of energy from the Farplane. Potent stuff, that was. Just a normal glass apparatus was not going to cut it. It would shatter right off the bat. It's almost as if the only thing that could harness Farplane energy would be more Farplane energy, already converted to something usable. Hmm… questions, questions.
He tapped his white pencil over the new blue print paper, which was, to his liking, literally blue. He rubbed the other hand over his goggles while he thought hard about what could possibly be done? Sure, he could probably figure it out… if he was around for the next five hundred odd years. The corner of his mouth twitched, wondering if he could quicker find a way to live forever instead of leaving the work to future boneheaded scientists.
He saw the red light blinking and sighed, pushing himself from the desk on his roll-y chair and pressing the red button to activate his CommSphere system. He couldn't actually see the scene from this room, because he had organized a room specially given to him by Cid to set up the CommSphere network with all the screens a few doors away. However, he had wired it so he could hear everything if, on the rare occasion, someone called in to him.
"I hope this is very important, because you're wasting precious moments left in my life that I could spend bettering future lives."
"Your product's a hit! Thanks, little man," Gippal said on the other line.
"To which product are you referring?" Shinra asked, his mind still wandering towards the Farplane. Maybe, if those Guado would just let him go into the glen for five minutes, he could get a sample and take it back to the lab…
"The CommSphere! They're selling like hotcakes, loads of Agencies are already ordering more!" Gippal said.
"What? When was the CommSphere mass produced?" Shinra whined, the Farplane forgotten. He couldn't remember signing any release form for it to be produced… that was his invention that he wanted to stay with The Gullwings. It was their thing. Gippal stole it!
"About… ehhhm… two weeks ago? I guess," Gippal said, completely unconcerned with the alarm in Shinra's voice.
"I didn't tell you that you could take it…" Shinra grumbled.
"Well, Rikku gave me one and I studied it, and it's a good idea to get communication going in Spira. Rin and I got together, and what with him being the king of the business world, we got it produced and advertised it for the past two months," Gippal said.
"Did Rikku tell you to do it?" Shinra asked. Rikku would do such a thing. She would take his life's work and peddle it away to some lame… mechanist.
"Nope. Don't go blaming her," Gippal said. "C'mon, kid, why wouldn't you want the fame, and glory, and money that go along with a great invention?" By this time, Shinra had his head in his hands and was shaking his head from side to side woefully. He considered the question. He considered having all the lollipops he could ever dream of. He considered the funding it would give him to further his experiments. He considered taking a break from all this Farplane nonsense and building a shrink ray to keep a fiend as a pet. Or maybe Gippal.
"I'm just a kid," he eventually said.
"That's right. You are a kid," Gippal said patronizing tone.
"You stole my invention!" Shinra accused.
"You weren't using it!" Gippal said defensively. "Gotta go now, adult stuff to handle! Bye bye!" The red light went off.
"You're only nineteen!" Shinra shouted.
He, Benzo, Rikku, and Gippal checked out the packaging for the CommSphere as soon as there was enough in stock for them to buy it. It had a picture of Gippal with a wide smile and a thumbs up on the side of a plastic window so you could see how small and convenient it was. At least, the packaging told you it was small and convenient. Benzo and Shinra were shaking their heads at it.
"Wow, Gip. With that face on there, I'm surprised anyone's buying them," Rikku teased. Gippal gave her a hard look.
"This idiot's getting all the credit for my work," Shinra told Benzo.
"Hey, no! Look on the back," Gippal said. Shinra flipped it over. "Ta-da! 'Created by Shinra!'"
"Where does it say that?" Benzo asked, squinting at the box.
"Right… there!" Gippal said, pointing to finely printed letters in the corner.
"No one knows who Shinra is…" Shinra said ruefully.
"Well, I didn't know your last name."
"You didn't ask."
"All right, Shinra. What's your last name?" Gippal asked patiently.
"It's too late now. You've already stolen it," Shinra said dramatically. Benzo patted his shoulder in sympathy. "When I better the lives of Spirans everywhere with my Farplane energy, your offspring will be on the list of 'may not have'. It's a generally new list. In fact, your offspring are the first on it," Shinra said.
"What about my offspring?" Rikku asked perkily, hoping to show Gippal that Shinra clearly liked her better.
"By the looks of things, your offspring will be his offspring. So, no," Shinra said. Rikku made a disgusted sound and marched off. Shinra walked back to the counter. "I'd like to return this and sue the creator for five million gil. He gave me a bad CommSphere," Shinra said, trying to humor himself.
"Oh, you mean Gippal? He's right over there, let him have it!" the cashier said. Shinra fell to the floor in tears while Gippal inched away.
I'm very disappointed that ffn does not have a character option for Shinra or Buddy. I love Shinra. :(