Disclaimer: I own Cassie, Micheal the archeologist is loanable lmao

Split Realities

*Three days later*

Yazoo stood at the edge of the tree line on a hill over looking Bone Village, examining the town. He heard a rustle in the brush behind him. He turned to find Loz. "So what did you find out?" he asked.

He shrugged "I followed some travelers for a distance and overheard them talking. They said the five year aniversary of Meteor was coming up in a few weeks."

Yazoo turned back to the town, "Hm, and when we attacked Edge the second aniversary was coming up right?" Loz nodded. "That means three years have passed. Did you find out anything else?"

"Not really, just that and some big festival in Cosmo Canyon held later." Loz shrugged. "What's the girl up to?"

Yazoo shrugged, "She's been excavating, from what I overheard from passerby's she's on a two week contract."

"I guess I go and stake out the other entrance?" Loz asked. Yazoo nodded.

Clink

Cassie's pick hit something. She didn't get her hopes up though, ~Probably another rock.~ She had been digging for days now and had a nice collection of rocks; some of value to the archeologists, most not, all not of value to her pocket. However she went through the routine of carefully scrapping away the rest of the soil alternating with a thick bristled brush and her hands. Soon she saw that it definately wasn't a rock. Something shining violet started to peek through the dirt.

"Hey Micheal, I found something!" She said excitedly, continuing to brush away the dirt.

The archeologist came over and watched her uncover a pile of something akin to amethyst. He tapped her shoulder, indicating her to stop. He reached down and picked up a piece. "Its not a gem, it looks more like a fragment of materia, but I've never seen materia this color," he said to her in explanation. He exerted a little will into the stone and suddenly the other pieces flew to join the piece he was holding. He took a breath in surprise. "Amazing," he looked down at the girl and smiled, "Well it's not what we're looking for but it means we're close." He handed the peices back to her. "My advice, find out what this materia does besides call to the other peices then find the materia store, show them what it does and sell them, keeping some for yourself. You could make a pretty gil with this. Good job," he patted her shoulder then went back to his dig.

Cassie smiled as she put the stones in her pouch. This was turning out to be a good day.

Later in the day in her room, exhausted from digging, but exuberant she examined her findings. The strange broken materia was just the start of her day. She also found some large pieces of rare metals, three in all, another intact materia, very close to the broken materia, another pile of the strange materia, this time not in so many peices and among those pieces another whole materia. ~Now time to sell this stuff, but first I should try out those pieces.~ She picked up a peice from the pile of shards, all together she had thirteen pieces, four large pieces and nine smaller pieces. ~Now how did he do it,~ She thought, thinking back to how Micheal had discovered the shards powers. ~He looked like he was concentrating really hard.~

She examined the piece in her hand concentrating really hard. After several minutes had passed and she had no results she gave up. ~Dammit, he made it look so easy. I know in the game you just attached it to something and you had spells...~ She thought for a few moments then an idea came to her. ~Insane though it is it's worth a shot.~

She picked up the large shard again and this time instead of concentrating she also sent her thoughts towards the shard. Amazingly it worked, the other three large shards flew to her hand. Surprised yet dissappointed that the other nine peices hadn't moved she concentrated and sent her thoughts to the pile in her hand, willing the other pieces to come to her. They still did not move however she noticed a large red shield surround her. "Cool, but why wont the others come?"

She laid down the pile in her hand and picked up a piece from the other pile. She repeated the process. This time the eight smaller pieces gathered in her hand while the other four remained on the desk. Again she concentrated and sent her thoughts to the shards in her hand. Again something other than what she was wanting occured. This time a blue shield surrounded her. "Huh..." She said, thinking.

After a few moments it hit her, "I get it the two piles are two seperate materia. That's why the big pieces dont call the little pieces." Feeling she had figured it out she tried the two whole materia. One turned out to be a blue shield, while the other turned out to be a red shield. ~Blue usually means Protect, while red usually means Reflect in the final fantasy games.~ she thought.

"Well, now that I've figured out what I have, it's time to see what they're worth," she said, proud of herself.

She walked out of the store, happy with her haul. The two whole materia turned out to be very advanced in their growth level and brought her a hundred gil a piece while the metals brought her twenty five gil a piece. The store manager was deeply intrigued by the strange materia and upon demonstrating their powers bought eight of the remaining shards; she had decided to take two pieces from each pile for herself. Knowing the value of the unique shards would sky rocket he graciously paid her fifty gil for each set; two hundred gil in all.

She tallied up her money and smiled. ~Four hundred and seventy five gil,~ she thought, ~And only fourty eight of it goes to Micheal.~ She smiled again, feeling very good.

"Well you just look like you hit the jackpot," a familiar voice said.

She turned around and found the food peddler from her first day in the village. She smiled and came over, examining his wares. "Yeah, I did. I found quite a few valuable things at the dig today," she said. She pointed out a few pieces of fruit.

"Ten gil," he said. Then he smiled at her as he accepted the money. "Well that's good. Micheal said you're a great help. So do you like it?"

She grinned, "I do."

"That's good. So what are you going to do when your two weeks is up?" he asked. "Think you might stay?"

Cassie looked away thinking, ~Good question... I enjoy the work but I still need to get away from Kadaj.~ She looked towards the forest. ~I'm sure Yazoo has caught up by now and is waiting to get me...~ She looked apologetically to the food vendor, her answer in her eyes.

He smiled, "Don't worry, I guess we shouldn't really expect that you'd stay, or that we'll have any visitors for at least a month. What with the big Memorial Ball in Edge and the star festival in Cosmo Canyon coming up. You just might make it to the Ball once your two weeks are up." he shrugged. "But just know you'll always be welcomed here."

Cassie smiled her thanks, taking into her head what he had just said. As she walked back to Micheal's and his assistants house a thought struck her. ~Cosmo Canyon, if anyone is bound to know what the hell happened to me surely someone there would. There or Edge.~ She smiled, glad to finally have a plan.