Claire watched as Stitch consulted with Jenova about gaining access to the fabrication room in the fortress in order to build her weapon. Ratchet had Stitch use the philosopher's stone to create a pile of uncut gemstones yesterday the size of a human body that he stashed in a large bag before leaving with Gene to what was once Pompeii. When Claire asked, Stitch merely said "Ratchet's gonna need those to make the greedy little buggers part with their metals. Luckily we already have a rapport with them, otherwise he would have needed a lot more." Stitch had just got Jenova to send a 5-ton stack of titanium ingots to the fabrication room when Claire spoke up. "How did he do it?" Stitch turned at looked at Claire. "How did who do what?" "Jenova, the A.I., how did Ratchet do it?" Stitch sighed and looked up at the roof. "Now that, is an interesting story, and one I want you to swear never to reveal to anyone." Claire nodded quickly at Stitch's demand and swore her silence. Stitch then sighed and said "It was about 10 years ago."
Flashback, Unknown Location
"Stitch, you sure about this?" Ratchet asked as he tugged at the monkey suit he was wearing with his human right hand, his red labcoat sitting on a coat rack nearby, Stitch stood next to him in a matching suit and staring at the massive oak doors before them. Stitch merely adjusted his bow tie and said "We don't really have a choice. We either go in there, or we will be hunted to the ends of the Earth by people who want us dead." "Stitch, you know I already have a fully operational spaceship with a warp drive thanks to my quantum studies specifically for situations like this." Stitch gave Ratchet a look before putting his hand in the pocket of his dress pants, checking that its contents were still there. "I know that, but we both know these guys wouldn't give up just because we are no longer in the solar system. The only reason we weren't brought here years ago is because we never do things the usual way. So you are going in there to back me up, or so help me God, I will make sure you suffer for the rest of eternity regardless of the outcome that happens inside this room." "Fine, but that doesn't mean I think this is a good idea." Stitch shrugged and pushed the doors in front of him open, and the two stepped into the next room.
The room was dominated by a tall crescent-shaped desk, nine men and women seated along it, each at various states of age. The only shared trait between them all was a red jacket with the Flamel Crest from Fullmetal Alchemist hung on the back of their chairs, and the three sitting at the center of the desk had a red stone in front of them. The man at the very center of the table, an elderly man with long white hair and a beard that could rival Dumbledore's in length, stared down at Stitch and Ratchet with sharp, gray eyes.
"Acolyte Patchwork," the man half-said half-wheezed, though the words rang clear throughout the room, "you stand before the current elders and council members of the Flamel Institute. You were offered an apprenticeship within our organization in order to learn the subtle and delicate art of alchemy. And now, you claim to have accomplished one of the greatest acts in the history of our art; the creation of a philosopher's stone. Do you have proof of this claim?"
Stitch tensed slightly before pulling his hand out of his pocket. The six council members without a stone before them showed various signs of surprise and shock upon seeing the red rock in his hand, while the elderly man and the two council members next to him, a 47-year old Russian man with manic blue eyes, light brown combed hair, and a ragged beard and a woman with soft green eyes who looked equally as old as the elderly man, her white hair tied in a bun, merely narrowed their eyes. "Can you confirm the authenticity of Dr. Patchwork's stone elder Rasputin?" the elderly man said to the Russian next to him. Rasputin nodded and held his hand out, and Stitch hesitantly stepped forward and passed him the stone. Rasputin turned the rock in his hand before picking up the near-identical stone in front of him and held both up to his face.
After a minute of staring at the red rocks, Rasputin set his stone down on the table and handed the other back to Stitch and turned to the elderly man next to him. "I can confirm elder Nicholas, acolyte Patchwork does in fact possess a philosopher's stone. However, it does not feel like our own stones, or that of elder Perenelle. I cannot hear even a single soul within it. I will admit I am greatly curious as to why that is." The elderly man, elder Nicholas, raised his eyebrows, while the woman, elder Perenelle, leaned forward to look at Stitch better and spoke. "Intriguing. Acolyte Patchwork, can you explain elder Rasputin's observation?"
Stitch relaxed slightly and gestured to Ratchet, who was so far fidgeting uncomfortably under the stares of the council, saying "Elder Perenelle, the reason behind elder Rasputin's observation is because my stone was not created using the method most are familiar with due to the efforts of mentor Hiromu (1). Instead, my stone was made using a different method discovered by myself and my companion Ratchet N. Clank that is both safer and more dangerous than the conventional method." Elder Nicholas frowned at Stitch's words. "Explain acolyte Patchwork. How was your stone created, and why was a person with no affiliation to the Flamel Institute involved?" Stitch winced at the veiled accusation, as well as the hushed whispers amongst the council at the elder's question.
Stitch knew everyone connected to the institute had been personally approached by a mentor with permission from a council member. Ratchet's presence in the council room was the first time a non-alchemist had stepped foot on the institute's ground in centuries, and for good reason. The last time an uninitiated arrived at the institute, they had brought a religious force in order to 'purge the heresy that is alchemy from this world'. After the attackers were killed off, the council members at the time had approached one of the magical academies in order to place a spell upon the grounds, preventing anybody not informed by an institute member from seeing, or even knowing of, the school. It was only because he was with Stitch, a well-known and beloved student of alchemy, that Ratchet had not been evicted immediately with his memories removed to protect the school's anonymity, or worse, killed. Stitch knew he would have to word his answer correctly if he and Ratchet were to leave safely.
"Honored council," Stitch began, "the creation of my philosopher's stone was truthfully the accidental result of a fight between myself and Ratchet. The two of us had utilized Ratchet's transporter to settle our argument at the time on an uninhabited planet, as we both knew we would come to blows and we each have abilities and skills that could risk the integrity of Earth should they be used. During our fight, one of Ratchet's chaos-oriented spells had impacted the system's star. The star destabilized, and began to expand, threatening both of our lives. Ratchet and I set aside our mutual dislike with each other in order to prevent the system's destruction. Together we managed to reverse the star's expansion, but now it was collapsing at an unsafe rate and would have soon gone supernova, taking the system with it. In a last-ditch effort of survival, and accepting the potential consequences, I used alchemy to convert the planet we were on into a container for the star, utilizing the energy released by the star to power the container's durability. The act was successful, and I and Ratchet now stood on a massive orb, a supernova right below our feet. The two of us rejoiced at avoiding certain death, and then our scientific minds began to work. The land beneath our feet was, in essence, the strongest battery in existence. We planned and returned to our lab, where we used a combination of alchemy and creation magic to create a self-sustaining miniature star. We then contained it using rubies the same way I trapped the supernova, and this time I added an array to allow us to leak out energy in a variety of forms as well as insuring the star lasts forever to generate power. This means my stone is capable of acting as a perfect alchemical battery, but is incapable of creating the elixir of immortality due to its lack of souls. That is how my philosopher's stone was created, and why Ratchet N. Clank is present here. Despite being uninitiated, he is as equally responsible for the creation of my philosopher's stone as I am." Patchwork finished with a tone of authority.
Ratchet meanwhile was trying his best to not make several Harry Potter or FMA references. With some skepticism in mind, elder Nicholas then turned his attention to Ratchet. "Mr. Clank, as you know, we highly doubt that a person of your caliber could co-create such a powerful artifact. As far as this council knows, your specialty lies in the field of robotics and machinery. In all honesty we would be more accepting of the fact that you truly created genuine artificial intelligence than a philosopher's stone." The elder responded with a condescending tone.
Ratchet merely smiled and said "Truthfully I'm working on it. The tricky part is giving it a form of mental autonomy given it is just programming. I have not quite managed to do so. But just because I'm a scientist does not mean I am unfamiliar with the esoteric." Ratchet then conjured a ball of flames in his right hand a color that could only be described as a void. "I am, after all, one of the few human practitioners of chaos magic, which, of course, is only capable when paired with creation magic, and both are extremely taxing upon the mind, body, and soul." The council shuddered at the flames that were just inherently wrong held in the scientist's hand. "Quite." elder Nicholas managed to choke out, "Very well, we rescind our objections. All those in favor of inducting acolyte Patchwork into the council as per the standard rules of our institute…and initiating Mr. Clank as a…honorary member of our order, raise your hands."
The full council raised their hands, the non-elders because they did not want to piss off a chaos-walker (2), and the elders because, while they knew they could handle a chaos-walker, they did not wish to waste the power of their stones in order to do so. Elder Nicholas observed the results and nodded. "Very well. Acolyte Patchwork, you are now officially recognized as a member of the council. You will obtain your formal attire from the institute within the week. Mr. Clank, you are now officially an honorary member of the Flamel Institute. I do hope you prove this was not a terrible decision." Ratchet merely performed a two-fingered salute and elder Nicholas sighed. "This may not be a good idea, but we shall now move on to the customary induction party."
"Hang on." Stitch was pulled out of his story at Claire's statement. "What is it Claire?" "This is a fascinating story, but what does it have to do with Ratchet creating Jenova?" Stitch frowned. "I was about to get to that." Claire had the decency to apologize. "Oh, sorry. Continue then." Stitch looked at her for a few more moments before continuing his story.
The party was in full swing, especially when Rasputin performed the old biblical trick and used his stone to turn all the drinks into wine. Ratchet immediately endeared himself to the Russian afterwards when he used the entropy aspect of chaos magic to age their drinks a few thousand years. Rasputin claimed it was the best drink he had since his alchemical vodka. Pretty soon Rasputin was drunk and had half the unattached women sitting by him. Stitch noticed Ratchet had scraped off a few chunks of Rasputin's stone when he was distracted, but didn't point it out. The elders missed it because they were more focused on Rasputin being up to his old vices again and fixing the drinks back to normal. Meanwhile, Stitch was dealing with a rather unusual boy with his ginger friend and their invisibility cloak, which sadly didn't completely cover the two (3). "Now listen here Barry." "Harry." "WHATEVER! Henry, you were required to go back to your dorms at around 8, and I don't want to be the one to deal with that annoying old quarter master, so run back to bed. And I'm keeping the cloak!" Patchwork said as he pointed to the door, which the two underage students begrudgingly walked through.
Sighing to himself, Stitch pulled out his own drink (He NEVER trusted drinking punch or anything liquid that was served out in the open at a party when Ratchet was around, not since the New Year's incident back in college, he still feels bad for those chickens and sororities.) as he casually sprayed some dust into a fireplace and threw the cloak into the now green fire. Turning around he bumped into a surprised young woman. "Oh, sorry miss…" "Arakawa." "Miss Arakawa, I was just dealing with a rather annoying chosen one and his countryside bumpkin of a friend. I still honestly have no idea why he and his friend were allowed to join when they have almost no skill at alchemy. I think it had to do with one of elder Flamel's failed stones." He said annoyingly as he then looked at the woman leaning on the nearby wall to try and figure out where he had seen her before. "I'm sorry miss, but what did you major in here?" He asked, still trying to figure out who she was. "Oh I'm not a student, I just came here to try and get some references on alchemy for my series." she said rather enthusiastically. "Oh, you must be a part of the group mentor Hiromu invites every once in a while." Stitch said intrigued, as he bowed politely. The two talked for a little bit before a loud crash was heard, turning to the noise the two paled, Arakawa for the horror she was witnessing, Stitch on the other hand paled out of embarrassment.
Standing across the room, drunk on magic wine, were several of the elders, stripped to their underwear and wearing black cloaks. They were running around drunkenly yelling "I'm a dementor here to bother your soul!" before shoving people (4). What was worse was the fact that Ratchet was leading this group, a magical glamour on him to look like Voldemort. "I'm sorry, but I need to take care of this." Stitch said darkly as he pulled out a scalpel. While Ratchet and Rasputin were bothering a clearly panicking Harry, who had again snuck back into the party, Ratchet turned to see Stitch coming at him with a dark expression. Sadly for Harry, he would never be rid of the screams of terror that he heard, nor the horror of the acts the mad doctor had done to his friend and elder.
"I'm sorry to interrupt again. I'm sure this is a truly fascinating story, but do you think you could get to the point." Stitch frowned at Claire's blunt statement, but nonetheless agreed. He had got a bit deep into the events of the day. "Very well. The A.I.s were built from the fragments Ratchet took from Rasputin's stone. It took him a few tries to get it right. Too much and the A.I. had too much free will, too little and it wouldn't work. Combine that with his hobby of building the originals like A.I.s from mass media, and you can guess we had some close calls. But that is for another day. We should get started on building your weapon." Claire nodded at Stitch's statement, and the two began walking to the fabrication room where Claire's weapon would be built.
8-bit Thief: Welp, here is our apology for the lateness of our next chapter. We hope you enjoy. Also, I would like to state that all omakes are to be considered canon. These omakes are meant as much for world-building as they are as apologies and entertainment. If we make an omake that is not canon to the main story, it will be marked at the beginning of the chapter.
themadDrPatchwork: Sorry about all this, my muse is currently running around like a chicken with its head chopped off, and I have been working on a few stories on the side. I will be sending more of my stories up soon.
8-bit Thief: Also, I have finally learned the rules of dialogue. Next chapter will not follow these rules, as it is almost complete and I don't wish to go through and edit it, but the chapter afterwards, the next chapter of my Gundam story, and all future chapters will be written by us following those rules as best as possible. That said, onto the marked references.
(1) Hiromu is the name of the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist. Yes, that means we are implying FMA was written to get more prospective students for the Flamel Institute. This also means we will be following the stated alchemy rules given in FMA, with our own tweaks.
(2) Our story has a very interesting ranking system for magic wielders. There is the standard apprentice, student, journeyman, expert, and all of those, but we are adding an extra: walker. A walker is a person who is so skilled at a specific aspect of magic that they can quite literally become one with it, wielding it with little to no magic. The reason for the name is that they are said to 'walk' alongside their element (i.e. pyromancy=fire-walker). Certain branches have multiple uses, and therefore different walker classes (i.e. necromancy: death magic=death-walker, undead magic=grave-walker). Chaos and creation are interesting because they are tied together. In order to keep natural balance, there can never be an uneven number of chaos magic practitioners to creation magic practitioners. Eventually it was decided each member were taught their counterpart magic to insure balance. More will be explained later, especially the details on what chaos and creation magic can DO, especially in terms of a walker like Ratchet.
(3) Yes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were allowed into the Flamel Institute after the events of book 1 in our story. It's a summer schooling program for them, as the institute does not teach magic. If you are wondering why the sole female of the 'golden trio' was absent, Hermione was in the institute's expansive library.
(4) If you get the drunken dementor scene you'll know it's from Harry Potter and the ohh something shiny, and bothering is from Potter puppet pals.
8-bit Thief: Well, that's all I can think of. Therefore…
Both: We will be seeing you all in the next chapter! JA NE!