Introducing...
The white dog-rabbit formally said in a voice similar to Shelke's (and almost just like Libby's, but more chirpy), "Name registry complete," then opened her eyes to show a color like aquamarine—another difference in color between her and Libby. Looking up at him, she said happily, "Hello, I'm Elicia! What's your name?"
"Edward Elric, or just Ed," he told her, knowing she was still programming herself to effectively bond to him. "Some people still call me Auryn, too."
"Okay, good to know!" she agreed, ears twitching in a slow, methodical motion which he knew from Libby meant she was processing data. "You're my new best friend, but I don't know anything about you! That's really rude, isn't it?"
She looked so dismayed at the words that he actually began to laugh softly and told her, "We'll have plenty of time to get to know each other, since you're going to be staying here now, right?"
"Oh! Yes, I will be! That's great, then!" Elicia replied much more happily. He lifted her to his shoulder, where she pulled herself up and hugged him around the neck as she settled there.
When he looked up at the others, he could see a curious mix of worry and amusement on their faces, so he asked sheepishly, "I guess I have to explain that, don't I?"
"That would be nice, given your reaction to seeing her," the woman agreed with a small smile and worried gaze.
Ed looked over at Elicia as he reached up to pat her head—she purred happily at the action, making him chuckle—then looked back at them. "In the first one, Reeve, Shelke, and a few others made a black version of exactly this kind of being in looks, but the black one was able to store mass quantities of data and project it holographically. She was made for me as a research companion, and could even read energy levels of things around me—say, the energy output of the Reactors. Since that first one, I've never gotten anything even remotely similar. I didn't just lose a database, I lost a close friend—a younger sister. Elicia is so similar to the original at a glance that I couldn't help but react to that, and the most shocking thing is that you all did this without even having any input from me about her. But, she couldn't purr, which Elicia can."
"The similarity would be because Carbuncle dropped definite hints, so since it knows so much about you, we thought we should take it seriously," Lady Shinra answered. "Now we know why, and—this is a good thing, yes?"
"Yes," he agreed, wondering how his Carbuncle knew anything about Libby when it had largely been Rufus' Carbuncle who had known her. Either way, he felt a lot better having Elicia's weight on his shoulder. Then, he blinked and asked the woman, "By the way...Where is Carbuncle, Lady Shinra?"
"It told me it needed to rest for awhile in spirit form and to have you summon it back later. That was last night, and things have been peaceful for a few weeks, so I had thought to ask you to summon it again in a few days," Lady Shinra replied.
For a moment, Edward paused to think about what she was saying, then asked apprehensively, "Did you and Carbuncle happen to overhear something which would be cause for worry in the near future, Lady Shinra?"
Everyone's gazes moved from him to her in worry, and she shook her head. "I didn't, but I know Carbuncle has a greater range of hearing than I do. It might have heard something I didn't. Why?"
"Because Carbuncle knows exactly how long it can stay in tangible form for before starting to take on biological functions, and that's easily a few months, Lady Shinra. If it wanted to rest now, it wanted to be sure it would be able to stay here for the next few months because you're in very real, very current, danger," Ed explained tersely, and everyone else in the room blinked. He held his hand forward and called Carbuncle silently right to it, making the others stare with wide eyes as the small Summon dropped easily to the ground, then blinked up at the white robot on his shoulder.
"So who's that?" Carbuncle asked curiously, pointing at Elicia.
"I named her Elicia," Ed replied dryly. "She's a medical companion in this case. But what did you hear that made you want to reset your time just now?"
"I think the President is going to let Deepground out way ahead of schedule, and the only reason he would is if he feels he has control of them. He knows now that Verdot can't kill Lady Shinra, so he's going to get Deepground to do it. That's kinda what it sounded like to me, anyway. I need to be able to be here all the time, and the only chance I'll have to go back to spirit form is if you and Lady Shinra leave the area for a few days," Carbuncle explained, then turned and hopped onto the table to sit facing Lady Shinra. "Even if I can 'protect' you from them, it depends on what they do to try to kill you. I might be forced back to spirit form anyway, and you'd only have yourself left unless someone like Vincent could reach you fast enough. I'm not a guarantee of survival against them, especially since magic, or even Limit Breaks, literally don't work on some of them."
Silence fell, then the woman sighed and nodded. "I'll keep my weapons—both of them—on me, then. We can't do any more now. So, was there anything else we needed to discuss today?"
"Should I maybe start working on a personal warning system you can carry on you that would let you know if someone who had a weapon approached you? I think it's possible to make it scan for an ID card, and if the card it finds—or doesn't find—isn't on its list, it'll send a signal," Cloud offered suddenly, and Ed's lips quirked in amusement.
"Isn't that rather advanced for a beginner engineer?" Reeve asked in surprise. "Though the idea is sound, you trying to do it yourself at this stage would be very difficult and probably take longer than we have. I need to work on the Reactor efficiency before I devote my time to something else, but Shelke can work with you while I'm busy, and you both can come to me if you need any advice. How does that sound?"
"If you think it's viable, I'd like to see such a thing just now," Lady Shinra nodded, turning her gaze to Cloud. "So, if you're willing, that can be your first actual product for the Turks. All of the Turks can have one as a default, and we can work out others who will need them while you're developing it."
The blond fourteen-year-old's gaze met Shelke's, and when he saw her grin and nod, Cloud agreed, "Okay, we'll give it a shot, then."
It didn't take them long to set up a time and place, then Reeve, Lucrecia, and Lady Shinra all left while Shelke stayed behind to play with Yufi. Since the two girls went back to Ed's apartment almost right away, Tseng and Cloud headed out and Ed stayed at Kariya's, much to the older man's amusement. Shortly after, he heard the noise coming from next door and suddenly wasn't so amused anymore.
"...Should we have suggested they go find a gym or indoor park space to play in?" Kariya asked the younger blond as he motioned towards Ed's apartment.
"That wouldn't actually have made a difference in their noise level whenever they made their way back here, you know," Ed replied in amusement. "The best option is probably going to be getting them that Battle Pets game and letting Shelke make it into something Yufi can talk to. And yes, Kariya, you're going to have to get used to them being noisy, because anytime they met, they've always been attached at the hip from then on. On the up-side, you just earned an automatic and free bodyguard for Shelke, because Yufi is protective of her. Very protective."
The man looked amused by the words, then smirked and said, "I guess I should invite Shalua for supper so she can meet her new honorary sister, then."
Ed snorted in amusement and agreed, "Sure. Have fun with that." He then moved to the man's couch with a book to read, Elicia curling up on his chest as he settled comfortably, planning to stay there until Shelke and Shalua had left for the evening.
FoWD
A couple weeks had passed since Sirra had taken a trip to Costa del Sol to relax for a bit after the incident with Gorgon. She had needed the time away to try to calm down, but this time, it had actually been easier than the first. The reason? Not only had he not been able to rape her, but she'd beaten him herself, fair and square—she'd proven her own strength and ability, even if it had wrecked havoc on her at the time, something she wouldn't have had to fall back on if Ruluf had helped her fight him. There was no need to fear a dead man, and once she'd sorted herself out, she actually felt stronger now because that wasn't hanging over her head anymore. Her training as a Turk had proven itself in a way she'd honestly never expected it to before, so getting back to work came sooner than she'd expected it to.
Speaking of work, she was lounging in her seat at Nightcap in Sector 3 that evening, eyes mostly closed as she stared upward and only 'watched' the other patrons who were in her peripheral vision. It was subtle—she was sure most of them didn't even know how much attention she was paying to them—but effective enough to alert her to things she needed to pay attention to. Nothing of actual note had happened in any of the places she'd been in since she'd established herself at them, and she hadn't yet seen traces of Fuhito, AVALANCHE, or the Wutains who were newcomers to the city. Of course, splitting her time between three different places left a lot of openings in her ability to observe.
The reason she was at Nightcap was because she'd noticed the bartender had been jumpy since she'd returned from her week-long vacation, though it had likely begun before her return, and she wanted to keep an eye on the place until she knew why. Disregarding the other two was a definite no-go at this point, and if she never went anywhere but Nightcap, everyone would be suspicious, but she was now normally taking two days in a row at Nightcap, one at each of the other two, another two at Nightcap, and so on. If anyone bothered to ask her, she could easily say she was mostly working in Sectors 2, 3, and 4 (which was actually true), so this was her closest place to unwind, hence her more frequent presence there. She didn't think anyone had even noticed, except maybe the bartender.
Unlike 7th Heaven, which nearly completely filled its space with no extra, Nightcap was a larger building and had stairs in the main room leading both up and down from the main room near the bar and the doorway into the cooler room. There was no kitchen like the rear space at 7th Heaven and the Drifter's Lounge had, but there were bathrooms there. It was the upstairs and the downstairs which were singularly interesting at Nightcap, as those were private rooms for rent, the ones upstairs for meetings and games and the ones downstairs for—other activities. There was also a large 'wine cellar' down there, but most of its goods weren't wines, they were all assortments of other kinds of alcohols.
Several times, she'd seen groups of Wutains go upstairs (not so obviously, but obvious enough to someone watching for it), and equally as many times, she'd seen mixed groups of Wutains and non-Wutains go downstairs, sometimes after having been upstairs first. Today was no exception, and she'd seen quite a few people already head either up or down, none of them regular customers who used the main bar or the rental rooms. She was only familiar with so many of the regulars, especially with her shift in schedule, but other than one obvious couple who went downstairs and four guys planning a high-stakes poker game going upstairs, everyone else was out of place.
Then, the door opened and she saw a Wutain man enter the bar, one who fit the description she had of Fuhito. It was all she could do to stay relaxed while he approached the bartender, spoke with the now much more jittery man, then headed downstairs. There had been no exchange of funds, not that she'd seen, and she'd been watching for a payment exchange in case this was a one-off. It obviously wasn't, nor was the bartender in agreement with having Fuhito there, making her wonder what the Wutain was holding over him to force his acceptance.
Her drink ran out a few minutes later, and the bartender came over with the replacement drink, prompting her to open her eyes as he put her fresh glass down and ask him softly and bluntly, "So what's got you so jumpy, Barkeep? Got a customer bothering you?"
He froze for a moment, then sighed and picked up her empty glass as he told her quietly, "It's not something you can do anything about. I just need to learn not to open my big mouth when someone asks for something I have reservations about. All I would have had to do was say 'no, I don't have anything like that here,' and they wouldn't even be here now. As it is, I'm stuck."
"You're the owner. You can throw them out," she pointed out. He shook his head. "Why not?"
"Because I have things here that can get me in trouble, and they know it," he replied tiredly. "Thanks for the thought, Ratri, but this is my problem to deal with." With that, he walked away, and she watched him go, her gaze hard.
So she'd hit pay dirt. It had taken long enough. Now, all she had to do was get Fuhito to let down his guard, and that also meant no more changes in her schedule unless they were due to her work. She needed to be known as a regular and someone they didn't need to worry about, though she already was, theoretically.
One thing stood out about the situation—Fuhito had only recently moved here, and that then begged the question as to why, and where he'd been hiding out prior to his move to Nightcap. Again, as a merc, she couldn't personally investigate, but that wouldn't stop her from going to someone who could. She also wondered in vague amusement what he'd thought of the destruction of everything in the warehouse he would have wanted. Probably, he'd been right pissed about that, and he only hadn't come after her because Ruluf had let himself be seen going in and out.
And the rest of what she had to do was just waiting now.
FoWD
Elicia quickly became a fixture in Ed's life, even making Tifa's current presence there seem a lot less surreal and everything in general a lot less stressful. He had finished the three weeks of the chemical bath Lucrecia had started him with, had a fourth week added as a test to see if his cells would keep improving, and finally finished off with another week of it. That fifth and final week had just ended, and he admittedly felt a lot better than he had in a long time, but in a physical sense rather than mental or emotional. It also shocked him to realize how much the state of his physical body had been affecting his behavior, and even the extremity of his emotional reactions and the processing speed of his mind.
Those last weeks since he'd been given Elicia had also been shockingly calm, and both he and Genesis and Cloud and Shelke were close to a breakthrough on their respective projects. It wouldn't be long before both were ready, though Cloud and Shelke's looked to be taking longer, if only because Cloud was a raw beginner as an engineer and programmer. When Shelke wasn't working with Cloud, she was with Yufi, the two girls spending pretty much all their free time together—and usually not in Ed's or Kariya's apartments, thankfully. Kariya had been both pleased and amused to find out the blond had been right to say Yufi was rather protective of Shelke, and had proven it very soon after the two had first met.
From experience, Ed knew the bomb was about to drop—so long with nothing happening was normally the calm before the storm, and all he could do was prepare as well as he could for what would come next. If Carbuncle was right, though, Deepground was about to be let out, and there was a strong likelihood they would be taking control by force. Working back through his memory to every time Deepground had come out, or been let out, always led him back to one of two general options; either they would go on a rampage and start killing people in droves, or they would impose martial law with ranks higher than everyone but the President's. By the current political climate, it would likely be the latter.
He suddenly really wished there was a safe-village in Wutai he could disappear to, but no such luck. In this case, he hadn't even met Godo when he'd visited to finalize the contract with President Shinra. Yufi and Tseng had met with him and Lady Shinra, but no one else had been invited to that meeting, and he was thankful for that in some ways.
His thoughts were interrupted that afternoon by Kariya coming into his room with his PHS in one hand as he said, "We need to go with everyone else in the building to the large training hall. Company-wide announcements of this sort are rare, but there are no exceptions other than immobility in the Hospital Wing. Think you can handle the press of people?"
"I don't have much of a choice," Ed replied dryly, though he did feel his mouth go dry at the thought. Elicia climbed onto his shoulder and patted the side of his head with one paw-hand.
"I meant, do we need to find a place off to the side or at the back for you to stand so there's a little less press of people around you, or would you be fine in the middle of the throng?" Kariya rephrased, sounding amused.
The blond had to pause for a minute to think about that before saying quietly, "I think I need to be as far outside the crowd as I can be."
"Let's go, then," Kariya agreed.
The Turk led the way to the large room they needed, quickly finding them a place at the back, standing against the back wall. Not long after, Doriss joined them as she stood at Ed's other side, clearly very tense. In the whole Shinra building, there were three massively large rooms which crossed space in multiple floors, and the smallest of those was the Academy's gymnasium. The other two were the general company gym and the training room for the SOLDIERs and Turks where they currently were, the latter of which was the largest of them. Normally, the only camera in the room led to a video feed on the observation deck near the top right of the room and separated from it by a sheet of unbreakable plexiglass, but this time, there were over half a dozen of them, and there was an additional arena in the middle of the room.
It didn't take long for the room to fill or the assembly time to come, at which point, the President stepped onto the arena and stood in the middle of it, surrounded by—the four Restrictors! Soon after, as a puzzled quiet fell, the President said, "It's good to see you all here. Now, since I'm sure you're puzzled about these four men, let me explain. Many, many years ago, I started a project which would be a long time in the making, one which would make the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company the ultimate power on the Planet. It has finally come to fruition with the assistance and guidance of these men with me, my new guards, who you can just refer to as 'the Restrictors'.
"They also act as the Directors of the new unit of SOLDIER, which is known as Deepground. In addition, Deepground has a varying power structure from SOLDIER, with a command unit known as the Tsviets, who also have their own leader, known as Weiss the Immaculate. The other Tsviets include Nero the Sable, Rosso the Crimson, Azul the Cerulean, and Argento. Know them on sight, because these five don't wear the uniform of the other members of Deepground or SOLDIER, and learn the Deepground uniform quickly." As he'd spoken, the named Tsviets, led by Weiss, and three regular members of Deepground, one man and two women (each wore a different variant of the female uniform), made their way onto the stage to form a line behind the President and Restrictors.
"Now, just to kick things off, we're going to have a small tournament between the existing combat forces—SOLDIER and the Turks—and Deepground. SOLDIER and the Turks, you have half an hour to work out your best team of eight, though I expect to see the General and Commanders in your group. You may use the room next door to choose your combatants," the President finished with a smirk at Lady Shinra, who just looked tired as she nodded.
She made her way out of the room in her wheelchair, Carbuncle curled up in her lap, and was quickly followed by the rest of the Turks and SOLDIERs. Ed latched onto Kariya's arm so he had no choice but to take him along. It only took five minutes for everyone to gather in the room next door, other than members of SOLDIER who really didn't want to participate—those were mostly Thirds, and they just waited outside the room. Lady Shinra was at the back of the room, surrounded by Lazard, Verdot, Vincent, and the rest of the Turks, then by the SOLDIERs who had wanted to be included.
"What the fuck is this all about?" Genesis asked agitatedly, obviously furious as he forced his way through to the Turks to stand in front of the woman.
Lady Shinra sighed tiredly and asked Verdot, "Can I count on your support long enough to get through this?"
"I rather think we don't have a choice in that just now," he replied in a bland tone.
"No, he does seem to have placed us all in the same category, regardless of our allegiances," she agreed, still sounding tired.
"The fact that he's done so makes me think we need caution," Verdot pointed out, meeting her gaze. "He specifically stated he wanted the three strongest SOLDIERs in this tournament of his, so he's trying to prove Deepground can defeat them."
The woman nodded, but someone called, "Then we should kick their asses and prove we're better!"
"And then what?" Lady Shinra asked, looking out over the crowd of combat personnel. "Have him start eliminating you one by one because you're too strong and he can't control you completely, as you still have free will?" A tense, shocked silence fell, so she went on, "But that same control he has over them isn't perfect, either, and as normally happens, the Guards will have to clean up the mess, this time alongside the Hounds. Maybe this is partly my instinct, but I've known Marius for over forty years, and we don't want to show our true power now. We want him to think he has what he wants—control—then when it all falls in on him, we want to act to show him how wrong he was, on all counts."
Ed was relieved to know she didn't need direction from him to realize that point—and he truly hoped he never had to go into another dimension without her now that he knew how big of a difference she could make. Her awareness and intelligence were huge boons to any attempt to save the world.
"As his right-hand man for these last decades, I agree with the sentiment, especially because the Turks have been included at all, not just SOLDIER or the Guards' faction, in his desire to prove his power over us," Verdot agreed.
"I believe that's true as well," Vincent added.
"As do I," Lazard put in, surprising most of the SOLDIERs. "And please reinforce to Rufus that this isn't his place and time to fight, Lady Shinra." At the exasperation in his voice and annoyed look at the younger, equally annoyed blond beside him, everyone could guess they had been muttering back and forth about that since the discussion began.
"Rufus, we especially don't want them to know your true strength," Lady Shinra told him pointedly, and Rufus glared at her.
"I'm as much a qualified Turk as Vincent or Verdot, Mother! I have every right to fight!" he replied fiercely.
"You do, but not here, and not now. There will come a time when you'll be proving your power as a Turk, and I don't think it will take that long to present itself. I want you to be prepared for that time, not waste good skills in your father's asinine games," she told him bluntly.
After several long moments of the two staring at one another, her evenly and him with a defiant glare, he looked away and said, "Fine, but don't you dare tell me not to fight when things turn sour."
"I would never dream of it," she replied with a faint smile.