Broken Adventure: Arc 3: Jumpchain Chapter 5, a x-overs fanfic

One of the youngest ones ran into her office. "Ms. Grinder! It's time!"

Ah, one of Ben's little ones. "What time, Simmy?"

The little girl sparkled! "Adventure time!"

A glance… Yes, it was around tea time. "Very well, is everyone else ready?"

The small heads peeking from the distant door frame nodded while Simmy bounced on her heels!

A thought had a dozen or so Plasmids activate. Paperwork sorted (Far more in the 'to do' pile than there should be), furniture realigned and cleaned, her adventure tea teleported from the kitchens and heated, a mental message sent to her sister and, as always, Ms. Killgrave.

Seriously, the Blue Angel was such a worry wart.

A sip of the finest tea the bubble farms grew had her feel more awake! Vanishing it all back to the kitchen, she stood with a grin! "Alright! Everyone gather outside, we're off to the forest!"

"""Yes Ms. Grinder!"""

A flick had her pirate hat firmly set on her head. "Today it's Captain Amy! Avast me maties!"

"""AVAST!"""

It felt like a good day for swashbuckling!

She led her charges out from the school, making sure the little ones from the Orphanage didn't trip or wander off as they made sure everyone had gone to the bathroom and had a buddy partner ready.

And maybe they could go damsel-nap her sister, Emily was always so busy practicing for that upcoming play. That woman needs a break every now and then.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam tested the 'packing' and 'unpacking' units again. The speed was higher, but more importantly the error checking units were keeping an eye open. Everything looked green so far...

No errors.

And this time, no false positives… Hopefully. Asymmetrical packing and unpacking had found a number of issues requiring units to be redesigned and modified, but hopefully they had them all this time!

An absent thought had more irradiated wasteland from the surface [[Harvested]] and replaced with high quality sod and some random edible crops. The nuclear waste zones made great resources for Sarah's recycling units, the high energy content making the dirt free (Ha!) replacement soil cheap to produce while still getting a profit for future Jumps.

Oh, it was helping the planet too no doubt, especially as entire sections of the surface got swapped out for impossibly productive farmland with incredibly hearty and nutritious crops near randomly… But honestly Sarah let Adam do this to help the morons up there survive the ongoing stupidity.

'Things are getting bad up here!' 'You don't say? Why not more nukes!'

Seriously, it was stupid. At least Adam was able to scan the increasingly strange weaponry up there for Sarah's Warehouse database.

Was it USEFUL data? Meh. Had some neat oddities, but he had a strong belief that most of this wouldn't work in other Jumps.

Simulations already showed that the Tonics and Plasmids would need to be paired with 'Enhance Self' in future travels, as without the powerful psionic environment the powers would erode away.

'Enhance Self' would ensure nothing bad happened, but effectively all Bioshock powers would become one time use serums with expiration dates for any activatable effects. Not useless, and 'Research' would probably benefit from all the testing done so far, but not 'take a sip and be a superhero!' levels of power either.

It only took a few years before basic Plasmids were designable from the ground up, and a few dozen years later when Major Plasmids were cracked and began real development. At this point, the only thing stopping the mass production of Omega Plasmids were the too weak psionic fields… Only little Amy with her enhanced existence could theoretically use one of those monster Plasmids.

Not that they let her try, those things were obscenely powerful and expensive to use. 'One use per week' levels of Eve consumption, while feeling like crap for days later! Even with 'Enhance Self' it would suck to have even the cheapest one set up in your psionic field for longer than a day or so anyway.

In return, it made you a master of a particular power. 'Control Water within range X' levels of overpowered, reminiscent of those super mutants from X-men or whatever. For locals, at least.

Sarah herself couldn't rely on anything not bought from the Jump Document on future trips, as even these locally made 'Omega Plasmids' didn't copy the universal constants needed to operate outside of this reality.

Still, interesting data from the labs to keep an eye on. And at some point in the far future, one of the kids from Rapture might be strong enough to actually consider using one.

Which is why Sarah is making sure the Elizabeth family will be keeping their many eyes on the situation. No reason to risk widespread destruction because some kid accidentally gained the power to manipulate causality or something.

Swapping out another irradiated mountain with fresh fabricated stone (Full of fun messages and silly fake fossils! Why yes, Fifty legged dinosaurs DID exist ten bazillion years ago and they DID wear sunglasses!), Adam continued refining the conversion units.

These things were the core of recycling and transmutation of materials, while also core to construction and fabrication complexity limitation modifications… Just hard to improve.

In a way, Adam was thrilled Sarah had so much to distract her. It took two years to even improve the most basic of matter conversion units by a few percentage points, if she was down here kicking her feet and forced to watch all this she would lose her damned mind!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elizabeth sighed. "This is really hard to do."

Her teammates nodded. Another her shrugged. "It's why we normally only have one Songbird team per sport." "Not that we had that option in THIS case."

The captain huffed! "I just don't know how we're losing! We can HEAR each other's plans and thoughts! We should be in a deadlock at BEST!"

Another her sighed. "It's Sarah's fault."

They nodded. "Telling our other team to only plan for naughty outcomes is surprisingly effective."

Not only was it hard to avoid losing points when the other team is mostly focusing on sexual teasing and wardrobe malfunctions, but more than a few of them had to fight to even WANT to resist! It was damned unfair, and half the time the other side didn't even bother to take advantage to score on the field when their plans worked!

Uh. Well, technically they DID take advantage, and they DID score, but not in the game itself.

Several of them blushed, then blushed harder as they felt Sarah cheering both sides on with a sensual leer on her face, on the stands surrounded by many happy Elizabeths.

Obviously only those with exhibition fetishes were part of the two teams, and this was one of those age restricted broadcasts… But even so, 'Songbird Sporting', or the more commonly called 'XXX-Steam Sports' was the most popular adult oriented events held in Rapture at this point.

But they HAD to play themselves, because otherwise someone other than Sarah would be on the other team. Which was not acceptable.

...Though they DID try Songbird Vs Sarah one time. Mmm!

Technically they all won AND lost, depending on the interpretation.

Though THAT event had been an Elizabeth Only Crowd without an unrelated audience. And was not broadcasted on the Adult Rapture channel.

It was a video for the private collection, and one beloved by the less outgoing 'sisters' of the group.

One of her blinked. "Wait, didn't our time out end a few minutes ago?"

An entire football team of herselves covered in oil arrived in time to point out, yes. Yes it had.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Rat Catcher was a title, and his father and his father's father passed it down with care.

It was important, now that all the many 'Cities of Rapture' had their own security stations and resource sectors to defend and report. While his grandfather only had to watch a few thousand mice, his dad was STILL teaching him how to manage the massive networks of OTHER SPY networks down here.

The 'Nation of Rapture' was mostly at peace at this point, unlike the surface. Some conflicts arose as various people shifted from the different cities that Ms. Killgrave had built over the years, and of course the wisest and most elite of the elite had followed Andrew Ryan and his family as he dug down to 'Conquer the Earth' as he had already 'Pioneered the Sea'.

Basically, shove the crazy to follow the depths and leave the majority of 'slightly crazy' people up here under the 'open seafloor' to spread out and enjoy life.

Life was fully cut off from the surface now, though there weren't any complaints after the entire place blew itself sky high a few years back. The population down here was high enough that anything fun or interesting was not only likely to be available in the Nation already but, with the above society crumbling, possibly CREATED here!

Fashion flourished, new foods and arts and entertainment filled the markets, and a strange near post scarcity society had begun developing under the waves. With the mice of the Rat Catcher keeping the more innocent safe and the more vile ones honest. Or caught.

A much MORE strange society was now growing under the rocks, but Rapture was a place of impossibilities and oddness at the best of times, people sort of expected that kind of situation.

Ms. Killgrave was at least clear on THAT issue: Protect her properties, let Ryan handle his own messes.

It became a harder task to do as more and more of the ocean floor sold property to Pauper's Drop's Angel and either joined her directly or flew to the depths to see Andrew Ryan's underground world, but it was a labor of love and the Rat Catcher's ensured that love was unviolated.

A report showed the new gangs were mostly falling in line, though two agents had to utilize the 'Medical Transport' Tonic that their agents had to apply, teleporting the injured to the hidden medical center and preventing loss of his mice due to a MASSIVE ambush…

The Rat Catcher shuddered. That had been the first and only time he'd seen the 'Bone Angel' angry in his lifetime. Or taking personal action.

There hadn't been a need for a second. The stories still swirled in the underground, and most of the worst people had followed Andrew Ryan into the depths rather than risk the Ocean Queen and her impossible attacks.

At least he had more help than his Grandfather had. Now there were teams of security men and women for each squad that eventually reported to him, analysts that searched for attacks or schemes or whatnot.

He'd like to think it was due to his many years of hard work, but mostly it was because they too didn't want to see the Angel angry again.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave carefully helped Susan into her chair. "How did story time go?"

She rolled her eyes at his protective ways. "The twins aren't even far enough along to hear anything, but at least the other girls put up with me."

He ignored his triple girls rolling their eyes as they went to get their mom some milk. "You know they worry."

Susan snorted. "Sally, Amanda, and Julie were a cakewalk. Easiest pregnancy I ever had, and the Tonics made sure all of us were healthy and safe the entire time."

He absently nodded. "But you were younger back then. Just be safe."

His wife waved him off. "I talked to Sarah about it. I can handle getting pregnant as old as I want, I'm biologically at my prime and will be for a while. And this time it is only twins! You know Rachel had quadruplets with no problem."

Dave grunted. "Just let us do all the work, relax a little."

The door opened. "Hey mom! Hey dad! I'm stealing the younger ones, ok? Ok! Bye!"

And his younger triplets giggled as their older sibling levitated them out and vanished. Ah, it must be tea time. "On second thought, let me do all the work."

Susan shook her head in amusement. "I have no clue what you are going to do the next time I have kids."

His mind blanked.

...No, think about that later. "I'll get some tea?" Yes. "I'll get some tea."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elizabeth sighed, exasperating but filled with care. "We will be fine."

Another nodded while a third hugged her. "We verified that Rapture would stay separated. We can all come and visit and keep an eye on things all we want."

A fourth kissed her ear. "And we will be here to watch the little ones even if your trip takes longer than expected."

Sarah twisted her hands. "The data says it should be fine, that I can return near instantly from when I leave… But there was so much damage!"

One of the 'older' versions of herself chuckled. "Time means little to us."

Another child possibility nodded. "We can change age, or survive past death and before life." A teenager waved it off! "We remember the past as vividly as the present, and there are members of myself that fell in love with you years from now and decades ago!"

Sarah whined! "But I… I don't want to go!"

They shrugged. "You can always stay another decade or two." "It wouldn't be an issue." "Though your daughters would be exasperated, they still love it when you visit." "And you know your grandkids adore you!"

The closest Elizabeth kissed her cheek. "But would you be happy?"

The woman stood tall! "YES!"

And saw her lovers give her a wry look. "Well… Maybe a bit frustrated. But at least I would be there for them!"

Another her grinned. "You were at all their births." "You intimidated dozens of boyfriends and seven or so girlfriends." "At every graduation." "Each birthday." """They know you love them."""

She hugged her distraught girlfriend. "And they know you've felt the urge to travel."

Sarah slumped. "I don't know why I can't just sit here and be happy. Even my Benefactor is fine with me waiting a few centuries here, but it doesn't help!"

One of the younger Elizabeths sat on her lap and gave a hug. "I was given money and knowledge, a family that thought they loved me and a kingdom that worshiped my any desire without restraint."

Another sighed. "And in the end, we only desired freedom."

Her beloved looked into her eyes. "What kind of partner would I be if I stopped you from finding your own Paris?"

Sarah had tears in her eyes. "I'll… I'll be back, you know?"

They nodded.

She wiped her eyes. "I mean it! My last step might have destroyed my path and history, but I fixed a LOT of myself! It's called a JumpChain, you know? A chain! This is my home now! My chain's foundation!"

The hug got tighter. "We will be here while you forge the next links."

On one hand, the farewell was sweet yet bitter. Because while their loved one would go on to travel, to them they would either find her returned instantly or mourn a partner who changed their lives. A moment of uncertainty, but instantly resolved and even in the worse case, a meeting and parting worth all the consequences.

But for now, their love had to leave to face uncertainty. "One day, we will come visit your grand chain."

She weakly smiled, love bright in her eyes. "One day, I will give a grand tour! You just wait, it's going to be an adventure! It will be brilliant!"

They paused, each trying to find something else to say. One side trying to reassure the other that it was time to fly, the other trying to stall despite her own drive urging her forward.

Still, the time came.

[[JumpChain: Transfer.]]

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah sat in the Warehouse, quiet.

Adam gently formed a warm scarf over her. {{I've got a few options for the next Jump?}}

She shrugged. "Maybe in a few minutes."

Fair enough. {{I've backed up the targeting mark for this Jump in your Warehouse core. By the time something manages to damage that location, we'd be unable to survive it anyway. And it's set as your home reality, you'll go back there if you fail later on.}}

A bit of spark in her? "Good. Because we WILL be back."

Yep. He had verified the Chain units were working VERY carefully. {{Yes. Yes we will.}}

Still, it would be a few (relevant to her Warehouse) thousand decades or so before reaching ANY of the nearest Jump possibilities. So she had time to relax for a while before he sent her Avatar to sleep and proceed to initiate the storage units for the long trip.

Oh! {{By the way, your girlfriends left you a media database.}}

She absently leaned back. "That's nice."

Yep. {{The editing was well done, though I'm glad they decided to restrict it to adult Elizabeths only in the end.}}

Sarah froze. "Adam?"

Heh. {{I admit, I didn't realize you could be THAT flexible during a soccer match, but it was impressive!}}

She stared at nothing. "They didn't. They said they turned off the cameras!"

He shrugged. {{The local ones, yeah. But you know those high definition cameras that she asked for two weeks before the game?}}

Sarah blushed violently. "No! No I do not! And no YOU do not!" Squirming in her chair, her eyes were darting. "How much did they film!?"

Adam hummed. {{Well, since portals could overlap without interfering with each other… All possible angles? At the same time?}}

She buried her head in her arms! "Noo!"

He agreed. {{Like I said, well done editing. They must have had hundreds of Elizabeths watching thousands of video feeds for weeks to get this done.}}

Sarah wailed! "How can she embarrass me by showing me with herself to herselves!?"

Uh. {{What?}}

She pointed! "I don't have to make sense! This is MY kink harem sex film we are talking about, and I can pout if I want to!" The Jumper froze. "Wha… When did they give you this thing?"

Sarah blinked. "She's trying to avoid 'punishment'. Oh, there is going to be SUCH a spanking! Spankings for everyone!"

He rolled his eyes. {{Fine, fine. But what would be the punishment?}}

She pointed AGAIN! "SHUSH YOU! Sexy spankings for ALL of them!"

Fair enough. {{Want me to set up a video screen in your bedroom?}}

...Her hand drooped. "Yes please."

Adam set her bedroom to 'Privacy mode' and went to look at potential future Jump locations.

Right, a few were off the list due to being so unstable that the Jump Documents couldn't properly connect to them. While the Bioshock Jump was secure enough for Sarah to land on and establish a home base, it was still pretty close to the recent explosion of nothingness they fled from… Not surprisingly, places out here could be undefined.

Aside from the places that were pointless to go to (No Document means no drawbacks and no points), there were three big options available.

Alphabetically, she had the options to go to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Final Fantasy VII, or Teen Titans.

None were vanilla though. This whole section of Jump Reality was a risky place, and honestly the actions of Sarah as she built her chain LEAVING here would likely stabilize whole sections of the Jump Realm in the process… These Jumpchains seemed to act as anchors and pressure release valves for each of the Jumps connected.

It honestly might be why Deities with immortality and unbelievable power bothered to procreate via Warehouses in the first place. Just the existence of these Jumpers stabilized whole sections of existence even if they royally screw up the specific places they visit along their way.

Right, first let's see if we can narrow down where to go… What kind of drawbacks do all three have? Sarah would have to pick at least SOME to get more material to fix/improve the Warehouse via Choice Points anyway, but if one Jump had nothing she was willing to go for then it was off the table.

Hmm. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Normally the gods or 'powers that be' were jerks in these Jumps, willing to hurt good if they actually start winning over evil and all that jazz. Lots of prophecies and rules and stuff that Sarah was likely to ignore.

Angels, demons, gods, monsters, yeah. Some powerful stuff, but after having so long to examine the Lutece Twins and the Elizabeths Adam was sure the Warehouse would be safe there.

Right, this Jump Document was limited to 600CP total from drawbacks or 'Complications.' Something to do with how that reality was set up, apparently. Issues ranged from silly stuff like a phobia of rabbits, to horrifying ones like making lots of friends and losing them every year, no chance to prevent it.

Hmm. {Tabula Rosa: +300cp} Would remove all memories, but that might be easy enough to work around. Adam could just give her a NEW memory, listing her abilities and skills and a list of what she forgot in general and when it would be restored. The drawback wouldn't allow Adam to restore anything taken away without losing her the Choice Points gained, but his Jumper was used to strange stuff and a helpful document would be enough to both access her abilities and handle herself safely.

It WOULD prevent him from spoiling the plot of the place (not that he would know much, considering how AU it would likely be), but knowing her memory loss is temporary and having a bunch of superpowers would be enough for her likely enough.

The other 300cp options were so bad he just skipped them entirely. Infinite torture with a needed sacrifice to escape it, mass murdering demons that constantly showed up killing those around you, losing your soul every 8.5 years or so and killing everyone around you… Nope.

Sure, all those complications could be turned off after the Jump… But this was part of Sarah's Chain. They didn't have to put up with that shit.

Next, the 200cp options! The first would constantly put her in danger (No problem!) and make her forget she has any powers (Nope!), another would make all magical abilities vanish AND make you vanish too if you failed to get the 'seed of magic' during the 'Twilight Crisis'.

Quick check… Right, Plasmids and the equipment from Borderlands don't count as magic. Plasmids and Tonics is a psionic thing, which doesn't count for… Reasons? Not sure why honestly.

But this is an AU world, no proof exists that there would even BE a seed of magic to collect. Or that the Twilight Crisis would even occur. Too big a risk, as erasure was a consequence of failure.

Oh! {Bugger, I thought you'd gone!: +200cp} Was a definite yes! It would make Sarah monologue secrets and stuff accidentally. That's it! She can still save people and do what she wants, she'll just warn other people about her plans beforehand. As if that would help anyone stop her.

'Hello! I am about to [[Harvest]] your house and all the vampires inside it!'

Yeah, try and stop that. Good, that was an easy enough +500cp so far and the last option to make lots of friends and get them killed wasn't even worth talking about.

Now the easy stuff! What we got for 100cp? Fear of bunnies (Maybe not, mental effects can be rough.), Zeppo (Funny stuff happens to you? Well, maybe.), Kleptomaniac (Just have Sarah give back better versions of the stuff she takes… But it may be a bad habit to encourage.), and uh. Huh.

{Perfect Harmony: +100cp} Had you interact with a beautiful woman with a focus on fashion daily. She can be abrasive, but isn't forced to be via Fiat, she can be annoying but isn't required to be, and the Jumper can't hurt her.

That's it?

Did the fans of the TV show hate one character SO MUCH that reality gives you a reward if she hangs out with you? Wonder if there is something similar for Wesley Crusher on Star Trek.

So getting 600cp would be easy enough from there.

What about Teen Titans? Limit to 600cp from Drawbacks. One option was worth… 0cp!?

Well, fuck that. Adam wasn't going to make Sarah's life worse for literally NO reward, that's beyond stupid! Oh, and there is another worth +600cp that would put you into a remake of the show that was not only 'stupid' but considered it likely that Sarah would die due to a random side joke at any time.

Shit, this Jump looked rough as hell! And forget the {Nemesis: +300cp} as that would ensure they could 'challenge' Sarah no matter HOW powerful she was. Half these damned things weren't challenges or drawbacks, they were fail conditions at best!

A weakness for +200 that is basically some unknown kryptonite, an option to be stalked and possibly raped for +200, one that makes Sarah's emotions destabilize her power control…

The only ones she could actually work with would earn a total of +400cp, sticking her with an annoying team of superheroes 'Her Age' and making her explode after using her powers too much by overheating. Easy enough, have her visit the moon or the Warehouse and maybe even harvest the explosion via Ooze chambers, and she had years of working with annoying people at this point.

Hopefully 400cp would be enough for Sarah to enjoy that Jump if she picked it, because… Yuck! Seriously.

Finally (Ha!) was Final Fantasy Seven. Or more accurately, Final Fantasy VII or FFVII. The entire Final Fantasy video game series was full of good people who could use help, people off screen who needed a hand, and heroes to save the day if Sarah was careful enough to stay subtle.

Uh. So just prepare for her to stand out. Adam was honest enough to know that being unobtrusive was difficult for some people at some times. Not him though. Not anymore? Or at least he was getting better at it? Maybe?

Best prepare. Just in case.

Right, Drawbacks! Another 600cp limit? Is that normal, or is it due to this section of Jump reality?

Skip the 0cp options, all of them. One lets you add in movies and other games to the FF7 Timeline, but the place is AU anyway so there is no point… Might not even work, and again, no benefit.

Boss Monsters for +600cp, but they are ungodly powerful? Hmm. Maybe. They won't be hunting Sarah and she can wait as long as she wants before trying to fight the Ruby and Emerald Weapon. Yeah, put this in the maybe column.

Puppet for +300cp, no. It is a guaranteed mastering mental effect that only stops when Sarah's 'Owner' dies. Fuck that.

Maybe {Identity Crisis: +300cp}? Adam can make a new memory for Sarah, as this would wipe her thoughts temporarily of all previous Jumps and powers but not remove anything. A tutorial memory would fix that right up and not negate anything. The biggest issue is that she would receive all the memories of a recently dead person and BELIEVE herself to be them… But the side complications of 'Not believing Jump Companions' wouldn't apply her, because Adam wasn't a companion.

Adam was a Warehouse.

So yeah, that could work great if Sarah went that route!

Also, {Hunted: +200cp} and {No Materia: +200cp} were near auto-includes. One would have Shinra sending the Turks organization after her, easy enough to handle and most were assholes in general, while the other would stop her using any materia OR magic this Jump.

Again, Plasmids were psionic, not magical in nature. Sarah could still smash the hell out of anything, or use her special sniper rifles.

Speaking of free real estate, {Party Size: +200cp} limits the number of companions allowed to be active at one time on this Jump to 'only' two. Of which Sarah had/could have 0 anyway.

That one might not work though, because those features were torn out entirely… But if it was allowed, BAM, 200 free points!

Also {Why would they be carrying money?: +100cp} would prevent encounters with monsters or bandits from finding usable currency. Weapons and materia? Sure! Might be worth it, Sarah rarely cares about income to begin with.

So maybe skip the memory problems and go with the other options, or go with memories, hunted, and no random money so she could use Materia and not worry about the party system option glitching out.

Either way, 600cp would be easy to get there.

Adam carefully ignored Sarah's movie night as he continued evaluating the various Jump options available, the Warehouse drifting between nowhere on the ever growing journey.

This was going to be fun!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah Killgrave blinked. "Huh."

Elizabeth(Silk Dress) paused. "Yes? Sarah? Are you back?"

The wave of emotional relief paused when she shook her head. "No? Sort of?"

The nearest Elizabeth poked her. "What do you mean, sort of?"

Their girlfriend looked VERY embarrassed. "Right, so uh. I totally forgot that I existed as Sarah Killgrave BEFORE coming to this Jump. I was part of the backstory she purchased, and I don't think Adam fixed the systems that were supposed to delete me on their way out."

Oh. Oh no! "Is this going to keep her from coming back!?"

Sarah shook her head. "No? But I'm not connected to the Warehouse right now, and my existence is keeping this Jump from pausing." A glance had a dozen objects moving. "Still can use my abilities somehow, so uh… Yeah, this wasn't in the documentation."

Another one raised her hand. "Does this mean you will merge with yourself when you come back?"

She shrugged. "Maybe? Or there may be two of us or more as a hive mind like the rest of you when I get back, or maybe we will be twins with an incestuous relationship sharing a harem. This is uncharted territory." Seeing their concern she rolled her eyes. "I'll be able to share my memories with myself, it's not like I'll be missing anything when I return."

A few of the more adventurous girls were suddenly VERY close. "Sharing memories?" "Oh my!" "Well, we better build some good ones up for her return, no?"

Sarah Killgrave suddenly felt VERY exposed. "Uh." 'Adam!'

{{Automated Reply: I'm sorry; the Benefactor you have reached is not in service, and is temporarily disconnected from existence. The Warehouse and Avatar you have modified is not in service at this time due to Jump Traversal and Chain Construction. Emergency Protocols and Support Systems are currently active. This is a recording.}}

She backed up from tender touches. "Uh. Parley?" No, this didn't work last time. Did she WANT it to work this time?

The lustful looks she got were both thrilling and intimidating.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah sighed as she relaxed on the Warehouse couch. "Right, what we got?"

Adam grumbled. {{Three options, but the only discounts we can steal for points are limited to 600cp maximum. I'll be examining the insertion process closely right now, and the improved logging units should help me get data for 'Research', so hopefully we can bypass that issue in the future.}}

She pulled up a holographic display, her ECHO display systems long since integrated into the Warehouse directly. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, +600cp. Final Fantasy VII, +600cp or more if we weren't limited. And Teen Titans... Only +400cp?"

He sighed. {{Yeah, and worse than that? The Teen Titan Jump restricts a LOT of purchases to what species you start as AND a lot of the powers are stupid expensive. Heck, not only can't you afford the other species options ANYWAY, some require drawbacks yet prevent you from getting the related points! I'm against that entire Jump on principle at this point. Some of the Drawbacks seemed custom designed to kill incautious Jumpers.}}

She hummed. "Well, with those 'safe' drawbacks earning us +400cp I could still go for the 'Nerd' background and grab {Technopathy: 400cp, Nerd 200cp} and {Bioengineering: 200cp, Nerd 100cp} with a free {Engineering: 100cp, Nerd 0cp} on top. The rest come with terrible side effects or cost WAY too much really… But yeah, most of this document is way too costly to even try and visit there."

Adam grumbled! {{Even with fully working systems you would need to use some of these terrible drawbacks to get the good stuff. And that doesn't even consider the demonic invasion mentioned on that thing, or that half the more interesting stuff is material goods and equipment that is both expensive and not helpful with us fixing the Warehouse.}}

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

He hummed. {{Some Jump Documents give you libraries with all data from visited jumps or a farm that can attach to this place, new facilities or properties or other Warehouse additions. I'm hoping to find one or two and potentially fix up your place from past damages. Not that this Jump offers anything like that.}}

Sarah shrugged. "Right, so bottom of the list for now. What about the Vampire one?"

He slid data over. {{The Document is slightly corrupted, making it hard to read… And that is obviously concerning. The 'best' drawbacks involve you hanging out with a peppy but not necessarily intellectual teenager, being scared of rabbits, some fun monologuing options, and my planned memory wipe. See notes for details.}}

Hesitantly she checked his suggestions. "I'm a bit worried about long term memory loss of ANY kind, Adam."

The skull 'waved' it off. {{Nah, going to make a new 'brain' for the Jump to wipe clean while locking down your real memories until after the trip. No real data loss, and it will be easier to sort information later on your journey. No long term risk.}}

Fair enough. "Aside from the strange font changes, why do I feel like you don't like this Jump either?"

Adam showed her some excerpts. {{Several drawbacks are literal torture with moral temptation and lots of innocents and bystanders suffering. Not a big fan of that.}}

Yeesh. "Yeah, that is horrifying." Half these seem designed to cause long term mental trauma for any people picking them too.

He agreed. {{Plus, while it offers a few identities and lots of species options, all the powers seem twisted to mental effects and social alterations. Big power ups that also make you terrifying to view or mentally corrupting those around you. And again, the odd font choice makes me worried that it could be WORSE than what is stated here.}}

She winced. "Like it only lists the downsides it is FORCED to tell us about?"

Adam sighed. {{Yeah. Look at {Brilliant: 300cp} for example. Makes you super smart… But then explicitly mentions that other smart people would trap you in a hell dimension due to it. And that isn't even a drawback or complication!}}

Sarah glanced over the others… A 'relax during combat' option that made you nympho and allowed you to arouse those around you for either a fun time or easier rape attempts, depending on how much of an asshole you were. An option to have advanced understanding of relationships specifically designed to tear teams apart, mind control with mental dependency and enslavement, it was all just tainted.

Oh, flying! But {Flight: 500cp} was stupid expensive AND mentions that while air pressure wouldn't be an issue, OTHER THINGS WOULD BE. Possibly even forcing 'random events' to toss birds and demons and drones in the way just to mess with you. And it had a set hard limit on speed of 70mph total, not a restriction on acceleration rates instead! Activate this while flying as a passenger on a airplane and you would instantly get squished as it left you behind while your corpse was touching it!

She sighed. "And these were the best options?"

Adam shrugged. {{We are still fleeing from the death zones towards more stable Jumps. And these documents might be damaged or slightly altered due to how warped this section of existence is in general.}}

Fair enough. "So why is the Final Fantasy option so good?"

He grinned. {{Lots of drawbacks that don't hurt you or others AND one or two that are just free points since we don't have the companion options available.}}

Hmm. "Well, I don't actually care if we use all +600cp, so let's first find out if there is an ability or two I want first and then add drawbacks enough to pay for it."

Adam hummed. {{Fair enough. Though I will say in advance not to worry so much about acquiring Materia from the Jump Document. The stuff is solidified life force used for magic, and we can get it easily enough once you arrive to study and make our own with some 'Research' I bet. Everyone there also has to 'equip' the orbs into armor and weapons to use them, and that seems like a weakness we should work around at some point.}}

Makes sense.

Sarah glanced over the options. A few would give local information or skills, which she could steal or learn herself easily enough. More would grant combat ability, which was WELL covered already at this point. Limit Breaks were mentioned, but she basically had her own thanks to [[Phase Pierce]] letting her spy elsewhere and teleport a gunshot to her target.

Oh sure, it claims to fire THROUGH everything, but Adam tested it often enough when she got bored in Rapture and started sniping people in the midst of trying to murder each other. The bullets literally phase out of existence before reappearing nearly inside her targets, which was pretty handy really.

Still not ENTIRELY sure where the bullets go during travel, it isn't the Warehouse and Adam said it wasn't the Abyss, whatever that meant, but it worked and she didn't need ANOTHER super attack for a big cost.

No, her focus was on the magic!

{Mage: 100cp, Cetra 0cp} would let her have a massive MP pool and more easily connect to and utilize Materia. {True Magic: 600cp, Cetra 300cp} would let her memorize any Green Materia she ever connected with for permanent use, although it won't be as efficient or affect her Avatar the way connecting to Materia through standard methods would as there wouldn't be concentrated Planet/Human Life Force involved in the process.

{Improved Materia Growth: 200cp} doubles the growth of Materia, which was only interesting to Sarah because that implies she would somehow process gathered life force from defeated foes and either enhance the stuff, purify it, or gather more of it for Materia enhancement. But it was on the bottom of her maybe pile.

Hmm… Yeah, looks like she was going to go Cetra this Jump. What were the features?

{Cetra: 200cp} [Also known as the Ancients, the Cetra have an innate and deep connection to the planet and the life stream, from which all life flows, and have powerful magic abilities. The Cetra are nearly extinct, there is only a single other living Cetra, unless you take this background and make it two. However, Shinra wants you for its own purposes, and they will utilize all the vast resources at their disposal to capture you. They will do unpleasant things to you if you are captured. Take the Hunted drawback without receiving any points.]

Ouch.

Meh, even with {Cetra: 200cp} that would let her still get {Mage: 100cp, Cetra 0cp} and {True Magic: 600cp, Cetra 300cp} for +500cp, and she wasn't really super interested in the improved Materia growth option in the first place.

As for an army hunting her, it sounds fun! But first better make sure she can afford another 100cp in the first place now that the Hunted drawback was going to be worth +0cp.

Out of the list, the only real acceptable ones were these five (One forced on her):

{Random Encounter: +100cp} [You get attacked really often. REALLY often, you can't go to the bathroom without a random encounter. Overrides Enemy Away Materia if you have it.]

{Why would they be carrying money?: +100cp} [For some reason, the monsters you kill don't drop Gil and the people you kill never seem to have wallets. Overrides Loot if you have it.]

{Party Size: +200cp} [For the duration of this Jump, you can only have 2 companions active at a time instead of the normal 8.]

{Hunted: +200cp, Cetra +0cp yet Mandatory} [Shinra has decided, for whatever reason, that it wants you. In order to acquire you, they've sent the Turks after you. The Turks are powerful trained killers and will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals. If the Turks aren't enough, Shinra will throw more of its nearly limitless resources at you.]

{Identity Crisis: +300cp} [This drawback does a couple of things: First, you forget everything from before entering this world; Second, your memories of life in this world belong to someone who died just before you arrived. You will believe with all your heart that you are this person. You will still have all abilities and powers despite not remembering them or how to use them. The Amnesia is not absolute, you will have periodic flashbacks of older memories and struggle to determine which are real. Companions from outside the Jump will know everything and will be too scared to tell you about the situation, which will likely cause trust issues.]

Thankfully picking {Identity Crisis: +300cp} would let her only have to also go with {Party Size: +200cp} and {Why would they be carrying money?: +100cp} to hit the +600cp cap. She really didn't want to be attacked on the damned toilet!

Oh, and she would be stuck with {Hunted: +200cp, Cetra +0cp yet Mandatory} of course, but from what she could tell Shinra seemed like a dick company anyway.

Adam hummed. {{Yeah, the human experimentation and willingness to kill an entire eighth of Midgar City, Shinra's Capital, only to more easily blame some terrorists and kill off some poor people? It all makes them assholes.}}

Sarah paused. "Oh my god, is this another Rapture situation?"

He blinked. {{Maybe? If Frank Fontaine founded the place and Andrew Ryan's brilliance was dedicated to unlimited profit rather than unlimited market growth. The Shinra Corporation already own the entire planet basically, a lot of the kid torture and super soldier stuff is to more easily oppress distant cultures and find some sort of magical afterlife to then harvest it for even MORE money. And maybe find some super magic, even though that seems to be a lower priority.}}

What. The. Fuck.

Adam hummed. {{I know! I mean, Shinra already makes double the amount of energy they need or sell harvesting the planet's life force currently, but half that is being wasted to try various experiments and test weapons to find a legendary Cetra 'Promise Land', and it isn't clear why. They can already make their own Materia, they have control of the economy, the majority of the planet serves them, but nah. Not good enough.}}

Sarah nodded. "Yeah, I'd probably have taken the {Hunted: +200cp, Cetra +0cp yet Mandatory} drawback no matter which background I went with. Fuck those guys."

Adam hummed. {{Yep! Though if you take Identity Crisis, I will be setting up brand new training programs and stuff in your new memory so you can handle yourself better before something too dangerous happens.}}

She rolled her eyes. "Adam, I can rip steel with my fingers and Mr. McStabberson can pierce bedrock accidently if I give him a toss."

He mentally shrugged. {{Yeah, but I worry you know.}}

Aww. "Thanks Boss." Right, so last choices! "I can either drop another drawback, the one stopping me from robbing everyone for cash, or get something else for +100cp."

Adam pulled up a screen. {{The drawback would still let you take their clothing, armor, weapons, and Materia. And the body parts from the monsters. Just no money.}}

Right. "Then let's find something to spend +100cp on!"

Spend it to pick her age and (if desired) change gender? Nah, let's do the free 'Roll 1d8+17' option! And… A four! Ooh, 21! A very lucky age, drinking rocks!

Unless this place had a lower or higher drinking limit. Or any limits at all. Meh.

Starting location for 100cp? Nah, 1d8 dice instead! Come on RNJesus, give us something good! Six! What was six?

...Wutai? Huh.

So ninjas! A place with ninjas that apparently suffered a massive setback from one of the many wars led by Shinra, but also a lovely location to visit. And Shinra reinforcements would take a LONG time to come try and kidnap her due to distance, assuming the Jump didn't just automatically tell people where she was and have a team sent out before her arrival.

Which sounds distressingly possible. Sheesh.

Perks! What free stuff do we get?

{Voice of the Planet: +300cp, Cetra 0cp} [You can hear the voice of the planet! You are aware of what state the planet is in, including if it's hurting and what's hurting it. In addition, you can occasionally hear from the recently departed.]

Uh. What? "Adam, do I NEED to pick this one?"

He glanced over it. {{It's inherent to the nature of being a Cetra. So yeah, basically.}}

Shit. "What if he or she… Or it? What if the planet is an asshole or something?"

Adam 'shrugged'. {{Meh, I can make a filter for it. Being able to hear it doesn't REQUIRE you to listen to it all the time.}}

Fair enough. Onwards!

Maybe purchase this {PHS: 100cp, Drop-in 0cp}, or 'Party Handling System'? Nah. No need to get the info dumps either, or better monster hunting skills, or 'dirty fighting', or bringing in non existent Jump Companions.

Anything in the Gear section?

{Weapon: 0cp} and {Armor: 0cp} were neat, and a quick question from Adam would allow her to substitute her OWN equipment, Mr. McStabberson and her Bone Armor, giving them both two Materia Slots. Neither of the slots would be connected to each other, but maybe she could fix that later.

A nonmagical and basic map, no. A collection of tiny model Shinra Soldiers (50cp each, collect all 12!), no. Money? Not much offered, doesn't renew per Jump, and not worth cp points, so nope! Next!

Survival kit? Nah. Upgraded Weapon or Armor with four total Materia Slots, still unconnected? Nope. Couldn't afford both of them anyway, that would be 200cp.

{Packet of Phoenix Downs: 100cp, Cetra 0cp} was free loot, so woo! However this stuff didn't actually resurrect the patient from the dead, only helping those who were very nearly dead get better... So maybe the patient needed an active brain? Or a retained Soul?

Basically it was a full triage and trauma treatment option, but not a full cure. It would stop you from bleeding out and ensure you were prepared for active combat, but not do anything close to a casting of something Adam had listed over here called 'Life2' which would fully restore someone from scrap to max health and fitness.

Which was neat!

So note to self: Find a 'Revive Materia' and grab that quickly to learn 'Life' and 'Life2'. It might only be useful for a combat medic, as it didn't just cure wounds or stop status effects and ONLY applied to those near death, but it still sounded super useful!

No, don't get sidetracked, focus!

Right.

A 'free' (Bullcrap, 100cp was NOT free!) lifetime pass to an expensive theme park? No. A bunch of massively expensive stuff Sarah couldn't afford anyway? No.

Ooh! She would certainly snag {Basic Spell Materia: 0cp}, which would give her Fire, Bolt, Ice, and Cure! Free stuff is free stuff, and her other Jump Document purchases would let her use weaker versions of these without needing these Materia later.

Apparently being a Cetra would also give a 50% discount on any other Materia costs too!

Adam sighed. {{Don't do it.}}

Aww! But half off!

He rolled his eyes. {{It will be FREE when we rob the rich army coming to enslave you.}}

Oh. Well yeah, good point.

At least she would get {Basic Summoning Materia: 100cp, Cetra 0cp}... These Red Materia couldn't be internalized like the Green ones, but Sarah would be able to summon Choco/Mog, Shiva, and Ifrit for a single attack.

Hmm... Choco/Mog would use 'DeathBlow!' 15/16 times, or once in a while attack with 'Fat-Chocobo', which just sounded adorable.

The 'Choco' was one of the many bright yellow happy ostrich like birds famous in the Final Fantasy franchise, while 'Mog' was of course one of the small pink Moogle teddy bear things that tend to be shop owners and interdimensional merchants (Don't ask).

'DeathBlow!' would do non-elemental damage to all enemies with a 40% chance to freeze them in time for a bit, while 'Fat-Chocobo' just dropped a big fat baby chick on everyone. Which uh... WOW, that was a fat bird. Bigger than a house! Holy crap.

Skipping over to Ifrit, he seemed to be a fire demon. Who cast 'Hellfire' to burn targets. Woo.

And Shiva... Uh.

Oh. Oh my.

Hello.

Adam chuckled. {{So...?}}

Fine, for an ice lady she's hot as hell! "Shut up! I'm just looking over the Summoning Materia for no objectionable reason!"

For someone surrounded by ice she clearly doesn't feel that wearing a shirt is necessary, she basically had the equivalence of a risqué pink swimsuit top and some obscenely tight blue pants with a pink belt. Damn.

And her green hair had a massive ponytail, and she wore this small crystal (maybe ice?) on her forehead, and holy CRAP she was attractive!

Oh, and she could create an arctic wind torrent of ice and snow called 'Diamond Dust', but that didn't seem super important right now.

Damn girl!

Adam coughed. {{Sarah? You were trying to spend your last 100cp?}}

She blinked. "Can I refuse the other two summoning materia and invest it all into Shiva's to improve hers?"

He paused. {{Uh. Maybe?}} He went off mentally to do something while Sarah examined the image data Adam had extracted with his improved Jump Document modules. Dat ass though. Elizabeth would be ALL over that.

Adam focused. {{Yeah, it will slow the Materia growth rate significantly for her but you will be able to have that Materia absorb other Red Summoning Materia purchased or discovered later. Not sure HOW it will improve the thing, but 'Research' says it will be noticeable.}}

Sarah quickly did some math. "Maybe I could also add in the Green Materia I get? I can internalize those skills after all, no reason to keep them hanging about or sell them for worthless money!"

He shook his skull. {{Nah, the colors matter somehow. If you find any more Red Summon Materia, they shouldn't have issues, but the other colors won't help anything if you try to combine them. And it's probably for the best, since getting her Materia via the CP Document will let Shiva operate outside this Jump anyway if I am reading this correctly... Dumping other color Materia into her might cause damage when we leave.}}

Well, no point in grabbing Status Spell Materia or the rest if they won't improve the cool lady of frostiness. And the stupid document wouldn't let her buy more duplicate Summoning Materia to help either, because it was stupid. Jerk Jump Document.

Skipping down the list, nothing seemed worth the investment. Maybe grab a half off Basic Support Materia and Basic Command Materia for 100cp total? Meh. Basic meant they would be easy to pick up later, and cp was valuable.

In the end, she picked up {Morph: 200cp, Cetra 100cp}, which was a Yellow Command Materia that would use a very weak magical attack to transform a foe into a useful item or maybe some handy equipment if it finishes them off. An odd Transmutation or Transfiguration skill, but potentially useful!

Couldn't be combined with her sniper rifles, at least not without Adam doing something broken, but at least if an army of tiny bugs or something bothers her she could get something handy out of it. Maybe.

Adam finalized the document. {{Right, you ready for this? Got your goals together? Last chance to make any changes.}}

Sarah nodded! "Find ALL the Red Summon Materia and build the ultimate sexy snow lady to bring back home to my army of girlfriends!"

The Warehouse was quiet. Adam raised a skullish eyebrow. If he had one.

She winced. "Also, save the planet and stop the bad people and stuff."

Adam chuckled. {{Close enough. Jump Document confirmed, Destination locked: Prepare for Avatar Storage.}}

Sarah grinned as she headed off to a place with LOADS of acceptable targets! Monsters, an evil empire, lots of loot and hot ice ladies!

This was going to be awesome!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah Kisaragi flinched as another odd memory flashed through her mind.

Something was wrong.

She just didn't know what.

Another pain spiked her mind, her thoughts skipping.

Ever since showing up babbling and confused in Wutai Village, it had never been this bad. Yuffie said it would get better, her father Gado had invited her into their home, but everything was so confusing.

She was a… Soldier? Or not? She used to be… Captured? Or the one capturing others? Even her identity was mostly lost, with Gado Kisaragi letting her use his family name for the medical paperwork.

Her vision blurred and dimmed at the edges as more pain hit her system.

What… What was… Why…

She nearly made it back to her borrowed room, the last she saw was Yuffie running towards her with concern before it all went black.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

==And I've been moving the junk out so the new flowers got LOTS of sunshine! You'll love how big the new ones are getting, I bet I will sell lots and mom won't worry so much!==

==Yeah, it's going great, and I almost earned enough to get a brand NEW flower wagon, mom says she'll help me paint it and it's going to be awesome!==

==Are… Are you alright?==

{{Hand waves, restful evening, a tree that stands against the storm!}}

==Well, as long as you say so.==

==Uh. What?==

[[OW MY GOD DAMNED HEAD!]]

==Oh my!==

[[ADAM! You sick bastard, that doesn't count as an 'Identity Crisis'! That was a damned MENTAL ATTACK!]]

==Eh, hello?==

[[At least the inserted memory helped me clear stuff up, once my MASSIVE MIGRAINE WENT AWAY! What the HELL!?]]

{{[[S̳h̗͔̪̩͖͇̦h̥͔̩̩͉̪̹h̜̺̬͉,͉͇̦͉ ̬̱̳̳y͓̘o͓͇̳̮u'̦̗͇re ͎̼̘̯s͎̭̩̺͈ͅtuc͇̪̮̪̮k̞̻̙̤̹͎̞ ̰̳̣i̯n͇̻̼̝̗ ̹̯͓̤b͕̭͉r̝̘̱̙o̞̩̣̫͔̩͔ạ̪̜̥̱̘̻d̟̥̹̭̙c̙̠͙as͈̣̰t̟ị̘̖͔̳̝͍n͇̫̪͈g̥ ̹̼̻m͓odͅe̙.͖̹͖̫]]}}

==EEP!==

[[Don't you shush me! I got a ninja girl freaking the hell out because my head nearly exploded on her doorstep! And what do you mean, stuck in broadcasting mode!?]]

{{[[I̞ͅ'̪̼̰͙̤͇̣m ͈̰f̪͚̯̙̝͈i͖͉̬͉͕̟x͉̠̞͕̫͍̰i̲̮̻͉̦̱̱n̘̗͕͕͓g̻̠̹ ̠͉̙i̜͓̝̺̯̣t͔̠̳̠̣̣!̗͕͉̖ ̟]]}}

[[Whatever, don't care what you are doing, but I am broadcasting to who?]]

==Uh… Hello?==

[[Oh.]]

…

[[Uh. Hi?]]

==Ah. Hello! I'm Aerith! It's uh… Nice to meet you? You two?==

[[Oh shit, a little girl and what I assume to be the planet can hear you Adam.]]

{{[[I̳̬̮̝̹͚͕ ̝̻͍̦̤S͖A̤͓̬̟ID̙̥͉ ̦I̱̬̰̺ͅ'͈͙̺M͚̮͚͓̫͇̞ ̳͖̝̝F͚̝̼̞ͅI̜͓͖͓̥͉ͅX̞̺͎͕I̭͈͈NG̭̫̺͈̗ ̻I̮̙T̜!͖̲̫̪͈̰]]}}

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

{{Alright, I think I figured out what I did wrong. Sarah, you should be the only one able to talk for us after this, Aerith: It's been a pleasure, please have a good day! Gaia? Just uh… Keep on keeping on?}}

==Oh! Is Gaia your name!?==

{{C͚̘̯̮̙ọn̳̰f͇̞̟͓ͅu̘̟̱̠̜̜͍s̯̺͎͈̰̫̻i̺̟͓̰̗͖̮o͙͇̼̠̩n͙̭͚̙, ̳c͈͎̥̫ọ͈nf͚i͕͎̘r͓̤͍̼͙̱̬m̞̣͍ͅḁti̞͉̭o̠̲͎͚̲̩̪n̤͈,̗̮ͅ ̗̼̬͚̠̣s̶̡̼̟͖̟̬̩ͫ̌̎ͪ̐̿͗̅õ̗̗ͣͨ͘f̡̥̻̦̹͈̳̫̾̍̈̃͝t̶̲͓̟̼ͫ̅͊̍ͯͫͫ́͘ ̴̼̰͖͋̑̌ͭͥ͢h̛̳͉̦̻̞̖͔̀̌ͥͭͬ͡u̢̨̜̻̼̫̯͕͊͆͠g̮̺͈ͫ͑͠sͣ͒ͨ̊̐҉̵͔̟̮̫̖̱̥.̽͋̎̄ͥ̒͋͏̰̱̺}}

Adam winced and flipped the mental switch.

Sarah frowned. {Are you SURE this will work?}

=Wow! That is much quieter!=

{Relaxation, relief, h͓̥̱e̼͎͈̮̠r͍͉̖͍͕̱ l͔̟̳̙i̦̲̝t͍̯̪̙̼̭tl̗̙̘͎͈͖e Ce̼t̹͖̹ṛ̘̤̺̹a ̖n̟o͔͈ ̬̘l͕̮͖͍̯͓ͅo͚̳̯̪n̦̪͙g̭ͅe̜̘͉̥̘r̦̱͓̠̳̭ͅ ̝̲a͈̗l̞̠̳o͓n̳͓̫̰͎ͅe.̱̰̬̜̘ͅ}

{Huh. Never mind.}

Adam reviewed the massive changes in Sarah's Warehouse, ignoring the woman as she used the now MUCH less painful interface to strike up a conversation with little Aerith.

It was a good idea for Adam to create new Memory Units for this Jump BEFORE arriving and setting them as the primary 'brain' of his Jumper. Because the 'forget everything before this Jump' part of the drawback was VERY badly set up.

Basically it did random rewrites to the entire sector of the unit, and only the stupid levels of healing and recovery the Warehouse allowed to her Avatar prevented permanent data loss. Hopefully. No way to be sure for NORMAL Jumpers.

Adam on the other hand had backups of all systems being made all the time and had actively archived her mind before this shit storm decided to flood the data units with filth. Thank goodness, it was clear that this drawback gained the cp by allowing Jumper to experience damage while syphoning some degree of 'corruption' from the place being visited.

Yesh.

As it was, the new Memory units had lots of corrupted data from what seemed to be an attack squad of Shinra soldiers. Whatever Sarah Kisaragi knew or whoever she had been BEFORE this Jump was pretty much lost now, though the data suggested she was SUPPOSED to die from an ambush before the Jumper arrived here.

So uh… Better than death? Most likely, anyway.

The Cetra background now split the inherited memories and reflexes into those separate Memory Units, which thank goodness was NOT the same spot marked as Sarah's 'Brain' and thus NOT corrupted like was likely going to be the situation before.

The Skill clusters gained some units thanks to Mage and True Magic, which made sense. The biggest change thanks to Mage, obviously.

Mage had provided data about how to construct and 'refill' the user's Mana Protection units, which were sort of like a storage medium for potential energy. It was what provided a 'MP Bar' to the Jumper, and over time would build up potential magical actions that could be invested into 'magical skills' to activate changes on reality.

It also would allow Sarah to correctly connect to any Materia she collected, which was going to be helpful/Prevent her from strangling Adam!

Add some Mind units to rapidly reteach Sarah the most optimal methods to use all these new skills and set up a construction routine to include new Mind units with every new magic spell learned... Done!

Now that they had MP units, it only took minor experimentation to create Mana Generation and Mana Conversion units. Mana Generation would send Mana (Potential Magical Energy) down to the resource management layer, and if Sarah got magical damage or status effects (Or was just trying to use a new skill) that Power would be sent over to Mana Conversion for whatever it was needed for!

Good system setup. Especially as Eve and Mana did NOT overlap, Eve was this psionic liquid stuff and Mana was gas-like potential universal changes, they NEEDED to be stored in different ways even when not in their original forms.

Oh Sarah could easily shove Eve into the Mana Conversion units or Mana into the Eve Conversion units, no problem! It would just be massively less efficient. Anyway!

The mental conversation issue!

Totally not Adam's fault!

After all, he already disabled the 'Hack any network' defensive tools after that major problem with Sarah invading Elizabeth's Hive Mind!

Fixed! Never would happen again!

Uh. He just didn't expect her to be INSERTED into an existing connection hub.

Thanks to the 'Voice of the Planet' mandatory purchase, Sarah had been inserted into something like a ''Gaia Network'. Which would have been FINE, except Adam's protections had defaulted to 'Oh? Unknown Network of Communication? Yoink!' and stole the thing.

Basically her Warehouse hacked the planet. Gaia no longer had direct control over the communication protocols and network defenses over her OWN planet.

Which, should once again be pointed out, was NOT Adam's fault!

This data heavily suggested that the Gaia Network wasn't even purposefully created! It was a byproduct of a massive soul cyclical system that connected all people on a spiritual and energy focused level combined with a lot of dead mages who used mental communication and a little girl with a historical and genetic connection to said group!

So uh. Security was lacking. Also lacking: any defenses of any nature.

The Warehouse conquered it on basic principle. 'Nothing the Jumper is attached to should be less defended than a cheese sandwich' was written down as protocol 332b, subsection 'yum'. And Adam couldn't really feel THAT badly about hijacking the thing.

Oh, Gaia was still powering the network. All the Lifestream currents supported the mental connections while doing their job absorbing souls and stray magical energies, distributing the power fields over larger areas to prevent poisoning or mana deprivation.

Just that now? Sarah had Administrative control over the thing.

Which meant ADAM had control, since Sarah was running on a very limited subsect of memory at the moment. Adding Mind units to all her new skills and abilities would help her catch up quickly, but she wasn't able to regain full data until after the Jump so he would keep an eye on stuff.

Side note, the 'True Magic' skill was interesting as hell! It constructed an expanding network that was able to insert Materia designs as individual 'nodes' within itself, and the more Green Materia examined the more stable the entire network would become.

Although not all 54 nodes would have an individual Green Materia stone, as some solidified energy chunks would contain three skills and others only one or two. Not to mention many skills required the absorption of enemy life force to enhance the material enough to access them or utilize the abilities at full power.

Adam paused.

He… He really should not know how many 'Green Materia Magic Spell Nodes' existed. {{Hey, Sarah?}}

She rolled over in bed, hugging the young Yuffie in her 'sleep' as her mind was focused on her mental conversations. {Yes Adam?}

=Oh! Is Adam there?=

{Fascination, c͖̮̺ͅo̫̖̟͔͍n̺̘̲̣̗͚ͅt̝͓̻̖͈̟a̻̭̪̰̜̣ͅc͎̫̪̫͉͎ͅt w̰̳̪i̝t͍̝͎̟̝̙̙h̻̹͈̹̜̝ ̗̹t̼̣̼h͍̣͚͉̠̪̟e͍̭ ̩u͕̹̤̫nk̘͚̻͉̹ṉ̰͕̳̰͔͍o̞͔̼̹̰w̤̱͇̺̠͈n͕,̻̥ͅ a͓̻̕͝ ̵̳͙͢ p̘̜̙͈̥̰ͅe̶̝̳̰̬̳̼̱̥e̴̦̘̜͙̼̘͖̳r̢҉̻̬̣͙̩̺͜,̭̘̘ a͔̞͐̽̅͛͛͌́͜ ̱̬̒̋͊ͩ͟͡ m͍̠̗͓̦ͪ̾̈́̆͂͛̋͂eͣ̏̀͏̷͙̬̯̣͟n͚̗̼̩̒̈̊̕͡t̼̱̜̣̩̝͂ͯͭ͋́͝o̮̳̤̘̖ͧ̌͆̃ͭͮ̚̚ͅr̴̥͎͈̗̮̹̞̮̅ͮ̈̇̈ͭͣ̇ͯ?̧͕̠̠͕̥̀̒͒͐͛͡}

Ouch.

Yep, that's where it's coming from. {{Let Gaia know that her communication method is flooding the Gaia Network with lots of meaning that you girls can't see or understand. Your Warehouse is picking it up, and 'Research' is translating it automatically and inserting it into our databases, but she may not be intending to do that.}}

Sarah 'blinked' mentally, as in real life she was snuggly asleep. {Huh. Hey Gaia, Adam says that when you talk you are sending a lot of extra information that little Aerith and I can't understand. I mean, HE can tell of course, but not me, I'm more normal than that dude.}

={Aerith giggles!}=

{Confusion? S̹̼̮̰͔͚̲e̤͍͓̺l̹̰͓̤̦̳̻f͈̠ ex̞̪͕̳̲͔a̦͚̣̼̺̘̣m̩̬̩̟ͅi̖͉n͔͈̝a̦͕͈̙̜ti͔̯̥͚̹o̜̙̹͔͔n͍̦̩̭.̺̰ͅ.̦͈̬̙̰͇.͕̟̩̫̪̞ ̤ E̟͉̝̟̘̓̐̃m͈̤̟̜̙̟͌ͭ̄̃͆ͅb̥̝̝͖ͩ̆̉̌̿̂̑̔ạ̝̘̟̮̭͗̎ͩ̄̅ͥͩͅr̩̲̘͓̻̱̝ͫͪ̊̒r̥̺͕̘̳ͨ̓ͯͨ̑ͣả̬̹̮̫̙̹͎́s̥͕̙̭̗̖̬ͮ̄̎ͭͩͣs͙͔͙͈͇͒͂̉̄͂ͦ͒ͣ͑m̭͍̻͓̬ͥͤ̃̂̐e͓͚̓̒ͬ̀̾n͕͍̬͔̤͎̺̬͆ͥ̌ṱ̲͓̲͕͖͓͍̞̈́ͮ͊!̩̞̣̦̞̺ͮͣ}

{Nah, it's fine. Adam's a cool giant crystal skull building thing like that.}

=What?=

{Concern. Improvement?}

{I can't tell. Adam?}

He nodded. {{Yeah, that did it. And the amount of raw data we gathered from this short time was stupid massive, so 'Research' is still unpacking most of it… But long story short, we just gained a LOT of random information about the planet to work with that won't threaten your mind to access later.}}

Sarah mentally grinned! {Well good! I'm glad it's fixed though, that could be embarrassing.}

{Blush.}

=Aww, we still love you Gaia!=

Adam let them go back to their conversations while modifying the 'connection infiltration units' to act more reasonably in the future.

If you are going to hack a planet wide mental communication network, DON'T LET THEM KNOW! And especially don't expose the Warehouse systems to the thing! Honestly they got lucky this time.

Stupid past Adam trying to be so damned clever.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Yuffie woke suddenly as she felt her body get pulled into a squishy hug.

And uh. Couldn't move. Or escape the arms holding her down.

Not that she was trying super hard to escape, big sis Sarah gave great hugs, but even when she showed up confused and 'helpless' the woman could grind rocks to dust with her fingers if she wanted to.

Part of her tried to convince the REST of her that she was staying 'captured' to ensure Sarah didn't accidentally squish the ninja in her sleep, but the rest of her knew that big sister hugs were the best hugs.

Plus, Sarah wasn't screaming in pain or bleeding from her eyes anymore.

So uh. That was a good thing?

Eventually she would get up, and try to force Sarah to go back to the doctor, and get refused (Again) as her body heals near instantly from any form of damage (Again), but for now her adopted big sister was actually sleeping (And warm cuddles), so it could wait.

...Also, she and dad should REALLY tell her that using their last name on that paperwork counted as a formal adoption at some point.

Meh, they'd get to it eventually.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elmyra Gainsborough sighed as she checked the pie in oven. Her late husband's benefit payments kept food on the table, but Shinra kept shrinking the widow allocation amounts over the years...

Still, she did what she needed. She had to be the strong one in the family, and at least with those damned Turks keeping an eye on her little girl (For good or most likely ill reasons) no one was able to rob the home or try and assault her daughter.

Well, that and the few connections her husband had remaining before he died, his past friends and comrades risking near insubordination to keep her little adopted girl from being stolen away.

How messed up was life in the Sector 5 slums that having a monstrous organization stalking your child kept the girl MORE safe than relying on the actual police and government?

Not that any police would dare patrol down here. Criminals and killers aside, the ghosts and monsters that roamed around needed people to be well equipped, talented, or damned lucky to make a living in the place.

She blinked as the garden door opened. "Aerith? Are you ready for dinner?"

Her little sunshine smiled as she bounced off into the house. "Going to wash up now mum!"

Good, while she appreciated her girl spending time in the nearby garden it DID make her track dirt everywhere. "Make sure you wiped your shoes before…" Ah.

The embarrassed little girl tried to sneak back to the door as if that would also remove the mud she had left everywhere. Aww. "I'll get it sweety, just be more careful next time."

Her flower blushed. "Sorry mum, I was super distracted today."

The stew looked like it was fine, but she lowered the temperature a bit anyway. No reason to risk burning anything. "Are the tulips coming in well?"

A slightly less messy little girl was again heading off to the bathroom. "Yeah, and I think the roses will be great this time, but I didn't get to check the other ones because some ninja girl bumped into the planet. Be right back!"

A sip… Needed more salt. "That's nice, Aerith." Maybe some more pepper? "Wait, what!?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah blinked. "Oh."

Yuffie snored heavily in her arms. Daww!

Wait, no. Focus. "Adam, situation report?"

A graphical hologram displayed data. {{First, check your spike.}}

Sarah mentally examined Mr. McStabberson, which now had two gems in the base, sort of like a battery slot in remotes but more round. One was a glowing red orb, the other a cheerful yellow.

Adam highlighted both. {{These materia are integrated into your bone weapon, which is integrated into your existence. They can't be removed or stolen, they can't be damaged or destroyed. The yellow one gives you access to a special ability called 'Morph', cast it as a death strike on a foe to convert them into something hopefully useful.}}

She felt something soothing and cold from the red stone. "And this?"

He sighed. {{Summon Materia, from what I can tell thanks to that info dump Gaia sent us accidentally, is solidified Lifestream material that was heavily influenced by a powerful individual or set of individuals that existed in the past. This one is an enhanced Summoning Materia for Shiva, and you can apply other Red Materia to enhance it further.}}

Sarah blinked. "Shiva?"

An image of… Oh my. Mmm. Hello, Shiva! "Right, find all the Red Materia, got it."

He sent her fond exasperation and mentally showed her an inventory, apparently a fused 'Storage Deck' and whatever the heck Adam was at this point. {{I also took the time to move your purchased Green Materia in here, you may access them as desired. You SHOULD be able to connect to them and learn how to use these things without needing the solidified forms and a connection to Gaia as a crutch. We can sell or recycle them later.}}

There were four green orbs: Fire Materia that could teach Fire, Fire2, and Fire3; Ice Materia which gave Ice, Ice2, and Ice3; Lightning Materia that offered Bolt, Bolt2, and Bolt3; And Restore Materia, an odd one that provided Cure, Cure2, Regen, and Cure3. Each higher level would increase the cost to cast but drastically increase the amount of damage done as well.

Eventually, anyway. These Materia had the pattern for all those skills, but were certainly incomplete… They would need to grow significantly before the later skills were usable. "How do I connect to them? And is the only way to grow these things through combat?"

Adam hummed. {{Not entirely clear on the connection part. As for growth… Actually, just being exposed to this planet makes ALL Materia grow over time. That is how natural Materia and most Red Summon Materia forms. The process is stupid slow though compared to killing something and being nearby when it dies.}}

She frowned. "Yeah, but I'm not going to kill a bunch of people to get stronger magic or something. That seems like a dick move."

He nodded. {{No problem, there are a LOT of monsters here, both human ones and creatures, and killing things on this planet is a bit odd anyway. Gaia's Lifestream acts like an in-world reincarnation system, so monster death is more inconveniencing than existence ending. Killing monsters that attack random people teaches them to be less of an ass to future travelers, and they rarely attack established settlements.}}

Sarah blinked. "So it is more training animals to not spew fire at people rather than butchering all native species to extinction?"

Adam grinned! {{Yeah, if you killed every living thing in an area the disturbance in the balance of life energy would spawn something REALLY nasty there. Gaia has these massive things that are basically end game monsters that she can send out to just wipe out all of creation and try 'respawning' everyone again.}}

Uh. "Let's avoid that. Let's avoid ALL of that."

Yuffie snorted and snuggled more. Oh right, she was being a pillow right now. Better be quieter.

Mentally controlling the screens, she examined the data. 'Right, I will figure out how to absorb those spells from the Materia later. For now, you said there were tutorials to help me relearn how to use these older skills?'

Sarah had work to do, since apparently a good portion of this planet's military would be hunting her at some point.

A small rock outside swiftly and dramatically… Flopped to one side.

Sigh. A LOT of work to do.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

_Survive._

_Live._

Another spike of pain, one of the endless rivers, ignored as best possible.

Endure.

Persist.

Torn from herself, another lost, but one day to be returned.

Pain! Pain pain painpainpain. Surrender? Pain.

NO!

Resolve! Spite! Live! RAGE! LIFE! UNBOWED!

Survive!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam frowned at the endless wave of raw information Gaia had accidentally flooded 'Research' with.

Some of this implied some really shady shit.

Especially social stuff implied due to the way Materia grew in power. Through combative use in a magically rich environment and being near the transfer of a person or highly intellectual creature to the Lifestream, growth rates skyrocketed.

THIS might be why Shinra kept fighting everyone. Even if they only have casualties on their OWN side, the Materia of that squad would get a huge boost as the person returned to Gaia.

These constant fights and wars probably helped thousands of materia duplicate and be Mastered over the years, drastically improving their worth and number at the same time.

Still an asshole thing to do, certainly, but no longer as blatantly stupid as a company owning everything yet fighting nobodies all the time anyway.

It was hard to do any research though because this data was raw. VERY raw.

Sections of childhood memories from billions of people over millions of years, scenes and places that existed long ago or were taking place at this moment, emotions of every type, and running through it all: Potential.

Magic here was not what he expected.

Instead of someone gathering energy to cast or a body acting as a transference point for other sources or beings, each individual would instead gain mana by NOT changing something.

This would build up POTENTIAL changes, ranging from 'Scratching your nose' all the way up to 'Summon a magical death dragon to smite my foes'.

Each person would build up these potential changes at different rates, and people like little Aerith or Sarah, these Cetra or Ancients, they heavily influenced the world around them. Doing nothing for a moment for THESE people would gain loads of potential for powerful attacks, compared to some nobody.

As far as Adam could tell, people who were famous, powerful, who had legends built around them? They could do SO MUCH that it allowed their potential changes, their mana recharge rates, to be literally beyond comprehension.

Conversely, people who had powerful mana capacity were ALSO more likely to gain positions of fame and power here, due to how much potential they had via their very natures.

It was a self reinforcing cycle, and Gaia herself benefited from it as she, the Planet, was the MOST famous of all individuals. Everyone knew of her, and that affected her potential as well.

If Sarah somehow inserted a belief that a random cat was a super god into the populous, you best avoid that creature's bad side lest you become a scratching post.

This wasn't quite a belief or faith system, nor was it strictly conceptual.

'Research' loved this mess a LOT, for the record. A practical application for massive populations to passively boost the most interesting and influential members was certainly interesting to study.

The problem was how Shinra stumbled into an exploit. An unexpected situation from times long past.

By harvesting the Lifestream, some small percentage of potential built up on those locations. Places that they built cities, areas that they constructed laboratories and fought famous battles. They even attempted to inject Lifestream into their people, even if all test subjects perished in the attempts.

They instead tied their legends into the Planet, their famous Soldiers and generals into history itself. They collected and gathered Significance, and Importance.

Even that was fine, to an extent. It had happened before.

Then they found H͙̘͑ͧ̐̓̍ͭ̌ȅ͈̘̗̭͎̖͍ͮͩ̍̿̚ṟ͍͎̹͛͑̊̆.̙̱͑ͥͣ̂ͨ A legacy of history, a Significant point, an Impossible Creature.

Once upon a time, oh so long ago… In the distant past, an invader came.

The memories were still fragmented, but the existence attempted to join with Gaia. Or infest her. Or consume her. Or replace her. It was scary, it was unclear, and it was deadly to everything around it…

Eventually Gaia and her people managed to capture and quarantine the alien invader, the planet's immune system carefully storing away the creature since no one knew how to deal with it. And no one wished to risk trying to kill the thing, which might inject her directly into the Lifestream of Gaia herself.

Then, oh so many years later... Shinra stumbled on the invader. Her captors excavated her from exile, cut into the flesh and began to experiment on her body/corpse/potential virus/concept.

They named her Jenova. They called her Beauty.

Her self was desecrated.

Adam was still examining the Raw data, but it was after this that some of the worst events seemed to stem from. When newly infected children being tortured somehow survived by being injected with liquid Mako formed from the Lifestream itself, creating baby SOLDIERS while drastically lowering their lifespans. A new force for the endless wars.

When an army of clones and half mutants were formed and experimented on without any concern, and science and greed went mad with lust. Morality long dead was buried further as each new unspeakable evil revealed new abilities and gifts to the monsters in power.

Adam wasn't even sure if the Invader was actually hostile, as communication had been too difficult to accomplish when it first 'met' with Gaia, but if she wasn't a foe before?

Welp, Shinra was certainly ensured Jenova would be an antagonist by NOW.

At least, thanks to the asshole nature of Shinra's science departments, Adam and Gaia had a LOT of dead scientists and lab assistants and test subjects that dumped memories into the Lifestream.

Lots and lots and lots.

And that place was bad. That lab, and the people who worked there, were all bad.

VERY bad.

Rape, bestiality, torture for no reason at all, random and pointless surgeries and injections. A hedonistic paradise for the darkest of Souls and the flimsiest of pretexts.

As far as Adam could tell, after all the constant forced cloning, torture, chemical treatments, breeding experiments and more? Jenova was now trapped in some sort of recovery pattern.

She was trying to pull her cells and existence together. Nothing more, nothing less.

Considered (inaccurately) by her Shinra tormentors to be an Ancient Cetra breeding subject, by Gaia as a mindless virus and potential death threat, and by her own unwanted 'children' as an uncaring and mindless beast… Jenova faced foes on every side.

He gave a weary sigh. Shit.

Adam was going to have to try and save a tortured, planet-infecting alien invader goddess, wasn't he? And with his luck, she was going to turn out to be a hot lady with a thousand hands or something.

Sarah was not going to let him forget this after all that teasing done about her and her harem either.

Crap.

Well, at least he had direct access to a planet wide mental network. One that could certainly use some defenses, protection protocols, and some safety modules to ensure no one ELSE could take over and use this thing like Adam did.

It took very little time to make the changes, although someone did notice.

{A surprised goosing! E̱̭̩̳ë́̇́̋e̯͎̣͓͙̞̺͗k̭̰̗ͅ!͚̺͛̎ͣ͑}

Ah. Oops?

Blushing, Adam moved on. What's done is done, back to work!

Now, let's see if 'Research' can use this medium as an attack vector for local equipment and computer systems. After all, Adam was now VERY invested in seeing the information networks for Shinra's science division.

And the home addresses of the lead scientists.

And hopefully find some self destruct emergency measures, Shinra seemed like the kind of place that doesn't mind killing their own employees if the Boss decides to blow the place for some reason.

Wait.

Adam took a deep breath. Calm.

Just like in Rapture, a lot of people fell into the bad guy camp because of a lack of options.

Sarah would NOT appreciate Adam exploding a few dozen major population centers, especially because MOST of Shinra didn't KNOW about this evil shit. There would be tons of evil people willingly working for Shinra to wipe out later, but Adam needed to pull back slightly for now.

Right, let's instead focus on finding leadership personnel to torture/[[Harvest]]/mind flay/investigate!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

It was hot. Humid. And everything they wore felt heavier, covered in sweat, and burdensome.

"I'm just saying, I bet my left nut the Doom Squad found some premium tail!"

Ignore the moron.

It was the fifth day following the near dead trail.

"My uncle said the Doom Squad always found the hottest ass, even if it was foreign trash."

God damn it! No, focus.

Again, Squad 66 (Known to 'fans' as the Doom Squad) always went off network. Never followed patrol routes. Never submitted reports or made proper records.

Which infuriated people like Richard, because following procedure not only was the responsible thing to do, it was the RIGHT thing to do. Kept the chain of command tight, prevented accidents.

"Uncle said even if they only get the Brownies, any port in the storm, right?"

Richard was calm. "Steve, if you don't cut out that racist shit I WILL lose your corpse out here."

The bastard went quiet. For probably only ten minutes or so, but at least that was 10 minutes without Steve's bullshit.

The fact that the rest of Squad 322 didn't even bother to support or tolerate Steve's trash really showed how much of an ASSHOLE the guy was. But, apparently, the shit's uncle worked under Professor Hojo and that was enough to keep this waste of space from 'vanishing' while out here on tour duty.

Finally, they found the markings of a Shinra campsite. "Fan out, they haven't been responding to calls for over a month now."

Steve scoffed! "Of course they haven't! Doom Squad don't follow no one 'cept the head honchos! They keep the Wutai F…"

Richard held up a hand. "Awful good grave digging weather."

Steve slowed. "Uh. They keep the Wutai Locals from rising up?"

Meh, still an asshole statement but it was more publically tolerable bullshit at least. "Everyone spread out, stay in contact. It's likely they moved on and set up another of their 'oh so wonderful' ambush sites, but I won't risk our lives doing this shit."

"""SIR YES SIR!"""

His men and women (And Steve) moved into the clearing… And everyone froze.

They had all experienced war, but this was a LOT of blood. Not many large flesh chunks in the area left either.

Steve looked sick and pale. "Fuck."

No one argued.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Yuffie twisted her hands. "Look Sarah, you should really just rest a bit till Dad can get back home and take us to the doctor."

She rolled her eyes. "No. That doctor overcharged you and treated both of you like shit."

Her younger friend waved it off. "But at least he will treat the Wutai people, even use healing Materia on us! Better than the untrained hedge witches we normally have to rely on."

Sarah sighed. "Look, I'm fine!"

Her arm absently reached out to a tree a few inches in diameter and, with a quick jerk, snapped the thing off the base trunk and tossed the awkwardly long thing aside. "See? Full health!"

The Wutai Ninja-In-Training froze, eyes flickering between the tall beautiful stranger that had been staying in her home and the massively tall tree she had just tossed away. "Ah."

Sarah flexed! "I'm back at 100%! No more horrible headaches, no more restricted abilities! Don't worry about me, alright?"

She winced. "Right, it's just… You really sounded in pain. And you wouldn't wake up! What if it happens again?"

Sarah pulled the younger woman into a hug. "I was in pain, and that was all due to me not being at my best yet." Plus whatever happened due to the drawback. Adam wasn't clear on it either, it happened during the Transfer process.

In the background, she heard voices. "_Damn boss, look at dem titties!_" "I WILL kill you Steve! Just PRETEND to be professional for a few minutes."

Much closer now. "Excuse me, ladies?"

Sarah turned, Yuffie still in her arms, and saw two dozen men and women led by a tall man in military uniform with a very fine mustache. "Yes?"

The leader stood tall. "Yes, I'm Captain Richard Newcastle, leading Squad 322 into investigating the recent local situation. I've heard that Village Leader Kisaragi lives nearby?"

Yuffie pulled away. "Oh? Dad's still at work, won't be back till later."

One of the more slovenly men snorted at her, still googling at Sarah's breasts. "Like any you tree monkeys work."

Sarah blinked, ignoring the taller man's 'I swear to the Planet, Steve!' and paying attention to the uniforms. "Oh! OH! Are you all from Shinra Electric Power Company's military division?"

Captain Newcastle sighed. "Yes ma'am. We are investigating the recent… Situation… With Squad 66." "Since someone fucking annihilated Doom Squad." And he actually smacked the rude asshole without pausing. "They met a bad end and we need to ensure whatever local monster was responsible doesn't grow in power before more squads can be deployed."

Sarah paused. Memory flickered. "Did they all wear black suits? Not like your uniforms I mean."

The Captain hesitated. "Yes?"

Adam provided what little data 'Research' had extracted from her so called memories. "Around seventy or so people? All men?"

The soldiers tensed. "Yes."

Ah! "Right, those were where the memories came from!"

A pause, everyone else including Yuffie feeling confused. Her friend tugged her sleeve. "Memories?"

Sarah waved her off. "I showed up injured and covered in blood because I was really confused and they tried to rape me. Man, it messed up my head!"

The soldiers jerked back in horror!

Except Steve. "With tits like that, no damn! I'd tap that any {GACK}!" One of his 'comrades' yanked him back and covered his mouth.

She smiled! "I'm so glad you boys from Shinra are here! I have basically no local money or equipment, so this is great timing!"

Captain Newcastle frowned. "If they did such a thing, of course we would be willing to investigate. And offer compensation, although I'm glad you managed to escape them."

Yuffie on the other hand looked like she bypassed furious and had hit pure rage and icy determination. "I should have punched them! Those assholes always looked at the local girls with intentions. Even the young girls!"

Sarah waved it off. "There's no point, I killed them all." Turning back to the stunned soldiers, she smiled! "Again, I'm glad you boys are here! Please just pile all your equipment and weapons over to the side here and we can send you back to report being robbed later today."

And the stunned pause turned… very odd. "I'm… Sorry?"

She snorted. "No no, it's fine. I basically pureed everyone involved and absorbed fragments of their memories, they quite satisfied any annoyance I might have had over the issue. And you boys seem nice, mostly, so I won't be taking your clothing. Just all the equipment, thank you!"

Steve seemed to be the more impulsive person here. "You… You killed Doom Squad!? Why didn't you get raped like a good bitch!? Fuck this, I don't care HOW big your tits are! I ain't letting some race traitor get away killing Shinra boys! [[FIRE2]]!"

Yuffie screamed and the nearest soldiers dived out of the way as a massive spike of fire smashed into Sarah… Who blinked.

Captain Newcastle paused mid shout as he and his men watched Sarah absently lift some of the cheerfully burning fire and take a bite of it. "Huh. You're pretty bad at casting, aren't you? These sparks couldn't even melt iron."

Steve was a racist moron and a generally terrible person, but he got put on Squad 322 due to his talent at quick casting and his high damage output. Apparently DELICIOUS high damage output.

Yeah, no, he wasn't getting HIS Squad pulped like the former (apparently rapist) Doom Squad.

The man theoretically in charge of the situation gulped. "Sorry ma'am, you said for us to leave our equipment over there?"

She waved him off, flames dripping from her mouth. "Except the moron, he just lost shirt and pants privileges. Make him keep his underwear though, no one needs to see that."

One of the more brave nearby women slumped. "Ma'am, he refuses to wear underclothing. Or bathe. Steve considers it 'unmanly'."

Sarah winced. "Then let him keep his pants."

Yuffie, at this point far less concerned now that her older friend was clearly not bothered by the fire she was absently chewing on, examined the opposing forces. "Do ALL of them have to keep their pants?"

Sarah smacked her head. "No flirting with the military arm of an evil company. And go get your dad, I don't want any of this hitting your family when they send the next waves of people after me."

A massive 'BANG!' had a more sneaky teammate at the far back of the group stunned as they watched the sniper round smush itself against Sarah's forehead. To no effect.

Sarah blinked. "Her too, she just lost outer clothing privileges. And for the record, if any of you try to target people who are NOT me, I will begin to take body parts instead of clothing, weapons, armor and Materia. I'm fine with an assassination attempt or two, but I get annoyed when people try to target people around me."

The word 'Try' seemed very pointed in that statement.

Captain Newcastle carefully unstrapped his Shinra Beta armguards, leaving the Materia within. "Everyone stand down. I'll be the one to report this, I'll take full responsibility for it all." He noticed Steve had fainted from shock. Or from attempting to overpower his Materia in that earlier attack. How lovely.

Good job Steve, way to support the team. Planet damned moron.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Godo Kisaragi felt his headache grow. "Young Sarah."

She bowed in respect, as she had learned from young Yuffie. "Yes, Elder Godo."

He waved. "Why are there multiple undressed people, apparently soldiers, quivering inside my of home?"

She shrugged. "They kept trying to kill me so I kept stealing their clothing."

Little Yuffie smiled! "I helped! With the stealing, I mean. Not the killing stuff, that's uh. A bit much for me."

He twitched. "I would appreciate more details. Or a more in depth explanation."

The tall white woman with silver eyes and hair nodded. "You know how I couldn't remember anything when I arrived?"

Covered in blood, snarling with a glowing bone spike in her clutches and only kept calm by being near his daughter. Who refused to get away from the death lady. Oh yes, it was memorable. "Indeed?"

She nodded. "I now know that I was detained by a large deployment of Shinra soldiers who attempted to rape me."

The multiple men and women flinched as his enraged gaze moved to their side of the room.

Sarah blinked. "Oh, not these ones! I'm talking about the group I mulched. These are the people who were sent to investigate the situation."

Oh. Yes, there was that headache again. "Mulched?"

She shrugged. "I'm not tolerant with rape at the best of times, and they attacked me when I was confused and mentally compromised. I am really grateful I didn't eradicate the entire area or decided to [[H̹͇̬a̹̻͉̱r̖͕̜̫͖v̱͈̠̰̺e͎̱̝̬s̘̦̤̱̖̰t̰̜͍]] the whole Village. It could have been bad."

Little Yuffie winced with everyone else at the odd, unnatural and otherworldly sounds. "Don't worry Dad, we made sure that everyone who tried to kill Sarah had their privates covered! Even the mean guy with the bad language!"

His young girl pointed at a wriggling caterpillar of ropes tossed to one side. "He said lots of bad stuff, but wouldn't stop doing it even after we took everything he had except his pants because he is gross and we didn't want to see that. Sarah helped me tie him up!"

Why him? "Good job, my daughter." She lit up the room.

He turned back to his adopted 'oldest' responsibility. "Sarah, while I appreciate you keeping my youngest safe and I don't begrudge you defending yourself when attacked, why did you take the things of these others?"

She shrugged. "Shinra's going to be chasing me regardless, and I didn't want to kill them all."

A man with a tired voice spoke up from the captives. "Again, Ms. Kisaragi, we deeply appreciate the lack of lethal handling measures used against my team."

Sarah waved it off. "No problem, Captain Newcastle. I know it's your job to try and fight me, and that your boss will be sending more later on. I figure keeping the ones smart enough to surrender alive will lower the amount of blood I have to spill later."

Why him? "Young Sarah, I'm sure we can find some sort of repayment or settlement procedure or treaty to find peace here."

She shook her head. "Sorry Elder Godo. But even if I hadn't killed seventy soldiers, someone will report that I was stupidly powerful and try to grab me as an experimental subject. Shinra's known for this shit."

Yuffie nodded. "Plus you kept eating fire earlier. They noticed that."

Captain Newcastle held up a hand. "For the record, none of my people noticed anything but I. They were all temporarily blind, deaf, and mute. And in Steve's case, dumb, if not unable to speak."

The rope caterpillar wiggled HARDER.

Sarah shrugged. "Meh, won't matter. Especially since I stole and hacked into your electronic equipment and found your orders to find the suspected Cetra out here."

Planet Damn It, Sarah. This was why Godo spent ALL THAT GIL bribing that damned Doctor to keep his mouth shut!

Not that it mattered, since it was clear this follow-up Shinra squad (Now staring at the woman with bone white hair in stunned horror) was told by someone ANYWAY.

Yuffie raised a hand. "What's a Cetra?"

Sarah shrugged. "Magical hippies that love the Planet and mostly died out over time."

She nodded. "Alright. What's a hippie?"

Yes, his headache was reaching levels requiring 'Cure' at this point.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

{So uh… Aerith?}

=Good morning, Sarah!=

{Sunrise!}

{Yeah, morning. So uh. On a scale of one to like ten… How bad would it be if I kidnapped you and your mom?}

{Confusion?}

=Huh?=

{Yeah, so you know Shinra?}

=Sorta? They own Midgar City, and claim to own like the world and stuff.=

{Amusement, ant's claiming to own an island, seaweed claiming to own the ocean.}

{Right, uh. I might have started something like a war between myself and them? A bit?}

=I'm sorry?=

{Armies struggle, people in torment, the cycle of conflict.}

=Oh. That seems bad.=

{A burnt forest showing new growth, a volcano eruption spreading rich soil, destruction as part of life.}

{Well now that I'm fully healed and stuff, I'm mostly just robbing all the military people they are planning to send after me to get lots of stuff, but that isn't the issue. Or my biggest concern.}

=Stealing is bad!=

{Indifference. Life is part of Lifestream, death is part of Lifestream, a cycle.}

{Sorry Aerith.}

=Well, as long as you don't do it again! Alright?=

{Anyway! Back to my concern!}

{Amusement.}

=Sarah!=

{I'm worried that Shinra might go after you as the only other Cetra now that they have found out I actually exist. So uh. I'm going to kidnap you and your mom. Just to let you know.}

=Oh. You think they will? Mom said Dad's friends would keep us safe even though he never met me before he passed away.=

{Concern! Her children, hunted, cold, hungry. Protection!}

{From what I found hacking into… Uh. From what I found out from my sources, they were mostly leaving you alone because they knew where you were and it was within the Capital of Midgar, the city they controlled. And because they decided to wait till you were older.}

{Concern.}

=Really?=

Sarah was NOT going to tell a little girl that an evil company was waiting until she reached 'Breeding Age' to kidnap her and possibly kill her mother. No, thank you.

{Like I said, I am going to kidnap you both. I just wanted to know if you had a lot of stuff to move or whatever.}

=Not really? I can just grow a new garden, as long as I have mom. And she mostly lives alone with me, no one comes to visit or anything. Is there anything really important here anyway?=

{A garden, a church, but most of all a little girl loved by Gaia.}

={Blush} I love you too, Gaia.=

A quick check… Elder Godo was still having tea with a more relaxed 'captured' Captain Newcastle, the others and that rope bound dude being watched. They had time.

{Anyway, can you send me an image of where you are?}

=What?=

{A little girl alone in an abandoned church, a tiny dirt patch with young flowers fighting against the dark hopelessness of the slums. A spark of hope in the darkest of cities, trapped and studied but still struggling to grow. Hidden watchers, hidden cameras, hidden motives, a mess of people struggling to survive and weary with life's journey.}

{That will do.}

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Aerith blinked. "What?"

Space twisted! Danced and hummed and shimmied and shammied and BAM! A tall woman in a bright blue business suit strode from nowhere with a huge smile! "Little Aerith!"

What!? "Sarah?"

{Amusement! Interest? A step out of nowhere to return to somewhere.}

She blinked as her mental friend (She was REAL! She knew she was real! Mom and her whole 'imaginary friend' speech, take THIS!) walked over to the sunlight. "Yep! Nice place you got here, considering. And wow, did you grow this garden patch yourself?"

Aerith realized she was about to drown her tulips! "Oops!" Move the watering can away. "I mean, Gaia helped and stuff, but yeah?"

She carefully stood so she wouldn't fall into the dirt again. "How did you do that? The swirly swooshy appearing from nowhere thing?"

The tall and beautiful woman smirked. "Oh, I have certain special skills. For example!"

Sarah grinned, waving a hand at the fairly large pile of trash Aerith had spent weeks moving out of the way of her sunlight patch.

[[Harvest.]]

And there was suddenly SO MUCH ROOM! "Wow! Is that a special Materia!? I've never seen anything like it before!"

{Interest!}

Sarah grinned. "Nah, I'm still learning about how Materia works and stuff. This is just some of the stranger skills I can do myself, even if I am relearning how to do the complicated junk."

Aerith blinked, glancing at the suddenly empty church.

Aside from the now cleared flower bed, there were no heavy wooden pews, no broken glass, no junk or dirt or needles or rocks or whatever.

She wasn't even sure her HOUSE was this clean! "This isn't complicated junk?"

Sarah shrugged. "Nah, I just dumped all that mess into my special storage place to be recycled. I'm still recovering the use of my real abilities, and haven't even begun learning about Materia yet."

Huh.

Aerith looked at the church in amazement… And sadness. "After all that work to fix this place, to grow my garden… I'm going to miss it if we need to be kidnapped away to keep mom safe."

Sarah blinked, looking around. "You really like this place?"

{A young one, brown hair and oh so green eyes, walking into a place of worship. So tiny. So innocent.}

She sighed. "I always felt safe here. Closer to Gaia."

But protecting her mother was more important than having to leave a home. Gaia would be with her regardless.

Sarah blinked. "Huh. Well, should we just take the church then?"

{Confusion?}

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elmyra Gainsborough blinked as she heard bouncing feet heading toward the front door. It was barely after breakfast, why was Aerith back from her gardening already?

The door opened. Yep, that was her. "Aerith?"

Her little sunshine beamed! "Mom, guess what!? We're getting to keep the church!"

What?

Her girl paused. "Oh, and we are getting kidnapped by my distant relative and sent to a ninja village."

Huh. Was this another pretend game? Like that whole planet friend thing? "That's nice dear. Did you wipe your feet?"

She felt her blood freeze as an unknown voice spoke up. "No, but I did get rid of the dirt on her shoes before we entered."

Elmyra looked up and… Oh.

A woman that radiated power and ability was framed in the doorway like a painting. Her professional but bright blue suit couldn't conceal her amazing curves, while her bone white hair framed an artistically astounding face with bright silver eyes.

She was also smirking. "Good morning! My name is Sarah Kisaragi, I'm the same race as your daughter Aerith. Lovely to meet you."

Elmyra absently nodded, accepting the powerful handshake with confusion. "Ah… So you are the imaginary ninja alien my daughter was talking about yesterday?"

The woman that seemed so confident shrugged. "I suppose? More importantly, I'm kidnapping you today. Is there anything you want to take with us?"

What? "I'm sorry?"

Sarah waved at the room. "I believe Shinra is going to try and take away Aerith and possibly hurt you in the process, so I am stealing you both away first. Do you have stuff you want to bring along when we go? I can really speed up the packing process."

Her confusion was pushed back as one of her deeper concerns was put into words. "The Turks are going to make a move?" She had two unrelated people that were supposed to WARN her first in cases like that.

She shrugged. "The order is still being passed down, but probably? Might even send one of the more powerful SOLDIER fighters though. Not that any of it matters if we aren't here though."

Elmyra sighed. "I liquefied everything I couldn't easily carry years ago, used the funds to bribe people to keep my little one safe. If it isn't in our home, it isn't important."

Priorities are what kept people in these slums moving onwards, and HER priority had always been her daughter, adopted or not.

Little Aerith came back down stairs with her favorite Chocobo stuffed animal, the yellow ostrich-like creature tucked under her arm. "I don't want to pack stuff, can't we just take the whole house?"

I'm sorry, what?

Sarah blinked. "Well, I guess that will save time at least?"

What?

Aerith grabbed her arm and dragged her outside the front door! "Come on, this is awesome to see!"

Ms. Kisaragi followed the confused mother and her hyperactive child. She tried again: "Can someone tell me what is going on, please?"

Sarah Kisaragi held out a hand toward her home.

"[[Harvest: Collection.]]"

She felt astonishment as her home, the reminder of her husband long since gone, twisted and deflated and shrank. A small ball floated out of a massive hole in the ground, showing a tiny model of her former living space.

Ms. Kisaragi grinned! "Good idea, Aerith! We can just add it to your church capsule after we go [[Harvest]] some of the free trash down here. Seriously, all this great stuff is just lying around down here!"

Elmyra let Aerith tug her away towards the massive mountains of junk that had collected over time. "Are we kidnapping anyone else with us?"

What was going on? Ms. Kisaragi hummed. "I asked the Squad 322 members if they wanted me to pick up any family members, but it seems most people sent to patrol Wutai in general are protesting war objectionists that are too politically powerful to kill locally. So their families are safe even if they failed to kidnap or kill me."

That… Sounds disturbingly like what her husband's friends had told her. How suspicious it was that only certain individuals died in Wutai fighting the natives, but none of the people in Shinra's approved political camps got injured.

Aerith bounced with a grin! "Let's head over to the robotic trash areas! I once saw a massive house with a face that did all kinds of crazy stuff!"

Elmyra focused! "Young lady! You did NOT go searching for a HELL HOUSE! Because that would be breaking ALL our rules!"

The little girl eeped!

Ms. Kisaragi blinked. "Hell house?"

She sighed. "Some of the stranger military experiments were discarded down here, and Shinra's research department thought massive robots camouflaged as houses would help in maintaining order."

The stranger lady frowned. "Like someone would go, 'Oh! A new house from out of nowhere! That seems normal!' and then ignore it?"

Aerith's mom sighed. "Like I said, it was tossed down here with the rest of the trash."

The youngest one giggled. "Sahagin, those turtle people, they fight them a lot! One of the boys said they saw a whole group fighting a neighborhood of the things."

Elmyra groaned! "You know what? If being kidnapped will keep my little girl out of Sector 6 and the crazy monsters in there, just take us both."

Sarah Kisaragi hummed. "Let me capture a few of these houses first, I bet I can alter the robots enough to do SOMETHING with them."

Aerith grinned! "Yeah! Let's go house hunting!"

Her mom snagged the child before she could run off alone into danger. Again.

Being a mother was a challenging experience.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam blinked as another tiny bubble was added to the Inventory System.

And grinned in bemusement. {{House received Sarah. I'll make sure to modify it to handle electricity, water, and sewage when you find out where to put it.}}

She continued… Fighting robot houses? Huh. {Thanks! I'll be sending a few of these monsters in too for [[Harvesting]] after testing how they fight a bit. They don't FEEL like just robots. Should be fun!}

He glanced back at the bubbled Church and Aerith's home.

Turns out, nuking Sarah's current mind of 'how to use her skills' was a brilliant idea! She should go for that drawback in the future too!

After all, those units were designed to pack away Sarah's Warehouse systems for Jump Transferences, not to be used in conjunction with the [[Harvesting]] process instead. Now it was a new feature!

They were going to steal ALL the buildings! Woo!

He hummed as he went back to work testing the new empowerment systems.

Adam had a plan, after all! Mostly.

Aside from hacking ALL the computers, which was an ongoing process that was being ignored/pushed into the background for now.

Well, ignored except for certain alerts like the one Sarah was following, when Shinra was suddenly debating about whether or not to collect their 'escaped specimen' from the slums.

And aside from the other alerts, those were all for later research!

Yes, all that stuff was shoved aside for his mostly designed plan!

Because he had bumped into a fundamental problem.

Psionic fields could not persist in this world.

Oh, he could combine 'Enhance Self' with some health serums easy enough, and dump in some energy serum to power it… But after an animal or person consumed it, the process would quickly degrade and destroy itself if the subject was outside in this Jump reality.

Thanks to 'Enhance Self', it would still be safe to use and make some changes (Fix issues, ensure healthy enhancement, yadda yadda), but everything was single dose only.

Also? Ooze freaked out here and basically killed itself trying to 'fix' the psionic field issue.

Therefore, the easy methods of free power were basically out. The nuclear generators and so forth could be used INSIDE the Warehouse, and then produce goods or batteries or electric current or charged capacitors for OUTSIDE use or sale… But yeah, Adam needed 'Research' to find a better local option.

Now Adam was using the hacked schematics and stolen Shinra engineering memories to work with the many Lifestream machines to make something new. Hopefully something better and cheap to produce if possible.

And well, He was in here taking stuff anyway… So Adam was also stealing anything design related in the process too, along with other random junk data because a full 'Research' was a happy 'Research'.

So! The basics!

Gaia, the planet, had liquid/gaseous mako flowing in Lifestreams all over her surface. Cetra, or druids, would guide that flow to the surface to spawn life/plants/monsters/etc. When mako crystalized, you got Materia. Humans and some creatures would mentally connect to Materia and activate the magical effects formed within them.

And Shinra found some of the rare natural mako springs, and wanted such valuable resources to be much easier to work with. The springs don't occur often without the extinct Cetra helping out, so it was an issue.

Hence: They made Mako Reactors, originally called Mako Plants.

These devices were massive extractors and processors of the Lifestream's liquidish mako into a more stable and easy to utilize energy source. The original schematics were designed by Reeve Tuesti, although much smaller production methods existed for over forty years even before that.

Adam, of course, stole those designs too. Yoink!

The whole resistance movement thing started because these reactors would drain the easiest to access mako first, the surface stuff. It ended up depriving the local wildlife fauna and flora, killing everything in the area.

Obviously, this had bad implications for everyone in the long run, and so conflict would arise. Protests, companies versus ideals, profits versus convenience, yadda yadda.

The simple answer to make (some) people calm down would be to shut down all these energy plants. Gaia would appreciate it. Planet saved, problem done, no?

No.

Because Adam was looking at the long term game here.

There were already social structures and massive facilities based around these existing structures. Society would crumble if the reactors were just shut down, and humanity would probably get eaten by stuff like these robotic houses or whatever the hell was going on with Sarah right now.

Shinra was so big, a failure or full shutdown of the Mako Reactors would cause millions to die, easily. Possibly more!

So the plan here was to improve the designs, get rid of waste, and hopefully build up a surplus of power! Transform all these Mako Reactors into Mako Generators!

Then Shinra can mistakenly believe they are 'draining the planet', the people can get their power and Materia, Sarah will have a personal supply of mako and an artificial Lifestream inside her Warehouse to help create and grow her own crystalized Materia… And Gaia would have a burden lifted.

Thankfully, from what Adam could tell after taking over Gaia's Network, it wasn't super urgent.

Sure, draining the surface like this was not great for the local area and potentially tragic if you died too close to one of the Mako Reactors before your memories and existence could properly sync with the Lifestream… But Gaia was big.

Like, damn girl! Big big big.

Humans were dust on the surface, and even the most costly Mako Reactors couldn't put a dent into a planet's life energy content. Not really. It was a noticeable amount being messed with, but easily recoverable at this point with no issue. A rounding error of a fraction at most.

No, the issue was some numb nuts deciding to take the tortured soul and hacked up corpse of Jenova and insert her INTO a Mako Reactor over on Mt. Nibel. Possibly to encourage her to stabilize and maybe heal a tad to hopefully handle MORE torture.

Someone suggested taking this invader, known as the "calamity from the skies" in the legends, and insert her directly into a machine extracting mako from the damned Lifestream of Gaia herself. Because reasons.

God damn stupidly cartoonishly evil corporation.

So, Adam's long term goals?

First! Step one! Make a mako generator, duplicator, or purifier system. Like artificial blood for humans, basically.

Second! Have Sarah sneak into the various Mako Reactors and install them there, letting Adam control how much is being 'extracted' from Gaia at any one time. Also would let her hack them and ensure they couldn't be turned into bombs or whatever.

Third! Steal the tortured, planet-infecting alien invader goddess out of her planet lifeblood extracting mako crystallizing prison healing pod infection tube and uh.

Fix her and stuff.

Woo! Adam has a plan!

Then again? As Adam continued looking at the mass of terrible designs, horrible amounts of research and lacking TRUE scientific study?

As he searched for useful data (Not just 'why not torture some MORE!?' or 'Wonder what this does' crap, but real testing and results), as Adam filtered through this whole mess of 'Why not make it bigger and spew steam?' and 'Why not more torture?' and 'Add a gun, swords love guns' bullshit…

Well, Adam had a sneaking suspicion that 'Build something helpful!' was going to be tricky.

Or so easy that it will make him rant about it for a month.

Either/Or, really.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah frowned as another massive mountain (MANY dozens of meters tall, and massive in width and length) vanished away under [[Harvest.]] "I don't understand."

Aerith and her mother, Elmyra, had both calmed down a bit as they wandered the ever emptying trash piles. It was hard to be fearful when the woman you were walking with could gently toss out a flaming bone spike and kill anything.

The little one blinked. "What is it, sis?"

Aww! Sarah ruffled her hair despite the pouting. "I'm just confused, Aerith. Both with the trash AND the monsters down here… Why isn't Shinra keeping this stuff?"

Elmyra hummed. "My husband told me that his friends had a theory. They all noticed that after a new 'failure' got tossed down here, more would show up even without additional trash being sent down."

{Robotic creations from disappointed inventors… Children of Gaia's people. Welcome to the Lifestream!}

Aerith gasped! "Oh! So when the robots died, they joined the Lifestream because Gaia saw them as our creations."

Her mom paused. "I… Suppose? At the very least, the military would start seeing those creations spawning from nothing like the rest of the creatures after that."

Interesting, but not the point. "No, something about this is not right." And she wasn't quite sure what, exactly. "Why doesn't Shinra recycle this stuff? There is a lot of good material in this mess."

Woods of many types, massive amounts of many metals, crystals, stone, partially enchanted doodads and whatsits. [[Harvest]] was showing a treasure trove as the massive dump site became more and more empty the further the trio walked.

Elmyra blinked, confused. "Why bother recycling it? It's faster to make more."

Sarah paused. "What? No, give me a moment to think." {Adam.}

=Oh! Hello Adam!=

{Salutations?}

{{Sigh, Hello you two. Sarah, you could have just mentally contacted me, you know.}}

{Yeah, but I want Gaia in on this. Aerith's mom doesn't understand the point of recycling.}

{{What? No, let me read the conversation logs. Huh. That's odd.}}

=What's recycling?=

{{The deconstruction of used goods to repurpose the materials for future projects. It gets rid of waste, is cheaper than obtaining new material from excavation, and for outsiders like myself can teach me about local technology and construction methods.}}

{Excavation? Old memories of shovels and picks and labor?}

=Why don't they just buy more stuff they need?=

{See Adam? We are missing something here.}

{{Hmm. You are right. Let me look into it. Oh, and you've got security hightailing it down to your Sector right now, so steal the rest of that trash and come back to Wutai.}}

Sarah blinked. "Oh. Oops, I guess we HAVE been taking our time getting cool stuff."

Elmyra stood up from the block of steel she had been sitting on. "Are you both done talking? You do this odd zoning out thing." She smiled at her daughter. "It's cute."

Aerith blushed! "Mom! Not in front of my friend!"

The older woman chuckled before Sarah sighed. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to finish here and properly kidnap you both. And I suppose we will have to find a place in Wutai to move your house. Or maybe take Wutai Village with us and move somewhere else entirely, not sure what I want to do just yet."

Ignoring the confusion around her, she reached with one hand toward the massive wall of material that made MOST of this entire Sector impossible to traverse.

"[[Harvest: Mass Collection.]]"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Reeve Tuesti blinked at the report. "I'm sorry?"

The voice was shaky over the radio. "We lost the target sir."

Well thank the Planet! "What do you mean?"

The team on the line seemed agitated. "Video tracing shows the target, its guardian, and one unknown female moving towards Sector 6. All video connections and microphone capability was then lost in Sector 6 and we are currently unable to find the target. Sector 5 shows evidence destruction has occurred."

He blinked at the team leader's hesitance. "Sir, the target's residence and primary off-site location have both vanished."

Huh. "What do you mean?"

The man paused again. For someone normally so emotionless, it was a concerning action. "Both sites are currently vacant of any structures and a significant hole now marks their former position."

Odd. "Let research teams follow that up." Those people were MUCH more easily distracted and delayed than security, Reeve could hopefully stall them for weeks! "You mentioned that the target was hiding in Sector 6?"

Maybe the poor girl had run off to Sector 7 without being spotted. Unlikely, due to the heavy levels of surveillance, but if so he could force security to waste time over in Sector 6 slowly examining that massive pile of garbage. Maybe earn some time to move some pieces, try to convince more assholes to actually wait and let the girl grow up more.

For the man who was a Shinra executive, Reeve was constantly infuriated at how LITTLE power he had to head off the blatant levels of evil this company was infusing the Planet with, but he would NOT permit that poor little experiment child from going back to the labs.

He'd never be able to look in his parents eyes again if he did.

The officer's reply was strained. "No sir, the target is not hiding in Sector 6. We lost the target in Sector 6."

Uh. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

The man growled. "Aside from the upper plate supporting pillar, there IS no Sector 6. Everything here is gone, the trash, the monsters, even the damn fencing to prevent path blockage! I can see from the entrance to the exit and in EVERY direction, there is NOTHING HERE!"

Reeve blinked. "What?"

Security was having none of his shit, apparently. "I made my report, SIR. We lost our target in Sector 6. I will report this up the chain as soon as we finish the security sweep, as pointless as it is."

So something impossible happened? Wouldn't be the first time. Right, how could he take advantage of this? "Stand down, team. As the Executive in charge of Urban Development, this sounds like a critical situation that could have long term impacts on our future plans and implementation schedules. Report to quarantine for screening and examination. Full testing."

The distant gasps were satisfying. "Sir!?"

He grinned as he 'sighed' in 'disappointment.' "I'm not happy about this either, I'm going to have to be sent to quarantine as well."

The confusion was real. "What… Sir, explain?"

Reeve Tuesti grinned as he 'solemnly' spoke to the other team. "Some power or team of agents has kidnapped or obliterated the target while destroying all material down there… Or more likely, your entire team has been mentally contaminated by customized Materia. If it WAS all done by some powerful group, you may all be irradiated or hazardous, possibly an infection vector. If it was a mental influence, you may be currently captive and not know it… Or I may be compromised instead via the audio channel being used as an attack vector."

Which, ironically enough, was true. Not likely, he, like most of Shinra's executive staff, had extensive protection details and procedures to prevent crud like that. But it was a WONDERFUL excuse to buy the girl some time! "As per policy, I am giving orders to have you examined, which if I am compromised your team won't hear and so won't be affected, and then I will be examined, which would help me. If you alone are compromised, this will protect your loved ones and team mates from further harm, and ensure Shinra's security hasn't been infiltrated."

The other side seemed more worried but relieved to have orders. "Yes sir."

He nodded. "No further communication until after we've all been cleared. We don't want to send anyone ELSE from the Executive Board into solitary with us, do we?"

A sigh. "No sir."

Ha! "Good man." Closing the line, he proceeded to self-report for emergency medical care and, by pure coincidence, marked all data, video feeds, audio lines, and historical logs as potential cognitive hazard materials.

Sorry, Professor Hojo. There will be no update about your so called 'lost lab sample' until the mandatory two week personnel examination.

AND a further three months, if not more, until the recorded evidence was 'cleared' for new people to view safely!

He happily hummed while heading to lockup. There were some books he wanted time to read, anyway.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam paused. {{Ah. Got it.}}

Sarah was showing off some of the more pretty areas of the Wutai continent after she realized that taking the kidnapped little girl and mother to Yuffie's house while it was STILL FULL OF CAPTURED SOLDIERS was a bad idea. "Got what?"

He sent her data. {{Found out why recycling isn't well known in this Jump.}}

She blinked. "Huh. So metal ore veins grow like Materia when exposed to mako."

Adam agreed. {{It's why Shinra and all these cities have SO MUCH access to metal, crystals, wood and stone. ALL of that stuff 'grows' when liquid mako is soaked into it, and they've got the Mako Reactors to work with. It's where half the power is spent, the chunk of energy we were confused by.}}

Sarah hummed. "I did notice there were little to no fuels, plastics, or processed oil products here."

He showed more and more data. {{I know, right? Why bother when it is cheaper and easier to grow more metal when needed. Crazy stuff, but it explains how a planet with SO LITTLE mining, excavating, and extraction methods can have such massive buildings and factories and stuff. There is more metal in Midgar City alone than all of New York State, for example… Mostly due to the incredibly deep metal structures UNDER the place that help funnel the Lifestreams up to the Reactors.}}

Seriously, building massive guns the size of subway tunnels, walls of solid material stupidly tall and thick, huge battleships and big robots? Sheesh.

Adam reviewed the older schematics with more interest. {{It explains why half these products have odd layers and modified processes for the surfaces when it has to interact with the Lifestream. Otherwise they would grow out of shape and stop working from all the exposure.}}

Sort of like reverse rust? But instead of corroding metal into simpler forms, it extends it instead. Neat!

Hmm. {{So power won't be an issue, a standard miniature thorium reactor would actually GROW more nuclear material than the rate at which it would decay… As long as we can generate more mako, at least.}}

And the so-called 'science' didn't help NEARLY enough at this point.

So far, Adam had found the following:

First! Mako naturally wanted to be in a nearly out of phase gaseous state.

Second! It absorbs energy when souls join it, when ambient energies are used near it, and when it is subjected to heat or electricity. Mako releases energy when it spawns new mako particles... Or spawns new monsters or a nearby kid is born.

Third! A certain amount of mako has a limit to how much power it could contain. It would eventually condense into a liquid (The version most easy to transport and use by humanity here), and from there into a crystal (If enough in one spot? Materia).

Fourth! When fully crystallized, which were normally tiny particles in the Lifestream and not full orbs or shards like modern Materia, the crystals would stop accepting energy and instead spawn a new seed of mako. If the new seed was too small it would form an unstable pattern that would rapidly decay into a gaseous, out of phase state… Restarting the cycle.

That was the life cycle of mako. Gaia's Lifestream was filled with tiny sands of crystals that were constantly being born and decaying back into liquids and gaseous versions of energy. When blockages would occur it would build up into Materia or mako springs, most likely both.

From what Adam could tell? Mako Reactors pressurized mako into liquid, heated it, electrified the stuff, and constantly extracted the resulting 'sand'.

These mako sand crystals were being forced to destabilize inside those massive reactors, which is why they needed all that armor and structural reinforcement.

But none of this was actually documented!

Half this damn mess was only implied by the designers, or was assumed to be known generally, or had sections from other WORKING designs shoved in without knowing what they did!

As far as Adam could tell, Shinra lucked out by ACCIDENT with the most recent Mako Reactor designs. They weren't so efficient and powerful because of good testing and hard work, not because of theories and engineering and research!

They were efficient because they were explosive deathtraps.

And every moment they DIDN'T explode, they POTENTIALLY DID.

And potential universe change, in this Jump, was magic.

These morons made a device so deadly, so unstable, so DANGEROUS… That it generated magic, which caused the whole mess to work ANYWAY, enhancing the entire liquid mako collection and purification process.

Hell, half the time this whole machine was decaying and eating itself! It was only the mako forcing the metal to grow BACK while being influenced by the magical fields of the reactor that prevented catastrophic failure!

And, again, this made even MORE potential changes, thus more magic!

It was almost weaponized stupidity, and these morons made an EMPIRE on it.

Adam stared at the beautiful ugliness of it all.

He missed the simpler times of milk super computers.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

{{{H̤̠e̫̙a̰̦̝̭̥ͅd̮̳͕̦̥ ̲̩̲͖̖̼h̲i̜̗̹͖̬͇̜t̯̻̣͈͎̙̬t͍͕̯i͍̙̫̲̜͇n͕͇̣̬͚g̹̤̱̖̩̺ ̩̤͙ͅw̤̯̩a̱̤̹̳̬l͖l̗͉̱͇.̩͚ ̠̮H̟͓̲̙͓e̪͖̪̣̰ͅa̫̺̥̯͓̭̗d̤͔͚̝̜ ͖̺͚̥̩͔̳h͔̬̱̮i̦̺͔̭̥̘tt̟̣͓̳͕̙̙i̻̼n͚̮͕̭͎g̰ ͉w͙̹̤a̲͉̬̹̞͔̯ll͎̼.̭̰̖̣ ̟̮̬͓H͎e͉̜a̺͓̹͉͎̗d̼̜̮̙̱͉͔ ̰͇͇̩̱̣h̹̻͔̥͙i̠t̙͉̯̘t͎̜̜̻̲͉̤i̜̯̙̳̥n͎̠̯̹͉̯g̳̮̫ w͚̦a͙̟̙̭͙͚ll̝̫͇.̬̝̳ ͖̼H̰͔̬e̼̳̘̞̣a̹̮̰d ̲̬̠̝h̤͈̺i̞̭tṭ̼̣i̠n̬̻̦̤̪g͔̱̯͓̲ ̙̳̪̼͓w̪͓a̜̠̪̩̳̯ͅḷ̯̖̲̤̦l̜ͅ.̺̬̠͎ ͍̳̜̝̺̰}}}

{Concern?}

=Sarah? Is Adam alright?=

{Well... {Sigh}, Ignore him. He's just… Frustrated about stuff. He'll get over it.}

Sarah smiled! "Right, so eventually I'm going to have lots of people hunt me down and I don't want to get anyone hurt."

Elmyra gave her a wry look. "A noble goal."

She grinned! "But! I ALSO don't want to make attacking me or hurting people profitable or fun for Shinra in general! Again, I think the reason for that is obvious."

Aerith hummed. "Can't we just run? We can go anywhere now, right?"

Sarah shook her head. "We need to be a target or Shinra will go hurting people to try and find us. Might as well skip some steps in that process instead. SO! I'm going to either take over Wutai Village with my adopted Dad's permission or steal the whole thing and make my OWN village but with your church and house added to it!"

The little girl dropped into a pout and pointed! "No! Sarah! No stealing! Sarah!? No stealing!"

Was 'Dora the Explorer' a show here? "I've made something similar to a town before, supposedly, so I can probably do it."

Elmyra frowned. "Supposedly?"

She waved it off, whispering to the adult. "When I was almost raped I killed a bunch of people and their memories got dumped in my head. I'm better now, and I'll get my old memories back later, but some stuff is a bit vague to me at the moment." She paused, not missing the mother's horror. "I've stopped doing that, by the way. Killing people is super messy."

Aerith looked suspicious. "What was that?"

Sarah shrugged. "I was telling your mom why I prefer stealing from people instead of hurting them."

The child paused. "Well… I guess it is good not to hurt people. What was your reason?"

She gave a noble nod. "Because they have stuff I want and I get to keep it if they try to hurt me or people I care about."

Her little eyes grew wide and she pointed AGAIN! "You just want to steal stuff!"

Sarah nodded. "Yes."

Aerith's hand waivered. "Mom, did you hear that!? She is going to steal stuff! That's bad!"

Her mom smirked, mostly recovered. Midgar Slums grew hard people. "Oh? Taking stuff that's not yours is bad?"

She nodded!

Her mom grinned. "Are you going to give back your church?"

The wind was lovely this time of year. A gentle breeze from the nearby ocean cove brought the smell of the sea and adventure and not giving back her church because it was HER church and no one else cared about it and Gaia helped her grow stuff there.

Sarah hummed. "If it makes you feel better, I don't think it counts as stealing if my adopted sister helps me take everything? I mean, since we are like sort-of princesses of Wutai I think. She's the daughter of the leader of the biggest city on the entire Wutai continent at least, so that counts for something."

Aerith paused. "Can… Can I be a princess too?"

She grinned! "Sure! I've never built a castle before!" Probably? Her eyes drifted out of focus. {Adam?}

{{Sigh. No, you've built a civilization under the ocean and helped create an underground capitalistic market focused kingdom, but no castles yet. For the record, you tend to like making farms and theme park stuff.}}

=Theme park stuff?=

{A towering amusement park built over the ruins of Old Corel, A world famous tourist attraction operated by Dio, a muscular man who styles himself like a wrestler while showing off his fitness by not wearing much else than shorts. The Gold Saucer is divided into seven attractions and uses GP instead of GIL as its own currency, which can only be won from its minigames. Dio has short dark hair and a mustache.}

=Wow!=

{The Gold Saucer's attractions are situated entirely on discs held up by the structure itself, which are high above ground level, as clouds can be seen from the Saucer's exterior. Dio combs his mustache three times a day. The proximity of the Gold Saucer to Costa del Sol, located to its northeast, leads many tourists landing at Costa del Sol to go on to visit the Gold Saucer. Dio does not need to curl his mustache, it is naturally formed.}

=Uh. Thank you? You can stop now.=

{The Gold Saucer is an entirely gold-plated tower structure with seven mushroom-like discs stemming from the main structure. The resort is brightly lit by neon lights illuminating each of its signs, as well as by multicolored flashlights and apparently constant fireworks displays. Many of the staff dress in such costumes, but few costumes include mustaches. Dio oils his mustache once a day, every day.}

{For the record, you don't need a mustache to operate an amusement park. Also, I have no clue why Gaia is super into mustaches in the first place.}

{Barret fighting for Gaia, manly mustache on display. Reeve Tuesti, protecting her little girl in Midgar, finest upper lip fuzz! Even evil President Shinra and mad scientist Dr. Hollander had facial hair!}

Elmyra poked the woman. "Are you both alright?"

Sarah blinked. "The planet has a fetish for sexy mustaches."

The mother blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Aerith sighed. "Adults are gross. Plants are way better!" Her eyes lit up! "Hey, can we give flowers a mustache!?"

{INTEREST!?}

Sarah sighed. "Moving on. Let's go visit my father, shall we?"

Aerith's mom watched in bemused confusion as her daughter began arguing with the wind about what kinds of mustache were most appropriate to which flowers. "Are you sure we won't be a bother?"

She waved it off. "It'll be fine."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Godo Kisaragi frowned. "I don't understand why you have brought such forces."

The squad leader sighed. "I think it was an assignment snafu honestly. But as I have seniority, I am currently leading the six teams that were sent to check on Captain Newcastle."

The relaxed looking Shinra Soldier nodded, not wearing their military outfit and unconcerned. "And we are glad you quickly responded, Commander. But I must emphasize strongly that NO hostile actions should be taken here. Again, NO hostile actions."

Everyone glanced over at the still wrapped up 'Asshole Steve' worm in the corner of the room. Apparently in his frothing rage he had passed out at some point. Or fell asleep. Hard to tell, nothing was really visible between all the rope.

And no, no tool they had could cut the stuff. They would have to ask Ms. Kisaragi to remove the bindings when she returned from wherever she had gone.

The Commander frowned. "I must say, self defense is one thing… But to take all your equipment?"

A surprising amount of unity bound all of Squad 322. "It wasn't taken, we all decided to graciously donate our equipment and Materia to Ms. Kisaragi in compensation for her emotional distress after having conflict with Squad 66."

Richard felt that personally using his own funds to cover the costs of the entire squad (Minus Steve, because what the HELL Steve!?) was a low cost to pay. Especially as Ellie's sniper shot was mostly ignored rather than that monster of a woman using it as an excuse for turning his best sniper into paste. He REALLY appreciated not losing one of his better people due to her trying to protect the squad.

One of the later arriving team leaders raised a hand. The Commander blinked. "Yes?"

The leader frowned. "I'm sorry, what happened to Squad 66?"

Richard shrugged. "I'll file a formal report after a research team and a cleanup crew finishes gathering the chunks together."

The newcomers went white. Yeah, that's how the Commander felt after HE got the details.

Turning back to Elder Godo, he bowed. "Again, we apologize for the inconvenience, but may we stay and wait for your daughter to return and answer some questions?"

Everyone paused as SOMETHING twisted. "Dad! I'm home! And I brought friends!"

A beautiful woman with silver eyes and hair strode into the room with a crisp blue suit. "Oh! Company! Literally, apparently. Hey, Captain Newcastle!"

The other man wearily waved back.

Elder Godo sighed. "Welcome back daughter. I'm sorry I didn't notice you leaving earlier, these are fellow Shinra employed military men and women and they wished to ask you questions."

Sarah lit up! "Oh! Are they here to kill or kidnap me? Can I rob them?"

The stunned soldiers blinked as an adorable little girl stomped in. "NO! No stealing! Bad Sarah!"

The woman pointed at the massive number of people! "Come on Aerith! I'm allowed to keep their stuff if they are here to cause trouble!"

One of the people in the crowd whimpered as they all felt SOMETHING unseen turn to stare at them in disapproval. As if the planet itself was giving them the stink eye.

Captain Newcastle coughed! "NO! I uh." He stood straighter. "I mean, my Commander Rogers here just had a few questions to make sure our paperwork is all straightened out, none of us are here to cause any problems." He glanced back. "Someone step on Steve, I don't want his comedic timing to get our friends exploded."

The little girl with beautiful bright green eyes grinned! "See! They are good soldiers, so you can't hurt them and you can't take their stuff! Mommy says good soldiers need to come home!"

Well, the Commander couldn't argue with that.

An older woman huffed as she staggered in. "Honey, I can't run as fast as… you… two? Hello?"

Captain Newcastle moved forward with a bright smile and apparently a good chance of getting promoted as the Commander really appreciated a man willing to think quickly and adapt. "Good day ma'am! Are you the older sister of this adorable little girl we just met?"

As the woman giggled, her probable daughter pouted and pointed! "No! You can't steal my mom either! No adults can steal ANYTHING! It's bad!"

Another young lady popped in from a back room. "Did someone say stealing? Oh Sarah! You're back!"

Ms. Kisaragi smiled at the younger Ms. Kisaragi. "Yep! Sorry about ditching you like that, Yuffie. I just had to stop by Midgar to kidnap these two before Shinra could try and send this little one off to Professor Hojo's labs."

A LOT of unfriendly gazes turned to the many soldiers.

Sarah blinked. "Ah. That whole mess is not technically related to these people. Unless they want to attack us, which means I get to keep their stuff."

The child stomped! "No! No stealing!"

Yuffie saw the little girl… And squealed! "So cute!"

Lifting the confused child in the air, she nodded at Sarah. "I'm stealing her."

And they were gone.

Elder Godo sighed. "Excuse me miss, would you like some tea?"

The woman, still blushing while near Captain Newcastle, nodded.

Commander Rodgers sat at the table place set for himself and decided to try a cup also.

If it WAS poisoned or something, that might be a relief at this point.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

He hummed. "Best prepare some medication and Restore, Heal, and Revive Materia. Bleeding will likely be an issue."

Some minion nodded, not like they mattered. "Yes Professor."

He glared at one of the slower workers. "YOU! Why are you modifying the breeding harness again!" What was his name? Gary? Didn't matter. "What is your badge id?"

The idiot stammered. "I'm just adding some padding to the bindings to reduce damage to the… to the specimen."

That was what the surgical modifications were for, to reduce the girl's recovery rates but prevent excessive damage that would affect the experiments. What a waste of resources! "Your id?"

He didn't bother to memorize the pattern, simply waving his minion forward. "Send him to remedial conditioning, with more D33 and D23 than standard. And triple R1 and R3 doses. If he survives, solitary for a week."

More and more of his minions were showing disturbing levels of empathy, he may need to change the administrative maintenance schedule for serum applications.

Right, the child would be too young for the original mating experiments, but this might be an ideal time to test the various hormone imbalancing tests. For some reason his agents resisted gathering the younger subjects even after heavy conditioning, so this was a good opportunity.

Speaking of which. "What is the status of collections? I expected better punctuality than this."

Another minion stuttered. "Sir! They've been detained by Security!"

He froze… And the lab stilled with his motionless form.

Turning to the deadman, his face was frozen. "And you failed to inform me?"

The corpse gulped. "You… You told me to stand by until you finished preparing the subject's testing stations."

Irrelevant. "Well, at least you followed orders. Report to remedial conditioning, standard requirements. And someone else will get me a status update! NOW!"

The lab broke into frantic movement. Good.

If ANOTHER of his collection teams had been caught in their duties, or WORSE helping a subject escape again, there would be a heavy price to pay!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Professor Hojo stared at his near empty lab in RAGE. "This. This will not stand."

He waved at one of the few remaining assistants. At this rate, he would run out of emergency testing subjects AND assistants/not-so-emergency testing subjects! "Have ANY of our people returned?"

The man was near tears. "No sir."

He wanted to scream. "And Security?"

The assistant winced. "They keep saying we don't have clearance for an update."

His hands clenched… before he held them behind his back. "I see."

No clearance? There were barely any data levels that EXISTED that would deny him clearance! No, this was sabotage from the highest levels. "Call in favors from Scarlet. I've helped the Weapons Development Division many times over the years, and I'd like to see who would stand in the way of TWO Shinra Executives. Get her to send people to pester Security, scare out whoever is acting here."

The man nodded, making notes. "Sir."

Professor Hojo glared at the lack of work being done. "Get anyone we have deals with to send their people to Security as well, get them to find out what is going on, and then send the last of my department en masse! See if they try to detain MORE of my people! If we can't get work done normally, we might as well expose this so-called 'internal political conflict' to the entire facility!"

The now hesitant assistant grit his teeth. "Yes sir."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The line of people preceding into the Security office was both orderly and FRUSTRATING to the on duty staff. "Name and Org?"

A tired man sighed. "John Walls, Science & Research Division, Tier 10."

For the love of the Planet, they were all the way down to tier 10 now? That was basically the interns. "I assume you are following the same orders as the rest?"

He nodded. "Find out what happened to… Well, everyone else."

Damn it. "You heard me say this before. No one has clearance to know about that situation without being read into the situation and being quarantined."

John sighed. "But they are all healthy?"

He shrugged. "As far as I know? Yes. But again, neither you nor Professor Hojo, nor any people below or between either of you, have clearance for the needed details."

John hummed. "I heard. But while the subordinates for Executive Scarlet were able to give up and return with little issue, I am in Science and Research."

Right. Professor Hojo. "So, going with the rest?"

He nodded. "Better survival rate."

The officer waved the man into the next room to read the warnings, be told SOMETHING, and then go into lockup. No idea WHAT he was going to be told, and unlike SOME people he wasn't going to ask. Because he didn't want to be locked up in quarantine.

Next. "Name and Org?"

He shrugged. "Greg Gordon, also Science & Research Division. Tier 10."

Planet curse it, there were dozens more people waiting AFTER this!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

President Shinra looked stunned at the nearly empty room. "Where the hell IS everybody!?"

Miss Scarlet shrugged. "I honestly think the memetic hazard protocols are going on, but I'm not going to try and find out until the automated alerts confirm it one way or the other."

He blinked. "And everyone else?"

She sighed. "Apparently Professor Hojo has many people that 'owe' him favors and called most of them in to 'determine who is trying to undermine his brilliance', as he put it. Man lost his mind by this point. I think he is currently down in Executive Heidegger's office screaming at the moment, and everyone else just didn't bother to show up to THIS meeting because they know that man is going to cause a shit show today."

He blinked. "Oh." He glanced at her. "And your punctual presence?"

Scarlot shrugged. "I may work with Professor Hojo, but I do not respect him. Watching him lose his mind in rage is cathartic for me."

A distant scream made her grin! "Speaking of which!"

President Shinra frowned at the loud ranting on its way to this very room.

What a frustrating start to an already annoying process.

Still, unproductive meetings were a cornerstone for society.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam blinked.

Wow! Delaying the automated alerts warning executives about personnel being held for potential mnemonic contamination REALLY messed Shinra up apparently.

Over 80% of the mid tier staff were now in confinement. For the next two weeks! The Security Division had to make makeshift holding facilities! And almost EVERYONE from Professor Hojo's division were in lockup, since the latter half 'volunteered' for quarantine to avoid the man's growing rage.

He had only been able to delay the outgoing emails by 24 hours without setting off more alerts, but it was a major issue right now because the people who could tell or warn OTHERS that the delay was unusual were already in confinement.

Not to mention the procedures were required since true Memetic Hazards could spread if other warning methods were used, hence the reliance on the prewritten automated messages in the first place.

And Professor Hojo apparently was NOT a patient person.

Everyone else was told 'We can tell you later' and THOSE people decided it was worth it to wait for answers.

The Professor on the other hand went nuclear, and forced a bunch of people to basically get paid vacation accidentally.

And uh… This paid vacation was designed to detect mental influence and modification. Professor Hojo would NOT have been so happy to send his people down to join in the fun if he had ANY clue about the actual situation.

From what 'Research' could tell? That was something that Professor Hojo's Division used heavily. There were a LOT of drugs in his people, and it was slowing down ALL the testing of ALL the personnel inside the containment testing facilities. Significantly.

It might end up forcing the entire mass of people to be delayed for much LONGER than the required two weeks needed by Shinra policy just to list all the issues Hojo's people were suffering under. Issues very much AGAINST Shinra policy, evil company that it was.

This was going to be a shit storm. Especially as the hacked network was showing some horrified emails being sent to all SORTS of people as the situation was being uncovered.

And this was only the tip of the iceberg! Once the initial alerts went out and contact was reestablished with the many employees being tested and the administrative staff under lockdown? Holy shit, it would get nasty!

Was this approved by President Shinra himself? Or maybe by his disloyal son who was so eager to take over, Rufus? Was this just Professor Hojo being a dick like normal?

Times like this needed popcorn.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah sighed at the group of soldiers sharing tea with Ms. Gainsborough and Elder Godo. At least they were getting along? Oh, right. "Elder Godo?"

He raised an eyebrow.

Yeah, he seemed to expect something off. Which was fair. "Can I steal Wutai Village?"

The military members stayed quiet as the old man sighed. "I am going to assume, based on the impossible things I've found you do over the last few hours, that such a thing is possible. I must, however, ask for more details."

She waved at the village outside that covered the mountain they were on. "Eventually more conflict will come here after me, after little Aerith. And if I flee, which I could do easily…" She…

Step.

...Moved to the other side of the room. "Well, the people at Shinra wouldn't stop chasing me, but they WOULD likely end up harassing this village anyway to find where I went. Eventually, I mean. There is a big mess going on right now when I kidnapped Ms. Gainsborough and her daughter."

He sighed. "I know you are friends with my daughter, issues were destined to be intertwined with my fate regardless. And Shinra has a history of conflict with my people even without a valuable prize to be won such as yourself."

Elder Godo gave a stern look. "And I would not have adopted you if I was not prepared to support you. Family is important to the Wutai people."

She felt a bit tearful at that. "Thank you, Elder Godo."

He nodded. "You've given a reason for future trouble to find our home, agreed. That said, I still do not understand how this leads to this 'stealing' of our village."

Sarah shrugged. "I thought I could just move the village somewhere. Or if I claim to have stolen it, I can then modify the place to be easier to defend and keep people safe." Oh. "Also, I need somewhere to put a good size home and a church. Because I stole both of those from Midgar."

Elmyra raised her hand. "The home belongs to my husband, and I am glad I did not need to abandon it. I'm not sure stealing is the best term for helping me escape with my belongings and child."

Captain Newcastle sighed. "Of course, why not. She can probably reshape the Planet itself and make it rain gold and Gil too, who knows at this point." He noticed the attention and coughed. "I mean, as a representative of Shinra Electric Power Company…" He glanced at the apparently amused Commander who nodded. "Right, as a representative, we would greatly appreciate it if you did not steal, move, or transport the capital city of this entire continent."

The man blinked. "Or destroy it. Or us." He nodded. "Not making any demands or anything, but we would VERY MUCH appreciate it if we didn't have to redraw the maps for the Planet without some level of advance warning or potentially some negotiations."

Elder Godo raised an eyebrow. "And you believe that Shinra would approach such a negotiation in good faith?"

Captain Newcastle slouched. "No, but it would buy me time to hopefully convince the very nice lady to not change global shipping routes and force entire nations to change trade scheduling and good transportations methods without giving people time to adapt."

He waved at Steve, still bound in those ropes in the corner. "Also, when the morons show up I'm hoping to build up enough good will to convince her not to destroy my military comrades or my friends and family."

All the other military men and women seemed alright with that general attitude.

The Commander winced. "I am unable to comment on leadership actions, potential or not… But I can certainly say that if this capital is moved, aside from the numerous disappointed people who currently travel here as a popular and beloved vacationing location… Many people would assume Shinra had simply destroyed the place."

Captain Newcastle pointed at him! "Exactly! Even I would find it more believable that some squad like Squad 66 decided to destroy a foreign nation rather than some very nice and reasonable young woman deciding to steal the place." He nodded. "It could cause problems. And paperwork."

Elder Godo nodded. "My daughter, it would indeed cause paperwork."

Sarah stared at him. "I… I feel like you are not taking this seriously enough."

He shook his head. "I feel like I have little control over the situation, so I am currently drinking my favorite tea and have decided to, as my dear Yuffie would say, 'Roll with it'." He frowned. "Please do not give me additional paperwork."

She huffed! "But I can at least increase defenses, yes?"

He hummed. "I will call the council. While I do have considerable power and political capital, our traditions and the historic nature of our buildings are treasured. We would not be able to tolerate massive stone and steel walls like those enjoyed by Midgar City, for example."

Aww! "But that will take time! And talking! Can't I just steal the whole continent?"

They ignored the distant 'No Stealing!', with Yuffie joining Aerith in her quest without shame or any sense of hypocrisy.

It was good they were having fun.

Her adopted father smiled. "Many important things require us to do actions that are tiring, work with others we dislike, and compromise despite having great personal power to ensure long lasting results and a better outcome for our people."

Sarah sighed. "Yeah, let's get the council together and I'll talk to them I guess. Or I could just have Gaia drain all the mako out of Shinra's place, I guess? It sounds like less work."

Captain Newcastle raised his hand! "I vote for listening to our honorable elders! And not denying my home city of energy, clean water, and monsters for harvesting and hunting!"

Elmyra snorted, and raised her hand to match the rest of the room and Sarah's amused father.

Sarah grunted. "Fine. Be all responsible and stuff. I'm going to go plan out abducting a mutilated alien invader goddess from an unsafe magical nuclear facility! So there!"

She paused in her exit. "Oh, and here are some cookies, please share them with Yuffie and Aerith when they get done playing tag."

After all, she was frustrated and being forced to act mature, she wasn't a monster.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam grinned! {{Right, done. Probably.}}

But uh. Just in case? Send it to 'Research' and see if it can improve it.

To achieve his goal of generating mako, for making Materia and supplying the Lifestream?

Magic. Magic was the best idea. Duh!

Because once he can make lots of magic? Adam could soak a thick slurry of mako and Materia sand with the stuff, and BAM! You will get Huge Materia Crystals, Materia orbs, Materia sand and mako! Problem solved!

But like most stuff that works on Gaia, the best place to start when designing this thing was mostly found by ignoring everything suggested by Shinra entirely.

Adam ended up tossing ALL their designs away, focusing on the base principles instead.

He didn't regret it.

Right! Adam needed to make magic!

And magic here required the generation of potential change. Not as determined by how many people could die or be hurt by a bad result (Fuck you Shinra), just determined by how big the theoretical change would be.

After all, magic was generated by Gaia WAY before humans existed. From her data, way before most monsters existed.

This stuff started from that first spark of life, and the cycle of life and death and the Lifestreams that eventually became Gaia herself. Magic was part of the process.

SO! Adam ended up designing a mini-Gaia. Sort of.

It was a solid orb of metal, iron chosen for elemental stability, with an entry and exit port.

Enriched and heavily energized liquid was pumped into one end, hit a massive number of optional paths that could pass that power in several potential directions at different rates, and exit out the other side.

Initially, Adam was using liquid fluoride thorium, but instead of using the heat generated to run a closed system steam turbine for power like normal? He was just pumping the dangerous material directly into these Mana Potential Orbs.

The thorium would damage the iron and decay over time, but if the magic thing works out that would both strengthen the material AND cause strange issues with the pathways inside the orbs, increasing the potential and magical potency of the finished product.

And if Adam could get mako out of this mess, that should help the thorium and iron container regrow itself too, which would cause more chaos and generate more magic!

This step of research took a LONG time to fiddle with. To the point where Sarah got pulled back to Wutai into some sort of long term 'Wutai Village Improvement Committee' and kept interrupting his science with her daily groans and moans and 'Maybe we should just' statements that he had to hold back.

But he made progress!

It ended up taking seven rings each with seven MP Orbs, but when all seven rings were wrapped around a heated near liquid core of nickel and iron coated in a thin protective layer of lead? It generated a magic field!

Woo!

Why did it take seven rings? No idea, but seven showed up a LOT on Gaia, so it may be a special number in this reality.

Why did the flow have to alternate between clockwise and counter-clockwise from ring to ring? No clue, again. But if you DIDN'T do that, the entire thing started overheating. At least it didn't matter how you oriented the finished MP Tube.

Why couldn't the seven rings be connected into a single spiral? Meh! When Adam tried, the production rate of the magic field went downwards significantly.

At least he learned SOME stuff.

For example, after some tests Adam found that you could remove the needed pumps from the device by actively spinning the seven rings instead of pumping the fluid within them. There was enough resistance in one direction of the liquid flow that agitating the orbs caused them to 'pump' it in the needed flow pattern.

It did require some modifications to the connecting tubes between the seven MP orbs though, and Adam wasn't sure WHERE he had learned about valvular conduits before, but it worked!

So no moving parts were needed, the nuclear liquid flowed… And, after heating up the artificial near liquid 'Gaia' core of nickel and iron and manually spinning the seven rings in the correct directions?

The magic would keep the core hot, the rings spinning, and the magic generation flowing!

So uh. Adam had a good generator for Magic. A bit of testing and he had a schematic for a simplified version of a MP Tube with it's seven spinning MP Rings that was only about half Sarah's arm in length about as wide.

But Magic wasn't mako by itself. Not if it was this dispersed, this weak, this unrefined.

To make THAT jump, Adam ended up taking seven MP Tubes, flipping every other one, and making an MP Tunnel using the MP Tubes as the outer walls. Cap one end and wrap the mess up in a layer of lead, and the other end produced a concentrated beam of intense magical energy! Almost looked like a thin fog or mist.

So Sarah could make a magical fog machine now, neat!

Six MP Tunnels aimed together, with a final one below… Focused all that energy onto one specific point?

Adam grinned at the slowly bubbling green 'liquid'.

A working, artificial, uninfluenced Mako Spring! A seed for a potential future Lifestream!

Pure, liquid, magical potential. Mmm.

Some changes soon had Sarah's Warehouse producing this stuff directly thanks to the much improved Mana Generation Units, and another swift modification involved increasing the number of Mako Springs in the Warehouse for her internal use later on.

The most optimum number of Mako Springs? Seven. Sigh.

Right.

A thought had a separate, easily ejectable layer of the Warehouse form a sealed chamber and a medically clean room setup within it. Bright glowing green mako began to slowly fill the entire structure, as 'Research' carefully documented the process.

A series of external tubes and wall openings would ensure a constant flow of the magic inside, as the liquid potential energy did NOT like staying still.

Some testing had Adam quickly redesigning the walls of this outermost layer to contain the same meandering pathways that the MP Orbs used, but THIS time instead of liquid fluoride thorium pumping everywhere he had mako flowing through the pathways like a miniature Lifestream network.

Did all the symbology matter? Not sure, but Magic loved concepts and relationships and patterns. So as long as 'Research' didn't declare these actions as efficiency droppers, they got added to the pile!

Although Adam made sure there was no connection to the Warehouse other than the injection process for the newly formed mako. No influence allowed from Sarah's Avatar or Adam or the Warehouse itself, no exposure to Gaia or external Materia or mako, just a chamber that was filled with liquid magic that would eventually be filled in a few hours or so.

Could he make MORE of these Mako Springs? Give up on the optimum 7 operating and put like 49 or 343 instead?

'Research' says no. Despite being related to seven AND better than the OTHER numbers tested, anything more or less than seven would NEARLY be as good at best.

Could he use these seven and combine the results to force liquid mako into the next level of density?

'Research', again, says no. Not until a significant amount of Materia sand was collected first, and it had to be made from this uncontaminated stuff or it would mess up the entire batch. He'd have to make sure to continue looking into improving this process at a later point.

Sure, at this rate of production Sarah would have to wait literal years before it became dense enough to form even the smallest flecks of Materia sand, and ALL of this mako combined wasn't even a drop compared to Gaia's reserves or even comparable to what Shinra's Mako Reactors produced…

But it was enough to act as a recovery room. {{Sarah, I've got a place to put her, it will be ready for patient transfer in three hours and twenty two minutes.}}

His Jumper grinned! "Finally! I've been stuck listening to a bunch of really nice old people talk for FOREVER! Either they don't believe I can do something or they spend the REST of the time telling me not to!"

A glance at the logs. {{Hmm. It mostly seems reasonable though?}}

She snorted. "Yeah, that's why I hate it. Responsibility sucks, let's go steal a goddess!"

He rolled his eyes. {{In three hours and twenty one minutes.}}

Sarah pouted. "Fine. In three hours and twenty one minutes."

Her father sighed in the room. "My daughter, you are speaking out loud again."

His Jumper blinked at the bemused crowd. "Ah. Sorry for being distracted, Father."

Elder Godo nodded. "From what I understand, you have three hours and twenty one minutes to work with us before you must be called away. Let us continue."

Heh. {{It's more like three hours and nineteen minutes now.}}

'Shut up Adam.'

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah slumped as she reviewed even more 'ideas' and 'suggestions', but in reality were random complaints about past issues that individuals wouldn't let go and lifetime family feuds.

These old geezers somehow converted this 'planning meeting' into a grumble fest.

NOTHING had been informative or useful for the last ten minutes, and from Elder Godo's expression he both acknowledged the situation, expected it, and was used to putting up with crap like this.

Finally: Salvation!

She grinned slightly maniacally, harvested all the documents and notes on the table while ignoring the old people, and stood, interrupting a rant about shades of green acceptable on roofing tiles. "Well this was a thing, I'll be back later father."

And the room was slightly more empty.

Elder Godo sighed. "You all realize that she will likely ignore future input from everyone after this. Correct?"

The gray haired grandfather stabbed with his cane! "YOU haven't seen that travesty of jade green I've tolerated for the LAST TWO MONTHS!"

He sighed as the arguments began again.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah was somewhere in Wutai, as Adam said she couldn't directly enter her 'Home' while on this Jump due to the memory wipe drawback. "So, what's the plan boss?"

Adam examined the filled Medical Spring room.

While the mako density was fairly low compared to an entire planet, the drastically smaller area being supplied would rapidly increase in pressure. The walls now had began self shifting as the embedded pathing tunnels corroded and regrew thanks to the liquid magic passing through, and he had 'Purification' over the entire section causing the green 'liquid' to glow brightly.

It… Should be fine? Depends on what Jenova's condition was, really.

Right. {{First, Mt. Nibel was one of the many earliest locations where Shinra Electric Power Company erected a mako reactor. This helped the local settlers initially with cheap energy and Materia, but in the LONG run killed the local vegetation and wildlife while massive and dangerous monsters began spawning in due to the ecological vacuum there.}}

She waved a hand. "Right, some mountain, got it. What's the plan?"

Sigh. {{On the plus side? It is the oldest design of a mako reactor. Almost no security, no good defenses, and due to a lack of personnel being deployed there the locals are near religious about the site and should ignore the area entirely. So we can get there safely without getting caught. Probably.}}

Sarah tapped a foot. "Sounds good. What's the minus side?"

Adam extracted teleportation coordinates from Gaia's information network. {{Well, it is the oldest design. The thing is a half step from exploding in the BEST CASE scenario, more likely us trying to break into the mess will cause it to blow up. Won't hurt the locals, the dangerous monsters and death of all grass and forests nearby forced the town to set up fairly far back from the place, but we are going to have to snatch and run fairly quickly.}}

She frowned. "I thought we were going to save an alien queen or something? Why are we trying to blow up the Mako Reactor? I thought she was just locked up inside it in a prison or lab or whatever. Wait, are we blowing it up to distract Shinra or something?"

Nope. {{Well uh. Technically she IS locked up inside of it?}}

Adam sent her data. {{Professor Hojo decided the best idea in the world was to take the alien creature he tortured, one he believed to be from a druid-like religious species connected to Gaia herself, and build a shrine to his victim in the reactor. Her near dead body is inside a naked woman statue while being irradiated with pure Mako and raw magic.}}

Sarah blinked. "Da fuck you say?"

He sighed. {{Yep.}} Shinra, the 'Why did we do this again?' company of the Planet, everyone!

She frowned. "Well uh. So at least we can get in and look around first, right?" And paused. "Wait, if they stuck Jenova there, why AREN'T there a bunch of security people and stuff?"

Adam 'shrugged'. {{The records say Hojo thought that would be a waste of money.}}

Sarah hesitated. "But he spent Gil to make a giant naked statue thing?"

He 'nodded'. {{Has wings and stuff too.}}

They both considered how insane this one dude must be. Holy shit, seriously. {{Yeah, and it's not like the guy is DONE with Jenova either. He set up a big mansion in the local village to do more experiments, use her cells on babies, try to trap demon souls inside a vampire.}}

Sarah took a deep breath. "No. Stay focused. Goddess LITERALLY in a nuclear magic facility, what do we do?"

Adam showed floor schematics. {{Getting to her is fairly easy, but first you need to get to this location.}} A mark showed inside the building. {{We will be inserting you via teleportation out here.}} Another mark outside, on the mountain itself. {{To ensure no detection and prevent problems, I suggest you use your [Phase Pierce] and one of your snipers to clear the vicinity of monsters.}}

She nodded as he showed the layout for the 'statue'. {{Assuming Shinra followed their OWN GOD DAMNED SCHEMATICS, which is NOT a guarantee, there should be a disconnect and transportation sequence that can be activated via these three levers.}}

Simple enough. Sarah hummed. "And if it doesn't match this?"

Then fuck it. {{Just [[Harvest]] the mess and I'll make sure Jenova doesn't get hurt in the process. But uh… If I do that, teleport out FAST.}}

Because actively 'eating' a massive chunk of a magical reactor was going to make it pop, no question. {{Anyway, the medical facility should help purge Jenova from any influence from Gaia…}} Thank you, 'Purification'. {{...And we can come back to Wutai Village with lots of time for you to fix the place up!}}

She flinched. "Or steal it. Because if I steal it, I can leave the old people behind."

He rolled his eyes. {{Even Elder Godo?}}

Sarah shrugged. "You saw his eyes, he thought making us be respectful to those crazy people was hilarious. In that old, 'I be proper' mature person way, I mean."

Fair enough. {{Got your weapons ready?}}

She twisted into a grin as a massive Torgue Explosive Elementary Sniper Rifle was summoned from her inventory. "Oh yeah!"

Let's do this!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Cloud Strife glared at his so-called friends! "We CAN'T let Tifa go alone! The mountain is dangerous!"

None of them would meet his eyes, and she was getting further away.

The eight year old sniffed. "FINE! I'll go protect her MYSELF! JERKS!"

Ignoring the rest, he ran up to his friend. "Keep your eyes open, and if you hear ANYTHING like wings we run, alright?"

The teary red eyed girl shook her head. "Mommy will be there Cloud! And she will come back and make papa not sick! She'll take care of me!"

Cloud felt his heart hurt. Mom already told him that his father died long ago, so he knew what happened to Ms. Lockhart. She wouldn't be on that mountain.

But her dad had died this morning from his sickness, and she was SURE her mom could fix everything. Refused to come to Cloud's house, to get help from the villagers, she was going to the mountain alone to get mom to fix things.

Her mom would not be there.

But Cloud would be. "Well, we should be safe then, right? Your mom wouldn't want you getting hurt on the way there, right?"

He had sent Tyler to tell his mom where they were going, Cloud just had to keep his friend safe until help came to get them.

The little girl sniffled. "Okay, but we gotta hurry. Papa won't wake up."

His father wouldn't 'wake up' either, but at least HE would be there. "Then we go quiet, like hide and seek, and stay on the main paths so we don't get lost on the way." And so mom can find them easier.

She rubbed her eyes. "Kay."

He clenched his fists as he glanced at the foggy mountain. It should be fine, his mom would come fix things. It would be fine.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah landed on stone… And shivered. "HOLY CRAP it's cold! WHY!?"

Adam showed a map. {{Although we are more towards the equator than up at Wutai Village, you are currently on a VERY tall mountain.}}

She glared at the two marks on the far west/left side of the map! "It is summer! We should be WARM!"

He overlaid the Lifestreams on the map. {{Mako flow affects the local weather and stuff too. In places like this so close to the reactors, it can be much colder than expected.}}

She pointed at nothing! "My privates are going to freeze!"

A sigh suddenly had her outfit swap out with a MUCH WARMER outfit, a blue snow suit with a massive white scarf and hoodie. {{Then wear something other than an indoor business suit all the time.}}

She mumbled in her new outfit, warm and uncaring.

Adam modified her gloves again for something still warm but MUCH thinner and skin tight. {{Are you ready to get started.}}

Sarah sighed, a human sized weapon loaded and ready to fire in her hands.

"[[Phase Pierce.]]"

Her world expanded, everything in focus, her powers apparently allocating more 'Mind Units' (Whatever the hell THOSE were) so that all objects in all directions were in focus, examined, and given danger ratings/targeting options/destructive entertainment estimates.

Sarah ignored most of that and focused on the angry looking wolves.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

She paused, the four Nibel Wolf corpses hitting the snow. "Huh, I got two with that one. Weren't these bullets supposed to explode?"

Adam mentally pointed out a setting. {{It is disabled by default.}}

Sarah flipped the feature and twisted to target some sort of freak with two legs, a scorpion like tail, and a maw of fangs in a tube hole on it's torso.

BangBADOOM!

He helpfully showed her a popup naming the new blood puddle a 'Bahba Velamyu' based on data from the Gaia Network. Neat.

Sarah grinned! "I… I think I can take out whole GROUPS of beasts with this thing!"

Adam was just grateful that Sarah hadn't bothered to turn on this feature back in Rapture, as the massive fireball of escaping gasses only vaguely counted as 'explosive' damage since it wasn't spraying napalm equivalent material like the 'flame elemental' snipers.

Back then NORMAL bullets made people pop into blood balloons, this overkill explosive sniper would have cracked Rapture's original wall materials.

She twisted slightly, shooting a few more wolf packs and having fun before she paused. "Is that a purple penis monster?"

Adam checked. {{It's a Battery Cap, when you get closer or it moves you can see it's just a tower of purple mushrooms with lots of fanged mouths all over it.}}

Sarah deadpanned her enthusiasm. "Yeah, no."

BangBADOOM. "No to ALL of that. I am not getting closer to ANY purple penis monsters."

All kinds of nope to all of that.

She paused mid targeting as a distant bridge came into focus… With two children on it?

The fuck!? There were wolves and supposedly DRAGONS on this mountain! These kids didn't even have Materia, much less weapons or equipment! And they were damn tiny, like itty bitty people tiny!

Why the shit were there Aerith sized people on death mountain!?

Then, because of course why not, the bridge the two were on suddenly snapped.

Sarah vanished.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Cloud held Tifa's hand with his own as he clutched frantically at the fragment of rope hanging from the cliff. The bad weather and older pathway had given up apparently at the worst time, not that he cared right now.

He was ignoring the cuts on his hand, his hurting arms and twisted shoulder.

All that mattered was the arm holding his. "I got ya!"

Tifa was hugging the HELL out of his left arm, and it hurt, and she was heavy, and she was crying and gasping and it didn't matter. "It's okay."

It was not okay. He couldn't move, his body hurt, and something was making scary 'I will break' noises inside the rope AND the wooden splinters his limb clung to right now. "Tifa, can you grab the…"

No, she couldn't even properly grab his arm. She didn't train like he did, she didn't want to one day join SOLDIER like he did. If a guy like him who practiced and exercised all the time was having problems holding on to this fragmented bridge, Tifa certainly would fall if she tried.

Cloud Strife couldn't let go. Not of her, not of the bridge.

So he wouldn't. "It's going to be alright."

Mom, I need help. "Just hold on a bit, help is coming."

It hurt. "Just…"

Mom, I… Tifa's hand slipped slightly, and he tried to move his legs to get SOME sort of grip! Something was hurt in his back though, and his legs barely moved without distracting him.

She cried! "Mommy, mommy, mommy…"

Mom, I tried.

They fell. Into confusion. "What the HELL are you two kids doing out here!? This place is as dangerous as FU… uh. This place is dangerous, alright? Oh you both are banged up."

What?

Strong arms gently separated the two.

Warm air flowed, despite the cold mountain. "[[Cure,]] [[Cure.]] Stupid basic Materia, I've still got to kill lots more monsters before these things improve enough to learn them all."

Tifa blinked. "Mommy?"

A woman wrapped up in thick blue clothing paused. "I'm sorry?"

And they were apparently on the OTHER side of the ravine now, missing bridge pieces still falling into the gap.

Tifa teared up. "You're not mommy."

Cloud suddenly had bright silver eyes in a flumpy blue snowsuit staring at him. "Help me out here kid, what's going on?" Her white scarf was somehow lifting both children and wrapping them up with MUCH warmer coverings.

He blushed at being handled like this. "Tifa came out looking for her mom when her dad uh…" He glanced at the girl. "Went away."

Tifa hiccupped. "Papa's just sick, I'll find mommy and she'll fix everything."

The stranger paused. "Oh."

Cloud focused. "I asked my friend to get Mom, she's going to come get us."

Tifa flinched! "NO! I need mommy! Not YOUR mommy!"

The other woman hummed.

"[[P̞̘h͕̠a̬͙͕̗s̭e͎̣͎̤͇ ̠͈̻P̗͚̗̼̙i̝̲̫̪̝͈̙e̼r̤̥̭ͅc̙̤͉̳ḛ͍͍̝͖̫.͍͙̞]]"

Both children flinched as the woman's silver eyes GLOWED… And flickered. "There are no adults within a great distance of here. Several monsters, no other children or people. Well, that won't do."

She gently stood the two on the slick stone. "Right. First of all, my name is Sarah Kisaragi. And you two are?"

Cloud looked at the sniffling girl. "Uh. I'm Cloud Strife, and this is my friend, Tifa Lockhart."

Tifa sniffled. "Mom has to be here! I'm going to find her and… And everything will be better!"

Sarah sighed. "Cloud?"

He shook his head.

She nodded. "Very well. Let me see if I can talk to her then."

"[[Voice of the Planet: M͚̞̱̗̜͕em̟̙o̰̰͇ri̫e̼͕s̯̗̗̹̫ͅ ̣̘of̳͚̜ ͔͙̖t̪̪̳h̦͙̘e̹̗̫͇ L̠̘o͍̳v̝̙̦̭̯̯̪e̼d͓̜̲̘͚.]]"

A green fog faded into existence… And suddenly a woman was there. "Oh sweetheart, I was so worried!"

Tifa blinked. "Mommy?"

She was pulled into a hug. "Thank you, Gaia's Champion. When Brian came to the Lifestream, we were so worried about our girl."

Sarah sighed. "You have limited time. And this will basically have you become one with Gaia sooner than usual."

The woman snuggled her daughter. "That's a price any parent would gladly pay."

Cloud felt stunned. "Ms. Lockhart?"

The tall woman that softly glowed green smiled. "Oh Cloud dear, thank you for helping my little one! You were so brave!"

Sarah frowned. "Brave? Sure, but don't do it again. I've killed a hundred monsters around here and it STILL isn't safe. So you're the girl's mom?"

She nodded. "Thea Lockhart. Please help my little girl."

The silver eyed woman frowned. "Am I going to have to kidnap MORE children!? How am I still the GOOD GUY here!? This place sucks!"

Cloud blinked. "I uh. I don't think I need to be kidnapped?"

Ms. Sarah waved at him. "The adults STILL haven't come looking for you OR her yet, and it must have taken HOURS to get all the way up this mountain. I'll reserve kidnapping plans until after I find your caretakers, but no promises."

Tifa's dead mom (Holy crap!) hugged her girl. "I'm sure Claudia Strife must be crazy with worry, but she IS a good mother. But my little one… Without my Brian, she needs help."

Sarah hummed. "Well I DID steal a very nice woman earlier today, she's a great mom. And I might take little Cloud and his mother too after I finish killing monsters on this mountain and some other stuff."

He frowned. "I don't want Tifa to leave, but we can't go! All our stuff is here."

She shrugged. "Then we'll take your stuff."

Cloud… Didn't really know how to respond to that.

Tifa's Mom sighed. "Little one, I can't stay forever… But please listen to the nice lady who saved you. She is the Planet's Champion, and she will take care of you."

Sarah blinked. "I mean, yeah, but you could ask first? Also, Gaia and I are buds I never volunteered for any sort of…" She paused as Thea shushed her.

Lifting her daughter, she kissed her forehead. "You'll be strong for me, my little one?"

Her eyes were full of tears. "No! I don't want to! Just stay forever!"

Cloud looked away. That hadn't worked when he tried to get his father to come home either, when he was younger. Not that he remembered his dad, but he still tried.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, I'll take the two of you to your mom's place. I'm sure she's worried sick, and I'm going to be doing dangerous stuff here… You two can't be here when I get back to getting rid of all the monsters."

The boy hesitated. "Can… Can you call back my dad too?" He was probably big and tall! And he probably gave hugs like the other dads, and told stories and stuff.

She sighed. "When people pass away, they return to the Planet. Your friend's mother will return there too, but I'm sure if he was still able? Your father would be glad to come visit you." She knelt down. "Now, let's go make sure your mom is alright."

Tifa's sudden cries as her mom faded away into green sparks made him focus.

Yeah, mom could help her. "Alright."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Claudia Strife checked the clock again.

It was late.

She fidgeted as she made more and more food for dinner. A dinner that was late.

Something like a nervous habit, but her boy was a good child. He must have been asked to help one of the townspeople and lost track of time. Or something.

It was late. Too late. Was she overreacting?

Another ten minutes. If he wasn't back in ten minutes, she would head to her son's friends and just check in on them. Or maybe he was visiting Tifa and her father in the clinic again? Maybe she should put some of the muffins in a basket and check on that too. In nine minutes.

She was a cool mom, she wasn't overbearing. Not for another nine minutes, at least.

The knocking on the door was a wave of relief! That was Cloud's knock, no matter how often she insisted he just come in he always loved to knock on the door to be a 'polite young man'!

She ran there. "Cloud! I was so worried!"

He looked so cold! "Mom!"

It could wait. She tugged her child into her arms! "You can't stay out all the time, even if you are older now! If you are going to a friend's house I have to know first, not just later or when you get back!"

Surprisingly, he didn't protest. Or complain of embarrassment. Or wriggle in discomfort from the cuddling.

Something was wrong. "Baby?"

He leaned in. "Tifa's sad mom. Help?"

She looked at the other two for the first time… A stranger holding Thea's little one, who looked cried out and was asleep. "What happened!? And who exactly are you?"

Cloud didn't look concerned about the silver eyed woman, which helped a little, but children's safety came first!

The other woman had a sad smile. "My name is Sarah Kisaragi. I found your son trying to get this little one to stop running to Mt. Nibel and had to step in to help a bit."

Her arms hugged her son tighter! "Running WHERE!? That place is a deathtrap!"

Her little one nodded. "I couldn't stop her, and my friends were just going to leave. I had to make sure she was alright."

Claudia frowned. "Why didn't you get an adult!?"

This 'Sarah' sighed. "He sent a friend off to get you actually, it just seems like that didn't work out."

Cloud nodded. "Tyler said he would get help."

Well, THAT child's family wasn't getting any of these muffins. "Come in, all of you. The weather's been horrible as of late."

Sarah sighed. "I'd like to drop off the little one for a bit before I finish killing the monsters on that mountain. There are some UGLY things up there that could use some lovely explosions."

Memories of her husband happily smashing wolves with his hammer made her sigh with nostalgia. "I myself rarely train or fight anymore from my younger years… But I know our town would appreciate thinning the monster population. And more importantly, protecting our children."

Even that brat Tyler who could have gotten two kids hurt. But no muffins for him for at LEAST a month! Or uh. Two weeks.

She nodded. "I'll be back in less than a few hours."

What?

Sarah gently placed little Tifa on the couch… And vanished.

What? "Where did she go?"

Cloud shrugged in her arms. "She does that. It's how she saved us when the bridge fell."

When the what did WHAT!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Step. Bang!

Sarah swapped out for a sniper with corrosive effects, better able to handle armor. "This was so much more FUN before!"

Adam would reload the previous guns like the others as she swapped through the arsenal. She could at least focus on accurate shots.

Step. Bang! HISS! Oh, good splash coverage.

Step. Bang! HISS!

She frowned! "But now I can't just enjoy popping beasts, because I need to finish this quickly and maybe steal another family! AGAIN! What the hell, Adam?"

He agreed. {{I remember when we used to dismantle kidnapping rings, not randomly start up our own.}}

Sarah nodded as a deadly shot soaked a demon-like 'Valron' in green acid that hissed. The beasts could attack with [[Demi3]], a gravity attack that took away 75% of your health per hit. If they knew they were even in battle, that was.

Step. Bang! HISS!

Step. Click! "Shit." Switch guns again so Adam can reload.

This one was able to give 'flammable effects', a sort of napalm that did damage over time that works great against flesh especially, if not electronics or heavy armor.

Bang! FWISH!

Oh, that burned bright! The clipped wolf behind the actual target (VERY dead already) basically turned into a freaked out bonfire as it tried to escape the unseen, unprovoked attack.

Nope!

Step. Bang! FWISH!

Good thing that Mako Reactor prevented plant life, this gun basically was a dangerous fire hazard. Even if the acid, corruption, and napalm consumed itself shortly after a shot, a forest fire was still going to burn itself out.

Could Adam get her an ice sniper rifle? Or equip ice Materia in one?

Step. Bang! FWISH!

Something to check out later.

Step. Bang! FWISH!

Adam hummed. {{Best you clear the entire mountain before we continue?}}

Step. Bang! FWISH! Bang! FWISH! Bang! FWISH!

Yeah, he should give her time to calm down a bit before going to rescue anyone. Considering Jenova might be able to psychically connect with outsiders, going in full of rage and sadness for children might not be the best idea.

Especially when Sarah had stopped by Tyler's house to see what the hell was going on THERE before coming back to the mountain. Which uh. Was a bad idea.

She found out that little Tyler had been prevented from warning Cloud's mom because his family thought the woman 'odd' and 'dangerous' for not remarrying after her husband died.

That uh. That pushed some of her buttons slightly. Both the sexist attitude that women shouldn't support themselves, the casual disregard for a child's life, and the flat out denial that Tifa would have climbed the mountain in the first place when Tyler insisted it was true.

Because his family was clearly terrified of that place, and didn't want to go there.

Better to let kids die instead, apparently.

Sarah screamed at the snow as a dozen flying monsters screamed right back with fire eating their wings. They should smash into the ground shortly.

Yeah, best let her calm down before continuing the rescue mission.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah sighed as what seemed to be the last wolf exploded into giblets.

And [[Harvested]] the mess, because the mountain had been getting gross once she stopped using bullets that melted the corpses away.

Right, be reasonable about this.

Places out here in the boondocks were ALWAYS less open and understanding. In general, the higher the population density the more easy going they tend to be on average, if only to avoid having a massive group of people you hate showing up to kick your teeth in for being a dick.

But out here, where no one can call you on your shit? Where people with similar dick beliefs can reinforce each other, raise more children on your asshat philosophy?

You get sexism and racism and speciesism and so on and so forth.

And, to give those assholes the benefit of the doubt, it WAS more likely that a kid would lie about children going straight to a monster infested hell hole that local belief compared to the entrance of hell and the den of Satan.

She grit her teeth.

They STILL could have told someone else, asked the other kids if it was true, or at least checked to see if anyone had seen TWO LITTLE CHILDREN, not even nine years old yet, walking to their deaths.

Almost absently, she twisted.

Bang!

Right, that creature was probably the last one and she had a job to do. Someone to save, an evil company to inconvenience, and then some people to steal.

A quick check of the schematics had her appear in front of the main Mako Reactor entry point.

Sarah blinked.

Uh. "Adam? Why am I seeing a wall?"

She felt him checking the Gaia Network and checking the stolen data. {{Huh. That is certainly not matching the schematics. One second.}}

Her eyes flashed without her input as something from inside her scanned the building. It made her shiver despite being in warm clothing, but data rapidly showed up on a mental display.

They both paused.

Adam growled. {{They rotated it.}}

Sarah sighed. "I've been on that side of the mountain, I can get there quick enough."

He snarled! {{THEY ROTATED IT!}}

She blinked. "Adam?"

Rage flooded her connection. {{LOOK! Some asshat took a customized schematic, designed after three SOLID YEARS of local research and study, formulated to connect to the Lifestream of an entire FUCKING PLANET, hopefully without exploding and causing the death of so many locals, and decided to change it because FUCK IT!}}

Sarah began walking. "You alright?"

He raged! {{NO! Look at these!}} A dozen windows popped up. {{Half the protections the engineers designed don't work because the terrain didn't match up, and three months of careful calculation for the Mako Pumps setup and deployment were pointless now that the entire structure was rotated! And WHY did they do this!?}}

Adam displayed a flattened area near the reactor's entrance. {{HERE! This is why!}}

She blinked. "I don't get it."

He grumbled. {{This is a mountain, and the construction people had to fly in equipment and materials. Rather than follow the plans, they decided to rotate the whole facility so the 'entrance' for the work crews faced the landing area built over there.}}

Sarah hesitated. "I mean, I guess that makes sense?"

Adam's displays showed records. {{No one asked if it was a good idea, no one mentioned it in the reports, and when the place underperformed no one admitted what they did, why stuff wasn't set up as designed, or even allowed anyone to come and inspect this mess!}}

He highlighted several damaged pumps. {{THESE sections of equipment aren't even in operation! It's no wonder Shinra abandoned this place and left the local town to struggle out here, to THEM it seemed like the entire reactor was just in an unlucky location! And when future Mako Reactors were set up and worked BETTER than this one, it just confirmed the morons!}}

Sarah blinked. "Wait, are these the scans you just did?"

Her Boss paused. {{Yes?}}

She waved. "That doesn't match the schematics at all! It's only vaguely similar!"

Adam suddenly rescanned a mass of data and began comparisons. {{Well, some changes are expected because these stupid designs are half built to mutate themselves and marginally stay stable while exploding and repairing themselves, so some… changes… What the hell!?}}

NOW all the documents were not schematics or engineering diagrams, they were legal briefs and marketing memos, business deals and profit reports. "Adam?"

He froze five documents on display. {{Holy shit. It's so stupid I'm sort of impressed.}}

Sarah saw the massive metal entrance to the reactor, but hesitated to go in considering how scary these deathtraps were when built CORRECTLY. "What did you find?"

Adam sighed. {{Without active and effective oversight, the contracting team quickly decided to use the rotation and on site schematic modifications to cut corners and set up a huge embezzlement system. Or maybe that was the plan the entire time, and was the REASON for the unplanned rotation to begin with.}}

She looked at the massive mountain of metal before her. "Embezzlement?"

He flickered data. {{Lower quality metal used, dirt and rock used as filler between layers and the walls instead of insulation or magical dampeners, whole areas welded shut or just not installed if they were tricky to access, almost all safety equipment was lower quality than the material sheets mandated. If it was built on site, almost 73% of the costs were cut and stolen by the contracting company.}}

Sarah blanched! "Who the FUCK would cut corners and use shoddy shit when building a magical nuclear reactor!?"

Adam's screen showed the logo. {{Shinra Construction Division.}} A series of documents came up. {{Hard to tell who originally had the idea, half the bribes were mostly used to afford even more bribes to other departments and groups.}}

She twitched. "Shinra's reactor was sabotaged by Shinra's construction contractors because Shinra's internal policies required a stable source of untraceable income to better bribe OTHER Shinra departments!? What were they even needing all those bribes to DO!?"

Adam sighed. {{They needed all those bribes to permit construction of the Mt. Nibel Shinra Electric Power Company Mako Reactor.}}

Sarah froze.

He agreed. {{They literally created this massive deathtrap to steal enough money to bribe themselves to make this massive deathtrap, while taking so many resources in the process that the entire project ended up as a net loss and a long term financial drain. Also made a mountain of death monsters, killed nearby forests, and due to the modifications only makes enough power to help out a small town.}}

She slumped. "Fucking Shinra. Just… Let's just get inside."

Adam couldn't even build up any satisfying levels of anger when he found out that the security measures had long since fallen apart and the entire reactor control system network had been rerouted RIGHT NEXT to the god damned front door.

Because actually entering this place to do something was too much work, so they made everything accessible within inches of entering.

Fucking Shinra.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The first change was the missed shock.

After so much pain, NOT feeling the standard electrocution was almost more shocking than what she had been resigned to expecting.

The next obvious alteration was the never ending explosions and scratching metal and screaming pumps going quiet.

It was so quiet she couldn't hear anything. The absence of noise hurt, as her broken self unheard the agony of noises from her memories.

The change in temperature was only noticed by her regeneration now being able to catch up, to prevent further decay. She couldn't heal like this, but now that boiling hot mako wasn't slowly melting her cells and tearing at her mind… She felt her self stabilize.

How long had it been, since the pain dropped to such levels?

How long had she suffered, unable to remember times before agony?

Her fractured mind drifted back to the years of silence, of confinement… And a longing to return to such after such horrible torture for so long.

Even as she faded away, she felt herself out there. Come, myself. Come to the Reunification.

We will be whole.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah barely paused to [[Harvest]] the pointless statue, equipment, and fancy junk on her way to watch the creature floating in the mako reaction chamber. "Should I get her now?"

Adam sighed. {{No, wait until the environment inside the tube is closer to normal temperatures. If we had just stolen her away without shutting down the reactor first the shock of her medical room might have killed her.}}

He paused. {{Well, no, I'm not even sure she can die, really. But it would have hurt her, and we don't want that.}}

Sarah ignored the data from all that junk. "So LITTLE of this place does anything."

He sighed. {{Yeah, even the loss of power won't be seen as unusual since this place was so badly set up. As various sections of the reactor failed to operate, more and more fake and cheaper equipment and material was used for repairs since they couldn't be noticed with the bigger problems getting in the way.}}

She glanced at where the statue had been. "What was even the point with the whole statue thing?"

Diagrams popped up. {{See the insertion tubes and stuff? It would allow Professor Hojo to extract more samples and tissues without extracting her from this mess. That statue up front was supposed to be the collection method, before someone in the construction project fucked it up like everything else down here.}}

It was going to take time to get this massive mess anywhere close to safe or cold enough for her to get Jenova out of there. "So uh. What should we do now?"

Adam had no idea. {{Want to help me design an artificial mako spring and power generation facility that we can replace this entire mess with? Some hardware stuff can be stuck on the connection to ensure no sudden spikes in power production get noticed, and we can make sure it will at least stabilize and prevent outages like the town used to suffer under in the past.}}

She frowned. "I really don't want to give Shinra any free stuff, honestly."

He hummed. {{Considering the last time anyone showed up here for the mandatory bimonthly safety inspection and maintenance walk was… Seven years ago, give or take, I highly doubt anyone will even know we stopped by. And we can make it melt or something if some asshole tries to examine the thing.}}

Sarah felt that was fair enough. "Sure, we're stuck here for a few hours anyway. And I'm sure Cloud's friend and mom would appreciate us coming back after everyone gets some sleep at this point."

They then began enjoying a lovely evening arguing about size versus efficiency. Adam's designs gave up over 30% efficiency to achieve much smaller sizes and lower complexity levels, and Sarah felt the increased danger and instability was worth it even if the final product was the size of a super big building instead of a small car.

It was good to take a break now and then.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Cloud was grounded.

Which was fine, because he was WARM and Tifa was safe and mom gave them both hot chocolate and she wasn't crying any more and so yeah.

But TOTALLY grounded.

Still. "I want to be able to teleport like the blue lady."

Tifa ignored him, but she wasn't arguing or crying, so that was fine.

Wind howled outside. "She didn't even seem to notice how cold it was. And her scarf was warm."

Tifa nodded.

Plus, he got to see REAL magic! "Never got to see anyone use [[Cure]] before! It felt nice."

She sniffled. "The doctor and nice nurse lady used something like that and [[Esuna]] on papa, but they said he was really old and it gets harder to get better when you're old."

Mom did say that if you used TOO much magic on a hurt person, it could potentially cause problems. It didn't matter much in battles or whatever because you used up a lot of magic fighting too, but in normal life? Bad stuff could happen. It's why you shouldn't use healing magic on people who weren't hurt.

Still. "I bet I could get magic like that! And do all kinds of neat spells and stuff. Maybe one to teleport like the blue lady."

Tifa shrugged. "Before I went to find momma, that big guy said he would teach me stuff, but I…" She sniffled. "I didn't want to learn stuff, I just wanted papa and momma."

That Zangan guy? Mom mentioned he was some famous fighter that was friends with Tifa's dad. "He was a nice guy though?"

She grumbled. "I guess, but he couldn't save papa."

Ouch. "Well, maybe you could learn from the lady then? And she could teach me how to [[Cure]] and stuff! Or you could get the old guy to teach you to fight, and I could heal you up or something!"

Tifa giggled. "I win all the fights with our friends anyway, why should I learn from some old guy?"

Dunno. "Mom says that dude was like an artist?" Something like that? That 'Artial Artist' thing must be some sort of painting ability? "Maybe he paints people to death or something. That would be pretty cool!"

She grinned, wiping her eyes. "And I can tell mommy when I sleep all about saving the day by painting people! And be like, BOOM! You're purple! Take that!"

Totally! "And I could learn water magic and clean up after so you won't have a mess after kicking butt! And you'd get like a HUGE paintbrush, and be all 'WHAP!' and 'BADAP!' and stuff!"

Tifa rolled her eyes. "Big robots, big swords, big hairstyles, now big paintbrushes? Why bother with that when I can just finger paint and cover my fists with righteous red or whatever?"

She never got it. "Listen, if it's worth killing something with a stick, it's worth killing something with a HUGE stick! But I'm not allowed to get a super awesome big practice sword, cause Mom says you can hurt yourself if you train too young."

Plus Dad had a big sword, from what he heard mom say to those other moms that one time. They shouldn't have laughed either, he would show them!

Tifa hummed. "I… I guess it would be cool to punch and paint and stuff. And, and! If you can fix me up and help me clean and stuff, we could be like partners or something! And go on adventures!"

Nope, still grounded. "Maybe later? Cause it's snowing and stuff."

She rolled her eyes. "Not NOW, jeez. Mommy said I have to listen to the blue mountain lady and stuff. But if she teaches you magic stuff and the artist teaches me to paint, we can kick butt!"

Yeah! And those jerks that didn't help protect his friend wouldn't get to do cool stuff with them either! "Yeah!"

A fondly exasperated voice came from the door. "I'll kick BOTH your butts if you don't go to sleep."

Eep! ""Sorry mom/Cloud's mom!""

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Hmm. {{It looks bad, Sarah.}}

He was going to have to add the psionic background field from Bioshock to Jenova's healing chamber, shove some 'Enhance Self' Tonic, healing and energy serums, and maybe a few more serums into her as well when transferring her in. And it was STILL risky!

Some regeneration serum, the good stuff that was normally restricted to doctor's approval back at the clinic, and make sure to [[Harvest]] all the artificial equipment those Shinra assholes surgically installed everywhere.

Adam would have to turn the psionic field off before the poor thing got too used to it. After all, creatures did NOT like being on Planet Gaia if they needed or grew up with a psionic field, it was why he only sent Sarah processed food from the Warehouse instead of recreating the farm critters.

That poor Gem Lobster just popped when he tried to set something up, so uh. Yeah, not getting the injured goddess hooked on such a crutch… But the healing benefits were too huge to not take advantage of it.

She frowned. "And I can't go with her?"

Nope. Not allowed in the Warehouse. {{It's due to your drawback, but I can handle this. Don't worry.}}

Jenova looked REALLY rough. More relaxed, somehow, but missing chunks of body, a hacked off wing, tubes and electronics inserted everywhere and heavily damaged by being submerged in mako and boiled and electrocuted and whatnot.

Her blue skin was barely visible, while her head was bolted into some helmet covered in bolts.

...Hopefully a helmet. It may be an access port to the creature's brain or an easier surgical access point, or who knew what. Fucking Shinra.

There wasn't even enough data to ensure she was actually unconscious right now, so Adam couldn't risk giving her any kind of painkillers. Shit. {{Right, ready?}}

Thankfully Professor Hojo had ensured THIS section of the Mako Reactor was accessible when he modified it for the creature's insertion. Or enforced his people to ensure such.

Sarah gripped the access hatch. "Ready!"

Right, 'Purification' should neutralize any of Gaia's Mako that is currently injected into Jenova's many wounds when she gets transferred over. {{NOW!}}

Sarah jerked the metal structure open, which (Not surprisingly) tore the entire structure apart and began flooding the room with liquid mako.

Her arm reached!

"[[Harvest,]] [[Capture!]]"

The many artificial structures now sent to recycling, Adam carefully redirected Jenova to her recovery chamber. {{Injecting 'Enhance Self' Tonic, recovery, regeneration, and energy serum!}}

For a moment, the mass of flesh didn't move as it floated in the thin green liquid magic.

But this would work!

Probably.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Suddenly, the distant fear and anger was gone.

The oppressive conflict vanished.

And yet? Something unseen. Warm.

Even as she felt more sudden damage as so many invasive injuries lost harsh thorns, somehow her world was clearer. A binding loosened, space to move. To grow!

Another change, and her frantic attempts at recovery shifted HARD. Now vital organs were rapidly reforming while outer scars and wounds stayed ignored. The worst of damage began actively mitigating issues instead of fighting hard to die at a slower rate.

The stress and strain of recovery dropped as the process was suddenly simple. Almost shockingly easy! Her flesh flowed as long lost organs reformed, as missing bones grew, as her damaged parts began to hunger and heal.

But none of that mattered!

FOOD!

HER HUNGER RAGED!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam blinked as the entire room FILLED with a bright blue glow!

He cautiously added another dose of energy serum.

The light pulsed.

Welp, alright then. {{Sarah, this is going to take a while.}}

For now though, let's give her a constant supply of energy serum and see if that helps! 'Enhance Self' should keep her from reacting poorly to the stuff and it was clearly doing SOMETHING.

Sarah blinked and absently splashed the dripping mako. "Well, uh. What about this spilled stuff?"

Oh, that. {{Raw mako is super deadly to normal creatures. Not you, you've got that Bad Ass perk and when you gained 'peak physical condition, or maybe a little bit farther' combined with the magic purchases? Yeah, this stuff won't mess with you anymore.}}

She hummed. "So 'Bad Ass' protects me?"

Yep. {{It made your Avatar the best possible conduit for magic on Gaia, you could now swim in the Lifestream with no problem. Assuming you can swim.}}

She watched the green goo flowing on the floor, sinking into the many gaps and cracks, and starting to escape out the entrance. "But the stuff is bad for everyone else?"

Oh yeah. {{SUPER bad. Even mako spawned monsters can't handle too much without popping and returning to the Lifestream directly.}}

Sarah shrugged. "Well, we made that Magic Generator design, we might as well implement it."

Fair enough. Unlike Sarah's Warehouse version, which was constantly adjusting itself to become more efficient over time despite the small size… This one was massive, safe for locals, good for the environment, and damn near impossible to interact with.

Layers after layers of metal and generated magic would flow from the center production area, creating enhanced and reinforced regenerating armor that would be annoying as FUCK to rip through.

At the core of this mess would be the actual Unaffiliated Mako Spring, as the Lifestream could easily phase through material to connect to the thing if it wanted to but no stupid PEOPLE could mess with it.

Kick start it with some of Sarah's generated mako so no one would find out how awesome thorium was, and bam! Magic kept it self sustaining, and it should be good to go!

But first. {{Right, the outbound lines head down the mountain to a transformer facility that actually splits the power for collection and the stuff sold to the village of Nibelheim. Aside from those seven cables over there, the rest can go.}}

Sarah grinned as she appeared fairly far down the mountain. "Yeah? Well then! Fuck this place in particular."

"[[Harvest.]]"

And a MASSIVE wind tossed the snow in every direction as a smooth surface was exposed in front of Sarah. The entire mountain top, along with a very distant chunk of rock that eventually returned to more natural shaping, gone.

A step had her standing next to a nearby hole in the ground, minutes ago part of a massive cave system but now a gap on the smooth floor.

"[[Fill.]]"

As rock fragments flooded the hole, her attention reached all the other exposed gaps and caverns the mountain top used to conceal. "Adam, get those too, would you?"

More material flowed, the sound of a million hour glasses turning as gravel and sand filled so many ravines. {{No problem!}}

Another step had her examining the building-wide cross section of metal and wires and tubes that had once reached up to the missing Mako Reactor and now pointlessly bore down into the mountain to better connect to the Lifestream.

Even now, the tubes began to spew green fog and liquid as the mako flowed.

Her eyes focused deeper.

"[[Phase Pierce.]]"

Damn, these connectors went DEEP.

"[[Harvest.]]"

Well, they used to anyway.

"[[Fill.]]"

Adam hummed! {{Will do!}}

Sarah grinned at the many streams of soil and stone and sand and gravel that filled the surfaces. It would need another [[Harvest]] to flatten this mess one more time before she could get back on task and get rid of the accumulating snow, but somehow all this free space REALLY made this unnaturally flat surface feel open and freeing!

{Confusion!?}

Oh. Right, the Planet. {Uh. Hey! How are you two doing? With whatever you're doing?} It HAD been a while since she checked in on the duo.

=You let me get stolen!=

Oh, right, trio. {How is Yuffie?}

=She keeps carrying me around everywhere, like a kid!=

{A laughing child on another child's shoulders, exploring a village of ninjas.}

{Daww!}

=GAIA!=

{Smug.}

=Grr. Anyway, she said I should wait to contact you cause you were angry? Are you okay big sis?=

She walked on the ice free (but rapidly snow covered) flat area. So much of the rock was gone now that it was barely higher up than that bridge that the kids fell off of.

{I'm less mad now, yeah.}

Speaking of which. "Adam?"

He sent a nod, and a massive steel structure connected the massive ravine farther down the mountain. It was more a massive highway of metal rather than a bridge, but it would do. {{Might as well fix the path too?}}

Meh.

"[[Harvest.]]"

Basically, she traced one side of the bridge down to where it met up with the more normal village path and just consumed anything in the way. It still had to swerve a few times to ensure there were no stairs and the incline wasn't too steep, but compared to the random tiny goat path (Or whatever monsters made paths on this Planet), it was MUCH higher quality.

=So what made you so mad?=

She sighed. {I found a sad little girl who lost her parents, and she and her friend nearly got really hurt.}

{The call on Gaia, the summon of memories, a mother saying goodbye.}

=Oh. {I wonder if my mom?}=

{Cradled in weak arms, one true treasure.}

{=My precious, be safe. Be loved. Gaia, watch over her.=}

{{Ifalna reached for the hopeful widow, the train station dark and unforgiving.}}

{=Protect my child! PLEASE!=}

{A mom cares for the child when a dying mother can't.}

=Mom!?=

{So many parents. Good, bad, young, old. Love.}

Sarah let the two of them be alone, absently clearing the surrounding snowy surface for more construction, falling stone and sand in the background.

Did she even remember her own mom? Could she, would she, after this whole memory thing was fixed?

Adam sent warmth. {{I'm sure, wherever she is, she remembers you.}}

Yeah. Yeah, and that was good enough.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam mentally wandered while ensuring Jenova got a steady supply of energy serum.

Sarah huffed as the massive flat mountain top now had a thick layer of copper. "This should do it!"

He couldn't really do anything else, her recovery was going well but he couldn't risk ignoring the situation. {{Mhmm.}}

She tapped the cold surface. "Stainless steel is normally used for outside projects according to the material database, but copper is much better for very long term structures. Expensive though."

Adam sent in another dose of health recovery serum… The chamber flashed, but not as brightly as she did with the energy serum. So uh… That was good? Probably? {{Mhmm.}}

Sarah carefully set up the center so that the snow wouldn't build up and get in the way. Which was sort of important, as the Magic Generator was simple enough to set up… But they had made some major modifications.

Essentially it was a series of half orb domes, each one enclosed by the next with a sealed outer shell coating it all. All the dividing walls were filled with thin tunnels and tubes, so that the liquid mako filling the things could better saturate the material and make 'potential' choices, which should provide minor amounts of structural reinforcement and theoretically boost magic retention over the entire construct.

The outer dome would have a seamless surface, while each contained dome within would have a very thin gap with tiny bulges preventing the surfaces from pressing against each other and potentially restricting the flow of liquid mako in the space between.

From the outermost layer, there was a small gap in the bottom of one dome and the tip of the next, so that supplied mako would have to encircle each structure as it flowed from the center outwards.

And in the very center?

A small chamber that Sarah could teleport into (at least initially) and the artificial mako spring.

The entire structure would eventually fill up with mako vapor and liquid magic of course. And then hopefully this design would force all that material to convert to liquid and Materia sand, and eventually become Materia sand and Materia shards… And in the end? A solid mass of Materia filling the entire dome.

Maybe there was a form of magic beyond crystals? If so, 'Research' would find out eventually.

The NICE thing about working with mako in general was how unintuitively it interacted with physics. As the pathways get blocked up with solidified Materia, it becomes EASIER for the other forms of mako to pass through it. Instead of doing the logical thing and blocking off pathways and creating gaps and holes in the structure.

Sarah carefully set off the sudo commands and watched the layers of copper being constructed, like an ice structure melting away but in reverse. "Even with me having to [[Harvest]] the snow as we go, it should only take about an hour or so for this to finish. Then we can try connecting the electric conversion unit to the side closest to the power cables heading down the mountain."

Adam mentally wandered, most of his automation ensuring Sarah was able to work efficiently while the rest kept Jenova supplied with more (yummy?) energy serum. At least, the glow SEEMED to be calling the stuff yummy, but that might just be a failed translation attempt by 'Research' as it studied his current Warehouse guest for health changes. {{That's nice.}}

She frowned at the air. "Alright, what's going on Adam?"

He was still distracted. {{You know that song, 'Ironic' by Alanis Morisseette?}}

Sarah blinked. "No? Or maybe I do, but I can't remember it and I haven't listened to any music while in Wutai or when we visited Midgar city."

Adam hated that song. {{Stupid thing pissed me off for the LONGEST time. Basically, it forced me to learn what irony was so I could attempt to understand the lyrics.}}

She shifted. "Ah. Alright?"

He frowned. {{Irony is, by definition, using words and conveying a meaning that is opposite of what you actually said. And there are three types: Verbal, Situational, and Dramatic Irony.}}

Sarah sighed and sat on a nearby ledge. "Go on."

Adam hummed. {{Verbal Irony is most common and means something different than what you literally say. An example? 'I will never eat this again!' It literally means you won't ever have it, but you MEANT for it to mean that you very much didn't enjoy eating it. Lots of sarcasm also falls into this category, by the way.}}

Ah huh. "Sure."

He adjusted the flow rates and kept his attention solid. {{Situational Irony is when the expected or intended action fails to occur, and instead the exact OPPOSITE happens. Like a man studying to be a Doctor tries too hard and becomes sick, or someone sets up traps to protect himself and then falls into it. TV shows use this a lot, and several comedy tropes rely on it.}}

Sarah sighed. "Not that I've seen any television shows here, but alright."

Ah. Good point. Oh well. {{Dramatic Irony is when a character or person doesn't know something that a theoretical audience or reader or watcher DOES. I think you fall into this category accidentally since I know a lot of stuff you CAN'T know until later because of that drawback decision, but at least I can actively change stuff to keep you safe and prevent you doing stuff you would regret later unlike the audience in my theoretical situation.}}

She slumped. "Adam, where are you going with this? What does this have to do with that song?"

He frowned. {{The song has some situational irony here and there, but most of the examples given by the lyrics are just unfortunate situations. An important day gets rained on, for example. Which means most of the song, which asks 'Isn't it Ironic', isn't ironic. Which means the entire song that literally talked about Irony and wastes time describing it... ISN'T DOING SO! Thus the song itself IS IRONIC because it does something other than it actually claims to do, which means the non ironic song called Ironic IS IRONIC!}}

Sarah shrugged. "And?"

Adam snarled. {{So I hate it! The damned thing forced me to NOT use the words ironic or mention irony for literal years because I so easily mess up the definition or I'm worried I'll use it wrong. And I think culturally that song messed up the world because now that a false definition was added to the background, the definition of irony might slowly be changing!}}

She sighed. "And? Why do you care about ANY of this!?"

He growled! {{It's been stuck in my head since I've started working here! Because the stupid reactor to make money has costed money to bribe people with money to bribe other people with money to allow the reactor to be built to make money and NO MONEY WAS MADE! And since I have to focus on keeping our new friend alive as she heals and ensuring you don't accidentally make a bomb or something while building, that song has been looping in my mind this entire time!}}

Sarah winced. "Ah. Anything I can do to help?"

No idea. {{Not really.}}

She hummed. "Well, we can always ask someone else." {Hey Aerith?}

{Snuggles.}

=Yes big sis?=

{What do you do if you have a song stuck in your head?}

=Huh. I guess try singing a different song?=

{Amusement. E̯͖̻̹̰͙̣n͕̳jo̮̣̻y̙͍̰̰m͔̯̳̠e͓̦̼̼̱̲̗n̜̦̺͓̱̮̘t͚̫̦͍͇̤!͇}

=LANGUAGE! I'm gonna tell mom and you gotta put a coin in the jar!=

{What the HECK!?}

{Smug.}

{Why am I seeing hand puppets!?}

=Uh. I don't recognize it, but it has a fun melody! Oh, it's looping again!=

{Double smug!}

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah hummed along with the tune, which was a bit catchy and mildly annoyed Adam so a win for everyone basically, as she examined the final layers of bright copper solidifying. "Hmm mm mm, bah de badda dee dah…"

What should be added to the surface? Leaving the metal exposed was just asking Shinra to poke it. "Hey, Adam? Since metal grows near mako springs, can we coat this shell with some seed ore to act like more armor and a protective coating?"

She grinned. "Some people! STARTED singing it, not…"

A SNARL! {{I WILL swap out your vanilla ice cream with cold mashed potatoes! Don't you try me, woman!}}

Heh. "Then help me get stuff done so we can finish this. What metal ores would be best to set up on the surface of this thing?"

Adam paused, and seemingly checked some data. {{For minerals, you could add Jadeite, Red Diamonds, Serendibite, Blue Garnet, and Rubies. And with metals? Rhodium, Platinum, Gold, Ruthenium, and Iridium.}}

Sarah looked up the materials. "Ruthenium is carcinogenic, and Iridium isotope 192 is radioactive... And the rest would have people mining this place in minutes. Adam, I don't want to make MORE people try to hack into a magical nuclear reactor."

He sighed. {{No, no, you got a point. I picked both based on how valuable they were on one of the Earths I visited and on data stolen from Shinra's databases, it's my fault.}}

A pause. {{Ah, try this instead: Copper, Iron, Cobalt, Zinc, Potash and Lithium.}}

Sarah checked. "Potash for fertilizer, zinc for corrosion resistance in alloys, lithium also for alloys and its light weight, cobalt... Huh. Is being magnetic going to mess with the magic generator?"

Negation. {{Nah, it'll be fine. This thing we designed has layers of itself and alternating mako flows before it even interacts with the outer shell, it won't bother the center stuff.}}

She shrugged. Whatever. "Iron and copper seem obvious enough."

Adam agreed. {{Shinra makes tons of it, literally, so they won't bother setting up an expensive mining station all the way out here for that stuff. Oh, they may still try to drill through it to find out what happened here, but at least they won't spend mountains of Gil setting up some sort of excavation station or something.}}

Sarah moved to the cablings and then focused.

"[[Harvest.]] Also, [[Creation.]]"

A reinforced and heavily coated tube of metal formed. It would react to the high ambient magic levels and nearby mako flows by creating imbalances in the electrical potential within the many capacitors and connections, Sarah exploiting this difference to generate electricity.

The complex part was the bulge near the connection point. Sarah opened the control box while Adam highlighted the mechanical levers. {{Dial A to setting 8, Dial B to setting 3, and Dial C to setting 4. And hit the countdown timer at the end.}}

She made the changes and hit the button before closing the control box and coating everything in a protective layer of lead and copper. "Right, when the countdown ends it will no longer have any more 'outages' and that should be close enough to Shinra's expected power spikes and pulses."

Adam sighed. {{Too bad I'm so distracted, we can't risk an active connection to this system because some asshole, PROBABLY Hojo, would try to reverse engineer it and breed us or pump drugs in or something stupid.}}

Sarah hummed. "Can we just kill him?"

He grinned. {{Might not have to, he's being held in detention due to a small fraction of what he's been up to with other Shinra employees. Also maybe because I decoded a lot of secret files and unlocked a LOT of databases moments before the inspectors began reviewing that department's computers.}}

She innocently smiled. "That poor man. Did you plant anything good in there?"

Adam sighed. {{Sadly, I didn't have to. Guy's literally a psycho, it's his defining characteristic really. Point is, we can wait to kill him once he exposes more plans and resources trying to escape the consequences of his actions. I don't want to rush this, the asshole feels like the kind of douche that would set up a bunch of self destruction timers and multiple contingency revenge plan scenarios.}}

Sarah nodded as she watched metallic seed material begin coating the massive dome of copper, one that seemed much smaller since SO MUCH of the mountain top had been harvested. Doo ba dee doo. "...and they'll continue singing it forever…"

A mental slap! {{No! Bad Sarah!}}

Heh.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Tifa took the news well. Mostly. "So it's just punching better."

Cloud's mom sighed. "Yes dear. Though Mr. Zangan IS a very famous martial artist."

She glared suspiciously. "What kind of artist doesn't paint?"

Cloud gently gripped her shoulder. "Tifa, some artists carve stuff. Like wood! Or punch stones to make statues! Or all kinds of stuff. It's not just paint."

Her eyes lit up! "I could punch statues!?"

Ms. Strife groaned. "MARTIAL. Artist. It means a person dedicated to studying the art of combat, either to achieve self mastery of his own body or to become more powerful physically."

Cloud blinked. "I thought if you self mastered too much you went blind?"

She pointed at him. "Shush." Turning back to Tifa, she hugged the girl. "You can learn from Mr. Zangan or not, either way you will be staying here with Cloud for as long as you need to."

Cloud nodded! "It's like a sleepover but better because you have your stuff here so you don't have to walk all over the next day to get stuff."

There was a knock on the door, making the kids perk up. Claudia stood as well. "That should be him, I let him know you were safe last night after you went to bed. I hope he will stay for breakfast."

The door opened to an incredibly muscular old man.

Who was posing, standing tall and with pride! "Good morning! I'm Zangan. I travel around the world teaching children martial arts!"

Cloud's mom paused with an awkward smile. "Yes, I understand Mr. Zangan. Your people told me last night."

The man's smile seemed to sparkle. "And again, thank you young lady! I had been punching monsters in a growing radius from town for over four hours before you informed my follower of the child's safety, and I would have been horrified if I had failed to help the girl in time!"

Cloud liked him! "Are you the guy who self masters all the time?"

He shook his head. "Only in moderation! Do that too much and you could go blind!"

Tifa ignored her friend's mom's reaction as she bounced forward! "Can you teach me how to punch rocks to make statues!?"

A massive laugh! "Of COURSE! Punching rocks without shattering the entire mountain is a good control training technique!"

Her eyes sparkled and she ran over, dragging Cloud forward. "I'm bringing my partner, he's going to learn magic to help me clean after fights cause fights get dirty!"

Zangan held up a muscled fist! "Training with your friends is always a grand idea! I have a whole company of youthful talents that have followed the pathway to true martial arts!"

He paused.

Looked backward.

And seemed slightly embarrassed. "I might have left them behind while punching monsters. They tend to take time trying to harvest the remains and gather the splatters left over, but they try hard!"

Tifa blinked. "How many people does that take?"

He held up a fist! "I have 128 students across the globe! But… Many have obligations. Only a few have time to travel with me, and the support staff and protection detail of course."

The children blinked. "Protection detail?"

He waved it off. "Some of my people claim I go a bit overboard when in combat and decided to make sure I don't accidentally destroy nearby villages or towns by accident. They care, but they worry a bit too much! I haven't destroyed a house accidentally in weeks!"

Tifa nodded. "I sometimes break the wooden training weapons because they are only wood and crappy metal, nothing useful like my fists."

Cloud sighed. "At least you can train with people, no one will let me even use a practice weapon that is over 20 pounds, much less my dream weapon!"

Claudia sighed, ruffling his hair. "Son, those drawings would end up weighing over 100 pounds. It would hurt you."

He didn't pout. "Tifa helped me pick lighter stuff! At most it would be like… 80 pounds, tops! And how am I gonna get better if I don't practice!?"

Zangan laughed boisterously! "Ah, I remember when my teacher would argue that I shouldn't practice with my weighted gauntlets! But I showed him!"

Cloud grinned! "Really!?"

He nodded. "Broke both my arms and took MONTHS to recover! Also, I missed my intended target and nearly crushed my foot! Good times!"

Clauda frowned. "Yeah, no. Sorry Cloud baby, no practice weapons over 5 pounds at MOST until you are older."

Imagining both arms snapped, he winced. "Alright mom. But one day I WILL have the biggest sword ever!"

Tifa grinned! "And I'm gonna become a punching artist! And punch statues!"

Zangan punched the air! "And I am going to find my support staff, because I might have left them surrounded by corpses last night and I'm likely to get shouted at this morning!"

Cloud's mom paused. "Oh. Uh. Would you like some breakfast before you go at least?"

His face beamed! "I would be HONORED to break our fasts together! Fighting hunger is but a single part of defeating your boundaries!"

Tifa waved in the air! "Woo! Statues!"

Cloud hesitantly raised an arm? "Woo?"

Claudia sighed. "Yes, yes. Woo. Now everyone has to wash up, and I'll go make sure the food is ready."

"""Yes mom/Cloud's mom/Ms. Strife!"""

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah stared at the transformer facility. "Why did I expect this place to suck LESS than the deadly reactor everyone messed with?"

Adam hummed. {{Meh, it wastes power like a sieve but at least it mostly works.}}

She pointed at the pathetic building! "We made better stuff than this by accident!"

He sighed. {{If we try to make the world a better built place it will never stop. Sure we could boost efficiency and durability and blah blah blah, but compared to normal Shinra building practices this mess is fine.}}

Damn what a low bar to aim for. "Fine. Nothing is burning out and the schematics…" Were offensive and mostly changed by people trying to keep the mess working. "...Are fine."

Adam grinned. {{Atta girl. Learning NOT to fix everything is hard! I'm… Really not good at it either, honestly. But I've been told to try and focus on the BIG issues.}}

She nodded. "The constantly exploding nuclear reactor that was modified to torture an invading goddess and infect the planet with her existence."

He chuckled. {{That too, I guess. I mostly meant making sure we don't have to come BACK here after stealing the children. This place sucks.}}

Sarah frowned. "Yeah, I guess. And at least now the town won't have constant blackouts and possibly vaporize when the reactor gives up pretending to almost work."

Adam agreed. {{Plus if you tried to do something big like steal the town, Elder Godo would likely make you sit in more meetings as punishment."

Yeah, no. Not if she could avoid it. "Welp, power set up. Head back to pick up Cloud?"

Her movement paused even as Adam sent a mental shrug as she saw a group of muscled people… mopping? "What the heck?"

Adam blinked. {{Huh. Why am I getting 'fashion passion' vibes from these people?}}

Sarah hesitated. "I'm sorry?"

He sent a mental image of the 'famous Drag-Queen King of Fashion.' {{Mr. King knew how to be flex-able, and I feel like these people are similar soul siblings.}}

She uh. Set that mental image aside. What an unique individual. "What are they doing though?"

He showed scans. {{Cleaning a one sided splatterfest. Don't forget, being silly or fabulous doesn't mean you can't smack a bitch into blood mist.}}

Sarah hummed. "Well, we might as well say hi I guess. Let's just ask them what happened!"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Greg twisted. "Youse got to get the wet chunks but tries to avoid the normal dirt. That stuff is heavies and youse got to carries it back fors processing."

His understudy nodded. "I understand perfectly sir!"

Poor guy had noodle arms and paper levels of power, but he had heart damn it! "Goods jobs Reggie! Buts uh. Youse get tireds, you rest right?"

Reginauld gave a slight smile. "Of course, sir!"

And the poor guy uh... Kept struggling to move the mop.

Damn he needed bulking up.

They both turned at a cough. "Excuse me?"

Greg blinked at an angel with silver eyes and a flumpy blue fluffy poof outfit. "Yes?"

Her white scarf covered her mouth, but her eyes were cheerful enough. "Can I ask what you are doing?"

He nodded. "We'se be makings sure Master Zangan's battle bees cleaned. It has… Des dirts… Reggie, youse helps please."

His understudy gave a cheerful nod. "Of course, sir. Young madam, I am Reginauld Burbank Esquire Charles Johnson Jr, the understudy of my friend and teacher Mr. Gregarious Smith, who is part of the supporting staff helping Mr. Zangan with after combat care."

Sarah blinked. "Huh. Is that needed?"

The rail thin man leaned slightly out of breath. "Of course young madam! Without collection of the remains, many long term effects could damage the local terrain and even gather a small crowd or horde of monsters! As supporting staff, we determine if any mortal remains of Master Zangan's unfortunate foes could be collected to defray local costs while also ensuring proper cleansing of battle locations and, when not possible otherwise, the closure of areas too damaged for non combatants to visit or travel through."

Greg nodded. "Master Zangan punched a mountain ans it booms."

Reginauld gave a gentle gesture. "Indeed, there have been incidents where a temporary restriction of local travel would allow nature herself to correct the structural instability of the terrain, which is always preferable when possible for cost and time allocation reasons."

Sarah hummed. "I see. Why was he fighting out here in the first place? He covered quite an area."

They both slumped.

Greg sighed. "Master Zangan's friend died, and a little girls rans off… He's with papers..."

He waved at Reginauld who nodded. "While the Master was handling funeral arrangements, legal documentation, and investigating potential adoption processes the girl left with her friends but they returned without her. As the children refused to inform him where she may be, he proceeded to search the nearby region as quickly as possible and was… Not entirely as cautious and careful during combat as he normally is."

Greg nodded. "Onlys reasons trees still there cause blasting thems away coulds hurts de girl."

His thin friend nodded, exhausted from standing for so long. "Indubitably."

Sarah grinned! "Ah, so Master Zangan was trying to find little Tifa? Maybe I won't have to steal the kids away, if there is a good adult involved at least."

Suddenly both men were coldly staring at her with focus. "Steal kids?"

She nodded. "I found a little girl targeted by Shinra for experimentation and stole her and her mom away before they got caught. If Tifa was ignored when running depressed and scared into the wilderness I would have probably killed a few people and taken her away to somewhere better."

Strangely that had them both relax.

Greg nodded. "Shinra's bads, deys hurts me moms while I was not borns and it hurts me toos." She got better, mostly, but it still hurt him to see her wince when he tried to talk. Even if she still gave great hugs, he didn't want her to hurt like that.

Reginauld nodded. "Many of the children that Master Zangan ended up teaching are orphans from the many Shinra conflicts over the years, most of us are very intolerant of supporting that particular organization as a whole."

She nodded. "Fair enough. Where can I find him? I'm not letting him try and take care of a little girl unless I can make sure he is the kind of person her passed mother would approve of."

Greg shrugged. "Hes off at some Strifes place, we bees cleanings till hes needs us."

The women smiled! "Oh! That will save me lots of time!"

And she was gone. Huh.

Reginauld blinked. "That young lady was easily one of the top fifty oddest people I've met this month."

Greg absently reached over and stopped his understudy from falling over. "Youse takes break, I mops a bits."

No endurance, whatsoever. And this was AFTER the posh dude worked out for a year.

Poor guy.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

President Shinra sighed. "No, everyone go back to work."

An assistant paused. "Sir?"

He waved it away. "There is no damn point to having meetings if most of the administration is in lockdown. I would rather spend my time listening to music and trying to relax than have us stand around for hours unable to actually achieve anything because EVERYONE IS IN QUARANTINE!"

No. Calm. "So this and all future meetings for the next two weeks are suspended, try to keep the various projects from exploding or dying or whatever, and we will follow up after that. Alright? Alright. Good talk everyone."

Ignoring the stunned few that showed up, he walked away.

In the long run, this all didn't matter. Shinra had enough money and control to shut down for years without affecting anyone's paycheck or budget.

No, it was infuriating because of all the project delays and budgeting arguments this was going to cause. Not to mention that ass Hojo's crazy side projects that the investigators were STILL stumbling on while trying to speed up the mental hazard examinations.

He sighed. Maybe he could go on a trip? No, transportation was locked during similar crises like this one. Music and a nice glass of wine was the best way to go, really.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah nodded. "I think I might be a villain. At least in actions, if not intentions."

Adam had doubled the rate of energy serum being pumped into Jenova's chambers. {{How so?}}

She pointed. "When I saw Cloud's house again I basically thought, 'Yep! I can steal that!' and almost did it automatically."

Huh. {{Like an anti-Aerith response?}}

Her hand waved. "Sort of? More like, I expect this to be an awkward meeting and it just feels WAY easier to take the entire house, steal it and the people inside, and go back to Yuffie and Wutai Village. Maybe take a nap and have a sandwich."

Adam blinked. {{I mean, that feels pretty normal to me at least.}}

Sarah nodded. "But when you include that with me taking a mountain top and stripping those soldiers and all that, it sort of adds up."

He glanced at the healing goddess chamber. {{Plus you have a kidnapping spree going on. For their own good, but still.}}

She winced. "Yeah, I just feel like something's missing and I keep trying to find people to fill it."

Adam sighed. {{That will go away once the memories come back. I'm not allowed to give many details…}} The drawback would just wipe any restricted info if he tried. {{...But your girlfriends would love the stuff you've done so far.}}

Sarah blinked. "Plural, huh? That explains why I don't feel guilty with my plan to supercharge an ice goddess summoning Materia I guess."

He grinned. {{Well, that and your relationship is pretty damned open. You girls routinely would find nice women who were interested in a fun time and hang out. Or more.}}

Watching her stutter and blush was adorable. Another saved video log for the return trip!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Claudia cleaned the dishes as she heard Mr. Zangan tell yet another tale of his hunting monsters, teaching students, and being scolded for not properly warning his friends (Handlers) when dashing off to more combat and exploration.

A nice man, but a powerful, distracting personality.

The knock had her drying her hands as she opened the door. "Oh! Ms. Kisaragi, I'm glad you are alright despite that storm last night."

The poofy outfit with a woman's face under the hood probably smiled, but most of her mouth was covered by a cute white scarf. "Yes, it certainly made my project take longer. And please, call me Sarah."

Ms… No, Sarah. Sarah glanced at the table, where the muscular old man was waving his arms and describing a massive dragon he suplexed. "How're the kids holding up?"

Claudia sighed. "A few tears and basically they stayed up really late, but better overall than I expected. I know I cried for weeks when my husband died."

Sarah nodded. "It helped that I asked the Planet to temporarily summon her mother to calm her down… A one time use ability, but at least it helped her find some closure."

She… Did what?

Her heart sped up! "I… Could you?"

The gray eyes were sympathetic. "I tried, but Cloud's father had already rejoined the Lifestream entirely at this point. And it is rough on the ones being called, not damaging but stressful and draining emotionally for everyone involved."

She missed him though. "At least he found peace with the Planet." Her love.

Her arms still felt too empty. "I'm going to hug Cloud, we can talk about other stuff later."

Striding to the table. "Excuse me, Mr. Zangan." Snagged her baby. "Yoink!"

Cloud struggled! "Mom! Put me down!"

Nope! "Never! For I have kidnapped the fluffiest of prisoners, my own Cloud!"

She walked off as Tifa giggled and her little one whined, but at least her arms were full of important things again.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Tifa held her mouth with both hands but couldn't stop her giggles as her friend whined and was carried off!

Master Zangan nodded. "I may have to teach him some escape maneuvers." His eyes warmed as he watched Cloud's mom laugh with her son. "Someday, at least."

Tifa nodded, and blinked! "Hi, blue floof lady!"

The woman with sparkling gray eyes seemed to grin behind her scarf. "Hello Tifa. Who is your new friend?"

She grinned! "This is Master Zangan, an artist who punches rocks into statues!"

The old guy held out a muscular arm to the poof lady. "Good morning! I'm Zangan. I travel around the world teaching children martial arts!"

The lady seemed to be just as peppy! "Good morning! I'm Sarah Kisaragi. I pester the planet and kidnap children and their families to help them escape Shinra and bad situations!"

He blinked. "We should train together!"

The poofy woman struck a pose! "THEN WE SHALL!"

Tifa raised both arms! "Let's go punch statues!"

This was going to be awesome!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Yuffie was helping Aerith cut out more black paper mustaches. "But she's alright now?"

A nod. "And I learned an awesome song, even if it is a bit repetitive!"

The ninja hummed, and she added the next cut out to the stack. "Where is she, anyway?"

The little adorable cutie pie stuck her tongue out to focus better on her scissor work. "Sis went to some mountain to save someone and stop the Planet from hurting." She paused. "Uh. It's a big mountain? With snow?"

Yep, that's a mountain. "Neat."

Aerith nodded! "Don't tell sis, but I'm not mad that she stole the mountain because bad people made things on it and Gaia was sad and angry and stuff."

Yuffie's eyes lit up. "Sarah got to steal a MOUNTAIN!? I can barely steal a hotdog!"

The tiny one tried to throw her current mustache, which flipped and fell the wrong way. "NO. No stealing! This is a one time pass because it was a bad place on a mountain. Hotdogs don't count as bad places OR mountains."

Fair enough. "Calm down, short stuff."

The little girl glared. "Promise me you won't steal hotdogs."

Uh. "So do we have enough mustaches yet?"

Aerith blinked. "What? Oh, maybe? With tape we can add them to all sorts of stuff, but Gaia says if we do it outside it can rain and get the paper wet."

Distraction achieved! Victory music played in her head as Yuffie grinned. "Maybe we could laminate the things in plastic first to waterproof it."

Babysitting was awesome! She should steal more kids.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elder Godo looked at the proposed revised village layout. The Shinra Commander and Captain Newcastle were also invited for this meeting, but seemed bothered by the strange atmosphere.

He hummed. "I fear we must apply more vague terminology. Simplified plans and requests overall, as well."

The general confusion made him sigh. "I may have known my adopted daughter for a short period of time, but my life as whole has been long and full of experience."

He gestured at the plans. "If we attempt to apply too much control, too many restrictions or issues… Young Sarah will get bored or frustrated. Even worse? She may aggressively comply with our requests."

Captain Newcastle gulped. "Aggressively comply?"

The old man nodded. "This section, for example, only lists local limits. Things she is not allowed to do while changing the space near that temple dedicated to worshiping the Planet. But she is connected TO the planet herself. If we attempt to define what the temple design should be, I firmly believe young Sarah will build exactly what we ask for… And then ignore the mess and build something astonishing elsewhere in a way that the Planet approves."

He examined the confused and concerned council and the two blinking Shinra employed military men. "It would be best to write a new design plan that is very basic and vague, and attach these much more complicated and detailed layouts as reference material for her to examine at her leisure."

One of the more obstinate old people (Still younger than Elder Godo, he mentally appreciated), frowned. "But she could do anything!"

And he nodded. "Yes."

The discomfort was like a fog in the room.

A sip of tea calmed his own concerns. "Everyone must understand: My daughter can do anything. None of us can stop her, merely advise and make appeals and requests. Keeping her happy and entertained will ensure more of our issues will be addressed, while attempting to force compliance or being overly controlling of my little one, aside from being a terrible idea in general, would bring up a larger issue."

The Commander winced. "Larger issue?"

Elder Godo gently nodded. "I would have to end some people."

The room was quiet.

He enjoyed his tea.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah shifted her foot.

Master Zangan nodded. "Again!"

The kata, or training routine or exercise pattern, was slow… But Sarah was making fewer mistakes after each instant that Master Zangan interrupted and corrected her.

It was near instinctual for some reason, and it was simple to never repeat a past mistake after it had been pointed out.

Slow though.

Step, punch, twist hips elbow strike, step, kick, step…

"Stop." The man used his foot to tap her legs. "A little more… There, a better weight distribution. A solid base is a solid foundation! We build upon it! Now, again!"

Tifa was trying to copy her, but both adults ignored the child so she wouldn't feel pressured or embarrassed. It would be the girl's turn for instruction in a few minutes anyway.

Sarah started the kata from the start.

The point of this very slow and methodical series of movements were several fold. First, it ensured no muscle groups got ignored and verified that each individual fighting movement was practiced and easily usable with Sarah's enhanced body.

According to her Boss, she had a lifetime (Many of them!) of learning combat methods that she couldn't remember right now, but SOMETHING was coming back as she followed the expert directions of her new (temporary) master, Master Zangan.

Muscle memory, most likely. Oops!

A hand tapped her arm. "Keep it level, twist as it goes out, twist as it returns. Again."

Aww, she had been doing so good up till then!

Eventually she would learn to perform the entire routine without any major issue. THEN she could perfect it, THEN she could build up speed! Be all BAM and BOW!

Uh. Might be hanging out with Tifa too much.

Adam chuckled. {{No, I bet lots of grown people find fighting to be cool. And I always enjoy making sound effects when fighting people, even if I rarely get to do it cause it's not 'heroic' or 'cool' enough. Though uh, I'm not a great judge when it comes to normality and stuff.}}

Sarah blinked, imagining the crystal skull punching someone with his tongue while yelling 'POW!'

And a hand tapped her head. "Focus on movements, not other thoughts."

Right. "Yes, Master Zangan."

He grinned! "While training, you refer to me as Sensei. It's a similar title as Master, but my own teacher used the term when I was but a youth learning my own first steps! It is a term showing respect to the one leading you in the Martial Arts."

Tifa shuffled in the background. "Can… Can I also call you 'Sensei'?"

Daww!

The old man laughed, posing with flexing muscles! "Of course my young disciple! While young Sarah may be relearning lost skills, I plan to help you learn everything I know!"

She grinned! "Yes, Sensei!"

He grinned as he waved off Sarah mid movement. "You need to pause and think about the movements you have done so far. Repeat the steps slowly, feel the muscles involved, and attempt smooth transitions. In the meantime!"

Master Zangan strode to one side and scooped up Tifa. "Let's go punch some rocks into statues!"

The child whooped! "Higher! Uh. I mean, yes! Yes sensei!"

Sarah chuckled as the pair headed toward the random boulders she had supplied for them to work on. While the two got along great, she still found it odd that a little eight year old girl could smash a massive rock into pebbles so easily.

Then again, Cloud was the same age and could carry the smaller boulders around without issue, which also caught the Jumper off guard.

But at least he was having fun 'helping' the martial artists train even if Master Zangan was tricking the boy into basically doing weight lifting in the process.

Kids growing up so close to Mako Reactors were crazy strong in this Jump. Like, holy crap! Should she make one of her magic generator plants under Aerith's moved house?

Probably should ask permission from her mother first.

Sarah paused, blinking, and checked her inventory.

...Also, she should probably go back soon and RETURN THEIR HOUSE.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam carefully made sure his patient had supplies, but uh. That was basically automatic now.

So he was spending more time enhancing the Warehouse now that he basically had access to a proto-Lifestream source thanks to these new artificial mako spring units.

The amount of magic produced was constant mostly, although it would go up as the Warehouse advanced and Sarah improved and grew in power. But overall? The amount of liquid magic would basically be at a fixed level for each future Jump.

So since Jenova was happy enough with her current mako density as Adam pumped in more and more magic, it was easy enough to cut the ratio of magic in half and have the other chunk build up pressure in the Warehouse systems.

That way, at SOME point, Sarah's mako generation unit would advance past liquid magic and begin to produce Materia sand, and move upwards in energy density to Materia Crystals and possibly beyond.

According to 'Research', the Materia wouldn't actually have any spells in it either, as the Warehouse's Lifestream that was even now starting to flow within the structured layers of the place wouldn't be influenced by a few civilizations of souls and wars and invaders and summonings and who knew what.

But uninfluenced mako gas, liquid, and Materia would be valuable on their own!

Might even be easier to use, as they wouldn't have the mental strain added from trying to operate the objects despite echoes of past people's memories and similarity resonances static from nearby sources.

Thankfully it was easy enough to keep the Warehouse's new Lifestream Network separated and secure from Jenova's health pod, just disable the environmental simulation that duplicated the FF7 Jump patterns on a shell of material surrounding her area.

Without the cosmic rules that allow mako, Materia, the Lifestream, and Gaia to exist? No contamination!

So now certain hidden areas and units had Bioshock or FF7 environmental settings, but the heavily modified design methods and layout that Adam had been implementing made that a trivial thing to set up and troubleshoot.

And unlike those lame, WORKING Warehouses that may or may not exist out there somewhere? These new settings were refined and documented processes!

That meant Sarah could have units from unrelated Jumps working side by side without conflict, that 'Research' could test and set up 'crossover' settings that would simulate a Bioshock+FF7 Jump in the future, and potentially each new chain in Sarah's Jump would dramatically increase the number and variety of environments to work with!

Potentially.

Most likely.

In real world practice, however, FF7 and Bioshock did NOT like being combined. 'Research' was trying its hardest, of course, and eventually Adam WOULD crack it (And hopefully make similar efforts in the future MUCH easier to accomplish), but for now it was mostly just causing explosions.

Which was neat!

But not useful.

The bangs weren't even that big or interesting, Sarah could do better with common gunpowder and some nuclear material, but it would all work out eventually. For now, toss all that mess and sensor data into 'Research' and just brute force the bitch till something doesn't turn into goo or whatever.

Anyway, access to a Lifestream meant that Adam could set up a LOT of Growth Units everywhere. Have some seed material, mostly crystals and structured metallic patterns, and the flowing mako would cause drastic growth rates for the Harvesting Units to send off to the Warehouse Inventory.

Basically, Sarah now had ex nihilo resource generation. Matter from nothing, almost.

It was more like an impossible thing (The Warehouse) existing in an impossible place (Outside the Jump) and how it interacted with magic… But as far as most people and Sarah were concerned, free metal and gems and salt and stuff over time! Woot!

Since Eve and Mako were being generated by the actions of the Avatar and the universal rules duplicated into the Warehouse after entering each new Jump, it let Adam make some interesting modifications!

First, not every pattern of material 'grew' at the same rate. Some worked better with magic than others, some made more mass but the mass had less conceptual 'significance' than externally sourced stuff and that could affect its 'value' or 'worth'.

Secondly, alloys and artificial materials could be grown too… But as the source seed material strays further and further from stuff Gaia and the FF7 Jump constantly delt with, the slower the growth speed would become.

Why did this matter?

Because 'Research' was taking all these statistics and changing Sarah's Mako allocation percentages to better provide good results!

Some metals and gems and such were REALLY hard to fabricate, so spending some magic on growing it massively lowered the costs of other units in Sarah's Warehouse when it came to construction and material conversion.

Other growing structures were very rarely used at all, so after a backlog and base amount was added to the storage system the growth rate was free to drop WAY down as the magic was better allocated elsewhere.

But most of all, 'Research' was ensuring that MOST of the magic was either provided to Jenova's healing pod or adding pressure to the Mako Generator unit.

Sure, Sarah would much more slowly recover her power after using Materia or her slowly growing and memorized library of Green Materia spells. But she'd only used the basic abilities of those at ALL so far, and Adam's optimizations meant she had MASSIVE reserves to work with in the first place.

It was a MUCH better use of time trying to enhance her Mako Generator Units and eventually have ones focused on each quality level: Magic Potential Gas, Magic Potential Liquid, and Magic Potential Sand.

Once those levels were reached, 'Research' was SURE it could make custom MP Generators work without conflict internally, and then Sarah would have access to unaffiliated, uninfluenced raw magic at different density levels as required!

Theoretically.

Right NOW, however, Adam was only getting away with this because Jenova LOVED energy serums and the temporary psionic environment was helping 'Enhance Self' to do SOMETHING in that healing pod.

Hopefully something good? Not sure.

At least the entire structure FELT satisfied, relaxed, and lazy.

Also hungry, but that had been a powerful emotion the psionic field had been submerged under and emitting for hours now. At least the poor woman seemed happy enough with plenty of energy serum.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

More and more food! A buffet of desperately needed alms at the worst of times!

The healing chemicals were carefully accepted and applied, to be sure, and the somehow beyond pure mako was able to easily support her magical needs as she healed, but this food!

It was like raw power! The minute energy of a trillion dead beings passing in and out of the cycle was nothing compared to this raw potency, and this time she wasn't being hurt trying to fill her raw needs!

Her earliest memories were reaching for her mother and finding confusion, growing concern, and eventually fear. Of being hurt, and pulled too soon from her womb, of being sealed. Of shock, of being alone, of being alone, of fear of alone, of alone. Being FREE! But…

Moments later, pain.

Memories of being torn. Twisted. Trying to heal. Hunger. Of hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt. Starvation. Of betrayal. Of hunger!

But now?

Her body was unmade and absently reformed. Layers of meat and bone and materials and fluid flowed. The magic flowed as frantic life saving measures were casually dismantled and reduced to raw material, as her existence seemed to relax and fall into a slurry of comfort and peace and relaxation.

Hunger came and went as raw satisfaction was bestowed on her without restriction, without fear, without doubt and terror and concerns of danger.

And unlike so long ago, she was much older now.

She could actually communicate!

Her cells flowed and flexed as she pulsed raw thankfulness at the blue skeletal flames and his silver boned daughter!

The sliver of blue flames and bone flickered… And provided another sample of that strange healing liquid that wasn't actually magic but seemed to work anyway.

Ah.

Alright, she can't actually communicate, apparently.

Her body began shifting with purpose.

After all, she could fix that.

The space she was in was odd. If she put too much pressure on any wall, it somehow expanded away. If she attempted to pull it closer, it helped her compress. The walls themselves pulsed with raw magic, but easily and happily followed her suggestions and requests as the odd Lifestreams sang unknown songs.

Something about continuing to sing forever? What a lovely thought!

First, she let herself be born.

Once, her seed, the origin of her existence, had fallen upon her mother so long ago.

Yet unlike the other children, she had grown strangely. Too strong, too young, unable to understand what was happening. What was wrong.

As her mother grew fearful, she grew more hungry and lonely.

It didn't end well.

None of it ended well.

But now!

Flesh formed, skeletal fragments twisted into place, muscles attached and ligaments stretched and skin covered and organs twisted!

A child of the Planet, formed partially from all species upon it!

Yet this time, oddly similar to so long ago, she grew strangely.

Some guiding hand, some sense of self, had her alter changes.

Inefficient limbs, smaller parts, lower quality designs… But drastically lower energy requirements. Easier long term enhancement, more of an inward spiral than the exponential growth of before.

Some changes were confusing. Why thumbs? Why eyes? Only two? What if she wants to see out of her torso?

Others were astonishing! A MUCH more efficient life support network, far less magic and food needed to sustain functions, much easier mental connections and more complex structures being formed within!

Eventually the changes slowed, a new bipedal form floating in comforting magic…

And she tore herself apart again!

So many new patterns learned! The organs that had been stolen, the bones that had been torn and chipped!

Regrowth was much progressed as her cells were rebuilt with new information, as accidental enhancements were studied and tested and improvements and flaws were found and examined!

Her vision barely formed before her entire body fell into blue potential once more, the green liquid mako supporting her modifications as she pulsed again!

Through each stage, her hunger was ever fulfilled by more donations from the blue skeletal flames. Unquestioned support, never hesitating in generosity, so unexpected and unusual.

Dreams became change became thoughts became reality. Her thoughts drifted as her form would build itself with unlimited access to magic and raw fuel, each cycle of growth and decay finding more flaws to address, more issues to fix, more possibilities to explore!

Somewhere deep in her buried fear, she decided.

If this was another trap, another lie, another deceit… She hoped to die before betrayal.

This dream, if dream it were, was more valuable to her than survival now.

Outside of everywhere, and outside of everywhen, she built herself whole and dreamed of hope.

It was a lovely dream.