Chapter 1

Rei sighed as he moved down Eygnock Road towards the Eastern Wyndia Region, ignoring the now familiar whispers and startled looks he drew from people as he did so. The sun was shining brightly overhead, it was a rather pleasant day actually with very few clouds in the sky and the temperature was pleasantly warm.

The weretiger didn't notice much of this however, his thoughts lost in melancholy as they frequently had been these past eight or so years. He absently flipped one of his daggers as he walked, blade-tip to handle to blade-tip again, almost without conscious thought. He had fought for survival every day of his life, from as early as he could remember wandering alone in Cedar Woods, and because of this his weapons had nearly become a part of him, extensions of his own hands. He scratched absently at his furred jawbone with his other paw, his large striped tail swinging slowly behind his muscled legs. His blue eyes were narrowed with the bright sunlight and the unwelcome thoughts currently churning in his brain.

Rei had followed the group to the far North to confront God for one purpose; to find out who or what he was. In all his years—how many exactly he was uncertain, though he pegged it somewhere in the mid-twenties—Rei had never seen another person like him. He had seen others with shape-shifting abilities, like Balio and Sunder, or like Mikba, the crime boss of Syn City. But never another weretiger. The words of Mikba still rang hollowly in his furry-pointed ears. "God gave us this power for one reason, to lord over the weak!" Was that all he was, then? Some failed creation of Myria, his only purpose to lord over the weaker humans? The thought so sickened him he had sailed across the Endless Sea, trekked through the Desert of Death and fought God herself to try and refute it.

In the end, he didn't have any more answers than he had started with. It had been five months now since they had returned, and Rei was just as far from getting them as he'd ever been.

Ryu and Nina were happily married now and helping with the rebuilding of Dragnast in the northwest Duana Region, high in the mountains and therefore largely inaccessable to those who couldn't fly. Teepo was with them, carving out his own existence and—day by day—erasing the shadows that still lingered in his heart and soul from the years of brainwashing and control he suffered with Myria. They had offered to let him stay with them, of course, but after only a few months Rei was moving on. He loved his friends dearly, but Dragnast wasn't his home. He didn't really belong there.

The tree house in Cedar Woods no longer appealed to him either. It was steeped in too many bad memories. And far too many of those memories existed in the Duana and Yraall regions altogether as well. Rei had killed too many people and burned too many bridges to ever feel welcomed in McNeil Village or anywhere near there again. And so now he was heading east, with no real plan other than putting one clawed foot in front of the other, to see where the road might take him.

Rei slowly approached the end of the road, and paused. He couldn't continue further east unless he got a passport to go through the checkpoint in Wyndia. Though no longer considered a criminal, Rei didn't have the funds right now to purchase one. So instead he turned south. Not too far down that way, he came across the Coffee Shop. Belly rumbling, Rei decided it wouldn't hurt to stop for a bit and get a bite to eat. To that end the weretiger made the trek up the steep slope. The outdoor area was lightly occupied, it being a bit too early in the day for the main afternoon rush. Good, the less staring and pointing the better.

Rei stalked up to a table and sat, carefully maneuvering his thick tail through the back of the chair while he did so. After a moment a waitress cautiously approached. She was wearing a green dress, white and pink apron tied around it, and a very wary expression on her face.

"Um . . . hello, w-welcome to the Wyndian Coffee Shop. What-wh-what can I get you?"

Rei frowned at the menu for a moment.

"I'll take a tankard of Yraall Ale, and the ribs special I guess."

She nodded hastily, then quickly left back inside the shop. Rei rolled his eyes at that, then sighed and crossed his arms. He had come this far in his self-imposed trek, without any destination in mind. However he had now reached the cross-roads, so to speak, and it was time for him to pick one. He could either head south, maybe get a place somewhere in Genmel where he was less likely to be stared at quite so heavily. Or maybe get a passport and a boat ride to the Urkan region. Maybe get a little hunk of land to call his own and become a proverbial hermit.

Neither option really appealed to him and he grimaced in thinking of them. What then, if not those? What other option did he have? He couldn't go back to Dragnast, as much as he would be welcomed there. And McNeil Village was definitely out of the question. He wasn't a big city sort of guy, so Wyndia didn't sound too promising. And as his journey with Ryu and the others had shown him, Rei wasn't too big on salt water either, so Rhapala was out, too.

The waitress brought his meal, and Rei was still pondering the answer to his predicament as he cleaned off the last of the rib bones and downed his last gulp of ale. He wiped his mouth with the back of his furred hand, absently cleaning it again with a swipe of his pink tongue and not noticing the half-enthralled, half-horrified stare of the waitress as he did so. He tossed her the ten zenny he owed for the food and was just about to get to his feet when he felt a gentle but insistent tug on his tail.

Rei let loose a low rumble, very reminiscent of the tiger he resembled, as he whirled on the offender with narrowed eyes. He had endured such cruel treatment far too much as a child and was very sensitive about people touching his tail. However, he did not find some freckled brat too curious for his own good behind him, but rather a small copper robot he immediately recognized.

"Honey?"

The tiny chrysm-powered metal wonder hopped in place for a moment, perhaps expressing excitement.

"What're you doin' out here? And all by yourself?" Rei cast a quick cursory glance around but found no trace of the perky red-headed, bunny-eared engineer who named claim to the robot. Maybe they'd gotten seperated. Honey waved up and down with both of her tiny arms, and then suddenly opened a front hatch in her belly. Rei watched her withdraw a rolled up piece of paper from her mysterious innards with raised brows. Honey then came forward and held it up to him. He took it, somewhat bemused, and quickly unfurled it. Rei read the message while the copper robot suddenly pulled out a broom three times bigger than herself and began sweeping up the crumbs and debris near-by.

Dear Rei,

I've sent Honey to find you, and hopefully it won't take too long to do so. I have found a very important discovery in the relics I took from Caer Xhan. Discoveries that I'm certain you'll be interested in. Please bring Honey with you, and come as soon as you can to the Chrysm Plant. I should still be there working on upgrades to the Generators. If not there, you can find me at my Tower. Please don't delay, it's very very important that you come as soon as possible.

Momo

"Well doesn't that just beat all," he murmured, folding the letter again and turning to gaze at Honey, who was still sweeping away. What in the world could she have discovered that would have anything to do with him? More to the point, why would she even care to tell him about it?

Rei and Momo had never been on the best of terms throughout the journey. She was too stuck-up, too air-headed and too technical. He was too brusque, too simple-mined and too rude. They had fought almost constantly, and it had been an incredible relief to his sensitive ears and to his peace of mind when they'd finally parted ways on the road he'd just come off of five months ago.

Yet now she was sending for him specifically. Over something very very important. Rei snorted, watching Honey's antics without really seeing them, too caught up in his own thoughts. No doubt her "important discovery" had something to do with the chrysm-treated crops. He had always maintained that there wasn't a damn thing wrong with regular food, and therefore there was no need to go messing with it. She had always argued that why settle for "okay" when one could make things so much better?

And if that's all it was? He shrugged then. What could it hurt to stop by? He really had nowhere else to go, after all. Appeasing his own—now maddening—curiosity would only take two days at the most, and then he could refocus on his destination and what he as going to do with the rest of his life.

With that decision made, Rei got to his feet and then bent down on one knee.

"C'mon Honey, time to go." The tiny robot immediately dropped her broom with a clatter, then walked willingly into his large paws.

Rei stood again, placing Honey on his shoulder and pausing for a moment to allow her to grab purchase on his ear before setting off back down the slope. He left the broom where it lay, knowing from experience that somehow Honey had a never-ending stock of them inside her bowels. He had ceased wondering the hows or whys of it, since it only served to give him a pounding headache.

Rei walked into the front area of the Chrysm Plant the next morning, wrinkling his nose as his sensative nostrils were assaulted with the smell of rotting vegetables. There were crates upon crates of ruined crops stacked everywhere. Several people in labcoats were miling around, clip-boards in hand, taking notes on whatever it was they took notes on. Apparently the machines were acting up. Again. Rei snorted. Served them right for messing around with stuff that didn't need to be messed with.

The former thief walked up to the nearest person, a sandy-haired man bent down to one of the generators and poking around at it's obviously-not-functioning innards.

"Excuse me," Rei murmured, and his deep rumbling voice immediately got the attention he wanted. The man's eyes widened slightly with surprise. "Can you tell me where to find Momo?"

"Ah . . . sure. Uh, I think she's up on the north ridge, working on the main reactor generator."

Rei tipped his head in thanks, then walked up to the first conveyer belt and stepped on. He crossed his arms, sighing. He just couldn't fathom why any of this technological nonsense was necessary. To him, there was nothing wrong with the way things were, so why go and mess with it? You were only asking for trouble.

The weretiger made his way across several beltways throughout the Plant, looking this way and that, trying to find the woman who'd summoned him. With the stench of rotten veggies so strong in the air, there was no chance of catching her scent and finding her that way, singular though it was. Momo, for all her oddities, had a very unique and—when Rei was in a more giving mood—rather pleasant scent. She smelled of peaches and woman and something else. Something he'd never smelled on anyone else before, though it was something that tickled his senses and for some reason put him in the mind of . . . chasing her.

However odd that was.

Rei stepped off another one of the belts, turning around. He tensed when Honey suddenly tapped the side of his head and then pointed to the far corner of the ridge. He followed her gesture and saw a rumpled and smudged sky-blue smock tossed in the dirt near one of the larger metal contraptions, a tassled hat, a red ribbon and two white elbow-length gloves.

Moving in that direction, the smell of rotten food was slowly overpowered by chrysm and Momo. His tail twitched involuntarily at the latter.

Rei stepped around until he saw her, and had to smile at what he found.

Her tiny form was bent inside of the thing, one booted foot half-cocked into the air while the other one maintained precarious balance on her tip-toes. There ensued a lot of clanging and banging and an occaisional mutter that sounded like a very unladylike curse. That made him grin. She hadn't been too well-versed in them before she'd met him, but months on the road together and he'd vastly improved her repertoire. Her two scarlet-red braids fell heavily down her back, the tips swaying against her calves as she worked.

Honey immediately hopped off his shoulder, landing in the dirt with a thump, then hurried over to her master. The copper machine tugged on her pant-leg.

"In a minute," came the hollowly-echoing mezzo-soprano voice. "I've almost . . . clang . . . got this . . . snap-ping damn it! . . . valve fixed. Just a few . . . more . . . adjustments . . . ." Rei opted not to interfere, crossing his arms instead and entertaining himself with listening to her rantings.

"There!" she abruptly crowed. The generator suddenly hummed to life, the large purple crystal atop it beginning to glow and pulsate. She lifted up and out, then, and hopped back onto her soft kid boots. Momo reclosed the hatch and latched it shut, and as she did so Rei noticed several things about her that he never had before.

The most startling was her hands. He suddenly realized that she very rarely went anywhere without gloves, and now Rei understood why. Her fingernails were actually tiny claws. Small, not at all as large or as feral-looking as his were, but they were still violet-brown pointed claws.

The second thing he noticed—as she turned to Honey with a gratified sigh and her violet-tipped, cream-colored ears twitching with excitement—was that Momo's figure wasn't near as flat and formless as he might have previously thought.

Usually encased in her voluminous smock, very little was discernable about Momo's shape other than he had gussed it would probably be pretty slender since her hands—usually covered by gloves—were slender and delicate-looking. Yet he had had no idea that she would be in possession of such nice curves to go along with that tiny lissome figure, now revealed with the thin white silk, sleeveless v-neck tunic she was wearing. Momo was still well-covered and details were still vague, but Rei began to suspect that the mouthy engineer possessed very nicely rounded hips and maybe a set of breasts that were not nearly as tiny as he had formerly thought.

He watched Momo stare down at Honey for a moment, perplexed expression on her grease-smudged face, then she suddenly glared. Her hands went to her hips and her long ears twitched adgitatedly.

"Honey! What're you doing back already! I thought I told you to go find Rei!"

Honey did a little adgitated dance, motioning toward where he stood not ten feet away, arms crossed and tail swaying with amusement. She didn't catch the hint. Momo adjusted the small spectacles that perched before her garnet red eyes with one hand and sighed heavily.

"I don't see how you expect me to get anything done here when all you want to do is play. We don't have time for that right now. I sent you on a very important mission, Hon, and its imparative that you complete it—,"

Rei finally interrupted her with a low clearing of his throat. She didn't even look in his direction, waving her slender hand at him.

"Just put the extra parts there, I'll deal with them later." Rei sighed.

"Momo," he called, gaining her attention at last as the slender woman suddenly whirled in his direction, eyes wide.

"Oh! Rei! . . . What a coincidence!" She blinked at him. "I had just sent Honey out to find you. What brings you to the Plant?"

Rei rolled his eyes. For such a techno genius, she really was slow on the uptake.

"Honey did find me," he announced, coming closer, arms still crossed. He watched, enthralled, as the copper robot in question ambled over to Momo's dirty clothes and began stuffing them inside her hatch.

"Really?" Momo gaped. "So soon?" Rei shrugged, still watching as Honey' eyes began flashing and her whole body began to shake and vibrate. His eyebrow raised.

"I was eating lunch at the Coffee Shop yesterday and she came up to me with the note," he explained absently.

"Hm. How odd." Momo turned to Honey when the robot suddenly dinged, and quickly took her now clean clothes from the construct with a murmured thanks. Rei noticed that she put her gloves on first, quickly and with her back turned.

"So, what is this very very important news you have to tell me?" he prodded, suddenly impatient to be done with this business and be away again. Momo always made him nervous and on edge, he could never explain why. It was probably why they fought so much. The sooner he could be away from her the better. She waved away his question however, redonning her blue smock and retying the thin red ribbon in a bow at her neck.

"I'd rather show you than tell you. It's at my Tower. We'll go there after I meet with the new director and give him my progress report."

Rei started to argue, then shrugged. It wasn't as if he had any other pressing matters to see to. Momo replaced her hat, then picked up Honey and led the way back across the conveyer belts toward the front of the facility, where the shop was.

"So, Honey found you at the Coffee Shop?" When he nodded wordlessly, Momo tapped at her chin with a dainty gloved finger. "Wow, that is a coincidence. What brings you out to Eastern Wyndia?"

"Nothing in particular," he answered guardedly. He shrugged when she turned that all-too-discerning gaze upon him. He stepped off of the last belt first, though she was quick to follow. "Just wandering, really. I was trying to decide whether I wanted to come south or go east when Honey found me and made the decision for me."

Momo only nodded to that, then led the way into the shop. She waved and answered greeting to the man and woman behind the counter, then turned to the right and knocked on a new door that Rei didn't remember seeing the last time he was here. A tenor voice called for whoever it was to enter. They did so, and Rei found himself in a small office with a desk piled with papers and a skinny, wormy looking man behind it. He grinned wide at the sight of Momo coming in to the room, and for some reason the glint in the guy's eyes immediately put Rei on guard. He felt an involuntary growl building in his throat but immediately tamped it down before he embarrassed himself.

"Momo! As always it is a pleasure. Are you finished so soon?" She smiled.

"Just the main valve on Generator One blocked up again, nothing I couldn't handle."

"You are a wonder, truly. I just don't know what I or any of us here would do without your expert assistance."

Rei nearly gagged off the amount of sugar-coated praise sliding off the mealy-mouthed man's tongue. Momo waved it aside however with a laugh and a shrug.

"No big deal. Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that the other generators should work fine now, and that I'm going to be leaving back for my Tower soon."

"Oh?" It was hard not to miss the broken-hearted look he suddenly shot her, yet somehow Momo seemed totally oblivious to it. The man took that moment to notice him, though, and Rei was not at all oblivious to the suddenly narrowed, calculating stare he was being pinned with.

Little did he know that he was actually pinning the Director with the same sort of glare.

"Who's your friend?" the Director all but sneered. Momo of course didn't notice the slight, turning instead to look back at him with a half smile.

"Oh, this is Rei. He's the friend of mine I've been waiting for." She motined back to the blonde, brown-eyed man behind the desk. "Rei, this is Faddon, the new Director hear at the Chrysm Plant. He took over shortly after we took care of Palet and has been doing great things despite the many problems that have arisen."

"It's always a pleasure to meet a friend of Momo's, of course," Faddon greased, extending his hand over the desk and intending for Rei to shake it. Rei remained where he was, and gave a derisive snort to indicate what he thought of that ridiculous notion.

"Yah, unfortunately the feeling's not mutual." Rei turned to a now frowning Momo. "Can we get a move on? I don't have all season, you know."

She glared at him, ears twitching adgitatedly. "I told you, I have to finish giving my report." Rei sneered.

"Fine then, I'll wait outside. The stink of rotting food is better than the stink in here." And on the tail-end of her outraged gasp, Rei stalked from the room and back out of the shop.