Say My Name

Written by shade vox

s/v: This is post game. Possibly some OOC-ness. Also, contrary to the title (thank you to menkosude na for the idea), this is not overtly sexual. Sorry to all the Al-Nel lovers out there.

Disclaimer: Star Ocean 3 belongs to Tri-Ace/Ubisoft/Square-Enix.

Chapter One

Foreshadow

No matter how many people deny it, no matter how many times they try, all the humans in all worlds and galaxies judge previously unknown things or persons on sight first. The moment I saw Fayt and Cliff locked in that cell, I knew that they weren't really from Greeton, contrary to their excuses. The second sense we use often – on my list anyway – would be the sense of hearing. Listening is an important skill to uncover information both to jabbering gossips and undercover agents. Touch comes next – the exploration of texture, to know the object intimately. Used by many in many ways, it is unavoidable. Taste – well, no explanation needed there. All in all, the sense of smell isn't one that you would consider the most important, right?

How very wrong I would be in the next few minutes.

Why Cliff And Roger Should Never Cook Together. And I Mean Never.

The kitchen smelled. Actually, it reeked. The stench was horrible – an acrid smell like a small furry rodent had crawled into someone's mouth and died. Ten days ago. Then the poor guy had realized something was decaying in his mouth and decided to do the next best thing to brushing his teeth – he spat it out to coat the walls. That, plus rotten eggs.

Never will I underestimate the power of scent again.

Nel coughed and immediately clapped her scarf over her nose and mouth in a desperate effort to block out the acrid stench assaulting her. Eyes watering, she tried to get her bearings by the door where she had frozen. Her blurry vision strained against a greenish fog which had taken up residence in the room.

The kitchen Nel had spent some of her time to indulge in her culinary hobby was supposed to be spacious, with white walls and clean white tiles with stainless steel appliances ordered neatly. The high powered lights given from the crew on the Diplo had the duty of illuminating this spacious, clean room.

Not anymore.

The lights were struggling against the fog. The tiles by her feet were coated with brown Apris-only-knows-what. And – Nel peered through the haze – spots of light in the green cloud in the distance? Just as she took a tentative step into the room, there was a small explosion in the distance accompanied by a flare of light and a billow of the fog. Nel doubled over and coughed, gasping, trying not to gag on the taste of the green cloud. In that pose, she heard it – two deep voices in the distance, right by where she had spotted the flare of light. Two thieves taking a lunch break? Nel didn't think it likely. But then again, who would ever have thought to be greeted by a reeking cloud when they stepped into their kitchen? Plus, the rest of the residents of the house were gone, or they should be on their way.

Taking shallow breaths, Nel advanced slowly from the doors. As she neared the source and the voices got louder, she slipped out one dagger. If she were to use two, she would have to remove her hand with her scarf which was definitely not an option. Nel placed the voices as male, one older than the other. One seemed to be ordering the other man, sounding angry. She could sense that she was a few meters away – close enough to hear perfectly.

"Didn't I tell you we didn't need peaches!"

"It's supposed to have peaches!"

"We need liver, not peaches! Pass it over!"

"Get it yourself! Ain't you supposed to be a man?"

"It's your fault this fog's here, you stupid brat! Now give it over!"

"Make me, ugly!"

Nel knew an opportunity when she saw – well, heard – one. Darting in through the cloud, she raised her dagger and pointed it to... Cliff?

Cliff and Roger were staring at Nel as if she was something that had popped out of the ridiculously huge pot they were stirring on the oven. Cliff was stirring, Roger was on the table peeling an indistinguishable veggie with a spork. Nel could only guess how. And probably because of the fog being dispelled in huge gulps by the pot, there were two portable light things Fayt had called flashlights propped on the table by Roger's feet so Cliff could see what he was stirring (as if there was anything worth looking at anymore). And maybe Roger was scared of poking himself with the spork without a light source, Apris only knew anything anymore.

Cliff broke the silence. "Nel, what're you doing?" He looked decidedly confused, with a frown tugging on his lips. Nel noticed that neither seemed to mind the stench.

...they couldn't be human. That, or they had stuffed marbles up their noses to avoid the smell somehow. Nel fleetingly wondered if they knew that their once-white chef hats were now turning a murkish green-brown and smoking from the fumes.

"What am I doing?" Nel shouted, but it came out muffled by her scarf. She blinked the tears from her eyes and waved her sharp knife in gestures, "I was looking for both of you because we have to get to a meeting now! And instead, I find you making a stink bomb in the kitchen!"

Nel struggled valiantly not to cough. Coughing meant gasping, and gasping meant opening her mouth. At this close proximity with the source of the fog, she would have to be dead or downright insane to do so. Nel doubted that Albel could even take this. It would definitely rank on his Things I Will Slice to Ribbons list. Too bad you couldn't do that with air.

Roger smiled widely, "we're not making a stink bomb. We're cooking! Say, you hungry Nel?" He said it as though it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The Crimson Blade glowered as best she could while covering her face and slightly bent over. She decided not to put the knife away. "You can't possibly think that this is cooking! Both of you know that you have no talent whatsoever in culinary arts! And weren't both of you banned from the kitchen a week ago?"

Cliff and Roger both looked decidedly uncomfortable by the last remark. Deciding not to wait for their excuses, Nel spotted the oven's 'off' button and lunged in to poke it off with the tip of her knife.

"Hey! We weren't finished that Shark Fin soup!" Roger exclaimed, jumping forward to turn the oven back on. Nel brought him up short with the knife aimed between the midget's eyes. Normally she wasn't one to point sharp blades without a good reason at those shorter than her knee, but in prospect of running out of oxygen she didn't care. Hell, if she could she'd be running out or cutting off her nose, but she had the suspicion that she would need it later.

Nel straightened, and tried to assume her captain identity as much as she could. "Both of you are going to stop this idiocy right now. Put this away somewhere, anywhere but here, and you're going to get rid of those brown aprons and hats and get to the Aquios Castle now, is that clear?"

Cliff was forcefully reminded of Mirage in one of her 'happier' moods.

Nel disappeared into the fog back from whence she came, leaving a disgruntled Cliff and trembling Roger behind. She found the door and switch panel beside it and immediately turned the fans on. The fog slowly started to disperse mercifully, and Nel opened the doors to let in the fresh air. Mirage appeared in the doorway while Nel was trying to not gasp. Cliff and Roger spotted her and froze with an 'oh, shit' look on their faces. If Nel were not trying to pump oxygen back to her starved brain so much, she would have found the situation funny.

Mirage smiled coolly, unflinching at the lingering smell. "Cliff, Roger, if you do not clear out and dump that toxin in a mountain chasm and get to the meeting in fifteen minutes, I'm going to have to break a few ribs. Understood?" With those last departing words of love, she left. Nel, assured that they knew what had to be done, followed.

Cliff was the first to move. "Alright, we'd better go. Mirage gets scary when she does that." He hoisted up the pot from the oven and started to cross the room.

Roger looked up from washing his spork, "what, threaten?"

Cliff grunted, "when she does that and smile. Gives me the chills every time she does that. Sca-ree woman."

"Ooooh, Cliff's scared of Mirage?" Roger sang from the sink above the noise from the water.

The Klausian glared over his shoulder by the doorway, "you clean up here while I dump this or I'll make a hamburger out of you."

As soon as the words left his mouth there was a yelp of surprise. Cliff turned to look in front to see Fayt by the window, coughing and peering up at him through watery eyes. "Hey Fayt. You okay?"

"Yeah," Fayt wheezed, wiping tears away. "Cliff, sorry to ask, but what's in that pot?" One whiff of that, and I feel like I've been rammed by a huge, really smelly pig.

Cliff looked away. "Err, jus' something me and roger made," he mumbled. The pot was still fuming and the contents still bubbling. It was making an eerie hissing noise.

Fayt was now peering into the pot with one hand firmly pinching his nostrils closed. "Is that supposed to be soup?"

"Argh! Is it really that bad?"

Fayt backed away a safe distance before opening his mouth again, "actually, yeah." He could still smell it. So he backed away down the hall. Hell, maybe I should go to Crosell. At least he smells better.

Cliff didn't seem to notice. "Damn it, Elicoor doesn't have a waste disposal..."

Fayt nodded (he was now halfway down the hall and edging towards the staircase). "Yeah, and that looks toxic. Better dump it on the Diplo later."

"Alright, just a minute." Cliff jogged down the opposite way down the hall, leaving Fayt to sag in relief. For a second he'd thought that Cliff would run towards him. Fayt decided he wouldn't go in the kitchen, since that was where Cliff had emerged from. I wonder why he was trying to cook in the first place, Fayt wondered. He remembered vividly the last time he and Roger had tried, and the battle which had ensued afterwards with Mirage. Cliff had ended up with a mild concussion. Roger was found a few hours later strung up the flagpole. The message was clear: never mess with Mirage.

A few minutes later, Cliff had returned and Roger had emerged from the kitchen (without the chef hats or aprons). The three walked down the hallway, with Fayt filling them in about the meeting everyone was called to with the Queen of Aquaria and King of Airygyph. "But I couldn't find Albel, and everyone else should already be there," Fayt finished worriedly.

Cliff snorted as they crossed a bridge, "who cares? He'd only add the words 'magpie', 'fool', and 'worm' anyway."

Roger snickered, "that's 'maggot'!"

Meanwhile, on the wooden floor of a room somewhere, the pot sat bubbling while its toxic contents turned an evil purple.

In Which The Acid Bites The Acidic

In the storage room of the huge house sponsored by the Aquarian government, Albel dozed on a table hidden by stacks of crates and barrels. Normally, Albel the Wicked didn't take to hiding in dim rooms. He was accustomed to walking around without a care, for who would attack Albel the Wicked? But it wasn't because he was afraid of being attacked that he was now trapped in the storage room. When he had been passing by the sitting room, he'd overheard the female fool Sofia (however you spelled it) gabbing with Leingod about some meeting about arranged marriages. Killing and fighting were on the top of Albel's list. Meetings about arranged marriages were decidedly somewhere at the very bottom of priorities. And if Leingodand the worm had cornered him somehow, they may have persuaded him to attend.

So that had left hiding, which left him in the storage room nobody really used anymore. As annoying as it was, it beat having to sit at a table and listening to Lasselle (the pompous maggot) prattle on and on about things no one really cared about. It wasn't like he would be one of the people who would be stuck in an arranged marriage anyway. And if they tried, the bodies which would be found wouldn't be recognizable.

Albel was slowly brought out of his doze by something warm on his face. Was someone touching him? He felt that poke again, this time on his chin. He opened his eyes and mouth to possibly bite off the finger when he realized that no one was there. No one had found him. So what was that poking...?

Just as he looked up at the ceiling, he realized that something was hissing – not good – and all of a sudden Albel Nox was drenched in warm purple liquid. A second later, something metal landed on his head. Jumping up and swearing up a storm, Albel sliced wood blindly with his claws as he tried to rub the burning liquid out of his eyes. The purple stuff stung. Plus it reeked. His whole body felt like it was burning, a bump forming on his head. Stumbling blindly, uncaring whether anyone heard him or not, he made his way to his room down the hall from the storage room and slipped into the shower fully clothed. He'd fix the doorknob he wrecked on his room later. Right now the cold water felt good.

Half an hour later, Albel slipped out of the shower dripping wet and feeling freshly scrubbed. He also smelled like peaches, for some strange reason. Now, to find out what the hell that was, he thought murderously. Nobody dumped stinging liquid on Albel the Wicked and lived to see another day, even if it did make him smell like peaches. As he was about to exit his room, he glimpsed his reflection in the full-length mirror and froze.

A certain four letter word filled the room for another five minutes, punctuating decidedly threatening sentences.

There were damn holes in his clothes! Holes! Whatever that liquid was, it was acidic. Quickly, Albel examined his metal arm. No sign of rusting. Good. But the maggot who made that liquid was going to die a slow and painful death for ruining his favourite outfit.

But first, he had to change out of the wet and ruined clothes.

Snarling in rage at being thwarted again from his pursuit of the unknown culprit, Albel stormed around in search of his wardrobe.

Down The Rabbit Hole

Five minutes later the whole gang (minus Albel) returned to the house Aquios sponsored for them (updated with modern technology from the 20th century)with a mixture of relief, hunger, and tiredness. The meeting had been grueling on the nerves. The King Arzei and Queen Aquios had called the meeting to discuss potential ties with the other country in an attempt to unite two old enemies, especially after everything that had happened to their planet during the time Fayt and the others had been off saving the universe. Sophia had had the not-too-smart notion to suggest a mass wedding like what sometimes happened at Earth when dozens of couples around the world married at the same time. Except this time each couple would be an Aquios and Airyglyphian couple. Others would be more than welcome to be married as well, even if they weren't an Aquios and Airyglyphian. The discussion had then delved into location, time, political issues... everyone except Sophia had started losing the battle with boredom. Nel had actually had to smack Cliff on the back of his head to wake him up because his snoring had begun to be more than noticeable (they were starting to rattle the tea cups on their saucers).

Now, no one was in any mood to do anything but to eat. "I'll go make us dinner," Sophia said quickly and darted down the hall. Fayt had the suspicion she had volunteered partly to redeem herself for making everyone miserable for three hours.

Cliff glanced at Mirage, who looked to be preparing to leave for the training room, and said, "I'm gonna go check up on the Diplo. Roger, you coming?"

Roger frowned from the bottom of the stairs, "why do I hafta come? I don't even –"

Cliff quickly tapped him on his helmet hard, "remember you asked me how to contact it from the communicator? It's in my room."

Maria quirked an eyebrow, "since when were you interested in gadgets, Roger?"

Roger opened his mouth to deny it, but quickly changed his mind after the second hard tap by the giant Klausian. "Err – uh – since we went to the 4D world. Y'know, showers and stuff are interesting, so I thought I should learn some more stuff."

"Well," Maria said from the hallway, "if you need any help, let me know if Cliff doesn't."

"Gotcha."

Maria disappeared around a corner with Mirage. Nel stepped in from outside with a slight frown, "Fayt, you said you checked everywhere right?"

Fayt scratched his head, "checked for what?"

"Albel. That scrawny rat was disrespectful for not showing up to the meeting his own king called him to, and the Queen of Aquios."

"Err, yeah." Fayt tried to get his mind to work through the hazy cobweb formed from the meeting.

"Did you check the storage room?"

Fayt tried to remember. There was a storage room? It took several seconds, but finally it clicked. There was a storage room on the first floor, the furthest room down the hall. "No, I didn't. I didn't think he'd be in there, I think it's infested with rats or something."

Nel rolled her emerald eyes and pushed past him, on her way down the hall. Fayt wondered if he should have apologized, then pushed the notion away. Why would Albel be hiding in the storage room of all places? Fayt shrugged and followed Roger and Cliff upstairs and was planning to get to his room when Cliff and Roger passed by Cliff's room and kept going. Weren't they gonna go to his room to contact the Diplo? Fayt wondered. Then another thought struck him, where did Cliff put the pot?

"Hey Cliff," Fayt called as he followed them down the hallway, "where did you put the pot?"

Cliff rounded on him with a 'shut up' look. "I didn't have time to go to the Diplo, so I left it in the spare shower."

Every room in the house had a private bathroom. But there was one guest bedroom with the biggest shower that no one used anymore, the farthest room down the hallway. It was reserved for any important guests which may have been passing by or wanted to stay. The last time it was used was for the Killer Chef – he hadn't really needed it, but in the danger of being chopped to pieces and served to others, they had offered.

Now, the trio trekked to the guest bedroom, entered and made their way to the bathroom. Cliff entered first and clicked on the light. Then froze in the door way. Fayt frowned, "what's wrong Cliff?"

"Move it, ya big lump! We've gotta get it outta here without Mirage seeing right! So move!" Roger, as small as he was, was able to squeeze between Cliff's right leg and the door way and stumble into the white tiled spartan clean facility. "Holy..."

Fayt, impatient, and unable to see over Cliff's shoulder, prodded Cliff gently in the back. "Cliff, let's hurry up, Roger's right. We've got to do this fast."

Cliff moved out of the way as if in a dream. Fayt looked around the lit room, noting nothing out of the ordinary until he followed Roger's riveted gaze. On the floor beside the toilet was a ragged black hole. And no sign of the pot anywhere in sight.

Only one thing stuck out in Fayt's mind after his initial shock. "Cliff, Mirage's gonna kill you."

You Can Run Nel, But You Can't Hide!

Nel stalked down the first floor hall, ignoring all the doors except for the one at the end of the hall. She couldn't believe (well, she sort of could. It is Albel were talking about) that Albel would actually defy the orders of his own king. On top of that, it seemed as though he really didn't care about uniting their countries after centuries of bloodshed. Including the battle for the universe! Oh, that pigtailed insolent idiot will pay...

A noise from the third door on the right alerted Nel's trained ears. This wouldn't have stopped her if the noise hadn't come from Albel's room, and as far as she knew, Albel didn't let anyone in unless they had a death wish. He'd made it clear that he wasn't a morning person when he'd nearly stabbed Fayt in the ribs for waking him up one particularly cranky morning. Anyone who walked in had a death wish. But the noise wasn't the only indicator that Albel was in – the doorknob was hanging out of its socket by a measly spring. Scratch marks adorned the mahogany wood, and there were a few droplets of purple by his door.

Another bump inside confirmed that Albel was in. Grimly, Nel screwed up her anger, planning to raise a storm inside as she slammed the door open and stomped in. "Albel Nox! You are - !" The vision slammed into her shocked brain and for the second time that day Nel was frozen in her tracks. Anger gave way to blankness. Her jaw dropped. She even stopped breathing.

There stood Albel Nox, captain of the Black Brigade, personal enemy, and strangely a brethren in the strange worlds beyond Elicoor… standing in the middle of the room, dripping wet and naked.

Okay, maybe not completely naked, but close enough. Nel couldn't tear her eyes away from the black towel slung low around his pale, whipcord lean waist. The towel was sinfully small, stopping above his knees. Even though his skirts were slit to the top of his thigh, he wore leggings to cover the rest of his legs, and the change was mind numbing now. Her eyes traveled up his defined chest to his shoulders, then down his lean arm to his hands which were busy using another towel to dry his hair. Long strands of blond hair stuck to his lean back, in swirls from the washing, as if in a caress.

Dear Apris, just take me now or hold me back from eating this yummy vision. She had the horrifyingly embarrassing notion that she'd actually relish each bite.

Just as reasoning was starting to make itself heard in her mind again, Albel looked up with an evil, knowing smile on his dangerously attractive face. "Good enough to eat, fool?" he drawled, straightening. Nel caught herself watching his muscles ripple as he did and commanded herself to do something.

She might as well not have done anything at all – it would have saved her more embarrassment.

Her normally graceful Crimson Blade movements became those of a clumsy new born dragon. Stumbling backwards, she tried to turn and move at the same time and nearly tripped but thankfully her hand had found the wall and she scrambled for her life out the door and slammed it shut behind her, Albel's maniacal laugh following her as she raced down the hall and into her room. She leaned against her closed door, gasping for breath, then sank onto the floor as her knees gave out.

What the hell just happened?

s/v: Hey! What'd you think? This happens to be my first fic on so let's be nice to the amateur writer and rate and review! Mmkay? - Thanks for dropping by!