CHAPTER 13:
MISADVENTURES IN AMATEUR ANTIDOTE-ASSEMBLY
Tot frowned, straightening up after examining Cid. "I'm sorry, sire. But the best solution is to find the one who cast it in the first place. Your wife, I believe?" Tot asked.
Cid nodded, though he looked crestfallen. "So there is no hope, gwok?"
"I said it was the best solution," Tot said, cradling his chin in thought. "Long ago, I read a book on metamorphoses, and polymorphic spells. It had methods to reverse such effects, including something that could possibly reverse the transformation."
"Is this true?!" Cid demanded.
"Indeed, but the book itself had a somewhat comical tone, and I cannot be sure how reliable or accurate the remedies are," Tot confessed. "The only thing I can guarantee is that the remedy that we could use is unlikely to be lethal, given the ingredients involved. We mix three ingredients, and apply the resulting mixture to your body."
"It's surely worth attempting, isn't it, Uncle Cid?" Garnet asked.
"I suppose," Cid said with a resigned shrug. "What are the ingredients, though?"
"Unusual Potion, Beautiful Potion, and Strange Potion," Tot said. "They must be mixed in a 5:2:3 ratio."
Artrania frowned. "They were common back in the old times, when mages used them frequently. Even so, they are somewhat less common nowadays."
Zidane rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think Cinna has the Unusual Potion. I'll go searching in the town."
"Hey, can I come? I haven't been around Lindblum yet," Harry said.
"Sure. Just keep close, Harry."
"I shall come as well," Garnet declared.
Despite the wreckage and ruins caused by Atomos' summoning, as well as the Black Mage invasion, Lindblum was already getting back on its feet. Construction was everywhere, and the citizens were doing what they could. "I hope that Alexandria will recover as swiftly as Lindblum is," Garnet said, looking around the semi-ruined Theatre District with a melancholy expression.
"Don't worry, Dagger, they will," Zidane said, as reassuringly as he could. "Besides, they have you as a Queen."
"Some Queen I turned out to be," Garnet said quietly. "Here I am, while the townsfolk languish in misery. And I couldn't protect the castle, even with Alexander's help."
"And whose fault is that? Not yours," Zidane said. "It's either Kuja or this Garland guy. If Garland comes from my homeworld, then he's got to be as bad as Kuja, if he destroyed the castle and much of the town so readily!"
"And the Black Mages said it was Garland who ordered Kuja to destroy Madain Sari," Harry pointed out.
Garnet nodded, while Zidane shook his head. "I know that name from somewhere. Garland. Maybe I did know him, back on Terra or whatever my homeworld is called." He shook his head again. "Well, whoever he is, he's my enemy. And Kuja said we were created with destruction in mind. Like the Black Mages. Well…if I was created for some deadly reason, then I'll be damned before I fulfil it!"
They had just reached the Tantalus hideout, and Cinna, a pot-bellied man with a beard and a helmet and a hammer, heard the tail-end of it. "Damned before you fulfil what, Zidane?"
"Never mind, just venting about my family. My biological one. Hey, Cinna, do you still have the Unusual Potion?"
"Yeah, sure. I was just going through my stuff to see what got destroyed when Atomos did its thing. It's still there. Why? D'you want it?"
"Yeah, we need to make a potion up for Cid," Zidane said. "Can I have it, please?"
"Sure," Cinna said, scampering inside.
The Nero brothers, who looked like hooded grey pigs with clamp-like hands looked at Zidane. "Hey, when are you coming back to Tantalus, Zidane?" one of them asked.
"Yeah, we miss you," the other said.
"We've got stuff to do first," Zidane said. "Harry, these guys are the Nero brothers of Tantalus, and you just saw Cinna." As Cinna exited, holding an ornate bottle, Zidane said, "Guys, you know Dagger already, well, Princess Garnet, but this is Harry Potter. He may look young, but he's a powerful mage and summoner."
"Nice to meet you," one of the Nero brothers said, a grin apparent in his voice, despite his hidden face.
"Keeping Zidane out of trouble?" Cinna asked as he handed the potion to Zidane.
"More like he drags me and the others into it," Harry said with a cheeky smirk.
"Oi! I resemble that remark!" Zidane yelped indignantly. He then looked at Cinna. "Hey, don't suppose you know where I can find any Strange or Beautiful Potions?"
"Actually, I think that artist Michael has some Strange Potion. And I heard the Weapons Shop in the Business District had some Beautiful Potion, but that was one of the shops that got mostly demolished," Cinna said, rubbing his bearded chin.
"Thank you for your help, Cinna," Garnet said with a bow.
"Hey, just keep Zidane out of trouble, that's all."
Garnet grinned. "Oh, I know the magic words for that." Then, just barely audible, she hissed, "Etiquette lessons."
A few seconds afterwards, Cinna was wiggling his finger in his ear to try and get rid of the ringing, while the newly-repaired windows of the Tantalus Headquarters fell down all around. "Garnet," he said overly loud, as he had been somewhat deafened, "did he just break the sound barrier while running away from you?"
The other two potions were where Cinna thought they'd be, and Zidane stopped for a moment to mix them in the ratios. Garnet interrupted him in the middle of it, and asked to do it herself. She was worried he had gotten the ratios wrong.
Zidane decided to mix up a batch himself, and let Garnet do her own mixing. Harry declined to do something similar.
So when they came back, Zidane came forward first, and gave his potion to Dr Tot. And, sadly, the potion didn't work. Though the result was certainly highly amusing. Instead of an Oglop, Cid became a frog!
Dr Tot took the potion from Garnet, and applied this one, Cid feeling trepidation. And as before, the potion didn't have the desired result.
"Did it work, kupo?" Then, after a brief pause, the new form of Cid said, "Oh, it didn't work, kupo!"
Harry couldn't help but collapse onto the floor, laughing. Now perched on Cid's throne, dressed in his regal clothing and bearing his crescent-shaped moustache, was a Moogle! Even Garnet was giggling, despite herself. "Uncle Cid, you're so cuddly now!"
"Silence, kupo!" The frustrated Moogle that was the ruler of Lindblum hopped down from his throne, and danced a little dance of conniption. "That tears it! No more potions or medicines! We're going to go and find Hilda, kupo!"
"He's a Moogle," Steiner said dully in disbelief, staring at the new transformation of Cid. He, along with the others, were gathered once more in the conference room.
"I wanted to change back into a man again, but this is the best I got. Better than an Oglop or Frog, I guess. We all know that Kuja holds the answers, and perhaps the key to our fates, kupo. We need to find him."
"But we don't have an airship," Garnet said.
"We took that ship, the Blue Narcissus, from Alexandria," Cid said. "We can use that. Artrania, please order Zebolt to begin servicing that ship immediately. We'll be disembarking as soon as we can, kupo!" Cid's face screwed up in annoyance. "Damnable verbal tics, kupo!"
As Artrania left, Zidane asked, "Do we have an idea where to go?"
"No," Cid admitted.
"I do," Vivi said quietly. "The Black Mage Village. If what Steiner said was true…and some of them were working with Kuja…well, we might get answers there, right?" Vivi blinked back tears, or so it seemed to Harry. "I still can't believe it. Why were they with Kuja? Why?!"
Eiko and Harry hastened over to the Black Mage's side, and held him in a three-way hug as the boy cried. Zidane, looking rather crestfallen, eventually said, "It's the best lead we've got."
"I agree," Steiner said. "A brilliant idea, Master Vivi."
"We will all go," Garnet declared.
"Indeed," Lani said, hefting her axe. "My axe won't be satisfied until it tastes that peacock's blood."
In his Desert Palace, Kuja was contemplating a little problem. Now that Garland had interfered, and made his displeasure known, Kuja needed to accelerate his plans. The Four Guardians of Terra were loyal to him, and he could go back to Terra via the portal at the Shimmering Isle. In fact, while Garland's takeover of the Invincible was a disaster in one regard, it was a boon in the other, as Kuja was prevented from heading back to Terra by the automated systems of the massive airship. All he had to do was use either the airship he had now, or else his Silver Dragon, and fly into the transition vortex.
But he would be a fool to do so now. Not without some ultimate power.
Given Alexander's destruction, his best bet was legends he heard of a mythical Eidolon within Mount Gulug. But Garland had not only devastated the small civilisation of mole people within Mount Gulug, but sealed the entrance, with the Gulug Stone being left within the ancient Terran museum of Oeilvert, one of the few Terran structures to emerge on the world of Gaia after the failed initial fusion(1).
Although originally a museum, Garland had beefed up the security of that place, installing an anti-magic field, and setting Epitaphs around. The former was an extreme nuisance, as Kuja's specialty was in magic, while the latter were monsters who could spawn belligerent doppelgangers. It also meant that, expendable as they were, the Black Mages would be less than worthless to send there. And, of course, there was an ancient Terran Eidolon, the last known Eidolon left of Terra, Ark, set to watch the stone. Kuja couldn't capture it, he would have to destroy it.
It was times like this that he wished that Zidane and his merry little troupe would come blundering in, so that he could send them to fetch the Gulug Stone. In fact, that would be great. Because even if Mount Gulug's Eidolons had been destroyed, he had heard from Garland that there was an extraction circle there, and he still had Zorn and Thorn. And Eiko and Harry still had their Eidolons. The extraction ritual could only be safely used once they reached their 16th birthday, if only because the death of the summoner might prevent them from gaining access to an Eidolon. But Kuja didn't really care about their safety, only obtaining an Aeon more powerful than Alexander.
He remembered Harry actually manifesting one of his Eidolons, using that one to fly up to the branch near him at the Iifa Tree. The girl, Eiko, was certainly powerful. But what of Harry? Something told him that Harry might have the Eidolon he was looking for.
Still, these were hypotheticals, dependent on these fools falling right into his lap. Then again, he was almost certain they'd come to him. He had, after all, wiped out their cities, stamping on them as one would stamp on an ant's nest. Whether for revenge or for answers or (though he thought this extremely unlikely) to bow down at his feet, they would come.
His wanderings took him to the quarters of the Desert Palace where he kept his special guest. Lady Hilda, jilted wife of Regent Cid and woman scorned. A most beautiful woman in body and mind. That philandering imbecile Cid clearly didn't know a good thing when he saw it, though Hilda did intend to go back to Cid once she felt he had been sufficiently chastised. Foolish woman.
Still, she was the closest thing he had to a peer on this world. A prodigious mage, a woman strong in mind and body. He would have taken her as a lover, but she had refused, and Kuja, while more than willing to commit mass-murder, found himself baulking at rape. He wanted a willing lover, should he ever take one, as well as one who was beautiful and intelligent, not one spoiled by such a brutal and boorish act as rape. Besides, he didn't want to sire a whelp who might be powerful enough to be a threat to him, though a powerful enough child, under his control, might just be the weapon he needed to take on Garland.
Kuja considered visiting Lady Hilda, before deciding against it. He needed to consider his next move. Given that Garland had cottoned onto Kuja's intentions, he needed to plan things carefully.
And should Zidane and his merry band fall right into his lap? Well, it was a golden opportunity, wasn't it? He could retrieve the Gulug Stone, and extract the Eidolons, all in one fell swoop…
CHAPTER 13 ANNOTATIONS:
Well, a bit of humour, and a pit of pathos. Plus, I thought changing things around from the game would be interesting, like having Cid become a Moogle. I hope that got a few of you laughing your heads off. Anyway, next chapter will open with Zidane and company already captured by Kuja, and the flamboyant Genome actually giving answers to Zidane and Harry.
The next chapter will come with the next big update, very soon. Until then, enjoy!
1. This is based on both inferences provided on the Final Fantasy Wiki, as well as confirmation from the Ultimania, again on the Final Fantasy Wiki.