Warning: Major spoilers for Bravely Default and Second (and the Bravely Second demo!), as well as the Wellspring Gem sidequest in Bravely Second. Basically, this is my take on how DeRosa got picked up to become an adjunct professor and researcher at Al Khampis, which was a prompt I found on dreamwidth.
There will also be mentioned kidnapping and drugging given that this is DeRosa we're talking about and there will be references to the past game, but none of that happens in the present events of the fic.
Peer Review
Summary: He's pretty sure they just took him in because they're understaffed, but he's not about to turn down this opportunity.
Also known as: How Fiore DeRosa picked himself up and moved forward after the events of Bravely Default.
Fiore DeRosa is essentially banned from Florem at this point. Not a surprise given all the crimes he committed on behalf of the Duchy (mostly), and it's not like he wants to go back there anytime soon. It's better to lay low after the end of the world was dealt with – something about an evil fairy – and figure out what to do next.
He has no connections. No help. He's pretty sure that having a track record of kidnapping people and drugging them isn't great for one's career.
So, the best thing to do? Start anew elsewhere.
He's made things work for him before. He can do it again. Might be harder without being part of any larger organization, but he can do this, he's sure of it.
So, he decides to head to Harena. Seems like the last place to go, given the lack of beauty and water, but it's better than being stuck in Eternia and Florem isn't any better of a location. Plus, Eisenberg is recovering from a civil war, and he's not in the mood to get stuck in any shenanigans there.
The food at Al Khampis is cheap, affordable enough for him to live off – and it's intentionally priced so even the poorest of students can afford it. Same goes for the local inn (though he suspects the dorms are more expensive). Lucky for him, despite not being a student and having limited savings, he's pretty sure he should be fine – for now.
But he needs a job, and the money isn't going to last forever without one.
He asks around discreetly, wondering if there's something that can suit his talents – he's a Red Mage, the jack of all trades! Surely some doorway, a path to success, should open for him!
No luck so far. It's unfortunate.
Fortunately for him, the Al Khampis libraries are (mostly) open to the public, so he uses the downtime to read as much as he can in there. Maybe there's something he can learn, something he can turn into some sort of workable career. He attends the public lectures out of curiosity, trying to find something that piques his interest.
There's a panel discussion on somnial energy one day. DeRosa knows the gist of chemical reactions – mostly from experience than book learning – but the fact that others have failed to harness it has him interested.
They don't have the skills that he does. He's a jack of all trades, so he has a better fundamental understanding of magic and so on than they do. If there's anyone that could have the chance to learn and harness somnial energy properly, that person might be him.
Norzen Horoskoff gets his attention after the lecture is over, the two chat about somnial energy a bit more.
A day or two later, Norzen and some of the other Al Khampis staff scout him out and offer him placement as an adjunct professor.
Looking back at it later, DeRosa is pretty sure that they just took him in because they're understaffed, but he's not about to turn down this opportunity. He's stuck assisting with teaching classes and subbing in for professors that get sick, but he starts gaining popularity with the students over time.
It's…a bit weird, honestly, given what he used to do before this, but it's a change that he welcomes.
He's in the middle of research at the Oasis when a party of four shows up and asks him to lend his strength.
Foolish boy. Strength cannot be borrowed, but only won! DeRosa figures it's a fun opportunity to have a spar – and how can he resist the opportunity to go head to head against the beautiful silver-haired lady and her friends?
Of course, he's beaten. He's out of practice, though he thinks he puts up a good fight. He hasn't had to fight too many enemies in the recent few years since starting work at Al Khampis, which is refreshing, but disadvantageous in a spar.
Either way, the group is satisfied with the battle they had, and they part ways. DeRosa wonders if he'll see them again – what were their names again? He only remembers Magnolia at first, the silver-haired beauty, but there were the three other guys with her – oh, right. Yew, Janne, and Nikolai.
He has a feeling he'll see them again.
DeRosa's hunch is correct after he's forced to investigate a ghost haunting the campus.
A ghost, cackling and bloody all over - that's what a lot of the lovely female students are telling him. DeRosa doesn't want to be saddled with investigating things like that. Unfortunately, as the newest staff member, he has no choice.
He's never been to the dorms' basement, and he's stunned that all these monsters are just roaming around in there at night -ghosts, demons, and more. Why have a campus whose dorms literally sit above this dungeon of a place?
He doesn't want to think too hard about that.
There's cackling coming from a few meters away, and he turns a corner to see a –
Crystals, out of all the ouftis the mystery ghost could've worn, did it have to be covered in blood!? Really? It's not fashionable at all – and the four people currently battling Geist, four that DeRosa's never met before in his life, are getting tired. The latter is probably more important. It should be.
DeRosa decides to crash the party and see if he can talk the mystery man out of it.
The mystery man, Geist the Bloody, smiles at him with a grin so wide that DeRosa isn't sure if the man is real.
Also doesn't help that he literally vanishes afterward while laughing at him and everyone else.
Weird.
Anyway, he teases the party a bit, asks for a kiss – might as well try, even if the black-haired one is glaring at him for it, while the silver-haired woman encourages the brown-haired guy, Yew, to go ahead. They part ways after making it out of the basement together.
Despite never seeing the school's ghost again, DeRosa always has the chilling feeling that he'll be back one night, rapping at his window or grabbing him from the shadows.
Somnial energy!
That will be his project – one that he thinks can give himself a good name and also actually be beneficial to more than just himself.
Some of the other professors warned him that this was a dangerous pursuit, given the mass quantities of water that are required to work.
Also doesn't help that they're located in a desert where people are literally thirsting from time to time.
But he's beaten bigger odds before. He can do it again. That's what he keeps reminding himself of anyway.
Unfortunately, the first obstacle is getting the project approved by the Al Khampis higher-ups. He argues as best as he can for his passion project during a meeting and now, he must wait to hear if they approved or not.
Several students ask him if he's okay, because he's not his usual charming self while anxiously waiting for something lifechanging. DeRosa responds that yes, he's fine, absolutely fine, and he's just a bit anxious waiting for the results. If this gets approved, he could make the breakthrough of a lifetime.
If not, it's back to the drawing board, dammit.
When no one's looking, he grabs one of the spare cushions from the library's main sitting area and screams into it.
By some miracle, the others approved of the project, and DeRosa can finally start figuring out his research. He's got a student eager and willing to help him change the world for the better as his assistant, and now he can finally –
Oh wait.
He needs water.
Lots of it.
He forgot about that part.
However – Edea Lee is around now, with that boy named Yew, Magnolia, and Tiz Arrior. He treats them to lunch as a friendly gesture (mainly to try to appease Edea, who'll become the future Grand Marshal), tells them about his plans, and he hopes that they'll be on his side.
Surely they'll understand now, after these years, that he's changed and a different person than what he once was now. Surely Edea can understand the gravity of this situation and side with him, right?
Edea sides against him.
He should've seen it coming, honestly, and he ends up fighting the party over the Wellspring Gem.
It doesn't end well. All he gets are bruises, scrapes, and wounded pride.
He ends up being forced to cancel the project – which is unfortunate because there was a lot of hope riding on this.
"Does this mean I'm fired?" DeRosa can already see everything possibly crumbling ahead of him – the career he just built up over the years turned to dust, the students and staff shunning him for his absolute failure to find a water source big enough to harness somnial energy with, and the sting of the earlier battle's defeat isn't helping this discussion.
"Oh, no." Norzen claps a hand on his shoulder. "I know your research project is cancelled, but you're still welcome to stay on as adjunct professor for the time being while you figure out a new project. The students all love your teaching, and in fact, the average of your classes' grades has gone up as well."
DeRosa's not sure if the class average's grades have gone up because the students are genuinely improving or if he's just a more lenient marker than the rest of the Al Khampis staff. "Thanks." At least he's not fired. Not for now.
But now he needs something new to do, to research, but what? Sure, he has employment still, but it's hard not to get back into some sort of research. There was always something fun about pushing those new frontiers, something interesting about trying things that hadn't been done before. He didn't want it to just go away and be left in the dust.
He gets his answer one day after flipping through a few pages in a book about legendary, long-lost items.
The Sword of the Brave. Didn't Yew Geneolgia have something to do with it a long time ago?
Where is it now? No one knew.
DeRosa took a deep breath, shut the book, and decided that he needed a trip to Gathelatio. Yew was busy reorganizing the Crystalguard and getting rid of its corruption. After the whole debacle with getting rid of another evil god and trying to right the countless wrongs that the Crystal Orthodoxy had done, everyone seemed to settle down a bit. Yew included, too – not only was he reforming the Crystalguard, but he was already engaged to that pretty lady Magnolia.
But, surely Yew wouldn't mind a visit about something so interesting, right? DeRosa decides to take a sabbatical – though it's not really one if he can go learn about the Sword of the Brave from Yew and track it down from there, right?
He'll figure it out. He's done it again and again – and this time, it'll be no different.