Culture Shock
Since Ed, Genesis, and Shiro had taken the woman at her word and gone back to working on the arrays, everyone there seemed to be expecting at least one of the Xingese 'alchemists' to make their way over to see what they were doing. And sure enough, a couple hours later, the woman alkahestry practitioner who had been to one side of Lord Long interrupted them with the question, "What kind of blasphemy is this?"
Genesis snorted at the words and commented, "I didn't know helping fix something wrong with someone was 'blasphemy', especially not when we have Minerva's permission, and even her help, to do this. Ed, I think we'll need to ask her which parts must be there to make Zirconaide's essence work, then merge Percia's into it."
"We might, unless Zirconaide knows," the blond boy (and that was still disorienting and mind-boggling to Genesis—and almost everyone else, he was sure) replied. "We should probably try that while Minerva's busy."
"What is she doing?" one of the other alchemists asked in some annoyance.
"Dunno, but I think it has to do with the functionality of the Enemy Away pillars," Ed offered, then shrugged. "Or the places in the mountains where she put them, which may not be pillars. Doesn't stop the monsters from attacking things on the other side of the border, just keeps them from eating whatever they attacked. I think this mark has to be in the final string—it's a definite key in the code for Zirconaide." At the last, Ed pointed to the one he meant in Ria's image projection.
Genesis eyed it for a long moment before saying, "Well, if you're going to pin that one down, we'd probably have to add this one, too." He pointed to the one he meant, further down the string than the one Ed had pointed to, then looked at what those were on the strings for Percia's codes. "It looks like the human part is out-right ordered differently—the code is almost in the opposite order between hers and Zirconaide's. That means we probably can move the corresponding marks on Percia's lines into the final singular line as well—they won't be taking up the required spots out of Zirconaide's."
"How are you helping someone by merging them with some non-human being like they're a—what do the Amestrians call them? Chimeras?" the woman asked harshly.
Gensis sighed and looked up at her to say, "Percia and Zirconaide are already merged. The problem is, they aren't quite merged smoothly, and we're trying to fix that for her. No, we aren't at fault for this—we had a criminal on our world named Fuhito who fixed part of Zirconaide into Percia's body, and trying to remove it once it was there probably would have killed them both, so the only other option was to merge them. We had Minerva's approval, and she likes the idea that her 'Earthen Champion' can bring Zirconaide to some sort of balance. Now our task is to make sure the merging is as smooth and functional as it can be—which is hardly wrong when Minerva's okay with it."
"And what of the rest of you?" the woman asked coldly, looking at the others in the group.
It was Basque Gran who said in a flat tone, "After realizing every Amestrian alchemist now needs to be cleansed of blood alchemy taint because of the array coding we were given, I can't actually fault them for trying to fix a different kind of taint for someone. They're doing it to help this woman, and apparently another man after her, who was actually merged by Minerva, and this problem was still missed. Like Genesis asked you, how is it wrong to help someone have an easier time of things now that this has been done to them?"
"And all you have is their word—" she began.
"They have my word, too," another woman's voice cut in blandly, and Genesis looked up to grin at Percia. The Xingese woman turned to stare at the brown haired Turk in shock, and Percia went on, "I'm the one they're currently trying to fix. Speaking as the one this was all done to directly, I know they aren't the ones who did this to me, it was the criminal Fuhito, who easily slaughtered over five million people single-handedly. Ed did the best he could to mitigate it, but it's a largely unknown and very personally specific field of study, so fixing the details to not cause me other issues takes time and work. And I'm thankful my friends are willing to put in that time and work to make things easier and better for me. Wouldn't you be?"
The Xingese woman blinked at her, then blinked at her again, then said, "You do not resemble the samples of a chimera I have seen before. At all. How?"
"Because the kind of merging Percia has is as a shapeshifter, not a chimera," Ed threw in, and Genesis suddenly wanted to laugh.
"...What would be the difference?" the woman blinked.
"Think of, say—Kirin," Genesis offered, still trying not to laugh. "Kirin is mostly a spirit, but can manifest in a form you can see and touch, right?" He waited for her agreement, then went on, "Kirin also has a human form which can do the same, right?" Again, he waited for her (now wary) affirmation, then went on, "So, that makes Kirin a shapeshifter, one who is literally switching one form for another—the two forms don't co-exist in the same space. Perversely, chimeras on this world are the exact opposite—two forms forced to share the same space. By extension, the parts and weight of both forms are applicable to the resulting body."
"How does a human become a shapeshifter?" the Xingese woman asked in a mystified tone.
"By having a full set of arrays for the other form stored in their planetary sentience's core, and having it be a full, viable form," Ed replied dryly. "Alternately, either because the sentience established the other form and linked it to the human, or because the two forms already existed and a link was formed between them. I'm the first, and mine was pretty much accidental. Minerva made the second when she merged Vincent and the being called Chaos. Percia is the last—her and Zirconaide being given such a link, so the other two forms which resulted from their merging are also stored in the core, like with Chaos and my other form."
"That's right! How much has your furry form changed if everything else was fixed?" Genesis suddenly asked intently, and everyone else blinked at him uncomprehendingly.
Until Roy asked, "What does he mean, Ed?"
The boy shrugged and commented, "The shapeshift form is still 'the same' because it was always switching out with my human body. Except, because Minerva helped make it a proper form, it assesses my current state and matches itself up to it so the difference in things like size won't do things like throw my balance off." The boy then crossed his arms with a glare and pouted, "Which means it turned into a winged, humanoid—and male—kitten instead of a cat, and won't 'grow up' again until I do."
Genesis couldn't help it, he laughed until he cried. "Oh, that's just an adorable image, Ed! Just adorable! Please do show us sometime soon!" Most of the Gaians also smiled or chuckled at the words, but the Amestrians, Ishbalans, and the Xingese woman all looked shocked and confused.
It was Zahir who asked, "But Ed, you've always been a boy. How would that form ever have not been, for you to need to specify the gender?"
"Because, when I was on Gaia, there were two scientists—Fuhito was one of them—who thought it would be a hoot to splice female animal genetics into me, and until I came back here, I was actually both genders, not one. In that, I should be thanking Truth for his intervention," Ed sighed faintly.
"Who's Truth?" several of the present people asked in confusion.
"The guardian of sorts of the Alchemist's Gate," Roy replied for him, gaze troubled. "But Ed, meeting Truth means performing a human transmutation..."
"Yeah," the blond boy agreed. "Usually. I have extenuating circumstances, and our trip back here was the result of him asking for mine and Minerva's help—having the agreement of the other sentiences here for the Gaians to be on Earth is really useful. It wouldn't have happened if Truth hadn't so badly wanted me back on this world, so the terms were in reverse—he wasn't being the judge, he was the one being judged. With Minerva's support and protection, I could have said no, but it wasn't like Truth was pulling me off a world in peril, and was asking for me to return to try to save this one."
"Save it from what?" Gran asked in some confusion. "I know the Ishbal War was a problem, but it wasn't a world-destroying one. At best, it would have destroyed Amestris, and as much as we Amestrians wouldn't like that, the rest of the world would have been fine."
Ed gave a hum as he thought about how blunt to be, then gave a shrug. There was no point in hiding the actual depth of the problem. "The thing is, yes, this is a local problem, but the one orchestrating it would eventually destroy the world by repeatedly 'trying to become a God'. The more I think on it, the more sure I am that the being called 'Father', who people like the Führer take orders from, will end up doing that—he already destroyed Xerxes beyond any salvation, after all, made the region pretty much unlivable, even. But that's not actually what Truth wanted help with," the boy said, meeting his gaze evenly.
"It's that something suddenly destroyed every dimension of this world, all at once. The sentiences here and Truth looked for a long time for the source, but it had been so abrupt and sudden that the most they could do was trace it to this dimension. From here, they have no idea where to go, who to look for—which means the danger isn't one they already knew was one. Because I had been systematically working my way through Gaia's dimensions—and had finally hit the last one, by the way—I know intimately how dimensions work and cross-influence one another, so he needed my experience."
Everyone there gaped at Ed, except Zahir (he'd heard it before, after all), and he commented, "Maybe you should explain to them what 'dimensions' are, Ed."
"That would be helpful, yes," the Xingese woman agreed, sounding a bit faint.
"Oh, good point," the boy blinked, then nodded. "They're versions of this world where some things went differently, so it created a different over-all flow. Humans or other sentient races are the largest sources of variation on a world, so as human societies develop, more possible paths emerge. You could take an event like a meteor hitting the planet, and you really only have two possible outcomes—either it does or it doesn't. Occasionally, you get a third, where it might do something like scatter bits across the surface or shift the rotation of the planet or its path around the sun.
"However, when you have sentient beings involved, you always have no less than three options—a 'do something', a 'don't do something', or a 'do something else entirely'. That's also impossible to predict because even people who are so rigidly habitual you could time your clock by their actions occasionally choose to 'do something else entirely'. Then, there's the sheer number of things they could choose to do when they 'do something else entirely', which is huge because we're sentient. For most people, those choices don't affect things on a world scale, only within their personal lives, but for others, the smallest choice could have caused the world's path a major diversion."
Ed paused to think for a moment, then looked up at the Xingese woman. "How much have you done to develop Xing's alkahestry?"
"I have developed several healing arrays and a work-around energy channel if something disrupts the main line of energy. Why?" she asked in confusion.
"Are your methods frequently and widely used and learned, or do only a small number of people know them?" he asked.
"Most all of our doctors and healers know and use them, and some people outside the profession use them. The basics are taught in regular classes now as well," she offered, looking even more confused.
The blond boy nodded. "Then you're a person who would have drastically changed the world's—this dimension's—current path just by choosing something other than alkahestry to do with your life." Everyone stared at him, then at her, then back at him. "Xing would be very different right now if you had never developed those things for them, right?" She blinked, but nodded, so he went on, "And Xing is a large and powerful nation. Things which affect the workings of large, powerful nations tend to influence major changes in the path of the world—and you did, so you're one of those instruments of creation of divergent dimensions. And I'm one as well, if only by default."
"By default?" she asked with a raised brow.
"Roy, you said you brought my books with you, right?" he asked of the man.
"I did," he agreed. "Though Genesis has them right now."
"Yes, and I'm definitely going to petition Lady Shinra to make as many copies of them as she can as soon as we have printing presses again," Genesis agreed. "I couldn't teach the principles as well as you have in those books, and there was even some data in them I didn't know yet. I have two books left, so I might find more yet."
Ed looked back up at the woman and said, "You and the other Xingese practitioners can read those books, too. I've been alive for so long I've had time to learn a lot more than the average person, and there's no way I'm going to keep that knowledge hidden—it's too important to the development of society and of people actually grasping how the world and alchemy—or alkahestry—works. By default, by my presence here, this dimension is now going to wildly divert from the others, just by that knowledge alone, let alone all the rest of my knowledge and the presence of the Gaians. I've already changed the face of the Ishbal War and Amestris' future path."
She blinked, eyed the group for a long moment, then turned her gaze to the soul arrays they were working on, and Genesis was legitimately curious about what she was thinking just then. A minute later, he had his answer, when she scowled and said, "If you feel you must do this, then you should be aware that you would actually cause mental illness in a human without these three marks in your final array." She moved close enough to point at them, then turned and stalked away angrily.
After everyone blinked, Genesis' lips curled in a small smirk and he said, "Well, that solves one more of our difficulties, and will probably be true with Vincent and Chaos as well. Make note of them, Ed."
"I will," he agreed, carefully writing them with his still-sore hand. Genesis thought he would probably like sitting and talking with the woman later, once he was done with this new fix.
FoWD-HC
Lord Cao Long felt very, very tired as he sat and listened to the woman in charge of the Gaians solve issues for her people. It was obvious she didn't use Xing's methods in doing so, but everything she was doing, or having them do, was both logical and functional, and he could see it around him. But what puzzled him the most about her was that she seemed to be effectively sedentary—she hadn't even gotten up since their arrival. And no one seemed to mind. It also wasn't that she wasn't doing anything, because it was clear just by her expression as she gazed (often) into the fire that she was deep in thought.
"You seem out of sorts," a man commented from beside him, and he turned to see a man he at first thought was Japanese—then realized he was in a Turk's uniform and had a red stone on his forehead. So this was a Gaian. A Gaian who somehow looked like a Japanese man...
"You will forgive me for saying I am out of sorts," Cao answered as he turned his gaze back to Lady Shinra. "It has been a long journey, and your people have a very different culture from ours. I believe your people would call it 'culture shock' if you are at all like the Amestrians."
The younger man chuckled at the words and agreed, "Yes, that's a very common symptom of our type of culture and 'white' culture meeting. I was a child when I went through it, though, so it was easier for me."
"So easy you became a direct supporter of the Gaian system, Turk," he replied in amusement.
"I'm called Tseng," the younger man offered with twitching lips, and Cao's twitched in response at the younger man's code name being the Xingese word for 'strong'. "And yes. They saved my life after my own people tortured my whole family to death. Why wouldn't I have given my all to them?" The words made Cao stare at him in horror, but he went on, "And that was when they were under a very bad leader—the Lady's late husband. My people are called Wutains. On this world, we're sort of like an amalgamation of all of the nations falling under your jurisdiction, though mostly the Japanese and Xingese culture and language."
"Ah. And the stone on your forehead?" the Lord asked curiously.
The younger man reached up to touch it for a moment, then said, "We have guardian spirits roaming around freely—they're called Eidolons when they're not attached to a Materia shard. The Eidolons have been heavily part of Wutain culture from the time we arrived on Gaia, and some families in particular gain frequent infusions of Eidolon genetics. Mine never allowed variance for more than three generations, so every fourth, and occasionally the third, generation, an Eidolon would take human form and marry into our family; for us, they were rotating between an Odin and an Alexander. I'm the result of a human-Eidolon pairing. This stone stores the data of the Eidolon genetics because they don't actually merge well with human genetics when the link is so close."
Cao had to just stare for a moment as his perception of the world tilted sideways again, and he said, "While I am not familiar with the names Odin or Alexander, you are essentially telling me your people tortured and murdered many demigods and a god."
"I don't know about 'demigods', though we didn't have normal abilities," Tseng sighed faintly. "But yes, that's essentially what they did. And then they wondered why our chief 'deity' of a sort allowed them to lose the war with Shinra while it was under the Lady's late husband's command. My family wasn't the only one they did that to, either. Virtually every family like mine ended up attacked and largely eliminated, and it was thanks to Lady Shinra, the Turks, and Ed that there were survivors of almost all those families. Or support from Minerva directly."
"What did Lady Shinra do?" the older man asked in confusion, looking back at her. "She seems...sedentary and immobile, not an active combatant."
Tseng's brow quirked as Cao looked back at him. "She has severe damage to her body from the waist down, and while she can walk, it's only for short times and with the support of a cane. To be clear though, there's almost no one here who can beat her in a fight, and the ones who can are, say—Vincent or General Sephiroth—those are father and son, by the way—or Argento. I think Ed would be able to if he was grown and had a desire to spar with her, but I've never seen him take her up on the offer to spar. There might be a couple others, but they're few and far between."
That made the Lord's eyes widen for a moment as he gazed at the slender woman—a woman who apparently couldn't move much, but was somehow still a powerful combatant. He wasn't sure how that was even possible, but if it was even half-way true, she was not just a skilled leader, but a capable military leader, as well.
He knew without doubt that they had the support of their deity, the one they called Minerva, and that they apparently also had the support of Ishbala (they knew the name only in passing, but acknowledged him as a deity) and their own deity, who they called Kirin. After all, the growth, the sea, the bridge, the lake, those pillars—they added up. He'd never seen a deity so involved with their people before, but how much of that was the fault of the people themselves? Apparently, Kirin by the name of Amaterasu interacted a great deal with the Japanese, but had gone by the wayside in the rest of the area, and purportedly, Ishbala was much like Minerva with the Ishbalans.
A deity's support only supplemented a leader's ability to lead, however, and it looked more and more like this particular leader was truly a skilled one. The loyalty of her people and support of their deity would actually make it highly detrimental to them to try to instigate war or trade cheats, and they'd already said they wouldn't become a satellite state of Xing's. The child was another point; introduced as an Avatar, with the appearance of a six-year-old and the presentation of an adult grown, he was definitely no normal child. That everyone deferred to him likely meant harming him in any way would earn harsh retaliation.
"Is she truly so powerful, even when crippled?" he asked suddenly, turning back to the Turk beside him.
Tseng met his gaze and said evenly, "She founded the Turks and worked alongside them as one until her injuries. Vincent and Verdot, her two guards and the leaders of the Turks, are the only two founding Turks still alive, and they also suffered from the incident which destroyed her legs. Not as badly, but badly enough that they still needed months of rehabilitation to return to normal operations. According to them, she went through a phase of depression, but then she found her strength again and moved forward. When she did, she proved to us all that you don't need to change your goals, you just need to change your method of reaching them. Go ahead and send your most powerful at her. She will shock you."
"Lord Long!" Lady Hong said irritably as she as much as ran up to him.
"What is the matter, Lady Hong?" he asked her in confusion. "You had planned to explore, had you not?"
"They are working on soul arrays, apparently with their—Minerva's approval!" she glared. "And listen to this!" She then recited the discussion she had participated in, and as he listened, Cao felt like he wanted to sit down hard and put his head in his hands. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to sit just then, so he just sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose as she finished explaining. He also heard faint chuckling from Tseng, and almost wanted to hit him for it. Almost. Anyone with sense didn't make a habit if hitting demigods.
"Was any of that news to you, Tseng of the Turks?" he decided to ask absently, still pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly.
"Not really," the younger man admitted in some amusement. "I was closer to Ed than most, though, so myself and Sonna have heard things he usually doesn't share."
While it has sounded like he'd have gone on, he was interrupted by a child calling, "Tseng, there you are! You have to come see what I found!" Looking up, Cao gaped at the brown haired, green eyed ten-year-old who was riding on the back of a massive, white wolf with a rather large mane. The wolf didn't seem to mind, and because it was so large he was almost looking it in the eye, it would have almost been like her riding a horse—but he hadn't known wild animals did that. And if this was a relative of the purple-black maned wolves they had been attacked by on the way to this place, it was a monster, and aggressive to humans, not an animal—or a pet. And yet...
"What is it, Nina?" Tseng asked in confusion. "And why me, not Aeris or Ed?"
"Ed is busy and Aeris is collecting herbs again," Nina replied. "I'd have asked Percia or Lakis, but Lakis is up at the northwestern pass and Percia just joined Ed and the others to work, so that leaves you." The wolf stopped a few paces from the three older ones, and Cao found himself confused for another reason. "Please, Big Brother?"
They weren't related. At all. Her with any of the people she'd named. Though, she had a few superficial similarities to the woman who frequently (apparently) collected herbs and whose military husband cared for their daughter while she did.
Sighing, the Turk replied, "Nina, knowing your track record, you either found some baby animals—or monsters—or a strange plant, and you want us to adopt them. You'll have to be more specific."
Nina grinned, but readily said, "Yes, baby animals. The thing is, there was no trace of how they got there, and they look like completely ordinary kittens, just old enough to be weaned, but not old enough to take care of themselves yet. We can't just leave them if they're that young!"
The Lord was torn between laughing and sighing as Tseng's shoulders sagged and the Turk did sigh, but the younger man agreed, "All right, let's go have a look, then."
"Thanks!" she grinned, and tugged the wolf's mane so he turned and began trotting back in the direction he'd come from, Tseng following more slowly behind the monster and girl.
It was Lady Hong who commented, "I suddenly feel like I would rather bow to these people than to the Emperor of Xing," as the two watched them go.
"Oddly, I am beginning to feel the same," he answered, and pinched the bridge of his nose again.
Ed and Lady Shinra. Dimensions. Deities and demigods. Pet monsters. Soul arrays. Seriously, could these people be any more intimidating if they tried? And he really didn't think they were trying, yet. Other than a few points the boy had made.
Gods, he was exhausted. And beginning to regret offering to take this position.