diatuooc | Test Drive #3

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Test Drive #3

Test Drive #3

Lightning Crash

The weather over the floating island of Ascelion during spring months is best described as "hellacious"; its elevation puts it right among the worst of stormclouds and fuels their thunderous fire as they sweep past it and electrically scrape against its sides. Rain is frequent, but lightning is almost constant, along with thunderous rumbles that roll across the city and the open spaces of the Magicademy like waves.

But today is particularly bad. Webs of electricity crackle through the sky, jumping from cloud to cloud or grounding themselves on towers of the Magicademy angrily. None of them seem to endanger the students, but there's a first time for everything, isn't there? As titanic fury threatens to tear the sky in half, do you risk stepping into the outside? Does the infrasonic rumbling trigger fear or terror in your gut, as such deep waves are known to do? Perhaps you've learned a spell that will protect you. Or perhaps you've poorly learned a spell that may or may not protect you...

Wand Wrong Way

The rumors around campus speak of a small and musty store deep in the Merchant District, on a side road to a side road, where only those in-know go to find items that would surely draw too much notice if displayed publicly. Powdered dragon tail, eye of sphinx, swords Forged with magic-cutting spells, and most valuable of all, the Gateway Wand. Surely this legendary wand, in which the full power of Sundering hums, could get you and your friends back home.

Rumors are pretty lousy with directions, though. The Merchant District offers ample chance to get lost, to get distracted, or to stumble down the wrong alley and find hoodlums all too eager to extract "tolls" from the lost and seemingly helpless. Does your adventure become disaster? Does this rumored shop even exist?

Pantalones Giganticus

At its heart, Modification seems like the most simple of schools. What could be more simple than arithmetic? Therefore, Modification also has the steepest and most shocking learning curve of all, as it rapidly balloons to more complicated mathematical expressions, more variables in the formulae, and above all more chance for error.

So really, the mistake is an honest one. Any hurried student, probably in their third or fourth year of study, could accidentally introduce an unnecessary factor into their equation. That is probably why your pants are now sized for someone four times large than you. (Not four sizes. Four times.) Worse, this has happened to EVERYONE -- the entire population of the Magicademy, student and staff and faculty alike, are trundling around in blown-up bloomers, too-large trousers, not-conveniently-sized knickers... you get the idea.

Now the bad news: to fix the error in formula and restore your pants to normal size, someone else has to get in them with you.

Labwork

Not every magical disaster is caused by some wayward student you don't know. Many of them are caused by you instead. To wit: you're on the spot in one of the magical labs, being called on to demonstrate a technique more advanced than others you've mastered so far. Failure is expected, and the wards should prevent any injury to others from a miscast spell. But will the sparks of your magic just sputter out and die? Or will you inadvertently mispronounce, misform, misshape, or miscalculate in a way that brings chaos to you and your lab partner?

(You could also manage to succeed in casting the spell, but that isn't very fun.)

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Tired of looking at the flame, as small as it is, he tries his hand at a flame slightly bigger than the one he created before. It works, of course, but the candle's wick wasn't made to maintain a fire of that size, and it fizzles back to its smaller shape shortly thereafter. Kuja shakes his head at it and sets the wand down, not thrilled in the least.

"You would do well with the mages from my world. Perhaps you might make your acquaintance with them if one should happen to be dragged along to this place. Or maybe we'll be back in our own worlds by then. I have every intention of learning the magic of this world and, if I must do so myself, learn the spells that brought us here and find a way to return." There's a sly sort of smile from him as he considers it. Oh, won't it be fun?

"You don't seem too happy to be here--I'm not entirely sure I'd want a mage from your world to come here and be just as upset." But Isabel gave the guy a sympathetic smile. Half of her didn't mind being here--but the other half was more than a little annoyed by it all, too.

His next statement had her grinning widely at him though, eyes bright. "Well, you're not the only one, you know! I mean, I'm curious about the magic here, sure, but I do want to get back to my world at some point!"

Isabel isn't really trying for a rivalry, but she can't help getting fired up. Fun, indeed!

It's better than being dead, he'll admit, though not aloud. But no, he isn't truly happy to be here. The truth of it is, he isn't sure he knows what it means to be happy. "I confess, this isn't the first time I've been whisked away to some unknown world against my will. This one hasn't forced me to fight battle after battle, over and over, without end, without rest, at least, but I won't be content with the knowledge that now I'm forced to study a foreign magic to save my own life."

He sighs dramatically and plants hands on his hips, staring down at the candle with no real want to return the flame to it again. Even so small a victory as it is, he isn't pleased at his progress. "The mages of my world wouldn't want anything to do with me; the feeling is mutual. If any do appear here, you would do better with them than I would, but I don't need them." After a moment of silence, he turns his glance to her. "What is it that you want out of this world? Surely you're enjoying this more than I am."

Deflection. Always his friend.

"That sounds like it sucks. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm young and relatively strong and in good shape, and in my chosen martial arts, I enjoy a friendly sparring match. But to be made to fight over and over? I don't even think I'd enjoy that, much. I'm sorry that it happened to you. I mean, I don't pity you, but it sure sucks that it happened."

Isabel can't really relate to that, and she knows it. His next words bring something of a frown as she considers why that might be--especially with his statement that he doesn't need them. Curious.

"If I have to be stuck here learning magic again, I want to be the best--" Though a thoughtful look passes over her face, and she laughs. "Okay, I might take second fiddle to you, 'cause it'd be worth it. I want to learn enough to get home, too. I've only been to another world once, so I'd like to do some sightseeing before I leave. I don't know if 'enjoy' is the right word, but..." She shrugs. She'll give him that.

Kuja sniffs lightly over the whole thing, tilting his head back against the memories. For now, that's all they are, irritating as some of them can be even these days. No, it hadn't all been entirely unpleasant, but those times were few and far in between. He should be glad that he can rest here, that it isn't all so bleak and desperate a situation.

He should be, but he isn't.

"Your sympathies are better served on someone else." He shakes his head again before she can question that and shifts back to her again. She doesn't know him, and it would be best for this world if they hadn't seen his past. The things he'd done, the lives he'd destroyed. Oh, he would fess up to it if it all came to light, but his chances of survival here were better if he had fewer enemies and greater favor, and he wasn't sure yet with whom he would need it. Best to keep his head down until he had established himself. It was what he was good at.

"Keep at it here and you can do well. Their methods are tedious, but not impossible. I dare say they could learn a thing or two about how to modify spells and token exchanges of magic, but far be it for a student to speak anything against their teachings." Another sigh, more of a huff than anything, and he looks over his shoulder out the window beyond. "At least the world outside is beautiful. They haven't done anything to ruin that yet."

While Isabel wanted to laugh, the guy seemed so stiff that he wouldn't appreciate it by any means. So she returned his huff with one of her own. "You might think so, but you're the one who elicited my sympathy, such as it is. It might not be much of a gift, but in my world, they've got a saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth--that it's not a good idea."

She didn't know him, no, but she wasn't going to pre-judge him on anyone's word--including his own. And she snorted a little bit. "Well, I plan to keep at it, but if those teachers can't handle a little kickback or being shaken out of their oh-so-precious boxes they've placed themselves in, they deserve what they get. Innovation is the way of the future." She followed his gaze to the window, and her own softens a bit.

"Yeah, that's true. Where my dad's from...they don't take as good care of the world as they should. It's still livable and all, but it could be in better shape."

He finds that curious, and he can't help but turn his attention back to her, looking her over again. "Why do you consider sympathy a gift?" Unbidden, his thoughts went back to Zidane. Twice now, the boy had offered his hand in help; it was the closest he could ever think that anyone had ever given him their own sympathy and he had turned it down both times, unable to see the point in it. What good could it do him?

In only one instance that he could recall, his own sympathy had saved a life, and he couldn't call it that. He told himself he needed Terra's favor as a bargaining chip, perhaps at some time in the future as he toed the line between the warriors of Chaos and Cosmos. Neither side was particularly fond of him. Though he was at least tolerated on one, the other held Zidane's loyalty, and he couldn't return home without the boy. He owed the thief that much. But this? He didn't even know the girl's name. How could she even think to offer him anything and then complain that he turned it down?

Perplexing. He never would understand her either, he thought. So he shut it aside and decidedly did not look back to the wilds outside. "Your... parents are from two different worlds?" He wondered if that might have something to do with how she was. Zidane had essentially been raised on two worlds as well.

Isabel takes a moment to think about this before she responds, biting her lower lip. She doesn't think he'd accept some sort of pabulum about kindness, though she does want to be kind, at least in and of herself.

"Well. For one, it's freely offered. I suppose you don't have to accept it, but I'm not really looking for anything specific in return. I'm sure you know a lot of things in life have strings attached." Which sucked, in her world view, but that was the way things were.

"I guess I have a question for you, then, since you said you had to fight a lot. Would you rather have someone who called you a friend, who you could at least trust a little and was pretty much on your side, or would you rather struggle on your own, because you're the only one who you can trust a hundred percent?"

But then, she nodded, forging forward to answer his other question. "Well, technically they're from the same one, but my mother's family left it a decade or two ago, and she has...issues that prevent her from going back. She went back once, and it wasn't a good thing, she told me. She got very sick. So she's learned her lesson. Dad's taken me to Earth regularly to visit his adopted parents, though."

A moment's thought on that and he tilts his head, agreeing and not with her, more understanding than anything. Or rather, understanding that she had a point, even if he couldn't fully understand that point. Nothing came free in his world, or anything he had ever lived. There was always a price, whether monetary or otherwise. It came with an understanding that something would be returned, especially sympathy. He'd never been able to truly grasp the concept, though give and take, that was easy.

Still, what had he felt for Terra? Why had he freed her from Kefka's spell? He told himself that it was because he needed her as a bargaining tool later, but he had no reason to need them when he sought Alexander. Certainly, he'd had no reason to let her keep the summon's crystal when they had defeated Alexander. That was what he had been after, so why had he let them keep it?

He never could answer it, not even to himself. So then, to her question, the answer wasn't quite so simple. He leaned heavily toward one answer and knew it was the one he would go with, but how to explain it. Did he even want to explain it? A moment or two longer and he shook his head. "I don't have friends. The only thing you can rely on in this life is yourself. If you need others, it only means you're not strong enough."

He hadn't been able to understand Zidane then when he wanted to help him, when he relied on others. In the end, he'd still been made to fight with others to defeat Shinryu, but that... was another story. Wasn't it?

Presented with the distraction, he took to it and turned away to look out the window again, bodily facing the outdoors to shove the rest of the conversation behind him. "Theirs is a complicated life. Why not stay in one world, if they have a say in things, and live out their lives as they wish?"

Isabel stays quiet, watching him think and how the progression moves over his face. Her teachers had always told her that sometimes, staying quiet, you could learn more than by breaking the silence. It's a little obvious, here, especially when the guy grasps at her response about her parents like a drowning person after a life preserver.

Interesting. And a little sad, but he wasn't thrilled with her sympathy; he'd probably like anything close to pity even less. So she keeps mum, though she does nod at the answer he does give. It explains a lot, but she won't go into that. Not now.

"Oh, they do, for the most part. Dad returns to Earth mostly to check on his holdings there, and my aunt, though she also comes to visit us. It's not difficult, and at least to us, family is important." And so were friends to her parents, but Isabel's not sure he'd understand that, with his value of strength in his own solitude. It's a bit saddening though; he really had to have had it rough where he came from.

If she's analyzing him, he'll pretend not to notice. They've been brought to this world with each the same reason and he knows he can rely on her to study and strive, just the same as he will, solely because if they don't, the magic this world has cursed or gifted them with, depending on how they saw it or how it benefitted them in the end, would kill them if they didn't. That was the only given in this world. He could rely on nothing else.

But it didn't hurt him to learn a little about her, even if it made a certain amount of sense to him in a documentary sense. She knew a family unit, as so many creatures and people in his own world had. Few were born to be immediately abandoned by their creators and sent into the world with the knowing that if they did not fight, they died; if they did not adapt, they failed. It was all he had known, and all he would expect to understand. He shook his head, one arm folding about his middle while the other gestured vaguely. "So then you've seen other worlds, whatever beyond this Earth you know. You must know magic there, yes? What is it like?"

Oh, ask her a whopper, why don't you? Still, she'd give it the thought she'd given any of his other questions. Serious thought.

"I do. Subtle, mostly, but as myriad as stars in the sky, with the way it can be performed. It's a pretty long story. Made abysmally short, if you're not subtle, reality reasserts itself and you basically get smacked down to size for your hubris." Isabel chuckled wryly at that, but it wasn't as if she'd never gotten a face full of Paradox in the past. It was almost...comforting, really, to not have to deal with it here.

Still, it was no reason to let herself get complacent.

"A lot of what I could do at home was elicit magical effects by basically being conscious of the way energy flowed through my body as I moved it." She figured that was easier to understand than her mother's--her grandfather's paradigm, really. Mad Science wasn't for everyone, after all.

To him, it sounds as if her way of magic is more for show than for actual effect. He might be wrong about that, but her description has not left him wanting, so he puts it to the side for now and glances back out through the window at whatever lay beyond. He can't control what the magic of her world is good for - for all he knows, that's as good as it gets, and in that case, no wonder she was impressed with his simply lighting a candle - but he shuts it aside for for now as intended. There isn't anything he can do about that for the moment. Some magic just can't be taught.

"That sounds like our own magic, but not quite the same. Like magic meant to conceal and not to damage. My own magic has been meant to cause harm, so I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with cosmetics." Because that's what he understood her magic to be.

Hmm. That wasn't quite right--but it wasn't his fault, but Isabel's own shortcomings in explanation. How to do it better?

"I'm not being clear, I guess. That was just the way I called it into being?" That sounded a bit better. "By doing martial arts katas, channeling my ki. I did certain things to produce certain types of magic. Like being able to sense where a person was, or calling down a lightning bolt. Two entirely different effects, which means two entirely different ways of evoking them. Does that make sense? Which isn't to say I couldn't produce cosmetic effects if I wanted to as well, changing the color of my hair or clothes, stuff like that."

She'd get up and show him a kata or two, but the lab was kind of crowded, and the actual magic wouldn't go off anyway. It was disappointing, but that was the way things were, at the moment.

He can't lie and say that the thought doesn't appeal to him. Maybe this is something he can question her about later, have her show him, if they're ever able to use their own native talents. As it is, he won't press. They do have more important matters to concern themselves with here.

He nods, lifting a hand as if he could summon one of the cores he had often used as a weapon in the previous worlds he had been dragged into. "It could only be half a performance if the props and the actors looked terrible, and therefore a miserable production. I see your meaning."

"Okay." She at least hoped so, because she wasn't entirely certain she understood what he meant, at that point. But Isabel could tell he liked to be a little melodramatic. That was okay. Took all kinds, in life.

"So, have you got a name?" Offering him a smile. "I'm Isabel. Isabel Knight, not that that really means a lot here." It was meant playfully, and hopefully her ignorance of what he really was wouldn't upset him. It certainly wasn't her intent. She wasn't mocking him, for example, not that she would anyway.

If or not he ever saw her magic in action, they were here now and he had mastered a basic of their new world. At the very least, he supposed he would have light when the storms came rolling in, as he assumed this land had changing weather patterns. He looked forward to it, and the thought lightened his mood. Her call for introductions lightened them further, something he had been wondering about and near about to ask himself, but it put him back into one of his elements.

"Kuja." He took a step back to lower himself into a sweeping, graceful bow. "A pleasure."

He might not take well to being made to study to save his life, but he was still quite familiar with the nobility of Gaia and weaving his way in and out of their society as easily as taking a breath of air.

Edited 2019-03-22 17:32 (UTC)

A warm little chuckle tickles her throat, more amusement than mockery, as Kuja bows. Though she's not wearing a dress, just robes at the moment, she drops him a practiced courtesy in return. Isabel has managed to learn something in the way of manners, after all.

"Likewise, sir." It wasn't nobility for her, but stodgy old Order of Hermes mages who'd been alive during her world's Dark Ages and were still cranky about being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern day. They demanded manners, and anyone who wanted to be taught by them, or even speak to some of the old farts, had best learn to deal with them on their own terms. So she had.

"So, are there things you want to learn about besides magic? We are expected to take electives, after all." And really, sometimes Isabel was as curious as a dozen cats. Kuja had piqued her interest.

There's a soft hum, pleased to see she has a bit of decorum herself. This place isn't home to him and he'll stubbornly refuse to call it that, he thinks, but not everyone here is terrible. He inclines his head, acknowledging her manners and considering her query. Behind him, his tail shifts to one side as he takes a seat in one of the chairs near him.

"You mean besides what it was that brought us here and how to get us back?" He tilts his head, watching her. "I suppose I must, if I am to remain here and control the magic in me. It seems a waste of good time though. Why learn something I don't need in this world if their goal and ours is to get us home?"

"There's always personal amusement. I mean, I for one enjoy music, so why not take that?" Isabel shrugged at that statement. She certainly intended to practice magic as much as she could, in the hopes of getting back home that much sooner...but with how disorganized people--mages seemed here, it made the Traditions back home seem almost...coherent.

That was scary. Really scary.

"I'm not sure what else I'd consider taking besides magic--" and they'd tossed her into magic classes first, while she was still trying to figure out what else to do--"but I'm sure there's got to be some interesting things to poke my nose into, here."

Beyond just wandering around in town, as an example.

"'Personal amusement.'" He sniffs and shakes his head. Perish the thought. His ideas for persona amusement and hers apparently were quite different. "If that is to your liking, then by all means. The counsel of this school encourages it, but I have no need for it. Efforts here could be better spent toward helping those of us brought here to learn what they know that pulled us into this world. Perhaps we could even help speed the process along, but no. They guard that magic as if their lives depend upon it."

Could he blame them? He might. He of all people understood pride far better than some, and yet he didn't appreciate having it brought to bear against him like this, not when it meant the difference between his returning home and not. But then, what did he have to return to? What really mattered? Whether or not their lives depended upon this magic, he would return to Gaia and... what? The entire world had been turned against him by his own doing. He would no longer be welcome in Treno, he was sure. His palace was all that was left to him, protected by a desert few to none dared to venture to.

That was, if he lived long enough to see it again.

Did he want to go home to that? Could he go home to that? Given the alternative, in his mind, he knew there was no choice at all. Die in isolation or die surrounded by a world of potential he had yet to explore. Habit and his own stubbornness wanted him to struggle against it. He wouldn't be told what to do. But...

"They have a study of the stars, I have heard. That might be of some interest."

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Test Drive #3

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I'm sorry about him ;3;

whyever for? :D

cause he dunno how to emotions ;3;

she won't judge, he ok

she's such a cute though ;3;

:)

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