Chapter 8: Reunion
Cid had felt it coming for a while, like a great disturbance in the force but he was still unprepared when Beatrix entered the room. It had taken him a couple of seconds to realize Alpha hadn't decided Eta needed a babysitter and decided to tag along, the resemblance was fucking uncanny.
"I'm looking for my niece. Have you seen an elf that looks like me anywhere?"
Oh shit.
He didn't need to decide what information to volunteer since Alexia decided to do it for him "You look a lot like Cid's friend Allison, doesn't she Cid".
He was reluctant to agree but the situation demanded it "Yeah, a bit I suppose".
"A bit" Alexia was incredulous "They could be twins".
"My niece isn't called Allison, could you describe this girl for me?" Beatrix asked, clearly trying not to get her hopes up too much.
"Well like you obviously, except her hair's more blond than silver and her eyes are bright blue" Alexia supplied "She and Cid are old friends. She works at a store called Mitsugoshi".
"She works at a store" Beatrix muttered unhappily. She seemed to come to attention and focused on Cid along with the rest of the room.
Dammit I'm becoming the centre of attention, someone, anyone save me.
But no one came.
"Can you tell me what you know about her, about where she comes from or who her family is?".
"I don't know. She's never talked about it with me" Cid replied honestly. He knew she came from a noble family in the elven country of Car'veil but she didn't like talking about her past and he never wanted to deal with it either. Family matters should be dealt with by the family after all.
"Alright" Iris broke in "I'm glad you've got a promising lead so quickly but I'd like to give an overview of our objectives and what I want you both" She gestured to Eta who looked mildly bored (which meant she was at least mildly interested since she would be asleep if she was truly bored) "to be doing now".
Eta gave a tiny nod while Beatrix replied "Certainly" in a tone that implied she wasn't entirely happy with the change of topic.
He was just spacing out while Iris gave the tutorial explanations when she dropped an H-bomb on him. In fact since he had surpassed the nuke an actual H-bomb would be much less concerning.
You tortured me for a crime I didn't commit and that's cool, these things happen. I absolutely cannot forgive you for this though.
"I'm sorry Iris, what did you say?"
"Well… since Shadow Garden appears to be made up of young woman with the exception of it's leader, we have to assume there's a reason for that." she blushed slightly. "The most likely explanation at this point is that Shadow has created the group to form some kind of harem around himself".
"But..couldn't there be another explanation" Cid reasoned.
"If you have one I'm willing to hear it" Iris responded casually.
Cid looked over to Eta as if asking for help but she had no reaction to any of this at all, in fact she was smiling as if she was just fine with this total affront to his dignity.
Did you ever consider that Shadow didn't manage any of the recruiting because he thought his own organisation was a prank his friends were setting up. Have you considered that he still has no idea why it's only woman even now, have you Iris.
It would be so satisfying to say that but it would break character and destroy his prestige as the eminence is shadow faster than Iris was right now. He had considered this a few times but backed into this desperate corner he finally managed to reach the solution.
"The possessed".
"What about them?" Glen asked.
"It mostly affects young girls" As far as Cid knew there were only about a dozen recorded cases of possession affecting boys over the last thousand years. "If Shadow's been rescuing and recruiting from the possessed, it would make sense they're all woman". Cid felt doubly relieved to finally have an answer to that and managing to defend his honour.
"Well Marco is looking into what he could find out about possession, what have you found?"
"Well the church maintains it's absolutely impossible to cure possession" Marco began "and they told me the possessed need to be purified by the church to prevent the spread of the curse, but that's no different from what they've always said. Do you remember Bill Doran from school?"
Iris nodded.
"Well he joined the church executioners and we went out drinking toge-it was important research!" Marco retorted pre-emptively to Iris's look of disapproval. "He said they've had a massive drop in in possession cases, only five in the last two years and apparently they used to average a couple dozen each year in Midgar alone. He was praising the goddess for her mercy but I've also heard a few stories about church collection parties going missing. Maybe our man in the shadows is responsible for both".
Man in the shadows, I like that. If the plot demanded he had to kill one of these guys to raise the stakes, he'd try to pick Marco last.
"Well if we know Shadow Garden will come for the possessed" Iris mused "We can be ready for them when they come".
"But if Shadow's going to cure them, shouldn't we just...let him. I mean those girls haven't done anything and the church will kill them if no-one intervenes" Alexia broke in.
"If Shadow wants them he can come and explain himself to get them" Iris stated "Or better yet explain how he's curing them to us and we can do it. If these girls really are his recruits then letting him take them only means we'll have to fight them later. Besides that if any of them kills more than one person then more people will have died than if we just left them to the church".
Alexia still looked as if she didn't agree but chose not to argue further while Eta looked curiously at Cid then, probably wondering why he had given this knowledge to their enemies but Cid refused to turn her way. It was regrettable that they'd have to deal with more security around the possessed girls in future but it was a small price to make it clear Shadow wasn't a harem protagonist.
"It's a promising theory and does explain how they've gathered so many people with almost no missing persons reports" she nodded approvingly at Cid before turning back to her guests "but I believe we've gone off topic, as I was saying this Shadow Garden is an all female organisation except for it's leader…"
Iris continued as Cid thought out what he had to do. Obviously he needed to reach Alpha and give her a heads up about Beatrix. He also realized they'd need to silence Beatrix somehow if she knew Alpha had ever been possessed.
As the meeting wrapped up he whispered a quick "stall her" to Eta as he got up and headed towards the door, Alexia unhelpfully following behind.
"Where are you going?" she whispered as they cleared the door.
"I gotta go take a shit". Not the most dignified answer but she definitely wouldn't follow him.
"Well as nice as that is to think about I need to ask you something. Why didn't you want to tell Beatrix that Allison's is obviously her niece?".
"I don't know much about it since Allison didn't talk much about her family, but what she did say wasn't...encouraging". Alpha generally had a noble, graceful, slightly reserved bearing. Her response to him asking about her parents and if she ever wanted to go home to them was the first and only time he had ever heard her use a swear word. She'd used all of them along with some words he didn't know that he assumed were specifically elven obscenities. Considering they hundreds of miles away he'd decided to leave it be, not wanting to poke the bear.
And now the bears right in my face after I tried so hard to ignore it.
"Here I thought it was because of her crush on you"
"Her what?"
"Well she looks at like a dog looks at a juicy bit of meat. I thought you might have been afraid of her parents or Beatrix or something, goddess knows she could beat you in about a second. Are you really telling me you never realized she likes you".
"I thought you said your dad never let you have a dog".
"It was a euphemism. She looks at you like you look at my money".
I bet she thinks she was really polite not to have started with that.
"I was trying to be polite" she continued, exasperated.
There was an obvious reason for it but it wasn't like he could explain Alpha's devotion to him was that of a follower to her leader and that there was no romantic component to it. "I don't know about that. I helped her out of something pretty bad a few years ago and she's kind of always acted that way with me. I don't think she actually likes me".
Alexia moved to say more but he'd finally reached the bathroom "and don't ask what it was either, it's none of your business".
Finally escaping into the bathroom he was about to find an exit and serious dash to Mitsugoshi when Po and Skel called out behind him.
"Hey Cid, it's been a while. With you spending so much time with the princesses and the other knights we haven't seen you much". They were trying (very poorly) to act like they weren't jealous about this.
"Oh yeah right, well I've got to go so…"
"Wait! we need to tell you something. Since you were so busy you forgot we signed you up for the academy tournament next week".
The academy tournament would have been a good time to set expectations for his fighting skills to the audience, but he just hadn't had time to plan out a performance and decided to skip it.
"How did you guys sign me up?"
"Well we didn't actually". Skel explained "Since Claire's eighteen now and the heir to your family title she can sign most things on your behalf like your parents".
That could be really bad.
"So we told her you forgot and she signed you up straight away".
"Okay thanks". He'd deal with this later but he really had to go now if he wanted to get ahead of Beatrix. He honestly had no faith in Eta's stalling skills.
"What do you want?" There was no way they did him this 'favour' and rushed to tell him without wanting something.
"What? We're not after anything" Po declared, feigning offence.
"Okay cool, bye". 3, 2, 1.
"Wait. If you wanted to pay us back you could give us some of the chocolate you won at Mitsugoshi. We hear it's pretty popular with the ladies" Skel added as casually as he could.
Of course these two gossips heard about that.
"Fine, whatever. I'll give you some later but I really need to go now".
The run to Mitsugoshi was faster than losing his three friends and he soon landed in the back area after leaping through a window.
A brown haired girl rushed over to him "Lord Shadow. Why are you here?"
"I need to speak to Alpha" she just looked confused "Now!"
---
Alpha was reorganising a bookshelf when she heard Beatrix approach. Nothing could ruin the careful layout of Mitsugoshi's businesses quite so quickly as their customers. It no longer surprised her that the adult books and the children's section were equally disorganised by the end of the day.
Just get it over with.
"I know you're there".
Cid had warned her to expect this so she'd had a few minutes to think out what to say. She'd already gotten emotional and made herself look like an idiot with him, the joy of seeing him quickly turning into frustration at she began to understand why he'd come. Hopefully that meant she could remain maintain her patience for what was likely to be a very aggravating conversation.
"I wasn't trying to hide" Beatrix spoke simply as she came into view "I just didn't want to interrupt you. It would be impolite".
Of course. That was one of the rules, never interrupt.
She still remembered all of her parents exacting lessons on etiquette and proper decorum. For a race that lived much longer and was much less fertile than humans she supposed it was necessary to keep their society functioning but after so long living with humans (and especially beastkin) she could only see it as a slightly pretentious waste of time.
It was an odd thing for her aunt to bring up though. She was always straightforward almost to the point of naivety and despite her fame she was always something of an outcast at the rare ball or dinner she had chosen to attend in Car'veil.
"Well I haven't been keeping up with my lessons" she replied. When she turned around she saw her aunt was holding her arms out to embrace her but Alpha was in no mood.
"Come with me". She lead Beatrix to a corner of the store, where no one could listen in without being spotted and crossed her arms before starting "So why are you here?".
"Well… to see you. I don't know if you've heard about what's happened back home".
"That my parents are dead, you mean" Beatrix flinch at the casual way she said it. "I'm aware. I have no interest in going home or claiming my inheritance so it's all yours now if that's why you're here."
"Do you think I came for money? Bea..."
"That's not my name anymore" Alpha snapped "It's Allison Grey." Cooling slightly she added "Please keep that in mind".
"Well Allison" Beatrix continued, letting annoyance show in her tone "I don't know if you remember this but I've won plenty of tournaments over the years. I don't need any more money than I've won myself. I came because I care about you, because were family. I've been looking for you everywhere I could think to look for the last six years".
Alpha tried not to feel sympathy for the other woman and was unsuccessful "Well you've found me and I'm fine. I'm sorry for the trouble but I don't wish to have anything to do with my old life and that includes you".
Unfortunate as that is.
As rarely as she saw her aunt she had once been a favourite of hers. The carefree woman had allowed a rare break from her parents and tutors "Could you please just leave me alone?".
"No. I've searched far too long to just go without any answers. I'll follow you all day if I have to".
"I'll call security".
"Oh Good". Beatrix smiled "If you think they'll give me a good fight that'd be great. It's been a while since I've had a real challenge".
Alpha sighed. "Fine. There's a cafe a few stores down. Just let me talk to my manager for a second and we can sit there and get this over with". This had probably been inevitable from the start. Running wasn't an option (since it would raise far too many questions about her and Cid) and it looked like Beatrix wasn't going to give up on her so easily.
It's not a terrible change, honestly.
---
They spoke for the better part of an hour. Mostly Alpha telling some modified stories about her friends and her work while Beatrix filled her in with what she'd been up to during their separation, both carefully avoiding the topic of her parents.
Apparently princess Alexia had been the one to reveal her location to her aunt, it was odd how that girl kept cropping up. All she really knew about her beyond her public persona were a couple of unflattering stories from Cid and a brief comment from Gamma that 'her confidence in her backside isn't misplaced', whatever that was about.
She had hoped Beatrix would leave it alone at until their hour was up and she needed to get back to work, but she had no such luck.
"Allison" she said hesitantly "Can you tell me what you know about your parents? I still have no idea what happened. When I got back all anyone could tell me was that you went missing and a few weeks later your parents were found murdered".
Missing, that was one word for it. Like they hadn't known exactly where she was. "I ran away from home" she shrugged non-committally. "I have no idea what happened to mother and father because I was hundreds of miles away when they died". She had been, but she still knew exactly what had happened to them. She tried not to smile at the irony of how things ended for them.
"Why?"
"Because I realized that they never really cared about me at all. They wanted someone to carry on our name when they died and to make a useful marriage, that's it. Once I realized that I knew I didn't owe them a single thing. I never regretted leaving and I haven't thought about them in years."
Beatrix looked troubled but clearly had no idea how to respond. She'd left the elven kingdom herself and not just to seek out powerful opponents, but she was still clearly uncomfortable with Alpha's loathing for the place "I sold off some of my old books, toys and clothes to pay for my passage out of the country. I'm apparently not as smart as I was always told because if I was I would have taken some of mother's jewellery before I left. Eventually I ran out of money but I made a friend and he let me stay at his house for a while. Then I came to the capital and got this job from Ms Luna and I've living by myself ever since".
Beatrix seized the change of topic gladly "This place is incredible but I always thought you had more ambition than selling clothes and stacking bookshelves. Your… teachers always talked about how bright you were and I remember our sword lessons together. You were at least as good as I was at your age".
Alpha smiled "I suppose it isn't what I dreamed of, but the work is easy and it pays well. I suppose my ambition was more of my parents imposition".
"Well I had an idea about that. I could maybe help you with finding something more… significant to do if you're willing to accept my help".
"What is it?". Whatever she offered probably wouldn't be worth accepting but she decided to play along.
It took Beatrix a few minutes to go over her plan and answer Alpha's questions but by the time she'd finished the opportunity she had presented seemed incredibly appealing. Not for the reasons Beatrix thought they were though. The Black Concord meant she'd need a vote to accept her offer and with Epsilon in the capital it would be difficult to pass. Still maybe she was more ambitious than she had previously admitted. At the very least she had no intention of letting this pass her without fighting for it.
"I assume you're going to accept?". Beatrix asked
"I will. When do you think will be best to start?".
"I think you'd need until at least until their next break is over. You'll need the time to catch up".
That wouldn't be an issue. Her skills were already far past what they needed to be for this.
"I know you had some... issues with your parents but I hope you still think of me as family. I'll help with whatever you need, so just let me know if you have any problems" Beatrix held out a hand to Alpha.
Alpha's contempt for her parents was still boundless. Her misplaced hatred for Beatrix had evaporated over the last hour. She rose from her chair and held her arms out.
They hugged briefly and Alpha spoke softly "Thanks for coming to see me. Would you be able come by in a couple of days to sort out the details?"
As Beatrix agreed and headed out of the cafe Alpha sighed and schooled herself back to calm. This would require a great deal of planning to work. Thankfully she had a few hours of monotonous work ahead that would give her time to think out the details.
---
Cid was still slightly disconcerted by Beatrix's presence in the meeting room during his work, she kept an eye on him in particular and wasn't subtle about it. Alpha's reaction to her Aunt's arrival was equally off-putting. He couldn't remember the last time anyone in Shadow Garden refused him anything but she'd essentially shut down when he asked for more details about her old family life. Well…maybe shut down wasn't exactly right, she'd asked "must I, my lord?" and he'd said no, not wanting to push over that line and expecting her to answer anyway, but she offered nothing else. All he'd been able to get was that Beatrix apparently could have no idea Alpha had ever been possessed.
Maybe the need for a distraction (in combination with Eta's presence) was what put the idea for an experiment in his head. Since he knew Eta would be interested he pulled her aside once they finished for lunch. Alexia tagged along but he didn't really mind. She would probably enjoy this as much as Eta and she'd been unusually...not terrible over the last couple of weeks.
"So my hypothesis" he began explaining as they sat down to eat "Is that luck is a real force in this world, and that certain people have significantly good or bad luck that determines almost every event in their lives".
"That's ridiculous" Alexia exclaimed.
"Be quiet. I want to hear his wisdom" Eta broke from her razor-sharp focus on him to snap at Alexia. He continued while Alexia was still off-balance.
"My friends Po and Skel have especially bad luck, especially where woman are concerned. They've asked me for chocolates to ask out girls and I've agreed to give them some of what I won at Mitsugoshi. If I'm right, not only will they fail but something terrible will happen to each of them".
"Those two not getting girls wouldn't prove anything, they're not popular, talented or good-looking" Alexia added.
"Yes, but chocolate is a rare delicacy even among the nobility. It's not unlikely that a girl might give a guy she normally wouldn't consider a chance after he gave her some, even if it's just to be polite. Besides it'll probably be way worse than them just getting shot down".
"I still think this is stupid and besides, aren't they supposed to be your friends?"
Eta had stopped eating and was taking notes furiously while Cid responded "So you're saying you don't want to come with me and watch them fall on their faces?". It's not like he could stop them or save them anyway, and discovery required experimentation.
He took her lack of response for the admission of defeat it was.
"Let's make it interesting, I'll bet 100,000 Zeni it goes exactly the way I think it will".
"You don't have 100,000 Zeni, you spent everything I gave you on Claire. You're so poor I have to buy you breakfast and lunch every day just to get you to work for Iris".
"Leave getting the money to me if I lose. Besides, if I'm in debt maybe I'll have to get a job again". He looked at her meaningfully.
She got the message "And both of them have to get hurt or something, I win if either of them just get rejected."
Cid nodded.
"You're on".
He headed over to Skel and Po to give them the chocolate. He also told them Alexia and 'Erin' were hopeless romantics who would just love to watch them make their confessions. They didn't really like it but couldn't say no to him before he gave them the chocolate (and Alexia apparently scared the crap out of them so they were terrified to refuse her). Maybe they were getting smarter?
Skel was up first and managed to find his target, a short but pretty blond girl almost alone in the hallway. While he approached Cid's group pretended to be talking a little way up the corridor.
"That's my friend Alisa" Alexia explained "He's definitely getting shot down. Her parents are apparently pretty close to finalising a betrothal for her".
Apparently she was behind the times since her betrothed, a seven foot beefcake called Garin (Who he'd given the nickname gorilla Garin) showed up and decided to have a private word outside with Skel about his intentions towards his fiance. Skel's occasion ladylike shrieks of pain told them how it was going.
Alexia struggled not to smile and give away her sadism in public while Eta muttered "Master...is so wise". Thankfully Cid was the only one who could hear it.
Po looked mildly afraid but wasn't truly deterred as they set off for the library. Apparently his girl was in one of the research courses.
"Skel's problem was that he didn't do enough research, but I've covered all my bases. I know everything about her. Her measurements, what she likes to eat at meals, the ways she goes through the school, what time she goes to sleep and even her favourite bathroom".
Even Eta looked mildly disturbed as Cid sent Po to his apparently well-deserved punishment "Well that's really romantic. Good luck".
"Hey I…"
"Ahhhhh, It's my stalker. Mr Whitaker please help".
Po was stopped by the history teacher who took him back to his classroom to have a talk about personal boundaries with the fairer sex. Cid looked to Alexia expecting her to be upset at losing, but instead she just looked amused.
"I'm surprised you're not more upset at losing".
"It's fine. That was definitely 100,000 Zeni worth of entertainment" Alexia explained as she reached into her bag to pay him.
"You were right Ma…Cid. This has...fascinating potential" Eta said dreamily. She then broke character and assumed a slight bow "Thank you… for sharing your wisdom with me".
Cid tried to straighten her and start her walking "Yeah, fine. Our breaks almost over, we need to get to class and you should go back to the meeting room" He and Alexia had volunteered a free period but needed to get back to class. Iris refused to let them skip a single lesson.
Eta headed off while Alexia held him in place "I need to ask you something, have you decided about our 'relationship' yet".
He had. He was initially going to accept since Alexia had been less of a pain recently and it meant he didn't have to fake any other relationships to fit in. During his first visit to Mitsugoshi he'd brought up the possibility to Alpha and she'd quickly (and rather insistently) rejected it. Alpha had hastily explained that since Alexia had been able to see through Zenon she might be able to notice something off about him if they spent too much time together alone. He did have to admit she was a fairly good judge of character.
"Well… We can keep going for now and if either of us meets someone else we can just call it off, no hard feelings?" This was the best way he could think of to handle it without pissing her off. She wasn't unpopular and it wasn't like she was interested in someone who was unavailable. Ideally (and most likely) she'd meet some other guy and decide she didn't want him in the way. If not he could just pretend to like someone else himself and give her the slip if he thought she was close to figuring anything out.
Eta came to mind then but he'd like to avoid having to resort to Shadow Garden if possible. The thought of going to the others like "I can't deal with Alexia, please save me, Waaaah" was just so lame, especially considering they were probably concerned with much more important things than managing his love life.
---
In a very unusual turn of events Claire decided to call off their morning training a few minutes early the following day. "I take it you've seen your first opponent in the tournament" she said as she sheathed her practice sword and put it back in the rack.
"Yeah" It was Rose Orianna, which wasn't a particularly good or bad for him. A quick defeat in the first round meant he couldn't really establish his strength to the rest of the school, but it did mean he could set it to whatever he wanted (under Rose's level) later.
"We're going to have to work really hard if you're going to beat her".
He was momentarily speechless "She's probably the best dark knight in the whole school". Claire's eyes narrowed "Obviously excluding you sis".
"And I know you can beat her or even me if you really tried so come on!" he had no idea where her confidence in him came from. It could be that she somehow sensed that he could beat Rose with his arms and legs tied behind his back but most likely she just thought believing in his potential was what an older sister was supposed to do. No matter how delusional her expectations were.
"We're going back to our old training schedule, no more days off to work with Alexia and Iris".
"But I can't just leave royalty hanging" surely even Claire wouldn't go that far.
"I've already talked to Iris and she agrees your work shouldn't get in the way of your academic responsibilities, so your mine for the next two weeks".
With his last hope of getting out of this butchered he tried to salvage the situation "Even if we train a lot more I still don't think I'll be able to beat her. I'm gonna get wrecked out there".
Claire looked at him furiously "No you won't, I have complete faith in you. Besides everyone knows I'm responsible for training you and if you lose it reflects badly me and our family. Don't you even think about giving up".
Cid decided to look over his apparent options:
Option 1-Win: The entire school would know he was the strongest fighter there and he'd destroy his side character persona, but Claire would show mercy.
Option 2-Lose: His character work would remain flawless, but Claire would kill him.
He was boned no matter what he decided.