A Rose and its Clippers

[Agrias Oaks]

The knight grew cold for a moment, but began to heat up with Abigail's care. Her lungs and heart began to move on their own again after restart. She would cough a little, getting used to the air entering and leaving... but she wouldn't wake up...

Her heart was beating weakly, but she was at least alive. Her eyes darted behind closed eyelids at a quick pace, giving the impression she was in REM sleep. Her fingertips would twitch lightly in her sleep.

"A..a..." The blonde one was able to sound off... she must be having a dream... or a nightmare. She continued to warm up, getting almost feverish on how hot she was getting.

Alexandrian soldiers would come in with a stretcher, and place it next to the knight, looking to Abigail, since she was in charge. When Agrias was stable, they proceeded, with Lilith's help, to put her on the stretcher, and walk her over to the Medical Wing. They placed her next to Beatrix, since they were both suffering from the same thing. How eerie...

Most of the women would look perplexed at one another, trying to find a solution. Others would continue to tend the wounded around them. One of the main doctors, seeing Abigail's arm, and the condition that was hidden under her cloak exposed, walked over to her, and used a good Heal spell, before mending her arm up.

" Please, take care of yourself, Miss Abigail." Leis, the doctor, would suggest, "We need all the help we can get....and with the Knight and General being this way... could this be something they ate or...? What is the status? What can you make of this??"

[Abigail Crescentlight]

Abigail sighed softly, smiling as she saw that Agrias' vitals were finally rising. But then, it turned on her. She was warming up... but too fast! She gasped, feeling the woman's face. "No..." she whispered, then gestured for the soldiers who had just entered to get her moved. "Let's get going!" she said, then ran with everyone back to the medical wing...

There, she immediately set to work, ignoring the pain in her arm as she grabbed a cool cloth and a thermometer, taking care of Agrias as best she could in an attempt to break the fever. She almost completely ignored the doctor attempting to help her as she rushed to help Agrias. She blinked when her arm suddenly felt better, then smiled behind her to the woman. She realized she was rather... single-minded when it came to such things, and had completely ignored things she needed.

"Thanks... and I don't know..." she looked between the two, growing more and more concerned. "It's like they're sleeping... and I can't wake them up. Ther hearts are beating, even if irratically, their brainwaves are normal, their blood pressure is okay... Maybe it's a magical reme-" her eyes suddenly went wide. She turned quickly and grabbed the swords from the two women's hips.

She had seen them react to one another before, at Merlin's House. Maybe...

She looked at them. They were indeed reacting to one another. Maybe this had something to with what was going on? She looked at the two swords, one in each hand and tried to think. "What is happening here...?" she asked... then experimentally... touched them together...

[General Beatrix]

[glow=red,2,300]When both Save the Queen blades were drawn from their sheathes a cool wind picked up throughout the medical wing. It was low, barely enough to crumble a stack of papers, but it was still eerie.

The blades could sense that their respective masters were not the ones wielding them, and in a fit of panic, they began shaking in the young White Mage's grip, both beginning to glow.

Agrias' once brilliant, shining blade was slowly beginning to crack, and Beatrix' was already looking like it had been to the Underworld and dipped in the River.

Both swords glowed, Agrias' a radiant sunshine gold, while Beatrix' a foul, evil violet. And when these sisters connected, the vibrating quickened, and the two separated, flying from Lady Abigail's grip and hurling to opposite sides of the room. They both stabbed into the walls deep, and the room went silent. The wind stopped, but the room grew cold, and the two women laying on beds seemed to tremble.[/glow]

[Sai]

The Nobody had been sitting at his console, minding his own business. The Captain wanted the new members to put in 2 hours of work to pay for their existance on this ship, so that's what he was doing. When the ruckus started up, he had completely ignored it. It was, after all, none of his concern.

However, that doesn't mean that things don't have a way of making them his concern. Just as he was typing in a control bypass program that could boost the efficiency of the repair systems, a loud noise rang out in the room adjacent to the computer hall. Suddenly, the razor-sharp tip if a blade came shooting through the wall, haulting literally a centimeter from Sai's face. Several of the soldiers working alongside him leapt from their seats, screaming obscenities from shock, but he...

...remained seated. His head tilted up slowly, the tip almost grazing that half-opened eye as he looked down the blade. "Hm..." he muttered, then saved his progress and stood up. He left the room and walked down the hall one door to step into the medical wing.

"Could someone please explain why there is a length of metal protruding from the wall?" he asked calmly, and got the whole story from a shocked nurse nearby. He nodded and walked over to the Save the Queen sticking into his business. He leaned over and examined it.

"Well... that explains that..." he said mostly to himself as he ran a finger down the length of the blade until it disappeared into the wall. "These swords... are made from the same material from which a keyblade is made..."

[General Beatrix]

There was soon a slight commotion throughout the medical wing as whispers filled the room. Soldiers, medics and even some scientists looked to one another, all repeating that one word: keyblade.

"But the Keyblade is...a key," said the Head Scientist Daphne, who wore armor beneath a white labcoat. "The general nor Lady Agrias showed any signs of being authorized to carry one...not that the two would need authorization...but the potential hasn't been obvious, either. Beatrix took the other side once; we stayed with her through it all. And Lady Agrias, well...she seems like one you would see wielding a mighty weapon..."

Daphne quieted down, stroking her chin in consideration. She shook her head, her other hand supporting her hip, and she left the room, heading back over to the lab.

"This...is something I should look into."

[Sai]

"Before you go..." Sai said to the one turning to leave. "Allow me to make one point clear. I said that these weapons were made of the same materials as a keyblade..." he crossed the room here, observing the other one. "I did not say that they were a keyblade..." he tapped the metal to hear the reverberation. While cracked, Agrias' blade did in fact still sing.

"It's called HeartSteele, a very rare component used before the times of the Keyblade Wars... Not much is known about them, mere whispers in legends, really... but that sound is immistakable..." He stroked his chin somewhat, looking at the sword. "Fascinating..."

With that, he stood up, then walked with Daphne. "I would appreciate a chance to assist you in your research, if you don't mind..." he requested, though didn't really wait for an answer. He was going anyway. "If someone wouldn't mind... we could stand a small sample of the metal..." he muttered as he left the room on his way to the laboratory.

[General Beatrix]

"HeartSteele, you say?" said the woman, fascinated. "Interesting that you would mention it, actually. Come with me..."

Daphne tucked a long strand of her thick black hair behind her ear; she looked like a mess; her once perfect ponytail had broken apart, and was in shambles, and her labcoat was wrinkled. Sleeping in the armor she wore couldn't have helped to relieve fatigue, either.

"This way," she said, leading the Nobody Mage to a large touch panel within the ship's lab. "HeartSteele. A valuable component, and, like you said, very rare. The last time this was seen was...well, years and years ago. Back in the time of Miss Agrias. Before that legend tells of Siegfried. Took the first chunk of HeartSteele and had it crafted into Save the Queen. Of course he had Balmung and the Excalibur, but the knight faced off against a beast like no other. These three swords were...very important."

She put her hands all over the large screen and brought up old writings, paintings, and photographs of geographical sightings.

"A sample, you say? Hm..."

[Sai]

Sai nodded, looking to the maps and charts. Granted, none of them were of great value any more, with Alexandria destroyed, but maybe he could find some clues in the various geological locations as to the origins of HeartSteele. He considered these facts as the woman spoke before beginning himself.

"I wonder, then, if this Sigfried of yours was not one of the Chasers..." he muttered, then produced Keyblade Notes #7 from one of his pockets and laid it down, going over the part in the passage regarding how Chasers were the original creators of the Keyblade. "I suspect this swordsman of yours may have leant his knowledge to them at the very least, making HeartSteele the basis for many, if not all Keyblades..."

Sai walked over and grabbed one of the maps, laying it down and smoothing it out. "Can you tell me where your history says he most likely dwelled? Perhaps we can divine a clue from that information as to where we might be able to locate more HeartSteele, and possibly craft it into a vessel that can carry the power of the Keyblade..." He was thinking three steps ahead of himself. It said in the notes that the Chasers exact methods were not known, and Sai was certainly no metallergist. The best he could do for now was to gather the materials that might be needed.

"I had considered leaving the ship once we reach Prince Adam's Castle... There are more of these notes left to be found, and until I have the whole story, I can't begin to hypothesize on the process required to synthesize the weapon... I've attempted to ask moogles, but it turns out they only know how to craft a keychain, not the blade itself... So, I am at a loss..."

[Abigail Crescentlight]

Abigail slowly opened one eye. When the two swords had shot away from each other, the suprise had caused her to close her eyes tight shut and cringe. She was only just now recovering! She sighed, relaxing slowly before collapsing into a chair behind her and between the two beds. She shook her head, feeling so helpless at the moment.

"Word on Agrias' temperature..." she requested weakly, staring at the ground. She was tired... all this running around and worrying, and where had it gotten her? Almost nowhere, really. It was as if she could have just sat back and done absolutely nothing and the same results would have been reached. She looked at the two swords in the walls, noticing that Sai was leaving with Daphne now. She shook her head once more and brought her hands up to hold it as she hung it low.

"Why am I even here...?" she asked herself in a whisper. She constantly felt like she didn't make a difference here. Even when she "did good" according to Agrias, what had she really accomplished? She didn't defeat monsters, she didn't find the one clue to make everything else fall in place, she didn't rescue anyone, hell she couldn't even hold a sword properly! She felt like such a burden... and all the time she felt like she was getting heavier in the heart.

"Maybe I should just go home..." she muttered as she sat there, listening to the distant beep... beep... beep of the heart monitors and the brainwave scanners...

[Leckseeuh]

Lexia began to grow bored, sitting on a box behind the spot where Sai recently sat. She wasn't as surprised as everyone else was, she saw that kind of stuff a lot and didn't see why everyone was obsessed with it. She sighed and stood up, walking around the ship for something to do. I wonder where everyone is...I really need to start paying attention... She found her way to where the sword came from, just to see what happened.

She looked at Abigail sitting there, sad. Lexia could feel a sad person from a mile away. She smiled a little smile at her, sitting on the floor in front of her, setting a hand on her knee. What happened? Why are you upset? You're usually so happy! She asked curiously. She honestly didn't mean to stick her nose in everyone's business, but that's just how she was...

[Lilith]

Lilith grabbed Abigail by the shoulders and held her tight, probably too tight, her eyes glowed red, something primal had suddenly tweaked in her.
"WOULD YOU LISTEN TO YOURSELF, IF YOU THINK YOU'RE PATHETIC YOU WILL NEVER ACHIEVE MORE THAN PATHETIC, GIVING UP IS WHAT KILLS PEOPLE"
she slapped Abigail across the face
"SNAP OUT OF IT"

Lilith came to her senses and let and let her go.
"I'm... I'm sorry, I don't... I have to go..."
Lilith rushed out of the room and back to the hold, she ran into the corner and held her knees up to her chest.
"what just happened..."

[Agrias Oaks]

**From Melodies of Time, in Dive into the Heart**

The knight let out a soft gasp, her body twitching lightly, as if something had bothered her. She let out a soft whimper before calming down- the sword, which rested within the walls hold, drizzled metallic dust upon the ground.

Agrias seemed... hurt, though nothing had damaged her- or it would appear so. She flinched a bit more, before falling silent again, her heart weak, but staying there. The brain-levels were a bit wild though they would stabilize.

She would not wake just yet... no longer in dive, yet... not wanting to return.

[General Beatrix]

Daphne stared the notes with wide, knowledge-seeking eyes. She bit her lip to keep herself from squealing and turned to Sai, her face bright and eager, even though it was apparent she'd had little to no sleep in days.

"What a brilliant relic!" she called out abruptly, staring it up and down, anxious to reach out and grab it. "...may I?" She didn't even wait for him to reply. She delicately swiped it off the small platform before the tablet and examined every bit of the notes. The texture, the handwriting, and of course the information.

"I've longed to discern the full story of the Keyblade Notes...General Beatrix never let anybody in the lab even glimpse at the ones she found..."

She then snapped back to reality and looked back at the notes. "Oh..." she breathed, blushing and folding the notes back up and handing them to Sai. "Forgive me. Eagerness. Now, Siegfried's history..." she returned to the panel and began typing on the board itself some names and places, pulling pictures from the sides, moving some in corners, and enlarging certain articles.

"There we go. Siegfried Avonne, the Legendary Knight. The Divine Knight. You might be correct; legend tells that he had a hand in the rise of Key Wielders. Hm. It says that his home world was destroyed, but there are remnants of it hidden in certain pockets of space--even the legendary castle itself--near the Ivalice ruins and..." she frowned. "Alexandria. There's certain runes Siegfried and his mages placed on holy locations to prevent their destruction, which also means that there are warding seals...You might seek out the library at Prince Adam's Castle, as it is vast; not nearly as great as the Alexandrian Libraries, of course, but still. Or you could even venture to the--wait, is the Enchanted Dominion gone?"

She turned to another soldier nearby, who nodded.

"Well, that's out."

[Sai]

Sai nodded, taking the new information into account. He stroked his chin and reviewed what he was being shown, quickly drawing up trajectory plans, plotting out all the various places the "holy places' could have drifted by now. Many of them had settled into other worlds, becoming part of the landscape so to speak. He looked at this, then looked to Daphne, who seemed... rather eager despite being obviously tired.

"These notes were pinned by Xehanort during his apprenticeship under Ansem the Wise merely 11 years ago. I would hardly classify them as 'relics'..." he observed, but looked up once he had finished, eyes drifting to Daphne. "You stated, and I quote, ...General Beatrix never let anybody in the lab even glimpse at the ones she found. This implies that she in fact found some. Would you happen to know where these notes are now?" he asked, and though his tone was calm and cool (it has to be), there was something else there. Hope? From Sai? Who knows...

"I am endeavouring to collect all 13 of Xehanort's Notes. I have numbers 7 and 13, number 4 was found by another, though I know what was on it." He stood up fully, turning to Daphne now to address her face-to-face. "Knowledge of the Keyblade's construction is essential to ending this wave of darkness that has engulfed the worlds... and for myself and others like me to return to a state of being whole... I will not lie when I say that this is very important to me."

He looked to the door, thinking. "I also must voice my concern that your General has steeped herself in darkness for a very long time. She wears the trappings of the Heartless, and that scent is undeniable. I am concerned that she might have disposed of whatever Notes she had discovered, in order to protect the darkness rather than serve the light..." He crossed his arms, one hand drifting to his chin as he thought.

Then, he did something somewhat unexpected. He looked to Daphne, his eye so deadpan and dull, but when he spoke, it was almost soft... "You are tired. It is evident in your face, posture, and speech." He lifted his hands and rested them on the woman's shoulders... "Go get some rest. These trappings will be here when you awaken, and you are no good to anyone in this state." Was he... being NICE?

[Abigail Crescentlight]

The White Mage looked up to Lexia a moment, smiling weakly. She was right, she was normally quite happy, but something was weighing so heavily on her heart as of late that she just couldn't muster up that kind of happiness at the moment. "I..." she began, whispering.

But then suddenly she was hoisted up by her shoulders, held so tightly and looking into the face of the vampire, with glowing red eyes and a yelling voice. Before she understood what was happening, she was suddenly slapped across the face! She blinked, stunned by the action and trying to piece things together even as Lilith ran out of the room.

"Wha..." she muttered, slowly coming back to herself and rubbing her cheek where she had been struck. "What in Cosmos' name just happened??" she asked, so confused by the vampire's actions. She shook her head quickly, trying to focus.

Just then, Agrias stirred! Abigail gasped, then ran to her side, feeling her forehead and checking up on her. She was tired, yes, and flat exhausted by the battle and the events after. She could rest forever after this, but right now... "Agrias, it's alright... I'm here. It's Abigail... Please wake up, sweetheart..." she whispered to her, hoping she would stir to wake. She reached up and tapped her cheek lightly with her hand. "We need you..." she added, then swallowed a deep, hurt bit of herself when she forced herself to say "Beatrix needs you... come on, wake up now..."

She knew there was a connection between them, and she had a strong feeling that using Beatrix's name would work sooner than her own. Agrias's sword was evidence enough of that...