The quality of these are kinda... mixed. I might put some of the good ones on AO3 later. I'm aiming for about 250-350 words each, which is a lot shorter than what I usually write, so I'm really not used to it!
1. Star Ocean: Second Evolution
Ratings/Pairings/Warnings: T, Gen
Summary: In which Welch introduces Claude to the world of fanfiction and there are some amusing complications.
Claude snapped his fingers, “I remember now! Where I've seen all these before!”
“Hah! I knew you would have conventions and fan work back on Earth!” Welch remarked triumphantly, “What self-respecting developed civilisation wouldn't? And when you go home, you'll be grateful that I introduced you to a whole new...”
“No, I mean, where I've seen all these people!”
Claude pointed to the image of the blue-haired, armoured swordsman with the cat ears and tail, who posed mid-battle with some kind of alien plant-like creature, then to the buxom catgirl with a shock of red hair whose swimsuit was remarkably supportive, “That's Roddick! And that's Pericci! And THAT...”
“You've really only just identified them? They're famous all over the galaxy! For Tria's sake, they've even heard of them in a billion year old, completely sealed-off...”
“That's my dad!” yelled Claude, “And these are his old work buddies! We named a big hairy dog after Roddick! Pericci used to purr me to sleep and call me a cute kitten!”
“Oh my! I spotted you staring at the catgirl doujin, but I didn't know you were THAT...”
“I was two years old!” he clarified, blushing furiously, “Why are all these people collecting this weird artwork of my dad?”
“Claude, you do understand how famous Ronyx is, right? And that he has a lot of female admirers all over the galaxy?”
“Yeah, my mum had a few words to say to him about that!” said Claude, “Who drew that one? My dad and Roddick would never do that! It's slanderous!”
“Um... it's like... surely you've read an alternative history book?”
“I forgot we weren't in the same time period. I guess this is all ancient history by now,” Claude sighed, scratching the back of his head.
“Anyway, you shouldn't be discussing all this in a crowded room full of fangirls. You're not exactly an eyesore, you know. You'll get us both mobbed!”
“Eh?” Claude whirled around, suddenly paranoid at the way a large percentage of the noisy crowd was now pointedly staring at the two of them.
“I'll finish buying you the catgirl one and then we can leave!” declared Welch.
2. Shining Wisdom
Ratings/Pairings/Warnings: T, Gen, major endgame spoiler, angst, doom
Summary: The way things end has consequences for Mars. He can't go back to how it was before.
His lantern goes out and once again he is plunged into darkness.
He promised himself that he would stop this, that he would try and find some peace, and that overall he would never return to this particular labyrinth. He tells himself the same thing every single time but he knows he won't rest until he goes deeper, somewhere as far away from the harsh light and frenzied life of the surface as possible. He wants to leave the world that he is anathema to. He knows he shouldn't remember, but he does, and he can never block the truth from his mind. He has risen again, and he shouldn't have. He has an entire second life that grates against fate so much that he can hear it screaming. He also knows he shouldn't answer the call, to ignore the voice that beckons him from the soft and merciful darkness that even now is getting surprisingly warm. He knows that the thing underneath the mountain is the one speaking to him, that it isn't asleep any more. The thought should terrify him, as it would anything that was part of the world, but it doesn't, and this very fact makes him uneasy in itself.
He can't ignore the call, and he wonders if there's a reason. Maybe it's no coincidence that they have something in common, that their fates and the world's interests do not align any more. Maybe things like himself have always existed.
He goes deeper, until he doesn't need the lantern any more...
3. Dragon Force
Ratings/pairings/warnings: T, Gen, Junon victory
Summary: Junon makes everyone help out with the repairs.
“This is an outrage! An Emperor should never be subjected to such indignities!” bellowed Goldark, “How dare you insinuate that I would partake in manual labour like the lowliest commoner!”
Teiris looked around, distracted by the Fandarian Emperor's outburst from Gongos' increasingly reckless attempts to impress her. Admittedly, the beastman's antics amused her as he swung from the scaffolding, leaping from beam to beam in death-defying feats of gymnastics while carrying heavy loads under one arm. However, it was inevitable that he would slip and fall and, while his gorilla-like physique would probably survive, it would make an awful racket, break valuable equipment and wouldn't result in any work getting done.
The thought of Goldark's fate, sealed the moment he tried to back-talk Junon, made the delicate Elven Queen wince even more. She thought she saw the eyes glow red underneath that black spiked helmet.
“Just shut up and get back to work, Goldark, you've already done a bad enough job of it,” Junon warned, her voice low as an angry cat's first yowl, “We're behind schedule and I don't have the patience for this. Unless you want to admit that you're incapable of a simple task. I'm sure Bardal and Presto can put out a public notice, to save you the inconvenience of being asked to do the job again. Don't worry about me, by the way, I have plenty of replacements lined up for you.”
“I... you wouldn't...” Goldark growled, glancing over at the bard and the stage magician, who stood in the corner with hard hats and clipboards, recording everything.
“Oh, hi there, Teiris. Is everything going okay at your end?” Junon's voice mellowed when she spotted the other woman.
“Oh, yes, we have rather a production line going with the summons,” said Teiris, “The Golems are proving particularly effective at heavy lifting, although the Wyverns have the advantage that they can fly. Reinhart has been telekinetically fitting some of the more delicate parts himself. I'm afraid I don't really understand the technical side of construction, so all I can do is co-ordinate the summons.”
From the very top of the scaffolding, Leon suddenly spotted Junon. He yelled over to Gigg and Santana, and between them, dragon-man and mysterious cloaked figure grabbed him under an arm each, took off and carefully hovered to the ground. They deposited him in front of the Empress, then Gigg winked at him and the two of them flew off again.
“We're almost done!” he declared.
“Thank you all for the help,” said Junon, “I know everyone hates fortification repair week, but it has to be done if we want to maintain a strong defence.”
“I think Goldark is just a little sceptical about the need for us to personally perform the repairs,” noted Teiris.
“If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself,” said Junon, “Now, where did that lazy bum Mikhal go off to again?”
4. Valkyrie Profile
Ratings/Pairings/Warnings: T, F/M (Lucian/Lenneth, unrequited Lezard/Lenneth, Mystina flirting with every male character in sight), spoilers, AU with lots of doom
Summary: set in the canon of my fic 'Nonsense of Reality' where Lenneth is 'saved' from the C Ending by making a pact with Surt. Lucian still wants to see her again, so he goes to Mystina for help. This makes Lezard unhappy.
Lezard wasn't happy when Mystina gave lessons to Lucian and not to him, but then, he was rarely happy these days.
Lucian had reassured him over and over again that he had no interest in Mystina other than as an ally. Lezard knew from experience that her attempts to flirt with Lucian meant nothing to either of them, any more than the attention she gave to the other men, to anyone she had an excuse to trap in a room with her for long periods of time. It was just her own way of coping with the stress, the same as Lezard's own refusal to sleep and his retreat into academic solitude, or Arngrim's long nights spent outside with a big sword, waiting for one of the survivors - on any side – to try and snatch his soul away.
It made no difference to Lezard. He didn't actually care all that much about Mystina. He knew Lucian was thinking of the same woman as himself, putting his own soul at just a great risk as Lezard's own experiments. Mystina was an expert who had been carefully preparing over several years for life outside her body, who could walk in spirit before they all became Einherjar. Before, just as suddenly, they weren't anything but lost souls. Lezard wasn't sure if Lucian had any idea what he was doing, or any of the myriad things that it would make him prey to, even more horrors than Arngrim had plans to kill. Still, it'd be worth it, Lezard agrees, if it meant they could see her face again. Maybe if he tried too, he would be the first to feel her touch. To meet her lips with his own, even if it burns down to the bone, as it did every night when he tried to sleep.
And at least it puts off the day he has to give up and use his fall-back plan of waiting for everyone to sleep and shoving them all inside the leftover Homunculi.
5. NiGHTs Into Dreams
Ratings/Pairings/Warnings: T, Gen, creepy as heck
Summary: Wizeman's former employers are uneasy about the growing power levels of Claris and Elliot. It reminds them of certain incidents from the past. Based on my fic 'Armageddon' which had an origin story for Wizeman.
When I see them now, a grown man and woman who have confessed their love for each other, their Ideya five sets of twin blazing beacons in the chaotic void, a guiding light for dreamers and a warning to Nightmaren, it reminds me of the last time we found some this strong.
We've only been able to install a Universal Dreamer once. It was a single child, as strong as those two combined. His power had already grown out of control by the time we found him, and he had left the waking world, along with his physical shell, behind. He was an infant – the really dangerous ones usually are. Something about the unformed mind, constantly overflowing with new information, capable of imagining anything with no real understanding of reality to set any ground rules, made for unlimited power in the Dreamlands if they had any potential for lucidity at all. It was the perfect seed of information – and it had the added dimension of humanity, coming from a genuine, aware dreamer, rather than an organically generated but still ultimately simulated model. And, with a little help from our technology at the height of our power, a Dreamer who had already found out how to survive outside their body could be kept alive indefinitely.
We knew that the Dreamer would be vulnerable. We didn't know, back then, that one of our own had not only fallen, but fallen so far as to abduct a Dreamer and let them come to harm. We hadn't even conceived that someone might want to use a Dreamer as a raw power source, a permanent, near infinite Ideya factory. Wizeman always was the imaginative one of us.
We'll never be able to attempt the project again, so it leaves the question: what are we going to do with those two? Because nothing that happened during that battle was as bad as the time we just left a Dreamer with that much power to deal with it on their own.
6. Gemfire
Ratings/Pairings/Warnings: T, Gen, doom, not Ander victory
Summary: Ander needed something other than Unicorns, but he appreciates their visits nonetheless.
The tall, majestic, pure white unicorn just stands there at the head of his bed, watching him wake up, sadness in its hauntingly blue eyes.
Legend tells that the presence of a Unicorn to a leader is enough to empower him on the battlefield and in the court. He's not sure what exactly that's supposed to even mean any more. At the time, he needed something more than Unicorns, and now it's a little too late. That didn't mean he wanted it to go away. It told him when Erin had bribed the guards into stabbing him in his sleep, and then later, in the middle of the ocean with no shore in sight, when the guards were going to fulfil their initial orders, to drug their food and throw them all overboard. It had even told him when the guards slept, how to best hide the knife, who he could inspire to mutiny and who needed to be dealt with along with the guards before they could betray him.
Besides, the Unicorn was a sacred animal to the Lyle family. There were even some rumours about Unicorn blood in his ancestry. That's why the Lyle children had all taken to the saddle so well.
Riding like the wind was a handy skill when all you could do was flee from the forest as it all went up in flames.
7. Dark Savior
Ratings/Pairings/Warnings: T, M/F (Garian/Silver Kay), spoilers
Summary: The Parallels are already leaking into each other a lot, and when they kiss, it accidentally thaws Carbon Garian.
“Take me with you... wherever you go...” she whispers into his ear before sensually nibbling his earlobe. He kisses her without reserve, closing his eyes and letting time stand still, breathing in her scent. He briefly wonders why her caress does not burn, but decides not to question the strange laws of this Island any more. They had given him this woman, this one eternal moment to be with her, and if it was a little like a dream, something happening far away to someone else, it was only because she was too beautiful to be true, and he had not remembered how to be happy for a long time.
Not too far below them, an alarm goes off, a pulsing red warning light washing over the ghostly blue glow that also flickers with energy for a moment. Monitoring apparatus in the main building's research laboratory, connected by thick black cables that ran through secret tunnels, began to show readings that had gone completely wild.
The Warden yelled at the technicians and they protested that the machine had been tested thoroughly today – he had personally overseen the checks. The equipment was not faulty. Something had happened. They had no idea what would make a Carbon Freeze prisoner spontaneously start to thaw. Doc theorised that it might be too high concentrations of Bilanium stored in one place, that the highly reactive substance may not be stored safely enough after all. Of course, they could not abandon the experiments, and they were running out of time, but a catastrophic mistake like the defrosting of the Island's most dangerous prisoners would set research back even further.
That said, a Bilanium leak would have affected all of the prisoners, not just the one. It was the most recent one as well, the Warden mused. There had always been issues with that one...
8. Risk of Rain
Rating/Pairings/Warning: T, M/M (Loader/Engineer), pre-game, doom
Summary: We spent longer than usual checking our rigs. We must have known it would have been a bad run...
He spent longer than normal checking my rig that night.
Our time in the engineering bay together, fine-tuning our exo-suits, had become a ritual. It had soon become something more than a practical measure, even though some of the more delicate, unique parts require more maintenance than normal and I wouldn't trust anyone else with machinery that has become more like a part of me than a work tool. He practically built it himself from scratch, he modified it so much for me, customised it to my exact specifications as the one person who understood me well enough to know my needs, to know how much these augmentations mean to me. When a technician synchronised an exo-suit to a person, neurally wired the two together, they saw into you, body and soul. Like I said, I would never have trusted the procedure to anyone else but him. Elitism within the company was a big problem, and other engineering staff tended to treat me like a big dumb cargo loader who would just be too rough with their precious suits.
We knew it would be a longer run than normal, and that it would mean a greater strain on our equipment. There was a big payload across several systems. Some of the systems had a reputation both for hostility and extreme weather conditions, that ships had been hit by ion storms and that couriers didn't land on the planet if they wanted to live. We had been told to land and deliver the equipment in person, that there were big-shots involved and we had to actually look presentable for once. That meant nice shiny suits and service with a smile, and persuading the chef-bot not to run amok and set people on fire again. He knew I would hate it.
I think we both knew this wasn't going to be a normal run. Not even a normal bad run.
I think that was why we were acting as though it would be our last night together.
9. Earthbound
Rating/Pairings/Warning: T, Gen
Summary: Gerald Montague's fortune changed when he found that meteorite chunk.
Diamonds aren't worth as much as gold, and neither are worth all that much to me since I discovered that hunk of Meteotite.
It wasn't even that big a rock. A heavy thing, but nothing I couldn't pick up with the crane. It was knocked off the main meteor by the impact when it hit the ground, I guess, or burned off it when it passed through the atmosphere. Made one heck of a crater, mind you, wouldn't want one falling on my house. An old prospector's intuition told me that thing was a whole new level of valuable, even before I got it over to that crazy Doctor Andonuts' house and his heart almost gave out. Had a fair few thieves out for it, too; he warned me I would, as soon as anyone got wind of what I had. Good job my guard ducks and moles have gone back to normal after that alien made them psycho. I asked the Doctor if there was any chance that weird things might happen to me if I kept space rocks in the shed. He said nothing like mind control or growing tentacles, but I should probably wear gloves when I'm handling it. He also warned me I was going to need a sharper drill bit if I was going to grab some more of it, or maybe he could build me a vehicle-mounted mining laser and I'd give him a share of the profit in exchange. And I needed to think about what I was going to do once it came to chasing that thing into space to look for more. Of course, he would help me with that, again for a share of the profit.
Not sure how it got this far, when it started actually working. My guess is the crazy old man had been planning something like this for a lot longer than he'd been letting on. It's dangerous work – we have things bigger than moles and ducks, now – but there are a heck of a lot more interesting things out here than gold and diamonds.
10. Valkyrie Profile/Star Ocean: Second Story/Star Ocean: The End of Time crossover
Rating/Pairings/Warning: T, Gen, AU, mild spoilers
Summary: set in the AU canon of a bunch of my Star Ocean fics. Surt still hasn't returned to his own dimension, and after his attempt to possess Decus epically fails, he goes after Adray, who is now Decus' disciple.
My second favourite vessel? He didn't take me that long to find. I didn't even have to leave this dimension of existence, only wait. He was also my first vessel's disciple.
Their command structure broke up soon after I was forced to leave, as I knew it clearly would, if only from the chaos in his mind. Some of them retreated off-planet as soon as they realised what their leaders had planned for them. They still had supporters everywhere, even after what they had done to entire planets. To some people, power was all that mattered, and others genuinely agreed with their principles. To yet others, it was more of a cult. And there were so many planets that hadn't heard of them, that hadn't even existed so long ago.
Decus had gone to an underdeveloped planet, one where nobody could really bother him, and hidden inside a series of volcanic caves. Vesper petrified anyone who got too close, left the statues around like the memorial to some fallen civilisation, but it didn't deter some people. He couldn't be everywhere at once, and it was the kind of society where explorers and adventurers crawled out of the woodwork once something interesting started to happen somewhere. Anyway, once Decus decided he actually liked someone, it was impossible to keep them away. I think it was the way he laughed in battle that made him so perfect. The man had already learned Spicule when I managed to scan his soul down.
I hadn't even known who the Eternal Sphere were before then, never mind what it meant for them to be angry with you. Sometimes I wonder if that had been my biggest mistake...