Fellowship & Fairydust

When I saw her I had to do a double-take. “Gri’s Beak! What are you wearing?” I’m not joking. It looked like someone swallowed a paint jar and vomited it all over her clothes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jiminy jump on my shoulder in shock at what she was wearing.

“They’re just Eini’s oversized clothes,” Johri explained, “I finally grew. A lot… We’re leaving the station tomorrow so I can get clothes of my own that fit.”

I blinked at that. “Wait, you grew?” That fast?

At that moment Eini walked over, and she was shorter than Johri, “I have been thrust into the role of the shortest person on board,” she lamented with her usual air of overdramatic sarcasm, “And thus I require higher heels.”

Johri rolled her eyes at that, “Working on this stuff is going to be slower today since I can’t comfortably hold my old tools anymore, too. So we need to figure out what I can get done today because we’re taking the shuttle out tomorrow and may not be back until the day after.”

“Um… okay…” I was still confused at how she could’ve grown so fast. “Anyway, we’re calling because we’re going to try and set up a better means of communication between you, Radiant Garden, and us so we can relay anything important.” 

“Yep.” Cid began to fiddle away at his computer.

Nodding, Johri said, “Sounds like a plan. Is there anything I can do to make the signal more reliable on my end?” 

“Try to match the frequency I’m sending out. And someone get the phones out.” Cid instructed.

My cousin rose an eyebrow. “Phones?” 

“A way we communicate with each other,” Yuffie answered while she brought the phones over. I couldn’t tell what Cid was doing with all of our devices, but it made Johri’s image flicker and fade a bit. 

After a bit, the image came back. “Alright, I’ve matched your frequency.” Johri’s voice came through crystal clear. “Now what?”

“We set up numbers,” Cid explained.

“You still use numbers?” Johri sounded incredulous. 

“What do you use?”
“DNA.” 

Cid blinked at that. “Come again?” He asked.

“Each holoscreen takes a DNA sample upon setup,” Johri explained, “So its identification sequence is unique to its user… Well, except for identical twins. In which case an additional name identifier is added.”

“And how do you suggest we do that here?”

“Leave that to me,” Merlin said as he approached. Holding up his rod, he began waving it around while doing one of his incantations. While Johri looked over her shoulder, some sparks flew from his wand and a magical stream of energy began to flow around us and our devices. Our means of communication all buzzed as the magic integrated with the technology. Some of us even began to glow as well. Then, just like that, he stopped. “There. That should do it. We should be able to communicate wherever and whenever we need.” 

“Excellent!” Johri exclaimed, her voice finally coming through as if she were in the room, “I can start drafting plans for a transporter from here, but I can’t start building until I have at least a new set of grips for my toolset.”

“How much time would it take to gather all of what you need and then start building a transporter?” Cid asked.

“We’re taking the shuttle out first thing tomorrow,” Eini explained as she did a silly walk behind Johri, “Then we’re gonna spend the whole day shopping for everything we want, stay the night in my family’s hotel suite, and then take the shuttle back the next morning because apparently, it takes that long to get the thing ready.” 

“Would you rather it spring a leak in space?” Johri countered, “A day’s notice is already pushing it.” 

“So’s that dress on you,” Eini retorted.

Johri shot her a look at that.

“We have to be careful,” I said. “I’m convinced we have a traitor on the station.”

Nodding Clair added, “Someone I faced called me Bookworm.”

Johri sighed, “So Brax was right… There’s something rotten onboard this station…”

“Any idea who?” I asked.

“No, but don’t worry. We’ll be careful.” Johri reassured us before looking around. “Any idea who it could’ve been?”

“Well, there was someone on the last world I was on,” Clair admitted. 

“Who?” 

“I think it might’ve been Jezebel.” 

My eyes widened. “Jezebel? Like Jezebel Bruja?” 

Eini shrugged, “Never did like her, but…” For once, Eini seemed to put on a serious face, “As full of herself as she is, why would she sabotage you guys? It just makes more work for her to sully her hideous manicure with.” 

Johri seemed to catch onto what Eini was saying, “You don’t think the Downtrod have anything to do with this?”

Eini’s sarcasm returned, “Do I look like I think anything?”

“…Do you really want me to answer that?”

“The Downtrod?” Aerith asked.

“Terrorists on our world,” I explained.

Johri put her hand on her chin, “But why would they sabotage this station? The only thing of interest on here is Yeller. Everything else is standard engineering. It’s actually kind of boring.”

“I think that’s what you need to find out,” I told her.

“What are you going to do?”

“I…” I actually had no idea. How could I explain what I was going through right now? If that was really Jezebel, then I’d make her pay for the tantalizing things she put Clair through. Still, this didn’t seem like something she could pull on her own. She had to be working with someone else. 

Looking over her shoulder, Johri said, “We need to go. Call you later if we can.” With that, the transmission cut off. 

“Guess that’s it for now,” I said. At least we had a stable connection now. 

“Where do we go now?” Clair asked. 

Stroking his beard, Merlin then said, “I would recommend Neverland for you two.”
“Neverland?” I asked. 

Nodding, the wizard explained, “It’s a lovely little world that I think you two will enjoy. A place where you can forget your troubles for a little while.” 

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