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Chapter Four: Extreme Overpowers, Basic Magic Logistics, and Why You Don't Underestimate the Cute White Mage
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After Maggie pried Dana out of the wall on the sixth floor, the two girls hurried back to their dorm room to get dressed. Classes were beginning that day, and it was necessary for them to look stunning, in order to entice their Lust Objects. Since the third floor's attempt at mass glomping had failed that morning, it was all the more necessary to have one's bishonen (or bishojo) of choice sweep them off their feet. Before lunchtime, preferably. Hojo's cooking might taste delicious, but on the way up, Dana had overheard Golbez chewing the scientist out for putting one of his 'special mixes' in the mashed potatoes.
"If you make them sick enough, they will have a reason to get into the infirmary!" Golbez raged. "And if a Vincent fangirl is put in there-"
Dana had snuck away after that, but she had already heard enough rumors from her fellow students to confirm that Lucrecia, the head nurse, had a jealous streak a mile wide when it came to Vincent Valentine. Ji, a confirmed Vincent luster, had gone to her with horns and plaid skin- the first victim of OFUFF cafeteria food- and had been given an elephant laxative, pills made of concentrated Mako, and a glass of 200-proof grain liquor. Dana had not seen her since, but poisonous green clouds were currently belching forth from the fourth-floor girls' bathrooms.
Pawing frantically through her duffel, Dana privately cursed her own lack of foresight. T-shirt, t-shirt, jeans, jeans, jeans, t-shirt, bathrobe, t-shirt, sweater, sweater, loose sock, swimsuit . . . "Oooh!" she exclaimed, digging her black bikini top out of the hip-pocket where she had stuffed it three months ago. "Sweet . . . "
"They won't let us in class wearing stuff like that," Lily said abruptly, poking her head through the door and glancing at the bikini. Dana jumped and blushed as her new pal threw her a list of rules. "Number four- if more than one-third of your total area of skin is exposed, it's automatic 'playtime' with the Moogles. Cyan said that during his speech last night, didn't you hear?"
"Screw him," Dana muttered, pulling the bikini top on and reaching for a low-slung pair of sparkly jeans, "I'm not gonna let some old geezer who can't even talk right tell ME what to do. Anyway, once I've married my Sephy-chan I can do whatever I want here, so it's not really a problem." Lily rolled her eyes, but Dana was too busy choosing earrings to notice. Finally settling on two three-inch glittery plastic Masamunes, she carefully slipped them into her ears and checked herself out in the full-length mirror, which promptly shattered. Not that she noticed. The moment she had uttered her Lust Object's name, the image of an extremely risque fanart she had once found (and naturally installed as her desktop) entered her mind. A thin line of drool meandered its way down her chin as her mental processes promptly went into Screensaver Mode.
Lily groaned, and smacked Dana lightly to make her come out of her stupor. "Come ON, classes start in five minutes and I DON'T want to be late . . . "
Shaking herself, Dana followed her friend out the door. (Maggie had left earlier, muttering something about blitzball, abdominal muscles, and the aphrodesiac properties of Hypers.)
"What class is first, anyway?" she wondered, idly thumbing through her course schedule. "Monday, Monday, Monday- here we go. Lessee . . . "
8:00- Extreme Overpowers: Even I Got Beaten. Location: A wing, third subbasement, classroom 29D.
10:00- Basic Magic Logistics: Bolt Ten Million Does Not Exist. Location: A wing, fourth floor, classroom 41J.
12:00- Lunch. Not an option.
12:45- Don't Say it With a Song: The Mechanics of Songfic. Location: B wing, second floor, classroom 22L.
2:45- Martial Arts for the Complete Idiot. Location: B wing, first floor, classroom 4.1415926AB-
5:00- Dinner. Any attempts at skipping will be treated as a personal insult by both the Head Dietician, Professor Hojo, and Head of Security Bahamut-ZERO.
"Bo-ring," Dana yawned, folding her schedule shut and stuffing it into the pocket of her jeans. "Oh well, better get going . . . too bad it doesn't say if I have Sephy-chan's class today. I guess he can wait for me at lunchtime . . . "
* * *
By the time Dana got to classroom 29D it was packed solid with students, all chattering happily about the various classes their Lust Objects might be teaching. Pushing her way through the close rows of chairs and desks, dodging a rather spacy-looking Alan Bates (who, despite having registered as a not-as-obvious luster, was happily salivating over the prospects of a class with Aeris), weaving between Sapphira and ChaosGurl ("KUJA!" "SEPHIROTH!" "KUJA!" "SEPHIROTH!"), ducking around behind Lady Spork in order to avoid Zandramas (who, judging from her rather toasted appearance, had been given massage duty for Ifrit as a remedy for her "space issues") and finally settling into a chair in the front row between Materia_Man and killermastermateria, each of whom was glaring daggers at the other, a perceived rival for Yuffie's hand.
Muttering to herself, Dana glanced around the crowded room. Her eyes paused briefly on red mage (another victim of the Special Director of Proofreading and Semantics; he had made the mistake of calling himself a somewhat scrawnier, black-haired version of Sephiroth, and now that was exactly what he was, psychoses included. Rumor had it that he was already getting an A in Jenova's class.), but she decided that he wasn't quite bishonen enough and continued to sweep the class. While she might love her darling Sephy-wephy, that didn't mean she was immune to the lure of a good piece of eyecandy. Dana admittedly had rather a sweet tooth in that direction.
(Oooh!) her brain squealed. (Totally cool meta . . . meta . . . metawhatsis! The comparing-thingy! Dana, you are SMART.)
Suddenly, a dread voice boomed through the room, and all talk immediately ceased- hushed by the terror that these tones produced. It was as if a switch had been thrown; all joy in the cavernous chamber was extinguished by the terrible, horrible, no-good, VERY bad, and extremely-echoey-to-boot voice that now echoed around them.
"YO!"
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Wassup, my homies?" the awful voice continued. Dana stuffed her fingers in her ears in a frantic attempt to stop the bleeding. Ebonics, in a basso profundo Midwestern accent. Eek.
"Al," a second voice- which would have been the same as the first, had it not held the roughened overtones of someone with a lifetime eight-packs-a-day cigarette habit- muttered. "Quit tryin' to do the ghetto thing. It's really idiotic on a guy with urple skin."
"It ain't urple, homie-dawg! Thass mah RAPPIN' colohs, foo'!"
"All right, now you're just getting into the bizarre. Stop it."
"Whassup wit' yo' attitude, foo'?"
"Al, I control the main portion of this body, and I will go call the Headmaster that extremely unmentionable name you wanted to use last week and let YOU take the blame if you don't stop trying to speak . . . whatever the hell you call it. We've got a class to teach, remember?"
"Oh, okay. Honestly, Frank, you never let me have any fun . . . "
"Shut up and grab the textbook."
Now that the dread slang had stopped, Dana gingerly looked up from her desk, where she had crouched in pain- and promptly flung herself down again as her eyes were assaulted by an awful glare of . . . what the . . . ?
"NOOOOO!" someone wailed. "It's URPLE!"
Dana frantically covered her eyes, trying to keep the hideous glow from entering into her brain. She couldn't even tell exactly what it looked like- only that there seemed to be some mind-numbing combination of pink and purple in the mix, and that it was making her eyes beg for mercy to even think about looking back at it. There was an audible double sigh from the front of the classroom, and the first voice spoke again.
"Hyne damn the Headmaster, turning us this stupid color . . . oh well. Frank, did you bring the crate of sunglasses?"
"I'm not as stupid as you look, Al. Of course I brought it."
"Oh, good, then- hey! What. Did. You. Just. SAY?!"
"Heh heh. Go ahead, go ahead, use the Mendigo Flame. You know you want to. But remember, kiddies, by resorting to violence you're only hurting yourself!"
"I hate you, you know that?"
"Oh, you think I ENJOY sharing a body with some pseudo-'gangsta' moron who can't even tell the difference between Kuja and Setzer?"
"KUJA?!" Sapphira yelled, braving the glare of urple of glance wildly around. "WHERE? WHERE?"
The dueling voices ignored her.
"Well, at least you got the half with the legs on," Al said sulkily. "Steering by committee is definitely no fun."
"Hey- you got the arms, what're you complaining about? I have to wait for you to feed me every effing night! If that doesn't wear on a monster's nerves, I don't know what does!"
" . . . hey, is it just me, or weren't YOU recently complaining about how we have a class to teach?"
"For once in your life, you're right. Class to teach-"
"-assignments to give-"
"-'Sues to burn-"
"-godplayers to 'reeducate'-"
"So," the voices said in tandem, grinning so evilly that the glow of urple somehow managed to penetrate through the desk that Dana was currently hiding under, "LET THE GAMES BEGIN!"
The class whimpered.
"Good, good," Al muttered. There were noises of rustling paper as an attendance chart was produced. "Bates, Alan?"
Alan, who had been so absorbed in his Aeris daydream that he had failed to notice the teacher's entrance, jumped a mile as his name was called. "Uh- here-" he stammered, shielding his eyes from the urple glare. Frank groaned, and Al tossed him a pair of sunglasses. Fumbling for them, Alan finally managed to put them on- and gaped in horror as the visage of the teacher was finally revealed.
"O- OMEGA WEAPON?!"
"Well, DUH," the uppermost-torso-thingy, Al, said with undue sarcasm. "You would've thought that the two heads, urple scales, and comment about MENDIGO FLAME would've given it away, but NOOOOO, you hadda be PROPERLY surprised like a good little Mary Sue. Or Marty Stan in your case. Wait- hold on-" Al glanced down at the rather squarish face, superimposed between the two forelegs of the Weapon, that was Frank. "Frank, what's the male version of a Mary Sue?"
"It varies," Frank grunted. "Marty Stan, Gary Stu, whatever. You don't see 'em much. Hey- gum?"
"Oh- right." Al reached into the teacher's desk and produced three packs of Nicorette, which he proceeded to feed to the lower head. Frank mumbled his thanks through a mouthful of gum and gestured with one foreleg, clearly attempting to indicate that it was time to proceed with the roll call.
"Bytch, Vinnie's?"
"Here, Mr. Weapon sirs!"
Al turned to glare at the offending fangirl, who shrank audibly. "In this classroom," he snapped, "You will address my counterpart and I as one being. We are PROFESSOR Omega to you. If you have a question for one head specifically, then direct them to me; Frank's too brainless to know what he's doing." Frank shot him a venemous glare, but could not protest as he was still too busy chewing the nicotine gum.
The rest of the lesson proceeded in a similar manner. Frank or Al would make a comment, the other would object, and they would argue back and forth for between three and five minutes before unexpectedly diverting their combined wrath to some unsuspecting student. Dana once made the mistake of suggesting that the heads should see a relationship counselor; Frank, who seemed to be the tetchier of the two, had caught that remark and ordered her to buff up every inch of their urple scales. WITHOUT wearing sunglasses. Then the monster had dumped a five-pound tome entitled "Godplay, God PAY: Lessons and Logistics in Extreme Power" on each of their desks and assigned four three-hundred-word essays, all to be turned in on that Wednesday.
"But . . . but . . . but that's EVIL!" ChaosGurl had protested. Yes, it was evil. It was also, in Al's words, "the biggest, baddest, most ass-kicking son of a Summon that you jerks ever had to deal with", and apparently irked that numerous fanfic avatars had defeated it without any trouble. When it was mentioned at all. Though not daring to say it out loud, Dana had mentally reiterated her comment about the relationship counselor. These guys had serious issues.
Unless detentions in the Marlboro Hatchery were supposed to be par for the course . . .
* * *
Groaning, Dana trudged out of the classroom as the bell rang, eyes still running freely from the brilliant glare of urple scales. Not only had Frank made her go over every inch of them with a cloth loaded with Ursula's Urple Unguate ("So evil, you'll have nightmares of yourself!"), but she had distinctly heard Al sniggering when she had been polishing his torso. And they kept switching roles back and forth, giving one an opportunity to teach the lesson while the other started blatantly at her chest. Hmmm. Maybe wearing a bikini top to class wasn't such a bright idea after all . . .
"Oh, shut up, brain," Dana mumbled as she climbed up the steps to the first floor. Of course, her first two classes would be at the ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE ends of the university . . . oh, well. Maybe the exercise would help buff her up a little . . . Mary Sues were quiet and weak, and she (and by extention, her Sephy-kun) hated Sues. A little more muscle tone, and the silver-haired hottie would be falling at her feet. "Not that he isn't already," she reassured herself, tossed one brown spike of hair over her shoulder. "How could he resist me? I'm his true love, his one and only! We'll be engaged before dinnertime."
"Are you certain, Miss Ebersol?" a calm voice queried behind her.
Whirling around, Dana stared bug-eyed at the eavesdropper. "YOU!" she snarled as her number-one Hate Object calmly crossed her arms, apparently unfazed by the total loathing in Dana's face.
"Yes, me," Aeris Gainsborough said calmly, a faint smile decorating her serene features. "No need to make yourself clearer, Miss Ebersol. I know how much you hate me. But while I currently have no great liking for Sephiroth, he is a comrade of mine and I expect him to be treated with due respect. Do you understand?"
"You're just jealous," Dana mumbled. Then, out loud, "Gee, I'm AWFULLY sorry, Gansburry, but I gotta run. Class." And getting a tighter grip on her books, she turned and began to walk toward the staircase. "Stupid 'ho, I never liked her . . . trying to steal Sephy from me and flirting with- UGH- Cloud."
"Ahem."
"Yeah, what?" Dana snapped.
"I heard that, Miss Ebersol."
"So?"
"I'm afraid you've- as a SOLDIER might say- gone over the line," Aeris continued in a suddenly sweet, arsenic-dripping from-every-word tone. "I have many flaws, which cannot be denied. But the name of Gainsborough was given to me by my foster mother, and I will not have her surname slandered."
"Big deal!" Dana retorted. "Come on, airhead, you can't scare me! You're a dumb, useless character in the game, and you're not gonna stop me from winning my Sephy anyway, so why don't you just piss off and leave me alone?!"
There was a stony pause. Then-
"Not smart," Aeris said sadly, shaking her head. "Not smart at all. Aries, would you be a dear . . . ?"
"Wha-?"
"KUPO!"
"AAAAAAAAUUUUGHHHHH!"
"And all these girls think they can just snap their fingers, and the men will be theirs," the flower girl murmured, watching as her most faithful Moogle leapt down from the ceiling fixture and began to chase Dana around the first floor, occasionally shouting "Kupo!" and waving an unpleasantly oversized mace. "It's unfortunate, but some lessons have to be learned. Aries, careful of those lights- oh goodness, that mustn't be fun- Aries, please, that's not necessary- ouch- that's enough- no- watch out for the window- that's enough, Aries. Miss Ebersol, I trust we understand each other now." And with that, the Cetra walked away down the hallway, leaving a severely re-educated and disgruntled Dana to pick gravel out from under her fingernails.
* * *
"Miss Ebersol, you're five minutes late," the green-haired woman snapped, brandishing a chain whip as Dana slunk into the Basic Magic Logistics classroom. "Extra homework, everyone: one thousand word essay on why pixelated canon characters should be feared just as much as rendered ones." She tossed Dana a massive textbook, the weight of which forced the bruised fangirl to fall into her seat in the front row. "All right," the woman continued, cracking the whip and making everybody wince, "Pay attention. My name is Professor Rydia, and gods help anyone who addresses me otherwise. I am a Summoner, from the world of Final Fantasy IV. Unlike the others, I do not require Magicite, Materia, Junctions, or anything else you people have written about.
"Now, as I was saying: I understand that there are some Edge lusters in this group-" she glowered at JanieMnemonic, who slid down in her seat and tried to look inobtrusive "-so I have one thing to say before this lesson begins: Edge is TAKEN. He is canonically after me. If ANY of you people attempt to stampede, tackle, molest, or otherwise obtain him, I will consult with Bahamut-ZERO about taking you for a personal tour of the Nibel Reactor. All clear?"
The students nodded fervently.
"Now. The purpose of Basic Magic Logistics is to educate this class about the intricacies of spell-casting, summoning, and magic in general. Too many fanfic writers have either created 'Sues with all-powerful magical abilities to trump canon characters, or generally trivialized what magic they DO let us have. In this class, you will be learning exactly how difficult it is to cast a spell, and why purportedly serious characters should not refer to their remaining energy as 'MP.'
"Basic Magic Logistics is exactly what it sounds like. There is no such thing as 'inheriting' magical abilities just because your mother was a mage. Yes, you may have magical potential, but spells must be learned. Even materia requires the proper incantation to invoke its powers."
"Wait a minute!" eroticOrigami, another Yuffie luster, protested. "What about Limit Breaks?"
"In this class, Mr. Llewellyn, you will raise your hand or I will remove it. However, that is a legitimate question. Limit Breaks are derived from a character's basic magical energy reservoir. When said character is excessively angered or hurt, their rage forces the energy to express itself in a way other than a spell. Because everyone retains the potential for magic, even when they've used up all their current energy, Limit Breaks will work at all times." Rydia turned to the podium. "Everyone, open your textbooks to chapter 1- 'Sins of the Fanfic'- and commence reading. There will be a quiz in thirty minutes, and woe betide ye who fail it." She cracked her whip again. "Aaaaaaaand . . . BEGIN."
Dana glanced at her open book and felt her heart sink. What the hell-?
[Dana Ebersol,] the text read. [My, my, my. It's been a long time since I've managed to read your . . . ahem . . . 'stories' . . . but trust me, I recall well enough. Rhiannon Starfire, wasn't it? The tragic specimen of Hojo who escaped from his labs, but was forever altered and cursed with extraordinary magical ability? The one who found true, sweet, everlasting love with Vincent Valentine?]
"Um- Professor," Dana called, raising a hand, "The book is talking to me-"
"And?" Rydia raised one green eyebrow.
"Well, it's . . . not supposed to do that . . . "
"Why not?"
"Uh-"
"Is there a rule somewhere that says books don't talk?"
"No, but-"
"Shut up and keep reading."
Resigned, Dana looked back at the text.
[Now then, Ebersol, where do I begin? How about . . . oh yes . . . "ICE TEN!" Ebersol, please think about this for a moment. One: there is no 'Ice ten'. There is Ice one, Ice two, and Ice three. No Ice Ten. Second: if these characters were real- which is how they should be treated in all but the most inane stories- they would not call out the spells by their numerative names. They would say "Ice," perhaps, but never "Ice three." Use your brain, kiddo- if you have one, that is. Remember FFVIII? The one with the oh-so-dishy Seifer Almasy in it? THEIR spells had names they might shout aloud- Blizzard, Blizzara, Blizzaga, denoting power of the spell without sounding stupid. "Ice three," however, is dumb. "Ice ten" even more so. Are we clear on that?]
"Uh, yeah . . . "
"Time's up!" Rydia called, slamming her own copy of the book shut. "Everyone get out a piece of paper and a pencil. NOW!"
"That wasn't thirty minutes!" DancingMoogle (who was really beginning to regret her choice of name) yelled. "Whaddaya mean, 'time's up'?"
"This classroom is run by me, and I run on the Land of Summoned Monsters' time." Rydia said shortly. "If you'd played the game, you'd know that. Question one: what are the basic numeric boundaries for gradiations of Elemental spells? Question two: Clarify why, using 500 words or less, the phrase "Noli me tangere" would be an appropriate faux-incantation for a Shield spell, whereas "Quod erat demonstrandum" would not. Question three . . . "
* * *
Now it was a mentally, as well as physically, exhausted Dana that trudged down to the main hall/cafeteria at 12:04. She supposed that the Basic Magic Logistics textbook had given her the information that Rydia had wanted, but she didn't understand one word in three that the green-haired Summoner had used ('gradiations'? What the heck?) and consequently flunked the quiz. Even worse, though, was that some people had actually gotten good grades. Weirdos.
Muttering, Dana lurched into the cafeteria and fell into a seat after getting her lunch tray. Fettucine alfredo today. It would have been delicious, if not for the conversation she had overheard earlier. Gulping, she shoved the entire meal in the trash and reached for her secret cache of candy bars. Sugar, preservatives, red dye no. 7, yellow dye no. 4, antidoxymentathaldrine, extract of codeine, methaqualone, BHT to preserve freshness. Yum. Nothing like the comforts of good old homestyle meals.
Once she had finished wolfing down the candy, Dana glanced around the hall. Except for the fact that it was lit by glowing chunks of natural materia, it rather resembled the Great Hall of Hogwarts. At the end of the huge room there was a raised dais, with several long tables for the staff set upon it; Dana felt her knees getting weak as she watched Sephiroth,who was calmly finishing off his plate of fettucine alfredo, lean over and make a comment to Seifer Almasy. Seifer responded in an undertone and then gestured to Fujin and Raijin, the former of which was sitting on his other side and giving the Seifer fangirls murderous looks, the latter being busy with a dish of ice cream. Fujin hissed something to the two men and jerked her head toward's Dana's table. Crap.
To distract herself from the possibility of an impending doom, Dana focused on the rest of the staff tables. Several noncanons were there as well; Lady Bloodroost, whom campus rumor placed as a reformed manic Sephiroth luster was chatting with a blonde, twentysomething woman with chocobo feathers in her hair (who also happened to be snacking on Gisahl Greens) and Miss J, still hefting the Nail Bat like Sammy Sosa, was strolling up and down the dais and talking to the canonical staff. Lady Sanzennine, the Special Director of Mature Fiction, was unsurprisingly absent- rumor had it that she had caught Kitalia in the middle of writing an unlicensed Zack lemon. The rest of the staff were talking animatedly about the recent appearance of Nibbleheim, a mini-village that was composed entirely of snack foods.
As she stared at the crumpled brown candy wrapper, Dana's mind began to wander. Hmmm . . . dark brown . . . shiny . . . the associations were instant. Hauling her ever-present notebook out of her bag, she began to scribble down the story of Liralei Crystalgaze, a sultry brunette beauty whose wild spirit could only be tamed by the man she truly loved.
Some people never learn.