Chapter 2: Chapter I – Jessica – The Last Rooden

Eighty years after the fractures formed, in a laboratory in Aeria, the land of wind, Strataros, the Master of Wind and her daughter, Avery were working on something incredible.

“You need to calm down, Avery. The storm is only getting worse!” Strataros called.

Outside of the laboratory, there was a massive thunderstorm raging on. The two alchemists did not fear for the safety of themselves, but the safety of all of the people around them.

Avery tried to take a breath, the swirling wind outside beginning to calm a bit, but the storm still raged on. “Look… We’ve been working on this project for almost three years now… We’ve put so much time in to researching and experimenting. There have been so many failures now. At this point… one way or another, this is going to be our final trial.” Avery offered as she slumped down in a seat for a moment, turning her gaze to her mother.

The two of them were dressed similar, at the moment. Both of them had on insulated black shirts underneath of light green lab coats with a good amount of pockets dotted all over them. Avery was wearing a pair of insulated leggings to match her shirt. Over her eyes, she had a pair of green-tinted goggles that were slightly obscured by her green and purple hair. Atop her head were a pair of green and purple cat ears, mirroring the color of her hair.

Avery let out a sigh and pulled a hair tie from her coat, tying her hair up and back. “I should have done that to start with…”

“Awww… But your hair looks so cute when you have it down…” rang a high-pitched feminine voice inside of Avery’s head.

She rolled her eyes and stood back up. “Yes, but it can’t be very cute if I accidentally burn it off.”

The voice sighed. “You’re no fun… At least you have more style than sparky here. Are you ever going to change out of that outfit? I picked it out for you like eighty years ago,” she called to someone else.

“I have no interest in changing my clothes again. I only changed them then because you basically forced me,” called another voice, this one more gruff and annoyed. The voice had a strange echo to it.

“Could you two please quiet down, we’re busy right now,” Avery grumbled.

The two voices inside her head went silent and Avery made her way back over to five testing chambers that had been set up. Inside each of them, there was a preserved human specimen. Each of them had been created using genetic material that they had collected over the years for creating the human half of their experiments. They were all surrounded by softly glowing brown liquid and below their was a small display with vital sign readouts. At the moment, all of them were as stable as they could be, but the two alchemists had a feeling that that would be changing soon.

“Well? Are you ready? The storm seems to have calmed down a bit, so can I assume that you’re a little bit less stressed?” Strataros asked.

Avery nodded and began loading the vials of ram genetic material for fusion with the human specimens. Usually, she didn’t pay too much attention during the loading phase, but this time, she made sure that each of the units was spotless, despite the fact that she had cleaned them only two hours ago in preparation. As she set in the last vial, she took a few steps back and took a deep breath.

Despite her mother’s comment, the storm had begun to pick up once more. Avery was too stressed and focused on the experiment to try and control her emotions or the weather right now, so she had simply decided that it would be fine if she just let things run their course.

“Alright. It’s time for the fusion process to begin.”

Strataros’s body began to glow brightly as the genetic material from the vials flooded in to the human specimen’s containers. Inside of the containers, the material began to simply swirl around, but then a massive seal took form under Strataros and the bodies of the specimens began to seemingly break down in to their bases of essence and life energy. The ram genetic material flooded inwards and began to bond with the human specimens, expending some of the earth essence liquid that surrounded them.  

Once the genetic material had fully fused with the specimens, Strataros’s body stopped glowing and the seal faded. Slowly, the specimens began to change. They had all been given identical levels of genetic material and, despite that, as had happened with all of their other projects, the level of Iluine transformation in the specimens varied greatly. The first one to change was the second from the right. Their body began to sprout small horns atop their head as well as a small fluffy tail from the back. Their ears seemed to lengthen slightly as well as thin out a bit, but then the changes seemed to stop. Their vitals remained fine, but both Strataros and Avery were skeptical of such a quick and stable transformation.

The other subjects continued to change, growing tails, horns, fur, muzzles, and everything else. Some changed a great deal while other only adopts a few key traits. Most of them seemed to be experiencing a bit of instability as their bodies changed, but overall, these were fairly normal.

Avery allowed her hopes to grow a bit. Maybe this new compound that they had used in the genetic material and the essence liquid really was tuned properly to facilitate fusion. Unfortunately, just as she started to get her hopes up, she heard the heartbeat of the leftmost subject going erratic for only a moment before completely falling flat. Avery looked on in horror as the body began to break down.

She collapsed to the ground, cursing silently before turning back up to the other subjects. They didn’t experience any issues for the next hour, but then, out of nowhere, two more subjects became unstable and despite the efforts on the part of the two, they lost them as well.

Avery began to panic, the storm outside growing more and more intense as she scrambled around searching for a way to fix this. For a moment, time stood still as Avery rushed all around the laboratory. Avery’s mind was racing before she remembered something. The vitals of the two remaining subjects were starting to slowly decline as she rushed to one of the containment units. Inside, she found a large glass jar with gold containment rings on it. Inside of the jar, there was a glowing brown crystal. Avery took the jar and rushed back to the chambers.

Strataros’s eyes widened as she saw what was inside of the jar. “Avery, are you serious? Do you seriously think that that will work?”

Avery shook her head. “I have no idea if it will work or not, but I’m going to try anyway. Now, can you please bring apart Subject 4?”

Strataros paused for a moment before nodding, a seal once again forming underneath of her, her body glowing. The subject one from the right began to glow before their body split apart and entered a state of energy.

Avery’s vision was consumed by a green tint, the whole world slowing around her as she quickly unscrewed the cap of the jar and removed the shard from inside. Her skin burned a bit, but it wasn’t a new sensation for her as she quickly rushed forward and opened the lid of the camber for Subject 4, forming an air tight seal to ensure no contamination with the lid open. In the blink of an eye, she slid the glowing shard into the chest of the child and then retreated, closing the lid of the chamber as her vision returned to normal.

Strataros released her seal and the subject’s body began to reform with the shard right in the middle. Avery watched in surprise as the shard bonded with the body and then, once the body had properly reformed, the vitals remained erratic for only a moment before fully stabilizing. Avery’s eyes lit up and she turned to Strataros, a big smile on her face. “See? I told you it would work!”

Strataros smiled warmly at her daughter and nodded as the two continued to monitor the chamber, waiting to see if the vitals remained stable. After two weeks of nothing but stability, the two officially declared the Rooden race successful, but also agreed to shelve it completely. This would be the last rooden that they would make and if they didn’t bear children, that was okay.

One thing the two found rather peculiar though, while the subject that they had yet to name had been under observation, they had not once opened their eyes. The two had thought to force open the child’s eyes to inspect them, but felt that it was likely due to the somewhat unorthodox process that they had adopted to create this subject. Strataros estimated that it would take about a month before the earth shard would fully fuse with their body.

During that time, the two worked to decide who they would present the child to. Usually, Avery would take the children they created home herself and raise them for a year or two before placing them in to foster care and allowing someone to adopt them, but with this particular subject, Avery thought it would be best for them to find someone in particular and eventually, she found that someone, The Sage of the Forest. Her name was Silvia Amareltere and she lived in a somewhat isolated island that was part of the Grand Omnian Republic and was located only a few hundred miles north of them.

A month later, they were finally ready to present the child to Silvia. Avery opted to not go, forcing her mother to go all on her own. The entire trip to the Great Spirit Forest, Strataros hoped that the child might finally open their eyes, but no such luck. Their hair had begun to grow in and it was already rather interesting. The roots were a deep red while the ends were a glowing green. They had also noticed that inside of their chest, the spot where the origin shard had been implanted, glowed a very similar color to their hair. They were an earth apprentice and every time that Strataros looked upon them, she was reminded of her brother, Gigrias. The two of them had the same deep brown skin and the roots of the child’s hair were almost identical to Gigrias’s hair.

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As Strataros set down, she wondered if perhaps she should introduce the child to Gigrias someday. Perhaps the two would end up looking even similar in the future or maybe they would stray far apart.

“Lady Strataros! What an honor it is to have you here!” A voice called.

Strataros looked up and, coming out from the forest came a woman with brilliant green hair and a warm, loving smile on her face. As she saw what Strataros held in her hands, she rushed forward, stopping only a few inches in front of the Master.

“Is this the child?” Silvia asked.

Strataros nodded, uncovering the sleeping child’s face from the blanket that they had been swathed in.

As soon as Silvia laid eyes on the child, she began to tear up. “They’re so beautiful… And look at their adorable little horns… Come, let us head inside.”

Strataros followed behind, entering in to the large forest. Eventually, they arrived at Silvia’s home. Within, Silvia directed Strataros to the nursery that she had constructed for the child.

“I must confess that I’ve never had a child before, so I had to ask around about what preparations I should make, but I only got as far as constructing this nursery…” Silvia said sheepishly.

“Well… I’ve never truly been around for my children when they were born, so I assume you’re off to a much better start than I would be.”

Silvia shook her head. “I am sure you would be a fine caretaker, Lady Strataros.”

“I appreciate the confidence, but I have also been hoping to cease holding this child since I first arrived.”

Strataros chuckled nervously and held out the child for Silvia to take. Silvia smiled and took the child in to her arms, cradling them lovingly.

“I must thank you for this wonderful gift… It is… truly a blessing to be granted…”

“Oh, of course… We were happy to help…”

Silvia turned back up to Strataros. “That reminds me. Where is your daughter. She arranged all of this. I presumed that she would be here as well.”

Strataros shrugged. “She apparently had to do something with her wife. It was all very last minute otherwise she would have definitely come. I’m sure she’ll come to visit from time to time though, don’t worry.”

Silvia smiled back down at the child. “Now, is there anything I should know about the child? I understand that they were well… created… by the two of you, so I just want to make sure that I care for them properly.”

Strataros thought for a moment. “I suppose it could be pertinent to inform you that the child’s body was fused with an origin shard. And on top of that, they have yet to open their eyes, so we’re a little worried there, but it hasn’t seemed to impede their functioning.”

Silvia just stared at Strataros, her mouth hanging open slightly. “I’m sorry… D-Did you say that they have an… origin shard inside of them?”

“Well, it’s more so fused with their body and essence, but… essentially, yes.”

“The origin shards that were created by you and your siblings? The ones that made your earrings? The ones that make up the Heart of Nature? Those ones?” Silvia asked, still a little stunned.

“Yeah. Why?”

Silvia shook her head, brushing the thought aside. “Anyway… Other than that, it seems like everything should be relatively standard… Oh, I forgot to ask, what is their name?”

Strataros just shrugged. “We’ve just been calling them Subject 4. Although… my daughter had an idea for a name.”

“And what might that be?”

“Jessica.”

Silvia smiled down at the child, nodding softly. “I think I like that name… Jessica…”

Just as Silvia finished speaking the name, Jessica’s eyes opened, only slightly at first before opening fully, both of them glowing slightly. Strataros and Silvia simply stared at Jessica, mystified by the sight before them. Beneath Jessica’s eyelids, there had hidden a cursed and a blessed eye. Each of them adorned with a four point pattern almost like a compass. Jessica stared up at the two and smiled softly.

“I guess they like the name. Jessica it is then.”

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