A Shot From Fox and Zash's Past

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[This takes place when Fox was around 14.]

Kitsune Dawn Fira, commonly known as "Fox", sat on a stone wall which lined the road that led to her tiny neighborhood one morning. She was at genuine peace for once, her mind distracted from it's dark and conflicted areas as she looked up at the fresh morning sky, cloudgazing happily. Oddly, instead of her normal attire, she wore a pure white sundress that morning. A fresh, gentle breeze blew through the area, accentuating the atmosphere.

Fox woke up a little while later when Zash was still asleep. Another wave of odd energy had hit her, much to her suprise. "I thought we solved this issue when the sword guy disappered...." she mumbled to herself, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She carefully got up, avoiding waking Zash up, and crept over to where the stone pedastal that had contained the sword was. To her suprise, there was a crack in the wall behind the pedastle just big enough for her to crawl into. She entered it and started crawling through the not-pitch-black crawlspace.

Zash stirred trouble he sat up and opened his eyes. "Fox?" He asked he looked where she had been laying and didn't see her, he'd woken when he hadn't heard her breathing next to him that's what he had fell asleep to so it made sense he'd woken up to the lack of it. He stood up and felt off there was weight on his left hip he looked the sword they had just taken was there and Zash remember what had happened. He wiped drool from the side of mouth and lit up the room with a mini he sun. " Fox?" He called again urgently he hadn't checked near the pedastal he looked back to the crystal maze entrance.

Fox exited the crawlspace and before her lay a small, man-crafted room. It was covered with all kinds of alchemic research notes written on the walls and scattered all over the floor in the form of notes. "Woah!" Fox cried in delight, and in a matter of minutes she had written down everything on the walls in some empty notebooks she had found, as well as gathering up all the notes she could. Then she noticed a metal box stuffed under a desk in the far corner of the room. Realizing she needed help carring all of her discovery, she took a deep breat, and screamed at the top of her lungs, "ZAAAAAAASH!"

" FOX!" Zash replied coming back to the sword room from the crystal maze. He ran to the far side of the room where the pedastal was he looked behind it to see the crawl space and he guessed Fox had crawled threw there. He threw his mini sun into the entrance and he climbed threw. " What's up?" He asked as he came out into the room. He looked around and saw the notes none of the symbols made any sense to him.

"This is a huge breakthrough! Look at all this research!" Fox exclaimed excitedly as she plopped books, file folders, and notebooks of all different kinds into his arms. It didn't take her long at all to have completely cleaned the place out, then, after grabbing the metal box, she turned to leave. She clapped her hands together and then turned the crawlspaace into a hallway, then dashed out.

" Yeah tons of words and s-" He was cut off as Fox dashed out he followed along behind. " Woah hey slow down!" He said. " We're still in this tunnel place it might be dangerous!" Zash warned. "Let me carry some stuff for you. "Zash offered.

"I'm good, but first...." Fox responded, going back to seal up the hallway. "If I missed anything, I wanna be able to come back and get to it without somebody stealing it." she explained. Then, she rran to the crystal maze. "Come on, I want to get a better look at this stuff!" she excitedly called back to Zash.

Zash ran after her. " Okay okay, what's so cool about dusty old papers anyways?" He asked in all honesty he was more interested in this sword then the papers. They were probably some mathmatical formula to tie your shoes or something. Zash entered into the crystals maze and he shivered he didn't like here, the crystals were stablizering the particals so he couldn't make fire and his natural defense was fire, he still felt uneasy about the whole cave place which didn't help. Least he had a sword now that made him feel safer.

"What do you think? These are super-highly-advanced Alchmical formulas and notes! Some of them are even highly encrypted in some sort of code! I'd just LOVE to get my mind wrapped around them!!!" she explained with high enthusiasm. "I'm so happy I could just DIE!!!!!!!!" she squealed with delight.

" Why do you need formulas, isn't alchemy just." Zash clapped his hands together and touch the wall with them coping what he'd seen fox do many times before. " It doesn't seem like rocket science to me." Zash shrugged.

"No, alchemy is so much more complex! And not everyone can just do what I do. Most every other alchemist has to write out there formulas by hand and then transmute. I have worked really hard to be able to do what I do!" Fox explained all in one breath. "If I can crack all this, then I'll be able to do some much more with my alchemy!"

" Wait." Zash said scratching his head. ' So what your telling me is all those folders and notes they're all just an explaination to transmute one thing to another thing?" Zash asked, she said alchemy had more depth but Zash needed a more visual example, he took her word for it but it didn't really hit home unless he could see the work that went into it.

"I can explain better once we get outside!" Fox called back as she broke out into a full-on sprint, dashing into the first two corridors.

"Fair enough!" Zash said and jogged along behind he sent a mini sun after Fox to light her way since they were getting out of the crystal part of the tunnel. Zash picked it up and aught up with fox when they were back in the first room of the caverns the hole in the ceiling was a long way up Zash could jump it easily but he wasn't sure Fox could she'd have to transmute something to that height but Zash would offer her a hand anyways. " Want a lift?" Zash asked extending a hand.

"Hang on, I got this." Fox grinned, happy to finally be of some use. She set her stuff down, clapped her hands, and then touched the ground. The ground below their feet began to rise up, replacing the broken floorboard that she had fallen through earlier. Then, she disguised the ground to look more like the natural floor with alchemy, then picked up her stuff and ran out, eager to get into the sunlight. "Lets go!" she called happily.

Zash was whisked up to normal ground level as Fox did her alchemy magic. Zash stretched his neck and back sleeping on the cave floor had gotten it a little messed up as fox rushed out he took the sword from his belt sheath and all and tossed it to the side of the warehouse wall, he didn't wanna be looked at suspesiously for carrying it around he'd pick it up later in the night. He walked out of the warehouse and over to fox. " Well what do we got?"Zash asked.

Fox started skimming through the papers eagerly, but then she stopped. Her eyes got wide and her pupils became pinpricks. "This...... this can't be!" she cried in disbelief. It's...... it's just not possible! These notes........ They all seem to talk about something........" her voice trailed off again. She turned to the metal box she had discovered in the cave. She crossed over to it and, with a clap of her hands, broke it down into mere ash. Inside was a tiny vial with a red liquid inside.

"No way......" Fox whispered breathlessly.

" What it looks like fruit punch?" Zash commented. " Can I drink it?" Zash wondered he didn't see anything in the notes himself thou the best he could do to read them was look over Fox's shoulder and hope he saw something he knew. Which he didn't.

"Not at all. In fact, if you were to drink this, something horrible and even unspeakable would happen to you..." Fox whispered breathlessly. She picked the Vial up gently, rotating it and veiwing it from all sides. Then, she pulled the cork from the vial and dumped it's contents out onto the ground.

Zash watched as Fox poured out the toxic fruit punch onto the ground Zash watched as it dripped to the ground and defying logic it didn't splatter and turn into a puddle of liquid instead it slipped into a ground shape and turned into a flawless red gem. " Wow, what?" Zash asked looking at the thing he had thought was fruit punch now be a solid stone.

Fox kelt down and poked at the red stone with her finger. "You didn't hear this from me, but I'm almost positive this thing is the Legendary Philosopher's Stone." she guessed, picking the stone up with three fingers. She was very visably careful in not letting the Stone touch any of her open wounds, examining it further by holding it up to the sun.

" Philosopher's Stone." Zash whispered in awe he knew the Philosopher's Stone's legend even without being an alchemist. " You can turn anything into anything you want with that." Zash looked at it for a second then blinked. " wait, this this thing it." Zash tok a breath. " It's not just the Philosopher's Stone is it cause that was not a stone a second ago it was fruit punch." Zash's eyes grew wide as he realized something. " Pyromancy's biggest secrete, Phlem's ring could could it have been this?" Zash asked looking at Fox now. " IS this thing strictly Alchemy use? Could I use it for pyromancy?" An idea started to form in Zash's mind his favorite tale of pyromnacy, Phlem's ring it had been passed down in his family for generations Zash knew the story by heart but he'd never imagined it could be true.

Possibly, it's never been tested. However, I know for a fact that the Philosopher's Stone has many physical forms. It's even recorded to have been in HUMAN form at one time!" Fox explained. She very gently placed it back on the ground, again trying not to let it touch any open wounds. "If this thing were to enter either of our bloodstreams...." she began to explain, ".....we'd be turned into something inhuman. Something awful. We might even DIE in the process. Just the process would be extremely painful, beyond even the pain of CHILDBIRTH." she shivered.

Zash looked at the stone with a new found intensity and as fox told him not to let it into his blood stream he reached out to touch it. He tapped it with his finger and a ripple went threw it like it was a liquid which Zash guessed it was but something else bothered Zash went he looked back at his hand it was slightly burnt and smoke curled off it like it had when he touched the sword. " It's a stablizer." zash sighed " It wouldn't be used for Pyromancy at all." Zash shook his head disappointed. He couldn't really blame the stone thou it must have been a powerful tool thou if alchemists wanted it so bad. Zash looked at Fox, " what should we do with it?" Zash asked not really sure anymore.

"Well, one thing's for sure, we don't want it to fall into the wrong hands." Fox commented. "But, at the same time, I feel like hiding it would be a waste of a good rescourse." Fox commented, getting the feeling that it would become vital later on in her life. "Plus, it's not safe enough. So I think I'll keep it with me. I swear I'll never, ever use it. I'll just keep it safe." Fox decided, not knowing how vital it would be for her to break that vow later.