Aqua

Warning, spoilers for KH up through III. And false spoilers. And so much angst and emotions and drama. You have been warned.

In no particular order.

PLAYER
Name: Chicklet
Age: over 18
Personal Journal: Chicklet
E-mail: Dwlogs@writeme.com
AIM/MSN/etc: Bardess Ookami on Aim ChickletLARP on Plurk




CHARACTER
Name: Aqua Wayfinder
Canon: Kingdom Hearts
Age: Since she is a CR AU I had set her age for the other RP as 25, she's been there about a year, so 26
Timeline: Very very early in the game, and adapted to the world of the other RP, so game wise, she is just after her mark of mastery exam.
Items with character at canon point: Her Keyblade, her X-man uniform, her wayfinder, her armor, her cellphone.
If playing another character from the same canon, how will you deal with this?:N/A


Personality:
Since there will be separate sections for the parts dealing with how she was altered in the other game, I will try to make it clear which parts of her personality are canon to Kingdom Hearts that she shares with the Institute version of herself, and which came from the other RP. The other game required that she was a full AU, so this version was born in the X-men universe, as such there is a lot of heavy editing on her background, though most of her personality remained the same. She did however wind up having to have one fear, which will be mentioned here, but she works to not let it stop her.
Aqua, in any and all forms and formats, can be seen best through the lens of her friends. Her motivations are generally as much about them as they are about being the best that she can be herself. In the game we see that she works hard for her Mastery, and we are lead to believe that she has spent most if not all of her life training for that. But she never trained for it alone, never expected to take the test -or pass it alone. Even working her hardest, she would take the time needed to lift up those around her. In the case of Kingdom Hearts, that is Terra and Ven. Institute version of Aqua also helped with the younger students, who she was not as close to personally, but still knew well, and cared for.
In KH, Aqua is sent by her Master to fulfill many goals at once. Investigate and stop the Unversed, find out what is going wrong, protect the worlds, Find Terra and help him to follow those same missions, find Ven and send him home. Aqua is told that this is Terra's chance to redeem himself, to pass the exam that he failed. Aqua took it upon herself to promise that he would pass, that they would all make their Master proud. she believed in Terra that strongly, and was willing to do whatever he needed, give him whatever help he asked, to have him believe in himself as well and succeed.
This didn't happen to X-Institute version of Aqua, but it is still core to who she is, that willingness to help her friends, that core belief in them, and in their friendship. She knows she passed her Mark of Mastery exam, but she also knows she is a single person and that she has limits. When she works with Terra and Ven, under the gaze of Master Eraqus, she no longer has a sense of those limits, or more, she believes that there is nothing they can't accomplish. Together. She believes in people, sees the shining core of good in them, sees all the kinds of strength they posses. And she helps nurture it.
Both in KH and in X, Aqua is something of a momma bird. She likes to take care of the people she cares about. She will joke to ease tension, and she will do whatever she can to make sure that no one feels left out. When she made lucky charms for the Mark of Mastery exam, she made sure to make one for Ven as well, and gave him his at the same time; even though he was deemed too young for the exam himself. When he doubted the potency of the charms, she gave him something to believe in.
To Aqua, to any and all versions of her, Terra and Ven are her family. They are more than family. Even when they're apart, her thoughts are filled of them. In the game, when speaking to Zack and another in the Coliseum, her words are not just for them, she speaks as well to Terra, even out loud, though he is not there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn89pgWAzv0 (1:25)
She does that a lot, speaking to her friends, in their absence, because even if they are physically apart, even if she spends all of KH searching for them and all of X waiting for them, in an essential way to her, they are still together.
In X, Aqua is somewhat better with children than she is in KH, though there you could see that she could be good with children, given more exposure. (Really Aqua, looking at little Sora and little Riku and saying "one of you might be special enough" only flew because of who they are.... not because that is how you speak to children) But she does care for children in KH, and in X she was a teacher of children, which builds on her protectiveness and caring. Aqua is a protector, any and every version. That is, to her, part of being a Master. Mastery in KH is about the keyblade, which is about the heart. In X, the Keyblade is one thing she had to learn in order to become a Master, and it is a tool she uses to protect, defend, and teach.
In X, they wanted her to be more balanced to fit the scale of the other characters, and one of the things added to her core was a fear of heights - which kept her from using her Keyblade glider all over the place. She did not let it stop her from what needed to be done - she would ride the Black Bird, for instance. She hated it, hated flying, but she had to fly to go on missions, so she flew. This was the main time she would wear her armor, so that she would be protected if she fell, and so that no one could see how pale she became, so no one would worry. I would be keeping this, going into RC, since it will keep her from abusing the glider, and it became a fun thing to play with. Also it would be odd for her, from a mental standpoint, to suddenly not be afraid of falling, when it is something this version of her has struggled with her whole life. Terra failed his Mastery exam by a hair, the part that she almost failed was because her Master knew her fear of heights and tested her on it. That she CAN be up high when she needs to, and do what needs to be done is a point of pride. Pride is all well and good, she'd rather be proud with her feet firmly on the ground, thank you.
As in KH, Aqua is very agile, and trained in fighting, but sh fights defensively, she fights to protect. She knows how to attack, but it isn't in her nature to run to a battle unprovoked. She will rush in to give others a chance to escape, or to help someone else. She hates fighting alone, and if she can stop someone else from having to do that, she will. Im KH there is a clear delineation between unversed - kill these - and humans - reason with these. Mickey is Mickey... not sure what to say there. In X, the lines were far more blurred, and she learned to fight less, and to charge into a situation to defend, but not to go for combat as the first option.

Background:
Here is where things had to be changed the most (except possibly powers) so I will include both canon to this point, and X.
Canon:
Aqua grew up in the Land of Departure with Terra. When they were young, a few years back, Ven was brought to the world as well. He has been with them ever since, and family ever since. While others clearly do come and go, as near as we can tell, only the three and Master Eraqus actually live there, day to day. They spent their days studying Mastery and the ways of the Keyblade. Together.
Then came the day for their exam. Well... hers and Terra, Ven was considered too young, and he resented the exclusion. He wanted to be peers with his older "siblings" and wanted to stand by their side. On the day of their exam, Master Xehanort visited, and unbeknownst to them, had plans of his own. He manipulated the exam, and even Ven had to fight. The three friends worked together as a team to take down a challenge turned deadly. She and Terra had to duel, and it was not about winning, it had never been about winning. Except to Terra.
Aqua was named Master, Terra was not. Things fell apart, and fast. Terra was hurt and angry, and Xehanort and his protégé further sewed dissent while Aqua was being debriefed on her new duties as Master. She and Terra were sent out on a mission. Terra, eager to prove himself, or perhaps just needing to get away went on ahead, rushed off without stopping to listen to Ven who has desperate to get his attention. Ven, certain that what he had to say COULD NOT WAIT rushed off after him. Aqua was instructed to - in addition to the mission she and Terra were given - bring Ven home, and to help Terra. She was told that this was Terra's chance to prove himself, to change their Master's mind and pass his exam. Aqua went off after them.
This is more or less the equivalent of where I took her from. The start of her eternal quest to find her friends.

X-Institute:
Here's where things had to change. in KH there were worlds and worlds, and Xehanort was free to be the big bad. In X, there was just earth, and the main villains were accounted for. Writing it again here from memory, you may feel free to also read it in her app for X, also in this profile.
Aqua grew up on a small Island somewhere in the general vicinity of Japan. Ish. The Island was a haven for children that the Master brought to teach and learn. No one knew how he chose the children or why, but they were always brought very young, and they came from all over the world. They never seemed to have memories they cared to keep from home, and by their teens, most of them knew the Island as their only home.
Also, most of them developed mutant powers in their teens. No one knows if the Master had a mutation that let him sense those who would develop powers, or if he chose in some other way. But because of this, Aqua never saw Mutants as anything different from humans. All skills and talents were trained on the Island, and the ability to sing in three octaves was as praised as the ability to see through stone walls. Mutant powers weren't powers, it was just another way that they were all different, but all talented.
On her Island, they were all trained for Mastery, and they were oddly isolated. Former students, after becoming Masters themselves had added defenses to the Island, to keep them all safe. That meant that the stray passenger ship was unlikely to dock, the odd plane unlikely to land. They were on no maps, and well out of view from any shore. The Master took the older students out to various mainlands to have at least a little experience with other people, usually around the age of ten or so, and to try technologies that wren't really in use on the Island - like cellphones and computers.
The Tech on the island was an odd mix of high and low. Their power came from natural sources - Solar, Wind, Hydraulic, and the odd student with a built up charge. But as most of the island was spent on housing, training, and feeding the people that lived there there was little allocated to energy collection. So for things like lighting, they used candles mostly, though there were flashlights for emergencies. They had enough indoor plumbing to not need outhouses, but baths were filled with buckets from the well or the ocean. Farming was done by hand, as was fishing. All of these things helped the children to be strong and active as they grew.
But when it came to their Keyblades, they were high tech as all get out. Keyblades and armor were things every student made for themselves. They had to learn all the steps involved in making each before they could use the practice sets, and they had to be proficient with those before they could make their own. Armor and Keyblades were made with DNA keyed nano-technology. So while Aqua needed help understanding what to do with a television when she left the Island, she could sit with Doctor McCoy and discuss gene theory and DNA encoding.
Aqua, Terra, and Ven were especially close to one another. Aqua and Terra waited a year to make their keyblades and armor, and Ven got permission to go a year early to close the two year gap so they could train together. Terra spent that time getting stronger, Ven spent it working hard to catch up. Aqua helped them both, and in the time left to her helped many of the younger kids with their classes and training.
Her mutation came early, and as the Master tried to do with most of his students, he used her abilities in the design of her Keyblade so that her blade enhanced her mutant power, making it more a tool than a weapon. The visible change that came with her mutation was her hair. Well, her eyes too though they were less obvious at first. Her eyes became a brighter blue and her hair... matched. No matter what she did to her hair, it always returned to blue within an hour or two. But her home had no FOH, no anti-mutant humans, so the blue bothered her because she had no choice in the matter, but it wasn't a sign of anything more than the fact that she hit puberty. She did cut her hair out of frustration at one point though, because she was used to thinking she could make her body do what she wanted. It was one of life's little lessons, growing up.
She, Terra, and Ven made their Keyblades, and their armor, they trained. But they were not allowed to wait their exam for Ven, nor was he allowed to take his early. But he came, as he did in KH, to watch and to cheer them on.
And again they had a visitor to the Island, in Master Xehanort. He watched the exam, and unbeknownst to Aqua, he meddled. She was granted Mastery, Terra was not.
and again, things went a little.... nuts.... then.
Very soon after the exam, the Island was attacked. No one could say by who, or how they got past the protections, but they were. One of the older students had the power to create time tunnels, but he was still learning. They went to the future, but he couldn't control how far. A day, a week, a month, years.... No one knew. They had been working very carefully with it. And then it was their only means of escape. Master Eraqus tasked Aqua and Terra with getting everyone younger than them, and all the non-Masters who were older into the tunnel, to get them there, keep them safe, so that hopefully the battle would be done when they returned, and they could come home. They worked and rounded up all the students, Terra... The Master would have been proud of Terra. He kept the tunneler focused and kept the kids corralled. They got the tunnel open, and large enough for them all, and started piling the children in. Aqua and Terra were the last to go in.
Aqua saw the way the battle was turning, and made a choice that broke her heart. She told Terra to go with the kids, reminded him that they needed him, that it would be only a moment to him and then they'd be back on the island, but if there was to be an Island to return to, the Master needed her there, defending. She made Terra and Ven go... and then she left them to go to her Master's side.
She fought back to back with the adults she spent her life learning from and admiring. But in the end, the Island fell. The last of the invaders was dead, or gone, but Aqua was half dead herself from exhaustion, and the only other person left alive was Master Eraqus. And he was dying. Aqua tried to use the power inside her, the healing she retained, but he refused to let her, said that to give him enough to survive, she herself would die. He said the children needed her, and not just their children.
He told her that if the tunnel did not reopen within a short span, she was to cross the oceans, to find a Master called Xavier, to serve him as she would have served at home, until the tunnel opened again at last. He did not want her sitting alone amongst the dead, waiting for something that could take months, could take years.
She held him as he died, promising she would follow his orders. But it wouldn't take that long. She was sure of it. She knew it in her heart.
She cared for the dead, burying all with honor - resident and invader alike. In life they differed, in death they were much the same. She cleaned the Island, repaired what she could, made it ready for the students to return. And when she finally had to admit that she had run out of things she needed to do... she closed the Island down, setting the protections that as a Master she had just learned to set and to undo. There were no Masters in the time tunnel, but there was Terra. She left a note that he and Ven would understand. Few if any others. And she left it so that they would not be able to miss it. It told them how to unlock the Island, where she had gone, and why. It asked them to find her. And then she set out.



PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT/PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY:
She learned as she traveled. And lesson one was that not everyone was accepting of blue hair. Or her ability to manifest her Keyblade at will. She had learned a dozen languages she had been sure she'd never need when she thought her future was on the Island. She discovered how few that really was.
By the time she made it to Xavier's mansion, she was weary, sore, and missed her friends, her home, more than she could ever say. But she did as she promised she would do. She served Master Xavier as she would have served at home. She taught the children, trained them. When needed, she defended their home. She went on missions she was sent on and used her armor in new and interesting ways to protect the others she was sent with.
She became the supervisor for a team lovingly known as the Weenie Squad, though most of the time she was more like a big sister figure to them, than a teacher. But that was how teaching worked on the Island, so it was how she taught on the mainland. Nominally, she taught philosophy, and she wasn't beyond playing the "English isn't my mother tongue" card to speak in odd ways or ask odd questions to get people to her point. She had studied philosophers from around the world on the Island, though to her philosophy was a class taught in motion, while training. All classes pretty much were, and all classes intertwined. So she taught a little of everything while she debated the nature of the world. And she loved it there, and she loved her kids. She did. But she missed Terra and Ven. She spent every day wishing and hoping for word that they were okay. As much as she knew she would miss the Institute, she wanted to go home... but that day never came.
She learned a lot, in her time abroad. She learned that people and histories were so different. That not all children were raised with love and a presumed acceptance. She learned to deal with people from different backgrounds and different ways of thinking. She learned to get her news not from the Masters, but from the television and newspapers, and this odd internet thing. She learned what cigarettes were and that she didn't care for them.


What I would like to see happen in this game: Not a typical header, but I felt it was germane, since what I would ideally like to do would potentially need mod approval anyway, and since her AU is so strongly pulled away from the canon, and I know that one cast-mate is in game...
I would love to see the canon Aqua and the X Aqua merge. Not suddenly, not all at once, but not subtly either. What I would love is for there to be something that happens when she is exposed to Keyblades in game, especially those belonging to people she has met. (So for example, Mickey's Keyblade would affect her, Anyone who has shared a heart with Sora would affect her, as would Riku. Obviously Terra, Ven, Eraqus, and the others from her game would affect her, but I think that there is someone in RC who has a Keyblade, if I recall correctly who would not, and if the rumors are true and Lea gets one, since she never met him, his would not.) What they would do is act like the feathers in Tsubasa Chronicles, sort of. Depending on the strength of the heart, and the strength of the connection between them, she'd get a memory, or a set of memories back. These would not overwrite the X memories, but add to them. A separate life coming to her in bits like a dream.
I know some of the events that have been in RC have also been the kind of things that might make this happen. Like when their memories were paraded in front of them, or the worlds in the mirrors. Getting pieces of her KH self would be slow (unless Terra and Ven app in in which case I will probably go for a full out canon update to bring her to speed with them) but each bit she got back would be dramatic. Nothing subtle there. She would have to deal with it, come to terms with it. Which would give me something fun to play with, and I can ask other KH players if they want to be involved. (Of course if they want to opt out, she can either go home and deal with it on her own after they leave, or they could just never encounter each other.)
Unless we get a Terra and a Ven, I figure this will take at least a year to finish, if it ever does. This is a long term plan, not something to happen all at once. A fun goal to chip away at.
She would not lose the fear of heights just because she remembers flying. She will not love her kids at the school less because she remembers little Kairi instead. Who she will become will be an amalgamation of KH, X, and RC. All will shape her as she learns, as all experiences shape us all.


Abilities:
As she arrives:
Summon her armor from a gem in her sleeve, manipulate it to a small degree. It is keyed to her, but not the same way as the Keyblade, she can put it on someone else for a short time. (she does this in KH and used it in X)
Summon her Keyblade, vanish it, repair it. If someone steals it, it will return to her. She can only leave it with people she has DNA locked it to - so herself, Ven, Terra, and Master Eraqus. She can also change its appearance based on the dongle she adds to it, and the power she is channeling. The Keyblade can also be turned into a flying vehicle for one. Given her fear of heights, she will almost never use it. In KH she has carried people in it, however, in emergencies.
Use her mutant powers: she can absorb any mutant power (magic will be included in RC since that's far more common than mutant abilities here) and store it within herself. She can learn to use it. She can keep one in herself and up to five in her Keyblade. She ALWAYS keeps healing as the one in herself. At the time she arrives, the ones in her Keyblade will be Intangibility, electricity, and if it is alright (because she did not get this one recently in X but it is very her) water. She can claim two more before she has to clear any out.
Agility, strength, the usual video game character standard package of fighting.
Languages - not that it matters much in RC
Teaching - she can teach. In her own Aqua way.


If I am allowed the merge idea here are base powers that would slowly return to her with the memories:
In KH canon she doesn't have a mutant power, she just has magic. As she merges, I would move more towards this, where the healing has been so much a part of her for so long, she knows that well, but can be trained to learn more. But more and more rather than getting her powers by being hit with them, she would gain them by learning, by training with people who know how to use magic. So that if Harry Potter wanted to teach her spells with a wand, and she somehow got a wand, she could learn that... or use her Keyblade as a wand. Basically in the game everything is "magic" with the Keyblade and/or her armor as a focus. She would be moving closer to that model, but beyond the healing, whatever powers she could call on that way would be ones she would pick up IN RC. This wouldn't give her magical abilities A,B, and C, this would just make it easier for her to learn them than Joe Shmoe off the street. And would reduce her ability to use them through her mutant power. Until she is completely merged, she'd be somewhere in between, moving closer to her KH ability set (aka - magic with a Keyblade focus) with every keyblade/event interaction.


Network/Actionspam Sample: [She could learn how to use a web camera, she could learn how to use one of these watches. She took a deep breath, recalled all she had been told, then reached over to turn on the feed. There was a startled moment before she realized it was already on. Alright then.]

"Terra. Ven. I don't know if you are somewhere where you can hear this. They told me that people come here not only from multiple worlds, but multiple times as well. I hope that everyone is safe, but I am selfish enough to wish that I were not here alone. If either of you are here, I will be watching the stars tonight. In the park. We are connected, we always will be connected."
[She held up her wayfinder.]
"I hope to see you both in person. I miss you."
[She cut the feed, or rather, thought she had. She stared at the small star shaped good luck charm in her hand.]
"Terra. Ven. Where are you?" [She took the wayfinder and reattached it to her Keyblade and then vanished it. She put the watch in her pocket, finally cutting the feed.]


Prose Log Sample:
From the test drive: http://rubycity-ooc.dreamwidth.org/589847.html?thread=18667543#cmt18667543
From the other game: http://xavier-institute-logs.dreamwidth.org/45632.html?thread=5429056#cmt5429056

App 3.0
PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Chicklet
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Yep
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: Aim: BardessOokami, Yahoo!: MLPBardess, Plurk: ChickletLarp
CHARACTERS PLAYED: Tiamaris

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Aqua Wayfinder
CANON: Kingdom Hearts
CANON REFERENCE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_of_Kingdom_Hearts

http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts_Birth_by_Sleep

http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/wiki/Birth_by_sleep_%28video%29

http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/wiki/Aqua

AGE: In the cannon her age is unclear. 25
GENDER: Female
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: Professor. Philosophy and control.
APPEARANCE:

http://www.khwiki.com/images/thumb/c/c0/Aqua_KHBBSFM.png/296px-Aqua_KHBBSFM.png

Aqua is tall and slender. Her hair, since her mutation, is electric blue and short, and her eyes are also electric blue. Her clothing choices are a mix of skintight and long and flowing, but it is mostly chosen with an eye towards melee combat, so things that are tight are tight to keep from interfering with her range of motion, things that are loose are there to confuse the eye and distract a combatant.

PERSONALITY:

Aqua is all about her friends. She would die for them, she generally lives for them. No one has to ask her to sacrifice for those she holds dear, because for her, even giving her own life is no sacrifice, if only they could live.

Aside from that, she is a hard worker. She is kind hearted and tries to make every place she goes, better. She has been trained to fight the darkness – in this case it would be hatred and fear - to confront it with compassion and kindness. She trained hard to be what her master tried to turn her into - a warrior who knows when to fight and when to heal, and who can do both with equal ease.

Aqua is patient. She has drive and focus, but she knows that even things that seem impossible could come true, if she works for it, and waits. In the end of the game, she spends, what is implied to be, years wandering in the darkness, in the hope that one day, someday, Ven will awaken, Terra will be himself, and they will be together again. In the AU, that will translate to the time she will spend at Xavier's, trying to do good while waiting for those who hold her heart to return safely.

Aqua is the one who made the first wayfinders, a way to connect their hearts and to connect their lives. She gave them not just to her friends, but shared the charm with others, and that kindness saved Stitch, and became instrumental in Sora's story later in the chronology, in Kingdom Hearts 1. In the AU, she knew that many Masters went off on their own after attaining mastery; while she, Terra, and Ven planned to always stay together, she knew that they might receive assignments that might separate them for a time, and she wanted them to always be confident that they would always always find each other again. She wanted herself to be confident as well. Whenever one of them was ill, or hurt more than the healing of the various mutants could fix, all three drew courage from the wayfinders, especially when lessons and tasks kept them from the side of the ill or injured. Now, sons her friends, her wayfinder has become her tactile reminder, her strength to persevere until they return.

So the summery: Loyal, kind, strong, sweet, and hardworking. Aqua is someone who takes her responsibilities, and her friends, seriously. She works for what she has and tries to help others whenever she can. While her history differs for the AU, her heart does not.

As for her failings, while she works hard to master it, and can when she needs to – she'd not be called Master if she could not – fear lurks in Aqua's heart, and sometimes it saps her strength. (This is all AU, because she has very few moments of emotional weakness in the game, the most notable one was at the end when she thought she would never see Terra and Ven again, she was trapped in the darkness; she almost gave up hope, then she saw what she believed to be the souls of Terra and Ven saving her when her sorrow almost lead her to letting herself die. That fortified her for the years to come) She fears being alone, she is afraid that she will be an old lady – or dead - by the time Terra and Ven return, she fears that the Master was hasty in naming her master, and she fears heights. She fights the fears in her heart, and it is a daily and very personal battle. While she is good, most of the time, at keeping it from affecting how she acts, keeping the pain from her voice, it often shows in her eyes. She loves deeply, and she fears deeply. But bravery isn't having no fear, it is doing what you have to, even when it scares you. Her Master said that to her when she was younger, and she keeps those words close to her heart.

POWERS/ABILITIES:

Physical mutations: She had once had long brown hair and hazel eyes. When her mutation came upon her, her hair became short, her eyes and hair both became electric blue. All attempts to dye or grow her hair since have failed. She has not attempted contacts to change her eye color.

Ability mutation: Her Keyblade. The original weapon was from before her mutation. It is suspected that her master's mutation had to do with identifying and shaping nascent mutant powers. As he is dead, no one will ever know, but an extraordinarily high percentage of the stunts he took in as children did develop mutant powers, and of those, nearly all their powers related to the weapons he had them make and train with. Though few of them looked even remotely key-like, he called them Keyblades, because he said they were the key to unlocking their true potential.

Each student was taken in as a child, and they were instructed how to make their own weapons; and they used their own blood in the crafting. These weapons are built as a part of them, and they live with the weapons from that day on. Given her Master's track record, no one was surprised when her mutation related directly to her Keyblade. Her eyes and hair match the blade she had crafted, more or less, and she developed the ability to summon and banish it at will. The keyblades could be made in multiple ways, and each student was free to choose. Aqua's was genetically connected nano-technology.

As instructed in the F.A.Q This section has been altered drastically.

Aqua's abilities work in a similar fashion to Bishop's. When she is struck by a mutant ability, for good or for ill (healing her counts), she absorbs that energy. It has less effect on her than it would on someone else, but not none. She is not immune, but her ability absorbs most of it (percentage wise, not across the board, so something strong enough could still kill her, of course. It just would take a lot of what would otherwise be over-kill.) What she absorbs she can use, channeled through her Keyblade. If it is not an ability that can be channeled through the keyblade – for example a mental blast from a psy – it would just present as an energy bolt in the element closest to her heart – water.

This energy is stored in her Keyblade which is genetically connected to her, and serves as a storage device. She tweaked the Keyblade with the aid of her Master when her abilities became understood so that it could serve this way. Her body can store one power at a time, and her keyblade 4 more. When the Keyblade is “Summoned” she has access to all of the powers stored in it. However when the blade is in a nascent form (unformed as a blade, or shaped as her speeder) she only has the benefits of the one ability stored inside herself. That one ability is a healing aura. She can release it in small scale without her Keyblade being in its weaponable form, but only for herself and someone who is physically CLOSE to her (http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll27/Elite-Soul/kingdom%20hearts/kh2-acqua-ven.jpg ). All other skills are stored in the Keyblade, and must be used with it as a focus.

Every so often she needs to clear the Keyblade and start again, basically rebooting it, as if the powers were ram or cache. When she does, the power within herself is the only power she retains, other than her intrinsic absorption.

She will never be as good with any mutant ability she absorbs as the person who she absorbs it from. If Storm struck her with electricity, for example, she would be able to use her Keyblade to call lightning, but it will not be as well aimed or as strong as Storm's is, and she has not gained any other of Storm's powers when she took the lightning. If Storm hit her with gale force winds, she could absorb that too, but it would count as a second ability.

Her Keyblade was made before her mutation, as I mentioned, though it was worked on after. Her Keyblade, like her armor is nano-technology, bound to her genetically. The Keyblade stores in her blood stream, and as long as her blood flows, she cannot be disarmed. The armor stores in her upper arm, and is triggered by a specific kind of impact. She wears her sleeves the way she does because one of the gems on one of her sleeves has a peg that she can slam into her own arm to trigger the armor. It hurts, but if she needs the armor, it's generally worth the pain.

Because she made her Keyblade herself, and because it is a nano-technology device that she was constantly upgrading before the fall of her home, it has a number of features that she built for fun that have no practical purpose whatsoever. One is the Keychain, as she calls it. She made a number of Nano-technology toys for herself, Terra, and Ven, that they can attach to the end of their Keyblades. All these do is make small cosmetic changes in the Keyblade when it is in blade form. For example:

The keyblade she made originally looked like this:

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/Setrin/Video%20Games/Kingdom%20Hearts/Keyblades/AquasKeyblade.png

When she added the first dongle it looked like:

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n149/MardukKurios/World%20Mognet/KeybladeAqua2.png

But since loosing Terra and Ven, she put her Wayfinder on the end of the Keyblade and the Wayfinder form is Brightcrest: http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120414180606/ideas/images/5/51/Brightcrest.png

Again, these changes are cosmetic. She can “summon” the dongles the way she can the armor and Keyblade, but the only one that stores in her blood is the one currently attached. So she can summon the Wayfinder on its own, but not the Keyblade without it. However, she can call in the Keyblade, and remove the Wayfinder. Then she has to store the small form of the nano-technology of the Wayfinder somewhere on her person.

In addition to the Blade form, the Keyblade also has a Transportation form, as mentioned above. As she is, in the AU, terrified of heights (I needed to limit the usefulness of the speeder) she only uses it when she has no choice, and she always wears her armor when she does.

As the Keyblade is genetically bound to her, no one else can ride her speeder, no one else can take or use her weapon. It cannot be taken from her. If she throws it, there is still an intrinsic connection that will always bring it back to her. If someone tries to rip it from her hand, it vanishes back within her again.

The armor: http://zerox.wikispaces.com/file/view/324px-Aqua_armor.png

The armor has some life support functionality, and she can for a short span of time wear it in deep space or deep under water, air tight, however it is not a sinecure beyond a few minutes. It is also heavy and she looses much of her agility when she wears it, so she almost never does, save when she is flying. When she is in the armor, she cannot absorb new abilities unless they blow a hole in the armor. No mundane force can destroy the amor, she could be hit by a bus and it and she would be fine, she could fall from a great height and survive it, but if someone has a mutant ability that gives them strength to break it apart, or a way to disrupt nano-tech, it would work.

The Speeder: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/336/3/e/kh_bbs_aqua_in_suit_on_glider_by_josh6520.jpg

AU HISTORY: Aqua was taken to the island by her Master, Master Eraqus, when she was a young child, as were all the other students. She does not know where she was born, she does not remember her parents, she does not know why they gave her up. However, she loves her life so much that these questions never much bothered her.

She grew up on the small island nation called Departure. The early masters named it that, because the plan for the place had always always been that people would train there, and take what they learn to the wider world, to make a positive difference. Master Eraqus was not the first Master of the island, and it had never been intended for him to be the last. He raised the children of the Island as parent and teacher both. He was firm when he had to be, but always caring. He trained them and sent them into the world when they were ready, when they could do good. He trained them in batches, in groups, but he let the children choose their own groups as they would. He was a guide and a guardian, not a jailor.

Over the generations, the teachings, and traditions of the island school changed, though the core mission never did. It had not always been a haven for mutants, and the Keyblades, while always a part of the training, were not always crafted in the ways were when Aqua built hers. There were always limitations on “distracting” technology, such as video games and television, however, technology that could aid the students, without becoming a crutch, was not only allowed, but embraced. They learned to live both with and without it.

Aqua's group was three, not all of an age, but close enough. Herself, Terra, and Ven. Terra and Ven were her best friends, and they and her Master were the people she loved most in all the world. Aqua and Terra were older than Ven by just enough that they received additional advanced training while he worked on the basics. Aqua had always intended to wait her test of master until Ven could test with them, but Terra was anxious, and convinced her otherwise, when Ven joined in the encouragement. She loved Ven enough not to want to leave him behind, he loved her enough not to want to hold her back.

She and Terra did wait to forge their blades until Ven could as well, therefore they made theirs when they were eight instead of seven, and Ven made his at six. They learned the crafting process together, they practiced on smaller casting molds together, and worked in the same room, alone together, as they build each their own weapons. They helped each other with their armor, and in secret they conspired to add each other's genetics to their armor, so in a pinch any of them could put his or her own armor on any of the others, though no one else could wear it. Their Keyblades, however, were sacrosanct, and they followed the procedures that were laid out when they made them; each made their own without aid, without speech, without anything but the presence of the others in the room. They did not even look at each other, their backs to each other as they worked in companionable silence. Each of them was pleasantly surprised when the Keyblades of the others were revealed in the ceremony that showed them to the island, for none of them had seen any but their own until then.

Because they wanted to wait to take their Mark of Mastery exam, and because they did wait to forge their weapons, Master Eraqus gave Terra and Aqua extra lessons in other subjects, to keep their workload balanced.

On the island, during Master Eraqus' reign, there was no fear of mutants, for however he chose them, nearly all the children developed mutant powers at some point. Most of the children saw it as a right of passage, like the Mark of Mastery exam, but earlier, and it was more likely someone would be a mutant than someone would be a Master. So the mutants were generally looked up to, and kids dreamed about what sort of powers they would develop. The Master never discussed what his mutant power was, so of course everyone had theories, but whatever it was, 99% of the children he chose to bring to the island developed mutant powers in their early teens or later, and most of those powers related in some way to their training and/or their Keyblades. Whatever his power, he was good at training everyone else in how to control and master their own powers. He used a variety of techniques, including meditation, focus through physical exertion, and philosophy of all things.

While the island utilized very little in the way of “recreational” technology, part of their well rounded education meant that he did teach all of them how to use the current technology available to the rest of the world. They were not exactly Amish, but he felt they had enough to learn and to do when they were young that computers and similar devices would be more of a distraction than a benefit. Generally they learned the technology when they were older.

When Aqua's power developed, Master Eraqus started taking her to other places for short trips, so she could see more mutants than what was just on the island. As such, he started teaching her the languages of these lands where he knew them, and helping her find references to learn herself where he didn't. She learned a lot from these trips, and one lesson she learned was that blue hair generally marker her as a mutant – and that the rest of the world did not hold mutants in the same regard as the island did. It made Aqua appreciate her home that much more, and made her all the more determined to protect it, at all costs.

She discovered, around that time as well, that it seemed as though the Master spent more time with her group than the others. Terra and Ven tried to convince her that all the other groups probably felt the same way. After all, the Master never played favorites, he responded to the needs of each child to the best of his ability. They were all his students, all his children, and no one ever had cause to feel neglected, as far as they could tell. Aqua wasn't convinced. So when she wasn't in lessons herself, at meals, doing her hard work, or spending her limited social time with Terra and Ven, she worked with the other groups, helping them out, and studying with them.

Aqua worked hard, perhaps harder than most. She didn't know why the Master worked her so hard since her powers developed, but she presumed everyone was pushed that hard, so never complained. She had no clue he was training her to one day replace him.

The day that the Mark of Mastery exam was to occur, was marked by more than their mastery exam. A visitor arrived that morning with his aide. The man was an older Master, presumably from the island himself, called Master Xehanort. Much speculation came in whispers amongst the children, as to who he was, for Master Eraqus treated him at times like a peer, and at times like more; he was always respectful to him, but then Eraqus was always respectful, even to the youngest of children. It was something that Aqua admired and tried to emulate. The best guess was that Master Xehanort was Master Eraqus' Master when he himself had been a student. Whoever he was, he chose to watch over the exam.

The Exam itself was no simple thing. It involved philosophical discussion, physical activity and proof that they controlled their mutant powers and emotions, rather than being controlled by them. Ven came to cheer them on, and the parts he was allowed to attend, he did. The rest of the time he was off, waiting for them somewhere, as far as Aqua knew. The test was taken with all the candidates for it together, so Aqua and Terra answered the questions and debated for the discussion portion, working together to answer the questions, and sometimes disagreeing. This was not a test of clear rights and wrongs, and neither was quite sure how they did. The physical activity portion pitted them together in non-lethal combat. The point, they were told, was not to win, but to show that they could, and that they could do so with honor, integrity, and iron control. They were not allowed to use their mutant powers, but they were not allowed to purge them either, or use any external means to restrain them – part of the test was their own self control. Ven was present for that portion of the exam, and when things went bad Aqua regretted that, fearing for him, but at the end, his aid had been invaluable.

The combat started out normally enough, like sparing but with more gravity. They were not allowed to use their mutant powers or technology, to do more than summon their weapons, and part of the test was controlling those abilities, proving that even in a high stress situation, the master used them, rather than being used by them. At first it was like a dance; even not knowing what moves exactly Terra would make, she knew him well enough that they read each other, no blow went unblocked, no one fell or tripped, it was a dance, it was art. If it hadn't been a test it would have been a fun but grueling workout, because Terra made her WORK and she replied in kind. Then something happened. At first it was a spark, a hint of Terra's powers. She hissed at him, a reminder to control himself, concern for him distracting her long enough that he took a blow, but the shock of making connection shook him out of it, and he regained himself. However that wasn't the last, or worst, of the oddities. The obstacles they were supposed to fight around started to move, and more than move, to attack. They did not attack the seated masters. They did attack Terra and Aqua, and then to Aqua's horror, they attacked Ven. But for all Ven was 2 years younger and not eligible for the Mark of Mastery exam, he still had been training with them, he still had his own Keyblade and he could, as he proved, hold his own. Aqua had never realized just how strong he really was. The three moved in concert. The Masters let this continue, watching them. They put their backs together and it was obvious how well they worked together, how much they had practiced together. They won, in the end, but it had not been easy. Aqua had been proud, so proud of Terra and Ven. They turned to face the Masters, and after the complexity of the second test, the third was almost a formality.

They stood before the Masters, awaiting their judgment. Aqua was named Master. Terra was told that he needed to work on his control before he could be granted the same, and he was encouraged to take the test again the following year. Ven went after Terra when he left, and Aqua tried to as well, Master Eraqus called her back. Master Xehanort left them to have some privacy, and Master Eraqus told Aqua then that he wanted her to succeed him. Before she could react, the general alarms sounded. She and Eraqus ran out to see that the island was under attack. He sent her to help evacuate the children while he rallied the adults. Aqua found Terra and Ven and the three secured the younger ones. One of the adults joined them, he had a mutation that let him open portals into the future. He opened one and they started evacuating the children. The Portal making mutant, a Master himself, left the task to Aqua, Terra, and Ven; he went to go help the other Masters and adults defend the island. They got the children secured and the portal started to close. Terra and Ven were inside the portal, Aqua was outside. They called to her, she hesitated. She realized that if they were going to come out into a future where the island was secure, she needed to help fight. She told them as much and she held up her charm, a charm she had made for each of them when they were younger. She promised that she'd get a portal to take her to them, or she'd wait for them. However long it took, she'd wait. Ven tried to go after her, but the portal was closing too quickly, Terra held him back, and nodded. Crying, she watched the portal vanish, then turned and ran to the worst of the combat.

It was bad, worse than she feared. Master Xehanort was missing, probably dead. The portal Master was dead, Eraqus was badly wounded. Aqua ran to his side and helped fight. They won, but barely. They chased what was left of the attackers off of the island, and Eraqus fell. Aqua dropped her weapon and it vanished, as she sank to catch him. The healing she had within was not enough to do more than give him a few additional minutes, if that. Terra and Ven were gone, her way to get to them was gone. Her Master was all she had left. She tried to summon her Keyblade back, to try and use more power to heal him, but he caught her hand. He spoke quickly but softly, using his last moments to give her her final tasks. She was to secure the island, he told her, so that they had somewhere safe to return to. Then she was not to remain there, alone. He told her of another teacher, another Master like himself. Aqua was to find him and lend his aid until the others returned. She was to finish her work, finish their mission, but not alone on the island. She had to set the defenses and flee.

She swallowed, she cried, as he passed. She held him until his body had cooled. Then, crying, she set about the task of burying and honoring the dead. She cleared the island, then she set the protections. The island had been home, in the deepest sense of the word, to generations of students. Those who left, who could leave protections did, and all the older students knew the emergency protocols. No one who had not forged a Keyblade, on this island, could set foot on it, not unless their mutant power was stronger than all the wards and shields. She contacted one of the former Masters who lived on the mainland, who was able to help keep anyone from even seeing it. She left a message for Terra and Ven, the same message in triplicate, one in each of their rooms, one in her room, telling them where the Master had sent her, so they could find her. She had no clue how far into the future they had been sent, could be days, months, years. But she was told not to wait there for them, so reluctantly, she took a last look, then left her home.

She traveled, making her way to the Master that Master Eraqus had told her to seek, Master Charles Xavier. Weird name, but who was she to judge? She got plenty of language practice as she traveled, as she was closer to California than New York, and unfamiliar with maps of the outside world, she went by way of Europe. She realized part way through that she had gone the wrong way, but by that point turning around would have taken as long as continuing. Memories were her sole companion, and she remembered as often as she could. She remembered how her Master helped her overcome her fear of heights, her biggest fear that might cripple her. He told her that she had everything she needed to not be scared, she just had to figure out the answer for herself. And eventually, with the help of Terra and Ven, she did. Her armor was her answer, as long as she wore it, no fall could hurt her. She proved time and again when the Master pressed her, that she could do what had to be done, without the fear mastering her. This is why whenever she has to fly at all, she wears the armor, even though she does not generally wear it in combat.

SAMPLES

NETWORK SAMPLE: You may link from an outside source, either our Test Drive or other places, but they MUST be set in the game. An acceptable linked sample for this prompt must be have at least seven comments from YOUR character in the linked thread.
This is basically to show off character voice in the form of a network post. It can be text, vocal, or video. We want at least some dialog, though in cases of less talkative characters, we are willing to accept character 'voice' in more subtle ways. Make it work!

LOG SAMPLE: You may link from an outside source, either our Test Drive or other places, but they MUST be set in the game. An acceptable linked sample for this prompt must be have at least seven comments from YOUR character in the linked thread.
This is an example of your ability to write the character's introspection. Their thoughts, feelings, and reactions to a given situation. Get inside their head. Remember to show, not tell. These are off network, what would normally go in the log community. You do not necessarily need to write this prose style, and can do a bracket style if you choose. But we still need to see a healthy amount of introspection.

 

First travelogue -

Aqua had been walking for a few days now, since setting foot on solid ground. Riding the speeder over the water hadn't scared her. It could be the fact that despite knowing how deep the ocean was, it did not quite feel like height, but she doubted it. It had bothered her when she had done it before, with her Master, but never enough to stop her from doing what she needed to do. But this time there had been no fear. The water had almost seemed to beckon her into its depths. It had beed tempting for all of a moment, but she had a task to do, and she had made a promise. Terra and Ven would be back, and she had promised to be waiting for them.

 

Walking on foot was more tiring than she might have expected, given her endurance training, but she pushed herself to move faster, to keep going longer than she normally would have. Terra and Ven, when they came back, they would use their speeders, she was sure. She walked. But the exhaustion was like the fear; there, but distant. It paled before the loss. Master Eraqus was dead. Departure was sealed, waiting for those who survived to return. And she would be the last one who got to. The portal would drop the others right where they had departed from, it would be moments to them. She had taken that tunnel, once, when it had been set for 5 minutes. No matter how far you were going, it took two minutes of walking to go from end to end. So Terra and Ven... they were already there... whenever they were. And they would come find her. She doubted he had made the portal to take them ahead any less than a few hours, given the state of the battle, but even if it were days, they could still get to her destination before she did. If that was the case... then the sooner she got to Xavier's school, the sooner she would see Terra and Ven again. She raised a hand and her Wayfinder formed itself, shining cobalt blue in the dwindling sunlight. She closed her hand over it tightly, and relished the feel of its edges pressing into her skin, it was immediate where nothing but the pain of separation and loss was. She would see them again. She kept walking.

 

Travelogue 2 -

Even as a pilgrim, even as a traveler, she was still Master Eraqus' student. Even now that he was dead and she was, for the first time since her long forgotten childhood, alone. Maybe especially now that she was. So when she had spotted the trouble, she had stepped in, she had helped. She hadn't realized that she had been expecting anything, but whatever it was – gratitude, perhaps - it was not what she received. There had been an attack, a man was being robbed by some thug like gang. Just because things like this never happened on the island did not mean that she hadn't been trained in how to defend someone in this situation. She had stepped in, warned the thugs to back off and when they didn't, she had dispatched them. Some Keyblades were designed to kill, hers was not. She knocked them out, then turned to the victim to see if he was alright. He looked at her Keyblade and stumbled back, calling her a filthy mutant. He started throwing things at her, whatever he could find. Unfortunately, as they were in an ally on a trash day, he had a lot of ammo. When his rage was expended, he fled.

 

Aqua had gone to find a hotel, using the limited currency she had taken from the island's emergency funds before she left. They didn't want to let her have a room, and she presumed it was because she smelled somewhat ripe. But the next turned her away, and the next and she heard the words “mutant scum” whispered at her back. Her past forays with the Master had warned her that there was some animosity in some parts of the world, but it had only ever served to make her love her home all the more. She had never felt anything negative from that, had been able to understand what the Master said, that people were just scared. It took more effort now, to hold onto that.

 

An old woman flagged her down and invited her into her home. Aqua thanked her and accepted. The woman let her wash up and loaned her clothing to wear while her own clothing was washed and dried. She shared a meal with the woman, who was herself a mutant. The woman warned her that this city was not mutant friendly and advised her to hide the color of her hair. They tried dying her hair, but it didn't stay black, the blue came through again at once. So the woman advised her that if she could not lay low, that she should go to America, to the school run by Charles Xavier. She told the woman that was already her destination, and the woman smiled. This small house, it wasn't Aqua's home, but there was an echo of it there, in the open caring of the older woman. Aqua helped around the house for a day in thanks, and rested. In the morning the woman gave her provisions and some money and sent her on her way. She left the town in haste, wishing she had access to a nano-tech lab to make something for the woman in thanks.

 

Traveling further beyond that, Aqua kept the woman in her heart. She knew the other woman was a self changer, and had no clue if the face she had seen was her actual face, but it didn't matter. She saw her heart, and that was what mattered most. Ven would have loved her, Terra would have been better able to help her. She missed them.

 

Travelogue 3 – Aqua had been sticking to the less traveled roads as much as she could. She was somewhat foot sore, but she was learning as she traveled. Classes in survival and diplomacy went from theoretical to entirely too practical. She did odd jobs here and there where she could, to earn a night's lodging or something to eat. When she had to cross checkpoints that would require a passport, she risked the heights and flew out of sight, high above. As soon as she could safely land she did, and she found a place to sit and let her heart calm down. She still hated heights. She mastered her fear enough to do what needed to be done, but she still felt it.

 

She missed the comfort of having Terra and Ven with her when she landed. They had always been so proud of her for flying without panicking. They had been her friends since long before she had that control, they had been instrumental in her gaining it.

 

Aqua ducked into a store to avoid a rainstorm and browsed around, feeling guilty, since she knew she could not buy anything there. It was a school supply store, and she was traveling light. Very light. Her armor wasn't designed to account for any sort of bag, she had never thought she'd need to design it for that. She came to realize that there was no way Terra and Ven had only been sent forward a few hours ahead, all those weeks ago. It had taken her hours to honor the dead and clear the island, not to mention the length of the battle itself. She would have seen them. Also... The Master had sent her on this voyage, and he presumably knew how long the children and her friends would be gone. He would not have forbade her to wait if they would have arrived there before she made it to America.

 

Aqua wandered the aisles, idly. Her eyes landed on a small globe, meant for a desk. She looked at it, the names all in Russian, her Russian was rusty, but she looked at it anyway. She couldn't find her island, but that wasn't a surprise. The Master taught them that many islands and small nations were intentionally kept off of maps. But she knew where it was in reference to the closest landfall outside themselves – Australia and Japan. She found them, found the patch of ocean that would be her home. Then she saw... she could have taken her speeder the other direction, and made landfall in America already. The wrong side, but still. Every time she had left the island before, Master Eraqus had been with her, had planned everything. She had never anticipated leaving her home without him, so had never made any real study of maps of the rest of the world. Well, now she – and her aching feet - knew the cost of laziness. Had she been diligent in even the studies that she had thought would have no bearing upon her, she would have already been pretty much at her destination.

 

She broke down and bought a map when the rain stopped.

 

 

Travelogue 4 -

The map helped, and didn't. She did get to practice reading Russian. Knowing where she was going saved her time and guesswork, but when she did need to get into her armor, the map became a complication. She had to put it down under something that would keep it from blowing away, Get the armor to form, summon her Keyblade in speeder form, reach around the speeder awkwardly to get the map, then managed to hold onto it without loosing her grip on the handholds of the speeder. Because she needed more things to make her feel insecure flying. Right.

 

Aqua felt herself giving into all the things she shouldn't. Despair, fear, loneliness, grief. More than once she sat somewhere isolated and wondered why she was pushing so hard, why she was trying so hard. She would pull her knees up and rest her forehead on them. She allowed herself to weep more than once for the fallen, for her home, and for herself. Always these short pity parties ended when something caught her eye that would remind her of Terra or Ven. She'd call in her Wayfinder and it would give her strength. Terra. Ven. They would be coming back, she would see them again. And she wanted to be someone they could look to when they returned. She was the last Keyblade Master. There might have been more who had left the island, but they hadn't come to its defense, and while Master Eraqus might have known how to find them, she did not. So when everyone returned, she would have to do what the Master wanted her to do someday, she would have to be Master Aqua, teacher and guide. She, Terra, and Ven were the oldest students left. The island would need them, and Terra and Ven would need her. She couldn't let them down, she had to keep moving, to be strong for the other students, for the Island of Departure, and for Terra and Ven.

 

The last time the pain took her, instead of walking holding the Wayfinder, she called in her Keyblade. She studied both, then attached the Wayfinder as a dongle, removing the plain one she had used for the Mark of Mastery exam. The Keyblade transformed into her favorite version of it, the cobalt shining like the summer sky. The color... matched Terra's eyes, Ven's eyes, her eyes. It linked them. The wayfinder, the Keyblade, and their responsibility to the children of the island. “Terra, Ven, I will find you. Come find me,” she said to the open sky. She lifted her Keyblade and felt the warmth of their friendship radiating from her heart to every last inch of her skin. She wasn't alone. Blinking away tears of joy she realized she had never been alone, would never be alone. Terra, Ven, Master Eraqus, everyone... everyone was with her. She lowered her face, and her Keyblade, and resumed walking.

 

There were no more pity parties. Whenever she thought to waver, she called in her Keyblade and let herself stare into the color for a moment, or lifted it high and let the Wayfinder brush her face. And then she had all the strength she needed and more. She would see them again, and when she did, she would be worthy of them, and of the trust their Master had placed in her.

 

Travelogue 5 -

The flight to North America had been the single scariest thing she had ever done. Fighting alongside the Master in the final battle had not been terrifying, there had been no room for fear. Flying high over that much ocean, and she had to fly HIGH to keep from being spotted by the many airplanes that apparently also frequented this stretch left her with little to do BUT obsess on her fear. She couldn't call in the Wayfinder, her Keyblade was the speeder she clung to, and even if she could, she would not have let go of the grip she had on the handlebars. She made two brief stops to rest and regain her nerve, Iceland and Greenland. She didn't think either name was particularly accurate. She had left the map behind in Norway, donating it to a library by simply leaving it there. She checked maps at both of her stops, and finally landed in Canada. She had to fly overland a while, to avoid anyone watching the boarder for boats.

 

When she finally landed, she found a hotel in Ontario, and allowed herself three days to recover before she moved on. If nothing else, it took nearly that long for her fingers to unclench. She explored the area by day. They had a Geek music scene, whatever that was. She wound up sitting in on a concert because it was cheap, and it got her out of the rain again. Apparently it rained a lot in some parts of Canada, someone told her when she tried to make polite conversation. The main band seemed to be two people, Debs and Errol, if she read their shirts right. There was a solo singer after who was introduced as Kari. None of the music was entirely to her taste, and her English apparently wasn't the best, because she couldn't follow all the lyrics. She had no clue what a Tribble was, or a Totoro, though she had read Beowulf, and liked that song. It wasn't music as she was used to music, but it wasn't bad either. She just wished more of it had made sense. At least it passed the time, and the rain had stopped by the end. The people who had been performing came off the stage and spoke to everyone, they seemed nice enough, and seemed to like her hair. All the same, she politely excused herself when they started talking about a Nanowrimo, whatever that was, and went back to the hotel to sleep.

 

What finally decided her that she had to leave was when she ran out of money. She paid the last of what she owed the hotel, and then headed south. The areas she moved through were pretty urban, which meant less living off the land, but more odd jobs she could do to earn food money without having her hair getting her chased away.

 

Travelogue 6 –

America, the country not the continent, at last. She had no clue how she was going home when Terra and Ven came for her. She had no intention of flying over that much ocean again. But then, with then, anything was better. But of course, Terra and Ven were Terra and Ven, they knew her, and together the three of them would come up with something.

 

A flash of blue caught her attention, a bright cobalt the hue of the Keyblade, of Ven and Terra's eyes. She hurried after it, and it seemed to be...someone's hair? She wasn't certain. She kept up the persuit, then rounded a corner... and lost whoever it was. “Terra? Ven?” she asked, looking around, even though she was sure it couldn't be, wouldn't be. She felt as though she was being watched, and called in her Keyblade, taking a battle ready pose, trying to open her senses enough ti find the source of her unease.

 

“Fascinating,” a voice said...from above her. (I was told I could use him as an NPC) Aqua looked up and was shocked to see a man completely covered in bright blue fur dangling from the fire escape attached to the wall. No question he was a mutant, and he didn't seem hostile. Aqua found herself relaxing and called out a greeting to him as she dismissed her Keyblade, feeling it renter her bloodstream. Next thing she knew he had dropped down in front of her and she found herself answering a relentless stream of questions about how she made the Keyblade. She wound up showing him the armor. She couldn't help it, he had the intelligence of the older Masters, and the open curiosity of the children who hadn't yet made their Keyblades and always had “just one more question” for the older students who had. He realized that it was getting late, and asked if she would be willing to join him in his lab to continue the conversation. She agreed, but told him that she had somewhere to be, and asked if he could help her find it, afterwards. When she told him where she was going, and that she was looking for a man named Master Charles Xavier who ran a school somewhere in the general area, he seemed quite amused, and assure her that he could in fact help her with that.

 

So Aqua went with him, his name turned out to be Hank, or Henry, he said either worked. She introduced herself as Master Aqua, and realized that she was calling herself Master to someone else for the first time. Her feelings were mixed over that. She had always presumed there would be the official ceremony first, and that Terra, and possibly Ven, would be standing at her side. Saying it to a stranger, alone, felt odd, but... it was almost impossible to be ill at ease around Hank. He led her to what looked like a large mansion surrounded by a ton of open ground. While she was sure it wasn't, it almost seemed to be as large as the whole of her island.

 

As they walked, his questions turned as much to her personal history, and why she was looking for Master Xavier, and he seemed amused to say it that way, as they did to the nano-technology in her Keyblade. She answered the questions easily, not thinking much of it. They went to his lab, deep within the large mansion. There were people everywhere, and most of them seemed to know him, and accepted her by extension, because she was with him. Closing her eyes as she walked... it felt comfortable, almost familiar. The din of raised voices, the occasional crash or shout, the cacophony of people of all ages living, and learning. It felt like walking through the mess area just at the beginning or ending of lunch. At breakfast half the students were too tired to be chatty, and by dinner, the other half generally were, but lunch... ah lunch was always a splendid occasion. Everyone who wasn't needed elsewhere in one room, sharing a meal and their day together.

 

“Is this... a school?” Aqua asked softly, adding her voice to the din. He smiled and took her hand, opening the door to her lab. She regretted when he closed it, as it kept out most of the sound. He then focused more on his study of her weapon and armor. She hesitated, then showed him the speeder. The lab was that large. He was fascinated. After a few hours, he asked her if she would like to stay in a room for the night, assured her that there were plenty of empty rooms to spare, and that it was too late for her to be traveling anyway. She offered to pay for the room, but he assured her that she more than had already.

 

Aqua took the room, and was pleasantly surprised to find food waiting for her. She ate, and the food, if odd, was good. She rested, not intending to sleep, but drifting off all the same, hugging her Keyblade the way she and Ven and Terra had held each other when they were little children curled up for warmth against the winter nights. She felt them there with her, and dreamt of being a child once again.

 

 

Log of no more travel -

Aqua worked on setting up the room she would sleep in, thinking about the man she had met. Doctor McCoy was an interesting fellow, that was for sure. She wondered what her Master would have thought of him, and suspected they would have gotten along well. He had surprised her when he came to bring her back to the lab the next morning. She had been ready for more questions about her armor, but the questions he asked had been odd. He asked about the languages that she could speak, could read. He asked what she had done on the island, what she would do if she were still there. When he learned that she taught, and that she was going to be working with Master Eraqus as his successor, his questions turned more to what could she teach well.

 

She folded a shirt she had been giving, still recalling how she had felt during that conversation. She had never gotten to answer the Master. Had she... she might have said no. Being the next Master would put her separate from Terra and Ven in a fundamental way, and that Terra failed his exam... she couldn't do that to him. She probably would have declined, if she could. Now? Now there was no going back, she would have to take over as Master when the children returned. But... she couldn't do it alone, and without the training she would have gotten, no one would expect it of her. The three of them could succeed him, together. They would, they had to. The students needed them.

 

What could she teach? She told Hank that she was comfortable teaching philosophy, physical education when he told her that was actually considered a separate subject in America, and how to make the weapons and armor. At the least. He seemed pleased by her answers, and she wasn't quite sure why. She started to apologize, to tell him gently that she had to resume her mission when he stopped her... by welcoming her to a faculty position at Xavier's school for gifted youngsters. He said there were still details to work out, like what subjects she would be covering, meeting with Master... Professor Xavier, and her salary. That last one she had made him explain multiple times before she could quite believe it. They... were going to... PAY her? To teach? Teachers, Masters didn't get paid for that, it was what they were, students were students, Masters were Masters. But apparently things were different here.

 

Setting aside the pants she had been folding, she looked at the organizer that Hank had given her. Things were very different here, it turned out. English wasn't spoke for practice, it was the primary language. Masters were called professors or teachers, even if they had fully mastered their abilities. She was the only person here with a Keyblade. And the students here... most of them came here far older than her fellow students had come to the isle. Most remembered their parents, some kept in contact with them. She wondered, briefly, what that was like. She also wondered if there were any mutants here with both psychic ability, and art skills. She had never needed a picture of Ven and Terra, of her home, of Master Eraqus, because these were constants in her life. But now... now she wanted them. And now she'd apparently have money to spend on things like that. Like being a Master on the island, being a teacher here meant that she wouldn't have to spend her own money on food if she wanted to eat at the school, and that she had a room of her own, and the supplies she needed to teach, so she really had no clue why they thought she needed money.

 

Though she did come up with something to do with it. When Ven and Terra came to find her... they'd take a boat home!