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hqmillioncorn · 2 years

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FFxivWrite: Day free eleven.......Converge

‘And this moral compass is forever misaligned, All I need to hear is that you’ll be there’

TWEWY AU ;w;

‘hey everyone, babycorn here. i don’t know if my wifi is working because no calls i make go throug???? anywwayhoo i woke in the middle of the city and there where a bunch of monsters!!!!!!!!!!!!! theres was a kiid following me too , never seen them before in my life by the way. but thats not hte weirdest part...’

The first thing Babycorn saw when she opened her eyes that morning was the pavement of the ground she was lying on. The next thing she saw were people walking right over her. That was enough of a surprise to send her scrambling up to her feet.

“Wha-?! Huh?!”

This wasn’t where she lived! This wasn’t their apartment! This wasn’t even inside a building!!!!

Babycorn recognized this place as a crosswalk in Sharlayan. She and her little brother must have crossed it dozens of times on their way home from school. If there were ever an award for people who most crossed this crosswalk ever, then she and her brother were probably at the very least 90th place.

But she was getting off track. As she often did when she was faced with a problem with no easy solution.

Babycorn could only come up with two possibilities of why she would wake up in the middle of the street with nothing but her cellphone on her. Either she was sleepwalking again and it led her all the way outside with no one stopping her. Or she must have tripped and knocked herself out again just like she had done last week. Honestly, she probably shouldn’t have been too shocked about this.

Though if that was the case, what was she doing out here?

Nowadays the only times she would go out was to pick up her brother from school and go pick up something from the store for Tilika. She couldn’t remember being asked to do either of those things. “Whatever…” All that really mattered was getting back home. It looked like it was still early in the morning so hopefully Tilika and her brother weren’t too worried she still wasn’t home.

Babycorn pulled out her phone to check on the bus schedules again. Even after years of Tilika telling her she at least needed to memorize the bus route that led back home Babycorn had still neglected to even remember the right bus number.

That's when Babycorn noticed a strange app among her various different gacha games. “What is that? Looks creepy…” Babycorn was not adverse to horror or anything but when it came to her gacha games she preferred things more along the cuter side. “Oh,well. Out of sight out of mind, just like Tilika says.” Babycorn deleted the app with no question.

None of this would matter when she got home anyway.

Though, Babycorn couldn’t deny that something felt off. It almost felt like people were walking through her. She was used to not being seen because of her size but even people close to her height were walking right past her without a second thought.

Which was actually kind of normal for this city but had nobody really tried to wake her up when she was lying in the middle of the street?

Why wasn’t she getting a signal on her phone??

And just who was this little kid that was following her???

———————————–

Reese pulled out their phone to check it again. Despite what she hoped nothing about the mission had changed about it since the last few times she had checked.

Their mission for that day was to find a certain something that was hidden in the city, except it could never be that easy. Before they took off running to turn the city upside down looking for something, they needed to solve a riddle to find out what they were even looking for.

“What illuminates the day as well as the night once a god stomps on the earth?”

Team Flowr hadn’t moved at all since the start of the day, usually that would probably be a bad sign but considering the size of the city it was probably a better move to solve the riddle first then go tearing up the city to find what they were looking for.

“I still say the answer is a clock! The answer to these things is always a clock.” Andres said, throwing in the same guess he made since they all first heard the riddle. He believed so much in his guess that he had taken the liberty in swiping a few hand watches from people until Lunya told him to stop and give them back.

“I don’t think clocks illuminate anything.” Lunya guessed that the answer was probably more literal than metaphorical. It would make more sense considering yesterday's mission was to race to the top of a building that “overlooked history.” The answer turned out to be as simple as climbing to the top of a building that had a clear view of the city’s natural history museum.

They ended up losing that mission to Team Ishgard Knights because everyone mixed up the science museum with the history museum. In all honesty, it was an easy mistake to make.

“Besides if that was really the answer then with all the clocks you already grabbed from people we should have already won.” Lunya brought up a good point. As of right now there had been no announcement that any team had even come close to solving the riddle.

Their most eminent and merciful game master Emet-Selch, always made sure to tell the losing teams whenever another team made a step that put them ahead of the others. Something about building up team spirit or something, but really it just kind of felt mean.

“Then I’m all out of guesses!” Andres threw his hands in the air and sat down. He hoped that the others would come up with the right answer because all he really had up his sleeve was going around to different stores to pick up and put down everything in there until they won.

“Well, any other ideas guys?” Lunya asked both Reese and Coco. Reese had spent the last few minutes thinking over what their team should be concentrating on.

So far they had all been at a standstill on whether to concentrate on the mission or to go after the new players that Emet-Selch had also brought up.

“It would be a good idea to raise our numbers. So far we’re the team with the lowest number of members.” Sure, Reese was fairly certain they would never reach the levels of the Crystal Braves or the Crystal Bearers, especially three days into the game, but it would still be nice to have more people around to help. Or to think of solutions to riddles.

Coco sighed and put his phone away. His fat cat bell keychain let out a little ring which let his friends know that he was no longer checking his phone’s messages. “But if we go looking for those new players won’t we fall behind because we failed today's mission?” They were already in next to last place (just ahead of Team Nero) if they failed the mission today then there was a risk they would fall to last place.

“It’s only day three we would still have four days to catch up to the other teams!” Reese explained, “And maybe if we’re quick we can actually do both! We still have a lot of time left.” As Emet-Selch had explained on day one, the more members a team had then the more ground they could cover.

Everyone looked at each other and seemed to be in agreement with the plan for the day.

“I guess we can think about the riddle as we’re looking around for the new players too.” Just as soon as Coco had put away his phone, he took it back out, hoping that despite the silence there would be a new message from Melmeltan. It was clear from his saddened expression that his inbox was the same as it had been three days ago.

“Before we go, can we stop to get something to eat? Maybe something at that cute cafe over there?” Lunya knew that cafe very well. It was her boyfriend's favorite place to go get breakfast. She giggled, Lunya had just remembered how much he loved the cafe’s ice cream sundaes served on a sunday. He always asked for two cookies on top to look like little animal ears.

“Oh, hell yeah let’s go I’m starving.” Andres didn’t wait for an answer and ran ahead to order whatever food he wanted.

“Andres! Hold on! Remember we don’t have a lot of gil!” Reese chased after Andres, the incident from yesterday when Andres ordered ten bowls of ramen he didn’t come close to finishing.

Lunya and Coco calmly walked behind them. Just as Lunya was about to ask Coco where he’d gotten the paissa charm that was on his monstrous flail of phone charms when she noticed a small Mu noise making its way to the town square.

It was probably nothing.

———————————–

“Why are you still following me?!”

Babycorn had chalked up this strange kid following her to just being a strange coincidence. Maybe they were just going in the same direction as her? But after walking in circles for what felt like forever, Babycorn noticed that the same little kid was still following her.

“H-Huh?” The strange little kid took a step back in surprise. He clutched the doll in his arms closer to him. Babycorn could have sworn that the doll was looking right at her for a second.

“Hey! I asked you a question!”

“Uh…um…”

Babycorn didn’t have time for any of this. It was almost noon and by now if she didn’t get home Tilika was probably going to sit her down and have the same talk about stranger danger and responsibility she’d been hearing since she was six from everyone that had taking a turn in raising her.

“Did you lose your parents or something?” Maybe this kid’s parents needed a lecture on responsibility instead.

The strange kid shook his head. “No. I just…um…” He nervously played with his hair. Babycorn saw he occasionally glanced at her. It was getting kind of annoying. “My name's Cherrypit…”

“I didn’t ask for your name. I asked what you were doing following me!”

“Babycorn it’s me-! Don’t you-”

“Huh?! How do you know my name?!”

As soon as Babycorn had asked that, a group of noise had decided to suddenly make themselves known. “Are those…big frogs?!” Frog noise and Mu noise were surrounding the pair on all sides. As it looked like, escape was impossible and the only choice left was to fight their way out.

Cherrypit let out a whimper and hid behind of Babycorn. “H-Hey? What do you think you’re-!?” She wasn’t just going to stand there and let herself get beat up while this kid got away unscathed!

‘Yes you are! Protect him!’

“Eh?”

A frog noise jumped on Babycorn and knocked her down to the ground. “Ow!!!” Cherrypit jumped back and the doll in his arms dropped down. There were a few tense seconds when it looked like the frog noise would turn and attack Cherrypit, but before it could even have the chance to, the noise was pushed back by Cherrypit’s doll.

“Oh!” Cherrypit had wished really hard for his doll to save him but he never really expected her to pull out a knife and attack the monsters. It looked like they did have a way to defend themselves but right now it was still a lot of noise versus one kid and his doll.

“Empyreal Arrow!”

The frog (still on top of Babycorn) was reduced to nothing but little particle effects after an arrow hit it from nowhere. “Woah!” Cherrypit looked over in the direction to where he saw the arrow fly from. There were four strange people standing there that he had never seen before. One of them was carrying around twenty-four burgers in his arms.

“Don’t worry! Everything’s going to be alright!” A girl with white hair told him. All four of these strangers put themselves in between him and the noise. Cherrypit had learned to always be wary of strangers but these strangers looked like they were here to help them and besides that, they were the only people to pay attention to them all day.

———————————–

With the noise taken care of, Team Flowr (plus two) decided to go back to the cafe they had eaten at earlier. Mostly because Coco’s order hadn’t been ready by the time Lunya noticed a commotion outside and because Andres said he could still finish his burgers.

Babycorn took a fry from Cherrypit’s plate, this did not go unnoticed. “You’re saying I’m in some sort of game where no one except you guys and a couple of other people can see me and you want us to work together to win?” As far as Babycorn knew, these people could still not be trusted.

“Exactly! Glad you understood.” Reese was worried that all that information coming at someone so quickly after recovering from being knocked out would be overwhelming somehow.

“No I don’t! Is this one of those stupid prank shows people do?”

Lunya took a fry from her own plate and gave it to Cherrypit. “No, unfortunately it's not. Haven’t you noticed how no one outside noticed you? How some people even walked right through you?” Even if Babycorn and Cherrypit had only been on their own for an hour or so it was hard to believe one of them didn’t notice anything.

“It felt the same to me.” Babycorn shrugged and commandeered Cherrypit’s soda for her own. For all she knew the entire city could have been in on the hypothetical prank.

While Lunya went to order another (bigger) soda for Cherrypit, Reese decided to strike while the iron was hot. “So what do you say about joining our team? We don’t have a lot of people yet but working together we can win this game and…Well actually I’m not really sure what happens after that…” Emet-Selch never really specified, all he ever said was that whoever wins the game gets a wish of their own but that just meant an individual's fate was up to them.

Babycorn tapped her finger on the desk. “I…Why would I want to? From what you said there are other teams out there that have more people than you guys. I would just have to join them instead and then I’ll probably have an easier time winning.” When Coco had walked Babycorn through the new mysterious app that appeared on her phone she was able to see what other people were in the same situation as her.

There were several other teams competing with them. The biggest one by far was the Crystal Bearers but they weren’t even in first place. That honor belonged to the Ishgard Knights who had someone gotten a huge lead during the first day that not even the Crystal Bearers saw coming.

“That’s true…” Reese smirked, “How about this if we win today’s mission you’ll join our team!”

“Yeah, okay.” Babycorn had agreed far easier than Reese expected. She was prepared to argue for minutes on end for her to agree but it just turned out to be that easy.

That did save some time that could have been used to solve the riddle none of them had been thinking about this entire time.

———————————–

“What illuminates the day as well as the night once a god stomps on the earth?”

Cherrypit smiled and clapped his hands. “That’s easy! Light-up sneakers!!” That answer sounded incredibly incomprehensible and Babycorn herself told him it was a dumb answer.

Then to everyone’s surprise, all their phones went off at the same time.

Emet-Selch had sent a message that someone on Team flowr had solved the riddle.

———————————–

As it turned out finding light-up sneakers proved to be almost impossible.

Team flowr thought they lucked out when Cherrypit mentioned that the shoes he was wearing were light-up sneakers. But when he mentioned this they found that they didn’t automatically win.

“Hey! What gives!?” Andres grabbed Cherrypit and held him up in the air. “We got your sneakers right here! Why haven’t we won yet?!” Andres only put Cherrypit down when Cherrypit bit him on the hand. Surprisingly his teeth were very sharp.

“I wonder why Cherry’s shoes don’t count…” Lunya knew that she didn’t notice his shoes were that type at first, considering that they didn’t light up. Even now when he was walking around his shoes weren’t making any light at all.

Cherrypit looked up. “Oh! That’s cause Bebe bought these at the used things store. They only worked for a little bit…but I still like them!” They were a gift for Cherrypit’s birthday last year. They couldn’t afford a party but Cherrypit was happy with his sister’s gift all the same.

“...They don’t count then…” Coco frowned. He fell flat on the floor, his phone in hand.

There were still no notifications.

———————————–

Ever since the morning G’raha had been pulled to all sorts of different locations. Given the size of the Crystal Bearers it was decided that it would be smarter to divide their forces and grab everything they could that could potentially be the answer to the riddle.

Their leader, Themis, had assigned G’raha to accompany a group to the shopping district. They’d only been on the hunt for a few hours when the message that flowr had cracked the riddle intensified their search.

G’raha was trying his luck at a gachapon machine when he was pulled away by one of his teammates he only knew by Sherlotta. As it turned out they finally might have found what they had been looking for.

Deep down G’raha was hoping that he could also find out who he’d been looking for too.

‘Inspiration? Oh, Raha you’re every bit as much of an inspiration to me as I am to you!’

———————————–

G’raha peeked his head over the teammate in front of him.

He didn’t really know their names, honestly he didn’t know the names of anyone on his team. Winning wasn’t on the forefront of his mind unlike the rest of his teammates. All he wanted to do was find out where a certain someone he loved had ended up.

He hoped that joining the bigger team would have a better chance of finding her but it ended up providing zero leads. And now his best bet would be to possibly run into her during one of the days. Today was day three out of seven, G’raha was really hoping that he would find her sooner than later.

“Back off we found these first!”

“It doesn’t look like they’ll let us go without a fight…”

G’raha’s ears perked up. That second voice sounded familiar, too familiar. Ignoring the objections from his teammates he pushed his way past them to see who they were confronting. His heart skipped a beat and his skin ran cold when he happened to see his girlfriend who died in an accident last week.

His only reason for potentially betraying the Reapers.

As relieved as he was to see her, all Lunya had for him was a stare full of ire.

“We’re not handing these to your friends and we’re not giving them to you either!” Lunya stepped out in front of Coco who was holding onto the shoebox for dear life.

Internally, Coco wished he knew why they had chosen him for holding the winning item. It was basically just handing him a big target that said ‘attack me!’

Just as it looked like things were coming to a boiling point, G’raha jumped into the middle of both teams.

“By any chance does your team have any openings?

Coco looked at Lunya and then Lunya looked back up at Reese who then looked at Andres.

“Yeah, sure why not.” Reese answered.

G’raha whispered a quiet ‘yes!’ to himself and stepped forward to run and join his new team.

Before he did however, he turned to look at his old team and apologized profusely for suddenly switching sides. “My apologies! It really was nice working with all of you but this is for the best! Excuse me!”

Quicker than anyone could say anything G’raha tia was now a member of Team flowr.

Lunya noticed that whoever this G’raha was, his bracelet was almost identical to her’s

She grabbed her wrist and turned away.

———————————–

In the end flowr ended up losing the coveted light-up shoes to a sneak attack from the Crystal Braves.

As Alphinaud stood tall over the rest of them they all heard him say something to himself about proving someone named Alisaie wrong. After the official announcement that the Crystal Braves had won, Alphinaud and his team quickly made their exit.

“That’s just great.” Reese sighed, ultimately it looked like while they did accomplish one goal for the day, it stung a lot knowing they were so close to winning but lost at the last second.

Coco sat down on the ground and sighed. “Well…At least none of the other teams in the lead won.” At the very least they could take solace in knowing that the top leading teams weren’t any more in the lead then they already were before.

“We also got some points from being the first to figure out the riddle!” Lunya pointed out, “All thanks to this little guy here!” She pointed at Cherrypit who immediately smiled back at her. He looked really really proud of what he figured out.

“There’s always tomorrow and the next days! After all, points double on the fifth day and triple on the sixth and seventh!” Their newest member G’raha was already trying his best to keep everyone in high spirits. Unfortunately, in his excitement he had forgotten that not everyone was privy to insider Reaper secrets like he was.

Considering he was one.

Reese raised an eyebrow in confusion. “How do you know that?” She had read the digital rulebook from cover to cover in between missions and she never recalled ever reading something like that.

All eyes were on G’raha as he struggled to come up with an answer.

“I-I…Well you see…I have participated in the game more than once…! So you see I have experience! ”

Despite G’raha’s questionable acting his confidence was enough to sell everyone on his claim of having been a veteran of the Reaper’s game. “Wow! Someone who’s beat the game already! We really lucked out I think!” Coco was optimistic that he would be back soon and then he would make sure to find the prettiest flowers to give to Melmeltan as an apology for missing their meeting. Completely platonically of course.

“Coco’s right! We might not have won today but we did get two new teammates today!” Reese proudly gestured to Cherrypit and G’raha.

Cherrypit excitedly jumped up and down. There was a general sense of worry at sending someone as young as him to fight noise, but once Cherrypit explained that he wasn’t doing any of the fighting the circumstances were a little better. Weird that his doll had a gun though.

G’raha laughed nervously and held tightly onto his purple scarf. “Thank you-! For letting me join your team! Despite how we were enemies just a few moments ago…”

“Hey aren’t you forgetting someone?!”

All eyes were on Babycorn as she stood angrily, hands on her hips. “Two new teammates?! What about me? Wouldn’t including me make it three?!”

“We lost. Shouldn’t you go off and join the winning team?” Lunya reminded them of the deal they struck with Reese.

“Lunyas right. You don’t have to join us now, not anymore. Be a free corn. Join whatever team you like.�� Reese turned away, trying to hide their frown. Because truth be told, she’d gotten a bit attached to the little jerk.

“Okay.” Babycorn agreed.

She stood there for a while before walking closer to the others.

“I wanna stay with you guys.” Babycorn lightly blushed, “If that’s okay…?”

There were no objections on anyone’s part. Especially not Cherrypit’s. “Yay!” He ran up to Babycorn and hugged her tightly. While Babycorn did look annoyed, she was too tired to push him away.

Not only that, the look Lunya was giving her was telling her that it was probably better to let the kid have what he wants.

———————————–

“Oh, Vertical, we're really in it now.”

B’ig Nunh tried to stand up but found that his legs were still asleep. Looking around he saw that for some reason they were under an underpass. Vertical was still sleeping, B’ig Nunh assumed that they had both been sleeping here during the night.

Which was weird because the last thing B’ig Nunh remembered was leaving home in the morning to buy the newest yaoi visual novel. Vertical Height had also come with him, of course.

B’ig Nunh needed to check the most important thing first. Reaching into his bag he looked around for the specific thing he was looking for. “Ah ha!” He pulled out the yaoi visual novel he was planning on playing that afternoon.

“Whew…” at least the goods were still intact.

Now there was just the matter of the problem of what was really going on

#ffxivwrite2022 #uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh #i feel this could have been a lot better but i got tired oppsie #anyway this is day three weeeee #i wanted to write the start to week 3 but maybe later #sorry to my friends again for writing your ocs ooc again probably and also mr graha tia #the picture is from babycorn she drew it the day they got adopted #i feel i had more fun trivia to say but i forgot it oppsie #i should finish my twewy doc #oh right crystal bearers is mostly comprised of other ff characters #bartz is there #sherlotta is there too

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