I assume that Balthier does not know Curasa (the status healing spell)?

He does not know Esuna, no. There's five magicks fields in final fantasy 12; white (healing), black (elemental attack), green (status effects), time (speed and movement), and arcane (the other attack type). White and black become very expensive to cast so they're best left to party members with the magick reserves to cast such spells (Penelo, Ashe, and Vaan). Green, Arcane, and Time are much cheaper in comparison but its time magick the compliments marksmanship the best so that's what Balthier learned.

Nicely done on this one, the flashbacks were a bit odd, but a nice touch, and I'm assuming that other than dealing with Balthier's personal problems and pertaining to sickness, they'll have more relevance later. Or perhaps they are simply there to show Xander's development to a more Balthier-like person? Either way, great chapter, and I look forward to more.

They're sort of a lead into the events of 'The Dark Age' episode. Xander and Balthier both have father-figure issues and Giles is steadily becoming a surrogate dad to this Xander. So the flashbacks and the title are more about the father issues than casting Cure. Hopefully, retrospectively, this chapter will make more sense as I get more into Balthier's complicated relationship with Dr.Cid.

I hope you get the Xander/Willow/Buffy situation straightened out positively, and heal them back into being best friends.

This present situation just bugs me.

I understand what you mean, I'm sort of done with the situation myself.

On the show it bugged a lot of people how much Xander got pushed away in season 3 and struggled to find his place/way in the following seasons. Willow's situation is sort of the consequence of that scenario no longer happening as well as me wanting Halloween to have more adverse effects on the scoobies than just Xander. Timeline wise give it an episode or two. Depends on how fast I can move that plot arc (it's already half-way done, if it makes you feel better).

Well that and i have serious pet peeves about willow's character development that are now going to be addressed. You know the saying, sometimes you have to break some eggs to make an omlett.

very good

thank you

Doctors think I should ** chemo shot -- *give*

Now that we ... Xander and Willow, we'll discuss *you're* magic lessons tomorrow... -- *your*

Love it.

what the- give is in my desktop copy of this chapter. ??? How? Technology. I will never understand it.

Anyways, thanks for the review of approval and the typo/spelling error corrections.

Does Balthier get knowledge of how to deal with poison in FFXII? (Only played a bit of it before my old PS2 went kaput) As would Joyce's illness in season 5 fall under the poison qualification. Now in thanks have a little bit of my childhood that I watched on the Disney Channel On Sky, Its from one of my all time favourite shows that I watched as a kid ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4RHgijF7i0

Ah, no, not exactly. Poison is never verbally covered by the cast. My explanation is more or less based off game mechanics than dialogue. Poison is not the same as cancer but I thought it was a good comparison given the situation. Xander's Cure only took care of the damage Ford's cancer was causing him, not the actual problem; which is like how cure restores hp lost from poison but doesn't treat the poison status effect.

I like this story so far. While know about FF in general, I've never played the game as I generally loathe anything anime. I gave your story a shot and I was pleased that the crossover bits were well explained.

I'd actually like to see Xander be a little more of the hormonal teenager. He's surrounded by good looking girls all the time. He's got to be going a little crazy. I would bet that Ms. Calender would be far more enticing after Halloween given his new found maturity. Not that he would do something too stupid but maybe he could root vicariously through Giles instead?

Anyhoo, Thanks.

Honestly? As slow-paced as this story is I just haven't had time to work realistic stuff like that in without feeling as if the story is getting off-course. He's only been the honorary male of the Cordettes for a few days and he did realize in the previous chapter 'hey, I'm hanging out with the prettiest girls in school.' I enjoy writing him with the Cordettes, they're fun, so the fact that Xander is a horomonal male teen will prop back up again. Eventually.

As for FF12, it's understandable you haven't played it. Not a lot of people reading this fic have and so I try very hard to make sure that readers aren't left feeling confused by the FF12 elements I'm bringing into this crossover. It's good to know I'm handling that well.

Very good

Thank you

You'll forgive me for taking so long to read and review. RL is hitting me particularly hard right now too. Enough that it took a while to re-read your story. Which I still love. Great chapter.

Thanks Oxnate. Sorry to hear RL hasn't been kind to you either. Got to say though, I'm happy to finally be writing this fic again.

Congrats on another perfect chapter! Please hury with more , I'm greedy.

Aw shucks, thanks. Not sure when I'll update next, this story is a bit harder to write than I like to admit. I'm hoping once I get to the Giles's dark past it'll get easier. Just getting there is taking a while because the pacing in this story is so slow.

I usually don't review when I'm reading on my phone preferring to wait until I have a PC at hand but this was so good I just had to make note of it. I'm glad you're back:)

I'm glad to be back. I'm also flattered you reviewed on your phone even if you don't prefer to. Thanks for the review.

YES! It is back! Seeing where this goes will be fun and how much did Xander's spell heal Ford? Anyway in thanks ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hmv6Qw5fZ4

It is so nice to see people so happy about an update. I feel horrible for taking so long and am sorry.

How Cure effected Ford will be next chapter.

That said music! Sweet! Thank you!

Glad to see this updated! Was starting to think you abandoned it.

Real Life killed the muse for this story quite brutally back in July. I spent most of my since time trying to get back into the swing of this fanfic. It didn't work but I got a lot of planning for this story done. So I guess it wasn't completed wasted months. Thanks for waiting so long for me to get my act together.

There's a story by jAkL, "Bitter Truth", you might find interesting.

http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-8350/jAkL+Bitter+Truth.htm

Buffy confronts Quentin Travers and learns more than she wants to know.

It certainly is interesting. thanks for the link.

While I agree with you about Willow, I feel Buffy was just as bad with unhealthy relationships. Two of her honeys were possessed corpses and a third was a one night stand with the campus bicycle. The only halfway decent one was with Riley and he wasn't able to deal with a woman stronger than himself. Xander didn't really do much better, since he sabotaged his relationships with appalling regularity.

I'm not disagreeing that Buffy's choices in boyfriends were bad but at least she grew and learned from Angel, Parker, and Riley. Spike... well Spike was her sexual punching bag but she was dealing with major depression PTSD issues and she still woke up and realized she needed to stop her harmful behavior.

I more meant Willow's relationships with romantic others, friends, teachers, etc. were all unhealthy. Not just her boy/girlfriend relationships. And the problem is never addressed, she just gets better at burying the issue. Buffy develops but Willow doesn't and that's my major problem with her.

As for Xander, again, I wasn't really referring to romantic relationships but yes Xander's good at self-sabotage. Thing is, he too learns. He makes amends with Cordelia and Anya for his mistakes. He realizes what he did wrong and works to make it right.