Stamina
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A Xenosaga fanfic written by Ekplixi. The story is meant to tell the story of Juli Mizrahi, beginning with her voyage to Miltia at the age of thirteen and up through all three of the games.
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[edit] About
[edit] Title
The title is taken from the song "Stamina Rose" from the soundtrack of the anime "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex", composed by Yoko Kanno. It was intended to reference the amount of strength and resilience that Juli shows during the course of the story.
[edit] History
The story was originally published as a one-shot in fall of 2004. Ekplixi had no intention of continuing it until she began role-playing and, due to a very limited choice in characters she was allowed to play, played Juli Mizrahi. The story was finished in spring of 2005, but all the material after chapter 9 was eventually scrapped and rewritten.
Stamina is expected to be completed in spring of 2007.
[edit] Invented Places
The following places were invented for Stamina.
Mirabilis, Atalya
Mirabilis is the capital city of the planet of Atalya. Juli grew up on her family's estate here.
Fernstadt, Atalya
Another large city on Atalya. Juli's mother was born here, and Thessaly Jaeger is from Fernstadt.
Scala Caeli University
A large university, slightly less prestigious than Bormeo. Their main campus was on Miltia and was relocated to Second Miltia following the Conflict. Juli attended Scala Caeli as a government-subsidized student. It is Thessaly Jaeger's alma mater.
[edit] Dedication
The story is dedicated to one particular person. The dedication will be posted with the final chapter.
[edit] Story
The story begins when Juli reveals that she first arrived on Miltia at the age of fourteen after the death of her parents, apparently very affluent. Once on Miltia, she becomes the lab assistant to Joachim Mizrahi, and later the assistant to Dmitry Yuriev. She ends up marrying Joachim by the end of the third chapter, and in the third chapter she also donates egg cells to Yuriev for use in his illegal project.
At eighteen, months after her marriage to Joachim, Juli discovers that she is pregnant. Yuriev volunteers to help her get rid of the baby, but she refuses. She gives birth to her daughter, Sakura.
The story breaks back to the present, when Juli is awakened by her adoptive daughter, the realian MOMO. MOMO has numerous questions for Juli, which she evades. At this time Juli reveals that she is possibly having a relationship with Ziggy, though the narration is ambiguous. At the end of the chapter, Juli regresses back into her story.
The next few chapters tell how Juli asks Dmitry Yuriev to attempt to cure her daughter, who was born with an unnamed illness. He agrees to help, telling Juli that he does not require any sort of payment. However, he later asks her to meet him at a hotel and sleep with him. Joachim tells Juli she must go but does not offer any explanation as to why.
When Juli returns home, Joachim admits that Dmitry asked for his permission to sleep with Juli. Juli is disgusted, and this revelation results in several arguments with her husband. Eventually, they discover that Dmitry's intent is to impregnante Juli so that she can bear a vessel for him to transmigrate into upon his death. Joachim begs her to stop, but she tells him it's too late--she is already pregnant. Joachim convinces her to have an abortion. The next week, Sakura kills herself during a routine dive into her subconscious. Juli is devastated.
After Sakura's death, Juli goes back to work at the Yuriev Institute. She mentions that Nigredo, one of the URTVs, has followed her around and seemed very interested in her for quite some time. She finds Nigredo about a week after returning to work, and Nigredo tells her that he wants to kill Dmitry. Rather than discouraging him, Juli offers to help. She brings a gun to work the next day.
Before handing over the gun to Nigredo as planned, Juli is again approached by Yuriev sexually. Rather than giving in, she finally stands up to him by shooting him in the ankle. He calls her a madwoman, and she notes that this is the first time of many that she is called by that name. She also reveals that she has taken over the Institute's mainframe, Pieta. She hands off the gun to Nigredo, and the two escape. Yuriev's death is ruled as a suicide and the investigation is dropped after two days. Juli implies that she later finds out how Yuriev died when she sleeps with Nigredo. After Yuriev's death, Juli stores all of her work inside the Realian that she and her husband created to save the consciousness of Sakura, implying that the game's Y-data was actually created by Juli.
Very soon after Yuriev's death, Joachim Mizrahi disappears during the night. Juli finds him on the roof of a building. The city is in chaos. Joachim asks Juli to evacuate the building they are in and to go to a safe place. He tells her, "I'll see you." Juli wonders what this means and explains that these were his last words to her. In the morning, Juli is informed of her husband's death by suicide. She goes home and destroys everything Joachim ever created in order to protect his work from being seized by the government. However, she is unable to destroy the Realian, which the government later seizes. Juli is relocated to her home city of Mirabilis on the planet of Atalya.
On Atalya, Juli works as a clerical worker under the name Miriam Gottlieb, which she says is her mother's maiden name. She develops a friendship with an outdated Realian named Liesl who speaks only German and is terrified of being scrapped. Juli gives herself away as a doctor when she repairs Liesl somewhat, although she is unable to repair her language function. When Juli's true identity is discovered, Liesl begs Juli to take her to Fifth Jerusalem with her, where she will form the Subcommittee on Close Encounters. Juli agrees, and Liesl becomes her personal secretary.
Juli works for thirteen years in Fifth Jerusalem. During this time, she tells how she learned that she is actually the registered mother of the Realian that the government seized and mass-produced. She goes to visit the Realian, who calls herself MOMO. Afterward, she asks to never be asked to see MOMO again. She also mentions the incident earlier alluded to in which she has sex with Nigredo, now known as Gaignun Kukai. Finally, she mentions that at the age of forty-three, one year before the first Xenosaga game, she hires an assistant named Thessaly Jaeger.
The eighteenth chapter marks the beginning of the story's foray into the canon timeline. Thessaly informs Juli that MOMO has gone missing, and Juli begins looking for someone to recover her daughter. She recieves a mysterious message asking her to meet someone at a certain address, which she impulsively decides to do. The message turns out to be from the leader of the organization Scientia, Melisse Ortus, who has kept herself alive for over a hundred years by transferring her consciousness into synthetic bodies. She has even used Juli's "transgenic Realian technology" to obtain a body that is capable of reproduction. Melisse gives Juli a cryptic message: that she should call a certain company and ask for their model number eight to recover the stolen Realian. After leaving Scientia's secret facility, Juli pulls over and calls the company Melisse has tipped her off about, which is then revealed to be Ziggurat Industries. Juli, Thessaly and Liesl travel to Tessedora to obtain their new employee.
[edit] Future Plans
Ekplixi has revealed that the ending to Stamina has been written, but has only stated that it is "sketchy" and that she fears it may divide fans. She has also stated that by the end Juli and Ziggy will pursue a relationship.
Ekplixi has also revealed that there will be a sequel to the story, tentatively titled Suburban Sickness. The title is taken from the song "Dirty Business" by the Dresden Dolls.
In 2007 Ekplixi decided to stop writing Stamina.
[edit] Original Characters
The fanfic contains several original characters, namely in the second half. The original characters included are Thessaly Jaeger, Liesl Heilemann, and Loreen.
