Echoes of the Past by Pierson
Part 2 of the Tortured Souls Trilogy.
Prologue:
1000 Years Ago (Correspondence)
Lord Zaon.
Please find enclosed the device and documents we
uncovered in the ruins of the Zanarkand Library yesterday.
Early studies showed it to be a machina storage device.
Further studies revealed that it was several hundred thousand years old. This
makes it well Pre-Zanarkand in nature. When we uncovered it's secret, we found
that it contained dense text in a language used neither by us nor by any race
currently existing in Spira. Other scholars have suggested this is a variation
of the written language of the backwards people of Bevelle. This had been
discounted after captured prisoners could not decipher it, even under threat of
death. However, when we finally managed to decode it, we found that it appeared
to be a simple child's tale based around several characters from legend. It is
not plans for weaponry, nor building schematics. It has been graded importance
3-E, and we are requesting permission to remove staff from studying it to look
at more worthwhile projects.
Your Servant.
Cmndr Shiel.
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Cmndr Shiel.
Permission granted, don't waste your time any longer
with that device. Look at the machina we received from the Al Bhed sympathisers,
indications suggest a high probability of useful data being recoverable.
Specifically, look at the sections marked; 'weaponry.' We must find something to
destroy this creature that terrorises us all!
Lord Zaon.
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Lord Zaon.
Understood my Lord.
However, one quick note. As well as recovering the
device containing the document, troops also recovered what appeared to be a
perfectly formed Opal. Some have suggested this could be the gemstone mentioned
in the document. I have disciplined those responsible for such wild ideas
spreading. However, many who hold the stone have commented that they felt some
kind of ghostly 'presence' around them when they did so, and others have said
that the location is cursed. I will be taking private custody of the gemstone.
This could mean there is an element of truth to the tale. Since in the story a
large flying machina weapon in mentioned, I request permission to examine this
in greater detail.
Your Servant.
Cmndr Shiel
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Cmndr Shiel.
Very well, but do not take up too much manpower with
this. We need a weapon, not fairy-tale monsters.
Lord Zaon.
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Lord Zaon.
My Lord, I believe I have found something of great
interest!
There appears to be a creature trapped inside the
gemstone! It is faint, but I know it is there. I am coming back immediately to
the command post with the gemstone to show you. We think it could be one of the
mystical Guardians spoken of. If it proves to be so, it could help us to destroy
the thing that kills us. I am returning to you forthwith.
Your Servant.
Cmndr Shiel.
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Lord Zaon held the Opal up to the light and rotated it
slowly, the reflections did not change. This gem was perfect. He could hear something else as well... He turned to
Commander Shiel. 'You were right. This is one of them. There is no other
explanation.'
The young woman beamed. 'Sir! I thought you would want
to see this,' she gushed.
'You thought right. I can hear it's cries, whatever it
is, it wants to be free,' he said. Then he paused. This would be perfect as a test specimen, he thought to himself. He
turned to Shiel. 'Here, catch!' He threw the gemstone to her.
'Sir?' she asked warily.
'Take it to the colony at Macalania.' Then he turned to
the ruins of his once great city, Zanarkand. Damn you Yevon, for creating that beast. I will defeat it! I must! He
looked back at the young woman in front of him, holding the blue stone.
'Put it in the Fayth Project.
Chapter
1: Cold Voices
Tysh
ed it's cold here.
Rikku had been doing her best to avoid visibly
shivering, but without much success. It
has to be like -20 degrees here! She thought to herself as she traipsed
after the other guardians. To be honest with herself, she wasn't ideally suited
to the cold, having grown up in a desert, and her clothes were not
helping her out. Why didn't I buy a coat
in Guadosalam? She angrily scolded herself. Just then, she heard a voice up
ahead that broke into her thoughts. From right in front of her in fact. 'The
likes of her are not permitted here!' shouted the angry Monk, right in her face.
So, they had arrived, and she had been too cold to notice. From behind her she
heard the voice of Auron, calm and authorative as always.
'She is a guardian,' he said slowly.
‘An Al Bhed, a guardian? Preposterous!’ said the
Monk.
Hey!
She thought. She approached the mad Monk. 'I want to protect Yuna, and that is
all that is important to me,' she said, amid much shivering and teeth
chattering.
'And that is all one needs to be a guardian,' Auron
said, then pushed past the Monk into the temple.
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And
so more come...
So,
what do you want little humans? The same thing as always I suppose... You want
my power, that's all you ever want. Tell me, why should I help you?
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Rikku stood before the fading sphere, but not seeing
it. No! Not Seymour! I trusted him!
she shouted in her mind. She looked across at Wakka, and for a second those
thoughts were driven from her head. She thought she might have smiled at the
blitzer, watching what he believed in be shattered to dust. But she couldn't,
Yuna was in danger, she was a Guardian, that was all she needed to know. But it
was from a person she had thought she could rely upon for some reason. She
thought back to everything, their meeting in the Farplane Gates, where he had
offered her his help, the Thunder Plain, where he had saved her. Had it all been
a dream? Although it took Tidus a few minutes to convince Wakka of the fact,
eventually Wakka surrendered to logic. 'If Seymour's bad news, then we've gotta
stop him, right?' the boy argued.
'I suppose, but there's gotta be another explanation!'
Wakka shouted as a last resort.
Rikku walked over to the two arguing men and decided to
put aside her personal feelings for the moment. 'Erm, guys?'
They both looked at her. 'Yeah? What?' Wakka snapped.
'Nothing, except for the fact that Yuna is currently
alone in a room with a man who possibly killed his father, and we're standing
here arguing,' she said. He glared daggers at her, and then ran off to the
trials without saying a word. For her part, Rikku regretted say it, it only made
it more likely it was true.
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Why
should I help? You come to me with your summoners and your prayers and you
expect me to help you. Not like I have a choice either. It's this or stay here,
and getting out, no matter for how short a time, is preferable to this.
You want me to give you my powers, because you don't have any of your own left.
Pathetic. Humanity wasn't always this dependant on outside forces, at least back
then they could choose whether to call us, instead of making us come at the
slightest sign of trouble.
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They ran towards the Chamber of the Fayth. Wakka slower
than the rest. He didn't seem to believe that a Maester, one of the pillars of
his faith, could be evil. Lulu turned to him. 'If he truly is at fault, he must
pay.'
Wakka looked even more downcast. 'This can't be
happening,' he moaned quietly.
Rikku ignored him and ran on. She wasn't going to let
Yuna down, and after her, ahem, 'performance' in the Thunder Plains, she was
going to prove she could hack it. She followed Auron and Khimari, and pushed
through the doors, and stopped. This room was a work of art. Non-believer or no, she had to say she had never seen anything
like it. Icicles hung off the walls and ceiling in perfectly ordered rows
(although she wouldn't want to be under them, she saw. They were razor-sharp),
the room was decorated in murals depicting what appeared to be a battle, a woman
in blue fighting against a creature even Auron wouldn't have wanted to mess
with. She guessed this was the Aeon itself. Al Bhed spies who had infiltrated
the temples had reported pictures on the walls leading to the Chamber depicting
the Aeon itself, usually in some heroic pose. She managed to turn away from the
scene, and noticed she had missed most of the conversation, and Yuna was with
them. She turned to Lulu. 'What did I miss?' She whispered.
The Black Mage smiled at her. 'They shouted at each
other for a while, then Yuna came out of the chamber and said she would fight
Seymour with us,' she replied quietly.
'Thanks!' the young Al Bhed whispered back. She turned
to watch Seymour, and heard his grim proclamation;
'Well, if you're offering your lives, I'll just have to
take them.' The Maester said, and raised his hands to...
'STOP!' Rikku
shouted at the Maester. To her surprise, he did, and his eyes went wide.
'Rikku?' he asked.
'Why are you doing this?' she asked him, eyes wide and
pleading, the others looked at her in amazement, but she carried on, heedless of
their gazes. 'I thought you were a good person, was it all lies?'
'Rikku, I can explain,' he said softly, and held out
his hand. 'Let me explain.'
For a second Rikku felt the urge to run to him and
grasp it, but then she remembered Jyscal's last sphere and drew back. For a
second she swore she could see true sadness in his eyes, then he looked back at
the others and they became hard again. 'Well, if you are offering your lives,
I'll just have to take them,' he said, and attacked. But Rikku knew that during this
fight, no serious harm would come to her. Seymour wouldn't let it.
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Interesting,
hasn't been a fight in her since the execution of those spies last century... I
sense great darkness from that one. You aren't real. You're dead. You two don't
seem to want to admit to yourselves what you're feeling. I met you,
summoner. You're a Ronso with a broken horn, good luck to you when you go home
with that. You're an Al Bhed...
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Rikku watched as the other two Guado carried Seymour away. As he passed her, he suddenly lunged and grasped her arm. The other stared in alarm, but she waved them off and knelt down beside him. 'What is it?' she asked gently. He whispered in her ear, and her eyes went wide as his aides carried him off. Auron also heard what Seymour said, and he blinked, but he did not comment.
Rikku didn't hear what Tromell said next, her head was
still spinning from the blow Anima had dealt her in a lapsed moment of
concentration. She had seen Seymour wince from it. He still cared. She knew it.
She didn't like Phoenix Downs, and especially
didn't like having them used on her. She looked across at the rest of the group.
Wakka and Lulu were devastated by Seymour's actions, that much she could see.
Khimari was watching Yuna for any sign of fatigue, ready to catch her if she so
much as stumbled. The summoner in question looked like she was in a dream, not
focussing on anything. Auron looked disinterested as always, unsympathetic git
that he was. No-one seemed to be bothered about Seymour and Rikku's short
exchange before the battle.
Tidus however, was another story. 'Can't we just
explain?' shouted the young blonde guardian.
Auron and Wakka looked up at him in disbelief. 'We
attacked a Maester. We're finished,'
said Wakka.
Auron was not much help either. 'Seymour can say
whatever he wants, the only witnesses to this are us and him, it's our word
against his. No-one would believe us, not under these circumstances,' he said.
Tidus did not want to give up however. 'But we have
evidence! The wounds! The other Guado! Yuna, you're a summoner, people like
you, they'll listen to you!'
But Auron discounted these by ticking them off on his
fingers as he went, the excuses Seymour could use. 'He defended himself against
an unprovoked attack, the other Guado will soon dissolve into pyreflies, Yuna
will have no credibility when people find out she helped kill a Maester of
Yevon.' He paused, then looked over at Rikku. 'Plus we're travelling with an Al
Bhed. That will not help our chances.'
She lowered her head. That was not what she wanted to
hear. She looked around at the room again, ignoring the argument. She looked
again at the murals, those figures…
She heard a noise, almost a voice, but whispered. Guado!
She thought. She span around, looking for the source of the disturbance, but
seeing nothing, she kept looking around, expecting to see Yevon Monks hiding in
the rafters, or Guado, but there was nothing. She put it down to nerves, and
started to turn back to the others. As she turned, her gaze swept over the
entrance to the Chamber of the Fayth. Then everything went red.
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Simple,
blame the Al Bhed girl you fools. Tell them she did it. Tell them you had no
idea she was an assassin. Typical summoners troupe, unwilling to sacrifice one
to save the others. You all have that problem, even Zaon and Yunalesca...
Wait
a minute. Did you hear that? You, girl, you heard me didn't you? No? Don't try
and fool me, I know you did. Answer me! I know you heard, you're looking for me,
but you won't see me, not even with eyes as good as those. I said answer me!
...Alright
then, try this;
ANSWER ME!
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The others heard a scream, and turned to see Rikku
clutch at her head and collapse onto the floor.
Yuna ran over to her and turned her over onto her side.
'Rikku what's wrong?!' she shouted.
Rikku continued to scream, the pain she could feel.
Yuna extended her staff and tried some cure spells.
They succeeded in turning the screaming into a quiet whimper. She tried to stand
the young girl up.
Auron lost his look of disinterest and wandered over to
the young girl, concerned for a fellow Guardian. He grasped her chin softly and
turned her head to him. 'Rikku, look at me,' he said quietly.
Rikku slowly opened her eyes, and Yuna gasped and
covered her mouth with her hand. Where once there had been two black spirals on
emerald-green eyes, there were now two harsh red spirals on a background of pure
black. They backed off. Fast.
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Well
well well, interesting. You're not who you say you are, and your friends don't
know it
Why
are you still here?
You're
on a pilgrimage aren't you? Inconvenient. Come back here when you're done girl,
and we'll talk some more.
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Rikku turned her head slowly, and looked up at the pale
Yuna. What happened? She tried to say,
but all that came out was; 'Wha...?'
Yuna stood over her, not a little panicked
'We don't know!' she nearly cried. 'You just fell over
and started screaming!'
Rikku got to her feet, slowly, and promptly staggered
into the form of Khimari, who put his arm out to steady her. She looked around
at everyone's staring faces and she closed her eyes. 'I'm OK, I'm OK,' she said,
over and over, until she convinced herself it was true. 'I'm OK guys, really.'
Tidus looked sceptical. 'Are you sure, you looked like
you were in a lot of pain,' he said.
'Really!' She quipped, cheerier than she felt. She was
still shivering though, and not just because of the temperature. 'Lets go, it's
really cold in here,' she said.
Auron moved off towards the Cloister, seemingly bored
once more now that the event had passed and no-one was in any immediate danger.
They had almost made it to the foyer when the floor collapsed under Tidus' feet,
and they had to spend half an hour solving the trial.
Rikku looked back at the closing door of the Chamber. What
was that? Who was that? Then she made a decision. I'll be back, after all this is over. She walked off to stand near
her summoner, as they argued with Tromell, then fought their way out into
Macalania's freezing night.
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You
heard me. I know you did. You'll be back. I know it. You have to, or you'll
never stop wondering...
Within her Fayth, the trapped and fossilised soul of
Quistis Trepe smiled the cold, calculating smile that only the truly insane are
capable of.
Chapter
2: Broken Prison
Rikku stood before the gates of Macalania Temple. She
had put this return journey off for far too long. She thought back over the
events of the past few months.
Yevon
is dead, the Yevon government has fallen, Yuna is in charge, the Al Bhed are
nice people among Spirans again. What else? Oh yeah, a strange urge in my head
told me to come back here.
She looked up at the towering spiral of the Temple of
Yevon, built to house an object the size of a hut in Besaid.
Tysh but those Yevonites believed in grandeur. She thought to herself as she
walked up to the entrance. The monk who had barred her entry the last time she
was here was long gone, probably disillusioned or dead. Many had been unable to
take the strain when the only thing that they believed in had been crushed by
truth. People stopped and stared as she walked by, Yuna was loved by all for
bringing the Eternal Calm, and her Guardians had instantly developed an aura of
mystery that most took years to achieve, unbeatable fighters who had taken down
all that would threaten their summoner. Their disappearance from public life had
only increased the mystery. Khimari had returned to Gagazet, honoured by the
Ronso once more. Lulu and Wakka had returned to Besaid, happy with a quiet life
of peace, after years of seeing conflict and death. On her part, Rikku had no
such wish to simply vanish. After years of persecution she was going to enjoy
every last minute of fame she could get. Her train of thought however, was
broken when she nearly walked into a large door.
She was here.
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Fools.
All
of them were fools. They thought that to merely kill that overgrown summoner
would let them rest. Fools. I'm still here, and you didn't count on that did you? Fools...
What
the...?
Oh,
it's you again! Excellent. Come into my chamber, girl. Let me see your eyes
again. All I need is a glimpse, and then I'll know...
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As she walked into the once-grand-now-disused
antechamber of the temple, she noticed that the wall carvings had not really
changed though, as if some force was keeping them clean. She knew this wasn't
possible, the Fayth of Shiva should have been long dead/dormant/whatever. Good.
Rikku thought to herself. That thing
always gave me the creeps. She could have sworn on occasion she had caught
the icy Aeon actually looking at her, as if weighing her up. It freaked the ramm
out of her.
She walked up into the centre of the room, remembering
their first visit. Seymour's actions, their hasty escape.
And
the pain. Don't forget the pain. She didn't know what had
caused it, but she was determined to find out. She looked around the chamber,
hoping to find something, anything that would explain what she had felt that
day. It had been like burning and having her head inflated at the same time. She
needed to know what had caused it. At least, that was her excuse when she had
been asked.
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Turn
around you silly girl! Look into the chamber! I don't have all day... well,
actually I do have all day, but that isn't the point. Just look at the
passageway, come on!
Let...
me... see... your... EYES!
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She heard it again. A whisper, like a breeze blowing in
from an open door somewhere. She started to turn towards the source of the
noise. Then she remembered what had happened the last time, she stopped swinging
around, just in time to avoid looking at the Chamber's doorway. She waited.
Nothing happened. Rikku isn’t going to
be had that easily this time! She
thought to herself.
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Clever
girl, you've obviously learned that lesson.
But
lets see how you handle this...
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Rikku was congratulating herself for her foresight and
intelligence, so when she heard the whistle she didn't think about the risks
when she turned around and a very large snowball flew into her face and sent her
to the floor.
Hey!
She thought, and tried to say. '...!...' was all that came out. Rikku got to her
feet and wiped the now-rapidly-melting snow out of her face. She decided to
assert herself against this invisible enemy. 'Show yourself!' she shouted to the
empty room. No reply came. 'Fine!' she pouted. 'I'll just stay here then!' She
sat down on the floor at the centre of the room, crossed her legs, and waited.
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For
Hyne's sake girl, show a little
more curiosity will you?
Fine
then, we'll see who decays first...
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10 minutes later, Rikku was bored. All this way, she
thought she'd have found something, and she had found exactly squat.
There was nothing here, the place was deserted, even the Chamber of the Fayth...
Hell-oo...
thought Rikku. Now how did I forget
that...? She stood up and began to make her way towards the spiritual heart
of the Yevon temple.
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About
bloody time... Come inside...
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Rikku gasped upon seeing the Chamber. If the
antechamber had been beautifully decorated, then this was just... amazing... She
looked around at the place where the Fayth resided, and was astounded by the
sheer level of detail in the carved walls and pillars that adorned the Fayth.
The entire structure was faceted and curved to resemble the inside of some sort
of perfect gemstone.
The
Fayth... This was what she had come to see. She remembered the
one in Besaid, after Yevon had collapsed and the old taboos forgotten. The Aeon
formerly known to Yuna and the others as Valefor had been a simple piece of rock
after the defeat of Sin. She looked around at Shiva's. It should have been the
same...
But it wasn't. This
Fayth was still alive with colour. She was surprised she hadn't noticed it on
the way in. She had never seen anything like it. She approached the piece of
still-living rock and reached out to touch it. It was still warm to the touch.
Still more confusingly, it was still coloured,
and had not turned to stone like the others. She smiled, she didn't know why,
but she knew that this would provide answers. She reached into her pack and
withdrew a small chisel and mallet. Drawing back her hand, she prepared to chip
a piece of the strange substance off.
Then
it happened.
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You
are
one of them! I knew it! Maybe this will work this time... Well, only one way to
find out.
You're
mine.
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Rikku screamed and fell to her knees as the pain took
hold of her. It was no less agonising then she had remembered, if anything it
was even more intense than the last time. She fell to the floor, clutching her
head as what felt like many sharp ice-picks dug into her brain, prying and
wriggling around. She screamed for someone to help her, in a place no-one came
within 20 miles of anymore. Then she heard a voice through the pain.
Hello
again.
'Who..?' she managed to say before a particularly
painful surge of... something... ran through her body.
I'll
ask the questions girl.
'Please... stop,' Rikku managed to whimper. Even
breathing was getting hard.
Later.
First you are going to help me.
Anything.
Rikku thought. Anything to stop the
pain. '...' Rikku said.
The voice seemed to notice this. What? Oh, the pain. Sorry, I may have gotten carried away.
Mercifully, the pain lessened. Now she merely wished
she was unconscious, instead of wishing she was dead. Rikku curled into a foetal
position and closed her eyes against everything. 'How?' she whispered.
You
are going to get me out of here, the voice said.
'Anything... Just make it stop,' she begged.
Excellent.
You see little girl. I want to be free. I need to get out of here, and to do
that I need a life.
'Who..?'
Yours.
Now stay still, because this is going to hurt. A lot.
Another jolt of pure pain shot through Rikku's body.
Her arms arched out by her sides and she screamed. This time, it did not stop.
All she could feel was the pain, and underneath it, anger and denial, all rolled
into one ball; small, yet hotter than a star. As everything went black, Rikku's
last conscious thought was; I'm going to
die. Then, with a small sigh;
Not
again...
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She had been waiting for this moment for over 200,000
years.
...Now
stay still, because this is going to hurt. A lot.
Focussing for entire concentration on the young girl in
front of her, she channelled all of her rage, all of her pain and suffering from
the last 200 millennia, and projected it directly into the girls head. She had
put up with her memories for her lifetime, and had grown used to them. The young
one's mind, however, was unprepared for the psychic blast of hate and anger, and
her vitality was obliterated, her life-force thrown out of her body so fast the
girl probably hadn't even realised she was being killed. Now came the tricky
part. She had seen the girl's reaction to her command when she had last been
here, seen her eyes when her fellow journeyers had shied away from her, and knew
what the girl was, even if no-one else did, not even the girl herself.. This
would make it all the more easy.
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What
the...? What happened? Why is it so cold here? Who's that?
Rikku looked down at the figure lying on the floor, and came face to face with
her own still figure.
Oh
no...
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Concentrating, she turned her attention to the girl's
essence, watched it as it waited next to her corpse, waiting to be 'sent', as
the monks had called it once within her range of hearing. So much the better,
she wouldn't have to keep it from fleeing. She closed her (metaphorical) eyes,
and felt the energy flow around her, through her. When she was sure she could
control it, she sent it back out into the room, allowing it to saturate the
chamber that she had spent the last several centuries turning into one giant
crystal. She manipulated it, watched it slowly take a shape that had been her
home once for 19 years, a long time ago. She gave it form, gave it substance,
and gave it everything she had to ensure that this time the process would work. When it was complete, she (metaphorically)
stood back and admired her handiwork. She had created her vessel, now all she
needed to do was inhabit it.
Focussing with all the strength she had left, she
recalled the last lesson her late teacher had taught her. She concentrated on
the figure in front of her Fayth, thinking with all her being to be
in that figure. A body cannot live without a mind, and an empty body desires one
all the more. Running on fumes now, she felt her consciousness move.
She did not open her eyes, for terror of losing concentration, of failing again,
but she knew she was leaving her prison. After 200,000 years of imprisonment,
after seeing oceans boil, moons fall and mountains collapse, she would finally
be free. With her last thoughts before she left the Fayth completely, she
directed the remaining essence to return to the girls lifeless corpse. She would
awaken broken, soul and spirit shattered beyond repair or hope of entering
whatever passed for an afterlife in this new world, but she would be alive, her
body and sanity intact, and she should be grateful that she was doing even that
for one who was already dead. Anyway, she felt she owed it to her slightly. Enough.
She thought. Time to wake up. So she did.
After more than 200,000 years of waiting within a
living hell, Quistis Trepe opened her eyes, and looked out on the world.
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Rikku opened her eyes slowly, aches running down her
whole length. She tried to get up, and was rewarded by pain shooting down her
entire body. Then she remembered what had happened. Cred. She thought. She tried to roll over, and was moderately
successful, as the rapid motion made her black out for only a few seconds. She
regained her vision to possibly the last, but also the most welcome, thing she
could have hoped to see, a pair of feet. She could have laughed out loud, if she
wasn't trying to avoid movement greater than moving her fingertips.
Nevertheless, she moved her head to get a look at the stranger. What she saw
almost made her faint again. The murals
from the antechamber. You, it can't be you, you should have faded away...
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Quistis looked around her. This was the first time she
had seen her own chamber from the outside.
She smiled slowly. She started to giggle, then burst out laughing. She
had done it. She heard a choked sob from behind her, and saw the young girl
attempt to get to her feet, and fail miserably. She could see that she was hurt,
but ignored it. She would recover in time, in her experience, what didn't kill
humans, only left them slightly bruised. Then she remembered what the girl was,
and the... disadvantages... that carried. Sorry
kid. Needs must and all that.
The young girl looked up at her, and Quistis saw
recognition in her eyes, then shock.
She smiled down at the little human.
'...'
Quistis frowned. 'What?' she asked.
'Help...' the girl whispered.
Quistis heard the voice, but chose to ignore her pleas
for help. 'Sorry, didn't quite catch that,' she replied matter-of-factly.
'Help... me,' she begged.
Quistis almost stooped to help, but then remembered
where she was, and what she was
talking to. In her mind, the fact that she was like that, knowingly or not, made her already beyond salvation. She
looked down at the sobbing figure, then turned on her heels and walked away.
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Rikku watched the blue-skinned, familiar-looking woman
walk away, taking with her Rikku's slim shard of hope. Her last tatter of
self-control dissolved, and she began to weep. After this became too painful,
she merely lay her head down on the cool stone floor, and waited to die.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quistis walked out into Macalania's freezing night.
Now
this
is a country! She thought gleefully to herself. She looked around at her
surroundings for the first time in millennia. She searched out with her mind,
trying to make contact with others of her kind. She found nothing; the once
vibrant network through which her kind had communicated was gathering the
psychic equivalent of dust. If any of them were left, they didn't want to be
found. Perfect. After being betrayed
by her own kind, she had no wish to meet with them again. She started to walk
off towards the walkway, not caring where she was headed, only that she was
finally free, and this time she was going to enjoy every Hyne-damned minute of
life that came her way. Entering the glacier-passageway, all thoughts in her
mind of the small figure she had left broken and crying in the temple Chamber
were swept from her mind, as she set out to explore this new world she found
herself in.
Chapter
3: Shattered Mind
Quistis sat on the ground near the sphere-pool. She
didn't know what it was, of course, but what she did know was it was calm and isolated, and that was what she needed
right now. She stared at her own reflection in the pool, questioning herself.
After 200,000 years of being angry, she was going to have to start dealing with
the consequences. Her first act on this new world had been to kill (sort-of) an
innocent bystander. She was not dealing with it well. She needed advice.
'Why did you do that?' she asked her reflection.
'We needed her. Besides, she was one of them, she
doesn't matter,' she replied to herself.
Well, why not? It had occurred to her, while trapped in
her prison, that she needed someone to talk to. Who better than herself? Things
had... progressed... from there. She had held conversations with herself, argued
with 'it' over the could-have-beens, what she might have done differently. They
had created entire worlds together, where things had worked out, and correcting
one-another’s mistakes. She had drawn an invisible line between them, creating
two separate entitles. Eventually they had disagreed. As the decades, centuries
and millennia rolled on, they had developed very differing viewpoints. One of
them blamed herself for everything that had happened, the other blamed everyone
else. The Dove and the Hawk. Quistis Trepe and Shiva. Quistis; the woman she had
been, and Shiva, the product of her insanity; confrontational, unforgiving, and
evil. The part of her that hated what had been done to her, that blamed her
friends, which despised her fellow Guardians, and would do anything and
everything to make them pay. Quistis did not want to think that Shiva was a part
of her anymore.
'But she was just a kid!' Quistis shouted at her
reflection. It was easier to do it this way. At least now she could see who she
was arguing with, even though she knew exactly what her 'partner' looked like.
'So? She was one of them! They put us in that prison,
they kept us trapped there! They deserve everything they get!' Shiva shouted at
her, through her own mouth.
'No!' Quistis shouted back at herself. 'We
put ourselves there! We chose that path for ourselves!'
'We were betrayed! That overgrown dragon put us in that
hell to save his own skin!'
'He did what needed to be done!' Quistis shouted back.
'He did what needed to be done for them!
He didn't consider helping you, only preserving his precious 'race'. He was no
better than the others! Even Diablos...' Shiva began.
'Don't
you EVER say his name like that!' Quistis screamed at her
reflection. She reached downwards and raked the water with her fingers, breaking
up her reflection. She leaned back, away from the pool, and closed her eyes
tightly, not wanting to remember. After a while she looked back into the water.
'Hello?' she asked softly. No answer. Quistis leaned
back and sighed to herself. She knew she was probably insane, on the edge of her
conscious mind, but she ignored it. All she knew was that she was free now, and
the first thing she had done was kill the one who had unwillingly helped her to
break out of her prison. She sat and thought for a while. After about ten
minutes of staring into space, she got up, turned around, and headed back to the
temple, to see if there was still time to make good.
Chapter
4: Sorrowful Meeting
'Any news?' Cid asked Yuna tiredly.
The ex-summoner shook her head. 'None,' she said
quietly.
Cid cursed and turned back to the balcony.
Five
years. Yuna thought. Five
years since Yevon fell. Five years since the Al Bhed were accepted into society.
Five years since I lost him. Five
years since the government was set up. Five years of peace and security.
Four
years and seven months since Rikku disappeared.
Yuna sighed to herself. After so much pain, after so
many deaths and sacrifices, Spira was finally free. That did not mean that
everything was going fine however. After Sin had been defeated, the remaining
Yevon supporters who refused to accept the fact that their god was a false one,
and had accused Yuna of making the whole thing up. The Neo-Yevon Coalition,
rising from the ashes of the old religion like some kind of grotesque phoenix,
had started in Bevelle (but of course) and hadn't spread much farther. The
remaining 'faithful' had managed to convince themselves that Yuna and her
Guardians had killed Yevon (which was the truth) for their own sinister agenda
(which was not). What Yuna's agenda actually was was something they never got around to disclosing.
Some
people, she thought to herself, will never change. The NYC had recruited enough members to make sure
visiting Bevelle would be risky at best, and suicidal at worst. Yuna had no wish
to go back there at any rate, where the Maesters in the name of a false religion
had justified experiments, atrocities and downright murder. No love was lost
between her and the fanatic splinter group since they had openly announced their
hatred for Yuna, calling her a heretic and 'Traitor to Yevon', and ordered all
true believers to kill her on sight. After Khimari had sent away several
would-be assassins with mere looks, no-one had bothered them much.
After Sin, the old group had gone their separate ways.
Lulu and Wakka had returned to Besaid, finally admitted their feelings to each
other, and married late last year. Lulu was now four months pregnant. Khimari
had returned to Gagazet a hero, honoured and respected by those who had
previously shunned him. Yuna had stayed at Luca, helping the new government to
organise relocation and rebuilding of the various cities. Cid had remained with
the Al Bhed, helping the various people of Spira get reacquainted with machina,
and rebuild Home, mostly by shouting at people and going around with a permanent
scowl on his face. He was making rapid progress. Rikku had went off to exploring
the globe, taking advantage of her status as an 'Eternal Guardian', as the
sphere-reporters had dubbed them, one of the heroes who had finally liberated
Spira from pain. She had helped her father and Spiran volunteers to excavate old
machina from the various ocean floors. She had already uncovered another
airship, which, Cid said, they still couldn't get into, and a strange underground complex full of
houses, untouched by the ages, near Besaid. After a couple of months she had
headed to Macalania, 'to check up on something,' she had said vaguely at the
time.
She had never been seen again.
Yuna watched Cid look out over Luca from the balcony of
the building. In the back of her mind Yuna was still getting used to all the
changes. We would never have dared build
so high before. Now we have ten-story buildings being built right next to the
water! Sometimes she wanted to pinch herself, but she knew she wasn't
dreaming. Yuna heard Cid sigh sadly. Although he would never admit it, he was
losing hope of ever finding his daughter. After she had vanished, the Al Bhed
had sent search parties around the globe; using ancient machina they hardly knew
how to use to locate the teenager. After six months had turned up nothing,
everyone had begun to lose hope. After 3 years, no-one entertained any illusions
about what had probably happened. 'Some guy in Bevelle is offering us
information on Rikku's whereabouts,' Yuna told the old Al Bhed warrior.
Cid just grunted. 'How much?' he asked.
'50,000 Gil,' she said.
Cid snorted. After it became common knowledge that the
government was looking for her, people all over the world had sprung up claiming
to know where she was. For a price of course. After several wasted efforts and
several hundred thousand worth of Gil had been spent, Cid had made it clear that
there would be no more handouts. On that day the search parties were withdrawn,
the machina deactivated, and life returned to normal. Minus the spiky young
blonde whose perky attitude had helped to keep them going during their
pilgrimage.
'Maybe this time it will be...' Yuna started.
'No,' Cid said quietly. 'I won't go through that again.
If she's alive, then she'll find us.'
The rumours had started soon after the offers had been refused. Old men swore
they had seen the young girl near the Omega Dungeon, others saw her wandering
the Sanubia Sands. One man had said he had seen her ghost wandering the Calm
Lands, searching for a summoner to lay her soul to rest. It had taken all of
Cid's self-control to stop himself from turning the 'mystic' into a bloody mess
on the carpet. Cid said that he had not given up hope, that Rikku was alive.
Have
you convinced yourself yet, Uncle? Yuna wondered. She said
something she had been holding back for years, but had to ask. 'Maybe she
finally went to the Farplane?'
'No,' he said simply, 'she wouldn't do that without
saying goodbye.'
Yuna didn't go down this road any further. Trying to
bring the man's mind off the morbid subject of his missing daughter, Yuna
decided to change the tack of the conversation; 'Have you got that airship open
yet?' she asked him.
Cid looked glad to be distracted. 'Nope,' he replied.
'We can't even scratch the thing, all we can do is stare in through the window.'
Yuna smiled. She had seen the ship up close on one of
her visits to 'The Lab' in Luca, as it was known. The airship seemed to be built
along the lines of some great red dragon. The thing even had arms, although she
couldn't see what use those could be.
Cid went on talking: 'At least we know what powers this
one. It's got some bloody huge engines at the back. Unlike that great floating
rotating-circle-powered one we flew on when we fought Sin. Nobody knows what the
hell that thing is. Although we did
find what looks like ports for more weaponry. Someone must've torn them out and
left the holes behind. That thing was designed to blow things up, and then
someone removed most of it. I wonder why?'
Yuna grinned openly. Not knowing what something did was
almost guaranteed to grate on the man's nerves. 'I'm sure you'll figure it out
someday,' she said soothingly.
'Yeah, when the world dissolves most likely,' Cid
muttered.
Yuna suddenly realised something. 'Uncle, don't you
have to be at that meeting?' she asked him.
Cid looked up at her. 'Cred! I completely forgot about
that! I better tell them I'm going to be late!'
Yuna was going to ask how, seeing as the meeting was
taking place in Zanarkand, several hundred miles away, but Cid started to walk
off. As he left, Yuna saw him withdraw a shortish rectangular piece of metal
from his pocket, poke it several times in different places, then hold it up to
his ear and mouth and start speaking into it. No-one knew how the Al Bhed
managed to communicate with each other across thousands of miles, but Yuna would
have betted that those metal boxes had something to do with it.
Five
years. Yuna thought to herself. Five years since the last battle. Five years since the last town was
destroyed. Five years since Guado practically shut down the Farplane to
outsiders. Five years since Spira woke up, and realised everything they knew was
a lie...
Yuna walked of towards the door to the street, unaware
that she was being watched.
Chapter
5: High Observer
Rikku watched Yuna walk out of the room, and considered
just jumping down from the rafters and shouting at her. Hey
cousin! Did you miss me? Rikku looked down at the 'hand' she was using to
grip the beam, and shuddered. No. Not yet.
Rikku jumped off the beam with both feet, still
gripping the beam with her right hand, and used her momentum to swing herself
around and up to the ceiling. She went out the levered-open window and looked
out across the town. She saw Yuna and Cid walk out into the crowd. She saw
children in the streets buying balloons off the balloon-sellers. She watched the
sun begin to set over the Blitzball stadium, the water-sphere refracting the
light into a sea of colour that splashed down onto the city like a liquid
rainbow. It was beautiful.
But it wasn't her place.
Not anymore.
Nor was Bevelle, nor Besaid, or Kilika, or Gagazet,
Zanarkand.
Or Home.
Rikku walked along the rooftops, occasionally leaping
across gaps in the buildings, heading for the Tower, towards a rendezvous point
agreed by both of them. As Rikku walked, she started to think. Always a bad idea
for her recently. She thought about the events that had led her here, that had
made her what she was now. About what had happened in the last 4 years and seven
months. Rikku snarled and kicked the nearest object, which happened to be a
chimney, sending it tumbling to the streets below, where it frightened some old
man out of his wits. Rikku continued walking towards the Tower. She had heard of
it's construction from Maechen, who had not recognised the cloaked figure asking
him about the spire being built in Luca. He had said that it was going to be a
memorial library. She still remembered his exact words.
It
will be a library. So long have we lived under Sin's eternal gaze, building out
homes squat and shallow in the mud, losing our history as Sin destroys all in
its path. The Tower will be a bastion of knowledge from all corners of Spira.
Arrogant
old man. She had remembered Quistis (or had it been Shiva?)
saying later. They aren't building that
thing for some kind of 'noble purpose', they're building it because they can.
That had sounded like Shiva. Rikku vaguely remembered replying to it:
And
what's wrong with that? she had asked indignantly.
If
they actually looked at the
history they have, they would remember one simple phrase.
Which
is...?
Pride
comes before a fall.
Rikku did not see it like that however. She saw it as
the final confirmation that the people of Spira had nothing to fear anymore.
They could build as high as they wanted now, anywhere they wanted. Quistis
agreed with her. Shiva did not, as usual. Rikku could have strangled that woman,
if she could have found a way to do it without hurting Quisty. Which of course
she couldn't.
Rikku suddenly stopped dead. Her feet told her that she
had reached the side of the building. She looked up, and was presented with the
sleek majesty of the so-called Tower of Knowledge. Maechen had been right. All
the knowledge of Spira, books, ledgers, scrolls, even some thin square-ish Al
Bhed storage 'wafers', the ones with the weird sliding bit at the top, and black
shiny floppy disk inside, had been brought here, so that the full wisdom and
learning of Spira was available to any who wished it. At least in theory.
Apparently, eventually all Spiran cities would have one, just not as grand as
this. This was the first, and was special. The first building completed since
Sin was destroyed to be more than a few metres tall. It was reckoned to be about
ninety-nine times the height of a normal house, studded with balconies, and she
had to climb the damn thing.
Walking up to the surface, Rikku could see that they
builders had still had some trouble getting everything lined up. Cracks and gaps
showed in the surface where the sun had dried it out. All the better for her.
Drawing back her fist, Rikku splayed her hand out as far as they could go, and
punched forward, her claws easily puncturing the rocky surface with a chink
sound. She then kicked out at the wall, lodging her foot into the stone, then
she punched forwards with her other hand, and moved her other foot up into
position, beginning the long climb up the side of the tower.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chink.
Chink.
'What was that?' the first Librarian asked, dropping
her books on the floor with a thunk.
'Nothing, go back to work,' her partner replied.
'I'm serious, there was a noise. Like someone hitting
the walls with a pickaxe,' she shot back.
Chink.
Chink. Chink.
'It's just your imagin... Wait a minute...' He stopped,
puzzled.
'You see!?' she said triumphantly. They both listened
to the noise.
'It's getting higher, like something’s climbing the
walls...'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikku's claws shot forward, but this time, instead of
hitting rock, they flailed over empty air. About
time! How much higher could they have built this thing? She asked herself.
She pulled herself up over the ledge and sat down, looking over the city now
extending below her. Avoiding the damn balconies had been hardest, requiring her
to not punch so forcefully, making her grip on the Tower tenuous at best, and
downright terrifying at worst. She looked out over the town (City!
She reminded herself) of Luca. No matter what standards of a person had, they
could hardly fail to be captured by the scene below them. Thousands of people,
walking around like ants. She could see all the way to the Highroad, and she
imagined she could see, off in the fog, the soft glow of the Moonflow. Rikku
caught her breath, and stood back up. No matter what abilities she now held, she
still got tired.
Looking out over the cityscape arrayed below her from
the top of this ninety-nine-story spire, Rikku took a deep breath. No matter how
many times she did this, the fall still terrified her. She looked down slowly.
This high up, she saw everything as ants. She put her arms straight out against her sides, as Shiva had
taught her to do. She looked once more at the horizon. The sun was almost set
now. Hopefully no-one would notice her falling figure.
Taking a deep breath, Rikku jumped of the edge of the
Tower.
Chapter
6: Snapshot Memories
An object of Rikku's mass falling from the ninety-ninth
story of the Tower of Knowledge will impact the ground level of Luca travelling
at about one-hundred-ninety-two kilometres per hour, in twenty-two seconds. She
has this amount of time to save herself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first second. She fell past the tallest of the
Tower's balconies, a man sitting on a chair there registered her falling past
him, but she was gone before he had turned his head. Rikku's eyes are closed.
She remembered the second time she woke from death,
staring into the eyes of a woman she did not know, lying on the ground in
Macalania Temple, her head lying on the woman's lap, the woman crying, saying
over and over how sorry she was. She remembered coughing, the woman looking at
her with a start. She had probably assumed Rikku was dead. She remembered being
carried (flown?) out of the temple gently, and being set down somewhere quiet.
The woman had comforted her, and at the first sound of her voice Rikku had
sprung away from her. Hers was the
voice that had spoken to her, so cold and emotionless, as she had drained Rikku
of her life and left her to die. Somehow though, the voice she used now
sounded... different... softer somehow. She had apologised for everything it
seemed.
A snapshot memory, wrapped in a single second.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second second. Twice as many balconies flew past.
She remembered attacking the woman, but she had easily
blocked everything Rikku tried, punches, kicks, slices, everything deflected
away effortlessly by the blue woman who looked so sad as she did it. Eventually
Rikku had grown tired of trying to get past the woman's seemingly impenetrable
defences. She had collapsed onto the ground and started to weep. She had felt
the woman, whose name she still did not know, sit down next to her and try to
put her hand around her shoulders. At that instant, Rikku had recoiled away from
her. She radiated cold.
The woman had looked away from her sadly, and Rikku had
felt the urge to try and comfort her. Before her hand touched the woman's
shoulder though, she had spoken to her for the first time.
I
wouldn't do that if I were you, she had said.
Why
not? Rikku had asked, as she had lain her hand on the
stranger's shoulder. She found out. She yelped and covered her frozen hand with
her clothes.
That
is why.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The third second. Her speed is now nine times that of
the first second, she falls past balconies nine times as fast.
Rikku remembers talking with the woman, sitting next to
her, dipping her feet in the sphere-pool where they were. She had asked the name
of the woman.
Quistis
Trepe. Or Shiva. It depends.
On
what? she had replied, confused.
On
who I am, the woman with two names had replied.
And
who are you now?
Quistis.
Ten minutes of explanation had left Rikku feeling pity
for the woman. She now knew that this was not the person who had left her to die
in the Chamber of the Fayth. She had asked what Shiva was like normally.
Pray
you never find out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four seconds. Rikku looks down, which is now back in
towards the Tower, to check that she is not drifting too close to the sides of
the Tower. She shifts her profile, changing the flow of air over her body, and
she drifts away from the Tower, out towards the open.
Rikku remembered thinking, as Quistis told her story,
that it was remarkably similar to her own. An evil force, a group of friends
sworn to defeat it, good triumphing over evil. The parallels were amazing. Then
Quistis had told Rikku the next part of the story, her own. Dying, being reborn
as something more than human but less than alive, finding her love, only to have
it ripped away from her at the hands of 'destiny', an ages-long imprisonment,
and Shiva's plan to break them out. Rikku knew that part well; she had died
again so that they could escape.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds. Rikku has
fallen below the Librarian's accommodation section, into the 'old storage'
division, where obscure and useless knowledge was kept until needed. Her speed
is approaching one-hundred-fifty kilometres per minutes, at which point she will
stop accelerating, airflow and mass ratios forbidding her to travel faster than
a measurement defined by the laws of physics. She thinks quickly now, drawn out
of her memories. How long left until she needs to pull up?
Twelve seconds, thirteen, still no-one on the ground
has noticed her fall.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fourteen seconds.
She remembered telling her story to Quistis, the
pilgrimage, the destruction of her Home, the defeat of Sin. She also told her
something that only her closest friends and family knew about.
Her first death.
She tells her of the Moonflow. She tells Quistis of the
underwater-machina she drove, supposedly the most secure there was. She told her
of fighting her future friends, Wakka and Tidus. She tells Quistis of her defeat, and the destruction of the
machina. She tells her of the machina sinking, taking Rikku with it, slowly
collapsing in on itself as it sank, denying her a way out, denying escape to
Rikku, but not to the oxygen which she needed to breath. She tells her of
drowning, of suffocating in blackness, of her looking out through the porthole,
at the surface of the water, only metres away, but which might as well have been
hundreds of miles.
She tells her of awakening underwater, gasping for
breath, tearing away metal and plastic, swimming to the surface, finally gasping
in air that she no longer needed, that could not save her now, and collapsing on
the beach, a metal spike left in her heart as a painful reminder. She tells
Quistis that there is a name for people like her.
We
are the Unsent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifteen seconds. The witching hour. Metaphorically.
Rikku closes her eyes tighter, commanding muscles to
move that she had not had only one year ago. She feels gnarled muscle on her
back move around in unnatural movements, moving out of the way, for others to
emerge. She feels the skin on her back turn away, as the coiled up collection of
cartilage, leathery skin, and bone snap open, allowed to uncoil as a path is
made from her spine to her back. She does not unfold her new limbs yet though.
There is no margin for error here.
She remembers laughing, Quistis asking her; What
is it?
I
must be the only person who will have to have four dates on their tombstone.
She remembered Quistis had laughed at this.
At
least you have more than one date. They never put a 'Date of Death' on the
memorial for me, everyone thought it was an engraver's error.
Rikku chuckled at this. She thought about this for a
time, and sobered up instantly. She looked across at Quistis/Shiva.
I
like your eyes, Quistis had said, how did you get them like that?
All
Al Bhed have something similar, it's inherited, and the green comes from my
Father's side. Quistis had looked puzzled. What? Rikku had asked.
Look
in the pool, she said.
Rikku did, and gasped. Where she had once had black
spirals on an electric-green background, she now had two harsh red ones on a
background of pure black. What the hell!?
A
result of dying perhaps?
This
didn't happen the first time! she had shouted.
Don't
complain if that’s all that
went wrong. Trust me, there are worse defects. They make you look incredibly
dangerous.
Rikku smiled. What
now? she asked.
Quistis had looked back. For who? Me or you?
You,
of course.
I
don't know. Everything I know is gone. Even the other Guardians. I'm alone. You?
I'll
just go Home I guess. Quistis had instantly adopted a guarded
expression. What?
There's
probably something you should know first.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seventeen seconds.
The bone and skin locked into their positions. Human
skeletons were not tested to these limits. To extend the surfaces to the airflow
would rip her spine out of her body.
Why?
Rikku had asked quickly.
I
brought you back from the dead, after my body had been recreated,
Quistis had replied.
I
know. So?
I
had absorbed your spirit, to restore this body. But I used up too much of it,
you couldn't function. I had to replace your missing spirit somehow. I had
plenty 'going spare' from previous Yevon executions in the temple, they were
never... what did you call it? Sent?
Rikku had grabbed Quistis by the shoulders, ignoring
the freezing/burning sensation this caused. What
did you do to me!? she asked, panicked now.
I
had to try and recreate your spirit exactly for you to be normal. Well, at least
as normal as a dead person could be... I didn’t know your genetic makeup
though...
My
what?
A
forgotten science in this age, I assume. Good, it caused us no end of misery.
You see, every individual has a unique 'genetic code'. Call them...
instructions... for building you. They tell you what you are. Hair colour, eye
colour, skin colour, etcetera...
GET
TO THE POINT!
I
didn't know yours! So I had to replace the broken parts of your code with
someone else’s.
Whose?
Rikku had whispered.
Guardians
know certain things about other Guardians...
You
mean you replaced my 'code'-thingy with one of theirs?
Rikku had said, horrified. WHOSE?!
The
only person's I ever cared for enough to bother learning.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eighteen seconds.
Death on the ground is now four seconds away. Rikku
slowly extends her new limbs slowly, testing the air, like a diver trying to
open a door against the water. Bone locks into grooves, provides a flat-ish
surface for the air to flow across.
She remembers collapsing onto her knees, looking across
at Quistis. No, she had whispered.
I
am sorry.
NO!
There
was no other way. Do not be afraid, I am very good at this. I altered my own
code when creating this body with some of the same instructions that you now
have. There will be many advantages
to being part-Guardian Force.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nineteen seconds.
She begins to pull up out of the dive, newly learned
mental commands flowing through her nerves towards the muscle in her back that
commands her new wings. Wind bites into her face. Multiple gee-forces attempt to
tear her apart. Blood is boiling in her brain. She soars over the streets,
missing the ground by several hundred metres, about what she had hoped for.
She remembers pushing Quistis away from her. Leave
me alone.
Would
you rather be dead? Quistis had asked.
Yes.
There
will be many advantages. Strength, speed, intelligence will rise dramatically...
Rikku put her hands over her ears, trying to
block out the sound of the woman's voice. …Flight, also, she had said to her.
What?
You
will grow wings. We both will.
...When?
Give
it time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The twenty-second second.
Rikku turned back in towards the Tower. She needs the
thermal currants it provides in order to gain more height. They lift her high
above the street again, she glides over the city of Luca, looking down on people
who are unaware of the life that had just flashed before them all. Her life.
Banking to the north, she heads towards the agreed rendezvous point.
She remembers the last snippet of conversation she had
held with Quistis, before nearly collapsing in exhaustion.
What
now?
I
thought you were going to this place you called 'Home'.
I
can't. Not like this.
Then...
come with me.
...!...
I
can teach you about yourself. I can show you what it is to be like one of us.
What
if I don't want you to?
Then
we go our separate ways, and never see each other again.
...Fine.
I'll go with you. Where are you going?
To
find out what happened to the world when I was gone.
Hey!
Wait up!
Sorry.
I keep forgetting you're only human.
Not
for much longer, according to you... Why?
Sorry?
I didn't catch that last bit.
Why
are you trying to help me?
Because
I wish someone had done the same for me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikku left the outskirts of the city. At least in this,
Quistis had been right. The feeling of soaring above your fellow man was a
wonderful experience. She felt like she could stay up for hours, and she could,
flying requiring no more effort then tensing her wings and occasionally angling
to catch a warm-air thermal.
She angled her head to look back at Luca. The sun went
down, and the many lights and torches in the homes f the populace were lit.
Hundreds of light-motes being activated/lit all at once have the
impression that a switch marked 'fireflies' had been pressed somewhere,
illuminating all of Luca in an instant. She flew on. Whether Quistis had found
what she was looking for in Zanarkand she didn't know, but for a while, as she
flew along above the ocean's depths, black wings extended to catch the airflow,
she was free.
Chapter
7: Loyal Servant
We
have a problem.
What!
What?
Trepe
is free.
...What?
I thought that was a legend.
It
is not. Trepe. Is. Free.
...Oh.
Exactly.
Who
let that happen?
We
believe that you did.
...Damn.
Exactly.
Er...
Would apologising help?
No.
Steps must be taken. She must not be allowed to discover our plans.
No,
no, of course not.
Deal
with her. The last Blue Mage must not be a problem.
No,
of course not... One thing...
What?
Exactly
how am I supposed to deal with her?
According to that story you sent me, she did manage to defeat your last attempt to invade.
That
was not our fault. The one we sent to lead the invasion force was young and
stupid, he allowed himself to be outwitted.
Erm,
what happened to him?
Since
he did not emerge from the Fayth with Trepe, we believe him to be dead.
But
if she can defeat one of you, what
chance do I stand?
You
will think of something, We are sure.
But...
No
buts, human. Find her quickly. She has just emerged from her prison, she is
still disorientated, we predict a small window of opportunity where she will be
sufficiently confused and angry to be easily taken care of.
Oh
good, so instead of trying to kill some kind of ancient ice-goddess, I'll be
trying to kill some kind of ancient angry ice-goddess.
Yes, much easier, thanks.
Don't
even think of trying to disobey us. We trust you read what happened to the
unfortunate man who last failed us?
Yeah,
yeah, smashed into pieces, I read it. Several times in fact.
Go,
now. You should be able to find her easily enough. She has no-one to guide her
this time. She has no friends in this time. If anything... untoward... should
happen, you will inform us. Immediately. Do I make myself clear?
Perfectly.
No
screw-ups.
None.
Good.
Go.
I
will. How do I contact you when she is dead?
You
won't. We will know.
With these last words the connection closed, and Tyler
opened his eyes to find himself back in his room. He hated doing this. When he
had agreed to watch the Fayth in Macalania, he had not expected to be dragged
into all this. Murder, demons, gods, and monsters, creatures from so far back in
time that the continents weren't even in the same places anymore.
The ex-Temple Monk turned back to his screen. Know
Thine Enemy, Bevelle said, and so he had. He had spent the last three years
infiltrating the heathen Al Bhed's hierarchy, and now it was paying off. He had
used most of his savings to purchase this strange machina. It was able to send
and receive messages from far away, and could display the information on this
glass-like 'screen' in front of him. The seller had told him it had access to
something called an 'interconnected Al Bhed network' and he would be able to
keep up with news that happened across the world, even before it had been
written in the papers. That was how they
had contacted him.
He had received a message from Bevelle itself, telling
him to go to Luca. Once there, he had been directed to a quiet spot in the
docks. The next few minutes had been the worst of his life. He had been
approached by a strange figure in a black cloak.
Who
are you? He had asked the stranger. The reply had been
innocuous enough, but the voice delivering it had scared him witless. It seemed
to reach deep into his heart and examine his soul, and, worse, found it lacking.
'Your
new employers.'
After a short conversation that had seemed to last
hours, the strange man (fiend?) had walked off again, leaving Tyler with his new
instructions. He would now be working for the head of the Neo-Yevon Coalition,
sending his reports directly into Bevelle temple by way of only one courier, who
could be completely trusted. He was not to accept orders from anyone but
Bevelle, if anyone tried to stop him, use this, and had handed him a strange machina weapon he had not seen
before.
You
will go to Macalania. Use the money given to you to establish a small ring of
spies there. Report any strange activity to us. Especially regarding the Fayth
that resides within the temple. Let no-one enter the temple, and make sure
no-one leaves.
He had found this obtuse to say the least. There was
nothing in Macalania except the temple and lots of icicles. He had gone though,
and bribed several old men who needed the money to keep an eye on things, and
report to him whenever he visited. After one of them had reported back that a
woman had been seen leaving the temple, carrying a small blonde girl, he had
went into the temple himself, only to find the old Fayth torn open, seemingly
from the inside. He had then sent his own report to Bevelle, telling them off
this. He had received a letter telling him to go to Luca, set himself up as one
of the heathen Al Bhed's machina-using friends. He had done all this, buying the
strangely named 'Personal Computer', and awaited instructions. The letter he had
received, by way of the PC, had confused him even more. It appeared to be some
sort of child's tale, about a woman, a demon from another world, and a great
war, which had ended with the woman sacrificing her freedom to destroy the
demon. He had read it once and then forgotten about it. The sentence at the end,
however, had worried him.
It
is all true. Expect an unusual visitor.
It was this visitor he had just seen off. The method of
communication had been... interesting... to say the least.
Telepathy.
Why did I get myself into this? he asked himself
despairingly. All he had wanted to do when he signed on to the Monks had been to
uphold Yevon's laws and guard the Fayth of the temple he had been ascribed to.
After that damn traitor Yuna and her friends had attacked Maester Seymour, under
his watch, his career had near enough
ended there. He had wanted only to serve, and Bevelle had scorned him. Well,
no longer. Now, Yevon had leadership worthy of it's men. Now they could
expose Yuna and reveal to the world all her lies about the 'evil' Yevon.
I'm
doing the right thing. I will do what they say, this is a good thing. I'm
fighting evil, not good. No-one who killed Yevon could ever be anything except a
tyrant. Yes, that’s it. I'll do it all. Bevelle will know, they'll know how
well I served.
With these last words, Tyler reached across to his
flask and took a long drink of water. Alcohol was bad for the soul, and he
needed to concentrate. Tapping on the arranged rows of letters and numbers on
the horizontal plate attached to the 'screen', he sent out inquiries asking for
all the information he could find on sightings of ghosts, demons, wraiths, and
the Lost Guardian, Rikku.
Chapter
8: Rooftop Meeting
Quistis stood on the edge of the ruined stadium, looking down on
Zanarkand from several hundred meters. The wind carried thermal currents up
here, and made her sweat from the heat. She folded her wings around herself to
protect her from the (in contrast to herself) high temperature.
This,
Shiva thought to herself, was definitely
one of our better ideas. The wings kept her cool in hot places, and in
Spira, everywhere was hot. Rikku
seemed quite taken with her wings as well. When Shiva had changed her genetic
makeup, it had probably been one of her kinder (or at least more merciful)
moments.
‘If you have any…’ Quistis mused.
Don't
fool yourself girl.
Shiva said.
'And why not?' she asked her alter ego.
Because
it is a curse. She knows it, why else won't she go home?
'She says she isn't ready yet.'
That’s
a pathetic excuse and you know it. She just doesn't want to be seen. She'll have
to live like that for the rest of her life, never knowing peace, never knowing a
place she can call 'home', or people she could call 'family'.
‘Why won’t you go away?’ she asked
Shiva pleadingly.
Because I’m you. I’m that little bit of your mind that tells you to murder and kill, and will love it when you do.
‘I’m not like that!’ Quistis screamed
to the air.
You could be.
I won’t let you do those things!’ she
shouted to herself.
You day you’ll have to.
‘I’ll kill you!’
YOU CAN’T!! Shiva said gleefully.
Quistis composed herself. 'You're a mean, sadistic, murderous bitch, and
one day I'm going to find a way to destroy you,' she said.
One;
you know I am, and two; you can try. Here she comes.
'Where?'
We're
using the same damn pair of eyes aren't we? Shiva said testily.
Quistis looked in front of her. As usual, while she had been talking,
Shiva had been looking around for Rikku's form. Whatever her more psychotic
faults, she made a good partner/alter-ego/schizophrenic manifestation.
Quistis looked out towards the west, and saw a very small shape
approaching her rapidly. She smiled slightly. Rikku had taken to flying like a
duck to water, and reveled in flying as far as she could. One day she was going
to be seen, and then all hell would be raised. Rikku flew in fast and low,
flaring up at the last minute. She slid for several seconds on the slippery
rooftop, and was on the verge of sliding over the other edge of the stadium roof
when she slid to a halt, not even one meter away from Quistis.
Rikku beamed. 'Impressed?' she asked.
Quistis looked at Rikku. Death and the new guardian-genes had changed
the girl so much that she was only barely recognizable as the old Rikku. Wrapped
up in her brown robe and hood, she could pass for human as long as she hid her
hands and feet. However, once you looked at her minus the robe, things got
weird. Her entire body was cris-crossed with over-lapping scars, a memento of
her first death under the Moonflow, crushed and shredded by metal from her
imploding submarine, and the new Guardian genes had turned these scars into
black ruler-lines across her torso. This was less pronounced on her face, but
she had one thin black line going all the way down from her right temple, down
past her eye, and all the way down to her foot, which was painfully visible. Her
arms had mutated, so that where her fingers had been, there were now three thick
and sharp claws, one roughly where her middle and index finger had been, another
where the little and forth one had been, and an opposable one where her thumb
had been. She could grasp with them, but she could no longer operate complex
machinery. Her feet were much the same, changing a couple of inches from the
ankles into two more claws that were flat on the bottom, and just as sharp. Her
palms and ankles were wrapped in brown bandages, as shoes and gloves no longer
fitted around them, and the claws had no feeling in them, being made of solid
bone that was harder than diamond. Her skin had hardened; able to turn away a
copper knife, and her usual healthy complexion had lightened somewhat, as if she
needed to spend more time in the sun.
It was her face that had changed the most though. Her hair had remained
much the same as always, although were once it had been perfectly blonde, it was
now streaked with lines of black and white throughout. Her eyes were the things
that grabbed your attention and refused to let go. The red spirals on a black
background were striking, to say the least. The wings were topped with claws,
and they looked more-or-less exactly like Bahamut's ones.
'You want to work on your landings a bit more. More control and less
barreling-in-at-top-speed-and-hope,' she replied.
Rikku crossed her arms and arched one eyebrow. 'You seem to be
forgetting Kilika.' she said.
Quistis winced. When they had both been flying in to the water-town ,
barely six months after their wings had grown, Quistis had mis-calculated her
landing, flaring too soon and had stalled straight into the ocean.
'I learned my lesson. Evidently you didn't. Wait until you fall into the
ocean and ruin your flight profile.' She had been grounded for days, waiting for
her wings to dry off in the sun, fortunately something Kilika had plenty of.
Rikku looked over Quistis at her
wings. 'Why did I get these
while you got those?' she asked enviously.
Quistis smiled at her softly. It was a constant source of irritation to
Rikku that she had grown wings that were so much like dragon wings, right down
to the three-pronged claws on the top, while Quistis had grown what appeared to
be blue-purple translucent filmy ones, almost butterfly-like.
'Because I'm a Guardian, and I can...' Quistis began, only to be cut off
my Rikku.
'...Alter your appearance, yeah, you told me. But I'm one as well, so
why can't I?' she asked.
'You're only half-guardian, if that. I only changed your body enough to
let you live, not to give you superhuman powers.' Rikku narrowed her eyes at
Quistis.
'Meanie,' she said, sticking her tongue out at her. She looked over
Zanarkand. I seem to spend all my time on
top of tall buildings now. She thought to herself. She stopped smiling, and
looked across at Quistis. 'Is this it?' She asked. Quistis' back was to her, and
Rikku couldn't see her face when she answered, or the look of intense sadness
that flashed across it.
'Yes,' Quistis replied.
'Are you sure this was a good idea?' Rikku asked.
'I have to know what happened,' Quistis said. She had found the wreckage
near the center of the city, it was near unrecognizable, but she had seen the
remains of the anti-gravity-wheel, and she knew where she was. 'They must have
de-activated it for a city of this size and sophistication to grow up around it.
I wonder why? They must have known they were giving up their maneuverability
when they landed.'
'I'm sorry,' Rikku said gently.
'You have nothing to be sorry for. I just wish I knew what had happened
to them all...' Quistis slammed her hand into the ground, nearly putting a hole
in the ceiling they were standing on. 'I
need to KNOW!' she shouted at the sky.
Five years. Five years since Sin had been killed, Four-and-a-bit since
both Quistis had been freed and Rikku had died for a second time. After she had
agree to go with Quistis, Rikku had spent most of that time searching for this
'Garden' Quistis spoke of with such longing, and which Shiva spoke of with such
hatred. Rikku wondered how the woman (women) put up with it. Having one outlook
on life was sometimes hard enough, being a schizo and having two would have been
straining the limits of sanity if Quistis hadn't broken them already, although
you couldn't tell unless you got real close. Rikku tried to avoid that.
She looked across at Quistis. 'What about records?' she asked. Quistis
had told her that Garden had a library, and libraries meant records and books,
right?
Quistis shook her head. 'Dust,' she said. 'I didn't really expect them
to last two-hundred-thousand years.'
Rikku tried to think of something else. 'Wafers?' She asked as a
thought.
Quistis looked up at her. 'What are those?' she asked curiously.
'The Al Bhed use them sometimes, we don't know how to make them. They've
got this weird sliding bit at the top, and... What?' she asked.
Quistis had suddenly jerked her head upwards. 'And a black shiny floppy
disk inside?' she said quickly.
'Yes, you know them?' Rikku asked.
Quistis shut her eyes. Finally. The woman thought. Over
four years. Hyne, if you exist in this time, thank you. 'Where are they
kept?' she asked the young girl. Rikku suddenly looked downcast. 'What?' Quistis
asked warily.
'They keep them all in the airships,' Rikku replied.
Quistis sighed. On
second thought, I take that last comment back; you're a mean bitch. Why did
everything she needed have to be under armed guard? She looked across at Rikku,
a look of confidence on her face that she didn't feel in her heart.
'Then we go and get them. The Garden has machines..,'
Quistis began, only to be put off.
'Has what?' Rikku asked, puzzled by this
familiar-sounding word.
'Machina,' Quistis clarified. 'Machines that can access
the stuff on those disks.'
'Great!' Said Rikku happily. 'Maybe we can find out
what happened to your friends!'
'Maybe,' she allowed grudgingly. The something else
occurred to her. 'Where are these airships kept?' she asked slowly.
Rikku did not notice her tone. 'They're kept in The Lab
at Luca!' she said. Then she realised what she had just said. 'Oh...'
'Exactly. Are you prepared to risk it?' She asked.
Rikku looked at Quistis, and the older Guardian had to
strain to hear her. 'Yes.' she whispered.
'What about your friends? Your family?' Quistis asked
gently. 'Are you ready for that yet?
What will happen when Rikku turns up after four years looking like you do now?'
Rikku did not answer for a few minutes, then; 'No...'
she said quietly. Nothing was said for several minutes.
Quistis could hear the re-construction personnel below,
beginning the gigantic task of rebuilding the once-great city. She could see the
monsters (Fiends! She chided herself)
roaming the slopes of Mt Gagazet to the south, she felt the wind blow through
the stands of the old ruined stadium right below them, and still all was
silence.
After what seemed like an eternity, Rikku turned back
to Quistis, a hard resolve in her eyes that, even changed as they were, Quistis
could still recognise. 'Lets go,'
she said. She made to jump over the edge of the building. Just before she
approached the edge, she turned her head back towards her new friend. 'Rikku is
dead,' she whispered sadly. She jumped off into the sky.
Quistis walked up to the edge just in time to see Rikku
pull out of her dive and glide off towards Luca. She thought about what Rikku
had told her about her friends, and frowned. Quistis knew what it was like to be
changing into something other than human, something some others were afraid of,
even hated. But unlike Rikku, Quistis had lived in a society that saw monsters (Is
that what we were? Quistis thought to herself) like her as part of everyday
live, as helpers, friends or teachers, not merely as horrors to be killed at the
earliest opportunity. As Quistis followed Rikku off the edge, and began her
fall, a thought occurred to her. As she pulled out of her own dive, catching the
thermals and heading south, she thought about their similar situation.
Unsent
Al Bhed half-demon bitch, Shiva said from within her mind.
'Shut up,' Quistis told herself, 'it's not like we gave
her a choice.'
A woman from another era, whose world was now merely
memories and ruins, and a twice-dead girl who could never return home. It was
sad but true, and she knew why Rikku had agree to go with her that day by the
sphere-pool over four years ago. Not out of pity, or to learn what she was
becoming. It was simply a matter of belonging
somewhere. Sad but true;
Each of them had no one but the other.
Chapter
9: Guard Duty
'Why the hell they gotta keep this place so hot, ya'
know?' Barnardo asked to his partner.
'Damned if I know,' Francisco replied.
Barnardo grumbled to himself. Guarding the airships was
a high-prestige job, but as boring as the Al Bhed could make it. Technically
they didn't even need to be here, the machina guards could take down intruders
faster than the two guards could turn their heads. The Neo-Yevon Coalition had
tried five times so far to destroy or steal these things, calling them 'the
tools of our oppressors.' So far, Al Bhed 5 - NYC 0. But someone high up had
decided that these airships were now hot property, and decided that the guards
should have some human representation. Although they didn't say that of course,
like the Al Bhed weren't human or something. That would be just plain insulting,
and dangerous. So here they were, guarding something unstealable.
'I mean, it's not like you could just pawn them off ya'
know?' he said.
'Will you stop saying 'ya' know' after everything?' she
replied testily. She was sure he did it just to annoy her.
'Sorry, family trait,' he replied apologetically. She
wasn't looking at him anymore though. 'Watcha looking at?'
'Quiet!' she snapped.
'Sorry,' he whispered.
'Did you hear that?' she asked.
'No,' he said simply. She sighed.
'Yevon help us if anyone attacks while you're
on guard duty.'
'It's not my fault if you've got better... what was
that?' he said suddenly.
'You hear it too,' she said.
He did. They both readied their weapons, fully alert
now. No-one had told them of any night-time repairs, so anyone besides them was
not supposed to be here. They both started to walk off towards the airship
walkway, whoever was there; they were not
getting past him.
'Where's Marcellus?' she asked quickly.
'He should report in in a few minutes.' he whispered
back.
'No he won't.' Francisco whirled around to look for the
source of the voice, and saw...
Barnardo turned to look at his partner, who was on the
floor and screaming, clutching her head. He started over to help her, and was so
horrified that he failed to see the claw reach around his neck into it touched
him lightly on the throat.
'Don't try and answer, just nod. Understand?'
Nod.
'There are two ways this could go. There is the easy
way. That is very easy. Understand?'
Nod.
'You won't even feel
the hard way. You want to try the easy way?'
Nod nod nod.
'Good. You go help your friend and just keep looking
away from the ship. Understand?'
Nod. The claw relaxed, and Barnardo ran towards his
partner, now whimpering on the floor. He felt the stranger pass, and did not
look up. Then he felt another stranger pass, and a blast of cold air made his
shiver. He could feel the cold stranger's gaze on his, and concentrated with all
his heart on Francisco. He felt the stranger stop behind him, and lay a hand on
his shoulder. He felt this shoulder freeze up in seconds. Barnardo whimpered,
but did not reach towards the person to remove the hand. He looked around for
his machina weapon and saw it lying on the ground about a metre away from him.
If he could reach for it, he might be able to...
'Pick it up. Please.'
All thoughts of resistance stopped at that instant. The
voice was so cold and menacing that his very muscles screamed at his brain to listen
to it! He shut his eyes tightly. After a few seconds, he felt the pressure
and pain on his shoulder relax, and the strange woman walked off towards the
airship. He did not look round, but picked up Francisco and head for the
infirmary.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Was that absolutely necessary?' Rikku asked Shiva.
'No, but it was fun,' replied the blue Guardian.
Rikku shivered. It was not the first time she had had
to deal with Quistis' dark side, but she never liked doing it. This half of the
woman's personality suited her appearance. Shiva was cold, and she seemed to revel in causing pain. Rikku stayed quiet as
the two women walked to the ramp into the ship.
Shiva turned to her. 'Go. Find the files, they'll keep
them somewhere secure.' She walked off.
Rikku remembered something and turned back to Shiva.
'What did you do with the third guard?' She shouted to the Guardian as she
walked off, dreading the answer.
Shiva smiled at her. 'Don't worry; your precious
conscience can stay quiet. He's alive. He'll limp for a while, but he's alive.'
She walked around the corner, leaving Rikku to explore the depths of the
airship, looking for the records of a two-hundred-thousand year-old floating
military academy. Without a map.
Cred.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In his room in the Luca government centre, Cid was
woken by the ringing of his Personal Hailing System, and reached across the bed
for his overalls, searching in his pocket to answer it. 'Yes!?' he shouted
snappily down the 'phone', as the younger Al Bhed had dubbed them. I
have had three hours sleep, if this isn't important, I swear... The response
stopped this train of thought dead.
'Sir, this is Barnardo at the Airship Hanger. We have a
situation.'
Chapter
10: Intruder Alert
Whose
idea was it to build the airship hanger in Luca?
Cid walked down the stairway towards the ramp, talking
on his phone as he went. He was so engrossed in his conversation with the
security chief that he failed to notice Yuna walk right into him. 'Sorry kid,'
he said, and helped up the dazed ex-summoner.
'S'OK' she said sleepily. 'What're you doing up so
late?'
'I could say the same for you,' he said.
'Couldn't sleep, went for a walk,' she said.
'Someone's trying to break into the Airship Hanger and
has incapacitated three guards. According to the one guy still able to stand,
they shot the girl with some kind of mind weapon, she's still at the hospital.
We don't know what happened to the third,' he said quickly. 'I'm heading down
there with a backup force now.'
'Let me come!' Yuna said instantly.
Cid shook his head. 'No, it's too dangerous, whoever
they were, they overpowered three guards without even letting them see their
faces.'
But Yuna was adamant. 'I've fought more battles than
most of them! I may not be able to summon anymore, but I can still heal people!'
Cid looked at her for a few seconds, and then seemed to make up his mind.
'OK then. But stay out of the way understand?' It still
amazed Yuna how her uncle could treat her like a five year-old, and get away
with it as well.
She sighed. 'Yes uncle,' she said tiredly.
'Come on then, the others will meet us there.' A
thought occurred to him and he spoke back into his phone. 'And will someone
switch the alarms on in areas surrounding
the hanger? We don't want them to know we're coming' He said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So,
they did the airship open, they just didn't tell anyone.
Rikku looked up at the ceiling. She could have sworn
she could hear something... She decided it must be nothing. She went back to
searching through the mess in front of her. When she had uncovered this
airship (or 'The Dragon' as the others had called it), they had left a lot of
the stuff inside, simply because they had no idea what was vital to the running
of the ship, and what would cause the ship to stop working if removed. She
whispered to herself as she searched. 'Come on, be still here... AHA!' she
shouted triumphantly. She got her hands around an old black leather case. She
tore it out of the rest of the detritus with a heave, and fell backwards
clutching it. Whatever it was, it was heavy,
and at least as tall as her.
'Well done.' Rikku turned around, and saw Shiva
approaching her from the doorway. 'You found it. How did you get around without
the map?' she asked.
'Badly,' Rikku replied. 'Why does every damned room
have to look the same?'
'Because when they built the Ragnarok, the engineers
used up all their creativity making it work. Interior design was a distant
second. Give me that.' She took the bag from Rikku' claws almost effortlessly.
'Hey..,' she began to say, then decided against it.
Quistis (Shiva!
she reminded herself) walked out of the room, Rikku following. She had found
this place by climbing up a small shaft, into what appeared to be the ruined
cockpit, and had seen a handle sticking out of the rubble. She ran to catch up
with the older woman. 'So how come this is still here when the records back at
this 'Garden' in Zanarkand were ruined?' she asked.
Shiva didn't even break stride while she answered. 'The
Ragnarok is a spaceship, and therefore airtight. No air, no decomposition. You
people must have been the first ones to open it up in thousands of years.'
'...K... Why're... we...walking so... fast?' She
panted. Half-Guardian or no, they were moving very quickly.
'Because the alarm has been raised.' She looked at
Rikku's expression. 'Not in here.
Probably in the accompanying areas though. They don't want us to know they're
coming. Didn't you hear?' She looked at Rikku's expression again. 'Girl, you had
better learn to trust your instincts now, they're obviously more intelligent
than you...' Rikku scowled at her, but she carried on heedless. '...So if you
want to avoid a reunion with your old friends, I suggest we hurry.'
'Can't we... just... fly out?' Rikku asked eventually.
'If you can fly through a solid steel ceiling, be my
guest. The only way out is the way we came in; the back door. The front will be
guarded.'
Finally they reached the entrance. About
time. How big was that ship? Rikku
thought to herself. She turned back to the ramp in time to see Shiva kick a man
in battle gear right in the chest and send him flying down the ramp.
Shiva turned to her and narrowed her eyes. 'I told you
you should have moved faster.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cid watched the soldier poke his gun and head around
the doorway leading into the hanger, then hold up his hand and gesture towards
himself. All clear. The other soldiers
all walked into the hanger, covering every side of the room in an instant.
Yuna looked on, whoever had trained these guys, she
wished they would have trained the Yevon guards as well.
Cid looked at her. 'Good aren't they?' he said.
Yuna looked back. 'Who are they?' she asked.
'Special Attack Squad.' he replied. 'We trained them
for special types of mission; recon, search-and-destroy, kidnapping, basically
anything that normal soldiers couldn't handle. Nice eh?'
Yuna had to agree. Looking at them in their all-black
bodysuits, gas-masks, and short, squat weaponry, she would not have wanted to
send even the best Crusaders up against these guys. She watched them as they
moved around the room, never in groups smaller than two, one covering the other,
eyes scanning the darkness for threats.
Someone coughed. The two closest to the corner whirled
around, guns trained on the source of the noise. Yuna watched as the nearest SAS
soldier walked in a half-crouch up to the corner where the cough had emanated.
She saw him put his hand up and visibly relax. Then he turned and shouted to Cid
and Yuna. 'Sir! You might want to take a look at this!'
Cid walked over, and was confronted by what looked like
a perfect ice-sculpture of a man. 'Marcellus!' Cid shouted.
Yuna looked across at him. 'The third guard?' she
asked.
Cid didn't look away from the Marcellus-Popsicle.
'Yeah, but what did this to him?' he
asked incredulously. One soldier began hauling away at the frozen guard, taking
him to the near infirmary. Then another one of the soldiers shouted at Cid from
near the red dragon-airship.
'Sir! The ramp is open!'
Cid shouted something in Al Bhed to the guard and he
nodded back.
Yuna looked at him again. 'Is that significant?'
'Very. Whoever they were, they knew the passcodes to
get in. No-one knows the passcode to
get in except me and the technicians. It's not me in there, so whoever is doing
it, they got the passcode off a member of staff, which means informants,' he
explained.
'What did security cameras see?' Yuna asked. Cid
smiled, she was becoming quite the technophile. Also, he hadn't asked that yet.
'Good idea, let me check.' He reached into his pocket
and spoke rapid Al Bhed into his phone for a few seconds, then listened for the
reply. He didn't seem to like what he heard, as he scowled and jammed the phone
back into his pocket. 'They say two people in long hooded robes went into the
dragon-ship about a half-hour ago. They didn't look at the cameras, so they
didn't get the faces.' Cid said to Yuna.
She nodded. Whatever those small rectangular things
were, she wanted one. Then another
thought occurred to her. 'Did they see the twp people leave the ship?'
Cid looked at her in silence for a few seconds, then
brought out his phone again and asked a single question. Then he turned back to
Yuna. 'No. They're still in there.' Cid turned to shout a warning to the two
guards near the airship ramp, just in time to see one of them get kicked in the
chest and fly ten metres backwards onto the hanger floor. His partner
immediately shouted something in Al Bhed and started firing her weapon up into
the airship.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikku and Shiva sheltered on either side of the rampway
doors as bullets ricocheted around them. Rikku covered her ears with her claws,
near-deafened by the sound of many sharp moving pointy things ripping through
the air at super-sonic speeds around her. Shiva merely crossed her arms and
looked bored with the whole thing. She looked across at Rikku and put her hand
next to her ear semaphore style, telling her to listen.
Rikku closed her eyes, it was easier that way. Quistis
had taught her the basics of this, but she still hadn't got it down quite right.
She concentrated, and immediately heard the voice of Shiva in her head.
Are
they completely crazy? Or just imbeciles? She asked Rikku
mockingly. She had to concentrate to reply. Quistis had told her, when they had
been searching for Garden, about the great telepathic 'network' that let all
Guardians communicate over the entire world. Rikku couldn't do it while doing
anything else, but she was learning. Quistis/Shiva could do it without even
thinking about it of course. Rikku focussed on Shiva and tried to reply.
I
think they may just be upset. You did kick that man in the chest, she sent back.
His
fault, he looked up the ramp, I didn't make him. A few bruised ribs, he'll be fine in a couple of days.
Those
are SAS! They'll recognise me!
Why?
And, more importantly; who? Rikku explained on for two
minutes about who they were. Interesting.
Who trained them?
I did!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Stop stop stop!'
Cid screamed at the men. It took a while but eventually the sound of gunfire
stopped. 'Are you people crazy?! You want to destroy the thing? That guy OK?' he
asked the medic who was looking over the downed trooper.
'Few bruised ribs. He'll be fine in a while.'
Yuna rolled her eyes. All the healing magic in the
world couldn't heal bones or internal injuries. That had to be done the slow
way.
'Get him out of here.' Cid ordered.
'Er, sir?' the female SAS commando asked slowly.
Cid whirled around to look at her. 'What?' he asked
empty air. He looked around for the soldier who had spoke to him, and saw them
all hiding behind the hanger equipment. Yuna waved at him from behind one of the
soldiers who was covering the entrance.
'You think you might want to take cover, sir?' she said
gently.
Cid realised his mistake instantly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Hold on, there's one. Don't worry, I've got him...'
Shiva raised her arm.
Rikku looked at the intended target just in time to
realise who she was looking at. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought
desperately at Shiva; NO!
The thought arrived in Shiva's mind with such force
that her aim wavered, and the stream of icicles that would have went right into
Cid's chest flew off towards the ceiling, where they shattered. Shiva glared
daggers at her.
'That's my father!'
Rikku whispered through her teeth. Shiva only looked slightly apologetic
however.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cid saw the icicles heading straight for him, although
they only registered on his mind as sharp pointy objects travelling towards him
at high speed. The next thing he felt was the female soldier's arm pulling him
away and downwards into cover.
'Sorry about that sir,' she whispered apologetically.
'Who are you?' Cid asked quietly.
'Alexia sir, technically in command here.'
Cid raised his left eyebrow at her. 'Technically?' He
said questioningly.
Alexia pointed to the prone trooper being carried off
towards the medical post. 'Well, since Commander Ivan seems to be currently
incapacitated,' she said. 'And since I'm the second-in-command, I'm the ranking
officer here. Permission to use non-lethal artillery?' she asked. This last bit
caught Cid off-guard.
'What? No! Why?' he shouted.
'Whoever they are, we can't get at them from this angle
sir. We'll have to flush them out.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shiva cocked her ear in the direction of the ramp.
'I did not like the sound of that.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It took about five minutes to convince the other Al
Bhed that, yes, it was necessary to
fire off high-velocity gas-bombs into their airship. Amid much screaming and
gnashing of teeth by the technicians, shouting about irreparable damage, the
cannon was sent for from the Luca armoury. Alexia got off her radio from the
other guys.
'Guys!' All the soldiers looked at her. She made
several quick hand movements. As if on cue (which it was) Alexia grabbed Cid's
hand, the other soldier grabbed Yuna's, and the entire team moved off, putting
as much space between themselves and the ramp as possible. As a precaution,
Alexia handed Cid a gas-mask, and threw one to Yuna.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikku watched the soldiers scatter away from their
position.
'And I do not like the looks of that.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuan turned her head as the huge double doors opened
wider. So far there had not been much to do. Apart from the initial kick from
the intruder, and the rain of sharp things, nothing much had happened. She
looked at the soldier above her. He seemed to be icy-cool, he hadn't even broke
a sweat. They must get these guys to
train the others. Maybe they could finally clear out Bevelle from the control of
the NYC. She heard footsteps, and turned in time to see the most complicated
piece of equipment she had ever seen be carried into the room by a white-haired
man with no gas-mask. She heard Cid ask Alexia what the hell it was.
'Artillery,' the SAS leader replied.
Cid looked incredulous. 'But that guy is carrying
it! Artillery is big, needs wheels, and has gun-barrels thicker than your arm!'
'Not this one. We've been working on it for a while.
Sergeant Zion says they've been making good progress.'
The trooper, presumably Sergeant Zion, waved at them
solemnly and brought the massive gun to bear on the ramp.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shiva turned to Rikku, who was staring at the thick
mass of barrels and stocks that just had
to be a very powerful hand-cannon.
'And I sure as hell
do not like the looks of that!'
'Run?' Rikku suggested.
'Yes, I think so.' They both took off deeper into the
airship.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuna covered her ears as the trooper fired the cannon
right into the rampway of the airship, angled so that it wouldn't bounce right
back out again. They waited for a few seconds. Yuna had a special fear of Al
Bhed artillery, ever since the battle against Sin at Mi'ihen. Yuna waited for
the huge explosions that always
followed artillery blasts. All that came after a few seconds however, was a hiss.
She looked up the trooper in front her questioningly.
'Gas,' he replied. 'We want them alive. Not in chunks.'
Alexia turned to the others. 'IR goggles down,
gas-masks on, and check your targets, these things are a bit fuzzy when it comes
to telling between shapes. Authentication word is 'Thunder', reply is 'Flash'.'
She turned to a puzzled Yuna. 'Standard tactic, you shout the authentication
word to the guy in front of you, and if they say anything other than the correct
reply, they aren't one of your people. Saves people from accidental friendly
fire.'
'Who thought that up?' Yuna asked. She could have sworn
that the soldier looked sad for a second, but then it was replaced by the normal
emotionless mask.
Alexia lowered her gas-mask, and began to approach the
ramp into the airship. 'An old friend. She's dead now.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shiva stopped running. Rikku turned to her to ask why,
but Shiva beat her to it.
'No explosion,' she said wonderingly.
Then Rikku remembered something, and mentally kicked
herself.
'Gas!' she said.
Shiva looked at her. 'Clarify,' she said coldly.
'They can't come in, we can't get out, so they knock us
out with gas-shells. Tysh! How did I forget that?' She looked across at Shiva,
who was smiling to herself. 'What?' she asked cautiously.
'I have an idea. How well-preserved was this ship?'
'As well as you could expect of something that's lain
at the bottom of an ocean for two-hundred-thousand years,' she replied.
Shiva grinned wider. 'Show me where that room was you
found with the windows, I have an idea where it is, but they appear to have
re-designed the interior layout in the two hundred millennia I was gone.'
Rikku started to walk off in the direction she knew the
place to be. Shiva put her hand on her shoulder to stop her. Well, she waved
her hand in the general vicinity of
Rikku's shoulder, but it was enough. She turned back around, to see Shiva
smiling that nasty smile again.
'Parting shots?' she asked. Rikku sighed.
'Why not...'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuna and Cid watched the SAS soldiers move up next to
the ramp, covering all angles so that there was no chance of being surprised.
That said, they still couldn't see a damn thing, the smoke and gas obscuring the
interior of the airship. Yuna sighed, for her first para-military operation,
everything so far had been fairly dull, interspaced with occasional seconds of
terror. No-one had told her that this was usually how these things went.
One of the troopers approached the ramp and stared into
it for a while. He could swear... he raised his hand, and all the others
covering him raised their weapons and clicked off the safeties.
'Tell me what you see,' Alexia commanded.
'Two figures standing at the top of the ramp. They're
not moving,' he said. ' I can't...'
'Can't what?' she asked.
'Something's wrong, these damn goggles are
malfunctioning.'
Alexia looked sceptical. 'Are you sure? Nothing should
be able to interfere with these except a strong gravity field, and... HIT
THE DECK!' She screamed at everyone, before grabbing Cid and Yuna and
pulling them down, right before everything went to hell.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikku concentrated on the figure standing in front of
the ramp. Splaying out her claws, she closed her eyes and remembered what
Quistis had taught her.
You're
a half-Guardian of Gravity. Maybe Time as well, but right now that's not
important. Look at the space in front of you. You can shape it, bend it to your
will.
She focussed on the air that her claw was centred
around. She felt it tense, as if space was creasing in on itself.
Think
of it like a slingshot. Only faster and will the ability to punch through
several feet of steel.
She felt the area of space grow more focussed, and
begin to vibrate. She knew that the more it vibrated, the faster it would travel
when it left her hand. Draw it back.
Don’t lose control of it, or it'll rebound in your face, and you'll get the
worst and possibly last headache of your life.
Rikku opened her eyes again and saw the man straight in
front of her. She whispered to herself as she drew her hand back. 'Draw back the
fist, and the projectile..,'
…And
throw it into the punch!
Rikku threw her hand forward, and the gravity 'bolt'
rocketed right to where the man was standing. It would have impacted him low in
the chest, if...
'...HIT
THE DECK!' Someone screamed from outside.
...he
hadn't threw himself out of the way at the last minute.
Rikku saw the entire squad dive for cover, and
recognised the voice of the person who had screamed the warning. Alexia!
She smiled. Unfortunately, Shiva could also see her expression.
'What are you so happy about?' she asked suspiciously.
'Nothing. Are you going to do this or not?' Rikku
asked, annoyed that the older woman had picked that up. Shiva hissed, and held
out her arms. Rikku did the same. Firing these gravity bolts was like playing
the drums; everything was easy once you got into the rhythm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acting seemingly as one single entity, the entire SAS
squad dived for cover as blue glowing shards of ice and what looked like small
areas where the air had been folded
flew through the air towards them in some kind of malevolent and spiky rain.
Yuna, Cid and Alexia all dived behind the same group of crates, Ivan and the
heavy-weapons-guy Zion behind a different one. Whatever those things were, they
obviously weren't armour piercing, else the crates would not have provided much
protection. Cid had to hold Alexia down with both arms. 'Let... me... go!'
she said as she struggled with the older Al Bhed.
'Kid, you are far to young to die, take it from me;
wait until old age approaches, then you'll have both means and motive.'
Alexia laughed and stopped struggling against him, then
turned to face him. 'Those... people...
are attacking my unit! I can't just sit here!' she said.
'Sure you can,' he said cheerfully. 'They are.' And
sure enough the entire squad had taken shelter behind various containers,
crates, and barrels. Yuna tapped him on the arm. 'What?' he asked.
'They stopped,' she said simply.
Cid poked his head up, and saw other squad members
doing the same. He turned to Alexia. 'Soldier?' he said formally.
She went to attention. 'Sir!' she replied, also
formally..
'Go and arrest those people,' he said.
Alexia smiled. 'It will be my pleasure.' She drew her
weapon and moved up to the ramp, motioning for her teammates to follow. Then the
lights came on, but they were lights attached to the airship.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikku sat in the seat next to Shiva, who was flipping
switches on the board in front of her. Whatever the Ice Guardian was doing,
Rikku didn't know, although she had a good clue. 'What are you doing?' she
asked. The reply chilled her.
'Powering up the engines.' Shiva replied.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Er, sir? I gotta baaaaad feeling about this.' One
trooper said.
Alexia nodded. 'Ok, back up to the hanger door people.'
Then she shouted to Cid; 'Any idea what they're doing in that thing?' Cid shook
his head. 'OK, grab Lady Yuna and head out, we'll take it from here.'
Cid nodded and took Yuna's hand, heading toward the
exit and the other SAS members. When they reached the door, they heard a low
rumbling coming from the arms and belly of the ship.
Alexia frowned and moved back towards the airship to
see what was happening.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Now what?' Rikku asked.
'Weaponry.' Shiva stated simply.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cid looked at the engines, and saw the tiny dot of
light in the centre, much like the first pinprick of light which signifies a
train approaching from the other end of a tunnel, and about as deadly. 'Alexia,
get away from there!' he shouted. The young soldier looked startled and began to
run back towards the hanger exit. The fact that she tripped and fell on the way
saved her life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikku saw a large crosshair appear on the viewscreen
right in front of her, and she turned to Shiva.
'I sure as hell hope you're not going to what I think
you're going to do,' she said. Shiva smiled, and placed the crosshairs on the
bulkhead hanger wall right in front of them. 'You are! Oh no, you are completely
craz...' Then she was hit by a burst of acceleration so intense that she was
thrown back into her seat. At the same time Shiva pressed the red button under
her left hand and the wall exploded in a shower of liquid steel.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuna and Cid covered their ears and shut their eyes as
the engines of the millennia-old airship roared to life. At the same time the
large cannon on the underside of the ship discharged itself right into the
opposite wall. Metal shards scythed throughout the entire hanger, passing
directly over where Alexia had been standing only seconds before. The soldier
put her hands over her head and began to crawl away from the twin suns of the
engines. Cid could not help but laugh as the airship brought it’s massive
hands from it’s undercarriage and used them to haul the entire ship along the
hanger floor. So that's what they're for!
he thought to himself. When it got to the wall, it engaged it's main thrusters
and blasted it's way through the hanger bulkhead, reducing the floor to a pool
of liquid metal and ruining equipment in a huge electric shockwave that damaged
sensitive machina for miles around. When Cid opened his eyes all he saw was the
hole in the wall, the shiny reflective surface of what had been the floor, the
figure of the airship, already a mere speck on the horizon, and a very
shell-shocked Alexia, lying on the floor of the hanger, eyes tightly shut. He
leaned back against the hanger doorframe and closed his eyes. He grabbed a rifle
on the way down as he lost consciousness. If anyone woke him up now, they had better have a damn good reason.