Echoes of the Past by Pierson
'You crazy bitch,' Rikku breathed. She was still staring at the viewscreen in front of her, not daring to actually believe what had just happened.
Shiva just smiled. 'Don't tell me you didn't enjoy that,' she said.
Rikku looked across at her, a look of thinly veiled hatred on her face. 'You nearly kill my father, you very nearly kill one of my oldest friends, then you ask me whether I enjoyed it!!' she screamed.
Still Shiva did not look around. 'Guess not then,' she said. Shiva caught something in her peripheral vision, and ducked, Rikku's claws scything through the air where her head had been a few moments ago. She looked back up, expressionless. Then she unbuckled her harness and began walking off towards the lift. Rikku looked puzzled and started to follow. Shiva slid down the lift-shaft and went into the main cargo-bay.
Rikku followed her in as the door cycled shut behind her. Shiva faced away from her, and she went up to the blue Guardian. 'Why are we here?' She asked, expecting a lesson or something.
'Because I don't want to risk damage to the equipment.' Shiva said. Rikku blinked.
Shiva spun around and planted her right foot firmly in Rikku's chest. The young girl/Guardian's eyes went wide and she flew backwards into the opposite wall with a clang of falling machinery. She started to ask why when she heard a familiar buzzing noise in front of her. She looked up to see the point of Shiva's Ice Blade against her forehead.
Shiva's eye's were dark-blue and staring straight into Rikku's red-spiral ones. 'That was a very stupid thing to do,' she said, and lunged with the sword.
Rikku closed her eyes, expecting the cold blade to pierce her skull any second. It never did. She looked back up and looked at Shiva. Her eyes were different now. Her sword arm was wavering inched from Rikku's scalp. She almost looked like she was fighting against something. Rikku heard a voice come from Shiva's mouth, it was very similar, but it wasn't Shiva's cold tones. It was another, softer voice. And angrier.
'You're... not... making me... do... THAT!' Rikku heard her say through clenched teeth. So, Shiva was fighting against something. Herself. Technically.
Shiva staggered backwards and collapsed onto her knees. Rikku stood back up, but when she put weight on her left leg it burned, so she sat back down and watched. Shiva clutched her head in her hands, and Rikku could hear her talking to herself. It always freaked her out watching this. It had only happened twice so far that she had seen. Shiva suddenly stopped swaying her head, and slowly got to her knees. She looked at Rikku. 'Rikku?' she whispered. Rikku smiled.
'Quistis. Welcome back.'
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Cid awoke with a splitting headache. He lay on... wherever it was that he was... and tried to sort out his swimming memory. Explosions, guns, engines, fire, airship.
The airship was gone!
'Cuh uv y pedlr!' Cid shouted, and sat up violently. He lay back down again immediately, thinking about being violently sick. They took my airship! He thought over and over. He heard a door whistle open, and turned his head to see Alexia walk in carrying a glass of something cloudy and a plate. He looked at her questioningly.
'Old family recipe, called Ycbneh. Clears up headaches like that.' She said. She snapped for fingers, the noise echoing in the room, and Cid winced. 'Sorry. Swallow them with water, don't chew unless you like the taste of diluted acid...' Cid took the pills and swallowed them without thinking. 'Or maybe not..,' Alexia finished.
Cid opened his eyes and looked at her. 'Alexia, you are a very talented woman,' he said.
'I do try sir,' she replied with a smile.
Cid smiled slightly, then heard the low thrum of the first airship's engine under his feet. 'What happened to the soldiers who got injured?' He asked, concern in his voice.
'Guard Marcellus has a cold, but otherwise was OK, and Commander Ivan got a few bruised ribs. Also he just found out that those people stole 'his' airship. Apparently he shouted. A lot.'
Cid winced. An SAS who lost his charge was going to be very, very angry. 'Where are we going?' he asked.
'Zanarkand,' Alexia replied.
'Why?'
'The transponder we planted on the Dragon airship is telling us where to go,' she said.
'And who's idea was that?' He asked.
'Guess.' Alexia smiled mischievously.
Cid made up his mind then. He got up and began to go for the door. 'Come with me. And, Miss Alexia,' he said.
'Corporal, actually. But, yes?'
'Tell your commander you just got reassigned to me.' She gaped at him. He smiled. 'Well, don't just stand there girl! Go find him!'
Alexia saluted and walked off to go find Ivan.
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'Rikku?' Quistis asked, dazedly.
'The one and only.' Rikku sighed, relieved at this reprieve from a third death.
'Sorry about that. I couldn't let her do that.' Quistis said slowly.
'S'OK.' Rikku said.
'No, it isn't. I nearly killed you.' The woman looked devastated.
'No, Shiva nearly killed me, there's a difference,' Rikku tried to clarify.
'I hate myself,' Quistis whispered quietly.
'Sorry? What was that?' Rikku asked, having not heard.
'Nothing.' Then Quistis smiled. 'We did it!'
Rikku grinned back, the adrenaline not having worn off yet. Not only had they beat the best Special Forces in Spira whilst outnumbered five-to-one, they had actually stolen a whole airship!
'Yeah,' she breathed. Now it was starting to wear off.
Quistis stood back up, her sword dissolving into bright points of light that flowed back into her arm. 'Lets go find out what we got,' she said.
'OK!' Rikku said cheerfully. Then she stopped. 'Who's piloting the airship?' she asked in sudden alarm.
Quistis smiled. 'Autopilot. It's taking us back to Balamb Garden. In Zanarkand. About 10 minutes till arrival.'
Rikku relaxed. Then she smiled at Quistis. 'Let me show you that bag I found. Follow me!' Rikku took off into the depths of the Ragnarok, Quistis following.
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'I'll be sorry to lose you soldier,' Ivan said apologetically from the railing.
'I'll be sorry to go sir,' Alexia replied.
She had found him on the observation deck where, so the stories went, the Eternal Guardians had fought Sin almost single-handedly. She waited. Commander Ivan was not known for his great conversation.
They had met at Mi’ihen, in the battle against Sin. They had both lost friends that day, and needed someone to talk to. They had met Cid soon after, when he had arrived to oversee the clearing of the wreckage and disposal of any machina still operational. Allies then or not, the Al Bhed could never allow the Yevonites easy access to their machina, which was basically the only thing which kept Yevon from wiping them off the face of the planet. Ivan had mused loudly near Cid what the outcome might have been if the troops had been specially trained, with real battle experience, instead of being Crusaders and Monks who had never seen real combat. Cid had taken the hint straight away and the next week, under cover of total secrecy, the SAS; the Special Attack Squad, had been created. Ivan had been given free reign to pick the best and brightest Al Bhed to train, and had immediately picked Alexia for his second, and Zion for his third, Zion having proved himself with his brave stand against Sin as one of the Beam Cannon crew that had nearly been crushed with their own cannon, though not before they finally drove Sin off. Other Al Bhed fighters had been snatched from their homes and offered a place on the team (most accepting instantly) until they had a 10-person, half-male-half-female-all-rock-hard kick-ass fighting squad. After testing themselves against the Omega Dungeon (though not Omega himself, they were utterly brilliant at what they did, but not suicidal. Maybe one day...) the SAS had been sent out into the field, with extensive training from Cid, Rin, and Rikku, the three being the acknowledged masters, the girl being the best fighter since Cid, even for one so young. She had also been one of Alexia's oldest friends. It was a damn shame.
Finally Ivan turned his head. 'Any idea where you're being reassigned to?' he asked.
'To Cid, sir,' she replied.
'Cut the 'sir' stuff will you? Since you've been moved off, you don't answer to me anymore.' She relaxed and sat down next to him. He didn't say anything for a second. Then; 'Where are we headed?’
'Zanarkand. If the Dragon-airship keeps on it's current course, it'll be there in a few minutes. We won't be far behind,' she said coldly.
'Good.' Even though he didn't show it, he was angry. It was an article of faith among the SAS troopers that they were the best, that no-one, never, not once, had ever outsmarted them. Yet here they were, chasing an airship stolen from under their noses, and in spite of their best efforts. Their professional pride bristled. This was a challenge they were damn well going to win.
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Quistis unzipped the bag. Rikku had been right when she said it was heavy, yet all it contained was a very long shiny box. She lifted it away from the leather bag carefully, whoever had put it here had to be long dead. To her eyes, there were no fingerprints on it less than one hundred ninety-nine thousand years old at least. It’s surface had a single break, running the entire length along it, on all sides. On the top was a keypad, with a display of letters only, no numbers, and what appeared to be a small LCD screen.
Which was glowing.
Quistis blinked. Nearly two hundred thousand years old, and it still has power? She wondered, amazed. Whatever Esthar (it just had to be Esthar) had thought up, this was beyond advanced. This was pure electric wizardry.
Quistis looked at it, and touched one of the keys. Immediately, a message scrolled across the screen; THE PAD. What pad? Quistis wondered, and then she looked down, and saw a small indentation next to the small keyboard, abut the size of a thumb. She immediately recognised it as a fingerprint-identifier. She held out her index finger and pressed it against the metal. A small red line moved across the indentation soundlessly, and the box gave a hiss, and Quistis had to remove her hand as the metal slid apart. Not all the way, but enough for her to get leverage to open it all the way. She smiled, and noticed something else. On the underside of the box was a small letter, placed on the inside so that the box had to be opened by the proper person before someone could get at it, her fingerprint. Whatever it was, it had been made for her eyes only. She picked it up and started reading, then stopped.
It was written in a hand that jumped out of her memory from over two hundred thousand years ago.
Her hands started shaking, and the airship chose that moment to come to a juddering stop. Wherever it had landed, the ground had not been too smooth. Rikku swung into view from the doorway. 'We're here.' Quistis just nodded, still too shocked to speak. She put the smooth metal box back into the bag and carried it off the airship, jumping over ruins and stunned construction worker who had been too close to the sound of the engines. She and Rikku ran off towards the shattered hulk located nearly in the centre of the city that Quistis had investigated the last time she was here.
The one that Quistis had positively identified as the wreckage of Balamb Garden.
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The SAS soldiers moved down the ramp of the ship fast, but with an unnatural gracefulness that made Yuna shiver slightly. They were in three teams of three this time, now that Alexia was with her, officially not part of the unit anymore, and unsure of her new status, indeed unaware even of what position she now held. When she asked Cid what she was now, he had merely told her to follow them and stick close to Yuna. Alexia had a sneaky feeling she had been appointed Yuna's new guardian. She kept her black suit and SAS badge though, not wanting to be disassociated with her former comrades-in-arms. Their weapons instantly ran over the dazed technicians, the Dragon airship, and any piece of rubble large enough to hide any would-be attacker. If a technician so much as raised a tool at them it might cost them their life, so wound-up were the troopers.
'It's so different,' Yuna breathed. This was the first time she had come to Zanarkand after Sin had been defeated. Now whole roads were clear, and some of the old buildings had been renovated for the workforce to life in. They had a lot of work to do to restore the once-great metropolis, but they were making a good start.
'The Al Bhed have been helping to fix the machina,' Alexia whispered to Yuna, who nodded back.
Zion, still carrying his massive multi-purpose rifle/cannon/piece-of-mobile-artillery like it was a toy, had gone over to a technician. He walked up to Ivan and whispered in his ear.
'The technicians says that two 'creatures', yes, that is what they said, came out of the ship and ran into that cone-shaped structure.' Zion said, indicating the said structure on the not-too-far-off-distance.
Ivan looked across at the others. 'Then we're not too far off. Lets get set up first, we're going in.'
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Quistis sat in what had been the main foyer, next to the remains of the lift. It was wrecked and debilitated, but it was her home. She sat looking at the box in front of her, once more out of it's bag, holding the piece of paper in her right hand, her mind churning over what Rikku had found.
It can't be, not after this long! But she looked back at the letter; it was a sentence, written in handwriting far too familiar to her. She heard a scrape of claws on marble, and saw Rikku walking up to her with a big grin on her face.
'This place is huge! Where were schools like this when I grew up?' she asked happily. She had been well impressed with the Garden, and had immediately ran off to explore the main areas from the central hub of the foyer. Quistis had just sat down on the steps near the elevator shaft (the elevator having vanished into dust by the looks of it) and read the note in her hand over and over.
'Welcome to my home. Sorry about the lack of a welcoming committee, but looks like that sort of thing is permanently off the cards.'
Rikku looked at her worriedly. 'Quisty..,' she started.
'Sorry. Don't worry, enjoy it, run around. Ignore me.'
But Rikku's eyes were unfocussed, as if listening to something only she could hear.
Quistis looked at her. 'What?'
'I think my hearing is getting better,' she said.
'Good, about time.'
'Can you hear that?' she said.
Quistis froze, then realised she could hear it too, though Rikku had picked it up before her. That was slightly embarrassing. She heard the noise, or rather, noises. It was the sound of about 12 people moving past what had been the entrance hall, very slowly. She looked up at Rikku.
'Looks like your friends are here,' she said quietly.
'We have to hide!' Rikku said.
'No.' Rikku looked down at her as if she was crazy.
'Are you crazy?!' she screeched. 'If they find us, they'll arrest us!'
Quistis could vaguely hear the footsteps on the entrance hall, but she couldn't move. All she could think about was the handwriting on the paper. How? They can't have known... She heard Rikku's voice as a dull throbbing in front of her, asking her to hide, but she couldn't think straight. She knew she was dangerously close to losing it, but she didn't care. All that mattered now was the box in front of her. The letter told her what it contained. And more, the handwriting of the letter told her who had written it. And when.
Squall.
Over two hundred thousand years ago.
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Cuh uv y pedlr! = Son of a bitch!
Ycbneh = Asprin
By the time Tyler had reached Zanarkand, a large crowd had gathered near the spiral-dome. He went over to the nearest watcher and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“What's going on?” he asked her back.
Her eyes lit up, as if she had been dying for someone to ask this question. “They've got these two criminals cornered in the big building, and these guys here,” she jerked her thumb at the heavily armed-and-armoured soldiers nearby, “are going to go in and arrest them! It's so exciting!”
Tyler shuddered inside. There hadn't been much violence in the last five years except the occasional NYC terror-attack. This was now officially an 'event'. The presence of those SAS troopers (they had to be SAS. Tyler had heard about them from his contact at the NYC, and swore that if he ever went up against one, he would run) just added that extra bit of romanticism and danger that normal people just couldn't get enough of for some reason. This girl's excitement at the goings-on was just another manifestation of this.
And who do you think will be shot first if those criminals figure they have nothing to lose? he thought to himself. In his experience, to criminals civilian casualties were inevitable rather than tragic. Tyler looked up at the building they were about to storm, and for a second his breath caught in his mouth. He remembered the pictured he had been sent from the contact at the NYC. Garden! It exists! The girl noticed his stare, and took to be confusion and/or wonder.
“They got this airship parked nearby as well! You should see it! It's all dragon-shaped and pointy!”
This only caused his heart to stop again. Trepe! Stealing the old Ragnarok, then coming straight to Garden, it has to be her! How much would he be rewarded if he could inform his leader that he had disposed of the Trepe woman and retrieved the legendary airship at the same time? He made his mind up, and went over to what he assumed to be the commander of his forces while desperately trying to remember what he had been told about the structure of Garden. “Excuse me!” he said. The man turned to him irritably. Tyler saw he had blue-swirled Al Bhed eyes and an unusual long black ponytail, not usual among Spirans, and that would mark him as either eccentric or weird.
“What!?” the man snapped. “Civilians stay behind us, I thought I told everyone that!” he began to turn back.
“I have information about the structure you are attempting to storm.”
The leader stopped and turned back. “What?” he asked, now curious. But still irritated.
“A full-frontal attack is not advised, there is too much open space in there to guarantee cover for all of your troops.” Tyler said. He could tell he had the man's interest. “You will have to go in through the front door yes, but then if you keep going you will find yourself in wide-open space. You would be advised to head off one of the sub-sections.”
“And you are?” he said, now curious.
Tyler made something up. “I'm an archaeologist. I've come from Luca to look at this building in particular, and I know its layout!” In actual fact, a real archaeologist, working for the NYC, had come and done that for him.
The leader, his shoulder-badge said 'IVAN', looked at him curiously. “Do you know about this building?” he asked.
“Oh yes, I know what goes where, where different rooms of note are, and,” he said for the clincher, “I know where to hide in it.” That decided the leader.
“You have a morbid fear of death?” he asked.
“No.” Tyler replied.
Ivan whistled, and another trooper looking over at him, called, according to his shoulder patch, ‘Zion’. He gestured to Tyler, and yet another trooper threw him a heavy jacket, which he barely caught.
“Armoured shirt. You wear that wherever you go,” Ivan said.
“And where are we going?” Tyler asked, knowing the answer and trying to stop himself from grinning.
“You're coming in with us.” He turned to a woman who was adjusting something on her arm. “Caryl?”
The black-haired woman – presumably Caryl – looked across. Like most Al Bhed, she had spiralled eyes, and hers were a deep chocolate-brown colour, which offset her hair well. “Yeah?”
“This guy is gonna show us the way in,” Ivan said.
“Well thank the Farplane for that, the damn scanner is broke,” Caryl said in disgust, throwing the object down onto the floor. Caryl turned to another woman, who had long reddish-brown hair and dark brown eyes. “Alexia?” Caryl asked the woman.
“Yeah?” Alexia replied.
“Tell the people who make these things to use better foam when they pack ’em,” Caryl said.
Alexia smiled. “Ask him yourself.” She pointed to another person, who waved back and continued checking his gun.
Tyler felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see a woman with long black hair streaked faintly with red and emerald-green eyes sizing him up. Unlike most Al Bhed eyes, hers were normal Spiran ones, and he wondered vaguely whether she was a half-breed. She reached behind her back and handed him a jacket from a small crate. “Put it on. It’ll keep you safe,” the woman said, and then looked at him. “Oh, sorry. Kirsten, medic,” she said, as way of introduction.
Tyler slipped the jacket over his head and was surprised how heavy it was. For the first time he wondered whether this was so smart, but then shook his head, as if to banish such doubts from his mind.
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'Quistis. Please.' Rikku said, much calmer than she felt. Quistis did not even stir. Rikku bent down and looked into her eyes, which did not respond. She waved her hand in front of them, clicked her claws near them, but they did not move off the letter in front of her. She decided to try another approach. 'Quistis, if they find us they'll take us, they put us in prison...' Quistis looked up, and Rikku's legs turned to jelly. The look of fear and hatred in Quistis' eyes at that word made her look like death incarnate. Blue skin or not.
'We can't have that now, can we?' Quistis whispered to herself. Only, Rikku knew it was not Quistis speaking. Shiva had taken over again, and Quistis had descended into her own subconscious. This was possibly the first time Rikku had been glad to see the dark side of Quistis.
'So we run?' Rikku asked, much quieter than she would have asked Quistis.
Shiva looked down at her. 'Yes. This place has heating ducts,' she said.
'So?' Rikku asked politely. She had learned from her experience on the Ragnarok that her luck was fast running out with this person.
'We can fit in them, they can't.' Shiva smiled nastily, and in spite of herself, Rikku did to.
'Oh yeah. This is going to be fun.' Then she turned serious again. 'No deaths though.'
Shiva sighed, but nodded. 'No deaths,' she agreed. Then they heard the announcement coming from the front entrance.
*ATTENTION SHIP-JACKERS!* A loudspeaker screamed at them.
Quistis rolled her eyes. 'Very OTT,' she said. Rikku just shrugged.
*EITHER YOU CAN COME OUT NOW AND BE ARRESTED, OR WE CAN STORM THE PLACE AND SHOOT YOUR ASSES. EITHER WAY IS FINE WITH US.* Quistis raised her arm in reply and sighted down it, firing a few shards of icicles down the main corridor. Both of them listened, and after a few seconds, both of them heard a thud and a muffled '...Ooof!...'
Zion. You always did advance too far ahead of the rest... Rikku thought. Then the loudspeaker roared to life again.
*SUIT YOURSELVES, YOU'VE HAD YOUR CHANCE. PREPARE TO BE SHOT AT!*
Quistis just laughed. She cupped her mouth in her hands and shouted down the corridor.
'You want us? Then come and GET us!'
Rikku suppressed a giggle. Either Shiva was becoming less serious, or she was saving up all her rage for the soldiers. She could guess. Rikku would hate to be them right now. 'You tell ‘em girl,' she told Quistis.
The older woman frowned and turned to her. 'Word of advice, change your voice slightly, you don't want anyone knowing you're alive just yet.'
Rikku thought about this, then nodded and held her claws up to her throat. She closed her eyes and created a small gravity whirl around her vocal cords. This would, Quistis had taught her, effectively change her voice beyond normal recognition. 'Lets play hide and seek,' Rikku suggested.
Shiva nodded, and they both tensed their legs and jumped into the shadows, just as the first beams of the torches shone into the hall.
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Zion lay gasping on the floor. Alexia ran over to his as Ivan shouted at the attackers down the hallway. Whoever they were, they were incredible shots. 'You OK?' asked Alexia, going against all evidence to the contrary.
Zion just waved in her general direction. 'Fine.' He wheezed through clenched teeth. 'That... stung... a bit...'
Alexia turned to the unit medic. 'Get him out of here.' She said. The medic, called Kirsten (which struck Tyler as a particularly inappropriate name for a soldier), nodded, and walked off with the wounded soldier leaning on her shoulder.
Tyler looked around at him as he was supported off. They couldn't even see the two criminals yet and already they were one person down. This did not bode well. He alone knew what they were up against, and he finally thought he knew who the second person was. He looked down at the small sidearm that Zion had dropped. He was not even going to think about trying to use that damn-huge cannon, but a pistol he could handle.
Alexia watched him pick it up, but did not say anything. She turned to face the main corridor and sighted down her gun. She raised her hand and made some quick flitting motions. Whatever they meant, the other soldiers immediately took positions on either side of the corridor, and began to move forwards, very slowly.
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'I think..,' Rikku began.
No talking. Use the network, Quistis thought at her.
Sorry. I think we got their attention.
Damn straight. What happened to Quistis back there? Shiva asked.
Rikku blinked. Shouldn't she know?
Shiva seemed to read her thoughts. It takes me a few minutes to assimilate her memories into my own. Being a Guardian brings a whole new level to split-personality disorder.
I don't know. She looked at that letter and seemed to just stop…
Wait... there!
Shiva looked around at where Rikku was indicating, and saw the thin beams of torchlight shine down the corridor. Typical Special Forces, torches powerful enough to illuminate the moon, but in a beam so thin it's next to useless anyway. SeeD was the same, Shiva thought to herself scornfully. She looked around at Rikku. Wait for my signal, and then run to the area that says 'Training Centre.' Don't let them catch you. I'll take the maintenance stairs to the MD level.
What level?
The lower floors, you fool. Shiva said testily. With her, the limit on politeness was a lot shorter.
Oh.
Ready?
Yeah.
Remember, no flying!
OK OK!
And… GO! Shiva shouted at her. They both jumped away, just as the soldiers opened fire on them.
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Ivan could see the two figures sitting on the steps. He immediately crouched down and held out an upraised fist. The other soldiers all stopped and dropped to their knees, training their weaponry on the two figures. Two soldiers were watching over Cid, Yuna and the archaeologist guy, who were pulled down to the floor. Ivan raised an outstretched hand and began to lower his fingers, one after the other. The others all gripped the triggers more firmly. At zero, they all started firing at the figures on the steps, which promptly jumped away. 'Cred!' he whispered. Back to square one. He turned to the squad's resident tech-head, Caryl, who looked down at the scanner she had attached to her forearm.
'One went right into mini-forest over there,' she said, not taking her eyes off the small readout, 'and the other one jumped down those... well, they look like access tubes, and is heading deeper into the building,' she said.
Ivan looked at the others and made his decision. 'Alexia, take half the team and follow the one who went right...'
'Actually, sir, I think I want that one to myself. She went into greenery, and I can track through forests with the best of them, the others would only make extra noise,' Alexia said, then she looked around at the other troopers. 'No offence guys.' They merely waved their hands in dismissal, and Ivan nodded.
'Fine. Cid?'
'Yeah?' the older Al Bhed asked.
'You, Yuna and the squad are with me on the left.'
'Sure. What about this guy?' Cid asked, pointing to Tyler.
'You, sorry what was your name?' Ivan asked.
'Tyler,' Tyler replied.
'Left,' he said.
Tyler grinned. Perfect. Quistis was his target. The other would be merely a bonus.
'Go!' whispered Ivan. The group split up, Alexia following the one who went into the greenery, the others going into the metal lower-levels, after the second fugitive.
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Rikku ran off towards the Training Centre, feeling rather than hearing the pursuing soldier. The clank of her boots on the floor, and the clinking of her weaponry gave her away before she had even seen her. So, you want to play with Rikku do you? Well, I can show you some new tricks now, Alexia. Rikku knew who was chasing her. She ran through the big double-doors in the corridor and ran into the foliage that now over-ran the training room. She swung up into the nearest tree and made sure her right arm was free.
Alexia walked into the room first, as she always had done. Rikku smiled. No-one was going to get killed here. If Shiva was anything, she was a murdering psychotic, but she kept her promises. Closing her eyes, Rikku remembered the last lesson Quistis had told her.
You're a half-Guardian of Time and Gravity. You remember those gravity bolts you fire from your hands?
Yeah, she had replied at the time.
You can get them to hit their target. Before you fire them.
Rikku smiled. She hadn't believed her at the time, although after she had blown some holes in trees before she had even lifted her arm, she had wanted to learn very, very much.
Remember though, Quistis had said then, once the bolt hits, you have to fire it.
But since it's already hit the target, what will happen?
It'll feel like you fired it normally, but nothing will come out. It disappears backwards in time the second it leaves your arm.
What happens if I don't fire it?
You get a bloody huge headache, or you get thrown out of the time-space continuum for interfering with the laws of casualty. And believe me, the headaches Diablos got, you may wish you got thrown out.
Rikku looked at Alexia, and watched, amused, as a gravity bolt appeared only centimetres from Alexia's chest and hit her in the gut. Alexia went '...!...' and collapsed, but not for long. Then Rikku sighted along her arm and fired the bolt, which immediately disappeared into wherever things go when they travel backwards through time.
Alexia got up and looked around for the intruder, but Rikku was high up in the trees, and blended in perfectly. She smiled, and rapped sharply on the wood. Alexia's gun angled upwards immediately and started firing into the treetops, and Rikku jumped to the next one, wanting to play with her old friend for a while longer.
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Shiva stood behind the grating in the MD level. The Teacher, a being long dead, had used this area to train her to use her powers when she had been in roughly the same position then as Rikku was now. She heard the first soldier come through the door, and she drew her sword, making sure that it made a humming sound as it appeared from the lights on her arm. The flashlight stopped bobbing up and down, and she could hear the soldier think; they're here. Well, whoever it was, was about to get a surprise. She jumped up into the girders that littered the ceiling, and waited. She had chosen the MD level because with no lighting, and no windows, the soldiers would have to rely on their infrared goggles to see anything. Shiva was banking on this. Infrared detected heat, and she was as cold as a glacier. Colder in fact. In the back of her mind, she could hear Quistis' voice:
No deaths, we promised.
Yeah, yeah, she replied to herself.
Quistis went quiet. Shiva was aware that it was Quistis that had created her, but that didn't mean she didn't have a will to live of her own. When the time came, and one of them had to go, it would not be her. All she had to think of was a way to get in control and stay in control. But Quistis was still the stronger at the moment, and so as soon as Shiva was no longer needed; back in the passenger seat she would go.
The soldier turned the corner, and saw nothing. Shiva smiled. She had promised no deaths, but most people forgot that a sword had four sides. The two sharp ones, those cut and hacked and were the sides you hit people with, and the other two, the long, thin, wide ones, which you didn't use. Shiva would. As the soldier passed beneath her she dropped silently down behind him. The soldier must have felt something, because he turned around and looked into her eyes, and saw...
No, Quistis said simply in her mind. No mind games this time.
Shiva sighed, and brought the flat side of her sword down on the soldier’s head. He crumpled with the heat and the cold, and the impact. When she was sure he was down, she turned back and was about to go into the next section, when she felt a sharp sting on her arm. She looked down and saw that she was bleeding. She had been shot. A minor annoyance, she thought as she brushed the dark blue liquid off her arm. Then she turned back, and saw another soldier aiming a rifle at her. She looked; it was the same one she had kicked in the chest when she stole the Ragnarok. His shoulder-badge said 'IVAN'. 'I know you.' She said simply. The soldier looked at her with what was unmistakably hatred in his eyes and his finger closed on the trigger again. Shiva merely sighed again and sidestepped the bullet, turning off to head down the corridor. She remembered what had made Quistis go so still now. The mystery of the letter from Squall, still upstairs in the foyer, could wait until she had thrown all these humans out of her Garden.
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To Ivan, it looked as if the second he had fired his gun, the woman had just slided away around the corner. He motioned the rest of the squad to stay back, and moved forwards on his own. He looked back to make sure none of them followed him.
'This one's mine,' he whispered. The others, even Cid and Yuna, nodded. They would hang back and let him handle it for now. Then Ivan looked around, and noticed something.
'Where's that archaeologist guy gone?' he asked the rest of the squad.
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Tyler wandered the MD level looking at the map, drawn by the previous NYC archaeologist, that he had brought in his pocket. He knew where Trepe would eventually have to end up, and he was going to get there first.
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Lulu, Wakka, and Khimari disembarked from the small liftercraft. It ascended and prepared to fly back to Luca. They had taken the nearest Al Bhed machina-vehicle once they had heard what was going on. They were still Yuna's guardians, summoner or no. Lulu approached the man standing at the edge of the crowd. 'What is happening here?' she asked.
'An assault, ma'am. Two criminals have escaped into the depths of that there building, and summoner Yuna herself went in to get them, as well as that man Cid and some mean-lookin' soldiers in black.'
'My thanks,' Lulu said. She turned to the others. 'Lets go!' They pushed through the gathered masses (amazing how a Ronso can part a crowd) and went inside the conical building.
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'Whoever you are, it would go easier on you if you gave up now!' Alexia shouted into the darkness.
Bad move girl, now I know exactly where you are, Rikku thought. Alexia didn't seem to have grasped the nature of the game yet, but she would in time, then they would have some fun. Rikku fired a gravity bolt at the ground near Alexia's feet, but this time without any time travelling involved. Alexia saw the disturbance in the air and jumped to the side and it hit the ground about a metre from her.
Alexia looked up at where it had come from, and looked straight into Rikku's eyes. She didn't actually see Rikku though, all she could see was two red spirals in the trees, and she started firing.
Come on, I trained you better than that! Rikku sighed in exasperation. She tensed her leg muscles and jumped into the next tree, making sure that Alexia would see her do it, expecting the sound of gunfire to rip through her general position. But it never came.
Rikku looked back to see Alexia standing dead still in the centre of the path, with a smile on her face. Alexia looked up at where she thought this mysterious assaulter was, and said; 'So that's it is it? Fine.' Alexia ran off into the underbrush, which was so thick that Rikku would have to rely on hearing alone to sense her. Now it was getting interesting.
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Shiva ran down deeper into the MD level, Ivan giving chase. Whatever else he was, the man was good once he was forewarned. She hadn't been able to lose him, and she was fast approaching the machinery room of Garden, and a dead end.
Damn it man, I wanted you to follow me, but not this far in!
She turned the corner, and entered the shaft room that led to the lower level of the MD system. Whatever had happened, the lift was gone, and there was just the huge cylindrical shaft gaping down, the bottom out of site. Shiva sighed and looked down it, she had a few minutes. She looked down it, judging time, distance, and above all speed as she prepared to jump. At that moment, the door behind her opened with a clang and Ivan stepped through, genuinely surprising Shiva for the first time in centuries. You clever bastard! Ivan just looked directly at her. He blinked, as if not believing what he was seeing. This was probably the first time he had gotten a good look at her. Well, don't waste it. Shiva smiled, blew the man a kiss, and jumped down the shaft.
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Tyler reached the central machinery room before everyone else. Thank Yevon for small favours, he thought. Then he looked around at the machina in the centre of the room, and his mouth gaped. This machina, what could it's purpose have been? A weapon. Has to be a weapon. He didn't know how wrong he was. He walked over to what had to be the main control room, behind the strange machina in front of him, and looked a the steering wheel, which had what looked like a large sail on it. He grabbed it gently (the thing had to be ancient) and tilted it slightly towards himself. He let go immediately when he heard the groaning, and the ground shook.
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Lulu and the others walked into the main corridor and stopped. Whatever this place was, it was huge. A Blitzball stadium could fit inside. They heard a noise, and they turned to see a woman with a red cross on her black uniform supporting another man in black, who was almost seven feet tall. She approached the soldier. 'Who are you?' she asked.
'Name's Kirsten,' the medic said.
'Zion ma'am!' the other soldier said, saluting. 'Commando, Special Attack Squad, ma'am!' Unfortunately, saluting took his arm away from the medic, and he promptly staggered.
Lulu looked at the medic. 'Where is the summoner Yuna?' She asked. To her relief, she got an instant reply.
'Underground ma'am.' Kirsten said, and gave directions to the location of their commander, who was apparently called 'Ivan.'
Strange name... Lulu thought, as the three walked off in the direction the medic had said, hoping they were not too late for anything dangerous.
Zion looked at Kirsten. She looked back, and they both nodded at each other. Slowly, they began to make their way back down towards the under-levels and the rest of the squad. They were not going to miss this, and the confrontation that would ensue.
Then the world tilted.
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Shiva heard the groan, felt the ground shake and heard exactly where it was coming from, and the reason for it.
The antigrav-ring is tilting! Someone's in the control room!
Since the sail Nida had used a lifetime ago to pilot the Garden had not been on the bridge, it could only be in one other place. She picked up speed and ran towards the control room, Ivan in pursuit, and the rest of the squad, and Cid and Yuna, following behind him.
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The noise didn't bother Rikku, but the shaking managed to make her lose her footing and topple out of the tree she was sitting in. She got up as quick as she could, but it wasn't quick enough. She felt a gun pressed to the back of her head.
'I don't think you could dodge this.' Alexia said quietly from behind her.
Rikku closed her eyes. She did not need this now! She raised her hands slowly, as she did, she heard a noise behind her, and turned to see Alexia stumble with a look of surprise on her face, she had been hit with a gravity bolt. Rikku smiled, and in that moment flexed her wings. Alexia lost her footing and tripped over, hitting her head on the floor as she fell. That time-travelling-gravity-bolt shooting ability came in handy. She went to move off, but she heard Shiva's voice in her head.
Rikku, control room, now! Shiva sounded panicked, and it took a lot to even faze Shiva, usually.
How do I get there? she asked. Shiva gave machine-gun-dictated directions, and Rikku began to move off, stopping outside the training centre door to fire off a gravity bolt at where Alexia had been standing, which immediately disappeared back in time. There you go, past-Rikku. She said. She didn't really understand the mechanics of time-travel, but apparently she didn't need to know how to do it to actually do it.
As a last thought, she took Alexia's radio. She didn't want the woman to get eaten or anything. She would call Ivan and let him know she was injured, that would give him a shock.
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Shiva stood in the doorway to the corridor to the control room, surveying the old Garden's power source. Whatever the hell it was, it couldn't have enough power to lift anymore, or using the controls would have activated the anti-grav ring, which used to spin beneath it. It did seem to have enough power left to tilt the ring in whichever direction the pilot wanted. Those Centrans had built these things to last, but not this long.
Shiva stepped into the corridor slowly, since there was only one exit, she knew the guy was still in there. She drew her sword again (well, not exactly 'drew', but close enough) and held it loosely in her right hand, ready to swing it at a moments notice. Whoever was here, they had gotten here before her, and she knew this place like the back of her hand. Whoever it was had a map made after she had been imprisoned, and who knew what modifications SeeD and the others had made in the millennia she had been gone? She opened the door, and gasped.
The first time she had been here, when missiles were heading towards Garden intent on it's destruction; there had been a collection of spheres and (apparently) treadmills going up into the ceiling that had spun to provide lift to the massive structure called Balamb Garden. Now, all that was there was something that looked like half a giant gyroscope. She approached it cautiously. Whatever it was, it was new. She looked closer, it had a layer of dust, but that was it. It had obviously been designed by Estharians, for whatever reason, and had their distinctive eye for technological beauty and sleekness that had characterised their old city. She went up to it, and saw that the mega-gyroscope (she had to call it something) disappeared into shaped grooves in the floor, and came up again on the opposite side, so all the rings were complete circles, but didn't need to be lifted above ground level to avoid hitting the floor when they spun. It was constructed with one large outer metal circle, then five more metal circles inside it, becoming smaller as they approached the middle. At the centre of the rings was a small metal rod, extending smoothly out of the ground, and a large red sphere on the top of it. It looked like a staff had been planted there. Shiva went closer, and saw that the rings were set into grooves in each other, and only the outermost ring set into the side of the groove in the floor. Whatever this did, when the outer ring spun, centrifugal forces would spin the others as well. This would make them spin in wildly different directions, so that once it was started, it would be nearly impossible to reach inside without getting your arm ripped off by sharp metal rings. There was room in the centre for a tall human to stand in, and the rings were placed so that they never got closer than two metres to the centre. Shiva marvelled at the construction. Whatever this did, it was designed to do it well.
Whatever it was, they had sacrificed the Garden's power source, and thus only way of moving around, to build it. At least the mystery of the landed Garden was solved. One mystery down, thousands to go.
Then something clicked, and she sighed. 'What is it?' she asked tiredly, and turned to see a man approach her, gun pointed at her body. Good tactic. Centre of mass, larger target to hit, less chance of missing if I move. Not that it will help you.
'Good.' The man said. His voice was shaking, and Shiva stared at him. Not the full intensity of her gaze, which disabled and crippled, such as it had to Rikku in Macalania five years ago, or the guards in the airship hanger more recently. She merely stared at him. He shook slightly, and focussed on his gun as she did so. He knows what I can do. Was he in the airship hanger? No, I'd have noticed.
'Don't try anything and you won't be harmed. Those grunts won't get here for a while, we're alone,' he said.
That benefits me, not you, you imbecile human. Whoever this man was, he obviously knew nothing about being a soldier. Or even about basic survival tactic, like don't piss off ancient forces of nature. 'Suits me fine,' she said, and began to walk over to him. He gestured for her to stop. She decided to humour him for a while longer, and did so. As she did, she noticed there was something odd about this man. She couldn't put her finger on it though...
'Do you know why I'm here?' he asked.
'No, and honestly I don't give one.' She replied scathingly.
He just looked puzzled. 'Give one what?' he asked.
An ex-Monk. Great, this one will have even less of a sense-pf-humour than the others... 'Old slang, never mind,' she said. It was obvious to her that he was steeling himself to kill her, as his palms were becoming sweaty, and he mad to keep readjusting the grip on his gun.
'I'm here to kill you. You can't interfere. I work for them you see,' he said.
Now it was her turn to look puzzled. 'What and who?' She asked.
'Them,' he said.
Then she realised what it was she could sense from the man. For Shiva, everything stopped. She glared at the man for a few seconds. She heard Quistis inside her head say; don’t… Then everything started up again.
And for the man, everything suddenly happened very fast. He shot his gun at Shiva, but the thin white blur of a sword intercepted the bullet. He felt a sharp sting on his face, and everything went black.
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Rikku ran down through the maze of pipes and cabling deeper into the MD level. She regretted hitting Alexia like that, but she had called the commander (Ivan. Had to be, if Alexia was here) and after much shouting she had convinced him that Alexia was upstairs, and would need help.
She swung down into the final sections of the MD level, and blasted through a ventilation grate to find a long corridor. She looked down it, but there was fog or something at the other end, and she couldn't see properly. She began to run down it, and as she got closer she saw that space itself seemed to be warped in the centre of the room, and Shiva was sitting in the centre, next to... You promised! Rikku screamed at her through their telepathic link. Shiva did not reply. Shiva! She shouted again.
Shiva!
Shiva?
...Quistis?
Yes? Rikku heard, and she let out a sigh of relief. Whenever Shiva did something especially bad, Quistis took back the reigns of control. Must be a guilt-by-proxy thing, she thought to herself. She walked up to the doorway into the room, and waved at her. Quistis waved back. Er, Quisty? She asked.
Yeah? The blue woman replied.
What is that thing?
What thing? she asked, puzzled.
The space warp thing.
There's nothing here except the body and me.
Can't you see it?
See what? Oh, wait a minute, Rikku, close your eyes, and then open them again.
Rikku did as she was told, and when she opened them again she saw Quistis clearly, saw the man, and saw the sword sticking out of his forehead that Quistis was withdrawing. She walked up to her. 'What was that?' she asked.
'Your vision was reacting to a strong gravity field, they warp your perceptions. Used to drive Diablos crazy whenever someone waved a magnet in front of his face.'
Rikku looked at the body at Quistis' face. 'What the hell did Shiva do... WHOA! She said as she noticed the huge gyro-machina-thing.
Quistis looked around. 'Impressive isn't it?' she said.
Not half. Rikku thought. 'What is that?' she asked.
Quistis frowned. 'Not sure, but I'd bet money that it was the thing interfering with your sight. Whatever it does, it needs a strong magnetic field to do it.'
Rikku stroked one of the rings. 'It feels perfectly smooth,' she said in awe.
'Believe it. Put a measuring laser on that thing, it won't even wobble. Estharian... sorry, Zanarkand-ian to you... built things to be like this. 'If you're going to do it, do it right, make it shiny-silver, and build it way over-budget,' as Laguna once said.' She smiled.
'Who?' Rikku asked, but Quistis just waved her hand. 'I want one,' Rikku breathed. Then she realised she was standing next to a body. 'Why? She promised,' she whispered.
Quistis, surprisingly, kicked the corpse. 'He was working for them,' she said, hatred in her voice.
'Them? Who... Oh! Them!' Rikku said, getting it. 'But what are they doing here?' she asked, rationalising that anyone who worked for them had to be evil anyway, so this guy had probably got what was coming to him.
'Don't know, last I heard of them was before I was imprisoned in the Fayth....'
'You never explained how you got from a gemstone to being trapped in the Fayth by the way...' Rikku interrupted.
Quistis sighed. 'Remember Lord Zaon?' she asked. Rikku did. 'Well, when he was looking for a way to defeat Sin, he used all sorts of experiments. Eventually he found the Fayth. He used me, that is, my gemstone with me in it, as the foundation of the large stone statue you're familiar with. I'm sure they had something to do with that. They might not be able to come up here to Earth very often, but they always have servants here.' Then her voice went quieter. 'I've been thinking, maybe that's where all the Aeons/Guardians went, they might have resisted. Once Zaon thought he had a way to kill Sin, he would have stopped at nothing.'
Rikku frowned. More lives Yevon had ruined.
Quistis eyes were closed, remembering. After Sin had been defeated, when Yuna had summoned them all, and the Aeons were fading away, she had met some of her old friends for the first time in millennia. She remembered seeing Ifrit, still mocking, who had merely looked at her in shock before vanishing in a puff of pyreflies. She remembered seeing Gilgamesh, someone she had never known that well even before he changed his name to Yojim-something. He had merely tilted his hat at her, before he and his pet dog (What the…? She had thought at the time) vanished also. And she remembered Bahamut. Shiva had demanded Quistis go over and rip his head off, but luckily for him he had faded before she reached him.
Three. Out of hundreds of Guardians. Just three left I knew. Where did they rest all go? The Upper-Layer was empty. The network was silent. Wherever they were, they weren't talking. Shiva was screaming the answer at her in her head, but Quistis refused to believe it. They aren't dead! They're out there; we just have to find them! Quistis was so engrossed in her memories; she nearly didn't hear the footsteps of that soldier-boy running towards them.
She turned to Rikku to shout at her to jump into the ceiling, the pipes, anywhere! But the young Al Bhed wasn't listening. Scowling at Hyne if She still existed, she jumped into the shadows, and watched events unfold.
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Ivan was a very angry man. He had been chasing this blue woman he didn't know how else to describe her) for three hours now, and his anger was growing with every step. His radio beeped, and he answered it. 'Yeah?' he asked.
'Hello commander.'
Ivan had stopped dead. 'And you are?' he asked, using every bit of self-control he had to scream abuse down the mouthpiece.
'A friend.'
'Yeah well I doubt that, what have you done with...'
'Alexia? Go to the place that says 'Training Centre', she's there.'
Ivan slammed his fist against the wall, and then switched his radio back on.
'All units, report in and converge on my position, Alexia is down but OK, I want everyone here with me now!' He shut off the radio. Whoever this person was, she was good. Although he could have sworn that voice was familiar...
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Rikku was so engrossed in the machina's workings that her hearing, still not at full potential, failed to pick up the sounds of the approaching soldiers. She first got warning when she felt what was unmistakably a gun barrel pressed directly up against her head. Luckily her face was angled down and away from him, so her features were obscured. She flexed her wings slightly, and felt increased pressure from the gun.
'You don't want to try anything like that,' the soldier said.
Ivan. Cred. She thought. Then her blood turned to ice.
'You got her!' Yuna shouted from the doorway. Then she looked a bit harder. '...It?' she asked hesitantly. Then Rikku heard another voice shout to them.
'Good job man! This'll be... What the hell is that!?' And Cid as well. Cred cred cred! She was not ready for this! For everyone to see as some kind of half-demon!
I don't want this! I want them to see me as I WAS! she screamed inwardly. She heard many more sets of footfalls, two of them being a bit incoherent. That would be the injured Zion (she could distinguish the man's voice from a mile off, even when all he was saying was 'Ooof!') and the medic who was carrying him. Kirsten, she assumed. She didn't dare raise her head to look though. She did hear Ivan, and about twelve sets of weapons being cocked and pointed at her. Great, that's the rest of the squad...
'Watch out for those wings, that's how she got me,' Alexia said, walking in as well, hand over her chest. Ivan moved back slightly.
Damn, not you as well, Rikku thought sadly. Then she heard other voices approach. Fate had a sense of humour all right, and it was blacker than night.
'We're nearly there, come on, and… Oh! Yuna!' Lulu said. Rikku heard three sets of feet. The others were here.
That completes the set, Rikku thought. The entire collection of people she didn't want to know she was still alive, were all here.
'We came here as soon as we.. Yev... What happened to that girl?' Lulu breathed, noticing the claws and the wings instantly. Khimari and Wakka both thought; Fiend at the same time and took up positions slightly ahead and either side of Yuna, waiting for the 'Fiend' to lash out.
No, no, no! It wasn't supposed to happen like this! Rikku was close to tears. Still, she did not give them a look at her face.
'Lulu? Wakka? Khimari? What are you doing here?' Yuna asked, surprised by the appearance of her former (not-so-former, in their opinion) guardians.
'We heard you had come here, so we had to as well. Do you have them?' Lulu asked.
Ivan was the one who replied. 'We got this girl... well, thing... trapped here, though she isn't the one I was chasing. This has got to be the second... person,' he told everyone. Rikku heard footfalls, and the sweeping sound of a long dress approach her, but she did not look up.
'Look at me,' Lulu said harshly.
Rikku closed her eyes and made a small prayer to whatever deity protected the Al Bhed.
And she looked up.
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Time stopped. Lulu and Rikku stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, but what was actually about five seconds. No-one moved. Cid and Yuna stared with their mouths open. Khimari just looked inscrutable. Alexia and Ivan's face's went white. The other SAS members, standing farther back, either didn't see or didn't recognize. After about a minute of staring at each other, Rikku broke the spell.
'Hi,' she whispered.
Lulu drew back and put her hands over her mouth in shock. She just stared at her, not daring to speak lest Rikku dissolve like some kind of cruel illusion.
'Rikku?' she asked quietly.
Rikku smiled at her, and Lulu's icy-cool composure broke down. She walked back up to Rikku and hugged her tightly. That was the cue for the others to approach (including the SAS, who still couldn't see) and look. Lulu stopped, and held her at arms length to look at her. 'It is you,' she said.
Cid walked up, nearly pushed Lulu out of the way, and stared at the daughter that he had assumed dead in his mind, but never in his heart. 'Tyikrdan?' he asked quietly.
Rikku just looked at him close-up for the first time in nearly five years, tears threatening to overwhelm her. 'Vydran,' she replied, and that did it. She collapsed into his arms and began to cry.
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Quistis watched the reunion from her perch on the beams of the roof, Shiva whispering commentary in her mind. I told you that you should have left her to die in Macalania.
Why?
Now we're in a whole world of shit.
She's home, and we have what we came for.
Just because that letter was in Squall's handwriting it doesn't mean it's to us. They never knew we would escape, maybe you just found his letters from Rinoa.
In a box designed to survive a nuclear holocaust? Please.
I'm just saying, if you get your hopes up, eventually they come crashing down again.
Quiet. Watch. Shiva became silent, and Quistis watched events unfold.
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Cid stared at Rikku again, taking in everything. The wings, the claws, the eyes especially, and the new scars. 'Fryd tet drao tu du oui?' he asked, so the others couldn't hear. The reply only confused him more.
'E fye napunh,' Rikku whispered. Her gaze swept the room, and saw reactions ranging from incredulous to outright disbelief. She pushed Cid slightly away from her, and let the others see her. Wakka's mouth had dropped open, and he looked like he was trying to say something. Alexia looked like she was holding back tears, and the other soldiers were all trying to control their emotion. Badly. Rikku looked behind Cid and saw the person she had been most looking forward to seeing. She walked up to Yuna and stared at her. The young summoner looked back, and Rikku smiled at her. 'Hey cous,' she whispered. Yuna suddenly grabbed the young Al Bhed girl and hugged her. Rikku's eyes went wide as the breath was forced out of her, and she tapped Yuna's back.
Yuna realized she was suffocating her and let go, smiling and crying at the same time. 'Where did you go?' she asked.
'Away,' Rikku replied simply.
Yuna leaned closer and whispered in her ear. 'Never do that again,' she pleaded. Rikku smiled at her through tears and hugged back.
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Quistis smiled at the scene below her, ignoring Shiva's voice. Told you she would cry. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more.
Shut up. She deserves some closure.
Any more than we do?
We chose to be what we are, kind of. She didn't.
Fine. But what now? We have what we came for, so where do we go from here?
I'll think of something.
You better, because we can't stay here, that's for sure.
Yeah well, maybe...
Wait, I think that guy knows we're here...
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Ivan stood apart from the rest of the crowd around Rikku, frowning slightly. He didn't want to spoil the moment for everyone, but he still had something he needed to ask. He whistled, and Alexia turned instantly and walked over. When she reached him, he began to talk. 'That's Rikku?' he asked.
'Yup!' Alexia said, beaming.
'And she's the one you saw at the place with the big ‘Training Center’ sign?' he asked.
'Yes,' Alexia said, more guardedly this time.
'So where the hell is the person I chased down here in the first place?' he asked.
Alexia blinked. After everything that had happened, she had forgotten about the second hi-jacker. 'Cred, you're right,' she said quickly. She walked back over to the other soldiers and began talking quietly and quickly. As one they clicked the safeties off their weapons and their eyes began searching the room for anything that shouldn't be there.
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Quistis noticed this, and the fact that the soldiers were actively scanning the room for her. Oh crap... she thought. She swung down from the beam she was balanced on to one nearer the door, and behind all but two of the soldiers. Silently thinking to herself: Please Rikku, tell them I'm here.
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Cid couldn't take his eyes off Rikku. For the first few months after she had vanished, he had prayed to any God who would listen for her safe return, but now she was back he couldn't find anything to say to her. He took in her appearance and wondered what had happened to turn her into that. He felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see Alexia looking at him. 'Sir, there's still the other person, we should leave,' she whispered. Cid nodded, not really caring. He walked over to Rikku, who saw him approach and turned from a shell-shocked Wakka to look at him.
'Father?' she asked.
'Who was the other person with you?' he asked. Damn, he thought, mentally kicking himself. He hadn't wanted to sound confrontational, not now. To his surprise, Rikku just smiled.
'You can come out now,' she said, and Cid wondered whether she was talking to him. His question was answered however, when a blue-skinned figure fell from the ceiling and landed right behind Zion and Kirsten. Yuna and the other ex-guardians saw her and gasped. She couldn’t be human, could she? The soldiers all swung around, weapons cocked and ready to fire. Rikku was suddenly in front of them, holding her hands in front of her. Ivan blinked, as did Yuna.
Shiva!? the young ex-summoner thought. How!?
How the hell did Rikku move so fast? Ivan thought. Then he recognized the woman, and his eyes narrowed. You!
'Don't shoot!' Rikku shouted at the others, 'She's a friend!'
From his expression, Ivan looked ready to call it a day. Rikku turned to him, and he shrugged. 'Suits me fine. Let's just get out of here,' he said tiredly. This day had become far too confusing. And it wasn't the first time enemies had become friends in a few seconds. 'What shall we do about that guy?' he asked, jerking his thumb at the late Tyler.
It was the woman who answered. 'Leave him,' she said.
'He was a spy for NYC,' Rikku finished for Quistis quickly, having forgotten about the corpse.
Ivan turned to Cid, who nodded, and they made their way back to the airships.
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After they had left, the entire building descended into the deathly quiet that had been it's trademark for the last few centuries. If any living thing had been there to watch, it would have seen the large machine and the body of Tyler. If they had been looking closely, they would have seen the air over Tyler's body waver slightly, and if they had been looking closely, but from somewhere far away, they would have seen a man(?) in a cloak materialize and whisper something in the corpse's ear. If they hadn't ran away in fear by this point, they would have seen Tyler's eyes slam open, and watched him as he got to his feet.
Tyler woke up, not remembering what had happened. He turned to the cloak beside him, and heard it speak.
Do not fail us so miserably again next time. Our time is approaching, the machinery is in place. Trepe or the other must not interfere, it said. Or thought.
Tyler nodded, and the cloaked figure dissolved. He turned, and began to walk toward the exit. All he knew was he had a mission, and this time he wasn't going to fail.
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Rikku sat on the edge of the airship, on the deck, staring out at the sea. After the initial confusion over Quistis' status as either prisoner or guest, she had offered to fly the Ragnarok back to Luca. Cid had agreed, and Ivan had offered to watch over her while she did. He didn't trust the woman quite yet. She could see in their eyes they were desperate to ask questions, but she had ignored them, and came up here. Explanations could wait. She looked out at the sunset and smiled. She remembered when they had beat Sin, and they were all up here watching the Aeons dissolve into brightly coloured lights. The wind blew across her, and she drew her wings up around her to shield herself from the chill. She didn't mind though. Everyone was down in the ship, and she could go and talk to them whenever she wanted, instead of having to hide in the shadows for fear of being caught by them. She had wanted to return when (if ever) she had become human again, but maybe this way would work out. She felt a small air current, and turned her head to see Cid watching her from the lift to the main airship decks. She smiled at her, and he walked over and sat down. 'Do you want to go first?' she asked.
Cid just sighed. 'Why didn't you come home?' he asked instantly.
Rikku didn't look at him. 'Looking like this?' she whispered.
Cid put his hand on her shoulder and forced her to look at him. 'I don't care what you look like, you're still my daughter, even if you are unsent.' he said.
'I just didn't want everyone to see me as some kind of fiend,' she replied.
Cid's hand drew back slightly. Rikku remembered that he did not know how close she had come to turning into one once, right outside of Zanarkand. He didn't even know she had been unsent during the pilgrimage. She had sworn her friend to secrecy about that.
'You could never be seen a fiend. Look around you, none of them even noticed. Well,' he corrected himself, 'probably they did, but they don't care.'
Rikku started weeping, and wrapped her arms around Cid. 'E seccat oui,' she whispered through her relief.
'E seccat oui duu,' Cd replied, holding back tears of his own.
_____________________________________________________________________
Awww. ^_^
Tyikrdan? = Daughter?
Vydran. = Father.
Fryd tet drao tu du oui? = What did they do to you?
E fye napunh. = I was reborn.
E seccat oui. = I missed you.
E seccat oui duu. = I missed you too.
Ivan took a cynical view of madness. The word was used too often in society to describe people only slightly eccentric. People said; 'watch out for him, he's mad,' and 'you want to have a drink with us, we're all mad down there.' The word madness had been distilled from what it originally meant to something too mundane and normal, used by unimaginative people to explain the behavior of other unimaginative people.
The woman in front of him however, was totally nuts.
They had passed the journey in silence. After the brief reunion in that building in Esthar Cid had suggested thy all go back to Luca, to return the airships and catch up. The woman who had nearly killed Cid, him, and Zion had immediately offered to pilot the airship back, and Ivan was damned if he was going to let her be in charge of a vehicle with huge guns by herself. So here they were, the woman (Quistis, strange name) sitting in the airship seat, Ivan standing behind her, gun not exactly pointed at her, but not pointed away either. And it was loaded, and the safety was off. His eyes kept darting around the room, watching whenever a light blinked on or off. Quistis sat with her hands on the controls, whispering to herself silently and (this part made Ivan slightly nervous) replying as well.
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Kill him.
Why the hell do you want me to kill everyone? Quistis asked herself.
Look at him, stupid mortal fool, one slice, and then turn the airship around. One shot from the cannon and the other ship is history, along with that annoying Al Bhed brat, Shiva replied testily.
From what I remember you two were getting on quite well.
Necessity can make people do strange things, even us. Have you thought about what that huge machina was in the Garden MD level yet?
What's to know? It was big and shiny. It probably powered the rings.
Don't be stupid woman. Isn't it obvious? What else could possibly need all the power that old hulk could produce, and generate a gravity field strong enough to fry that brat's eyesight?
...No.
Yes.
That's not possible.
Have you even looked at that box you found?
You know the answer to that.
Then do so. Now.
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Ivan looked back from the window, and saw Quistis getting up from the pilot's seat. Panic momentarily overcame him, and he pointed his gun at her chest. She seemed to anticipate his question. 'Autopilot. It'll take us where we want to go,' she said. Ivan relaxed as invisibly as he could. The woman still noticed, and smiled. Damn.
'And where are you going?' he asked suspiciously.
Quistis sighed. The bad thing about Shiva was that if you met her first, getting people's trust was hard after she had attacked them. 'Look, I have to take care of something, alright,' she said tiredly.
Ivan's aim wavered for a second. When next he spoke, it was quietly. 'What's with you? Why were you so violent in that place?' he asked.
'Long story, ask Rikku when we get back. For now let's just say I wasn't feeling myself.' She walked past him and jumped down the shaft, ignoring the rope ladder Ivan had used to get up here. He watched her fall. Whatever else her faults, the woman had class.
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Quistis sat down on the floor cross-legged, next to the box. After everything, she had never got the chance to see what was in it besides the letter. Well, they had one hour till Luca, and she had all the time she needed. Unfolding the letter, she looked at the handwriting, that she had identified as Squall's, whilst ignoring Shiva's insults in her head. She looked at the letter and smiled. Either Rinoa had helped him, or he had been more circular in his thinking than usual. She glanced across at the box, and at the keypad on it's surface, then back at the letter, and the message written on it.
Welcome back. What's my favorite word?
~Guess~
Quistis held back the desire to laugh out loud, and typed one eight-letter word on the keypad.
Whatever
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Ivan heard a crackle, and reached for his radio to see that it was silent. What the..? he thought to himself, then realized it was coming from the airship's console. He went over to it, and saw that the crackle was coming from a part that looked freakishly like his team's short-wave radios. He pressed the button he hoped was 'receive', and was rewarded with Cid's voice.
'What's going on over there Ivan?' the man asked.
Even Ivan could tell he was near-infinitely more cheerful with the safe return of Rikku, looking like... that... or not. He let go and told him about Quistis strange behavior earlier. 'Go easy on the woman Ivan, Rikku told me everything, Quistis' been through a lot recently,' the man replied, to Ivan's surprise. She'd been through a lot!?
'Yessir,' he replied.
'Good man. We'll arrive in Luca in about 20 minutes, she'll explain everything there.' The radio ceased to crackle, and Ivan wandered back to the window. Then he remembered that he didn't know how this thing worked. Could it land itself? He immediately walked off, and climbed down the rope ladder to find Quistis. 20 minutes, he remembered, and began to walk a little faster.
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Quistis finished inputting the word and pressed 'enter.' Silently the top cover of the box extended upwards a few centimeters, then slid aside and seemingly dissolved into the sides. What is it with Estharians and silver? Quistis thought to herself. She leant over and looked inside the box, and saw... a thin transparent plate of what looked like thin glass, with some kind of metal shielding the corners and a small slot in the top-left one, and some thin matt-black slides.
That's it!? Shiva shouted in her head. We came all this way, went through all that aggravation, for a Hyne-damned WINDOW!?
Quiet, there has to be something here, Quistis replied calmly. She couldn't lose her head to Shiva, not now. She withdrew the window and held it up to the light. She moved her wrists and the reflections from the plate looked... wrong. If it was clear, then nothing should happen. Instead she saw light fragment into a rainbow and fall around her. She put it back down on the ground, and was about to turn back to the box when she noticed movement under the window. Or at least it looked like it was under the window. She looked closer, and saw that a single word was flashing on and off on the window. What the…? Quistis turned the window over carefully, but it looked the same from the opposite side, nothing to project an image, no wires or vacuum tubes. She turned it back over, and looked at the solitary word again, blinking like some kind of switch was being flipped on and off.
Ready
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Ivan was ever so slightly panicked now. He had looked all over the damn ship, and Quistis was nowhere in sight, and they were going to land soon. Autopilot or no, he didn't want to trust his life to a machine, he did that often enough in battle anyway...
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Quistis reached her hand out slowly and touched the word. It vanished, and was replaced by a new one; Loading. Quistis leant back against the wall and slowly let out her breath, ignoring Shiva's voice telling her to smash the thing. After about a minute, a small chime sounded, and Quistis sat back down over the 'window.' the 'loading' message vanished, and Quistis got the shock of her un-life as an image of a person appeared on the... well, it had to be some sort of screen... and began talking.
Rinoa!
She would have listened, but just at that point the God of Bad Luck intervened again, as Ivan ran in looking flustered.
'We're... landing!' he managed to say through gasps. The poor man looked like he had ran halfway through the ship.
'So?' she snapped, irritated beyond belief. Why the hell is it that just as I'm about to find something out I get interrupted? she asked herself. Shiva didn't have a reply to that.
'Shouldn't... you... do it?' he gasped.
'It's called an autopilot for a reason,' she replied.
He stared at her as if she was lower than dirt. 'You mean I just ran all the way through this ship looking for you when the damn thing can do it all by itself!?' He asked incredulously.
'Yup,' she said, amused by Ivan's expression of hatred. His hand wasn't near his weapon though. She stood, put the window back into the box and carried it through the doorway, passing Ivan on the way. 'You coming?' she asked. If looks could have killed, at that second Quistis would have been dust settling on the floor. She could hear Shiva clapping in her mind.
Ivan waited until he had his breath back before letting go of the doorframe. Soldier or not, running the whole length of this damn airship would have tired out a professional athlete. 'Vicious bitch,' he whispered. He hoped Rikku had a good reason for knowing this woman.
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The Ragnarok landed more-or-less next to the other airship amid confusion from the populace of Luca. It was a source of amusement to Shiva that they didn't know either of the ship's names, and called them simply 'the airship' and 'the dragon' to tell them apart. Quistis and a recovered Ivan walked down the ramp together, and the other SAS, Alexia, Rikku, Cid, Yuna, and her guardians met them in the middle. Both Quistis and Rikku took the opportunity to flex their wings while they were in the sunlight (and scare the Luca populace that had gathered to watch the airships descending), and the others looked startled as Rikku yawned, arching her back and allowing her huge clawed dragon-wings to emerge and extend to their full length and height. The things were about as big as she was, but they hadn't looked that big. They didn't know that to support even a medium-sized person in the air, the wings had to be at least as large as the person they supported. Rikku noticed them staring and grinned.
Cid walked up to Quistis first of all. To everyone's surprise (including Quistis') he held out his hand. 'Rikku told me everything,' he said, 'and I want to thank you for looking after her ('Hey!' Rikku complained in the background), she told me everything on the way here, and you sound alright.' Quistis held her hand out, and Cid grasped it firmly, ignoring the burning/freezing sensation that had most people drawing back. Suddenly Cid leant forward and whispered in her ear. 'And if your alter-ego schizo-friend does anything like that to her again, I'll kill her. You. Well, you know what I mean.'
Quistis' eyes widened. Rikku really had told Cid everything. She looked back at Cid, who merely shrugged. She couldn't really blame him. She smiled back. 'Thanks,' she replied.
'Good, now lets go, I want to hear more,' he said, and walked into the building.
Quistis watched him walk off, then felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Rikku looking at her. 'Was it absolutely necessary to tell him everything?' she said with a sigh.
'Erm, sorry?' the young girl said. 'You still have that box?' she said, an observation, not a question.
'Yeah,' she said. The second she was away from the others, she was using that thing again. 'Come on, the others are waiting,' she finished, gesturing towards Cid and Yuna, who were by the door looking at them. Rikku smiled and waved.
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Yuna waved back happily, and then turned to Cid. 'Did she say what happened to her?' she said.
Cid nodded. 'Yes, but that's for her to tell you, not me,' he replied.
Yuna shrugged. Whatever happened now, at least they were all together again. 'What about the woman?' she asked next. She was still wary of the being she had summoned countless times in battle without finding out who she had been. Now Yuna would get the chance. Rikku and Quistis finished talking and walked over. Cid turned and walked into the building. The other soldiers, Wakka, Khimari, and Lulu followed. Quistis walked in next, and Rikku turned back to look at the whispering onlookers, waved at them cheerfully, and walked in.
That'll give them something to talk about, she thought. Cid saw her and smiled. She still hadn't changed much.
_____________________________________________________________________
“So let me get this straight,” Wakka said. “The lady here,” he jerked his thumb at Quistis, “died, became this super-killing machine, fought a small war against these creatures that hell forgot, then was trapped in a gemstone for about one-hundred-ninety-nine thousand years until Lord Zaon came along, got turned into a fayth, then killed Rikku and stole her spirit to escape?” He looked sceptical.
“Basically,” said Rikku.
Wakka looked at her like she was crazy. “And you two are now friends, she's a schizo, and you’re part-guardian?” he finished.
“Yup,” said Quistis.
Wakka looked from one to the other for a few seconds. “You're both nuts,” he said.
Lulu put his hand on her shoulder. Wakka looked across at her as if to say but, but Lulu beat him to it. “What I don't understand is, if you're both Aeons now,”
“Part Aeon,” Rikku chimed in.
“Part Aeon, sorry. If you're an Aeon and Rikku is now part Aeon, then where are your fayths?” she asked, looking at Quistis.
“Simple. The fayths were basically a containment chamber. What happens if you break open a prison?” she asked rhetorically. “The prisoners escape.”
Lulu still looked puzzled. “So why did the other Aeons disappear while you remained?” she asked.
“Because the others were tired of dreaming,” whispered Yuna from her seat.
Quistis looked across at her and nodded. “When you've spent the last thousand years doing another's bidding, you tend to either get exhausted or angry,” she said. “I had some help in that.” The others looked slightly uncomfortable at that, especially Alexia, Cid and Ivan. They had personal experience with Quistis' 'help'.
“So what about these 'creatures'?” Ivan asked, ever the military man.
Quistis looked across at him. “Do you really want me to explain?” she sighed. They nodded. “OK then. But anyone who needs to, go to the bathroom now, because I am not stopping halfway through,” she said.
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About fifty minutes later, they knew all the facts. Alexia and Ivan made their excuses and walked out of the room, heading over to the SAS 'home', basically an old unused Monk barracks hall near the route to the stadium. They walked side by side through Luca's bustling streets. Alexia turned to Ivan. “What do you think?” she asked the older man.
Ivan turned to her. He looked preoccupied. “About what?” he asked.
Alexia sighed in exasperation. “Duh! About Rikku and Quits... Qutist... that woman,” she said. How the hell did you say that name anyway?
“You mean Quistis?” Ivan said, and then smiled when he saw the look on her face. “I don't know. It sounds to unbelievable to be true, but if it is, whoa.”
Alexia looked surprised, Ivan rarely looked impressed with anyone. The highest praise he usually used was 'good.' “What about Rikku?” she asked, dodging round a speeding teenager running through the streets. Their stance and builds marked them out as either long-distance runners or soldiers, and the shoulder-patches they never took off told people to give them a wide berth. News of Zanarkand had got around.
“To tell you the truth it shocked the hell out of me. I had assumed she was dead,” he replied.
“Those... erm... addition, make one hell of a fighter,” she said.
Ivan smiled. “I wonder if Quistis could do the same for the rest of the squad...” he wondered.
Alexia smiled back. “You're not serious,” she said, and then looked at him. “You're not serious, right?”
“No, I'm far too young to live forever,” he replied.
Alexia started breathing again. She looked up. “We're here,” she said.
Ivan pushed open the door to the hall were the rest of the teams were. They walked through the large double-doors and saw the rest of the SAS troopers lounging around on the various benches and seats, some laying on the floor, seemingly asleep, one sat cross-legged next to a bench, using a screwdriver that looked far too small to be useful on some kinda of machina. It had been a long past couple of days. Cups of some dark brown liquid lay scattered on work-surfaces. Weaponry and equipment covered most surfaces where there wasn’t people or drinks. He saw Caryl look up from her bench and wave slightly. Ivan whistled, an the others all looked around to see who the interloper was, then turn back/fall asleep when they saw it was just their commander. Alexia walked up to the nearest bench and saw Zion.
“Luvvaa?” the white-haired trooper asked.
Alexia laid her hand on the nearest rifle. “Kill for it,” she said.
Zion reached behind him and flipped a switch on the machina behind him, and put a clean cup under it. “We’re going to need a new one of these soon enough. Better get back on those salvage ships now,” he said. They had found the drinks-machina in an old undersea cave, as well as the beans that apparently went with them. All they really knew was it kept them awake and alert. If the stuff were killing them slowly it would be worth it.
“Then quit the squad and go look,” she said with a smile.
He quickly changed the subject. “So what did they all talk about?” Zion asked the two.
Alexia couldn’t see behind her, but she knew the others were all straining forwards to hear. Alexia sighed. “I’ll explain later,” she said.
“Aww,” she entire two squads said, in perfect unity.
“We want to know!” said Caryl.
“Tough,” said Alexia simply, picking up her drink and turning to find a place to sit down on. She nodded off nearly instantly.
“Come on!” said one of the troopers from Team-2. “Chief?” asked Mykl again, quieter this time. Team-2’s medic, Yuskreven, leant over and felt her pulse.
“I think she’s asleep,” she said.
“Aww, the ickle ass-kicker fell asleep,” said the man to Mykl’s right.
“I think you’re an idiot,” said Mykl.
“And anyway if you’re a girl you’re a psychotic bitch. You’ve got to be a guy to be an ass-kicker,” chimed in another bloody-minded Team-2 commando.
“Remember when we first fought together? I thought you were a girl,” said Yuskreven to Mykl.
“I think you’re an idiot too,” he replied, and reached across and whacked her.
Ivan sighed. Team-2 on caffeine. When in harm’s way, they could spend hours arguing about the exact nature of the phrase ‘in harm’s way’, by which time the harm itself would have either killed them all, or wandered off to find some less eccentric people to actually harm.
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Quistis made her own excuses soon after explaining the creature’s origin, leaving the others to mull over everything she had told them. She moved through the corridors of the building, other either staring at her or darting out of her way as she approached. She eventually reached her assigned room and went inside, locking the door. She went over to the mirror and looked into it at her face. “Thank you for staying quiet,” she told her reflection.
“No problem,” Shiva replied. “Now are you actually going to open the damned box?” she asked.
“I don’t know whether I should,” Quistis said.
Shiva just looked at her. “Are you crazy?” she asked. “They build this nice little message for you and you don’t think you read it?”
“Maybe the past is better left buried,” Quistis told her alter ego.
“And maybe you want to take a long jump off a short cliff. We both know you’re eventually going to open it, so why are we having this conversation?” Shiva asked.
Quistis sighed. The woman was right. She reached over for the long box and removed the small clear ‘window’. Holding it in front of her, she touched the screen gently with her fingertips, and Rinoa’s image appeared again. She was older and was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and jacket. She was definitely older, but she still looked young. This time, Quistis listened.
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“What do you think?” Yuna asked.
“I think we should be worried,” Cid replied.
“I agree,” said Lulu.
“I think you all need to sit down ya!” said Wakka angrily. “This woman comes out of nowhere with this story and this demon-Rikku…”
“Go carefully,” Cid said to Wakka, his voice pure acid.
“Sorry, with Rikku, from nowhere, and you all believe her!” he continued. “How can we trust someone like that? And she’s crazy!” he added as an afterthought.
“If her story is true, there must be evidence somewhere. Remember the walls of Macalania temple?” Lulu asked.
Yuna nodded. The creatures depicted there were remarkably similar to the ones Quistis had described. “What do we do?” she asked.
“If blue woman is telling truth, bad things will happen soon. Keep eyes open,” said Khimari from behind Yuna.
Cid looked around. For all the talking he did, he might as well be mute, but that didn’t mean the Ronso was stupid. “I agree,” he said. “Guard duties will be kept. It’s probably nothing though. If they did exist in Quistis’ time, that time was still over two hundred millennia ago. If they’re still here, well, we’ll deal with them. If they aren’t, no problem.” The others nodded. Even Wakka agreed reluctantly.
“I still don’t trust her,” he said.
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“Hi Quistis!” Rinoa’s image said. “If you’re watching this, then congrats on getting out!” Quistis smiled, Rinoa couldn’t have known if she would have ever gotten out.
Could she? The woman was a sorceress…
Rinoa’s image looked across to somewhere off screen, and Quistis could have sworn…
“Wait your turn! You promised me I could do the intro!”
“Come on Rin, I have to say something first.”
“Fine, but don’t blame me when…” Rinoa didn’t finish the sentence, as she walked off the screen, and was replaced by Squall. He too had changed. Quistis looked at his face and giggled slightly. He didn’t know who had convinced him, but he looked good with a short beard. He was still dressed nearly identically though. Some things would probably never change.
“Sorry, but I need to tell her something first.” His image looked back at Quistis. “This message has been designed by Odine to be holographic, just press the top corner inwards...” Quistis did so, and nearly dropped the screen when a one-foot-high image of Squall appeared on the floor in front of her, tethered to the screen by a thin beam of light that outlined him. “…And it should work. If you look inside the box there is a small compartment.” Quistis looked. There was. “Open it and see...”
Quistis reached her hand inside the box and found a small catch on the inside. She bent her wrist around and tried to flip the catch. After about a minute of twisting, she finally managed to get it open. She felt around the compartment, and put her hand on something hard. She drew her hand out and found that she was holding a metal sphere about the size of a marble. She stared at it. Was this it? Quistis heard a small buzzing noise, and held her head closer to it. Suddenly it started to glow, and her eyes widened. She instantly threw the ball across the room and took cover in the opposite corner. She heard a small flash and turned back to see the metal sphere seem to stop halfway through the act of exploding. The thing just hovered in the air. Quistis could see what looked like a small aurora centred on the small thing, the colours changing second to second and extending and contracting like some kind of rainbow tentacles. After it appeared to be no threat, she stood back up and approached the thing. She reached out her hand to touch it.
“Well, what have we here?” she whispered to herself.
“I could ask you the same question,” the small metal ball replied.
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Alexia heard her beeper go off, but refused to open her eyes. She vaguely heard the other members of the team shouting at her to turn it off, and Team-2 bickering (do they ever stop? She thought hopelessly) in the background. After a small pillow was thrown in her general direction, she got up and reached for her phone.
“Yes?” she asked the person on the other end. She sat up when she heard Cid’s voice.
“Alexia?”
“Sir!” she replied, now wide-awake.
“You and your former teammates have a new mission,” the old Al Bhed said.
“Sir?”
“You’re all going undercover.” He said, and then hung up. Alexia stared at the phone for a few seconds, then decided whatever he had meant, it could wait until she had got some sleep, and she collapsed back down onto her impromptu bed again.
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Quistis stared at the thing in front of her for about ten seconds, not knowing whether she had actually heard the thing speak to her, or that Shiva was messing with her head.
“What?” she asked quietly.
“I said…” it began. Suddenly Quistis’ sword was out and pointed at the small sphere, ready to stab forward in a second. “Okaayy. That may not have been the best thing to say…” it seemed to whisper.
Quistis narrowed her eyes. “What the hell are you?” She asked.
I can’t believe we’re talking to a ball of metal, Shiva said.
“I heard that,” the aforesaid ball replied. Quistis took no notice. She really should have.
Quistis took a really deep breath. “OK, first thing’s first, what are you?” she asked slowly.
“The actual question should be; who am I,” it replied. Quistis’ eyes narrowed. “Although this may not be the best time to argue semantics,” it said quickly. “My name is Skaffen-Amtiskaw, I am a class-5 Esthar Drone,” it said. As if Quistis knew what that meant.
“And that means?” she asked.
“It would help if the pointy sharp sword was removed,” it said. Quistis did so, but did not allow it to disappear just yet. “Thank you, I assume you saw the message from Mr Leonhart?” Quistis nodded. “Good, I was designed by Odine’s labs, and was placed into the box as a helper for you, when you got out.”
Quistis rubbed for eyes and sat down on the bed. See-through computers, intelligent ball bearings, what next, wallpaper that changed colour? “All right, will you just stop for a second. Why are you here and what do you do?” she asked it.
It hovered next to her. “I am an Artificial Intelligence,” it said, as if reading from a script. “I was created to think for myself. I am far smarter than any other computer, and most humans. I am equipped with advanced field technology and holographic colour projectors that… Yes?”
“Can I ask you to get to the point?” Quistis asked, her patience with the weird machine running thin.
“I can use force-fields to manipulate things and can project colours onto the air, like the small aurora you see surrounding me,” it said simply.
“Better, and why do I need you?” she asked. It hesitated. “Well?” she asked again.
“I’m not sure,” it said. “I was only told to help a woman named Quistis Trepe when she awoke, and was given a rough description. I assume her to be you based on your exotic appearance. I wasn’t told what to help you with,” it said.
“So can I ignore you now?” she asked.
Just destroy the damn thing, Shiva said.
“I heard that!” Skaffen-Amtiskaw said.
Quistis did a double take. “Wait a minute, you heard her?” she asked.
“Yes!” it said indignantly.
“That’s not possible,” she said simply.
Hear this you insignificant over-sized bullet, Shiva said, and launched into a stream of insults.
“I can hear your friend perfectly well,” it said to Quistis, ignoring Shiva’s rant.
“You, what was your name? Skeffer…?” she asked, unsure.
“Skaffen-Amtiskaw. Skaffen will do, and use a pronoun will you? ‘It’ sounds so cold.” It (he) said.
“Call me Quistis then. Now exactly how the hell do you hear Shiva?” she asked, on the edge of her bed.
“Easily. I monitor your brainwave patterns, and I see two sets, one of them is you, and the other appears to be your, frankly quite rude, partner,” he said.
Quistis blinked. “And you do all this from a casing the size of a pea shell?” she asked incredulously.
“Why not?” he asked simply.
Quistis fell back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. After today, nothing really surprised her anymore. Her only thought now was of getting some sleep (she didn’t actually need it, but it was more human) and explaining to everyone the presence of this little problem currently hovering above her.
What a day.
_____________________________________________________________________
Luvvaa = Coffee
Quistis dreamed.
She opened her eyes to find herself sitting on a comfortable couch in the Garden Infirmary.
What!?
She stood up in seconds, looking around at the beds, the desk, the shelves full of medicine. If this wasn’t the Garden it was a damn good representation of it. She got up off the bed slowly, mind moving at full speed. She was dreaming, she had to be. Garden was lying broken and immobile in Zanarkand, and the infirmary along with it. She heard a breeze come from the window, and went over to it, grabbing the curtains. She whipped them aside, and gasped.
The entire Garden seemed to be hovering above Ultimecia’s castle. She looked out and saw the bridge they had crossed to reach the sorceress, and the huge doors they had crossed to reach the castle in the first place. She quickly closed the curtains. If she wasn’t dreaming then she must be dead. Small hope. She crossed the infirmary to the door and it slid open before she, revealing the passageway to the main Garden foyer. Slowly, eyes open and scanning for danger, she moved slowly through the long corridor. She reached the door to the foyer, and once again it slid open, and Quistis walked through.
People do not appreciate silence today. Cars and machines and the sheer amount of people talking mean that nothing is ever truly silent. Even when there is no-one around you can hear the sounds of a city from kilometres away. Birds and animal make sure that even far from urban areas, there is never truly silence. Silence is only the absence of noise, but what Quistis walked out into was pure silence. A silence so complete that it swallowed sound like some kind of audio black hole.
She walked slowly into the foyer, for footsteps making barely a noise. She had the feeling that if she had shouted, nothing would have happened. She shivered, even though it wasn’t cold. When the silence was shattered, it was like a bomb exploding in her eardrum in contrast to the silence.
“Hello.” Quistis spun around, searching for the source of the noise, but there was nothing there. “Don’t bother,” the voice said, “I don’t exist there.”
“What…? Who…?” Quistis said, unconsciously whispering. Even then it sounded like a shout in the oppressive silence that pervaded the place.
“That is not important. What is important is only what I want,” the voice said. It sounded familiar.
“What?” Quistis shouted this time. The echoes made her cover her ears with her hands, it was so loud.
The voice did not seem so quick to answer though.
“Do you remember this scenario?” it asked calmly.
“No!” Quistis replied, trying to shout and whisper at the same time.
“It was the other way around though that time, and you were passing judgement on a young girl.”
“Rikku…”
“Exactly. You chose right eventually, but it was at the cost of the girl’s soul. Remember that when next we meet Quistis.”
“Who are you?” Quistis asked, pleading.
“The Blue.” It said simply. The voice still sounded familiar.
“What do you want!” Quistis screamed to the air, her head nearly exploding with the volume.
“I want us whole again!” it shouted back.
“Shiva?” Quistis asked.
“No, but close. I am her opposite. You have known me for your whole life, yet you never realised exactly what I was. You accepted Shiva because you had to. Now that you no longer need her, you must accept me. You have to wake up now, but remember what we talked about. Shiva is a threat to the world if she ever gets control of us. Remember me. Now get up!”
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Quistis woke up gasping and clutching her head. She ran her hand through her hair. Te stuff was nearer to flexible icicles then fair, but eons ago she had decided it fit the image, and she kept it. She got up and went over to the mirror. She looked up at it and saw Shiva there, frowning at her.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Shiva asked.
“I don’t know,” Quistis said. She was shaken. Then she also frowned. “Don’t you know?”
“No! You went to sleep and so did I!”
Quistis was startled. Whatever the creature in her dream had been, it was powerful enough to exclude Shiva from her mind and senses, at least for a while. That was like separating sugar and salt. “It was nothing, just a bad dream.” She told herself.
“Must have been, look at us!”
Quistis looked down at her image in the mirror. Her skin had taken on a slightly, well, greyer pallor than usual, and there were light purple rings under her eyes. She sighed. When she got ill, she ended up looking like some sort of Aurora Borealis in human form. Speaking of auroras… She looked in the corner of the mirror and saw the drone she had recently met, hovering in the corner of the room a few feet away from her.
“Fascinating. It’s like you’re really two people,” he said, without a trace of sarcasm. If anything it sounded enthralled. Quistis turned away from the mirror.
“Did you hear all that?” she asked quietly.
“Yes. What’s it like?”
“Horrible.”
“Oh…”
Quistis turned away from it and her gaze fell on that damned box.
Open it. Shiva said.
This time she was damn well going to. She had waited long enough. Quistis reached for the mirror and flicked the switch, Squall’s image appearing once again and continuing the message it had been halfway through when she had discovered the drone.
“…There’s a little surprise in there. It…”
“Hey!” the drone exclaimed.
“…Was designed to fill you in. Anyway, this is a recorded message from us…”
“I think she knows that Squall,” said Rinoa off-camera.
“Whatever. This is a recorded message from us all, made about twenty years after you left. We’ve recorded everything here, memories, events, thoughts, messages, for when you get out. We… Hey! Quit it!” Squall looked off camera as Selphie shoved him out of the way. She was older, but she still looked more-or-less the same as always, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, but still bouncing up and down.
“Hey Quisty! Ignore Squall; he doesn’t know how to do this kind of thing. Look!” Selphie held up her hand, and Quistis caught the unmistakable band of gold on her finger. Son of a...
“Irvine and me got hitched! He proposed about a year after the war against those meanie that… oh, sorry, anyway… We have a daughter!” Here she looked slightly bashful. “We called her Quistis. We, erm, hope you don’t mind, just that we thought it would be, y’know, right.”
Quistis brushed tears out of her eyes. “Selphie, thank you,” she whispered to the screen. Shiva stayed silent. Quistis got the feeling that she too was listening intently.
Selphie looked back up. “Oh, I almost forgot! You’re a legend now! Irvine had this idea, and we all got together and wrote this story about the war! It’s got you in it and everything. We didn’t tell everyone it was real of course, but the kids loved it!” Quistis laughed. Trust Irvine. “So anyway, everyone’s here, and they all want to say hi!” she moved off camera, and was replaced by Zell.
The young martial artist rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, and started talking. He never liked machines, and Quistis could tell how uncomfortable he was. “Erm, hi there Quistis. I’m really sorry about everything that happened. We all miss you here. Selphie told you Irvine stitched her up?” Something flew onto the field of view and hit Zell on the neck. “Ow! What was that for!? What do you mean? It’s true! All right then, anyway, everyone’s OK, no-ones seen Bahamut in years, everyone reckoned he ran for it after you got trapped, the Guardians went mental and Ifrit swore they would hunt him down. Carbuncle didn’t say much for a few days, and the others are going to be here soon enough.”
Quistis heard Selphie’s voice from off-camera. “Tell her.”
Zell instantly deflated. “Yeah. Quistis, I know this isn’t really appropriate, but, well. You remember that girl I was going out with?”
Quistis did, and wanted to know where this was heading.
“Well, she died.”
Quistis mouth dropped open. Rosie, dead?
“She went in for SeeD, and a Galbadian sniper killed her on her practical exam. She had stayed behind to evacuate some students, and there was no room on the craft, so she gave up her place to another wounded cadet, and she was shot when she was getting him on board. She… Zell stopped her breath. She was lung shot, and she died in the infirmary.”
Quistis sighed. Even after everything was over, it never stopped.
Again she heard Rinoa’s voice. “Tell her about you and…”
“Nu-uh!” Zell said indignantly. “Someone else’s turn now.”
“Then get out of the way and let me have a go!” Irvine’s voice shouted. Quistis grinned.
Zell was forcefully shoved from the field of view and was instantly replaced by Irvine. He grinned and removed his hat, giving a small bow. “Well hello there fair lady. Well, not so fair anymore, more blue than blonde, but that did not make you any less beautiful. How’s the future? If they give you trouble, give me a call.” Quistis grinned. Some things never changed. He even dressed the same, although he seemed slightly more quiet now. Maybe Selphie had calmed him down in marriage? “And, well, nothing much to say. Me a husband and father and everything was pretty good going if I say so. Score! Ouch!” Quistis had no doubt that Selphie had hit him. “Ok, I’ll be cool. I’ll leave the other news to Rinoa and Siren, but we all wish you could have been here, for everything. Adieu.” He walked off without another word. He was replaced more or less by Squall.
"Everyone else, Nida, Xu, and Cid, say hi as well, they just didn’t want to do this. Others will be here soon.” The picture flickered, and then dissolved to the 3D equivalent of static, and Quistis switched the window off.
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“You had some good friends,” Skaffen-Amtiskaw said from above her.
Quistis grinned. “Yeah, I did.” She was holding back tears. For all the longing she had expressed to know what had happened, she still missed them far too much. Maybe the past was better left alone.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, Shiva commented wryly.
“Shut up,” Quistis said simply, not realising she had spoken out loud.
“Excuse me?” said Skaffen in surprise.
“Not you, her.”
“Oh, right,” Skaffen said.
Quistis touched the screen and the hologram of static appeared in her room again. She waited for about a minute before Squall’s image appeared again, looking off screen.
“…You here? OK.” He turned back to approximately where Quistis was. The window must have had some kind of sensor that told the camera where to project the image so that it looked like it was looking at her. “Quistis? Rinoa is back.” He immediately went off, and was replaced by Rinoa. She whispered something to Squall off screen. He must have agreed, because he walked behind her, and Quistis heard the sound of a door shutting in the background.
“Quistis?” Rinoa said tentatively. Then she grinned. “This is kinda ridiculous isn’t it? I mean, there you are, wherever you are, and we’re back here in your past, talking to this weird-shaped 3D-recorder thingy.”
“I want to, no, I need to say sorry. I always wondered, after I woke up and everyone was back, what would have happened if I had been stronger. Maybe if my powers hadn’t overwhelmed me, you wouldn’t have had to so what you did.” Rinoa looked on the edge of tears. “I’m sorry for everything Quisty! If there’s a way to get you back, we’ll find it, I swear.” She wiped tears from her eyes and virtually ran out of the camera’s field of view.
“May I?” a familiar voice said. Rinoa nodded as she walked off, and Siren walked on to the picture. She hadn’t changed a bit, except she was wearing actual clothes now, dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt. “Hello Quistis.” She smiled and brushed some hair from her eyes. “After everything that happened, we kinda got to thinking when you got out it might be nice to have some memories of home, so we made this, thanks to Laguna convincing Odine to make it."
“We miss you, Diablos most of all. He wasn’t the same after you left. He felt really bad that he didn’t try harder.”
“There was nothing he could have done,” Quistis whispered sadly.
“…But life goes on. He never forgot you. He’s at Trabia for the week, teaching. Can you believe that? We think he needed something to take his mind off everything. It affected a lot of people. Carbuncle was crushed. We couldn’t get him to come down to earth for a few days. The others were kinda depressed as well, but we bounced back, we figured you wouldn’t want us to stay sad forever. Wait, that didn’t sound right. I meant, err, ah forget it. I don’t even know if you’ll ever see this, but Rinoa seems certain, so I guess you will. See ya around.” And she just walked off.
Quistis suddenly leant forward, switched the machines off, and leant back against the bed, blinking away tears. She never realised- well, actually she had, at some point- what effect she had on other people lives. She had did it in Besaid; Squall, the world, Seifer – she shuddered at that – and now she was doing it again; Rikku, the others, and yet again, the world. She switched the machine back on and continued to watch.
Squall walked on as Siren finished walking off.
“Yeah, well, anyway. We didn’t really think this would be enough, so we got Selphie to record some others things. Not that she complained. If you look back in that huge box they should be in there,” he said. “We don’t know whether they say use the same date system when you are, so they’re marked for years after the war and events.” He broke out in a rare smile. “Enjoy. Just slide the disks into the computer’s edge to view the videos.” The image clicked off, and Quistis stared at the space where he had been for a long time. She looked back at the box, and saw a pile of thin wafers, just the right size to fit into the window’s top corner. She turned to look at the hovering Skaffen-Amtiskaw, and he took the hint instantly.
“I’ll just go and have a look around then,” he said quickly, and flew off.
Quistis looked back at the box, and picked out one wafer at Random. She saw it was marked, and when she looked, so were the rest. ‘+1 YEAR.’ ‘+2 YEARS.’ ‘+3 YEARS.’ They were all similarly marked, all the way from one year to thirty, although…
What the hell? said Shiva.
Quistis looked back at the pile of wafers. One year after her imprisonment to thirty years after. She couldn’t quite figure out what it was, until it clicked. There were less than thirty wafers. She looked at the labels on each of the wafers, examining the labels, looking for one that maybe had two years worth of footage stored on it. She hadn’t made a mistake though. From one year to eight everything added up, ditto for twenty-one to thirty. But the wafers that should have said ‘+17’, ‘+18’, and ‘+19 YEARS’ were missing. The events of three whole years were not here.
Curious… Shiva said.
“Damn right.” Quistis replied softly. Why had they not done it? Had they forgotten? Or was there something else? She decided to put that aside for now, and put in the disk marked +1 YEAR.
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Ivan wandered the corridors of Luca, bored beyond imagination. It was a side effect of battle that he usually spent the rest of the week tired and grumbling. Adrenaline will do that. He paced through the building, looking for something to sustain his interest. He was about to quit and get some sleep when he saw something that grabbed his attention.
He was passing the door that led to Trepe’s assigned quarters when the door opened. He was about to turn and walk away when a small ball of metal surrounded by brightly coloured gas flew out and went down the corridor away from him. Ivan stood there for about ten seconds. He rubbed his eyes and then pinched himself. Hard.
“Ouch!”
Not a dream then. Making sure his pistol was in his shoulder holster he took off down the corridor after it. As an afterthought he unbuttoned the strap to allow easy access to the firearm. He wasn’t going to be surprised anymore this week. He was one-hundred-percent incorrect.
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Skaffen-Amtiskaw wandered the corridors of Luca, bored beyond imagination. He hovered on the roof of the building he had found himself in. For all he knew boredom was a side effect of being trapped in that damned box for millennia, but since there was no record of anyone being crammed into a metal container for eons he had no records to compare it with. He had noticed the presence of the human behind it when it had left Quistis’ quarters and had chosen to ignore it. So far he was vastly underwhelmed by the whole experience. When he had emerged from the box, he had expected to be in the future, with advanced technology and other machines to talk with. The first part had gone all right, but a quick scan conducted with internal fields had shown no other sentient machines. At all. Across the whole planet. Had there been some sort of catastrophe to make humanity regress to this? If he had been human he would have sighed. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t.
He flew through the corridors at about walking pace, drawing scared or suspicious glances from people dressed in robes, and disinterested ones from people dressed more colourfully. He was about to go through the door out into the street when someone grabbed him. Or at least someone tried to. The second Skaffen registered the fact that someone was trying ‘catch’ him he instantly turned his casing into a frictionless surface, and the man’s hand slid right off. As an afterthought, he also turned the floor into one as well, and the man’s feet flew out from under him, as they suddenly couldn’t find any purchase on the ground.
Skaffen hovered above the man’s face and watched as he regained consciousness.
“Sorry about that,” the drone said apologetically. And then he was staring into the barrel of a gun.
_____________________________________________________________________
Ivan stared up at the drone, which stared back, although Ivan couldn’t see this. The drone was the first to break the silence.
“Would you mind putting away your gun?”
“No.”
“Ah. Then perhaps I could explain…”
“No.”
Ivan heard footsteps, and inclined his head to see Rikku walk around the corner. She noticed him lying on the floor and looked back. “Hi,” he said unconcernedly.
“Er, hi,” Rikku replied, slightly nervously. “What are you doing on the floor?”
Ivan jerked his gun in Skaffen-Amtiskaw’s general direction, which happened to be above him. “This thing made me,” he told her.
Rikku looked at him as if he was slightly crazy. “The ceiling made you fall on the floor?”
Ivan sighed. “Not the ceiling! This…” he jerked his gun towards the hovering drone again. “...Floating metal ball thingy that talks!” he said testily.
Still she showed no recognition “Ivan, there’s nothing there.”
Ivan was about to insult the girl, then he realised what she had said. He blinked, and then settled down. “You really can’t see that?” he asked the young girl.
“All I see is you pointing a gun upwards.”
“Take my word for it Rikku, there is a small hovering cannon-ball above me,” Ivan told her.
Rikku started to walk towards him. “Let me see… WOAH!” Rikku exclaimed, as she walked over the section of floor that Skaffen-Amtiskaw had polarised. She fell on her tail, then reached behind her and looked back up, looking slightly dazed. At this point the drone decided that enough was enough.
“When you’ve both quite finished…” it said. Rikku’s head looked in the direction the sound had come from. She could’ve sworn… “Yes miss, I really am here. Your friend attacked me…”
“Liar!”
“…Was about to attack me, so I defended myself,” he said smoothly.
Rikku continued to stare at the place where Skaffen’s voice was coming from. She still couldn’t see a thing. “Where are you?” she asked the air.
“In front of you,” Skaffen said. In reply he switched off the field he was using to eliminate friction on the floor, and Rikku hoisted herself up on her elbows.
She stared around for a few seconds, then shut her eyes and rubbed them. She opened them again, and this time stared directly at the drone. “Whoa!” she said again. She looked at Ivan. “Your new toy?” she asked him playfully. Ivan swatted her away and was about to reply with a scathing comment when Quistis chose this moment to make her presence felt.
“No, mine actually.”
“I resent the implication that I am anyone’s ‘toy’,” Skaffen said stuffily.
Ivan looked around at where the woman was. She was leaning against the corner, a smile on her face. “Explain,” he said simply.
Quistis gestured at Skaffen with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Rikku, Ivan, meet Skaffen-Amtiskaw, a machine that thinks. Skaffen, meet Rikku, recent addition to the Guardian race, and Ivan, a soldier who shoots people.”
Skaffen bobbed slightly in the air in what seemed to be its version of a bow. “I'm charmed to meet you Rikku. Less so with you,” he added to Ivan.
The soldier mumbled something under his breath and got to his feet. He looked at Quistis. “Can you make it do tricks?” he growled at her.
Quistis smiled. “He does his own. You were just a victim of one by the looks of things.”
Rikku went up to the drone and peered closely at it. She turned to Quistis. “How does it work?” she asked.
“Ask it.”
Rikku turned to the drone. “Erm, how do you work?” she asked slowly, not being generally used to asking questions to small pieces of metal.
“Fields,” he said, and wouldn’t elaborate. “Now if you will excuse me, I have better places to be.” He didn’t, he just didn’t like the way that soldier was glaring at him and fingering the trigger of his weapon. He glided slowly away from the others, then turned the corner and flew down it at a respectable percentage of the speed of sound.
Quistis turned back to Rikku and a very disgruntled-looking Ivan. “I see you met Skaffen-Amtiskaw,” she said as a statement, not a question.
“Is that its name?” Rikku asked, running past her and peering down the corridor the drone had disappeared down. “Where did you find it?” she asked, spellbound by the new machina. So small, yet it could talk and think! She wanted one.
“It was sealed in the box with the window in,” Quistis said.
Ivan’s head turned to look at her. “What box? What window?” he asked suspiciously.
“That really is none of your business Mr Ivan,” Quistis said simply. Ivan grunted and moved back down the corridor, in the direction of the sleeping quarters. The man must not have had any sleep since the Garden. Quistis watched him leave and turned back to Rikku. “Come on,” She walked off down the hall, towards the stairs to the roof.
“What is it?” Rikku asked, trailing her. She thought she already knew the answer. The reply still puzzled her.
“Learn.”
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Lulu and Wakka stared out across Luca from the top balcony of the Tower of Knowledge. They didn’t say anything, just held their hands clasped together and stared out at the horizon as the sun set.
“That was an interesting day,” Lulu said softly, at a loss for words.
Wakka nodded, but didn’t say anything. After Sin had been defeated, they had all assumed at the time, unrealistically, that Spira’s sorrow would vanish. Instead new problems had arisen to replace old ones. Yevon had fallen, but nothing concrete had taken its place, leaving an empty void where belief had been. Blind faith in the future was not enough. At least when Sin had terrorised them they had the thought of its defeat to rally around and draw support and hope from. Now there was nothing. Spira was like a body with no head, floundering in darkness until something new appeared to lead it. In his weaker moments, Wakka had wondered whether the NYC was right, whether crushing the religion upon which all society on Spira was based upon had been such a good idea.
In her weaker moments, Lulu agreed.
After everything that had happened, Lulu and Wakka had returned to Besaid together, helping to keep the old town running in it’s new guise as the hometown of the ‘Eternal Summoner’. They had ended up sharing a room, and eventually (Inevitably, Yuna had later said) grown close. Very close. Lulu had been eight months pregnant with their son (Wakka had insisted it would be a son) when they had heard that Yuna was chasing down some criminals. They had asked the Al Bhed in the village to contact Khimari, and all three of them had rushed down to Zanarkand as fast as technology would carry them, only to find out that the criminal was in fact Rikku, who they had assumed long dead, and the still-living Aeon Shiva, who had introduced herself as Quistis Trepe, a two hundred thousand year-old woman had been trapped in a gemstone/fayth for the last one hundred ninety-nine thousand and seventy six of them. Then she had revealed that the creatures that had put her in the fayth were in fact the Source of All Evil and were probably active in Spira. As. They. Talked. Things had got tiring. When the group had dispersed, to think/sleep/catch up, Wakka and Lulu had walked to the Tower and decided to watch the sunset.
“We will not get back to Besaid by nightfall, we would do well to get a room here,” she said.
“Yeah…” Wakka said, obviously not really listening. He heard a door open and turned to see Yuna walk out onto the balcony.
She noticed them and smiled. “Lu, Wakka.” She walked up to the balcony and stared out as the last rays of light disappeared below the horizon. “Long day,” she said quietly. Nothing else needed to be said. It been an overwhelming day, but at least it was over. In fact it had only just begun, but Yuna, Wakka, Lulu, Khimari, Rikku, Quistis and everyone else could not know this.
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Alexia and Kirsten also watched the sun go drop below view, but they did it from a street corner instead of a roof. Alexia sighed as night descended on Luca. Although here, ‘night’ was a relative thing. Enough lights remained lit to illuminate the entire city.
“Well?” Kirsten asked her.
“Well what?” Alexia said, not really wanting to talk.
“What did Cid say our new mission was?” she clarified, not taking her eyes of the woman.
“You mean your new mission,” she said sadly, and Kirsten finally knew what was bugging her.
“You didn’t want to get taken off the squad did you?”
Alexia quickly changed the subject, speaking in impersonal military tones. “Miss Trepe has informed us of the existence of a possible threat to Spira. You are to go undercover and gather intelligence on these creatures, and then report your findings to Cid and the ruling body of Spira. You and the squad are to report to Miss Trepe and in the morning for intelligence briefings and combat training.” She saw Kirsten bridle slightly at that.
“If she thinks she can teach us anything, she’s mistaken,” she said confidently. Even if she was the medic, she was still trained to the same standards as the rest of the squad.
Alexia smiled at her. “Don’t be so sure,” she said.
That sentence made Kirsten look directly into Alexia’s eyes. Usually Alexia was the most calm of the squad members. Ivan was scary when he was angry, and having people shoot at him made him angry, but Alexia had always been there to calm the commander down. “She’s good?” she asked. Like ‘night’ in Luca, ‘good’ in the SAS was also a relative term. Alexia nodded. “Whoa,” Kirsten said quietly.
Secretly, Alexia was nervous. They had never been undercover before like this. Hiding in sand dunes and shooting at things came naturally, but for some of them (“coughIvancough,” Kirsten and the others would have said) diplomacy did not come easily or quickly. Alexia heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Zion loom up behind her. “Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” the massive white-haired man replied. He was like a human Khimari.
“You heard about the mission too?” Kirsten asked him.
He nodded. “Dangerous mission,” he said.
Alexia looked at him. “Why? Surely Spirans in Luca don’t hate us that much?”
Now it was Zion’s turn to look at Alexia. “You didn’t hear? We’re not going to spy in Luca.”
At that exact moment, Alexia and Kirsten both felt shivers run down their spines.
“Where exactly are we carrying out this mission?” Alexia asked Zion slowly. When he answered her, she pulled her jacket closer around her. It was warm in Luca, but it had suddenly got a lot colder.
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Khimari stated out at the waterfront of Luca from the stadium. He liked it here. It was quiet and there was no-one to disturb his thoughts. Even the blitzers had all gone home from practise. He looked towards where the Tower of Knowledge stood, the only building on the Luca skyline to raise itself above the stadium. He had come here after the Aeon-woman had finished her talk. He had went away slightly worried, but if Yuna needed protecting, then by Gagazet’s Peak he would be there to protect her from whatever threat there was.
_____________________________________________________________________
The Neo-Yevon mechanic stared down at the readings on his scanner. Loath as he was to use the hated Al Bhed machina he still needed them to find the big prize. He walked up to the water’s edge and stared down into the murky depths. It was that devil-bitch’s entire fault. She had convinced the traitorous Yuna to re-start the salvage operations, and now the Neo-Yevon Coalition had to jump-start their operation, lest the Al Bhed beat them to it. The mechanic (Yevon how he hated that title!) was under no illusion that the Black Guardian and the Ancient (typical sphere-reporters, had to give everything am easy-to-remember label) were manipulating Yuna for their own ends. After they had returned two months ago from the Unholy City Zanarkand with those two creatures Spira had almost universally accepted them. Rumours of sighted Aeons had begun from the old men who had previously talked about the spirits of dead Maesters who came to talk to them. He stared over to the water, a frown on his face.
“How did things ever get like this?” he whispered to the water, as if expecting a reply. He got one, though it came from behind him.
“The people have been deceived.”
The mechanic spun around to see Tyler approach him. Before he had cast off from Bevelle this man had come to his ship and shown him a coded order from The Temple of Yevon (from the leader himself no less!) that said he was to accompany them and that he would be obeyed. The machinist had took him to be some kind of watcher, but he seemed much to emotionless for that, and his eyes… The machinist had never seen such eyes, grey orbs that seemed to look at you and see deep into your soul. “What do you mean sir?” the machinist answered, judging ‘sir’ to be the title that could be used with least risk. Something about this man scared him. It was as if he had seen the other side of life, and come back for something. Or someone. He didn’t know how right he was.
“The common masses cannot understand how well they have been fooled. They praise Yuna for her bravery, not knowing how she has betrayed all Spira. Without Yevon we are lost.”
“I understand,” the machinist replied. He had joined the NYC, after all. The man Tyler walked next to him and put his hands on the guardrail. The machinist noticed that the skin was grey, almost decaying. But the man was still alive?
Wasn’t he?
“Good man. We approach the position. Get your divers ready. The wreck is near,” he said, and turned and walk off towards the door to the bridge of the ship. The machinist had a little shiver as he watch the man leave. That guy really scared him.
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Tyler walked back into the warmth of the ship’s insides. Not that he could feel heat any more. Or cold for that matter. He had seen the truth now, and nothing else was important except their wishes. In the depths of that cursed building in Zanarkand he had been shown the truth, and he wanted to be a part of the future. He knew that the wreck they were approaching had been laying there for many millennia, built long before Zanarkand and long after Trepe had been imprisoned, therefore the woman could have no knowledge of it and it’s deadly cargo. He smiled to himself. Everything was going to plan. He walked onto the bridge and approached the pilot. “Are we there yet?” he asked him.
The pilot spun round when he heard his voice and stared at him. Tyler asked again.
“Another few hundred metres sir,” he said.
Tyler nodded. “All stop. That is close enough,” he said.
“But sir! I have to agree with the captain first…” his voice trailed off as Tyler glared at him.
“You will stop this craft and prepare salvage equipment for use,” he said slowly. The pilot gulped and nodded, pulling down on the lever that would shut down the engines. This craft had been one of the first purchases of the NYC, and the Al Bhed to train it’s crew the second. They had needed to get at the ocean’s riches, and so they had put away their precious ethics laws for a while and bought the craft. They had shot the Al Bhed who had trained them afterwards. They couldn’t have them telling others who they had trained after all.
Tyler heard the distinctive whir as machina spun and groaned into life, lowering the chain that the divers would crawl down to the wreck. It wasn’t at the wrecks exact position, but close enough that it would make no difference.
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The machinist stared at the water, hoping to see some sign of the wreck that was below and ahead of them. He couldn’t see anything, but the mind plays funny tricks on a person in the dark, and he swore he could hear faint whispers on the breeze. He turned to the divers. “Stop that faint whispering!” he shouted at them. The divers groaned, they had heard of the jitteriness of this machinist, and had wanted to see how much they could freak him out. They would have to settle for breathing heavily when behind him. “Get going!” he shouted next, and hit the button next to the crane that would lower the heavy guidance-chain into the water. The diver next to the crane jumped in after, it being his job to anchor the chain as close to the wreck as possible. The machinist heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Tyler stood next to him, still dressed in his all-black ensemble.
“How does the recovery?” Tyler asked the man, not looking at him.
“We will have it raised before day break,” he replied.
Tyler whirled to face him. “It is not the wreck we are interested in, but the wreck’s cargo,” he said.
The machinist looked surprised. Then why in His name did you get us to drag all this heavy equipment with us? He asked Tyler in his head.
As if he had read it, Tyler said; “We brought the cranes because this is no ordinary cargo.” He went on to explain exactly how the cranes would be set up to winch the cargo from the wreck’s stores. The machinist listened politely, and then told the man exactly why it cold not be done.
“How heavy are these things?” he asked.
“They will be roughly twenty kilos,” he replied.
“Can’t be done. At that depth, even if the chain held the pressure on the crane would either snap it like a twig or cause us to capsize,” he said slowly.
Tyler did not seem to care. “They will both hold. Do it, or explain to the Grand Maester why you failed to carry out his wishes.” Tyler watched in amusement as the man’s face paled at the invocation of the title of the leader of Neo Yevon. The machinist shouted to the divers, who complained loudly, then went over to Tyler. He noticed that the female diver was extremely attractive, and hidden by the bare minimum of clothing.
“What are we looking for?” they asked respectfully. The fact that he was under direct orders from Bevelle carried great weight among the Yevonites.
“It will be a long and thick metal tube, tapering off to a smoothed-off point at one end, probably with fins on the other,” he said simply. The divers nodded and went towards the water, jumping into the freezing sea one by one. Tyler looked down and smiled. This time he would not fail.
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Elisium looked back up at the surface once before she turned and kicked off down through the depths towards the wreck of the sunken vessel. She held her hands in the Yevon prayer, held it for a second, and then went to catch up with the others, who did not complain. She did it every trip. She turned her head in all directions as she swum, looking for signs of danger or a random field gliding through the depths. All she saw was some salmon swimming in a shoal to her left.
She had never really intended to join the NYC. She had worshipped Yevon all her life, until the Eternal Summoner killed him. She had heard about the Neo-Yevon Coalition on news broadcasts from Luca, and she had thought it would be a great way to meet boys, and had gone to Bevelle to see what was going on. She had been noticed by one of the officers there and had instantly been hired for their salvaging team. She had found it strange that Yevonites used Al Bhed technology, but had accepted it. The initial greetings had been heavy on religion and intimidation, so she had mouthed the words and signed up. At least she got paid.
When news of the wreck had surfaced, she had been thrilled. Even more so when she was told she would be part of the excavation team. She was fascinated by Ancient technology, and when Yuna (curse her soul) had returned from Zanarkand (may it’s inhabitants rot) with the Ancient woman, Elisium had wished she had been chosen to go investigate, instead of that Tyler guy. She had seen him go into that old building with the Al Bhed soldier, but had not seen him come out, yet here he was. He had been known him to be working on the outside of Bevelle, and as a bit of a joker. He seemed really serious though.
She came out of her thoughts when suddenly the surrounding water became slightly lighter. She looked around for the wreck. Suddenly brightness meant that something metallic was reflecting light back into the water, which meant…
Yes!
A shape suddenly loomed out of the darkness, a few hundred metres from the chain she was holding. She let go and kicked off the chain, drifting towards the shattered hulk that had once been an Ancient machina. She had been informed that what they were going after was much older than Zanarkand. She looked to her sides and saw the other three salvagers swimming after her, two of them holding harnesses. That confused her, until she realised that they were hauling out cargo.
She looked back at it, and saw that it could not possibly be a shi. It looked like a building, for one. It had been squat and red, and had a ring encircling it, now broken and shredded by the currents of the ocean. Whatever. What it was didn’t matter; all that mattered was what was inside it.
She swam towards what looked like a hole in the chassis, and motioned to the other to follow. Her partner did, but the other two holding harnesses shook their heads and pointed at them. Elisium nodded and turned back, swimming into the wreck, looking around for signs of what Tyler had told them to look for. She reached behind her and drew her pocket-torch from her diving suit, flicking the switch. Immediately a thin beam of light shot through the darkness ahead of her. She swivelled her wrist, turning the beam this way and that, looking for any clues of what she was looking for. She noticed something on the wall, and shone the beam onto the shone marked ‘Weapons Bay.’ She smiled.
Wrenching the door open, she and her partner swan through the corridors of the darkened wreck, looking out or any sign of recent habitation by fiends. They must have swum for hours before they came to the door. It was big and heavy and obviously much stronger than the others. It was probably thicker than the actual outer-hull of the craft.
Jackpot.
Reaching behind her pack, she withdrew the same explosive device that they had been issued by the machinist on the ship. He had said Tyler had ordered him too, and that made her wonder exactly what they were opening here. Had Tyler already known what was down here?
Don’t be silly. That’s ridiculous.
She placed the explosive, motioned to her partner, pressed the delayed detonator, then swum as fast as she could kick. She felt the explosion rather than heard it, as a shockwave of water coursed through the corridor. She emerged to see the heavy door wrecked, and smiled. Take that! She thought, easing past the door into the room beyond, shining the torch beam into the water. She saw racks of dark shapes. They were warped and battered, but they had been cylindrical once, with tapered points.
Right on!
Elisium gestured to her partner, then at the bombs. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small object, which he flicked to ‘on’. A small red light started blinking, and they waited, Elisium looking through the room for the two least damaged cylinders. As she worked, she thought about the markings on the door to this room, the one she had blown up. She had never seen that circular collection of arcs before, ditto the dot with the three rectangles heading off from it.
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Tyler stood at the ship’s edge as the signal came through from the two divers inside the wreck. He leant forward, and the machinist noticed how eager he was, like a kid about to receive some new and expensive toy. He was right as well.
After about five minutes of waiting, the chain jerked once, and the machinist pressed the controls to raise the harnesses the other two divers had carried down with them.
After another ten minutes of waiting, the water started to swirl and bubble, and suddenly the head of the female diver rose form the froth, one hand holding the chain, the other doing the prayer to Yevon as well as she could with one hand. The chain rose further, and the harnesses finally broke the surface, to show that the other three divers were holding onto them, and the woman sitting atop one of the objects, a grin on her face as she rode the cylinder up to the deck. As it completely left the water, she jumped off and swum to the handrail. Tyler reached down and hauled her up. As she left the water she was pulled towards him and their bodies were suddenly very close together, her large breasts pressing against his chest, and Tyler noticed how well-fitting her wetsuit was.
He shook his head clear and walked towards where the objects were being lowered to the decks. No time for that now. The entire crew had come out to watch the fruits of their labour be collected, seven men and three woman, including Elisium, who had came over to watch without changing. He noticed on the edge of his mind that most of the men were eying her with frank admiration and lust.
Tyler walked over to the nearest object, the crew gathering around him, watching his every move. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the toolkit he had taken from an Al Bhed. The man had no more use for it where he was. He knelt next to the object and ran his hand along the edge, searching for the crack he knew to be there. He found it, and withdrew the long piece of metal with one slightly bent and pointed end and one hooked end. He pushed the bent and pointed end into the small groove, and tugged as hard as he could. The crew watched with amusement, expecting Tyler to exhaust himself against the metal cover. Instead he had barely pulled on it when the cover just popped off, flying the length of the deck and falling into the water with a splash. Tyler turned to the crew and pointed to the nearest machinist. “You.”
“Sir?”
“Come here,” Tyler said. He was not going to risk his own skin now.
The machinist went towards the object slowly, and looked into the top of the object. He looked at the woman on the controls and made some hand motions. She nodded and pressed some buttons. The trapdoor leading to the sea slowly slid open, and the end of the harness that held the open end of the object swung upwards. Tyler looked annoyed yet held his tongue. The harness swung the object into the trapdoor, then the woman pressed another button, and the trapdoor swung shut, trapping the open end of the object in it, like a piece of metal in a vice. It was roughly at chest height. The Machinist looked into the object and saw another metal shell with many small screws around the outside, probably to protect against the elements. He clicked his tongue and reached into his own tool bag, producing a small screwdriver, which he used to loosen the screws around the casing. He slowly reached in to lift it out, but first gestured at Tyler, who nodded and gestured for him to continue. The machinist lifted the lid, and was greeted by death.
A small cloud of green jetted out and hit him in the face. He coughed in surprise and nearly dropped the casing back on the object, stopped only because he had staggered back. His crewmates moved forwards in alarm, some looking at Tyler malevolently. Tyler merely looked bored, and then spoke up.
“It is merely conservation gas, used to preserve the contents of a container, which is what this is,” he said.
The machinist stood up and looked at Tyler. “And why didn’t you tell me about that before!?” he demanded angrily.
Tyler shrugged. “Never crossed my mind.”
Now that the case was off, and the gas released, the inside should be safe. He reached his hand inside and felt for the hardened wires, which would indicate the explosive blocks. It should… be… ah. He moved his hand along the sphere and felt the smoothness of the metal. It had not been damaged by time. It would still function. Excellent. He withdrew his hand and turned to the others. “We have what we came for.” He told the assembled crowd. He reached into his pocket to replace the crowbar, and also pressed a small piece of metal, not unlike the one Elisium had used to call the crane. Now all he had to do was wait.
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Elisium stared at the machina. She had seen the way that Tyler had drawn away from her when she had pressed up against him, and smiled. She had that affect on people. The paper-thin wetsuit had probably helped. She turned to look at the machinist, who continued to cough over the side of the ship, and frowned. It had been about thirty minutes since they had opened the object, and he didn’t seem to be doing so well. She walked over to him. “How you doing?” she asked, concern in her voice.
“I feel like Sin is dancing on my heart,” he replied.
Elisium looked across at Tyler, who was staring back. She walked over to him. “He needs to see a doctor,” she said. Tyler shrugged and pointed. She looked off into the distance, and saw a small point of light on the darkened horizon. She squinted, and saw a small wake thrown up from the ocean’s surface from a small ship approaching at high speed. The other crew members came up to the deck to see the small craft draw up to their own. It was small and compact, completely enclosed, with long thin tubes with fins attached to the sides. Tyler walked towards the ship, and a small hatch in its side opened. A man stepped out, using one hand to steady himself against the doorframe, and reaching to Tyler with the other.
Tyler held his hand up and gestured for him to wait. He turned to Elisium. “Help me with him,” he said, pointing at the machinist and taking one shoulder. Elisium took the other, and they hauled him towards the craft, which opened wider. They both stepped aboard.
A man dressed in white with a mask on immediately walked up and poked him in the side with a needle. He looked at some complicated piece of machinery in his hand and nodded. “Radiation poisoning present.” He turned to Tyler. “They exist,” he said wonderingly.
Four men suddenly ran past her, jumping onto the deck of the ship. After about a minute she saw
Tyler merely nodded, then looked at Elisium. “We require your services elsewhere,” he said simply.
Elisium nodded, not knowing what else to do. Tyler smiled warmly at her, and then gestured to the man on the door. The man nodded back and closed it, shouting something about the mission being complete to the captain of the sole NYC salvage vessel in existence. She felt a rumble as the engines of the ship started up. Tyler moved off towards the front of the ship, and Elisium moved to follow. On the way she saw several other members of the crew, who all looked back. She wondered why until she looked down, and realised that she had neglected to change, and she was still wearing her wetsuit. Oh well. She walked through the doorway onto the bridge of the small craft and gasped. This was way beyond what her salvaging craft had been capable of. Looking forwards, she saw Tyler talking with the captain, and the captain nod. She noticed that the salvager ship was on screen, and was about to ask what was going on when Tyler looked over at her.
“Ma’am, there is a spare bunk in my cabin. I’m sorry but we weren’t expecting to take on passengers,”
Good enough, Elisium thought, and walked off towards the back of the craft.
Tyler looked back at he captain of the ship. “Fire when ready, there must be no witnesses to the excavation,” he said, and walked back towards his cabin.
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“What the hell was all that about?” the captain of the salvager asked.
“No idea,” the remaining machinist replied.
“Hey! What’s that?” a diver said, pointing at the water.
The captain turned to look, and saw a small dot of yellow, and a small whooshing noise getting louder.
He was still staring when the missile hit the ship and reduced him and his crew to bodies floating on the ocean, surrounded by small fires and pieces of debris.
The small craft that Tyler and Elisium had boarded disappeared into the night, away from the smoking wreckage of the salvaging ship, and the sunken hulk of Galbadia Garden.