Breaking the Spiral

By C.S. Frost (Omega Gilgamesh)

Disclaimer: I don't own FFX, and I make no claim over it. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes, and I make no money off of it, or any future chapters. No legal infringement is intended.

Sitting down on the beach, Jethro looked over Henderson's Inlet. It was the rare sunny day in Western Washington, and there was a cool breeze going across Puget Sound, resulting in some good waves across the blue channel. He was sitting down on the rocks, planning to stay there until sundown just to get back at his mother. He thought about stealing one of the kayaks or canoes on the public boat rack and paddling over to the other side of the inlet, a good mile and a half away. It would be a good way to burn off energy, give him something to focus on.

Nearly two years ago, Jethro's father got custody of him, and they lived in the South Puget Sound region of Washington ever since. Until that afternoon, when his mother showed up saying she bought an apartment in Montana, and that the two of them were leaving immediate to pack. His parents immediately got into their usual fight over him, and Jethro knew it would only be about thirty to forty-five minutes before a neighbor called the police due to overheard threats and disturbing the peace. The fights between them were bad enough, but added on top of that the pitying looks the police would always give him, and he really didn't want to stick around.

The two years he had stayed with his father was the longest he'd lived in one place since his parents divorced eight years back, and he'd be damned if he gave up the few friends he'd made in that time. It wasn't fair; because of his parents' fighting, he was forced to miss out on both his elementary AND middle school graduations. The one time he ever did well at school, at the ceremony giving the kids diplomas for academic excellence, the two of them had been escorted out of the building for interrupting the ceremony by yelling at each other. He still remembered how the other kids made fun of him, and how he got expelled from that school for attacking them.

Sighing, he stretched his legs out in front of him, not caring if his black slacks got dirty, and leaned back on his hands to prop his torso up. It was unseasonably warm, but he still had to wear a long sleeved shirt to keep the wind chill down. He'd chosen his favorite: midnight blue, with fire designs going down the arms and meeting in the back as a phoenix. Shifting his weight, he ran a hand through his unkempt red-gold hair to keep it from getting worse due to the wind. He was an exotic ethnical blend, having tanned skin halfway between his Native American grandfather and Japanese grandmother, while having his mother's piercing green eyes and hair color. He saw how some of the girls in his classes looked at him with some admiration. As a child, he was lanky, but his parents got him into martial arts nearly ten years ago, and since getting into his teens, his skinny body eventually turned to bands and cords. One girl, who was one of the few friends he'd made over the last two years, told him that if it weren't for his dour disposition, he'd be a lot more popular with the girls. As if he'd want a girlfriend, what with the parents he'd eventually have to introduce her to. It was the same reason he made so few friends.

Sighing again, he noticed that he was slipping into dark thoughts again. His friends always chirped the same litany, "you're too gloomy, you get depressed too easily, you get too lost in your own thoughts". At least his thoughts were something his parents couldn't fight over. Sometimes, he just wished those tales of being whisked away to some incredible land full of mystery and wonder would happen to him. Actually, it was most of the time that he wished such a miracle would happen to him.

Knowing it will never happen to him, he looked over the Sound once again, and that's when he saw it. It looked like a large wave traveling down the inlet, at least thirty feet high. Panic gripped him as he thought it might be a tsunami. Lithely getting to his feet as fast as he could, he turned and sprinted up the path he took to get to the beach. He turned his head to look once, and paused in surprise. It wasn't a tsunami; it wasn't even a wave. It was a bulge in the water, as if something huge were swimming and displacing the water above it! And it may have been his imagination, but he thought the…bulge was moving slower than it had when he first saw it.

Curiosity overpowered his flight instincts, and he stood there, staring at the water as the bulge eventually slowed down to become perfectly still.

The dome of water stayed as it was, not falling away to reveal what it was hiding like it should have. Instead it held as a quarter sphere of water, its surface rippling like water does. Jethro noticed the bulge starting to rise in the water, becoming more and more sphere-shaped as it rose. It was massive, it had to span at least a quarter of a mile across!

He realized too late that the ball of water was not rising, but the water level was lowering, when a large wave suddenly formed off of the beach, pulling the waterline violently outward. Jethro's eyes widened, and resumed his mad sprint uphill. He looked over his shoulder a few seconds later, only to see the tsunami had covered the four hundred feet between him and the beach in no time at all. The wall of water slammed into him, taking him completely off his feet, slamming him into the hill the path was carved into, nearly taking the breath out of him in the process, and then felt his equilibrium change as the water began pulling him back out to the ocean. Less than two seconds later, his back slammed into an alder tree, knocking the breath out of him. Almost immediately after, the current pulled him around the tree and into the inlet, where he saw the sun's reflection on the surface of the water getting farther and farther away as he was pulled under the waves. His lungs burned with a greater intensity than the hottest summer day, and he thrashed his limbs in a vain attempt to get back to the surface.

Eventually, his mind clouded, and he tried to breath in the water. When he did, more pain filled his lungs as he naturally tried to exhale all the water, which failed since water was the only thing he had, and his second breath caused a panic that was as physically painful as it was mental. Darkness took over his mind, and all thought ceased.

Suddenly he was aware again as his body crashed into something hard and rugged. He felt water on his skin, but also felt cool air. Immediately he took in as deep a breath as he could, and then forcefully exhaled half a lung full of water. His reflexive, panicked breathing went on for a few more hard breaths before he got most of the water out of his lungs, then he vomited what little was still in his stomach. His mind not yet catching up, he touched his head to the water and vomit stained ground with his body propped up on his forearms and knees, and wept. After a time, which when he thought back on it was probably no more than a few seconds, he realized he was on asphalt. That couldn't be right. He opened his eyes and saw that he was, indeed, on asphalt, and looked around. This wasn't the beach.

He was in a city of some sort, and he realized it was night time. The stars were out and lights were on every building, which ranged from the typical box shape to sky scrapers to spires. He didn't recognize the architecture. He then noticed that everyone was running, all in the same direction.

He moved back onto his knees and looked around, somewhat numb from his near-death experience. When he turned his head enough, he noticed a large mass of crimson behind him. Instinctively, he jerked away, twisting in mid-fall to land on his back. The large red mass was a tall man in a knee-length red haori with blue lining, his arm in sling position within his robe, and a jug at his hip. Jethro's first impression was: a ronin?

The man stepped closer and extended a thickly gloved hand to him. The two of them were still in a sea of running, panicky people, and the man seemed oblivious to it. It was surreal, otherworldly. This whole thing was just unreal.

He grabbed the hand and the man effortlessly hoisted him onto his feet. "Stay with me." The man ordered.

"Wh…wha…" Between the stomach acids burning his throat and his mind still reeling from everything that happened within the last couple minutes, he was having trouble speaking.

The older man wordlessly turned and started walking away. Jethro numbly followed him, already exhausted. Several more people passed them, a couple of them screaming. What are they running from? He wondered. He turned his head and saw the answer. That same sphere of water was in the air, encroaching on the city. The buildings were actually bending toward the mass, as if it were a gravity-well unto itself. Suddenly, his foot fell into a pothole, causing him to trip onto his back. He barely felt his head hit the street, with how numb his mind and body felt, but he looked down and saw drops of water from the puddle staying in the air for a brief moment before moving through the air toward the giant floating sphere.

Almost immediately, some of the clouds in his mind went away and he felt terror again. He clumsily got to his feet, and started running. Yet the moment he passed the older, larger man, his arm reached out and grabbed the collar of Jethro's shirt, immediately halting the young man's run with an iron grip.

"We have time." He said with authoritative dispassion. "Relax."

Whatever it was in the man's voice, Jethro suddenly found himself unable to disobey the man's orders. He kept on walking as everyone else ran. Jethro looked forward for the first time to see where they were heading, when he got his first unobstructed view of the entire city. It was a city floating on the ocean!

"Where the hell am I?" Jethro muttered under his breath, dread in his voice.

The stranger said nothing as they continued on. Within minutes, they arrived at a massive, squat building. A roar of cheers could be heard from within. Don't these people know what's going on out here? Jethro wondered.

And then the older man just stopped outside the gate guarded by two massive stone centurions. Jethro, surprised by the sudden stop, looked around, wondering what they were waiting for. After a couple minutes, he couldn't hold it in anymore. "What are we waiting for?" He demanded.

The man said nothing. After another agonizing minute, Jethro decided to disobey and run into the building for cover. A few men in thick blue coats, looking like security guards, demanded to see his ticket or get out. He was about to tell them about the impending crisis, when he noticed, down a stone hallway, another sphere of water, much smaller than the one attacking the city, but still a good three hundred feet across, simply floating in mid-air. There were people in the sphere! It looked like they were playing three dimensional football as they bobbed and weaved like schools of fish.

"Hey!" One of the security guards grabbed Jethro's arm in a strong grip. Suddenly everything shook as explosions could be heard around the stadium. Several parts of the stone structure cracked and broke under the sudden stress. He looked toward the gate leading outside, and saw water spouting from the edges of the bridges that made the walkways, blasting apart the stone guardians. The lights in the building flickered, and the grip holding Jethro's arm loosened. He turned to look where the guard was looking, and saw, at the last moment, the water arena break apart, fall on the ground, and flush down the hallways.

Jethro broke the grip as he ran toward the exit. The guards followed him almost immediately, and as soon as he got to the stairs, the water hit them. With the volume of water covering such a large area, the water went barely above his knees, but it still hit with enough force to sweep his legs out from under him. The fall into the water broke his fall on the stairs somewhat, though it pushed him down to the bottom, the back of head hitting every step along the way. When he hit the ground, his legs crumbed and he ended up vaulting onto his stomach. A few seconds later, the water flowed away, and he saw he landed right next to the red-robed man. He'd recognize those shoes anywhere.

"That…was what we were waiting for." The man stated matter-of-factly.

"Can I go home now?" He asked, pathetically.

"Humph, you are home." He stated, before turning and walking back toward the stadium. Moments later, a young man, about the same age as Jethro, maybe a year or two older, ran out, soaking wet and moving as if he were in pain. He looked and saw the older man in red, and his eyes lit up in surprise.

"Huh? Auron! What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I was waiting for you." The man, Auron, responded monotonously.

"What are you talking about?" The athletic man in yellow demanded, but got no answer as Auron walked off. The youth sighed, and followed him. Jethro, having no idea what was going on, figured that sticking with this Auron was the best idea. It seemed like the man knew about him, maybe even expected him, and knew something about that ball of water that no one else seemed to know. At the very least, sticking with him might give him some answers.

Within a minute, Jethro realized they must be heading toward the giant mass of water, since the crowds of people were heading toward them. This made following Auron difficult, as they were heading upstream. The older man didn't seem affected by the people at all. He must have either been skillfully dodging them or he simply moved like an unstoppable force; Jethro couldn't tell, because in almost no time at all, he and Auron's acquaintance found more and more distance opening up between them and the older man due to the crowds making forward progress difficult.

After a little while, the crowds thinned, and the two young men spotted Auron, standing in the middle of the bridge/road. There were still a few people around, all running the opposite direction, but they were at least few enough to not slow them down much.

"Hey!" Jethro yelled out to his companion over the den of screams and worried cries, "Just who is that…guy…" He suddenly found himself yelling into a void of silence. There were no screams, no cries. He had been looking at the bleached blonde man a moment earlier, who suddenly standing was ten feet away from where he had been a millisecond earlier, completely still, looking at the road as if looking at someone shorter than himself. An instant after noticing that, he saw that everyone on the road was deathly still, in complete suspended animation. Some where even running, and frozen halfway toward a step, both feet off the ground.

"It begins." Jethro wheeled around at the sudden, but soft, break in the silence. It was a small boy in blue pants and a blue vest with a hood that covered his eyes in shadows. "Please, end what you started."

"What?" He asked, confused. "I didn't start any-" He was cut off as the screams suddenly resumed as if God himself hit the 'resume' button.

"What the?" He heard the blonde man say, barely audible over the din. Jethro looked over, and saw the man in question continue toward Auron, who was still standing still in the middle of the now clear road. "Hey! Wait! Hey, not this way!" He said before doubling over to breath.

"Yeah," Jethro chimed in. "Where are you taking us?"

Auron simply indicated where he had been looking and said, "Look."

The two men looked, and Jethro got a sinking feeling in his gut as he saw that the three of them were heading, more or less, toward the giant ball. This time, when he looked closely, he could see there was something moving around inside it. What might have been where the head would be were over half a dozen little lights. Eyes, maybe?

"We called it 'Sin'." Auron explained.

"'Sin'?" The young blonde asked.

"Whoa!" Jethro said, catching sight of something shooting out of the ball. "Incoming!" He yelled.

A moment later, a large black spearhead with a tentacle for a tail crashed into a nearby building. A second later, the scales on the tail shot off, redirected their course in mid-flight, and embedded themselves into the bridge in front of them. Within moments, the scales broke open like nuts, revealing insectoid bodies and wings made out of the shells of the scales.

I'm dreaming. Jethro thought, nearly begging it to be true, knowing it wasn't. This isn't actually happening. Things like that couldn't really exist.

Then the Sin Scales started moving toward them. Jethro instinctually backed up, but they followed him even faster. Then, his fight-or-flight response pulled a one-eighty, and he jumped forward, using his momentum to power a soccer style kick into the side of one of the Sin Scales, hoping that would scare the others off. His foot connected solidly and powerfully, due to years of martial arts training, but the bug only flew away maybe two yards, and pain shot through his instep and shin. Not only where they heavier than they looked, but their exoskeletons were hard!

He took a little step back before putting weight back on his kicking leg, and it nearly crumbled under him due to the pain. And due to that moment of pain, he didn't see the other two scales attack early enough. One used its mandibles to latch onto his leg, teeth digging into flesh, and held his leg in place with surprising fortitude. His initial recoil response, combined with his leg being locked in place, caused Jethro to fall onto his back. His next instinct was to kick the monster as hard as he could, which got it to let go, but only by dragging its claws and teeth across his leg, making bloody tears across across flesh and nearly tearing the skin completely off.

In frustration, he wheeled his legs around and behind him, causing him to roll back onto his feet, but due to the pain in both of them, one bruised, the other bloody, he was barely able to stand. An absent thought told him, You haven't done this badly in a fight since you were a junior student! You can do better than this!

Of course, this was his first real fight since that schoolyard brawl that got him expelled, and that one didn't endanger his life. Nonetheless, that bug wouldn't have taken him down if he had been using his stances like he was taught to from day one, that kick wouldn't have bothered him had he already come to terms with the thought of pain and possible death like he was supposed to in order to help him deal with pain and fear, and if he had been thinking properly, he would've kicked the monster's mandibles away from his leg rather than its body in order to minimize additional damage.

He took a deep, quick breath, and imagined all pain and fear leaving his body along with his breath as he exhaled. Years of training came back as his mind sharpened, though not nearly as much as it normally did when he calmed down before a spar. He saw the bleached blonde in yellow overalls recoiling as one of the monsters shot a trio of spindles into his shoulder. He hastily pulled them out, before Auron stepped between them and brought down a thick, heavy sword with what looked like a skinning edge on it.

"Take it." He said. As the young man took it, Auron effortlessly pulled both the sword and young man up. As soon as he let go, Blondie had trouble holding the heavy thing. "A gift from Jecht."

"My old man?" The young man asked, surprised. He then took a few threatening swings with it at the monsters.

Auron then held out a black scimitar to Jethro. The blade was jet black, with the edge and two fullers-per-side shining a golden sheen. The blade thickened between the blade and spine near the end, providing extra force behind strikes, with a saw-blade across the last third of the spine. The grip was covered in leather and long enough for equal comfort between one or two hands, with a wing shaped guard, and a thick, heavy pommel. The pommel had to be heavy, the blade itself was as wide as the blonde man's sword!

Jethro grabbed the sword, and though he did better than Blondie, he found it very hard to hold it well. The heavy pommel only helped balance the weapon!

"A gift from my father as well?" Jethro asked, not taking his eyes away from the scuttling bugs.

"No." Auron said, simply. "I hope you both know how to use them."

Jethro and Blondie got into ready stances, or at least as ready as they could get with their heavy, unfamiliar weapons. Jethro took a peek at Auron, and saw the man holding a long, equally thick sword on his shoulder that was roughly shaped like a katana. Bringing his eyes back to the enemy, he allowed another stray thought to enter his attention, Where the hell was he holding these things? A magic bag of holding? Another thought told him that, in this world, it seemed possible.

"These ones don't matter." Auron stated, "We cut through!"

Blondie leapt forward, cleaving into one of the bugs; Auron followed suit, cutting down a bug preemptively with calm and practiced ease as if he were opening a door! The third bug turned slightly toward the two men, which was Jethro's cue to move toward the monster. It saw him quickly, and shot a trio of spindles at him. He side stepped to avoid them, spun around, and with two hands swung his sword into the Sin Scale. He felt momentary resistance before the heavy sword broke through the exoskeleton like an ax through maple.

A moment later, the trio ran forward, bobbing and weaving between the Sin Scales that had not yet 'hatched'. Suddenly, the last row hatched, blocking their way. The three of them stopped, and noticed that two Sin Scales behind them had hatched as well, catching them in a pincer.

"Don't bother going after all of them." Auron ordered further. "Cut the ones that matter, and run!" The battle went about as fast as the first, and as they continued forward, Jethro noted how the monsters disappeared into flying lights with tails behind them. At this point, with his mind focused, he barely paid it any mind as they did not seem to be a direct danger.

After climbing a rise in the road, they spotted one of the spearhead-and-tentacle carriers, surrounded by half a dozen Sin Scales. Jethro was about to turn back, and he guessed Blondie was about to as well, but Auron continued forward uninterrupted. Both Jethro and Blondie groaned, and followed suit.

"Get out of my town!" Blondie angrily yelled.

"Some can't wait to die!" Auron stated with unusual fervor. He jumped in the air, ten feet in the air, and orange energy surrounded his sword before he landed and plunged his sword into the bridge. Suddenly, explosions came from the ground under the scales, blowing them apart and into the firefly things.

"Why didn't you do that earlier?" Jethro asked, surprised but still on his guard.

Auron pulled his sword out with ease and settled back into his relaxed battle stance, calmly answering, "Such attacks can't be done successively. You'll understand that soon enough."

"What?" Jethro asked as Blondie pulled an acrobatic flip to bring both momentum and weight into a sword strike that blasted via an explosion a large chunk off the tentacle thing that was nearly six feet high and three feet wide.

The tentacle flipped around, and a singularity-like disturbance formed in the air, and all three men were violently pulled toward it. Auron managed to control his flight so he landed on his feet, but Blondie was so surprised he land more on his knees, and Jethro landed on his back hard.

The pain broke his focus for a few seconds, but he noticed Auron cutting through the monster several times with simple attacks that, nonetheless, seemed to have a dancer's grace to them. Suddenly, another singularity formed, this time off the edge of the bridge, and all three were pulled once again. Blondie was close enough to the bridge that he was able to grab the hand-rail, but Jethro was far back enough and the singularity high enough that he would miss the hand rail entirely. He was going to fly off the bridge and into the ocean!

He noticed at the last second, Auron plunged his sword into the bridge, effectively holding him in place as he held on with one hand and extended his other hand to grab Jethro's wrist. The man had a grip most power lifters would envy! He actually yelped in pain as the man nearly crushed his wrist in order to keep his hand from slipping through. The singularity only lasted a couple seconds, but they were agonizing seconds as it felt like his arm was about to rip off.

When it was over, Jethro slammed chest first into the ground, and Blondie rolled over the railing more than vaulted over it. Auron pulled his sword back out, again with unnatural ease, and started chopping into the monster again.

Rage rolled through Jethro, enough to deaden the pain and allow him to get to his feet, run forward, and plunge his scimitar all the way to the hilt into the monster. Fury gave him the strength to pull it out, and he spun around slamming his blade into the monster as hard as he could. The blade sank deep, and he repeated. After a few seconds, Blondie joined in, and a few strikes later, the monster's tentacle flailed about, its skin shimmered, and he was vaguely aware of parts of the monster blowing up. Such distance thoughts, however, weren't enough to stop his attacks.

A few seconds later, Jethro felt a hand on his shoulder, a gesture gentle enough in his fury to shock him. He spun around, and saw a concerned look on the blond man's face. "Hey, I think its dead."

Jethro turned toward the monster, and saw dozens, maybe hundreds of the firefly-like lights coming out of its still body. He suddenly felt exhausted, dropping to his knees, realizing how much energy he'd used in those strikes. Years of training was failing him once again, he was fighting for his life and doing a poor job of it, he was in a fantasy world as far as he could tell, and he had no answers. All the pressure of the last thirty minutes crashed down on him and he started weeping.

"Uh, hey." Blondie said, awkwardly. "Hey, there's no need for that. It's, uh…it's gonna be all right!" A few seconds later, he gave up and yelled, "Hey, stop crying! It's not gonna help!"

Jethro sobbed a few more times before getting control over himself again. "I'm sorry, it's just…"

"Hey, uh…don't worry about it, okay? Let's just get outta here."

"Yeah…yeah, let's do that." Jethro picked himself up, and the two of them ran after Auron.

A minute later, as they were catching up, Blondie muttered something under his breath before calling out, "Auron, let's get outta here!"

"We're expected." He said before continuing on.

"Christ, is he always like that?" Jethro asked, doubling over to catch his breath.

"Yeah, most of the time anyway." He mumbled before following. The two of them continued on and quickly caught up with Auron. Suddenly he stopped, and not a moment too soon, as in front of them and behind them, hundreds of Sin Scales landed.

"Ah shit!" Jethro cursed, whatever cool he still had quickly going away.

"Hmph, this could be bad." Auron stated. Then he nodded toward some container holding several barrels via a power coupling over the side of the bridge. "That, knock it down!"

"What?" Tidus asked, shocked. Jethro got the feeling he thought that was a bad idea, whatever the thing was.

"Trust me. You'll see." Auron stated as he started his quick, yet so efficient it almost looked methodical, massacre of the Sin Scales, drawing their attention away from Jethro and the blonde man. Blondie groaned then struck the device in the middle of the power coupling. Deciding not to wait, Jethro took swings at it in between Blondie's. Soon, the device's cover became mangled, and eventually broke apart. Then the barrels fell. And exploded when they hit the water. The resulting boom scrambled Jethro's brains and he was sure his ears where bleeding besides ringing really loud. He did, however, manage to notice in time that the building was collapsing, and collapsing toward the bridge!

He made a mad dash down the bridge, running between Sin Scales that took ineffective, but still painful, cuts at his legs and thighs as he passed. Mere milliseconds later, the building, which was unusually thin for its width and height, slammed through the bridge, hit the water, and floated for a moment before slowly sinking.

"Go." Auron calmly said, surprising Jethro as he didn't know the man was behind him. Blondie took off, and as soon as Auron started, Jethro followed suit. Fires started breaking out through the building, and Blondie must have been more tired than he let on as both Auron and Jethro soon passed him. Jethro noticed that he felt lighter, but didn't pay it any mind as he raced as fast as he could. Auron jumped fifteen feet in the air before landing on the bridge. The bridge's edge itself was way too high for Jethro to jump, but he tried anyway. He found himself flying at the bridge faster than he should have, and slowing down much too slowly. Soon, his chest hit the broken asphalt, and he pulled himself over.

A moment later, Blondie called out to Auron. Jethro looked over the edge, and saw him holding on by his finger tips. He quickly got onto his stomach and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him up, finding his body far too light. It was then he noticed, looking past him and seeing the water moving away from them, that they were rising. Curiosity got the better of him, and he looked up, instantly wishing he hadn't.

Sin was right above them, a gigantic mass of water opening up, drawing everything around them toward it, revealing a series of fleshy rings that undulated, with the center so bright with light they couldn't make out anything. Auron said something as Jethro moved back to helping Blondie up, but then reached down, grabbing Blondie by the scruff of his sweater, saying, "This is it. This is your story…"

He then grabbed Jethro's shirt. "…And the beginning of the end of yours." He then lifted them both up, as if offering them to Sin, and the three of them got sucked in, and all went black.

End of Chapter One

Author's Note: First priority: this story was inspired by anbu713's story 2 Fallen Gods, and a Guardian Angel. I recommend it. Maybe new reviews will get his ass writing again. This story is also a nod toward Benji Powell's (Nightfire04) Destiny Calls and Chronicles of the Chosen fanfics. Second priority, some of you may be wondering how this story will be different from similar ones like it. First off, Jethro is not my avatar, he's a character I created. He's not a Gary Stu, and thus not an extension of my E-peen. Also, this won't just be a carbon copy of the script of FFX with my character adding a little dialogue here and there, he will have his own adventure besides just tagging along with the other characters, and he will develop his own unique relationships among the group. I've got plans for what will happen to him along the storyline.

And a word of warning, I'm a chronic procrastinator. Just look at Chronicles of the Nerevarine for example. That's essentially been put on indefinite hold. Caveat Emptor, subscribers.