Yay, I posted!!!! Thanks to everyone for being so patient. I really appreciate it. Hopefully this one was worth the wait. Join the fun, just don't eat the food. Enjoy Random Bits 13!
Title: Random Bits 13- Chapter 1
Setting: Noon. A serious case of boredom leaves Tidus and his companions longing for a change of scenery. Zanarkand is now a popular tourist attraction, and seems like a good place to get into some long overdue adventures.
Zanarkand Ruins - Hall of Trials- After surviving the various tourists' traps (overpriced, cheaply made souvenirs, corny guided tours, and heartburn and explosive diarrhea inducing food) our heroes are playfully reliving the Trials.
"Are you sure you should be playing with the floor like that?" Lulu cautioned, as her younger companions (mentally younger in Wakka's case) played with the tiles in the puzzle room.
"Aw Lu! That's what its for. It's just a game now." the former Arochs captain said dismissively, as they matched the suspiciously tetris-like shapes.
"Fine. Play with the floor, but don't come screaming to me when you release another-." the Black Mage began. It was a total waste of breath.
Lulu had forgotten that teens possess the irritating mentality that they know everything, even the future, and do exactly what you tell them not to. They also gave her those same gape jawed expressions of shock when what she just told them was going to happen happened (like it was a huge surprise and no one could have ever seen it coming).Tidus, Yuna, Rikku, and Wakka scurried together with a unified cry of "Spectral Keeper!!!!" as the puzzle was solved and a mass of pyre-flies formed in the center of the floor. The four culprits attempted to hide behind one another as they were hit with a double shot of the evils from Auron and Lulu. They clearly said that if they got out this one alive things were going to go very hard for them.
Weapons drawn the warriors huddled around their Summoner and faced the threat as it coalesced into the familiar, terrifying shape of…Jecht. The former Sin found himself facing not the usual group of tourists, but one blood relative, three friends and three others. They were all holding various weapons in a threatening manner.
"Uh, hi?" Jecht ventured.
"Dad?!
"Sir Jecht. What are you doing here?" asked Yuna, both relieved and pleased to see her old acquaintance.
"Yeah," Auron said dryly as the group relaxed, their flight or fight reflexes winding down. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh. Well, you know." replied the scruffy man, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. "The Farplane was getting a little boring, what with it being full of just a bunch of stiffs, and the Spectral Keeper didn't really feel like entertaining tourists, so I thought I'd take a part time job on the side. The pay is good and besides, I'm Sin! What's scarier than that?"
Zanarkand's forgotten Abes' star's monologue was interrupted as three elderly men entered the room accompanied by wheezes, pops, and various suspicious smells. They shuffled to a halt several yards way and glared at him appraisingly. Jecht shifted nervously.
"Is that the Boss?" croaked the tallest. The old man squinted and thrust his thumbs into the belt of his over-sized, threadbare robe. If there had been a breeze he could have easily been mistaken for a starving scarecrow.
"Looks to be." mumbled the second one, who had a hump like a camel and two canes. He panted a little as he joined Old Man #1, his sagging stomach swinging dangerously as he thrust out his two canes then let his bowed legs catch up. " A shame that."
"What?" shouted Old Man # 3, holding a withered hand up to a hair clogged ear. Jecht and his companions watched in morbid fascination as the skin on his arm slipped down to dangle around his elbow. The skin around his neck and ankles appeared to have the same idea.
"I said, 'A shame'!" Old Man #2 shouted, trying to he heard over the constant whistled that was emitted from Old Man #3's nostrils.
"What?"
"Hah!" Old Man #2 responded, leaving his companions and limping up to the startled Jecht. It was a complicated process involving swinging his spindly arms out until the canes contacted a solid surface, then throwing his legs out at various angles to get the stomach swaying for stability. The rest was just waiting for the body to catch up with the arms. "You call that a Boss?" he snorted, jeopardizing his balance by waving a cane through Jecht.
"Look at that, no substance! Now back in my day we had proper Bosses. Great big monsters with three heads and long tails with spikes on. And they were much more vicious too. They wouldn't just wait their turn to snap at you, no sir. There was none of this turn-based business back then. Proper Bosses. That's what we had. Always knew where you stood with Proper Bosses."
"Yeah." agreed Old Man #1 shakily adjusting his voluminous robe with righteous indignation. "Let's go. I feel like a nap." Old Man #3, mostly silent on account of being nearly deaf as a post and nearly unable to hear over the sound of his own whistling, mumbled something about mashed apples and coffee. In a symphony of disturbing pops, grunts and rumbles, the ancients shambled towards the Fayth's Room.
There was a brief silence as confusion swirled around the Guardians and Summoner for a moment before dissipating.
"So," Jecht continued, unsure of where the conversation had ended. " What brings you guys all the way out to Zanarkand? Oh, by the way," Braska's Final Summon said reaching behind himself, "Here's your boot Auron." There was a muffled 'pop' and the man's hand reappeared with Auron's boot. Jecht tossed it to his former travel companion, who was on the edge of becoming his former friend, with a reproachful scowl.
As Auron wordlessly tucked his boot away there was a sudden epidemic of bronchial irritation around him.
"Its where you've always wanted to put it, eh?" Lulu chuckled.
"Ewww! Gross!"
"Sir Auron!"
The Unsent monk shrugged and said the only thing that came to mind.
"I hope you washed it." This brought on a bout of exaggerated gagging from Rikku, snuffles of laughter from the others, and admonishment from Yuna. He ignored all of it.
"Here's you spawn…I mean son." grumbled Auron, giving Tidus an encouraging shove towards his father. They both stood there in awkward silence, executing their signature nervous reactions.
"You getting enough to eat?"
"Yep."
"Only you're a little skinny."
"No. I'm fine…Er…Dad?"
"Yes?"
"Um…..I hate you."
"I hate you too, son."
Wakka turned a bemused look on Auron. The retarded dust bunny in his mind thoughtfully scratched an ear. "That's just their way of showing affection." the older man replied.
"What, like a female hexabug biting off her mate's head?"
"Looks that way."
"Well, see ya dad. We're going to check out the Fayth's Room." Tidus said cheerfully, with a backwards wave.
"Yeah. Later son." Jecht and Auron watched as Youth followed the recently departed Age into the next room. As they exited the door stuck and allowed the following to be heard.
"Hey, you! Put some clothes on! This is a holy place."
"Young people these days," this was said in a moist tone of utter disgust (probably because of a lack of dentures). "Running' around in the nuddy. Its disgraceful!"
"Disgraceful!" agreed the first voice.
"What?" said the confused voice of Old Man #3, "I say! Did you know that there's a nearly naked woman up there! I can see her knees!"
"Hey! Everyone can see yer knickers!" Old Man #2 shouted.
"Wait a minute," interjected Old Man #1, who had slightly better eyesight than the other two. "That's not Yunalesca. That's not even a woman! It's just a young man in women's undergarments standing on a fake medusa head."
"By Yevon you're right!" hacked Old Man #3, "Its all burlap and saw dust. You can even see the stitching.
"We had better stitching in my day. Look, its already beginning to go at the seams." mumbled Old Man #2, in superior tones as he prodded a burlap tentacle with a cane.
"Please don't poke me!" the man in the costume whined, "I don't get paid enough. All I do is say my lines, wave my arms menacingly and scare the tourists into the next room. Every one screams and there's laughs all around. I don't do any actual fighting. Hey, Lady Yuna! Good to see you!" the underpaid peon in the suit said as Yuna led her group up the last few steps.
"Issaru?!" Yuna blurted, covering her eyes. She was seeing more of her fellow Summoner than she had ever wanted to see.
"Those knockers don't even look real." Tidus snorted in professional tones. "One of them is bigger than the other and both of them are sagging."
Back in the Hall of Trials, Jecht shook his head with a lopsided grin. It was unclear as to why he was grinning. He looked apologetic, but Auron had the suspicion that Jecht was proud of his little spawn.
"Kids. You should have seen him when he was little. He was so cute. Yuna was just down right adorable." he sighed after a few moments of nostalgic silence. " I wish I could turn back time and make them all toddlers again!"
It was a completely innocent sentence, but it caused Auron's hackles to rise in dread. The icy finger of Death run up the spine couldn't have caused his flesh to prickle more. As it was, it felt like each hair was desperately trying to make a jump for safety. Auron shut his eyes.
It was that very second, the words dancing mockingly in the air, that something happened. It was a total freak accident of cosmic proportions. The final planet in the eternal waltz to the universe spun into alignment. From a cosmic point of view it was an impressive arrangement of massive celestial bodies floating silently in the vacuum of space. From the ground, it just looked like a bunch of stars that happened to form an odd constellation. Parents with small children quickly covered their offspring's eyes. People, on principle, love to point out constellations to their kids. But this was not what was referred to as a 'child-friendly' constellation. It formed the image of a giant hand making a humorously obscene gesture. This constellation was a constellation that pointed at you.
The temple trembled slightly and there was a quiet pop!. Both men locked gazes and shouted in unison "The kids!" before legging it to the door.
Don't forget your cheaply made souvenier before you go! Only 50gil and you can go home with a genuine Yunalesca tentacle! No? How 'bout a SinScale? Fresh off the fiend! So fresh it still has some hide on it!