This story is the product of two authors: And The Adversary Succeeds and Dark-SideOfThe-Coin. We've been wanting to do a FFX collaboration for some time, and, this is what we've come up with.
1: A Date That Shall Live in Infamy
A quick rush through the air, a crack of sound splitting; something moving at an unbelievable velocity slowing quickly. And then the first sounds of terror appeared. Something exploded. The sound was deafening. A thud, and suddenly everything went quiet.
Rikku looked around, wide-eyed, searching madly for the source of sudden fear that gripped many of the local people in Luca. Just as her hearing was returning there was a second, louder thud, and her ears started to ring.
She was shoved to the ground as people started to panic. The thought ran through her mind, Luca's being attacked,but it seemed too insane to believe. Who would attack them? She struggled to get to her feet, fighting against the tide of people rushing in every direction, scattering like ants.
She fought hard, trying to move with the riptide as chaos surged through the city. Just minutes ago the city had been alive with the start of the blitzball season, her mind had been on the game and what she would do after. Someone ran head on into her, sending them both to the ground. More quakes hit, more explosions both near and far. More people began falling, over both herself and whoever had tripped over her the first time. She took this momentary lull in the panic around her to push herself up and look around.
She couldn't believe what she saw.
Nearby buildings were on fire. The stone cracked and destroyed, and flames burning at the brick and mortar, strong enough to reduce the stone to slag. Smoke and other fires rose up in the distance. Her eyes grew wide and her mind went numb with fear and disbelief.
She heard numerous whistles, then. Numerous sounds of objects darting through air followed by the sound of missiles hitting their targets. Buildings shattered before her eyes, flames spewed forth along with a shower of golden chemical. The flames followed these rivers, greedily attaching to anything they touched and devouring it. Missiles hit the streets near her, and fires came to life on the stone. This shocked her out of her trance, urging her to run. The sound of missiles hitting home peppered around her.
Heat struck her head on as powerful fires ignited. She ran through narrow breaches in between the flames, places not reached by the chemical that fueled and carried them. They were so hot, and so close, that her skin began to blister and burn just at the proximity. She bit back tears of pain as she ran. The stench of burning flesh filled the air, accompanied by the screams of the fearful and the burning. She skidded to a halt as a missles hit the street not fifty feet from her.
People who had been too close were drenched in the fiery wash, and instantly consumed. Their flesh blackened and peeled, melting into ash. Their bodies sagged, screams fading quickly. Their bones were not spared, and they began to pop and cook along with muscle, skin, and blood.
She turned in circles, faced with flames on all sides. Her heart pounded fiercly as her skin baked from how close the flames were. The air was choked with smoke, and she had to crouch down, coughing as her lungs fought to expel the noxious fumes of burning chemical and human flesh.
She turned on her hands and knees, looking frantically for any route out of the fires. There were still explosions in the distance. And with each one her heart stopped. Each explosion meant more destruction, more death. She knew she had to get to the harbor. If she could reach the sea she would be safe.
But, which direction was that?
The flames and smoke blinded her. The heat dried her eyes, and the smoke stung. Everything was obscured by the devastating, greedy fire. There were no landmarks that she could recognize; no buildings. Much of the skyline had been destroyed by missiles, and she had to assume that various other tell-tale marks of where one was would be gone, too.
Finally, desparate, she chose a direction. She focused her attention on the flames before her and tapped into her magic, raising a blast of water. A cloud of steam exploded from the mixing of the elements, but, just as Rikku was about to dart through, she realized that the water had not put the flames out. She stared, dumbfounded, at the fire.
She tried again, only for the flames to reappear once more through the steam. Her teeth ground together as she tried not to cry. Frustration, fear, shock, and the searing heat of the fire weighed heavily on her, and she could hardly process it. Everything seemed blurry, like a dream or nightmare. Only those always had faults in them. Ways to tell that they were illusory.
She wracked her brain for an idea, for anything. It was hard to think straight, hard to focus, and she found that she could barely even try and grasp anything. She finally decided to try a continuous wall of water. Something that would last just long enough for her to get through the fire. She couldn't tell just how far back the flames went, so anything would be a gamble. But she had to try.
Taking a deep breath, Rikku summoned up a thick wall of water. The fire seemed to vanish under the drowning wash and cloud of steam, and she took off. The water slowed her movements, and she had to struggle to keep it up as she held her breath, fighting the need to cough. She broke through on the other side, finding that the water had cut off just a little too short, and flames immediately made to grab at her.
Any moisture on her body vanished immediately, replaced by an instant, terrible burning. One part of her mind reacted, calling up water as she dove out of the flames. The fire vanished from her skin, hair, and clothes, but she was burned. Not so badly that she could not move, but she could feel it, and she could see it, looking down at the vicious scars the fire had burned into her. The marks of the flames upon her flesh. Blackened and cracked, with stinging raw skin showing beneath.
She pushed herself up, the tender, burned skin of her palms and fingers screaming as she pushed down on the heated stone. She looked up, and could not believe her good fortune. She could see a straight path to the harbor. She struggled to her feet, hope swelling in her chest as she set off at a slow, hindered jog.
So close to safety, she heard the rushing sound of an airhsip. Too high pitched to be any of the Aeronauts' ships. Her heart sank, and as she continued to the sea the edges of the harbor exploded, sending her to the ground as fire swept up along the edge. Shards of stone hit her, slicing wounds into her burned flesh and burying into her chest and exposed skin. At first she simply lay there. Her hearing was gone again, replaced with a dizzying ringing. As sound began to return, Rikku rolled onto her side, pushing herself up and looking into the flames as she heard the thunderous crack of the sound barrier being broken in the distance.
She struggled to her feet, coughing violently from smoke inhalation. She tried to rub her eyes to end the burning, but nothing could soothe them. Her mind was divided. Half of it wanted to press on, the other told her to give up. She looked down at her arms and stomach where blood was leaking slowly over her damaged skin.
She suddenly felt arms around her, and she cried out as the rough grip irritated her burns. She was hauled to her feet and carried towards the flames. She saw black leather, cracked and burned by flames. The cognitive half of her mind recognized it was Paine, who she had seen in the city only minutes before the attack.
The warrior picked her up, and she briefly glimpsed her face, half of which was stained red with blood leaking from an obvious gash in her forehead. She warrior steadied herself, and Rikku barely had time to realize what she was going to do. Paine started running and jumped just as she reached the flames.
There was a moment of heat, and then they were through and in the water. A swift, cooling sensation followed, and Rikku started kicking wildly. Paine held her tighter and started for the surface. Rikku went limp and her eyes drifted through the harbor. At the bottom she could see the split wrecks of naval vessels blown apart by missiles. The eerie thing was that they were still on fire. Even underwater these flames refused to die.
The question entered her mind once more: What was going on?