Author's note: I do not own any of the characters in the fanfiction, nor am I in anyway affiliated with Square Enix. I do own this keyboard though!

This is my first fanfiction ever so, I beg of you, please be gentle, but firm! Thanks for reading!

Chapter one:

Take me on

"Okay!"

"No, It's not okay! I can't believe you said that! It'll never be okay and you know what, you MORON! FINE! I'm leaving and you can just work alone form now on you big, dumb, jerk!"

"Ree-Cooo! What in Spira is the matter with you! YOU COME BACK HERE NOW!"

As I stormed down one of the many hallways of the newly rebuilt Al-Bhed Home, I could hear the echo of my words bouncing along the walls, and it made my face hot with humiliation to think that everyone heard them.

Whispers in muddled English and perfect Al-Bhed voices whirled around me as I gained speed on my way to anywhere but that particular machina workshop. I didn't look around as I tore down the corridors, but I knew exactly where I was going, which sort of depressed me. Angry tears began to burn my eyes and I struggled to blink them back.

"Princess…"

"What's her problem…?"

"What happened?"

"Was it about… Him?"

I began to contemplate how, after all I'd done for Spira, I ended up here, in the desert, rebuilding machina for my father and being forced to tolerate the constant invasion of privacy from everyone around. Heck, I couldn't even fight with my own brother without it ending up dinner conversation for three hundred people anymore.

As I raced up the stairs to my bedroom suite, trying to outrun the inevitable, my mind wandered to Yuna and Tidus and I wondered where they were now, what they were doing, and if they were happy. Of course they were, I mentally chuckled, they're head over heels for one another. Yuna deserved her happiness and I genuinely loved Tidus for being able to give it her. I could remember with fascinating accuracy every detail of his heart-wrenching departure and his unexpected return - not to mention the constant cloud of sorrow always visible, if even just slightly, in Yuna's eyes for those long two years. I was nearly as happy as my cousin when Tidus came back into their lives.

After Yuna left on a well-deserved hiatus from public view some months later, the rest of the Gullwings continued hunting fiends and spheres, although this time it was without the constant suspicion of some deadly evil always lurking around the corner. It was actually carefree and fun – even for Paine.

Soon, though, Paine left too. She found happiness with another person the same way Yuna did and left for Bevelle to start her new life as the Preator's wife. That left the remaining members of the sphere hunters (except Barkeep, who moved back to the Moonflow with his "darling") reunited with Cid, my father, to excavate machina. He was, after all, the Al-Bhed leader and that made me… well, it honestly made me "Rikku: the girl who'd never had a boyfriend because they were all to scared of Cid to even look at her."

But why everyone else and not me? I thought as I flopped onto my bed. It's not as if I needed someone to make me happy – I just needed something that didn't involve not being able to distinguish the days from one another because they're all exactly alike.

I rolled over to look out a window at all the masked and goggled Al-Bhed running around below. The new Home was in the middle of the excavation sites in Bikanel Desert with a similar, although remarkably larger and more comfortable version of the living quarters from the original. Gotta hand to Pops, I thought proudly, He really outdid himself.

I rolled over again on my side and surveyed my bedroom. Everything was slightly disheveled, but squeaky clean and very colorful, if not a bit too bright. I had to admit, the great big canopy bed with too many pillows was a nice change from sleeping on little more than a hard mattress in the cabin of the Celcius.

In the middle of my daydreaming, I was violently jerked back into reality by a shrill voice ringing in my ears:

"Ree-Coooo!"

Now, understand, I knew from a lifetime's worth of experience that it was futile to try and ignore that voice. I sat up and was confronted with the mirror directly across from the foot of my bed. As hard as I tried to control it, my face was becoming progressively more and more flushed with anger as each syllable escaped from my darling brother's lips.

"Ree-coo, you talk-a to me right NOW!"

I mentally ticked off a countdown which I was sure would mark the point in time when Brother would explode with frustration at being ignored by his sister.

…Four. Three. Two. One.

"REE-COOOOOOOO!"

Satisfied that I was able to predict the wail that came out of his mouth, I had to decide quickly which plan of action I was going to take. After a moment's thought, I decided that, for once, I would try to just talk out the argument instead of the usual screaming match. It was getting tiring, after all.

Ever heard the expression "Never argue with an idiot?", I thought. The cliché hit so accurately, I had to fight back a fit of giggles that would surely ignite Brother's already sparked anger into a fit of rage rivaling that of the Angry Mantua Paine, Yunie, and I had, er, "encountered" , in the desert last year.

Having settled that, I fixed my face into the calmest expression I could conjure up and opened the door to my bedroom suite at the exact moment Brother was preparing to break it down with his shoulder.

It seemed to happen in slow-motion: as the mammoth of an Al-Bhed flew through the door, my expression changed from that of tranquility to that of shock - and angry anticipation, for I knew exactly what was about to happen as I eyed my precious collection of shining, milky spheres sitting in the very cabinet Brother and his purple face were making a beeline for.

The subsequent crash was deafening. As the beautiful spheres which my friends and I had spent what seemed to be an eternity hunting down rolled across the floor, I jumped onto my own flesh and blood with a ferocity that would impress a Queen Courel and a ruthlessness that could be matched only by that of what had been Sin.

I was so angry, I didn't even notice the rather large group of people gathering around the door, and, more importantly, I failed to notice that there was another purple-faced, male family member in my midst – that is until the exact moment when I, in my violent enthusiasm, rammed Brother's head (which was safely secured in the nook of my arm) into Pop's stomach.

There you go! Let me know what you think! Sorry about no Gippal here, but he'll be popping up soon. Let me know what you guys think and I 'll try and respond in my next authors notes. I'm going to post the next chapter fairly quickly. ( I already have them written, just wanna see if this generates any interest.) Chiao!