CHAPTER ONE: DESERT ESCAPE

"They're following us!" shrieked Rikku. "Napaj, drive!"

"Geez, you don't have to scream, I'm right here."

Napaj leapt to the machine's seat in the cockpit and took the controls. Rikku followed, and glanced pleadingly at the machina, silently willing it to deliver them safely out of the whole Guado mess.

"Come on, come on..." Napaj urged the vehicle to go faster.

Yuna and Paine held on for dear life in the storage room, dodging boxes and other flying objects. Even Paine was finding it hard to keep a cool head.

Rikku's kept jumping around, and her long hair was flying everywhere. Napaj squalled, "Hey brat, I can't see!"

The empty desert landscape was hurtling past them at a frightening speed. Rikku couldn't take it anymore. She forgot she was supposed to be mad at Napaj, and she hugged his waist from behind. "Man, I hate Guado," she whimpered in fear. Napaj nudged her with his elbow, "Get offa me, I'm trying to drive."

Napaj waited. "I said get OFF of me."

Looking back, he shoved her to the floor. Unfortunately, his eyes left the path ahead, and a sand dune approached too quickly to avoid. They ramped off the incline, careening wildly in the air. Upon landing, the vehicle rolled out of control.

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Inside the back of the machina van, while screaming and being tossed around, a fleeting thought came to Yuna's mind. 'If you feed chocolate syrup to a cow, then shake the cow, you'll get a milkshake.'

Paine was hit by a box, again, and her curses interrupted Yuna's thoughts. "What is going ON out there?!" Paine hollered.

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Both Napaj and Rikku were tossed around the cockpit. Napaj prayed for the machine to come to a halt. It finally began losing momentum, and slid to a stop, upside down. Rikku was almost sobbing in relief, and Napaj groaned.

"Let's do a damage check and try to get it back on four wheels," he sighed.

Rikku, always looking for an argument with him, accused, "We were shaken around like riders in the chocobo rodeo, and all you can think about is the vehicle? What if Yunie and Paine got hurt back there, thanks to your driving, if you can even call it that! We need to see if they're all right!"

Napaj glowered. " Well, if you hadn't distracted me, I would have driven fine! And let's not forget who decided to steal from the Guado's camp in the first place, ahem."

"Hey, they've been on our case since before the eternal calm, don't blame me."

"Whatever. Get offa my legs, this lever in my stomach is really starting to hurt."

"Good. I'll be sure and take my time."

Once she got up, he gingerly lifted himself off of the rather pointy lever and looked around the cockpit. They were standing on the ceiling, and the floor was above them.

Rikku heard a distant door being opened behind them. "Hey Napaj, you hear something?"

He didn't answer her question. "Quit whining, you paranoid brat. The door to the outside is crushed a bit. Gimme your weapon. I'll get it open."

Glaring, she "gave" it to him. It embedded itself in the wall near his head.

"WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT!?!"

"Just shut up and open the door," she responded. He plucked the ninja claw from the wall and began working on the door.

Rikku looked over her shoulder. She couldn't shake that feeling of unease.

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Yuna and Paine were buried beneath boxes and barrels. They were in too much pain to move, so they just stayed still and listened to the muffled tones of the argument in the next room.

"Some machine oil is leaking out of this box," Yuna said. "Wouldn't it be bad if a fire got started somehow?"

"Yes," a calm, masculine voice said from the doorway. "It would. It is always a pleasure, Lady Yuna. Too bad you have to die. Fira."

"You just had to say the worse-case scenario, Yuna," Paine mumbled to herself.

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Napaj was trying to pry the cockpit entrance door open with one of Rikku's claw weapons.

Rikku peeked over his shoulder. "It's not working."

"Yes, I can see that," Napaj snapped. "Go try the other door."

Rikku turned around and froze.

Napaj grimaced. His hands were cut handling Rikku's weapon. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go check the door." Behind him, he heard the door to the back of the van creak. "Great, now we can leave through the exit back there," Napaj said, turning around. "And you can check the stor—"

At the doorway, a Guado was having difficulty fitting his head through the doorway. It was to be expected. After all, his hair was styled like three long, blue tree limbs pointing down. He managed, and squeezed the rest of his body into the cockpit. He stood to his full height and smirked down at them.

"Why so shocked? A pleasure, Lady Rikku, and Sir…Napaj, was it?" Seymour Guado said sweetly. "The storage area with the boxes caught fire somehow."

He stepped aside to let them see. Surely enough, to Rikku's horror, flames were through the window beyond.

"My, my, won't this be interesting." Seymour chuckled. He raised his clawed hand, sparks of lightning dancing around his long fingers.

"Oh, why'd it have to be lightning…" Rikku groaned.

Napaj quickly analyzed the situation with his swirly green eyes. Nhadala preferred Napaj to command risky digs because he was always alert. He kept his cool and naturally formulated plans on the spot. This was probably due to the fact that Napaj was once head of the "summoner liberating squad" operations. Those had been dangerous times for Al Bhed, and one had to be ready for anything.

Seymour toyed with them, truly enjoying having them at his mercy. He let off tiny bolts of harmless electricity all around them. Rikku squealed and hugged Napaj's waist again. He barely noticed. His mind was racing. The only thing he could think of was lightning's effect on machina.

'Machina explodes when charged by lightning. How can we use this to our advantage? … I got it!'

Napaj shook Rikku off and fell back on the machine-lined wall, acting like he stumbled in fear. As he put on a terrified face, his hands behind him felt some mechanized Al Bhed goggles.

Usually, these goggles were used to feed the wearer information during digs. Temperature, time, short text messages from the commander, things of that nature. They were irreplaceable tools during risky digs. Plus, they were some pretty cool looking eyewear.

Napaj had other plans for their use, however. He tucked their leather strap into the back of his pants and made a show of moving forward to shield Rikku.

'Now,' Napaj thought. 'The dangerous part.' Which was ironic. After all, their number one enemy stood before them, his eyes glittering with cruel delight.

'Time to taunt the maniac out for revenge.'

Napaj stepped forward and jeered, "You aren't even hitting me. Your derangement must be messing with your aim. Or do all slimy Guado have bad eyesight?" He continued on in this manner, the insults getting stronger with each gibe. Quite hazardous, but Napaj achieved what he had wanted; Seymour was ticked now. Napaj moved even closer, putting his fist on his hip in a defiant pose. He glared right in Seymour's eyes and spat at his feet.

The line was crossed.

With a second to dodge the lightning bolt he knew would come, he slipped the fist on his hip behind him, untucking the goggles. As they fell, Napaj leapt aside just before the deadly shaft of lightning hit where he had just stood. It hit the goggles instead, and before they even landed on the floor, they exploded.

Seymour was thrown back in the following blast, landing painfully on an instrument panel. He lay there, unmoving.

Napaj sat there, overwhelmed by the thought of how dangerous that just was. He had acted so quickly. Now that he had time to think, his thoughts paralyzed him.

'Seymour's back and he's involved. Something bigger is going on here. But what?'

He shuddered when he recalled the creepy feeling of being where intense electrical power was about to strike. Every hair on his body had stood on end. The sense of danger he had felt then (plus the metallic taste in his mouth) hadn't left yet.

Rikku's shouts drew him from his muddled mind, and he snapped back to. 'That's right, the fire!'

Rikku was prying open the door, shrieking, "Yunie! Dr. P.!" Napaj followed grabbing a fire hose from the wall.

'Let's hope this limp thing has extinguisher behind it,' he grimly thought as he turned it on. He began working on the flames, sweeping the jet of foam back and forth.

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Inside, the heat was intense. The only good luck Yuna and Paine had was that those barrels that squashed them earlier had water inside. Al Bheds got thirsty in the searing heat of the desert. With the barrels, they managed to hold back the flames by saturating the areas the fire hadn't gotten to yet with water.

Paine heaved the last barrel over. The rest of the water spilled across the floor. Steam instantly surrounded them, mixing with the smoke to create a suffocating mist.

Tears ran down Tuna's face, drying before they reached her chin. 'So this is how it ends…burned alive. Oh, Tidus…' She and Paine hugged as they retreated as far from the flames as they could.

A deafening hissing sound filled their ears. The steam was so thick now, it was painful to breathe. The mist began to fade as the hissing died down. No more could the roaring of flames be heard. Just silence.

The two squinted through the mist to see Rikku hopping towards them.

"Let's get out of here!" she called.

They all joined hands as Rikku and Napaj led the way over the rubble and through the steam. Slipping of blobs of extinguisher now and then, eventually they felt an exit and stepped outside.

Everyone blinked in the bright sunlight.

Napaj breathed heavily and laughed. "Ahhh…, the good ol' hot and dry desert. Well, let's leave before our vehicle's other passenger awakens and decides the day should have a chance for thunderstorms."

"How can you joke at a disasterrific time like this?!" Rikku demanded as they walked away.

After a short distance, their other Guado pursuers caught up, riding on dune-buggy like machina.

Napaj groaned. "Don't you Gullwings ever have a boring, uneventful day?"

"No," stated Paine as she and the other two got their battle on with the Guado.

Quickly, the gals incapacitated the Guado, relieving them of their machina vehicles. Rikku led the way as they rode off, soaring over the endless dunes.

Brother pinpointed their location after a while. He pulled the Celsius down low. Napaj was amazed at the ship. 'What a machina! The Gullwings drive that?! Maybe I should stick around…'

Onboard, the Gullwings (plus one) cleaned up. The silent and stifling feeling of forboding pressed on all their minds when they gathered on the bridge.

Brother loudly broke the mood by demanding, "What happened?! I dropped you off with Nhadala, why did I have to pick you up on the other side of the desert?! Tell me!!"

Yuna sighed. "Brother, please calm down. Ancient machina from Zanarkand was found in the desert's southern region. We went to get it. Nhadala assigned Napaj to be our supervisor." She looked at Napaj.

"We took a hover to the site, and Rikku spotted a camp nearby. I thought it was another digging excavation, and I went to see them," Napaj said. "I got closer and saw it was a camp of Guado."

Brother stood up. "What!?"

"Yeah. Jerk-o came back and told us what he'd seen," Rikku said. "We all went to see, and there they were."

Napaj went on. "Rikku snuck around their camp. Turns out they wanted all the machina for something. She said she saw plans and blueprints."

"From what I could tell, they were planning giant drilling machines. Maybe for digging?"

"I told Rikku to investigate only. We'd have decided what to do after we got a bigger idea. But she decided to take action. Right in the center of 'em all, she took a piece from their biggest driller."

Rikku rummaged in her belt's pockets and produced what looked like a small bagel. It was made of metal and had a clear, blue lens in the center.

Shinra spoke up. "The material in the lens is blue crystal that grows in Macalania Woods. If fashioned correctly, this crystal has exceptional qualities to focus light or energy. It also has magic qualities. Crystal like this is often used to make up the core of mages' staffs. From the curve here, I can tell that focusing is what the guado had in mind when they made this. It seems they wish to merge the imprecise art of magic and the precise and factual world of mechanics. Sweet! I'd love to see the result of this." He continued examining it.

Rikku smiled. "I thought it looked like something important. I was right! I made off with it and hid, waiting for a chance to leave. Once they realized it was missing, they searched. I picked a bad hiding place, cuz I was found."

"So she ran to one of their larger machina vehicles and stole it. Then she—"

"No, no, let ME tell it!!" Rikku must have liked recounting the story. "There were so many chasing me, and I raced to the vehicle. I started 'er up, and tore through the camp. I was running over tents and everything!" she laughed. "I picked up the other three where I knew they were hiding."

Paine smiled a tiny bit. "Once we heard all the commotion within the camp, we knew Rikku had been discovered. Not long after, she drove up. I peeled a frightened Guado off the windshield and we boarded."

"You could almost feel sorry for the poor guy," Yuna giggled.

Napaj didn't laugh. "Freak-ku blew it. They chased us. I could tell Rikku's driving would just get us killed, so I took the controls from her."

Rikku pouted. "Bossy meanie. I was doing fine, why'd you have to do that!?!"

"I was running over tents and everything!" Napaj imitated in a prissy voice.

"Well, I didn't ramp us off a sand dune."

"You distracted me! I'm not a doggie squeeze toy! You should have gotten off when I asked! Or better yet, you should have sat down and not touched me at all!"

"Oh, you liked it, I know you did."

"Wow, you're as vain as you are dense."

"WHAT?! Why don'cha say that to my sharp claws?"

Napaj ignored her. Rikku responded by sticking her tongue out at him.

"We all couldn't fit in the cockpit, so Paine and I rode in the storage room," Yuna continued.

"On vehicles like that, riding in a place not meant for passengers is dangerous," Buddy said.

Paine crossed her arms. "We figured that much out."

They went on explaining. When they got to the part where Seymour came in, Brother furiously lapsed into Al Bhed. Only Yuna and Paine scratched their heads when the conversation carried on in Al Bhed.

Yuna always enjoyed listening to Al Bheds speak their language. It just sounded so different. Al Bhed were also just naturally spirited and full of boundless energy. She liked watching them in their excited moods.

Rikku, finally speaking in English, chirped, "Well, we know for sure that if Seymour's involved, it can't be anything good."

"Maybe we should look into it," said Shinra.

Brother twitched like he always did. "In a natural world, dead men stay dead. We'll find out why Seymour's still alive!"

Yuna began, "Well, I—"

"Yeah!" Rikku cheered.

Yuna thought, ' But I don't want to get involved…'

Brother cheered, "Us Gullwings are gonna be so famous when we uncover the Guado's second scandal!" He and Rikku jumped up and down.

Shinra went to the computer, muttering something about starting research.

The group dispersed. Napaj took the chance of insuring his stay. He went to Yuna, who was looking a bit sad.

He didn't said, "Hey, now that I'm involved, 'ya think I can stick around?"

Yuna smiled a little. "Of course. But there's a price: Brother will make you clean the ship. He just loves cheap labor."

"That doesn't sound so bad. I won't mind."