Lady of Fortune
Chapter One
A year later
A scream strangled itself in Rikku's throat. She stared up at the sky, the setting sun painting it with yellows and oranges. Wind whistled in her ears. She fell and fell. And she didn't have a handy aeon to save her.
That thing about life flashing before one's eyes before they died. Rikku decided it wasn't true. Maybe it wasn't her nature. All she had were thoughts, sarcastic, cynical thoughts. 'Let's get together and explore this tower for old time's sake. It'll be fun. We can use the dress spheres.'
"It's all fun and games until someone pushes you off the tower!" Rikku tried to shout and the wind pulled the words away from her making them weak.
One hundred floors, each floor over ten foot tall, over one thousand feet to fall was a long way down with nothing but the sky to look at it.
She knew what was above her. She didn't need to see it. She needed to know what was below her. "If I die, I'm coming back to haunt somebody." She muttered and flipped over.
Her eyes widened. There was roof below her and coming up faster than she thought possible. "Shit, shit, shit," She swore in Al Bhed. She relaxed every muscle she could in her body, there was no such thing as bracing for impact in a situation like this. She hit the tower with jarring force and rolled, yelping as she rolled towards the edge and over the curve. She had too much momentum. She grabbed her daggers and dug them into the stone.
Her shoulders about wrenched out of their sockets as she stopped, dangling over the edge of the curved roof.
Rikku blew out and it ruffled her bangs.
"Rikku!" Anikki screeched through the radio system. "Rikku! Answer me!"
Rikku winced. "Little busy!" She shouted, for the hundredth time it felt like. He always was so demanding at bad times. "Trying not to fall here."
"You're alive!" Anikki shouted, actually sounding happy.
"I'm not going to be if you don't crid ib!" Rikku shouted. She shifted her hands on the handles trying to get a better grip and pulled herself up using her arms. "Good thing I haven't taken a year off." She muttered. "Or else I would be dead." She huffed, sweat standing out on her forehead. "Now, how bad is my luck today?" She said and tucked her feet up to brace herself against the wall.
It took most the weight off her shoulders. Instant relief. She rolled them and looked down. She appeared to have caught herself on a molding or decorative carving. The building wall was out of her sight. But maybe, maybe there would be a window. She grunted and let her feet slip.
The texture changed. She could feel it through the thin soles of her boots. It was slippery rather than rough like the stone.
"Please be glass," she murmured. She shoved away from it and tried to use all her weight to give force to her heels.
There was nothing there.
She yelped again as momentum pulled the daggers out of the rock and she flung her body into a room.
It wasn't so far down this time. She hit it on her back. "Owie," she whined. Then remembered, she didn't have to pretend to be quite that young at the moment. "Ow." She added with a groan.
She heard a rustle over her head. Something slithered nearby. And the top of her head felt warm.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," she whispered and rolled away just as a huge red drake, she didn't care which type of drake it was, spewed a huge blast of fire over her prone body.
She arched her back and vaulted to her feet. She glanced around. Her heart leapt. There was a door!
The huge stone door was ajar and the other side had debris piled up in front of it. That's probably why they hadn't explored this room and explained why there were fiends in here. Rikku dove towards it, slashing out with her daggers at a large green tentacle of a Malboro as she did.
A spike whizzed past her ear and Rikku threw herself backwards. Her eyes darted back and forth. The door was booby trapped.
"Great, just great." She muttered.
"Rikku!" Anikki shouted again through the radio.
"I'm just great!" She shouted. "Now crid ib." One of these days, she was going to muzzle him.
"Rikku!" She heard Yuna shout.
Rikku glanced up and jumped to the side dodging the claws of a giant arachnid class monster. This brought her closer to the Malboro. She made a slash at its many eyes. The Malboro recoiled, tentacles waving.
"Rikku!" Yuna shouted again, this time at the door.
"Stay outside!" Rikku shouted.
"We can help you!" Yuna said and scrambled up the debris.
Paine followed her.
"Stay put. It's booby trapped!" Rikku shouted and punched the arachnid's claws.
The drake jumped forward looking to ram her.
"Rikku!" Yuna screamed.
Rikku rolled to the side and got a hand on the drake's 'horns.' She swung her body up on his back. The drake took a deep breath, turning his head.
Rikku slammed her daggers into the top of his head and down through his tongue to the bottom of his jaw, locking his mouth closed. The drake blew out anyways and the fire couldn't go anywhere but inwards.
Rikku jumped upwards as he exploded into pyreflies. One of her daggers clattered to the ground. She swung one dagger around and flung it at the charging malboro. It hit it right in the eyes and it slumped. She flung a petrify grenade at the arachnid, hitting it on the head. It exploded. The arachnid turned to stone and fell to the ground. Rikku landed l lightly on her toes, bending her knees. She scooped up her dagger, stood and rapped the statue of the arachnid with the round handle.
It fell into pieces.
Rikku straightened and murmured. "All right."
"Rikku!" Yuna shouted.
Rikku spun and held up a hand. "I said stay put!"
Yuna slid back.
"The whole door area is booby trapped." Rikku repeated. "Just, stay there."
Paine crossed her arms and shifted her weight to be even on the downed pillar she was standing on. "I don't know." She said. "I don't see anything."
"Are you okay?" Yuna asked. "Do you need me to heal you?"
"I'm fine as can be expected after being pushed off a tower." Rikku snapped and pushed her pony tail behind her back. She went over and picked up her other dagger that had fallen to the ground after the malboro had turned into pyreflies.
"It was an accident." Paine said and waved her hand.
Rikku knelt down and put her hand on the floor. There were designs set into it in metal. She ran her fingers along them. Her mind scrambled. She'd seen something like this before. It distracted her from Paine for a moment before Paine's dismissive tone registered. Rikku made a slight face. She wished she believed Paine. "Respect points, Paine," she said lightly.
Paine snorted.
Rikku looked up at the ceiling. There were holes in it, beautiful designs set with glass.
Yuna frowned and sat down. "How did you get in?"
"The window," Rikku said absentmindedly and looked back down at the design, tracing the pattern more with her fingers and following it. It looked like to be part of a large circle.
Yuna's brow furrowed. "How? They're all closed."
"And none are broken," Paine felt the need to point out.
"It must have opened and closed." Rikku said, still distracted. She shrugged. The smaller design led to a larger design in another circle. Rikku's eyes widened and she pulled out a notebook and pencil from her pouch. She sketched the design and made notes about its direction. Her heart sped up and she scrambled over to the next larger design.
"Can they even open?" Yuna asked.
"Can't tell from here," Paine replied.
Rikku stood up and backed up to the center of the room, where she'd fallen when she entered. Her excitement rose. "I think this is a lock! An alchemical lock! I just can't see all of it. I'm too short."
Yuna and Paine looked at each other. Paine skeptical. Yuna confused.
Yuna clasped her hands together. "Rikku, what are you talking about?"
"I have to see it. I have to be able to see all of it." Rikku murmured. She touched her radio. "Dachi?"
"Yeah. I'm here. Anikki's pacing the floor looking ready to chew a hole through it if you don't tell him he can talk again."
Served him right. "Dachi, I need you to go over to the sphere station and lock in Maw for me."
"Maw? What did you run into that needs that guy?"
"This floor has a lock in it. I need to be able to see it all to decode it." Rikku fiddled with her pencil.
"I'm not pinging any sphere waves." Dachi said.
"Unless you're bringing me a ladder," Rikku's temper spiked.
"Locking in Maw. Got it." Dachi replied.
Rikku went back to drawing the individual designs set in the eight cardinal points of the floor.
Dachi's voice rang out. "Maw locked."
"Thanks." Rikku said off handedly and spun the spheres in her garment grid. She let the transformation take her, it felt like a hundred butterflies flapping against her skin, but she was used to it by now. She settled into her Alchemist sphere, the one she felt most comfortable in after Thief. Then spun the spheres again.
The floor shook, dust fell from the ceiling as Maw flipped down out of nowhere and settled onto the floor. The lizard like machina shoved his nose into Rikku's chest.
"Hey buddy. I need your height." She said, patted him on the top of the head and scrambled up into the cockpit, then stepped onto his head. "Stay still." She told it. She took out her notebook and turned slowly, sketching the entire design onto two pages. She looked up and decided to sketch the roof too.
As she did, she let her brain go idle. It was how she did her best thinking, letting her brain and fingers make connections as she sketched and observed what was going on.
"So, did you find something?" Dachi asked. "Anikki's going to give me a bruise if he keeps poking me."
"Be quiet. I'm thinking." Rikku told him.
Paine snorted again.
"It is a pretty room." Yuna said.
"It's more than a pretty room. It's a coded key to open something. It uses the time of day as part of the mechanism. If you know the key, you know what to use and what order to use them." Rikku said. "And that will unlock whatever there is to unlock."
Yuna raised an eyebrow and looked at Paine.
Paine rolled her eyes.
"I'm losing the light," Rikku murmured. She flipped back and forth between all the pages she'd drawn and looked around the room. "Ah hah! Got it." She said and scribbled down more on the paper before tucking the notebook away.
"You solved it that fast."
"Don't you need spheres?" Paine asked.
Rikku jumped off Maw's head. She patted his nose. "Thank you, buddy. Sorry there's nothing to blow up this time."
The Maw actually wagged his tail and butted her again. She flipped the spheres again and he faded away. Rikku dug into her pouch. She blew out.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Yuna asked, biting her lip.
"Are you sure it's not going to kill us all if you get it wrong?" Paine's voice was as dry as ever.
Rikku ignored them and with a final glance at the ceiling, she went to three sections of the circle and placed her items in them. Nothing happened until she moved back to the center.
The items went off, ice spiked upwards in one portion, lightning crackled in a glowing ball and fire spouted.
Light glowed in the lines between the areas, racing in white, yellow and orange to meet each other and spark out in green, red, blue and purple. When all the lines filled, metal ground on metal, the ring around where Rikku stood dilated open to leave a foot of open space and a platform under Rikku's feet.
"Oh, it's an elevator." Rikku said. "Huh." She looked over at Paine and Yuna. "I'll be back."
"We should come with you."
"No. The booby traps are too dangerous." Rikku said.
The platform descended.
"Besides," She added in a mutter, "This is only big enough for one person anyways."
The platform descended to another room below. The metal aperture above Rikku shut with more grinding of metal.
Rikku's eyes widened as she slowly spun on her toe as the platform lowered to where another aperture waited for it. It stopped and the metal closed around it.
Rikku stepped off. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." She breathed out.
The edges of the round room were supported by huge statues. There were eight of them, four men and four women. If she could describe them, the women looked similar to Yuna's Aeon Shiva. The men had squarer faces and were built like blitzers. They had long hair twisted into thick ropes bound with thongs. They wore very little. Each had a theme, an elemental theme.
She knew all of them. The women, Fire, Water, Wood and Wind. The men, Ice, Lightning, Metal and Earth.
The humans, the most ardent followers of Yevon weren't ready to see this. For in between the statues were tall thin glass windows with representations of their elements worked into them. Those on the side of the wall had bas relief carvings. There was no door. In front of the statue were bowls for offerings and thick slabs of stone.
Rikku slowly walked over to the representation of Fire in a daze. The slab had writing all over it. Writing that wasn't Al Bhed and it wasn't Yevonite. It looked more like Al Bhed than Yevonite did. But Rikku knew it wasn't the same. She ran her fingers over the carvings. She couldn't read them anymore.
Being bound to human form, there were things as Luck she couldn't do. Having been born and lived and died so many times, there were things she couldn't hold onto and remember. She'd had to choose and she'd chosen to remember her mission, to free Toorop. To free her little boy from the bondage of Yevon. The past, the history of Spira in ways was just as much a mystery to her as it was to everyone else. She'd had to forget it.
She wouldn't remember unless she assumed the full form of Luck and took upon all her powers. In order to do that, she'd have to give up this mortal form and leave the mortal plane for good.
That she wasn't ready to do.
"What happened? Why did everyone forget you?" She whispered, staring at the slab.
She blinked and realized it had grown darker. "Damn it." She muttered. She was certain there was a floor under this one.
She turned around and jogged over to the carved lock and examined. She let out a sigh. It was similar to the one above and the key was the same. Whoever had created it had only created it to keep those without alchemical knowledge from entering and desecrating this place, this temple to the essences.
Rikku set the items again, poison gas oozed, a representation of death with a scythe formed and laughed, sleep powder created a small cloud. Lights raced to meet each other.
Metal grated again and the platform lowered.
Rikku swayed. "No." She breathed. "No. No. No."
More statues. These ones more powerful than the ones above and in one part of the room, her face, Luck, Fortune, Fate, Destiny whatever one wanted to call her.
Rikku stepped off the platform in a daze. There was Time and his love, Space. There was Life and the newly freed Death. There was Knowledge or Intellect or even Reason, her face stern and impassive, and Primal, his face set in a snarl. There was Light, what the Yevonites considered Holy, and Darkness. And one she didn't know, a man.
"What is this place?" Rikku asked and put her hands to her temples. She shut her eyes. "We aren't gods. We weren't to be worshipped. Why is this here?"
Nothing answered her. None of the statues came to life to guide her.
"You're gone. You left this world centuries ago. Your people died or you lost enough power and were unable to return." Rikku spun around. "How did our faces come to be here?"
"Rikku!" Dachi snapped.
Rikku jerked to a stop and blinked rapidly. She had to remember who she was, Rikku, Al Bhed, daughter of Elder Cid, Guardian of High Summoner Yuna, Gullwing, sphere hunter. "Sorry about that Dachi. I'm here."
"What did you find?"
"Just some statues." Rikku hugged herself. "Nothing interesting."
"All right, it's getting dark out. Better get back to the ship." Dachi said. "And tell Anikki he can speak before he makes me deranged."
"He makes you deranged when he talks too." Rikku reminded him. "I release him from his silence."
There was a large gasp. "Rikku!" Anikki said and then babbled in Al Bhed. Not much of it was clear, mostly about never putting him through that again with dire threats to her health and wellbeing and possibly killing her himself after raising her from the dead.
Rikku rolled her eyes. "I don't want to fall off towers either!" She stepped back onto the platform. It hummed and as she looked up, both apertures dilated open above her. It seemed when one was done, the platform took the person automatically back to the top floor.
The floor closed around her once she reached the top.
"Anything interesting?" Paine asked.
"Nope, dust and statues." Rikku shrugged. She walked over towards the door.
"Rikku! The traps!" Yuna held a hand out.
Rikku ignored her. She'd already figured out the traps location. The real trick was going to be getting up to the top of the debris. She took a running start, jumped onto a thick stone on the floor to inside of the door and somersaulted into the air.
Spikes whizzed by underneath her. She hit the door frame feet first and shoved off, twisting in midair, daggers close to her chest.
Two more spikes hit the daggers and ricocheted away. Rikku flung her hands out throwing the daggers. They hit the outside of the door and she grabbed them once she got close enough, swinging upwards so her feet were in the air. More spikes whizzed past underneath her.
She grunted, swung down, tucking her body in. Her feet hit the door flat and she shoved off again, pulling the daggers out, doing a flip and landing on her feet. She spun the daggers around and placed them back at her hips.
Yuna and Paine stared at her.
"I'm hungry." She said and reached up to her radio. "Hey, Anikki, looks like we're near the 75th floor. If you meet us on the 80th you should be able to swing the Celsius in close."
"On our way," Anikki said.
Yuna scrambled down the debris and hurried after her. Paine jumped down, shaking her head.
A/N:
Apparently, Square Enix couldn't decide what to name this tower. There are three names for it, one Japanese, one English and one International. They all mean the same thing and all the words were translated into Al Bhed. For the ease of everyone, I'm just going to call it the tower rather than try to figure out what name Square Enix really meant to use!
Yes, and I also know it has 80 floors rather than 100. I think 100 is a better more well rounded figure and am sticking to my guns on it. 100 floors in this tower. (But it does make it more amusing that Rikku told Anikki to come pick them up on the 80th floor.)