Author's Note-
Er... hi. I've been away on vacation for a while, so I wasn't able to update. This story was only supposed to have three chapters...but unless you had any particular interest in reading a chapter with 11,000 words (27 pages), you should be glad that I separated it into two different chapters. Please enjoy!
IMPORTANT:
In order for you to completely understand the ending of this fic, you're going to want to make sure you remember what happened in the short story that Ayuno was writing at the very beginning of Chapter 1. You know: The one with "Bad Guy," "Mary-Sue," "the mage," "the hero," and "the warrior." If you don't remember what I'm talking about (because I've taken forever to update since then), do yourself a favor and skim that part again. And also, please, after you read that (if you needed to), please quickly read about 6 or 7 paragraphs after that too.
Otherwise, when you read the end of this story, you're seriously going to be like, "W.T.F.?"
Oh...and I just now realized that Rinoa in this story is extraordinarily OOC. Oh well, I like her better this way.
Tidus: And ... holy HELL. He's actually going to finish a fic!
Auron: And it only took him...a year and four months.
...(chases them off stage)
----
Muse Land, Chapter 3: Roland the Creator
Cloud looked down at his defensive apparel in disgust. And with good reason, too, for the attire was unpleasantly reminiscent of armor from the medieval days, and it clanged boisterously with every movement made. "What—the hell—is this?" he grumbled crossly.
"Yeah—and why does it have coffee stains?" Tidus added, gesturing to an unnaturally large area of his armor that had a dark, dried yellowish-brown spot.
"You know very well that Sorceress Quina said we have to wear this equipment to protect us from evil things in the castle!" Rinoa reminded the both of them, flipping her hair girlishly. "Oh, and er... That's not a coffee stain, Tidus."
"Huh? Then—what is it?"
"Pee!" Cloud said joyfully.
Tidus bellowed and ripped off his armor so fast off his body that it seemed as if he had suddenly decided to strip for the homeless. He whipped out a catapult from nowhere, and catapulted his uriny armor into the Heavens above.
"Thank God" he grumbled, apparently glad he had gotten the attire far away from him.
Unfortunately, God, who was not particularly fond about being sent uriny clothing, angrily catapulted it right back to him, and when he saw the pair of flying yellowish-brown armor coming back at him, Tidus's eyes bulged so wide out of their sockets that the others thought he had just sprouted two large white breasts. He screamed and ran in frantic circles until the clothing connected unpleasantly with his body, at which point there was a massive explosion of body particles, and—
"Ayuno? Are you okay?" someone asked.
Ayuno blinked twice, and snapped out of his reverie.
----
"Oh...right," he said, glancing sidelong at Tidus and wishing his violent reverie about Tidus blowing up had been true. But, unfortunately, it wasn't. (For the seventeenth time in the past three minutes.)
Ayuno and his four Muses had been journeying to the castle of the Creator, and, as in Ayuno's daydream, they were being forced to wear protective clothing, which was remarkably useless. In Ayuno's opinion there were much better ways to spend one's time than wearing this crap, such as bathing in pineapples, viciously scraping a blackboard with your nails, or munching on newborn bunnies.
All of which, secretly, were daily routines for Tidus.
Sorceress Qualma had sent them off a few minutes ago to save Muse Land from being completely corrupt by the plague, and Ayuno, who was not in the least way disappointed about leaving, was the first to get as far away from her as possible; he was worried that Sorceress Qualma might have some other contagious diseases up her sleeve. After all, if she had happily given him a deadly disease from a plague, what else might she give him? AIDS?
Of course, Tidus, who had had to linger there for an extra fifteen minutes in order to use the bathroom before leaving, was left behind. Ayuno shuddered to think of the foul, repulsive things the Sorceress may have done to Tidus while he was alone in the house with her... In fact, Ayuno thought, he might have AIDS now...
But nevertheless, here they all were now, marching happily to Roland the Creator's castle, all in once piece.
—So far, Ayuno added darkly.
"... tell me we're close..." Tidus was dragging his feet against the ground with each step. "My legs are ready to fall off..." he panted, now clutching Ayuno's shoulder and leaning heavily on it. "How long have we been walking for?"
"This would be the sixth minute," Auron said dryly.
"... oh," Tidus muttered, performing the notorious anime sweat-drop.
Ayuno, Cloud, and Rinoa exchanged looks...but pressed on nonetheless. However—to Ayuno's utter displeasure—sixty seconds later, Tidus found the urge to ask again.
"Er, Auron?" he said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "Now how long have we been walking for?"
Auron side-glanced him for a moment, and replied slowly, "...this... would be the seventh minute, Tidus."
Ayuno, Cloud, and Rinoa exchanged looks once more—although this time, the expressions on their faces were understandably much more aggravated. And once again they pressed on, ignoring Tidus's intermittent whines/complaints and Auron's irritated replies/retorts, which all could be summed up with:
"Now how long have we been walking for, Auron?"
"... This would be the eighth minute."
"...Now how long have we been walking for?"
"This would be the ninth minute..."
"...NOWhow long have we been walking for?"
"...This...would be...the tenth...minute...Tidus..."
"...NOW how long have we been walking for?"
"………………………………………"
"NOW HOW LONG—?"
"SHUT THE BLAZING HELL UP!"
But, of course, Tidus kept at it. And by the tenth time Tidus had asked, the intervals in-between his questions were becoming shorter and shorter—until Ayuno angrily picked up a stick from the ground and smashed it against the back of his head, resulting in Tidus doubling over, unconscious.
"Finally..." Rinoa grunted. Cloud nodded silently.
Auron—who was, arguably, the strongest in the group—took the liberty of seizing Tidus by the legs and bodily dragging his sorry ass behind him.
Roundly twenty minutes later (twenty minutes of utter, complete, soothing silence, might I add), Tidus reawakened (after which, that silence was violently eradicated, might I also add). Luckily, however, before anyone had the chance to hurriedly knock Tidus out again, a tremendously large structure loomed into view.
"Wh- What the—?" Ayuno gaped at the thing. "What is that?"
"...the Castle," Auron muttered.
Ayuno had to slant his neck at a ridiculous angle in order to see to the top of the castle—and even then he could only see part of it; the building was so vast that it seemed as if his peripheral vision could not sight it all at once.
The first thing he noticed was the fact that the castle seemed to be separated into three sections, all of which were elegantly built, with what looked like columns of diamond rising out in front of their entrances. Also, Ayuno noticed, directly in front of the castle was what looked disappointingly like a metal gate to keep out intruders. And that, unfortunately, was also the last thing he noticed, for he was suddenly distracted by a boisterous, screeching—
"WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL CASTLE OF ROLAND, THE CREATOR OF MUSE LAND, YOU BITCHES AND HOES!"
Everyone looked hastily around, ready to beat down whoever had just called them bitches and hoes.
But—they saw nothing.
"Wait—that thing—look at that!" Tidus said, pointing to a...thing.
Ayuno looked.
"Erm... is that supposed to BE something?" he questioned.
"Probably."
"Ugh. I don't see anything!" Rinoa whined unhappily, and Cloud and Auron were silent.
"Look closer!" Tidus said, and Rinoa attempted to. "No, not over there, over HERE!" Rinoa moved to the left and looked. "No, CLOSER!" Rinoa growled irritably and moved as close as possible as she could get to the ground without her nose bumping into it.
"Ohhhh!" she cried suddenly, pointing at the thing. "If you tilt your head to the right a little, squint with one eye, close the other, hop on one foot, and blink 3.14 times at a rate equivalent to the value of pi, you can ALMOST see it!"
"Hey, she's right," Cloud put in, unexpectedly.
Everyone glared at him, wondering why the hell he was speaking, when he hadn't done so much as said one word throughout the rest of this chapter.
Hurriedly saying something, so as to not to let this awkward moment in the story cause any valuable readers to click the "Back" button on their Internet Explorer browsers, Auron asked, "Well? What is that thing?"
Ayuno blinked a couple of times, and recognized it as what looked like a mini recording device. Oh... he thought, feeling stupid. And we thought it was a real person... Apparently Roland the Creator either had a sense of humor, or he was an old hag.
"Um..." Rinoa said awkwardly, speaking directly into the thing. "Hello...? May we please enter the Castle and speak with Roland?" Then, she added, "And... may I also ask who I'm speaking with now? Just a bit curious, really..."
Cloud rolled his eyes.
But, surprisingly, the device responded back.
"This is a magical device, my sweets; you aren't actually talking with anyone alive. I'm nothing but a piece of metal given the ability to talk, by a magical spell. And, to answer your first question, in order to enter the Castle and see Roland the Creator, you must first answer my riddle."
"Oh, God," Tidus mumbled.
"Get it over with," Auron said. Ayuno nodded agreeingly.
"What if we answer incorrectly?" Rinoa asked worriedly. "Will the gate still open? And if we do answer right, what happens?"
The device growled. "Look. If you answer right, you are allowed to enter the castle and use the elevator to get to the top floor, where you will be able to speak to Roland. There will be nothing to bar your path, or to stop you from reaching him— Nothing. However, if you answer wrong, you will be forced to leave this place forever. No returning here—ever—or Roland will personally destroy you."
Rinoa gulped.
"Well... okay. Shoot."
The device cleared its throat dramatically. "Ahem...
"I am the black child of a white father,
a wingless bird,
flying even to the clouds of heaven.
I give birth to tears of mourning in pupils that meet me,
even though there is no cause for grief,
and at once on my birth I am dissolved into air.
What am I?"
There was silence.
Ayuno narrowed his eyes in thought, wondering what the thing could be. The black child of a white father? A wingless bird? He didn't get it. Thinking deeper, he continued to analyze each line of the riddle, until he could reword it into something he could easily interpret. His new version of the riddle was:
"I am dark-colored, although I come from something light.
Without wings, I still fly in the sky.
Most people who see me end up crying,
even though there's nothing sad about it,
and the second I was born, I floated into the skies above.
What am I?"
He considered for a moment. And then—
"I GOT IT! I GOT IT!" Tidus said.
"Well?" the magical device spat. "You've already had enough time to think it out; if you think you know the answer, spit it out."
"No we haven't!" Rinoa returned, looking innocent. "You only gave us forty seconds!"
"AND THAT'S PLENTY. NOW, ON WITH IT."
But while all this was going on, Ayuno was still thinking. Something dark that comes from something light, and floats in the sky... People cry when they see it...
Something like—smoke?
"I think I know the answer too..." he muttered.
Auron looked from Ayuno to Tidus, and said, "Then you two should compare answers, before saying it aloud."
Tidus shook his head. "Nahh. I know I'm right!" He drew him self up importantly, and cried out into the magical device, "THE ANSWER IS—"
"TIDUS, NO!"
"—TOOTHPASTE!"
Ayuno's jaw dropped to the floor and stayed there. "WHAT?"
"TIDUS, YOU IDIOT!" Cloud barked.
"How could you get TOOTHPASTE? THE ANSWER WAS SMOKE!"
Tidus grinned. "No, think about it! Toothpaste can be dark-colored AND light-colored! AND, if you throw it far enough, it can fly into the sky! And people DO cry when they see flying toothpaste, because they think the world is going to end! It all makes sense, doesn't it?"
The magical device cackled and giggled so hard that it vibrated on the ground.
"That answer... is horribly, horribly, horribly, horribly WRONG!" it bellowed, and immediately there was a loud locking noise coming from the gate, a malevolent roll of thunder and a flash of lightning coming from nowhere, and the clouds above the skies slowly turned grey and ominous, joining together to form what looked appallingly like a massive cumulonimbus cloud.
"Holy...crap..." was the only thing Tidus could utter.
Rinoa looked around, gaping at the sudden malicious surroundings. "Oh, dear..."
"Yep!" the magical thing cried joyfully. "The answer was smoke, not toothpaste, blondie. And now I'm going to have to either ask all of you or force all of you to leave."
"But I said smoke!" Ayuno protested angrily. "Shouldn't that count for anything? Can't you still let us in?"
" 'fraid not. That blond idiot over there said 'toothpaste' before you said 'smoke,' so his answer counts."
"Oh, come on!" Rinoa was on the ground, pleading with all her might. "Just this one time? Have a heart, and let us in! We're only doing this for the good of Muse Land!"
"Sorry. Rules are rules," the magical thing giggled. "Now, please leave, before I am forced to destroy you all." It giggled some more, as if it was having the time of its life.
"No...the device is right," Auron said, sounding almost sorrowful. "We must follow its rules; we lost, fair and square. We must be respectful of the Creator Roland, and leave while we can."
Everyone stared at him in complete disbelief.
"Well...I guess he's probably right..." Cloud muttered, catching Auron's eye. He began to lead the way out.
"...fine." Rinoa sighed, got up off the ground, and followed. But Tidus and Ayuno stared at each other, not believing what they were hearing. They were giving up? Hell no.
"Are you kidding me? After all this, you're turning—?"
But then Ayuno caught Auron's eye as well, and and he suddenly understood. "Actually, I guess you're right, Auron..." he said, and followed them out. "Come on, Tidus, we're leaving."
"Oh...! Well...alright then..." Tidus said, after studying the expressions on the others' faces, and catching on.
"Good! You're leaving willingly!" the magical device said happily, from behind them. And, seeing that they were going to leave peacefully, it stopped the raging storm. The malevolent clouds in the sky disappeared. The crackling thunder and lightning died out, and a blue sky filled the atmosphere once again. Everything was back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened.
Then—
"NOW!" Auron cried.
Auron, Ayuno, Tidus, Rinoa, and Cloud all whipped around and sprang to the castle gates.
"HEY! YOU BITCHES! YOU HOES! YOU CRAPS! YOU TRICKED ME! YOU'RE GOING TO BREAK INTO THE CASTLE!" the device boomed from behind them, and immediately there was another crack of thunder, and the storm was brought back.
Without looking back, Ayuno ran up to the castle gate and scrambled to climb over it. Once he was at the top, he leapt forward, and continued to sprint like hell toward the castle.
"HURRY!" he heard Tidus shout from behind him. "TORNADO COMING!"
"A WHAT?" Rinoa screamed, looking back. And the next thing Ayuno heard from her was, "OH MY GOD!"
Ayuno took a fleeting glance behind him and saw what Rinoa was screaming about: The storm that the magical device had created was now issuing a funnel-shaped gust of wind and dirt beneath it. Slowly, it began to reach the ground until Ayuno felt a sudden burst of wind attempting to draw him in. The storm had produced a tornado.
"DON'T LOOK BACK!" came Auron's booming voice from somewhere behind him. "KEEP RUNNING!"
Ayuno tried. With a forced burst of energy he began to leap forward several feet with each long stride he took, running against the ridiculously high-speed winds of the storm. But he could sense the tornado slowly approaching, and as it did, its winds jerked him about with more and more intensity. It was all he could do to resist being pulled in. He knew no one would be able to resist the tornado for long, before it propelled them into the sky. In fact, if it weren't for the incalculably heavy armor that Sorceress Qualma had forced him to wear, he most likely would have been picked up by the storm already. But luckily, the extra weight of the armor kept him (and the others) on the ground.
—for now...
"RAM STRAIGHT INTO THE CASTLE WALLS!" he cried behind him, hoping the others could hear.
"WHAT? ARE WE BREAKING THROUGH IT?" Cloud's rarely-heard voice screamed.
"WE'LL HAVE TO!" Auron barked.
Without daring to slow down, Ayuno slammed his body mightily into the wall of the castle—and it did no damage. He backed up a few yards and tried it again and again, hoping that his bulky armor could penetrate the wall's defenses and get him into the castle, but—
BAM.
Auron had come up next to him, crashing his own hefty body against the wall—followed by Cloud, Tidus, and Rinoa. And—was it just him, or did Ayuno see a small crack in it?
"AGAIN!"
They repeated the process once more, but found it harder this time, for the tornado was not very far away. The winds were carrying around bits of dust and gravel with them, which, naturally, blinded Ayuno's sight. All he could see was brown dirt being thrown around him, like a sandstorm.
"AGAIN!"
"AGAIN!"
"AGAIN!"
This wasn't working.
Ayuno's feet were being dragged backwards, drawn in by the storm. "AGAIN!"
But now there were noticeable dents in the wall of the castle, and quite a few cracks. They were weakening it, but...
"HERE!" Auron snatched out his katana and stabbed it at the wall, and, surprisingly...
It went through it.
The five of them grabbed a hold of the handle on the blade, and slowly exerted all their force to push it down through the wall, in order to slice a hole through it.
"HURRGHH!"
Auron, who was still, arguably, the strongest, seemed to be putting his whole being into slicing a hole through the wall. With the others lending each of their strengths, a large chunk of the wall ended up being dropped to the ground and immediately carried away by the wind.
Auron climbed through the hole first, with seemingly almost no difficulty. And Cloud and Tidus next.
"GRAB ON!"
Rinoa grabbed on to Cloud's hand and was pulled through. But...the tornado was now gaining on him, and Ayuno was still quite vulnerable indeed. Blinded by the dust being blown about, he grabbed on to the edge of the hole in the wall. The tornado was now picking his feet up off the ground—
Held in place only by his clutching onto the wall, Ayuno blindly began to shove himself through to the inside of the castle. His hair moved about wildly behind him, also being drawn into the tornado—
"YOU GRAB ON TOO, IDIOT!" Tidus boomed, shoving his hand out. Ayuno let go the wall with one hand and groped around until—
Tidus grabbed his hand and pulled with all his might, working against the winds of nature, and flung Ayuno inside.
"RUN!" Auron roared, tearing into the next room of the castle.
Ayuno, without bothering to take in any details of the room he had barged into, followed Auron through to another room, waited for the others to scramble in as well, and "SLAM!"-ed the door boisterously. He fell to the floor, exhausted, and panted like a dog.
Breathing hard, Cloud surveyed the area.
"We're in," he said.
"I... am going...to KILL you, Tidus!" Rinoa screeched, after they all had had a good twenty seconds of resting time. "It's your fault we had to—!"
"Shhhh!"
Auron, who had shushed her, seemed to have been thinking deeply. Quietly, he said, "We've only just now gotten in to the castle; there are still other challenges we must face. The challenges to come will be much harder than the last, because now the castle knows we've intruded. There will be no mercy. So we should keep our voices low, so that we don't attract any unnecessary attention."
Ayuno looked around, and raised his eyebrows: the room was completely empty. The walls were colorless, and there was no furniture or decoration anywhere in the room. "Er— Unnecessary attention from what? This room is as empty as Tidus's mind."
Tidus tilted his head. "Duhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." His eyes were unfocused, and drool dropped from the corner of his mouth.
"Emptier, you mean," Rinoa corrected.
Auron harrumphed.
"What's wrong with him, anyway?" Ayuno asked, eyeing the strange 17-year-old. "He was never that hideously stupid."
Cloud coughed loudly.
"No, I think he's right," Rinoa said. "Something's wrong." She paused ponderingly. "Could it be... the disease kicking in?"
No one replied.
"Oh, god..." she continued. "Remember what Sorceress Quina said: 'first the disease affects you mentally... then it affects you physically...' And then you just flop over and die. We have to speak to Roland before the disease affects all of us!"
"We're going to have to hurry this up," Ayuno concluded. "Quick! We have to go to the next floor."
"How?"
Without answering, he kicked down the door in the corner of the room, which led to a staircase. He went up the thing three steps at a time and emerged at the second story of the castle.
----
The others emerged a second after Ayuno, who was occupied taking in his surroundings. He was in a large, circular room with strange symbols lit up on the floor. This place seemed familiar... Had he been here before? Ayuno opened his mouth to mention it—
"Hi, kupo!" a voice exclaimed cheerfully out of nowhere.
He looked downward—and jumped. A small, peach-colored moogle with a red clown's nose was peering up at him, bouncing up and down energetically.
"Who the hell are you?" Cloud shot at it.
"I'm Pogo!"
Ayuno and Cloud exchanged glances, ready to kill the cheerful little thing.
"What do you want?" Cloud, who seemed not to be in a very good mood about just having been almost killed by a tornado, snapped.
"Awww... it's so CUTE!" Rinoa shrieked, while staring at the moogle with huge googly anime eyes. Before anyone could do anything about it, she bent down and glomped it.
"Shut up and let it say whatever it wants to tell us!" Tidus said, stopping Rinoa before she could bear-hug it to death. "Now, why are you here?" he asked Pogo.
"Well, I was actually sent here to kill you with this ridiculously huge chainsaw...but I'm too lazy. And you all seem very nice, kupo! So, I'll let you navigate past this room, and proceed to the third floor, where you'll find Roland!" Pogo leapt into the air joyfully and landed back on the ground.
"Wait, so, all we have to do is get past this room?" Tidus asked. "And then you'll let us see Roland?"
"Yep! If you survive..."
"But...what IS this place?" Ayuno asked suspiciously, as Rinoa randomly shrieked and glomped Pogo again.
"Oh, you've never played Final Fantasy X-2?" the moogle replied, tilting its head slightly to the left.
"..."
"Guess not! Well, this—is the 0th cloister in a place called the Via Infinito. You will each be assigned to one of five different Cloisters, where you will each have to complete a different mission to pass through. The missions are terribly hard and annoying, though, so you might want to—"
"We have to do MISSIONS?" Tidus barked. "Like, see who can survive in a room with a Mega Tonberry the longest, without flopping over dead?"
"Something like that!" the moogle exclaimed excitedly, as if it couldn't wait to see the five of them get murdered unpleasantly by 20-foot-tall monsters carrying lanterns.
"What, are you trying to KILL US?"
"You know, if I wanted to kill you, I would've just flung you into the 101st Cloister and locked you in with Trema, the old moldy man with 999,999 HP."
"... Good point," Ayuno shuddered.
"So, are you goners ready, kupo?" Pogo asked, beaming and performing a somersault in the air to entertain Rinoa, who clapped girlishly.
Ayuno raised his eyebrows at the others: Auron, Cloud, and Tidus shrugged; Rinoa merely giggled. "I guess that's a yes," he muttered.
"Good then! Bye-bye, everyone!"
There was a fleeting wave from Pogo and a blinding flash—and the five different "heroes" materialized in five separate Cloisters, far, far, away from one another...