Author's Note- Thanks, all, for the awesome reviews! I do have to say to Reyavie, though, that you are all going to have to wait for the reason behind the weird moon. I'm sorry, but it is much too early to reveal the main plot yet, so—BEAT IT! No, no, don't beat it! I was kidding!

Oh yeah—and guess what? For making it this far in the fic, you all get an OC!

Tidus: About time. Who is it?

…just wait, crap it. You're IN the story! And soon someone else will be too… (cackles darkly) Oh, and um, before you read, I should probably warn you that this chapter is perhaps the weirdest so far. And now, with no further adieu…chapter seven of:


Destiny of a Not-So Final Fantasy

Sin was now long gone.

The crewmember of the ship was now escorting people off the boat who were too nasty to do it themselves.

"Everyone! We would like to thank you for sailing with us here on the S.S. Sexy! We hope you have a…um…wonderful day…and we hope you see you again!"

"Why are you so happy?" Dar growled most unpleasantly at him, as the crewmember grew tired of assisting a particular elderly woman, and picked her up and flung her off the boat. "Half of Kilika just went 'boom!' "

"Actually, it went, 'sizzle'. And why should I care about Kilika? I thought the whole place was fugly anyway! I'M disappointed the rest of you didn't blow up with it!"

Dar was ready to chuck knives at this person when Lulu, who had apparently overheard this, cut in, casting a particularly strong Fire spell on him, and he himself "sizzle"d.

Yuna, however, seemed to disapprove of Lulu sizzling people. The black mage frowned and reluctantly cast Water on the crewmember (who was now running around frantically, clutching himself, screaming, and attracting much attention); however, a few moments later, everyone realized that the spell had missed by a mile.

"Oh DARN," she said in an extremely innocent tone that fooled nobody.

Dar, who was starting to become quite irritated at the constant, never-ending screaming noise protruding from the frantic crewmember's mouth, cried, "WILL YOU SHUT—UP!" but the bothersome man continued screaming and running around in circles. Darius was about to "accidentally" fling a strangely shiny and pointy object right at him, but at that moment a sudden meteor went hurling down from the sky and pummeled the crewmember to the ground. The meteor, having successfully completed its task, bounced off cheerfully into the ocean, giggling happily.

The group of companions stepped off the boat with very troubled faces; a large section of Kilika had collapsed, and people were screaming from the death of their "loved" ones. (A few people cackled at the sight of these "loved" ones dying, and were thrown a very contemptuous look by Yuna.)

"'Welcome to—Kilika, the Port City of Unfortunate Circumstances,' " Darius read aloud, pointing questioningly at a welcoming sign that had seemingly propped up from nowhere. "Unfortunate circumstances? What's that mean? This isn't some kind of bad luck place…like Transylvania, is it?"

Kimahri rolled his eyes from a distance.

"A bit," Lulu answered matter-of-factly, nodding, now that she had finished with the crewmember from before. "A lot of—lets say—regrettable incidents occur in this town. In fact, Sin"—she shuddered—"has attacked here multiple times."

Yuna nodded as well. "Yeah…they keep having to rebuild the place—it's terrible! And I also hear that a lot of really unlucky things happen to the townspeople here too."

"Like WHAT?" Darius said warily, beginning to realize that perhaps the real Spira wasn't quite as similar to Final Fantasy X's Spira after all…. First off, since when did a moon named Nyllia appear in Final Fantasy X? And SECOND AND THIRD AND FOURTH off, who ever heard of an unlucky town?

"Just—really unlucky things," Yuna continued quietly. "Like—" She began to speak so quietly that Darius had to lean in to hear her; this caused him to accidentally run into a random bystander, who meow-ed at him and scratched his arm.

"…like that," Kimahri uttered shortly.

A small number of people suddenly made their way to the group. "Hiya!" Tidus greeted as the group in front of him began performing the irksome Yevonite bow, beaming at Yuna as if they had been praying all their life that she would come to meet them.

"…WE DON'T KNOW YOU," sneered an extremely tall, burly, manly woman, who happened to be named Le'tasha, and was nastily peering down her nose at him. She snorted, and would have most likely bitch-slapped Tidus to hell, if he hadn't backed away nervously.

In fact, the only people who didn't look frightened were Kimahri (surprise, surprise…not), and, well, Le'tasha's mother, who had suddenly appeared with a very long whip.

"Oh…Mom…" The burly girl's eyes widened greatly. "I was just… AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" And she scrambled off the scene, for her mother had begun to lash the whip against her body angrily, yelling something about defiant children.

"Well. Isn't THIS town pleasant?" Darius observed in very, very sarcastic tone that earned him a kick in the shin from about five Kilikans who had overheard him. "I mean—I didn't mean this town, I meant…THAT one!" He pointed to the right.

"Uh—" Wakka ran a hand through his hair nervously as he whispered, "That IS part of Kilika…"

But before any more kicks could take place, Yuna, obviously annoyed, held up a hand to silence everyone.

"Greetings, all! I am the summoner Yuna…. Most of you have heard of me…." She curtseyed. "Anyway, um—I've come from the strip bar in Besaid."

Everyone gaped.

Lulu leaned forward to whisper something to Yuna.

"Oh! Whoops, sorry. I meant to say—I've come from the temple in Besaid," Yuna continued.

Everyone's faces cleared in relief.

Yuna smiled politely and bowed once more. "If there's no other summoner here, please allow me to perform the sending…."

Everyone exchanged glances; they knew that no other summoner really cared enough about Kilika to actually VISIT. However, they did not want visitors to know this, so one of them said, "Um—of COURSE there are other summoners!" However, he quickly explained to Yuna and company that the other summoners were all currently using the restroom.

Oh God… WHY are they in the bathroom at once? Darius thought curiously, hoping against hope that the summoners weren't busy doing what he THOUGHT they were doing in there. Tidus and Wakka seemed to have guessed what he was thinking, because they shot him extremely disturbed looks that clearly said 'GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!'

Still, Yuna, Wakka, Lulu, and Kimahri were soon guided into the sending site by the Kilikans, who were whispering excitedly amongst themselves about a summoner finally visiting their unlucky city.

"Oh, thank be to ye!" a woman cried as she took the lead and led everyone away, to the site of the sending.


Five seconds later, Tidus said, "Ohhhh, are we supposed to follow her?" noticing that everyone else seemed to be playing a very dull game of Follow-the-Leader, with the woman as the Leader.

"Hmmmmmmm…" Darius pondered stupidly. "Nah, we're probably supposed to just…well…sit here." He nodded. A moment later, the sound of crickets chirping followed, and a tumbleweed rolled by.

"…TUMBLY!"

He and Tidus ran off, following the tumbleweed in an extremely stupid and OOC manner. Interestingly, the tumbleweed ended up leading them to the exact spot where Yuna was beginning to perform "the sending." They would've continued to follow the rolling plant, but, sadly, it blew up, and they were forced to join everyone else.

The area didn't look much like a sending site, really…. It looked more like a, well, dump.

But that's because it IS a dump, Darius thought, kicking a nearby piece of mold, which kicked him back.

There was a very large stack of dead bodies sprawled out on the ground of the sending site, and beside them was an extremely small kiddie pool. Beside THAT was what looked horribly like the skeleton of a cute, nice, poor little—tarantula. And, as if this wasn't unsexy enough, Wakka had suddenly decided to chuck his blitzball at it, creating a rather loud "CCCCCCCCCRRRRUUUUNNCHHHHHHHHH" noise that forced Lulu to snatch the blitzball away and angrily cast Water on Wakka.

The woman who had led everyone to the site blinked and cleared her throat, stepping forward.

"You have no idea how glad we are to have the Summoner Yuna here," she yelped, bowing. "We thought our loved ones would become fiends!"

Tidus laughed. "Why would you think that?" he chortled, resting his hands on his head casually, and beginning to randomly jog in place.

"…because all but ONE of them have already become friends, idiot. AND STOP JOGGING! YOU'RE GIVING ME A HEADACHE!"

"Thanks, old woman." Narrow-eyed, he observed Dar, who was coughing in a tremendously fishy manner, and he kicked up a large amount of dust in his direction.

Kimahri folded his arms. "Kimahri disapprove of interrupting the sending," he muttered, nodding toward Yuna, who was standing in the middle of the crowd silently, waiting for a signal.

(Everyone seemed to ignore the unintelligent question that Tidus had posed: "Woah! You can talk?")

The woman nodded in agreement. "Shall we begin?"

The whole town seemed to have begun watching now—and everyone abruptly stopped talking as Lulu and Wakka, grinning, sent the summoner a thumbs-up sign. The crowd went very tense. No one moved, no one blinked, as Yuna grinned back at her guardians. Her eyes then fell upon Kimahri, who nodded with much unspoken support. In the very uncomfortable silence, she beamed anxiously up at Tidus, who pumped a fist into the air cheerfully. She looked like she was about to turn to Darius next, and everyone stared and waited eagerly for her to do this and begin the sending. The souls who had died in Sin's attack were just about to be sent to the heavens to live peacefully where they belonged. All of the townspeople's worries had floated away. This was what seemed like a moment of life or death. Then—

"ACHOO!"

Everyone turned to glare menacingly at Darius.

"What? I had to sneeze!"

The entire Kilikan village performed the infamous anime sweat-drop.

Lulu signaled Yuna to begin; she smiled and peered down into the tiny, round kiddie-pool that sat in front of her, and cannon-balled head first (and YES, that's possible) into it. Tidus and Darius stared in horror and quickly covered their eyes with their hands, waiting for Yuna's head to go "CRAAAAAACK!"—but interestingly enough, there was no such sound, and as they slowly peered ahead, they saw (with much surprise) that Yuna had landed perfectly in the pool, on her feet.

People broke out into applause.

"Oh, cool!" Dar whispered to Tidus, who nodded with wide eyes. But then Darius stopped and stared. "Waaaait a minuteeee…" He walked forward to glance at Yuna's feet in the water, and he gawked immediately—

She was walking on water.

But this was all that Darius had time to see, for he was shoved back into the crowd by a random Kilikan.

Two minutes later, the clapping had still not ceased, and it was quite obvious that Yuna was becoming rather tired of waiting for the ovation to end: She had fallen asleep, and was now snoring. Lulu had to shove her way into the center of the crowd and scream "SHUT THE HELL UP!" before the applause began to die out.

"THANK YOU," she shouted, irritably turning back to Yuna. "Now continue."

Darius found it hard to tell what was going on after that. Yuna had begun to dance oddly, waving her staff around like a wand. Elegant, blue, swirling souls began to dance around her slowly, making the whole scene look a lot more...well...goodlooking. However, most of this goodlookingness was immediately taken away when one of said souls turned around and smacked her in the face. Then, the rest of them began to attack the crowd, causing mayhem.

People were now screaming, women were now clutching their babies close to their chests, men were now running forward to battle the livid souls (who flicked them out of the way), and birds were now releasing strange, white substances from their behinds. Five seconds later, Yuna fell into the kiddie-pool with a splat, and 98.9999 percent of the crowd fled, screaming.

"Er—that wasn't supposed to happen, was it?" Darius asked, noting that the remaining 1.1111 percent of the people who had not fled only consisted of him, Tidus, Lulu, Wakka, Kimahri, Yuna, and a strange-looking 94-year-old woman who was batting at Wakka with her buckled purse.

Lulu shook her head with much pity. "Like I said, this town is known for its—shall we say—unfortunate occurrences," she muttered lowly, folding her arms. "I wouldn't be surprised if the whole place blew up." She snorted disapprovingly.

"I'm—not—too sure—you should—talk—about that—happening—ya?" Wakka shouted over at her while dodging continuous swings of the woman's purse. "You'll—jinx us!" Then, obviously angered, he snatched the purse from the woman and threw it far away. She glared at him and ran after it. "Besides, we still have to get to the Temple tomorrow, ya? We should get there in one piece!"

"…temple?" Tidus stared at him, and then at Yuna, who merely nodded. "You mean there's another one of those?"

Lulu chucked a moogle at him.

"Of course there is. Without temples, how else would we get the Final Aeon to destroy Sin?"

At this, Tidus looked completely baffled. Darius could easily determine what he was thinking, and he said, "Final Aeons are used to kill Sin—they're the only way. The most powerful, sexiest Aeon there is—in Zanarkand."

Everyone gaped.

"SEXIEST? And how did you know that?" they asked simultaneously. It was an understandable question, really; they all had previously thought that his being close to Sin had resulted in partial memory loss. Of course, they had also thought that Oprah was a type of Hungarian fish, but that was very much beside the point.

"Um, I…I…er…I guessed?" Darius said in a very shifty manner that fooled no one. Only Yuna seemed to believe him. How she was so easily deceived, he didn't not know. And neither do you.

Kimahri eyeballed him suspiciously. "Kimahri think not."

"Hey, it doesn't matter." Yuna smiled, gazing dreamily in the direction of a wide structure that was labeled, 'THIS IS THE KILIKA TEMPLE, IDIOT -.-;;;;'.

"At least we'll be earning our second Aeon soon!" she beamed, pointing at the temple. "I can't wait!"

"Yes you can, ya? You'll have to! We have to have another good night's rest before we can go in there," Wakka exclaimed in a matter-of-fact tone. He seemed quite proud that he had said something that didn't cause Lulu to bitchslap him this time. He did a little victory dance.

However, his spirits were quashed as Lulu stepped forward and bitchslapped him.

"Don't be so blunt, Wakka!" she said fiercely, her eyes flashing. "Don't worry Yuna, we just have to rest and stock up on items before we go in. You know the kind of danger that lies in the Cloister of Trials."

"Danger? DANGER? There's DANGER there?" Tidus shouted suddenly, his eyes widening. "What kind of danger?" He most certainly was not about to face another bout with Sin, nope nope nope.

"Well, sometimes you step on a dust bunny or two…. And sometimes the air gets a bit warm…. Not to mention the ants—"

"Oh yeah, and THAT'S going to cause a horrible, fiery death," Darius muttered sardonically.

He was the next to be bitchslapped.

"Yes, actually, those ants put up quite a good fight!" Lulu snapped truthfully. "Now, I suppose we should all be readying ourselves for when we obtain the Aeon. Especially since the unluckiness of this town is bound to cause a few fiends to show up…. So—GET TO BED."

Wakka winced, clearly not wanting to face the wrath of Lulu (and THIS was on a GOOD day), but still said, "But, it's only midday! We'd be sleeping for 24 hours!"

"If you think we'd be sleeping for 24 hours, Wakka, then I'm guessing that you normally sleep until around midday—which is quite ridiculous," Lulu snapped.

Darius grinned sheepishly. He wasn't about to admit that he usually slept until 3:00 p.m. on the weekends (and that's on a day when he wasn't tired), so he kept his mouth shut.

"Wow, so there is a first time for everything," Tidus muttered under his breath, referring to the silent Darius, which resulted in Dar glaring at him.

"But in any case, Wakka's right," Lulu continued, evidently paying no heed to neither Darius nor Tidus, who was backing away from the evil stare that Darius was sending him and accidentally stepping on an ant which angrily whacked him in the face. "And once SOMEONE shuts UP, I can continue," Lulu said impatiently, annoyed at the "OUCH!" that Tidus had uttered.

Tidus stifled himself.

"Thank you. As I was saying, Wakka may be right; we shouldn't wait until morning, it would delay our journey by far. We'll gather necessary materials and meet at the entrance to the Temple in exactly 60 minutes…. Yes, and remember: Only the official guardians can enter the Cloister of Trials; the others must wait outside."

Everyone nodded.

"Oh—and if you're one minute late," she added, casting an unpleasant look at no one other than Darius and Tidus, "suffer the consequences."

She brandished a moogle threateningly, which wouldn't have been so creepy if only the moogle didn't look like the devil reincarnated: It grinned maliciously with unnaturally wide eyes that reminded Darius strongly of a cross between the Ring girl and his mother, and its head slowly rotated 360 degrees as it cackled malevolently. The sky suddenly went dark and cloudy, and lightning struck 15 inches away from where he stood.

"…AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Wakka screamed promptly, for he had been standing in the exact spot where the lightning struck.

Tidus broke out in hysterical laughs while Lulu rolled her eyes, putting the moogle down her shirt (hey, I'm just telling it as it happened). The darkness and cloudiness went POOF! and things were back to normal. Darius heaved a long sigh and wiped a trickle of sweat of his forehead with the back of his hand. Kimahri was not amused by any of this.

Yuna giggled softly at the sight of the red-haired guardian sizzling, but, in the end, cast cure on him to save everyone the agony of having to listen to his never-ending "OUCH!" "EEK!" "OW!" and "AHHHHHH!"s.

"So, we're meeting at the temple in an hour?" Darius recapitulated while awkwardly edging away from the redhead, who was now moaning (eww) with pleasure that he had been healed.

"Oh, and um, Wakka?" Darius added, turning to face him. "Lets NOT have an orgasm."

A nearby flower withered and died at the sound of these words.

"Oh! Oh, oh sorry…. It just feels so much better now…."

And at the sound of THOSE words, every plant within a radius of 5 miles withered and died immediately.

"Um…I'm leaving now," Yuna said very quickly, sweeping away while making sure to stay as far away from Wakka as possible.

"Yeah, me too."

"Same."

"Good bye."

"Hn."

And in that very speedy instant (everyone had said their short goodbyes at the exact same moment), Wakka was left alone, bellowing, "HELLOOOOOO?" and listening to about 40 echoes of it.


- - -

"Hey, watch it, random guy!"

Darius looked downward and stopped walking; a fairly small, black-haired girl with dark brown eyes, who was wearing a pair of dark jeans and what looked like a smooth-textured, black shirt, was standing in front of him.

"FIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND! YOU ARE GOING DOWN!" he cried, snatching out Dyrnsyn so quickly he almost tore his pants open (and, as sorry as I am to say it, NO ONE wanted to see THAT). He waited for the Command System to come up so that he could attack, but the girl suddenly screamed, "Wait, no, I'm not a fiend!"

Darius eyeballed her. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh…um…hello," he greeted awkwardly, putting Dynsyn away. She was a bit more than a head shorter than he was.

"You interrupted my walk!" the girl continued sexily and unsexily. "I was trying to impress someone…."

Darius stared at her inquiringly. "Oh, yes, and um, who would that be?"

But before the girl could point to anyone, talk about anyone, glomp anyone, or do 'The Nasty' with anyone, Tidus came jogging up from nowhere. "Hey, Dar! Guess what—?" He stopped, noticing the girl, and peered at her. "Oh! Hey there!" he greeted, grinning boyishly. "Who's this?" he asked Darius.

"Hey, don't I know you?" the girl exclaimed suddenly, her eyes widening animatedly. "You... Isn't your name 'Tidus'?"

Tidus didn't say anything; he was busy wondering just how the heck this random girl had known a portion of his name. Had Darius said something to her before about it?

She un-cocked her head to the side. "Anyway, although you DID interrupt me while I was trying to impress someone"—her eyes flickered over to an exceedingly old man who hornily gave her two eyebrow raises ("NYAHHHHHHHH!" Darius shouted, hoping against hope that this man was NOT, AND NEVER WOULD BE, the person she had been attempting to impress)—"you did entertain me…. Here, you can have this gil!" she exclaimed blissfully, flicking a coin into the air.

But before either Darius or Tidus could catch the thing, the old, horny man came sprinting over in a miraculously fast manner, caught the coin in his teeth, and dove off, yelling something about "HAHA, SUCKERS!"

"Heyyyyy! That wasn't for you—!"

But the girl was cut off by the "Plop!" noise that had ensued, indicating quite bluntly that the man had imploded before he could get away.

Darius wasted no time in collecting the gil that the man had had.

But Tidus hadn't taken his eyes off her. "How—how did you know my name?" he asked her warily.

"Why, she's a stalker of course," Dar answered instinctively, earning him a kick in the balls by the girl.

"…I don't know where I know you from…but I could swear I met you before. I think," she said to Tidus, who had now rested his hands on the top of his head, and was leaning back leisurely, "that you're a warrior or swordsman of some kind."

"Alright…." But he didn't look very believing.

"Oh! Hey, I've been talking to you guys this whole time and I haven't even told you my name! Isn't that funny! Uh—don't answer that," she added to Darius, who looked like he was about to say "NO." Which, of course, he was. "I'm...Brynna."

"That hard to remember your own name, huh?" Tidus questioned.

"No, it's just...um... Oh, look! Distractions!"

Darius didn't know what she meant by this, but was sure that she couldn't have been talking about her name still—unless she was THAT much of a stalker. But then again, what does being a stalker have anything to do with names? But then again, why doesn't 1 plus 1 equal 11? But then AGAIN, why were planetariums so popular in Venus? And who, exactly, came up with the term, "obliviation"? Was it a dog? A cat? A your-mom? Why is the word "phonetic" not spelled the way it sounds? All sorts of questions lingered in Darius mind, most of them not making any sense what-so-ever. He decided to forget about all of the questions, however, when he realized how long he was making this particular paragraph. Luckily, he did forget about them when he remembered suddenly that he had to meet Yuna and the others back at the Temple in less than five minutes now, and he hadn't gotten any materials.

"What about you guys?" said the girl optimistically. "Who are you? I haven't really met any decent people here in a looooong-ass time…most Kilikans are fatally fugly. You two must be foreigners, right?"

"Yeah, this is Darius, and I'm Tidus," Tidus said. "We're aiding—uh—Summoner Yuna with her pilgrimage. S'posed to meet her and the others at the temp—OH SHIT…sorry about the language," he added to the girl, who rolled her eyes, muttering something about people always treating her like a five-year-old.

"You realize we're supposed to be at the Temple, don't you?" Tidus whispered to Dar, knowing that Lulu would chop off their asses with that evil moogle of hers if they were the tiniest bit late. "What time is it?"

Dar grimaced at him. "Does it LOOK like I have a watch? Are there even watches IN Spira?"

"Yeah, actually…."

"What are you two whispering about?" Brynna asked suddenly. "It's me isn't it? Well, you can SHOVE IT—"

But the girl did not have enough time to finish her sentence, for Darius had clapped a hand over her mouth, and the only sounds issuing out of it were "MMM! MMMM! MMMMMMMMMMM!" and then a sudden "OUCH!" that had come from Darius, for she had licked the palm of his hand to get him to remove it from her mouth.

And yes, I do realize that that entire paragraph was just one long run-on. Get over it: Nobody likes grammar these days.

"That—is—NAASTY," Darius commented, snatching his hand away faster than you could say "Abakazabadooliceynamentalishnesslierestafoolbiaccakiewnlostev."

"Yeah, but it never fails," Brynna smirked, slower than you could say, "……I'm sexy, bitch." But this smirk faded away almost immediately when she noticed a piece of parchment fall to the floor next to Tidus. "Hey, is that yours?" she asked him, but before he could look down to see what it was, a very disgruntled voice barked seemingly from nowhere:

"DARIIUUUSS! TIIDUUUS! GET YOUR ASSES OVER HERE BEFORE I KICK THEM UP AND DOWN THE PIER! …please."

It was undoubtedly Lulu, from the Temple.

A few seconds later, Brynna shrugged at the lone paper that had drifted to the ground. She picked it up, pocketed it, and gazed, amazed, at the trail of dust that the two "guardians" of Yuna had left when they had zoomed away, toward the Temple.


"Oh no, no, NO, NO, NO! THERE ARE WOODS HERE?" Darius shouted internally, externally, and unsexy-ternally, knowing very well that Lulu would most certainly chop of his butt and roast it for supper if he was any later than he was now. I should've remembered that from the real game…, he thought, kicking a nearby tree and consequentially causing much pain in his big toe.

"Looks like it!" Tidus cheered, obviously oblivious to the fact that the woods would slow them down on their way to the Temple. "Not to worry, though, man—these woods look easy to get through… Here, follow me…."

He peered around a corner, as if to check to make sure there were no fiends around, and he then peered around another corner, and then he peered around another corner, and then he sniffed his armpit, and then he peered around one last corner before saying, "Good, coast is clear. This way!"

"Tiiiiiduuussssss…! I swear: If you get us lost, I'm going to KILL YOU—"

But such threats were useless, as three seconds later, Tidus furrowed his eye brow and stopped moving altogether. "Uh…we're lost," he said, ignoring the anime-sweat-drop that Darius had produced from behind him.

"That's it! I'll be leading us from now on." And with that, Darius took out the slim, silver sword, Dyrnsyn, and ambled forward. He was determined to get there now in one piece. Oh no, Lulu would not be munching on his butt-cheeks tonight, he'd make sure of it. Nothing was going to distract him from—

"HEY, IS THAT SIMON COWELL?" Darius shouted suddenly, scrambling forward. Tidus smacked his forehead, half-wondering who Simon Cowell was, half-wondering why he was wondering who Simon Cowell was, and half-wondering how it was possible to have three halves of something.

The next few events happened so quickly that Darius didn't know what hit him—literally and figuratively.

What he had seen had not been Simon Cowell, I'm very sorry to say. But it was something extremely similar: a huge, extremely overgrown, fat, butt-ugly, venomous plant with vines sticking out of its torso and a tremendously large mole protruding from its face, with a very helpful label over its head that read, 'LORD OCHU (Optional); HP: 4649; AP: 40 (60); WEAKNESS: YOUR MOM; STEAL: YOUR MOM '.

"……………………………………………………………………………………….crap."

Darius was about to flee hastily, but Tidus had stopped him from doing so. Tidus looked more closely at the label of the fiend. "Hey, I think we can beat it!" he said encouragingly, grinning. Dar, however, knew this would only delay things even more.

He pointed this out, the golden-haired 17-year-old only kept grinning, and said, "We can steal a 'your mom' from it, and then use that same 'your mom' as an attack to kill it!" He pointed at the particular parts of the label that stated that the fiend's weakness was 'your mom,' and that it was possible to steal a 'your mom' from it.

Darius, amazed at how quickly this situation had come about, shrugged and decided to try. "Fine! And this had better work!"

"BATTLE TIME!" the narrator boomed. "WHO WILL WIN? THE POWERFUL, ALMIGHTY LORD OCHU? OR THE WEAK, FOOLISH YOUNG LADS WITHOUT A CLUE? FIND OUT WHEN WE RETURN!"

"SHUT UP!" Tidus shouted in the background, beating the narrator down.

Darius ran up to the fiend, quickly stealing a box that was being gripped in one of its protruding vines. "Got it!" He smashed open the box, and a 51-year-old popped out.

"MOM?"

"What the…?" She looked around. "Where am I?"

Then her eyes fell on Darius. "RAISHAD! DID YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK YET? AND WHERE'S TRUNX? YOU DIDN'T STUDY FOR THAT ALGEBRA TEST, DID YOU? I'M GOING TO KICK YOUR—"

But Darius quickly shoved his mom toward Lord Ochu.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IS THIS SOME KIND OF SCHEME? HEY! WHAT THE—?"

But both Lord Ocho and Darius's mother had suddenly exploded, causing Darius to win the battle. He cheered for himself, as a weird, blue, rectangular screen came up that he immediately recognized from playing RPGs in the past. It was time to collect the spoils! On the screen, the words "Level Up!" were shown, and beneath that, it read, "You've earned 354 Gil," "76 AP," and "Items: Thunder Ring."

It was quite unusual that this happened, he thought as Tidus gaped at the huge screen in front of them. After all, none of the other battles that he'd taken part in lately had culminated with such a screen. But then again, he realized, Kilika WAS known for weeeeird, unusual events to occur….

After the spoils were collected (yes I know—I have no idea why these random animals are carrying 354 Gil and a Magic Thunder Ring), he and Tidus quickly proceeded to the Temple. They climbed a set of steps and kicked the door to the Temple down, causing a nearby priest to run over, screaming about the "proper" way to enter a temple:

"You must caress it! You must touch it softly and ask it if it is okay for you to open it! And if it responds with a 'yes,' you must bow and kiss it. If it doesn't, you bow and kiss it before leaving. And if it does both, you must hug it and slurp it and—"

But he was left standing there, talking to himself as the two ran past, looking about for Yuna and the others—but they were nowhere to be seen.

"They must've already entered," Tidus concluded, after searching inside a trashcan for them.

"Nice theory, Einstein." Dar frowned heavily, and a few burly men began to repair the door he had previously kicked down. Interestingly enough, they were finished within a matter of—well—seconds. "And um…WHY would they be in a trashcan!" Darius proceed to ask Tidus.

"Some people hide well in those, you know…."

"I'm quite sure."

He was about to ask someone if they had seen Yuna and her guardians enter the Cloister, when the door that had just been repaired was violently kicked down for a second time. This time it was thanks to a half-naked, dark-skinned woman with black hair, who was followed by a tall muscular man, flexing his biceps in a very disgusting manner that attracted no one.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY DOOR? YOU MUST CARESS IT!"

But she merely snapped her fingers dismissively, and the muscular man behind her stepped forward, lifted the door-lover into the air, and quite literally snapped him in two.

The woman swept past, suddenly coming to a halt when she reached Darius and Tidus, who were, like everyone else in the building, staring at her.

"My, my, my, my." The woman smirked horribly. "So. You're the two idiots who were keeping that girl Yuna waiting, are you? Hmph. Figures. I haven't seen a pair of filthier-looking fools in my life, including Barthello," she spat, sending a sly look at the brawny man behind her, who seemed to have no clue that he had just been insulted.

"How do youu know Yuna?" Tidus inquired suspiciously. "Who are you?"

"Why, the summoner Dona, of course. And I just met the girl a few minutes ago; they were waiting for two young men who they called 'Dar and Tidus.' They described to me what you two looked like, and I must say I'm not surprised." She scowled at them. "Anywho, I'm just the messenger here—you've been told to stay and wait here until they return."

"We KNOW, Dona," Darius snorted, his eyes stinging from looking at her ugliness too long.

Her smirk only grew wider.

"Oh do you?"

Dona snapped her fingers again, and Barthello immediately stepped forward and shoved Darius down to the elevator platform that lay ahead.

"Hey, biatch! Just what do think you're doing? What—hey!" he shouted, for the elevator had started going down and he didn't have enough common sense to jump off. Tidus was rudely shoved into the elevator as well, and as it came to a stop at the bottom, creating a loud "THUD!111111oneoneoneone111!one" noise, the only thing Darius could still hear was the cold, merciless sound of Dona's laughs.

Lulu was sure to kick their asses to hell now, and there was really no way to go back up since the elevator had miraculously broken once it had finished taking them to the bottom floor (damn those elevators!). What luck, eh? So, Dar, with Tidus following not too far behind, stepped forward, into the Cloister of Trials.

- - -

"I hate doing this," Tidus muttered, approaching a nearby sphere and examining it. "Hey, I think I found one we need!"

"Uh, Tidus?"

"Yeah?"

"THAT'S NOT A SPHERE."

Tidus raised an eyebrow. "Then…what is it?"

"THAT'S SOMEONE'S EYEBALL."

"No it's not," Tidus laughed quietly, staring closer at it.

And to his horror, it stared back.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" He flung the thing at a nearby wall; as it made contact, it went Splat! and a white gooey substance oozed down the wall.

"Uuuggh…" both Darius and Tidus grunted in unison, gawking at the oozing eyeball material—but then, to their complete surprise, the wall slid open like an elevator door, and revealed another corridor. They exchanged flabbergasted looks and grinned, then stepped forward.

Tidus immediately ran forward when he saw what was awaiting. "Hey, tick-tack-toe!" he cried, exuberantly leaping onto one of six small squares that were carved onto the ground. It seemed, however, to be a trap, or some kind of randomly odd game for the mental, so Darius quickly screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" in a suddenly and unnaturally deep and sluggish voice, thrusting him aside before the entire temple collapsed or something.

"Hey, what was that for!" Tidus yelled, getting up to his feet.

"You IDIOT! It's probably a trap!" Dar examined the squares closely without touching them.

"Sorry, but you will never be a detective," murmured Tidus perfectly audibly. He was ignored.

"Hey, maybe…." A light bulb had just popped out of Darius's head; he just got an idea.

He beamed, then scowled, noticing the rather weird-looking light that was floating nastily over his body. He snatched the light bulb and was about to smash it on the ground when yet another idea came to him. What if there were six spheres that had to be placed in each square? And he could use the lightbulb to guide him through the dark passageways…. "Yeah!"

"'Yeah' what?" Tidus asked, clueless.

"I'll bet you anything we have to place six spheres on those squares. Here—we'll search"—he pointed to the right—"I'll go this way"—and he pointed to the left—"and you go that way. Okay?"

Tidus nodded and trailed off to the right while Darius trailed off to the left, completely unaware that they were both GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS of what they had agreed to, the idiots.

"Spheres, come out, come out wherever you areeee…" Darius called as he looked about for some round…circular objects (and NOT the body parts, perverts). "Come on…come on…" He was beginning to lose his patience after about two minutes of this. "GET YOUR FUGLY ASSES OVER HERE, DAMN IT!"

"…FINE! But WE'RE NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT!"

And with that, three spheres came rolling along toward him. He picked them up and went back to the tick-tack-toe area, where Tidus was now standing again. When asked why he hadn't returned with any spheres, Tidus shrugged and said, "I was too lazy. I came right back here after a second or two," and Darius chucked one of the spheres at him, narrowly missing his arm.

"Here, just place them on it," Tidus said reassuringly, most likely only to prevent more objects from being thrown at him. "Maybe it only needs three…."

Darius hoped he was right, for if he wasn't, he could always maim Tidus right then and there. There would be no witnesses of course, except for the talking spheres, which he would have to dispose of immediately once the public had found out about them—

"SOME TIME TODAY?"

"Oh, sorry," Darius mumbled sheepishly, lazily dropping the three balls on the ground. The room suddenly began to grow brighter and brighter until the spheres evaporated.

"Wait, how can solid objects EVAPORATE?" he suddenly yelled into the light, and as if on cue, everything suddenly went back to normal, and a staircase that had not been there before appeared on the right of the corridor.

The two not-so guardians warily walked into the room that the staircase had led to, looking behind them to making sure that the spheres had not triggered anything else to occur.

When they entered the room, the first thing they saw was Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri glaring at them.

"What are you doing in here?" Lulu asked sharply, apparently taken by surprise, "and why didn't you wait outside for us, like you were told?"

"Hey hey hey, it was NOT our fault!" Dar declared proudly. No one seemed amused, and he quickly added, quite truthfully, "That Dona woman, it was her! She shoved us in the elevator." Tidus nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Kimahri still no approve—not guardians."

Dar was tempted to make it known just how little he gave a crap that Kimahri didn't approve, but he didn't, for Wakka had begun to speak, shaking his head. "You just can't go around breaking the rules of Yevon like that, brudda," he said. "It could get us in trouble!"

"Trouble?" Tidus repeated incredulously, raising his eyebrows. "What kind of 'trouble'? Are the priests gonna come after you with mallets?" he said sarcastically.

Wakka looked very thoughtful. "They've actually done that before…. But anyway, you still can't do that. It's not good, ya? Isn't that right, Lu?"

And for the first time, she fully agreed.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, well I think the whole thing is a load of shit anyway," Darius mumbled, becoming irritated at the matter.

Lulu's eyes flashed angrily and she stepped forward, but had no time to say anything, for Yuna had just stepped out of the Chamber of the Fayth was now collapsing on the floor. Kimahri leapt forward to catch her before her fall, and he carried her all the way outside, with Darius still in an unpleasant mood as he followed.


Outside, when Yuna had regained consciousness, she thanked all of her guardians for helping her, then turned to Tidus and Darius. "Hey, I heard what you two did," she said quietly. "Thanks. You came to help me even if it meant breaking a Temple rule."

"Yeah," Tidus mumbled with a slight smile, choosing not to mention that he had been forced to go down there by of that old hag, Dona. "It was nothin', really!"

Yuna beamed, then looked at the ground awkwardly and said, "Hey, um…I feel like I know you a lot better…and—I know I can trust you. I was hoping you two could become my official guardians."

"Seriously?" Darius asked, breaking out of his quiet state (yes, Darius being quiet, quite a surprise, I know).

But Tidus looked uncomfortable.

"We don't have to, like, do any ceremonies or anything, do we?"

"Of course not! Why would you think that?" Yuna giggled, resulting in Tidus heaving a long sigh of relief.

"Oh, good…." The two nodded at her, and she ran off to tell Lulu, Kimahri, and Wakka almost immediately.

But when they descended the steps that led the path back to the forest, Darius stopped dead, staring wide-eyed at yet ANOTHER, huge, green, scaly, butt-ugly monster that hade seemingly popped up from nowhere. It was taller than Lord Ochu, however, and it seemed to have been waiting to ambush them there all along. The fiend, which, LUCKILY (sarcasm) turned out to be a sinspawn, grinned.

Not another FIGHT! Darius thought. He groaned.

It grinned wider.

He groaned louder.

It grinned WIDER.

He groaned LOUDER.

"WILL YOU STOP MOANING HORNILY!" Tidus boomed at Darius, but then finally noticed the huge fiend that had appeared, blocking the path to the woods. "Oh, damn."

"Great," Lulu grunted under her breath, taking out a moogle. "Yet another fight."

"This town really DOES suck, ya?"

"Hn," Kimahri put in.

Darius whipped out his sword—he was quite sure that this fiend—Sinspawn Geneaux—wasn't going to be kind enough as to tell him what its weakness was, unlike Ochu.

Time to kick some sorry ass, BIZNOTCH!

Yuna immediately cast Haste on Lulu, who smirked in gratitude and began shooting frantic Fire spells at its tentacles, which were long and menacing enough to strangle 1500000000 sharks to death and still have time for lunch. After a few seconds, the tentacles had all disappeared, and the tough exterior of the Sinspawn unwrapped into its true form: A 20-FOOT TALL PIECE OF NASTINESS WITH SIX EXTRA-LONG FINGERS, AND YET ANOTHER MOLE ON ITS FACE.

Darius was the first to attempt to lunge forward and attack. And he was DEFINITELY going for that damn mole first! He waited for the Command Screen to come up and quickly selected the Attack icon.

However, it took him about 15 seconds until he was able to attack, since he had to wait for the Active Time Bars to fill up.

"STUPID ATB SYSTEM!" he cried, thinking very much of how he longed to get fffaaaaaarr away from this unfortunate little town.

He lunged forward, raised Dyrnsyn, and slashed down on the Sinspawn, forgetting that (A.) in order for his weapon to attack at its full potential, he had to flick his wrist at the last possible moment, and (B.) that he had left the sink running back at home.

"CRAP!"

But the Sinspawn Geneaux whacked him brutally with one of its terribly long, curly fingery-looking things; the result was Darius was knocked far away from it, where he could no longer attack or BE attacked.

Wakka sprung into the air, and, with two hands, thrust the ball through the air—it soared right onto the skin of the monster, skidded for a second, and shot back into his hands. He cheered, "YEAHHHH!" but, unfortunately for him, was so busy cheering himself on that he had fallen to the ground with a deafening crash, creating somewhat of a crater in the ground.

Yuna decided to put her newly acquired Aeon to use—it seemed as though everyone were losing the fight so far anyway.

"Ifrit!"

An enormous Aeon with dark brown fur, humungous claws, and what looked like red flames protruding out of its head at different angles sprang from the ground. It roared dramatically, causing everyone to stop and stare at it, quite amazed.

"METEOR STRIKE!"

The Aeon of fire produced a huge, glowing, fiery orb from its hands and aimed it at the Sinspawn. It roared, ready, and began to thrust the meteor at the fiend—

But a less-than-5-foot-tall girl had suddenly flung herself onto the battlefield, and the Aeon, surprised, accidentally dropped the meteor on its own foot, killing itself immediately.

"HERE!" she screeched, chucking a strange object at the Sinspawn. Darius and Tidus recognized her immediately.

"BRYNNA?"

The object finally made contact with the spawn of Sin, and a huge explosion immediately commenced. Everyone dove for cover, narrowly avoiding the flying particles of the Sinspawn's mole, which had been blown off its face promptly. And as for the rest of the Sinspawn, well, let's just say the mole was the only remaining part of its body left.

"Whooooooooooo! I did it! Oh, come on out already, it's gone!"

Everyone gaped at the little girl who was now doing a victory dance, cheering excitedly for herself.

"What—are you doing here!" Darius and Tidus shouted at once, hardly believing what had just happened.

"What am I doing here? You should be thanking me! I just saved your lives, BUCKO. Oh yeah, and you should thank the merchant over there, while you're at it; he was the one who sold me that rare mega-grenade. Cool, huh?"

"Who's this?" Yuna asked Tidus politely, carefully walking over.

"Oh, sorry, I'm Brynna," the girl said, bowing to the summoner. "Met those two earlier." She nodded in the direction of Darius and Tidus. "You're Summoner Yuna, right?" She watched Yuna nod, and then grinned and said, "I've always wanted to meet you."

Yuna's suspicions seemed to float away. "Oh!" she beamed.

"Uh, why'd you come here, Brynna, anyway?" Tidus asked.

"Oh, right. You dropped this behind you when you left earlier on." She handed him the parchment that had floated to the ground from earlier on. "Something important?"

While Tidus held it and gaped at it, the others glanced over his shoulder at the thing—even Kimahri seemed curious. It was very odd. It had a 5 different phases of the moon on it: one showed the whole moon; another showed three-quarters of the moon; then half; then one-quarter; and the last showed a dark blue outline of the moon, but it had no center. He stared blankly. What the hell was this?

"Huh? Uh—no, that's not mine, unless SOMEONE'S been hiding something from us," Tidus replied, looking straight at Darius, who shook his head 'no.'

"Then who—?"

But Lulu, who had also been observing the piece of parchment from over Tidus's shoulder, abruptly snatched it away. "Where did you get this from?" she asked sharply.

"I thought Tidus dropped it…."

Lulu frowned and put the parchment away. "I see. Forget about it."

Darius eyeballed her skeptically, knowing vaguely that it had something to do with Nyl and the moon. AGAIN. What was going on? And why did it seem that Lulu was so determined to hide something from them all? This whole thing was becoming very annoying.

"D'ya know what it is?" Wakka asked her, furrowing a brow slightly.

She hesitated, and then said shortly, "No." And the matter ended as quickly as that.

Brynna looked from Lulu to Darius, and back again, but didn't say a thing, except for a quiet and thoughtful "Hmm…." She then smiled once more. "Anyway, where are you guys going now? You must be off on your pilgrimage, huh?"

"Well, we were just about to leave for Luca—" Wakka began.

"LUCA? The blitzball tournament's starting there soon!" the girl cried gleefully. "Is that why you're going?"

"Well, kinda, see," he continued, running a hand through his hair heavily. "I'm the captain of the Luca Goers, and Tidus here…" There was a pause, as if wondering just why he was explaining this to someone he'd just met. "Well, it's on the way to the Mi'ihen Highroad," he summarized.

Brynna beamed and said, "AWESOME! Can I—um—tag along?"

No one responded to this immediately.

"Er," Darius said. "But it's dangerous, and…you could hit your head or something! Or be raped," he added, but to no one's surprise.

But Yuna seemed to disagree. "I think she'd be a wonderful addition to our group! The more the merrier, right?"

The black mage behind her did not smile at all.

"She's a little kid, Yuna! The pilgrimage is for people close to you only, people who are willing to protect you. Not some nine-year-old—"

"Nine year old? That's 11 and a half, thank you! And did you not just see me save your ASSES?" she reminded the woman, who considered this.

"Whatever the summoner thinks, I'll go with."

Kimahri snorted. "Kimahri disagree too. Kimahri no think random little girl—"

"HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU? I AM NOT LITTLE!"

But she seemed to forget that she was about 3 feet shorter than Kimahri, who peered down his nose at her reproachfully and snorted once more. Yuna, however, ignored the thoughts of her guardians and welcomingly said, "Welcome! You can come along with us for now at least, okay?"

"WHOOOOOO!"

Darius grinned; he could tell by the look on Lulu's face that she was quite unhappy about having to deal with what looked like yet another insane child.

Still, Wakka seemed to be the most cheerful. "Off to the tournament then? ALRIGHT!" he shouted, pumping a fist into the air.

Soon thereafter, just before they had reached the 'city limits' of the unlucky town of Kilika, Darius, Tidus, Darius, and Brynna all began chanting what they called the "Blitzball tournament song," causing Lulu's mood to worsen, as she screamed, "SHUT UP!"

They would have, but suddenly, another tumbleweed rolled by, and all four of them ran after it, stupidly screaming:

"TUMMMMMMBLY!"

"THAT'S IT!" screamed Lulu, snatching out the moogle once again from her shirt that looked like the devil reincarnated. "I said—SHUT UP!"

At this threat, all noise immediately ended.

It would be quite a miracle if the group made it to Luca alive and in one piece.

Quite a miracle indeed.

->->-

-S