The entire city of Kilika paused. Something was going on, they could tell. What they couldn't tell was what.
The creatures poked their heads out of the water and exchanged confused glances as well.
Then they disappeared.
Everyone stopped again. Some were wondering what had happened. Some were wondering why there wasn't even a 'piff.'
Donna was the first to move. She bent down on the roof and stared out at the water.
There was nothing there.
She leaned over.
There was still nothing there.
Someone else checked under the dock.
Humanity would have died long ago if it weren't for the gifts it had been given by nature to deal with disasters.
One by one, people began to shrug.
………………………………….
Things were starting to look up, or down, depending on how you looked at it.
The demons were in the lower levels were flooded, both literally and figuratively. Some idiot had decided to have a fight with an invincible creature right in front of the controls for the Via Purifico.
The windows on the first floor windows had become fountains.
Nine people. He could only find nine people… alive.
He should have expected it. When the church wasn't stupid, it was killing people.
Now he had to find a way not to do either with only nine people.
"Does anyone have any idea what is happening to the world?" Baralai asked.
There was a chorus of 'no's until someone saved his aching head and said 'maybe.'
"What do you mean by maybe?" Baralai asked.
The speaker was some guard who had the wrong type of weapon for his uniform—or vice versa.
"I heard Yuna brought Seymour back," the guard said.
"Why would she do that?" Baralai asked.
"I heard the Al Behd wanna make a machina or something out of him."
"Does any of this make any sense?" Baralai asked. Did all the sense in the world drain away when Guadosalam imploded?
"I heard they've got some deal going on between them," someone else spoke up. "I thought it sounded stupid."
"Those things are trying to kill him!"
"No, they're after her!"
"Did every one of you hear that he's back?"
"I heard she killed him," someone said as they all nodded.
"Where did you hear all this?" Baralai asked.
"Down at the pub."
"St. Bevelle Bar."
"Er… there was this place where girls take their clothes off… I wanted to see if they were okay, honest!"
"You went for drinks?"
"What would you do if everyone was getting eaten?" the main guard asked.
The thing was, Baralai was thinking a good strong drink would be good about now.
………………….
Seymour had been taught a great many things throughout his life. People skills weren't one of them, but then, the monks had never had any real problem with him to consider that. Table manners were.
Most table manners hinge upon holding the fork. One never realizes how hard this is if you can neither feel the fork, nor hold onto it in the slightest.
He had a choice: give a stranger a chance to help him, or forgo table manners almost completely.
Were the stranger not wholly in league with someone who'd played him like a yo-yo, the fork would not have been abandoned upon the counter.
Table manners or not, he was still polite.
Paine sighed. Nooj had needed help adjusting and now Seymour needed some. The world would implode and turn into a purple chocobo before he'd ever let her though.
She wondered if she should ask more questions. He said he'd talk if anyone wanted to know.
But: who knew how many more demons that'd make? How much of his life was significant to all this?
Both Paine and Seymour looked up and they noticed the hypello dive behind the bar. Then they turned, as they noticed the door opening. They both stood up immediately, seeing an enraged Yuna coming through the door, followed by a panicking Rikku.
"Yunie!" Rikku shouted, grabbing at her friend's arm and missing.
"Call them off!" Yuna yelled, as Seymour tried to back away into the counter. "I said call them off!" she repeated. Bad guys weren't allowed to be confused.
"Call what off?" he asked, trying not to panic. He really, really missed the lizards. They didn't play with their food.
"Yuna—" Paine said.
Seymour tried to dodge away from her.
Yuna put her hand on the counter and blocked his escape.
He tried to dodge her. He looked around. He was cornered. The last time he was threatened and cornered… Yuna was there… that didn't end well, as he remembered.
"Call off your… your things!"
Seymour gripped the counter behind him with shaky hands. What was he going to do? Lying would get him in trouble, saying yes got him killed last time. Besides, he was being accused to stuff her never did. At least, he thought he'd never… did something with… things.
"There's big black things running around all over Spira and it's your fault!" Yuna yelled.
"Yunie—"
"It's your fault!"
No one heard the quiet creaking sound. Yuna was still yelling.
"There's a big black… hole or something where Guadosalam was, and it's getting bigger! Those things of yours are eating people! There's one in the Youth League headquarters and it won't go away and it ate three people!"
"Yuna—" Paine tried, but Yuna wasn't done.
"Bevelle's flooded with them and they killed all the New Yevon priests! There's a huge one knocking down Zanarkand! There's even one on Mt. Gagazet! They're killing people, and it's your fault!"
"She's dead, and it's your fault!"
And then someone did something stupid.
"Hey—" Paine said, tapping Seymour on the arm.
Everything had been winding Seymour tighter and tighter like a spring, and his ability to stay calm snapped like over-stretched elastic. He screamed and closed his eyes against the visions the conversation was giving him. First his hands crushed the wood of the counter as he tensed, then his hand shot out and grabbed the first thing it found.
The splinters fell through the air. You could hear each and every one of them while the three girls just stared as Seymour held his head with one hand and waited for him to let go with the other.
"I'll make you pay!" his father yelled, his giant hands slowly squeezing around Seymour's neck. "I'll make you pay for murdering her!"
"Seymour--?" Rikku said.
"Huh?" he muttered, slamming into reality with no mental brakes. Then he noticed he'd grabbed Yuna's neck when he'd freaked. "Aaah!" he yelped, tearing his hand away.
"Yuna, I don't think he knows what's going on," Paine finally butted in.
Seymour turned his attention to Paine. That wasn't fair! She was confusing him! They weren't supposed to pretend to take different sides! It was just Yuna and the others helped her in whatever single trick Yuna was trying to pull. Adding sides to the game wasn't fair!
"You're all confusing me," he said. Hopefully someone would at least explain the rules of the game to him, even if they cheated.
For a second, Rikku thought she saw a kindred spirit in having no idea what was going on at all.
Suddenly, the alarm went off, not at all polite enough to wait for the fight to finish, and it was always so rude to break up fights, Yuna thought.
"Don't ever touch me," Seymour said. Hopefully that would explain… something. He wanted to think Yuna deserved that—just a little scare—but she was trying his mind up in a Freudian knot, he had no idea anymore.
It's not a good idea to give people you don't like hints. They know how to put the opposite into effect.
Yuna smacked Seymour across the face and stormed off out the door. It had more effect on him that just 'Don't tell me what to do.'
Paine reached for Seymour's face. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, but it failed utterly. He tried to back away and tripped over his chair. She shook her head and left.
Rikku stared at him and then shrugged and went after the others.
…………………….
The creatures, all over Spira sat at attention. One in Macalania stopped digging. Two stopped fighting. The one in Luca woke up, ignoring several people as they tried to sneak by.
Then they all let out a long howl.
When it ended, the sky began to darken, and the sun had nothing to do with it.
…………………….
"Yuna, what was all that about?" Paine demanded, nearly missing the elevator.
"Wait for me!" Rikku yelped.
Neither girl on the elevator stopped it for her.
"Things shouldn't work like that," Yuna said, storming down the hall. "He got what he deserved, every time he did something cruel. That's how things are supposed to work. Those things are killing people and it's his fault and he should get rid of them!"
"And you don't think you might be making things worse by screaming at him?" Paine asked.
"Yunie!"
"You don't know him Paine!" Yuna retorted. "He's playing some trick on you or pretending he doesn't know what's going on. He's up to something."
"So what if he's up to something?" Paine asked. "What exactly is he going to do? No one wants him around, he won't crash the airship because he can't fly. He can't summon."
"You don't know him!" Yuna said.
"Yunie?"
"You don't either!" Paine shot back.
"(Ooo, catfight!)" Brother exclaimed.
"Are you done fighting over him?" Shinra asked.
"He's evil!" Yuna said.
"He's an arrogant prat!" Paine said.
"He's no fun," Rikku said, just to join in.
"Well, if you're through you can go clean up a riot. Maybe if you hurry you can stop what's left of it," Buddy said.
The three girls looked at each other.
"Let's go," Yuna said, not very proudly.
…………….
Never underestimate anyone. You may feel bad that you have wasted money on an extra fire-pit or acid-drop, but you'd feel worse if anyone got through your traps.
However, the best trap is not to make someone leave in the first place. You don't need to lock the door if no one is going to use it.
No one has figured this out. This is because if you want to force someone to stay somewhere, you don't make it comfortable. It's only logic.
But no one read the fine print on the universe. It signs you up, you can't volunteer. And logic does not apply to it.
