Virgin Planet
Chapter 10: Underdog.
The sphere pool splashed in excitement as the players entered its confines. They all dove in, the Aurochs, the Goers, and lastly Tidus- whose sphere of existence really lie with those of the Zanarkand Abes, but this year, if only for a moment; he was one of them. The crowed cheered. Everyone was betting on the Goers to win, like always, but there were a few mumblings and ramblings about the Aurochs, "never underestimate the underdog," they said.
And Tidus was betting on them being right. Blitz Ball was his. In this strange place, the game was the only tie; it was the only thing that kept him sane. He secretly smiled inside at the Goer's jeering. They were underestimating the underdog.
Although it took her some time to find her seat, Shion finally found her friends within the endless sea of bleachers. There they sat: Jr., MOMO, Ziggy, Jin, chaos, and Allen-- KOS-MOS was beside her obeying orders. She took her reserved seat between KOS-MOS and Jin. KOS-MOS sat beside an obese Spiran man.
She looked at the sphere pool with wonder. It was an amazing floating mass of water with the players swimming about inside. They wore no gear, apparently people here could breathe underwater, that's something to note, she thought. But what captured her more was the fact that the water wasn't bound to the laws of gravity. They couldn't even do that back home, and compared to this place there was little they couldn't do. Shion Uzuki watched with the utmost anticipation.
The players entered the pool. There were two teams and one ball. A goalie swam at both ends of the pool; there were laser nets behind them. The players violently struggled to get the ball in the opposing teams goal. It reminded Shion of a strange blend between soccer and football, with some gymnastics here and there.
Shion could barely make out Tidus from the team of yellow-suited players. The only way she could make him out was from his distinctive golden, spiked hair. The crowed absolutely erupted when he sprang from the sphere-pool, did a flip and kicked the ball into the Goer's goal.
"Hey, he's not half bad!" Jr. reluctantly admitted. And Shion had to admit, the game was quite exciting. Even Ziggy seemed to be enjoying it, if only for MOMO's presence. The only one who was unfazed, as usual was KOS-MOS. She sat beside Shion, and only sat because someone had complained that her preferred robotic stance had blocked their view. She looked so odd, so extraordinary among the excited crowed.
Jin smiled when he saw Shion getting into the activity. Allen seemed quite content with that as well. He peered across Jin's seat and flashed a smile at Shion, not that she noticed, she was more focused on the game.
The game was now tied. Six points for each team. Keppa had blocked Bricksons shot, preventing the Goer's lead. The tiny ants for players were now leaving the pool for half-time.
Albedo Piazzolla stood in front of what may have been one-thousand cages. The deed would be done. The lie would be made. The plan, executed. It mattered not to him- he had done much worse in his lifetime. Yet, a tinge of wrong overwhelmed the man. He would be at least partially responsible for Spira's biggest political scandal. And here he thought his death just may be better than his life.
The fiends roared in their cages. Albedo reached out to touch a lizard fiend through the metal bars. He felt its scales through his glove and the ridges on the hideous, beautiful creatures neck. His eyes still look human. He thought before the fiend angrily hissed with all its fury. Albedo continued to play with the monster until it finally snapped, lopping Albedo's arm as if there were nothing but air in its place. Albedo winced from the surprise pain, blood dripped on the concrete floors of the dark basement. He simply regenerated his arm- one ability from his old self he was glad to have retained.
"Don't unleash them yet." Called a voice from across the room. It was Seymour. Of course he'd come to "supervise" him. How incredibly wonderful.
"We must wait until the right time, fiend." Seymour entered Albedo's line of sight, elegantly as per usual, "I simply can't have you interrupting the championship game. The people would be so disappointed."
Albedo shrugged. "Did the half-man have an epiphany whilst I was away?"
"Ohh no-no-no, I just want our plan to succeed. Besides, I believe the people deserve their silly game. It makes them happy. And if I make them happy…" Seymour nodded his head, "I make her happier."
"Why is it that you look to a woman for power? What is that summoner to you that the others are not?"
"Ahh, unsent, you must review your history. She is Lord Braska's daughter. She will pave the way to the next calm. She will form me into the grand mold that I was destined to live. She is everything; yet, nothing at all." Seymour glanced over at Albedo, noticing the blood on his uniform and the floor. "Put more simply, she is my best shot. By the way, why are you covered in blood? I can't have you stand beside me that sullied."
Albedo grimaced at him. Women were never the best way; memories of her were still fresh in his mind. The thought sent him into laughter. "The fiends wanted a fight. Not that I don't deserve it. I'll cleanse my impurities if it would please you, ohh glorious bastard." Albedo was nearly song-like in his sarcasm. Seymour was secretly thrown into a subtle rage.
"Don't you dare disresp-"
"-What will you do? Cry to your mother?" Albedo laughed more struggling to retain himself, "Ohh that's right. She's dead. You killed her; daddy too."
Seymour strained to find away to counter him, but emotion locked his words. "How-…how did you…?" He wanted to be ferocious, to keep his image, but instead he was meek.
"I have more perception than you may believe." Albedo calmed himself and seized his cape, "Now I will proceed to wash myself before the show. I will see you then, half-blood!"
It was after the first half of the game. Tidus dominated the sphere pool up until now, and the score was tied once again. He had done his part. Wakka was the captain, and since he had a chance to recover, he gave him his time to shine. He was retiring after this game, and Tidus felt no need to gloat.
So instead he decided to check on Yuna and his midget friend during half time and watch from the stands. The only problem would be finding them! The crowd of people was tremendous!
Luckily, or unluckily; however, Tidus spotted a little red head in the lobby. The kid caught on quick and rudely dashed to Tidus. "Hey you," he breathed, "I was just looking for you!"
"And why is that?" Tidus replied, wondering why Jr. spoke so fiercely.
"To kick your ass for dropping out!" Tidus blicked at Jr. for a second or two before Jr. spoke again, "I knew you wouldn't last long! This is great, now Jin owes me 200 G! Hahah he lost!"
"Uhh, what are you talking about?" Tidus scratched his head, "200G? Aren't you rich or something like that?"
"Back home I am. But I love a good bet, and this time I won so Jin's ganna have to pay up! But if we're here much longer, he can give me that amount in Gil." Jr.'s face was smug with victory. Tidus wasn't sure why, and there was no harm in asking…
"So, what was the bet?"
"To see how long you'd last."
"And you betted?"
"I betted you couldn't last more than one round. And I was right!"
"Yeah, but I could have. I dropped for Wakka, it's his last game and-"
"That's just an excuse. You were totally quitting while you were ahead."
Tidus knew he was arguing with a brick wall. No way he could get around the facts, he only played one round the entire tournament. But another question burned in his mind, "Hey, if you won the bet, why do you wanna 'kick my ass' for 'quitting'?"
Jr. tapped his foot and stared up at Tidus for only a second, "Well, I hate to admit it Blondie, but you were pretty good out there. I think those Goers were scared of you. Especially that girly looking one. I don't wanna see them win. They're a bunch of…" Jr. was pondering which obscenity to use when a terrified scream echoed through the building. "What the fuck is that?" Jr. ran toward the Sphere Stadium to investigate. He was worried for MOMO. Tidus followed him immediately out of instinct. He was worried for Yuna.
"What's going on?" Shion asked, searching with her eyes amidst the pandemonium.
"Monsters? Here? They have them here too?" Allen questioned, attempting to keep himself from panicking.
Jin turned to Shion as if to reason with her, "Shion, we should probably leave. This could get dangerous and-"
"No Jin, we have better defense than most people. We need to help! Common KOS-MOS! Are you ready?" Shion was surprised and slightly worried to see that KOS-MOS was already gone, she was fighting on her own will. She was happy to see KOS-MOS helping, but felt a little defenseless. Of all the times to be without her MWS…
"Ziggy, Shion is right! I don't want to see more people get hurt. I want to help them!" MOMO was tugging at Ziggy's metallic arm, "I'm also worried about Jr.! He left before the second part of the game and isn't back yet…"
Ziggy walked behind MOMO down the steps as she held his cold hand, "Ok MOMO, but stay close to me. I don't think you need to worry about him though. I have a feeling he'll do more damage than the fiends."
"Well you shouldn't worry about me either. I'm built tougher than I look." She winked at him and began spraying arrows at the fiends below.
Chaos joined them by casting ethers onto the fiends. He spotted KOS-MOS and ran to her. Her bright blue eyes met his aqua. "KOS-MOS?"
"chaos, I must stop the lies." For once, her voice was not monotone, she sounded human.
Chaos paused, he hadn't expected this. He truly wondered what she meant, "Lies? Mar- KOS-MOS, what lies?"
"The lies that bind us. They bind us to our fate." She closed her eyes once more, and shot her ray gun in to several gelatin-like fiends, causing them to scatter in pyreflies. When chaos saw her eyes again, they were the same LED red he knew now.
"KOS-MOS?" He asked her.
"Yes, chaos? Do not distract me from my objective. I must keep the threats from approaching Shion and Allen. Please assist me in this task." Her voice was monotone again.
Chaos slumped from the disappointment and lack of information, "Yes, of course KOS-MOS." He and she waged war with the fiends.
"Chaos!" The twisted priest shouted, "such chaos! Isn't it beautiful? Is it not fated that I become their hero?"
Albedo rolled his eyes and broke through the line of monsters as ordered, "Oh, yes, you are ever so heroic! Such valor in your schemes."
"Quiet, unsent! We wouldn't want another death than what is necessary, now would we?"
"There are things much worse than death in this dimension. I pity that you seek the worse of them all." Albedo replied.
"Ah! You are wrong! I seek the most magnificent gift in all of Spira. Unlike your world, there is nothing better here! We thrive off of death, and shun life." Seymour preached.
The words sounded so familiar to him. Death, life, seeking a power. There was a time in Albedo's life when he thought just like that. He had been denied the "gift" of death, he would be left alone. That was until he died by Rubedo's hand. It was such irony that he choose to walk among the living once again. And even more ironic that his newest pawn mimic him in a way more foolish than he ever was. He felt like he was staring at a caricature of his former self.
"You had better wear your mask. They approach." Seymour warned. Albedo, wordless complied- by they he meant Rubedo.
Yuna was trying her best to fend the fiends away from her people. She was accompanied by Lulu, Wakka (whom had left the sphere pool), and Kimarhi. She used Ifret to slaughter as many as she could while still avoiding human causalities. The other guardians made themselves busy to the best of their abilities.
"Has anyone seen Tidus?" Yuna shouted to them while defending herself from a fiend who bit at her rod.
"I hadn't seen him since half time yah!" Wakka responded tossing his handy blitz ball at whatever monster that threatened to come near.
Lulu did some zapping of her own, "I believe he said he was going to watch the game with the other strays. If he is with them, I'm sure he is alright. We must concentrate on the task at hand."
Yuna nodded and beckoned Ifret to cut through the ever growing mass of fiends. She wondered when all of this would ever end.
They ran to them. Their women. It was shallow, yes, they could save themselves, but it was in their very nature to want them to be safe.
"Damn it why does this arena have to be so big? Where the hell is she?" Jr. pouted in frustration, sending bullets into fiends and god knows what else, left and right. "The old man better be with her or I will kill him personally!"
"Hey I want to find Yuna just as much as you want to find her, but making threats won't help with that." Tidus slashed through several of the small lizards as the gathered around their prey.
"I'll do what I-" Jr.'s small stature did not benefit him. A giant komodo thrust itself on top of his body. Jr., being crushed by the monsters astonishing weight, continued to shoot bullets at the creature to little avail. Jr. was, for once in his life, terribly afraid he would become fiend snack. He closed his eyes and continued to shoot as the seconds ticked slowly and the weight became more and more. He could smell the monsters disgusting breath, and feel the sharpness of its teeth approaching his cherry-topped head. He had a feeling it wasn't just going to eat lead instead. But then he heard a stabbing noise, flowed by a slash. Had he been killed?
"AURON!" Tidus called out.
"Why- why the hell are you calling me Auron you idiot?" Jr. was shaken; eyes still closed and gun still pointed in the air. But when he opened his eyes, it wasn't facing a komodo twice his size. Instead he saw his reflection in both the glasses and the sward the man looking down at him.
"Get up. You have a job to do." Said the tall man.
"Auron! You're alive!" Tidus said to him rushing past Jr. to his mentor.
"Hm." Auron slashed through more and more fiends, "I suppose you could say that."
Jr. arose, dusted himself off, and sent vengeance bullets flying everywhere. One flinged off of "Auron's" extravagantly huge blade.
"I just saved your life. Don't make me regret doing that." He said, not once taking his eyes off of the monsters.
"Heh. And why would you do that?" A bullet pierced the heart of a small fox-fiend.
"Because, you're reckless." Auron and Tidus continued to take the lizards, "You are also welcome."
"It can't be." said Lulu to herself as she continued to zap blue flans, "so the rumor is true!"
"It is Sir Auron!" Yuna excitedly exclaimed as she watched he and Tidus in the distance. "And he is with Tidus!"
The crowed had diminished, but the fiends just kept coming. Ifret, her newborn aeon was exhausted. Yuna was now busy supporting he guardians in their fight.
"Wow Sir Auron, da best guardian dare ever was!" Wakka gushed, temporarily distracted. A fox fiend scratched him from behind.
"Wakka!" Lulu froze the fox before it could do more damage, "Stay focused. You can meet Sir Auron later, for now we must focus on living until that point."
Wakka compiled himself and maintained the fight, "Yah, sorry 'bout dat."
"I believe it is time for me to enter the stage." Seymour declared as he folded his hands to his rod.
"So it begins." Albedo was not paying attention to Seymour. He was watching Rubedo. He was also terribly worried after witnessing the fiend attack.
"You know you would have broken the deal if you had run out there." Seymour enlightened while he focused on his ritual, "I'm glad you held back."
Albedo shook his head, "I'm glad he came. I really am." He remembered his fear. And it wasn't the first time it had almost come true.
Seymour glowed as he twisted his rod about. Chains fell from the sky as he resonated with agony itself. The beast of scandal was coming; it was coming to save them all.
Shion and the others met with KOS-MOS. They were slaughtering the fiends quite well, even though KOS-MOS hadn't used her advanced weapons. She seemed more determined some how. Shion noticed this- KOS-MOS always seemed to do her job, but for some reason there was heart in it. She needed, wanted to kill the fiends. Her graceful movements told that story. She slashed through them with as much passion an andriod manage. She always did her job. She always did it well. But this time, there was heart in it, Shion could tell.
Jin also did quite a bit of slashing himself. Shion could see Tidus and Jr. on the other side, with some other guy with a skilled sward hand. She wrote this off as foolish competition, but in all reality he was protecting his weaponless sister.
Allen was about to have a mental break down. Ziggy was getting tired. MOMO was almost out of arrows. Chaos was punching and casting about as much as he could take. When would this end? How long had they been at it? She wondered to herself.
"Look there!" chaos pointed to the sky.
"Another one?" Jin replied, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.
A gigantic anomaly was forming in the top stand. Pryeflies surrounded the stadium and formed into a hideous, grotesque, bleeding, mummified being. At first they wondered weather this being was the king monster, "the mommy" as Jr. would have put it. But one by one the fiends disintegrated. It wasn't long before they were completely gone.
Seymour appeared on the sphere-cast, accompanied by his masked guardian.
"So this was the coverage you were hopping to attain?" Albedo sneered at Seymour, the people; however, were cheering for the newborn Maester. "Do you truly think a wee bit of good press will save you when the time comes?"
"They will never know," Seymour replied, eyeing the summoner, "if I attain my power, via sacrifice."
Tidus ran to Yuna as soon as he caught a glimpse of her. She was okay, just as he knew she would be. She was perfect.
"Yuna, are you alright?" He was entirely shy in asking, Jr. stood back from the two kids looking awfully smug. Auron kept his distance.
Yuna giggled at him, "Of course I am! I have my wonderful gaurdians and the Aeons to thank for that. But you two…" She eyed a bruised and slightly bloody Jr. with motherly concern, "are you okay?"
"Yep. We're good, Yuna." Jr. looked but he could not see Auron anywhere in sight, "Some guy got the monster off of me. Though honestly it wouldn't have happened if I wasn't so damn…" He refused to admit his height issue.
"Some guy?!" Wakka was going to have a fit, "Dat was Sir Auron! Da greatest guardian dare eva was! How could ya call him some guy?"
What the hell? Was Auron some sort of celebrity or something?
"Chill out Wakka, not like he knows any better!" Tidus teased placing a palm on Wakka's shoulder, not that Tidus knew any better either, "Anyway, how did the game go? Did we win?"
"Well, dat's up to da judges. But we were ahead when da game was intarrupted so maybe da'll give us da cup yah!"
"Awesome! Here's hoping!" Tidus remarked, "Either way it was a great game."
Just then Jr.'s friends came to rejoin him. They looked like they had fought a good plenty of fiends themselves. Even KOS-MOS looked slightly worn, and she never looked that way.
"HEY GUYS!" Jr. shouted to them as they approached. MOMO waved to confirm that they noticed.
"Jr.! Where have you been?" Shion yelled back, "You missed a good fight!"
"I didn't miss it, I was just with Tidus, kicking his ass for dropping out of the game!" They continued the long distance conversation, but Ziggy urged them to walk within proper speaking range.
Old man must be hard at hearing.
When they got there chaos in particular looked flustered. Normally he was the most composed and least confused of the group, but for some reason he was different. He walked to Lulu, "Any word on the origin of the attack?"
"Not really. We don't know where the fiends came from. Maester Mika is safe and sound, thanks to Maester Seymour. That's about it." Lulu replied nonchalantly.
Jin itched his head and looked at the Measter who was eagerly greeting the Spirian media from his reserved balcony, "So that was his doing? Seems there is more to him than we first thought."
Yuna was also thinking in this realm. She would have felt belittled if such a feeling were possible for one as humble as Yuna.
"Seymour's aeon... It was so powerful…"
Author's Notes:
Finally. I finally got this written! I'm sorry, it's been a really hectic time for me between getting registered for community college, dealing with e-drama, my breaking laptop, pretending to be a URTV, and working on Godsibb. I know that's not a very good excuse but…
I also had some writer's block. I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to take this chapter. It could have been more blitz ball oriented, or more battle oriented. I chose battle in the end because I don't think blitz ball would have been as entertaining or plot helpful. But there was a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I love blitz ball! I know some of the players by name, though their faces are a little blurry. Keppa the fat goal keeper is my favorite. XD
And finally, Sir BADASS Auron makes his debut. That was a fun part to write for. I was up at 2:30 am and had his theme song blasting. That song gets me in the mood to say Auron quotes and walk all Auron like. He should be fun to write for.
Over all I think this was the most varied chapter I've written, though it might switch PoV a bit -too- much. I hope it doesn't look like I was just getting bored of writing for people and changed, I was trying to imagine it like it were a row of cut scenes.
Anyway it would be totally AWESOME SOCKS if you reviewed. I'd like to thank all of my regular reviewers. You guys rock, even if you're only reading because I begged you too. XD
(aka Jessi)