Yuna had never felt a more confident position in her life. Of course, she did realize the situation at hand. If they were to truly take down Yunalesca and end this final summoning deal, would she be able to listen to Melanie still? Melanie knew of a way and her uncle was to help. None of them were told yet what that way is. What Melanie forgot to tell them was she was leading them the way without giving them the full details.
For everyone, this didn't turn out to be a fair fight at all. Demon snakes busted from below them to bite and curl around them in a tight squeeze. Some were lucky enough to be able to cut off some heads while Lulu was working her best black magic she had. She mostly used waterga and blizzaga which helped freeze some of the snakes in place and having a few shatter into pieces. What was keeping the battle ongoing and unfair was how Yunalesca kept spawning them, one after another, keeping herself above ground, trying to end their lives as quickly as they could. Yuna was trying her best praying for everyone's health and curing their status effects. Immunity could only be granted once in a while on certain things, but even she was starting to grow tired. It was hard for her to summon when the field was giving her a disadvantage. Some were starting to get sick. Their health was depleting fast and Yuna's strength was lowering.
Yuna summoned her strongest aeon, Bahamut when she found the opertunity, a place open enough for her to perform. Melanie watched the fight between the two as the dragon flew around using any sort of magic it knew against Yunalesca. It was a good thing aeons were impervious to a lot of effects. Melanie was trying real hard to stay conscious. She wanted to see Yunalesca defeated. She could feel her limbs weaken. She was slipping away slowly from the poison. Her vision became blurry. She saw a bright light shine before them all. A voice she recognized, she thought. She couldn't hear what they were saying, however. Melanie blacked out.
All Melanie could remember before blacking out was Bahamut. The look of the dragon almost reminded her of the god of light, only not white and no at all so very large. For its size though, it was pretty big. She seen this dragon be summoned before by Yuna. Why did it make her think of that now? She could now hear the faint song, the fayth singing calmly. She never knew the words or what they meant. The darkness around her started to fill with stars slowly, one by one as the blackness started to gain some color of midnight blue and transparent violet. She could feel her body weightless. A light started to grow slowly before her. It started out small at first. It gotten larger in size... She could hear a whisper from it...
"We will meet very soon."
That was her own voice! But how? Was this from another time? Melanie couldn't do time travel... But it was her voice and it confused her greatly.
"Wake up," the light whispered to her.
The light faded quickly and Yuna's own image took place of that light. Melanie's vision was slowly getting better.
"Is the poison all out of her?" she heard Rikku ask.
"She has been cured. She should be fine now." Yuna smiled down at Melanie. "How are you feeling?"
"What did I just see?" Melanie lightly asked, still feeling the after effects.
"That light had your voice," Wakka told her in a surprised tone.
"It sort of took a bit of form though," Tidus stepped in. "Like she was wearing a dress."
"Yunalesca called her the queen of demons though! That was pretty odd..." Wakka crossed his arms in thought.
"We did hear here say that her husband no longer goes by that name. So we know it's not Melanie at all," Lulu chimed in.
Melanie tried to sit up. "What happened..."
"She created a bow from her own light. Same for the arrow she used against Yunalesca." Auron helped her up. "The arrow itself was powerful enough to make her explode into a ball of light."
"It was almost like she was an aeon herself," Yuna said a bit quietly in awe of that moment Melanie never did get to see.
With nothing else more said, everyone walked on out and things seemed to have changed. The atmosphere felt a bit more clear and the song faded from existence. Auron stayed behind and pulled Tidus by the shoulder to let him know he wanted to have a word with him. Melanie was in his other arm. He waited for everyone else to get far ahead.
"There is something you should know," he informed Tidus.
"He knows you are dead," Melanie butted in.
Auron looked at Tidus. There was no reaction. He didn't expect Melanie to just blurt that out either. Judging by Tidus' face, she was right. He seemed to have known.
Tidus smiled a bit. "I sort of knew in a way... From Yunalesca, right? And this also explains her reaction to you a lot back then." He gestured to Melanie." No wonder why she wanted to be away from you."
Auron let his eyes fall to the ground.
"Hey, I didn't mean it like that! She is really close to you... But how exactly are you gonna make this work?"
"Being dead does have its advantages. And it's time I stop pretending."
"Pretending?" Tidus questioned.
"I am holding more secrets than you think. That was the second time I saw that light, or her as you would describe, not the first. I know who she is. Although I cannot tell you." He looked at Melanie who was staring back at him. "She wishes to speak with you herself."
She let out an irritated soft sigh. "Fine. You are off the hook on this one."
"But really, how are you gonna make this work? You are dead," Tidus pointed out again.
"If a scholar can walk Spira for over 900 years and not turn into a fiend, it can work," Auron informed him.
"Then make it work! I don't wanna see you in the Farplane for a long time, you hear me?"
Tidus then started to catch up to everyone else as they headed on out of the creepy place. Everyone was together again. What was scary though, is when everyone saw Sin so close up. It was like it could sense that the final aeon was removed from the face of Spira once and for all. Some had waited to see if it would attack, but Tidus knew it was there to witness the event. It was very calm and that baffled almost everyone. Sin passed the air ship without any harm done. Cid found them and landed for Tidus' team to climb aboard.
While everyone went to meet with Cid, Melanie stayed behind at the end of the ship and soon enough started to regret that decision. Rin had found her, walked up to her and started to talk with her.
"It was when I heard from Cid that Home was destroyed, I decided to climb aboard to help out anyone in need. I even asked if you were traveling on this ship. Surprisingly, he said yes! This gave me an opportunity to speak with you."
Melanie tried her best not to glare at him or let her anger form. She was keeping it mildly low, listening to his happy tone with that smile on his face. She could feel that he had hope the way he was addressing all of this.
"So, how are your travels?" he asked before she could speak up, sort of catching her off guard.
Melanie hesitated and shook her head. "Things are going as they should be going..." When she saw a bit of that confusion on his face, she continued, "Things are falling into place as they should be... It's hard to cog it together for you, but the explanation would be hard for you to grasp if I told you everything anyway... We are going to see Mika soon, that dead bastard..."
"Dead?" He tilted his head at her.
"Yeah, the old fool is dead. He has been for some time. We are going to see him soon and not to burst your bubble, but I might as well as do it now while I can... Stop... Normally I am not the kind to give three chances and what are you holding?"
"All under one breath, eh?" From his sleeve he let the object fall into his palm completely. "How did you spot this?"
"It's how you were holding your hand..."
"Ahh." Rin handed it to her. "It's a wind instrument. I don't know the name of it and I thought you might like it. I didn't make it either. I can't possess that kind of talent."
She took it respectively and looked it over. It was round, well crafted, had a bit of a lovely blue color to it, but the mouth piece bothered her. It had an engraved shape and what looked like to be a shadow below it. It was a bit hard for her to make it out. "Where did you get this?" She looked up at him with her brows furrowed.
"It was sitting on my desk when I woke up before Cid told me everything."
"Ok, what's the rest of the part you aren't telling me?"
"I... thought of you and..."
"I can't..."
"It's Auron, isn't it..." Rin managed to keep that smile on his face asking that.
"Yeah. Yeah it is. When you... you know... I mean..."
"Take this as an apology. Keep it. If it's not too much trouble, may I ask that we be friends then?"
Melanie only nodded, toying with the instrument in her hands.
"Then I wish you both the best of luck. He is more honorable than I could have been."
"You are gonna have two birds following everywhere you go anyway..."
"Aww you are too kind." He chuckled.
"No, I mean it. You will think of something that will gain popularity after the calm starts. I won't tell you what it is. However... when that coin is made... I will be asking for that coin..."
Melanie walked off, setting the instrument in a pocket and leaving him very confused on what she just told him. She couldn't resist in bringing it back out to try to make out the engraved shape. She counted six holes in the front. She turned it over finding two more and another engraving of what appeared to be two dragons spiraling around each other. One of them looked darker than the other. She thought it must have symbolized both good and bad.
"What do you have there?"
Auron's voice made her jump slightly, almost losing grip of the instrument as she threw her head up to look at him. She realized where she just walked to without realizing it. She was now close to the bridge on the ship.
"I do that a lot." He smiled. "Where did you find that?"
"Rin gave it to me as an apology. I told him you and I are already seeing each other."
"Do you know how to play?"
"Not a damned clue... But I'm willing to learn. We headed to see the so called great Mika again?"
Both of their gaze went to Yuna when she left the bridge. She seemed a bit down, but accepted what happened in there.
"You looked like your mother is why he couldn't face you, Yuna. He doesn't want you to see his sadness."
Yuna looked at Melanie in a bit of a surprised response. At least it made sense to her now. It took them a good while before they reached back over at Bevelle. It was astounding to them all how they were let through due to a rumor going around stating that the evil Al Bhed had spread rumors about Yuna. Rikku was upset about this lie going around, even if it did mean that Yuna was Mika's only hope. It was a very poor excuse.
"Why are you here? You must defeat Sin, quickly," Mika told them with a worried tone once they all entered the court room. "You have obtained the final aeon from Yunalesca, have you not?"
"Well, yeah we met her..." Tidus shrugged.
"And we took the liberty of defeating her ourselves to end the meaningless cycle," Yuna jumped in for him, having that confidence.
"What?" he questioned this with anger and fear, giving them the look as if they made a horrible mistake.
"It had to be done... No more of this false tradition." Yuna stood her ground. "No more sacrifices."
"You have ruined, skewered the only tradition in hopes of defeating Sin," his voice shook with anger. "Do you realize what you have just done! Now Sin can never be calmed..."
"We can find another way," Yuna informed him. "There IS another way! We can still defeat him and rid him for good!"
"Why..." He shook his head. "Can't you see... There is no other way! You have killed off Spira's only hope to surviving against Sin... There is nothing as powerful as the final summoning against Yu Yevon..."
"Who his this Yu Yevon guy?" Tidus asked.
"He who crafts the souls of the dead into unholy armor. An armor called Sin. In it, Yu Yevon is invincible. I never wanted to watch Spira die... I have no means in watching it die! You have doomed us all..."
Mika had sent himself to the farplain. He had given up all hope.
"Wait a minute!" Rikku felt a bit of happiness surge through her. "Melanie mentioned something about my pa's ship! She said Sin is like a shell, right?"
"The armor, a shell?" Yuna questioned. Then she nodded, understanding. The unholy armor.
"Mmhmm!" Rikku nodded with her. "I think I know what she was trying to say now."
The hooded boy appeared before Tidus and Yuna. Only those two could see him. "I would like to see you in my chamber. Melanie too."
Yuna nodded and took Tidus' hand to head back to the chamber of the fayth. Melanie was already waiting by it along with Auron who refused to leave her side. They all went inside, where the fayth stood on his glass casing.
"I don't think I need to ask you on how you plan on defeating Sin," the boy spoke.
"You don't have to worry about that. We got that covered," Tidus agreed.
"You already have someone to guide you through it all. But why did you take this long to tell them?"
Melanie just looked at him, unable to give him an answer.
"You have nothing to fear now. But I wanted to see you here to tell you what you've been wanting to know for some time." The boy faced Melanie. "Sorry I could not do this earlier. When I travel to other places, even dreams, I can only be there for a short time."
"I figured that much..." She crossed her arms. "Alright, I am all ears on this and you know what? They can hear this, too. This is a secret I want them to know about."
"There is one here that already knows about you." The hooded boy looked over at Auron. "He already knows what you wish to learn that you have little knowledge about."
All eyes glued onto that man. He didn't mind really. He expected this.
"I learned that she is no more than a vessel... a walking, talking, breathing vessel." He looked like he regretted saying it that way. "She is here for a reason."
To Melanie, Auron placed that down a bit simple as if it didn't matter to him even with that downed look. She felt her heart sink.
"I refuse to believe that," Tidus spoke out.
"I met with her counterpart some years ago," he continued. "She only told me what all I needed to hear." Auron looked at her now, seeing how sunken she looked. "The reason why you can't remember anything of your past is because you don't have a past there. You were created during that war."
"How could I have not seen it sooner," she whispered to herself.
Of course, he heard that. "I did hint it. It was to get you thinking and it did. The real you is that element you spoke of some time ago. She is elsewhere, though. You were given information about this world specifically to know what all was going to happen and..."
Melanie watched his face turned into sadness. "And what? Why am I here? I am not here to watch this event play out, am I..."
He shook his head. "I didn't want you to get hurt. If anything, you are my guardian, making sure I will not end up in the events that will happen in the future... Becoming a puppet to a god of death for his entertainment..."
"Exactly," the boy agreed. "Melanie was created to keep you earthbound."
"Earthbound?" Yuna looked at the man. "Auron?"
"I am unsent, Yuna," he told her with further regret, showing the proof of letting a few of his flies fly around him.
She gasped in shock and stepped back just a bit. Her eyes drifted off of him and into the void.
"It's not me you need to worry about. It's the boy here. I mean the one standing behind you."
"Hey!" Tidus shook a fist at him.
"Why?" Yuna looked back at Auron.
"We been dreaming for so long, Yuna," the hooded boy told her. "We want to stop... We wish to finally be in peace..."
Yuna directed her attention at the hooded boy. She didn't quite understand as to what he was talking about. The fayth were dreaming? They were asleep?
"Stay close to him, Yuna."
The boy then disappeared after telling her that. Auron left the chamber. Melanie only watched him. In her mind, she was piecing all this together. It made sense... Melanie made haste out of there to leave Yuna and Tidus alone. While she questioned Tidus on what the hooded boy meant, Tidus didn't want to give Yuna the full answer. He knew, in a way, it would hurt her.
The other group outside were trying to get another plan to come alive. They knew Sin would be drawn and kept a bit docile under the tune of the song of the fayth. If everyone could sing along once the ship in the sky would sing first, it would mean a chance at ripping Sin a new hole. The best part of this plan, it was working. Everyone was back aboard and the song was playing on the recorder to play back that song. Sin was spotted soon after. Everyone except for Melanie ran on outside to the top of the ship. She stayed on the bridge watching the large thing gather energy and a mass amount of it. Once it was released in a single shot, all went quiet. It was almost like time and space stood still.
"Move the ship over to any side! We are gonna get hit by the aftermath," Melanie yelled out.
They shifted to one side with haste. Melanie went up to the console on the front of the bridge and hit a button for the intercom outside.
"I don't care how this is done! I can see Dad struggling in that damned thing! The arms need to come off! He has created three weak points. Can we use the main gun for that?" She looked at Cid on that question still holding down the button.
"You wanna use that to blow its arms off?" Cid chuckled. "Ready the main gun! Fire when in line of sight!"
Melanie looked outside, already seeing Lulu using her lightning magic against the arm where the weak spot was exposed. It looked like a tear exposing muscle underneath.
"Why aren't you up there helping your friends?" Cid boomed at her.
"Auron wants me safe. And I am useless..." Her sight never left outside.
He marched up to her and forced her to look at him by having his hands on her shoulder and keeping her steady. "Now you listen to me... If you were useless, you wouldn't be alive, period! You wouldn't have come this far! We got this... Now go help your friends and keep my little girl alive... Keep Yuna alive. I don't want no damn Sin spawn tearing apart my ship!" He let her go and faced the front. "What are you waiting for! Go on and keep these bugs from swarming in!"
By the looks of it, the flying Sin spawn were starting to come in faster and in a mass number. Bits and pieces of them were already flying off as they were cut in half or their head was pried off their body, the group above was already doing a stellar job. Did she really even need to help? Orders were orders and he was the captain of the ship. She finally made it to the top to help out. Apparently, they were struggling. The first wave was shot at the arm and made no hesitation to get to the other side. The only problem with this was the spawns were starting to gather on the bottom of the ship now, biting and clawing at what they could in hopes of taking out the main gun.
It was capable firing another wave at the other arm before an explosion was heard and the ship tilted to one side from the release of the weight with one of the guns falling off. Yuna already had Valefore summoned to help keep the population of the spawns down. Problem is, they just got a bit smarter on where to go.
"The main gun is down," Cid shouted over the intercom.
"Don't you have any missiles left?!" Melanie looked around for more spawns to take care of. "Even just one!"
She could hear click after click down the line of what could have held a missile for launch, but there was nothing but an empty hole. Cid didn't care to check manually. He was hoping one was at least still was in without question and to him, he considered this a quicker check. Maybe one didn't get launched when bringing Home down. Maybe one got stuck! In luck, he did manage to find one stuck. Melanie could hear the rapid clicking, knowing Cid was impatient till finally it got loose and spiraled around in the air before landing right onto Sin's back.
"I was aiming for the arm, right?" Cid questioned, sounding like he made a mistake.
The answer was already given once they watched Sin fall onto land. Melanie stood there, watching it. The Sin spawn left the ship. They simply fell off as if they died... Auron stood behind her, unsure if there was something he could do, even set a hand on her shoulder and tell her that everything will be alright. He did look tempted to try something, anything. Tidus was by the entry way that lead inside of the ship, watching him struggle. Someone so popular, well respected and famous, who knew what to do, now didn't know what to do and seemed hopeless for once.
Melanie turned around and stared at him with a blank expression. "You know why I kept myself away from you at the beginning when we first met ten years ago. I knew you were going to die. I didn't want to become attached to you. I thought you would push me away to make sure I wouldn't end up hurting myself. I thought you were going to just leave after you avenged your friends' deaths."
"You know why I did what I had to do when we met again. I didn't want to believe it either, but you were made to keep me here. I didn't want that for the same reason." Auron took a few steps close to her and watched her step back. This told him something... "You are more than just a vessel."
"Don't sugar coat it for me... That is all I am and all I will ever be is just an empty shell..."
"Stop!" His word echoed and the ship came to a halt, Cid thinking that was a direct order for him thinking something isn't right. Auron let out a groan of frustration. He had enough of her acting so cold. "If that is true, then you would be following every direct order given, even to jump off a cliff with no hesitation whatsoever!"
Tidus was now unsure if he should step in or not. He could hear how pissed off Auron sounded, but at the same time hearing how frightened that man was. He didn't want things to get ugly.
"You would have no emotion to express," Auron continued. "You wouldn't even cry..." With no further hesitation, he moved right up to her and grabbed her arm thinking she would stay as far from him as possible. His hold wasn't hard at all. "It took me some time to finally accept what I was told..."
Melanie looked up at him.
"You also made choices... You are not just a vessel. I don't want you talking bad about yourself anymore... You are just as important as Yuna is."
"Why didn't they tell me..."
"Uhh guys? Sin is still alive! Look!" Tidus pointed at the being who rose from where it lied, sprouting white and strange wing like structures.
Auron hugged Melanie to him and watched this. All he wanted to do was help Melanie out and this bastard just had to ruin it for him. He watched it open its mouth to shriek out a silent roar, creating a bright misty light in front of itself. It looked like as if it was in pain. Tidus and Melanie knew Jecht was trying his best on keeping the beast contained and allowing them access inside of the shell. It was a small wait, but they went on through seeing what it was truly like inside of Sin. So many pyreflies were around. And then darkness enveloped everything. They were in deep until the scene started to move faster looking like as if stars existed in the void. The ship stopped dead in place and everything became weightless. Everyone was lifted on up into the darkness above.
From the darkness head on, was a platform. To Tidus, it was very familiar. It was just like home. What he saw next had him freeze in place once he could walk upon the solid structure. It had been ten long years since he saw his own father standing with his arms crossed but his back was facing them all.
"You're late, Auron," was all Jecht could muster up to say, not trying to at all sound sappy about the reunion which he found pointless to be so happy about.
"I know," was his reply to him in a sad tone.
Jecht slowly turned around putting his arms down, getting a good look at everyone. "Well now... Finally you do what I told ya to do, but you took way too long, man. I never thought I would see the day that both of ya got that close to each other..." He smiled a bit and faced his son. He raised on hand to gesture a stiff wave. "Hey."
"Hi," was all Tidus could muster up with a fake happy tone to carry.
"I heard from a little bird that you grew up to be a star player. I can't ask for forgiveness like this, but...I am sorry. You got every reason to hate me, kid. I should have listened to your sister. I know you hate me. But I wanna hear it from ya. I want ya to tell me that you hate your old man here."
Tidus hesitated, not at all expecting to hear that from his dad. He was expecting to be picked on a bit, told he is all bones or if he is eating right. His face soon changed to anger. "I hate you," he said lightly but still enough for everyone to hear. "So much."
"You know what you gotta do, boy. I can't hear that song so well anymore. I have only one problem though. Once it happens, I won't be able to make it stop. I won't hold back. I'm worried none of you will be able to even hurt me."
"Are you that powerful," Melanie asked him.
"Let's just say there's a reason why the final summoning is able to take down Sin... and you don't have a ship to take out my arms."
"I wouldn't give up too easily now." Everyone turned around to look at someone they never seen before, but the dress was bit familiar. "They may not be able to do something, but I can."
Her skin was a bit more darker than Melanie's. Her white dress laced with black and some fancy designs along with had no sleeves. Her hair was completely silver-ish white. She had pointy ears. What caught Melanie a bit off guard were the color of her eyes. That was something she didn't remember her having were almost auburn eyes that looked like they could glow with fire. She thought they were just normal auburn eyes! And that small symbol on her dress. It looked like the one on her instrument. It was like looking at the symbol of inner centered peace.
"Me...?" Melanie questioned.
She nodded. "I am whom that created the idea of you, dear Melanie. But now is not the time!" She looked at Jecht. "In a way, you had brought me here through your thoughts alone and opened a portal to my world which confused my people and my guardians. I had convinced my king to stay. Trust me... If he was here, he would try to take your power, not just kill you... All due to you wanting to see Melanie again..."
"What kind of a king did you marry?" Jecht crossed his arms and shook his head with a light chuckle. "Well if you think you can take me on..." He let himself be consumed by and orb of light that grew on his chest.
Tidus couldn't bare this. He ran on after his own father, but failed to catch him on the ledge when Jecht walked off it summoning himself at the same time as the aeon. He looked as if he regretted it, but he had no choice. He was feeling himself slip away. Before he knew it, he was gone, just like when Braska summoned him to defeat Sin. His mind was wiped clean while his monstrous demon like self pulled itself up back to the ledge and right away drew its sword out from its chest.
Melanie looked at her counter part and watched the queen form the bow from nowhere, made out of light. The arrow was done the same way once the string was drawn back far enough. Tidus got up and ran back to the others before the aeon could attack. The arrow was released and pierced right in its head. The hand not holding the sword reached for the arrow and attempted to yank it out. Melanie was unsure if it even felt the pain or not. The real question was what could the others do? If that arrow didn't kill it like it had Lady Yunalesca, could they even stand a chance? Well Yuna didn't keep standing there. She summoned her best aeon in hopes to join the fight.
Jecht tried to pull at it one more time getting a jolt shot through his system from the arrow. It was so weird to not hear it even scream out in pain. Jecht managed to snap the arrow in half. The arrow left in him faded away into nothing.