We stood on the southern banks of the Moonflow. It was going to be a gorgeous day, but I wouldn't get to enjoy very much of it. The Extractor was ready and waiting for me, floating in the waters just beside me and waiting for someone to captain it.
"Oui kad dra bmyh?" Keyakku asked me. I nodded as I awkwardly began to slip into my submersible suit.
"Yup," I replied. "I get the Extractor set up in the depths by the halfway point of the shoopuf route. You'll be hitching a ride over the canopy of the shoopuf passenger car. I'll shoot up a small depth charge when I can see you from my position, which will scare the shoopuf into stopping. Then you grab Yuna, pop an oxygenator bubble on her, swim her down to me, and we're gone in a flash."
"Nekrd," Keyakku nodded as I shimmied the suit over my hips and butt.
"Okay, but we're doing this my way. No one gets hurt. You don't touch any of the guardians, and no shelling them either," I confirmed as I pulled the sleeves on over my arms.
"Ouin fyo ec dra sacco fyo," Keyakku groaned with a shake of his head.
"I don't care if it's a little messy. No one gets hurt," I said again as I pulled the suit up the rest of the way. "Alright, web sa ib," I instructed him as I turned around. He grabbed the bottom of my zipper and silently pulled it up to the top. Once he was done zipping me up, I grabbed my shoulder braces and latched them onto my arms.
"Oui vaam nayto?" Keyakku asked. I reached out my hand and he gave me my face mask. I slipped its rugged edges over my hair and pulled the googles over my eyes.
"Yup," I confirmed. "I'm ready."
"Mulg yht muyt!" he excitedly said, raising his hand for a high five. I obliged, and he ran off towards the Shoopuf loading area.
"Syga cina oui kad uh dra nekrd uha!" I called after him. It'd be really embarrassing if we missed Yuna because he hitched a ride on the wrong shoopuf…
I stood on the shore another moment and looked at the Moon Lillies. They didn't shine during the day, but just seeing the same view Gippal had brought me to so long ago was sentimental. I let out a deep breath, reminding myself that I didn't have time to be worrying about him, before I waded into the water. It was awkward, climbing into the Extractor. I had to climb into the top, where the oxygenator bubble would soon be attached; into the main artillery chamber, which was so cramped I wasn't sure Cid could fit anymore; and finally into the captains chair, where an assistant could sit in the opposite direction. The ergonomics of the machina weren't exactly the best, but it was a light weight and smaller machina that we could tote around for these purposes pretty easily. Once I was inside and locked in, I took the machina out into the river and started to dive. It took a little while to pressurize and submerge, but that was all well organized time: that was the time it would take Yunie to get down to the Moonflow and charter a shoopuf.
It took even longer to make it out to the rendezvous point. Like I said, this thing was not ergonomically designed in any way. It didn't really move fast in any direction. But every part of the machina was designed with a specific purpose in mind.
Except the big tapestries that came off the sides. I added those. I thought the machina could use some prettying up, and when it's underwater those things look like tentacles! It's cute!
I realized, as I brought the Extractor towards the rendezvous point, that if the guardians were attentive and fast, we could be in a pickle. We couldn't move very fast- but neither could a Shoopuf. And once we had Yunie, we'd turn around and head for the south shore again while the shoopuf would continue north. Once we had her, it wouldn't be too difficult to get away.
I arrived at the rendezvous point about an hour after I'd left, and I kicked my feet up on the controls and thought. I hoped Yunie wouldn't be mad at me. I knew that being a summoner was important to her, but wouldn't she be able to recognize that she was important to me? I didn't want to give her up, especially not before I even really had a chance to get to know her. Surely she'd understand that, right? I was figuring out fast that I'd agreed to rescuing Yunie a little too easily, and that I was probably right the first time: I shouldn't be trying to rescue her, I should be trying to talk sense into her. And what was I going to do about Tidus? If he was her guardian, he'd never forgive me for trying to rescue her. Guardians never understand. How was he ever going to be my friend again?
I shook my head. These thoughts had come at the absolute worst time, it's not like there was anything I could do now! Keyakku was in position, I had no way to contact him, and the shoopuf was probably getting ready to launch any second now. There wasn't any time to turn back now… I just had to hope the Yunie would find a way to forgive me after I rescued her. Those religious types are all about forgiveness, right? Ugh…
A group of fish swam past my cockpit so fast, they surprised me. I looked up through my small window to see four thick legs on the shelf of the Moonflow, slowing and steadily creeping through the water. That was my cue.
"Here goes everything," I nervously said to myself as I pressed the button to launch a depth charge. The tiny flare went up through the water and hit right in front of the shoopuf's front right foot. It jostled to a stop and froze in place. Nothing happened for a second, and I found myself breathing quieter as if I thought that would help me understand what was going on. Then I saw a big splash hit the water. It was Keyakku, and I could see the bluish oxygenator bubble encompassing Yuna.
My Yuna. I had never really seen her before, and here she was. And I was literally dragging her from her friends and taking her away. Yeesh.
As Keyakku rapidly swam her down to me, I saw two more splashes from the surface of the water. I squinted, trying to discern what they were, and I gasped when I figured it out. It was Tidus and the captain of the Besaid Aurochs. They spotted Keyakku nearing the Extractor and they were coming after us. Yeowch.
Keyakku reached me fast and hurried into position. He had to hold Yunie's oxygenator bubble while he climbed into the water lock in the top of the Extractor, then put a hold on her as the water was drained from his chamber. Then he could descend through the machina to me. I waited to see the notifications on my dashboard that Yunie was locked in and he was set. I could hear clunking around in the metal on top, and finally the light turned red, then green for the water lock chamber. That meant we were good to move. But we were in bad shape already: Tidus and his buddy were approaching fast, and I knew we couldn't outrun them. I descended a little further into the water as I jettisoned us backwards towards the south shore. Keyakku pulled himself down into the assistant's chair, still wet and panting.
"Ku!" he shouted.
"We can't! The guardians followed you down!" I answered. Tidus swam forward and hit the machina hard with his sword. We really felt it in there. "Crap…" I mumbled as Keyakku fiddled with his dashboard. The other guardian flung a blitzball at us, which I thought would be kind of funny to watch, until it hit. It jostled us backwards, at least as powerful as Tidus' hit had been. Keyakku slammed something on his dash and I watched as shoots of water lashed out at the two of them. "What are you doing?!" I screamed.
"Kaddehk ic uid uv rana!" he shouted back, preparing another attack.
"I told you, no one gets hurt!" I said, as Tidus struck us another blow.
"We get hurt!" he screamed back at me as he launched another aqua shooter.
"This isn't the way, we can't do this!" I shouted, trying to slap his hands away from the dash.
"Uf, cdub!" he complained. He turned a knob on his dash and we began to ascend over the duo. I could feel them striking us, but I did my best to climb back over Keyakku to turn the knob back.
"Stop it! We're not dropping depth charges on them!" I shouted, my arms flailing over him as I struggled. He grabbed at my arms and tried to stop me, but I managed to turn the knob back.
"Drao yna kuehk du gemm ic!" Keyakku yelled, pushing me back onto my dash. It was painful landing and I must have sat on some button because I could feel us launch some kind of attack.
"Stop it!" I screamed again as he turned the knob back up. "We're not charging them!" I grappled back over my seat to his seat. "I said, STOP!" I yelled, striking him across the cheek. The more genuine attack definitely took him by surprise. I leaned over him to turn the knob again, but it didn't matter. Someone struck us a blow, and the dashboard lit up with emergency lighting and started the alarm. We were going down. Electrical shocks started shooting out of the dash. I was ready to get out of there. I looked out the tiny window to see Tidus swim up to the top of our machina and grab Yuna out of her oxygenator. Good- one less thing I needed to worry about. "We've gotta bail!" I screamed to Keyakku.
"Oui red sa!" he whined.
"Oh, get up!" I screamed, pulling on his shirt. I climbed quickly through the artillery chamber and into the water lock chamber. "You ready?" I called down to him.
"Oac!" he screamed. I loosened the lock and water began to rush in, then flood in. I faced down as I took one last deep inhalation of air, then swam up into the flooding water. I waited just above the flooding machina to help Keyakku, but something must have shorted in the dashboard. A tiny explosion came from the machina and he was shot out of the top. He shook his head, disoriented, but he seemed alright. He waved for me to follow him back to the southern shore but I hesitated, floating there above the destroyed machina.
This was my chance. I could make it to the north shore before the shoopuf did, and I could finally speak with her. I didn't want to try to rescue her again, not this way. If I was going to save her, I wanted her to know it was me and know why I was doing it. I shook my head towards Keyakku, hoping he understood I wasn't going with him. I then turned and started swimming for the north shore. After a little while, I turned back to see if he followed me. He hadn't. While I was glad he didn't try to stop me, I did somehow feel more nervous without a friend.
The swim to the northern shore took a good bit of time; it didn't take as long as it would have taken in the Extractor, but it still took a while. By the time I finally reached the northern shore, I literally crawled up the shore until I couldn't feel the water soaking my suit anymore. I collapsed on the partly sand but mostly dirt beach, face down, and sprawled my arms out in exhaustion. I was tired and I felt guilty, embarrassed, and even a little ashamed that the first time I ever saw my cousin was when I was trying to kidnap her. Everything sucked.
"You're… not dead?" I heard a familiar voice say above me. It was him: it was Tidus. I hurriedly jumped to my feet and met his eyes, but he didn't recognize me. Oh, right… I was wearing a million layers and goggles. I unsnapped the bracers from my shoulders and let them fall to the ground behind me. Then I reached up and unzipped my wet suit, which felt like a soggy prison. I shimmied out of it as quickly as I could, though those things are never easy to get out of when they're wet, and left it on the ground at my feet. Finally, I wriggled the face mask off and let out a sigh of relief. Without all those layers, I finally noticed a cooling breeze- but it somehow didn't really make me feel any better.
"Thought I was done for, back there," I smiled, but it didn't stick. My smile faded and I fell forward onto my hands and knees. From this position, I could see all the bruises and scrapes I was covered in. I must've looked like a wreck.
"AH! Rikku! You're Rikku!" he lunged forward towards me. It was nice that he remembered who I was… especially since he was one of the reasons I'd traveled so far. "Hey! You're okay! How you been?" I thought about feigning a response, but I knew I wasn't getting away with any lies this time.
"Terrible," I admitted with a shake of my head. He knelt down in front of me.
"Yeah, you don't look so good… what happened?" he asked in that cheerful voice of his. It almost infuriated me. I looked up angrily at him and stuck my finger in his face.
"You beat me up, remember?" I said as he fell backwards onto his butt in surprise.
"Eh?" he dopily replied. "Oh! That machina… that was you?" I looked back down at the ground, still reveling in some of my shame as I nodded a confirmation. I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to my feet, rubbing my aching head.
"Oh," I moaned a little louder than I'd expected, "that really hurt, you know. You big meanie," I mumbled under my breath.
"Wha- wait! But you attacked us!" Tidus snapped back at me.
"Nuh-uh," I threw back at him. "It's not exactly what you think." I didn't know how I could explain what it really was without him really getting mad at me.
"Yo!" I heard someone cry out in the distance. It was the guardian that had attacked with Tidus, the one that was the captain of the Besaid Aurochs. He approached quickly, followed by Yunie and three of her other guardians: one was a woman with long black hair, wearing a dress that had to be hot as Kilika and as heavy as a machina scout; one was a Ronso, and he towered over everyone else in the party; and the last was a man wearing a long red haori and sunglasses, much older than Yunie. As the group grew close, I turned away from Tidus and to the Besaidian. "Friend of yours?" he asked Tidus.
"Uh, you could say that," Tidus said, probably a little uncomfortable knowing that I'd just attacked his group.
"Pleased to meet you! I'm Rikku!" I jovially introduced myself, hoping to relieve some of Tidus' tension.
"Yuna, Lulu… I told you about her, remember?" he smiled to the women in the back of the group. I couldn't help but stare at Yuna, I was so excited to meet her. "She's the one who helped me before I was washed up on Besaid! She's an Al Bhe… beh-" he abruptly stopped. I guessed that meant that someone here wasn't too keen on people like me. Tidus nervously laughed as Yuna and the woman named Lulu gasped and looked nervously at each other. I couldn't tell what that gasp really meant… but I didn't like it.
"Wow, so you, like, owe her your life! What luck meeting here, ya? Praise be to Yevon," the Besaidian man said, bowing into a prayer. I couldn't help but stifle a giggle: yup. There was our Al Bhed hater. "So, uh… Rikku," he said, in what almost sounded like the start of a pickup line, "you look a little beat up. You okay?" I reached up and scratched my cheek, not quite sure what the best way was to field that question.
"Uh… Wakka…" Lulu hesitantly called to him. She must have intuited what happened, and I was thankful she didn't see anything more than that.
"Huh? What?" Wakka responded to her. Lulu raised a finger, gesturing for me to approach her.
"There's something we need to discuss," Yuna explained.
"Oh, go ahead," Wakka said as I approached Lulu. I smiled back at him.
"Girls only!" I cutely said, trying to dispel any tension. "Boys, please wait over there!"
"Right. Sorry, Wakka," Lulu empathized as we ladies stepped aside together.
"Huh, what?" he called after us, but I watched as Tidus pulled him aside and calmed him down.
"So," Lulu started as we stepped close to the banks of the Moonflow, "are you going to try that again?" I almost asked what she meant, but figured it out pretty quickly. She meant, was I going to try to rescue Yuna again.
"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't mean for… I shouldn't have… I'm sorry." I felt embarrassed and silly, but I wanted to push past all that to get to what mattered: could I stop Yuna from her pilgrimage, or could I help her in any way? "But I had to try to speak with you."
"With… me?" Yuna asked, placing her hand modestly on her chest. I nodded.
"Yuna… do you know that you have an uncle named Cid?" I asked, my hands clasped over my heart in nervousness.
"I do," she confirmed, "though I have never met him."
"Well… he really wants to meet you. So has his daughter… your cousin… that's why I had to speak with you," I hesitantly explained. Yuna's jaw dropped a little.
"You are…" she smiled. I shrugged.
"Like I said… my name's Rikku, and I'm very pleased to meet you," I said again. She smiled, but there was something reluctant about it.
"I'm very happy to meet you, too. But… I know what you would ask me to do. And… I must continue my pilgrimage," she said, dropping her hands in front of her waist.
"I… I don't want to make you change your mind," I stammered. "That's what Cid wants, but I think… I know… that if you want to do this, no one can stop you. So… if you won't stop… can I at least come with you?" Yuna seemed surprised by this. Honestly, I was too. This wasn't my plan at all… but it seemed like the only cards I had to play.
"An Al Bhed… as a guardian?" Lulu thought aloud. "I don't believe that's been done."
"There's a first time for everything!" I suggested. "All I want is to keep you safe. If this is the only way I can do that, I want to do it, Yunie." She smiled.
"Yunie…" she repeated to herself. "My mother called me that, when I was a child." I raised my hand and reached for hers. She extended her hand as well and held mine, smiling at me. "I would be happy for you to join me on my pilgrimage."
"Is it allowed?" Lulu asked, raising her hand to her chin. "Would Yevon frown upon it?"
"I have never been barred for being half- Al Bhed. I should hope it would be the same for a full- Al Bhed," Yuna nodded reassuringly to me. But she looked at her feet in nervousness. "But… perhaps we should ask Sir Auron?" We started back towards the group of men down the road. I grew a little nervous… now this guy I'd never met was going to be able to decide if I was competent enough to guard my own cousin? What if he said no?
"Sir Auron," Yuna said as she stepped close to the man in the red haori. He turned to face us as Yuna folded her hands over her waist. "I… would like Rikku to be my guardian." He briefly turned to face me and I lowered my gaze, trying to be as respectful as possible. I was also trying to hide my eyes- if he saw the green pupils with black swirls, he'd know I was an Al Bhed. Then, he might say no. He stepped closer to me and I released a nervous breath, keeping my gaze lowered.
"Show me your face," he softly demanded.
"Huh?" I pretended not to hear.
"Look at me," he instructed me again. I much preferred to look down at the jug on his hip and hypothesize over whether it was moonshine or water, but I knew I had to oblige.
"Oh. Okay," I said as I looked up, but my eyes instinctively closed.
"Open your eyes," he said. I nervously opened one eye, slowly. He made eye contact with that one eye, and I knew he was looking at the damn black swirls in my pupil. I, on the other hand, was taking him in. He had a long scar stretching from his forehead over his right eye and down his cheek. His sunglasses were dark, but beneath them his eyes were dark and serious. He had spots of gray in his hair but, now that I saw him closely, he didn't look that old. He was maybe in his thirties; those gray streaks weren't from age, but from stress. "As I thought," he finally said, and I could almost see a smile behind his high collar. Was he smiling because he caught me?
I lowered my gaze to his chest and held my hands nervously in front of my hips. "Um… no good?" I asked.
"Are you certain?" he asked. I looked back up and made eye contact with him, ensuring he was asking me. He was, and he looked at me with that soft seriousness- I almost felt encouraged by it.
"A hundred percent," I adamantly stated. "So… anyway… can I?" I asked the group, but especially Auron, feeling something like pleading escaping in my tone.
"If Yuna wishes it," Auron relented in a way that didn't seem reluctant at all.
"Yes, I do," Yuna smiled at me. Wakka grumbled a little to himself.
"Rikku's a good girl!" Tidus backed me up. "She helped me a bunch!" I smiled and nodded to him, confirming that I would of course do it all over again in a heart beat.
"I'm for it," Wakka said quickly, throwing aside his grumpy attitude and jumping on the Rikku bandwagon. "The more, the merrier!"
"Righto! Then I'll just have to be the merriest!" I said with a big smile, approaching Yuna. "Any time you need me, I'll be there. Rikku, at your service!"
