Chapter Twelve:
Not Running From You

Note: Another really important Ashlin chapter - I know, there's a lot of those, but she is sort of the main character, so... xD' The song, if you'd like to youtube it is good for this chapter. :) Enjoy!

'I tried to be someone else,
But nothing seemed to change.
I know now this is who I really am inside,
Finally found myself, fighting for a chance
I know now this is who I really am!'
-"The Kill" by 30 Seconds to Mars

"Hey!" Rikku was standing at the top of a sand dune looming in the distance, waving her arms eagerly at the group as they approached. Almost everyone was accounted for but... "Where's Yunie?" she asked.

"Not among us," answered Auron.

Rikku became a little crestfallen. "Oh." Her attitude picked back up almost immediately as she raised her index finger. "Wait! I think I know where she might be."

"Where?" demanded Tidus.

Rikku became somewhat nervous. "Okay, I think she's at Home, which is where all of the Al Bhed live..."

Wakka stared at her. "You know where we are, ya?" His voice sounded too accusing.

She nodded her head slowly. "I do, but... You guys have to keep it a secret, okay? It's really important that you do. If anyone knew, they'd find Home and destroy it..."

"Who'd want to do that?" asked Wakka. Everyone in the group stared at him. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh. Yeah."

"We're on Bikanel Island, which is where almost all Al Bhed live in a huge place called Home. I bet that some Al Bhed found her in the desert and took here there."

Tidus raised his eyebrows. "You mean kidnapped?"

"No," argued Rikku. Then, recalling that Tidus did not know of Yuna's fate, she finished with, "Just follow me, and I'll bring you guys there. Stay close! There's lots of fiends here!"

Wakka muttered, "Lotsa machina, too." He rubbed a spot on his arm where a machina had shocked him.

"I can take care of those. I know how they're put together, so I can take 'em apart easy-peesy," remarked Rikku.

After a few steps or so, Lulu noted, "Ashlin's not with us." The others, who obviously had not realized this, stopped.

"Oh." Tidus rubbed the back of his head. "Damn."

Rikku put her index finger to her cheek. "I bet she's at Home, too, because she's Al Bhed and they'll have thought-" She broke her sentence off. Many of the Al Bhed knew who Ashlin was and did not like that she was traveling with a summoner. They would have left her in the desert, and she didn't know how to get anywhere. "...Oh."

"We have to find Yuna," Lulu was forced to remind them. "I am sure that Ashlin will find a way to meet up with us; she's smart." If Tidus wasn't so worried about Yuna, he might have laughed. The one time Lulu complimented Ashlin, she was nowhere to be found.

Though Rikku didn't like it, she was more focused on finding her cousin, too. "Right! Okay, let's go!"

xxx

Ashlin lagged far behind Gippal, exhausted and hot despite the fact that she was wearing less than he was. "We're almost there!" He called over his shoulder before slowing down. "Damn, you're slow!"

"Be nice! The warmest place I've ever been is Luca!" She slowed down even more to catch her breath. "Besides, I just went from a freezing cold lake to a burning hot desert; that can't be healthy."

"You're an Al Bhed traveling with a summoner who's currently being hunt down by Guado. That's not healthy, either," pointed out Gippal. It was true enough. Ashlin stood back up and ran to join him.

She blinked. "Wait. The Guado are here?"

"Yeah, with strict orders to find your summoner and kill all of her guardians," he remarked. "Nice group of outlaws you run along with."

"Shut up," she groaned. "Well, that changes everything. What are you waiting for? Let's go!" She ran a little faster, leaving Gippal to watch her for a few moments before following.

They reached a particular high sand dune, and Gippal knew that Home would be looming down below. Ashlin, however, moved off to the side and bent down before something. He looked back at her and asked, "What're you doing now? We've gotta hurry." She appeared not to have heard him as she stared at two hastily-made gravestones. Though she had always known her mother was gone, though Rikku had confirmed it, she had never quite connected her mother's disappearance with her death until that moment. Krishna's name was carved into the stone, as was Jaidan's mother's into hers.

The sounds of explosions and screams echoed from below the dune Gippal was currently standing atop, and Ashlin immediately thought of Yuna and the others. She could waste her time mourning two people she had already known were dead, or she could move on and help her friends and, really, her people. Ashlin stood back up, dusted off the sand, and joined Gippal. They looked down at a gargantuan metal building with fiends and Guado fighting Al Bhed. Bodies littered the ground like dandelions in a meadow. "Wow."

Gippal glanced at her. "You ready for this?" He shoulder his revolver.

She found the best answer would be, "It's now or never." They slid down the tall dune and right into the yard of Home. Immediately, Guado turned their attention to them and began to attack. "Splitting up might be a good idea..."

"You'll probably find your summoner inside all the way on the bottom floor, in the Summoners' Sanctum. You think you can make it on your own?"

Ashlin grinned. "What, you worried?"

"You're sorta hopeless," he remarked with a grin, "So maybe."

"I'll show you," she replied. "See you." Then, as Gippal fired a round at some Guado who seemed like they were going to follow her, Ashlin carefully treaded over the bodies and entered Home. She tried not to get too attached to the place she had always dreamed of seeing as the building shook, and she discovered more Al Bhed bodies. It was sad.

Not to mention there were so many different passages. She settled on going straight before getting hopelessly lost in a long corridor with numerous passages. Ashlin descended a staircase and moved straight. On either side of her, malfunctioning doors were opening and closing repeatedly. Some footsteps echoed behind her, and she saw some Guado running down the stairs, so she quickly ducked into a room. "E ys majamehk Home!" A voice suddenly cried over the intercom. "Ku ihtanknuiht!"
"Leveling Home? Go underground?" echoed Ashlin. "Well, where in all the hells is underground?" Something growled behind her and, slowly, she turned around to face it. A sinister-looking Dual Horn bared its teeth at her and scraped at the ground with its long nails. "...Ooh. I think I'll just be going."
As she moved toward the door, the Dual Horn suddenly charged, and she dove into another part of the room. It turned to face her with its fiery breath as it blocked the door. Ashlin nodded to herself once. "Well, of course. That would happen. Wanna mess, you overgrown dog? Let's go!"

Ashlin pointed Jaidan's sword at the Dual Horn and waited until it charged again. It surprised her by putting its paws on her shoulders, its nails digging into her skin, and biting for her throat. She recovered quickly and clumsily stabbed the sword into its back. With a growl, it jumped away from her and covered the door again. 'Concentrate, Ash. Concentrate. You can do this. Prove that you're still capable...' She ran at it and jumped a couple feet into air with the sword raised. The sword sliced into its shoulder, just beside its head.

It stood dolefully before the door and did not make a move to attack. Ashlin took advantage of this by doing another jump attack, but she received a little surprise this time around. The Dual Horn planted its feet firmly on the ground as it looked up at her and breathed fire at her. She fell to the ground quite quickly with the fire singing her hair, as well as burning her skin and clothes. "O-ow." She supposed she should have expected as much from a fiend that exhaled fire instead of air.

Ashlin fished into her holster for the second time and pulled out Aimee's pistol. She aimed it at the Dual Horn's head and fired a couple rounds before it collapsed. It was by no means dead, but it was just injured enough for her to escape. The gun was returned to her holster as she ran across the room, climbed over the fiend, and entered the hall. As soon as she was in the hall, something flew through the air and knocked her upside the head really, really hard. The force sent her to the ground, but that did not last long.

Something seized her by the wrist and began to drag her down the hall. She looked up to find a second Dual Horn dragging her by its mouth. Ashlin pulled her wrist, feeling the teeth slice across her skin, and freed herself. Instead of fighting it, she ran down the hall and took a door at the end. Much to her relief, she found herself in a completely new area, a balcony of sorts overlooking a lower level with two doors.

She knew that the doors had to lead to the Summoners' Sanctum, so she ran down the stairs only to have her path barred. "Really?" she demanded of the Al Bhed who had blocked her. It was none other than Rupin, who looked down at her with one eyebrow raised. He pushed her away from the door, and she held her uninjured hand over her cut one. "Is that the Sanctum?" she demanded.

"It is," he agreed.

"Then, move!"

Rupin chuckled. "And let you do what?"

"Find my summoner!"

"You won't find her there."

Ashlin shook her head. "You're lying. Move." He crossed his arms and stared at her. She nodded to herself once. "Fine, then I'll make you move." She unsheathed the sword once more and took it into her bleeding hand.

Rupin raised his rifle and pointed it at her. "You are being foolish."

"You're being annoying," she responded. "Besides, I guess I should get back at you for shooting me when I was walking away. What kind of man shoots a person with their back turned?"

"You were retreating," he corrected.

She shook her head. "I was following my summoner, which is what I'd like to do now."

"Show me what power you think you have. Come at me!" Rupin spread his arms out and stood there, and his rifle dropped to the ground.

Ashlin raised Jaidan's sword and made to take a step, then stopped. She thought of what Jaidan had said to her when he had given her the sword. "'Use it well, use it right'." She dropped her arms to her sides and shook her head. "I... can't do it." Her eyes dropped to the dirty floor, which was shaking.

Rupin made a disgusted sound. "Vuumecr! Fayg! I am disappointed in you."

"You don't know me," she emphasized without looking up.

Then, he was standing before her. His hand seized her chin and tilted it up to make her look at him. "Of course I do! How could I not recognize my own daughter?" He spat the words like acid and grasped her chin a little tighter as she paled. "I use that term loosely, daughter. You are weak, you are nothing like your half-brothers. While they were fighting to get rid of Sin without giving up their identities, what were you doing? Following a group of Yevonites like a lovesick mutt!"

Ashlin ripped her chin from his grasp. "I'm fighting to get rid of Sin, too! Maybe not in the way you like, but I am!"

He chuckled bitterly. "Not for the right reasons. I knew, I knew you should have grown up with me here. Your foolish mother and her foolish mistakes. She ran from here because she'd rather be kissing the feet of Yevonite bastards, and she raised you to be the same!"

"She ran from you because you abused the crap out of her," growled Ashlin, her heart beating too fast. Her words would have sounded more intense if her voice was not shaking. "Which is also why you shot at me with my back turned. You're a coward!"

"I'm your father!"

Ashlin shook her head. "A blood relation doesn't mean a thing. Aimee and Jaidan, they were my real family, as was their mother and my own. You? You're nothing. So, tell me, why have you been so bent on abusing me, too? Because you didn't get the chance to when I was younger?"

"Your mother came back for me," he remarked with a grin. "She came back to fix things between us. What did she do with you? She left you behind in a forest with two children. She did not want you, did not love you. In the end, she left you for me."

"She only came to see you, I'm sure, because she was at the end of her rope. Because we were all living in a forest. It was silly of her, but I guess she actually expected that you cared enough to help us."

Rupin shook his head, the smile slowly slipping off his face. His expression was intense. "I told her I would not help her so long as she was kissing the feet of Yevonites. I told her to get her graceless ass out of the Home of the Al Bhed because it was so painstakingly obvious that it was not where she belonged or wanted to be. Now it's the same with you, and your Yevonite friends have destroyed it! They have destroyed your people and, still, you kiss their feet! Explain it to me, Ashlin! Explain it to me!"

At that moment, one of the doors, the one farther from them, opened and Dona, Isaaru, and Tidus and the others exited. Dona and Isaaru bypassed them and went up the stairs while the others ran up to them. Ashlin glanced at them, briefly, as did Rupin. "Ashlin problem," she said, mostly, to Kimahri, who nodded.

Rikku wiped at her eyes, which were puffy and red, and protested, "But-"

"She is right," agreed Auron. "However, if you're not on the ship in five minutes-"

"-We're coming back for you, ya?" finished Wakka with a grin. Ashlin was confused at his sudden change of character, but she nodded, and they left her. She felt terrified - particularly upon noticing Yuna was not with them. Obviously, they believed in her enough to let her take care of her problem.

Ashlin looked her father in the eye. "I am not traveling as a guardian because of I believe in the teachings of Yevon. In fact, I hate the teachings. I am traveling because these are my friends, and strangers that did not even know me when I was a child were more willing to take care of me than you were."

"It is because you're brainwashed," concluded Rupin. "But I will take care of that quickly." The rifle was pointed at her again.

She shook her head and flung her arms out wide. "Shoot me. I would say it would be merciful and putting me out of my misery, but I'd be lying now. I'm not miserable anymore. Maybe troubled by what's up ahead, but not miserable. I've found people that care about me, but..." Ashlin tilted her head to the side a little. "What do you know about caring about others?"

A gunshot echoed in the silence, and Ashlin could not help but feel deeply surprised as it hit her in the chest and knocked her to the ground. Rupin walked over to her and placed his boot over the wound; it sent even more pain coursing through her body. "That is the difference between you and I. I am not ashamed or afraid to take care of my enemies." Then, he took the pressure off, went up the stairs, and disappeared into the airship.

"Enemies?" she breathed. He would call his daughter, who he barely knew, his enemy? Ashlin forced herself to stand despite the pain. She could lay on the ground forever and die with feelings of sadness, betrayal, and regret or she could join her friends. After settling on the latter, she also ran up the stairs and into the airship.

xxx

Yuna awoke in a lovely bed with a velvet-colored canopy. She sat up slowly and realized that it was a large bedroom with a red and gold carpet, a vanity with a red-cushioned seat before a three-way crystalline mirror, and a grandesque gold chandelier. "Where am I?" she asked aloud as she climbed out of the bed and hesitantly looked around.

Her head ached quite a bit, and she had trouble recalling what had happened before falling asleep. But, she had not fallen asleep, had she? The images of several Guado striking her down with a thunder spell appeared in her mind. Then, Seymour had walked toward her, threatening to summon Anima... "Oh!" The pain in her body proved that it could not have been a dream and, in that instant, she had found a beautiful wedding dress in a clear bag hanging from a door. 'I have to get out of here... But how?'

As she considered her escape, another door opened and in walked Tromell. She looked around for her rod but could not find it. "Where am I?" she demanded of him.

"Ah, awake I see," he replied with a smile, completely disregarding her question. "That is good. How do you feel?"

Yuna scowled. "Like many Guado just attacked him with black magic."

Tromell nodded. "Then, you are still weak? This is also good. My Lady, welcome back to Bevelle. You are here for your wedding to Lord Seymour."

The scowl disappeared from her expression as she narrowed her eyes. "What?" She shook her head. "I'm not marrying him. He is..."

"Unsent? Oh, yes," agreed Tromell with an approving nod. "It is quite a glorious thing, really, living on beyond death. This way, Bevelle may never fall into the hands of the unprepared, careless youth."

"Dodging death is not normal. He must be Sent!" protested Yuna.

Tromell continued to smile at her. "Do not make this any harder, Lady Yuna. I will send in a few of my assistants and they will help you get ready."

"I am not marrying Seymour!" she repeated a little more forcefully as he started for the door.

When he reached the doorway, he looked back at her over his shoulder. His smile was somewhat more sinister now. "Whoever told you that you have a choice?" Then, he was gone and, defeated, Yuna fell to the floor.

xxx

Ashlin was thankful that her leg hurt quite a bit less as her chest was taking just about everything out of here. She entered the bridge of the airship just in time to see Tidus and a balding man finishing up an argument. She crept over to Lulu and asked, "What was that about?"

The mage looked at her in surprise. "You're bleeding," she noticed as she examined Ashlin.

The Al Bhed nodded. "Yeah, I'm kind of a little bit messed up everywhere." Lulu dug through her pockets in search of a potion of some sort but knew that they had used up most of their healing supplies while fighting the Guado and fiends in Home and the desert.

Kimahri joined them. "Kimahri help." He held out a hand to Ashlin's chest and a healing, white light entered the wound. It healed up just enough for it not to hurt when she breathed. "Kimahri sorry. Not as good as Yuna."

Ashlin shook her head. "No, no, thanks, Kimahri!" The others joined them. "Where's Yuna?"

Rikku looked down at the floor. "The Guado must've gotten her before we had the chance to..." Before she could finish her sentence, the airship shook and rumbled.

"Yeehaw! Here we go, kiddos!" cheered the bald man. How he could be so happy at a time like this, Ashlin wasn't sure. He looked at a male with a mohawk who had to have been in his late-teens or so. "Nayto? Vena!"

Though looking crestfallen, the mohawk man nodded. "Ev oui ehcecd..." Then, he pressed a button and, suddenly, a side of the airship opened up to fire a barrage of missiles at Home. Ashlin had mixed feelings about watching it collapse into the sand, the Home she had always wished for.

She shook her head and remarked, "Cyt." Beside her, she noticed Rikku's eyes tearing up and put her good hand around her shoulders. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry!" The bald man remarked as he came up behind them and put a hand on Rikku's shoulder. "Machina can always be rebuilt. We'll just have to rebuild someday."

Rikku's lower lip trembled. "But we finally got everyone together in one place..."

"We will always be united. Just because we aren't together doesn't mean we're not united," he told her.

Ashlin nodded a little. Wise words. "So, uh, who're you?" She asked him.

He looked down at her with surprise. "Wh-what? You're Al Bhed, and you don't know me? Weren't you living in Home?"

"Can't say I did," she answered.

Rikku wiped her eyes and turned to face her father, too. "Dad, this is Ashlin. Ash, this is-"

"Cid!" exclaimed Ashlin. "Of course." She was almost tempted to bow to him. "Sorry, I guess I should have known... Maybe. Rikku told me what you did for my mother ten years ago. Thank you."

Cid nodded. "Thought I recognized you. The Al Bhed have been buzzin' with you! After Rikku joined, they started buzzin' about her, too," he briefly looked down at his daughter, who smiled nervously. "You look like Krishna," he added to Ashlin.

Ashlin blinked. "Do I? Th-thank you." Cid left them, and Rikku's expression became crestfallen again.

Wakka approached them. "Don't be sad, ya? Boom! Like happy firework festival, ya?" Ashlin opened her mouth to say something, but Rikku was already frowning up at the blitz player.

"Cram your happy festival, big meanie!" Then, Rikku stormed off.

Wakka rubbed the back of his head. "What'd I say?"

"You just made it sound like you were celebrating the destruction of Home..." mumbled Ashlin.

"I didn't mean to!" By the panicked look on his face, Ashlin believed him.

"Wow. I'm so surprised. You're acting... normal again!"

Wakka's expression was sheepish. "Once I realized what was goin' on, I couldn' really hate the Al Bhed no more, ya? Sorry for what I've been saying."

Ashlin smiled and shook her head. "All is forgiven." Once again, she lost her grip on her emotions and rushed forward to hug him. For someone so muscular, he was surprisingly soft. Wakka awkwardly patted her on the back. She winced as she pulled away. "Cred."

"What?" asked Tidus. Ashlin, admittedly, sort of loved that he already had his Al Bhed swears down.

"Rupin's on this ship somewhere..."

Wakka looked at her. "Who?" Rikku was standing on the outside of the group, and Ashlin decided to tell them everything she knew about Rupin.

"Your father?" repeated Lulu.

Even Auron seemed surprised as Tidus demanded, "He shot you?"

"To prove a point, I guess," mumbled Ashlin.

Rikku drew closer to Ashlin, but not too close to Wakka. "What? That he's a super-big meanie? I say we hunt him down!"

"There'll be no hunting down anyone on my ship," chastised Cid as he also joined them. "Rupin, I was hoping he'd be left behind..."

Ashlin glanced at him. "You don't like him either?" The Al Bhed leader wishing you dead was serious business.

"He chased away Kris. She was great with machina an' took care of Rikku for me sometimes," confessed Cid.

Rikku blinked. "She did?"

Cid nodded. "Sure! She didn't leave until you were about three. You and her daughter - which I guess is you," he added to Ashlin, "used to play all the time."

"Then, she left and I was stuck with Brother. What a bad trade-off," complained Rikku. The group dispersed after that, Cid returning to the sphere he was using to locate Yuna, and Ashlin spotted Tidus exiting the bridge. She followed him.

Ashlin locked her arms behind her back and looked up at him. "Why the long face?"

Tidus stopped suddenly in the middle of the hall outside of the bridge. "How long did you know?"

"Know? Know what?" She knew perfectly well what he was talking about. Tidus glanced down at her seriously. Ashlin nodded and began to walk a little bit away from him. "That Yuna was going on a suicide mission or that all summoners go on suicide missions?" He did not respond. "Since before we met."

"So, all those times that we spoke one-on-one, and that night we watched the Moonflow and I said Yuna and I could come back after the pilgrimage... You knew already?" Ashlin bit her lip and nodded. "Why... Why didn't you tell me?"

Ashlin flinched a little at his shouting, which she guessed was going to be a habit after all of the screaming Rupin had done. "How could I tell you that the girl you loved was going to die? It was an unspoken secret, one I hated..." He turned away from her. "Hey! Don't act like I betrayed you, okay? I didn't!" Her voice dropped. "Have I told anyone about Sin? No."

"So, you keep secrets when it's convenient?"

She shook her head and stomped her foot. "No! It's because you're my friend. Remember that? You're being my friend?"

"She's going to die!"

"Do you think I like admitting that out loud? Who would?" Ashlin sighed. "When did you find out?"

"Summoners' Sanctum. Rikku broke down and told me."

Ashlin nodded. "Well, I'm sorry. I wish I could have told you, but it would have been too much."

"Yeah." Tidus rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry for yelling at you like that... You okay?"

She gestured at her chest. "What? This? At least a bullet didn't get lodged in there this time. I'll be fine," she promised. "What about you? You gonna be okay?"

"When we find Yuna... I'm going to try to talk her out of it."

Ashlin bit her lip. "I don't know that that's going to work."

"Well? What do you expect me to do? Stand by and watch?"

She smiled a little. "Of course not. I think I sort of admire you, Tidus. Go see if they've found Yuna yet." As Tidus entered the bridge, Auron exited it and approached her. "I thought you were such a good guardian, Auron. You lost Yuna!"

"As did you," he pointed out. "But no one claims that you are a good guardian..."

Ashlin stared at him for a moment. "Hey! That's not nice!"

"You sound like Rikku," he remarked.

"Hm. You could have said I sounded like Tidus, 'cause I've heard him say similar things to you. Yet you picked Rikku. Why is that?"

"Hn."

Ashlin lowered herself to the ground and sat on the vent. "I don't know how I feel about this."

"About what?"

"Flying on a ship where someone wants to kill me. I don't think I've known anyone who wanted to kill me before."

Auron raised an eyebrow. "Seymour?"

"Maybe Seymour," she conceded. "My own father... I couldn't hurt him when he flung his arms out and dropped his gun to the ground, you know. I just... couldn't do it. Then, I did the same thing and he..." Her eyebrows drew together. "Shot me." Ashlin suddenly realized that her eyes were burning and the floor was becoming blurry.

"He's not much of a father. Don't worry." Auron looked at her briefly but was no longer when Ashlin gazed at him. It was, she realized, the closest he would come to being kind, and she sort of enjoyed it.

Vuumecr! Fayg! - Foolish! Weak!

Nayto? Vena! - Ready? Fire!

Ev oui ehced - If you insist

Cyt - Sad.

Cred - Shit