Hola all!!! And Happy Birthday Stu who is 2 years old today! First of all, I am sorry for the massive amount of typos in the last chapter - I'm not yet used to my new keyboard and mistakes are therefore a little more rife and I haven't had time to keep to a vague update schedule and work for my uni courses at the same time. The mistakes WILL be rectified after the fic is finished.
I hope this chapter sheds some light on a few of those pesky unanswered questions and sets you asking some new ones! Enjoy!
BW: (looks at the professionalness of it all) O.o
FB: I know (looks smug) I could be business thing of the year!
BW: Thing? Is your gender ambiguous now?
FB: (puffs up) YES, ANDROGENY FOR THE WIN!!!
BW: Who knows why you're playing FFX then? It's known for it's skimpy gender defining outfits!
FB: ...
Disclaimer: I do not own FFX or the concept of sunset juice - that belongs to the stools in Camden town and it really is a great pick me up!
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Alex's Battle Notes: Don't trust anyone...ever.
The Ao Guardian
'Close your eyes! At least if you close your eyes it might not be so horrible!'
I couldn't.
Instead I was rooted to the spot with my eyes open wide.
Nothing but a doll.
…
But there was no death, there was no pain. Instead a blur of black rushed in front of me and pushed me down with force onto my butt and I watched…all I could do was watch as he twisted to block the teeth of the fiend with the long pole of a scythe.
Hunter.
It was the same boy I'd seen at school, the same black hair, the same intense brown eyes with that spark of fire in the centre like a warning sign. The only difference was the attire he now wore, black trousers with silver lining on the pockets and round the metal adornments, an all black top with the sleeves…they looked ripped off, fitted on a torso that was skinny, yet toned. A couple of belts were looped around his waist and his shoes were black with silver tips, metal to protect his feet.
His arms were lean, yet they were holding off the fiend easily enough and eventually he managed to push it back, leaping sideways and making sure it's eyes followed him.
The two circled each other, the hunter and the hunted though I wasn't sure which was which. Hunter seemed cold as he circled, unemotional. The beast's back prickled and it snarled but it did not charge him the same way it had charged me…
Could I think? Did I think? I don't know. I was a helpless spectator again though this time I wasn't watching from the safety of the other side of the screen.
It was instant. His lip flickered ever so slightly and he darted forward faster than I could really follow, twirling his scythe up and around his neck to the other hand, confusing the beast enough for him to get in a clean hit with the blade that shone a cold silver in the sun beaming down on Luca's destruction.
One hit was all it took for the pyre flies to ride the wind.
I stared.
And stared.
And stared.
He just met my gaze with those level eyes.
"Can you move?" he asked in a low voice. It was his voice more than anything that made me blink, reconsidering my own existence.
"Um." I said, looking down at my legs, a little surprised that I had limbs. There was a rather nasty cut on my knee, how did that get there?
There was so much I wanted to ask him! Questions were flooding behind my eyes, the ones that I'd had right at the beginning, the ones I had put away accepting that there would never be an answer or anyone to answer them yet here he was!
I tried to gather up some sense of rationality, sanity.
"What-
"We don't have time for that now." He held out a hand for me to grab. It seemed like such a natural gesture that I accepted it, feeling the cold rush of his flesh on mine.
He was real.
He pulled me up but my knees were weak, threatening to buckle again. I stood my ground against him, flooded with…were they even emotions anymore?
I wanted to hit him, I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to plead with him to take me home, I wanted to hug him for being a real person from my real world that I was beginning to think was a dream.
In the rush of thoughts and feelings, I hadn't noticed that his magnificent scythe had disappeared but I didn't have time to ponder on it. Grabbing my hand again, provoking another shiver of reality, he sprinted up the slope just outside the stadium, the one meant for tech support only but it was unguarded in the chaos.
At the top...
We watched the destruction of the Luca Blitzball Stadium together, two singularly unrelated people atop the stadium wall. I watched the fiends decimate the boxes we had been sitting in one by one. Yuna, Lulu and Kimahri had managed to escape luckily enough but that didn't mean that people all over the stadium weren't dying.
I wish I could be noble enough to say that I'd gone to help those poor people, daggers drawn, but I can't. Seeing the whole carnage from above was worse than seeing only a portion of it as we were attacked in the box by the flying fiends...
Over the far side, I could make out a couple of figures fighting back, one had black hair and was wearing a crimson red coat.
So they had found Auron.
I looked over at Hunter to make sure he was still there.
He was watching Seymour.
Seymour stepped up to the front of the Maester's box and held his hands out before him. From where we were, I could just make out a glyph appear at his feet and as he brought his hands round in a concentrated circle, the glyphs flew upwards into the sky.
I knew what was coming next. The sky began to burn and from the scorch mark there came a great anchor, falling to Earth and the identical scorch mark in the stadium floor where it disappeared again. When the anchor reappeared from the hellish pit it had been flung into, it brought Anima, the great aeon with it.
It was terrifying in real life. It looked like a huge mummy towering menacingly over everything in the stadium, bandages wrapped around ribs that stuck angularly from a withered torso and a bandaged face with room enough only for a sinewy jaw-line, covered in sharp protruding teeth, and one bright red eye, full of malice. Its arms were tied crossways over its body, restrained, causing my imagination to fill in the blanks about what it looked like free. From its back, two huge black shield-like wings folded over its body, for protection...or again restraint.
Its bright red eye glowed a fiery gold and somewhere on the far side of the stadium, several fiends exploded.
I was beyond petrified. It was the fiend that had killed me time and time again leaving Auron or Tidus sprawled out on the floor of Macalania Temple...But the way it looked and it's awesome power wasn't why Anima scared me the most. It was the monologue that went with it, something I hadn't heard in the game.
"HATE HATE HATE, I HATE YOU ALL! I WANT TO WATCH YOUR LIMBS EXPLODE, TORN FROM YOUR BODY. WHAT A LOVELY SPLATTER YOUR BLOOD WOULD MAKE ON THE CLEAN STONE! I WANT YOU TO FEEL MY PAIN, FEEL MY PAIN! FEEL MY PAIN! I HATE YOU!"
"Oh God..." I whispered. "Make it stop."
I took a couple of steps back, aiming to sprint away from that aeon and the words I could hear from its soul but Hunter caught my arm, staring at me.
Seymour just stood in the Maester's box smiling.
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Hunter stepped into the cafe with me trailing behind him. I had thought we would go and meet up with the others straight after Anima had destroyed all the fiends threatening to kill the spectators at the Stadium but Hunter had moved off in another direction and I hadn't wanted to lose him again.
The cafe was empty now, everyone having gone home because of the Sin spawn attack. I fell into an empty booth and held my head as Hunter ordered drinks. I was tired and was having a bout of homesickness thanks to Hunter's arrival but I was determined to ask him the questions that had plagued me for so long.
If only I could order them in my muddled mind!
"I don't know where to start." I told him, not able to look him in the eye.
He just shoved a glass of some orangey red liquid towards me across the little table.
"Drink this." he instructed, taking a gulp from his own glass of the same stuff.
"What is it?" I asked suspiciously. I had read Alice in Wonderland, I knew what bottles labelled 'drink me' did.
"It's called Sunset juice." Hunter explained. "It'll re-vitalise you."
I looked up to frown at him.
"It's not poisonous." he said, a little bitterly.
Oh, forgive me for not trusting you after I borrowed your game of FFX and ended up actually in the game!
I sniffed it first and took the tiniest sip. It tasted of sugared fruit and was quite nice to be honest. And I did feel better afterwards, like all my thoughts were falling into place easier.
"So," I began. "What's going on?"
Simple enough question, should provoke a nice long answer.
"We're having a drink in a cafe." Hunter said simply. I could have killed him.
"You know what I mean!" I hissed at him. "What the hell happened to me? One minute I was sitting on my bed about to try your special edition disk and the next I wake up in Zanarkand train station! You know I met Yunaleska?! And how are you here? What are you? It's obvious you're not a normal high school student!"
I could feel myself getting more and more emotional as I spoke to him. I'd been going through FFX as though I was in a dream but now he was here, the whole thing just seemed to come crashing down on top of me.
He kept his eyes on mine as he spoke.
"It's difficult to explain really, and I doubt you'll be able to handle it straight away."
I felt a little indignant at that, I'd survived being sucked into a video game for god's sake, what's left for me to not handle?! I didn't say any of this though, just watched him.
"But this…all this…" he looked around the café and outside at the sky before looking back at me with those awful piercing eyes, "…it's all real."
Stare.
Stare some more.
Take gulp of sunset juice.
He's a nut job.
"I mean it." He said to me, not moving his eyes. I wish he would move them, I wish he would look shifty or mad… "The world of Spira is not just the concept of a video game, it is a real place with real people and problems… and you know that already because you're here."
A lump was forming in the forefront of my throat.
"You're special Alex-
"Oh come on!" I shouted suddenly, tears forming at the sides of my eyes. "Cut all the Matrix 'you're the one' crap! Give it to me straight, are you a psycho with magical powers? How did I get here? Please...just..."
I knew I wasn't special. I was the most un-special person in the whole world. I trip over my shoe laces, I get mediocre grades, I vomit when I have to kill things…
His expression was unchanged.
"My disk was the key. It was a CD-WAM. WAM meaning World Access Memory. It acts as a teleportation device."
I stared at him but remained quiet. What's the use in talking anymore?
He sighed and for a moment he looked so much older. I wondered how old he really was seeing as he clearly wasn't a high school student like I thought.
"If Spira was not a real place in a real universe, we could not be here experiencing it. Tidus and the others would not have recognised and interacted with you, we would not be sitting here in a café miles from the linear game structure drinking a juice not originally included in the programme. Do you understand?"
I didn't.
I nodded.
"And it's not just Spira Alex…"
His eyes flashed, he leant in closer.
"Thought is real, it's the physical that's imaginary. All worlds are real, you're just one of the people that can access them."
The tears were flowing like a tidal wave down my face now. I didn't understand any of it, what was he talking about, all worlds are real...
"Okay, I adm-mit it, I d-don't unders-stand." I sobbed at him.
"All worlds are real." He repeated, leaning back away from me again. Was I disgusting for not understanding? Maybe it was just the snot. "All worlds ever conceived by men or by gods are real, it's how universes come into existence and continue to grow; you just have to know how to access them. Most humans would be pulled apart by the transition from one world to the next but you are special. You hold special talents within you that make you resilient enough to deal with the transition and the hardships of this world itself."
"So all worlds are real? Not only in video games but in books and films…even the stuff I write for school?" I threw at him between blubbering.
It was a stupid remark really, not ALL worlds like that could be real…I wasn't expecting him to sit there nodding perfectly seriously, waiting for me to process the information.
Clearly he was insane. But then how was I here? All worlds are real?
"I could…go into my own story?" I ventured, giving up on sanity and the mental capacity to understand anything anymore. I think a white coat would be appreciated. Nice padded cells and not a care in the world – I'd take it!
"No, only those that have been written onto CD-WAM by the first Ao Guardians are accessible by us." He explained.
"An Ao what now?" I asked, struggling with even more information.
'Us?'
"An Ao Guardian." Hunter told me seriously. When he looks at me like that, it seems crazy to think that he's crazy.
"In the old tongue, it means a guardian of worlds. They were the first to tap into the power of alternate worlds, the ones that made it possible for other talented people to travel to other conceived worlds."
His eyes narrowed.
"You are one of these talented people."
Stare.
Stare some more.
Take another gulp of sunset juice.
Proceed to choke on it.
"I bought you here using my CD-WAM because this is the world you connected to, the one that awakened your special resilience…like me…it's the world that I am using to train you in the ways of the Ao Guardian."
Oh God I wish he would stop talking. I wish he would make some sense.
"God, this is so hard to explain!" he exclaimed suddenly, leaning back in his seat on the other side of the booth and running his hands over his face in exasperation. It was the most emotion I had ever seen from him.
"Well…what about me?"
"…"
"You could have asked before you flung me into this world…I didn't get a chance to protest! What if I don't want this! What if I don't want to be this…world…warping…Ao…THING!" my voice was as huge as the rage that was being conceived in my stomach.
I'd never known anything like it, it was like an incredibly slow explosion coming from somewhere within.
"WHAT AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO DO WHEN I'VE BEEN 'TRAINED' ANYWAY? DO I GET PAID FOR A LIFE ENDANGERING JOB?"
It was strange. When I finally got angry, I felt like I should have been angry at the beginning…
"Your job," Hunter explained quietly, his voice was tense and menacing, "is to make sure the story plays out generally as it does in the game version you know. You've already done it a couple of times, the biggest influence being on Yunaleska- telling her to get to high ground before Sin's tidal wave came to wipe out Zanarkand. If the story deviates too much because of changing factors, the fabric of the universe could be pulled apart by the resulting paradoxes. Don't worry, your presence does not affect the outcome of the game at the end providing you do your job properly."
I shook my head getting angrier and angrier as he spouted more information I couldn't comprehend. I wanted out. I wanted to go home and forget everything!
"THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" I lunged at him, gripping his shirt in claw-like fingers. "I DON'T WANT IT! I DON'T WANT ANY OF IT, YOU HEAR ME? SEND ME HOME NOW! RIGHT NOW!"
"I can't."
I let go of his shirt and fell back on the little table. The barman had made himself scarce.
"You have to finish the game."
I could feel myself crumpling, tears once again swimming in my eyes and splashing onto the wood of the booth, into my drink, onto my trousers. What about Seymour? What happens when I can't do this job that you've out on me because I haven't finished the game? WHY couldn't you have just asked me so I could have said no and got on with my life?
"I hate you…" I whispered.
He didn't sit down again. Instead he walked close to me, so I could smell the familiar smell of home, of him, and he touched my hair.
"Me too." He said.
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I wish it had rained.
I wish the sky had been dark with an oncoming storm so I could vent my anger and misery on the wind, over the thunder.
The sun remained high in the sky, contrasting my mood completely as I changed from my Kilikan trousers to my familiar school skirt.
It made me all the more upset.
"I will come with you for a while." Hunter said outside my door. "To monitor progress and to make sure you can handle things to come."
Yeah right, I don't need some Ao babysitter.
I said nothing; folding up my Kilikan trousers and unlatching the door to the room in the boat I had changed in.
"I'll put those in my bag if you want." Hunter said, moving towards them.
I gripped them tight and glared at him.
He sighed, clearly only slightly irritated by my refusal to stop being angry with him.
"We should meet the others." He said, leading the way up the ramp to the deck of the ship.
I watched him go for a minute. There was still a lot of things I had been hoping to ask him, serious questions, stupid questions...but I couldn't...this whole thing still seemed too ludicrous to process and I felt that if I spoke to him again, I would just get angrier and eventually wear myself out before we'd even moved.
We met up with the others on the bridge to the Mi'hen Highroad, Tidus and Wakka already part of Yuna's guardian group. As expected, Auron didn't bat an eyelash when I came walking up the path. He did frown at Hunter though, a curious and slightly wary frown that made me think he could sense Hunter's true identity as an...
No...I don't want to say it anymore. It's a stupid term.
"You found someone here as well Alex?" Yuna asked me as we approached, clearly delighted by my 'stroke of good fortune'.
"Mn." I said. I don't want to answer questions, I want to crawl into a corner somewhere and sleep until things make rational sense again.
"My name is Hunter." he said, bowing slightly so his hair flopped forward.
"Nice to meet you." she said, formally.
I could feel Hunter looking at me...he wasn't actually looking at me, he was facing Yuna but you know when they're looking at you with their mind right? Like the feeling of being nudged with invisible eyes planted on their back!
"Er..." I started. "I was wondering if perhaps it would be alright if Hunter and I continued travelling with you?"
They stared at us. We stared back.
Stares all round really.
"Wouldn't it be better for you to stay safe in Luca?" Yuna asked me. The others said nothing, knowing it was up to her.
I shook my head.
"Please...I think I could help you a little...along the way..."
She stared at me with those big bright eyes, really stared at me, into me, through me...I thought I was going to pass out trying not to blink back at her but I didn't want to elaborate...
'Please trust me...'
"...Alright." She said eventually.
A large outlet of breath instantly followed this statement, and I whisked round to see Tidus looking relieved, grinning at me. My heart bounced in my chest, I waved timidly back.
Maybe it's not so bad if someone's glad I'm still coming along, you know?
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We started making our way up the steps to the Mi'hen Highroad. Everyone, Hunter included, should be given fitness awards for being able to walk up them all without collapsing. By the time we reached the top, I had resorted to crawling on all fours, heaving myself up at the top and rolling onto the soft grass of the longest and most annoying road in all of Spira.
The Mi'hen Highroad. It was practically a motorway and yet the Spirans had only seen fit to cross it either on foot or on Chocobo back! Not only that, there were different levels and layers to this intricately designed road. I remember from the game that the creature from the pond could push you off the edge to the bottom of the road...the low road...then we'd have to walk up hill until the pass...
Oi vei...
But the Chocobos were a sight to see. I've only ever seen big birds in zoos back home so seeing those huge yellow things wandering around undisturbed was...amazing. They were everywhere up here, pecking at flower blossoms on the hill or being stroked by wandering strangers making their way to the other end of the Highroad as well. They seemed perfectly domesticated and yet...free...like the people and the birds were co-operating through a soul connection rather than through one imprisoning the other and forcing them to rely on their captors for everything.
As I lay there panting, trying to get my breath back and air my legs a little, coz lets face it, hot weather begets the complete disregard for modesty, one of those giant monster birds saw fit to step over and try and take a peck at my hair!
"OUW!" I yelled as it bit off a clear chunk of hair and started chewing mercilessly at it.
Tidus nearly fell over laughing.
Mental note: Shoot him along with Hunter!
"You must have a grassy smell." Lulu said, trying to hide the smile she'd cracked as well.
Great, so they're stoner birds.
I got up and dusted myself off. Auron started the walk over the grassy highroad first taking huge great strides and barely glancing in my direction, eyes shielded by the shades. The others started off as well and I lagged behind, a victim of midday sun and the lingering heavy thoughts dropped on me by the prince of pain (Hunter).
And so we walked.
And walked.
And walked.
For hours.
I was pretty much left to my own thoughts and I mostly thought about Hunter. I wondered how old he was really, I wondered where he came from - if all this Ao Guardian nonsense was to be believed. I wondered why the hell he would choose someone like me.
I also thought about home and how close I had been to going back. I won't deny it, there was something in the back of my mind that had ignited when I'd seen Hunter again; the hope that I would be able to leave the danger of Spira and return home. Thoughts that I had quelled had come flooding to the surface, how would mum and Kane react when I finally turned up again? How would I find living at home now that I'd...adjusted to life in Spira?
We stopped for a picnic.
"Where did all this come from?" I asked as Yuna and Kimahri laid out a feast of bento and oolong tea.
"We bought it after Maester Seymour saved everyone in the stadium." Yuna told me with a smile that rivalled the purest daylight in brightness.
I opened my mouth:
"Glaaaaaaaarb." said my stomach.
I shut my mouth quickly and tried to ignore the fact that my face was burning crimson. Nearly everyone sitting down to eat started laughing with the exception of Auron who might have been clinically stripped of his emotions at an earlier stage in his life and Hunter who probably used the same surgeon as Auron.
"You should try some of the peppered beef bento ya?" Wakka said, passing it to me. I sat down on the lump of grass they'd picked and tried some.
It really was delicious.
And once again I hadn't noticed how hungry I'd gotten.
Opposite me, Hunter barely said a word through the picnic. And he barely ate anything.
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So Hunter has revealed that Alex has the potential to be an Ao Guardian! Do you think she'll be able to pull it off? How long will he stick around? What WILL happen when they get to Seymour? So many questions - more questions now I hope and not so few answers!
Hunter: I can't believe you're making me do this.
FB: (smiles happily)