Chapter 27: Summoning the Key

"Hey, you!" Wakka knocked on the storm door of his own hut. "It's getting late, and I got a sleepy kid that needs to be put to bed, ya? Open up!"

Yuna opened the door, greeting Wakka and Lulu with a friendly smile. "Welcome back. We were just cleaning up the last of the spheres. Did you have fun in Luca?" She held out her hands, wanting a turn holding Vidina, and Lulu was glad to give him up for a few minutes to give her shoulder a rest.

"Uh?" Wakka was surprised to see Yuna and looked past her to where Tidus was picking up the last of the pillows and replacing them.

"It was a beautiful day," Lulu answered her. "We ate at the cafe, caught a game, walked along the docks, played sphere break ... We bought Vidina a balloon, but he didn't know what to do with it yet, so we ended up letting another little boy have it. Oh, and Wakka spoke to the blitz officials for Tidus." She stepped past Yuna to speak with him. "He told them you were back and filled them in on that summoner's dirty trick. They said you were cleared to play if you want, but some fans might protest still."

Tidus accepted that and looked to Wakka. "Thanks. I guess you can warn your abs that we'll start practice again tomorrow then." He gave the larger man's stomach a pat.

"Did you have time to watch all of your spheres?" Lulu placed her baby bag on the floor and lifted a stray sphere with a puzzled expression. "If not, you can come back tomorrow."

"Nah, I had plenty of time." Tidus picked up the basket he had brought the spheres in, but then saw Lulu handling the one he nearly forgot. Immediately, he set the basket back down and hopped over it to snatch it back. "Kinda private," he apologized for his rudeness and tucked it away in the chest within the basket he carried.

Lulu quirked a brow at his abrupt save and glanced at Wakka with a smirk as she laid out a diaper changing pad. "I think you were right about the naked baby stuff."

Tidus became indignant but noticed that Yuna was biting her lip, debating whether to tell them what was really on that sphere. Removing the baby from her arms, he passed him back to Lulu and gave Yuna the bag of junk spheres, instead. "We'd better be going now."

Yuna laughed at his attempt to get rid of her before she could tattle about the "Tiidaaa" sphere, but he was right. It was getting late. She started toward the door when a smaller sphere under the tea table caught her eye. "Oh, wait. Did we watch this one?" She crouched to slide it out from the table and look for a label. "It looks recently made."

"Oh, that's the one Meimo and Kyudou gave me when they drop-kicked me into the Via Infinito to talk to Spira."

Yuna touched the activation button, and Wakka and Lulu drew near in curiosity to watch it with her.

"Woah. Creepy." Wakka drew back when the entire sphere had played through to the finish. "So, that's the chick that runs the whole... ship? It still feels weird to think of Spira as a machina rather than a real world, especially since Yevon banned all machina. What a two-faced thing to do, ya?"

"Yeah, but... don't let word get around in public, yet," Tidus reminded them. "If someone tries to send Spira, the way they tried to send me, all of us could be in trouble. She chose to become the ship's life force, so we have to help her keep it that way."

"You should take this to Baralai," Yuna told Tidus. "He has other spheres of Spira."

"Maybe tomorrow after practice." He took it from her to place with Kimahri's sphere.

"Wait a minute. Can I see it again?" Yuna asked. "Part of what she said makes no sense to me."

Tidus handed it back to her, and Yuna replayed the ghost's words with careful consideration.

"That sphere is a key that could unlock all the worlds I've seen, including the planet of our origin. But we cannot go back to where we came from - not ever. The Founders seek to destroy us. They fear what we have done. Our abyssal shame bears witness to our deeds, yet hides it from them." Her black eyes gazed deep into his soul. "No one else must find those maps, because there are those who hunger only for the power it could give them."

"You mean the line about abyssal shame?" Lulu asked.

"Yes," Yuna answered. "I know she's probably talking about her shame in using magic on the ship, but... it sounds odd the way she chose to say it like that."

"It's a coded message," Lulu agreed. "She was trying to tell Tidus something without being overheard."

"She was?" He scratched the back of his head, feeling awkward for missing it. "I'm... not really good at picking up hints."

Yuna gave a light laugh. "No, you're not, are you?"

"But all she's saying is that the Founders didn't want the Farplane on the ship... right?"

"Abyssal shame... bears witness... and hides it... Abyssal shame hides it. ...Our shame..." Yuna suddenly whirled on Tidus with open-mouthed shock. "I know where she hid the travel log! She did the same thing Seymour did! She buried it with someone she loved! Baralai really needs to see this!"

"Hey! Woah! We can't just fly off to Bevelle tonight." Taking the sphere, he turned it off and returned it to the basket next to Kimahri's. Then he picked up the basket. "It's late. Tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, but do you realize what that means? It means Spira trusted you to help guard it."

He drew back with doubt. "She did?"

Yuna moved behind Lulu to kiss Vidina's sleepy little face as he sucked his thumb. "I'm really going this time. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." Lulu smiled and gave the baby a small bounce, as Wakka escorted both of them outside.

"I'll catch up with you in a minute," Tidus told Yuna.

"Okay. Goodnight." Yuna smiled and waved to Wakka before walking toward the village gates.

"Thanks for talking to the officials for me." Tidus shifted the weight of the basket in his arms. "And thanks for giving me the space to do this."

"No problem. You going to let us see any of those?" Wakka grinned.

"I might." Tidus drew back jokingly as if having to think about it first. Then, he leaned forward and lowered his volume. "Hey, I don't suppose you'd consider, uh, ... letting me borrow some space again later this week?"

"What, so you can make out on my floor again? Don't tell me you didn't, because I'm not stupid, ya? Storm door locked, pillows all over the place... I ain't running no love shack for you, man." He smacked the back of Tidus's head.

Tidus laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "Hey, I just wanted to watch my spheres in peace. She's the one who locked the door and insisted on having her way with me."

"Yuna came onto you? Yuna?" Wakka laughed out loud. "That's not even close to believable."

"It's true! I didn't do anything this time."

"Yeah, right! You're not even a good liar. And just for that, the only way you're going to persuade me to let you borrow the tent again is if you're offering to babysit."

"Uh, no. I'm only offering to house-sit."

"Nah, I think I heard the word 'babysit' somewhere in there."

"Then, I think you're losing your hearing, old man."

"Then, you need to get your own house, brat."

Tidus laughed at Wakka's teasing, but his gaze drifted back to Yuna as the distance and path carried her beyond his line of vision. "Nah, I kinda like being part of the crew for now. Maybe someday when I get tubby and want to retire… like you."

"Hey, hey. I'm working on it. Get off my back." Wakka rubbed his stomach and sucked in his gut, proud of his progress on getting back in shape so far. "Say, you know what? Lu and I were talking this morning, and we think we got an idea you might like."

))((

As Yuna walked back to the airship, happily humming to herself, she wondered if Shinra could convert any of the unbroken spheres in the sack into dress spheres. She wished she had thought of that in time to stop Tidus from dumping them in such a reckless manner.

After having watched the personal sphere regarding his nickname, they had watched a few others. He had chosen mostly animated moments with friends and family - spheres that felt more like who he was now, rather than who he was then. With time affecting subtle things like looks and behavior, he really was more like Shuyin's younger brother. Then again, maybe his existence was something she would never fully grasp. She didn't care to cross-examine it anymore.

She was looking up at the stars and reminiscing with a smile when her arm was grabbed roughly from behind. Startled, she dropped the bag of spheres and tried to draw her mage gun, but a sleep spell had already been cast over her. Her abductor caught her in his arms before she hit the ground, then both vanished.

))((

On his way back to the airship, Tidus saw the dropped bag of spheres in the road. He crouched to inspect and pick them up, but... where was Yuna? He called her name a few times and searched the area, but in the darkness of night, he saw no immediate trace. Snatching up the spheres, he ran back to the village and pounded on Wakka's hut. "Don't go to bed yet! Wakka, we need to search the area! Something's happened to Yuna!"

Wakka's threw open the curtains. "What?"

"The spheres she was carrying were all dropped in the middle of the road. Something's happened to her!"

"Okay, don't panic. I'll round up some people and torches. Go tell the ship's crew. See if she went there."

Tidus nodded and raced down the road back toward the airship. The Gullwings crew had not seen her return, but they joined the rest of the volunteers searching the island.

Yuna was nowhere to be found. The search continued until sunrise but turned up nothing.

Tidus returned to his futon and sat down, feeling completely empty. He had failed as her guardian when she needed him the most. Lowering his head in frustration, he grasped his hair between his fingers as his eyes fell on the spheres that she carried. She'd vanished without a trace. Without a trace... The body of the teleporting summoner had not been found. "Meimo," he growled beneath his breath.

Ransacking his collection of spheres for the one that Meimo and Kyudou had forced upon him, Tidus played back what Spira said to him. He tried hard to think the way Yuna would when looking for clues, but what had Yuna understood that he missed?

"Rikku! Paine!" He hurried down the stairs to where the two women sat at the bar, resting from their all-night search. "I think Meimo teleported Yuna to the Farplane."

"Meimo?" Rikku lifted her head from resting on her arms. "What would Meimo want with Yuna?"

Tidus set the sphere on the bar. "Revenge? The maps? Both? We never found his body, so it's a possibility, isn't it? Before Yuna left, she said she knew where the maps were hidden. I think the abyss that Spira mentioned is the Farplane's Abyss. Yuna thought Spira buried the travel log with someone she loved… like how Seymour buried his sphere with his mother. But how are we supposed to know who she loved and lost during her lifetime? We could go back to the Via Infinito and ask, but by then, it might be too late for Yuna!"

Paine and Rikku exchanged looks of surprise. Tidus was closer to solving the mystery than he realized. "Baralai showed us a sphere that contains footage of Maedra and Spira entombing their baby in the Farplane's Abyss," Paine told him.

"Maedra was Guado, so Spira's father disapproved of him and was ashamed of the baby," Rikku recalled, then gasped. "Meimo has nabbed Yunie to make her summon the baby's aeon! The baby's aeon must be guarding the maps!" Rikku jumped out of her seat and grabbed Tidus's wrists. "We have to go to the Farplane!"

"But I can't go to the Farplane!"

"No, but we can." Paine stood with a grim expression. "Contact Baralai about what's happened. He might have some ideas on how to interrupt Meimo's teleporting magic so that he doesn't get away again."

Tidus nodded, desperate to do something.

"Let's use Brother's shortcut," Paine suggested to Rikku, then the two of them ran down the hall to the lift.

Tidus headed to the bridge and told Shinra to contact Baralai in Bevelle. As soon as Baralai appeared on the screen, Tidus informed him of the situation.

"And you say Rikku and Paine are already on their way?"

"They left using a teleporter we left behind the first time we went," Shinra informed him.

Baralai was thoughtful for a moment. "Gippal and Nooj both happen to be lodging here in Bevelle because of the stuff going on with the Machine Faction and the set up for the Echo Alliance trials. I'll give them a wake-up call, and everyone can meet there."

))((

Yuna found herself lying among the flowers of the Farplane's Abyss when she woke from the sleep spell. Sitting up, she looked around to find that her only companion was a very angry, very disarrayed, fellow summoner. "Meimo." She glared at him with contempt—something she rarely did, but that was becoming more frequent with him. "Why did you bring me here?" she demanded.

His sharp, green eyes narrowed on her. "I think you know why. We both figured out where Spira hid her travel log by reviewing what she said to your guardian. Kyudou and I saw her other spheres before we were excommunicated from New Yevon, but we never would have put the clues together if she had not been willing to speak to your unsent boyfriend. Yes, I know it was horrible to use him like that, but who doesn't use other people for their own needs now and then?" Drawing near, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. "Some of us are just less sugar-coated about it than the rest of you."

She fumed upon realizing he had been spying on them at Wakka's hut. Struggling to pull away, she reached for her weapon only to find it had been removed, along with her garment grid. "So, this is your way of taking revenge on him?"

"No, that is merely a side benefit. Tidus actually did me a favor by killing off Kyudou. Now I'm in charge of the Echo Alliance, and I will revive it as soon as you summon that aeon for the map."

"Why can't you summon it?"

"I think you have a better chance of calling it back from its grave. You are, after all, the only high summoner to make it all the way to the final aeon's tomb during your pilgrimage to fight Sin and live to tell about it. And this baby was not human. Its father was the same powerful guado summoner who sealed it." Meimo pulled her to a place where he had dug the flowers completely away from a large, flat stone—the tomb of Spira's child. "Summon the aeon, Yuna. Summon it so I can have the travel log, or I will hunt your so-called guardian until there's nothing left of him to hunt. I can still send him, you know. When he least expects it, I can take him back to the Via Infinito or bring him here. How long do you think he'll last among these pyreflies? I might not even have to waste time and energy on a sending dance."

Yuna couldn't bear the thought of losing Tidus again, so she decided to give Meimo what he wanted, for now. New Yevon, the Gullwings, and the Machine Faction could launch another manhunt for him after she was free.

Though it had been a long time since she had summoned any aeons, Yuna approached the sealed tomb and knelt over its surface. This child was not a Fayth. This child was not completely human. And this child had died before even learning a language. What if it did not hear or understand her prayers? Yuna performed the initial magic, drawing the summoning circle and glyphs at her feet around the sealed tomb, but it was not enough. Closing her eyes, she tried to sense the child's spirit wandering near its tomb but felt nothing. She had to reach further. What was the child's name? Spira had cried out her baby's name in the spheres. "Arantisu! Please! Come to me, Spirit of Arantisu!" she called, as waves of summoning magic echoed throughout the Farplane.

The circle exploded with a bright light and a gust of wind. The seal that had protected Spira's baby for ages broke open, and the never-before-seen aeon hatched from a giant egg. A sheen of silver glossed the small, white dragon's scales, glinting off of the golden chain and large pendant that hung around its neck. Yuna stared at the aeon in awe for a moment. It was perhaps the most beautiful aeon she'd ever seen. "Arantisu..." Apologetic, for disturbing its rest, she stretched an open hand toward the creature.

Meimo snatched the pendant from the aeon's throat, then promptly cast a stone spell on it.

"No! NO!" Yuna whirled on him in anger. "It's just a baby!"

"Then that would explain why it's not strong enough to throw off the stone spell! I'm not about to make the same stupid mistake that Kyudou did with Shuyin. If I didn't summon it, I can't control it. But I have no further use for it." He cast a thundaga spell on the petrified aeon and turned away to avoid getting hit with the shattered pieces.

"NO!" Yuna cried out again and dropped to her knees over the tomb. Fists clenched, she choked back angry tears, but she had no time to run before a second stone spell froze and entombed her as well.

))((

With the aeon and Yuna safely removed, Meimo opened the pendant and freed the coveted silver disk within. Pleased beyond measure, he bowed to Yuna's statue, thanking her for her help. Then, he stepped through the portal into the Farplane's Heart.

Walking the past the repair stations that had been shut down for the night, he followed the machina path to the floating pedestals. Climbing the long trail of stepping stones that rose to the giant cable, he approached the center of the dome. Vegnagun had already been cleared away. The Machine Faction had done all the hard work for him.

Pausing over the platform, he crouched low and felt the floor for a thin crack in the surface. Then, he slipped the disk through the force shield and into the key slot. It clicked and whirred for the first time in ages, and the vast, empty spaces of the Farplane's Heart began to blur and shake. Something enormous began to materialize. Standing and opening his arms, Meimo welcomed the appearance of his hard-earned prize.

))((

Paine stepped through the teleporter. "Yuna!"

Behind her, Rikku spotted Yuna near the unearthed aeon's tomb and gasped. "She's been petrified!" The small thief pulled a vial of soft cream from her utility belt and began smearing it over the statue's face, arms, and hands. Smoke began to rise from the burning stone as it drew the spell to the surface of Yuna's body and transformed into a soft shell of dried mud. After a moment, Rikku was able to break and peel away chunks of the spell to uncover Yuna's face and head. Then Yuna herself was able to break through the shell over her hands and arms. Paine helped free Yuna's back and torso from the mud before it became too soft and stuck to her.

"Meimo!" Yuna coughed as she emerged from the softening cocoon. "He took Arantisu's pendant and went into the Heart!" Reaching a stiff arm to her friend for support, she tried to stand.

"We'll take care of Meimo," Paine promised. "You have someone else on the other side of that teleporter that's worried to death about you. Go let him know you're all right."

Yuna nodded in gratitude, then stumbled toward the teleporter.

))((

As soon as Yuna appeared in the hall outside of the Celsius's bridge, Tidus caught and pulled her to his chest, holding her tight. "Yuna! That bastard took you to the one place I couldn't go!" He unclenched his jaw and gritted teeth. "I'm so sorry I didn't walk with you."

Closing her eyes, Yuna buried her face into his chest. "You still knew where to find me. Thank you."

))((

Upon entering the portal to the Heart, Paine and Rikku came to an abrupt halt. Looming above them in the place where Vegnagun once sat was a large containment area they had never seen before.

"What the heck is that?" Rikku asked, astonished and frightened.

The portal from the Abyss opened behind them. Half-dressed in whatever they could throw on at a minute's notice, Nooj, Gippal, and Baralai came through, weapons readied.

"Where's Meimo?" Baralai surveyed the revelation with an unhappy expression. "Let me guess. He went in there?"

"He found the ship's bridge," Gippal muttered, awed and more than a little jealous he had not been able to find it himself. Then, he ran up the path that took him to where he once fought Vegnagun to admire the new machina that replaced it.

His four friends followed.

At the top, Gippal dropped to his knees and ran a hand over the platform's surface. "How did he know how to unlock it?"

"He had more of those old spheres than we did," Nooj reminded him. "One of them probably revealed the lock, but he didn't know where to find the key."

Gippal's fingers found the small crack in the surface and touched the disk inside of it, which was automatically ejected. The entire bridge started to fade.

"Put it back! Put it back!" Rikku cried out. "He'll know we're here!"

"Yeah, and shouting won't give him a clue otherwise." Gippal pushed the disk back into the slot to bring the bridge back.

"We can't waste time on this," Paine reminded them.

"If he teleports with the maps," Nooj agreed, "he can hide anywhere and come back to the bridge to control the ship at his leisure."

Standing, Gippal reached into his pocket and produced a hush grenade. "Think this'll do the trick?"

Fireballs suddenly exploded around them with the force of a quake. Meimo stood in the doorway of the bridge casting spells to get them off of his back once and for all.

"Do it!" Baralai told Gippal, casting a protective shell around him.

Gippal ran into another oncoming fire spell and pitched the grenades at the summoner's feet. A cloud of smoke puffed up around them, then Nooj ran after Gippal, readying his guns in case the silencing Meimo's magic didn't work.

The renegade summoner raised his staff to cast another fire spell but found he could not. Angered, he raised his hands to cast a teleport spell instead. Again, he found he could not. He was reaching into his pocket for something that would rid him of the silence enchantment when Nooj fired several shots at him.

Baralai rushed forward and thrust his bladed staff through the fallen summoner's shoulder, pinning him to the ground and further preventing any more spell casting. "Meimo, we meet again. But this time, I assure you we have plenty of good reasons to make sure you stay locked-up in Bevelle."

Gippal and Nooj glared at Meimo but then walked past him to inspect the newly discovered bridge of their homeworld—their spaceship—Spira. Two skeletons lay on the floor of the bridge, and one was still pinned to the wall by a stunning, antique summoner's staff.

"That had to hurt," Gippal quipped as he looked around, then walked to the control panel. After a quick scan, he was able to flip the switch that disabled the force shield. "Now, we can safely remove the key from the lock and look for the travel log itself."

Paine and Rikku entered the bridge behind him while Baralai and Nooj handled the injured summoner's arrest. "You mean that disk wasn't it?" Rikku asked.

"It's probably one of these." Paine indicated a collection of disks and spheres shelved near the navigation controls. "Or all of them."

"Jackpot." Rikku grinned.