And now we get back to the real scenes. I put this one off somewhat, but here it is, with a slightly different tack. It's shorter because I think you wouldn't stop to chat if the building was caving in around you.
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Darkness Falls
Chapter 11: Boom
Rikku looked around the room, and fell to her knees. They had been too late. She ran around the room, searching every corner, looking for any sign that the summoner had been here, but there was nothing.
Meanwhile, Tidus seemed to be thinking about something. 'Rikku, you said that you protect the summoners, right? But guardians do that. You've got no right to kidnap them like this.'
Rikku looked back at him in puzzlement. Didn't he know?
Tidus continued on, oblivious. 'If we guardians do our job, the summoner will be safe, right?' Everyone looked at him. No-one spoke. 'Right!?' Still no-one uttered a word. 'RIGHT?!'
Rikku looked at Lulu. 'You didn't tell him?' she whispered.
Lulu shook her head slowly. Tidus ran forwards and grabbed hold of Rikku's shoulders, shaking her and demanding an answer.
'What is it? What are you hiding!?' he shouted at the world in general and Rikku in particular.
The young Al Bhed looked at him blankly. 'The Final Aeon always kills the one who summons it,' she said simply.
Tidus jerked back as if visibly struck. He looked at Rikku, then around at the others in disbelief. 'She's lying,' he said, wanting someone to agree. Lulu shook her head. 'Why didn't you tell me!?' he shouted to the room.
'We weren't hiding it..,' Wakka said.
'...It was just too painful to say,' Lulu finished for him.
Tidus looked around at them, seemingly angry and/or crushed. He walked up to Rikku and looked like he was about to hit her when a massive crash resounded through the building they were in. Rikku and Tidus both stumbled, and then they heard Cid's voice over the PA talking in Al Bhed. Rikku forgot all about their argument and cursed.
'What is it?' Auron asked.
Rikku turned to look at him. 'Cid's sent the auto-destruct sequence, we have to get out of here!' she said.
Auron nodded. 'Which way?' he said.
Rikku pointed to the way the others had come in. 'Airship is that way,' she said, and ran through the door. 'I'll tell Cid to hold off a little longer!' she shouted as the door cycled shut behind her.
Tidus turned to look at Auron. 'You knew all this didn't you?' he said angrily. The older guardian nodded. 'Then why didn't you say anything!? You knew I didn't know!' Tidus shouted.
'Would you still have come here if you knew?' he said. Tidus was about to reply when Rikku ran back in to the room.
'We've got ten minutes, so let's argue on the ship please?' she said, glancing back at the door. As one, they nodded their heads and ran out through the door.
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Ivan sat down on the dune, well away from Home, and watched the firework display. Caryl looked up from her scanner. 'Look at all the pretty colours,' she said sarcastically. Ivan nodded. It was a damn shame.
'What now?' someone whispered behind him. It sounded like Kirsten. He shrugged.
'We meet up with Team-2 as planned, then find the nearest salvager and go to anywhere that will take us.' He heard a siren, and turned back to look at Home. 'Self-destruct, we'd better make tracks.' he said, and ran down the next dune, his squad following close behind.
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Rikku ran up the stairway to the airship, the others in close pursuit. She turned back to look. 'Guys? A little faster if you wouldn't mind. I don't want to be here when these things go off,' she said.
'We're going as fast as we can,' Wakka said, out of breath. Not everyone had Al Bhed agility, and they had had to take two detours around battles or collapsed corridors on the way here.
Rikku shrugged and climbed up the access hatchway into the ship. Leaving the panel open for the rest of them to climb in, she ran through the airship, dodging other panicked Al Bhed, searching for the bridge. She thought she knew where it was, but everything looked different when it wasn't submerged in water. She ran through a large red doorway and came across a large room with windows that looked out onto a solid wall of metal.
The cockpit. She breathed a sigh of relief. She saw a figure standing near the driver's seat, and shouted to him. He turned around and she let out her breath. 'Vydran!' she said.
Cid looked at her and also breathed a sigh of relief. He moved around to her, and Rikku saw her brother in the driver's chair, powering up the airship's systems. 'Rikku? You OK?' he asked.
She waved to him and, heard the door behind her cycle open again. She turned to see the others walk into the room, looking around at the machina displays, some in wonder, some in confusion, and one in suspicion. That blitzer would never change.
Cid looked past her and saw them as well. 'These your friends?' he asked in Spiran. Rikku nodded. 'Nice to meet y'all. Sorry about the greeting, but we don't have much time left,' he said, and turned back to Brother and started shouting instructions at him.
'Why do we not have much time?' Auron said.
'Because Home will blow up in about two minutes,' Cid said without looking round, then went back to shouting at Brother.
Wakka's eyes went wide. 'What?! Then why are we still here?!' he asked, panicked. In answer, the ground beneath them started to vibrate, and Wakka grabbed hold of the nearby work-surface, luckily he missed pressing any buttons. Rikku ran up to the right-hand board and looked out of the window.
'Erm, why is the ground falling away?' Tidus asked.
Rikku smiled. 'It's not. We're rising,' she said. As she spoke a long shaft of light appeared on the wall opposite them as the hanger doors began to slide open. Rikku looked at the catwalks on the wall as they rose from the hanger where the airship was stored, and saw the bodies of those either too slow or too unlucky to make it. She sighed. Damn Yevon. She was about to turn away when she saw something on one of the higher 'walks. She squinted her eyes and gasped. It was the Chimera, and it was looking at her. They observed each other for a few seconds, and then Rikku held out her hand and gave a small wave. In reply the Chimera reared up and gave a huge roar, then it passed out of sight.
Wow, she thought. She looked around at the others. Wakka and Lulu looked slightly scared, although she knew they would never admit it. Tidus was looking out the nearest window, an expression of disbelief on his face, Strange; you'dve thought they would have had airships in Zanarkand. Auron, as usual, just looked bored.
The airship swung round to make it's escape, and Rikku got one last look at Home before it was destroyed. She saw the fiends fly around the once great but now wrecked spires, and the bodies that littered the ground. She looked at the display. Ten seconds. She braced herself for the explosion, and heard Cid tell everyone else to do the same. When, after ten seconds had passed and Home still stood, she heard Cid say one word in Al Bhed.
'Missiles.' Brother looked as if he was about to complain, but one look at their father's face convinced him otherwise.
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'It didn't blow up,' Ivan said from the desert floor. They had clapped when the airship had risen from it's hanger, and had all thought; 'Why weren't we on that? But they had chosen to go through the desert, and no-one could follow them there. Ivan sighed. 'Never mind, lets go,' he said, and turned to head out. The SAS commandos were heading up the side of the next dune when they heard a whoosh above them, and as one looked up to see the airship streak over their heads, contrails coming out of it's missile pods.
Alexia was the first one to look back, and her eyes went wide. 'Erm, sir?' she said, backing away from the direction of Home.
'Yeah?' he replied, looking around. He heard a boom as the contrails reached the building and exploded. It was like someone had fired some kind of detonator into Home, and suddenly there was a huge wall of red and orange fire, advancing towards them across the desert.
'Go, go, GO!' he screamed at the others, and they ran for the top of the dune, jumping over the summit and burying themselves in sand as they hit the ground. A few seconds later, the shockwave passed over them, and they all felt a blast of heat slide over their backs. After a few seconds they tried to stand up, and to their surprise the sand shattered around them. Kirsten was the first to speak.
'Was this glass desert here a minute ago?' she asked, looking across the transformed dunes.
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Rikku shielded her eyes as the place she had known as home all her life blew apart from the combined assault of twelve charges placed to bring down the individual spires and the few dozen missiles fired from the ship.
She heard Wakka's voice behind her, and felt his hand on her shoulder. 'Never mind. Boom! Like happy festival fireworks ya?' he said to try and cheer her up.
She looked up into his eyes with a gaze so full of sadness and rage you could turn to dust just by looking at it. 'You can cram your big festival fireworks you big meanie!' she shouted at him, brushing off his hand and running from the bridge. He went to go after her, but Auron put his hand on her shoulder.
'Let me talk to her,' he said. Wakka nodded, and stood back as Auron left the bridge to go after the girl.
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Rikku ran through the airship's corridors, trying to outrun her tears. Eventually though they caught up with her in the engine room, and she lay against the ancient machina and wept.
Damn Yevon, damn the Guado, and damn you Seymour! She hit the wall with her fist, and because she couldn't think of anything better to do she did it again. That felt better. Why did everything have to turn out this way? she asked the world. The world had no reply that she could hear. She composed herself and turned to go back to the bridge when the door slid open, and she found herself face-to-face with Rin.
The man just looked at her for a few seconds. 'I am sorry for your loss,' he said.
Rikku blinked and wiped away tears. 'Thank you,' she whispered.
He placed his hands on her shoulders. 'Do not worry little one, you will survive. You are strong like that,' he said, a smile on his face. 'We can always build a new Home.'
She laughed slightly and grinned. Rin patted her on the shoulder, and then cocked his head. 'I believe one of your companions searches for you,' he said.
Rikku simply nodded and walked past Rin, back towards the bridge. She stared at the ground on her way back, and so didn't see Auron until she was right on top of him.
'Woah!' she said as she barely stopped in time to avoid hitting the sword-wielder.
'Rikku, are you all right?' he asked.
Rikku looked surprised. Compassion? From Auron? She shrugged. 'I just needed some space,' she said simply.
'I told you not to worry about Wakka, he does to put his foot in his mouth a lot,' he said. They both smiled.
'Yeah, I noticed,' Rikku replied. They turned and began walking towards the bridge again. She looked across at Auron, and noticed that he was looking at Rikku strangely. 'What?' she asked.
'Rikku, what did that fiend in Home mean?' he asked.
Rikku stopped and turned to look at him head on. 'What do you mean?' she whispered.
'I heard what it said, what did it mean 'as we are, so you will be?'' he asked, no trace of menace or suspicion in his voice.
'It's nothing, just some unsent who got turned into a fiend probably,' she said. Then she realised she had said more than she had meant to. Lulu stared at her.
'Rikku, is there something you're not telling us?' he asked quietly.
Rikku just looked at him. 'No,' she said quietly, and walked off.
Auron stood there watching the girl walk off. No. It couldn't be.
Could it?
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I did say.
