Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X, Spira, blitzball, and all related characters and locations are owned by Squaresoft, with the exception of a few original characters who will be noted as such. This is a work of fanfiction, meaning that it is both created by a fan for no purpose other than entertainment, and it is fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely fictonal and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Gah; I'm running out of part names. _;; Oh, well, guess it's time for some resolution to begin. C'mon, this is the satisfying part; don't ruin it by suing me now! -__-;; I'm such a sap...
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes in Overdrive
by flame mage
round 15: Hero
**********
Eventually the two of us pulled ourselves together and doggy-paddled back to camp. This was a good thing, because by this point the fiends had moved from the lurking-ominously stage to the inching-slowly-closer-while-trying-to-look-nonchalant phase of the proceedings. I'm a blitzer; I know the tricks. Since Miyu was a goalie and therefore totally clueless about bluffs like that, this was another good thing, and probably the reason we managed to make it back in one piece (well, two pieces--one piece each--auggh, you know what I mean).
I was hoping Bickson would be there when we got back, but as it turned out, he was the only one who wasn't. Naida was still jabbering away to Reppi, who was starting to wear the same terminally hassled facial expression as Tidus had when the guys kept pelting me with blitzballs. Zalitz was strapped into one of the seabeds, apparently asleep but looking almost as good as new. The guys were kicking around a blitzball. Naaga had tried to hang her bag on a sharp rock overhang and was fretting over the fact that her stuffed Moogle was still sopping wet.
Jassu sidled up to me. "Hey, Cap'n, no offense, but...is your sister all there? You told us she was sixteen, ya?"
"You mean 'cause she's sixteen it's weird that she still sleeps with a stuffed Moogle and talks like a little kid?" I asked. He nodded. "Probably looks that way, I guess. In some ways, she never really got to *be* a little kid, o'ghuf? She was six when our parents died. Rin and I tried to take care of her, but she still had to grow up too fast. I was always on her ass about studying...anyway, I decided that playing dress-up with a stuffed toy wasn't as bad as getting into sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll--"
"Tuh'd oui *tyna* ghulg caq, tnikc, yht nulg 'h numm," Naida interrupted.
"--SO I LET HER," I continued in a much louder voice. "Don't let the little-kid act fool you, either. She's a lot sharper than you think."
"Leave it alone, Jass," Letty told him. "I think she's cute, ya?"
"Not gonna argue," the guard replied.
I didn't like the dreamy edge in his voice, so I decided to cut in. "Uhm...yeah, guys, that's great. Where's Bickson?"
"That guy?" Jassu asked languidly, having been snapped out of it. "I dunno. He's around somewhere."
"You guys been getting along okay?"
Letty shrugged. "Could be worse. I wouldn't have the guy over for dinner, but he's not as bad on his own as he is around Graav and Abus. Those two are the pits."
"Where'd he say he was goin' again, Lets?" Jassu wanted to know.
"He was lookin' for a way out, smart guy!" The forward smacked himself on the forehead and turned to me, shaking his head. "You wanna find him, Cap'n LinLin, I'd start by headin' back the way you came. There's a back way, so I'm figurin' he mighta headed out that direction once he figured out Evrae Altana was gone."
Jassu was blinking pretty hard. "Evrae Altana?"
"The dead thing?" I asked. He nodded. "Yeah, just checking. I'm gonna head out that way then. You guys get hungry, I think Zalitz has a couple marshmallows left."
They both lunged and started breast-stroking madly at the same moment. "Watch those arms! You move like that in a blitz sphere, you're gonna get pummeled!" I called after them. They both brought their arms in and started stroking with more power. Satisfied, I dragged out my spike ball and headed off into the sunset.
*****
For the most part, the fiends kept their distance as I made my way toward the cliff we'd jumped from, like they knew I was on a mission. Or maybe they saw the spike ball and were smart enough to stay away. Were they like humans? Did they still have human brains? I wasn't sure, and I didn't really want to find out.
I didn't stay long in the cliff room--bad associations--but kept going in that direction. I'd gotten two caves down when the fiends finally jumped me.
These were some seriously bad-ass fiends. Two of them were large manta-ray things that glowed and flapped their wings like waterlogged bats. They also made sucking noises like air being gulped through a snorkel that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. The other one was this spiny-looking fish thing that would have looked almost appetizing this morning but made me kinda nauseous now that I had a chance in hell of ever getting out and eating real food again.
It was pretty easy to punch holes in the little sucker things, but Spiny and I did not get along at all. It had this habit of slamming me up against the cave wall and trying madly to stab me with its fins, which were gleaming ominously. Ominously-gleaming things are always a bad sign in my book.
But it freaked me out for another reason--fiends don't do stuff like that. Fiends use magic or they rush you; I'd never seen one before that was bright enough to figure out how to beat its prey against a wall. Something was very wrong here. But since I couldn't put my finger on what, I kept beating the living crap out of the thing as best as I could without getting skewered.
The last time I put my hand flat on the spineless side of the ball, held it out, and took the rush with that hand like a matador. My glove took a beating, but my hand was okay and the thing gored itself and died.
"Ruf'c ed vaam, mihlrsayd?" I muttered.
I was crumpled against the wall at the time, but when I opened my eyes, I couldn't see a single Pyrefly. Not one.
Creepy.
*****
"Nice work," someone said from the opposite entrance. I jumped and looked up. The first thing my eyes registered was the shock of red, and then the cerulean and royal purple and gold of a Goer uniform. And finally the deep blue eyes, and the wide mouth that even now was folded into that trademark smug smile.
"Bick," I said stupidly, because I couldn't think of anything that would've worked better.
"Hey, green eyes," he said casually, like we hadn't been trapped in the Purgatory of a defunct religion for two days now. "How's it going?"
We coulda run into each other in the line at Mitza's back in Luca and the conversation would've gone the same way. "I'm alive, man," I told him, my brain still sorting through the important information it had gleaned in the last forty-eight hours. Finally it settled on, "I found Reppi."
"She was down here somewhere, huh? Wow. I was hoping you'd find her."
"Hmm." Something she'd told me was still bothering me. "Hey...why didn't you tell me about your parents? I woulda got it, y'know?"
He sighed, swam all the way into the cave, and pulled himself up onto a ledge. "It wasn't that easy, Lin." He was kicking his legs in the water, and it was splashing me in the face. I headed for the side and climbed up next to him. "I guess Reppi told you," he said, not looking at me. "I would've clued you in eventually, but...I never told anyone before. Remember the first night I took you to the stadium roof in Luca?"
"How could I forget?"
"I don't know why--something almost made me tell you. Maybe because your parents aren't around anymore either. But it wasn't Sin that killed them. It wasn't something terrible and tragic and unavoidable. It was me, Lin. I killed them."
"You didn't kill them, Bickson," I said, but it was mostly to myself. I don't think he heard me, and I don't think he would have believed me if he had. I didn't say anything for a while, just let him be alone, and eventually he turned to me with the grin back in place. "You really did a number on that sushi back there."
"You were watching?"
"You think I'd miss a show like that?"
"Why didn't you help instead of standing there like you needed a Soft?" Rim shot. Even I had to wince.
"I was waiting for you to Nap Shot it," he replied smugly.
Ooh. Opening. "I was waiting for you to come in and *swipe* my Nap Shot."
"Oww." He pantomimed an arrow flying into his heart. "Can't let that die, huh?"
"It's only been a couple weeks, babe; lemme cool off. Discretion is the better part of valor."
He grabbed my spike ball and spun the empty section on one "No, flatline plays are the better part of valor. Get it straight already."
"Flatline's for wusses," I cracked.
"Wusses, huh? I have a proverb for you, too: don't count your Chocobos before they hatch. If you think flatlines are for wusses, wait 'till you see what I've got planned for our big season finale."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "We've gotta make it back first."
"We're gonna make it back, green eyes," he said seriously, looking back at me. "I found an exit."
"Whaa?! A way out?!"
He nodded in total satisfaction--or was that more smugness? "Yep. Leads straight out of the temple. Not even guarded."
"What the hell are we waiting for?!" I snatched my spike ball back, jumped off the ledge, and started back the way I'd come. "Let's get the others and get out of here!"
He followed, more slowly. "There are probably still temple goons ready to find us if we run," he reminded me.
I just looked at him. "I've got a spike ball. I'll take my chances, babe."
"Whoa. That thing is wicked," he laughed.
"No kidding. You should see my Nap Shot now." I kept going.
"Hey. Wait a second," he called. I turned to face him. He was just treading water lightly in the center of the cave, looking at me.
"Yeah?"
"Remember what you said when...when they were taking us? Back with Mika? 'E muja oui'?"
"Oh, yeah." I suddenly became totally enthralled with the cave ceiling, then realized that probably wasn't the way to go about this. "It's Al Bhed. It means--"
"I know what it means." He cut me off and just looked at me for a few more seconds before swimming up next to me. My goggles hit the water with a soft plopping sound just before he said, "E muja oui duu, Linna."
I blinked at him. "When did you learn to speak Al Bhed?"
He just grinned. "It was one of the first things I asked your sister to teach me to say."
"Dryd yht dryd oui'na Mehhy'c syh-cmyja, nekrd?" I laughed.
"Pehku," he replied, putting his arms around me.
We stood like that a long time before we finally made our slow way back to camp.
**********
Translations:
"Tuh'd oui *tyna* ghulg caq, tnikc, yht nulg 'h numm." - "Don't you *dare* knock sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll."
"Ruf'c ed vaam, mihlrsayd?" - "How's it feel, lunchmeat?"
"E muja oui [duu]." - "I love you [too]."
"Dryd yht dryd oui'na Mehhy'c syh-cmyja, nekrd?" - "That and that you're Linna's man-slave, right?"
"Pehku." - "Bingo."
Gah; I'm running out of part names. _;; Oh, well, guess it's time for some resolution to begin. C'mon, this is the satisfying part; don't ruin it by suing me now! -__-;; I'm such a sap...
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes in Overdrive
by flame mage
round 15: Hero
**********
Eventually the two of us pulled ourselves together and doggy-paddled back to camp. This was a good thing, because by this point the fiends had moved from the lurking-ominously stage to the inching-slowly-closer-while-trying-to-look-nonchalant phase of the proceedings. I'm a blitzer; I know the tricks. Since Miyu was a goalie and therefore totally clueless about bluffs like that, this was another good thing, and probably the reason we managed to make it back in one piece (well, two pieces--one piece each--auggh, you know what I mean).
I was hoping Bickson would be there when we got back, but as it turned out, he was the only one who wasn't. Naida was still jabbering away to Reppi, who was starting to wear the same terminally hassled facial expression as Tidus had when the guys kept pelting me with blitzballs. Zalitz was strapped into one of the seabeds, apparently asleep but looking almost as good as new. The guys were kicking around a blitzball. Naaga had tried to hang her bag on a sharp rock overhang and was fretting over the fact that her stuffed Moogle was still sopping wet.
Jassu sidled up to me. "Hey, Cap'n, no offense, but...is your sister all there? You told us she was sixteen, ya?"
"You mean 'cause she's sixteen it's weird that she still sleeps with a stuffed Moogle and talks like a little kid?" I asked. He nodded. "Probably looks that way, I guess. In some ways, she never really got to *be* a little kid, o'ghuf? She was six when our parents died. Rin and I tried to take care of her, but she still had to grow up too fast. I was always on her ass about studying...anyway, I decided that playing dress-up with a stuffed toy wasn't as bad as getting into sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll--"
"Tuh'd oui *tyna* ghulg caq, tnikc, yht nulg 'h numm," Naida interrupted.
"--SO I LET HER," I continued in a much louder voice. "Don't let the little-kid act fool you, either. She's a lot sharper than you think."
"Leave it alone, Jass," Letty told him. "I think she's cute, ya?"
"Not gonna argue," the guard replied.
I didn't like the dreamy edge in his voice, so I decided to cut in. "Uhm...yeah, guys, that's great. Where's Bickson?"
"That guy?" Jassu asked languidly, having been snapped out of it. "I dunno. He's around somewhere."
"You guys been getting along okay?"
Letty shrugged. "Could be worse. I wouldn't have the guy over for dinner, but he's not as bad on his own as he is around Graav and Abus. Those two are the pits."
"Where'd he say he was goin' again, Lets?" Jassu wanted to know.
"He was lookin' for a way out, smart guy!" The forward smacked himself on the forehead and turned to me, shaking his head. "You wanna find him, Cap'n LinLin, I'd start by headin' back the way you came. There's a back way, so I'm figurin' he mighta headed out that direction once he figured out Evrae Altana was gone."
Jassu was blinking pretty hard. "Evrae Altana?"
"The dead thing?" I asked. He nodded. "Yeah, just checking. I'm gonna head out that way then. You guys get hungry, I think Zalitz has a couple marshmallows left."
They both lunged and started breast-stroking madly at the same moment. "Watch those arms! You move like that in a blitz sphere, you're gonna get pummeled!" I called after them. They both brought their arms in and started stroking with more power. Satisfied, I dragged out my spike ball and headed off into the sunset.
*****
For the most part, the fiends kept their distance as I made my way toward the cliff we'd jumped from, like they knew I was on a mission. Or maybe they saw the spike ball and were smart enough to stay away. Were they like humans? Did they still have human brains? I wasn't sure, and I didn't really want to find out.
I didn't stay long in the cliff room--bad associations--but kept going in that direction. I'd gotten two caves down when the fiends finally jumped me.
These were some seriously bad-ass fiends. Two of them were large manta-ray things that glowed and flapped their wings like waterlogged bats. They also made sucking noises like air being gulped through a snorkel that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. The other one was this spiny-looking fish thing that would have looked almost appetizing this morning but made me kinda nauseous now that I had a chance in hell of ever getting out and eating real food again.
It was pretty easy to punch holes in the little sucker things, but Spiny and I did not get along at all. It had this habit of slamming me up against the cave wall and trying madly to stab me with its fins, which were gleaming ominously. Ominously-gleaming things are always a bad sign in my book.
But it freaked me out for another reason--fiends don't do stuff like that. Fiends use magic or they rush you; I'd never seen one before that was bright enough to figure out how to beat its prey against a wall. Something was very wrong here. But since I couldn't put my finger on what, I kept beating the living crap out of the thing as best as I could without getting skewered.
The last time I put my hand flat on the spineless side of the ball, held it out, and took the rush with that hand like a matador. My glove took a beating, but my hand was okay and the thing gored itself and died.
"Ruf'c ed vaam, mihlrsayd?" I muttered.
I was crumpled against the wall at the time, but when I opened my eyes, I couldn't see a single Pyrefly. Not one.
Creepy.
*****
"Nice work," someone said from the opposite entrance. I jumped and looked up. The first thing my eyes registered was the shock of red, and then the cerulean and royal purple and gold of a Goer uniform. And finally the deep blue eyes, and the wide mouth that even now was folded into that trademark smug smile.
"Bick," I said stupidly, because I couldn't think of anything that would've worked better.
"Hey, green eyes," he said casually, like we hadn't been trapped in the Purgatory of a defunct religion for two days now. "How's it going?"
We coulda run into each other in the line at Mitza's back in Luca and the conversation would've gone the same way. "I'm alive, man," I told him, my brain still sorting through the important information it had gleaned in the last forty-eight hours. Finally it settled on, "I found Reppi."
"She was down here somewhere, huh? Wow. I was hoping you'd find her."
"Hmm." Something she'd told me was still bothering me. "Hey...why didn't you tell me about your parents? I woulda got it, y'know?"
He sighed, swam all the way into the cave, and pulled himself up onto a ledge. "It wasn't that easy, Lin." He was kicking his legs in the water, and it was splashing me in the face. I headed for the side and climbed up next to him. "I guess Reppi told you," he said, not looking at me. "I would've clued you in eventually, but...I never told anyone before. Remember the first night I took you to the stadium roof in Luca?"
"How could I forget?"
"I don't know why--something almost made me tell you. Maybe because your parents aren't around anymore either. But it wasn't Sin that killed them. It wasn't something terrible and tragic and unavoidable. It was me, Lin. I killed them."
"You didn't kill them, Bickson," I said, but it was mostly to myself. I don't think he heard me, and I don't think he would have believed me if he had. I didn't say anything for a while, just let him be alone, and eventually he turned to me with the grin back in place. "You really did a number on that sushi back there."
"You were watching?"
"You think I'd miss a show like that?"
"Why didn't you help instead of standing there like you needed a Soft?" Rim shot. Even I had to wince.
"I was waiting for you to Nap Shot it," he replied smugly.
Ooh. Opening. "I was waiting for you to come in and *swipe* my Nap Shot."
"Oww." He pantomimed an arrow flying into his heart. "Can't let that die, huh?"
"It's only been a couple weeks, babe; lemme cool off. Discretion is the better part of valor."
He grabbed my spike ball and spun the empty section on one "No, flatline plays are the better part of valor. Get it straight already."
"Flatline's for wusses," I cracked.
"Wusses, huh? I have a proverb for you, too: don't count your Chocobos before they hatch. If you think flatlines are for wusses, wait 'till you see what I've got planned for our big season finale."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "We've gotta make it back first."
"We're gonna make it back, green eyes," he said seriously, looking back at me. "I found an exit."
"Whaa?! A way out?!"
He nodded in total satisfaction--or was that more smugness? "Yep. Leads straight out of the temple. Not even guarded."
"What the hell are we waiting for?!" I snatched my spike ball back, jumped off the ledge, and started back the way I'd come. "Let's get the others and get out of here!"
He followed, more slowly. "There are probably still temple goons ready to find us if we run," he reminded me.
I just looked at him. "I've got a spike ball. I'll take my chances, babe."
"Whoa. That thing is wicked," he laughed.
"No kidding. You should see my Nap Shot now." I kept going.
"Hey. Wait a second," he called. I turned to face him. He was just treading water lightly in the center of the cave, looking at me.
"Yeah?"
"Remember what you said when...when they were taking us? Back with Mika? 'E muja oui'?"
"Oh, yeah." I suddenly became totally enthralled with the cave ceiling, then realized that probably wasn't the way to go about this. "It's Al Bhed. It means--"
"I know what it means." He cut me off and just looked at me for a few more seconds before swimming up next to me. My goggles hit the water with a soft plopping sound just before he said, "E muja oui duu, Linna."
I blinked at him. "When did you learn to speak Al Bhed?"
He just grinned. "It was one of the first things I asked your sister to teach me to say."
"Dryd yht dryd oui'na Mehhy'c syh-cmyja, nekrd?" I laughed.
"Pehku," he replied, putting his arms around me.
We stood like that a long time before we finally made our slow way back to camp.
**********
Translations:
"Tuh'd oui *tyna* ghulg caq, tnikc, yht nulg 'h numm." - "Don't you *dare* knock sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll."
"Ruf'c ed vaam, mihlrsayd?" - "How's it feel, lunchmeat?"
"E muja oui [duu]." - "I love you [too]."
"Dryd yht dryd oui'na Mehhy'c syh-cmyja, nekrd?" - "That and that you're Linna's man-slave, right?"
"Pehku." - "Bingo."