A/N: As 90% of the characters are Al Bhed, most of the conversation, I reasoned, would be done in Al Bhed. But... in a fic about an Anime, they'd all be speaking Japanese. Yet, we write it in English. Why? It's easier to read. So yeah, they're usually speaking in Al Bhed, but I don't think you wanna decipher every single goddamn line. You can thank me later ~_^
Serious Disaster by Akai Kuu
Chapter 1: Rikku, a Chimera, Plot, and the BFG
KABOOM!!
Rikku jumped about
twenty feet into the air as a lightning bolt slammed into the cactuar stone
right next to her.
"Still scared? Poor Rikku," Brother chimed, carrying a large pile of
machina parts. Rikku glared.
"Yeah, but I don't wanna get fried, you chicken-headed dork!" Brother dropped the parts, ready to get into a full-fledged squabble, but the force of gravity caused said parts to land on his feet. His curses and other profane phrases caught the attention of the entire, somewhat amused, camp, as well as his less-than-amused father.
"All right, all right!" grumbled Cid. "No more monkey-business
-if we wanna get anywhere out here, we gotta focus -An' stop pickin ' on yer
brother, Rikku!"
"But it's fun!" she pouted as Brother puffed out his chest. "Idiot,"
she mumbled, retrieving some of the parts.
Her father had decided, after falling into that cave in the Thunder
Plains last year, that the machina down there were too intruiging and
potentially valuable to pass up. Rikku
was inclined to agree, but she really didn't think that her old man should take
about 30 people, mostly Al Bhed, to the Plains to retrieve, store, and
catalogue the parts while the lightning towers were out of order. Especially if one of those Al Bhed was
her. She shivered at another explosion, far enough away to not give her a heart
attack.
"Rikku!" Her father's voice called as another blast sounded.
"Get the hell over here!" Dumping the parts into another girl's arms,
Rikku bolted over to Cid, more blasts sounding in rapid succession, sometimes
accompanied by inhuman screams.
Something was very, very wrong -those blasts were NOT thunder!
"Vydrad?"
she gasped as she arrived at his side, panting.
Everyone was staring southeast; the camp was on a slight elevation, thus
while they could hear the destruction quite clearly indeed, all they could see
of it were flashes of white light, their sources hidden by the slope of the
hill.
"Rikku," Cid began slowly. "Uh, it's gettin' kinda close to the
camp, and, uh..." Rikku nodded vigorously.
"So you want me to smash it, right Pops?" She chirped. Cid was a bit taken aback by her willingness. "No problem! I can't have the whole camp dying because my pops is an idiot!" Readying her weapons, she bounced up, then made a mad dash toward the battle, skidding down the side of the hill.
Once she had dug her sneakers into the ground to stop her descent, she found
herself standing behind a massive chimera; whatever it was that was causing the
explosions was a lot smaller than it, and also in front of it. Rikku found herself having an odd affinity
toward the attacker -she hated chimera. Their three heads always glared at her,
and only HER, whenever she and the girls fought one... Then she'd get soaked
and frozen and zapped and fried and ... The Al Bhed girl shook her head.
"Ooh, now is NOT the time!" She instead watched the battle ensue,
waiting for her opening. Several rays of light would explode, shoot out around
it in tendrils, then converge in a giant blast of white light. Rikku knew a machina when she saw it -or even
when she didn't see it; one of the hole's ancient machina was on the
fritz! She had to get rid of this
nuscience first before she could take care of the real problem.
Taking aim, she hurled one of her sai in the chimera's direction. It buried itself deep in one of the beast's necks.
"Woohoo!
I rock!" She cheered, bouncing a little. With a whine, the chimera fell to the
charred earth in a swarm of pyreflies. "Yeah! Yeah! Yea-uh oh." Her
eyes widened -another volley of machina-fire was heading her way!
"Gah!" shouted two human voices as Rikku dropped to eat some dirt.
She covered her ears as the energy blasts slammed into the earth all around
her. "I'm gonna die," she
chanted again and again, eyes squeezed shut as debris brushed and battered
against her. Even if this first volley
missed her, the second would be aiming for her, not the now-extinct
chimera. And this wasn't some
run-of-the-mill machina, either. Where the hell was pops?!
As if in
some sort of answer, things quieted.
Still shaking, the only sounds the terrified ex-guardian now heard were
slow human bootsteps coming toward her.
They stopped, and she sensed a presense standing over her.
"W-wah," she wailed, too petrified to even open her eyes. A familiar
chuckle caught her ears, and they snapped open in annoyance.
"Heh heh heh... woops. Sorry about that." Gippal stood before her, holding his massive, smoking machina weapon in his arms. Rikku glared evilly at him, trying to look as imposing as possible from her fetal position on the ground.
"You IDIOT!" She squeaked, recieving only a slight laugh in reply. Gah, he could be sooo annoying sometimes!
"Hey,"
he said as he shouldered his weapon, a bit more seriously. "You all
right?" He knelt before her, peering as she continued to glare
daggers. "I didn't break ya, did I?
'cuz if you get messed up, Daddy's gonna
kill me." He frowned deeply; her
only reply was her endless deathglare, smouldering more and more. "Seriously, you ok? Your face stuck like
that?" He poked her experimentally, causing a giggle. The grin returned to his face. "That's
more like it!"
"Ooooh, what is it with you and your BFG?" she relented, finally
sitting up.
"Hey, it's my baby!"
"You're gonna kill something with that kid," Rikku countered. "Particularly ME!" Gippal rubbed
the back of his neck, standing up again.
"YOU!" Shouted an angry voice, attached to an angry finger pointing
angrily at Gippal.
"Me?"
Gippal replied with a blink, staring at the hand and the arm and the very angry
guy. "Oh, hi Brother."
"Don't you 'hi Brother' me!" Brother screamed in his distinct accent,
flapping his arms. A small crowd was
gathering, a bit surprised at Gippal's presense.
But not Brother's behavior. You had to get used to that pretty quickly.
"What did I do now?" Gippal muttered, his exasperation masked by another blast of thunder. Something tugged on his pant-leg, and he glanced down to see a secretive-looking Rikku.
"He's still pissed off about his little girlfriend that you stole," she muttered, sounding embarassed. He shook his head and began to rub his temples. Just as he was about to point out that he had been nine years old at the time, a loud, inherantly crass voice rolled across the Plains above the thunder.
"GIPPAL!!" Cid dashed down the hill, looking oddly hilarious. "The hell're YOU doin' here?!" Gippal shook his head, his grin slanting as he lifted a hand to salute haphazardly.
"Yo."
--------------------------------------------------------
Gippal sat cross-legged in his tent, cleaning the soot, dirt, and other
assorted grimies from his 'big fuggin' gun', as Rikku had dubbed it. A small machina, just an orb with a metal
base that was tied to the ceiling by a string, shone softly, giving him an odd
blue light to work by.
Thunder rolled outside. He was glad he'd run into this little camp out here; he'd been walking, running, tripping, and shoopuffing his way to Bevelle nonstop. He was in the home stretch now, but damn, did it feel good to have a break -even if it happened to be in the middle of a perpetual lightningstorm.
Actually, Cid wasn't that stupid. Most of the work was going on underground -either in the ruins themselves or here where the tents were, in a good-sized cave against the eastern boundries of the Plains. Here he could chill without worrying about becoming barbequed.
"So," came a familiar voice from his tent-flap, "what are you doing out here?" Gippal shook his head, smirking at his friend.
"Now, what would Daddy say if he knew his little girl were barging into other people's tents, huh?" Again, he shook his head as Rikku pouted. "Heh, c'mon in."
Rikku bounced into the tent, having a seat next to Gippal as he patted the spot beside him with his hand. He wasn't ignoring her by any means; he fully acknowledged her presense. However, he continued to work on his weapon silently, aside from the occasional muttered curse as something in the wiring sparked and shocked his ungloved hand.
"It goes there," chirped Rikku, peering over his shoulder. His eye followed her, almost suspiciously, as he slowly followed her instruction. "Thaaaaaanks," he said at length, flicking one of her earrings as an afterthought.
"Wow, where did you get this?" Rikku wondered, eyeing the machina in Gippal's lap. "This isn't like anything I've seen... didja find it?" Gippal grinned, proud of himself.
"Yeah, when I was... what, eight? Yeesh, I'm surprised you don't remember," he chuckled, trying to look hurt. He gave the gun an almost affectionate pat. "Been soupin' her up ever since."
"It
looks like a mecha porcupine fused with a set of bagpipes," she stated.
Gippal gave her an odd look, feeling her forehead.
"What?" She said, blinking up at his hand, going somewhat
cross-eyed. Gippal let his hand fall
into his lap with yet another shake of his head. "Riiiiiiiiiight."
"Seriously -where are you going?" She sounded genuinely curious. Gippal rubbed the back of his neck.
"Bevelle."
She blinked at him. "Is Baralai ok?" Again, he was somewhat hesitant -and not entirely sure why.
"Well,
it's kinda like this.... Remember all those spheres Trema took?" Rikku
shuddered at the mention of the name. "Yeah, well... they're thinkin'
Baralai's hiding 'em. People're startin'
to get pissed."
"But he isn't!" Rikku almost shouted, causing Gippal to blink. Since
when had she gotten so chummy with Baralai? "Trema destroyed those
spheres, and they turned into pyreflies floatin' around in Via Infinito!!"
"Oooookay," said Gippal, setting his machina down. "He did what, they did what, where, and
how the hell do you know?"
His eyes
didn't leave Rikku as she fiddled with her hands. "Weee-eeeellll..."
She stuck out her tongue. "I don't think I'm gonna' tell you!"
"What?!" Rikku nodded in satisfaction. "Agh, c'mon," he
grumbled, running a hand through his hair. "This is important, kid!
You don't want that pretty boy ta get tarred an' feathered, do ya?" He
tried to give her a pathetic face, but she stuck out her tongue again. Annoyed, Gippal made a grab for it.
"Blaff!"
"C'mon, spill it!" He was
forced to let go as Rikku kneed him in the arm.
"Hey, that was mean!" She sniffed.
Gippal folded his arms haughtily. "Yeah, well... so's keepin'
secrets." He turned to face her
fully, his face quite serious.
"C'mon Rikku," he said quietly. "Please?"
"OK," she said. Well, that had been easy. Had he said some sort of magic word? "Well, uh.. Via Infinito..." She shuddered. "This could take awhile -you got any food?"
He rolled his eyes and laughed, reaching into his pocket and tossing her a cookie. "Man, it's almost like I planned to bump into ya when I packed that," he chuckled.
"Righ', ok!" She shoved the last bits of cookie into her mouth. "Via Infinito... s'in Bevelle. Under Bevelle." Gippal furrowed his brows.
"Y'mean
where they kept Vegnagun?"
Rikku shook her head. "No," she whispered, "I think this place
is even older than that. There really
aren't any machina -just lots of glyphs and lifts and creepy temple
stuff." She shuddered again.
"And fiends. A lot of
fiends... but the worst part..."
He leaned forward. There was a "worst part" after all of that?
"The
worst part," she continued, "is all of the pyreflies... and
unsent.." Gippal's visible eye widened. "It's like the freakin'
Farplane under there," she wailed, latching onto his arm.
He patted her head. "What were ya
doin' in a place like that?"
"It's not like I wanted to be! Just Yunie followed some kids down there and there was this scary unsent guy and Paine was like," Rikku deepened her voice here, trying to look as mean as possible. "'Well we should follow' and I was like, 'Nuh-uh, nooo way!'" She shook her head. "But the creepy unsent guy said that Trema had been down there a year earlier or something so..."
And thus began Rikku's tale. Gippal sat on his blankets, Rikku still quasi-latched to his arm, for the next hour or so. He listened, for the most part, with rapt attention, although he sometimes cracked a joke or snuck in a snide comment to get a laugh or two. This story needed it: as Gippal understood it, Rikku's was a tale of fiends, dead people, fiends, annoying glyphs, fiends, embarassing dresspheres, fiends, more dead people, fiends, Yuna's bad cooking, fiends, fiends, and fiends.
"Did
I mention," panted Rikku, wrapping up her story, "that there were a
lot of fiends?!"
Gippal scratched his temple. "Ah..nope, I think you must've missed that
part." He kept an absolutely straight face; the man deserved an Academy
Award. Instead, he got a playful slug
in the arm. "Hey!" He laughed. "Watch it!"
"Quit being a dork!" Rikku laughed back, and Gippal grinned. He faintly registered that, at least for now, life almost seemed normal. Nevermind that they were discussing a bunch of dead guys.
"So
lemme get this straight," he made his reluctant return to
seriousness. "You went down, about
a zillion -by your scientific calculations- levels down, only to find Trema was
unsent, crazy, and he had destroyed all the spheres."
"And there was hurt," she reminded him. He really didn't like to think about some
uberpowerful, sadistic, undead geezer pounding the crap out of Rikku or Paine,
let alone both. Although he did like the
part where they pounded back, and mercilessly.
Those two must be paying attention to his style, he reasoned.
"Uh,
yeah, that too -but it's the sphere thing..." He rubbed his chin with his
free hand. "They're machina, aren't they? Spheres I mean... We're Al Bhed,
we know that."
"Yupyup," said Rikku. "I dunno what the heck the Yevon baldies
wanted people to think-"
"But they probably thought it."
He shook his head, leaning back a little. "OK, what gets me is.. when you
dismantle or otherwise destroy a machina, it just falls apart, blows up -even
Vegnagun had no pyreflies involved..."
"Maybe...
maybe they're not machina," Rikku said quietly. Gippal gave her an incredulous look, and she
quickly explained herself. "Maybe there's a property in the sphere that
captures the memories of people.... and can play them back.."
"Ya think that's what the pyreflies were about?"
"Maybe -we still don't even know what those are."
He became lost in deep thought, taking in all of this new information. He'd never imagined that Rikku and Paine had enjoyed this degree of "fun" with the High Summoner. Man, he thought they'd just taken their time reaching Vegnagun... Of course, back to saving Baralai's skin -how could this info help him? He could reveal the info, but would that be such a great idea? How much of it could he spill and still be believed? He faintly registered a voice speaking his name, several times; he gave his companion's hand a bit of a squeeze to let her know he was conscious, but out in the twilight zone. Would he even be believed if he told everyone everything? If it hadn't been one of his friends telling him all of this face-to-face, he might not have believed it either... well, maybe not a few months ago. He'd seen some pretty weird crap lately. OK, so--
"Uhm, Gippal?" Rikku repeated, a bit louder. "My, uhm, arm is asleep?" Gippal sweatdropped; he had sort of pinned her hand to he floor of his tent.
"RIKKU!!" Shouted the unmistakable voice of Brother. Gippal wondered what it would be like if he were Rikku, introducing family ("And this is my brother, Brother.") He lurched as Rikku pulled her hand free, causing his weight to shift.
"I'd better get outta here -Brother will freak." She rolled her eyes and laughed. He smacked his forehead -was it him, or did Brother just not like him, plain and simple? He waved back.
"It's
getting late," he managed to be heard saying above Brother's hollering.
"Go get your beauty sleep, Cid's girl!"
She fumed at his grin, stomping her feet. "You will memorize my
name, one of these days!!" With a huff, she was gone.
"Heh," was his only comment. He flicked his light off, removed his eyepatch, and fell back into his blankets. He would have seemed asleep to any who saw him, but in actuality he hardly slept at all that night, digesting this newfound information in his mind.
There was that, and the Sphere Call he got at just before four in the morning.
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A/N: Wow. Notes. Whatev. Er.