Disclaimer: We do not own Final Fantasy X-2 or any of the related characters or places.
Warning: Very dark and slightly morbid story. @.@
Branded
Gasping for air, Yuna stood up straight, steadying herself on her white mage staff. "Curaga!" she cried, using what little energy she had left to twirl the rod around her head.
Paine and Rikku forced themselves up as well.
"What'll we do, Yunie?" Rikku asked, wiping a trail of blood from her mouth. "He's not getting any weaker!"
The Zu rose into the air and dove back down, Paine jumped out of the way just in time for it to drive its beak into the parched soil.
"I don't know," Yuna stated, "It isn't susceptible to any status effects that I know of."
"Damn," Paine mumbled, running at the winged beast and stabbing it for the umpteenth time with her warrior blade. "This isn't working!" she declared. "We need a new plan!"
Uncertain of what action to take, Yuna healed the party a second time. "Any ideas?"
"Rikku! The berserker dressphere! Use it!"
"Right!" The blond Al-Bhed pulled out the golden sphere and held it in her hand. Slowly her thief garment was replaced with animal skins. With her newly formed claws, she slashed at the Zu, then backed up between the other girls.
"Keep at it," Yuna said, casting a protect spell on Rikku. "We'll bring it down eventually."
Paine transformed into her Dark Knight dressphere. "Let's do it," she said monotonously, readying herself to cast Darkness.
Rikku nodded and attacked the fiend again. The beast screeched angrily and flapped its mighty wings and sent a shockwave of wind at the sphere hunters. The forced knocked all three down.
Rikku growled and stood back up.
"Paine, don't cast Darkness!" Yuna warned, "That attack weakened you too much!"
But the silver haired young woman did not listen. She gave her all into that spell and afterward she lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, unconscious.
"Full-life!" Yuna yelled and Paine reopened her eyes. Grimacing, she pulled herself up and leaned against her gigantic sword, gripping her side in agony.
"I'm out of mp," Yuna announced. "Do we have any more ethers?"
"They're really hard to come by, and we're totally out," Rikku announced, dodging another attack.
"Rikku!" Paine shouted, struggling to stand back up. "Cast berserk! That may be our only chance to beat this bastard."
Rikku's eyes widened. She hated casting berserk on herself. "Do I have to?"
The Zu dove at them again, and this time he hit his target. His beak came down on Yuna's head. Her blue and green eyes crossed and she collapsed to her knees.
"Yunie!" Rikku screamed.
"Yuna!" Paine yelled at the same time. Yuna groaned from the ground, but made no effort to move.
"Oh no, Yunie!"
"Stand back!" Paine demanded, changing into the alchemist dressphere. She pulled a Hi-Potion from her stash and forced it down Yuna's throat. Yuna blinked awkwardly and brought a hand up to her forehead where blood was steadily trickling down.
"Oh, Yevon," she murmured, looking at her red stained fingers. She went limp for a second then used another potion.
"If you're out of mp your white mage dressphere is useless. Change into something else," Paine said, shooting her large machine gun. The bullet hit the fiend directly in the chest and still it seemed unaffected. "Did the damn thing go into oversoul!?"
"Rikku, Paine was right. Cast berserk," Yuna said weakly, still sitting on the ground, holding her head.
"But…" Rikku looked helplessly around. Yuna was seriously hurt; they needed to get rid of this beast quickly, Yunie could die if they didn't get her back to the Celsius soon. Paine was still fighting, but the Al-Bhed knew she couldn't last much longer. But she hated casting berserk. It scared her. She couldn't control her actions. Something took over her. Something that felt…evil. Something that took pleasure killing, enjoyed bloodshed, and relished victory. That feeling made her feel so dirty, so sinful when the battles were over. Blood covered she would stand there, claiming victory for a battle that something evil had won for her.
"Rikku! Now!" Paine yelled, more forceful this time.
Rikku winced and cast the hated spell. Her eyes turned red and a crimson aura surrounded her. Yuna sighed in relief and stood up, immediately changing into her gunner dressphere, she had mastered most of the abilities for the gunner anyway.
Almost as if she were completely a different person, Rikku slashed and hacked at the enemy. After only a minute, it already looked as if the Zu's left wing was useless. Still the fiend snapped at them, stomped on them and pecked them, using the only defenses it had left.
Rikku brought her clawed gloves to her face and licked the blood from the matted fur. Paine cocked her eyebrow and watched the normally perky teenager in a mixture of interest and fear.
"Come on, Yuna, let's bring it down," she shouted, prying her eyes away from Rikku's abnormal behavior.
Yuna released several rounds of ammo on the monster while and Paine switched back to her warrior dressphere. She was able to fight better with a sword than a gun.
Rikku ran back up to the weakening Zu and slashed at the beast's torso, finally the fiend collapsed.
"Great one, Rikku!" Yuna yelled, jumping up and firing a shot into the air.
"Back to the Celsius," Paine sighed. With a sigh she pulled a cloth from her pocket and started to clean the thick blood from her sword. As she sheathed the blade, she heard someone approach from behind her.
She turned around to see a flash of red eyes. "Rikku, what are you doing!?"
The spell wore off, and finally Rikku could look around as herself once again. Rain slapped against the dirt road of the Mi'ihen Highroad, everything was muddy and wet. She glanced around and her eyes first landed on the carcass of the Zu. "We killed it," she smiled triumphantly. She wondered where the others were and why they didn't wait for her. This was answered when she tripped over something on the ground.
She caught herself before she fell and looked down. It was Paine. She had an enormous gash in her stomach which she was still holding with her hand. "Paine, Paine!!? Are you alright!?" she screamed, looking down at the motionless body. No answer, not a single one.
Eagerly, the Al-Bhed pressed her ear against the sphere hunter's breast, and from what she heard there was no heartbeat. "Oh God," she cried, rummaging through her bag, but the claws made it difficult. She quickly changed back into her thief garment, and pulled a Phoenix Down from the pocket of her skirt. She knew that the most it could do was recover Paine's consciousness if she was knocked out, and she was hoping this was the case. But it wasn't working.
"Where's Yunie?" she asked, frightened. "She'll know what to do! She probably already went and got help!"
Confusedly she ran around the battle sight, and found Yuna not too far off. Her light brown hair was sticking to her face and she had many wounds all over her too. The most devastating was no longer the gash in her head made by the Zu, but the deep claw marks all over her mid section.
"Claw marks!!?" Rikku gasped and looked down at her hands. They were caked in blood, the blood of her friends. Her skin everywhere was blood stained, and even the area under her fingernails were tinted red. "No, this can't be happening," she cried. "It has to be a nightmare. Brother will wake me up any minute and tease me for crying in my sleep again."
She stood up and walked around, in a state of confusion. "Wake me up! Someone! Please!" she screamed at the sky. Its only answer was the rain that continued to pour down, as if the sky was shedding its own tears.
"No," she bawled, covering her face with her hands. "No, no, no…"
She ran to Paine's lifeless body and picked it up, then laid it next to Yuna's. She collapsed in front of them and hugged her cousin's head to her chest, blood still flowed openly from the wound and it stained her yellow bikini top.
"I'm so sorry, Yunie," she cried. "You never got to see him again. And it's all my fault, we were getting so close to finding everything out." She pushed a strand of Yuna's chestnut hair back and closed the once High Summoner's eyes, still wide with fear.
"And Paine," she continued, looking at Paine's ripped leather clothes. The belts that used to be around her waist had been completely torn off. "You never found the truth about your past, and we worked so hard and so long."
Blond braids sticking to the side of her face, she sobbed into Yuna's blood matted hair. "I told you I hated that spell. Why'd you make me do it? WHY!?" she screamed, still holding her cousin close. "I told you! You didn't listen to me!"
Tears streaming down her red cheeks, she stood up and reached into her pocket, pulling out the God forsaken dressphere. She stared at it with pure hatred and threw it against the muddy ground, stomping on it and shattering it into many tiny golden shards. "I said I didn't want to cast berserk! But you didn't listen! And now…and now…!" she collapsed a second time. Her foot was bleeding profusely from the sharp pieces of sphere she had been crushing; yet she didn't care. She deserved that pain. It was there to remind her what she had done. She was a murderer. She had stained her hands with the blood of her two best friends.
Eyes still brimming with tears, she pulled out a walkie-talkie that enabled her to communicate with the Celsius and turned it on.
"This is Brother," came the familiar voice with the thick Al-Bhed accent crackled from the machina. "What's your status?"
Not sure of what else to say, she choked, "Disasterrific," into the speaker.