Runaway
There was a cutting shreik of metal and an exploasion of sand, and the Nuca landed. With a small hiss of steam the landing gear unfolded and the disc slowed to a stop. The nose of the craft was buried in a sand dune. Little rivers of sand spilled off the ship as it opened and Rikku hopped out.
"Whoo hooo! Landing sucsessful!" She said, pulling her gloves off and tossing them into the cockpit. Then she took a second to dust her denam skirt and check over the toolbelt. Yuna stumbled out of the ship behind her, with one hand on the vehicle to keep her balance.
"That was… exciting." Yuna managed to say between breaths.
"Yep. My best landing so far!" Rikku answered with pride. She pressed the rose symbol and the ship locked shut. Then she helped Yuna stand up.
"Don't worry about it, you're just not used to flying." Yuna's dizzyness subsided, and she looked around.
"Where are we?" She asked. Rikku smirked.
"The one place in the world where even someone like you can have fun." She pointed over Yuna's shoulder to a towering city, with buildings that streached into the sky. The whole place glowed with electrisity against the night.
"Welcome to New Bikanel." The al bhed brimmed with pride at Yuna's amazed look. She allowed her several moments to gaze in awe.
"Ok that's enough. Come on." They started towards the neon-laced gates.
---
Enter Bikanel city. Everywhere there was light, noise, and action. Yuna's senses were overwhelmed. Electric signs climed up the sides of every building and hovered in the air overhead. People crowded the streets on bikes, floating boards, and mechanical walkers. Music spilled into the traffic from every storefront.
Yuna was pulled along by Rikku like a reluctant child as the two girls passed arcades, weapon shops, alchemical import stores, tatoo parlors, and a thousand other unique sights on the avenue.
"Rikku, slow down!" Yuna said, trying to avoid crashing into people as she was dragged through the crowd.
"Rikku!" She collided with a boy who was talking with someone next to him. He had spikey brown hair and a red-and-orange jumpsuit. They both almost fell over.
"Hey!" he yelled, turing on her.
"Oh sorry! I'm so sorry-" She was cut off with another yank from Rikku. As Yuna was pulled along she could just see the dawning recognition on the boy's face.
Rikku came to a sudden stop in front of an elevator.
"What are you doing? Where are we?" Yuna panted, out of breath. The al bhed pointed up. A sign was written in shining letters across the building.
"Spira's Fashions."
"Huh?" Yuna met her with a lost expression.
"Well we can't have you walking around dressed like that. Look at you!" Yuna looked down at her purple dress.
"You can't cruse the city as a High Maestress! Come on, Yunie. You're gonna love this." Before she could say anything, Rikku pulled her onto the open-topped elevator and pushed several buttons. The platform made a hissing noise before moving up and away from the street.
People and noise quickly fell away, and Yuna was caught off gaurd by the acceleration. The aveneu traffic was soon nothing more than a milling line of ants below them. Air popped in her ears and she gripped the railing with sweaty palms, squeesing her eyes closed. She caught the fleeting air in her throat and prayed -out of habbit- for the platform to stop. The asent may have been only thirty seconds, although it felt much longer.
But eventually the platform slowed. When it was at a crawling pace Yuna opened her eyes a bit.
There was nothing left around her except for a starlit canopy of towers. Her eyes opened a little wider as she looked around. It was quiet up there, and darker. A cool wind swept around the spires. Elevator tracks ran up the sides of every building, glowing with mossy green lights. Daring a glance over the side she saw not one, but many levels of streets and roads, all weaving over and under one another in an industrial maze of traffic, a thousand feet below.
Rikku stood against the outer rail with a satisfied smile on her face.
"Pretty cool huh?" She leaned out over the edge and shouted.
"Whoooooooooooooooooooo Hoooooooooooooooooooooo!" Her voice echoed off the heightless monoliths.
"This is… amazing." Yuna moved to stand next to her. "They built all this in one year?"
"Yep!" Rikku said. "With the support of a whole nation, and a little inspiriation…" She gestured towards Yuna.
"Not to mention a supercool Lead engineer…" She gestured ellegantly towards herself, "Wonderful things can happen."
"Ha, I guess so." She stared back down at the headlights of vehicals way below them. They moved silent through their artificial day. She wondered if they could see the stars from down there.
DING
"This is us. Let's go." The platform stopped and a door opened into the building. The girls stepped back into the bright influence of florecent lights.
"Wow" Yuna whispered as saw the store. Three levels, each covered in fields of clothing racks. The whole place was maybe half the size of a blitz stadium, or at lest the part that she could see. And there were people everywhere, mostly girls but some guys too. There weren't just al bhed either.
"Ok Yunie," Rikku was glancing around the store as if she was devising an escape plan. "Stick close to me and stay low."
"Ok." She nodded. "Um, Rikku?"
"Yes?"
"Why are we whispering?"
"Because you're not here as a leader of the world. And we want to get through this with as little publicity as possible."
"Mm" She nodded again. "Got it."
"Ok, let's move." Rikku said, then started off in a crouched run to the nearest tree of brightly colored shirts.
---
The temple was more like a neglected tomb. Sand and dirt had built up on the floors. All the summoner statues had been moved out, making the hall seem much larger than it had been. Huge spider webs hung heavy over the pews and draped from the ceiling. Rough graffitti was carved into the cloyster steps.
What happened…? The only illumination in the place was moonlight that shone through a large hole in the temple roof.
I guess things have changed.
Tidus moved to the defiled stairs. The girl was in the cloyster of trials, he knew without any doubt.
A chill ran up his back as he took the first step. There was a presence in the temple, it was like a solem and respectful silence, as if the services were still taking place. Another memory boiled to the surface in his head, of running up the steps, heroically saving the summoner in distress. 'Stupidly' would also fit there. It was one of those things that seemed to be a good idea at the time.
There were more important things to do at the moment, though, besides embarassing himself, so Tidus bit down on his toung and took the next step.
It was darker than he rememberd, in the cloyster. The turquois light that seemed to come from the walls had dimmed from his memory, and it managed to make the place even creepier. Although there was no graffittie or anything in the stone hall, the cloyster felt so much deader. And colder. Much colder.
Tidus realized his hands were shaking. He was numb from inside out, and a dull sense of nausia welled up in him. The hall didn't want him there.
He pressed down on the pain in his stomach and took a slow breath.
Too bad. He walked down the smooth stone corridor, with lights fluttering behind the walls. His legs felt unsteady, although the floor hadn't changed. He took another deep breath and picked up the pace.
The walls moved faster, lights rippiling. They were like the ripples at the bottom of a sphere pool, he thought.
Keep going. The lights were dizzying but he moved his legs faster. The hall shifted, twisting like some carnival funhouse.
Keep going. His heart raced and he wondered why. He stumbled once or twice, but didn't slow. The room kept turning, the patterns on the walls were beating in time with his pulse.
Then he tripped, falling towards the ceiling and landing on the floor. Painfully lifting himself up, Tidus found he was face to face with another wall. It was a dead end. He stood up, still dizzy. The place had stopped spinning.
Now what? He asked himself. Another breif memory came back to him.
Holding one hand up to the stone, he studied the grain for some sign. Sure enough, a greenish emblem bled to the surface and hovered above it. It was somewhat deformed, streaching out in a weird uneaven design, but it was at one point the symbol he'd touched a year ago.
Okay. His eyes found the next clue, a thin crystal vein touching the corner of the glyph wall. It led back down the corridor to a round hollow. The sphere wasn't there, but as he got close he noticed a fine blue sand in it, and more spilled onto the floor.
Perfect. He didn't have any other ideas, so Tidus grabbed a handful of the sand and pushed it into the hole.
Then there was an explosion. The sand flew out in a firey cloud, ignigting in air and sizzleing away. Tidus threw his arm over his face to escape the blast. When he looked again there were scorch marks in a circular pattern on the wall.
"Well that worked." He said to himself, dropping his arm in defeat. Just then a grinding sound came from the glyph wall. It was slowly pulled upward by unseen mechanics, leaving little spurts of dust behind it.
Tidus sighed with gratitued and began walking to the door. The door, almost on cue, stopped in it's tracks, then began closing again. Tidus, caught a little by surprise, swore under his breath and sprinted the remaing feet. The door closed a lot faster than it opened and he had to dive three feet in front of it, bearly clearing the stone in an off-balance roll. It closed with a decisive 'chink.'
---
Rikku did a quick glance over the racks before grabbing several sleevless shirts and dashing across an open isle to the next display. Yuna followed a moment later with a large pile of mismatched clothes in her arms, stopping halfway to recover a lost sock.
"Umm, Rikku?" Yuna asked, rebalanceing the load in her arms.
"Ya?"
"I didn't bring any money with me, how are we going to pay for all this?" Rikku examined a pair of shorts then threw them on Yuna's pile. She was waiting for an answer when something nudged against her leg. A small robot with four legs and a single lense on its head beeped and asked her what dress size she was. It startled her at first, but the robot was cute and funny-looking.
"Hey, one of these little guys," Rikku grinned. "Come'er ya cute little bot." The robot waddled stifly over to Rikku, who proceded to flip open a small pannel on it back. After a bit of tooling around with the wires, she closed it back up and patted it's head.
"There. Be free bot." It beeped and waddled double time out of the row.
"…Rikku?"
"Heeyy, don't worry so much, Yunie. Just leave it to me, okay?"
"Oh no!" Yuna checked over her shoulder and lowered her voice "We can't steal!"
"Calm down. We're only going to take what we ne-"
"Excuse me, can I help you two?" asked a woman with purple hair and a dress that looked to made of yellow celephane. She had a large smile, which Yuna could tell was fake.
Thinking on her feet, Rikku shoved her pile of clothes on Yuna's, blocking her face from view. She turned to greet the store lady.
"Ummm, nope, we're fine thanks." The cleark looked at Yuna, who was struggling to keep things from sliding off the pile.
"You know," she said, "Some of those pieces are quite a lot of money."
"Really?" Said Rikku, trying to sound curious. "Well my friend and I were just looking around, we're gonna try a couple on then pick."
"That's nice but I'm afraid that you can only take a few outfits in a room at a time, so you should put some of those back and try them later." She sounded a little annoyed, but the plastic smile didn't waver.
"Well," said Rikku as sweetly as possible, "We'll be sure to put them all back as soon as we're done."
"I'm sorry, but it's store policy. Here, I'll help you." The cleark reached for the top of Yuna's pile.
"Wait no!" Rikku burst. Then she quickly tried to cover. "Can I, um, see your manager?"
It looked like the lady's face might crack. "Miss, if you want-" She was interupted by a crash that came from somewhere in the store. Sombody sqeeled and a small service bot waddled into the center isle with a pair of girl's underwear drapped over it's lens. The cleark gasped and swore in al bhed, running to the comotion. Rikku smiled and grabbed Yuna, running to the dressing room.
"What's happening?" Yuna asked, peaking around the clothes.
"Nothing." Rikku said, "Let's go, this is the fun part."
---
Kimarhi watched the sky from the balcony off Yuna's bedroom. He was angry and scared, Lulu knew. There he was, a seven foot lion, arms crossed like an ancient gargoyle, but even he was scared. He always blamed himself for everything that happened to the girl.
Kimahri probably heard her when she joined him on the balcony, but didn't move.
"It is a cool night" Lulu said. "Much cooler than besaid." She didn't expect him to reply, so it came as a surprise when he did.
"Kimahri let her go"
"There was nothing you could do." Even when she spoke casually there was intensity in her voice. "I don't really blame her, she's committed to a lot recently." He was unmoved.
Lulu sighed. It was disarming when she did that, like she was dropping an act. When she spoke again, though, it was the same as always.
"She can handle herself for now"
Ha… this one's late too I guess ^^;; my excuse is I've been having a little trouble getting to my account lately, server's busy and all…
Ok I'm sorry! Alright? There, I said it!
Anyway, in case you didn't notice yet, a large part of this story is focusing on tidus and yuna seeing each other again, so you could say it's a tidus/yuna thing, but I promise it's still gonna be interesting…
I love the '…'s. I forget what you call em though
Whatever! Last thing: this is the final completed chapter I have right now, but 8 is well on its way, look for it over the course of the week
And thanks for reading!