**Wooooowee, chapter three! Okay, this is kinda short, and I know its getting sort of monotonous...gomen! ^_^;; Anyway, just a note to say that I'm not going to be updating as often because school is starting (grrr), so pleeeease be patient all who read this! ...well, all three of you so far. ^_^;; Enjoy! And sorry that there's only one space after each period...argh.**

Sara shook her head as she pushed back from the computer. "Go to my room. Paula, you've lost it..." Standing up, she shook her head and sighed. "Okaaaaaay..." Sara tromped to her room and swung open the door. It was as it always was: messy, and a bit cramped, but normal. "I swear, Paula is--"

What Paula was, we'll never know, for a young teenaged girl peeked from the other side of Sara's bed, her black hair frazzled and tangled. As the girl reached up over the side of her bed, Sara stared. She kind of recognized the person.

"...Paula? UA?" The girl nodded as she stood.

"Yeah. What a trip!" Paula bounced over the bed over to Sara. She tripped over her belt and gasped. "Hey, I wasn't wearing this when I started..."

Her clothes were indeed different. She wore a peasant-type red tank top with matching long armwarmers. Her pants were loose capris with a matching red cuff. A tan belt hung loosely on her waist with two ribbons off the right side. A pair of blue sandals finished the interesting ensemble.

Sara blinked. "But how did you...how'd you get here?"

Paula was still looking at her clothes. She stretched out her tank top in front of her to get a better look at it. "Weird." Looking back up at Sara, she hit herself in the forehead. "Oh! Right!" She pointed to the glow coming from Sara's bedroom floor, behind the bed. "Save sphere."

Sara jumped over the bed in the same way Paula had. "Save sphere?" Her jaw dropped to the ground. "SAVE SPHERE?" Sara poked the blue orb with a finger. "How, this...I'm dreaming, aren't I? Whoa, menu!"

"You're not dreaming, I, uh...you see, this stone..." Paula dug in her pocket for her gem, but instead found two. "Two?" Pulling them out, she saw her dolphin-orb, but also a jewel of the same color in the shape of a crescent moon. "Here. You can have this one." She handed it to Sara, who jammed it into her pocket.

"Yeah yeah, who cares? I could play Blitzball!" Sara put a hand to her chin and poked at the menu choice. She hit it a few more times. "'Course, I never really liked that game--oh, wait, its not available." Her eyes glittered in the blue light. "What a dream!"

Paula sighed. "Sara." She continued to gape at the menu. "Sara." No reply. "Its not a dream!" Paula shouted. Sara glanced back at her. "I, well, with these gems, I can do magic and stuff! Watch!" Paula threw an arm down and cast Thunder, which struck Sara. Paula winced, and a small '50' floated up from Sara's static-shocked head.

"That...hurt." Sara's eyes were wide open, staring at Paula. "You really can cast magic! Show me, show me!" She was jumping up and down, her ponytail flying behind her.

Paula stared at the gem in her hands. "I was trying to do Thundaga..."

Sara put her hands on her hips. "Well, its a darn good thing you didn't! I'd probably be fried even worse than I am right now!" Sara shouted, trying to smooth down her hair. She began to work up a fury. "And how on--"

"That doesn't matter! I accidentally unleashed Sin unto this earth!" Paula screamed. Sara stopped with her mouth open wide enough to drive a truck through.

"You...how?"

Paula looked down and spoke quietly. "I tried to summon Valefore, right? I saw it! And as it started coming down, the sky went all cloudy and windy and out came Sin." She sat on the bed and smoothed out her belt. "And it went to the coast. And they think its a wayward hurricane."

Sara paused for a moment, her eyes staring towards the ceiling. "So...we have to beat it!" Sara said, jumping and sitting next to Paula. "We'll beat Sin just like in FFX!"

Paula sighed. "Do the final summoning? And kill us both?"

"No way, the other way!" Sara growled. "We'll fight Sin to the death!" She pumped a fist into the air and reminded Paula greatly of Rikku in her most spunky moments.

"...just the two of us?" Paula began to shake her head before a thought struck her. "Wait, there was another name on the sphere." Paula hopped over the bed and tapped the sphere again. "Do you know a Katie?"

Sara thought for a moment as she watched Paula. "A few of them, but the main one I know is--"

Paula touched the menu choice of "Teleport to Katie's," and the warm feeling came over her again. Sara watched her disappear into a cloud of blackish smoke. She paused.

Fumbling over the bed and smacking the sphere with her hand, she poked the same menu choice. "Augh, at least wait for me!"

*-*-*-*-*

"Damn girl." She pounded the keyboard with a fist. "I need that stupid stone! I knew it was in her pocket..." Turning back to the small TV in her office, she switched through the limited channels. "If only she had given it to me."

"...hurricane unlike any other. It has been named Cindy by meteorologists, as there have been very few hurricanes this year. John?"

A man in a business suit came on the screen. "Thanks for the update, Judy." He shuffled some papers in front of him. "For those just tuning in, a hurricane is coming closer to the coast. Named Cindy, the hurricane is taking an odd course towards the California coastline."

Mary leaned in closer, her full attention on the miniscule screen. Pushing her glasses back up her pointed nose, she scooted closer in her office chair.

The screen flashed to a map of California and about half of the touching ocean. The international hurricane symbol was a far ways off the northern coast, and a red arrow pointed a rather haphazard pathway that slowly came closer to the state.

"The path Cindy is taking is unexplainable by even the best meteorologists, and where it ends up is apparently anyone's guess. The radar shows what seems to be a small hurricane, yet it is moving at speeds much faster than would be expected--"

Mary switched off the TV with a malicious grin. She began to pack up her things and shut off the light to her office. As she shut the door, she laughed.

"You've helped me quite a bit after all, girl..."