**Yeah, yeah, I know, I know...long time no see, yes? School's been keeping me ultra-busy, what with Calculus and science and English...urgh. So, here's the next long awaited chapter of Across Worlds! Not that its exactly the greatest or anything...lol. Anyway, here it is, and enjoy 'til I get the next one up! I promise that I'll try to do it faster this time. ^_^;;; Ja! --Jedi Ari**
"Waaaaaagh!"
"Ouch!"
"Get offa my leg, ya?!"
"Ow ow ow! My hair!"
"I think I landed on Mattian's katana…"
"No, that would be my boot."
Yueh, who had been the last to be teleported, stood up from the top of the pile, rubbing her head gingerly. She had been sitting on top of Hunter's stomach, but had hit her head on the tip of Gage's boot.
"I think we need to work on our teleportation skills," Yueh said dryly.
"Someone's elbow is in my hair!" Arashi shouted, her voice pained. "Get up!"
"I can't! Hunter's squashing me!" Niet whined. Hunter jumped up and stumbled over someone's feet—Yueh couldn't tell whose. Niet rolled over off of the pile, and Arashi let out a sigh of relief. Gage stood up slowly, and helped Mattian to his feet. Mattian rubbed his back where his katana's sheath was, wincing. Arashi lay sprawled out on the floor, twitching slightly.
"I think we killed th' summoner, ya?" Hunter said, leaning over the spasming girl.
"Arashi!" Niet and Yueh pulled Arashi up from the floor. Arashi cracked her neck and stretched out her limbs.
"You okay, Arashi?" Niet asked.
Arashi looked across the large room and said, "It depends on what he does." The rest of the group turned around to see a not-very-happy looking Cid, standing with his eyebrows creased and his arms crossed across his chest.
"Where's my daughter?!"
"Well, Mattian, here's your chance," Niet said, elbowing the young man in the ribs. He stepped a bit away from her, a slightly bewildered look on his face.
"What are you talking about?" he whispered hoarsely.
"Go ahead, tell him, Auron," she said even quieter. Yueh heard, but wasn't laughing. An angry Cid was a scary sight: he looked rather like a demon of sorts.
Mattian cleared his throat and stepped in front of the group. Yueh couldn't help but notice he kept one hand behind his head—resting nervously on the hilt of his katana. "Your daughter is safe, but unable to see you. She—"
"Whaddya mean, 'unable to see me?'" Cid shouted, grabbing the belts that hung around Mattian's chest. The older man began shaking Mattian around uncontrollably, thrashing him left to right. "Where is she? You said you'd find her!"
"Calm down, Cid!" Gage shouted. He ran up to the two and tried to wrench Mattian from Cid's tight grasp, but Cid wouldn't let go.
"Where is she? Where's my daughter?!" he screamed again, his voice cracking. Mattian's neck flopped back and forth limply. Mattian, it seemed, was trying to stay calm and let his body go loose. However, this just made it easier for Cid to throttle him.
"Cid!" This time, Hunter, Yueh, and Gage all shouted his name (Niet had a rather satisfied look on her face). He stopped shaking Mattian's brains loose for a moment to look at them.
"Where is she?!"
Arashi, still rubbing the part of her head where Niet had nearly ripped her hair out, stepped forward in front of everyone. "Calm down, Cid."
"My daughter is missing! Where is she?!" he shouted again.
"Just calm down and I'll tell you, Cid," Arashi said quietly. Cid's face was beet red and he was breathing hard.
"Where—?"
Yueh didn't say a word, but suspected what Arashi was going to do when she pulled out her belt. Cid stepped back, apparently thinking Arashi was going to attack him with her belt-whip. Instead, Arashi held it out straight in front of her and let it loose from her grasp. Yueh waited for it to hit the floor, but instead, it hovered out in front of her, the jewels sparking and glowing in turn like a Christmas tree.
The light from the jewel in the middle suddenly intensified, and in the next second, a single-hue Rikku was standing between Arashi and Cid. She smiled nervously and waved just the same.
"Hi, dad."
Cid, in a very uncharacteristic manner, began to cry.
"Rikku…Rikku, what…?" He tried to touch her shoulder, only to go straight through and nearly hit Arashi instead. "How…"
Rikku tried to laugh calmly, but it came across as forced. "Well, that's kind of a long story…"
Yueh herself nearly let out a small snort. She's not so bubbly in front of her dad, is she now? Then again, I'd be pretty scared, too…
"Here's the thing, Cid: this time around, Sin is no ordinary Sin," Arashi began. Rikku nodded earnestly. "Sin is three people, including Yu Yevon himself. But if we don't kill him off the right way, the other two people will die and Yu Yevon will just revive again with Sin. And to do that—"
"They need me and everyone else," Rikku finished with another nod.
"How did this happen, Rikku?"
Rikku gave a weak smile. "Another long story."
"But she'll be safe with us, Cid, I assure you," Arashi said, giving the fancy bow. "Until then, she should reside in the jewel to maintain full power of her…ah, spirit. Not to mention my own—"
"She's dead? But the Farplane just creates the memories—"
"Dad, I'm not dead…"
"Far from it," Gage interjected, standing next to Arashi.
"Lulu nearly bit Wakka's head off when he said he was a ghost," Yueh added.
"So I'm not dead," Rikku repeated.
Cid was silent, so Arashi went on. "She can still talk to you through the jewel, it's just that appearing in this form takes not only her energy, but a great deal of mine, as the belt is in my possession," she said quietly, leaning forward a bit. Her cheeks were beginning to pale as well.
Cid nodded. He had stopped crying, and, as a matter of fact, looked quite back to his old self already. Yueh couldn't even see the traces of the tears if she squinted hard.
"Right, then. I'll talk to you later, missy," Cid said, giving quite a look at Rikku as she faded away once more into the jewel. To be perfectly honest, Rikku didn't look too pleased, either.
Arashi smiled kindly and fell to the floor. The whole group jumped and rushed to her side.
"Arashi!" Niet held up Arashi's head and looked closely.
"She's asleep—ow!" The belt that had been hanging mid-air had finally fallen on top of Niet's head, trailing from her forehead down the middle of her face and past her chin. Mattian began laughing and Niet gave him a glare that would kill most normal people who received it. She let Arashi's head drop back to the floor and began to chase Mattian around the corridor—the belt having fallen once more from her head and onto Arashi's torso.
"Niet…" Yueh shook her head and looked up at Hunter. "She's always like that."
"I'll bet, ya?" He looked over Arashi. "I think she's just tired, ya? Maybe Gage can carry 'er to a room."
Gage sighed. "I carried her from Yunalesca, and now I have to carry her again…can't she ever just stay awake for once?"
Yueh giggled. "We have a narcoleptic summoner."
"Get back here, Mattian! I'm gonna kill you!" Niet screamed from another hallway. Raucous laughter followed this statement, which was then completed with another scream from Niet.
"I'll take our summoner up to her room, but you two have to take care of the disastrous duo over there before they destroy the ship, or each other," Gage said wryly. He picked up Arashi and gave a small grunt. "I swear, she must have gained weight or something…"
"I don't think she'd like that comment, Gage," Yueh said, rolling her eyes. Gage shrugged and went on down the hallway.
"I'll fly you as far as I can to Zanarkand. I think I can drop you off at the top of Mount Gagazet," Cid said, tapping his chin. "Have to ask the crew if they think we can maneuver it enough…" He wandered off, muttering to himself.
Hunter heaved a sigh and rubbed his forehead. "Well, now we gotta figure out what t'do wit dose two," he said, barely giving a glance as the psychotic pair ran past Yueh and Hunter again.
Yueh clapped her hands together. "Right. Gather them up and then I'll teach you some more magic."
Hunter gaped. "More magic?! Dat's nuts, ya?"
"No, they're nuts," Yueh said, watching Niet and Mattian race by once more. "We're smart. I think black magic will help you out, personally." Plus, I get to be with him longer… She blushed subconsciously.
"Uh-huh. So…"
"Get back here!"
"What, you want me to fight you and kick your butt?"
"ARGH!"
"So much for his kick as an Auron-type," Yueh said regretfully. "He was actually taking this serious for a moment."
"I don't think he can give up a chance to make Niet mad, ya?" Hunter said. His eyes followed Niet and Mattian as they ran through more corridors, the metal clanking madly underneath her sandals and his boots. Hunter paused to listen to it. "I think dey're gonna break th'floor, ya?"
"We'd better stop them…" Yueh raised her hand and threw it down, yelling out, "Chill!" Ice surrounded the feet of Niet and Mattian as they flew by and rooted them to the floor. Mattian yelped as he nearly fell forward, almost breaking the black mage's ice. Niet leaned forward and hit her head into Mattian's back where, of course, his katana was sheathed.
"Ow! Mattian!!!" she screamed.
"That was not my fault!" Mattian yelled out. "Not my fault!"
Yueh shook her head and put a hand to her forehead, very reminiscent of when Lulu scolded Wakka. "Come on, or else I'll freeze your mouth, too." Both people shut up quite quickly after that, and simply tried to escape from the ice around their feet.
"That should keep them busy for a while," Yueh said, wandering off. Hunter gave a small laugh and followed her. "Now, to an open place where we can practice enchanting that blitzball of yours."
Hunter let out a groan, and Yueh simply grinned. This was going to be fun…as long as they didn't break the ship.
*-*-*-*-*
The group had returned to their room to sit and await news of the trip to Zanarkand. Mattian was sharpening his katana (while trying to look like Auron, Yueh thought), while Niet was happily oblivious to him and his glares as she read her thick book of Spiran knowledge (which, at one point, made Mattian mutter under his breath, "Like she can even remember anything with that small brain of hers," which Yueh vaguely heard). Arashi was on her bed, staring at the ceiling and singing in a foreign language (Japanese, Yueh figured), while Gage was tending to his old wound and putting new bandages around it (Yueh couldn't quite tell why he didn't just have Arashi take care of it for him with a dash of white magic).
Yueh, meanwhile, was still teaching the basics of magic to Hunter. He had his blitzball in his hands, and was trying to make it spark with electricity (ice and fire he had already done fairly well). Yueh had her mog doll in one hand, showing him how to make any object spark with it as an example.
"You kind of send the magic to the thing," she said, letting the doll jump down from her hand and on to the ship's floor. "It being an object, it sort of absorbs it, and…well, there you go! Magically electric thing!" The doll took a bow before falling limp to the floor, lacking electricity and movement once again. Yueh looked to Hunter. "See? Just like fire and ice!"
"Ow! Dis is hard, ya!?" He dropped the ball to the floor as it shocked him again. "At least with th' ice, I didn't get hurt, ya?"
Yueh giggled. "The fire was worse, but you got that pretty quickly," she pointed out.
"Dat coulda been a disaster, I s'pose," Hunter agreed, picking up the ball. "Okay, here goes." He concentrated hard and the ball let out one or two sparks before being engulfed in lightning and flying from Hunter's tanned hands. "OW! DAT HURTS!"
"Incoming!" Yueh shouted, ducking to the floor. Hunter followed suit. Soon the whole room was in an uproar.
"Runaway blitzball!" Gage shouted, jumping to the floor, his arm half-bandaged. Gauze and tape followed him closely.
"Agh!" Niet hid behind her chair, narrowly missing the flying ball. It bounced from her chair and towards Mattian who, surprisingly, reacted quickly and batted it away with his katana. It was heading straight for Arashi.
"Arashi—!" Yueh couldn't even get the word out before Arashi looked up calmly and spoke one word.
"Yamete."
The ball stopped mid-air and hovered inches from Arashi's face. Her hair was being blown back by an unseen force, as were her bed sheets. She stared at it for a moment, then reached her hand out towards it.
Hunter blanched. "Wait—"
"Null Shock." At these words, the ball fell to the bed, no longer sparking or doing anything. Arashi picked the ball up and tossed it back to Hunter.
"Not so much electricity. That would hurt your friends and your foes. Control the sparks as it flies to your target. Infuse more lightning when it reaches the target rather then when you're holding it—you won't get yourself shocked that way." Arashi smiled, then laid back down on her bed like nothing had happened. The others sat still for a moment.
Gage was the first to move. He picked up his things, and rearranged himself back on his own bed and went to finish his bandages. Mattian and Niet both gave wicked looks to the magic-practicing duo before settling back themselves.
"Be quiet," they both said, not noticing that the other had said it as well.
Wow, they agreed on something, Yueh noted amidst the shock.
"Control the…?"
"Y-yeah, actually, she's right." Though I don't know how…she doesn't use black magic… Yueh brushed her bangs out of her eyes and picked up her mog doll. "If you use less magic on it in the beginning, you won't get hurt and—well—" She laughed, blushing. "Then that won't happen!"
Hunter nodded vaguely and began to concentrate again. He didn't have time to follow through with magic, as just then the door had opened, with Cid standing there, looking his usual, grumpy self.
"We'll be there in a day. We can get you to Mount Gagazet's peak, and you'll have to walk from there," he said.
"Thanks for the update, Cid," Arashi said, still lying down. "We'll be in here mostly, but we'd appreciate being called for dinner and the like." Arashi gave a small glance at Niet before singing in Japanese again.
"Right. Later." He did an about face and waltzed out of the room.
Yueh sighed before restarting Hunter's lessons. One more day until this mess is over…one more day… She looked at Hunter. His deep brown eyes were staring fixedly at the ball, trying to get it to light again.
Another sigh. Only one…more…day…