In case you didn't notice I am EXTREMELY lazy...I'm so sorry everyone! I've been...busy lately and haven't had much time to write so please forgive me!! I feel so baaad....
Heh. I'll do review replies in the next chapter, I just wanna get this one started. But first I wanna ask, how many people have played FFVII? And if you have...then how do you feel about Yuffie?
Yuffie: Why would ya wanna ask them a stupid question like that?
Shut up! I'm not in the mood for you right now! I'm still sick...Oh well. On with the show!!
Disclaimer: If I brainwash Square into thinking that I own the world...then Il own Final Fantasy X-2. Too bad I don't...damn!
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Yuna/Tidus Yuna/ShuyinShuyin/Lenne
Lenne/Tidus
Gippal/Rikku
Baralai/Paine
XxXxXxXxX
Eternal Rhapsody
XxXxXxXx
Chapter Seven: Terra
XxXxXxX
The second Yuna had lead Shuyin inside the airship, he had immediately started inspecting every mechanical thing inside. A few times, Yuna had to remind him why they were there in the first place, in order protect the machinery from "accidental" malfunction.
They had made it past all the levels of the ship without breaking or destroying anything, but she wasn't sure if she could hold him off any longer. When she finally directed him to the lowest chamber of the gigantic ship, the cabins, he strode in looking for anything to mess with.
"This is where you sleep?" he asked blankly, feeling somewhat unimpressed.
"Used to sleep." She corrected, looking around the area where she used to play around with Rikku on the stage.
"Not very big now is I?" he muttered, raising his eyebrows in question. "My house in Zanarkand was much bigger."
Yuna drew back, slightly alarmed that he could be thinking about things like that at a time like this. Her lips curled into a frown as she bustled past him, stomping up the stairs to the bedding area. She hardly caught the "What?" Shuyin uttered and plopped down on the couch.
"How did you get here anyway...?" she whispered to herself, a hint of sadness trapped within her flickering eyes.
"I'm not so sure myself."
Yuna whipped around, only to face a slightly worried looking Shuyin with his hands in his pockets. She reclined backwards onto the soft pillow and closed her eyes, thinking it over for a few seconds before looking back towards him.
"Perhaps...something in the Farplane has been disturbed?" she suggested, intertwining her hands with a duvet that most likely hadn't been made in months. "The disruption could have caused something to happen..."
"I don't think so," the blond replied, hardly having any idea about what she was rambling about. "The Farplane looked destroyed to me. The last thing I remember was Lenne running off and that huge...whatever it was coming at me."
"Well you couldn't have come here just because." She said simply, her cars on stating the obvious were extremely low. "There had to be some sort of...price...or something."
"None that I know of." He muttered, shrugging her shoulders laxly. "I only hope Lenne is safe."
Yuna bit her lip, coming extremely close to blurting out how someone's soul could be lost forever if something happened to them on the Farplane. She shook the mangled thoughts from her head and looked at the raging Chocobo below.
"I'm sure she's fine. "her monotone almost frightening. "But maybe...if we figure out how you got here then we could get you back!"
"Is that an offer for help?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest stubbornly.
"It is..." she said almost hesitantly. She placed a finger on her chin for a moment then sat up in her original position. "Shuyin, what happened befo-"
She stopped, catching a blurry flash of yellow and blue in the corner of her eye. With a quizzical look upon her face, she stood up and wandered over to the railing. A sharp cracking sound diverted her attention from what was lurking below to something to the left.
"Is there someone on this airship besides us?" Shuyin asked blankly, walking up swiftly behind Yuna.
"Not that I know of." She replied weakly, her fingers automatically reaching for the gun at her side. "Maybe it's just the baby Chocobo brother adopted. Rikku says nobody notices when he's around because he's so small. But I could have sworn it was yo-oh. Never mind..."
Some how she didn't believe herself and became more conscious that something was in there with them. She shrugged it off for the moment and was about to return to her comfortable spot on the couch when another sharp sound interrupted her. This sound wasn't like the previous crash; it was more like the sound of glass being cracked...
"Hey!" Shuyin yelled down to whatever it was. "Shut up you stupid chicken or I'll skin ya!"
Yuna shushed the man, idling drumming her fingers on the railing. She looked to the mirror across the room and stumbled back in surprise. Something had been thrown against it, forming a rather unattractive crack down the center.
"What in Yevon's name...?" Yuna murmured, swiftly making her way to the dresser.
"Well that totally sucks..." Shuyin grumbled, following Yuna with a faint hint of a smirk on his devilish lips.
"Totally sucks?"
"Ah...it's Zanarkanian talk..."
"Oh." Yuna made a face of disgust. "What could have made that?"
"I'd go check, but that freaky red stone right here is taking up my attention." He retorted cockily. The blond pointed a finger at a pendant lying on the ground near the dresser.
Yuna curiously bent down and picked up the brooch form the crown, dangling it from the chain it was attached to. The crimson jewel in the center was framed with a golden brooch, attached to a similar gold chain. The deep ruby flickered in the light above, glinting off the mirror as well as the insignia over Yuna's breast
"What the hell is that thing?" Shuyin asked bluntly, complete disrupting Yuna's inspection of the item
"I'm not sure..." she admitted, dismissing the ignorance that laced his tone. "Looks like some kind of jewel. How weird I never noticed it before now." She paused and stuffed it into the satchel on her waistband. "Probably something Rikku found on an expedition."
"Yeah whatever..." He grinned lazily, an idea popping into his head. He scooted closer to the brunette, who had taken up an obvious discomfort to him the second he moved.
He was about to sling his arm around her bare shoulders when the third disrupting sound emitted from below. Yuna's head snapped backwards. She spotted to figures dashing through the door, shoving one Chocobo out of the way in the process.
"Come on."
She grabbed his and dragged him down the stir sin a rather unorthodox manner. He wasn't surprised that she would do something like this, but he as alarmed that she could pull someone of his weight along so easily. He was slim, but not so lanky that a woman about 50 lbs lighter could drag him so effortlessly.
She released her grip on his wrist as soon as she hit the bottom floor, dashing through the entryway with a grunt. She managed to get to the end of the second hallway with the shadowed figures in sight, but lost track of them as soon as she neared the elevator.
"Where'd they go?" she panted, drawing in breaths of air shortly. "They were just here..."
All that remained was a single pyrefly.
"Hell'd I know. At least we can be sure that there was someone in here and we're not completely insane."
She scowled furiously, bypassing his childish jokes with a shove into the wall. He flinched and rubbed his shoulder, watching as she stormed off towards the elevator with her fists balled at her sides.
Shuyin followed Yuna silently until they exited the massive aircraft, in which he decided to at least make a stab at conversation.
"I just miss her you know?" He laughed slightly, treading through the semi-shallow water after her. "She was everything to me..."
"I can understand." Yuna said heartily, her mood seemed to have lightened considerably. "He means everything to me as well."
"Ah," Shuyin chuckled boyishly, climbing onto a muddy sandbar between a rock and a tide pool. "Milady has a lover?"
Yuna snarled at his attempt at humor, not finding the situation to be funny in the least. Perhaps she was too grown up for her own good. "He's from Zanarkand like you are..."
"Really?" Shuyin blinked, slightly perturbed by this news. "What's his name?"
"Tidus."
"Oh." He shook his head; the name didn't register anything in his mind so it was shrugged off. "You're half Al Bhed right?"
"Yes. I am."
"Did you know Lenne was halfblooded, as well?" He paused, a serious expression bestowing itself upon his face. "Only she was not Al Bhed. She was part Terra."
Yuna stopped, looking at the jungle that lay ahead of them with partial interest in the odd motions of the palm trees. "What's Terra? I've never heard of that race before."
Shuyin snorted. "Terra were considered extinct thousands of years before my time...That's probably why you haven't heard of them." He stretched and headed in the direction of the ruins, kicking rocks along the beach as he did so.
"The Terra were the first people to establish working communities on Spira. They were one of the best working races on the whole planet, brought civilization to it's peaking point."
"The thing is, the Terra had properties that normal humans didn't. Their blood was comprised of a substance that kept them alive longer, gave them magical abilities at birth." He scratched behind his ear, helping Yuna over a jagged rock in the ground. "They devised a simple system of life and death to keep their kind from dying out."
Yuna interrupted, looking up at a toucan flying about the canopy. "I thought they were extinct though. Why would they die out if their plan was against that in general?"
"That's not the type of question to ask." Shuyin narrowed his cool blue eyes into slits, pointing his finger at her like a weapon. "You didn't let me finish little miss." He watched Yuna squirm slightly, smirking triumphantly as she did so. She noticed how his attitude was somewhat like Tidus'. And this bothered her.
"They created a system called 'The Soul Repentanc Sacrifice'." He explained, showing his way through the dense underbrush. "When a person of the Terra clan would die, the would be sent to the Farplane by what they called 'Forgivers'."
"Summoners."
Shuyin nodded solemnly, affirming what she had thought. "Well the Terra came up with a way of reusing life. Kind of a recycling kind of thing. Say, for example, a loved one had died and they were an important part of your particular clan?" Yuna nodded. "They would find a sacrificial person, willing to give up their life energy, and that particular person would be revived for the time being."
He smirked evilly. "Every amount of pain the revived would feel for the one month period of the moon was transferred to the subject of sacrifice. Until finally their life was drained completely and they died. The person whom was revived would gain full life and the process started all over again."
Yuna furrowed her brow, sitting down on a mossy rock to sooth her legs that were suddenly aching. "So what went wrong?"
Shuyin shrugged, plopping down on the ground next to her, looking up at the waterfall to their left. He relaxed his arms and let the droning sound of falling water loosen his tense muscles.
"Now that is the kind of question to ask."
XxXxXxXxXxX
"So all you saw on the sphere was a woman and a girl?"
"Well there was more than that but it's kind of hard to explain!"
"Yevon, you blonde, will you make up your mind? It's either there was more-or that's it!"
"Shut up Gippal!"
Baralai sighed with exasperation. They had been going through this for almost ten minutes now and Rikku refused to give the whole story. Let alone find the words to do so. Gippal seemed to be making matters worse by provoking the young Al Bhed with his witty comments. Both he and Nooj were finding themselves extremely irritated.
"Rikku where's the commsphere right now?" Nooj asked in a familiar monotone, his face blank and expressionless.
She blinked then motioned to the abyss to her left. "Down there."
"Well duh." Gippal snorted, throwing a rock at her boots, only for her to squeak and dodge it. "Can't we just trace the frequency waves back to the original source? It'd be easier than getting her royal blondness to tell you..."
"You meanie stay out of this!" she retorted, kicking the rock at Nooj who simply bypassed it. "What do you know anyway?"
"A hell of a lot more than you do, that's for sure!"
"Hey, hey, hey." Nooj scolded, relieving himself from the burden of sitting down. "You two are arguing more than usual, is there something wrong?"
"NO!!" they shouted in unison.
Baralai rubbed his temple gently, hoping to conceal the headache coming along, starting out of the cave. "Gippal's idea would be convenient. Wise." He nodded as the other silently followed him. "How can we do this Gippal?"
He grinned, ignoring the motion Rikku made in sticking her tongue out at him. "A simple computer's all we need. I can access the wiring system from anywhere."
"I think I know where we should go." Baralai ended, glad to have ended the argument between the childish half of the tag-team.
XxXxX
Gippal had leaded the group to the section of the island where he, Nooj, and Baralai had docked at the oncoming of Rikku's party. The boat was still floating in a pool of lukewarm water, the soft currents sloshed it between two rocks.
"This?" Rikku said with nothing short of disgust. "Is your brilliant plan? It's a BOAT."
"I know that!" Gippal snarled, shoving her into the boat. "But! This is no ordinary boat..."
"No. It's a piece of crap."
"Cid's girl can you keep quiet for one measly second?" he cried, throwing his hands into the air. "The commsphere connection is linked to the airship right?"
"Yes." All three occupants confirmed, their faces twisted into a similar glare.
"Well then all we gotta do is make it to the operational cavity in the back of the airship...and we're home free!"
'So what you're saying is if we get into that room then we can locate where the movie you and Rikku saw movie came from?" Nooj asked, raising an eyebrow above his tinted glasses.
"Heh. Yeah."
Rikku growled, doing a mighty fine impression of a dog while doing so. "Enlighten me. When we do find out what are gonna do, hmmm?"
"Go to where it says, stupid...." Gippal explained, starting the hover boat with a grunt.
"But Yunie'll freak out!" she screeched, her apathetic attitude abandoned for the time being.
"Ah, but Yuna is never going to find out is she?" Gippal smirked and climbed into the drivers seat at the head of the semi-large boat.
"You're so mean, Gippal." Rikku pouted, folding her arms under he breasts.
They reached the cavity, sure. But after another lengthy ten minutes –which seemed to Baralai like ten HOURS- of the bickering couple, they hadn't yet found a way to get inside from the back of the airship.
Of course, they had no knowledge that Yuna wasn't exactly on the airship any longer. This was a problem considering it would be easier to get in from inside the actually door rather than hacking a hole into the back of the ship. Which was exactly what they decided to do.
"Come on Gippal! You're weak!" Rikku mocked, watching the leader of the Machine Faction ram a nightstick into the solid iron. "Harder!"
Gippal stopped and turned around to face her, holding the nightstick above his head with a menacing look on his face. "If you don't SHUT UP I'm gonna shock you with this. So shut up!"
"Well actually Gippa-"
"I said shut up!"
"But Gippal there's a-"
"Rikku keep your mouth shut!"
"There's an emergency lever right there, dammit!" Rikku pointed angrily to a small latch next to Gippal that read: Emergency Lever.
After getting over the feeling of stupidity, he swallowed his pride and let the others in. Rikku wormed her way through the wires and cables of the main system with no trouble seeing as she was tiny. Although it was no problem for her, the men had to climb a ladder located on the eastern wall of the massive room.
Reaching the main control system first, Rikku proudly smirked and looked around the warehouse-like room. Gippal came next followed by Baralai, then Nooj, who had some problems getting up to the platform with a machina operated leg.
"After you get into the mainframe goes for Shinra's files." Gippal directed, as Rikku stood typing and scrolling furiously at the gigantic control panel.
"I'm in..." she murmured, using her fingertips to operate the main screen. "Now let me connect..."
Gippal waited anxiously, silently drooling over her ability to work this piece of machina without so much as a manual. It was enough that he would get the time to spend with her, searching for the unknown little girl, but standing so close to her while she was...He shook his head angrily, erasing al fond memories of the younger girl from his mind with a mental slap.
"There." Rikku's thrilled expression had been replaced by one of seriousness while Gippal had been daydreaming. She pointed to a small number in the corner of the luminescent file.
"There's our next stop." Baralai said quietly, working on memorizing the coordinates it provided. "We should head out right now..."
Rikku bit her lip, a stab of guilt coming over her for not telling her cousin about any of this. She was beginning to re-consider when Nooj tapped her shoulder and motioned to the back door which was still hanging open.
"Let's go."
She nodded.
"Hey, Rikku." Baralai started as soon as they were outside. His eyes were glued to Gippal who was trying to work the hovering vehicle yet again, his eyes held a somewhat empty feeling. "Where was that Tidus man from again?"
Rikku jumped back in slight surprise. She had forgotten all about Tidus in the rush of things.
"Zanarkand." She replied, eyes glancing up as the rumbling engine broke the silence. "Why ya wanna know?"
"Because that's where we're headed."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Yep! That's your crappy chapter or today! I promise I'll have the next one up REALLY soon since my writers block is mostly gone. Heh. I said that before and it didn't happen, but this time I swear it will.Anyway might as well get some sleep...school tomorrow. But luckily I've gotta handle on homework so the next chappie will be up soon! isn't letting us use anything to divide parts of the story anymore is it? I had to use "X"'s for Gods sakes!
Don't forget to R 'n' R!
JA NE FOR NOW!
By the way...this is the last time I'm changing my username I swear!! XD
