Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Spira, blitzball, and all related characters and locations are owned by Squaresoft, with the exception of a few original characters who will be noted as such. This is a work of fanfiction, meaning that it is both created by a fan for no purpose other than entertainment, and it is fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely fictonal and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
I don't think I own anything in this chapter that I didn't own before, but I do have a link to a really interesting story. I know there were a couple of people who thought the BicksonxLinna pairing was kinda weird, so maybe this'll float their boats instead. ^___^ It's really well-written, too. Go here: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1781561
But hey, keep reading this story too! ^___^
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes Plays Dress-Up
by flame mage
spherechange 9: Bum Rush
**********
Yuna, Rikku, and some badass-looking chick I didn't know were striding up to me at an alarming rate of speed. I'd better say something. Quickly, I decided the best course of action was to keep doing what I'd been doing--pitch my voice a little higher and put everyone around me on the defensive from square one.
"I'm busy, so make it fast, okay? I've got lots to excavate and no one to do it," I snapped in English as soon as they got within ten feet of me, hands on hips. I hadn't spoken in anything but Al Bhed for the last few days; I was surprised, even after two years of living in the outside world, that I could switch so easily.
"Aren't you--?" Yuna began.
Cut her off at the pass. "No. Do you want something or not?"
"Yunie," Aniki's sister hissed in what she apparently thought was a whisper, "show her Gippal's letter!"
"Uhm...I've got this letter." The ex-summoner reached out and handed me a folded piece of paper that looked like it had spent too much time in her ammunition clip. I unfolded it and read it.
"Hey, gorgeous,
If I know you (and I like to think I do, although nowhere near as well as I'd like to), your first instinct will be to send these lovely ladies packing so Cid's kid won't blow your cover. Don't. I know for a fact you guys are pretty hard-up right now. These three are only temps, but they're packing more firepower than anyone else I can get you at the moment. That Youth League of yours is really leaning hard on my ass for some weapons; if you don't start digging soon, you'll have a better chance of digging your way through the center of the earth and out through the other side to Luca than you will of getting a ride home on any of our hovers. Word has it there's a special assembly part Z we really need floating around somewhere in the Western Expanse. Get them in, get them out, get that part to me by tonight and I'll tell you exactly what I had Sanna do to your commsphere. Mwah!
--Gippal"
I muttered more Al Bhed curse words under my breath than I thought I knew in the next thirty seconds while I tried to decide what to do. On the one hand, shipping those three out would definitely be the easiest way to handle things. Maybe I could even sneak back to Luca on their airship. Then again, if I wanted a legit way out, I'd better let them in on this, and even I wasn't so heartless that I could leave Benzo alone with this crew of misfits again. If they were going to get anything done out here, they needed a strong presence, and like it or not, I was it.
And what the hell had that jerk done to my sphere?!
"Oh, so you're the new guys!" I smirked, sizing them up. The black leather one looked tough, but Rikku would get tired of working in the heat and pass out in seconds, even with extra gear. Yuna didn't look like she could take much more than Rikku, but I knew from what I'd seen of her two years ago that she was stronger than she looked. They might not die. Either way, it was Gippal's problem, not mine.
"That's us!" Rikku squealed.
Yuna was still trying to be diplomatic. "Nice to meet you," she said quietly. Why did she have to do everything quietly these days? After all she'd been through, she was still so cheerful and innocent, I just wanted to shake her and scream, "LIVE A LITTLE, YA MORON!"
Oh, well. To each her own.
"Hmm. I guess the high summoner's hard up, too," I mused, then crossed my arms and looked at her haughtily. So this was what she'd been doing since she ditched Besaid. "Well, don't be expecting any special treatment."
"Right!" she said, practically snapping to attention.
I really, really, reeeeeally wanted to ask her about her boyfriend, but my spider sense was telling me this was not the time. "Let's get to it, then," I sighed, then snapped in Al Bhed, "Picket! Stop playing electronic Rock, Paper, Scissors with those dopes and get your mechanized butt over here!" Assuming it even had one.
"Youuuuu called, Oh Madam Slavedriver?" it drawled, zipping over.
"The only thing I'm gonna be calling is the garbage collectors to pick up your mangled remains if you don't start doing some work around here," I muttered. Yuna was only picking up a little of this, but Rikku was laughing, and I could tell from the way Badass' eyes left me when I glanced at her that she understood it too. Cred.
I picked up the commsphere and held it out so they could see it. "Picket, gimme a map," I said. It grumbled something metallic and inaudible and zoomed up a few hundred feet to display a bird's-eye-view of the camp. "Here's where we are," I told the three of them, then raised an arm and waved to Picket. "I need Special Assembly Z," I called. It shot across the desert and stopped above a hover, where several of the guys were collapsed on the sand looking demoralized. Gurk. I hadn't even realized they were gone. "And here is where you're headed." Ehehehe.
"Aww, but it's so far!" Rikku the Genius had apparently picked up on the exhausted looks on the faces of the wannabe diggers. She motored her hands in front of her body in supplication, which might work on her brother but did nothing to melt my icy heart.
Accordingly, I totally ignored her. "We'll send you out there by hover. Go talk to the pilot about it."
They trudged off, Picket in tow. Jock, who had apparently finished with the Merchant, shot me a whoa-momma look that Gippal would've envied as he escorted them into the hover. Yep, so much for his sainthood.
Ten minutes later they were back with a large and complex-looking engine-type-thing. If I'd known it would only take them that long, I would have done it myself. "Special Assembly Z," Yuna announced.
"Just what we needed!" I snapped, snatching it from her and hefting it between my hands. Just what I needed, more like it, so I could find out whether he just screwed with the color or put a bomb in that thing or what. What did Gippal plan on using this for, anyway? His food processor? "You're good," I added as an afterthought, because they were starting to look like the bellhop that hangs around in the hotel at Luca, showing you five times exactly how the lights work until you tip him.
Rikku grinned and stretched her arms behind her head. "What'd you expect?"
Tysh, what a twerplet. She was as annoying as her brother. "Don't let it go to your head," I sighed, rubbing my own. I was starting to want aspirin. "But you did do a good job." They were still standing there. Dammit, what were they, sphere hunters? I'd never met anyone more mercenary than the Machine Factionists, and these three were giving them a run for their money. "Here," I finally said in a tone of voice that suggested I was being patronizing toward small children or not-particularly-bright dogs. "Your reward." I dug a hundred gil out of my pocket and dropped it into Yuna's hand.
"Yesss!" Rikku hissed, pumping a fist.
"Thank you," Yuna said, bowing. Why was she bowing? I really wished she'd stop bowing. It was getting on my nerves.
"Great. Take this to Gippal while your hands are wet." I tossed Special Assembly Z into the hands of Badass, who wasn't expecting it but recovered instantly and went back to leaning on her sword and glowering. I realized that I hadn't heard her say Word One since the three of them had showed up.
I was definitely relieved when they left.
*****
"All right, Gippal, you'll have your part today. Now tell me what you did to my sphere," I snarled as soon as the commsphere connected to Djose about three minutes later.
He smiled broadly. "I do you a favor and this is the thanks I get. You know that sphere recorder you gave Bickson for Calm Day? Your sister gave me the serial number and I rigged your sphere up so you can view his transmissions. And hey, you can rest secure in the knowledge that if it turns out he's cheating on you, I'll be waiting with open arms."
"If you got enough time to keep your arms open that long, you can damn well come out here and do your digging yourself," I growled, then took the sticks and nails out. "I appreciate it, though. Uhm...thanks."
"No problem. If you really wanna show your gratitude, though, I can book the hot springs on Mt. Gagazet for Saturday night..."
"Sounds great. I'll bring my blitz gear and we'll work on your game. Sounds like you could use a little work on defense, since all you know how to do is MAKE PASSES," I shot back brightly.
"Temper, temper."
"Mmm. Hey, I found something in the desert while I was digging today and no one here knows what it is. Ever seen anything like it?" I held up the stone disk.
He leaned forward to examine it with his good eye (actually, I firmly believe to this day that both his eyes are probably good and the eyepatch is just an affectation to impress moronic women with his manliness, but whatever). "Yep. You got yourself a garment grid."
"A whaa?"
"Garment grid. You ever used a sphere grid in combat before?" I nodded. "Those babies are pretty much obsolete now, although a couple people still use 'em. But these are experimental--a lost technology that some kid called Shinra of the Gullwings has figured out how to revive. Like sphere grids, these things use the power of spheres to help the user learn abilities. You still have that sphere camera of yours?"
I dug around in my bag and held it up. "Yeah."
"What've you taken so far?"
I tried to remember. "Shots of Bickson, Rin and Naaga on Calm Day, and a couple days ago I took another clip of Miyu."
"I'll have to get back to you on Bickson and Rin, but you can use the other two as dresspheres. Take out the one with Naaga in it and load it into one of the holes in the grid." I shrugged, took the sphere out of the camera and set it in. "Now put your hand on it and hold it there until something happens."
"Gimme a break; nothing's gonna--whaa?" There was a strange feeling like an electric current running through my body. It felt like a milder version of the sensation I'd gotten when I'd learned new abilities through a sphere grid. I closed my eyes against the light that shifted around me and waited to see what was going to happen.
Something was moving around my legs. I wasn't clear on what was going on until I felt my thick gloves disappear and the shorts of my blitzball uniform split around my thighs.
Immediately after that, I burst forth into spontaneous song.
"A little bit of Gippal in my life! A little bit of Aniki by my side! A little bit of Bickson's all I need! A little bit of Botta's what I see! A little bit of--what the hell am I doing?!" All of a sudden it occured to me that I was flailing my arms around like an idiot (or a pop star; same thing) and belting out the lyrics to the most inane song I'd ever heard at the top of my lungs. My first thought was whether or not the others could hear me. My second thought was something along the lines of a wordless scream, because at that point I looked down and realized that I was wearing crazy ankle boots, an obscenely short neon blue canvas skirt, and a gray-blue halter top--refugees from Naaga's closet! I was also clutching a microphone.
I could see Djose Temple in the background of the sphere, but no one was there.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Gippal's voice burst out laughing and continued for several long and agonizing seconds before he finally stood up, tears in his eyes. Apparently he'd fallen over at the conclusion of my performance and collapsed in a fit of hysterical laughter. "Do that again!"
"Not on your life," I huffed, all semblance of dignity completely gone. "What the hell just happened to me?"
He was still laughing. Eventually he took several breaths and managed, "Most dress spheres...play on...hoohaha...the emotions of the person who recorded them. Since those...were...hahaha...all recorded by you...hee...I think it defaulted to...the image of the only female in... that recording." He tried to straighten his face out, failed, and cracked up again. "Man, that was priceless. 'A little bitta Gip-pal in my life!'" Now he was mimicking me in falsetto with the dramatic sweeping gestures of an idol singer.
"Shut up and tell me how to change back already. I don't need a disguise this badly."
He was almost calm now. "Okay. When you get a minute, take your camera and set it up so you're recording yourself. Just leave it on for a couple seconds, then load the sphere into the garment grid and change back the way you did this. You'll be back to your normal class."
"Class?" I repeated.
"Yep. That's how abilities are classified. That one you just used? At least at that moment, your sister's a Songstress. You, sweetheart, are definitely going to be a thief, especially with that reputation for Linna Unlocking of yours. I'm not sure about Bickson and Rin, but you can't use them anyway; the gender's wrong. Ship 'em over here on the next freight and I'll see if I can have our techs convert them into a format you can use." He paused. "Hmm, looks like you're getting a transmission from that spherecam now. I'll letcha go. And it's a pleasure doing business with you."
I figured he was bluffing until the image on the sphere shifted. I was looking at the hill at the center of Besaid Island.
I don't think I own anything in this chapter that I didn't own before, but I do have a link to a really interesting story. I know there were a couple of people who thought the BicksonxLinna pairing was kinda weird, so maybe this'll float their boats instead. ^___^ It's really well-written, too. Go here: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1781561
But hey, keep reading this story too! ^___^
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes Plays Dress-Up
by flame mage
spherechange 9: Bum Rush
**********
Yuna, Rikku, and some badass-looking chick I didn't know were striding up to me at an alarming rate of speed. I'd better say something. Quickly, I decided the best course of action was to keep doing what I'd been doing--pitch my voice a little higher and put everyone around me on the defensive from square one.
"I'm busy, so make it fast, okay? I've got lots to excavate and no one to do it," I snapped in English as soon as they got within ten feet of me, hands on hips. I hadn't spoken in anything but Al Bhed for the last few days; I was surprised, even after two years of living in the outside world, that I could switch so easily.
"Aren't you--?" Yuna began.
Cut her off at the pass. "No. Do you want something or not?"
"Yunie," Aniki's sister hissed in what she apparently thought was a whisper, "show her Gippal's letter!"
"Uhm...I've got this letter." The ex-summoner reached out and handed me a folded piece of paper that looked like it had spent too much time in her ammunition clip. I unfolded it and read it.
"Hey, gorgeous,
If I know you (and I like to think I do, although nowhere near as well as I'd like to), your first instinct will be to send these lovely ladies packing so Cid's kid won't blow your cover. Don't. I know for a fact you guys are pretty hard-up right now. These three are only temps, but they're packing more firepower than anyone else I can get you at the moment. That Youth League of yours is really leaning hard on my ass for some weapons; if you don't start digging soon, you'll have a better chance of digging your way through the center of the earth and out through the other side to Luca than you will of getting a ride home on any of our hovers. Word has it there's a special assembly part Z we really need floating around somewhere in the Western Expanse. Get them in, get them out, get that part to me by tonight and I'll tell you exactly what I had Sanna do to your commsphere. Mwah!
--Gippal"
I muttered more Al Bhed curse words under my breath than I thought I knew in the next thirty seconds while I tried to decide what to do. On the one hand, shipping those three out would definitely be the easiest way to handle things. Maybe I could even sneak back to Luca on their airship. Then again, if I wanted a legit way out, I'd better let them in on this, and even I wasn't so heartless that I could leave Benzo alone with this crew of misfits again. If they were going to get anything done out here, they needed a strong presence, and like it or not, I was it.
And what the hell had that jerk done to my sphere?!
"Oh, so you're the new guys!" I smirked, sizing them up. The black leather one looked tough, but Rikku would get tired of working in the heat and pass out in seconds, even with extra gear. Yuna didn't look like she could take much more than Rikku, but I knew from what I'd seen of her two years ago that she was stronger than she looked. They might not die. Either way, it was Gippal's problem, not mine.
"That's us!" Rikku squealed.
Yuna was still trying to be diplomatic. "Nice to meet you," she said quietly. Why did she have to do everything quietly these days? After all she'd been through, she was still so cheerful and innocent, I just wanted to shake her and scream, "LIVE A LITTLE, YA MORON!"
Oh, well. To each her own.
"Hmm. I guess the high summoner's hard up, too," I mused, then crossed my arms and looked at her haughtily. So this was what she'd been doing since she ditched Besaid. "Well, don't be expecting any special treatment."
"Right!" she said, practically snapping to attention.
I really, really, reeeeeally wanted to ask her about her boyfriend, but my spider sense was telling me this was not the time. "Let's get to it, then," I sighed, then snapped in Al Bhed, "Picket! Stop playing electronic Rock, Paper, Scissors with those dopes and get your mechanized butt over here!" Assuming it even had one.
"Youuuuu called, Oh Madam Slavedriver?" it drawled, zipping over.
"The only thing I'm gonna be calling is the garbage collectors to pick up your mangled remains if you don't start doing some work around here," I muttered. Yuna was only picking up a little of this, but Rikku was laughing, and I could tell from the way Badass' eyes left me when I glanced at her that she understood it too. Cred.
I picked up the commsphere and held it out so they could see it. "Picket, gimme a map," I said. It grumbled something metallic and inaudible and zoomed up a few hundred feet to display a bird's-eye-view of the camp. "Here's where we are," I told the three of them, then raised an arm and waved to Picket. "I need Special Assembly Z," I called. It shot across the desert and stopped above a hover, where several of the guys were collapsed on the sand looking demoralized. Gurk. I hadn't even realized they were gone. "And here is where you're headed." Ehehehe.
"Aww, but it's so far!" Rikku the Genius had apparently picked up on the exhausted looks on the faces of the wannabe diggers. She motored her hands in front of her body in supplication, which might work on her brother but did nothing to melt my icy heart.
Accordingly, I totally ignored her. "We'll send you out there by hover. Go talk to the pilot about it."
They trudged off, Picket in tow. Jock, who had apparently finished with the Merchant, shot me a whoa-momma look that Gippal would've envied as he escorted them into the hover. Yep, so much for his sainthood.
Ten minutes later they were back with a large and complex-looking engine-type-thing. If I'd known it would only take them that long, I would have done it myself. "Special Assembly Z," Yuna announced.
"Just what we needed!" I snapped, snatching it from her and hefting it between my hands. Just what I needed, more like it, so I could find out whether he just screwed with the color or put a bomb in that thing or what. What did Gippal plan on using this for, anyway? His food processor? "You're good," I added as an afterthought, because they were starting to look like the bellhop that hangs around in the hotel at Luca, showing you five times exactly how the lights work until you tip him.
Rikku grinned and stretched her arms behind her head. "What'd you expect?"
Tysh, what a twerplet. She was as annoying as her brother. "Don't let it go to your head," I sighed, rubbing my own. I was starting to want aspirin. "But you did do a good job." They were still standing there. Dammit, what were they, sphere hunters? I'd never met anyone more mercenary than the Machine Factionists, and these three were giving them a run for their money. "Here," I finally said in a tone of voice that suggested I was being patronizing toward small children or not-particularly-bright dogs. "Your reward." I dug a hundred gil out of my pocket and dropped it into Yuna's hand.
"Yesss!" Rikku hissed, pumping a fist.
"Thank you," Yuna said, bowing. Why was she bowing? I really wished she'd stop bowing. It was getting on my nerves.
"Great. Take this to Gippal while your hands are wet." I tossed Special Assembly Z into the hands of Badass, who wasn't expecting it but recovered instantly and went back to leaning on her sword and glowering. I realized that I hadn't heard her say Word One since the three of them had showed up.
I was definitely relieved when they left.
*****
"All right, Gippal, you'll have your part today. Now tell me what you did to my sphere," I snarled as soon as the commsphere connected to Djose about three minutes later.
He smiled broadly. "I do you a favor and this is the thanks I get. You know that sphere recorder you gave Bickson for Calm Day? Your sister gave me the serial number and I rigged your sphere up so you can view his transmissions. And hey, you can rest secure in the knowledge that if it turns out he's cheating on you, I'll be waiting with open arms."
"If you got enough time to keep your arms open that long, you can damn well come out here and do your digging yourself," I growled, then took the sticks and nails out. "I appreciate it, though. Uhm...thanks."
"No problem. If you really wanna show your gratitude, though, I can book the hot springs on Mt. Gagazet for Saturday night..."
"Sounds great. I'll bring my blitz gear and we'll work on your game. Sounds like you could use a little work on defense, since all you know how to do is MAKE PASSES," I shot back brightly.
"Temper, temper."
"Mmm. Hey, I found something in the desert while I was digging today and no one here knows what it is. Ever seen anything like it?" I held up the stone disk.
He leaned forward to examine it with his good eye (actually, I firmly believe to this day that both his eyes are probably good and the eyepatch is just an affectation to impress moronic women with his manliness, but whatever). "Yep. You got yourself a garment grid."
"A whaa?"
"Garment grid. You ever used a sphere grid in combat before?" I nodded. "Those babies are pretty much obsolete now, although a couple people still use 'em. But these are experimental--a lost technology that some kid called Shinra of the Gullwings has figured out how to revive. Like sphere grids, these things use the power of spheres to help the user learn abilities. You still have that sphere camera of yours?"
I dug around in my bag and held it up. "Yeah."
"What've you taken so far?"
I tried to remember. "Shots of Bickson, Rin and Naaga on Calm Day, and a couple days ago I took another clip of Miyu."
"I'll have to get back to you on Bickson and Rin, but you can use the other two as dresspheres. Take out the one with Naaga in it and load it into one of the holes in the grid." I shrugged, took the sphere out of the camera and set it in. "Now put your hand on it and hold it there until something happens."
"Gimme a break; nothing's gonna--whaa?" There was a strange feeling like an electric current running through my body. It felt like a milder version of the sensation I'd gotten when I'd learned new abilities through a sphere grid. I closed my eyes against the light that shifted around me and waited to see what was going to happen.
Something was moving around my legs. I wasn't clear on what was going on until I felt my thick gloves disappear and the shorts of my blitzball uniform split around my thighs.
Immediately after that, I burst forth into spontaneous song.
"A little bit of Gippal in my life! A little bit of Aniki by my side! A little bit of Bickson's all I need! A little bit of Botta's what I see! A little bit of--what the hell am I doing?!" All of a sudden it occured to me that I was flailing my arms around like an idiot (or a pop star; same thing) and belting out the lyrics to the most inane song I'd ever heard at the top of my lungs. My first thought was whether or not the others could hear me. My second thought was something along the lines of a wordless scream, because at that point I looked down and realized that I was wearing crazy ankle boots, an obscenely short neon blue canvas skirt, and a gray-blue halter top--refugees from Naaga's closet! I was also clutching a microphone.
I could see Djose Temple in the background of the sphere, but no one was there.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Gippal's voice burst out laughing and continued for several long and agonizing seconds before he finally stood up, tears in his eyes. Apparently he'd fallen over at the conclusion of my performance and collapsed in a fit of hysterical laughter. "Do that again!"
"Not on your life," I huffed, all semblance of dignity completely gone. "What the hell just happened to me?"
He was still laughing. Eventually he took several breaths and managed, "Most dress spheres...play on...hoohaha...the emotions of the person who recorded them. Since those...were...hahaha...all recorded by you...hee...I think it defaulted to...the image of the only female in... that recording." He tried to straighten his face out, failed, and cracked up again. "Man, that was priceless. 'A little bitta Gip-pal in my life!'" Now he was mimicking me in falsetto with the dramatic sweeping gestures of an idol singer.
"Shut up and tell me how to change back already. I don't need a disguise this badly."
He was almost calm now. "Okay. When you get a minute, take your camera and set it up so you're recording yourself. Just leave it on for a couple seconds, then load the sphere into the garment grid and change back the way you did this. You'll be back to your normal class."
"Class?" I repeated.
"Yep. That's how abilities are classified. That one you just used? At least at that moment, your sister's a Songstress. You, sweetheart, are definitely going to be a thief, especially with that reputation for Linna Unlocking of yours. I'm not sure about Bickson and Rin, but you can't use them anyway; the gender's wrong. Ship 'em over here on the next freight and I'll see if I can have our techs convert them into a format you can use." He paused. "Hmm, looks like you're getting a transmission from that spherecam now. I'll letcha go. And it's a pleasure doing business with you."
I figured he was bluffing until the image on the sphere shifted. I was looking at the hill at the center of Besaid Island.