The Adjacency of Ones

Inside the Memory

The cries of pain lasted throughout the night. Dimly buzzing lights fought with the echoes of a voice calling out to fill the Al Bhed's camp and everyone who passed the tent would slow to peer in hopes of seeing if Gippal would be okay. All they would see was Rikku sitting in to the side of the door, hugging her knees and staring into the sand with no sense of location or purpose.

Since they had brought Gippal here, writhing and screaming in pain, she had remained outside, waiting diligently for one of the doctors to come out and tell her that Gippal would be all right. However, she knew that couldn't happen. His screaming and holding to his eye would haunt her to this day. These days were a little easier. Still, there was a slight wince whenever she looked at Gippal adjusting the patch over his eye.

"Well," a gruff voice broke the night air as her secluded worrying was invaded, "mind telling me what happened?"

She knew instantly the sound of her father's voice. Cid had just come from the tent; came from watching the doctors trying to calm the young boy down and understand the things he said. His face was as stern as ever, but the relief of knowing his daughter was safe couldn't hide from a viewer's glance. Rikku looked up to him, her eyes reddened and her cheeks tearstained. "Gippal?"

Cid crossed his arms heavily over his chest, his face offering no level of solace to her fears. "The boy will live, but he's going to lose that eye. Them Marlboro have a few kinds of acid in them, and the doctors think this was a pretty weak kind. Considering, he's pretty lucky."

The news fell on Rikku like a cold rain, making her tears start running hot down her cheeks again. Gippal would lose his eye because of her. Truths of mistake were always the most potent when hearing the cries of the victim. Burying her face back into her knees, Rikku began to sob loudly. The boy she admired and tried to impress would now hate her for causing such a trauma to him. She would forever be known as the girl who injured one of the brightest young Al Bhed at Home. This proposition made tears wash the sand from her legs even more.

Cid sighed lightly. To him, disaster had been prevented all because one young boy had the courage to put his life into danger for another. It was a moment to be proud and a moment to be thankful. Unfortunately, the boy had paid a price for his valor. How he would deal with this loss would ultimately outline his character more vividly than any interview. "Now don't get into such a fuss. The boy will be fine and no one else was hurt. Rikku," he said and crouched down next to her. "Tell me about the ones who chased the monster away."

Rikku had almost forgotten about them. Three soldiers wearing uniforms she had never seen before had come onto the scene just after Gippal had been injured, taking the Marlboro's attention away and saving the two children. There, holding Gippal as he shook lightly in her arms, Rikku watched the three soldiers use magic and weapons she could only dream of, effectively defeating the monster and sending it back into the caves. Their heroics were only slightly tainted by their reactions to the children.

"Are they all right? Wait a minute...aren't they..." one began as she looked over Rikku and Gippal.

"Al Bhed children," another finished.

"Tch, what a waste of time. Stupid heretics. We should have let it eat them," the last snorted and began to head back the way they had come. The remaining two only eyed the children a moment before leaving. It was Rikku's first time seeing anyone from Bevelle. Their words fell on her ears deafly, for their actions had saved Gippal. All she could was hug his head lightly as he moaned into her leg, her skin picking up the tears he cried. It was there that the Al Bhed search party had found them, quickly taking Gippal to the medical tent and leaving Rikku there so they could inform Cid.

Rikku could still feel tears on her legs; could still see the diluted red reflecting the light on her skin. She could still feel Gippal's fingers digging into her flesh as he writhed in agony over the acid in his eye and it caused her to wail out, clutch Cid's leg and begin to cry out the entire story as best she could remember it. As Gippal cried out in agony, Rikku cried out in torment.
"Hey, are you okay?"

Gippal pulling on her arm caused Rikku to snap out of her daze, her memories of the past being shaken out of her by Gippal's soft tug. His hand had moved from the sensitive area it had rested and Gippal had now turned to her fully, rather curious as to why she had owned such a glazed expression and a shallow breath. Now sensations were rushing back to her just as quickly as the present was. Tau moved across her back slightly to peek over her shoulder more with its glowing eye, forcing the cold metal to sweep across her bare skin. It was more than enough to cause Rikku to find herself again.

"Duh, of course I am! I was just letting you be all courageous is all," she replied with a little flash of her tongue, a gesture which convinced Gippal of her well-being.

"Ah huh. Well it seems out friend has moved out of the cavern it was in before."

"Oh yah? How do you know, mister detective?"

Gippal flashed her a very wry smile and tossed his thumb over his shoulder. "Cause it's right there."

The sound of heavy breathing and the shifting of heavy feet caused Rikku to pale a bit, for what lingered over his left shoulder was an Adamantortoise, the heavily armored fiend which had given even the Gullwings a rough time on their way to the Farplane.

Admittedly, Gippal wasn't too fond of it either.
"You can come in now. He can have visitors," a doctor said as Rikku lingered in the doorway of the tent.

The night preceding the day had been one where Rikku had exhausted herself from crying to the point she simply fell asleep. Her dreams had been no relief as she lived the incident over a thousand times, each one causing her to awaken at the sound of Gippal's scream.

In reality, Gippal had been silent for most of the night, his head bandaged and his eye rinsed and covered. The acid had been mild, but there was no hope for the eyesight coming back to his right eye. It would be something he had to live with the rest of his life.

Rikku was scared to come in. The harsh words and blame of someone she admired so deeply lived in this tent, despite the fact that she wanted to see him desperately. Hugging the door, she tried to peek around the room to find some bearing, but saw nothing but curtains and beds. Something was forcing her to stay out, but an equally forcible urge was pushing into her back. A voice would break the balance.

"There aren't any fiends in here. I promise."

The voice was unmistakable, but she had to fight the chill running down her back to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Stepping into the tent, she could now see the only occupied bed and the patron which rested on it. Gippal was upright, his hands resting in his lap and his lips turned into that ever-present smirk. The only thing which differed about him was the bandages. Rikku felt a little anxious about that, but none of the words he had spoken were sharp or hurtful. In fact, he sounded friendlier towards her than he ever had before. That also worried her. "Are you okay, Gippal?"

He watched her timidly step further into his room and laughed, pushing the bandages on his head up a bit to ease the awkward feeling they presented. "My goggles don't fit anymore," he replied. That made Rikku feel ten times lighter and a smile once more worked its way across her face. Even at her age, she marveled at how easy Gippal took such a dire thing. Nothing could ever break the aura which circulated around him and that was easily one of the strongest things that drew her to him.

After dragging her feet a bit, she finally came to the side of his bed and stared uncontrollably at the bandages, her smile fading. Nothing he could have said would erase how bad she felt about her part in his injury, but she was also overwhelmingly thankful he had been there. "Thank you for helping me, Gippal. I was so scared when that fiend came at me..." The depths of her memories caused her hands to grip the sheets on which he lay, though his attention was strict upon her.

"It's no big deal. You're Cid's little girl! I couldn't have come back to camp if you were made into some fiend's lunch, right?" The look on Gippal's face was priceless as he took a brisk look around before leaning closer to her. "Your dad would have killed me!" His expressions and tones brought out a bursting giggle from Rikku, who looked down into the bed to hide how easily he made her laugh. She hated it when he manipulated her like that.

"Besides, now I know what I'm going to do when I get older."

It was something she hadn't expected him to say and Rikku glanced up at him, confused far beyond her sorrow. "Huh?"

Gippal stared at the wall but his expression proved that he was no longer sitting in the hospital. He was back in the cavern, fighting a thousand Marlboros and beating each one. An insignia crested his shoulder and he was part of a greater creature. In his mind, he couldn't fail. "I'm going to go to Bevelle. I'll make it so even a Marlboro runs away from me in a fight. I may even beat Sin."

Now Rikku truly paled. Not only did Bevelle not entirely like the Al Bhed, but Sin? No one could defeat Sin! Well, only summoners had a chance but only if they gave their life! Nothing but death and suffering surrounded Sin so her reaction was naturally berserk. "You can't! Sin's too strong and you'll die if you fight it!"

But Gippal was already gone. He smiled and stared as if nothing in the world would convince him otherwise. Even as Rikku clutched his sheets and stared at him furiously, she knew that one day, in the not-so-distant future, she would watch Gippal leave Home.

And one day, she did.
Rikku felt a little nervous as she stared around Gippal at the seething fiend. No matter how valiantly she called out at the start of battle, she always felt a little nervous. She was confident in herself and in Gippal, but it didn't keep her from worrying just a bit. "You'd better go hide, Tau. I wouldn't want you to get hurt," Rikku cooed to the small machina, who quickly crawled down her back and legs until it was scurrying across the ground to hide behind a small rock, peeking out only a glowing eye to watch the battle. The Adamantortoise wasn't quite sure what to make of the two, but it was pawing the ground as it guarded a huddled figure in a corner. Gippal had been looking at the figure intently and called out a few directions in Al Bhed. The figure, petrified with fear, only nodded and stayed huddled in the corner.

"Well, all right. Ready to do some heroic stuff?" Gippal quipped as he tossed his Mortar on his shoulder.

Rikku hopped up next to him with her daggers bared, her form hunched down and her lips twisted in a grin. "Huh, betcha I can take it down before you." Gippal smiled at her challenge and straightened a bit, raising the barrels of his Mortar into the air and firing a volley onto the fiend. It cried out, but wasn't affected much. At least now it knew these two creatures were serious.

Rikku shot a glance at Gippal. "Hey, no fair! I didn't say go yet!"

The battle seemed to lumber on for a short while, both Rikku and Gippal both scraping away at the Adamantortoise with a variety of attacks. The fiend had given just as little damage to them, its physical attacks too slow to actually hit either of them. For the most part, it had been a race to see actually which one of them would finish it off first.

Gippal nimbly landed after cutting into the fiend with the saw at the other end of his Mortar and idly glanced to Rikku, finding a rather interesting detail about her spherechanges. It brought a smile to his face, though he wouldn't say anything about it quite yet.

"Gippal!"

However, his lapse in mental focus led to a disastrous consequence for him. Just as he looked back to the Adamantortoise, it was reared up on its hind legs and throwing its head forward, using a deadly attack called Adamant Breath on him. The attack ripped into him and sent him sprawling back into the wall of the cave, motionless and cold in the wake of the last resort of the fiend.

Rikku was beside herself as she watched him lay like a doll against the stone wall, a summary of all of her fears concerning caves and fiends. The sight of Gippal lying there tightened her fist, which was now covered in a heavy armor. Although she didn't quite have the same prowess in the Dark Knight form as Paine did, she was significantly pissed off to truly feel the suit. A surge of energy coursed through her as she wielded the sword with all of the grace and power she could afford, making her seem much darker than usual. The Darkness attack seemed to drain much more out of her than it ever had before, but the ensuing wave rippled through the Adamantortoise and crush what life it had left in it. As the great beast howled and fell to the ground with a mighty quake, its formidable armor now disintegrated into pyreflies and soon, into nothing.

Rikku was already running to Gippal.

By the time she arrived to him, her clothes had returned to the normal Thief appearance and she resumed her role as Rikku once more. The worker had fled out of opportunity and they were alone again, safe and secluded. Rikku was wild with worry at just what injuries Gippal could have from the attack, but her heart was given to a speed bump as she fell to her knees before him. Gippal was sitting back against the wall now, his Mortar standing next to him and his arms slung casually over his knees. He was completely entertained by her.

"Well, I guess you win."

"Gi...you weren't even hurt?!" she howled out at him, feeling a bit embarrassed that she had made such a fuss over him. Once again he showed his talent in getting a reaction out of her and chuckled, though a bit strained as he stretched his torso a bit.

"I wouldn't go that far. A little bruised, but nothing a good nap won't fix."

Breath still came hard to Rikku, her heart finding time to slow down and understand what her eyes were telling it. Gippal was fine, the worker was safe and the fiend was gone. Job done. Still, she couldn't hide what seeing him hurt like that did to her. She sat back on her knees and sighed, trying not to compare this with the last time they were in a cave like this. An almost alien feeling came about her as she felt something crawling on her, only to find that it was Tau. A smile came back to her as she hugged the small machina.

"What's this?" Gippal asked as he saw something glimmer a few feet away. Just as he reached for it, a shooting pain shot through his side, though he managed to ignore it with just a wince. Grabbing the small sphere, he leaned back with a small grunt, focusing his eye on it in hopes Rikku would as well. No sense making her worry.

"A sphere?"

"Looks like it. The fiend must have had it."

"I wonder what's on it."

Gippal closed his fingers around the sphere and looked to Rikku, grinning at the opportunity to show off his mechanical prowess once more. "Let's find out. Here, Tau."

The small machina twirled its eye to Gippal, extended two of its arms out to grasp the sphere and take it from his hand. Rikku blinked wildly and loosened her arms as Tau rested in her lap, split along its middle and devoured the sphere like it was a sweet snack. To her infinite slavery to Gippal's abilities, she watched as Tau turned its eye upward and projected the contents of the sphere.