At this time, I would like to give my thanks to Chaka, Insane Child, Gunbunny1, and Valex for reviewing. Yes, Valex, I am evil, and sometimes a little dense, but I try to avoid being a hypocrite. I do admit that I could have chosen a better word than 'harass'. How about 'tease'? I do like to tease people sometimes…kind of like right now! (Smiles sweetly and pokes Auron and Valex in the ribs, while Bob giggles) Moreover, I really DO love Auron, as much as one can love a fictitious character without being put under psychiatric evaluation. Anyway, here's the new chapter.

Chapter 11: Another Ally

After the whole incident with the Sand Worm, Ria and Bob decided that it was best not to say anything to Auron until his temper cooled. They traveled in silence for a few minutes, until a strange girl confronted them. She was short and slender, with long golden hair, tawny skin, and an Asian cast to her features. Her green eyes had spiral-pupils, and they went wide with astonishment once she spotted Auron. "Auron…but how? I thought you were off in the Farplane?" was the stranger's shocked question.

The swordsman chuckled softly. "It's nice to see you, too."

"Who is that?" Ria asked as the girl happily trotted toward them.

"This is Rikku. She's the daughter of the Al Bhed leader, Cid," he explained.

The sorceress smiled and said, "It's nice to meet you, Rikku. My name's Ria, and…"

"And I'm Bob," the Tonberry cheerfully interrupted, waving at the Al Bhed girl.

"Wow, you guys befriended a fiend? He's cute!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, we're letting him tag along until we can get him home," Auron replied with a slight smile.

"Hey, you know that you couldn't POSSIBLY survive without me!" Bob retorted.

"Oh, I'm sure that our fate rested on having you snore like a passing thunderstorm every night."

"You just don't appreciate me," the little fiend sighed as the two girls laughed.

Auron turned his attention back to Rikku and gave her a long, penetrating look. "I know that you didn't come out here just for idle chit-chat. What else do you want?"

She laughed, rather nervously, and replied, "You know how when we defeated Sin, the fayth vanished, right?"

When he nodded, she continued, "Well, when they vanished, Tidus did, too, and Yuna didn't really handle it all that well, and…"

"And?"

"And now nobody knows where she is," she finished.

"Yuna's the summoner you told me about, right?" Ria asked Auron.

"Yes, she is," he answered. "Rikku, do you have any idea where she might have gone?"

The Al Bhed girl sadly shook her head. "No, I don't, and I've been trying to convince Dad to let me borrow the Airship to go look for her, since the Celsius isn't finished yet, but he wants to use it for the battle."

"The Celsius?" Bob looked confused.

Rikku's face lit up. "Yeah! We've been working on a new airship. Come on, I'll show you."

They followed Rikku to the ruins of the Home, and what they saw there was nothing short of amazing. The Al Bhed were rebuilding their fortress with the aid of numerous machina, and had made a great deal of progress in doing so. "I see that you're not impressed," Auron said when he saw Ria's impassive expression.

The young woman shrugged. "We do things in a similar manner back on Earth, so I'm used to it."

A heavily tattooed man with overalls and a blond Mohawk stepped out from under what appeared to be the hull of some kind of vessel. "Rikku, where have you been?" he yelled in heavily accented English. "You were supposed to be helping build the Celsius!"

Rikku pointed at the hull and sighed, "This is the Celsius. As I said: it's not finished yet."

Ria frowned. "Maybe it's none of my business, but what were you saying about a battle earlier?"

"Rikku! Why have you brought a fiend in here?" the Mohawk man asked, eyeing Bob with suspicion.

The newcomer made as if he was going to attack the Tonberry, until he found the fiend's knifepoint poking him in the stomach. "Don't touch me, unless you want to spend the rest of your life carrying your guts in a bucket," Bob told his would-be captor.

"Brother, that's my new friend, Bob. Don't worry, my idiot brother won't do anything, I promise," Rikku told the Tonberry.

"He'd better not try," he muttered darkly, while putting his knife away.

"ANYWAY," Ria loudly interjected, "What battle were you talking about, Rikku?"

"Oh, that? Well, there's a large fiend hanging out in the desert, and it comes and attacks us sometimes, so Dad wants to use the Airship to fight it," she explained.

Then a bald man with a dark beard and a yellow jumpsuit walked up and said, "Are you talking about Ruby?"

"Pops, you NAMED it?" Rikku was incredulous.

"I got tired of referring to it as 'the fiend'," Cid replied, waving his hand dismissively.

"So you decided to call it Ruby? Nice name," Auron replied.

"Thanks. Anyway, Ruby has been popping up out of the sand, and it attacks anything that it can reach. I want to use the Airship to fly around it, and launch missiles at it while it's above ground."

"Does it fly?" the guardian wanted to know.

"No, of course not."

"Then why do you want to fight this thing as if it were Evrae?"

"Ruby likes to use this trick that makes the sand swallow anything, or anyone, it chooses, so we have to fight it from the air," Cid replied, his voice taking on a hint of frustration.

"But Dad!" Rikku cried, "We need to use the Airship so we can go find Yunie! What if she tries to go to Zanarkand?"

"Wait, what's been going on in Zanarkand?" asked Auron.

The Al Bhed girl looked at him and said, "That's where all the corrupted pyreflies came from. They started showing up about a month ago, and everything has been going wrong here in Spira ever since."

"That's about the same time the fiends started showing up on Earth, too," Ria said, but everyone ignored her.

"We need to use your Airship, Cid," the swordsman said to the Al Bhed leader.

"Sorry, but I need it more," he stubbornly replied, folding his arms in front of his chest.

"The fate of Spira is at stake."

"Well, Spira will have to wait until I'm finished, then."

Things went downhill quickly after that, with Auron, Rikku, and Cid all trying to shout louder than everyone else. Bob covered his ears to drown out the noise, while Ria kept trying to get everyone's attention. Finally, the young woman's patience caved in.

"SHUT UP!" she bellowed, her voice echoing off the rafters.

Everyone stopped and stared at her in complete disbelief as the sorceress finally gave vent to her rage. "SHUT UP, GODDAMNIT, EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP!"

When she was sure that everyone was listening, she modified her voice. "Now, everyone will listen to me," she hissed, her tone foreboding. "The next one of you that says ANYTHING, even if it's to tell me that I've just been elected 'Queen of the Friggin' Universe', is going to get blasted into oblivion!"

As if to emphasize her point, tiny flames appeared in the air around her. "I have had enough of this! I've been shot at, nearly drowned, almost chopped into pieces, nearly burnt to a crisp, nearly eaten, AND zombies killed my family! I think that I have been pretty damn patient up until now and NOW you stupid bastards want to get into a pissing contest? AW HELL NO!"

Ria then went into a long tirade that included the sexual appetites of everyone in the room, their ancestors, and their probable descendants. As she yelled, her language became increasingly obscene. Finally, she spat out an oath vile enough to make a sailor flinch, and a crack of thunder punctuated it. As suddenly as it began, her violent tantrum subsided, and the little flames vanished. "Now, do you people want to be reasonable, or am I going to have to get nasty?" she asked.

"Are you sure she's not a fiend?" Cid asked Auron.

Before the guardian could reply, the ground began to shake, and an earsplitting roar pierced the air. /It's coming! Ruby is coming!/ one panicked Al Bhed shouted.

"Damn, I was hoping we would have more time," Cid growled under his breath. He turned to Ria and asked, "Are you willing to help us?"

She shrugged, "Will you take us to this Zanarkand place?"

He gave her a steady look. "I'll take you anywhere you want, if you'll help us get rid of this fiend."

"What do you think?" she asked Auron.

"We might as well do it," was his response.

"Can we hurry it up, then, because I think it's getting closer," Bob said, as the earthquakes became more violent.

"Let's go, then," shouted Cid.

Everyone boarded the Airship, and as it took off, the fiend finally erupted out of the sand and let out a terrible noise that was half roar and half scream. Ruby was several stories tall, with a long neck and arms, and covered in blood-red armor. It, like the fiend in the sea, looked like a melding of science and nature, and its eyes were just as pitiless. "Oh, great!" Rikku groaned. "Now I have to fight that thing!"

Auron gave her an amused glance, "No one forced you to come along, you know."

"If I didn't come, then you would just leave me here, and I wouldn't be able to look for Yunie!" the girl retorted.

All right, that's all you get for now. If the language in this chapter seems kind of stilted, it's because I wanted to keep it PG-13, and I had to delete a lot of the cuss words that popped up when I originally wrote it. I apologize for that, but I really didn't want to have to change the rating. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to your new reviews.