Chapter by: Shroomipoo (Gorn)
Edits by: Mumakilbrows (Rond)
Chapter 3
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Lily looked in awe at the vast tropical forest before her. Suddenly something whacked her lightly on the head and wrenched the wand from her hand.
"Will you go out with me?" James hopped in front of her, twiddling her wand in his fingers.
Lily shot him a completely disgusted look and stomped his foot.
"OW!!!"
"I can't believe you're still going on with that," snapped Lily, snatching her wand from his fist and stomping away.
"So, who's Yuna and Lulu anyways?" she asked Wakka.
"Yuna's a summoner in training," explained Wakka, "Lulu's her guardian." And then, seeing the confused look on Lily and the others' faces, he added, "In Spira—our world—we have a destructive being called Sin, who probably brought you here. Long ago, our world was full of evil machines—machina—and the evil people back then used them too much to kill each other, and so Yevon sent us a punishment, Sin.
"Sin destroyed all the machina cities, and continues destroying our world, until us humans can repent for what we've done. Take a look around you," he said, motioning to the hills around.
Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Snivelly—I mean Severus—gazed around them and noticed for the first time that the lush tropical forest around them was full of what looked like ancient ruins of some thousand year old city.
"So," said Peter, "you haven't told us about this Luna and Yulu yet,"
"Yuna and Lulu," corrected Wakka. "Anyways, summoners are people who go on pilgrimages across Spira to obtain things called aeons—"Wakka paused, looking at the blunt confusion in his listener's faces and sighed before continuing, "divine beings created from spirits of those who give their lives away before Sin. Aeons are the only things capable of killing Sin."
"...And Yuna's a summoner?" finished James.
Wakka nodded. "You must be hungry," he added.
Everyone's stomach growled at the same time in the mention of food.
"Come on, let's go to the village, and we'll fix you something to eat," said Wakka, ushering them all down a small trail leading through the rainforest.
--
The village of Besaid was a homey little village with twenty or so little huts before a large building made of blue stone. Severus looked disgustedly around the table. Not at the food; it looked delicious, but at the people eating it. The stupid mudblood and the strange dirty blonde boy seemed to be the only ones with manners. Peter was stuffing his mouth full and chewing like a mutated rat of some sort, Sirius was eating with his mouth open, Remus was examining the, and James was playing with it.
Wakka was sitting there watching them eat when someone resembling some sort of a bald monk ran into the hut and said in an exasperated voice, "Wakka, maybe you should check on them,"
Wakka stood up. "What happened?"
"They haven't come out yet, and it's been almost a day already," he pleaded.
"What is it?" asked Tidus. "The summoner and her guardians," he said. "I'm going to check on them; you can come if you want."
Severus stood up to go, not that he cared, but because everyone else stood up and hurried out the door after Wakka, and he didn't want to be left all alone.
The group hurried down the street and up the steps to the temple. Inside, the dark circular room lit only by torches along the wall and a small fire at the middle was running in chaos. More bald monks—priests, Wakka called them—were hurrying around.
One of them rushed up to the group and told Wakka, "Lady Yuna has not emerged yet! What shall we do?"
Although he wouldn't admit it, Tidus was beginning to panic. What if she died?
Without thinking, he rushed up the stairs to a door at the far end of the temple and yelled all the bewildered people, "She hasn't come out all day and you still do nothing?! What if something happened?!"
With that he flung the door open and ran in. Lily followed him. "Lily!" exclaimed James, "What're you doing?"
"He's right," she yelled back, "What if something happened?" With that she ran into the room beyond. James looked exasperatedly after her for a few seconds before following.
Sirius shrugged at Remus and followed with Peter tagging along behind them. Last was Severus, who sighed and just followed for no reason in particular.
--
"Now what?" grunted Severus angrily. They were stuck in a small rectangular room with the door behind them locked.
Tidus looked around and noticed a small shining symbol on one of the walls. He walked over and touched it. Immediately the symbol glowed greenish, and the wall it was on slid up to reveal another chamber.
"Whoa, great work!" said Lily.
James glared at Tidus for catching his girl's attention.
The next room had a small shelf with a shining orb in it.
"Hey," said Tidus, "I recognize those, they're called spheres or something. I think the green ones are called glyph spheres I think."
"Okay, spheres," said Lily, and she walked over and plucked the green thing from its recess. She walked down a flight of stairs at the other end of the room and came to a locked door.
"Now what?" squeaked Peter.
"Maybe you put it there," James pointed to a small round hole where the doorknob should be.
Lily carefully stuck the glyph sphere into the whole, and with a rumbling sound, the door opened up.
"Wow, thanks!" she said. Then noticing who she was talking to (James), she cleared her throat and corrected, "I could have thought of that."
James in turn cleared his throat and gave it a try. "Will you go out with me now?"
Tidus, Remus, Sirius, and Severus all winced as Lily kicked James in the shins.
"Now what?" said Lily, rubbing the dust off her hands and walking forward as if nothing had happened.
"Maybe we should take the glyph sphere and put it here," said Tidus, examining another little shelf built into the wall. This one, instead of having a sphere on it, had just an empty recess.
Peter came running with the glyph sphere that was in the door and handed it to Lily. She took it gingerly and put it into the recess. Another symbol appeared on the wall above it, and the wall slid up to reveal a room beyond. Nested inside was a white sphere, which Tidus identified as a Besaid sphere.
Now that they had that, the next thing to do was find where to put it.
There wasn't another recess.
"We're stuck." said Severus. Everyone turned to him, surprised since he hadn't talked at all since Wakka invited them over.
Remus looked around. "Maybe it has to do with those glowing symbols over there," he said pointing to the wall on the far corner, where silvery characters were glowing.
Tidus walked over and touched it. The symbols glowed extra bright, and then disappeared altogether. Then the wall dissolved.
"Well, that was easy," said Tidus sheepishly.
The next room was long and empty and had nothing except a podium with a sphere recess in it.
Lily put the Besaid sphere in it. "Uh, now what?"
"Maybe you push it to the other end of the room...?" suggested Remus.
Lily nodded and pushed on the pedestal. It didn't budge. James smirked and walked up next to her and helped.
Slowly, the stone pedestal budged and moved down the hall.
James ran his hand through his hair and gave Lily one of his prince charming smiles and opened his mouth, but before a word came out of it, Lily glanced at him coldly and turned the other way.
"Here," said Remus, pointing at a small symbol on the ground. "Push it here!"
They did, and immediately the whole floor turned from the bluish stone to reddish stone circle with an intricate pattern design.
"What're you kids doing?!" demanded a voice from the other side of the room. Everyone turned to find Wakka walking towards them. "Only summoners and their guardians are allowed here!"
"I'm sorry, we were just worried, Mr. Wakka—" started Lily.
"Aw, never mind, ya? You guys did pretty good to get all the way here, so lets just go all the way, ya?"
He ushered everyone onto the red circle. Then he said, "down," and the circle sank down through the ground like an elevator.
"Lulu's not going to be happy..." he muttered.
After what seemed to take forever, the 'elevator' finally stopped, and everyone stepped off. They were in a dimly lit room. An apparently very cross woman jumped as she looked over her shoulder. She immediately put a cross expression on her face. She had dark hair draped over one eye and a bouquet of long braids hanging from a bun in the back of her head and wore a long leather dress with a low top showing lots of skin. She strode up to Wakka.
"What's the meaning of this?" she demanded. James noticed she had lots of deep purple eye shadow and magenta lip gloss. "You didn't think we could do it?"
"Uh, Lu, I'll explain later..." said Wakka.
"And who are they?"
"I'll explain later..."
Wakka motioned for everyone to follow him to the opposite side of the room, where a large blue lion with a horn on its forehead stood before a long flight of stairs leading up to a triangular door.
"That was Lulu," he explained, "And the Ronso"—he pointed to the blue lion—"is Kimahri. We're Yuna's guardians. Yuna's inside praying to the fayth. If she passes, she becomes a fully-fledged summoner and gains her first aeon.
"Is she alright?" demanded Tidus.
"I hope so. She's been in there all day, and she should be coming out."
Just then the door at the end of the stairs slid open.
Inside was a young girl about Tidus's age. She was wearing what resembled a tank top kimono with separate sleeves. Sweat dripped down from her red-brown hair. Her bicolored eyes looked tired but showed confidence and happiness. She started down the stairs and fell, but got up again.
"I've done it, I've—I've become a summoner!"
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