(A/N) Guys, I'm really, really sorry it took me so long to update, and to top the day off; this chapter is the shortest I have ever written to this story, but I can tell ya that further chapters might not get too long.
The reason to why I'm so late; well…I began on this other story, I've already written about four chapters to it, but what ticks me off, is that I've been getting A LOT of more reviews in that one compared to this one! Hmpf…anyways, if you like a story with A LOT of fluffs, then I really recommend on reading it, "Clinging to a memory", but maybe some of ya already read it….anyways, here's the long awaited update of Final Fantasy X3: A new story!
Rikku POV
So there we were, walking in a massive labyrinth of wires, plates, bridges and other machina thingies. Geez…we had to place out radar-targets so we would be able to find the way out again! And the moomba clung onto me all the time, like I was his mommy….oh, and I named him Cue, because he's such a cutie! Oh, and we saw these weird symbols everywhere, like those on the airship and next to the gate, and Narroj kept bugging poor Raze to translate them; it was all some old history crap about how that place was built and stuff. At some places, it was really dark and scary….I had to stop once, cause I saw this weird thing that made me shiver, but Bee gave me a spank on the butt and said it was only a light bulb. Now, normally when somebody spanks my butt, I would wheel around and smack their faces, but since it was Bee….I was just sorta freaked out instead.
Anyway, we got into this huge room with a large opening leading out to the ocean, and guess what was covering the walls; eggs! Just like the one Gippal and I saw in the cave near Djose shore! Although they weren't spitting out Sallets like the last one. Gippal kept yapping about his theory of how the egg must have been washed out of here during that huge storm and then being washed up in Djose. Yup, I know; Gippal hardly gets serious about anything, but he was kinda serious about all this….for about two minutes….then he went into 'Gippal mode' and said "Hey Cid's girl! Maybe you should go back so these things won't jump at you and make ya pass out again, eh?"
That jerk! Grrr…hmpf, and that's exactly what I called him; a stupid bone-headed jerk.
Gah, and then Wedge came up with this stupid question, like "Uh, are ye guys married or something?"
To that question, both I and Gippal let out a clear and simple "NO!"
And he went all "Okay, okay sorry! Just thought that the two of ya looked like ye made 'quite the couple' tha's all…"
Argh! Why does everybody say that?
But before I could voice my thought about that comment; one of the eggs hatched and another one of those icky dragons came at us. Buuut…we were more this time so it didn't take long until we beat it to a pulp! And guess who got to finish it of!
…nooo, it wasn't Raze.
….nooo, it wasn't Gippal.
…it wasn't Narroj either, no.
…and it was definitely not Bee.
…Hah! You thought it was me, didn't ya? But, no, it wasn't me either, it was Wedge. Yup, that guy sure got a scary left swing. He killed it with his own hands, it was so cool! So, uh…what happened next?...Oh yeah! We left the big room and took another route to explore the place some more.
Normal POV
"What's this?" Gippal quietly asked no one in particular as they entered a really huge room. It was quadratic; there were some stairs at the entrance, leading them down about two feet. Along the walls there were metal statues that looked like hunched, faceless, grey humans. But what caught the eyes of the visitors were all the glass pipe-like tanks, every single one of them had something inside of them, water, and something that looked suspiciously like humans, although they were partly mechanic, they looked to be either dead or asleep.
"What in Fayth's name is this place?" Wedge said in a low voice.
Rikku hugged Cue closer to her chest as she entered the room.
Raze stared around the room with something like terror in his eyes.
"This place…" He said and slowly walked to the center of the room where a bigger and more advanced looking container stood, it was broken, empty, and there were some inscriptions on it.
"Messiah…" He read.
While everybody was examining the tanks and their inhabitants, Narroj crossed the room to a large door, or more like gate, that reached almost all the way up to the ceiling. He looked at the inscriptions and tried to make them out; Raze had taught him some of it when they checked the other inscriptions in the corridors.
"'The source'?" He read and frowned. He pushed one of the doors open and peeked inside; it was a large corridor, and in the end of it there was another gate-like door, and in front of it stood some kind of large machina.
"Hey guys!" He yelled at the others. "Check this out!"
The others came up to him, except Raze who was still staring at the broken tank, deep in thought.
"What's that?" Rikku asked nervously as she pointed towards the machina.
"Never seen a machina before?" Gippal smirked.
"Not something like that!" Rikku exclaimed and glared at Gippal.
"Me neither," Gippal said and shrugged. "But there's only one way to find out." And with that he stepped through the door and started to walk over to the machina, however, before he could reach it, the whole thing began to tremble and make a tinkering sound. Gippal froze in his tracks as the thing rose and folded out arms and legs, wires stuck out everywhere.
The machina stood hunched on two strong legs, it was twice as tall as an average man, the arms were long with big claws that looked like they could cleave lead. The metal was grey and dusty. The neck was long and bent down slightly so that the head was centered above the head, it had two read lamp-like eyes which stared at Gippal.
"Crap." Gippal muttered. He quickly took out his gun and aimed it at the machina as it advanced on him. He shot it five times non-stop but it kept coming at him. He dodged its claws and quickly jumped backwards.
Rikku put Cue down and quickly ran to assist Gippal. Her spinning daggers cut through wires easily but she had quite some problems getting through the metal. Suddenly, the machina grabbed her knifes with its claws. It pulled them out of her grasp in two swift movements and squeezed, turning the daggers to nothing but a pair of useless lumps.
"Rikku, get back!" Narroj yelled as he pushed past her and thrust the barrel of his shotgun in what would have been the throat of the machina and fired. The machina staggered a little and stumbled backwards as Narroj and Gippal fired at it again.
The machina suddenly went down on all fours and opened some kind of mouth and 'spitted' out a black sphere which exploded and sent Rikku, Gippal and Narroj flying across the corridor.
Suddenly Raze came rushing through the door, he leapt at the machina and pierced it with his spear, he pushed it with inhuman strength into the wall and exclaimed "WHAT IS THIS PLACE!" He stared into the machine's red eyes, as if expecting it to answer. "VEM ÄR DU?"
The machina stared at him for a second, and then, to everyone else's surprise; it talked.
"Källans väktare."
"Vilken källa?" Raze yelled.
"Jag har inte auktoritet att svara på den frågan."
"Raze, what's it saying?" Bee asked as she walked a little closer.
"That he's not authorized to answer my question." Raze said.
Suddenly the machina quickly stretched its arm out and scraped Raze's arm in the process. Raze stumbled backwards, clutching his arm which had a large wound in it, but it didn't bleed, it sparkled. He removed his hand and stared at his arm in horror; out of his flesh stuck slightly trashed metal and wires stained with dried out blood, a broken wire was sparkling.
"Raze.." Bee gasped. "Y-yo-your arm is a machina!"
"I do not think it's just the arm!" Raze muttered through gritted teeth as he stared at the machina who pulled the spear out of its body and threw it aside.
"You guys better get out of here!" Raze said as he cast firaga at the machina making it stumble backwards, Raze immediately started to charge another, stronger spell.
"Raze!" Bee yelled as she scanned him with her goggles and saw what kind of spell he was casting. "You can't use an ultima spell here! The whole corridor might collapse!"
"Which is why I am telling you to leave!" Raze called as a purple light erupted from his hands, the machina started to advance again. "I will bury it right here, now GO!" And with that he unleashed ultima, sending purple beams at the machina like fireworks, exploding in flashes of fire.
The walls began to tremble.
"We gotta go!" Gippal yelled.
"We can't leave Raze!" Bee shouted at him.
"That's right!" Rikku shouted.
Gippal groaned and grabbed Bee who was closest to him and flung her over his shoulder and ran. Narroj grabbed Rikku's arm and quickly dragged her to the entrance, Cue jumped up on Wedge and hung onto his back as he quickly ran out of the corridor.
As they were all back in the room with all the tanks the door to the corridor was somehow sealed shut.
"Dammit!" Gippal exclaimed and kicked the door. "That…idiot!"
"Uhm…Gip?" Rikku nervously tugged at his sleeve as she glanced around the room.
"What?" Gippal whirled around and glared at her, but then he realized what she saw. All the statues that were standing along the walls were moving; as they stood straight Gippal realized that they weren't statues, they were machina, skeleton-like machina, and they all stared at the intruders.
"Okay guys," Gippal spoke quietly. "Let's move to the exit, slowly, slow-" But the machinas were already advancing on them, quickly.
Gippal and Narroj quickly took out the first raid.
"Stay together!" Gippal yelled. "Take out those who get to close and run!"
They ran across the room with Wedge in the lead with Cue still on his back, he broke through the wave of machina like a bulldozer. They ran through the corridors, taking out any machina that came too close. Gippal took out his com-device and shouted into it.
"Dara! Get the airship started!" He shouted. "Tell everyone to get their asses on board NOW! We gotta go NOW!"
They could see the gate now, but something was wrong; it was going downwards, sealing itself.
"Shit!" Gippal exclaimed as he ran faster. He looked behind himself; Bee was slowing down due to the lack of stamina, it went kind of slow for Rikku and Narroj too, since Rikku was exhausted and Narroj had to drag her. Gippal looked towards the door; they wouldn't make it unless they ran faster.
"Gah!" Gippal shouted. "We're too slow!" He Turned around and grabbed Bee and quickly slung her over his shoulder (again) and dashed forward. Narroj follow suit and slung Rikku over his shoulder. Wedge picked up the pace as well. The gate was about two feet away when they all managed to roll under it and out.
Gippal and Narroj put Bee and Rikku down, and they all knew that those machina couldn't get out through the gate anymore, but something told them they shouldn't waste time; so they ran, they ran as fast as they could up the road by the waterfall, Bee even forgot about her fear of heights.
As they ran through the rocky landscapes they saw hordes of machina welling out through the fiend grottos.
Rikku saw the airship come into view; warmed up and ready to go. 'Just a little further' she thought. 'Then we're safe'.
Suddenly she fell to the ground, she looked back; a machina had crawled out of a hole in the ground and grabbed a hold of her ankle. Rikku reached for her daggers, but remembered they were still in the cave, totally trashed. The machina started pulling her to the hole.
She screamed, she screamed so loud. She was scared, really scared.
"Rikku!" Gippal screamed as he turned around and ran for the machina, however, Narroj got there first. He put the barrel of his shotgun against the machine's head and fired, it went limp, although it wouldn't release its grip.
Rikku breathed heavily as she panicked and tried to kick the thing off of her ankle. Narroj grabbed it and pried the claws off of Rikku's foot, and then he lifted her up and ran back to the airship.
The machina were closing up on the airship pretty quickly. Gippal was waiting for everyone else to get on before he took his com-device and asked "Ec ajanouha uh puynt! (Is everyone on board!)"
"Oac cen! (Yes sir!)" Came the answer.
"Good!" Gippal said and ran up the ramp. "Now take off!"
The Priceless took off; they had to shake off some of the machina that had clung onto it, but then they went on full speed back to Djose.
(A/N) Alright, make sure to review, if I get a good number of reviews I'll update faster….it's blackmail you say? HAH! Too bad for you!
