PART III

"Now go forth."

"I will. You have trained me well."

"Have a safe journey."

"I don't intend to remain safe."

"Ha. You're skills will keep you safe. You're skills alone."

"You don't need to tell me this. We covered this almost twenty years ago."

"Good point."

"Well, goodbye. Go find yourself a new apprentice."

"What? The little runts these days?"

"I'm sure you'll find somebody. Goodbye, Sensei."

"Goodbye. Use your skills for good. Remember, you are honourable, and shall fight alone."

Bootus shot Vivli an angry glance. What made the White Mage think she had the right to constantly heal him? He was a monk. Trained to fight alone. Pain was part of his profession. Apparently she didn't realise this. So he scowled at her. Instead of say, doing something sensible, and explaining this.

They were hunched around in the tavern. Celebrating their completed quest and wasting all the money they had just received. Well, Vivli had spent it on her adventurer's licence, but was still there. She had a little left after all. Zinkata was sat over in the corner, playing with his new dagger. More over, he was earning huge amounts of money by playing with his dagger. He was making bets he couldn't jump it between his fingers without stabbing himself. He had a lot of practice doing this, and so always managed to do it flawlessly. This left irritated tavern goers without much money, and made Zinkata rich.

Despite how he tried, Bootus couldn't see Voldos.

"Hey! Lora! You are the love of my life! I've known since the moment I saw you, that my entire life is dedicated to you!" Bootus heard the irritating voice of the elf.

"Are you for real?" Came the offended voice of a female human. Bootus turned to watch. Voldos, who seemed to not be drunk, was leaning on the bar, trying to look impressive. He was failing.

"As real as my love for you, baby." Voldos smiled. SLAP! He painfully rubbed his cheek. Bootus couldn't repress a small laugh. Vivli burst out laughing in a loud giggle and Zinkata was distracted enough to stab himself in the finger.

"OW!" He bellowed. Vivli giggled louder.

"I think she's wasted." Commented the barkeep.

"Isn't that the only drink she's had tonight?" Bootus asked, raising a gigantic eyebrow.

"I stand by my statement." The barkeep told Bootus.

Bootus downed his drink and hunched forwards. Somebody sat down next to him. A figure in a long black cloak.

"You don't look happy." The figure commented.

"I ain't." Bootus replied. "I somehow ended up working with this group of adventurers." He pointed out each of the idiots in turn.

"Why don't you just leave?" The figure asked.

"There are more jobs going for a band of adventurers. It makes more sense profit wise." Bootus said with a shrug.

"So why are you so miserable?" The figure knew what he wanted to get out, but was working towards it.

"It's that bloody White Mage." He pointed to Vivli, who was too drunk to notice. "I'm a monk. Trained to fight, to defend myself alone. Yet she keeps interfering. Healing me. Ruining my training. And to top it off, monsters seem to be hunting her. She's a threat to our entire team."

"Why don't you get rid of her?" The figure smirked as he asked.

"I can't. The others seem to want her around. They think we need a White Mage." Had Bootus been sober enough, he'd of known something was behind this conversation.

"Get rid of her discreetly then." The figure suggested.

"I don't want to kill her! Just get her off the team." Bootus's voice was almost too loud. The others almost overheard him.

"Then find another way to get rid of her." The figure spoke as if it was obvious. "I'm sure she's alone plenty of times. Just find her then and get rid of her. Threaten her. White Mages are usually cowards."

Bootus went into deep thought.

Vivli felt like she had been run over by a truck. At least, she would if trucks existed in Vana'diel. She crawled out of her bed and slammed to the floor of her mog house. The tiny moogle flew up to her.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"It's a hangover." She groaned. "Look into it."

"Excuse me for saying so, but didn't you only have money for one drink?" The moogle asked.

"So I'm a lightweight!" She snapped, hauling herself to her feet.

"You know, most people don't spend their first night in their mog house horribly drunk." The moogle told her.

"Blame the others." She groaned, slipping into her robe.

She wondered out still half asleep, feeling the sun of Bastok blaze down on her. Something big moved into the way. The light faded away. She looked up to see the form of Bootus.

"Isn't it a little early for you to be bothering me?" She sighed.

"Not really." He seemed angry. He put his hand around her and pushed her along.

"Where we going?" She asked, slightly afraid, and unable to control her movements anymore.

"You'll see."

A gigantic airship slowly flew into Port Bastok. It touched down in the water.

"Wow. That was pretty awesome." Vivli had never seen an airship before, and was memorised by it.

"Want a closer look?" Bootus offered.

"Do I!" Exclaimed Vivli, sounding like an excited young child. Bootus picked her up by her neck and held her over the water.

"Feel free to tell me what it looks like from underneath." Bootus stated firmly.

"Whoa! Put me down! Please!" She screamed, kicking her legs about wildly. Nobody was about this early, and so her screams fell on deaf ears.

"And if you ever come back, I'll break every bone in your girly little body." He threw her down into the water before she could protest and turned away. Vivli splashed about wildly. She couldn't swim.

Some time later the group were fully gathered, minus the drowned mage.

"Where the hell is Vivli?" Snapped Zinkata wearingly.

"Probably still hungover." Voldos commented.

"She only had one drink!" Zinkata protested.

"Like I said, hungover." Voldos managed to repress his smirk to make the line sound funnier.

"Let's just move out. Mage or not." Bootus grumbled. "I hear they're looking for adventurer's to go into the highlands and bring back a crystal from the temple there."

"Sounds like a plan, but we can't go without Vivli." Voldos said.

"Sure we can." Bootus shrugged.

"We can at least go and tell the guard we're interested in the mission." Zinkata explained. "By then hopefully she'll have turned up."

The mission given to the squad was exactly as they had heard. Head to the highlands and retrieve a crystal. It sounded easy enough. Except for the fact they were a White Mage down. Vivli still hadn't turned up. Bootus didn't care of course.

"Let's move." He stated. "She misses out on the reward, that's fine by me. More for us."

"I guess so." Zinkata sighed.

"She probably buggered off anyway." The galka grumbled. "She seemed to have plenty of problems to stop her from sticking around." The unlikely trio walked out of the main gates of Bastok ready for their new quest.

"You know what I want?" Zinkata asked while the trio strolled along the desert road.

"Three hot girls, a pile of gold and a big mansion?" Voldos suggested.

"No. Well, yes. But that's not what I meant." Zinkata stumbled over his words. "I meant a fishing rod."

"A fishing rod?" Voldos repeated in confusion.

"Yeah, have you seen how much those fish sell for at the auction house?" Zinkata seemed to think that making the size of a fish with his hands would emphasis this.

"Don't you usually steal stuff instead of earn it honestly?" Bootus interjected.

"Well yes. But stealing fish just sounds plain pathetic." Zinkata shrugged.

"If you want a fishing rod, there's your chance." Voldos pointed to a goblin fisherman sat by the river.

"Let's go get 'im!" Zinkata announced.

The trio charged across the sandy plains and the goblin turned to see them stampeding towards him. Goblins are strange creatures, as you'd imagine. But they are strange for a good reason. Some can't fight and are easy picking for adventurers. Like the ones the party fought upon the mountain. And some are a little tougher. This goblin fell into the latter category. It pulled a bomb and hurled it at the charging group. They all felt the explosion and were knocked back. Voldos staggered to his feet and swung his sword blindly through the smoke. The goblin ducked under it and stabbed him in the shin. Voldos fell down, clutching his leg. Bootus roared and burst up, almost blocking the sun from the goblin's view. With a comical cry, the goblin flung itself at Bootus, and clambered onto his face. It lodged its dagger neatly in his head and the gigantic galka went down. Zinkata sighed and hurtled his dagger at the goblin. It hit it square between the eyes and the creature went down.

"Piece of cake." Smiled Zinkata.

"I think Bootus is hurt." Voldos managed to get out despite his own pain.

"Looks worse than that." Zinkata suddenly commented, looking at his fallen comrade. "If we don't get him to a healer fast he's going to die."

"Damn you irony!" Voldos screamed at the sky.

"We need to find one. Quickly." Zinkata explained. "But first, I want my fishing rod." He grabbed a hold of the goblin's fallen fishing rod and pulled on it. "Hey! Something's on the end."

"You caught something already?" Voldos gasped. "You're good at this." Zinkata hauled on the rod and pulled up the weight with it. It was Vivli.

"What the hell?" Cried Zinkata.

"Vivli! Talk about convenient!" Voldos exclaimed.

"Don't speak to soon! She ain't breathing!" Zinkata proceeded to beat her chest as per the methods of resuscitation. She eventually responded by throwing water up in his face with a painful cough.

"Vivli! You're alive!" Voldos cried happily. Vivli responded by choking uncontrollably. Zinkata pounded her on the back until she threw up a huge amount of water on the floor. "Bootus is badly wounded. He needs your help."

"Bootus." She managed to stumble out angrily. She crawled herself over to the fallen corpse, managing to pull herself up on top of what seemed like a mountain. She threw her hands around his neck and began to strangle him.

"No! Heal! Heal!" Voldos cried. Vivli, in all honesty, was too drained to muster up enough strength to actually cut off air for the mighty galka, and slumped down defeated.

"It was him." She managed to get out. "He threw me into the river. Left me to die."

"What?" Exclaimed Zinkata and Voldos together. They threw their glances between the two. Voldos stepped forwards.

"Can you heal him anyway?" He asked. "It is your job."

"But he threatened me. Said if he ever saw me again he'd kill me." She whimpered, still slumped on the floor.

"So you're going to fight fire with fire and let him die?" Voldos asked.

"I-" She paused. She couldn't. She had to heal him. She had taken an oath saying that she would. "I'll do it." She sighed.

It wasn't easy either. Magic required concentration. Something that was difficult when you were half-dead. Vivli poured into reviving Bootus all of her concentration and passed out. Her mind faded into blackness.

Vivli woke up feeling like she weighed a ton. She was in a mog house. She didn't think it was hers, but didn't know it well enough to be sure.

"What happened?" She groaned.

"Keep it down." A moogle ordered. "If somebody finds out master brought in another adventurer to his mog house there'll be hell to pay!"

"Who?" She whimpered.

"Master Bootus." Stated the moogle.

"Bootus?" Vivli exclaimed, crawling back against the wall and pulling her knees up to her chest, shaking. Bootus strolled in, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

"What the hell are you doing?" Asked the gigantic galka.

"You're not going to hurt me?" She whimpered.

"Hurt you? I saved you!" He cried.

"You did?" She asked curiously.

"Voldos and Zinkata continued on our mission. I carried you back here to recover." Bootus explained.

"Why?"

"You saved my life. I owed you. Simple." He said with a shrug. "Besides, it takes a special kind of person to help somebody who had betrayed them." The galka seemed to have trouble getting his words out. "What I'm trying to say is-"

"Your welcome." Vivli finished, bailing him out. "Don't you miss out on the reward for the quest now?"

"Yeah, but it was better than letting you die." He said casually, before realising what he had said. "Ahem. Not that I care. Strictly to keep things even."

"Riiiight." Laughed Vivli.

"Signot!" Bellowed the voice. "This is getting ridiculous."

"I know, my master." Signot said on one knee. "Shall I deal with it personally?"

"Not yet. If they find out about you and survive, they will track us down and could jeopardize everything." The voice explained.

"So what then?" Signot asked. "What can we do?"

"We need to stimulate them into taking a more active role in the world. Only then will our forces be able to take them." The voice told Signot.

"What do you have in mind?" Asked the dark lord.

"Bring me Vatgit." The voice paused for a snarl. "It is time to commence the attack upon San D'oria!"