Disclaimer: Please don't sue me, I mean no harm:puts hands up in air: I don't own any of this!
A/N: If a tree fell in a forest and no one was there to hear it, would it make a sound?
"Yuna?" I said softly. I looked at the figure lying down on the stone platform. The figure stirred and looked up at me.
"Rikku! Oh my god its you! I was so worried!" my cousin's voice filled the room and I noticed crystalline tears slowly spilling from her bi-colored eyes.
"Where is Tidus?" I asked her softly. I remembered Riku telling me previously that Tidus was with Riku.
"Tidus is…gone?" Yuna asked me before falling asleep with tears still coming out from under her closed eyelids. I touched a tear and felt my heart hurting. Why was Yuna chained in a dark room to a stone platform? Where was I and why was I here?
"No, he's not gone. At least I don't think he is. I thought he was with you." I said to her. Her eyes shot open again. The tears had stop and I could feel an anger engulfing her, she attempted to turn her head towards who I believed to be Maleficent.
"You. Where is he? Where is he!" Yuna screamed as she struggled against the bed. I stood up and took out my thief blades. "Rikku don't!" Yuna yelled in vain at me. I reluctantly put away the blades and sat back down.
"Tempers haven't we? Why don't you just cooperate and maybe you can be released to your little blonde lover faster." The yellow-eyed figure hissed. I cringed. Moving closer to Yuna I took hold of her limp hand in an attempt to comfort her.
"You will never win; I will never give my heart to you." Yuna said through closed teeth. The figure laughed.
"Your attempts will be in vain." The figure seized my wrist and thrust me towards the doorway.
"You, go back to Riku and make him happy. Make sure he does his work properly. And my name is Maleficent." She snarled. I decided to run away. Far away, I had little idea what was going on and why Yuna was in such a morbid state. I turned to bolt away when I felt myself run into something hard and soft. I looked up into Riku's eyes.
"Come on Rikku, you heard what she said." He said to me. I looked at him with betrayed eyes and only met his deep blue ones. It would be hard staying mad at him with those eyes, even if he worked for some radical evil group called the DEK.
"I'll come back for you Yuna! Trust me!" I yelled to her before leaving the dark room. My cry was met by Maleficent horrid laugh echoing through the room.
"Riku, are you taking me back to that sweaty room?" I ran after him folding the ends of my long gown in my hands to prevent myself from tripping over its flowing skirt.
"Only if you want to go back there." He replied. I stopped a bit surprised at his answer. We came to an intersection of hallways.
"Well…choose wisely." He snickered and seemed to take pleasure in my discomfort.
"I-I uhhh…" I decided to weigh my options. I could A) go back to the sweaty room with my hunky boyfriend who was crazy for me. B) let Riku lead me on some wild adventure to who knows where, even though he worked for the people that were responsible for holding my cousin in a "torture" chamber and responsible for all of us Sprians being in this world in the first place. Anybody in their right mind would choose A, right? Well I guess I'm insane because I chose B.
"Take me wherever you want, as long as its not that room." I answered with a sigh. He smiled, not a smirk, a smile.
"I was hoping you'd say that." He took my hand very gently, as if it was some sort of delicate chinaware and led me down a hallway to the left. I held my breathe waiting for my unknown fate to begin.
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(Yuna POV)
"Your cousin is a feisty one isn't she?" Maleficent sneered at me after Rikku left with that muscular henchman of hers. Poor Rikku my heart went out to her, who knows what that guy was doing to her now?
"You vile thing, don't you dare talk about my cousin like that! EVER again!" I spat in her general direction. As the days pass I get less and less conscience about being polite and being let out of this prison for good behavior. These people might be nice at first but they play a serious game of hardball.
"It would be in you best interest to not talk to me like that ever again." she retorted. I smiled inwardly; I knew I had to be getting to her. For some reason I had a great value to them and she was full aware of my value, thus making it so any harm that might come to me would be ten times worse to her.
"Can you leave me alone for once; I'd like to get some sleep in private without your wicked eyes starring at me." I felt so out of character. I was being rude and extremely nonchalant. I was never like this back home. Back home I had let everybody push me around; Paine had been trying to help me overcome that burden. Speaking of Paine, where was she now?
"Fine, seeing as I coated your chains with an element-proof sealant there is no chance of you escaping. Sweet dreams." she said harshly before leaving the room. I heard the chamber's door close behind her. I looked around the room even though the lighting was terrible. I noticed there were other beds with figures lying on them. They haven't moved since I arrived here. They must hold some value too… then, they must be here for the same purpose as me. My ears perked up at the sound of a conversation outside the thin walls.
"The boss said to take it slow with the blondes. He said that if we work them to hard we'll never find out the information we need." I heard a voice whisper loudly.
"Lot of nonsense that is, look at Riku, he is already escaping the boss' influence. Without the power of those special hearts the boss will not be able to draw from the darkness anymore. And you and I both know what that means. Besides they have valuable information about the keybarer or so I've heard." another replied. Who were the blondes they were referring to? Rikku, Tidus…?
"It's that entire girl's fault. Lot of good she is doing us, she is the reason he is escaping the boss so easily! He has fallen for her any fool with eyes can see that!" the other retorted.
"She has some high and mighty boyfriend. He is here you know, we could use him to our advantage. We could make Riku mighty jealous, we could make him work for her and in the mean time get all the information from them." the second suggested. Were they referring to Rikku and Gippal? Had Riku fallen for…Rikku? What would Gippal do if he knew, probably kill Riku.
"Riku would kill us; he still has the darkness' powers. However, if the boss ordered us to use the girl's boyfriend to our advantage and Riku must obey the boss…" the other trailed off.
"Then it's settled. We should go tell Madame Medusa first and she'll run it by the boss." The two men left my doorway and ran off. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Was I also going to be used somehow to draw powers from darkness? What was the darkness anyways? And I was a princess? What kind of value did I really have, I knew I had some but…seriously…
Maybe I should just get some rest. And with that thought in mind my eyes fluttered closed and I drifted into a sound sleep.
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(Rikku's POV)
"Why didn't you just take me to this room in the first place?" I sighed lying on the soft bed. The room Riku had brought me to this time was much more comfortable. It was a reasonable temperature and well lit. The bed wasn't a cot but a soft queen-sized bed with lots of throw pillows. There was a balcony, like the last room, and large windows. The room was a little smaller then the last one and didn't have wooden benches in the corners. It did, however, have a cherry wood table with four cushioned chairs. A chandelier hung above the table and there was even a bathroom complete with shower and soap.
"Because you wouldn't appreciate it as much as you do now." he answered as he looked out of one of the floor length windows.
"So what I would smell better. Speaking of which I'm going to take a shower. You don't have a blow-dryer by any chance?" I looked over at his back facing me. He turned around and smirked.
"I think Madame Medusa might have one, I'll go get one for you. I'll also see if I can get you a change of clothes." he turned to me and began to leave. I hated to see him leave the room; he made me feel comfortable for some reason.
"Okay, thank you," I said quietly, "for everything." he gave me a small smile and trotted out of the room, softly closing the door behind him. I sighed and went into the small bathroom, locking the door behind me, and turned on the warm water.
I could literally feel layers of dirt being shed from my skin leaving it to be the wonderful healthy tan skin I had forgotten once existed there. I scrubbed my greasy blonde hair and massaged my scalp taking in the wonderful tropical scent of the shampoo that had been left in the bathroom. I noticed a fluffy white towel placed on the towel rack and my eyes caught something embroidered on the towel. It said Aerith. Who was Aerith, was she the 'boss'? Or was she just some person who used to live here? Whatever the case was she had great taste in shampoo and that towel looked really soft.
After stepping out the shower I drew little hearts in the mirror's steam. I looked at my clean hands and wrapped the towel around my body. 'I wonder if Riku got back with that blow-dryer yet.' I opened the door a small crack and peeked my head out of the bathroom. I noticed Riku sitting at a table reading something that resembled a newspaper.
"Psst, Riku did you get the blow-dryer?" I whispered to him. Why was I whispering?
"Yeah," he stood up picking up a bundle of stuff that had been on the floor next to him, "I also managed to get you some clean clothes and some toothpaste and stuff." He handed me the stuff. I opened the door wider to try to bring the stuff in. Trying to hold up my Aerith towel with one hand, and trying to bring a huge pile of stuff into the room with the other hand wasn't exactly easy, but I did it.
Sitting down in a corner of the bathroom I began to sort out the stuff Riku had brought for me. A pink hairbrush, a small blow-dryer, a tube of Crest toothpaste, really long white socks, a green hair band, a red cloak, a leather jacket, a green mid-drift shirt, kaki shorts, a pink sundress, and a pink hair ribbon. 'I wonder where all these clothes came from.' I chose the thigh-high socks and kaki shorts paired with the green mid-drift shirt and headband as my attire. I then blow-dried my hair and used my old beads and hair-ties I had been previously wearing to tie it back in my usual style. I emerged from the bathroom with the leftover clothes and green dress. Riku raised his eyebrows at my clothing choices.
"You look just like that black-haired girl back in Traverse Town." he told me before returning to the stack of papers he was engrossed in.
"I'll take that as a compliment." I said. I decided to test him, to see if he really has feelings for me. I came up behind him and threw my arms around his hunched over back. He looked up from his paper for a moment with a surprise expression.
"Rikku what do you think you're doing?" he said, but I could hear something in his voice that told me he liked me hugging him.
"Hugging you." I said simply. He set down the stack of papers and brushed my arms off his back. He turned and faced me with a softened expression.
"Last time I checked you had a boyfriend." he told me. I felt my body sinking into the ground, as if I was melting from embarrassment and from the fact that for the past couple of days even when I was with Gippal I was constantly thinking of Riku.
"I had a boyfriend, but he…he…sometimes he's just so…I don't know how to explain it." I sighed. That hadn't helped me one bit now I felt like I was two feet tall, especially with the way Riku was looking at me.
"Right, he's just so you don't know how to explain?" he asked me. I felt so stupid.
"Never mind, you'll never understand." I turned around so only my back was facing him. I could almost see him rolling his blue eyes at me.
"I think I might. You see back on the islands I had two friends. Well, two really good friends. And they liked each other. The problem was the girl, I liked her two. But my best friend, he was so naive to the fact that we both liked the same girl. He never noticed and she did. She knew I liked her but also knew she wasn't supposed to be with me, she was supposed to be with my best friend, don't ask it had something to do with destiny and poapou fruit. Anyways, she never expressed her feelings on the issue either way because if she did it could ruin all of our friendships. Lot of goof that did us or friendship is basically ruined now anyways. But that's only cause my best friend is traitor" I turned and looked at him. He had come from an island? Was he brought here from his native land too? There was so much I had assumed about Riku's past and so much I had to really learn.
"What were their names? Your friends I mean." I said, lightly touching his elbow.
"Their names… were Sora and Kairi." he said. He took my hand that was resting on his forearm into his hand. We stood in the center of the room for a moment, in complete silence. I was trying to process what he just said, he was reminiscing the past. Sora was the happy boy who had saved my life a couple of days ago. Kairi, I had heard her name mentioned before. Was his story meant to tell me to give up on Gippal, to give into my gut instinct and go for it? Or was he trying to tell me if I took the plunge with him it would most likely end in disaster?
"I see. You say Sora betrayed you?" I wanted a deeper input on the friendship's breakup.
"Well, I was going to leave the islands with him and Kairi. However when our world was unlocked to the darkness he did not spend his time looking for me and Kairi. Instead he easily replaced us with new companions, a duck and a dog-like thing. They abandoned him shortly before you came; they were in search of their king. He replaced me and even fought me; he meant to hurt me and goofed off instead of looking for Kairi. Simply, he betrayed me." Riku said and then he laid down on the bed. A weary expression crossed his stern face.
"Wow, you must have wanted to get that off your chest for a long time." I said, sitting down next to him.
"Yeah, that felt good. I think I might be relying on the darkness too much though. I think in some respects Sora was right." he said as he was half-asleep. What was that supposed to mean? He was relying on some sort of dark powers? I decided once he woke up I ask him what he meant be that…but for now there was nothing to be done.
I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like some hyper-active teenager with an odd taste in clothing. I glanced back at Riku, only to see he was sound asleep with his arms flung widely at his sides. I smiled a bit, thinking of how funny he looked just about now. 'If only I had a camera. This would be some serious blackmail material.'
I decided to pass the time by looking out the window and trying to figure out exactly what was going on in this world.
There was some group called the DEK, they had some kind of leader. Was their leader Maleficent? And what did the leader want? I was pretty sure it was something to do with Yuna. I let my thoughts wander for a few moments longer before closing my eyes and subcoming to a deep sleep, on the windowsill. I woke up later to find that Riku had draped the red cloak around me to keep me warm. 'He really must care'. And with that thought in mind I fell back asleep, a smile plastered on my face.
A/n: hope you likey likey! That was six pages, I was trying to make it longer but my fingers got tired. And this hilarious Spanish Soap Opera is on, so I think I'll eat olives and watch it, anyways
Gippal: I wasn't in this chapter! Lucy sent me to the grocery store to buy her four kinds of olives instead!
Riku: nahahahaha :sticks out tongue and taunts Gippal:
Me: hey you have a better chance of being in the story if you buy my olives…
Reno (yes, our favorite FFVII red-head): then here are seven cases.
Me: nice try but you don't even begin to fit into the plot
Reno; :pouts: fine but no more olives for you!
Sora: what plot?
Me: why I oughtta! :makes fist at Sora:
Riku: you know you couldn't hurt a fly, and by the way the commercial break is over so if you are planning on watching the show then I suggest…
:I fly in front of the TV grabbing Reno and the olives and bringing them with me:
Sora & Riku & Gippal: :run away:
Reno: help?
REVIEW please! And you can still vote!
Lucy!