Hiiiiii again! You people thought that was the end right? Right? Wrong! Lots more to go people, I mean, I haven't even gotten to the mushy scenes yet, you can't expect me to just cut it off with so many unanswered questions, do you.
That's what I thought. Now Stop complaining and Start reading (Not that you wonderful people are complaining)
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Dream A Little Dream
Chapter 17 : Rise again From the ashes.
Ugh. Well. I certainly feel like crap. I have a headache, a backache, a foot ache......well, basically you get the idea. You name it, it probably aches.
Heh, You all thought I was dead right? Ha! Rikku is made of stronger fluff then what you thought! That's right! Fluff!
ugh. My head hurts. And whatever I'm babbling about, just ignore me. I remember falling. I remember Gippal and Pops and Purple light, and falling.
Oh. Right. I fell into the stupid hole. Great. Now I'm in the dark. I think the electrical bill for this place went out after we beat the big bad Vegnagun.
So now its dark. And I'm walking along a dark path.
Bump
Crush
Stumble.
"Owwwwww" Stupid.......whatever that was.
"Kuppo. Light" The small body of Kuppo illuminated. She looked like a moving bright bird-shaped flashlight fluttering around and glowing . "Pau? Pau? Where are you?"
There was a faint rustle, and Pau popped up out of nowhere and was standing in front of me, it's teal cat-like eyes staring at me.
I guess we had better get out of here. I mean, to the living world and all.
I think that I might have worried some people back there. Of course, now the real question is, how the heck do I get out? It's easy to fall in, but not so easy to get back out.
And it wasn't exactly my idea to fall into this stupid place. But I can't help but wonder, Can I close the holes from in here?
I'm not going to close ALL the gates in here, just the ones that are hard to get to.
Like Baaj Temple (the place where we got Anima). That place was creepy. It also brings back memories. That's where I met Tidus. Remember?
I really need to get out. Out out out!
I'm feeling strangely claustrophobic even though they're aren't any walls to close in on me.
I'm trying to remember where the entrance from D'jose Temple is. Or maybe the entrance from Besaid is better. I don't exactly know, or maybe from the Palace of St. Bevelle, I really don't care, I just need to get out.
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Two and a half hours of walking. I'm still sore. I think I'm pretty much at the bottom of the entrance from Kilika, who knew that that would be the closest entrance from where we landed.
I sooo couldn't wait to get out of this stupid place. I smelled like smoke. I needed a bath. Pau needed a bath. Kuppo probably needed a mechanical check-up to make sure none of her A.I. systems were fried or damaged, and I was sore all over.
And I needed a bath. I sniffed, and looked down at myself.
ewwww. I really needed a bath.
I'm standing under the Hole from Kilika and I'm kind or in a bind as to how to get out. I'm tired, injured, and possibly going to pass out from boredom. But that still won't crush my determination to get out of here.
I took out my gun. Stared at it. hmmmm.......
Ooooooh! Couldn't I make a temporary elevator.....or something to levitate me and Pau to the top?
I could.
I could!!
I never cease to amaze myself with my brilliance. I looked at the ground. "Pau, Kuppo, stay close to me."
I took a deep breath. Looked at the ground beneath my feet, and thought of the hole in Kilika temple. That's were I wanted to be.
I Fired.
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Gippal was going in near frantic motions still in Zanarkand. Mechanically giving orders to the minimally injured Machine Faction members. All of them were staring expectantly at him, calmed by his presence waiting for his orders that would bring a semblance of normalcy despite the chaos still going on around them.
"Someone.., you, call the High Summoner and her entourage" Gippal said looking at a less haggard woman standing in the corner, her back ramrod straight, "Have them come to Zanarkand. While you're at it, Bring Nooj and Praeter Baralai here too. I want all those involved in the Tri-counsel Government here and present to witness this"
"Yes, Sir" She muttered and scurried to do as he asked.
Gippal looked at the rest of his crew, noting the cuts scrapes, bruises and minor burns they had received while trying to get out. All of them were sweaty and tired, though still willing to work.
"Those of you who injured to a level B state(2nd degree burns and such), receive medical attention as soon as possible, those of you who have only minor burns and cuts, do whatever you can to stop the remainder of that fire. Salvage as many of the machina parts as you can"
With that said, Gippal walked over to look at Cid, who was sitting on a bench his elbows on his thighs, head bent down, resting on his clasped fists, his shoulders shaking, heaving up and down, as he drew in great gasps of air . That was the picture of a man truly exhausted. Cid had been quiet after they had lost Rikku in the Chamber of the Fayth. Not even bothering to try and calm Brother down when he heard of his sister's predicament. They didn't know whether she was alive or dead. Though...she was probably most likely........No. She wasn't. She couldn't be. This was Rikku. Stubborn little Rikku who wouldn't do anything she was told unless they bribed her, or the idea appealed to her.
The Rikku who had poured sand in his hair when they were ten years old, on her first dig, in frustration that he had beaten her in finding the Machina parts.
The Rikku who, at fifteen had helped destroy the horrible nightmare that was plaguing the dreams of people. Sin.
The Rikku who he had come to admire, be amused by, annoy, and be annoyed by. The Rikku who he had known better then almost anyone.
The Rikku who he had come to care about more then he cared to admit.
No. She wasn't dead. She was too Rikku-ish to die in such an anticlimactic way.
She had always told him that if she were going to die, she would have died guns blazing, screaming a earsplitting war-cry that would have struck fear into he hearts of Fiends and enemies everywhere.
And since that fall had not been anywhere near the guns-blazing-earsplitting-war-crying death she had always dreamed about, he rationalized that she couldn't be dead.
She just......couldn't be.
"Cid....." Gippal started, and wasn't surprised when the older man didn't even so much as acknowledge his presence. "She's not dead."
At this, Cid looked up. His eyes a peculiarly bloodshot and red, puffy, as if he'd been crying. Of course he couldn't blame Cid for crying. He'd seen his only daughter plunge into a pit that no one really knew if it ever had a bottom, and when he had tried digging her out, bloodying his hands, burning them on the still steaming metal, he had found that the Hole his little baby had fallen into was closed. And he was unable to find out how to get to her.
Hell. Gippal felt like crying himself. It was only the sheer force of will and determination to find who was responsible and personally rip out their eyes that made him refrain from crying.
"How the hell do you know that she ain't dead?" Cid snapped, furiously wiping the back of his bandaged had across his eyes. "She could be dead. You asshole! My baby could be dead, and I wouldn't know cause that damn hole's closed now!" Cid, torn apart by grief, guilt, anger and fatherly instinct lashed out his frustrations on the nearest person.
Making the person he considered good enough to be his son, Gippal, a convenient scapegoat for all his anger.
"You promised me you'd watch over her, Damnit! And I don't know where the hell she is right now, you bastard! You promised me! Don't now if she's dead, injured, hell! She could be injured right now, needing our help and I don't know how the fuck I can help her! She's my only daughter, damnit! My only daughter!" Cid raged, Brother, standing behind him, looked away, his eyes also filling with tears.
"I lost my wife, my second son, and I'll be damned if I lose another one of my family!"
Cold washed across Gippal's senses. Cid could be right. Although he knew that Rikku, at this moment wasn't dead, what if she was injured? What if she were crying out in pain and needed their help and they were too busy here to actually go help her. Even if they could find her in to the Farplane Abyss, they wouldn't know where to start. It would literally take them weeks to find her, and by then it could be too late.
"Umm....sir?" The woman he had sent to call Yuna had come back. "They're already heading here. Buddy already went to get them as soon as he delivered Nhadala into the infirmary."
"Good." Gippal said curtly "And Baralai and Nooj?"
"On their way with the Summoner, sir. Although they had a problem with keeping out Master Nooj's....uh, acquaintance.... The former leader of the Leblanc Syndicate"
"That's fine. Go help someone over in the infirmary"
She bowed slightly. "Sir" She walked away.
The false sense of calm that he had felt convincing himself that she wasn't dead was immediately washed out by the possibility that she could be hurt and unable to get medical attention. Damnit.
He had to believe that she was okay, no matter how nerve wrecking it could be, he had to, for the sake of the Machine Faction.
He took in a deep breath, and placed his hand on his father's long time friend. "It's gonna be okay Cid. If I know Rikku, it's gonna take a lot more then just a little fall to keep her out of commission. Hell, if she could survive Sin, and Vegnagun without any physical and mental injuries, then she sure as hell couldn't be hurt by that. If anything, she's probably singing her lungs out, wherever she is" Gippal had to smile at that picture, he could easily picture Rikku making up childish songs in dire situations, just to annoy the people she was with, unintentionally of course.
Cid looked up and gave him a watery grin. "Yeah, my little girl does have one hell of a singing voice, don't she?"
Gippal cringed. "Uh......yeah....whatever you say Cid."
Brother, standing behind Cid rolled his eyes. "She does not. She is always off key. And she sings too loud!"
"And you don't?" Cid snapped.
"My voice is much better to listen to, right Gippal?" Brother said.
Gippal pretended he didn't hear that.
"Gippal!" Baralai's voice called out to him. He looked back, there was Yuna, Tidus, Leblanc(who was very attached to a certain someone), (a very haggard looking) Nooj, Baralai, and Paine.
"W-what happened here?" Yuna asked, her mismatched eyes rounding in horror as she looked at the dying flames.
"Somebody, mainly the new Faction of Bevelle, decided they wanted a Zanarkand barbeque" Gippal said.
"What?" Baralai gasped, staring at the wreckage. "They couldn't have--they wouldn't---" He cut off, looking confused, and angered that someone from Bevelle would do this, especially to these Ruins. He looked at his long time friend and fellow would-be Crimson Squad member.
"I'm sorry Gippal....I-I had no idea that the faction would do this." Baralai said, sincerity evident in his voice.
"Question is, Why would they want to?" Paine said.
Gippal shrugged. "Yevonite radicals, they want to pin this on the Al Bhed so that they could gain control of D'jose again. Not to mention that the excessive use of Machina is making them nervous of another Sin."
Yuna stared out into the ruins. Watching it being eaten by the dying, ravenous flames. "Those Yevonite Radicals want Neo Zanarkand to be approved. They want it built."
"There's no question that they want it approved, but why would they go to such lengths as burning down ruins to do it?" Nooj said. Leblanc, who hung on his arm looked up at the ruins. "Noojie's right, loves, why would a bunch of religious people, ones who supposedly value the ruins so much, want to tear it down.....?"
She looked up at her Noojie again. "Maybe they thought it was going out of fashion."
Yuna's eyes blazed. "Ruins can't go out of fashion Leblanc, they're ruins."
"Just a thought, love, no need to snap my head off."
"Well what I want to know is--" Yuna was cut off by her boyfriend.
"Where's Rikku?" The blond blitzball player asked.
Gippal, who was chatting with Baralai and Nooj, fell silent.
Everyone looked expectantly at him. "I mean, has anyone seen her, or anything....?" Tidus continued, trailing off as he saw the stares of everyone. "H-hey, I was just asking a question. If you haven't seen her, just say so."
"She.....She went into the ruins, while it was burning..." Gippal said, trying to swallow the lump that suddenly formed in his throat.
"And?" Yuna asked, Panic evident in her voice. "What happened Gippal?"
"We....she went into the chamber of the Fayth and...." Gippal stopped again, guilt at not being able to get to her on time eating away at him.
"And...?" Paine asked, her voice cracked just slightly to so her concern.
"She fell" Cid said from behind them all. "And the stupid father that I am, I couldn't protect her."
Yuna rushed over to him "No Uncle Cid. You didn't know what she was up to, right? Rikku can take care of herself."
"She's saved us a couple of times when we were in battles with fiends" Pain added "Though, don't tell her I told you that."
"She'll be fine" Yuna said, with more conviction then she felt. She fingered the portable commsphere that Shinra had given all of them right after the Vegnagun battle, so they could communicate with one another.
Should I see if she's there? Yuna asked herself. Did she wan to know the answer?
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Rikku was humming in the bathtub of the inn in Kilika. She had sealed the hole right after she had come out of it. And was now soaking in a tub, scrubbing the head of Pau. "I should call them shouldn't I?"
Pau wasn't paying attention. He was staring wide eyed at the bubbles rising up, occasionally making a swipe for them.
Rikku got out of the bath tub, put a towel on and called Kuppo. "Patch me through to someone's commsphere, Yuna's maybe? So she can tell everyone I'm okay."
Kuppo complied. There was a buzzing noise. Then the sound of arguing.
"Uhhhh....helllloooo?" Rikku said, uncertainly. "Anyone there? Yunie? Yunie!"
The arguing abruptly stopped. Silence. 'Okay....that was odd' Rikku thought. "Is anyone there? Heelllloooo?"
"Rikku?" Yuna's shaky voice asked. Rikku frowned. "What's wrong Yunie? Is everything okay?"
"I will KILL you Rikku when I get my hands on you!!" Brother screamed at the end of the line. Rikku Blinked.
"Oh, hiya Brother! Pops? You there?" the picture was blurry, must have been damaged from the fall. Rikku sighed. She should have done a maintenance and repair check on kuppo first before she called.
"Pops?"
"Right here." A gruff voice answered.
"oh....I'm okay pops, don't worry about it."
"Okay? you aren't going to be okay when I get my hands on you, princess" A very familiar voice said.
"Awwww....I missed you too Gippal!"
Snickers were heard in the background, and then a smack, and then a thud and then "Ow"
Sigh, glad to know everyone was worried about me.... Rikku thought.
"Paine, why did you hit me?!" Brother whined.
"Because you were an idiot." typical Paine.
Sigh, this was going to be one long conversation.
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TBC
Aaaaaah! I'm so sorry that I didn't post this up sooner. Christmas shopping, and....other stuff. So sorry. Happy holidays people! R&R!
