Chapter 11: True Emotions
A/N: I'm really, really sorry for not updating in like two months but I haven't had any ideas and I've been working on my other fic. Anyway, I hope your still gonna read this if I continue updating it. Here's chapter 11 for you guys after its two month delay.
Rikku was now concocting some sort of potion to heal Paine's wounds. She finally succeeded in making up a batch of a highly potent healing potion made out of random items she had acquired in adventures past. Once she was completely done mixing the potion, she elevated Paine's head with her right arm while her left hand slowly poured the healing fluid into the unconscious Paine's mouth. After the liquid had disappeared down the warrior's throat, Rikku backed off and waited for the potion to take affect.
Not soon after Rikku moved away, Paine began to moan softly and the coughed several times. Rikku rushed back over to her friend's side. "Paine? Paine, are you with me?" The blonde Al Bhed's jade eyes focused on her friend's unopened crimson eyes.
Paine's crimson colored eyes slid open in a very leisurely pace. "Yeah, unfortunately." The warrior joked.
"Hey! That's not funny Paine! I was really worried about you and here you are saying that you'd rather not be alive! You big meanie!" Rikku shouted at Paine.
"Calm down Rikku. I was only kidding." The Al Bhed girl looked at her friend oddly but could only smile.
"Glad to hear it Paine! Can you get up yet?" Paine made an attempt to rise to her feet but collapsed back to the cold, hard ground as an excruciating pain shot through her legs.
"Apparently not." Paine made light of the situation.
"I'll help you with that Paine." Baralai called to her upon entering the temple.
"When did you get here?" Rikku asked, running up to greet him.
"I got here with Xanthos and Rena but I hung back and waited for the battle to be over." Baralai sauntered over to where Paine lay. "So, how you holding up?" He queried to the warrior.
"I'm fine except for the little fact that I can't stand up." Baralai laughed.
"That's all?" He smiled down at her. "Just be thankful that's all that you can't do."
"He does have a point Paine. You could have been more seriously injured." Rikku stated.
"Thank Yevon that we have our own little apothecary here to fix something up for me then." Paine joked, even though she meant every word except the 'thank Yevon' part.
Rikku blushed a bit. "It's nothing. Just a little thing we Al Bhed do." Paine and Baralai smiled at the blonde haired Al Bhed, their smiles contagious.
"Here, I'll help you up." Baralai took an outstretched hand from Paine into his own. He lifter her up onto her feeble feet and then rested her right arm around the back of his neck, on his shoulders. "There, now I'm your personal crutch." He said, a lighthearted smile creeping onto his lips.
"I think I'm gonna go and see how Yunie and Tidus are doing." Rikku turned away from Paine and Baralai and headed over to where Yuna and Tidus now were chatting amongst themselves.
"If you need us we will be in one of the guest rooms in this place." Baralai said right before Rikku went out of earshot. Paine hobbled along with Baralai towards a door that led to one of the rooms where they could be alone.
Rikku approached Yuna and Tidus without them realizing it for they were too lost in one another to notice any of their surroundings. "Hey you two!" The blonde Al Bhed girl broke the two out of one another's concentration.
"Hey Rikku! Long time no see." Tidus greeted his old Al Bhed friend.
"Are you guys okay? You took a pretty bad spill back there when he tossed you into each other." Rikku asked, inspecting the two for any injuries with a once over glance.
"Yeah, Rikku." Yuna said leaning on Tidus for support as she stood. "Is everyone else okay?" She inquired gazing around at the mass carnage.
"Well…" The young Al Bhed glanced around the room, finally noting the intense carnage. "All of us are still alive but…they weren't so lucky. It looks like almost all of them were killed…" She looked back at her cousin with a sad look in her eye.
Yuna walked over to her Al Bhed cousin and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry Rikku. This is almost as bad as what happened three years ago at operation Mi'ihen, and it's all because of Yevon." The former summoner seemed to get a little angry at the thought of how Yevon had twisted people's minds. "We will get him back for all that he has done Rikku." She smiled at her cousin and gave her a comforting hug.
"Thanks, Yuna. We will get him back, won't we?" Her cousin nodded her head in reassurance. "All we need to do is find out where he is hiding a go get him!" Rikku leapt into the air a bit and whipped out her twin orange daggers and whirled them around on her fingers.
"And now that I'm back I can help you guys!" Tidus declared from behind the two cousins causing them to turn to him and smile happily.
"I'll call up Brother and get him to come pick us up." Rikku proclaimed as she ran off into another room where a communication system was setup since her wrist communicator was smashed during the fight with Yu Yevon. A few moments later she came bounding out of the communication room with a pleased smile on her face and went up to her cousin and Tidus. "He said he'll come here as fast as he can, but I won't say what else he said, you already know what he said."
Yuna and Rikku laughed to themselves a bit, Tidus staring at the two cousins with a questioning look upon his face. "Oh, you remember Rikku's brother, the guy with the overalls and the tattoo on his chest from three years ago, the pilot of the airship uncle Cid was captain of?" Yuna asked to the dumbfounded blitz ace.
"Yeah, I remember that guy!" He exclaimed. "He's the one that wanted me to protect Rikku and couldn't speak too well. So, what about him?" He looked back at the two cousins, who laughed a bit at his question.
"Well… he has a major crush on Yunie." Rikku told Tidus, who now had a surprised look on his face. "He keeps following Yunie everywhere and always wants to protect her, even if it means risking his life. If it wasn't my brother I would say it's sweet, but he's just an idiotic groupie." The blonde blitz ace seemed to be relieved after he heard the entire story.
"Oh, okay." Tidus said as he let Rikku's explanation sink in. "Who's that?" He pointed toward a spiky, blonde haired Al Bhed with an eye patch over one eye coming down the stairs that had once lead to the cloister of trials.
"Gippal!" Rikku shouted as she ran to the one eyed Al Bhed and threw her arms around him. "When I thought I was going to die… all I could think about was you." She whispered into his ear as they stood in a hugging embrace.
"Rikku…" Gippal whispered pushing her away from him to gaze into her twin jade swirl eyes. "I saw you on the ground and I wanted to help you but even with all my confidence I still muster enough courage to come out a protect you." He closed his single eye and hung his head down in shame.
He felt her hand on his chin and felt it move his chin up so that he was looking directly into her eyes, even though his eye was still shut. "It's okay Gip. I'm fine now and I don't know if you could have helped me anyway, and even if you could have done something I don't want you to risk your life just for me." He opened his one eye slowly and saw her jade swirled eyes gazing lovingly at him.
"But…" He was silenced by her index finger pressed softly against his lips. She closed her jade eyes and moved her lips closer to his which he responded by doing the same. They locked in a long passionate kiss that drew the attention of just about everyone in the temple chamber.
"Wow, looks like Rikku grew up a lot in three years…" Tidus looked away from the Al Bhed couple and gazed at Yuna.
"Yeah, but she's still the same Rikku, mostly. Energetic, happy, always a bounce in her step, but she has grown into more of an adult since then." Yuna gazed into Tidus' blue eyes as he did the same for her green and blue eyes. They moved closer to each other, but a load hovering noise broke their concentration on each other.
Through the doors burst a hyper active Brother that was franticly glancing around the room before finally setting eyes on Yuna. "Yuna! Are you alright?" He came to a sudden halt as he noticed the multitudes of corpses, both Al Bhed and Yevon soldiers alike. "What happened here?" He queried, eyeing his surroundings in awe.
"Yu Yevon came back with a platoon of Bevelle soldiers." Paine elaborated as she walked over with Baralai to where Yuna, Tidus and Brother were standing. "He came to apparently kill us and take out the Al Bhed all in one shot. But, he and his army were stopped by those two over there." She pointed to Xanthos and Rena sitting off in a corner together.
"Hey! Sorry to interrupt but we're receiving a communication signal from Dona at Kilika." Buddy came through the main entrance to the temple. "She wants to speak with you, Yuna." She looked at him and then nodded.
"Right." She looked about her at all her friends. "Come on everyone. We have to get going." Tidus, Paine and Baralai followed after Yuna as she walked on out the door and toward the Celsius that hovered over the open area outside the temple. Brother hastily followed the three after the former summoner, Buddy walking with his as he passed the Al Bhed coordinator. Xanthos and Rena got up from where they sat with each other and walked after the others, their sword bouncing at his sides and on her back. Rikku and Gippal had finally released each other form their kiss and found that their friends were gone, not having paid any attention to what was going on.
"Hey, where'd they go?" Rikku exclaimed looking around the chamber franticly. "Yunie! What's going on?" She shouted across the chamber to her cousin who had just appeared in the doorway to see if the Al Bhed couple was coming.
"Brother and Buddy are here with the Celsius and we just got a radio signal from Dona on Kilika. We're all going onboard to see what she wants." The brunet summoner smiled at the couple and rushed out of the view of the two blonde Al Bhed.
"C'mon Gip!" Rikku grabbed the machine fraction leader's hand and dragged him outside of the temple with her to the Celsius. As soon as the two blonde Al Bhed were on the airship and in the bridge Buddy opened up the transmission and they listened to what Dona had to say to Yuna.
"Yuna, I'm sorry that we have to speak under these circumstances but something is in the forest surrounding the temple and occasionally comes out to attack the village." The long, black haired former summoner reported the situation on Kilika.
"Wha-what? What is it that is doing this?" Yuna queried to the other former summoner.
"I'm not sure, but it appears to be some sort of fiend. Everyone that has seen it has either died or has only seen it in a shadowy form." Dona explained about the menace assailing Kilika.
"Sounds like a job for the Gullwings!" Rikku proclaimed from the back of the group, next to Gippal. "We'll help right guys?" She glanced around at her friends and all of them seemed okay with the idea and nodded to the perky, blonde Al Bhed.
"Right! Then let's get going and save Kilika!" Tidus exclaimed from his spot at the front of the group, next to Yuna.
"Don't underestimate this fiend." Dona spoke with a hint of concern in her voice that no one had had ever heard from her before. "This doesn't seem like any normal fiend. It's almost as if it is being given its powers from some higher force. None of the warriors on this island can do anything to it, unlike all the other fiends that we have encountered here before." Just as she stopped talking a man ran in a shouted to her.
"Lady Dona! The fiend is attacking!" The man looked very startled and fearful. "We must get you to a safe place!" Just as he finished a bright radiance beamed through the window placed in the back of the hut. A massive explosion sounded through the communication link causing everyone aboard the Celsius to cover their ears. When they looked back up at the screen the hut was totaled and the screen began to blur with static as it began to fade to black.
"Oh my gosh! Dona, and the other villagers…" Rikku cried out at the screen.
"We'll be there in a half an hour. You guys should be getting ready for the battle ahead." Buddy said trying to get everyone's attention off of what happened to Kilika. "There are some extra weapons for any of you that need some more weapons in the cargo bay. You all can get some extra items from Barkeep down in the cabin."
Rikku and Gippal headed down to the cargo bay where they looked over some of the weapons that were stored there. Paine and Baralai went out on the deck of the airship and gazed into the bright azure sky. Yuna and Tidus went down to the cabin to gather up some items and also talk about the past three years and also just to be together with each other after they had been apart for three years. Xanthos and Rena sat together down in the engine room, just enjoying each other's company as they headed toward Kilika.
"What about this one, Rikku?" Gippal pulled out a double sided sword out of the weapons rack and twirled it in his hands.
The jade eyed Al Bhed girl gazed at Gippal with affectionate eyes before answering. "Gippal…" The blonde, one eyed Al Bhed man turned to the concerned Rikku.
"Yeah, what is it Rikku?"
She gazed down at the ground and put her arms across at her lower back and scuffed her right shoe on the metal planking of the floor. "I… I don't think you should come and help us out on this one…" Her voice was so soft that Gippal could barely hear her, let alone understand what she said.
"What?" His eye went wide as he gawked at Rikku as she continued to not look at him and scuff the floor with her shoe. "What are you talking about?"
"I just don't want anything to happen to you. That's all." She sustained her low voice and didn't look up to the blonde machine fraction leader.
Gippal eyed her with a puzzled look pained on his face. "But I want to go. I want to go to protect you." Her gaze was still planed on the floor instead of his face. "Look at me Rikku, and tell me why you don't want me to go." He moved his hand over under her chin, but before he could place his hand on her chin to lift her head up she gently waved it away.
"I just don't want you to get hurt!" She cried to him as her head shot up to look into Gippal's single eye. "You aren't used to fighting fiends and stuff like I am. I was Yunie's guardian three years ago and then we defeated Vegnagun and Shuyin a year ago, but you haven't done anything remotely similar to any of that." She kept her twin jade swirl eyes focused upon his single eye.
"Rikku…" He advanced on her and placed his arms around her. "I'll be okay, I think I can handle myself, besides remember back on Bikanel against Issark?" She looked up into his eye, small tears streaked down her face as she nodded in his chest. "I held my own against Him and his aeons. So I think I can at least help you guys out against some pathetic little fiend. After all, you will be there to protect me and I'll be there to protect you. So what do you say? Let me come along with you and protect you, okay?" The young Al Bhed did nothing but let her breath beat upon his chest.
"Okay Gippal, but if there's any sign of trouble you get out of there. You understand me?" She glanced up into his lone eye with a stern face.
"Yeah… no problem Rikku." He hugged tightly. "I will get out of there if there is any danger to my life, but I will protect you no matter what." He pushed her away from his tenderly. "So, what do you think of this one?" He whipped out two axes and twirled them around in his fingers. Rikku couldn't do anything but smile back at Gippal as he smiled at her, still twirling the twin axes in between his fingers.
"So that is what has gone on since I left you three years ago." Tidus said, looking Yuna in her bi-colored eyes as she nodded to his statement. "Now that I'm back we can finally be together." Yuna smiled at the blonde, former blitz ace which he returned with an adoring smile and placed his left arm around her.
"Tidus…" They both gazed deeply into each others eyes. "I'm so glad that you're finally back." With that she threw her arms around his neck and held her head up against his chest, her breath tickling his bare chest.
He rubbed her back gingerly with his right hand, as they sat in each others arms on one of the beds on the upper deck of the cabin. "I am too…" He whispered into her left ear, it twitching as his lips moved away.
"Tidus, I wish we could be like this forever…" She held him even more tightly than she had before.
"We can Yuna, we can." As he spoke she pushed herself away from him softly.
"But…but I don't know how this whole thing is going to turn out." She expressed her concern for the events surrounding them. "What if…" She was silenced by Tidus' index finger being pressed against her lips tenderly.
"Don't say that Yuna." Tidus put both his hands on her shoulders. "We are going to make it through this, together. Just like we did three years ago when we defeated Sin, once and for all, ending that silly tradition of sacrificing summoners." He moved his lips in close to her face and kissed her delicately on the cheek causing her to blush, just a bit.
"You're right Tidus. We will make it through this, together…" She slowly threw her arms around him once again and gave him a tight squeeze, which he countered by squeezing back, but gentler, and ruffling her honey brown hair.
"Paine," Baralai shifted his gaze from the darkening, never ending horizon to the warrior, "I want to know what you think of me." She looked up at him with a very confused and startled look upon her face.
"Wha- what? What do you mean?" She stammered, still giving him a look of bewilderment and shock upon her face.
"It's just that ever since the Crimson Squad was disbanded I could never stop thinking about you." He gazed deeply into her crimson colored eyes. "I just never expressed how I felt before, and now I want to know how you feel about me after all this time. I just can't keep my feelings inside anymore. No matter what the outcome!" He proclaimed, awaiting her answer patently.
"Well…" She began to speak but then had to stop to think about how to say it to him. "… well, it's complicated and… umm…" Baralai's face showed some disappointment but continued to ask for her answer.
"Paine, just say how you really feel. No matter what your answer I won't hate you and it's okay to express how you really feel. You don't have to be ashamed of your feelings." Baralai placed a hand on her shoulder which she didn't try to wave off.
"Well…" Paine started but then took a moment to ponder exactly how she wanted to say this. "I… I have actually always felt something for you." She paused a moment to think of what she wanted to say next. "I didn't know exactly what it was when I first met you but now I have come to realize that it must be love. I never really thought much of it till after what happened a year ago, but ever since then I've been thinking on what that feeling was." Baralai placed both his hands on her shoulders and stared into her crimson eyes.
The dark clouds above the two suddenly opened up and rain began to trickle down through the cooling air. The rain sounded off the metal deck of the Celsius in a southing pinging noise. "It's raining, let's go back inside." Baralai stood up and extended his hand to Paine, who was still sitting down upon the metallic deck. She took his hand and let him lift her up off the growing colder deck and walked with him onto the elevator and then down into the airship.
"Oh, it's raining!" Rena exclaimed as the sound of rain beating down on metal began to resonate above her and Xanthos. She gazed at the man with her turquoise eyes but he did not return the glance, he only stared off into space. "Xanthos, is something the matter? You look preoccupied." Her soft voice broke him out of his trance like state.
"It's… it's nothing. I'm just thinking." He said calmly, still not looking at her.
"What are you thinking about?" She placed her right hand on his left hand that rested upon his leg. Feeling her hand on his made him look at her with his deep brown eyes. "Does it have something to do with this fiend on Kilika?" He looked at her for a brief moment before jolting his head away from her stare.
"This is not just any mere fiend. It has a connection with Seymour and, or Yu Yevon. They are just trying to get us to go there so they can continue on with their plan, whatever it may be." The shape shifter stood up and strode over to the wall and placed his right arm on it above his head and leaned upon his.
"Whatever their plan may be we will not let them go on with it!" Rena proclaimed, getting up and strolling over to where Xanthos leaned against the metallic wall in the engine room.
"I don't know if it will be that easy to just stop them. They are masters of deception and never show their real purpose till the very end, when they have either succeeded in their plans or have failed." He pushed off the wall and turned to face Rena, his eyes quivering with uncertainty. "I don't think we have the power to stop them this time." His voice got low as he admitted to his fears.
Rena stepped closer and closer to Xanthos before she finally put her arms around the shape shifter. "We have each other. We can do anything. Besides, if just the two of us aren't enough to stop them we have all of our new friends that can back us up." Her voice held an utmost confidence in them and their new friends.
"Their plan involves something with me in it. With my power they could do just about anything if they ever gained control over my body. They have brain control powers so that may just be exactly what they are planning to do." He pushed her away from his body and gazed into her wide turquoise eyes. "If they take control of me then there will be no ends to the destruction that they could inflict." Rena's eyes still shone with hope and confidence.
"But, you said that you defeated Seymour by yourself and we defeated Yu Yevon together. So why can't we defeat them both at the same time with the help of the others on board?" She was still not convinced that there was no way to overcome the evil duo.
"Correction, I couldn't defeat Seymour because for some reason he has become immortal. Nothing that I did to him had any affect in the way of killing him. Yu Yevon is a god, even though he is one that failed, he is still very powerful and cannot be defeated by any conventional ways." Xanthos saw the shine in Rena's eyes somewhat lessen and he hung his head in hung his head in sadness. "I know it hurts, but it's the truth Rena." She turned her head to look away from him for a second.
"We can still beat them Xanthos! It isn't hopeless, no matter how much you think it is! You just have to believe in yourself, other people, and me!" She pushed herself against him and put her arms slowly around his shoulders, resting her head on his chest.
"Maybe you're right Rena, but…" He looked down at her; she looked up at him and smiled.
"Of course I'm right! All you have to do is believe!" She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his and kissed him. He slowly but surely placed his arms around her and returned the kiss. Just as they ended their kiss and pushed away from each other, gazing into one another's eyes a crackle came over the intercom.
"We're nearing Kilika everyone. Get ready and meet in to cargo bay so we can let you off as soon as we get there." Buddy announced over the static filled intercom. Xanthos turned from Rena and began to walk toward the elevator leading to the cargo bay. He left her hand grasp his and give it a little loving squeeze which caused him to look at her. She smiled and just continued to walk toward the elevator, dragging him along besides the fact that he stopped in his tracks when he glanced over at her.
The sight of Kilika was a horrifying sight; it was worse off than when Sin destroyed half the port town three years before, and the pouring rain didn't help. There were almost no buildings standing and the docks were, for the most part, completely demolished, not even the fragments were left. The waters weren't tarnished too much with debris; it was like everything was just incinerated, not just blown apart by an intense blast. A blitzball casually floated up to the group of eight and came to a halt on the steps leading down to the water surface on one of the only sections of dock that was still standing. Tidus went over to the blitzball, Yuna following him closely, and plucked it from the crystal waters of Kilika. He felt it as he hauled it up out of the untainted water and realized that only half of it was there, the other half had been dematerialized. The rest of the group gazed over to where the blitz ace and former summoner stood and gawked at the half of a blitzball in wonder and fear.
"Wow…" Rikku uttered out of her state of shock as she continued to gawk at the half of a blitzball before she began to survey her surroundings once more, flicking a soaked lock of blonde hair out of her left jade eye. "This fiend is really powerful if it can wipe out all of Kilika in just that one blast we saw…" Her voice had an evident edge of fear drifting on it.
"That means…" Yuna trailed of and looked down at her feet as Tidus came over and put his arm around her shoulders to try to comfort her. "… all the villagers are gone, and Dona, too." A tear leaked out of the corner of each of her bi-colored eyes and streaked her face down to her chin. The tears were evident even though it had been pouring on them ever since they landed here, on Kilika.
"Yuna, we will get back at these guys for all they have done, here and everywhere else." Tidus placed both of his hands on her slender shoulders and gazed into her moist eyes. He turned from her after about three seconds of gazing and drew out calborg, the blue, jagged blade with golden lightning etched on the blade. "Let's find this fiend and kill it!" He exclaimed as a deep bellow echoed through what used to be the Kilika docks.
"Wha-what was that?" Rikku stuttered, getting closer and closer to Gippal's side, and looked out over the Kilika forest, the origin of the unfamiliar roar.
Birds flocked out from the canopies of the green tress within the depths of the forest around the temple as the rain continued to pour down. The tress began to convulse viciously as the entire group stood and watched as some of them began to topple over at the sound of another deep throated bellow. "It looks like something is coming out of the forest." Rena pointed to a spot in the tress where some of them were completely gone and a dark form began to rise out of the clearing it had created.
A bolt of thunder flashed across the dark and dreary sky causing Rikku to cower a little bit and also reflecting light off of the fiend's massive claws that had just now cleared the treetops. A sudden gust of wind took the group for surprise as the colossal, shadowed fiend spread two gigantic wings into the gray, raining sky. Its two yellow, menacing eyes suddenly flashed open to inspect the area around it for anything out of the ordinary. Its demonic yellow eyes with crimson slit pupils scanned over the landscape till it located the group standing upon the one remaining dock. Its immense jaws crept slowly open, revealing massive yellow teeth tainted with some red substance that appeared to be blood, saliva dripping from fang to fang.
A tremor shook the ground violently as the fiend launched itself into the air, revealing a dragon like body. It batted its enormous wings in the rain filled sky sending rain plummeting to the ground with such force it bore holes into the marshy soil at the edge of the forest. The sound its wings gave off as it beat the sky with them sounded like a giant's footfalls on the ground, only they were above the group of friends instead of in front. The group all drew their weapons as the dark dragon came closer and closer with each passing second. It seemed like the dragon could clear the expanse of where the docks used to be with one magnificent flap of its sinister wings.
Baralai was the first to attempt to attack the dragon fiend by extending the pole he wielded all the way up to the dragon's neck as it just got to about one hundred feet away from them. His reinforced pole merely bounced off the black dragon's tough scales and fell to the side, almost causing the former praetor of Yevon to lose his balance and fall into the lucid water below. Before his pole set him off balance he made it retract to his size and shifted his footing to prevent him from falling toward where his pole had extended. He glared up at the dragon, who had now positioned itself right above the group of eight, beating its wings down upon them. The wind rushing from the dragon fiend's wings flattened the entire group to the dock and pinned them there until it passed over them. They all stood up hastily after they regained control over their bodies and gazed off after the dragon as it rounded back to make another fearful pass.
This time Yuna readied one of her dual pistols on the black dragon's right eye, holding the pistol steadily in both hands. The former high summoner squeezed the trigger with her right index finger sending the gun recoiling back up over her head from the high velocity of a quarter pound shot. A tail of smoke followed the bullet a little while out of the barrel of the smoking gun as it made its way toward its intended mark. The bullet found its target perfectly and stuck right into the crimson center of the fiend's slit like pupil. To Yuna's distress the god inspired dragon didn't seem to have been affected by one of its two eyes being shot out. Instead of wailing in pain, the dragon dove down toward Braska's daughter, deep purple flames curled around its fangs as lightning streaked across the sky, the saliva glistening in that light.
Out of the dragon's saliva drenched jaws shot a plume of dark purple flames, bombing the dock the eight companions were on. Everyone scattered as the flames drew closer to them and leapt off the wooden planks and into the water. The flames slammed against the wooden planks of the dock and incinerated them upon impact and continued on to the water's surface. The flames touched the top of the water, washing over the hiding companions harmlessly just as they hoped. After the amethyst flames dissipated, the eight friends swam to the surface to get some oxygen into their lungs. They broke the surface and each of them took in a long breath of clean air and opened their eyes after the water ran off.
The dragon fiend swooped in down close to the water, dipping its tarnished white claws into the cool water. Rikku pointed to one of the dragon's clawed hands as it ran past them in the water and began to swim for it. Her friends followed suit hastily and soon they all latched onto the black dragon's clawed appendage. They began to ascend to the arm without the dragon so much as noticing them creping over its hard scaled limb. The wind rushing over them as they climbed up the limb felt like they were being pressed against it with the force of a stampeding elephant. Everyone had a hard time gripping the smooth, slippery scales and occasionally one of them would lose their gripping and be hanging by only one hand until one of the others helped them to grip something.
Once upon the massive black dragon's scaly back they noticed a change in wind pressure as it was reduced to almost nothing and they didn't have the risk of being blown off its back. They scanned the surface of the fiend's back but only saw scales, wings and its long, graceful neck leading up to its colossal skull. Paine drew out her skull sword and attempted to drive it into the scales along the dragon fiend's back. The blade stuck the though, dark scales and merely reflected off and almost went flying out of the warrior's hands. Seeing the only way to hurt the beast was to stab it in the eye or its mouth the group continued up the fiend's back until something stopped them.
Over the sides of the black dragon's back crept a multitude of fiends ranging from small, agile lizard like fiends to chimeras. Flying fiends of all types began to ascend into the air into the companions' view from the same place as the other fiends. Everyone drew out their weapons and prepared for battle against the horde of fiends that had just now appeared in front of them. Neither the fiends nor the friends moved until Yuna took up one of her pistols and trained it on a lightweight bird fiend. She squeezed the trigger and let fly a supper heated bullet that drove itself into the bird fiend's skull after zipping through the air. The fiend fell to the ground and bounced up a foot before it burst into the harmonious pyreflies everyone was used to. After the former high summoner's act, all the fiends let out various roars and cries, each having their own distinct howl, and charged at the battle ready group.
Rikku charged at a chimera with her twin orange and yellow daggers kept close to her side. She leapt into the air and much to her dismay the chimera's snake tail caught her attack and shot a bolt of lighting at the soaring AL Bhed. The bolt flashed into the blonde girl's stomach and sent her sailing back through the air about teen feet back to where her friends stood ready to fight. She shot back up onto her feet and rubbed her stomach at little bit before she took off back at the chimera. This time she faked out the snake tail and got in right underneath the fiend's other three heads. She thrust each of her dual daggers into the lower jaw of two out of the chimera's four heads causing them to each cry out in incredible pain. She then wrenched her daggers out of the two skulls as they went limp and plunged them into the chimera's chest. It let out a terrible cry of anguish and the blonde Al Bhed ripped her daggers out of its chest after dragging them to the left and right, causing even more damage and pain then a normal in and out attack would have inflicted. The fiend crashed to the ground, crimson blood seeping out of the twin massive gashes in its chest before it burst into pyreflies.
Xanthos took up his two katanas just as a bladed tail came down at him from the hindquarters of a spider like fiend. He pushed the tail out from in-between the X formed by his dual katana blades put together, severing the bladed portion of the tail clean off the beast. It shrank back in pain as the shape shifter strode toward it, his katanas raised above his head and ready to plunge into the flesh of the fiend. He jabbed his katana blades down at the midsection of the fiend but it recovered from its recoils of pain and leapt to the side, out of the way of Xanthos' attack. His blades bounced off the hard scales of the dragon's back as the fiend leapt on top of him. He kicked the fiend off of his body and to the side and brought down his right arm as he rolled toward where he knocked it off. His katana plunged into the fiend's supple underbelly causing it to scream out in pain and burst into multicolored pyreflies within seconds.
Paine charged up toward a hard scaled fiend with demonic yellow, glaring eyes and fangs dripping with saliva. The fiend lashed out at the warrior as she neared it but she easily evaded its gnashing teeth and ran around behind it. She thrust her skull blade at the fiend's spine but it whipped its tail at her, knocking her blade out of her hands and skidding along the scales a few feet. The fiend whirled around and attempted to sink its fangs into Paine's left leg but she rolled out of the way allowing the fiend to smack its head on the tough dragon scales. As the fiend recovered from its collision Paine ran over to where her blade had been knocked away and gripped the hilt tightly. She pivoted on her heels to find the fiend charging at her, its moth wide open and ready to devour her. She shoved the blade down the rough hide fiend's throat causing it to cough up blood and then finally keel over and burst into pyreflies.
Tidus rushed along the back of the black dragon, three agile lizard like fiends tailing him on either side. He swerved to the side and impaled one of the fiends in the gut with calborg and tossed it off the side of the dragon as he continued to run. One of the lizard like fiends to his left leapt onto the blonde blitz ace's back, pushing him to the ground on his face. He stood back up hastily, feeling no weight upon his back, only to have another of the fiends jump and latch itself onto his torso, knocking calborg out of his hands. He wrestled with the fiend a few seconds before he heaved it off of himself, before it could sting him with its poisonous stinger. He smacked his right fist into the fiends head, knocking it out and then went to retrieve his gold and blue sword, the remaining lizard like fiends guarding it.
He ran up to the fiends but instead of attacking head on he leapt over the skirmish line they had created and landed with one foot on calborg's hilt. He lifted his foot of the golden hilt and then shot his foot back down on it which flipped it up into the air and into his right hand. The four remaining fiends leapt at him but one by one fell to the blitz ace's mighty legendary blade. The four fiend's bodies collapsed around him and soon burst into pyreflies, creating a huge cloud of the multicolored objects around him.
Rena encountered three of the purple furred yeti like fiends with their four muscular arms and fists set in a fighting position. She pricked one of her delicate fingers on the tip of her kanemitsu, a small bubble of blood forming on her fingertip as soon as she removed it from the blade. She then continued on to run her bleeding fingertip along the entire length of the blade on her kanemitsu causing it to give off a pale deep purple radiance. She raised the glowing blade over her head as the three purple furred fiends charged in at her, their footsteps sounding like those of a stampeding T-rex. Rena slowly lowered her arm as the fiends drew closer, a thin wave of the same pale purple launching off the blade as she did so. The fiends stopped to gaze in horror as the beam collided with them, dematerializing them instantly. She smiled at the attention she drew from both the fiends and from her friends as she looked around at her surroundings.
Gippal ran over to where Rikku was encircled by five gray and black scaled basilisks, all poised for attack. He rushed past one drawing its attention causing it to turn to look at him only to have its neck get caught by the Al Bhed's axe he wielded in his left hand. The fiend was torn away from its position behind Rikku so fast it left an afterimage of the basilisk having its neck snapped in half. Gippal came to a halt to remove his deceased baggage from the end of the axe he held in his left hand. The basilisk crashed to the ground with a light thud, its entire body limp, especially its shattered neck. It burst into pyreflies as the blonde, one eyed Al Bhed hurried back over to where Rikku had managed to kill off two more of the basilisk leaving only two alive.
Yuna dove out of the way of a seed like cannonball fired from one of the large plant bulb fiends in front of her. The former high summoner recovered from her dive into a front flip and then into a kneeling position where she trained the barrels of both of her pistols on the plant fiend. She squeezed off a bullet just as the plant fiend launched another of the seed cannonballs toward her. The brunet followed the path of the front roll she had just done before firing her pistols but instead of a front roll she preformed a small cartwheel to elude the seed cannonball hurtling toward her. The plant fiend let out a small, shrill cry, somehow, and began to wilt as pyreflies began to leak out of the bullet hole Yuna had just put into its side. She stood up and flicked her long ponytail off her slender right shoulder and back to where it belonged, down the center of her back. Braska's daughter gazed around to find any of her friends, but instead of finding them she found a massive behemoth staring her down with glowering yellow and black eyes and dripping fangs.
Baralai shot out his extending pole to stop a coyote like fiend from leaping up onto Paine's back and tearing out the back of her neck with its razor sharp fangs. She whirled around just as she cut down an agile lizard fiend to see the coyote impaled on the former praetor of Yevon's rod, bursting into pyreflies only seconds after she saw it. He smiled to her and she returned his smile with a significantly smaller one as a coeurl leapt upon the warriors back, knocking her face first onto the ground. Baralai rushed over and clobbered the coeurl in the back of the skull right before it sank its jagged into Paine's skull. He shot out a hand to the downed warrior and hauled her up off the ground and twirled around his pole and set it into battle stance with it folded under his right arm and running horizontal across his back.
The coeurl turned to face its assailant and let out a mighty roar to try to intimidate Baralai or maybe just as an angered call. The two tail like whiskers began to rise up and over the sides of the fiend's head, the tips of these whiskers sparking with electricity. The coeurl unleashed the electric energy that it had just stored up in the tips of its whiskers at Baralai. The whiskers flipped forward like a catapult being fired and sent a current of deadly electricity toward the ex-praetor. He dodged the lighting strikes as they flew at him at top notch speeds and sent out his extending pole to smack the fiend in the lower jaw. The coeurl let out a roar of pain as its lower jaw had now become mere fragments of what it used to be. Paine charged up and, with one mighty swing of her skull blade, decapitated the injured coeurl, ending its misery and its annoyance to her and Baralai.
Rikku cut down a crimson and yellow giant wasp fiend with a simple flick of her wrist, sending one of her red and orange daggers into the fiend's thorax. After the wasp fiend had plummeted to the ground and burst into pyreflies, the blonde AL Bhed whirled around to see her cousin in a stone cold stare from a massive behemoth. "Yunie! I'm coming!" With that she tore off across the expanse of scales that separated her from her cousin, cutting down any meager fiends that crossed her rocketing path. She dove through the air, tackling Yuna out of the way of a colossal clawed paw that shook the dragon's back as it connected with the scales. The dragon let out an annoyed hiss and veered to the right, almost sending everything and everyone off the side, into the chilled water below.
"Yuna!" Tidus hollered across the dragon's back as he ran to where Rikku and Yuna sat on the ground in front of the behemoth, trying to regain their composures. He reached the two cousins and checked up on Yuna before he turned toward the immense behemoth and held out calborg in challenging manner. The colossal behemoth let out a deep throated bellow signaling that he accepted the blitz ace's challenge and raised itself onto its hind legs. Tidus gazed up at the gigantic behemoth, a faint smile spreading across his lips slowly.
Tidus charged toward the upward behemoth and ran to one of its back legs, but as he neared the limb the fiend crashed its other two appendages back down onto the dragon's back. The shockwaves from the collisions cast the blitz ace off his agile feet and onto his back, his vision slightly blurred for a moment. He shot back up onto his feet as a clawed paw came crashing down towards him and hastily went into a front roll to elude the earthshaking stomp. He was once again jostled from his feet as he ended his front roll and ended up laying face down on a gargantuan off white claw. He quickly got up, once more, and began to climb the leg up to get upon the fiend's back where it wouldn't be able to get him as easily. He made it up onto the behemoth's back in a matter of seconds but only to be tossed off when it reared back.
The behemoth spun around to see its prey laying on the ground, not moving, and decided to stamp him out of existence. It raised a grand clawed paw and pulled it back to gain more momentum but out of no where something caught its neck. A katana got lodged into the behemoth's neck, right at the jugular vain, and was spurting out crimson colored blood out all over the place. The fiend began to gag and choke on its own blood and lowered its paw without crushing Tidus into dust to give itself some stability. The behemoth then reared back upon its back two lets and let out a gargled bellow into the raining sky before it tumbled over backwards, shaking everything as it made contact with the ground. The sky began to lighten up as six flaming meteors began top plummet down upon the dragon and everyone and everything upon it.
"Quick! Everyone get behind me!" Xanthos shouted to all the combaters scatted across the back of the dragon. Gippal ran over and helped Tidus get up off the ground, Rikku following close by to the one eyed Al Bhed. Yuna hurried over to the wounded blitz ace as soon as Gippal had brought him to where everyone else was gathering, behind Xanthos. The shape shifter took out a small object and placed it on the black scales of the dragon's back and pushed a tiny button on the side. A large canopy of blue and white shot up over the group of eight as the flaming meteors drew closer and closer to them. Finally the meteors stuck the shield and also the dragon causing it to cry out in anguish and become too injured to fly.
As the dragon's flight pattern abruptly changed from smooth to sporadic and to a descent everyone held onto each other in couples. The dragon came crashing down out of the sky right over the Kilika forest. The trees splintered under the sheer weight of the massive beast and the momentum it held sending wood splinters sailing through the air all over. The fiend finally came to a sliding halt casting off all of its passengers as it came to its complete halt. Everyone landed in a different spot, from trees to bushes, to where Xanthos had landed, the center of the first landing on the long stairs ascending to the temple.
Rena wearily sat up and rubbed the confusion and blurriness out of her eyes and glanced around to find Xanthos. He lay motionless at the moment in the center of the landing of the stone stairs leading up to the Kilika temple. A strange fog blocked the view of the stairs up to the temple but out of that fog she could make out two figures. As first she didn't know who they were but then it dawned on her as they came out of the fog. Seymour and Yu Yevon. The two strode over to where Xanthos lay, still motionless and stood over him for a moment. Rena tried to get up but she was too late to stop what the two villains had planned for a bright jade radiance beamed from the two and Xanthos. She froze in her tracks, about ten feet from her love and the two enemies and cried out, "Xanthos!"
A/N: Once again i'm sorry for the delay and if u hate me for it i understand.I hope you still continue reading this, that is if i continue to post it which i'm sure i will, sometime. Anyway, hope you liked the chap and untill next time, take care all!