Chapter 12
The years past. Many died of various illnesses, Wakka among them. Aura, Vidina, Llaman and Lila spent much of their time hanging around Shinra's lab. Lila in particular, loved Machina. Though she spent a lot of time with Yuna, training as a white mage, all her free time was spent building various machines to make life easier. Rikku had told her of her father, and Lila felt closest to him when she was working on a machina.
It was a day much like any other when Shinra told them of his future plans. Lila was thirteen, Llaman nearly fifteen. Aura was seventeen and Vidina twenty-one.
When they entered the lab, Shinra was holding a sword. Excitedly, not pausing for breath he told them of his breakthrough. He'd found a way to fix spheres onto weapons, so anyone using the weapon could use the abilities contained in the spheres. While Vidina played with the sword, showing off for Aura, Lila asked him how it worked.
Firstly, he reminded her of how the dresspheres worked. A person's personality could, after their death, be formed into a sphere. This happened automatically throughout Spira, due to the pyre flies. Basically, spheres were made of memories and experiences – the things that make up the soul, if you will – compressed by the sheer life force of Spira that was embodied by the pyreflies. The sphere grid, the garment grid – both allowed people to use those memories and experiences to make themselves stronger. The garment grid had allowed people to use the power of the person in question, changing into their clothes and using their abilities.
His new invention, which allowed the spheres to be attached to weapons and armour, was an improvement over the garment grid, he said. With the garment grid you could only use one set of abilities at a time. With his new invention you could use any combination, although there was a limit on the amount. The more you used a certain sphere, the stronger it would become, allowing you to use stronger abilities, much like the dresspheres had.
Then Shinra went off into his own world, and seemed to forget they were there. He wondered aloud if there was a way to bring the aeons back – they also had memories and experiences. If he could only find a sphere of them. The sphere could be attached to a weapon or piece of armour allowing the user to summon the aeon whenever he or she wanted.
It was at this point that Rin appeared, and gently led them out of the lab, telling them that Shinra needed to rest.