Shadow of Darkness
I lied, I know… I said this chapter would be up last week… Gomen! bow
Chapter 7:
CRACK! The sound tore through the forest like a gunshot. From the wounded tree slid Rikku in a daze. She'd hit the tree when the fiend struck her with a tremendous blow. There were large gashes along her back, from which blood trickled freely. She groaned, touching the red sticky liquid. That beast really got her good…
Trembling, she tried to get to her feet, but her knees gave out and she fell, slamming her injured back against the tree. She cried out in pain.
Gippal hit the fiend with a powerful thunder spell and ran to her side. Despite the low temperatures of the frosty Macalania, he was drenched in sweat. "I'm surprised you're still alive," he said, administering a quick curative spell.
"Me too…" she murmured. "Thanks."
He collapsed beside her. "No… problem. I'm just gonna… rest here. Yes… because… that beast is a bit stubborn. He won't die. I even asked him nicely."
Rikku would've laughed, had she not been in this position.
The fiend roared again, having recovered from the electrical shock. It shot towards them, claws extended, ready to take them down with own quick, messy gouge.
"It's a fast bastard, isn't it?" Gippal shook his head. "Funny thing is… I can't move."
"That's not funny!" She seized him by the waist and pulled with all her might. It was no use. She wasn't strong enough. The fiend was closing in. She jumped in front of Gippal, summoning the strongest spell she knew.
"No you moron! In your condition, that much power could kill you!" Gippal shouted over the energy that crackled in the air.
"We'll both die if I don't! So shut up, you're breaking my concentration! I'm not gonna let you die!"
Gippal blinked in surprise.
Finally, Rikku released the energy in a tremendous explosion of white light. With a lot of effort, Gippal flung his arm over his eyes and still, the light nearly blinded him. The fiend shrieked in terrible, devastating agony and suddenly… it stopped. He let his arm flop limply to the ground and opened his eyes. Rikku was still standing, surrounded by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pyreflies. She turned to him with a smile and wiped the sweat off her forehead.
"Who said the girl doesn't got it? Not bad, if I do say so myself." And then she collapsed.
"RIKKU!" Gippal shouted. If she died… Cid and Brother and Yuna… They'd kill him! Mustering every last ounce of strength he possessed, he crawled over to her. "Come on, you. Wake up." He gave her cheek a light swat. Her skin was almost burning hot! "You little idiot. Just how much power did you use?"
The figure near the lake stirred. Slowly, its head lifted and drooped slightly. Rich black hair tumbled over one shoulder and the person turned to him. It was a young woman with a serious face.
Gippal gripped Rikku close. "Who are you?"
"I… am Marin," she said, drawing in a labored breath. She winced and held a thin hand to her forehead. "And you?"
"Gippal. This is Rikku." He released his death grip on Rikku's body with a flush. "Were you attacked by the fiend?"
Slowly, she shook her head and winced again. She drew in another labored breath and her shoulders wracked with cough. "I merely collapsed. I had no idea there was a fiend. What happened to your companion?"
He looked down at the blond. "There was this fiend… She used too much power to defeat it. And now…" He didn't know what was wrong. Was she dead?
Marin rose to her feet and staggered over. Gippal was in shock- up close, the woman looked under twenty years old. Hardly what he'd call a full grown woman, actually.
"You should rest," he told her.
The healer shook her head. "I will be fine." She placed a hand on Rikku's forehead and closed her eyes. Her lips moved silently and her thin black eyebrows furrowed together in concentration. For a short while, nothing happened. But as Gippal watched, a bluish white mist engulfed Rikku's limp body. Another couple of minutes passed and then… she stirred.
A nearly inaudible moan escaped Rikku's lips and slowly, one eye opened, followed by the other. She winced at the bluish light she saw. There was a woman with long black hair… what a mess her hair was. Her vision cleared. It was not just hair that she saw. "The… the plague!" she croaked.
The woman withdrew her hand and the black mist surrounding the woman faded. "I can't believe- You see it. You see the aura, don't you?"
Gippal seized Rikku under her armpits and hauled her away from Marin. "What the hell are you doing? I'll bet you're trying to infect her now! You aren't healing, you're destroying!"
"Is this Marin?" Rikku asked.
Marin held up a hand weakly. "I am, yes. But please… it is not what you think."
"Then you better get your ass explaining to us quick. And it better be good," Gippal said frostily.
The healer nodded and coughed again. "I am dying. Passing through Luca on my way to Bevelle, I contracted the Dark Plague." She held a hand up to stop him from commenting. She struggled to take another breath. "I have been fighting it since. I've been successful because I know the properties- I know how to fight it. But it draws my strength- I can barely walk now. This plague… it is now ordinary ailment." She fought to go on. "It cannot be heal3ed by ordinary means because it is a supernatural ailment. Perhaps you could liken it to possession. Someone or something is playing with the people of Spira. The Plague won't stop until someone with the right power eradicates the Plague's controller."
"Are you the only one with that power?" Gippal asked with a deep frown.
Marin shook her head and looked at Rikku. "This girl. She has the potential for such power."
"Me?!" she squeaked. "But-"
"You see the black aura, correct?" Marin asked. Rikku nodded slowly. "That is the sign of your potential. But you don't have the proper strength of power yet." She smiled weakly. "We are lucky to meet before I die."
"What? You can't die! You have to see Yuna! She has the Plague!" Rikku said desperately.
The healer shook her head and coughed again. "It is too late for me. I will die shortly. But you… you can save her."
"Me? I tried already…" She hung her head. "It was useless."
Marin smiled. "No. Not useless. And I will help you. Give me your hands."
Rikku did as she was told, puzzled. Marin laced her fingers with the blonde's and held on tight. Shortly, their hands began to glow. "Wh-what are you doing?" she stammered. The connection was hot. Smoky white light soaked into her fingertips and she felt energy surging through her veins- she thought she was going to explode.
"I am giving you my power. This will help you defeat the creator of the Dark Plague."
"But you'll die if you do that, won't you?"
Marin smiled again. "Yes. I will die anyway. And I've accepted my death. It is almost complete."
"But… no! I can't do this!" she protested. "I'm not the person you should be entrusting the fate of Spira to!"
"Perhaps not. But you told me that the young lady who has guaranteed Spira's future is now one who is threatened by the disease that means to destroy it. Do you want to help her?" She gripped Rikku's hands tightly. "But listen to me. You always, always have a choice." The transfer of power was complete and Marin went limp. "It is done."
"But… wait! What do I do now?"
Marin, who seemed to have aged ten years drew in a final, ragged breath. "Go to my home in Kilika. You might find your answer there." Her eyes lost focus and her body fell slack.
"Marin! Marin wait!" Rikku wailed. "Wait! Where is the controller of the Plague? Marin!?"
"She's…" Gippal picked up her wrist and let it go. It flopped listlessly to the ground.
It was true. She was gone. Her body disappeared into pyreflies. Rikku turned and buried her face in Gippal's shirt. "Why me? Why?"
"You're just lucky, I guess." He patted her back awkwardly. "Come on. Let's get back to Bevelle and let Baralai know what's going on."
She nodded and stood slowly. "I guess now I'm Spira's only hope…" She wondered if this is what Yuna had felt like when she had to confront Sin, then Vegnagun. She could sympathize with her cousin.
Gippal staggered to his feet. He plopped his arm heavily around her shoulders and leaned on her. "Help me back, will you? Anyway… Marin said you have a choice. You could always walk away."
She shook her head and helped him slowly back to Bevelle. Macalania didn't feel as cold as she did inside. "I don't have a choice. Not really. I could walk away… but everyone would die. I couldn't cope with that sort of guilt, Gippal. Yet again, Spira has to be saved. And unfortunately, they picked me to do it- and I have no idea what to do."
''''
Baralai closed his eyes. It was the only sign he gave Rikku and Gippal that he was distressed. "She died then?"
She nodded. "And apparently… I have whatever power she had."
"So then, you can heal Bevelle's citizens?"
"N-no. I don't think so." She glared at Gippal when he elbowed her in the ribs. "Well, not yet anyway."
Baralai frowned. "This presents a new set of problems. Did she say whether the people with the Plague would die or not?"
Gippal shook his head. "Not a word."
"But I have to go back to Kilika. She didn't tell me how to use this power, but she did tell me I would find it there. Who knows, maybe she's right?"
"And if she can find out who or what started this 'plague', she can take it down and that should fix everything," Gippal added.
"Fat chance of that ever happening."
"That's my line," he said, smacking the back of her head. She yelped and glared at him, rubbing her head.
With a sigh, Baralai nodded. "Then you should go. The sooner you get there the sooner you will find this 'plague's' origin and the sooner everyone will be healed." He made the reverent bow of a Yevonite prayer. "I wish you the best of luck, Rikku."
She fidgeted uncomfortably. Bad, bad memories were locked in that gesture. "Thanks," she murmured. 'Cripes. I hope I don't disappoint.'
Gippal grabbed her arm and dragged her after him. "See you when this is all over!" he called to Baralai over his shoulder. He turned forward. "He's almost more serious than Paine. Yeesh. The guy needs to get laid or something."
Rikku stomped on his foot. "You sicko. The people in his city are sick! They look up to him for an answer. Unfortunately, his answer was Marin and she's dead. How do you expect him to feel? Honestly. He can't fix them on his own! And let go of my arm, would you?"
He did as told, surprisingly. "But what will being serious do for those people? Nothing, except make them depressed. Laughter is the best medicine, after all," he said.
She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. "Then why don't you offer to take the job as praetor? It seems that you know all about it."
"No way! Yevonites are a bunch of quacks, even if my best friend happens to be one of them," he said firmly.
Rikku had to admit that she agreed with his reasoning. "It must be tough having your friends leading different political factions with completely different ideas and agendas."
He simply shrugged. "It's not so bad. We've learned to just deal. See… we don't talk shop to one another, if you get my drift."
"Wow, that's really mature. I think I may faint from shock!"
He cuffed her head. "Careful, girly."
She made a face at him and rubbed her head for at least the second time that day. That had really hurt! They reached the airship in no time.
"To Kilika then?" Gippal asked after they entered, jumping into the pilot's chair.
"To Kilika… yet again."
"Hold onto your chair. It's going to be a bumpy ride!" Gippal howled in delight as they rocketed into the air and Bevelle disappeared behind them.
''''
The past several hours and been frustratingly quiet. Rikku was staring out at the ground below in quite a daze. Engaging Gippal in conversation had proved fruitless early on because he was adamant on remaining unnaturally quiet. She had to resort to staring out the window for entertainment. And that was only really interesting for the first hour or so. Antlike activity on Spira's landscape was only awesome for so long.
So, with chin on hand, she stared blankly at the open sky before her as her mind drifted to her present situation. Who could possibly want Spira's downfall? "A spiral of death," she murmured suddenly and the quote triggered a memory. The memory of a blue-haired man who took forever just to die and stay dead! Ex-maester Seymour. No.. surely he was on the Farplane. Or getting his just due in some murky hell- she liked the latter option. But he was dead. One couldn't get any deader. But… she reasoned, Shuyin was also dead. And look what happened with Vegnagun? She learned that feelings could linger in the world, even after death, particularly the negative ones.
"Could it be Seymour?"
"Huh?" Gippal glanced at her.
She turned to him fully. "I think the one who created this so-called plague is Seymour- Maester Seymour."
"Seymour? Kid, he's as dead as dead can get."
"So was Shuyin," she retorted. And oddly, she was pleased when he couldn't reply.
He shook his head. "Don't jump to conclusions. It could be anybody. Just because you don't like-"
"It could be anybody, you're right. But who else would have it in for Spira like that?" she butted in. "You never even met the guy, let alone had to beat that guy's persistent ass who knows how many times. If he took that long to actually die and stay dead then what makes you think being sent is enough to keep him away? He was nuts, Gippal. Absolutely flipped. I don't doubt that he did-"
"Okay! Okay, I get it. There's a 99.9 chance that it's Seymour. But there is a .1 chance that it's not, so we have to keep an eye and ear open. We can't throw all our energy into finding Seymour's… ghost in case you end up being wrong."
"Who's the leader of this mission?" she said grumpily, though she had to forcer herself to admit he was right. "Oh fine." But she was certain that her feelings on Seymour's guilt was correct. After all, who else could it be?
''''
Kilika… for the third time in the past few days… Rikku was getting a bit sick of seeing its bleak ghost town qualities. She disembarked the airship and stretched absently. Now there was nary a soul walking around the little island. The Plague had changed the village so much. A feeling of foreboding setting heavily on her chest and she started to panic. She couldn't do it, not her! And they all depended on her, all of Spira! Hundreds and hundreds of expectations and she would fail them all!
A steady thumping noise blessedly cut through her fog of panic and she looked back quickly. Gippal had finally decided to disembark Strange to think he had probably just saved her sanity.
"I've never actually been to Kilika before. What a bustling little metropolis," he said sarcastically.
"Don't make fun. They're scared…"
"Like that guy?" He gestured behind her.
She turned and saw just what guy Gippal was talking about. "Barthello…" Hewas running towards her, looking frantic as ever. It worried Rikku when she noticed that he looked like he'd lost twenty pounds.
He stopped in front of her, gasping for air. "I thought it might be you," he managed to sputter.
She nodded. "How's Dona?"
He shook his head. "The same. I don't know if I should be more worried or not." He glanced at the airship behind her, then Gippal. "Did you bring Marin with you?"
She frowned and shook her head. "I'm sorry… she… she died."
Barthello froze, his face a mask of profound shock. "She-she what?"
Gippal came up next to Rikku and placed a hand on her shoulder. She was oddly at ease with this gesture… and she tried not to think about it as he did this.
"She died just outside of Bevelle," he told the distraught Barthello. "But you have the next best thing. Or you will eventually." And he pushed the blond forward.
Once again she glared at him.
"You will be able to help us?" Barthello asked desperately. His eyes were fixed on her, wide and hopeful.
She held up her hands. "I… I don't know. I can't promise anything." Damn that Gippal!
His face fell; Rikku thought that he looked as though someone took away his favorite toy. She felt guilty. How could she worry about her own fears when others were worrying over their loved ones- who were much more important? 'And Yunie- she needs help too.'
She took Barthello's hand. "I'll do my best, just give me some time so I can learn what to do."
He grabbed her shoulders. "But we don't have time! Dona needs you now!" he insisted, giving her a firm shake. She squeaked in surprise.
"Hey, chill out buddy," Gippal said, pushing Barthello away from Rikku. "If she needs time, she needs time and there is nothing you can do about it."
"I can' do about it…" Barthello murmured and then shook his head. He nodded at Rikku. I'm sorry. Uh… if you'll excuse me." And he left Gippal and Rikku standing alone.
"Fryd y fylgu," ::What a wacko:: Gippal muttered, running a hand through his hair. "You okay, kiddo?"
Rikku nodded, watching Barthello leave. "He's just very attached to Dona…" She frowned suddenly. Why did she have a feeling he would do something stupid?
………..
kingleby: That's what makes an interesting story! A little bit of everything. Just like Heinz 57 catsup, no?
cute-kitty2: Well, I forsee no sphere changes at the moment.
Fanfic-Lover: Yes you did give me an idea and I thank you again! And I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter.