Chapter 10

Things Are Gonna Change

Leblanc, Ormi, and Logos walked ahead of me as the Gullwings followed behind me.

"Leblanc! Please let me explain." I shouted up to her. She ignored me. I don't blame her for it; I mean I did betray her in a way.

I wasn't sure what to do. It seems the tables turned on me. At first the Gullwings hated me, and now Leblanc hates me. Why is this happening?

A man in green quickly appeared and blocked our path. "Who the heck is that?" I asked out loud.

"I am the New Yevon Praitor, Baralai. What are you seven doing down here?" His voice had an angry tone to it.

"Take us to Vegnagun right away!" Leblanc ordered.

"I'm afraid I cannot do that. I need Vegnagun to execute something for me. I have to keep anyone that would harm Vegnagun away!" He said in a very bland tone this time, he reached behind his back and produced this strange pole-arm weapon. I pointed my rifle at him.

Baralai dashed at the Gullwings with amazing speed, he blew right past me knocking me down.

The four engaged in combat and I stood back up and prepared to fire at Baralai when Leblanc finally said something to me.

"Let them be. We're leaving!" she told me before turning around and walking towards the way we entered.

I looked at them fighting and didn't know what to do. The Praitor wasn't like those guards we encountered when we entered Bevelle; he was in a league of his own. I was a little nervous that he might be too much for the Gullwings.

"Go! We can handle this!" Rikku shouted to me flipping backwards to avoid being hit.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Please, we'll be fine!" Yuna shouted dodging left and right trying to find time to return fire at him.

I put my rifle away and ran to catch up to Leblanc. The four of us exited and were soon back at her chateau. I returned to my room and sat for a while. I didn't know what to think right now. I know Leblanc is probably a little pissed about what I did to her, but I was hoping she'd forgive me.

A goon came by and gave me a message. It was a letter from Leblanc.

"Dear whoever you are,

I don't know if your name is Ashley or Aeon, it doesn't matter anymore. It will be awhile until I can forgive you for lying to me like that, and not just lying but telling the Gullwings the information first. Until I can find it in my heart to accept you apology I don't want you here. When I'm ready to have you back I'll send for you, don't worry, I'll find you. Just don't come near Guadosalam until I'm ready for you, I can't deal with you now.

Leblanc

P.S. If you are still wondering you aren't kicked out of the Syndicate. Just suspended, but you can still find spheres if you'd like."

So that was it then, I was out on the street like when I got here. Things seemed to come round full swing for me.

I packed some things into my backpack, a couple books, some food (what little I had), a case of ammunition I had made, and a map of Spira. I had a pouch of gil and kept that in one of my large pockets.

It was around 1200 gil; so I wasn't exactly well off. I made sure I had everything before finally taking a few steps out of Guadosalam, my last steps inside it for a long time.

I made my way towards the Moonflow. It was sad leaving, Leblanc must really be upset with me, she didn't even tell me in person. At least I'm technically in the Leblanc Syndicate still. Where should I go now?

"Did you hear about this sphere at the bottom of the Moonflow?" I overheard a man tell his friend at this tourist booth.

"Yeah, some people said that it was so deep you'd need some heavy duty machina to get to it." His friend replied.

"Except the machina ended up to be too large to enter, it seems only big enough for a person to fit inside." The first one said.

"A sphere? That's it!" I said running towards the edge of the Moonflow. I looked at the water and thought of the obvious.

"I can't breathe underwater." I said out loud.

"That won't be a problem." A girl told me. She wasn't bad looking; average I'd say with nice short brown hair. "Swallow this. This should allow you to breathe underwater."

It was a fairly large white pill that looked like a small pearl.

"Is it safe?" I asked her.

"Of course, you can use it to see how beautiful the water is on the other side." She said with a smile as I downed the pill.

I fell over coughing and heaving after it cleared my throat. I almost felt like puking until the pain and pressure I felt subsided.

"I'm sorry, I should have warned you about it being a little painful after you ingest it." She said giggling a little leaning over me.

I got to my feet and just smiled a little at her before running into the waters.

I was very nervous at first. I dunked my head under the water and inhaled. I expected it to cause me to choke but instead the water entered my body and seemed to vanish when I exhaled. The only bad thing was it felt a little uncomfortable breathing the water.

"Must be how people play Blitzball." I thought to myself.

I dove down further and the image of this big city appeared. I remember Lulu mentioning a big machina city eventually became so heavy it fell into the Moonflow and sank to the bottom. The sphere must be down in there somewhere, but it was so massive I didn't know where to begin. There was a large series of lights to my left further down so I began there.

It looked like some sort of underwater camp was set up down here. Perhaps some Al Bhed came down here hoping to find the sphere and set up a station here. It wasn't a resting ground, more like they set up a bunch of equipment here to monitor things.

Everything was still operating, but there wasn't anybody there to check the equipment. I looked at one of the monitors and it looked like it was measuring seismic activity in this large hole close to my location. If I were reading this right the hole would eventually collapse. The sphere must be down there!

I checked to see if my rifle was still working and fired a shot out. The slug traveling through the water like a torpedo splitting the rock it struck in half.

Good thing I prepared several rounds of "Underwater Ammo" awhile back. I read about them in the same book I learned how to make Multiblast. I was hoping nobody stole my backpack either. I had to leave it on the shore because I didn't want some of the stuff inside getting wet.

I journeyed down into this mysterious hole in the water. The depth was starting to get to me, but I knew I could hold out down here for a while still. I swam down through the crack until I reached this large chamber. It looked like some sort of reactor or large machine at the least.

Suddenly something blew past me. I looked around trying to find the source and it was this large fish with spines all over its body and two menacing eyes. One eye seemed strange though. It swam into a wall and created a hole as it left. The whole room rumbled.

"I take it this thing is the cause of all this seismic activity. If I'm not careful it could bring this entire thing down on me." I said to myself.

I went after it down this submerged hallway and found out what happened to most of the men that set up that camp. At least fourteen bodies were floating in this hallway. All of them were dead since they weren't moving at all. That fish must have killed them.

I continued forward and the fish was trapped in a large cylinder shaped room. It came at me again, but I managed to swim to the side to dodge it. I fired a slug at it, but the projectile merely deflected off the creature's hide.

It turned and opened up its mouth to chomp on me. I swung my blade at it and it went to the side not wanting to be hit. I couldn't do that again, swinging my weapon underwater was much harder than on the land, it required too much force to be effective down here.

It was after me again and when it opened up again I fired into its mouth. The slug struck the uvula like object that was glowing and the creature roared in pain as it died. No pyreflies flew from it though.

I swam up to it and looked at it. The right eye was loose. I grabbed it and found out it was solid. I pulled the object out and it seems that it was a sphere and not an eye. I'm guessing it lost its real eye and this sphere got lodged in there.

I had my prize; it was time to get out. I swam back towards the way I came down. Once in the hallway I heard the fish roar to life again. It was angry with me and started to swim at me.

I gasped under the water creating several bubbles and wasted no time taking off. It chased me down up until it hit the hole I swam down into. It wasn't large enough to fit but was slowly buried by rocks falling in the hole at me.

I dug my way up through all the debris as the pit collapsed on it. I looked down and saw pyreflies emerge from the ruins.

"Guess that did it in."

I wasted no time returning to the surface, only stopping once to admire the beauty of this once proud machina city, which looked like something a famous painter would create. I wish I could enjoy this more. The ability to breathe underwater made me love to swim again. The flow of liquid around my entire body, the sounds, and the feeling on swimming was something wonderful that I enjoyed on Earth. There it is again, Earth. Will I return? Is it even possible?

I made it to shore and was glad to see my backpack was still there and everything was where it should be.

"Well at least I have something to give to Leblanc for when I'm allowed back in. Where to go now?" I asked myself. It was almost nightfall and the sun was setting.

"Maybe Cora is still in Luca. I know she'd probably be happy to see me." I said running towards the Shoopuf station to hitch a ride, but it would be a long walk to Luca.