Disclaimer: Screw this. I can't be bothered.
A/N: We'll be skipping straight to the Thunder Plains. And Kimhari will get a certain boost to his abilities. Just wait and see!
A/N 2: Auron has been nicknamed "Old Painless" by the others since he seems damn near impervious to pain.
Chapter 8: Ultra Ronso
A huge thunderclap sounded just as a lightning bolt split the sky apart and struck a nearby lightning tower. An extremely shrill scream followed. Tidus, who had the misfortune of being the closest to Rikku, covered his ears.
"Please! I'm too young to die! Let's go back! Please! I don't wanna go!" Tidus' eyebrows were so close together you would think he had only one. Rikku's constant whining were starting to grate his nerves, and they were wearing thin. "I'm gonna kill somebody if she doesn't stop screaming soon! That noise is gonna break my ears." Tidus complained to Wakka, who was standing in front of him. "Seriously! They're ringing!" he continued. "Nag, nag, nag! What about me? I've gotta listen to the constant screaming and your constant complaining." Wakka snapped back.
Slowly but surely, Rikku started to lag behind the group, going further with each thunderclap. Soon enough, the party was out of sight, but Rikku hardly noticed. Sheseemed to stop worrying that much about the thunder. The only thing that was going through her head was the verse from the "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner". The verse that Brotheralways read to her at night to freak her out.
"Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread.
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
Calming herself down, she looked around her. All she saw were thunder, lightning, fear, and that big black faceless thing standing to her right... wait a minute. Faceless? "Oh crap." That was the fiend.
Rikku was in deep shoopuf shit. With the party so far ahead, no one could possibly help her now. By the time they got to her, she would be a corpse.
The creature lunged forward, and Rikku braced herself as the blades that jutted out from its wrist ran her through.
"Something's not right. It's too quiet." Auron muttered. "Quiet? You call this quiet?" Tidus' statement was punctuated by a deafening thunderclap. "I haven't heard any screams in the past five minutes." Auron replied. "Good point. Hey, where's Rikku?" Tidus looked around. A scream answered his question. "Oh no." Yuna said. Rushing back the way they came, they noticed a fallen Rikku, with blood pouring out of two stab wounds in her abdomen, and a huge creature standing over her.
Tidus took one look at its mask and knew that it was the very same creature that had him hanging for his life ten stories above the streets of Luca. The beast raised its blades to strike, but twin red and blue blurs rushed forward, warding off its blow. The creature turned its head in surprise to the spear and katana that had pushed its wristblades off target, and Auron slashed his katana at it.
The giant caught it with two fingers and repelled it easily, throwing Auron off balance as the blade was forced away. The creature disappeared into the distance. Tidus knelt down beside Rikku, feeling her neck for a pulse. It was there, albeit very weak and rapid. "Yuna, patch up those stab wounds. I'll have to carry her to the agency, but I can't unless those wounds are healed." Yuna nodded and channeled healing energy into Rikku's wounds. They closed in on themselves, stopping any further blood loss.
Rikku's visage was extremely pale, a sure sign of a high loss of blood. She felt like a dead weight on Tidus' back as the party trudged towards the Travel Agency. Auron opened the door for Tidus, and they booked five rooms, heading for Yuna's room first, Tidus dumped Rikku onto the couch, and rechecked her pulse. It was still there, but weaker than ever. The poor girl looked like a corpse.
"Yuna, cast as much healing magic as you can. None of us here wants her to die, and if we don't something soon, she will." Tidus instructed. Yuna paled at the thought of losing her cousin, but nodded and cast Cura several times. When she ran out of mana, Tidus gave her an ether, which she quickly used to replenish her mana, and continued casting. A few minutes later, Rikku's paleness faded, and her shallow, rapid breathing slowed down. Tidus checked her pulse. Strong and steady.
He announced this to the rest and they all breathed a sigh of relief. Yuna covered Rikku with a blanket. Suddenly, Rikku sat bolt upright and screamed, but calmed down when she realized she was in the agency. Collapsing back onto the couch, she asked groggily "What happened?"
"We heard a scream and just found you there lying unconscious. A fiend was attacking. We drove it off, and I carried you back to the Agency." Tidus lied about the fiend part. Everyone departed to their respective rooms, and Yuna asked Rikku if she could have some privacy. Rikku left the room, and Yuna took out the sphere she had recovered from Jyscal's spirit. Pressing the 'Play' button, the sphere began playing its dark message.
Tidus crept down the corridor, just outside Yuna's room, when he heard an unknown voice coming from inside. Strange, because Rikku was outside and Yuna was the only one in her room. Straining his ears to hear better, he leaned forward, only to stumble through the door and roll into the room. Picking himself up, he noticed that Yuna was in the middle of changing, wearing only her erhem... inner clothing, and was listening to a sphere at the same time.
For now, he was too distracted by erhem...Yuna that he didn't pay that much attention to the sphere. Yuna screamed.
Everyone immediately rushed over to Yuna's room. Tidus was dragged out by the ears by Lulu and Wakka. The moment Auron and Kimhari saw Yuna, they spun around and muttered, "I didn't see a thing." Rikku, of course, was waiting at the reception area. When Tidus came out with two red ears, she asked what happened. "Something you don't wanna know." he replied.
Dachande was standing on top of one of the lightning rod towers, and suddenly a shrill scream threw him off-balance. Just so happened that a lightning bolt struck the tower as he tried to regain his balance, and he fell off the tower, landing unceremoniously on the ground. Picking himself up and dusting himself off, he wondered what the hell had caused that scream.
It was midnight. Footsteps. In the basement. Yuna and Rikku's ears perked up. Slowly rising from their beds, they nodded to each other and each grabbed their respective weapons. Slowly creeping down to the basement, they failed to notice the optical distortion that had disappeared around the corner. As they came round the corner, a dark shape stumbled upon both of them.
The two screamed like banshees, and Ifrit came crashing through the roof, leaving an enormous hole in the ceiling. Peeking at the figure that Ifrit had landed on, she noticed a blond head sticking out from below Ifrit's ass, lying facedown on the floor. "Oh my god! Tidus!" Yuna quickly dismissed Ifrit and rolled the crushed blitzer over. 'Tidus! Are you all right?" Yuna asked. "Just dandy." he replied. He had taken worse damage than this before. Having cleared up the matter and assuring the agency owner that they'll pay for the damages casued, everyone went back to bed.
Kimhari had been standing watch outside when he felt something brush against him. He turned, but saw nothing. When he turned back, he noticed a large creature in front of him. The same one that had attacked Rikku. "You." Kimhari said no more and charged forward, lance at the ready. The creature drew a small rod from its belt and extended into a wicked-looking spear of absurd proportions. The spear was almost as tall as the creature itself. Kimhari took no note of this and thrust his lance forward.
The creature moved extremely fast for something of its size, but then Kimhari could say about the same for himself, so who was he to talk? The beast blocked his thrust easily, and countered with a sideways swing that caught Kimhari in the ribs and sent him reeling. Putting himself into a sideways roll to quickly regain his balance, he found the giant upon him again. This time though, he was prepared. As the creature brought the spear down, Kimhari horizontally blocked, and, using all his might, pushed it away. His assailant stumbled backwards, off-balance, and Kimhari took full advantage of the turned tables by rushing forward and extending his spear as far as his arms could stretch.
But the Predator had one more trick up its sleeve. It spun to its left, barely dodging the lance tip, and thrust its right hand forward. Kimhari was halted in his tracks. Looking down, he saw that the creature had embedded two blades extending from its wrist into his abdomen. It flexed its arm, and Kimhari roared in agony as the blades shifted.
The Predator tossed the Ronso aside and prepared to finish it off. Kimhari staggered to one knee and stared at it through red-hazed vision. Beads of perspiration trickled down his body, mingling with the raindrops from the rain that continually poured in the Thunder Plains. "I need a breather. Wait, if this is a fiend, I can just Lancet it!" Kimhari muttered the incantation for Lancet, and the yellow bolts of magic containing the absorbed life force exploded from the creature and were sucked in by Kimhari.
Dachande gazed at his energy meter curiously. He felt as though he had been slightly wounded, and his energy had mysteriously been depleted. His prey had somehow drained his life and energy for itself. Its wounds were healing rapidly, and he saw that its blood was turning luminous. It hurled its crude spear at him, and he deftly sidestepped the throw.
As the energy flowed into Kimhari, he felt renewed. Not the slight renewal that he usually felt when he absorbed HP, but a massive renewal. It was as though he was himself again! No, wait. More than himself. Kimhari gazed at his wounds, which were rapidly healing. He felt much stronger than before. He hurled his spear at the creature, and it quickly sidestepped it. The spear embedded itself in a cactuar stone, which began vibrating rapidly.
A lightning bolt struck the stone, and it shattered, revealing the long-hidden lance inside it. Kimhari leapt towards the lance and took hold of it. It felt perfect in his hands. It was almost as if this weapon had been made specifically for him (Yup, its the Spirit lance). Kimhari swung the lance at the creature with surprising speed and grace, and it easily blocked it. Kimhari swung his lance again with more strength, and it seemed to have difficulty in successfully blocking the swing.
The both started exchanging blows, landing an almost equal number of hits and blocks. Kimhari had managed to knock its mask out of alignment, and while it was blinded, he thrust his spear and attempted to run creature through, only to have his lance tip bounce off the metal mesh that it was wearing. With a shake of its head, the mask was back in alignment. It responded with a violent thrust of its own, which Kimhari swatted away with a sideway swing, leaving the creature's arms wide open and vulnerable to attack.
Dachande though, had another trick up his sleeve. Dipping his left hand to his utility belt, he drew his plasma pistol. Unlike his plasmacaster, which relied on his main energy supply, his plasma pistol ran on its own power supply, which had to be recharged onlywhen it ran out of power. It's plasma projectiles were much more powerful than those of his shoulder cannon. One blast was sufficient to completely vaporize a man. It was essentially a hand-held cannon.
Kimhari dove to the side as the searing plasma blast tore through the space he had vacated a few milliseconds ago. Sensing another blast coming, he threw himself aside as another plasma bolt incinerated the ground he had just rolled away from. Nimbly leaping to his feet, he found that the thing was already running away.
It was almost as if it had sensed it had met its match and was fleeing. "Coward!" Kimhari shouted after it before slumping to the ground, exhausted.
Limping back to the agency using his new lance as a crude walking stick, Kimhari found Tidus standing at the door. "Hey, Kimhari! What the hell happened to you?" Tidus asked. "Chased Iron Giant. Found new spear." Kimhari replied before entering the Agency. Tidus knew something was up, but he didn't know what. "You know what, pal? You're a bad liar," he muttered to himself before returning to the agency.
Enhanced speed strength and healing aren't all of Kimhari's abilities, you know. There are still more to come! Next chapter, Macalania Temple and that gayhole Seymour! In the meantime, just send a review and you'll get freeplasma grenades!
This is the Chief, signing out!