Chapter Eight: Mixed Emotions
A/N: Hey guys, here's the next chapter for you. I want to take this time to say that I'm very grateful that you all have kept up with my fic and have reviewed it. A special thanks to Fallen Angel-2009 for editing this chapter. Anyway, the next chapter may be a little delayed because I'm going to try to write the next chapter for my other fic but hopefully that won't take too long since I have shorter chapters in that than in this fic.
dark dragon knight1993: Wow, big dogs! I've never been around dogs that big but my neighbors and my friend have dogs like that. So, how is the France countryside? Anyway, glad to hear that you still think my fic is great, but if there is anything at all that you could suggest to make my writing better please say something, please!
Anasazi Darkmoon: Well, you know Auron. He usually goes overboard one way or another and pushes someone to the edge. He also has no remorse for anything that he does so he can do whatever he wants and he won't feel bad or anything. Yes, it does make sense, perfect sense in fact! That just means that I get to go even more away from the actually story line of FFX! I understand why you would be twitching the every time you have to write a part with him in because he is suck a freakin' weirdo and deserves to DIE! Good thing he will soon but then he is a bastard and comes back, what, three more times… damn. I can't wait for the end when I don't have to worry about him at all, or do I? Maybe an idea will come to me to make stuff more interesting for like a sequel or something. Anyway, I'll keep up the good work for you as well as the rest of my reviewers. Oh, btw, I'm sorry for not reading anymore of your fic past wherever I got to but I mean to sometime soon, that is when I'm not trying to work on this.
The scene of the Thunder Plains was that of a dreary, waterlogged extensive landscape with jagged rock towers jutting out the soaked earth. Lighting flashed across the sky in a manner that was most peculiar, as if the lighting was being drawn toward one of the many towers strewn across the saturated plains. Rain poured down from the dark, lighting streaked sky, beating down upon the group, as they looked the place over. Off in the distance, around a bend in the winding road placed in the center of the Thunder Plains, Lauren saw a little building like the one she saw on the Mi'ihen High Road and also outside the Djose temple. A lighting bolt streaked through the cloud filled sky and struck the ground only ten feet away from the group, causing Lauren to recoil in fear and Rikku to freak out in a low, shaky voice.
"Whoa! How are we supposed to cross this place?" Lauren queried, doubtfully, as another lightning blot struck the ground near the group; however, this time it was a mere three feet from where the blonde stood out in the front of the rest of the group. She leapt forward from her spot facing her friends out in front, almost running into Yuna but regaining her footing before she toppled into the brunette summoner. "I hate lightning!" She shouted as she stepped back away from Yuna to a comfortable position about three feet from the summoner.
"You two really gotta calm down, ya know?" Wakka said soothingly, noting Lauren and Rikku's fearful reactions to the lightning strikes near them.
"C'mon Lauren, Rikku, we got a job to do!" Tidus proclaimed while walking over to Lauren and placing a reassuring hand on her already soaked shoulder causing her to gaze into his azure eyes. "It's only lightning. There's nothing to be afraid of." He removed his firm, yet comforting hand from the blonde's waterlogged shoulder whilst turning away from her, looking out over the path laid out before them.
"See those lightning rod towers?" Yuna asked as she pointed a wet finger through the pouring rain and training it on the nearest of the pointed towers protruding from the marshy soil. "They attract the lightning so travelers don't have to worry about being struck by lightning as long as they stay close enough to them." The young summoner's words seemed to calm Lauren down slightly but it didn't seem to avail Rikku's feelings.
"I think I forgot something in Guadosalam." Rikku declared through her fear stricken voice and began to head back up the ramp into the Guado hometown.
"Wait, Rikku!" Lauren called to the adolescent Al Bhed as she walked up the ramp back into Guadosalam. Rikku turned around at her friend's call and waited patiently for her to make it up to where she was. "I'm convinced that it's safe. So why can't you be? After all, Yuna said that all we need to do is stick near the towers and no lightning will get us." The blonde Al Bhed glanced at Lauren, who had a friendly, trusting smile painted on her face to her cousin, Yuna, who also harbored the same manner of smile.
"Rikku want to protect Yuna. Rikku must conquer her fear in order to protect Yuna." Kimahri spoke for one of the first times since the road to the Moonflow where Biran and Yenke warned him, as well as the rest of the companions, about the summoners disappearing.
"Hey, Kimahri's right, Rikku!" Tidus chimed in from the side of the tall, blue furred Ronso guardian. "There are things that are going to scare you, but you can't let them get in the way of doing your duty, being Yuna's guardian." Rikku's face began to brighten up from that of which she bore a few seconds ago of paled fright.
"Okay, okay! I'll go!" Rikku blurted out, ready to just get on with their trek through this hated part of their journey rather than standing around and arguing some more with her friends. The young, blonde Al Bhed strode past her friends hastily causing them to swiftly latch onto her movements in order to keep up with her.
As the eight companions made their way through the Thunder Plains, hurrying from one lighting tower to the next, random fiends assailed them, making their excursion through the waterlogged, lightning filled plains longer than neither Rikku nor Lauren liked. The types of fiends that assaulted them ranged from those of metallic, yellow shapes spinning around a central point with lightning rushing around, to massive giants of iron armor with immense swords to match their colossal bodies. The iron giants gave even Auron difficulty as they tried to slay them to proceed with their journey across the Thunder Plains. Some of the iron giants would come in pairs, arising even more problems for the soaked group.
After about a half hour and many fiend battles later, the fatigued group reached the small bend leading up to where the Al Bhed shop/inn resided. Everyone except Auron and Kimahri felt fatigued and need a rest but the one eyed guardian kept insisting that they continue without hesitation. "C'mon Auron! We're all tired and soaked from this rain. Can't we at least spend some time here to recuperate?" Lauren complained as the older guardian continued on past the quaint Al Bhed shop/inn, completely ignoring the teen's words.
"I say we should rest." Yuna said in her polite and soft voice causing Auron to turn back toward her, giving her an odd glance. "Is that okay with you, Sir Auron?" Braska's former guardian strode up to the young summoner looked at her for a moment before responding to her inquiry.
"If you wish it." He replied even though he didn't really want to stop for anything at all. Yuna nodded as she went into a courteous bow and then watched the eldest guardian storm off, apparently annoyed, into the Al Bhed shop.
Everyone had their own room except for Auron, who stood out in the lobby up against the west wall, and Kimahri, who stood sentinel outside of Yuna's door. Lauren closed the old fashioned wooden door to her room behind her as she slipped into her own little room with a bed and a rather large armchair in the one corner. She slid her orange with black sleeve, waterlogged sweatshirt over her head and hung it up on the doorknob to dry a bit while she rested. After her sweatshirt was removed, she took off her sneakers and then her generic white socks and tossed them across the room. The blonde teen then went over to a closet on the opposite side of the room from her bed and turned the brass knob and then pulled on it to make the door open. Inside was an assortment of towels, which she took out a larger one and placed it over her head and began to dry out her long blonde locks. Once she had dried off her hair, Lauren plopped herself down on the comfortable bed that was on the north side of the room. As soon as she let her head hit the pillow her eyes felt heavy and closed automatically, forcing her into a sweet slumber.
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Lauren now stood in the center of a large, dome like room with stairs straight out in front of her leading up to an oval shaped, metallic door. The teen felt a strange force pull her closer and closer to the metallic door, but then all of a sudden stopped when a figure fazed into existence in front of her on the top of the flight of stairs. At first the figure was completely shrouded in shadow, but within a few seconds those shadows dispersed to reveal a girl about Lauren's age, maybe a year older. Her silky purple hair extended halfway down her back and a few locks bobbed in front of her deep emerald eyes. She was clad in a crimson colored breastplate trimmed with silver around each and every segment of the armor that scantily protected just her chest. A black miniskirt with slender golden stripes following a vertical pattern crept about three-fourths down her silky white thighs. Lashed to either side of her waist were dark brown sheaths, each bearing a single curve bladed dagger sporting a carved dragon hilt.
"Who are you and what do you want with me?" Lauren queried to the amethyst haired teen, noting her rather hostile look as she glared at the blonde guardian. The other girl did not respond to Lauren's inquiry at first as she made her way down the stairs in front of the blonde teen, her twin daggers bouncing at her sides.
"My name is Nora. I have come here on behalf of my master to test your strength, Lauren!" She declared as her hands shot to the dual dragon hilted daggers resting at her side and hastily unsheathed them. She twirled the curved daggers in between each and every one of her slender fingers, going into a battle ready stance.
"Wait! Your name is Nora?" The purple haired warrior nodded, and went out of her stance, gently twirling her daggers in between her fingers as she waited patently for Lauren to finish what she was getting to. "That name doesn't sound like it's from Spira. It sounds more like a name from Earth. Are you from Earth like me?" Something seemed to snap in Nora's mind as the blond guardian asked her the question and started to go berserk.
"That has nothing to do with anything!" Nora bent down as if she was going to charge in at Lauren like some sort of assassin striking its target rapidly. Nora charged at Lauren from her spot at the bottom of the flight of stairs that led up to the oval shaped door. Her legs moved so fast that Lauren's jaw hung open in wide surprise as the assassin like girl neared closer and closer to the blonde.
Lauren began to walk slowly back, franticly feeling for her katana's hilt to protect herself as Nora kept up her swift charge. She finally located the familiar cloth wrapped hilt and ripped it out of its black leather sheath just as Nora's daggers plunged down upon the teen. Lauren felt her katana being pushed down upon by the purple haired teen's twin daggers as they muscled for control over the blows. Lauren felt her feet lurch slowly backward on the slippery off white tiles that made up the floor as Nora began to gradually start walking toward her with baby steps. The blonde guardian tried to regain her footing to combat Nora's offensive strike, but it was to no avail. Instead of gripping her shoes to the tile floor they slipped even more sending her stumbling back as an arched dagger blade whizzed past her neck in an attempt to slit her throat.
'She faster and stronger than me just like Auron. How am I supposed to defeat her if she's that powerful!' Lauren thought as she attempted to slash Nora across the chest with her katana, but her attack was futile against the agile dagger wielder. Nora sprung into a back flip as Lauren once again tried to slash her with a downward diagonal slash going from right to left. Once her back flip was completed, the dagger wielder leapt into the air at the blonde teen, daggers out in front of her body. Lauren braced herself for a metal on metal collision, but instead Nor kicked out her right leg and smacked the teen right in her gut causing her to double over in pain as well as having the wind knocked out of her.
Nora landed a few feet in front of the pain filled Lauren and gawked at her with an incredibly astonished emerald eye. "Wow, you're pathetic!" The amethyst haired dagger brandisher mocked the blonde teen, which was down on her hands and knees gasping for air. "I can't believe he ever fell for a wretched girl like you!" With one foul swoop of her right leg, Nora knocked Lauren's arms out from under her, slamming her face into the chilled tile floor or the doom room.
Getting onto her knees shakily, Lauren opened her mouth leisurely and began to speak in a winded, feeble voice. "Wh… who is he?" Her mouth felt dry and it was hard to utter her short question as she breathed in deep for air and rubbed her sore forehead.
"You know damn well who I'm talking about!" Nora shouted at the still injured Lauren a few feet away from her on her knees. Lauren gave her a dumbfounded look as it finally dawned on her who he had to be. "Yes, that's right." The purple haired teen confirmed Lauren's suspicion much to her dismay.
"How do you know Brian!" Lauren queried in a low trembling voice that sent an amused felling throughout Nora's entire being. She gazed down at the kneeling blonde teen and let a diminutive smile pass onto her lips before she spoke.
"That's right. He never told you anything about me. I'm his sister." Lauren gawked up at Nora as if she had just grown another head. "I moved to my aunt's house in southern California a few years before you met him because I just couldn't stand being around my parents. Even though I hated my parents I still love my brother and when I heard about you from him, I didn't like you from the beginning. And now that I have met you and seen how pathetic you really are, I have to say I hate you even more." The blonde guardian stared at Nora with her wide turquoise eyes.
"Why didn't he ever tell me anything about you?" Lauren seemed completely baffled as to why Brian would have never said anything about having a sister to her.
"He was probably too ashamed to tell you why I didn't live with him." Nora explained. "He always loved our parents and did everything he could to help them. You probably already knew that, didn't you?" Lauren nodded her head at the dagger wielding teen's assumption. "Another reason would have to be that I hated you, and still do. Now, I will end your pathetic life right here and now so you can't poison his mind anymore!" She all of a sudden had the bowed blade of one of her daggers pressing against Lauren's elegant neck causing her to go into extreme panic.
"Wait!" She gagged as she spoke, for the blade of the dagger was too close to her neck. "I have one more question, before you kill me." Nora eased up the pressure on her dagger but did not move it too far away as to give Lauren any chance of escape. "How did you get to Spira? Did you die also as he did, or did you get here by some other means?"
"You do not need to know that information, for you will be dead too soon to care. Now, die!" Nora shot her right arm up, brining her dagger's blade across Lauren's jugular vein, crimson blood splattering all over her, Lauren and the tiled floor. The blonde fell back onto her back, gagging on her own blood the entire time as she gasped for air as her lungs began to fill with her own blood. Nora stood up and backed away from Lauren's still twitching corpse as a chilling smile spread across her lips.
Lauren now stood in the same black void with the bluish white glistening fog that she had been in earlier on that day when she spoke to the fayth. Out of the endless shadows came forth the figure of the fayth that was responsible for brining her to Spira, a chill wind wafting over Lauren. "What am I doing here again?" Lauren inquired to the fayth as she had been brought here again after speaking with the fayth only a few hours ago.
"Think of this place as purgatory. A realm between the living and the dead. You were summoned here because Nora just killed you, just as you were brought her when that car hit you, starting up this whole journey you're on." The fayth responded.
"Well, can't you just send me back like you did when I first came here, without having brining me here?" Lauren was at a loss for why they fayth had wasted time brining her here if she was just going to send her back to Spira.
"I will send you back, but if I were to do it now she would just kill you again." The fayth answered, adding even more questions to the blonde's list when all of a sudden something dawned on her.
"Wait, how did I get killed in the first place?" She asked angrily. "I was dreaming, wasn't I? So how could I have been killed for real in my own dream?" The fayth looked at her and let out a slight sigh of annoyance before she continued on with her explanation.
"You aren't really dreaming. You were taken to a place far away by the powers of Nora's master, but it seems as though you are dreaming because it is so hard to grasp as to how or why that is happening." The fayth once again explained something that Lauren had no idea to what was going on at all.
"Okay, with that explained. What did you want with me that you had to bring me here for?" Lauren queried, trying to watch the fayth's facial expression, but it was all in vain because the shadows hid the fayth's face.
"I need to teach you how to unleash a portion of the power that is concealed inside you." The fayth elaborated. "You have already unleashed some of your power back on Kilika and on the Moonflow as I already have said. But since you have not yet gained anything from Auron, I need to intervene or else there is no way you can survive."
"Okay, so how do I go about using those powers?" Lauren queried yet another of her questions to the fayth.
"They are triggered by emotions. Love, hate, sorrow, joy, they are all a part of what activates your slumbering powers. The stronger the emotion the more powerful of an attack you will acquire. Back on Kilika you only had untapped a small portion of your powers and along with the hatred you harbored against the Sinspawn you were able to pull off such a feat." Lauren gaped at the fayth trying to take in all the information she was being given.
"Is one of the emotions stronger than the others, or do they all supply the same amount of power?" Lauren inquired after listening to all the fayth had to say.
"Yes, there is one that triumphs over all others. Hate is only the second most powerful emotion, yet it is one of the most common things you feel in the heat of battle." The fayth explained as Lauren tried to soak up all the information she had gathered so far into her brain. "Love is the first, for it is the only force strong enough to binds two hearts together for eternity. What you must do is not hate, but think of someone you love, take Brian for example. Think of him as he was when he was at your side, not after he was dead and you grieved but when you two were together." Lauren gazed at the shrouded fayth with a skeptic eye.
"So all I have to do is think back through my memories and find a time that I felt love toward someone and focus on it?" The fayth nodded as Lauren closed her eyes tightly trying to concentrate on her memories. She paged through her memories one by one until she came upon one that brought up a strange feeling of power. It was a memory of a night that she and Brian were out on her front porch, gazing up at the moon in each other's arms.
"Do you fell anything yet?" The fayth queried at Lauren as she continued to concentrate and center on that one specific memory before she answered.
"Yes."
"Good. Now keep focusing on that feeling as I summon up a fiend for you to test it out upon." As her words trailed off, the fayth made a few various movements with her hands and arms until a rigid shelled fiend fazed into view from out of thin air.
Lauren, focusing on that one memory, unsheathed her katana as the large lizard fiend charged at her. Her katana blade began to radiate a soft pallid glow as she stared down the fiend that was coming at her at its full speed. She poised her katana above her head in her right hand and waited for the thick hided fiend to come into range. The fiend was just about to sink its saliva-drenched teeth into the blonde teen's torso when all of a sudden it felt a searing pain strike it from above. Lauren pressed down upon her katana's hilt when she felt a little bit of resistance from the fiend's body, slicing the things head in half. The fiend fell limp on the ground; pyreflies leaking out of it's severed in half skull before it burst completely into a cloud of the multihued lights.
"Excellent!" The fayth proclaimed from her spot facing Lauren. "All you have to do is keep that memory tucked away somewhere in your brain that you will be able to access it under the most extreme conditions." The blonde gawked at her katana's blade for a moment as the pallid radiance subsided.
Sheathing her katana, Lauren asked the fayth a question. "If that's all you wanted to see me for then could you please send me back? I got someone that I need to take revenge on." She seemed confident with her newfound powers.
"One thing before I send you back." Lauren gaped at the fayth as if she had just slashed all of her hopes and dreams. "I can't bring you back to life anymore, except for you to go home that is if you make it." The blonde guardian's jaw dropped to the floor at the bad news.
"What! I thought you were like all powerful or something." Lauren was completely baffled as to why the fayth could have so limited powers.
"Technically I'm not even supposed to have brought you back this time. If I were to resurrect you again he would destroy me. I can't use too much of my power or else he will find me. I'm not supposed to be interfering with any of his plans but I had to bring you here to free this world of his tyrannical grip. Luckily that didn't draw too much attention to me." The fayth's voice seemed to grow lower and lower as she spoke causing Lauren to draw closer to her in order to hear her words.
"Who is this he you keep talking about?" Lauren queried after the fayth was done with her explanation as to why she couldn't resurrect her if she died.
"He is the one who keeps control over this world. His teachings are known and followed thought all of Spira." The fayth explained about whom she was talking about. "He is also the one who controls Sin to keep everything to his specifications." Lauren's turquoise eyes widened at the fact that someone was controlling that horrible creature.
"What! Someone is controlling that monstrosity Sin!" Lauren yelled as much as asked. The fayth nodded but then quickly spoke before the blonde teen could get another word out.
"That is all I can tell you at this point." The fayth said hastily and without any room for Lauren to bring up yet another question, nor say anything at all. "I'll send you back, but keep in mind that I cannot resurrect you again if you die." The blonde girl attempted to say something but she was enveloped by a bright white light that blacked out all of her vision, making her feel a bit groggy as it continued to shine around her.
Nora was at the top of the stairs leading to the oval metallic door when all of a sudden she sensed a strange power from behind her. She whipped around to where Lauren had been slain only to see the blonde teen standing up on her two feet and her hand on her katana's hilt. "What the…?" The purple haired girl muttered. "I… I killed you!" She stammered, her amethyst eyes filled with fear and uncertainty.
"Look's like you didn't do a good enough job!" Lauren mocked Nora as she felt her neck, wiping off some of the crimson blood that remained there.
"No matter." Nora stated as she reached for her dual dragon hilted daggers resting at wither side of her waist. "I'll just have to kill you again and make sure you have no body to come back to!" She hollered as she leapt off the top stair at Lauren, her twin daggers unsheathed and ready to taste blood.
"Give me your best shot!" Lauren proclaimed right before Nora and her curved blade daggers pounced down upon her. She sidestepped the identical daggers and eluded a kick from the purple haired assassin by catching her foot in her right hand. Nora kicked off of Lauren's hand and did a three sixty in the air as she arched backward through the air. She attempted another strike on the blonde guardian but that also was thwarted by some evading and blocking that she had not used in their earlier confrontation.
'It's like she's a completely new fighter. I wonder if she could really do this earlier but didn't just to humor me.' Nora thought as she leapt over Lauren in a corkscrew manner only to be struck in the gut with the cloth-covered hilt of her katana. The emerald-eyed teen grasped her gut and bent over to catch her breath from Lauren's previous attack, but when she looked up for a split second she found the blonde's foot in her face. The blow sent her head into the air and her feet off the ground in suit whilst also sending her back a few feet. 'She must have just been toying with me earlier. She will pay for this humiliation!'
Nora just laid down on the chilly tile floor while Lauren looked over her in odd surprise. "Done already? From earlier I would have suspected that you would have lasted longer." The blonde continued to mock the assassin as she continued to lay upon the tiled ground, not moving.
"Heh! You're underestimating me as I did you earlier." Nora laughed as a faint smile crept onto her lips. "But your luck is up. Prepare to die!" She shot up onto her hands and launched herself back away from Lauren, her blades beginning to glow a faint blood red. Lauren watched, as the radiance surrounding each of Nora's dragon hilted daggers grew into a vivacious dark red. "Now you're going to witness my special technique. Blades of Doom!" There were two flashes simultaneously from either one of the identical daggers she wielded that caused Lauren to shield her turquoise eyes from the blinding crimson illuminations.
Nora pushed off the ground with her right foot sending her toward Lauren, her twin now glowing blades at her sides. The blonde teen watched as the assassin came closer and closer until suddenly she closed her eyes and went into a trance like state. Nora smiled to herself as she drew closer to the meditating teen, but right before she could unleash as hurricane of dagger strikes Lauren's turquoise eyes shot open. A strange deep purple mist appeared abruptly shrouding Lauren from Nora's view causing her to stop in mid air and land. The mist cleared to show no signs of the blonde teen that was standing there mere seconds ago. The purple haired teen walked curiously up to where Lauren had stood until she felt a cold sharp blade pressed against her jugular vein.
"What the…?" She was cut off as Lauren pressed the blade harder against Nora's throat causing her to gag just as she did toy Lauren. "How… did you… do that?" She managed to stutter through her gags.
"How about I answer you the same way you did to me. By slitting your throat!" Lauren was just about to slide her katana's blade along Nora's slender neck but stopped and just stood there just staring off into space.
"Going soft on me, eh?" Nora joked as she jabbed Lauren in the gut with her left elbow. "Never let your guard down in battle you foolish girl!" She spun around, her dual curve bladed daggers at neck height, attempting to decapitate the blonde.
The sound of metal on metal resonated throughout the small-enclosed dome chamber from the collision of Nora's blades against Lauren's katana. Her katana was begging to glow a deep purple like back in the water at the Moonflow when she severed the machina that Rikku was piloting in half. The amethyst haired teen gawked at the feeling of power that the blonde's blade was giving off. With one slow moving action, Lauren pushed aside both of Nora's daggers and away from their owner. She scrambled to recover them but the blonde guardian began to slash at her so she quickly changed course to elude the blows.
Lauren brought her katana in from Nora's left causing her to swiftly dive under the blow before it sliced her in half. Immediately after the teen's failed slash, she brought it back around along the ground before the purple haired girl had anytime to react. The blow struck her in the chest, but lucky for her, her breastplate somehow deflected the attack back at Lauren. Before her blade was too far away to strike quickly, the sixteen-year-old guardian shot her left arm to steady her right. The blade stopped in mid air allowing Nora to make a break for her daggers that were just a mere foot away from where she stood. She reached her dual dragon hilted daggers but just as the other teen charged up close to her and let her katana fly from left to right at Nora's stomach. The agile assassin preformed a series of back flips, evading the blonde's supercharged sword blade and also putting some distance between the two.
"It's back to an even playing field!" Nora shouted at Lauren mockingly while waving her daggers at the teen. She took one step forward and then all of a sudden froze up as a strong surge of pain flooded her body. Her emerald eyes glanced down her body to her stomach to see a cut extending across her entire front side, crimson blood dripping down into a minute puddle of blood at her feet. 'How… how the heck did she do that!' She thought as she slid her arm to cover the open wound in an attempt to constrict the blood flow.
Lauren charged in to finish off her opponent, trying to catch her off guard while she was inspecting the seriousness of her wound. Nora gazed up just in time to see the blonde guardian charging at her and began to perform a series of complex hand and arm motions. Within seconds a fiery orange glow began to form around the purple haired teen as she continued with her gestures. "I'd love to stick around and finish you off but I have more pressing business to attend to." A bright flash of the orange radiance shot out from Nora, blinding Lauren on the spot. When the blonde teen's vision cleared she could see nothing but the dome shaped room she had been fighting her assailant.
"Hey! Get back here!" Lauren's agitated voice echoed around the large empty room as the vibrant purple aura surrounding her katana diminished. For a few moments she stood staring around the empty room, katana still unsheathed and in hand. The blonde teen sheathed her katana and folded her legs Indian style and sat upon the chilly floor tiles, contemplating on how she was going to get out of here.
"The fayth said that this isn't a part of a dream but a real place. So how am I supposed to get out of here?" Lauren questioned herself out loud in a very soft voice that even she could barely hear herself speak. All of a sudden the teen felt her eyelids grow extremely heavy and she found herself beginning to yawn to boot. Sleep overtook her soon sending her into a calm slumber that which nothing could disturb her from.
'I can't believe she actually hit me!' Nora thought to herself as she winced in pain from wrapping a bandage over her wound. 'She couldn't do anything to me before I slit her throat, but when she came back it was as if she had gone through extensive training or something in those few moments.' Another wave of pain shot up from her abdomen as she bent over to grasp another bandage to be dressed to her wound. 'I'll get her for this!' As the teen vowed her revenge silently an odd, old voice drifted in from the shadows in the corner of the majestically furnished chamber.
"Nora." The old man's voice sent a slight shiver down her spine as she turned to face the shadows. "We have located the Al Bhed home city. We are sending in a battalion of Guado fiend summoners in there to destroy the city and I think it would be a good chance for you to prove to everyone just how skilled you are if you led the attack." Her emerald eyes shined with desire from behind a few amethyst locks of hair.
"The Al Bhed home city you say?" She felt a nod come out of the darkness to answer her obvious question. "Of course I'll lead the attack! It will give me a chance to exact revenge on them for tearing him away from me. Also, it will give me a chance to prove myself to the higher ups, besides you of course, so they will actually look at me as one of their own instead of an outcast." The old man shrouded in the shadows felt a great and powerful resolve burning from within the purple haired teen.
"There is one thing that worries me." Nora gazed into the shadows in the direction of the voice with a particularly perplexed look painted upon her face. "I sense that Lady Yuna's guardians will be there after we have started the attack. The Guados will not be able to fend them off if they survive what Maester Seymour has in store for them. This is also why I asked if you would lead the attack, for if it were just the Al Bhed I am pretty confident that we would crush them undoubtedly. But, Yuna's guardians have grown stronger than I had previously expected, especially Lauren." At the blonde's name something inside the teen snapped.
"Don't worry about any of them. I will take care of them all." Nora's emerald eyes shined brightly with a deep and passionate steadfastness festering within.
"The attack will be in two days. Take care of that wound of yours and be ready to lead the Guados into battle by then." A strange aura filled the room as the presence of the elderly man within that shadows disappeared leaving only Nora sitting alone in the elegant room.
"Lauren! Wake up! Everyone is waiting for you outside!" Rikku's upbeat voice snapped the teen out of her slumber, as did the Al Bhed's unrelenting knocks on the wooden door. She groggily opened up her turquoise eyes and gazed about the room as she sat up in the comfortable AL Bhed bed. She fixed her hair as well as she could before Rikku's constant knocking drove her mad.
"Hold on Rikku! I'm coming, just give me a minute!" She hollered through the wooden door to her blonde friend. The rapping on the door suddenly stopped and footsteps sounded away from it and down the hallway toward the entrance. A few moments later Lauren emerged from the Al Bhed inn into the presence of all of her friends that she had made since coming to Spira.
"You ready to leave, Lauren?" Yuna asked politely in her usual low voice as her friend walked up to her and the rest of their friends.
"Yeah, Yuna." Lauren stated as she finally reached a few feet away from the rest of her friends.
The group left the little side road where the Al Bhed inn rested as a blot of lightning streaked across the darkened sky, lighting up the entire plains. The rain had now stopped but the black clouds cast over the Thunder Plains never lifted to reveal the azure sky beyond. The ground was still marshy, but it had dried up a little since they were last out on it before they rested at the inn. The fiend count was lower than on the way in; however, there were still some that roamed the plains looking to prey upon something human. Off in the distance were still the lighting rod towers that protected travelers throughout their journeys across the treacherous Thunder Plains.
The fiends weren't much of a problem for most of the larger ones that had attacked them earlier were absent. There was one species of fiend however that still posed somewhat of a threat to the group because of its agility and devastating attacks. It was a little green cactus like creature with three black hairs poking out from atop its crown and had big black eyes and the same form of mouth. Rikku was the only one that could hit these fiends on a consistent basis and Lauren and Tidus could occasionally strike them. After a few attempts on its life, the cactar would either flee in terror or unleash an overwhelming barrage of thousands of tiny needles. These attacks were hard to evade, and when one of the party was struck by the wave of needles, Yuna would have to go on a major healing spree or Rikku would have to concoct some sort of healing potion.
After a few encounters with the cactus fiends, the group came upon a massive lighting rod tower that Yuna wanted to talk under. "I have something to tell you." Yuna said causing everyone to stop about thirty feet away from the sheltering lighting rod tower to their left.
"Here?" Lulu queried looking at Yuna oddly.
"We're almost out of here! Let's go!" Rikku chimed in trying to get out of the Thunder Plains as fast as possible because of her fear of lighting.
"I have to say it now!" The brunette summoner declared, going against everyone's will for they all wanted to just get out the dreary plains of thunder. Auron, seeing the lighting tower with a sheltering canopy, gestured toward it causing everyone to make their way over under its protection.
Lauren walked along as in a daze toward the lighting rod tower, an act of which caught Rikku's jade swirl eyes. "Lauren, you alright?" The peppy showed a hint of concern in her voice that was usually masked by her unsuppressed cheery attitude.
"Yeah I'm fine, just thinking that's all." The blonde lied about being all right but she was thinking about what had happened while they were resting at the Al Bhed inn.
"Did you have a bad dream or something that you're thinking about?" Rikku inquired in a friendly curious voice whilst looking her friend over once more to see her reaction.
"You could say that." Lauren continued closer toward the lighting tower and the rest of her friends as Rikku stuck to her side.
"What was it about?" The inquisitive blonde Al Bhed girl asked while sticking close to Lauren's side as a series of lighting bolts flashed through the almost pitch black sky.
"I'd rather not talk about it now, Rikku." With that the Al Bhed detached from her side and went over to her cousin's as they caught up with their friends that were already under the protective canopy presented by the lighting tower.
"I've decided to marry." Yuna said so softly that everyone could barely hear her over the thunder that was constantly surrounding them like a bubble. All except for the two unemotional ones were in complete and utter shock at their friend's statement.
"Yuna, you don't have to do this, you know?" Lauren proclaimed, trying to sway her friend's decision. Everyone else shared the same kind of look that expressed just about exactly what Lauren has said.
"But why Yunie?" Rikku complained.
"For Spira's future...and Yevon's unity. I thought it would be the best thing to do." Yuna explained her reasoning for deciding to marry Maester Seymour. Everyone, even Auron felt as though that was not a good enough answer to why she would marry Seymour.
"Yuna that's not good enough." Lauren went on the defensive for her own friend since she wasn't thinking like the rest of them. "You shouldn't marry someone just for political reasons. You should marry someone because you love them and they love you back and no matter what you love each other. That's what marriage is for, Yuna. Not just to give people false hope for a little while at the expense of your happiness." The teen's turquoise eyes showed passion and were shaky as if trying to hold back tears.
"I'm sorry Lauren, but I must speak with Maester Seymour first. I truly am sorry, but this is... It is a personal matter." Yuna apologized to her friend and then declared what she had to do before she could answer any of the questions her friends were bombarding her with.
"You're kidding, ya?" Wakka queried, completely clueless as to why his friend that he thought of as a younger sister would want to marry Seymour even if he is a Maester of Yevon.
"As you wish." Auron stated, Yuna giving him an apologizing bow. "Just one thing." The young summoner rose from her bowed position and spoke.
"I won't quit my pilgrimage."
"Then it is… fine." Auron accepted Yuna's answer and turned from her only to get stopped by a very outraged Lauren.
"Auron, you've got to be kidding!" The blonde teen hollered at the one eyed guardian to which he had no reaction. "You don't think that there's anything wrong with Yuna marrying Seymour? But you yourself said that he was not to be trusted!" Everyone shot their glances from Lauren to the eldest guardian as swiftly as their necks would let them.
"Sir Auron, is that true?" Wakka queried, stepping closer to the guardian than he had been already. Auron said nothing, sealing the truth that the orange haired blitzer could only fear. "But why? Why would you say such a thing about a Maester, Sir Auron?" The master swordsman stood silent, obviously not wanting to explain himself.
"He said that because there is something just not right about that guy." Everybody's eyes shifted from the orange haired guardian and Auron to the figure of the young blonde Al Bhed.
"Not you too!" Wakka complained.
"Listen to her, Wakka. She is right." Lauren backed up Rikku against the unwavering faith of the Blitzer. "Every time I see him I get this strange feeling that he just doesn't belong in the position of Maester." The orange haired blitzer gave the sixteen-year-old guardian a look of astonishment and anger for her blasphemy.
"You three are almost as bad as the Al Bhed!" Wakka exclaimed showing his rage and disapproval of everything the three guardians had said. At the Al Bhed comment Rikku was just about to shout at the orange haired guardian for insulting her kin, but Lauren placed a restraining hand on the Al Bhed's left shoulder. "What are you thinking going around and talking like that! If anyone else was here you three would be thrown in jail for speaking down on a Maester!" Lulu placed her right hand on the blitzer's left shoulder causing him to stop scolding his friends to face her.
"Calm down Wakka. They have got nothing against the teachings of Yevon, just Maester Seymour." The blitzer's brown eyes shot wide in bewilderment after hearing the black mage's words protecting people who had just tarnished their religion.
"But he is a part of Yevon and therefore should be respected just as any other keeper of Yevon." Wakka tried to put up a defense for himself as well as Seymour by using Lulu's religion to sway her back to his side.
"I don't like it either, but they have a right to think what they want." Lulu said in an attempt to subside the orange haired blitzer's discontent with the whole situation.
"Kimahri not like Maester. Does not think Maester should be Maester." The blue furred Ronso's voice sounded deep drawing everyone's attention.
"Do all of you have something against Yevon or something now!" Wakka could still not believe what everyone had said to him so far.
"Wakka! We have nothing against Yevon, just Seymour." Tidus declared from his position standing near Yuna. "C'mon, I know you see it too. He is just not the kind of guy that you would have in his position." The blonde blitz ace tried to bring Wakka around to their side of the argument.
"I need some time to think this all through!" He shouted as he took off toward the massive forest that bordered the Thunder Plains as well as three other locations.
"Wakka, come back!" Rikku shouted as she began to follow the orange haired blitzer into the majestic Macalania forest.
"Let him be." Auron commanded of the blonde Al Bhed, who came to a sudden halt at the sword master's words. "He needs time to think, so we will give him his time. He has to figure things out on his own." Rikku came back to the group, her head hung in disappointment and a sort of anger toward Auron.
"Okay, so where to next?" Lauren inquired fro she had no idea where they were headed even though she could care less, she just wanted to get a conversation going to forget about Wakka, who had just stormed off.
"We're going to Macalania Temple. Yuna can talk with Seymour there." Auron answered the blonde's question in his usual, unemotional, monotone voice. "We guardians will wait until they're done, and plan out next move. Understood?" All of the guardians surround him nodded their acceptance except for Lauren who was deep in thought yet again as the rest of her friends began to stroll toward Macalania forest.
As soon as they entered the forest bordering the Macalania ice fields where the temple resided Lauren gawked at the sheer beauty of everything around her. "This place is beautiful." All the trees around her sparkled with some unknown materials as did the things jutting out of the ground that looked like stalagmites made of pure crystal. There were two roads laid out before the eight companions, one straight and leading off to the Calm Lands or Bevelle and the other, winding one leading toward the Macalania temple. There was no light shinning in from through the dense canopies above the blonde teen, but the forest was lit by some kind of supernatural force.
After Rikku had called out of Auron and Tidus who were stopped back at the entrance to the forest, the group proceeded up the slight elevation onto the road twisting through the forest to the borders of Macalania Lake. Once up the ramp, Lauren caught a glimpse of something yellow with tanned skin around the corner that could be none other than Wakka. "There you are Wakka." The blonde teen stated as her and the rest of the group finally caught up with the orange haired man. He said nothing but stood up and began to walk off ahead of everyone yet again.
"Wait up Wakka!" Rikku called to the guardian who was striding away from the Al Bhed as well as the rest of the group. She took off after him, leaving the rest of her friends to catch up with them as soon as they could.
Finally Lauren and the rest of the group caught up with Rikku and Wakka, who were staring in awe at a fiend assailing a man that looked familiar. The fiend had four heads, three where one should have gone and then the fourth head was attacked to the end of its snake scaled tail. The other three of its heads were all different; one was that of a bird like creature, the center one was that of a bull, and the third one on the right looked like the head of a cougar. Overall the beast was at least two times larger than the man who was fighting it and had purple, red and gray hair covering its body.
The chimera bent over allowing its snake tail to creep over its three heads and unleash a thunder spell from within the snake's jaws. The man leapt to the side to elude the lighting bolt, revealing his entire figure to the group.
"Hey, that's Barthello!" Lauren exclaimed to her seven friends behind her as she strode forward. "He looks like he needs help." She took off toward the guardian and the fiend, unsheathing her katana, as she got closer to the fray.
"But if that's Barthello, where's Dona?" Tidus queried right before he took off to aid Lauren in fighting off the chimera.
The chimera sideswiped Barthello with its massive, muscular left arm sending him soaring into a tree positioned on the left of the trail. After it had finished dealing the commanding blow to the guardian, the fiend whirled around to see Lauren and Tidus, both with sword in had, coming straight at it. It bent to the left, letting down its bird like head, which opened its beak and spewed out a mass of bubbles mixed in water at the blonde duo. The two guardians separated, Lauren going to the right, and Tidus to the left, evading the chimera's feeble attempt at striking them. The water and the bubbles soon dissipated leaving the fiend confused as to where its attackers where for they had disappeared out of its field of view during the attack.
Lauren snuck up behind the chimera slowly, trying not to startle it causing it to attack her on the spot. She raised her katana above her head and prepared for a sneaky blow when the fiend's snake like tail caught her out of the corner of its slit like eyes. It lung itself out at her, its jaws opening so wide that it could have swallowed the sixteen year old guardian without even chewing. It massive fangs dripped with what the teen could only fear was poison mixed in with its oozing saliva. She eluded the fiend's head as it made a pass at her stomach with its head cocked on the side as to take hold of her abs and gut her. The blonde teen brought her katana down in an attempt to decapitate the chimera's snakehead as it stopped to regain control overt itself. The snake tail recoiled as the blonde's katana blade dug into its scaly flesh; however, the blow did not cleave the head from the rest of the tail.
Tidus came in quietly from the side opposite from where Lauren was combating the chimera's tail. The fiend also caught his movements much as how its tail caught Lauren as she attempted to catch it off guard. Its right massive arm shot out and gripped the blitz ace with its muscular, clawed fist and squeezed tightly causing the blonde to cry out in pain as his internal organs as well as his bones were being crushed. He managed to muster enough of his strength through his scream of anguish to grip brotherhood's hilt firmly. He wiggled his right arm around to be able to swing his blade all the while the fiend was crushing him in its scaly, clawed paw. The blonde blitz ace finally loosened the grip on his right arm enough that he could attack the chimera. He stuck the hooked tip of his shimmering blade into the fiend's scaly right arm causing it to cry out in anguish with all three of its frontal heads and let its grip on him slip. The blonde dropped to the ground on his feet and took a second to recover as the fiend continued to howl in pain before he assumed a fighting position again.
Lauren was just about to get bitten by the chimera's snake like tail when out of nowhere a sphere of water appeared above it head. The orb of water smashed into the chimera's tail in an explosion of great magnitude fro it only being a ball of water. The blonde guardian looked over to find the source of the watera spell to see Lulu standing on the path about ten feet away, still in a spell casting position. Noticing the major effect the spell had on the snake tail, Lauren waved her thanks to the black mage before she got back in the battle.
Arriving on the scene, Wakka hurled his blitzball through the air toward the chimera's bull like head. The hollow ball did little more than whack the fiend's face dealing damage equal to that of an insect bite or a needle prick. The fiend turned its torso a bit to the right as if concentrating on its right hand as an orb of fire erupted to life in its palm. Within seconds the fiend brought back its right arm and then launched the flaming sphere at the orange haired blitzer. He barely eluded the chimera's fiery attack as it struck the ground to his left, leaving none but a smoldering crater in its stead.
Rikku got to the battle right after Wakka had just evaded the attack the chimera dealt him. The blades on her glove clicked into an attack position as she approached the fiend at her usual incredible speed. She charged in and dove in between the chimera's hoofed feet, catching the fiend off guard causing it to whirl around in sheer confusion. The blonde Al Bhed shot up into the air from her laying position on the ground into an uppercut formation attack that drug her fist blades up through the fiend's chest. It let out a shrill wail of anguish and the young Al Bhed pushed off of it with her right arm just below the bull like head. She came back in hastily for yet another strike on the large beast but was cast aside by its purple furred left arm as she neared it. The blow sent her flying through the air until her back slammed into the thick trunk of a rather tall tree right next to where Barthello had been cast before her.
Kimahri was next into the fray with his special attack where he bounced he lance off the ground, sending him soaring into the air at an opponent. The chimera's left purple and orange furred head gazed up and saw the mighty Ronso guardian plunging down from the sky at it. Upon impact, the Ronso's powerful spearhead dug into the chimaera's spine causing it to lurch forward from the momentum of the blow as well as from the pain associated with it. Kimahri pushed off of the convulsing fiend as Auron drove his massive blade through its skull, ending its life in a split second. The fiend's body dissolved into pyreflies within a matter of seconds after the sword master plunged his blade into the bull like head's skull.
Lauren went over to where Rikku was tossed by the chimera and helped the young Al Bhed to her feet. The rest of the group came in check up on the blonde. "Rikku are you alright?" Yuna inquired to her cousin.
"I'm fine." Rikku proclaimed, a huge smile beaming upon her face. "But I think that guy needs some help." She pointed over to where Barthello was scrambling around searching with his right hand over top of his eyes as if looking off into a distant horizon. He whipped around to notice Lauren and her friends and ran over to them with a worried look upon his face.
"Hey! You, have you seen Dona?" He queried in a frantic voice as he continued to glance around this way and that.
"Nope, sorry big guy." Lauren destroyed any hope that Barthello had of them knowing where she was located.
"What's up? You lose her or something?" Wakka asked the still very nervous Barthello.
"We got separated on the way here." The muscular guardian explained. "Damn it all! I've got to find her!" He exploded drawing Auron's full attention.
"Calm down."
"But, if anything happens to her..." Barthello looked uncertainly at the man he referred to as an idol and the reason he became a guardian.
"Running around in a panic is not going to help. Right now, you have to keep cool, and search." Barthello opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the elder guardian. "Guard your emotions, then guard your summoner." He told the guardian out of his many years of experience.
"You're right." Barthello exclaimed, finally realizing that Auron had it all figured out and told him true advice.
"Do you want us to help you look for her?" Yuna queried from in between Lauren and Tidus.
Barthello shook his head. "No, I've taken up enough of your time." He turned to leave but double backed and faced Auron. "Thank you, Sir Auron." With that final statement the muscular guardian took off in the direction that the group was heading. Rikku stepped a few paced forward, trying to catch Barthello's attention but he was already too far away to notice her.
"Something wrong Rikku?" Lauren noted the Al Bhed's advance toward where Barthello left and then when she came back to the group.
"Oh, I just wanted to wish him good luck." The young Al Bhed answered staring off to where the muscular guardian had gone and to where they were about to go.
"Well then, let's keep going." Lulu suggested causing everyone to move out along the long winding path cutting through the forest.
The rest of their journey through the ancient majestic forest was paved with few fiend battles and less to no talking among the members of the group. Around the next bend after their confrontation with the chimera, the eight companions saw a few creatures that looked like a mix between a human and a bird with a harp fashioned to their right wing and down their side. One of the half human half bird beings told the party about the different butterflies in the forest and how if they caught enough of them they would get a special prize. Before the group agreed to send their fastest member, Rikku, off to collect the butterflies, the ancient birdman told her to beware of the red ones, for they would bring in fiends. The adolescent Al Bhed tore off down the snaking pathway back in the direction she and her friends had just come, collecting the blue butterflies along her way. Within a few attempts on the prize and the resulting fiend battles, the blonde Al Bhed finally achieved victory and acquired the award for her trials.
Unfortunately for Rikku, the half human half bird entity had been a little misleading in relaying the value of the item to her and her friends correctly. It turns out the item was only a mere mega phoenix instead of an item of high value or a powerful weapon of sturdy piece of armor as the Al Bhed had hoped it would have been. As she came back to all her friends with a disappointed look upon her face she went over to the majestic creature that had bestowed the task upon her and gave it a piece of her mind. In the end it took Lauren and Yuna to pull the outraged young Al Bhed off of the creature and apologize for their friend's behavior towards it. They left the being alone to its own devices and traversed beyond the meandering pathway to a slightly curved road leading to the frozen lake just outside the Macalania temple.
"So Lulu…" Lauren drew the attention of the black mage as they got onto the straight away portion of their trek through the elegant woods of Macalania. "What do you think about Yuna getting married? It seems like everyone has voiced their opinion except for you." The blonde's inquiry caused the mage to stop dead in her tracks to respond.
"I can't say that I approve…" Lulu stated, drawing a bit of delight from deep within Lauren to the surface to see that the one that was usually against her opinions was actually with her. "But, she has to decide for herself what is right. She cannot have everything in her life played out by another person. She must be in control of her own life and make up her own decisions that affect her life." These declarations from the black mage slashed the blonde teen's hopes of her trying to stop their summoner friend from marrying Seymour.
"But don't you think that she's doing it for all the wrong reasons?" Lauren's question was drowned out by the sound of someone hacking up plants, apparently trying to make a path through them. "What is he doing!" She exclaimed as she noted who was chopping up the plants to the right of the path ahead of them. Auron strode into the opening he had crafted with his massive sword, everyone filing in close behind him.
"What are we doing here?" Lauren queried as they entered the secret path Auron had exposed with his blade. The trail led up to a miniature lake sparkling in the natural light resonating down from the variations of plant life growing around it. "That looks like just plain old water. What significance does it have, huh?"
"This is what spheres are made of. It absorbs and preserves people's memories." Auron explained to the curious blonde teen as he strode toward the pond of sphere mold water. "It is around here somewhere." The master swordsman muttered to himself right before a massive sphere of water with a few fragments of what appeared to be stone in the center emerged from the pool of sphere material.
"What is that thing!" Lauren blurted out as the giant blob of jelly like substance loomed toward the group.
"Fiends are also attracted to these places." Auron stated bluntly as he shifted his blade's weight upon his shoulder as the spherimorph came in close to the one eyed guardian.
Kimahri was the opening attack upon the fiend with a lunge with all the power the Ronso guardian could muster within his muscular arms. His spear head merely passed right through the spherical fiend's membrane like body until it struck the rock like objects in the center which seemed to do little to no damage. The Ronso hastily wrenched his lance free from the gelatinous sphere's being and prepared for another go at the fiend. Before he could do anything, the spherimorph rose over him and formed into the shape of a gigantic block of concrete. The mighty Ronso guardian did all he could to evade the fiend's devastating attack; however, he was not swift enough to elude the attack before it came crashing down upon him.
Yuna called out in fear as her friend and guardian became crushed under the spherimorph's hard as steel physique. The fiend removed itself from on top of the wounded Kimahri, returning to its spherical shape from its block form. The young summoner hurried over to where the Ronso lay on the ground, unmoving and injured. She trained her staff head on her friend's wounded body and let fly with a cure spell that washed over the blue furred Ronso's body hurriedly. The Ronso guardian's yellow eyes shot wide open as he shot back to his feet, steadying his spear fro battle. Yuna smiled at Kimahri as he gazed off at the fiend now combating Lauren off in the distance near the water's edge.
Lauren brought here katana down upon the spherimorph's gelatinous body, sliding through it and out the other side with ease. She turned and plunged her blade into the fiend's body, slicing through the jelly like membrane easily. The fiend's physique shifted slowly, allowing the blonde teen's katana blade to slide all the way in to the rock like objects floating in the very center of the sphere. Upon contact, the fiend seemed to react as though it had been injured from the sixteen year old guardian's blow as she slid the blade back out of the gelatinous mess.
Seeing that no real harm was being inflicted on the spherimorph, Lauren yelled back to Lulu as she evaded an attack from the fiend. "Lulu! Use your black magic! Physical attacks aren't working!" The blonde guardian slipped under the gelatinous fiend as it attempted to perform the same attack on her as it did Kimahri.
Lulu conjured up an orb of red and orange flames in front of her right palm as she gripped her magic doll with her left firmly. In several seconds the black mage pushed her right hand forth, conveying the ball of fire magic hurtling toward the fiend. The spherimorph was concentrating on Lauren at the time that the black mage unleashed her fiery magic, catching it off guard as it rose from a dust cloud it had just created. The orb of red-orange flames collided with that of the fiend's body causing it to convulse slightly as the flames sizzled on its flesh. The magical attack seemed to have an increased affect on the fiend to that of the physical attacks everyone was trying out on it earlier.
The spherimorph convulsed some more after Lulu's attack had completely disappeared. The rock like objects floating in the center of the fiend switched up their places with one another, changing its elemental properties, much to the unawareness of the companions. "Lu hit it again!" Wakka called out to the black mage after seeing the results of her previous magical attack. Lulu obliged with the orange haired blitzer's command and cast another flaming ball of fire at the fiend. This time, however, her magic seemed to have no effect or possibly even have healed the damage from what she had inflicted previously.
"It is an elemental fiend." Auron stated as he watched the spherimorph quiver yet again, the rocks within changing their previous positions. "Every elemental attack triggers it to switch the element that it is. Figure out its pattern and destroy it!" He shouted to everyone out on the battlefield.
Lauren thought on what the eldest guardian had said about a pattern in its changing of the elements. "I got it!" She exclaimed. "Lulu hit it with a blizzard spell! It might change to the opposite of a spell it has been hit with!" The black mage conjured up a blast of ice and fired it at the fiend causing it to shake uncontrollably.
"Nice going Lauren!" Tidus hollered to his friend causing her to smile and blush a bit from his praise filled comment. "Look! It's changing again!" The blonde blitz ace pointed out as he noticed the rocks inside the spherimorph move around again.
"Maybe it has gone back to fire weakness, ya?" Wakka suggested causing Lulu to conjure up another fireball on her palm and then cast it into the spherimorph. This time, just as the second fire spell the black mage cast, had no effect upon the fiend, yet it did not appear to have healed its wounds either. This time it didn't change its elemental properties causing the group to contemplate on what element they should try next.
"Well, if it hasn't gone back to ice then what element is it now?" Lauren pondered aloud as she scratched her chin in contemplation.
"Let me try something." Wakka declared as he raised his blitzball and spun it around on his pointer finger. The blue and white bumpy surface of the blitzball suddenly burst into an electrical charge that ached its way all over the blitzer's weapon. He stopped the blitzball's revolutions and cupped it in his right hand and twisted his body in that direction, bringing his arm behind his back. When he untwisted his body he hurled the electric charged ball through the air toward the spherimorph. On contact the blitzball made the fiend shake violently as the electricity from the blitzer's attack pulsed through its entire being.
"Look, it didn't change its element again but this time it seemed to do a lot of damage!" Yuna exclaimed, pointing a slender finger toward the spherimorph and its unchanged elemental status.
"I can't do that move again, ya know? That takes a lot of energy and concentration to do, but at least we know its element now." Wakka admitted to his weariness from his own skill.
"Yuna! Summon your newest aeon. It's a thunder one, right?" The brunet summoner nodded at Lauren's query and in agreement with her statement. "Then summon it already. This thing is getting on my nerves." The blonde's words sent the young summoner into the motions for summoning Ixion.
A rift of lighting appeared behind Yuna and began to open up as thunder sounded in the dense forest. The rift began to open up wider and wider as a hook like yellow and black horn with a tassel like object hanging from where the horn bent near the aeon's head. A lighting blot reached from the end of the young summoner's staff to the tip of the horn of the lighting aeon. She coaxed the aeon to come out by gently tugging on its yellow and black horn by the lighting bolt. The aeon leapt froth from the rift causing it to shatter in a thunderous percussion that made Rikku cower in fear. The aeon looked like a unicorn with a stubby fluffed white haired tail and mane with zebra like striped running down its sides. It trotted around Yuna before it finally came to a halt at the honey brown haired summoner's side, ready for battle.
"Wow, that thing is amazing." Lauren breathed through her awe filled expression at the presence of the lighting aeon.
"Ixion, Thor's hammer!" Yuna shouted the command to her ever loyal aeon which obliged within seconds. Ixion bent its knees and aimed its single hooked horn down at the spherimorph, its eyes fixed upon the center of the fiend. Three blots of lighting shot out of the aeon's yellow and black horn, binding together as they zipped through the air toward the gelatinous fiend. As the lighting made contact with the spherimorph's body it began to lift it up into the air, electricity surging through its being the entire time. After a few moments of electrocution, a pulse of pure electric energy shot out of Ixion's lone horn, traveling up the line created by the lightning. As the surge of electricity reached the orb that contained the jelly like fiend it exploded sending bits and pieces of the spherimorph every which way in a gelatinous mess.
Out of the mess created by the exploding fiend came a blue sphere with a golden base that landed on the ground near Auron. The one eyed guardian reached down and acquired the sphere as everyone gathered around him to see what it was. "Whoa, this is old! Don't know if you can play it back" Wakka exclaimed as he examined the ten year old sphere.
"Jecht left it here ten years ago." Auron answered everyone's question on how it got here. "Play it back.' He ordered as he handed it over to Tidus, the blitz ace fumbling it around in his hands before finally flipping the only switch on the thing, making it activate.
After the sphere played out Tidus spoke solemnly. "He sounded almost serious, but it was too late." The blonde blitz ace seemed almost sad as he spoke unlike all the other times he spoke of his dad.
"He was serious." Auron said, breaking Tidus out of his train of thought. "Jecht had already accepted his fate." The sword master's words brought confusion to the blonde blitz ace's face.
"His fate?"
"Jecht... He... He was always talking about going home, to Zanarkand. That's why he took all those pictures-to show them to you when he returned." Tidus looked down at the ground not wanting anyone to see the look of confliction upon his face between hating and loving his father. "But as he journeyed with us and came to understand Spira, and Braska's resolve... It happened gradually, but Jecht changed. He decided he would join Braska in his fight against Sin." Auron finished off his length explanation of what he meant by Jecht accepting his fate.
"So then, he gave up going home?" Tidus queried in a soft voice that seemed like he was both angry and sad.
"That was his decision." Auron said sending the blitz ace into deep thought before he spoke again.
"All right! Let's go guys!" Tidus declared in a forced cheery voice. He walked out down the passageway Auron had cleared earlier, the rest of his friends following him slowly.
"I guess it's hard on him finally realizing that his father actually cared about him after all these years that he has hated him." Lauren said to Yuna as they followed after their blonde friend.
"I still don't get how he could hate his own father." The young summoner responded to Lauren's comment.
"Now he's all confused and I want to help him but I don't know how I could possibly be of any help." Lauren expressed how helpless she felt as her friend was suffering inner turmoil.
"I think that if he wants our help he will come to us and that we just have to believe in him until he falls back on us for comfort." Yuna articulated her feelings on the subject at hand.
"Yeah, I guess you're right Yuna. I guess there's no worrying about it now, or at least not until he's ready to talk about it." Lauren agreed with her friend as they continued along the path leading out to Lake Macalania and then to the temple where Seymour resided at the moment as well as many answers to questions both uttered and thought.