Chapter Nine: Broken
A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the longer than usual time in between updates but this chapter is drum rolls 33 pages long! It's like 11 pages over what I usually do so I think that's a reason to be a little late, but you tell me. Anyway, on to responding to your reviews!
Anasazi Darkmoon: Yeah, well I have to put in some characters that nobody likes to appeal more to the reader's feelings, am I right? I'm glad to hear that you liked that part where Lauren talked to the fayth because that is pretty important to the story. Am also very glad that you love my fight scenes so much because that's the part of writing that I like a lot and in this chapter there is A LOT of fighting, like almost half of it is… almost. Hey, I like your fic and I'm going to read some more and thanks for not being the type that would try to force me to read it. Anyway, hope you enjoy this extremely long chapter as much as you have its predecessors, if not more.
dark dragon knight1993: Glad to hear that you still love my fic and that you think I have good writing skills. That is also a fact, more or less; cuz I got a 100 on my English final essay so I think that says something. Wow, those dogs' favorite food is carrots, that's something you don't hear every day. Oh, you like in Las Vegas I bet it is really hot there. Yeah, I'm not that good with spelling and all and it probably doesn't help that I don't reread my stuff cuz I just don't feel like it, but if you feel that I should, maybe I will start doing that. Anyway, here's the next chapter for you, hope you like it!
'Even if Brian was ashamed of his sister, why didn't he ever at least mention her to me?' Lauren thought, as she lagged behind the rest of her friends, exiting the Macalania forest. 'Why does she hate me so much? We never even met and I never even knew about her before yesterday. She must have her own reasons but that still doesn't explain why she wanted to kill me right on the spot and did.' The blonde teen's thoughts were broken by the sudden change in temperature as she casually strolled out of the warmer forest into a frozen wasteland.
A large frozen lake sat off to the blonde's left that expanded as far as she cared to see at the moment. Snow covered hills lined just about everywhere around her as she leisurely strode on a snowy path that led down to the icy lake. Along the trail sat yet another of the Al Bhed shops that she had become used to seeing ever since they stayed in that one on the Mi'ihen Highroad. The snow covered path winded down and around the iced up lake until finally spilling out onto the lake itself whilst leading to a completely new track. After the start of the new path on the other side of the lake sat a chasm with ledges on either side that led away from the lake and toward the Macalania temple.
'How did she get to Spira in the first place?' Lauren came to a sedated halt as she looked up through her thoughts to see Yuna and the rest of her friends conversing with Clasko. Immediately after she took in her surroundings once again, the blonde guardian's thoughts started back up. 'Who brought her here? It couldn't have been any of the fayth because they are on our side. So who could it have been then? Could it have been… Seymour?' The sixteen-year-old guardian shuddered at the thought of the Maester with the eerie aura coming off him.
Soon Yuna and the rest of the group that had been speaking with Clasko dissipated and the young summoner came up to her blonde friend that was deep in thought. "Lauren, are you alright?" The honey brown haired summoner's words tore the blonde teen out of her own thoughts and into the world around her.
"I'm fine. I was just thinking." Lauren admitted, her voice barely loud enough for Yuna to hear what she had said, her concentration still stuck in her thoughts. 'I can't tell Yuna about this just yet. She already has enough problems to worry about without me weighing her down with my own.'
"You seem upset." The brunette summoner noted as Lauren's weary turquoise eyes sat upon a troubled expression plastered on her face. "Do you want to talk about it?" Yuna placed a comforting hand upon the teen's right shoulder while gazing into her eyes.
"Not right now…" Lauren said, tearing her eyes away from that of Yuna's bi-colored, compassionate ones. "I just need to think things through on my own." She hung her head and began a sluggish retreat from her summoner friend, but was stopped by a restraining grip from Yuna's right hand still placed upon her slender shoulder.
"Are you sure?" Lauren gazed into Yuna's green and blue eyes but didn't respond to the young summoner's concern filled inquiry. "Last time we talked about a problem of yours you said you felt better afterwards, right?" The blonde teen nodded but still didn't say anything back to her brunette friend. "Then why don't you want to talk? I'm your friend and I want to help any way I can" The teen looked away from Yuna in sheer shame for letting down a friend that truly cared about her.
"I'm sorry, Yuna. I just don't think now is the best time to talk." Lauren told Yuna, hiding a lone tear streaking down her chilled left cheek for feeling bad about not telling the young summoner about her problem. 'Man, I feel really bad about this.' The blonde guardian thought as Yuna released her grip on the teen's shoulder, allowing her to continue on in her mundane ambling down past the little Al Bhed shop on her right.
'She looks like she's really hurting inside.' Yuna thought as she began to follow Lauren down the path toward where the rest of their friends awaited the two girls. 'She looked distressed before I talked with her but now… she seems even more depressed than before I spoke with her. I hope I didn't say anything that upset her.' The burnet summoner glanced up from the snowy trail as a figure appeared on the other side of the collection of her friends.
"Lady Yuna, we've been expecting you." Tromell greeted the young summoner with an impassive stare upon his face, his voice slow and polite. "We were surprised you decided to come so soon. Pleasantly surprised, of course. Lord Seymour sends his apologies for having left without notice." The old Guado apologized for the Maester's abrupt leave from Guadosalam and with out saying as much as a good bye.
"It's quite all right." Yuna waved off the apology with her easy going, courteous side that she used often when speaking with people she didn't know really well. "I have one question if I may, sir." Braska's daughter waited for Tromell to give her a sign to continue which he did with a nod of his rough green haired head. "I want to keep journeying, even if I marry. Do you think that Maester Seymour would let me?" She queried as to what his reaction would be if she told him she wanted to continue on with her pilgrimage to defeat Sin.
"But of course, my lady. Lord Seymour wishes nothing else, I'm sure." Tromell answered, much to the delight on the young summoner but not to anyone else for they didn't even want her to marry him. The elderly Guado extended his unusually large hand for the honey brown haired summoner to follow him to where Seymour resided currently.
"Goodbye." Yuna bid farewell to her friends as she stepped in beside Tromell and began to stroll off toward the other trail on the other side of the lake. As the two went out of everyone's field of view what appeared to be snowmobiles, to Lauren, cut across the ice, encircling the young summoner and the elderly Guado.
"Oh, no!" Rikku shouted as the Al Bheds on the snowmobile like machina continued to drive around Yuna and Tromell, fixing them in a certain position.
"Al Bhed!" Wakka hollered, anger clearly evident in his loud voice as the group headed off toward the encircled summoner and Guado.
"Yuna! We're coming!" Lauren cried out to her friend as her and the rest of the summoner's guardians picked up their pace to reach Yuna and Tromell before the Al Bheds could kidnap brunette summoner. 'Why do they keep trying to capture Yuna like this? I gotta ask Rikku again to see if she will tell me this time.' The blonde hurried as fast as her legs would carry her toward the snowmobiling Al Bhed and her friend.
As they reached the two captives and the Al Bhed snowmobiles Tromell thanked Auron as the legendary guardian fell in place in front of the helpless Guado. Rikku suddenly heard a familiar voice resonating off of the snow-covered hills around them. "Rikku! Tyh'd ehdanvana un oui kad dric! (Rikku! Don't interfere or you get this!)" An Al Bhed with a blonde mohawk came into view over a snowy hill sporting dark gray overalls. His chest was bare but held a strange tattoo that was spread out over his bare skin that the overall straps didn't cover.
Next to the strange looking Al Bhed a strange looking machina with a massive cannon fixed atop the body of the machine. It was conveyed by a few metal rollers that looked like the things they attach to the back of tractors. Two gatling guns rested on either side of the enormous cannon fashioned to the large main body of the machina. As it sat there the top part with the cannon attached moved up and down by hydraulics stationed in the back of the Al Bhed crawler. A diminutive smoke stack was fixed to the back of the machine, right as the cannon ended into the rest of the Al Bhed crawler.
"Oain bnaciuic magic and aeons yna caymat! (Your precious magic and aeons are sealed!)" The Al Bhed man shouted down at the group of companions as they stared at the machina he had beckoned for.
Rikku gazed up at the blonde mohawked Al Bhed and stared in horror at the last comment he made. "Oh, no!" The blonde haired Al Bhed's voice was filled with fear and uncertainty as she drew the attention of each of her friend's looks.
"Rikku, what did he just say that has you so upset?" Lauren queried to her wide-eyed friend while glancing back and forth between the adolescent Al Bhed and the huge machina sitting right next to the other Al Bhed, ready to pounce on them on his command.
"He's gonna use an anti-magic field on us!" Rikku cried out, showing her panic heavily in her usually lighthearted voice. Just after the jade-eyed teen had told her friends what the other Al Bhed was planning on doing the strange man waved in his machina whilst shouting something in the Al Bhed language that could only have been taken as 'get them!' The machina squealed and wheeled as it made its way hastily down the hill that it had been perched on and down onto the frozen lake where Lauren and her friends awaited the battle.
Lauren charged in at the Al Bhed cannon that loomed ahead of her, ready to open up fire on the teen and her friends. A gatling gun mounted down on the right side of the machina, right under the main gun, began to revolve. The many bullets loaded up for the unloaded at the blonde guardian and followed her every move as she continued toward it. As the bullets zipped through the air they collided with the ice right behind the rocketing blonde, boring a massive trail into the ice following her. Finally the sixteen-year-old guardian made it out of the range of fire of the machina's gatling gun, giving her a chance to strike at the Al Bhed cannon from its unguarded rear.
As she plunged her katana into a panel on the back of the machina, Lauren pushed it with all her might until the metal finger guard connected with the metal surface of the cannon. A few sparks leaked out of the space between the katana's finger guard and the metal paneling of the machina. The blonde teen pressed doe on her katana's hilt with all the might she could muster at the moment. The blade sliced easily through the thin sheets of metal paneling that the Al Bhed cannon was composed entirely of. Severed multicolored wires along with dozens of sparks flying out of the immense gash the teen inflicted upon the Al Bhed crawler. She was forced to leap back from the damage she had done to the machina to avoid being either electrocuted by the dangling wires or burnt by the multitudes of sparks emitting from the gash.
Auron rushed toward the Al Bhed cannon right after Lauren removed her katana from the metal entity, his massive blade resting upon his right shoulder as he ran. Much to the sword master's dismay the machine counter charged him, saw blades mounted upon metal poles jutting up from the forms around the machina's wheels. The saw blades rotated at an abnormal speed, power by a complex hydraulics system, as their constant humming droned on and on. The one eyed guardian merely sidestepped the feeble charge from the machina, brining his colossal sword down upon the scrawny, hollow tube that harbored one set of the whining saw blades. The pipe simply slid off of the rest of the machine and plopped down upon the ice under foot, the saw blades coming to a sedated halt.
Kimahri pushed off of the plot of ice he had been stranding upon next to Yuna and rocked toward the Al Bhed machina. The mighty Ronso guardian came to a stop a few feet in front of the center of the machine and thrust his sturdy spear into the panels right below the massive cannon fashioned to the body of the crawler. Sparks began to launch out of the hole that the Ronso created when he punctured the machina as he began to spin the spear head attached to the shaft around within the innards of the Al Bhed cannon. As the blue furred guardian withdrew his lance from within the machina he gazed at it for a while with his unemotional yellow eyes and noted that neither his nor Lauren's attacks had any real affect on the machine's operation.
Rikku tore off toward the Al Bhed cannon from the right, trying to catch it off guard, but it was all in vein. The gatling gun posted on the right side of the machina picked up on the adolescent Al Bhed attempting to sneak up on it. The barrels of the chain gun began to whirl around, priming the weapon, faster and faster until finally it unleashed a hailstorm of bullets at the blonde. The Al Bhed thief hastily averted her course causing the gatling gun's ammo to unload onto the ice behind her instead of on her. Being the quicker one, the jade-eyed teen put much more distance between her and the rail of bullet holes in the ice than Lauren had. Finally she reached the machina and swiftly got behind the machine gun turret and did something that no one in the group could believe.
With a flick of her wrist, Rikku snapped off what appeared to be some sort of bolt, casting it aide as soon as the piece was separated from its keeper. Instantly the gatling fine tried to turn to face its obstructer as soon as the blot was removed but instead of swiveling to face the tricky Al Bhed it toppled from its mounted position upon the rest of the machina. The chain gun plummeted down the two feet it was above the ice and landed with a loud crack on the frozen lake. The pivoting point, still attached to the Al Bhed crawler, swiveled around helplessly and clicking sounds radiated from within the mechanism that the young Al Bhed knew as the system for firing the once attached gun.
Rikku, smiling at her own handiwork, gazed around at the percussion of astonished look from each and every one of her friends, especially Wakka. "Wow Rikku, how did you do that?" Lauren queried from her position behind the machina top her still smiling, jade-eyed friend.
"It's nothing really." Rikku admitted to her blonde friend, whose turquoise eyes were still filled with amazement and curiosity. "I've been around machina all my life so it just comes from years of experi…" The blonde Al Bhed clasped both of her hands over her mouth after she realized what she had just said and who was listening to her explain it, too.
Wakka looked at Rikku oddly at her reaction to what she had said but he didn't quite hear her so he was totally out of it. "What'd you say?" The orange haired blitzer inquired to the blonde Al Bhed who still had her delicate hands cupped over her mouth to prevent any word from escaping over her lips.
"She didn't say anything, Wakka." Lauren lied to the orange haired blitzer, keeping Rikku's lineage a secret from her Al Bhed hating friend. The tan skinned man didn't seem convinced; nevertheless, he didn't have any time for a rebuttal because Tidus tore off past him so fast that he was almost spun completely around by the blitz ace's speed.
Tidus charged up along the track of bullet holes in the ice that had followed after Lauren, but instead of going straight behind it he stopped at the side of the mechanical cannon. With one swift, almost halfhearted slash, the blonde blitz ace cleaved the remaining gatling gun off of its post on the left side of the AL Bhed crawler. The gun, lopped off from its master, fell to the thick ice below causing the blitz guardian to leap back to ensure that his right foot didn't get crushed under the heavy machinery. As the blitzer surveyed the now defenseless cannon, something small and metallic shot out of hidden compartment on the opposing side of the machina, just missing Rikku's head as it flew out. The object beeped and hovered around sporadically next to the Al Bhed cannon, scanning the battlefield as it did so.
"What is that!" Lauren shouted to Rikku, pointing a questioning finger in the general direction of the flying machina.
"It's a machina that produces a barrier that repels all magic!" Rikku hollered back to her blonde friend as the machina continued to scrutinize its environment.
"Can we hurt it with plain old physical attacks?" Lauren queried to the blonde Al Bhed who stood to her left. "If we can hit it that is." The sixteen-year-old guardian added with a sigh of annoyance as she charged over and attempted to slap it out of the sky with her katana.
"Yeah, we just need to find something really fast and agile…" Rikku trailed off as she gazed around at each and every one of her friends until she finally came upon Wakka and his blitzball. "Hey Wakka!" She hollered to the orange haired blitzer. "You think you can hit that thing?" The older guardian looked down at his blitzball and then gave a nod to the adolescent Al Bhed.
"Ya!" Wakka shouted as he hurled his hollow blitzball through the chilled air toward the buzzing and humming machina that had now poised itself to the left of the Al Bhed cannon. The blitzer's blitzball easily struck the annoying hovering machina, casting it to the ground as the thing's circuits shorted out. The once flying machina landed on the frozen lake with a slight thud and sent scorching sparks out every which way, creating scorch marks on some of the ice contiguous to it. "Lu! Hit it with one of your thunder spells!" The black mage nodded in recognition and prepared to launch a second level lighting spell at the Al Bhed crawler.
As she raised her right hand above her head and prepared to unleash a thundara spell upon the machina, Lulu griped the battered moogle doll in her left arm tightly. The black mage lowered her right arm unexpectedly casting a thunderbolt, larger than one that she had cast before, at the Al Bhed cannon. The thundara spell struck the machina with monster truck force sending scraps of metal flying in all direction like shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade. The machine convulsed from the direct hit of the lighting spell cast by the black mage, giving it a surge of power that it wasn't capable of handling. Gray colored smoke began to stream out of the point of collision as well as along the sides and out the back of the machina from various parts being fried by the extreme electrical strike.
After the smoke ceased to pour out of the spots that it had, the Al Bhed cannon began to charge something up, giving off a strange humming noise that caught Lauren's ear's attention. Shortly after it began to charge and give off the queer, the massive cannon fixed upon the rest of the colossal machina began to revolve just as the chain gun barrels did on the eve of firing. Sparks of electricity began to emit from the mortar upon the Al Bhed crawler as it began to revolve faster and faster with each passing second. Lauren stared at the machina, perplexingly, as it turned the end of the barrel toward Yuna and lowered it at the same time. The blonde teen stared in horror as her brunet friend didn't make any sort of movement to elude the massive gun from firing upon her with whatever it had been storing up.
"Yuna! Move!" Lauren commanded to her frozen in fear friend, making her way toward the paralyzed summoner as fast as her legs could carry her. Just as the blonde guardian reached the end of the immense barrel it opened fire upon her friend with the most terrifyingly destructive force she had seen aside from Sin's attack at operation Mi'ihen. The beam that flew forth from the depths of the machina was crimson and amethyst that sizzled through the air as it rocketed toward the frozen summoner. "Yuna!" The sixteen-year-old guardian pleaded again for he friend to move out of the way of the machine's destructive attack, but was to no avail.
Suddenly something deep inside Lauren snapped and she felt a wave of trepidation and sorrow pulse through her entire being. Out of nowhere the blonde felt her legs pick up an incredible speed and send her zooming along the top of the frozen lake like a missile zipping to its target. Within a second the teen matched speeds with the mana beam being expelled from the Al Bhed cannon and then pass it a second later. Still transfixed upon her imminent destruction, Yuna barely noticed a firm yet comforting arm wrap around her waist, moving her from her rigid position in the line of fire of the mana beam. The catastrophic crimson and amethyst beam struck the ice where the young summoner once stood, blasting a substantial crater into the now shattered ice.
Yuna still in her arms, Lauren came to a sliding halt about thirty feet from the crater shaped by the Al Bhed crawler's mana beam. The blonde teen let go of her summoner friend and as soon as she did the brunet finally came back into reality. "Yuna…" The teen breathed in order to get the dazed summoner's attention. "Are you alright?" Braska's daughter glanced at the sixteen year old guardian with unknowing bi-colored eyes until she gestured over to the rather large basin where her friend had once stood.
"Lauren, thank you." Yuna expressed her gratitude to her friend for saving her life while she was completely frozen with terror. Lauren smiled friendly at the young summoner, her turquoise eyes filled with relief that she actually managed to save the summoner's life from the machina.
Lauren was about to say something when the shouting of Wakka cut through the silence interrupted her words and drew her attention away from Yuna. "Lu! Do something while we still got the chance, ya?" The orange haired blitzer hollered at the black mage, who went right into a complex spell casting state.
Lulu let her moogle doll plummet to the icy surface below her and surprisingly it stood up on its own, free of her grasp. Even more surprisingly though was that it mimicked what the black mage did as it raised both its arms over its head to touch just as she did a second earlier. The scarlet-eyed woman dropped her arms down to their respective sides, bowing a little forward, the moogle doll imitating her every move. A rapid succession of eight thundara spells struck the Al Bhed machina, each sending up a could of smoke that made it impossible to see the damage that it was inflicting. Rikku cowered in fear as each and every of the lighting bolts struck the machine, her mind sifting through her memories until they exposed the memory of her brother hitting her with a thunder spell all those years ago.
Everyone stared at the cloud of smoke obscuring the Al Bhed crawler from view with eyes that were hungering for the ruined remains of the machina to appear before them. When the smoke finally cleared, everyone's jaws dropped down as far as they could possibly go except for Auron and Kimahri, who never articulated much of any emotions on their faces if any at all in their lives. Instead of the ruined debris of the Al Bhed crawler stood the fully functioning thing with the annoying little anti-magic barrier casting machina right above it.
"What the…!" Tidus exclaimed from his position next to Wakka as he stared in awe at the undamaged machina and its little counterpart. "How did it…?" The blonde blitz ace couldn't even finish his question before his astonishment stole all the words out of his mouth.
"Why didn't you tell us it had more than one of those things, ya?" Wakka pinned all the blame on Rikku for the shortcomings of Lulu's attempts in bringing down the otherwise undefeatable machina.
"Well… um… I didn't…" Rikku stammered through her shame and fear of what else the muscular blitzer had to scold her for. The orange haired blitzer's face went from that of astounded to that of anger at the lack of knowledge of his blonde friend.
Before Wakka could say anymore, Auron imposed with his own words. "That is in the past. Do not worry yourself over the past. Live for the present and move on with your life." The sword master's words seemed to only enrage the blitzer even more, but had a relieving affect on Rikku for she didn't have to suffer anymore of his questionings. As his words of knowledge flooded past his lips, the one eyed guardian pushed past the orange haired blitzer, heading toward the seemingly unarmed Al Bhed crawler.
As he ran past the left side of the Al Bhed cannon, Auron plunged his massive sword into the metal paneling that made up the outer shell of the machine. Still running, the one eyed guardian kept his blade level and deep inside the machina creating an immense gash in the machine's side stretching along the entire side of it. Free wires and sparks came out of the extensive wound the sword master had inflicted upon the machina causing it to have a fit of spasms filled with all sorts of random and odd noised resonating from within the depths of the Al Bhed crawler. The legendary guardian's blow that he dealt to the machina didn't seem to have much affect on it except for the initial convulsing and leaving a huge gap in the left side of its hull.
Noting the little, if any, damage that Auron inflicted, Lauren gripped the hilt of her katana tightly whilst striding forth from the back of the group. "I'll finish this." The blonde announced to her friends as she took off toward the seemingly unscathed machina.
Lauren ran along the ice to the right of the machina, the same way she had opened up the fray with. The teen then jumped up upon the massive cannon fashioned to the rest of the Al Bhed crawler and poised her sword for a stabbing attack. Abruptly, the enormous cannon shot back up to a position that didn't appear possible from a first glance at the rather large machine. It cast the blonde guardian off of it as it came a halt at an almost vertical ninety-degree angle with a loud clicking sound. The sixteen-year-old guardian landed with a soft thud upon the chilly ice and quickly shot back upon her feet from the cold assailing her and the fact that she was in a battle. She then continued on to poise her katana's blade up near a metal panel along the back of the machina a little to the right of where she had punctured the machine's hull and crafted the massive gash in it. Her blade was just a little more than six inches away from permeating the metallic plate when it opened up, revealing a small red cone tipped missile.
"Or not." Lulu stated after seeing Lauren's reaction as the missile flew out of its secret compartment and struck the blonde, carrying her up and over in front of the machina's cannon before losing its grip upon her stomach. The blonde guardian plunged down from the ten feet she was above the cannon and struck it with her abs, toppling off of it and landing a few feet in front of the machina.
As her body made contact with the ice, the sixteen-year-old guardian felt a sharp pain shoot up from her left leg as something cold, metal and sharp bore itself an inch into her calf. She let out a high-pitched cry of anguish as her leg shot up after contact with the metallic object, gripping her left calf tightly. Lauren glanced down at her injured leg with a hint of regret in her mind as she searched for that instrument that had stuck into her left leg. A small, metallic saw blade with a few of its teeth tarnished by crimson colored blood lay on the ice near the teen's leg. She winced in pain as she thought of that going into her calf and at the actual pain that it had inflicted upon her. 'It's all Auron's fault.' The blonde thought bitterly as she remembered the master swordsman severing the pole that harbored the saw blades for her to land on as darkness overtook her turquoise.
"Lauren!" Yuna and Rikku hollered whilst they tore off to the incapacitated teen with a small puddle of spreading crimson blood under her left leg. The adolescent Al Bhed reached the unconscious blonde guardian before her slower cousin and propped her head up, blonde locks falling down over her closed eyes. The brunette summoner finally made it to where the blonde Al Bhed sat with Lauren's head propped up against her right leg. She trained her staff down at the blonde's injured leg and shouted, "Cura!" letting fly with the healing magic, the white aura wafting gently down and around the injury.
Slowly Lauren's turquoise eyes fluttered open to meet the distressed looks of both Yuna and Rikku as they gazed down upon her. The cousins leaned back their heads to a regular position to allow the six teen year old guardian to sit up. "Lauren, are you alright?" The young summoner queried to her newly awoken blonde friend.
Lauren glanced down at her left leg and felt it with a tender hand, wincing in pain as she touched a still sore and cut up spot on her calf. "This still hurts a bit." The blonde teen admitted, putting a sad and helpless look on Yuna's face for she was ashamed of her inability to heal the wound with a single healing spell. "Yuna, it's okay. You tried your best and I'm grateful. It's not that bad anyway, I can survive." The sixteen-year-old guardian tried to comfort her distraught friend with lies that made the pain feel less than what it actually was.
"But I could have…" Yuna was cut off by the sound of multitudes of compartments open up behind her in the direction of the Al Bhed crawler. The young summoner whirled around to see that the machina had tons of secret doors just like the one that opened up on Lauren that they didn't know about.
All in one symphony of sounds the missiles launched out of all the undisclosed compartments encircling the entire Al Bhed machina. Everyone in the group scattered except for Lauren, who was still on the ground in pain from her run in with the saw blade that Auron had lopped off near the start of the battle. Tidus jolted from his position on the other side of the machina and headed for the blonde teen that was still abandoned in her injured position on the ice. The blonde blitz ace scooped up the sixteen-year-old guardian into his arms and tore off with a burst of increased speed just as a missile collided with the ice behind them. A rocket flared an orange and red explosion in front of the blitzer, almost causing him to loose his balance as well as the injured blonde in his arms. Scurrying around, dodging each and every one of the deafening explosions from the rockets, the blonde managed to deliver Lauren, as well as himself, to safety.
Lauren smiled at Tidus as he continued to hold her in his arms after evading all the machina's missiles, her turquoise eyes filled with gratitude and yet at the same time a hint of anguish for the blitz ace was cradling her on her injured leg. "Thanks Tidus, but do you think you could get off my wound." The blonde guardian's voice was lighthearted whilst holding back winces of pain as the blonde blitzer franticly relieved the pain he was causing the teen by placing her onto the ice below. The sixteen year old guardian laughed at how the blitz ace was reacting to her statement.
"I'm so sorry Lauren!" Tidus exclaimed as he frenziedly glanced around in all different directions and performing some body language that he wanted to use to say how sorry he was for hurting the blonde guardian while carrying her. "I didn't mean to pick you up by your wound, but…" The blonde blitz ace was silenced by the blonde girl's index finger pressed against his lips, a friendly smile plastered on her face.
"It's perfectly fine, Tidus. You saved my life." Lauren admitted to her friend causing his frantic and apologetic expressions to subside and give way to a weak smile. "Sure it stings a little but it's better than what could have happened to me." The blonde guardian glanced over at the devastation left in the ice all around them and let out a relieved yet pained sigh.
"If you two are done we have to defeat this thing, now." Lulu stated bluntly in her usual unemotional voice from a few feet away from the two blonde teens.
"I'll take it from here!" Rikku proclaimed, charging in at the now completely helpless Al Bhed crawler from the left side of the machina. Once she reached a small metallic panel on the left side of the Al Bhed cannon, the adolescent Al Bhed, with a few clicking sounds, snapped off the sheet of metal revealing a bunch of circuitry and gears. The blonde's jade swirl eyes darted from one part to another as she glanced around within the open panel trying to locate what she wanted as soon as possible. Her eyes finally locked upon a small, round disk with jagged edges that sat in the midst of all the other parts and wires in the machina. The blonde Al Bhed teen gripped the small, circular piece with her right hand and gave it a firm tug, attempting to rip it out in one clean move. Unfortunately, the part didn't come undone as easily as the blonde had hoped but she finally managed to wrench the component out of the machinery.
Instantly groans and creeks shout out of the open paneling, alerting Rikku that what she had set out to do was done and done correctly. The Al Bhed crawler began to convulse violently as random lose bolts and other assorted items plummeted off of the machina and down to strike the ice below. The blonde Al Bhed backed cautiously away from the Al Bhed cannon as it continued its berserk quivering and shedding of parts. Within a moment the machina finally ceased to make any movements at all and no more parts were streaming down from it, smoke rising out of tiny punctures created in the steel outer frame of the machine and where bolts and other varied components came lose from.
"My Lady." Tromell said, extending a friendly hand out toward the young summoner for her to follow him just as he did before. Yuna gazed back at her friends as they all waved to her except for Rikku, who was intently listening to what the Al Bhed man that had brought the crawler to fight with shouted down to her.
"Rikku! I femm damm Vydran! (Rikku! I will tell Father!)" The blonde mohawked Al Bhed shouted from his hilltop view as his machina finally broke down, letting him down once again.
"E ys dra guardian of Yuna, oui caa? Yuna ec cyva! Fa femm kiynt ran! Cra ec cyva! (I am the guardian of Yuna, you see? Yuna is safe! We will guard her! She is safe!)" Rikku hollered back to the aggravated Al Bhed standing upon the snow covered hill in her native tongue.
"Oui tu drec ymuha, cecdan! (You do this alone, sister!)" The blonde haired Al Bhed yelled back at Rikku before he turned his back on the adolescent Al Bhed and her friends.
"I told him I was a guardian." Rikku admitted to her friends as her older brother left them be on the frozen lake of Macalania. "Well, guess I had to, really." The blonde Al Bhed said in order to back up her statement to make it acceptable to her friends as well as her own doubtful mind.
"How come you speak Al Bhed?" Wakka queried in a somewhat angered voice as well as that of one filled with intense confusion over how his friend could know and speak the Al Bhed language when Yevon branded them traitors. "Why?" The orange haired blitzer reiterated because Rikku didn't answer his first question.
'I better think up something to keep Wakka from going completely insane when he finds out that Rikku's an Al Bhed.' Lauren thought as the big man stared down at the smaller blonde girl with deep brown eyes of inquiry.
"Because I'm Al Bhed. And that...was my brother." Rikku stated in so low of voice that at first Wakka had just thought her heard something funny and wanted her to clarify but then the truth hit him like an oncoming train.
The fact that Wakka was completely baffled by the discovery that Rikku was an Al Bhed did not play onto his other friends' faces as it did on his. "You knew?" The orange haired blitzer inquired to the entire group surrounding him and the adolescent Al Bhed. Everyone gave him a slight nod to let him know that they all knew all along that the blonde teen was an Al Bhed and for some time at that. "Why didn't you tell me?" The tan skinned man gazed around at all the faces of his friends as he asked the question.
"We didn't tell you because it doesn't matter if Rikku's an Al Bhed or not. She's just Rikku and you have had no problems with her at all for all this time and you were all for her joining up with us back at the Moonflow." Lauren defended her Al Bhed friend as best she could from the orange haired blitzer's hatred of her race.
"This is great. I can't believe I've been traveling with an Al Bhed! A heathen!" Wakka exclaimed as he shot his arms into the air in pure anger and annoyance at the fact that everyone knew except for him and never once told him anything.
"You're wrong!" Rikku declared, going up and standing on her tip toes to be able to look Wakka in the eye as she spoke. "We have nothing against Yevon." The young, blonde Al Bhed added to her statement to try to give her some more protection from the blitzer's wrath against the Al Bhed.
"But you Al Bhed use the forbidden machina! You know what that means?" Wakka paused a moment in between his declarations, giving Rikku a chance to answer but she didn't take up the opportunity for she had no idea what to say yet. "Sin was born because people used machina!" The orange haired blitzer thrust out an accusing finger trained directly on the blonde Al Bhed's forehead.
"How can you be sure of that, Wakka?" Lauren queried whilst walking up to stand next to Rikku to back her up. "Can you give me proof that the Al Bhed are the ones responsible for Sin being here in this day and age?" The orange haired blitzer contorted his face into a sort of thinking trance like state for a second after the blonde rose a question that he had to think on.
"It's in Yevon's teachings! Not that you'd know!" Wakka hollered at both Lauren and Rikku in a desperate attempt to get them off his back or to actually see things his way. However, the two blonde teens were not about to back down from their defenses positioned to guard the Al Bhed's way of life.
"That's not good enough!" Rikku shouted in her most angry voice any of them had heard her use since they had met her. "Yevon says this. Yevon says that. Can't you think for yourself?" The blonde's harsh question sent Wakka back onto the supper defensive position that he had been playing ever since Lauren stepped into he conversation with her true comments that he did not want to agree to.
"Well, then you tell me! Where did Sin come from, huh?" Wakka gazed down at the defeated adolescent Al Bhed, who was hiding her jade swirl eyes from him. "See! It was the Al Bhed!" The orange haired blitzer hollered sending Rikku into an even more depressed and defeated state for she could not come up with any good points to counter his.
"Maybe it wasn't the Al Bhed Wakka. Maybe Sin was born because everyone in Spira was acting up against the teachings, not just the Al Bhed." Lauren brought up yet another point that the orange haired blitzer had a hard time reacting to. "Wakka, maybe something has to change in order to get rid of Sin, like maybe doing something different from what all of you are doing now in an attempt to get rid of it." The blonde teen seemed to snap something deep inside the blitzer with her words of blasphemes.
"Nothing has to change!" Wakka shouted at the top of his lungs almost causing small avalanched on the snow covered hills surrounding the entire frozen lake.
"You want Sin to keep coming back?" Rikku queried, taking her chance to say something to Wakka as he was stunned from Lauren's comments. "There might be a way to stop it, you know!" The blonde Al Bhed suggested to the already outraged blitzer.
"Sin will be gone once we atone for our past mistakes!" Wakka shouted almost as loud as he did when he said nothing has to change. Lauren and Rikku seemed uncertain that the orange harried blitzer had any idea of what he was talking about or where he was going with what he was saying.
"And when will that be, Wakka?" Lauren queried to the distressed orange haired guardian, who stared at her like she had just asked a question like 'what is the meaning of life?' or something along those lines. "If all you had to do was atone for you sins then wouldn't that have already been accomplished since Sin has been around for a thousand years?" The blonde teen gazed over at the tanned skin man to gage his reaction to her questions upon questions that tested what exactly his faith was made of.
"We would have done that but the Al Bhed keep screwin' everything up by using the forbidden machina like what we just fought!" Wakka rebutted to the few questions Lauren brought up about atoning for their past sins.
"The Al Bhed are a small portion of the population of Spira. I can't see how it is possible that so few people could ruin everything for everybody." Lauren stated her opinion how she was extremely skeptic on to how the small population of Al Bhed in Spira could screw everything up and keep Sin alive. "Even if they do use the 'forbidden machina' what kind of god is that picky about who is following his teachings or not that he would make everyone suffer just because a small portion of the life on his world doesn't follow his teachings perfectly!" The six teen year old guardian was absolutely furious that her friends were following some sicko of a god that would kill thousands just because some didn't follow his teachings right.
Before Wakka could answer any of the questions Lauren had just barraged him with, Auron strode over to one of the overturned snowmobiles left by the retreating Al Bhed. "Rikku!" Catching the blonde Al Bhed's attention the sword master continued on to his question. "Will this move?" As the legendary swordsman inquired, the adolescent Al Bhed hoped onto one of the snowmobile like machina that was turned right side up. She fiddled with some cables and the ignition switch until finally the engine erupted to life casting out a puff a thick black smoke as it did.
"Guess so." Tidus said as he approached one of the other snowmobile like contraptions and proceeded to flip it over with all the strength he could muster.
Lauren went over to the machina that Rikku sat upon and joined her friend as the young Al Bhed powered the engine to life, propelling it forward with an awkward lurch. Kimahri flipped over another of the over turned snowmobiles and took off at a very high speed and rounded the corner, continuing out of view. Lulu hopped onto the back of Tidus' machina and signaled for the blond blitz ace to hit the gas and send them speeding towards the temple. Auron got onto one of the Al Bhed contraptions and signaled for Wakka to join him for there were no others left. Regretfully, the orange haired blitzer lumbered over to the machina and plopped down behind the legendary guardian just as he stomped on the gas, propelling them forward at speeds the blitzer had never traveled at before.
"Can the girl be trusted?" A deep voice sounded from under a cloaked figure in the center of a very well furnished room. An old man appeared in front of the cloaked figure and cleared his throat before he spoke.
"No, of course not!" The old man's voice was rasp and a little winded for him to have not moved all but two feet. "She has already shown her weakness by letting that troublesome blonde called Lauren strike her." The aged man stepped closer to the cloaked figure standing in the heart of the room upon a very elaborate gold and crimson carpet.
"It seems that two of our buffers have failed to claim the life of that wretch." The hooded man's voice seemed enraged at the thought of so much failure from the help that he and elderly man had acquired.
"Indeed. The legendary guardian did not take kindly to your little bribe back on the road to the Moonflow and now Nora has failed in her assassination attempt on Lauren's life while in her dream." The old man put his right hand to his forehead and began to sway his head form side to side. "It's so hard to find good help these days." He let out a heavy sigh and removed his right hand from his forehead.
"Just goes to show you that if you want something done and done right you got to do it yourself." The elderly man nodded to the cloaked man's comment. "Only problem with that is I do not want to do it personally yet for the girl isn't strong enough yet to put up much of a fight and I enjoy difficult fights, not utter slaughters." The old man began to chuckle at the last comment the cloaked man had spoke. "What!"
"Oh, pardon me but I thought you enjoyed slaughtering people. Was it not you who just last year completely leveled a whole entire Al Bhed settlement, leaving none alive?" The cloaked man, without moving anymore muscles then in his right arm and had, gripped the sheath of a sword from with the depths of his royal blue cloak. The blade flashed across the old man's chest, slitting some of the elegant fabric robes that he wore. "My, my, aren't we a testy one." The old man joked as the clocked man rested his blade at his right side.
The blade of the sword was long and had a straight back side of the blade that the front rounded off near the top to connect with it. Along the entire length of the blade were two dragon skulls, one at either end, with spinal cords attached to each and zigzagging from side to side up the blade. The hilt was wrapped with black, silky cloth that bore two small skulls at either end of the hilt casting a ghastly image over all who witnessed it. Also attached to the hilt besides the two skulls was a band of sharp bones that went over the man's fingers right in between the first and second knuckle. "That was the old me." The cloaked man sighed and was just about to sheath his blade when the elderly man made a comment he didn't like to hear at all.
"Oh that's right, you 'reformed' yourself into an honorable man instead of a rampaging psycho with a thirst for blood and power beyond any normal man." In an instant the clocked man's dark metal sword was pressed up against the older man's jugular vein causing him to choke.
"The only reason you are still alive old man is because we are on the same side, working for the same goals and you have connections and I have the power." The cloaked man pushed the old man back away from him, almost sending him toppling over a lone chair in the room. "Don't forget that last part, old man. I have the power!" He sheathed his dark metal, skull blade and turned to take his leave from the elderly man's chamber.
"Oh, don't forget Sintanan. If you pull any kind of crazy stunts I can have you locked up in prison for a long time or even get you killed." The cloaked man turned around at the sound of the name that the Al Bhed had christened him after the incident at the settlement.
Crimson colored eyes flared up from with the depths of the shadows cast down upon the man's face by his royal blue hood. "Don't you ever call me that again or I will kill you on the spot no matter what the consequences are for killing a Grand Maester such as yourself!" He turned back around and sent the massive oak double doors flying off their hinges with an unseen force. The two guards stationed outside the Maester's chamber were instantly decapitated by the cloaked man's, now dual, dragon skull swords.
"Hmph! He will do well in our plans." The old man said aloud to no one but himself. 'And what are those exactly Maester Mika?' A chilling, slithering voice came into the Grand Maester's mind. "That is none of your concern. Just do as we have planed at Macalania temple and don't screw up like one of our others in this little band we got here or else I will kill you myself and make sure your soul sufferers for eternity." The old man retorted to the creepy man's slithering voice.
'Is our special guest ready for you to send him here?' The voice queried to Mika. "Yes, I will have our guest sent to you very soon." The Grand Maester replied to the hissing voice inside his brain. 'Good. I can sense them coming already so please hurry up, Maester, if we are to succeed.'
"All will be done properly on my part. You must uphold your part if you wish to not suffer my wrath." Maester Mika told the voice in a sharp tone. 'All is falling into the palms of my hands.' Mika let out a devilish chuckle to himself while he stood alone in his chambers, two puddles of crimson blood growing with each passing second right outside of where the oak doors used to be.
"Do you know what's wrong with Lauren today?" Tidus queried over the sound of the rushing wind back to Lulu as their snowmobile skidded over the ice toward the Macalania temple. The black mage gave the blonde blitz ace a very perplexed expression as he glanced back to see if she had heard him. "I mean, she just seemed out of it and when we first got here she seemed completely out of reality." The blitzer guardian clarified what he meant to the scarlet eyed mage after seeing her questioning expression.
"I don't know, but you are right about her seeming a bit off today." Lulu responded to Tidus' inquiry in a bit louder of a voice than she usually spoke in to be able to project her voice into the oncoming wind to reach the blitzer's ears. "She did seem as though she was lost in her own thoughts about something that was bothering her for some time now. I bet Yuna might know something. Those two seemed to have gotten close and somehow share a bond." The black mage explained her thoughts on why Lauren was acting a bit differently that she had been in the past today.
"Yeah, but there's a problem with asking Yuna about anything right now. She's not here." Tidus stated letting the chilled wind ruffle his blonde hair as the machina he and Lulu were on propelled itself toward their destination.
"Yes, there is that but we will be meeting up with her at the temple." Lulu said drawing a somewhat depressed look from the blonde blitz ace sitting in front of her, driving the machina snowmobile. "What is it now?" The black mage inquired, her garnet filled with wonder and at the same time annoyance at the blonde's reaction to her words.
"Lulu, do you actually think Yuna will marry Seymour?" Tidus raised a question that the black mage held no answer to but what she supposed as well as everyone.
"I am not entirely sure what her motives are but she seems determined to marry Maester Seymour if it will let people forget about all their problems, even if only for a little while." Lulu responded with her own observations that she had observed and drawn somewhat of the same conclusion everyone had. The blonde blitz ace's blue eyes were now filled with sorrow at the inevitability of what he as well as Lauren and Rikku feared. "That's the way she is. She is determined to do all she can just to help out the people of Spira at whatever the personal cost is. She is selfless." The black mage stated in the long silence that followed her previous remarks.
"I just don't get how she can be that way." Tidus' voice sounded frustrated and with a hint of sadness buried deep within the constructs of his voice. "How can she have no regard for her own well being? It just doesn't make any sense that she would want to put herself through so much torment just to please people she doesn't even know!" The blitz ace's voice was muffled, congested by the choking back of tears, his azure eyes wracked with depression.
"You don't understand because you do not see things the same way as Yuna." Lulu's comment seemed to offend Tidus but before he could say anything the mage spoke back up. "You do not know what it is like to have to live up to your father's name and to have people think highly of you than you really are just because of that. It is tough on her but she chose her own path through life and all we can do as her friends is help her through it with the utmost support and understanding." The blonde blitz ace shot his head around to give his retort to the black mage's words of wisdom but she shoved him back around to keep their snow speeder from going out of control.
"Don't say that I don't know what it's like to have to live up to a father's reputation and have people always thinking of you as something better than you really are and have to keep pushing yourself to not let them down because I know exactly how that feels!" Tidus hollered at Lulu but most of his elevated voice was drowned out by the whistling wind, only allowing the black mage to hear the tone of anger in his voice and not the volume of it.
"Your little blitz reputations may have mattered back in your Zanarkand, but they don't matter here at all!" Lulu snapped back at the unknowing blonde bringing up nothing but silence from his mouth. "Yuna has real problems, not your kind of superstar fantasies! Her father was one of the summoners who defeated Sin and for that when she became a summoner instantly everyone thought of her as someone great, just as her father was before her. But the difference between her and her father is that she lacks the experiences that he had and has only been a summoner for a little while whereas her father was a man of many years of experience and for that held power. She tries her best to live up to her father's reputation but she always belittles herself and tries to find ways to give her life meaning. By marrying Maester Seymour she thinks that she will make part of her life actually acknowledgeable for years to come to try to make it up to the standards everyone has set for her." Tidus sat silently in front of the black mage, navigating the snowmobile through the ice to their destination. "Maybe now you understand a little more." Her comment brought noting but silence up from the blonde blitzer sitting in front of her.
'Where am I?' A young man around the age of sixteen wondered aloud groggily as he rose up from a chilled tile floor. His eyes still filled with haziness, the teen glanced around to see himself in a room filled with nothing but shadows and a large red metallic door resting in front of him. 'Last thing I remember was sitting around in one of those hanging cages and talking with that girl in the one next to mine when… that old guy came in and said something. But what was it? And now I'm here. What's going on?' he thought as the crimson colored door in front of him swooshed open, revealing nothing but even more shadows, yet he could make out a thin silhouette of something.
"Ah, I see you are awake now." The strange, shadow enshrouded figure greeted the teen with a slithering soft voice that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. "Good. It is almost time for the suffering to begin." The figure stated, an eerie aura slowly becoming noticeable to the young man that felt as though the unknown man was enjoying the thoughts of someone else suffering.
"What are you talking about? Who is going to suffer and why?" The teen's voice was a bit on the shaky side as he questioned the shady figure about what his plans were. The unidentifiable man began to chuckle at the sound of insecurity in the teen's voice as well as the question in which it had voiced.
"I am talking about how someone is going to get their heart torn out and stomped on in grief, not literally speaking of course, but emotionally." The man could barely hold back his maniacal, chilling laughter as he explained exactly what he was speaking of.
"Why are you taking pleasure in the thoughts of someone else suffering?" The teen queried in complete and utter bafflement as the figure continued to laugh evilly. "What kind of man are you?" The young man's second inquiry brought them figure out of his state of laughter, but only to answer his question without any interruptions.
"Me? I am one that you do not want to cross or you will end up facing consequences heavier than death." The man's soft, slithering voice was stern and not filled with laughter unlike his preceding statements. "And to answer your first question, I guess killing your own father and being an outcast your entire life would make you not care for the wellbeing of anyone." The teen stared at the man with eyes full of horror and insecurity causing him to snicker in his slithery voice. "I like your reactions. Very terrified and pleasing."
"You are a monster!" The young man accused the figure causing an evilly chilling smile to rise upon his face, filled with suppressed laughter.
"That I may be, but keep in mind that I am also the one who holds your future in my own hands and I can make sure you have no future to head to whenever I deem it fit." The teen felt something tug at his heart and then pain, emotional and physical, surged through his body as a dark aura surrounded the outline of the figure standing in the doorway.
"Wha… what are you?" The young man managed to squeeze out through the intense pain he was feeling at the moment. The teen fell over onto his right side and curled his body up almost into a ball as he writhed in pain from the figure's unknown attack.
"I am the keeper of this temple and also your executioner if you try anything funny." The figure responded whilst releasing the teen from his deadly grip of pain. The young man gasped for air as the pain was removed from his body and mind simultaneously as the figure glared down upon him. "I will take my leave now." The figure turned from the doorway and began to stride away before turning back to face the teen once again. "Oh, I forgot to answer your question about who what going to suffer. It is a girl called Lauren who wishes to defy the teachings of Yevon."
Surprise washed over the young man as the figure said the name of the one who was going to be suffering in the near future. 'I know that name… but from where? Who is she?' The teen thought to himself before yet another question arose in his mind; however, he spoke this one instead of thinking it. "What is Yevon? Some sort of religion or code?"
The figure stood in the doorway, an eerie smile painted upon his face as he gazed at the teen and answered his question. "You will find out soon enough… that is if you can survive that long." The figure added on that grim remark before the crimson metallic door slid shut hastily, leaving the young man by himself in a damp pitch black room.
Finally, the group reached the Macalania temple after traveling down a long, curved snow covered trail suspended above a rather large void. The temple was constructed of light blue and white metallic materials with golden decorations strewn about the outer walls in a specific pattern. The front entrance was a pair of twin metallic double doors with a guard clad in crimson armor stationed just outside of those doors and to the left at the top of a flight of stairs. Out front of the temple sat a metallic landing where a few people congregated, going about their daily lives and talking with friends and family. At the edges of the portico like structure stood small walls of ice that took up almost all of the space on the perimeters except for where the lengthy bowed snow trail met it and in a few random spots where people could sit and stare out into the void that was all around them.
One by one the group stepped onto the chill metal flooring and began their ascent on the stairs, but was stopped by the crimson clothed guard as his eyes caught a glimpse of Rikku. "Halt!" The guard shouted in a deep, commanding voice while also putting up his right hand in the traditional gesture you would perform to get someone to halt. "The likes of her are not welcome in this hallowed place." He thrust out an accusing finger at the adolescent, blonde Al Bhed, Lauren's turquoise eyes filling once again with the anger she felt whenever someone said something about Rikku being an Al Bhed.
"She is a guardian." Auron said in an extremely confident voice, hiding his face behind the enormous collar that his crimson coat harbored and behind his heavily tinted sunglasses that he wore everywhere even though half the time there was no reason for them at all.
"An Al Bhed, a guardian? Preposterous!" The guard exclaimed, still in his deep and commanding voice to try to convey his point across to the group and get them to leave at once.
"Who cares if she is an Al Bhed!" Lauren hollered at the guard as she went up and stood on her tip toes to be able to see eye to eye with the gruff guard of the temple. "She is a good person and just wants to protect someone she cares about! What is wrong with that, hmm!" The guard appeared to be a bit more than a little intimidated by the blonde teen shouting in his face in an enraged voice.
"Yes, but the… the teachings and the rules of the temple do not allow such heretics to step foot inside a temple." The guard stammered in a shaky voice, his brown eyes fixed upon Lauren's unflinching, infuriated turquoise ones.
"Who cares about your stupid rules and codes that you follow!" Lauren shouted almost at the top of her lungs drawing looks of utter amazement from the few people that were meandering about outside of the temple entrance. "You can't just label a person not fit to do something that they believe in just because they do not follow your sets of rules and guidelines exactly how you want them to! All we want to do is protect Yuna along her pilgrimage and not be stopped by someone like you that feels that just because someone doesn't believe in your way of life shouldn't be able to care about and protect someone that does!" The six teen year old guardian ended her speech and gazed around at the attention that she had gathered from all of the other people around her, including her friends, and just smiled uneasily.
Now that she had backed down, the guard seemed to be outraged at Lauren's comments and looked as though he was about to call backup to remove her from the premises, but stopped for some reason unknown to anyone present at the time. "Very well." The guard managed to say while suppressing the anger that he was clearly feeling right at this very moment. "You may proceed." He slowly reached out his left hand over to the golden pole that allowed the door to be opened. Whilst pushing the door open slowly he also walked in to keep it from slamming shut as soon as he released his grip from it. The group walked through the now opened doors in silence as the small number of people stationed outside of the temple gazed at them in sheer wonder and confusion.
Once inside the temple, which was just like all the other temples Lauren had been in, Rikku turned to the blonde guardian and spoke, "Hey Lauren," The young Al Bhed said in a soft voice, getting the attention of the sixteen year old guardian. "Thanks for back there for standing up for me and all. You really didn't have to do that. I'm used to people looking down on me for being an Al Bhed, but I don't wish for a second to not be one." The Al Bhed's jade swirl eyes were filled with great sorrow and yet at the same time a strange pride for her race.
"And you shouldn't wish for it, Rikku." Lauren brought a new kind of happiness to the young Al Bhed's eyes with her statement. "You should be proud of what you are and not let anyone belittle you for being different from them. Those kind of people do that because they are uncertain of what they really want and believe in and envy your serenity within yourself." The blonde guardian said causing the adolescent Al Bhed's eyes to fill with happiness that she had a friend that was so passionate in defending her, yet a trace amount of sadness still lingered within her bright, jade eyes.
"Yeah, I guess you're right, but you are just one person that believes that and has no influence on what others think." Rikku hung her head in sorrow and walked slowly away from Lauren and toward nothing in particular. "So nothing is really going to change…" Depression was the only emotion that could be sensed in the blonde Al Bhed's voice as she continued to stroll away from her friend.
Rikku was stopped by a firm yet comforting hand upon her right shoulder and pivoted on her heels to see who it was that was restraining her from wallowing in her own disappointment. "Cheer up, Rikku. You have friend that care about you and will protect you from any prejudice that may come your way." Lauren bore a friendly, lighthearted smile upon her face as she spoke to her Al Bhed friend, trying to cheer her up out of her hopelessness.
"Yeah, but Wakka doesn't see things the way you do." Rikku stated while hiding her despair wracked jade swirl eyes from that of Lauren's turquoise, compassionate ones. "He doesn't even seem to be giving me a chance even though he had been a friend since we meet up until he found out I was what I am." The young Al Bhed's head still hung until her friend's gentile fingers brought her chin back up to look into her eyes.
"Don't worry about Wakka, Rikku. He will come around. Just give him time." Lauren removed her fingers from the adolescent Al Bhed's chin, a comforting smile plastered upon her face all the while. "He'll realize eventually what I already know, and that is that you are a good person and deserves to be treated as such, regardless of your lineage." The blonde teen's words instilled new hope in her friend's jade swirl eyes causing her to smile also.
"Thanks Lauren. You're a true friend." Rikku said in her usually upbeat voice, gratitude apparent in her eyes and a friendly, thanking smile on her face.
"Hey, no problem! That's what I'm here for, to make my friends feel as good as they can and give them my full support all the way!" Lauren proclaimed in an optimistic voice that resonated off the walls of the temple's main chamber for all to hear; however, no one paid it any attention except for Rikku, who blushed a bit at her friend's words.
"You don't know how much this means to me, Lauren." Rikku's words brought the blonde guardian out of her cheery expression and into one of confusion and yet still glad to see her friend happy. "Since I'm an Al Bhed I haven't really had many friends outside of the Al Bhed population and even in there I haven't had many because my dad's the leader and I guess they just felt uncertain to how he would react if they hung around me. Also, there isn't a lot of Al Bhed around my age anyway." The sixteen year old guardian gazed at her Al Bhed friend in wide eyed wonder as well as with pain to realize just how much she has suffered in her past years.
"Wow… your life must have been really tough." Lauren commented causing Rikku to once again hang her head in sorrow, making her have to come up with something to cheer the adolescent Al Bhed back up. "But hey, you got me now, and Yuna and everybody else. So don't be sad Rikku, kay?" The blonde Al Bhed lifted her head up to give a little nod and to show just how much the six teen year old guardian's friendship meant to her.
Rikku was just about to say something when a horrified shout erupted out from the room to the right of the main stairwell leading up to the cloister of trials. "Lord Jyscal! A sphere, in Lady Yuna's belongings..." A woman ran out of the room to the right of the cloister of trials, still shouting something about the late Guado Maester.
Lauren and Rikku hurried into the room right after all their other friends to find a sphere sitting upon a lavish table next to the rest of Yuna's belongings. "This may well answer a few questions." Auron stated before Tidus flipped the switch on the blue sphere with a golden, base that wrapped around the entire bottom of the orb.
Within the azure sphere stood an elderly Guado, even older than Tromell appeared, stood in a cloudy bluish green atmosphere. "What I am about to tell you is the unclouded truth. I swear it on my honor as a Guado. Listen to me very carefully, for I shall tell you the truth about my son, Seymour. His mind is closed even to me, a Maester of Yevon. But I can feel flames of darkness burning in his heart. He is using Yevon, the Guado, and even the summoners. If he is not stopped, he will surely bring destruction and chaos to Spira. I will leave this world soon, killed by my own son. But I do not fault him. Because I was not wise enough he has suffered, and become twisted. I could not protect him and his mother from the world and its cruelty. I will accept death as punishment for my deeds. But whoever is watching this...I implore you to stop Seymour! Stop my son." Jyscal announced in a soft and low voice that seemed to be traditional to all the Guado, even Seymour.
"See Wakka? I wasn't just trying to bash your religion and Seymour." Lauren said out of complete surprise at what the late Guado Maester's sphere had just elaborated to everyone present in the small room. "See, he is a bad guy and we gotta stop him from doing anything to Yuna!" The blonde teen hurriedly ran out of the room and tore up the stairs toward the cloister of trails where they had found out Yuna and Seymour were.
"Wait Lauren!" Tidus and Rikku shouted at the same time whilst also charging after their blonde friend up the stairs toward the cloister of trials. Kimahri was the next one to follow after the blonde guardians, taking large strides that hastily carried him right behind his three friends.
Lauren passed through the metallic door at the top of the long flight of stairs leading into the cloister of trials right as Rikku and Tidus reached the bottom. The blonde teen rocketed through a hallway that was completely covered in sheets of ice and pure white snow. Jutting an inch up out of the snow on the floor came a square piece of dark colored stone that the teen didn't have anytime to waste on contemplating what they were for. "Lauren! Hold up!" Rikku shouted up to her friend as she entered the snow slathered corridor as the sixteen year old guardian passed through the next door leading into the waiting chamber outside the chamber of the fayth.
Within the waiting chamber stood the sadistic half Guado half human that was awaiting the arrival of Yuna after she had spoken with the fayth of the temple. "Seymour! Where is Yuna!" Lauren screamed at the Maester of Yevon causing him to pivot on his heel slowly and stare at the one who had shouted at him. "Tell me now!" The blonde guardian ordered the unflinching Maester who didn't respond for a few seconds.
"Please be silent." Seymour pleaded to Lauren to stop screaming at him as she continued to stand at the top of the flight of stairs at the entrance to the chamber. "Lady Yuna prays to the fayth." The half Guado explained his reasoning for his abrupt command at the blonde guardian.
"Make her!" Tidus hollered as he filed in behind Lauren, Rikku right behind him with the same facial expression of anger that both the blonde blitz ace and Lauren shared plastered upon the her face.
"Yeah!" Rikku added in her usual cheerful voice that now held an edge of anger and bitterness toward Seymour. "If you want her to be quiet you have to go through us!" The blonde Al Bhed whipped out her bladed gloves and fell into a battle ready position as did Tidus and Lauren next to her.
Before Seymour or anyone else for that matter could say anything more the small metallic door slid open revealing Yuna with a few beads of sweat on her brow. "Yuna!" Tidus hollered over to the young summoner as she looked out over the dome chamber to see the blitz ace, Lauren, and Rikku standing at the top of the stairs, their weapons drawn form their holsters and ready for anything that was to come.
"But why?" Yuna's facial expression was one of sheer astonishment as to why her friends had gone against her wishes to be alone with Seymour at the temple.
"We saw Jyscal's sphere!" Lauren exclaimed drawing a look of shock from Yuna and a sinister smile from the sadistic Seymour. "I can't believe that you would kill you own father! Why would you do that you sick freak!" The blonde's amazed words sent even more of a menacing smile creeping across the half Guado half human Maester's thin, grayed lips.
"What of it?" Seymour queried in an unusually calm voice that sent chills down Lauren's spine as well as everyone else's that was currently in the dome chamber. "Lady Yuna, certainly you knew of these things, did you not?" The brunet summoner nodded to the Maester's question drawing a quizzical look from him. "Well then, why have you come here?" The half breed Maester stared at the young summoner until she finally answered him a moment later.
"I came... I came to stop you!" Yuna declared in a trembling and stuttering voice as she began to walk over toward where her friends and guardians stood atop the flight of stairs. As the honey brown haired teen moved toward her friends they came down to meet her on the ground floor as the rest of them came into the room at that very moment.
"I see. You came to punish me, then." Seymour said whilst Yuna backed up behind all of her friends and they filled in in front of her, brandishing their weapons ready for the imminent fight. "What a pity. Ah, of course. "Protect the summoner even at the cost of one's life." The Code of the Guardian. How admirable. Well, if you're offering your lives, I will have to take them." The twisted Maester stated as he drew out his crimson headed staff and two Guado guards came to stand at his flanks and aid him in the upcoming battle.
"Maester Seymour." Yuna got the half breed's attention focused fully on herself instead of everyone at the same time. "I trust my guardians with my life. But they are also my friends. I will not stand by and watch them be hurt. I will fight you, too!" The young summoner proclaimed brandishing her staff in front of her chest, gripping it tightly around its blue shaft.
"You're going down, Seymour!" Lauren shouted with pure hatred apparent in her voice that no one in the group had ever heard the usually cheery teen utter. "You're going to pay for everything that you have done!" The blonde guardian charged at the vicious Maester at speeds that she had never gone before except for back on the frozen lake when she saved Yuna from the Al Bhed crawler's mana beam.
"So be it." Seymour said calmly as he and his Guado guards prepared for the initial strike from Lauren in all her furry.
Lauren rocketed toward Seymour, her katana dragging her right arm far back from the amount of air friction tugging at the blade from the teen's intense running speed. The twisted Maester stood unflinching with a sinister smile spread across his thin grayed lips staring at the blonde as she made her way closer and closer to him with each passing second. Soon the blonde guardian was upon the half breed Maester and brought her right arm with the katana in her grasp in front of her body and then over to her left side, slipping the katana blade into its sheath hastily. The sadistic half Guado half human still didn't make any actions to guard himself against the blonde teen's upcoming attach as she drew a few feet away from him. The sixteen year old guardian flung her right arm out suddenly with implausible speed, brining her katana out of its black leather sheath to move with her arm.
As if on cue, a circular blue aura shot up in front of Seymour as the Guado guard to the Maester's right preformed various gestures with his hands and arms. Lauren's katana struck the spherical azure glow in front of the sadistic Maester with enough force to cut clear through just about any substance that stood in its way. A loud thud resonated off of the blue colored barrier sending the blonde and her katana back through the air a few feet, landing on her back. The blonde teen shot back onto her feet, gripping her katana tightly around the cloth covered hilt in her right hand, and stared at the half breed in confusion. The Maester smirked at the perplexed expression painted upon the teen's face and explained what had just happened since it appeared she had no idea. "How do you like my barrier? It protects me from all physical attacks that you could assail me with!" The twisted man laughed manically at the expression of utter astonishment and wonder the young woman gave him.
"Kimahri handle this!" The mighty Ronso guardian rushed past Lauren, his lance poised out in front of him in a manner that would skewer anything or anyone in its path. His spear head slammed into the blue barrier that surrounded Seymour with a loud crack that everyone could only assume was the spear shaft snapping in half. The blue furred guardian glanced down at his lance and was dismayed to see that the shaft had indeed been snapped in half by the collision between it and the Maester's physical attack barrier. The half Guado laughed at the Ronso as did the Guado guardians on either of his flanks as the guardian tossed aside his now broken spear. Instead of giving up, the powerful Ronso guardian lashed out with powerful swipes from his massive, clawed paws. He swiped his commanding paws at the sadistic half breed, but just as his lance they, too, were merely parried away by the impermeable defense the Maester was surrounded in.
"Hey Lulu!" Lauren got the attention of her black mage friend with her random holler as she ran up toward the crimson eyed guardian. "Sine he's immune to physical attacks hit him with some of your magic!" The older guardian nodded whilst raising her right hand up preparing to launch a thundara spell straight for the sadistic Seymour's heart. The garnet eyed mage abruptly pulled her hand down and to her right side unleashing a second level lighting spell upon the half Guado. The half breed flinched in minor pain as the thundara spell sizzled off of his flesh, leaving a smoldering patch on his skin on his chest. Right away the Guado guard on the Maester's left turned to face his master and tossed up some sort of clear blue vial that exploded above the injured Maester's head. Out of the vial came a light blue aura that showered down upon the twisted half Guado half human, healing his wounds on contact.
Auron strode forth, brandishing his massive sword upon his right shoulder, staring down the Guado guard to the right of Seymour with a death gaze. The legendary sword master charged at the Guado guard on the right and brought down his colossal blade down upon its head. The Guado attempted to but up a barrier around itself just as it did to its master but it was too late, the assailing guardian's sword had already begun to sink into his flesh. The guard began to writhe in pain but was stopped abruptly when the swordsman followed through with the initial hit by bringing his blade down through the flesh of the Guado, severing him in half. As the two halves of his guard fell to the ground with a softened thud, Seymour casually glanced over at the one eyed guardian with no expression apparent on his face what so ever.
Rikku propelled her self toward the Guado guardian on the opposite side of where Auron had cleaved the other one in half as fast as her agile legs would carry her. The blonde Al Bhed rounded closely to the Guado guardian once and then again, but did nothing, much to the surprise of the guard and Yuna, who was watching her cousin with intense eyes. On her third time, however, the adolescent Al Bhed did do something that neither the guard nor young summoner could have guessed she was going to do. Her jade swirl eyes were wide with mischief as she preformed a flick of her wrist at the guard's belt that was lashed about his waist that almost neither of the onlookers could see. Then, as if nothing had happened, the blonde trotted away from the perplexed Guado guardian who then reached for his belt for some unknown reason. The cheerful Al Bhed turned around to note the expression of awe that was clearly plastered upon the guard's face as he franticly felt for something on his belt.
"Looking for this?" Rikku said playfully while turning completely around on her heels, brandishing a small brown leather pouch with a gold buckle fashioned to the front to keep the container sealed. With a slight flip of her right index finger, the adolescent Al Bhed flicked the buckle up revealing its contents. Sitting in the tiny brown leather pouch sat a bunch of tiny lucid blue vials that stored the healing elixir that the Guado had used on Seymour after he got struck by Lulu's thundara spell. Upon seeing his wide eyed and angered expression, the blonde Al Bhed turned back around, slipping the diminutive leather pouch containing the healing elixirs into a much larger one lashed to her waist. Then she began to continue her trot back toward Yuna and the rest of her friends that weren't up near the sadistic Maester.
"You little…" The Guado guard muttered at Rikku when she was about halfway between him and the Al Bhed's friend. "You will pay!" The guard raised his right arm up but kept his elbow bent a bit while placing his left hand on the bottom his wrist as a sort of stabilizer for his next move. Ice crystals began to whirl around the Guado's outstretched right hand and began to materialize into one solid ice sickle hovering an inch from his gloved Guado palm. With a sudden push of his right arm he sent the unusually large ice sickle hurtling through the air toward the blonde Al Bhed teen, the air that it passed through became chilled on contact. The adolescent Al Bhed turned back around to face the guard after he vowed revenge on her for pilfering his potions just in time to see the ice sickle only a few feet away from her chest.
Rikku attempted to evade the hurtling ice sickle by sidestepping it to the right but it was too late for her. The chilled ice sickle smashed into her left shoulder with enough force that tossed her back through the air about five feet while it dug into her flesh. The blonde teen let out a cry of sheer anguish that pierced everyone's ears causing them to cover them in order to not suffer ear damage from their friend's screams. Seymour on the other hand, just stood there watching with an almost admiring expression painted upon his face at the suffering of the jade eyed guardian. A cold spot, solder than anything that she had ever felt before, began to spread throughout her entire being as the ice sickle almost passed completely through her left shoulder. Her eyelids became heavy and soon slid shut unwillingly, passing the blonde Al Bhed into an icy unconsciousness.
"Rikku!" Yuna hollered to her now unconscious cousin, who lay on the chill tile floor of the temple's dome shaped room with an ice sickle through her left shoulder. The honey brown haired summoner tore off from her spot next to Tidus to go aid her cousin with her healing magic. "Hold on, Rikku." The young summoner breathed as she got to the unconscious Al Bhed's side and trained her staff at the ice sickle wound in her left shoulder. "Cura!" Upon request by the summoner's words the white colored healing aura emitted from the tip of her multicolor headed staff, immersing the injured blonde in the strange yet pleasant feelings of the healing magic. The ice sickle melted away within an instant from which the healing spell wrapped itself around the incapacitated Al Bhed teen. The hole in the jade swirl eyed Al Bhed's left shoulder slowly began to fill in with fresh skin and bone making her shoulder as good as new.
Rikku's jade swirl eyes leisurely fluttered open to see Yuna standing over her with a very concerned look upon her already troubled face. "Rikku, are you alright?" The young summoner's voice was shaky and juts barely loud enough for the blonde Al Bhed to make out what she had said. Without saying a word, the adolescent Al Bhed smiled up at her compassionate cousin whilst came up into an upright sitting position. With tears of happiness in her bi-colored eyes, the brunet summoner whipped her arms around her now uninjured cousin, resting her chin on the blonde's right shoulder. The blonde Al Bhed returned the embrace that her cousin wrapped her in and patted her on the back with a tender hand.
Tidus came up next to the two embracing cousins and placed a brief comforting hand on each of their shoulders before heading back off toward the Guado guardian standing fifteen feet from him. As the blonde blitz ace approached, the Guado attempted to squeeze in the casting of a barrier spell for himself to protect him from the teen's wrath but was too late in his efforts. The blonde blitzer came to a halt in his swift charge just a few feet in front of the Guado guardian, brining up Brotherhood back behind his head as he did so. He unleashed his attack with one fluid motion that brought his blade down on a downward diagonal slash from right to left. The blitzer's blade left a deep gash extending down from the Guado guard's left shoulder, trailing down across his chest and off his torso. The Guado fell back from the blitz ace's strike backed up by all his moment he had been storing up since he began his charge at the guard.
"Let's see how well you do on your own without those cheap guards!" Lauren shouted at Seymour as he stood all by his lonesome in the wake of his two Guado guards, an evil smile still plastered upon his twisted face. "Yuna!" The blonde guardian's words got hold of the attention of the young summoner causing her to turn toward her friend wondering what she wanted to say. "You have some kind of spell that can get rid of his barrier, right?" The honey brown haired summoner nodded before she turned to face the sadistic Maester, gripping her staff tightly in both her hands. With a flick of her staff, the young summoner sent a wave of off colored magic to engulf the half Guado half human Maester. The blue colored barrier around the twisted man quickly dispelled in a show of a few pale lights, leaving him open to any attacks that Lauren or her friends would throw at him.
Kimahri, still standing only a few feet from the sadistic Seymour, lashed out at the Maester with a massive punch that contained the force of an oncoming train. The blue furred guardian's forceful blow struck the blue light barrier surrounding the half breed sending a loud crack resonating off the bowed walls and domed ceiling. The twisted Master glanced down at his stomach where the mighty Ronso guardian had struck his shield to see that the barrier was cracking under the pressure of the Ronso's commanding strike. With an outburst of strength, the Ronso pushed his already powerful blow with extra force that didn't seem possible at all to anyone. The additional power pressed into the blow sent his blue fur, clawed fist straight through the screen in front of the Maester with a splintering crack. The Ronso's fist smashed into the twisted half breed's stomach sending him sailing through the air back about twenty feet and onto the flight of stairs leading up to the chamber of the fayth.
Recomposing himself, Seymour stood up and unhurriedly strode down the stairs and stood tranquilly at the base of the stairs. "What a feeble attempt on my life." The warped Maester's voice was as low and as chilling as ever, raising the hairs on the back of everyone's necks including Auron's and Kimahri's. "You will pay for inferiority with your life." As those chilling words left his mouth, the half human half Guado raised his crimson headed staff in front of his body in his unusually large hands. Around the crimson decoration attached to the end of the Maester's staff whirled remnants of a fiery orange aura that hastily began to materialize into more than just an aura. Within the next few seconds a grand orb of red and orange flame appeared hovering a few inches in front of the half Guado's staff. With a sudden push of the sadistic Maester's right arm the sphere of red-orange flame was sent hurtling toward the Ronso guardian.
The brilliant red-orange fireball whizzed through the air toward the Mighty Ronso guardian, superheating the air around it into a dizzy haze. As the sphere of flame neared the blue furred guardian something that no one could make out zipped through the air over the Ronso's head, striking the fireball. A loud sizzling noise sounded throughout the dome chamber as the two orbs muscled for their right to continue on their path. Clouds of steam made their way up into the top of the dome chamber as a high pitched squealing sound echoed off the arched walls of the chamber. At the sound of loud searing the second sphere broke through the Maester's fireball in a massive puff of smoke. The mysterious orb rocketed through the air before striking the half Guado half human Maester in the face. The blow from the object sent the half breed sailing back through the air a few feet before landing on the back of his head with a loud thud.
Everyone looked behind Kimahri to see who had tossed the spherical object that had just saved to Ronso's life. "Whoa, Wakka!" Lauren exclaimed as the orange haired blitzer's blitzball returned to his arms in its original white and blue form instead of the water lagged form it had just been in to save the mighty Ronso guardian from the sadistic Maester's fira spell. "Way to go! You just saved Kimahri!" The blonde haired teen congratulated the blitzer for saving the blue furred guardian from the imminent doom the red-orange sphere of flame posed.
"I… I can't believe I just hit a Maester." Wakka stuttered, his arms shaking as well as his legs in horror at what he had just done to a keeper of his religion. Lauren came up to the distressed blitzer and stared him in the eye with an agitated look in her turquoise eyes.
"Can it Wakka!" Lauren shouted straight into the face of the orange haired blitzer drawing shocked glances from all her friends. "You know he's bad and yet you still feel bad about attacking him! I just don't get you, Wakka! You should be all for killing this sicko after what he has done and what he plans to do!" The blonde teen's shouting caused the big blitzer to cower in fear of the fury of his friend as she glared at him with piercing turquoise eyes.
"You two are amusing." Seymour said while laughing maniacally at the opposite feelings the two friends had about fighting him. Lauren shot the warped half breed a death glare signaling that she wasn't going to take any more crap from him. "Ah, I see you still want to fight. Then let me oblige to your wish with this. Feel my pain! Come, Anima!" The Maester summoned the twisted and disturbing monstrosity of an aeon that he had summoner back in Luca in the blitzball stadium to eradicate all the fiends that were assailing all the onlookers of the match. After the aeon had been ripped from its own dimension by the massive chained anchor, it let out a cry that was both fearsome and yet filled with some unknown pain that couldn't be explained.
"Oh, that's not good." Lauren muttered under her breath, trying to keep her fear hidden from her friends as well as Seymour for he would certainly make his own uses for it. Anima's lone, pain filled eye began to charge up the same energy that the blonde guardian had witnessed back in Luca that annihilated a fiend on impact. When she saw the aeon's single eye trained on her, the blonde teen muttered something under her breath before taking off in an attempt to avoid the powerful attack. The female aeon's head shot back with the immense recoil from its own attack sending it soaring through the air toward the plot of ground that the sixteen year old guardian stood upon. The tiles were blasted asunder by the aeon's overly powerful attack, creating a decent sized crater where it stuck the tile flooring. The blonde teen felt a hefty wind push at her back as her feet began to rise off the tiled floor as she ran away from the attack's impact zone. The blow sent her sailing through the air until she came in contact with Auron who was standing not more than ten feet away from where the explosion rocked the room.
Before she collapsed on the chill tiled floor, Lauren was gripped securely at the collar by Auron's muscular right hand. The legendary guardian set the young woman back upon her own feet with movement that was so gentle she couldn't believe that it was him placing her back upon her feet. The blonde teen gazed up at the taller swordsman with wonder in her turquoise eyes, questioning why he had been so tender with her that time and not any other. "Well, are you just going to stand there or fight?" The one eyed guardian's sharp words brought the teen out of her state of bewilderment and went back to concentrating on the fight at hand. The sword master let out a diminutive grunt of his agreement to going back to focusing on the battle against the warped Maester's equally deformed aeon. The blonde guardian and the eldest guardian stood side by side, weapons in a battle ready stance, staring down the disturbing aeon that resided before them.
Auron charged Anima head on, his massive blade dragging along the ground to his right instead of its usual position resting upon his right shoulder. While the warped aeon was being distracted by the legendary guardian's charge, Lauren rushed around behind it to scope out a weak spot where she could strike it while it was preoccupied. The master swordsman, upon entering the aeon's proximity, brought his colossal sword up along the ground, carving a disfigured gash in the tile floor in front of the aeon. The one eyed guardian's immense blade dug into the flesh of the gigantic fish aeon's front side right below its two crossed bulky arms. The horrible aeon let out a cry of anguish causing everyone in the domed room to shudder in pure fear except for Seymour, who seemed to actually be enjoying it.
After recovering from Anima's shrill cry, Lauren noted a spot on the aeon's back that appeared to be some sort of weak spot in the otherwise impermeable flesh. The blonde guardian poised her katana above the spot where the two plant leaf like things came up and split from one another, exposing a minuscule soft spot. The teen plunged her katana blade down upon the supple speck on the aeon's flesh, but stopped when she felt something chill approaching rapidly from behind her. Her turquoise eyes filled with terror as she turned to see a gigantic ice sickle hurtling through the claustrophobic air in the domed temple chamber. The blonde tumbled to the left side of the ice sickle, eluding the spell as it neared the fish aeon's back and then suddenly melted harmlessly away. As she shot back up from her crouched position out of her side roll, a sudden sharp pain shot through and up her left leg. Her turquoise eyes fell down upon her left leg to see that the wound she had obtained back on the frozen Macalania lake had broken open, crimson blood leaking through her jean pant leg.
Seymour strode up to the injured Lauren and glared down upon the blonde with eyes full of pleasure at her pain. The twisted Maester slowly reached his unusually large right hand down at the teen and wrapped his gnarled, chilled fingers around her smooth, slender neck. The blonde guardian let out a small gasp at the iciness of the half breed's fingers as they pressed down upon her neck with incredible force. The blonde's turquoise eyes shot wide open in anguish as she gasped for air that would not come to her lungs while the Maester's Guado hands squeezed her neck firmly. With one fluid motion of his right arm, the half Guado half human lifted up the incapacitated and now suffocating blonde teen. The teen guardian's brain screamed for oxygen as her lungs began to fill up with carbon dioxide and burn with a fiery vengeance. Her eyelids grew heavy and her vision began to blur with black haze, fogging her entire field of view from her brain.
Seymour began to snicker menacingly at the sight of the blonde teen being suffocating to death in his very hands. Out of nowhere a bold voice shot through the darkness of the world around the blonde at her assailant. "Let her go now!" Brotherhood slammed down upon the back of the neck of the twisted Maester causing him to drop his victim from the attack's momentum. The sixteen year old guardian's mouth shot wide open and brought in a deep breath of air to restore oxygen flow to her burning lungs as well as the rest of her trembling body. Her turquoise eyes fluttered open leisurely while also bringing up both her hands to rub her distressed eyes to relieve the black haze that enshrouded her vision. Removing her soft hands from her eyes, the blonde teen gazed up to see the sadistic Maester pushed back twenty feet from her and Tidus standing in between her and the half breed.
"You're not going to get away with any of this!" Tidus declared while pushing off of the plot of tile floor he had been standing on sending him rocketing toward Seymour at his top speeds. "Your reign of terror ends now, Seymour!" The blonde blitz ace shouted at the top of his lungs while brining brotherhood in his right arm up and around in front of neck whilst twisting his torso to give his next strike additional momentum. Leaping into the air, the blitz ace brought his crystal blue sword down in a diagonal slash from left to right, untwisting his torso to add the extra force he required. The sadistic Maester brought up his crimson colored staff in the path of the blonde's blade with a careless motion of his right arm. Brotherhood reflected off the warped Maester's staff with a noisy clang of metal on metal and was sent spiraling through the air backwards. The tip of the blue crystal blade sank into the tile flooring of the domed temple chamber with ease, wedging itself in there so tightly that it couldn't be pulled out with a simple yank.
Seymour began to laugh diabolically in his usual low, chilling voice that sent chills down anyone's spines that was present when he opened his gnarled mouth to speak with his forked tongue. "Now who were you saying was going to pay?" A crooked smile slid upon the warped Maester's thin grayed lips as he raised his crimson colored staff, lighting jumping from one outward jutting piece to the next. The lighting's hopping became more and more frequent as it began to solidify into one think, snaking bolt that wrapped itself around the Maester's staff just as an anaconda constricts its prey. The twisted half breed flung his right arm out in front of him and down from its raised position, unleashing his captured lighting bolt at the immobile blonde blitz ace. As the lighting bolt zipped through the air it created a superheated trail behind it just as the red-orange flame sphere had done before it.
Lauren winced in pain as she stood upon her feet to shout at her blonde friend to get out of the way of the thundara spell being hurled at him by Seymour. "Tidus, get out of the way!" The sixteen year old guardian's voice did not seem to reach her friend's ears for he continued to stare awkwardly at the lighting bolt looming ahead of him. Mustering all of her strength and pushing through the intense pain in her left leg, the blonde teen rushed over to where her blitz ace of a friend stood motionless. As the blonde guardian ran for her friend she stumbled in pain every few feet, but even the severe pain shooting up through her leg and up into her left side didn't stop her from rushing to her friend's aid. Seeing no other way to reach her stationary friend, the blonde teen leapt into the air in a forward diving formation to tackle the blitz ace out of the way of the thundara spell.
Tidus felt Lauren's right shoulder strike his side and lift him off his feet sending him and her sailing through the air to his right. The lighting bolt zipped through the space where the blonde blitz ace stood only seconds before, superheating the air in its path. The sixteen year old guardian's turquoise eyes clenched tightly as she felt a searing pain jolt up from her left leg in the exact same spot as her wound from the Al Bhed crawler. The ensuing blast from the spell sent the blonde teen soaring back through the air about thirty feet until her back slammed into one of the arched walls of the domed chamber. Before she hit the wall, the small black trinket that she had been harboring in her front jean pocket all the way from Besaid came sliding out of the pocket. As the blonde guardian landed on the tiled floor with a softened thud, slamming her face onto the chilled tiles whilst knocking the air out of her lungs, the minuscule black trinket came to a sliding halt at the sadistic Seymour's left foot.
"Lauren!" Yuna hollered to her injured friend from her spot staring down Anima while her remaining friends battled the terrible fish aeon. With a few motions of her summoner's staff, the honey brown haired summoner began to perform the summon for the new aeon she acquired at this temple. With a slight and humble bow with her arms outstretched down to her sides, the young summoner called forth diamonds of ice from out of the sky. The rather large diamonds of ice buried themselves into the tile ground, forming a small prison of ice behind the bi-color eyed, bowed summoner. Down from the very heavens that the ice prisms had come forth from descended a figure with skin that shimmered in a metallic, multicolored glow. The shimmering figure descended into the center of the prism of ice before flicking her head up triumphantly, dispersing the metallic shine to make way for her real bluish, purplish colored skin. With a flick of her right arm, the ice aeon discarded a piece of silver cloth from around her neck, shattering the ice prison that had formed around her into tiny shards of razor sharp ice.
Shiva drew back her right arm and placed her left hand at her wrist just as the Guado guardian had before her. Around her folded back, open palmed hand ice crystals began to whirl around in the most peculiar way, almost as if they were charging up for something to come. Within a few seconds of the ice crystals forming around the ice aeon's right hand she thrust it out in front of her toward the diabolic fish aeon that stood before her. As if out of nowhere, a huge gust of chilled wind shot through the room from behind the ice goddess, washing over the fish aeon residing in front. Massive ice ridges began to form over and around Anima, freezing the aeon into a fixed position by a prison of ice. The ice aeon took her left hand away from her right wrist and flipped her right arm around so the back of her hand was facing her frozen opponent instead of her flattened palm. With a leisurely snap of her middle finger and thumb, the ice goddess shattered the frozen prison that had formed around the fish aeon into millions of diminutive shards.
Anima let out a twisted cry of anguish as the zipping shards of ice dug into its fish scale like flesh, tearing its two massive chained arms to shreds. As the demonic fish aeon wilted away into pyreflies, Yuna rushed over to where Lauren was now laying upon the chilled tile flooring after being flung against the wall. The young summoner, without any hesitation, aimed her lightweight summoner's rod down at the injured body of her blonde friend. "Cura!" The brunet summoner shouted sending the white healing aura wafting down over the injured blonde guardian's body in a gentle manner. After the healing aura washed over her body, the sixteen year old guardian attempted to make a move but was stopped short as a searing pain shot up from her left calf muscle. The honey brown haired summoner, seeing her friend still in pain, sent another wave of the second level healing magic coursing through the blonde teen's injured left leg. The teen once again tried to move but was thwarted once again as the sharp pain shot up through her left leg and through her entire being.
"Rikku!" Yuna's words broke the adolescent Al Bhed concentration on staring down Seymour and brought her full attention on her cousin's call. Hesitating for only a moment, the blonde Al Bhed rushed over to the young summoner and the injured Lauren, who still was flat on the floor with pain. "Can you mix up some medicine, Rikku? My healing spells just aren't working." A lighthearted smile crept onto the blonde Al Bhed's face as her cousin asked her to mix something up to heal their friend.
"Yup-yup!" Rikku exclaimed whilst rummaging through several of the tiny pouches lashed around her waist containing various items and other objects. Upon finding the three vials that she desired, the adolescent Al Bhed whipped the vials out and twirled them between her fingers. A second later the blonde produced a small mixing vial in which she poured the contents of all three of the previous vials. With a swift flick of her wrist, the blonde Al Bhed popped a cork into the small opening at the top of the vial that now contained all three vials sloshed together. To mix up all three fluids, the blonde took the vial in her right hand and shook it violently up and down for about twenty seconds. The mixing done, the Al Bhed uncorked the vial and went over and kneeled down on her knees next to Lauren's injured left leg. The blonde Al Bhed slowly poured the contents of the clear vial onto her friend's burn and gash wound causing the teen to wince in pain at the slight stinging sensation the liquids forced upon her.
"How does that feel, Lauren?" Rikku asked in a soft and concern wracked voice that caught the sixteen year old guardian's attention through the slight stinging pain in her left calf. The blonde teen spread her arms out to their respective sides and pushed upon the ground as though she were doing pushups.
Pushing herself up off the ground, Lauren responded to Rikku's question as she then continued to push herself around so that she was sitting instead of in a push up position. "A lot better, Rikku." The blonde teen looked down at her left leg to see that both the burn mark and the deep gash in her calf were no longer there and that the pain had subsided. "Thanks." The sixteen year old guardian pushed herself up off the floor and back onto her own two feet while smiling friendly at the adolescent Al Bhed.
Off in the distance Seymour bent over and reached his gnarled hand for the black trinket that had come to a halt at his right foot. Wrapping his long fingers around the golden chain that was fastened to the object, the warped Maester repositioned himself back into an upright position. "Ah, I see you have kept this all this time since Besaid." The half breed's low chilling voice hissed, echoing off the bowed walls of the dome temple chamber.
"What is that?" Rikku queried to Lauren, for she wasn't with her, Tidus, and Wakka when they rescued that villager, thus acquiring the jet black trinket.
"I got it back on Besaid after Tidus, Wakka, and I saved this villager from a few coyotes the day we washed up on the island." Lauren explained how she and the two blitzers had obtained the very small black, gold chained trinket that Seymour now held in his crooked Guado hands. "I don't know what it does but the man said that it was the key to unlocking a great power, or something like that." The blonde teen glanced over at her friend to see if she understood all that had been said to her about the item.
"I've been longing for this moment ever since that man gave this to you." Seymour caressed the tiny black trinket with his left unusually large hand while holding it up by its golden chain with his right. "Now I will finally control a power strong enough to bring nothing but pain and suffering to all of Spira!" The half Guado half human Maester tilted his head back and put his arms out to their respective sides and let fly with maniacal laughter.
Lauren gawked at the demented Seymour as his laughter brought nothing but anger and fear into her heart as well as chills down her spine. "What are you talking about, you sicko! What power are you going to control that could enable you to do such terrible things!" The blonde teen strode up in front of the laughing Maester, katana in hand and giving him an icy glare. "And why was I your delivery girl!" The sadistic half breed's laughing halted at the blonde's inquiry as he slowly shifted his head down to stare at her with soulless gray eyes.
"Before I answer any of those questions. I have a special quest waiting behind that door," Seymour thrust out a gnarled finger at a crimson colored metallic door that suddenly appeared in the wall to his right. "that I think you would like to see." Without the Maester doing so much as a hand gesture, the metallic door flung open with a loud swoosh sound, catching everyone's attention. Out of the doorway stepped a young man about Lauren's age with a completely confused look plastered upon his face. He had black matted hair, appearing as though he had been locked up in a cell for some time. His blue eyes were wracked with depression and uncertainty as he stepped out onto the tile floor of the domed temple chamber. His black shirt was wrinkled all over and had dirt spots strewn about it as well as his black jean pants that were a little baggy on him.
Lauren's turquoise eyes shot wide open with shock, horror, and a dormant affection that had been sealed within for too long. 'Is that... No it can't be, can it?' The blonde teen continued to stare wide eyed at the young man standing not more than fifteen feet away from her. "Brian? Brian is that you?" The sixteen year old guardian's voice was just barely loud enough for everyone around her to hear, let alone the jet black haired young man standing farthest away from her.
'Who is this girl?' Brian stood still in front of the metallic door he had just emerged from with a perplexed look sitting upon his face as he was deep in thought. 'And how does she know my name?' His azure eyes glanced over to Lauren and seeing that she was trying to talk to him broke his line of thought and listened to what she had to say.
"Brian it's me, Lauren." The blonde teen proclaimed, striking another familiar cord in the young man's mind as he gazed into her pleading eyes. "Brian, don't you remember me?" The blonde inquired while staring into the jet black haired young man's eyes with a very distressed look on her face as well as in her eyes. "It's been over a year, but how could you forget me? You and I were…" Her turquoise eyes began to fill with tears after realizing that he wasn't remembering who she was to him. "How could you forget me? We loved each other!" She cried, tears making their ways down her cheeks and off her chin, creating small specks of water on the tiled floor. Everyone in the domed room gawked at their friend in astonishment; even Auron raised an eye brow and seemed to be paying attention to the blonde teen's heart being ripped in two.
Seymour began to chuckle demonically as Lauren collapsed to her knees, bawling her eyes out in the palms of her hands. "It seems that you reacted more to this little event more than I had hoped." The twisted Maester's words cut through the blonde teen's sobs and tacked right onto her heart as a reminder of what had happened here for years to come. "You are more amusing than I thought possible." The sadistic half breed's laughter brought the six teen year old guardian back upon her feet, tears still streaking down her chin.
"Wha… what did you do to him, you sadistic bastard!" Lauren screamed at the top of her lungs while flicking her head upright to stare at Seymour, tears shedding off her face and splattering everywhere. Her turquoise eyes flared up with anger but still retained the deep sadness that she felt.
"What did I do? I didn't do anything." Seymour snickered with pleasure at the amount of suffering he was inflicting on Lauren with every passing second. "I'm not the one you want if you are going to take revenge for your fallen love. Oh, but don't worry. My master is taking real good care of your darling's memories of you and everything else he has ever known." The half breed went into some more maniacal laughter upon noting the horrified expression on the tear streaked face of the blonde.
"Who is your master, and where can I find him!" Lauren queried in an angry voice that did little but amuse Seymour even more than he already was.
"You are in no position to ask me such questions." Seymour stated, an eerie smile creeping upon his thin gray lips as his words passed them to send chills down Lauren's spine. "Maybe if you beat me you will be in such a position, maybe." The twisted Maester began his diabolical laughter once again as the blonde guardian began to speak.
"Then I'll just have to beat you then, won't I?" Lauren declared, bringing up her katana's hilt up next to her face, the blade stretching out toward Seymour on a horizontal level. The blonde shifted her footing so that she would be standing with her left side facing toward the sadistic half breed, her katana poised at the right side of her head.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Seymour warned Lauren whilst holding up the jet black trinket in the palm of his right Guado hand out in front of him several inches. The trinket residing in the Maester's right palm began to glow in a deep crimson and black resonance, emitting the same colored aura from the center of the item. "It's a curious thing, the human mind. It can decipher anything when it is put to good use but when fear comes into play all that is erased and replaced with pure instincts. Fear for one's life makes them do things that they would never do normally. Being able to control one's fears allows you to control them as a whole. With this very handy article one is able to control the fears of others, thus controlling the person themselves. And controlling one such as yourself, where your truly destructive powers are unleashed by certain emotions would prove to be much use for anyone, like I, that wishes to have power to have that power indirectly through the one they are controlling." The sadistic half Guado half human said as if he were a professor of something as the deep crimson and black aura made its way from the trinket to whirling around the blonde teen's head.
Lauren stared at the whirling crimson and black aura around her head with her turquoise eyes still filled with tears. All of a sudden the aura turned from a gentle wafting to a violent gust that shot into the blonde guardian's head, knocking her to the ground. Seconds later the six teen year old guardian returned to her feet, her blonde locks over laying her turquoise eyes. "La… Lauren, are you alright?" Rikku queried as she drew closer to her friend that was now standing with her blonde hair over her eyes and her katana in her right hand. The adolescent Al Bhed placed a hand on the sixteen year old guardian's right shoulder to cause her friend to face her or at least respond to her question. The blonde teen's right arm suddenly jolted out and struck the Al Bhed teen in her gut with the hilt of her katana. The blonde Al Bhed doubled over in pain and collapsed onto the tile floor while staring up at her assailant in wide eyed terror. The blonde guardian's usually turquoise eyes were now a piercing crimson that gave off a demonic feeling that put a gut wrenching terror into the adolescent Al Bhed.
"Lauren… what are you doing?" Yuna queried to her blonde teen friend who had just struck Rikku in the gut with her katana hilt violently without any regard for her friend's well being. The blonde guardian whirled around on her heels, her katana at neck level for the young summoner, glowing with a deep amethyst radiance. The katana's blade suddenly jumped out from where the tip of the blade was out to where the brunet summoner stood in shock. Kimahri leapt through the air toward the honey brown haired summoner as the possessed blonde's energy charged katana came in from the other side. The mighty Ronso guardian tackled the young summoner just a few inches under the arching blade stroke that sailed above them.
"I can sense the fear and suffering in all of you." Seymour began to laugh in the most demonic way he had since the group had entered the temple and began to speak with him. As if those words were a trigger, Lauren whipped her katana around in her right hand and then brought it back behind her with both hands without turning to face her quarry. The sadistic Maester let out a noise that sounded as though he was being suffocated as the possessed teen's violet glowing blade sank deeply into the flesh of his chest. Without so much as turning to face her victim, the blonde wrenched out her katana blade from within the warped Maester's chest with a startling crack as some of his rib cage was shattered into mere fragments. "Wher… ho… did I go wrong?" The half breed's words escaped from his thin gray lips in winded breaths, blood trickling out of his open mouth as he fell back onto the chilled tile floor.
Finally turning around to gaze at her handiwork, Lauren's now glowing crimson eyes seemed to grow brighter and more violent than before. The possessed blonde teen shifted her gaze around the dome room, scanning it for her next victim with her blood red eyes through locks of golden hair. Her eyes finally fixed themselves on Brian, a bloodlust growing larger and more unfathomable by each passing second. Slowly stalking over to her next victim, the possessed teen raised her devilish amethyst katana blade above her head in her right hand. The young man pleaded in unheard words as the sixteen year old guardian came nearer to him with each passing moment. The blonde guardian came to a halt about two feet in front of the jet black haired young man, who was frozen in fear, his deep azure eyes meeting with the possessed blonde's blood red glowering ones.
The possessed Lauren dropped her right arm down to her side, bringing her radiating amethyst katana down upon Brian's head. In mid swing; however, the possessed blonde teen felt something cold and hard strike the back of her neck causing her to stop her assault on the helpless young man. The momentum from the unknown blow sent her falling forward her vision fading to black as she tumbled closer and closer to the chilled tile floor. The bloodlust red glow in her eyes slowly began to diminish as her eyes narrower until they were back to their natural turquoise color. The blonde guardian struck the floor with a soft thud jolting her now back to normal eyes open for a split second to see the edge of a red coat flutter by her face before she fell into complete darkness.
Even though Lauren's sight and thoughts had left her, she could still hear and feel things around her in the domed chamber. She felt herself being lifted up onto a muscular man's shoulders and felt an unusually large collar brush past her right cheek as she was hoisted up. She then felt herself being carried around by the same person that lifted her up and then heard footsteps hurrying down the corridor that led into the domed chamber. Seconds after the footsteps had stopped, she could hear people yelling back and forth between one other and then the sound of something shattering. Then she heard some more shouting and then felt herself being carried hurriedly through a corridor that felt as cold as ice. After a few minutes of being in the chilly room, she felt herself being carried out of the frigid temperature of the chamber and into a much larger, warmer one. Then after a few seconds of running through that chamber she found herself in another chilly room but the sound of wind rushing through the canyons around her told her that she was outside.
Lauren felt herself be shifted from her carrier's right shoulder to his left as the wicked cries of random fiends broke through the darkness. She felt a sudden jostle as her carrier assailed a fiend, slaying it in one simple stroke of his massive blade. Then she felt herself being carried as her carrier took flight again from an unseen force through a whistling wind filled passage. Then her captor laid her down onto something that was solid with a chill that seeped through her clothes and touched her skin causing her body to instinctively shiver slightly. Loud, thundering footsteps sounded off signaling the arrival of some rather large fiend and also explaining why her carrier had laid her down. The clashing of blades against ice and the shrill bellows of a fiend in pain rang through the blonde's ears as her friends fought off the yeti like fiend that the Guado's had sent on them. A few moments later she heard the sound of the great beast giving way to her friends' attacks and crying out in deep throated pain. The next second she felt the fiend smash its immense fists into the ice sending cracks jutting out in every direction from the point of impact. The teen felt the ice below her give way to her weight, plunging her into something that she didn't have the slightest clue what it was. As she plummeted, the blonde could sense her hearing and touch go numb, leaving only empty thought and darkness in their wake.