Hey guys! What up! I don't think I've put up a disclaimer yet on any of my chapters... hrm... well... I don't own FFX, if I did, then I wouldn't be as poor as I am... Although, Sonja, Ark, Rufio, Rye, Lucientio, the Assassin Corp, SkahZev, the moonbloom, and pretty much anything else that seems too cool to be part of the original FFX bruha is mine... Hah! Now that I have officially said that, I can say this... PROSECUTERS WILL BE VIOLATED!Actually, I don't own Lucientio's name... Shakespere does, but I'm borrowing it with every intention of returning it!

Well... this chapter was fun... I was planning on making it longer, but then I decided it was a good place to stop it where I did... Hey! Kym! Hnu! I wrote this one on my own! No help from Matt! Woot! It's gonna suck though... I think... whatever... R&R!

In the Summoner's Shadow
Part II Chapter IV

Assassin: n a person hired or hirable to commit murder paid the assassin
synonyms: bravo, cutthroat, gun, gunman, gunsel, gunslinger, hatchet man, hit man, torpedo, trigger man; compare: MURDERER
Merriam-Webster's New Thesaurus of the English Language

Rye looked up from his book when he heard the door open. He looked out of Sonja's room and down the hall, smiling when he saw Rufio and Ark walk in with giant smiles upon their furry faces. He chuckled and stood, greeting them as they walked in to check on their lieutenant.

"Have fun?" he asked. Rufio nodded.

"Ark get man good!" Ark smiled. Rye chuckled.

"Lieutenant wake up?" Rufio asked.

"Ah… for a little while… she's doing a lot better… she's not mumbling to herself like she was before you two left, but she's still having trouble staying conscious. She'll wake up every now and then and stay awake for thirty minutes or so, but then she's right back out," he sighed.

The twins both sighed and flipped their tails worriedly.

"Generals tell Rufio give Rye this," the white-pawed Ronso handed Rye a scroll. The older Ronso took it and sighed, unrolling it.

"What's that, another assignment?" Sonja's sleepy and slurred voice asked as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Rye turned to her and smiled.

"Yes, but I'll decline," he told her while pulling a pen out of his sash. Sonja blinked.

"What? No! Don't decline," she yawned.

"They gave us this too quickly. You need to heal first," he told her. She shook her head.

"No, I'm good. Nice and healed, ready for work!" she smiled. Rye shook his head in disapproval.

"It won't do you any good, working yourself as hard as you'll have to right after being poisoned with the most deadly thing on Spira…"

Sonja ignored him and climbed out of bed. She put on her wolf skin clothes and looked around for her weapons. She found her knife and stared at the blade, looking thoughtful. Ark stared at her, worried she might try something.

"You know…" she sat down on her chest-of-drawers. "There's something I've noticed… then again, this could be the moonbloom talking… but you notice our world's name is one letter off from 'spiral'? Doesn't it strike you as odd that we are actually in a spiral? A spiral of life and death, prosperity and debt, sickness and health, marriage and divorce, war and peace, love and hate, animosity and endearment, light and dark, religion and false doctrine, Summoner and Aeon… Sin and the calm… a never ending spiral of obscurity that leads us down the drain of life to a long bit of nothing for the rest of eternity…" She kept twirling the knife in her hand, as if mesmerized by the blade.

"Yup… you're going back to bed," Rye told her after a short pause. She blinked.

"Um, no! I'm taking this assignment!" she told him. He shook his head.

"Um, no, you are not." He commanded.

"Ark! Go tell the Generals I accept!" she looked past Rye and ordered the white Ronso to do her bidding.

"Ark! You leave this room and I'll skin your white hide!" Rye warned, but Ark was already gone. Rye growled, but Sonja just smirked. He sighed. "Fine, but I'm going with you!"

"Alright," she shrugged. "So, who's worthless- yet so high priced- life will we be ending this time?" she asked, waiting at the door for Rye to finish packing his weapons.

"Don't freak out about this…" he warned her. "But it's a Summoner,"

Sonja stopped playing with a strand of her hair. She stared wide eyed at the floor.

"What!" she blinked.

"Don't worry… it's not your father…" he assured her. "His name is Lucientio,"

She growled slightly. Sonja followed Rye out the door and down the hall to the ramp leading from their sub-ocean floor base to the hut that kept their door secret.

"Well, come on… let's get this over with," she sighed. Rye stared at her worriedly.

"Are you not okay with this?" he asked. She blinked and looked at him.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Do you have something against killing Summoners?" he asked. She scoffed.

"Oh, no. Nothing at all! Only the fact that my father is a Summoner!" she growled. "But we are not allowed to speak of our job outside of the base, and you know that!"

Rye blinked, then chuckled, somewhat discouraged that he was corrected by a five year old child.

"So, where do we meet this guy?" she asked. He looked down at the scroll.

"Well, according to this, he's heading for Macalania…" Rye shrugged. Sonja nodded and then smirked at him.

"Think you can keep up?" she asked as she crouched down and prepared to run. He chuckled and shook his head.

"No, I'm too old for that," he smiled. She frowned.

"Oh, come on, Rye… you're not that old!" She told him. "Although, you are pretty old…"

"Oh, thanks a lot…" he rolled his eyes. "Fine, you know what? You're on!" he smiled and started running. Sonja giggled in joy and chased after him.

He was fast for an old Ronso, but Sonja was definitely faster. Usually, she crouched down to allow less air resistance when she ran, but as of now, all she did was run like she would walk—upright—and easily outdistance him. However, she decided to be nice to him and allow him to catch up with her. She smiled and flung her arms out, enjoying the wind blowing through her hair and caressing her body. She could resist it no more. She ran as fast as she could and laughed joyously.

"Come on, Rye! Man, you're old and slow!" she shouted, urging him to hurry. When he didn't, she grumbled and sat down on the ground, holding her ankles in her hands while sitting cross legged.

"Yes, well, the older you get, the better you are!" he called towards her.

"Unless you're a banana…" she shrugged. He stopped and blinked. He was frankly surprised that she would think of something like that. He laughed and kept walking to catch up to her. When he finally did, she was staring at him with eyes full of wonder and curiosity.

"Rye, how old are you?" she asked. He blinked, then shrugged.

"I don't know… pretty old?" he chuckled, trying to regain his breath. Sonja tilted her head to the side.

"How old is 'pretty old?'" she asked. He rolled his eyes.

"I don't know!" He told her.

"You don't know how old you are? That's not right!" she grumbled. He cocked an eyebrow in amusement.

"Well, it's not that I don't know how old I am, it's just that I don't want to tell you," he smirked. She looked up at him with the biggest, most puppy like eyes she could manage.

"Pwease?" she stuck her bottom lip out. He sighed in defeat.

"Well, let's just say I've seen every High Summoner ever…" he smiled. She blinked.

"And how many have there been?" she asked. He blinked.

"What, did you not pay attention in history class before you were officially inducted into the training league? You know you have to pass history, mathematics, reading, foreign language, phys Ed, health… stuff like that…" he reminded her.

"Well, I paid attention and all and passed all the tests, but I never found any use for them…" she tilted her head to the side.

"Knowledge makes you all the better at being what you are. If you retained all that knowledge they offered you in those classes, then you would never fail to perfect your job, no matter what or who the target."

Sonja rolled her eyes and stood up.

"Can we go now?" she asked. He nodded.

"Yes… I feel much better…and what about you? How is the moonbloom treating you?"

She shrugged as if she wasn't concerned about it. He smirked at her and laughed a bit before walking beside her.

"That's my Lieutenant for you," he smiled. "Always able to shrug off what would kill anybody else…"

They were silent then on, and traveled the rest of the day, except for Sonja's occasional stopping to relieve herself. Rye had his moments, too, but being older and more developed of body, he didn't have to stop as frequently. Around sundown, they decided to stop for the night and rest.

Sonja wrapped herself up in her cape and sat, facing the fire. Rye sat opposite her while he roasted a random animal he hunted. He looked up from carving pictures in a bone and gazed at Sonja, who was hugging her knees and staring into the fire, as if mesmerized.

"I know you're the residential pyromaniac, but a simple camp fire can't be that entertaining, can it?" he asked. She blinked and raised her head.

"Huh? What? Oh… no, not really…" she shook her head and looked back down. Rye set his work aside.

"Okay, speak up. What's wrong?" he demanded.

"Just thinking…"

"About?"

There was a silence for a short time, then Sonja let out a deep sigh through her nose and closed her eyes.

"Rye… do you remember your parents?" she asked. He blinked.

"Well… I don't know… I mean… it's been a long time since I last saw them… they died at least five hundred years ago… why?"

"I don't know… just wondering… I guess I'm just missing my daddy…" she hugged her knees tighter to her chest and wiped her eyes. Rye sighed sympathetically.

"Tell me what you remember about your father," he said softly. Without really realizing she was doing so, Sonja began to describe the man she loved so much.

"He's not really short, but not really tall… he has beautiful long bluish hair with the prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen! I always did love his eyes, and spent almost all of my spare time braiding his hair. His voice was strong, yet kind… and his hands… soft and loving when they were needed, and hard as metal when discipline was needed to be enforced… but it was always in a simple manner. I don't recall him ever once intentionally hurting me or Yuna… he might have, but I've forgotten…"

Rye started carving again. He actually wasn't listening to her, but he kept his expression interested to encourage her to talk her problems out with herself.

"Every moment he wasn't preaching the Yevonite teachings or healing someone, he was making paper dolls with Yuna or wrestling with me, or even sometimes we'd just all go on walks together and chase after SkahZev just for fun… our favorite game to play was tag… he was always it! He was always the slowest, come to think of it…"

Shink. Shink. Shink. Rye continued to carve. He glanced up when he heard Sonja yawn and watched as she laid down, her eyes half closed and her head on her arm.

"After dinner every night, he'd sit Yuna and me down and give us lessons on the teachings, then we'd play a game together… nothing much… just a simple memory quiz or role-playing thing… sometimes we'd even change our shoes, and act like whose ever shoes we had on… after that he'd race us to our room and after we were all tucked in and SkahZev was comfortable at the foot of the bed, Daddy would lay down between Yuna and me and we'd have one last race of the day to see who could go to sleep first… then in the morning, he'd open the window and let the warmth of the sun and the noises outside wake us up, unless it was our birthday or a holiday, in which case we got to sleep in…"

Silence…

Rye glanced up one last time when he heard a soft rhythmic snore coming from Sonja. He smiled and ate dinner, then fell asleep, his head on her side to keep her safe and keep her warm.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be the father you were used to… I could only be a friend and a protector in our terrible, awful world…" he muttered, rubbing her head before he himself drifted off to sleep.

ANYHOW! How was it? Good? Bad? Evil? Downright ominous? Go ahead! Review! Tell me what you think! Free Rum to those who review! (And Bubbly for all you LDS folk!) Luv Ya'll!