Chapter 31 – All That Is Left to Do
Paine stood on the deck of the Celsius, gazing up at the lifeless skyline above her. The iron curtain of clouds let no sunlight pass its watch, dimming the earth below. Much like the squeezing knot in her chest, she couldn't find a word to describe how destitute the sky above made her feel. Three days, each one feeling like an eternity, had passed since Yuna died.
To measure the depths of the raw, guttural anguish imprinted in Paine could not be calculated with any machina in Spira. With Yuna nothing more than a forgotten cluster of stray pyreflies, her heart shattered. A hollow silence replaced the familiar, cheerful laughter belting from the halls of the Celsius. Rendered speechless from Yuna's death, Paine knew not where to retreat to. Rikku locked herself up in the cabin, hiding underneath her bed's coverings. Without his idol, Brother quietly wallowed on the bridge next to Buddy. Shinra buried himself in his laboratory, only exiting for food.
No one wanted to even suggest the idea, but a funeral arrangement needed to be made, least of all Paine. With tensions boiling around Spira, how could it be made known that the world's beloved hero died? No longer could her beautiful smile greet whomever she met; her tender heart no longer graced Spira. Pushing away the issue from her mind, Paine wrestled with her grief.
She had made friends before—Baralai, Gippal, and Nooj. Though she cared about each of them, and would gladly have given her life to save theirs during her time in the Crimson Squad, her relationship with Yuna was different. It existed outside any she had before. Whether her friend realized it or not, Yuna tore down barriers Paine used to ward off those who would get too close to her. Feelings and deep connections were not something she managed well. She didn't reject the desire to have close friends or to love someone. The notion just left her unsettled.
On the third day after Yuna's death, Paine pushed herself to face the reality that the cornerstone of the Gullwings was no longer alive to comfort the team. Entering the cabin, Paine glanced over at Barkeep, who quietly wiped down the bar. With his head down, he looked up at Paine. Without a word, she nodded at him and kept walking to the stairway. At the top, she saw the sheets atop Rikku's bed bundled up like a rolling hill. Paine could feel her palms moisten with sweat. Blowing out a long gust of air, she walked over to the bed and sat down next to the Rikku-shaped hump.
"Hey," she whispered.
The hump shifted, emitting a tiny whimper and a sniffle. Paine reached out, patting Rikku on the back. She pondered what to say next; words of comfort didn't flow easily from her mind.
"I won't lie. I don't know how to make this all better," Paine said. "But I'm here for you, Rikku."
Letting out a muffled sigh, the covers shifted again. Rikku emerged from underneath her hill of bedsheets and blankets. Her face, reddened by days worth of tears, showed the stinging pain reeling inside her. The anger burning in Rikku's spiral green eyes shocked Paine.
"The only thing that will make this better is to kill, Kinoc. I want revenge," Rikku muttered under her heavy breath.
If Paine shared one desire with Rikku, it was to eradicate Kinoc. It didn't matter how many more times they would have to do it, but Paine wouldn't rest until she obliterated him from existence. For Yuna's sake, she thirsted for vengeance.
"I think he's causing trouble in Bevelle. It's all over the Sphere broadcast stations."
Rikku perked up. "Really?"
Paine nodded. "Yeah. Something tells me he knows about Yuna."
"Then for Yuna, we can't let him win," growled Rikku.
Her red eyes filled with the same rage as Rikku's eyes, Paine helped Rikku out of the bed. Both girls took the lift up to the bridge, where Shinra had the news in Bevelle on full blast.
"A quarter of Bevelle is burning in flames as an unknown attacker has let the loose war in the heralded city," blared from the CommSphere.
The Gullwings all huddled around Shinra's screen, watching the carnage unfold. Numerous Bevelle soldiers and New Yevon priests lay dead in the streets as people fled the city. Behind them, an army of fiends ran amok through the city square.
Shelinda continued her battle-scene reporting. "It's complete madness in Bevelle. Guards are continuing to get killed as these attacks pummel on. We've received unconfirmed reports that the origin of this attack may have come from the bowels of Bevelle itself."
With those few words consummated into their minds, the Gullwings all knew who was behind this attack. At the worst of times, Kinoc unleashed his army of fiends and unsent onto Spira, starting in Bevelle. Just as both Shinra and Yojimbo had feared, Spira was thrown back into a gauntlet of fear. Even more so, the Gullwings knew it was up to them to defeat him. For one last time, they would have to be strong for Yuna.
"If we're gonna be serious about this," rallied Buddy, mustering up all his resolve. "Then we need a game plan. Kinoc isn't going to just let us barge in without a fight."
Rikku nodded. 'I don't care how we do it, but I want him dead. Dead enough so I can go to the Farplane and kill him again!"
Paine stood, arms tightly folded against herself. "Just get us to Bevelle, Buddy, and we'll kill Kinoc. That's the only plan we need."
Buddy nodded, and without words, Brother hopped into the cockpit and sped for Bevelle. He rammed down the accelerator, pushing the limits of the Celsius. It wouldn't take much time for Kinoc to spread his forces outside of Bevelle, making time the utmost importance. A mixture of tears, sweat, and anger perspired from Paine. She charged her fury against Kinoc; she yearned to see him burn for his crimes.
Keeping his focus on the current situation, Shinra noted that the unsent were admirable fighters. Although this did not surprise Paine, as many locked in the dungeons of Bevelle were warriors of the past. she readied for a prolonged, agonizing battle. Zooming over the trees of Macalania, Paine saw the airship closing in on Bevelle. Landing on the outskirts of the city, the girls rumbled out of the Celsius. Brother wanted to come too, but Rikku refused his participation. While she wanted him to fight, she knew the enormous danger of tangling with Kinoc. Paine agreed. They would be just a pair this time.
"C'mon, I'm ready to kill this bastard!" fumed Paine, attaching her sword to her back.
Rikku nodded without hesitation. Sprinting in a blind rage, the girls rushed into the city. They came upon a retreating line of temple guards. One of them, with a trickle of blood flowing from his hairline, knelt in front of them. He fired a volley of shots, killing a fiend closing in on their position. This seemed in vain, as for every fiend fallen led to two more charging forth. Rikku lobbed a grenade into the clutter of fiends, blowing several of them into slimy pieces, staggering the guard.
"Where did you come from?" he gasped, nearly toppling over.
"Don't worry about it. How bad is the situation?" asked Paine grimly.
He looked at the girls with a terrified look. "Devastating! I've lost so many men, I can't begin to count. Fiends are destroying the city everywhere. How could this have happened?"
"Maester Kinoc, that's how," replied Rikku, to the guard's puzzlement.
Without another word, the girls dashed ahead, hacking and slashing their way through the horde of fiends. Not stopping to rest or even catch their breaths, Rikku and Paine had only one thing in mind, driving them to the brink of reckless fury. Turning the corner, they came to the long, gilded path which led to the grand temple in Bevelle. Paine knew that this was where Kinoc controlled his forces. The temple area, to her disbelief, stood almost void of fiends.
Rikku looked around, scratching her head. "Where are the fiends? I don't get it?"
Paine shrugged. "Did he send them all out into the city? If he really left himself this unprotected, he is nuts."
Paine entered the courtyard, peering around for signs of trouble. In the distance, they could hear the battle raging on. Yet here, she encountered no fiends. Numerous bodies of dead soldiers littering the ground did little to quell the nauseating feeling she had. Truly surprised when she noticed the large doors to the temple itself were hanging open, Paine got a chill from all the carnage around her. She wondered, did Kinoc dare to invite them inside? Regardless of what he may have plotted, Paine pressed forward.
Climbing over a stack of bodies in front of the blood-stained doors, Rikku and Paine entered the temple. Empty inside, Paine tensed up at the eery silence. There were no bodies slumped on the ground nor vicious fiends running astray. Rikku walked up to the main lift, set to descend into the lower levels. With this confirmed, she and Paine hopped onto it and began their descent. Rikku stood trembling, clenching her fists tightly.
"Hey, hang in there," Paine spoke, placing her hand on Rikku's shoulder. "We still need to do this, for Yuna."
Rikku looked up at her, nodding. "Yeah, I know, but . . . but it's my fault Yuna did this!"
Paine's eyes shot open wide. "Rikku! This isn't your fault. There was just too much weighing on her. Please, don't blame yourself."
Rikku shook her head violently. "No, no, you don't understand! Right before she did it, we had a big fight! I slapped her—oh, what have, what have I done?"
Paine embraced Rikku, tears pouring down her chest. She realized, with Yuna gone, she needed to take care of Rikku. Where else could she go for comfort, being that she was now without her cherished cousin? Paine always felt a little jealous of their close connection. Because of Yuna's death, she feared Rikku would succumb to the grief, and share the same fate as Yuna.
The platform shuttered to a halt. Reaching the lower levels of Bevelle, the girls searched around for fiends. They found none, again greeted by an eery silence. Puzzled at this point, Paine wondered where their enemy hid. Crossing through the Cloister of Trials without incident, the girls reached the gigantic expanse of Bevelle's deep underground. The sight still impressed Paine. The dim humming of machina motors echoed throughout the expanse. Using the same trick they saw Gippal pull off, the girls slid down long, ebony chains to the central structure. The light murmuring of machina crescendoed into a blaring roar, as a huge metal machine stomped by them. Hiding in an alcove, they glared at the lumbering mechanical beast.
It appeared heavily armored, making a loud clanging noise with the impact of its steps. The ground reverberated underneath their feet. Mounted on each arm hung a bulky machine gun. Paine realized her sword would be of little use against the thick armor plating it had. They would have to find another way besides blitzing it. Rikku focused on attempting to disable it. Creeping over to a better vantage point, Rikku narrowed her eyes and examined the machina. As she thought, a small control box jutted from the back of its body.
"Psst, hey Paine. Do you see that?" she asked, pointing to the box of blinking lights on the backside of the machina.
Paine nodded. "Yeah, what about it?"
"If I can hack that, then I can shut down the machina."
Paine looked at her with hesitation. "Alright, how are you going to get to it?"
"Well, I can jump on its back and disable it."
"Hey, I thought we weren't going to charge this thing?" grumbled Paine.
"Oh, that's right." Rikku paused for a moment. "Hey, if I can shoot some kind of electrical charge at it, I bet that'll knock it out. Or at least stun it long enough to access that box."
"Okay, how do we do that?" questioned Paine, raising her eyebrow.
Rikku smiled big. "Over there."
She pointed to an enormous bundle of cables running down one of the security towers. If she could cut one of them, she explained, she could use the electricity running through it to shock the machina. Paine shrugged, thinking that plan seemed as good as any. Paine questioned how would they sneak up on the mechanical beast with a sparking cord. Rikku rubbed the back of her head and told her friend that she better cover her.
When the machina had its back turned, Rikku crawled over to the bundle of cords. Little light shinned in the massive chamber, providing her with plentiful shadows to slink through. Taking out one of her curved blades, she sliced a handful of the cords from the tower. A burst of sparks flooded out from the cord, sending a rain shower of bright yellow electricity all over the platform. Rikku told it to shut up to no effect. Attracted by the crackling fireworks erupting from the bundle of cords, the machina turned around, spotting Rikku.
"Uh, oh. Paine!" she bellowed as she dodged the machina's machine gun fire.
Paine rushed over to the metal beast, swinging fiercely with her sword. It made a beautiful clang on the armor of the machina, ringing out a lovely chord. Paine looked up at the machina, which had its massive gun pointed directly at her head. Suddenly it began to glow electric blue. Paine leaped out of the way, as the smoldering giant crashed to the floor. Behind it, stood a smug Rikku grasping her sparking cord. The box on its back, partially melted, smelled of liquified metal and burning wires.
"Nice job, Paine!" she exclaimed, giving her a thumbs up.
Paine glared at her. "Nice job? That thing was ready to blow off my head!"
The floor began to shake as the sound of screeching echoed around them. From each of the security towers emerged another lumbering machina, the same as the one they just defeated. Rikku gasped and gritted her teeth.
"Uh, Paine. I think we need some more cords."
Paine grabbed Rikku's arm. "I think we need to get outta here!"
Dragging Rikku along with her, Paine jumped down the circle of platforms. Gracelessly they leaped through steel double doors, nearly getting shot to shreds by the machina. Out of breath, Paine leaned against the wall while Rikku wobbled around in a daze.
"Okay, that was a little too close," huffed Paine, herself slumped over.
Rikku shook her head, snapping out of her dizziness. "I think we're getting closer to Kinoc."
Through the dark corridors, they discovered numerous fiends lurking. From little lizard-like creatures to gigantic fire-breathing hulks, they realized just how outnumbered they were beneath Bevelle. Paine did her best to lead Rikku around these encounters, rather than fighting every fiend that crossed their path. They eventually came to the platform where they had originally uncovered the plot between Kinoc and Shuyin. Now at a dead end, nowhere in sight was Kinoc or anyone else.
"Damn, where could he be?" rumbled Paine, searching around madly.
"I don't get it. This is all I remember there being. Could we have missed something?" Rikku questioned, walking around and scratching her head.
Paine sighed. "Beats me. Unless this place goes deeper."
"Hmm, ya know, I wonder," whispered Rikku, who began walking back into the corridor. "Even though I was fading in and out, I remember there being a secret elevator in the wall."
"That's right! I remember a priest taking us up to you through one of those. Good thinking, Rikku!"
The girls brushed their hands against the wall, searching for some sort of panel or hidden latch. Reaching the end of the corridor, Paine felt something rough against a section of otherwise smooth metal panels. Stepping back, she noticed it was just slightly off-color from all the rest. Again walking back up to it, she firmly pressed her hand against the rough area. A green glyph phased into existence, and the panel lifted, revealing a hidden elevator. They walked onto it, looking for some sort of control matrix. On the back wall, they found one; it had two arrows, one pointing up, and the other pointing down.
"Well, I guess that makes the decision pretty easy," chuckled Paine.
Pressing the down arrow, the elevator rumbled and began descending further into the depths of Bevelle. Screeching to a halt, the elevator doors opened, exposing a mysterious sight to them. Neither of them could have imagined that the Bevelle underground could have possibly gone deeper, but it did. A short corridor led to a vast expanse. In the center of it glowed a symbol. Rikku moved up to it cautiously, peering intently at it.
"Looks like a teleporter of some sort," she declared to Paine.
Paine folded her arms together. "I can only imagine where it leads."
"Only one way to find out . . ."
With Rikku's famous last words, the two stepped onto the glowing teleporter and instantaneously found themselves in the middle of a bleak, dank corridor. Water dripped from corroded pipes on the ceiling above them. At first, Paine believed they were back to the beginning of the underground. Trekking onward, they came to a turn and found themselves being pounced on by a ferocious dragon-like fiend. It roared as the girls rolled out of its path. Paine reached for her sword and dove in for a slice. The fiend sidestepped her nimbly for its sizableness. Rikku growled at it. She lobbed a grenade in its way, blasting it right in the face. The fiend quickly deteriorated into a swarm of pyreflies.
"Whew! That thing really scared me," she said, whipping the sweat from her forehead.
Continuing onward down the corridor, they found it led to another corridor. No sooner did they turn the corner did a trio of flying fiends rush at them. They were the one-eye kind Paine hated the most. One swooped down almost knocking Rikku off her feet. A second shot a burst of energy at Paine, causing her whole body to sting in pain. Rikku went to slice it with her blades, but it agilely flew above her slash.
The third one, in conjunction with the first one, both flew down at Paine. Not to be squished by these flying devils again, Paine twirled her body around, swinging with her sword fully extended. Like a tornado, she cleanly cut both fiends in half. Emitting a squeal of fear, the second fiend retreated into the darkness. Paine threw her sword behind her, scoffing at the cowardly fiend.
"Man, where's Yuna and her guns when we need 'em?" she joked.
Then she immediately looked over at Rikku, who sadly stared at the ground. Quickly realizing her mistake, she took Rikku by the arm, prodding her to continue. Upon getting to the end of the corridor, they came to another teleporter. Stepping on this, they came to yet another long corridor, but this one seemed different than the last. Without any other option, they continued down it. More fiends populated this hallway. The two girls handled them as well as they could, and made it to the end, although this seemed like a never-ending task. At the end of this was another teleporter. However, hovering above it was a floating fiend. While not huge in stature, its pitch-black color gave Rikku the chills. Paine recognized it as an elemental creature, although she had never seen a black elemental before.
"Hey Rikku, watch yourself. Killing this thing might be tough," she warned.
Rikku nodded, giving Paine a confident smile. "We'll just pull through as always, huh."
With that, the girls ran towards the fiend, yelling loudly at it. Rikku started tossing grenade after grenade at it, causing a spectacular array of colorful explosions. Unfortunately, none of these seemed to have much effect. It floated too high above Paine for her to reach it with her blade.
"Rikku, try to lure it down!" she bellowed, racing behind, or what she thought was the behind, of the fiend.
Not quite sure how to fulfill her friend's request, Rikku started jumping up and down, waving her arms in the air like crazy. The fiend took the bate and lowered itself closer to Rikku. Paine began to charge it but stopped when the fiend fired off a catapulting magical attack. Rikku found herself caught by a radial sphere exuding black magic. The explosion sent her flying backward, and she spilled hard onto the ground. Paine screamed, and leaped at the fiend, slicing it. Much like the grenades, this had no effect. It merely shot the same magic at Paine. Though not as injured, the blast wiped Paine to the floor. She wiped a trickle of blood from her forehead and grunted at the fiend.
She noticed Rikku had gotten back on her feet. Relieved to see her friend alright, Paine held her sword in front of her body. Both girls shared a look, both knowing they weren't able to beat this fiend. Paine flinched her head towards the teleporter, and Rikku nodded. Paine darted for it, racing as fast as she could. Rikku whipped a grenade at the fiend, it exploding right around it. Then she ran for the teleporter as well. The fiend made one last attempt to defeat them by powering another magic attack. Barely escaping it, they teleported out of the room just before being consumed by the impact of its blast.
For a moment, they both knelt on the ground, catching their breaths. That was the closest they had come to death since escaping from Macalania Temple. Paine had to laugh at herself. She would have figured that death wouldn't seem so dangerous with as many times as she encountered it. She guessed it seemed so prominent with Yuna's death fresh in her mind, but now wasn't the time to brood. This time she found herself in a rather large arena-like room. It seemed devoid of fiends, which did nothing to comfort her.
Paine rose, carefully walking into the arena behind Rikku. A bright flash blinded both of them. The appearance of a tall figure suddenly loomed before them. Instead of some horrific fiend, an old man paced toward them, although he did not appear fragile. He wore a tattered priest's garb.
He spoke with a withered tone. "Dare you seek the past of Spira? My lord Kinoc expected you. This place you should have avoided at your own peril!"