Why hello, I'm back updating probably before you expected me to--I decided it's time to get this show on the road! (Another looooong chappie for you, by the way. If you don't like action much, you won't like it XD) I'll be busy this weekend, so expect another update by Wednesday the 27 for certain, if not before then! THANK YOU SOO MUCH to all who reviewed--let's break it down:
Motet: Nope, Aya isn't related to Lulu, or anyone we know! The only person of her real family that we'll see (if only briefly) is her older brother. Like she says, her father is rarely home, and her mother is dead, soo... but, nope, not in any way related to Lulu. Thanks for reviewing yet again :D
7w7: I'm glad!This is gonna be a coool fic, I promise XD Thank you for reviewing!
DarkAnimePriestess: I'm really happy you liked it! Thanks for the review!
Paine3: Haha,I believe you! You may have heard the name Aya if you've read the manga or watched the series 'SuperGALS!', like me XD Her name was originally Ayako, but after writing her a little bit, I shortened it to Aya, because I thought it suited her a little better.
...ooo...
As Aya led the way down the dimly lit tunnels, everyone was getting increasingly anxious. They hadn't spotted one single fiend yet, and they could tell by Aya's silence and the focused look on her face that she hadn't a clue where they were.
"Aya… where are we?" Rikku asked, quickly glancing at Paine when she realized how frightened she sounded.
"I'm… not sure," Aya admitted. "This is a big basement, though, and it could take awhile to search."
"Should we split up?" Paine asked.
"No, no," Aya replied, shaking her head in such a way that made her pigtails flop all around. "That would be dangerous. If you got into trouble, I couldn't transport us out if I didn't know where you were."
Paine nodded in understanding, a thoughtful look on her face, but said nothing more on the subject. A skittering noise from behind them successfully made everyone jump about a foot off the ground. Aya was the first to whip around to gaze upon whoever had snuck up on them, and they found it was an extremely large crop of fiends—about ten, to be exact.
"Time to fight!" Aya yelled. "Everyone take two!"
Paine smiled slightly, focused her gaze on two fiends that were headed toward her, and drew her sword. Tightening her grip as her smile grew, she charged at the lizard-like fiends. She swung her heavy sword at the yellowish one to her left, and it was sent reeling backward. The greenish one to her right charged at her, but met her blade instead of her leg. It too was sent reeling backward, while the yellow one made another run toward Paine. She jabbed her sword at it's tail, completely severing it. She stuck her sword through the green one, and with another slash at the yellow one, she abandoned the dead fiends and went to help anyone else who needed it.
Rikku had rushed forward, blades drawn. She crossed them, and then put them in front of a purpleish lizard's face, and quickly pulled them apart, leaving a huge slash across its face. She stuck both of them into a yellow one's head, and returned to the purple one, imitating what she had just done with the yellow one. She saw Paine finishing up with hers, and ran over to meet her.
Lulu hadn't even moved—she just cast her most powerful fire spell on two of them, and both were burned to an absolute crisp. She quickly turned to see how Aya would be handling hers.
When she had rushed forward, she had thrown her right hand out in front of her. With a loud 'HAH!', a huge, completely controlled blaze erupted from her palm, enveloping two lizards. It was such a powerful spell that her hair was wipping around, and her eyes were squinting with what was perhaps the difficulty of keeping the spell up. She closed her hand into a fist, and the fire stopped, hardly even leaving a pile of ashes of the fiends she had gotten.
Yuna was still struggling with hers—she had shot both of them at least four times, and yet, they were still charging at her. She quickly donned the warrior dressphere, and, using the giant sword, disposed of them without a problem.
That left the battle over, and all the girls were slightly sweating and panting—all except for Lulu, of course. They all stood over the remains of the fiends as they caught their breath.
"I can take care of this—" Aya muttered. She snapped her fingers, and the remains erupted into flames.
"That was a powerful spell," Lulu commented. "Why not use one like this?" she asked, pointing towards the pile of burning fiends.
"Not powerful enough to kill them," Aya said. "I've fought them before when I've been down here. If I used that spell, I'd have a burning fiend running at me, and that wouldn't be good, now would it?"
Lulu, Rikku, and Yuna all giggled. Paine looked as though she was fighting a smile, but nobody commented about it.
Aya continued walking, and the rest of the girls followed her. "So, what's down here that the fiends would be guarding, anyway?" Rikku asked.
"I'm not sure," Aya said in an almost thoughtful tone. "It could be anything, really."
"D'you think that the fiends could be guarding Wakka and Tidus?" Rikku asked.
"Maybe," Aya replied. "But they've always been here, ever since I started exploring."
"Who would want to put Wakka and Tidus down here, anyway?" Yuna wanted to know.
"Who kidnapped them is a better question," Lulu said. "If we knew that, then we might know where to look."
"Do we even know anything about that?" Rikku asked.
"Nothing, other than that it was a woman," Lulu said sadly. "I think we'd better go and talk to the Blitzball shop owner while we're here, though."
"Good idea," Paine agreed. "Let's ask him more questions about the kidnapper, and see if that gets us anywhere."
"He said before that she was wearing a long, hooded, black cloak, so I doubt we're going to get anything more on her looks," Lulu told them.
"I'd like to know more about how she made them disappear," Paine said. "I mean, she must have been magic, because there's really no other way to make them disappear."
Aya suddenly perked up. "You know, the motion for transportation spells is pretty universal," she said.
Yuna, Rikku, and Paine all looked slightly confused, but Lulu seemed to understand. "She means that, as you've seen, mages do different motions to get their spells. You've seen mine, and you've seen two of Aya's—she can snap her fingers or make it come from her palms. The motion for mages to do transportation spells is the same for all of them, though, because it's such a cut-and-dry spell."
Yuna and Paine were nodding in understanding, but Rikku was still looking clueless. "What she means is, we can ask him what the person did before they made Tidus and Wakka disappear, and if she did the motion for a transportation spell, then she has to be a mage," Aya finished for Lulu.
Rikku's eyes widened in comprehension. "OH!" she said loudly. "I get it now! See, I would have never guessed that."
Paine looked extremely tempted to say something, but she didn't. All of the sudden, as they turned a corner, Rikku screeched at what she saw. Four gigantic Chimeras, standing there as if they had been waiting for the five girls to come along.
Rikku latched on to Yuna as she whimpered in fright. "Th-those are HUGE!" she said, voice quivering noticeably. Ordinarily, she wasn't afraid of them, but these were literally MEGA Chimeras.
"Let's fight em," Paine said, drawing her sword.
"But… but… but…" Rikku stuttered.
Paine's eyes narrowed as she turned to look at Rikku. "Here," she said, chucking a garment grid at Rikku. "If you want to feel safer, change your dressphere."
Rikku donned the Berserker dressphere, and suddenly seemed much more confident.
"Weaknesses," Aya said from behind them, "are the middle head and on its stomach between its two hind legs. Absorbs thunder magic," she added to Lulu. A smile spread across her face, and she said, "Go to it!"
She bent down and slammed the palm of her hand flat onto the ground. The Chimera in front of her was suddenly enveloped in a geyser of water that shot up from the ground. It collapsed into a heap, breathing heavily. Aya snapped her fingers and a gigantic lump of ice appeared out of nowhere and enclosed the Chimera as it made a yelping noise. After another powerful water spell, the Chimera had stopped breathing all together, and Aya went over to help someone else.
Paine charged at the Chimeras, sword drawn. She chopped off the rightmost head of one in one fell swoop, and proceeded to make a long gash down its side. It didn't seem bothered by the gash, probably due to its thick skin, so Paine jabbed her sword at its stomach, not entirely certain she had found the right place. After the roar that the Chimera made, she became certain. She plunged her sword into its stomach again, and it fell down, panting. She ran back to the front of the Chimera, where the two remaining heads were laying on the ground, breathing heavily. One more swing of her sword, and the Chimera was dead.
Rikku, still frightened, had simply followed Yuna. Yuna swung her sword almost clumsily at the Chimera's heads, and it reared back onto its hind legs. In a burst of confidence, Rikku ran under it as it was reared up and ran her claws all along the weak spot, getting out just before it fell back to the ground, growling in pain. Rikku ran around and began clawing at its faces, while she yelled to Yuna, "Go get it on its stomach!"
Yuna obeyed, and ran around to its side. She put her sword under the Chimera's stomach, and sliced. The Chimera let out an even louder growl, and whipped around to face Yuna. She managed to sink her sword into the middle head, while Rikku was trying to claw at its underside. The chimera collapsed. Yuna and Rikku turned to Lulu, who had been casting multiple water spells, and at last, the Chimera fell.
Aya surveyed the scene once the battle was over. All the girls were panting heavily, save Lulu and herself. Like she had with the last batch of fiends, she snapped her fingers and lit them on fire to make sure they were all dead, and watched their bodies dissolve into pyreflies. "Let's get going before more come," Aya said at last. Leading the way, the girls continued down the passageway, positively dreading the next fiends that would come their way.
"It seems like they just get bigger and bigger," Rikku was saying. "First, there were those little tiny lizards—I can handle those. But the jumbo Chimeras? Uh-uh," she said, shaking her head.
"Rikku," Paine said, an edge of annoyance easily noticeable, "you didn't even get hurt when we fought the Chimeras, so what are you complaining about?"
She did her famous 'Rikku giggle'. "Um, well, since I've never seen a freakin' Chimera that big in my life…"
"They were unusually big," Yuna commented thoughtfully.
"Don't expect the fiends down here to be normal," Aya said. "Whatever they've got down her, it's guarded pretty good."
"I wish we could find out," Rikku said longingly. "It's really buggin' me!"
Yuna giggled. "We'll see how far we get."
Aya was looking ahead of them thoughtfully as they walked. "You know, since we've got plenty of people, we probably could find out what's down here…"
"Tell me more," Rikku said, smiling slightly and quirking an eyebrow.
"I was always scared to go really far by myself, because I believe as you get closer, the fiends pop up more. Sure, if I was missing for long enough Ryuen would figure it out and come get me, but he's basically useless at fighting, and I don't fancy getting eaten by a fiend," she said with a grimace. "Since there's plenty of us, I think we could do it!"
"Ryuen?" Yuna repeated.
"My brother," Aya said.
"Oh, that's right, sorry."
Aya turned to Rikku. "So, whaddaya think?"
A smile stretched from ear to ear on Rikku's face. "Let's do it!"
With renewed confidence, Rikku and Aya sped in front of the group, laughing, as they turned a corner and hurried down a random path, hoping that it led them to the secret treasure of the basement.
...ooo...
Sooo...? I thought I did an okay job with this, but let me know... writing action is a little different, but, hey, I tried XD Review, please!
Thank ya muchly,
Lulala