Back with another quick review! The chapters just keep getting longer... I promise I'll shorten em up a bit, cuz this is honestly reeeeally long! THANK YOU SO MUCH to all who reviewed:
7w7: Very glad you like it :D Thank you for reviewing!
Motet: Why, thank ya! Thanks for reviewing, as always!
DarkAnimePriestess: I'm glad you thought it was good! Thank ya kindly for sending a review my way!
Paine3: Ah, I've never seen Fruits Basket. Enjoy the new chapter, and thanks for the review!
...ooo...
Yuna, Lulu, and Paine hung back as Aya and Rikku dashed around a corner. They continued walking normal paced, following the sounds of Rikku and Aya's laughter.
"Neither of them are being serious," Paine grumbled. "We're not here to find some silly treasure—we're looking for something so much more important than that."
"Aya's just a kid," Yuna reminded Paine gently. "And Rikku… well, she's only a year older, and she…"
"Acts like a child," Paine promptly finished for Yuna. "I know, but it's not an excuse."
"Aya did say before that the mysterious thing that's down here could be Wakka and Tidus," Lulu reminded Paine. "And if that's true, then looking for it isn't a waste of time."
"She also said the fiends have been here ever since she started exploring," Paine said. "Which was definitely before yesterday, by my estimations, since she knew exactly where a Chimera's weak spots were, and she doesn't look like she could lift a sword, much less swing one."
"So she's smart, then," Lulu said. "Researching fiends is as easy as reading a book."
"She's sixteen," Paine reminded Lulu sharply.
"She's incredibly bright!" Lulu retorted, voice raising slightly. "I'm sure she's done her homework when it comes to fiends."
Paine was eyeing Lulu skeptically. "Something is fishy about her. How could she know all this, and have such a good grasp on magic—maybe even better than you?"
Lulu flushed at the last few words of Paine's comment. "I don't know… maybe the way she says she knows all of it?" Lulu said, temper flaring. "There is nothing suspicious about a sixteen year old girl with extraordinary intelligence when it comes to magic. You heard her, her mother taught her everything."
"I don't get what the big deal is about her being sixteen, either," Yuna piped up. "I mean, Rikku was probably about that age when she first started traveling with us on our pilgrimage."
Paine seemed to have talked herself into a corner. She was glaring fixedly at Lulu and Yuna, and continued walking without another word. Lulu made eye contact with Yuna, who shrugged.
Despite the awkwardness of having just argued over the first of what would probably be many disagreements, the three girls trudged on. When they at last caught up with Aya and Rikku, who were waiting for them at a fork in the passageway, an awkward silence descended over all of them, including the two younger girls, who had been giggling and chattering like the teenagers they were when Yuna, Paine, and Lulu arrived.
"Don't run ahead again," Lulu said sternly. "I thought you said it was best not to get separated," she said with a sharp look at Aya.
Aya flushed. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just… I mean, Rikku and I just sort of… got caught up in the moment, I guess…" her voice trailed off as she radiated shame.
"Which way is this mysterious treasure, anyway?" Yuna asked. "Because I think we should keep moving before more fiends—"
As if on cue, four more fiends sped up the passageway leading left towards the girls—four Liches, to be exact.
"Run!" Aya screamed, positioning herself in front of everyone else. "They've got this nasty attack—run!" she repeated, voice quivering wildly.
A Lich charged at her, and tried to plunge its clawed hand into her heart—an attack entitled 'Death'. Aya put her forearm out in front of her heart, and a translucent red shield appeared, and seemed to be keeping the Lich from touching her. As Yuna and Rikku stood, paralyzed, both looking entirely unsure of what to do, Lulu took that moment to set a Lich ablaze with a fire spell, and Paine slashed one clean in half, dissolving it into pyreflies. Aya was still struggling against the determined Lich, eyes squinting shut as she fought to keep her shield up. Tears slowly streamed down Aya's cheeks, when at last, she put the shield down in one swoop of her arm, threw her hand out in front of her, and blasted the Lich into nothingness before it could kill her.
Yuna and Rikku seemed to have been relieved of their temporary paralysis—Rikku had donned the Gunner dressphere, and they were shooting at the remaining Lich. Lulu helped out with another spell, and just like that, the Liches were dead.
Aya was panting, and there were tiny scratches all up and down her right forearm. She ran her left palm up and down her injured arm, and the scratches disappeared. Rikku was watching her, looking confused. "Why'd you tell us to run?"
Aya looked over at her. "You've fought them before?"
Rikku nodded.
"I didn't know," Aya replied. "I had no idea they lived in places other than this."
"Bevelle Underground, and some others," Paine said. "Mostly dark places."
"I'm sorry," Aya said, looking fixedly at the ground and rocking back and forth nervously on her feet. Paine's fierce gaze had that effect on most people. "I didn't know—thought they'd whip their claws out and kill you all."
Lulu laughed, albeit a bit bitterly. "They couldn't kill us—we've had plenty of practice."
"I just… didn't want it to hurt all of you… it would be my fault…"
"Don't worry," Yuna said consolingly. "You tried to save us, and that was very brave."
Aya didn't look up. "Anyway, I'm assuming since the fiends came from this way," she said, pointing towards the left passageway, "that that's the way we should go."
Everyone nodded, and followed Aya's lead down the tunnel.
...ooo...
The battles got increasingly fierce as they descended down the passageway. There seemed to be nearly every type of fiend Yuna, Rikku, and Paine had ever encountered in this basement, and then some. It soon became all too clear to them—just as Aya had said, whatever they had down here, it was guarded very well. There was no way one person could have tackled all of the fiends that swarmed them as they hurried down the passageway. Aya was working overtime, healing people while also doing offensive magic. Everyone knew she was completely worn out when she collapsed to her knees after a particularly fierce battle with some strong Behemoths. She pulled a small bottle of a green liquid out of one of her many pouches in her brown belt, and drank every last drop from the bottle.
"Ether," Lulu said with a smirk. "You came prepared."
Aya nodded. "You need one?"
Lulu shook her head. "Not quite yet. How much did that shield take out of you?"
"Pretty much everything," Aya confessed. "It is the most draining spell I know, other than transportation."
"Understandable," Lulu said with a nod as she helped Aya up. "Let's get going, then."
The girls continued through the network of passageways, occasionally turning down a likely looking one.
"They could be anywhere in here," Paine grumbled. "We can't search the whole place."
"It's not likely they're here," Lulu said. "The fiends would swarm."
"So if they are, we're heading in the right direction," Aya added.
It was true—they were following the fiends. They figured that they must be congregating wherever the mysterious object was, and if Wakka and Tidus were there, that would definitely be where the fiends were.
"Most of the fiends were coming toward us," Yuna said. "So it makes sense that we're going the right way… right?"
"Right," Rikku answered, though not sounding entirely sure of it herself.
Before long, the fiends had grown so dense that they had taken to all wearing the Black Mage dressphere and blasting them all away with different types of spells. They fought their way through what seemed to be an endless army of fiends, until the attacks abruptly stopped. When the girls finally came upon a door, their excitement was brimming—they had fought their way through all fiends, and here they were, very much hoping that there was something other than an endless labyrinth of passageways on the other side.
Aya walked up to the door, pressed her palms against it, and blew it off its hinges. "Whoops," she said with a giggle. "Got a little over-enthusiastic there…"
They ran through the doorway, and entered a large room with a dome ceiling. In the center of the room on a pedestal, was obviously the prize that had been so heavily guarded by fiends.
All five girls gaped at what they saw in wide-eyed and open-mouthed surprise.
"Somehow," Paine began a bit angrily, "I feel let down."
"In a big way," Lulu agreed, glaring at said object.
"I think it's… really funny!" Rikku said, bursting out into uncontrollable laughter. Aya joined right along with her.
"A Blitzball trophy," Yuna said, closing her eyes and shaking her head slowly in disbelief. "We should have known."
There, in the center of the room, sat the Blitzball trophy that whichever lucky team won the Luca Tournament would get. As Aya and Rikku howled with laughter, Paine mumbled, "I can't believe it."
"So much security over a trophy," Lulu agreed fiercely.
"Would you quit laughing?" Paine said sharply to Aya and Rikku. Both of them shut up rather quickly.
"Can you get us out of here, Aya?" Yuna asked her.
"All that work for a Blitzball trophy… can you believe it!" Rikku was saying to Aya.
"No, I can't!" Aya said in agreement. "I mean, who'da thunk it…"
Lulu cleared her throat loudly. "Aya!"
"But those Chimeras way back at the beginning were nothing compared to the Behemoths—"
"Oh, I know!" Aya said. "I hadn't even gotten to the Behemoths before, it was a bit of a shock to find them down here, I'll admit—"
"Aya!" Lulu said again.
Aya at last turned to Lulu. "Sorry, what?"
"Can you transport us out of here?"
"Oh, right," Aya said, shaking her head sharply as though she were trying to clear it out. Everyone stood a bit closer together, facing Aya. She shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. She slowly raised her arms above her head, palms facing up towards the ceiling. Before everyone knew it, they all felt the odd sensation of being thrown into an icy cold lake, and suddenly, their feet all slammed into the ground. As they all looked around, they realized that they were just outside the stadium doors.
"Amazing!" Lulu said, sounding extremely impressed. Aya's mouth twisted into a half smile.
"Let's search the docks, then, and then we'll go talk to that old man at the shop," she said. She looked around for a moment, and set off towards the docks.
"That was weird," Rikku said to Yuna. "I've never felt anything like that before."
Yuna nodded in agreement. "I know, but… that would sure be useful, don't you think?"
They followed Aya all throughout the docks without much success. When they finally were walking towards the Blitzball shop, Aya called out to someone that none of the other girls had ever seen before.
"Ryuen! Hey, RYUEN!"
A tall, red haired boy looked over at Aya. He, like Aya, had greenish eyes, and a couple of scattered freckles. The most glaring difference between Aya and Ryuen was their height—Ryuen was quite tall, and Aya was extremely short. "Hey, Aya," he said casually. He noticed the other four girls that were following Aya over to him, and his eyebrows shot up. "What… I mean, where have you been?"
"You know, around," she said ambiguously.
He eyed her knowingly, along with a tear in her skirt that Aya didn't notice before. "If 'around' means that secret basement, how many times—"
"I was with them," Aya told him fiercely. "They're all really good fighters!"
Ryuen at last got a good enough look at Yuna to recognize her. He straightened up almost immediately. "Lady Yuna, I didn't realize it was you—"
"Your sister is very kind," Yuna interrupted him. "She's been helping us search for our friends. I assure you, she was perfectly safe in that basement with us."
"Oh, I—I see," Ryuen said, sounding a bit nervous. "Well, Aya, that was very good of you."
"Wasn't it?" she said, smiling sarcastically at him. "We're going to the Blitzball store, now, so I'll see you later." With that, she marched off, the other four girls following after her hurriedly.
When they arrived at the Blitzball store, the old man about had a heart attack. "What do you want, missy?" he asked Aya, warily eyeing the girls behind her.
"Just to ask you a few questions," she said conversationally, smiling. "Relax. Lulu, you had some things you wanted to ask, correct?"
Lulu nodded. When she saw the alarmed look on the store keeper's face, she said quickly, "No, I'm not going to tear your store apart again. I just wanted to ask you… what did this woman do before my friends disappeared? Did she wave her arms or anything like that?"
"As a matter of fact, she did," the man said. "Put them up above her head like this—" he put his arms up in the exact way that Aya had done before she had transported them out of the basement.
All of the girls exchanged knowing looks. "And did you see what she looked like at all? I remember you telling me that she was wearing a cloak, but even anything would be okay," Lulu asked uncertainly.
"I didn't see nothing," the man said. "Couldn't even have heard her talk if she did—it was awfully loud in here, you know."
"Thank you," Lulu said. "We'll come back if we think of anything else to ask you."
"You do that," the man said, watching their every move as though he expected them to suddenly turn around on their way out and tear apart his shop.
When they were back out on the street, Aya said, "So she was a mage."
"A break through at last," Yuna said wearily. "I guess the Mi'ihen Highroad is next…"
...ooo...
Remember when I told you to keep a close watch on Aya? Well, it's time to vote! The question is: toss her or keep her? Either they leave her in Luca or bring her along--it's up to you! If you like her or dislike her, vote, and she will be there for the rest of the fic, or won't be around anymore--the choice is yours. Vote if you wanna have any control over whether she stays or goes! Just submit a review saying what you want, I'll tally them up (assuming there is much to tally, that is) and you'll know at the beginning of the next chapter :D Leave me lovely reviews, and don't forget to vote!
Thank ya muchly,
Lulala