Sorry about the cliffhanger, everyone XD It was my birthday on the 10th, so I haven't had much time for writing lately... I tried to get a chapter in before the weekend, and here we are! Thank you to all who reviewed:
DarkAnimePriestess: Glad you think I'm doing good! Sorry about the cliffhanger XD
Motet: Sorry XD I couldn't help it, we hadn't had a good cliffhanger for awhile XD
Paine3: I did say that I was a little mean when it came to cliffhangers at the beginning of this fic XD You never know, Aya could do it yet :D
Aya's eyes widened in fear, and she backed away. She began mumbling something as quietly to herself as she could, but whoever was standing in front of her didn't seem to take kindly to this. "Stop it now, silly girl, or you'll pay for it later."
She suddenly knew that this had to be the person that had transported into the basement. If the person could recognize a much more powerful, mage's version of Ultima being cast…
"You heard me," the voice, which was now distinguishable as a woman's, barked. "You shall not cast Ultima on me. You will pay dearly if you do so."
Aya didn't back away from the threatening words. She stood her ground, and her facial expression hardened from frightened to determined. "Who are you?" Aya demanded.
"In no position to be making demands, are we, Aya darling?" the woman asked tauntingly.
"How… how do you know my name?"
The woman laughed. "My dear, there are only so many short, red headed, incredibly powerful 16 year old mages around."
Aya felt as though she was being made a complete fool. She had come down to the basement, and probably been tricked by this woman, now that she thought about it, and was about to die. Her life began to flash before her eyes as she glared at the woman. Playing with Ryuen as children, running around Luca with her mother and father, playing at the beach with her mother, learning to do her very first fire spell, the first time she ever beat her mother when they were training, going on trips with her mother around Spira to perfect their magic, walking in on her mother's lifeless body…
Her gaze narrowed. "Who are you?" she repeated.
The woman threw back her hood, revealing a pale, beautiful face, shoulder length, curly, honey colored hair, and green eyes that nearly glowed in the dark. Aya gasped a little, and backed away a little. "Taken aback?" the woman asked with a bitter laugh. "Expected me to be an old hag, did you?"
"No," Aya replied.
"You seem awfully scared," the woman commented casually.
"I'm not," Aya said, raising her hands slightly so that they were in a fighting stance.
"Oh, you don't want to fight me, Aya," the woman said. "Don't you know who I am?"
"No, I don't, but I don't think it's possible for me to care less," Aya said snappishly.
"That's no way to talk to someone who could kill you with a snap of their fingers," the woman said.
"You couldn't," Aya said through gritted teeth. "I'm not going down without a fight!"
"I think you should care who I am," the woman said. "Considering, you know, I've met your mother."
Aya's eyes widened. "You better not be lying."
The woman's mouth curled into a smirk. "That's right, I've met her. I was the last person to see her alive, too, I should think… it was I who killed her, after all," she said, sounding almost proud of herself.
Aya felt rage like she had never known before burn inside of her. She so much wanted to tackle this woman and strangle every last bit of life out of her, but she made no move to do so.
"That's right, Aya," the woman said. "You know, I assume, that my name is Kana, then. Your dear brother was right, I am very much alive."
"You… you…"
"Can't talk? I've been watching over you lately. I can't pretend like I haven't taken a liking to you."
"Why'd you…?"
"Why what? Speak full, coherent sentences, please, Aya."
"WHY'D YOU KILL HER!" Aya screamed, tears flowing steadily down her face. She didn't look like someone who would be crying—her face was absolutely contorted with anger.
"Why did I do it?" Kana repeated, still smirking. "I did it because your mother stood firmly against something I was trying to do. I couldn't really have that type of person hanging around, now could I?"
"What were you trying to do?" Aya demanded.
"Psht, you're getting a little touchy," Kana said. "I think perhaps you'd do well with a bit of a warning!" She cast a thunder spell, which Aya easily blocked, using her shield spell. Aya's brow furrowed in confusion; the spell was not strong at all…
"Warning, I said," Kana said. "I wouldn't be seeking to hurt you if it were a warning, but now that you seem to be looking for a fight, I believe we should fight."
Tears were still flowing at a steady pace down Aya's cheeks. "You got it!" she said, bracing herself. She cast a silencing spell almost immediately, and she was extremely surprised to see it working. She took her chance to begin muttering the incantation for Ultima. Kana seemed angry, but knew that trying to attack Aya physically meant running into her shield, which would easily break any human bone it came in contact with. Kana seemed to be having trouble finding herself a Remedy, because Aya got nearly ¾ of the way through the spell before Kana fired a huge ball of fire at her. Aya easily blocked it, threw her hand out in front of her, and cast Demi.
Kana was thrown backward with the force of the spell. Aya took a deep breath, and, gathering all the power into her hands that she could, she shot what was perhaps the largest Flare spell she had ever done at Kana. She was driven by her anger, and that made her all the more formidable.
Kana saw the spell coming, and rolled out of the way. She sprang back up to her feet and fired a Bio spell at Aya. Aya dodged it, and shot and enormous bolt of lightning in Kana's direction. Kana used a shield spell similar to what Aya used to deflect the spell. Aya swore, and slammed her hand on the ground, sending four geysers of water shooting up from the ground at an alarming force.
Kana dodged all of them. "Now, now, all anger and no concentration won't do," she said with a devious smile. She snapped her fingers, and Aya could tell what was coming before it reached her. Kana had cast Doom on her. Aya put up her shield as quickly as she could, and thankfully, it drove the spell away. As Aya was thanking each and every one of her lucky stars, Kana was laughing.
"My, you're much more skilled than even I thought," she said. "You must be getting tired by now."
Aya's eye twitched. She was tempted to tell Kana exactly why she wasn't even close to tired yet, but she didn't, because then Kana would surely take what had been helping her for all these years away from her.
"So you're not," Kana said after a moment of silence. "Well, we can fight until you are, or you can listen to me."
"What?" Aya muttered quietly after a long moment of silence that was enough to drive her crazy.
Kana grinned. "I knew you'd come around."
Lulu, Yuna, Rikku, and Paine fought their way through the crowd of Youth League members crowded around the entrance to Mushroom Rock Road, blissfully unaware of what was currently going on below Luca. The Youth League members swarmed them, barraging them with questions, the most common being, "Are you here to join the Youth League?"
"No, we're not," Yuna said loudly and firmly to the first person who asked. She didn't bother to say it to anyone else; it seemed they wouldn't take no for an answer.
When they were at last past the crowd, Paine said in a low voice, "What a relief, I thought maybe I'd have to strangle one of them."
Rikku giggled. "I don't think they'll be bothering us if they see us fighting fiends… it could just as easily be them, after all…"
The girls checked up and down Mushroom Rock Road, with absolutely no success at all. There wasn't a clue to be had, and they left rather hastily without checking the Youth League Headquarters. "They'd be trying to get us out of here, not asking us to join if they were here," Lulu said coolly at Yuna's suggestion of checking.
Everyone agreed, and they boarded the airship in a matter of minutes, Djose Temple bound. When they arrived, all of the Machine Faction workers scattered, leaving the main area outside of the temple completely deserted. As they approached the temple, Gippal walked out, looking a bit hurried.
"Hello, ladies," he said, smiling. "I couldn't believe it when Lucy came in and just told me that you were here—what can I do for you?"
"We're here to look around in your temple, Gippal," Rikku answered immediately. "Wakka and Tidus are missing, and we need to look for them."
"I had a feeling you'd say that," Gippal said, looking a little disappointed. "Top secret project going on right now, so no entry allowed, sorry."
All of their faces fell. "Gippal!" Rikku whined. "Please?"
He shut his eyes and looked away from her. "Not this time, Cid's Girl! That worked when we were younger, but not now!"
Rikku was making big, green puppy eyes at him, and poking out her lower lip slightly. "Pleeeeease?" she asked sadly, intensifying her pleading facial expression.
Gippal at last gave in. "Okay," he said. "But no tellin' anyone what's going on in here, you got me?"
Rikku smiled sweetly. "You got it, Gippal!"
Paine frowned. "We're sphere hunters, it's not like we care what you're doing with machina in there…"
Gippal led them into the temple. "I only said it was a secret because you never know what you girls get up to."
"Just looking for friends right now," Yuna replied. "Seen anyone strange around here lately?"
Gippal thought. "Well, there was that guy, that was actually a girl, and the shady man with the gourd strapped to his head and a patch over his eye—"
Rikku was laughing so hard that Yuna had to almost shout to be heard over her. "I mean, any mages around recently, particularly cloaked, mysterious looking mages?"
"Mages…" Gippal said thoughtfully. "I don't think I could tell ya, I'm not magic."
"Cloaked people?" Yuna asked hopefully.
"Two," Gippal said. "Together, walking in long, brown cloaks."
"Did they take their hoods down?"
"Yeah," Gippal said. "They looked ordinary, but some mages do."
"Male or female?" Lulu asked.
"Guys," Gippal replied easily.
"Not her," Lulu said. "Obviously."
"We're having such bad luck!" Rikku moaned as they walked up the stairs, Gippal hot on their heels.
"We'll find them eventually," Yuna said to Lulu reassuringly. "They've gotta be somewhere in Spira."
There were no fiends left in Djose Temple, the Machine Faction had exterminated all of them from the entire cloister of trials, where the girls plus Gippal searched carefully for any hints of recent human activity. It seemed like there hadn't been anyone down there for quite some time, and the girls left the temple soon after, rather discouraged.
"I bet you Leblanc took them," Rikku said angrily as they walked along the path towards the Moonflow. "We're getting closer to Guadosalam, I think we should check her mansion—"
"It wasn't Leblanc, she's not a mage," Paine replied immediately.
"I forgot," Rikku muttered as they walked along.
"At least we're getting a lot done today," Lulu commented. "It is going to be dark soon, so I think we should stop after the Moonflow."
"I agree," Yuna said. "We've done enough for today."
"No success," Rikku grumbled, grudgingly following the other girls as they turned onto the path that led to the Moonflow.
Yay, Aya and Kana fighting, how cool! If you thought any of this was good, let me know... even if you thought it was bad, let me know too :D I'm almost at 1,000 hits, so keep reading, folks!
Thank you very much,
Lulala