Back again, with a new chapter :D This will be wrapping up in... 10 chapters MAX, I'd say, probably less... don't hold me to that, though. There are LOTS of plots that I still need to wrap up in here before the climax, soo... you shall see :D THANK YOU SO MUCH to all who reviewed, you make my story worth writing:

Motet: I am going to remain EXTREMELY tight-lipped about this XD Don't want to ruin the surprise. Thanks, as always, for reviewing :D

Paine3: If you've figured it out, I absolutely APPLAUD you! Make sure you let me know if you were right when the time comes around!

Musicmaker: No, Tidus and Wakka aren't hurt. They're hostages, so her main goal is to keep them alive--as much as she'd like to beat em up XD Hostages are no good if they're dead XD

DarkAnimePriestess: Still glad you're enjoying :D

New thing at the end of this chapter... preview for the next one! Enjoy :D

Lulu, who had landed somewhere on a soft pile of a snow like substance, was passed out. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she shot up, whirling all around in search of enemies. When she realized she was alone, she let out a scream—where had the other three girls gone! She got up and began pacing frantically.

"Where are you?" she asked under her breath. "Why would you leave me…?" Her eyes narrowed.

She started down a random path—she wasn't sure where she was or where she was going, but she was getting away from wherever she had just woken up. What was that? She asked herself. I remember that noise, and then getting knocked out… what is going on here?

She could feel a bit of pain pretty much everywhere, and wasn't sure why. Whatever spell that was… yeah, it was a spell, I'm sure of it… whatever it was, it's well done—I'm still hurting, and I will be for quite some time. It feels like whoever has done this has put some sort of… cap… on my abilities… I can do them, of course, but only to a certain extent…

This right about then stopped making sense to Lulu as she tried to analyze her whole body all at once, not to mention the eerie feeling she had inside of her. The path in front of her, she suddenly noticed, as incredibly overgrown with crystal pieces. She glared at it for a moment before rolling up her sleeves and charging in. She knew her spells would have no effect on these, so it was best to just keep going. As she fought her way through, she heard a large ripping sound—her dress now had a huge rip in it down the side. She scowled at it, which earned her a rather large scratch on her arm from one of the crystals, and she continued on.

Several minutes later, she was still pulling her way through—though she was paying the price. Her hair was completely down, undone, and messy, with her headdress nowhere to be found. Her dress had several more rips in it, not to mention scratches and cuts all the way up her legs, arms, and face. She stopped for a moment, and with one gigantic tear, ripped a huge torn section of her dress off. "Make travelling easier," she mumbled to herself, tying it around a particularly bad scrape on her calf. She brushed her hair off of her sweat-covered face, and continued on. "This can't go on much longer," she said, sounding much more confident than she felt.

When it didn't stop, it started to make Lulu wonder… how would there have been such a long patch like this, and nobody knew about it? Normally, the people who lived around Macalania would try to at least cut enough of this back to make it so you could walk through, but… this was just too weird. It had been right on a path, after all—she could still see the path beneath her tired, bruised feet, one of which was now missing a shoe—she wasn't even certain when she had lost that. Her dress had been severely shortened, now to a length a little above her knees. One of her dress sleeves had been ripped clean off. Every time she thought she was about to give up, the crystals would begin to thin ever so slightly, and she would eagerly continue on—only to be disappointed. Almost as if someone had designed this to keep her from quitting until she physically couldn't bring herself to continue.

"If this is a test… I'm going to make it through!" she muttered determinedly. Her thoughts went back to the odd wind that had swept her to wherever she was in the first place. She wondered what had happened to Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. A crystal stabbed into her hand as she tried to pull herself through a particularly small gap. She winced in pain, but quickly got a better hold on the crystal and pulled herself through. She ripped another small piece off her dress and wrapped it around her hand. At times, it came in handy to have such a long dress with so much fabric. At least it would keep the blood from seeping everywhere. After a moment of walking, she clutched her suddenly numb arm—and her vision began to blur.

No, she thought. It won't end here… not this way… nobody will ever find me… how would a wind like that come and sweep us away into completely different places. There is no way there could be a growth like this in the real Macalania, I've been walking for hours. Could this be…?

As Aya, Wakka, and Tidus were all watching Rikku take on the werewolf fearfully, they saw her get slammed into the tree, each letting out a noise of anguish. Suddenly, the sphere glowed blue, and they could no longer see Rikku. This time, they saw…

"Lu!" Wakka cried out, seeing Lulu lying on a snow bank. None of them knew how long they stared, transfixed, at the struggling Lulu.

"Aya, you've got to break this illusion," Tidus said to her fervently.

"I can't," Aya replied sadly. "She took all my magic points, except for what's sustaining me, and besides, I'm hurt, can't you see?"

"Try!" Wakka demanded of her. "You at least gotta try, ya?"

"You don't understand," Aya said, "if I seriously over-exhaust my magic points, it could become a lot more serious… I could die."

Wakka and Tidus fell silent, watching Lulu fight through the crystals in anguish. Aya couldn't bring herself to watch any longer—she stared at the ground blankly, not thinking anything other than, If I only had my belt.

Just as they saw Lulu clinging to a rock, looking tipsy, the sphere turned blue again, which they took as shifting to another girls' situation within the illusion. This time, it was focused in on the back of Paine's head. She was lying face down in the middle of one of the frozen ponds. It had seemed almost on cue that she had stirred, just like all the other girls.

"What the--?" she uttered, rubbing the back of her head and pulling herself into a sitting position carefully.

She suddenly remembered the whistling of the wind, and narrowed her eyes. She knew that the other girls weren't anywhere around—the question was, why? As she tried to pull herself into a standing position, she suddenly noticed—she was completely and utterly surrounded by fiends.

Smiling slightly, she drew her sword with vigor, and demanded loudly to the fiends, "Come on, come get me! I'm ready for you!"

The fiends, which were mostly smaller versions of the werewolf-like fiend that Rikku was fighting, all obliged. They charged in at her all at once, each roaring. Paine tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword, and did a quick spin, knocking out at least 6. Swung her sword at another's tail, completely severing it, smacked one in the head, and took out at least 10 more using various techniques. Suddenly, she was panting, drenched in sweat, and the fiends hadn't quit at all. If anything, they were coming at her with more rigor than they had originally. She tried to take a moment to catch her breath, but the fiends wouldn't allow it. She continued beating them around until she was certain she had killed at least 50—and yet, they kept coming. Confused was an understatement for the way Paine felt—not to mention the fact that she swore someone was inside of her, tearing her muscles from her bones. She knew that she was never ordinarily in this much pain, but couldn't think of anything that may have caused it.

All she knew was, combined with the pain that was now spreading to everywhere, she was running out of energy—she wouldn't be able to face many more fiends before…

She shook her head abruptly. There was no way she would ever faint from fighting too much… She hunched over, sword stuck into the ground, leaning on it. This wasn't the end… no, it couldn't be…

Yuna's awakening was much more rude than the other three girls'—she awoke as she was about to fall from a stiflingly high ledge, which was barely large enough for her to retain a decent foothold. She hadn't even ever truly been knocked out—her eyes had shut for a moment, but opened immediately when her feet had slammed into the crystal of this ledge. She was clinging on, with her back to a gigantic crystal gorge—jagged crystals pointing upward on the bottom, of course, to 'break her fall'—she grabbed the nearest crystals sticking out of the wall behind her, and hung on for dear life…

It was after she was feeling like she wouldn't fall that she realized—her friends were nowhere to be seen. Had they already fallen to their deaths? She blinked tears from her eyes—she had to concentrate and keep calm if she was ever going to get out of this. She couldn't risk letting go to get out a garment grid—besides, she was pretty sure that even the berserker dressphere wouldn't help her scale this stuff. I guess I'm stuck here until I come up with a plan, she thought to herself, desperately trying to find something—anything—that would help her to climb her way out.

It was then that Aya, Wakka, and Tidus began hatching a plan for their escape—or Aya's, anyway, until she could bring reinforcements. Kana, all the while, had drastically underestimated the amount of concentration needed to trap four separate people in illusions all at the same time, and was sitting in another chamber in the mysterious cave, eyes shut in concentration, with pages of notes on the spell sitting out in front of her. She remained blissfully unaware of the mutiny that was going on in the jail cells…

Hopefully that wasn't too cliffie--sorry if it was XD So, what about Rikku? When we last left her, she was getting the beating of her life--can she beat the werewolf and stay alive? Will Paine fight for so long that she can't fight any longer? (that's the major shocker here! XD) Can Yuna manuever her way off that ledge? Will Lulu make it through the treacherous cluster of sharp crystals? What about Wakka, Tidus, and Aya's escape plan? Read the next chapter to find out, and don't forget to review :D

Preview of next chapter:

Lulu pressed the palms of her hands together, summoning nearly all the magic she had, trying to send it to a certain mage in the form of a message. Aya... she thought desperately. Help us!

Back in her cell, as they were watching Yuna clumsily attempting to get off of the ledge, Aya's eyes widened as she suddenly felt a powerful magical presence calling her name. Lulu... "Guys," Aya said urgently, "Lulu is trying to communicate with me."

Thank you,

Lulala :D