Disclaimer: "The only characters that are mine are Connie, her family, her friends, and her family's friends. All the other characters are from FFX, FFX-2, and FFVII. Unless you count the dog and cat's names which are from Kingdom Hearts, the animals are mine, but the names are from Kingdom Hearts." Tired of all that yet? You probably will before too long. Just you wait. Anyway, moving on…

On Earth as it is in Spira: Chapter 7: Water Logged

As the door opened Max put on his sunglasses, and looked at me. "Here we go," he said. The doors finished opening, and we all leapt out. All seven of us headed for the town. No doubt we were quite a sight to see, dressed like we were, but there didn't seem to be many people around. They were still on the outside of the city, so there shouldn't be many problems. As we ran the only thing I could think about was, 'Will it work? Will my magic work? How did that motion go again? Oh yeah. All I have to do is remember how I did it the first time…' things like that. Not only that, but I was a nervous wreck. Max seemed to be just fine; keeping his cool and such. Everyone else seemed alright as well, it was only me who was shaking. I kept my steps steady until we slowly came to a stop to figure out what all to do.

"Alright," said Max, taking charge instantly, for which I was glad. "Yuna, you me and Lulu will go off to the right, and get rid of any fiends we find. Tidus, you Yuffie, and Paine go off that way. Rikku, you know where you're going?"

"Yep! I know the exact location! Don't worry about me!" she said smiling, and practically bouncing where she stood. She must have eaten too much sugar or something.

"Alright. Then get rid of any fiend you find until Buddy says to come back. And… be sure it's a fiend ay? We don't need any dead dogs. Good luck all!"

Max, Yuna, and I all went in one direction while the other three went in another, and Rikku went off on her own path.

"Okay. I'm going forward," Max said.

"I'll go toward the right. Lulu, you go left, okay? Yell if you find a fiend," Yuna instructed.

"Got it," I said. We all slowed down, and went our respective directions. We would cover more ground this way.

I started looking through bushes, around trees, and up and down and everywhere. Then I heard Max. "Connie! Come now!" I had to go! I turn and ran in the direction I heard him calling.

When I came into view he started running, and I followed him. He led me to Yuna who had managed to find a few fiends. It was a coyote, an iron giant, and… a flan azul. I had a feeling… I was in trouble.

"Yuna!" Max said, "You go for the coyote, I'll take the iron giant, and Lulu, go for the flan." We all agreed. What else could we do? Yuna had the first attack. She ran towards the coyote, and smacked it up side the skull with her staff. It didn't go all that well, but, her staff attacks never did. Next was Max's turn. While he attacked the iron giant I was going over stuff in my head. 'The opposite of blue is… YELLOW! But… how did I do that…' I did remember it was the first spell I had ever done, and I had cast it on Max. All I had to do was get mad again. Just enough; so, I figured that if I could get mad at Max I could get mad at a ball of slime. The only problem was casting the spell, but I had no choice. I had to give it a shot at least. Though I was a little worried, and kinda doubtful of my own ability to cast a spell.

I saw Max attack the iron giant, and completely took it out, easy as pie. It was my turn. I closed my eyes, thinking it would make me focus better. I brought up my right arm, thought about the blue ball of slime, and hoped I would hit it or something at least. I brought my arm down quickly, and opened my eyes. Nothing. Nothing happened at all.

I heard Max curse under his breath. "Yuna, Valfore." The coyote came up and attacked him, and he stumbled a little, but got his balance back very quick. The flan seemed to decide that I was its prime target, unfortunately. It cast its water spell. I didn't realize that water could hurt! But it hit me pretty hard, though not hard enough to make me too weak, or hurt me a lot, just enough for me to feel it without too much trouble.

It was Yuna's turn. She brought out Valfore and we all cleared the field, and Max came over to me while Yuna finished up. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, a little water logged, but fine."

"You doubted yourself… didn't you?"

I looked at him, shocked at what he said. I could tell because I saw my reflection in his sunglasses. But, I had every right to be shocked. He had practically read my mind. "How did you-"

"I did the same thing in my battle. I ran up to a fiend, and totally swung past him. No where near close. You can't do that Connie! You can't doubt yourself like that. Alright?"

"Alright," I said.

"Guys!" Yuna called, "it's over! Those fiends are gone. Start looking for more!"

Max and I nodded, and started off again, all going separate directions. Not five minutes passed when I heard Max's call again. "Connie! Now!" he yelled. I saw him, but this time he didn't go running, he had found the fiends, a coyote, a lesser drake, and, of course, another flan azul. This time it was Max's turn to start. He attacked the lesser drake, no problem, out cold, and gone. Yuna went next smacking the coyote again, doing very little. Then it was me. I figured I could do it. I mean, if I didn't we'd be alright, but I figured that I could pull it off. Still I was a little nervous. I took a deep breath, and raised my right arm, but didn't close my eyes this time. I looked right at the evil little blue slime ball, really not liking it for more than one reason, and brought my arm down. A crack rang through the air, and struck the flan dead on the skull. He bounced once or twice, and then he kinda died too. I looked over at Max and smiled; he smiled back at me, and nodded, the only indication that I had done a good job. He then turned, and, because we had gotten lucky and he had time, attacked the coyote, getting rid of it.

Yuna smiled at me, and came over to me. "That was great! You really did a good job."

"Hmmm, thanks," I said. I did do a good job, but… for some reason, I felt like I didn't want nor deserve the credit. "Let's get going," I said.

"Okay!" Yuna said, and we all started off again searching for more fiends. Well, we fought about 9 more sets of 3 before we got the call from Buddy while we were looking around. "Okay guys! The other group just got rid of the last of the fiends that I can see. Why don't you head back? Good job!"

We all started the walk back in silence. I was doing a lot of thinking. How I had done that, how I would do it all again, and how lucky I was that it had only not worked one time. I was excited, but it was probably hard to tell. Besides, I owed Yuna quite a bit for saving me back there in the first battle. But, I kept quiet, and kept walking with Max and Yuna.

Within a few minutes we had made it back to the ship. Following us about a minute behind was the other three. We congratulated each other as Buddy opened the doors back up for us. We all got in and headed to the Bridge. There Rikku was waiting for us, though the new guy wasn't there.

"Whoo!" she said when she saw us all coming. "The hero's of the hour! Alright!" She was still far too cheery for my liking. Max went over and gave Aeris a hug, it hadn't been that long, but… he had missed her, or… maybe they were just worried about each other… or something.

"You guys did gud!" Brother said.

"Thanks," Yuna said.

"What about the new passenger?" Yuffie asked. "Is he on now?"

"Yep. He's just back with Silly getting everything finalized. He sounds pretty definite, and it's more than likely that he'll join us. But we have to wait until we are VERY sure before we go. Oooooh! I'm just so excited!" she said.

"How long will it all take?" Paine asked.

"Oh, no more than… 5 minutes at the most!" Rikku said. "Then we should be on our way again!" And then, as the icing on the cake, she broke out into song singing "On the Road Again" with different lyrics. "On the way again. I just can't wait to be on our way again…"

All I could do was shake my head. I had to sit down, and I decided to look on the bright side. I wouldn't be the newest member anymore. Still… this new member made me curious.