This next chapter is a little bit strange in the later scenes, but I came up with this and thought it would be funny.
Seeing the boy, Rikku's eyes instantly brightened and she ran around to the other side of the desk. She picked him up with a hug and squeezed him tightly. "Shinra!" she said. "I didn't even know you were here."
He coughed. She had been holding him tightly and he couldn't move. "Oh!" she said. "Sorry."
Rikku put him down and he brushed himself off. "That's fine," he said. "Though, I've come to give you something."
Rikkucocked her head to the side. "Oh?" He took something out of his pocket and gave it to her. She held it and noticed that it was a new Garment Grid. "This one has a lot of sockets in it," she noted.
"Yes, that's the point," he said. "This device uses all the dress-spheres," he explained. "When you activate it, all the general clothes from the spheres will appear, like regular ones. It is the same with the weapons. It is so that you don't have to wear a certain outfit when you want a certain power. You can also mix a few things up if you like."
She went over to her desk and opened it with a key, taking out all her grids and dress-spheres, and placed the spheres in the new grid. She activated it and for once, it didn't do anything.
"It's not broken," Shinra assured her. "You just need to tell it what to do. It responds to thought."
She nodded. For a moment, there was nothing, then there was a flash of light and she appeared in a new outfit. The top part of her outfit was her gun mage halter top, a hole in it right below her chest. With it, was the tan skirt that she used to find herself in daily, that belonged to her thief outfit. Also, she had her gunner boots, black mage gloves, lady luck stockings and the belts from her warrior outfit. Plus, she had her hair in her blue headband again. It was a perfect mix of a lot of things.
"Shinra, you little genius," she said, looking a little proud. "Did you make some for Paine and Yunie?"
"Yes, but I thought you'd want to test it first," he said. "In case you didn't like it."
"Don't be silly." She put her hands on her hips. "So, how's the Machine Faction?"
"Doing better, I suppose," he said. "Not that it was bad before, just, you know..."
She nodded in understanding. "Did ya need anything else?" she asked innocently.
"Actually, yes," he said. He held up a finger. "I'll be right back."
Rikku blinked as he left the room. For a moment, she thought he wouldn't be back, but then he came back in with a rose. He gave it to her and she smiled. "Shinra, you shouldn't have," she said, smelling it.
"Oh, I didn't," he said. "Gippal asked me to give it to you."
She rolled her eyes. She should have known. "Of course," she said.
Getting home that night, Rikku wasn't surprised to hear the shower running. So, Gippal showered every night. Good, just as long as he didn't walk in on her again when she was getting dressed. By this time, she had changed back into her regular clothes. She went over and got out another set of nightclothes (underwear and a nightgown) and, just to make sure she had a little privacy, went inside her closet.
It was actually quite big, the size of a small room, maybe. Inside were just curtain rods attached to the wall, and a free standing one in the center of the floor. She closed the door and changed quickly. When done, she remembered what Shinra said about using the new sphere grid. He said that the clothing, accessories, and weapons in the spheres could be drawn out, used like regular clothes.
So, she went inside her pocket, where she had placed it, and looked at it for a bit. Then, she thought about what he said. 'Responds to thought,' were his words. With this in mind, she gave it a command, closing her eyes to think.
Almost instantly, she heard a noise and opened her eyes. Laying around her were all the different items of clothing. Wow, she had no idea how much were in the dress-spheres, especially with some of the odder outfits.
Rikku hung most of them up, sorting them by outfit. By the time she was just about done, picking up the last article of clothing, she noticed something move underneath one. She jumped back. Her eyes widened and she grew a little scared. Then, slowly, she moved over and quickly picked up the shirt, springing it out of the way.
Again, her eyes widened and she let out a piercing horrific scream.
With his nightly routine, Gippal included a shower. So, you could have guessed how startled he was when he dried off and dressed, to hear a blood curtailing scream fill the air. And it came from the other side of the wall. Now, normally, he'd stop for a minute at this and let someone else worry about it, but then he came to the conclusion that this was Rikku, since she was the only other one (besides maintenance) that had a key.
So, with this in mind, she being the woman he loved and all, ran out the door as fast as he could. As soon as he came into the bedroom, Rikku ran almost into his arms, screaming her head off. She had come from the closet.
Only he was surprised when she ran and instantly hugged his arm. She grasped it tightly,eyes squeezed shut with tears almost forming out of them. "Get it away, get it away, get it away!" she stuttered out madly. "I hate spiders!"
For one, he was a little bit enjoying as she clung to his arm. But, after coming to his senses, from the whole shock of the matter as well, he let out a laugh. "You're afraid of a—fred dra rimm!"(what the hell!)
He looked toward where she came from, only to see what had caused her horror. The spider she spoke of, was not the tiny spider he had pictured. It was at least the size of his palm, if not bigger. He backed up a little, eyes wide. The thing hissed and they both jumped.
They screamed at the same time, backing away slowly. "Alright, yeah, that thing's huge," he agreed, eyes wide.
"Notice my scream," she said, looking up at him almost furiously. Through the whole thing she had yet to let go of his arm. "A regular one I would have squashed."
"That's no normal spider."
"My point exactly!"
The thing hissed again and again, they screamed. Rikku whimpered as they got to the other side of the room, the thing following them. It got just to her feet before he grabbed her in the heat of the moment and before almost throwing her on his bed. He joined her in a minute.
"Oh, that's brilliant," she said, almost growling at him, still with a mix of fear and shock in her eyes. "No way it can get us up here."
Just as she said that, it crawled over and made a nip at the bed. At this, they both stood, and screamed yet again. Gippal growled under his breath, while he ran his fingers through his hair and looked around the room. Instantly, his eyes widened with a thought and he went over to her, bending over to whisper in her ear.
She listened for a little and then she looked at him with horror. "No way!"
"You don't have to touch the thing, just stand there a little," he said.
Rikku sighed. "Alright."
She went over to the side of the bed and he held up his hand, facing the other direction. "Wait for it," he said. She nodded and looked at it intently from her position above it. "Go!"
In a split second, she leaped over it and ran to the other side of the room. It followed her, but she didn't move away from the spot. It sprang to her foot, but she jumped away and screamed again. He didn't say she couldn't scream. With every leap it took, she jumped away and she screamed bloody murder.
It only lasted a few rounds before Gippal came over, gun locked. He fired at it, pumping at least five bullets into the thing. It stopped moving and Rikku stepped out of the corner, and over to her roommate.
She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. "Is it dead?" she asked.
He shook his head with a shrug. "Hopefully."
Rikku bent over slightly to look at it carefully. For a moment, she just stared, hoping it stayed still forever. She sighed. "Yes, thank Shiva."
But as soon as she relaxed, it twitched. Again, Rikku screamed, but this time she threw herself at Gippal again. So much, he didn't expect it and lost his footing.
They landed with a thud on the floor, Rikku straddling his waist slightly, her upper body against his. Gippal took a deep breath, having the wind knocked out of him. She was sure heavy when she wanted to be. He steadied his breathing. "Well," he said. "This is uncomfortable."
As soon as the words slipped out of his mouth, the door slammed open with a bang. Vech had knocked it down, followed by Adedrea, Elhana, Buddy, Nhadala, Sanron, Cid and even Shinra, all welding some kind of weapon.
Nhadala almost laughed. "What are you two doing?"
Looking at each other, the two sprang off the floor and went into immediate explanation.
"You see, there's a really good reason for all of this—," Gippal started.
"We got assigned the same rooms—," Rikku commented.
"Rikku came screaming 'cause of this huge spider—."
"Huge, huge spider—."
"And we ran from it—."
"It tried to eat us—!"
"I shot it and it jolted when dead—."
"The thing was moving when dead—!"
"And she jumped—."
"I did the first thing that I thought of—."
"And..."
"And..."
They both looked at each other, then to them. "We weren't doing anything," they said in unison.
"Right..." Buddy trailed off. "This so called spider?"
They pointed, to wear it was on the other side of Gippal's bed. Everyone shifted around the room and grimaced when seeing the thing.
"Sudran uv—!" (Mother of)
"That's disgusting."
"Oh my!"
"That's huge."
"Ew!"
"Damn..."
"Okay, we believe you," Cid finished.
"Interesting," Shinra commented, coming over to look at it.
As the newcomers looked in fascination, Rikku looked at them all confused. "What are all of you doing in here, anyway?" She looked all of them over. Each were in nightly attire and Elhana and Adedrea both had damp hair. Still, all had either guns or a knife in hand. "And how did you get in here?"
Cid laughed, scratching the back of his head. "Well, you see, we heard screaming and came to your room," he said. "We do live down the hall," he commented with a finger raised.
"We heard gunshots and thought someone was in danger," Vech explained calmly.
"So we uh..." Elhana trailed off, looking to someone to finish her sentence.
"Broke down the door?" Gippal asked, looking outside the bedroom door with a little surprise.
She went over and looked inside the living room. Indeed, the door was off the hinges and laying right on the floor. Her jaw dropped. "I'll get someone to fix it first thing in the morning," Cid said, seeing the horrific look on his daughter's face.
"You'd better."
They went back inside the room and Buddy was knelt over Shinra. "What do you think?" he asked.
"Poisonous, would have killed you within a minute of being bitten," he said. "And these viscous ones. It came after you right?"
"It tried to bite me, yes," Rikku confirmed.
"Where was it?"
She led him over to her closet and he and the other males besides Gippal and Cid went inside. "It just started chasing you around the room?" Elhana asked concerned, hand over her heart. "How dreadful and right before bed."
Adedrea laughed, fooling with her long braid of hair. "Lucky, is what I say."
"If that's all, can we go to bed?" Nhadala asked, looking a little annoyed to be woken up. "I do have an early flight and shipment tomorrow."
"Go ahead sis," Gippal said. "I think everything here is settled."
The guys came out. "A hole in the wall, but no infestation," Sanron confirmed.
"I'll take the carcass with me," Shinra said, picking it up with a gloved hand. "I like studying these things."
"Go ahead," Rikku said. "We don't want it."
"To clean that, I recommend heavy cleaner," he said, pointing to a spot on the carpet.
Rikku rolled her eyes. "Another thing I have to deal with."
"Alright, move out people, nothing to see here," Cid said, trafficking the group out the door. "We all need our sleep and it's late, so move it."
They more or less bowed or nodded to Rikku before leaving, then Cid was the last one. "You both really weren't doing anything?"
"Nothing," they said in unison, again. They looked at each other before getting offended. "Stop doing that!"
Cid laughed, hands on his sides, as he headed out the door. "I'll leave you two love birds alone, see you in the morning."
"Love birds!" Rikku exclaimed.