Chapter 3: An Otherworld Awaits You
When Lesca got home, Juno immediately launched into a lecture.
"What got into you? I was worried sick! For all I knew, that fiend could have gotten you! I tried to search, but some of the Zanarkand Security Forces herded me back in! Are you all right? You look tired. How could you do something like this to me? This isn't like you at all. You're not hurt, are you?"
"I'm fine, Mom. I'm sorry for worrying you," Lesca said.
"I know, honey. I'm sorry for yelling. But... you really scared me. I could have lost you!"
"I know. I'll try not to do it again. But I'm really tired, and I doubt that they'll have classes today, so I think I'll take a nap."
"Okay," Juno said, concerned. Lesca was acting very oddly all of a sudden, and Juno couldn't figure out why.
School resumed the next day, but everybody was talking about the 'fiend'.
Everyone seemed to have gotten there early, and the school was filled with a constant babble.
"Lesca!" Mila said, trotting up to her friend. "Did you hear the news?" Without waiting for an answer, the blonde girl continued. "Well, of course you did. Everyone's heard it! That big fiend was really something. I wonder if it'll come back. I hear that the ZMC is going to use some of their machina to patrol the streets. Your dad works there, right? Do you know anything?"
"I haven't seen my dad much as of late," Lesca said.
"Oh, that's too bad. Still, it's pretty generous of ZMC to do that, don't you think?"
"I guess." Lesca wasn't in the mood to talk about it. She needed time to think things over. The fact that she couldn't let anyone know about Bahamut made it even worse.
Fortunately, Lesca was saved by the signal bell, marking the beginning of school.
No one was really paying much attention in class that day. The teachers, if they noticed, didn't get upset over it. Fiends were rare near Zanarkand, and none ever got past the outskirts, so a giant creature suddenly appearing in the middle of the city was something to talk about.
Lesca hurried home after school finished. She was still feeling a bit drained from obtaining her first aeon. However, history reports didn't write themselves.
After a few days, the furor died down, although the rumors still flew thick as ever, and the ZMC had, in fact, deployed machina patrols.
On Sixthday, the last school day of the week, the headmaster of the school made an announcement over the sphere system.
"On Fourthday, next week, we will be going on a field trip to Guadosalam. Be sure and get your parental permission forms signed and turned in."
Guadosalam! Lesca thought. That's where the Farplane is! Maybe I can see the little boy Fayth there. Or maybe a different Fayth.
After Lesca got home from school, she handed her mother the permission form.
"Mom? Would you mind signing this? We're going on a field trip to Guadosalam next Fourthday," she said.
"Sure, honey," said Juno, smiling. "Just let me get a pen."
This is just the thing to get her mind off of all the chaos going on, Juno thought. She seems so excited!
Frankly, Juno found her husband's absence worrisome. He got home at ungodly hours when he didn't just stay the night at the ZMC. She knew that he had a lot of work to do, especially with ensuring another fiend fiasco didn't occur, but couldn't he at least fit in a little family time?
Juno shook off her reverie and grabbed a pen from the handy pencil/pen/stylus container located on one of the kitchen counters. After signing the paper, she gave it back to Lesca.
Lesca had a strange dream that night.
She was running down a path, and at the end of the path was a dragon.
The dragon was killing lots of people, so Lesca had to slay it. But she wasn't alone.
Sometimes there were people with her, running beside her on the path to the dragon's lair.
Because it was a dream, everything was muddled-- sometimes it was Mila running with her, sometimes it was another girl with braided blond hair and swirled green eyes, sometimes it was a man wearing sunglasses and a red coat, and sometimes it was a boy with ocean-blue eyes and spiky blond hair who was from Zanarkand.
Sometimes there was a girl above Lesca flying on a great bird. Sometimes Lesca was the girl on the bird, and she saw the dragon in the distance. And she was afraid, because she knew that however many people ran with her, Lesca would have to fight the dragon alone.
They ran and ran, and they finally got to the dragon. The dragon had gray scales, many eyes, and a huge mouth which it used to swallow people. Suddenly a woman appeared, and said that the only way the dragon would die would be if she would sacrifice her own life and one of her friends. And Lesca looked at the woman for a long time.
"I will do it," came the resounding voices behind her. But one voice stood out.
"Don't do it!" yelled the boy from Zanarkand. "I don't want you to die! There's another way!"
Lesca suddenly realized that she was holding a sword, so she drove it into the dragon's heart. The dragon shuddered, and collapsed into a scaly heap.
But something was wrong. The dragon's body was disappearing, leaving the gray scales behind. And on top of the pile of scales stood three men.
One had blue hair and wore a blue robe. He hadn't wanted Lesca to kill the dragon, but he couldn't do anything about it, because he was dissipating into pyreflies.
Another looked like Yu Yevon from the history spheres Lesca had seen. He was picking up the dragon scales and gluing them back together to make a new dragon.
But the third man Lesca knew. The third man was her father.
Lesca screamed and woke up.
The next few days were uneventful, but she had the same dream every night. There were some differences between the dreams, like who was running on the path with her and what weapon she used to strike down the dragon. But it always ended the same way.
Lesca hadn't seen her father at all these past few days, and the dream troubled her greatly. She told herself again and again that it was only a dream, and it meant nothing. But in her deepest heart of hearts, she knew that it wasn't true. Somehow, her father was connected to something ominous.
Finally, it was Fourthday. Field trip time.
Everyone from school was loaded onto a hovertrain headed for Guadosalam. Lesca was lucky enough to get a window seat, and gazed out in silence for the duration of the trip.
Guadosalam looked nothing like it did in Former Fantasy. Once, a city had been carved into a great tree, but a lot of the tree was gone now. There was only one house built into what was left of the tree, and there were a few small wooden houses huddled around the tree, inhabited by what was left of the ancient race called the Guado.
There were many people throughout Spira with a little Guado blood. With the advent of new forms of transportation that facilitated speedy travel, many of the Guado decided to live out in the larger part of Spira rather than remaining in Guadosalam. But the true death knell for the old Guado way of life was the discovery that the Farplane was an energy source.
The Farplane was, according to myth, the resting place of the dead. It was said that one could see the figures of deceased friends and family. Lesca had been taught that this was pure myth, but she was beginning to doubt a lot of what she learned at school.
No one disputed the fact that the Farplane was now home to a power plant which converted Farplane energy (which, although people were able to use it, no one really knew exactly what it was) into power for the cities. There were underground pipes which transported FP-energy to the cities.
The Farplane was the main reason for the field trip.
"Hello, kids," said a supervisor of the power plant. "I suppose you'll be wanting the grand tour?"
"Of course. We'd be most grateful," said a teacher.
"Now, nobody go wandering off, okay?" said the supervisor. A general murmur of assent came from the group.
The supervisor walked over to the dome which covered the entrance to the Farplane. He walked to the door and entered a numerical code. In response, the door slid obediently open, and everyone entered and began to walk down a long, long staircase.
Lesca gasped in awe. She'd never expected the Farplane to be so... beautiful.
The supervisor was leading the group down a path that had been constructed for the ease of power plant employees. Lesca quietly slipped away.
She ran through the field of flowers that grew naturally on the Farplane. According to rumor, there had once been an effort to get rid of the flowers, but it hadn't worked. They'd always just popped right back up again, seemingly overnight.
Lesca looked over her shoulder. Apparently no one had noticed her absence.
"Hmph," a grunt came from somewhere to Lesca's right.
She turned and saw the man with a red coat who sometimes ran with her in her dream. "Um... hi?" she said.
"You are Lesca." It wasn't a question.
"How did you know?"
"The fayth have spoken much of you."
"Who are you?"
The man paused. "I am called Auron."
So that's his name, Lesca thought. He's one of the people from my dream.
"Hey, Auron!" came another voice. "That the Lesca the fayth are so riled up about?"
The man had a rugged appearance, and wore no shirt, the better to display the Zanarkand Abes tattoo on his chest.
"Hello, Jecht," said the fayth in an amused tone.
"Wait..." Lesca said suddenly. "Are you two fayth too?"
"Well," Jecht said, "he isn't," gesturing toward Auron, "but I guess you could say I am. But don't go asking about my aeon. It's retired."
"Oh. Okay," Lesca nodded. "Why is everyone talking about me?"
"'Cause the fayth have a nose for destiny," Jecht grinned.
"As I said before," Bahamut's fayth broke in, "you have the potential to save your world."
"But you come from a different world than I do. I'm grateful for your help and all, but why are you so concerned?" Lesca asked.
"The Farplane, as I told you before, is what connects our worlds," said the fayth. "Something is going on in your world that has the potential to destroy the Farplane. We need your help, Lesca."
"But what can I do? I'm just a kid!" she protested.
"You are fifteen. One of the Lady Yuna's guardians was that young, but that didn't seem to stop her from helping to defeat Sin," Auron said. "Furthermore, you are a summoner. You're stronger than you think."
Lesca felt a sudden chill, and Auron, Jecht, and the fayth shuddered.
"We'd better get the heck out of here!" yelled Jecht.
"Agreed," said
the fayth. Suddenly, the world seemed to start spinning, and the
colors seemed to melt together, running down Lesca's vision until she
blacked out.
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