Disclaimer: You know the drill. I only own the plot and the stuff I created.
Chapter XXII
Surprises Behind Every Door
First weigh the considerations,
Then take the risks. -Helmuth von Meltke
XxXxX
She paced back and forth, thinking, planning a way out--but coming up blank. Did they have a camera in the room? Were they watching her every move? I would. Light had appeared in the room shortly after her kidnapper left, the torches on the walls being the source of the light. So the guy could clap his hands and make the torches light up. Woo-hoo, she was impressed. And guess what she could do? Burp the Hymn of the Fayth.
Okay, so she wasn't impressed and couldn't burp the Hymn, but she was pissed off.
"As if that mattered right now!" She screamed in anger. Being locked up was no fun. Boy, was there going to be a serious ass-whoopin' when she got out.
Knock, knock, "Miss Paine, are you ready?" came a man's voice from the other side of the door.
No, she stopped pacing and faced the door, her only way out from the looks of it. "Yeah, I guess," she said, watching the door open and a man a little over six feet, maybe in his mid-twenties, stood there. He had dark brown hair with blond streaks throughout it that looked as if he never combed it, like I comb mine, and blue-green eyes.
When his eyes locked with hers, she could tell he was shocked.
Men, she almost rolled her eyes.
"Uh, you're--you're Paine?" he asked, unable to take his eyes off of her as he looked her up and down.
"That'd be me," she raised an eyebrow. "You're my escort?" You have got to be kidding me. Sure, he's muscular like Gippal, and just about as tan, but I could easily kick his ass. Ah, don't judge a book by the cover, she reminded herself.
"Uh, yeah, I'm your escort," he swallowed hard, looking a bit nervous.
She didn't even waste a moment. Better to get this over with, huh? "Lead the way," she followed him out of the room, the two walking to their left to a corner, then turning right and stopped at a door only a few feet away on the left wall.
He was quiet, nervous, probably, she didn't know, but it humored her. They walked through the door, stairs heading down were ahead of them, a walkway to their left that went around the room, both the stairs and the walkway overlooking the large room below them--a library, she noticed. A chandelier hung from the high ceiling where glass covered the entire top.
"Expensive lookin' place," she mumbled, a bit shocked at how much gil must've been put into just a library.
"Yeah, it's a pretty nice place." He mumbled something else.
"Excuse me?"
He looked at her. "Huh?"
"You said something else. What'd you say?"
"Uh, n-nothing. We'd better hurry, what's-her-name- I mean, um, uh, boss lady doesn't like to wait long." He continued down the stairs, making sure she followed him, which she didn't hesitate in doing so.
"So what's a guy like you doing here, working for a bad guy?" Paine asked, careful not to appear too nosy.
"Because she could easily kill me?"
"Point taken," she glanced at him, walking beside him.
"Why is such a lady as yourself here, as a prisoner? What'd you do that was so bad?"
She had to chuckle to that. "I honestly don't know, I was practically kidnapped."
"Kidnapped?"
"Yeah, kidnapped. Don't know how he managed it, but he did." She narrowed her eyes, silently promising her kidnapper that she'll get her revenge. It was a promise she meant to keep.
"Um…" He stepped off the last step, watching her stop at the bottom of the stairs shortly after him. "My name is Steven."
"Pleasure to meet you, Steven," He seems nice, innocent, even. How does someone like him even get a job working with the enemy? Bad luck, possibly.
"The dining room isn't too far away," he--Steven--said, continuing walking. "I don't know what they're having for dinner, but I wouldn't eat it, if I were you. I manage to get my food elsewhere, but I wouldn't trust her food."
"Okay, thanks, I'll remember that," she saw them pass up one door, and then stop at another at the end of the hall.
"Enjoy your dinner, Miss Paine," his whole attitude changed, making Paine suspicious. He nodded his head slightly towards the ceiling.
She slowly turned her eyes toward the corner and saw a camera, looking back at him, she nodded. "I'll try to," she made her voice sound harsh, the way it had been when she was talking to her kidnapper. She shot him a glare before she entered the room and the door shut behind her.
"Ah, so this is Paine, a good friend of Lady Yuna."
Paine looked at the long table, the room lit up by candles that had been placed on the table. On the left end of the table sat a woman with silver hair, to the woman's left sat a man--
"Lord Seymour--" She barely got the words out of her mouth. He's--he's alive. She may have never met the dead man--but so very much alive before her own eyes--, but she knew what he looked like, everyone on Spira did. "But--but you're supposed to be dead!"
"I look good for a dead man, don't I?" Seymour looked at her, "Please, have a seat," he motioned to a chair across from him and to the woman's right.
She did so, not even hesitating for a second, something told her things just got worse.
"It is a pleasure to have you join us for dinner, my dear Paine,"
That voice… "YOU! YOU'RE THE CRAZY WOMAN IN MY HEAD!" She shouted, eyes wide.
The woman chuckled. "Yes, child, I am," she stopped the chuckling and looked at her. "My name is Ultimecia, it is an honor to finally meet you in person."
Paine opened her mouth--
"Bite your tongue, girl!" Seymour snapped, eyes glaring at her.
Rage built up inside her, but she ignored it. She had control of her emotions. A sly smile appeared on her face. "Yes, daddy," she held his glare with her own.
"My, my, my, how I lost my temper, I apologize for the…outburst, Miss Ultimecia, please forgive me," he bowed his head slightly.
"Don't worry about it, Seymour. Let us begin this konversation," Ultimecia took her gaze off of Seymour and locked it on her. Seymour glared at her, ah, poor baby, he didn't like my bad mouth. So my mouth has a mind of its own, sue me. Paine just glared back.
"You will be staying here for a while, but don't worry about needing to know where everything is. You'll be staying in your room during your stay. Oh, how do you like the room? Plenty of room?" Ultimecia asked her, not noticing or even bothering to notice the glare battle her and Seymour were having.
"The room itself is…nice, but I'm beginning to get the feeling that no one wants me out of my room. Is that true? I mean, I'm such a nice person, and I don't cause any trouble. Maybe you could allow me to, ooooh, get out of the house some?" Paine kept an innocent look and smile on her face.
Ultimecia looked pissed, but regained her calm expression. "Perhaps I could allow you some time outside of your room. Not."
"Bitch," Paine glared at her, a smirk on her face.
"Steven! Get this woman out of my sight and put her back in her room!" Ultimecia yelled at the man who had obviously been right outside the door, listening in on their conversation--Paine could tell by the laugh he tried to hold back as he entered the room and grabbed her arm fiercely.
"Come with me, Miss Paine," Steven said to her, trying to glare at her, but failing. She could see the laughter in his eyes even as they left the room and headed back toward the stairs. "That was awesome!" he exclaimed, though not too loud for fear that someone may overhear him.
"Thank you. Do you think I made a good first impression?"
He laughed. "Yeah!"
A couple minutes later, they arrived at her assigned room, Steven opened the door for her, his head only slightly nodding to what she guessed was a camera above the door. As she walked inside, he passed something so quickly, so skillfully, that you'd have to be really paying attention to even notice it. Paine walked further into the room, the door shutting and locking behind her. She yawned a fake yawn, stretched, and rubbed her head. In the next few seconds, she was in the bed, all covered up.
Her head was slightly under the blanket as she looked down to her hands under the covers. She quietly unfolded the sheet of paper that he had given her, and read it silently:
Will get info for you. Give me a couple days.
The handwriting wasn't the least bit neat, but she figured he had to write quickly, so why bother writing neatly? She could still read it.
XxXxX
Whistling.
"How long have you been doing that, now? A little over an hour?"
Gippal stopped whistling. "Yep."
"You know, the first five minutes was annoying enough."
He laughed, replying, "Ah, c'mon, Baralai, there's nothin' else to do around here. You'd think she'd be kind enough to give us some board games or something."
"Yeah, but she didn't-"
"So we're just going to hafta entertain ourselves, right?"
"Yes."
"Anyone know how to sing that song that Yuna sung when she really wasn't Yuna, in Al Bhed?" Gippal asked, fully aware of what the answers would be. Big and Little Guy didn't know what he had said, and Baralai was…Baralai.
"Gippal, we should be thinking of a way out, not singing songs," Baralai sighed on the other side of the wall.
"Sing along with me, Baralai: Vyn paouht dra hyqo puntanc uv so raynd," Gippal had already stood and walked up to the door, inspecting it.
"Gippal…"
The two Al Bhed brothers looked at Gippal, like he was crazy.
"E luimt caa y bmyla dryd's cusadrahk mega dnec," He patted the sides of his pants, reaching into the left pocket a second later and pulling out a screwdriver. "Ajano huf yht dnah E tuh'd ghuf fryd du tu."
"Gippal, are you even listening to me?"
"Cdemm E ghuf dryd E lyh hajan ku pylg."
Crreeeeaaaakk……THUD.
"Gippal! What was that!" Baralai's tone of voice sounded highly worried.
"That, my friend, was the sound of a very heavy door falling to the ground." He exited the cell, the two brothers cautiously following. Gippal picked the lock to Baralai's cell and pushed the door open. "So you're really not in my imagination," he said with a smile. "Your door, Praetor, has been opened." He bowed, straightening only after Baralai stepped out.
"Thank you, my dear friend."
"Ah, don't mention it; I needed some fresh air, anyway." Gippal looked around and down the hall where it turned right. "And the mice have escaped their cage. Shall we get out of this hellhole?"
Baralai nodded. "Yes, let's."
The small group of four walked around the corner and left where the hall turned again. A few yards down the hall, they came to two sets of stairs, one going up, the other down--both heavily protected by thick bars. No way that was going to be their ticket out of here.
"And I thought they wanted us to leave. Looks like they're tryin' really hard." Gippal continued down the hall, obviously determined to get out of here. Who wasn't?
The hall continued straight to a dead end. There were only two turns before that dead end: the first turning left, the other right. The right turn, as they soon found out, led to yet another dead end with a single door on the left wall.
"Let's try the other way first, and if it's a dead end, we'll try that door at the end, there." Baralai suggested.
Gippal only nodded and turned the other way. Looking at the brothers, he translated, "Fa'mm lralg dra udran fyo vencd, cu zicd vummuf ic, ugyo?"
"Ugyo," both said, following them with no hesitation.
After they backtracked a few feet and took the other turn, they found themselves at a long hall that looked very similar to the one they had just left, except for the metal door ahead of them.
"Frelr fyo?" asked Little Guy.
"Uh…right," Gippal pointed to their right, "dead end, tayt aht, but left," he then pointed left, "is our choice, ec uin lruela." I really need to teach Baralai Al Bhed. As they started left, they heard footsteps. And as quickly and quietly as they could, they ran back the way they came, stopping right there at the corner, and waiting for the person to pass by. They did--and as Gippal peered around to see, he saw the guard walking away from them. He signaled for them to stay put as he quietly turned the corner and threw a sleeping grenade around the next corner to where the guard was.
The guard fell down, asleep, and he motioned to them that all was okay. He walked up to the fallen guard and searched his pockets.
"Oh oayr, E'ja red dra zylg-bud," Gippal said proudly as he pulled out a card that looked like it fit perfectly in that little machina over by the metal door.
"What did you find?" asked Baralai, walking up behind him.
"Some kinda card thing that goes in that machina by the door," he answered. "At least I don't hafta try to get in manually." Swiping the card through the machina, a female voice spoke.
"FINGERPRINT, PLEASE."
"Uh, kessa dryd kio ujan drana, uh, Big Guy."
The Al Bhed dragged the man over to Gippal, not even trying to be gently as he did so. As he dropped the man next to him, he stood back. Gippal grabbed the guard's hand and placed his thumb on the pad thing on the machina.
"ACCESS GRANTED." A click of a lock unlocking.
After the door finished raising into the ceiling, Gippal stuck his head inside to make sure no one was there. Nothing. He turned his head, put his index finger to his lips, and made a soft sssshhhh sound.
A few feet ahead, a left and right turn. Both dead ends. On the right turn and on the left wall, there was another metal door, the same machina on the wall next to it.
"Three doors down here," Baralai said, coming back up the right hall. "and I think only one over there."
"Well one has to have the card thing, or maybe this one works on this one, too?"
"I doubt it; if the other needed the fingerprint of that man and the card, then more than likely this one has a separate owner," Baralai explained, looking down the left hall. "The right hall has more cells in it, I didn't look through the bars on any of the doors because I didn't want anyone to see me, so the room all by itself has to be the one we're looking for."
"Aye, aye, captain, let's look." Gippal walked towards the lone room with a slight hop in his step.
"Fa'mm cdyo uid rana yht cdyo uh kyint." He heard Big Guy say.
He nodded, looking back at Baralai behind him. Softly he knocked on the door.
The door opened and Gippal saw a man, but then the man was out on the floor, nose bleeding from the punch he received from Gippal.
With one man down, the other two in the room who had recently been playing some kind of card game came toward them, Gippal knocking one out while Baralai handled the other.
"You check that one and I'll check these two, 'kay?"
"Okay," Baralai checked the pockets, finding a card, one exactly like the first one. "I've found it."
"Great! Now let's go check out the next room," Gippal and him left the room, unlocked the next door using the card and one of the men's thumb, and soon they were in. And they were shocked at what they had walked into.
Not fiends, nor people, not even more buildings, halls, closed doors. Plants. They had walked into a room full of plants of all kinds.
"Whoa, Macalania Woods, 'cept bigger," Gippal looked around, wide-eyed.
"Let's continue forward, perhaps we will find a way out." Looking around also, Baralai took a couple steps forward.
"Dnyem," Little Guy said, pointing ahead of them.
"Hey! That is a trail! A badly made one, but still a trail." Gippal started to walk backwards down the trail. "It has to lead somewhere, right?" Not really waiting for an answer, he turned back around and headed forward, the other three behind him.
Whistling.
"Gippal…"
"What? Do you want me to break out into singing?"
"No," Baralai said quickly.
"Fryd ypuid oui dfu?" asked Gippal, looking back at the two Al Bhed brothers. "Tu oui fyhd sa du cehk?"
"Hu, pacd cyja ed vun yh ubbuhahd. Ayco gemm," said Big Guy, making Gippal and Little Guy burst out laughing.
"Drad'c hud vihho!" Gippal said, smile on face.
"I take it they don't want you to sing?" Baralai looked over at his friend.
"Nah, sure don't. He said that it's best to save it for an opponent, that it would be an easy kill." He shook his head. "Ouin cehkehk lyh'd pa yho paddan, Big Guy."
Big Guy chuckled. "Cinamo ed'c paddan dryh ouinc!"
"From what I understood of it, he's insulting you."
"Yeah, but I think he has a point. His singing is probably better than mine."
"I'd have to agree."
Gippal lightly punched Baralai on the right. "Heeeey, you aren't supposed to agree with your pal, even if he's right." Suddenly, he stopped, frozen in his tracks.
"What is it--Oh," Baralai quickly shut his mouth.
Trees, bushes, they were moving, as if someone or something was walking past them. Then they felt it--they felt the ground beneath them shake slightly, a soft thump in the distance.
"Uh…anyone else have goosebumps?" Gippal stood his ground, listening closely, still unsure of where the sound was coming from.
"I suggest--" Baralai started.
ROOOOAAAARRRR!
"We run!" finished Gippal as a huge six-legged beast rose out of the bushes. Two sets of red eyes on a huge bear head--it looked dangerous; not only dangerous, but pissed off.
And they were running. Though they were running in the opposite direction of where ever the trail led, Gippal really didn't think anyone cared considering that fiend was behind them.
Through bushes, passed trees, jumping over the occasional above-ground tree root, away from the green-scaled fiend--
--ROOOOAAAARRRR!-- from the west it came.
Wait, but I thought it was behind us? Gippal only slightly turned his head to his left--
SSLLAAAASHH!, claws slice into flesh, throwing his body like a rag doll. His back slammed against a thick tree, sliding down into a sitting position, then falling onto his right side, arms wrapped around his sides. He bit his lower lip to keep the scream of pain from coming out.
"Gippal!" screamed Baralai, trying to stop and help his friend, but the fiend was chasing him and the brothers--he gasped--oh, no, a second one, the one who had hurt Gippal, it was coming back at him--at his only friend in this…this place.
Branch. Jump. Simple.
He saw the branch, jumped, and grabbed onto it with both hands. As he swung himself up and around to the top, the fiend running beneath him, passed him, even as he landed softly, and ran toward where the other fiend was headed for Gippal.
One good spell. That's all. Just one. Stay calm.
Lucky for him he knew at least one spell that he could use. And so he used it.
"Firaga!" The spell hit the fiend, but only burning it--you could see where its scaled had been hit they were so black. It stopped in its tracks, stopped charging at Gippal, and slowly turned toward him, that big head now facing him. Once more it roared, running in his direction. He jumped to the right, dodging the fiend--almost. The tail slapped against him, and into a tree he flew, back first.
As the fiend was coming back at him, he thought he was a goner. Until--
--Until the man Gippal called Big Guy jumped down off a tree and onto the large back of the fiend.
"Run, Praetor, and take Gippal! I will handle this fiend!" he shouted, in more Spirian words than Baralai thought he knew.
He didn't hesitate, though, didn't stop to wonder how the Al Bhed knew Spirian--didn't want to, he wanted to get out. He stood, running toward Gippal, who was lying on his side, obviously in pain. He only looked back once to see the Al Bhed steer the fiend away from them, then he and Gippal ran off through the forest, Gippal leaning on him for balance.
"Gippal! Gippal! Baralai!" called someone.
The younger brother--Little Guy, according to Gippal--ran out of the bushes. "Frana ec so prudran?" he asked, voice shaky.
"Uh…" Baralai thought about the words the Al Bhed said, trying to translate what he had said without asking Gippal, whose breathing was heavy. "Your, uh, prudran cyjat…seha yht Gippal's meva. E…tuh'd ghuf ev ra'c ymeja," he said, his Al Bhed not so good, the words not pronounced correctly, but by the look on Little Guys face, he understood.
Tears formed in the Al Bhed's eyes, and he started walking toward where his brother was last seen.
"No," Baralai said softly, grabbing his arm. "He wants us--all of us--to get out alive."
The man seemed to understand him, and he joined them as they quickly headed in the direction that they thought the exit was located.
They needed better weapons and potions.
They needed help. Or in Gippal's words: they were screwed.
Al Bhed Translations:
"Vyn paouht dra hyqo puntanc uv so raynd," -- Far beyond the hazy borders of my heart.
"E luimt caa y bmyla dryd's cusadrahk mega dnec," -- I could see a place that's something like this.
"Ajano huf yht dnah E tuh'd ghuf fryd du tu." -- Every now and then I don't know what to do.
"Cdemm E ghuf dryd E lyh hajan ku pylg." -- Still I know that I can never go back.
"Frelr fyo?" -- Which way?
"Oh oayr, E'ja red dra zylg-bud," -- Oh yeah, I've hit the jack-pot.
"Uh, kessa dryd kio ujan drana, uh, Big Guy." -- Uh, gimme that guy over there, uh, Big Guy.
"Fa'mm cdyo uid rana yht cdyo uh kyint." -- We'll stay out here and stay on guard.
"Fryd ypuid oui dfu? Tu oui fyhd sa du cehk?" -- What about you two? Do you want me to sing?
"Ouin cehkehk lyh'd pa yho paddan, Big Guy." -- Your singing can't be any better, Big Guy.
"Cinamo ed'c paddan dryh ouinc!" -- Surely it's better than yours!
"Frana ec so prudran?" -- Where is my brother?
"Your, uh, prudran cyjat…seha yht Gippal's meva. E…tuh'd ghuf ev ra'c ymeja," --Your, uh, brother saved…mine and Gippal's life. I…don't know if he's alive.
