Quick Backtrack

After a string of qualification matches, the Gullwings along with the Dragonites and eight other teams, including Milano's, progress to the main event. Rikku and Leblanc engage in a fist fight over a small argument. Leblanc limps away from the scene, but happy nevertheless, having taking what she came to Mi'ihen Highroad for in the first place…

Author's Notes

Disclaimer: I don't own any parts of the Final Fantasy franchise. All copyrighted materials belong to their appropriate owners. This is a non-profitable story, written purely for entertainment.

Sorry about the late update, got side tracked with other projects. Hm … I feel like these past chapters have been a little too slow. You can tell me what you think in your reviews. Any criticism is appreciated. And thanks to all those who've reviewed thus far. Things should pick up in the next chapter. :)

The Invincibility of Choice

.: A Tactless Tales Production :.

Chronicle III, Part 1 – A Prize To Die For

3 Weeks Prior, Mi'ihen Highroad…

The sounds of strenuous labour flickered lively in the weapon shop's airless space. Every two seconds, sharp squeals broke the silent air, produced by the heavy knocks of a sledge hammer against steel. The work was tiring, impossible to those untrained, but the blacksmith whistled his way through it all.

Nothing smelt more like achievement than the smooth baking of arsenal. It was this passion infused into his every sword that ultimately built his reputation amongst world spread experts. He rested the hammer on a nearby stool, and wiped his brow with the back of a thick glove. Sweat drenched the muscle shirt onto his brawny chest, and coated a damp shine over his strong arms, outlining yet another advantage of the job. He was awarding himself with a peck to the biceps when an interruption rang from the next room.

The bell continued to ring impatiently, announcing the customer's arrival at least three more times before the shop owner could get to the counter. The abusive finger retreated from the visitor's bell.

His own impatient glare grew soft when he noticed the state she was in. Her battered attire hid beneath a layer of golden sand, with only a few faint spots of pink left of its usual brilliance. The sands seemed to reach her everywhere, spreading a grainy tan up her arms and deep into her cheeks, sparing cerulean eyes that shimmered like an oasis on the desert of a face.

"Can I help you?" His gruff voice struggled to express his meek sympathy.

She slammed something onto the counter. "There. I was told that's all you need for the order." Her voice was a lot stronger than her appearance would suggest. All business was the attitude.

He eyed her curiously, taking a quick glimpse at the deposit she left on the desk before returning his gaze to her face. He knew what she was looking for…

But there were only a select few who knew about his … other talents. Given its cunning absence from the eye of the law, it was essential that the practice was approached with much caution, which meant his customer base could consist of only trusted members.

"Who referred you to me?"

Leblanc took another sigh. Despite her sincere efforts, the name always slithered its way back into her mind. The only thing worse than acknowledging it, was to have to speak it.

ooOOoo

This was it.

Unlike the other nine competitors crouched before the starting line, dealing with tension and anxiety, all sorts of additional emotions were racing inside Yuna, seconds before the big race was due to begin.

Desperation was etched into her tapping boot, so eager. Losing wasn't an option for her. Not if she wanted him to come back. From the second she realised he was missing, his return had become the object of her passion's lust. It was unhealthy, the amount time she spent thinking of him, and she knew it. But that didn't mean she had any control over it.

She would do anything to have him back, and would readily push herself pass the limit, even to the death, before losing this race. This was only half a life; he took the other half with him when he left. And now, like a lover possessed, she wouldn't stop until she got back what was hers.

Her own thoughts were louder than anything else that should've concerned her. She barely detected the voice over the megaphone announce 'ready, set' and subconsciously lifted her bosom. A shot was fired into the air, hurling the racers into frantic sprints.

Yuna neglected the girly flair that usually defined her run. This time, the swings her arms took were purely for momentum. Despite the mad adrenaline pulsing in her body, she struggled to keep first place. She could hear the rapid rhythm of feet drumming ever so closely behind her. What a time to get tired, she panted.

After two kilometres of the clear path stretched out between plant fields, fatigue began to creep up her working legs, leaving its mark in every muscle it touched. Yuna fought through a burning chest and biting stomach, but her first acquaintance with this type of endurance came too late. Her speed tired more and more with the each step. She would've yelled out in frustration if her lungs weren't preoccupied as a short Hypello steadily stole the lead from her.

It was disappointing that its tiny blue legs could carry it further and for longer than Yuna's could serve her. Even more disappointing was that Tiara swooped into view, pushing past Yuna as she chased after first place. Milano would've been proud of her partner, Yuna thought. She panted forward, desperate to escape from her third place predicament when something came to mind.

Up till this point, the race had been anything but dangerous. As the uneasiness circled her mind, Yuna read the bold letters of a wooden sign on the sidelines. 'Hollow ground. Listen to the earth.' The words seem to hop as seen through her jogging eyes.

"What's that?" She breathed curiously, turning her eyes back to the road with a start.

The very ground beneath her began to grumble. Tiara turned back to Yuna, sending her a confused face that told her she heard it too.

Yuna yelped in surprise as the land started to shake. She lost her balance and fell to her knees and palms. Vibrations crawled beneath her earthed fingers. This was definitely real. Gasps of commotion confirmed it from behind her but, the two leaders in front of her strived to keep their feet grounded. She looked up and watched them struggle forward.

The quake grew restless. With a booming grumble, the ground gave into itself, a huge void cutting horizontally across the course from the far ends. The Hypello in lead jumped on its heels at once. But it was moving too fast for its manual break system to stop it soon enough. It screamed in horror as it tumbled straight into the dark void that had been solid earth just seconds before.

Foreign fingers wrapped around its thin forearm, ending its fall prematurely with a violent tug.

"Come on!" Tiara screamed, feeling herself losing her balance at the edge of the make-shift cliff. The Hypello greatly appreciated the effort but was too frightened to make use of it. If it didn't start climbing back up, Tiara knew it was going to take both of them down. "I got you, just climb up! Come – Ah!' Her clumsy boots slid over the edge.

Friendly fingers caught hold of her forearm. "That was close!" Yuna gave back the smile she received from Tiara. In one strong tug, she pulled Tiara, who in turn, pulled the Hypello back to safety, all of them landing awkwardly in the sand. They sighed in union, relieved.

"Now what?" Yuna worried, struggling to a sitting position. A huge black board rose from the gap in the earth. Millions of tiny circles were indented all across its area. "Are those…" Yes, they were. Thick, stainless needles poked out from the indents.

The Hypello, Tiara, Yuna, and all the other racers behind were facing the large bed of needles staring at them. Then, without warning, a needle darted out, zooming through the air at an invisible speed. They all gasped. At least it hadn't hit anyone, they all sighed. After a long wait, another darted out from another section of the board, then another, and another, the time between each shot growing shorter.

The anxiety felt cold in Yuna's face. The bed of needles was more than five metres tall, and impossibly wide. They may have been lucky that the first few were not headed their way, but with the millions of needles left (and one flying free every split second), and the enormous space the board covered, every one of them were going to suffer a painful death by the time it was all over.

"Yuna!" Tiara stressed. "The sign we passed back there! It-it said there was some hollow ground around here!"

Yuna remembered the sign but she had already decided the void, that unfortunately was now filled, was the hollow ground in question.

WHOOSH!

She gasped, stumbling back fearfully as a needle raced right passed her nose. The first cry of a needle's success wailed through the tense air.

All Yuna could think of was avoiding the same fate. She laid flat on her back, reasoning that most of the needles were designed to strike a standing body.

Tiara was one step ahead of her. Her ear stayed close to the surface as she crawled along pounding random spots. By the time Yuna figured out what she was listening for, she had already spelt it out to the former High Summoner. "Here's one! Quick!"

Yuna sprung back to her feet, realising she had to execute as fast as possible. She yelped in pain as a needle scraped past the side of her shin, carving a thin crimson line of its path. But she couldn't let it slow her down.

The two girls hurried into a back-to-back position above the ground Tiara had selected. Yuna drew her twin pistols and aimed for the ground. A hail of bullets drew a circle around them. They wailed when the earth beneath them suddenly collapsed. The landing was hard, squashed, and safe.

It turned out the fields were riddled with underground cubicles just like this one. "I wonder if the others figured it out," Tiara hoped, dusting herself off a little.

"Sure doesn't sound like it…" Yuna submitted in a low voice. The cries above suggested otherwise.

The light pouring down the entrance was disturbed by a bundle of desperation dropping into their shelter. The abrupt present from the heavens crashed on top of them. A chorus of groans followed.

"Oh hell," Tiara shared what her spine was screaming at her.

" … oh heaven … " Something slithered, piled on top them. It appeared to have found something soft and tender to toy with in the dark.

Yuna shrieked her disapproval when she realised. Suddenly forgetting her exhaustion, she shoved the intruder off of her and shot back to her feet. Her arms were crossed protectively over her chest.

The stranger was slowly revealed as their eyes re-adjusted to the light. Long bangs fell over his pale features, covering his right eye with a silver curtain. The red tuxedo was his multi-purpose uniform. It served for both formal events and public outings such as this one. Yuna recognized him immediately, and so did Tiara.

"Ladies," Klamour greeted in as much of a polite hiss as he could. Something burning in the women's eyes told him they weren't going to let him off that easy. He shrugged, holding his hands up innocently. "It was dark. A common mistake, I -"

His pending apology was stopped by a loud scream from the both of them. It appeared that a strange object had somehow rolled right down into their hole, and onto his open hand. Upon closer inspection, he discovered it was a severed, Hypello head. A bony tail hung from its partially visible skull, blood drooping profusely from the putrid artefact. They all recognized who it belonged to.

"… and we worked so hard to save him from falling into that cliff," Tiara said through a mouth muffled by her palm. She was deeply saddened, as was Yuna. Apparently it was too much to expect compassion from a member of the Dragonites.

"Now that's what I call getting ahead of the competition." Naturally, he was the only one that found his statement amusing. The dripping head was held away with his infamous, lizard-like hand, eyes circling it almost excitedly.

What kind of twisted creature was fascinated by a brutal death? Tiara questioned whether she was safer down here with him, or up there with the thick, soaring needles. It didn't take long to come up with an answer. "Yuna, you think it's safe for us to go back up yet?"

"Er – "

"Only one way to find out," Klamour butted in. Using his most powerful underhand swing, he hurled the make-shift ball high up, and into the dangers of the open air. What went up was said to come down, and so it did, but only in a shower of big blobs of blood. The females squealed at the new colour dumped onto their attires while Klamour barely noticed. "Guess not," he answered her question.

Uncomfortably, they waited silently for the needles to settle. After a long while, Yuna caressed her arms that were getting cold from inactiveness. "Think it's safe now?"

All three of them looked up to the opening. Tiara looked at the stains on her shoulders and remembered what happened to the head on its final flight. The same fright was certainly travelling through the other two's minds. But where were they going to find a volunteer for something this risky? A smirk touched her lips as she recalled Klamour hadn't yet been educated on the limits of freedom his hands had. She looked at Yuna and found the same smirk on her face.

"HEY! It was an accident! I didn't know what I was doing! It was dark! I couldn't see anything! Put me down!" Klamour slowly opened his eyes – wait, he still had eyes to open? The huge board of needles was no longer there! He surveyed the area and found two ravaged corpses far away. Unlucky, and stupid too, he thought. It was a good thing he followed – er - accidentally stumbled into Yuna's little pit when he did.

"So?" Yuna asked, getting tired of giving him a boost by the shoe. "Is it safe?"

"I think," Tiara panted, holding the rest of his weight, "since his head hasn't been filled with holes yet … we can assume … that … it is safe."

Yuna sighed. "Good." Together, they removed their hands from beneath his feet. He dropped from the sudden lack of support, crashing hard on his bottom.

Yuna climbed out of the small hole first, and then gave Tiara a hand out too, both ignoring the noisy Dragonite's complaints. When they looked into the void where the board had been resting they noticed something dangerously peculiar. "It's reloading! We have to find a way across before it's fully equipped again."

A Ronso came out of nowhere and gave one huge leap across the long void. They both watched in awe, unsure of which was more amazing: the fact that anything could jump that far, or the fact that a heavy Ronso could even jump more than half a metre into the air.

"That's one way, I guess," Tiara admitted. "But I've got my own method."

"Oh? What is it?"

Tiara looked at her oddly. Yuna sounded a lot more interested than a normal competitor should have. She didn't plan on filling in her opponent just yet. She pulled out an arrow from the packet strapped to her back and tied the small thin rope, which had been coiled in her pocket, around it. She fired the arrow into a tall tree on the other side of the void. After securing the rope, she finally turned back to Yuna. "Sorry, but this is a race." And with that, she sailed her way across, leaving Yuna to derive a plan of her own.

"Wha-?" Yuna complained, but quickly realised that that wasn't going to get her far. Creases surfaced upon her brow as she thought hard of a way to get across. She almost jumped up in excitement when she realised how simple the solution was. And here she thought it would never come in handy, she rolled her eyes as she extracted something from a small bag around her waist.

It was the golden Chocobo feather Brother had given her a while back. She blessed the present with a gentle kiss and watched as it hovered before her. The golden aura it produced wrapped around Yuna's body, lifting her feet of the ground.

"The Float ability!" She announced to no one in particular. With the help of the enchanted feather's gift, she effortlessly ran across thin air to get to the other side of the void.

The final obstacle for her leg of her race came into view. The ramp sloped upwards to a flat pinnacle. Beneath the checkpoint's fluttering banner, candidates for the next leg of the race waited for their team members. Yuna pulled the cylindrical marker from her belt as she touched ground once again. She sped for the ramp at full force, desperately hoping Rikku could regain the lead.

If she couldn't … Yuna didn't know what she would do.

End of Chronicle III, Part 1