Chapter Three: And so it Begins

Tidus blinks his eyes a few times and gazes at the cute blonde girl with the green swirly eyes, " Umm... can you repeat that?" The girl raises a brow and puts her hands on her hips and says, " Yna oui tahca? Tunh'd oui cbayg Al Behd?" Tidus' eyes widen as he smiles, " HEY! I think that was an insult about us! What's all this 'we' stuff girl?" The girl shakes her head and mumbles, " Cdibet pmuhta puo..."

Tidus still not understanding this crazy moon man language she's speaking has this blank look on his face. " Umm... my name is Tidus, I like Blitzball and turkey sandwiches... what's your name?" Machete just shakes his head and mumbles to himself, " Even though there's a language barrier he's still trying to hit on her. God he's hopeless..."

The girl smiles and cocks her head to the side, " My name's Rikku... and Al Behd is a type of people, and a language... you know, that thing I'm speaking and it also happens to be what I am." Tidus motions his head up and down but the blank expression on his face still proves he doesn't really know but then realizes she said that in English, " I understood that! You do speak my language!" Rikku nods and points over to Machete, " We found you two guys washed up near some ancient city, so we decided to pick you both up and see if you were dead. When we gathered that you were alive, we figured to keep you around and see if you can be useful."

Tidus not really paying attention just nods his head and smiles because she's really cute, " Ya sure, whatever you say." Rikku looks at him funny realizing he might not be paying attention, yet before she can continue Machete chimes in, " We play Blitzball, so we can swim, lift or whatever you want us to do. The sky's the limit..." Rikku glances over at the one that sounds more intelligent, " And what's your name?"

"The name's Machete, I'm more than willing to help you guys out if you please explain where in the blue hell we happen to be. Myself and my less then bright buddy over there happen to be from Zanarkand... have you heard of the place?" Rikku looks at Machete funny and then chuckles a little to herself; " You can't be from Zanarkand all the Yevonites say it's a holy city that hasn't been inhabited for nearly one thousand years." Machete looks away and tries to wrap his head around how it could be one thousand years since the blitz game.

Tidus, being naturally impulsive decides to spout at the mouth, " One thousand years? You must be kidding girl, I mean me and Machete were just playing a game before that big abomination came and attacked us. I play for the Zanarkand Abes and he plays for the Zanarkand Luckies, we just had a championship game." Rikku shakes her head and sits down between the two strangers and begins explaining, " According to those whole follow Yevon, Zanarkand was a large city filled with lights and machina before Sin came." Tidus decides to ask a question as soon as Rikku pauses, " What's ma-kee-na?" Rikku looks at him funny and smirks, " I guess Sin's toxin really does cause brain damage..." Machete smirks and can't help but comment, " Nope, that's just Tidus..."

Before an all out fight begins Rikku just giggles and decides to answer the machina question, " Machina, is machinery. According to Yevon it is evil and the reason that Sin came, because all humans did was goof around and let their machina do the work. So as a result of laziness, Sin was created to punish humanity... beginning with Zanarkand." Machete just looks out through the railings and peers into the water while Tidus just hits the deck with his hand, " No way! Zanarkand can't be gone... and this can't be one thousand years in the future..."

Before Rikku can comment or even continue the discussion, Brother walks through the doorway to the deck and calls for Rikku, " Mayja dras clis ymuha, drao yna bnupypmo Al Behd rydehk Yevonites yhofyo!" Rikku stands up quickly and hollers back, " Na-uh! Drao yna blitzers vnus Zanarkand! Drao tuh'd ajah ghuf fryd yh Al Behd ec silr macc Yevon."

Brother walks up to the group and smirks, " Lyh drao cfes?" Rikku puts her hands on her hips and rolls her eyes, " E cyet drao blitz teth'd E?" Brother grins and nods, " Keja dras pnaydrehk tajelac yht damm dras drao yna kuehk du ramb fedr uin aqlyjydeun."

Rikku nods a little disappointed that she won't be able to talk to them much more, " Oac Brother..." During the whole exchange Tidus inched closer to Machete and whispered, " Do you know what the hell they're saying?" Machete looks at Tidus like he's retarded and retorts, " Do I look like a master of linguistics or something? I'm just as lost as you are man..." As the two boys talk Rikku looks back at them and beams brightly, " Alright boys! We're putting you both to work!"

The two guys look at each other and just wonder what exactly it is that they could be doing. Rikku sees that they are a little confused and decides to shed some light on the subject, " See, you will be swimming down to a sunken ship with us, to help recover machina." Machete looks at her seems a little lost, " I thought you said machina were illegal... or unholy or something." Rikku shakes her head, " Not to us Al Behd... we think Yevon is a giant sham. We make it our job to find new machina and use as much as we can possibly get up and running."

Tidus nods and jumps up to his feet, " ALRIGHT! Into the water!" But before the energetic blitzer can jump off Machete grabs his arm and pulls him back to the ground, " Hi genius... we play blitz, we hold our breath. I think this might take a little longer than what we can hold our breath for." Tidus scratches the back of his head and grins, " Oh ya... that whole breathing thing." With that he looks over to the Al Behd girl and asks, " Hey Rikku, do you guys got some sort of machina to help us breath under water?"

Rikku smiles a little taken by the blonde boys idiocy, " Oac loda cdivv..." After realizing what she said Rikku blushed and then thanks the fact that she said it in Al Behd as Tidus just looks at her funny, " What?" Rikku smiles and holds out two little breathers and says, " Here you go, they obviously go in your mouth and as soon as you guys are ready we'll head down to the sunken ship."

Machete grabs one and looks at it while it's in his hand, " Well this is weird... first a huge fiend appears and now we're in some freaky world that's apparently one thousand years in the future." Tidus takes his and just smirks, " Hey, Auron has to know what he was doing... cause he seemed very familiar with all of this." Machete nods and stands up, " Well you ready dork?" Tidus grins and stands on the railing, " Of course... catch me if you can jackass!" Tidus places the device in his mouth and dives into the water.

" You dumb..." Machete stops himself as he places his breather in his mouth and jumps over the rail and dives into the water after Tidus. Seeing this Rikku can't help but laugh and motion to the other Al Behd on the deck, " Vummuf druca sunuhc..." After she places her breather in her mouth she jumps in and tries to catch up, not knowing what will happen, but taken from how these two act... it should be interesting."

So by the time Rikku hits the water she sees the two boys racing each other and get stopped suddenly by a bunch of piranha fish. And as they go to reach for their weapons they realize that those must have been seized when they got picked up.

So as the fish stare them down the boys just kind of look at the fish and chuckle uneasily not really knowing what exactly to do without weapons. But before they any fighting starts a grenade explodes in front of them and manages to kill off the bunch of fish. The guys look over quickly thinking it might be hostile until they see Rikku and wave at her overjoyed that she saved their butts. She can't help but grin as she catches up to them thinking to herself, ' Dumb boys... swimming off without their weapons...'

Once she reaches the two boys she hands them each their respective weapon, Tidus with his bronze sword and Machete with his halberd. So as they get their weapons back the men play around with them a little testing how fast they can strike under water, and as soon as they are satisfied with the results they sheath the weapons and start heading towards the sunken ship.

Cutting a path through a few random encounters with stupid fish they finally reach the sunken ship. After scanning the wreckage Machete and Tidus really don't see why the hell anyone would want most of this crap, but if machina is banned throughout most of the world…even crappy stuff must be better than nothing.

A few minutes later they manage to find the entrance and look around for how to open it up until Rikku moves over to a control panel and points to a bunch of buttons. Machete glances over at it and shrugs as Tidus swims over and rubs his chin looking at the controls.

Following numerous attempts at hitting buttons Tidus gets fed up and spins around landing a swift kick on the side of the damn thing… and what do you know, it opens. So in his moment of great achievement Tidus poses a little and dances around like a moron as Machete just shakes his head and Rikku starts giggling at his goofy way of celebrating.

Giving Tidus a few moments to gloat Machete finally gets sick of it and starts swimming forward. Shortly after Machete swam off the Al Behd girl decides to follow and Tidus finally catches wind that they are moving so he decides it's best to start following along.

As the three move along, Rikku stops in one of the rooms and begins playing around with one of the machines as Machete and Tidus just start looking around. Not really finding anything of interest they turn back to where Rikku is and see the young blonde girl wave at them and motion to get going. The boys nod, and while the three are trying to exit the ship a large squid-like creature swims towards them and begins to attack.

Suddenly, it violently swims towards Rikku and she barely dodges the attack, but it quickly redirects itself and takes a swing at Tidus. Completely taken off guard, Tidus gets hit very hard causing him to go flying back against the ship walls as his breather fall out of his mouth after impact and he begins to sink towards the bottom. Machete quickly pulls out his halberd and motions to Rikku to go assist Tidus as he'll take on the ugly thing.

Rikku's eyes widen and she looks worried and unsure of what to do, until she finally darts over to Tidus to try and save the pretty blonde boy from a watery grave. Seeing the girl leave the creature charges towards her until Machete swims in the same direction and hits the squid right in the head with a hard blitz style tackle.

The creature spins around and spews a few ink bullets towards Machete as he blocks one with his halberd and the other just misses his head by and inch. Machete just grins and waves the creature on to come attack him. With that little motion the squid begins to lose it's patience and swims forward flailing it's tentacles at Machete.

Going toe to toe with the creature ends up being much more difficult then he originally thought. Because as the creature comes forward, Machete manages to cut off the tip of one of it's tentacles but then quickly gets blind sided by another and then quickly wrapped up in it's tentacles and thrown to the side. Machete's skull bounces off the inner hull and he pulls the breather out momentarily to spit out some blood from his mouth as he slowly gets back up and refuse to go down. Slowly getting back up he places the device back in his mouth and continues taunting the creature.

As the battle rages on Rikku manages to grab Tidus by the shirt, but not being able to find his breather she needs to think on her feet. So she takes her breather out of her mouth and begins blowing the air into his mouth to try and revive the fallen blitzball player.

On her third attempt Tidus finally opens his eyes and almost as if it were an instinctive reaction he wraps his arms around Rikku and begins to kiss her deeply. Rikku not knowing what to do, but knowing she likes kissing him just goes along with it, all the while Machete is getting totaled in the background.

The creature wraps it's tentacle around Machete's throat and starts choking the life out of him as he begins to black out. Fighting to stay conscious Machete sees the two kissing and the scene seems to give him enough of a second wind to attempt something crazy.

In a last ditch effort to get something going his way, he clutches the halberd in his right hand and with the last of his strength he stabs the squid in the face, causing it to flip out in pain and fling him in the two lovebirds direction. So as the creature howls in pain Machete comes crashing into the two blonde teenagers. The impact breaks up the kiss and finally wakes up Tidus enough to remind him that they're under attack. So he quickly unsheathes his bronze sword and realizes he needs to fight.

Machete just glares at Rikku and throws his breather to her and points towards the thing almost to say; 'Now it's your turn'. Rikku nods and catches the breather and the two blondes go off to battle the squid as Machete lays against the wall a beaten and broken man. So as the others swim towards the monster it finally regains it's bearings and sees Machete against the wall.

As it charges the beaten warrior it doesn't notice Tidus and Rikku at all, so Rikku takes the time to detonate two grenades in front of it, while Tidus swims around it, beginning to carve it up. Now in a frantic state the creature extends all of it's tentacles and spins around knocking Tidus and Rikku backwards a few feet and splitting them up.

Seizing the opportunity the creature grabs Rikku around the waist and Tidus around the arm that he uses to wield his sword and lifts them both up in the air and slams them both into each other repeatedly. Off on the side Machete is teetering in and out of consciousness but manages to see the rather dire situation at hand. Machete grins and thinks to himself, 'What would they do without me…' and with that he hurls his halberd at the squid bladed end first.

Due to it being distracted with the other two the squid never saw the weapon coming and in a mere matter of seconds the halberd pierces through it's head and comes out the other side with it's brain dripping on the tip of the blade and the blade now lodged in the inner wall of the ship.

Machete smirks and does the blitzball sign for victory with his hands as he finally fades out of consciousness. Rikku and Tidus finally recover enough to gather themselves back up and notice Machete lying knocked out on the floor. The two panic and Tidus swims towards Machete to go pick him up while Rikku grabs his halberd and they make it out of their as fast as they possibly can.

After a few minutes they get back aboard the ship and Tidus begins pressing on Machete's chest hoping to get the water out of his lungs. As this is going on Brother walks onto the deck and grins, " Fryd's fnuhk Rikku, tet ouin blitzers ryja hu cay makc?" Rikku glares at her brother and screams back, " Fa fana yddylgat po y fiend! Ajah oui't pa paydah ib ev oui ryt du vekrd ed!" Brother just laughs and walks off towards a few others on the deck and starts discussing what they found down at the site.

Tidus gets frustrated and screams, " DAMMIT! He can't die, this is crap, and it's my fault he got hurt!" Rikku walks over slowly and looks at Tidus, " It's not your fault… I didn't think there would be fiends that strong down there." Tidus clenches his fist and slams it down, only problem is he forgot Machete was right there next to him and ends up punching him in the stomach causing Machete to cough up water and a little bit of blood.

" I see… so you kiss him, but I get abused? I don't think I like the Al Behd much anymore…" Rikku just looks down a little ashamed she didn't try to help the brunette boy as Tidus gives him a big hug, " DUDE! You're not dead! I'm totally happy!" Machete just grits his teeth and grumbles, " Let go of me you idiot, because of you I nearly got killed." Rikku still doesn't know what to say as Tidus just looks down and mumbles, " I'm sorry man… I choked. I mean who expected a huge god damned squid to be down there anyway?"

Machete stumbles to his feet and balances himself with the railing as he looks at the two blonde idiots, " You should always be ready… a freaking squid almost killed me. How embarrassing…" Rikku walks over to him slowly and hands him his halberd, " Y-you killed it… you know. Here's your weapon back…" Machete snatches the halberd and just glares at her, " Why don't you go back over there with your little boyfriend and leave me the hell alone."

Rikku's eyes get really wide and start to well up with tears as Tidus sticks up for her, " The kiss thing was an accident man! You can't use that against her." Machete's eyes turn red and he gives Tidus a look so nasty that if looks could kill, Tidus would have been dead yesterday, " No one broke the kiss up. The only thing that stopped you two brain damaged dizzy morons is the fact that my beaten body came flying into you both."

Right before Tidus can retort a scream of terror comes from one of the Al Behd on the ship, " Sin ec lusehk!" The three bickering fighters turn around and see that creature from Zanarkand off in the distance.

Machete just grins, " Sin… where am I going now?" Tidus stares out in the distance and looks over at Rikku, " What should we do?" Rikku, still crying uncontrollably just starts panicking, " It's too close! We're gonna die!"

Tidus goes to embrace the frightened Al Behd girl, but right before he can even touch her, the boat is hit and Machete and Tidus go spilling over the edge of the boat into the water, and into yet another wonderful trip, via the Sin express.

So after an undeterminable amount of time Tidus quickly springs up out of shallow water screaming, " Damn you Machete! Rikku, grab my hand!" After a second he realizes he's in the middle of nowhere and as he turns to check out the area, he gets hit in the face with a blitzball.

Tidus rubs his face and hears a voice off in the distance, " Ey man! Can you trow dat back?"

To be continued…