Final Fantasy X and PlayStation are owned by Square Enix and Sony, respectively, meaning they do not belong to me. I am in no way, shape, and/or form claiming to be the owner/creator of these concepts, though I do claim any characters not apart of the original Final Fantasy X storyline (such as Rayne and Marcus) mine. As such, I would appreciate fellow authors and readers to give credit where credit is due and not steal any of my characters and/or concepts. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

(The Power of Suggestion)

The next morning, Rayne woke early and excused herself from the room, wanting to give Auron a chance to get dressed and Jecht a chance to harass him about his clothes. When Auron emerged twenty minutes later, his still noticeably damp clothes were wrinkled, giving him a disgruntled appearance. The messy hair and moody face didn't help much. He stormed out of the inn, leaving a confused Jecht and Braska behind.

When the two looked to Rayne with questioning eyes, she smiled mischievously and laughed a bit. Braska sighed. Jecht grinned.

"What did you do to him, kid? And why?"

Still smiling, though now it was triumphantly, she glanced at Jecht through half lidded eyes and smoothly replied, "Oh, he decided to play a mean joke on me, so I decided to test my 'Water' spell on him. It worked exceedingly well…"

Jecht laughed and Braska shook his head, saying, "Moving on, let's go. The S.S. Liki will be making its first trip to Besaid soon, and I would prefer to not have to wait another day for it to return."

Jecht and Rayne trailed behind the summoner, the blitzer turning to resume the chat. "What joke did he play on you?"

Rayne looked at him with a serious face and replied, "I'd rather not go into the details, but take his punishment as a warning, Sir Jecht."

"Wha?!" Jecht jumped backwards, "Why me?!"

She narrowed her eyes and dropped her voice, "I believe that when you were teasing Auron the other day, it concerned me. If you have been planning on doing the same to me, then drop it. If you do anything, I'll do the same to you. Only it won't be water. It'll be much, much more painful."

She then waltzed ahead, leaving the blitzer to imagine all of the painful spells she could cast on him. He ran passed her a few moments later and began talking to Braska, the only part Rayne overhearing being something about Nul spells. By the time they got to the S.S. Liki, Jecht had already cast ten suspicious looks over his shoulder and had four Nul spells cast on him, the four colored orbs all facing Rayne like orange-sized eyes.

After a little debate, Braska halfheartedly agreed that his travel funds would only pay for himself and his two guardians, while Rayne paid for herself with her own Gil.

"It's bad enough you guys are toting me around, you don't need to pay my way, too." She grumbled as she walked onboard and to the second deck of the ship, the trio heading off in a different direction. As she sat beneath the shade of the giant umbrella, she set her staff aside and pulled her hair back over her shoulder, trying to braid it.

Things weren't going so well, so she dropped her hands and admitted defeat, and she was about to go torture Jecht with a few spells when she felt a hand tap her shoulder. She turned and saw a familiar pair of spiral-pupiled green eyes and a familiar wide smile. "Rammu!"

Rayne smiled widely, exclaiming, "Hey, you're the girl from Luca!"

The girl giggled and pointed to Rayne's hair, "Haat ramb?"

Rayne looked to her hair, "You want to help again?"

The girl nodded, "Oab!"

Nodding, Rayne smiled again, "Alright, if you want." She watched as the girl sat down and took out a small metal sky-blue box, opening it to reveal various beads, ribbons, and hair ties. She chuckled, "You came prepared, huh?"

"Dinh ynuht, bmayca!" The girl grabbed Rayne's shoulders and spun her around, getting to work immediately.

Thoroughly confused by what the girl was saying, Rayne ventured to ask, "You're speaking a different language, aren't you?"

"Oac! Ed ec Al Bhed!"

"Al Bhed?"

"Oac."

"So, you can understand Spiran?"

"Oac."

"But you can't speak it."

"Hu." Her answer sounded a little sadder than all the previous.

"Hmm… jeez, I wish I could learn your Al Bhed."

"Oui lyh!" The girl stopped braiding for a moment and held Rayne's hair with one hand while she fished around for something with the other, audible clankings and shufflings going on behind Rayne's back. After a moment, a small purple pamphlet peaked around Rayne's shoulder. When she took it, the girl got back to work.

Rayne opened the pamphlet and, holding it eye level, began to read:

Hello, and welcome! Thank you for taking the time to learn the language of the Al Bhed, Al Bhed! Through these pamphlets, called 'primers', you can enter the world of the Al Bhed language. In all, there are twenty-six primers, and they can be found all over Spira. And, if you happen to run into any Al Bhed on your journeys, feel free to ask them for any primers you don't have (at a price, of course).

Kuut Milg! (Good Luck!)

A  Y

"Okay, so I take it the 'A' is in Spiran, and the 'Y' is in Al Bhed?"

"Oab!"

After ten minutes, Rayne was still being worked on. She had the girl stop for a moment and twisted herself around, a series of loud cracks issuing from her back. "You're going all out this time, aren't you?"

The girl giggled. "Oac! Yht frah E ys tuha, oui femm pa dra bnaddeacd myto uh dra fruma creb!"

Rayne listened to all of this patiently, but groaned when it was over. "Ugh, I really need to learn Al Bhed!" This made the girl giggle again.

Rayne wasn't sure how much time the girl had taken on doing her hair, but when it was, she jumped to her feet and cracked her back again. "ARG, FREEDOM!!!"

The girl handed her a mirror, then stood behind Rayne with another mirror pointed at her back. Rayne angled her mirror so she could see the reflection of her hair in the reflection of the girl's mirror, and she was pleasantly shocked.

The girl had done one huge braid down Rayne's back, but one of the three locks used to make the big braid had been broken down into several smaller braids with beads of green, yellow, blue, and red randomly placed within their weavings. When the mirror was angled up she saw that her hair had been pulled into a high ponytail before the braiding had started, and when it was angled down she saw it was all held together by a woven and beaded tan leather hair tie.

"This… is gonna be hard to take care of, isn't it?" Moaned an exasperated Rayne.

"Hud ev oui ryja drec." The girl replied slyly, holding up a bottle covered it Al Bhed writing.

"What's this?" Rayne took the offered bottle and squeezed the top, blue foam squirting out of the top and into her hand. She lifted the foam to her nose, an unknown yet pleasant smell invading her senses. When the girl started acting like she was washing her hair, Rayne asked, "Foam shampoo?"

"Oab!"

"Alright, let me pay you for it, and the hair…" Rayne reached for her Gil purse, but was stopped by the girl's hand.

"Hu! Fa yna vneahtc!"

Rayne looked at the girl with a raised brow, "Huh?"

"Vneahtc!" She pointed to herself, "Sa," then to Rayne, "Oui," then made a wide sweeping gesture with her hands, "Vneahtc!"

"Uhh… Sorry, but all I got out of that was you and I are something…"

The girl looked at Rayne with wide eyes, then her face drooped like she were about to cry.

"No, no, no! Please, don't cry! Gimme a second! Um… you and I are… vneahtc… Um… I don't have to pay you because…" Rayne look around desperately, waving her arms in small circles. "Er…"

"Fer…ien…ds…"

Rayne stopped what she was doing and looked back at the girl. "Excuse me?"

The girl put on a look of sheer concentration and pushed out the word again, "Fer…ien…nds…"

"Friends? 'Vneahtc' means friends? You and I are friends?"

The girl looked at Rayne and nodded, smiling widely, "Friends!"

Rayne smiled back, "What's your name?"

The girl tilted her head and jumped a bit, "So hysa ec Rikku!"

"Rikku, huh?" When Rikku nodded again, Rayne kneeled before her and said with a soft smile, "Well, Rikku, my name is Rayne, and from this point on, we are officially friends."

Rikku smiled and threw her arms around Rayne's neck. "Friends!"

"Rikku!"

They both looked towards the stairs, where a tall bald man in what looked like yellow overalls was waving to the girl. "Let's go!"

"Lusehk!" She turned and hugged Rayne one more time, "Poa poa, E'mm senn oui, yht E ruba du caa oui ykyeh!"

Rayne hugged her back, "Goodbye, Rikku. And thank you."

She watched the girl go sadly, but smiled anyway. After a few moments, she leaned back against the umbrella pole and sighed, closing her eyes and enjoying the cool breeze of the ocean. That is, until she got smacked in the head with a blitzball. She screamed, fell over, and looked at the blue and white ball in pure fury, already having a good idea of who had done it.

"Hey, kid!" And would you look at that, she was right.

She picked up the ball and walked over to the railing that overlooked the aft, holding the ball tightly in her hands. She saw Jecht standing with his hands on his hips, surrounded by fawning girls, staring up at her. He waved when he saw the ball.

"Come on down, and bring the ball with you! I was just about to show these ladies the Sublime—" He stopped when she took over for him.

"Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark III, right?"

He looked at her in shock, but covered it up by laughing and turning back to his adoring fans. "See? It's famous, even among the less traveled people of Spira."

Rayne arched a brow when the girls started tittering and said, "Right. Hey, you ladies are aware of the fact that there is no Mark I or Mark II, right?"

Jecht looked back up at her, shocked again, but covered it up, again, this time with indignance, "Of course there is!"

"Okay, then. Show us all of the Marks, in order!"

Stunned, he barely managed to catch the ball as she hurled it at him. She smirked.

"Go ahead, Jecht. Show all of us the Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shots, Marks I through III."

The crowd of girls looked at him expectantly, but, seeing as there really is no Mark I or Mark II, Jecht had to dig himself out of looking like a fool. And what better way to do it than to direct the attention to someone else.

"Kid, just who do you think you're talking to?"

"Huh?"

"I'm Jecht… no, Sir Jecht! I'm guardian to the future High Summoner Braska and one of the best blitzball players around. I don't have to prove anything to you!"

"Yeah…" Mumbled a few of the girls, some of them now glaring at Rayne.

"These ladies," He gestured to the crowd around him, "Want to see the Mark III, which is so much better than Marks I and II put together. And you would have them wait to see that? No, you would command me? You? A commoner? What some would consider a stalker?"

"Yeah!" All of the girls were now glaring at Rayne.

"So, seeing as these ladies here want to see Mark III, that's what I'm going to show them! And I won't let you, a common stalker, command me to do otherwise! Now, c'mon ladies, it's time to see the shot!"

But Jecht had just made a huge mistake; he underestimated the power of suggestion, especially when it was worked on women. All of the women were now glaring right at Rayne, some of them talking among themselves and others yelling at her.

"Did you hear, she's the one who's been stalking Lord Braska!"

"I know! Isn't that creepy…"

"Who do you think you are? You can't order Sir Jecht around!"

"Well, I heard she's been putting Sir Auron through trouble, too."

"Yeah, I heard she threw herself at him when she was drunk!"

"Yeah, it's true! I saw her do it! They were on the S.S. Winno, and…"

"Hey, you aren't a guardian! Why don't you leave the summoner alone?!"

"Yeah, you tramp!"

"Honestly, stalking a summoner's party, and when their all men! Ugh!"

"Whore!"

"Slut!"

Rayne just stood back and took all of this in silence, her hands clenched tightly and her teeth grinding, eyes cast downward. After a few moments, the crowd of women started to file away, some of them still shouting at her. When they had been gone for a few minutes, Rayne looked back up to see Jecht staring at her, open mouthed. Auron and Braska were standing close to him, similar looks on their faces.

"Kid, I… I had no—"

"You happy, Jecht?"

"I didn't know that they—"

Rayne let out an exasperated laugh. "Oh, of course you didn't! After years of manipulating your fans into believing what you wanted them to, you had no clue. No, Jecht, I think you knew perfectly well what you were doing."

"Kid, I honestly had no clue they would say that stuff!"

"Of course you had no clue what they would say, Jecht! But you knew what you were doing!" She groaned loudly, waving her arms for emphasis. "You were trying to divert the attention away from you so you wouldn't look like a fool, and I was the scapegoat! You called me a stalker, Jecht!"

"Well…" Jecht trailed off, thinking. "Well, why would you say all of that stuff, anyway?!"

Rayne quirked a brow, "What? Why wouldn't I say the truth?! Jeez, Jecht, once you had shown them the stupid shot, one of them was bound to as to see the others, anyway! What then? There is no lie you could have told to get out of it! You would have had to admit that there are no other Marks! But, beyond that, your reaction was great! As soon as you were backed into a corner, you lunged out at the person who considered you a friend! Someone who told you some rather important secrets because they felt that you could relate to their hardships and suffering!"

"Kid… Rayne… I—"

"Ugh! Just stop! I'm not gonna do this! I'm done! Have fun with your stupid reputation and your stupid shot!" She waved her hand at the ball, muttering something, covering the ball in ice so cold, it made the ball implode right in Jecht's hand. She then sat back underneath the umbrella and iced the stairs in a sheet so thick it would take days under the hot Spiran sun to melt it.