Me: This one changed MUCH more than the other ones! YAY! well...I don't really have that much to say here...again...soooooo (brings out brownies with pics of FFX characters on them) Grab a brownie and enjoy the ride...I mean chapter...yeah...

Chapter 3: Fat fish, Fire, and Fiends...Oh my!

I didn't know when the whiteness left, but I remembered feeling the presence of someone beside Tidus there.

'Jecht?' I wondered as I was aroused from my sleep by the gentle, yet chilling, waves washing over me and the rock that I was laying face down on. I groaned slightly, as I tried to move my aching limbs.

'Oh boy…' I thought 'I'm going to feel like this for a long, and when I say long, I mean LOOOOONG time…'.

As I tried to lift my self from my laying down position only to have a large wave push me back down. 'Tysh ed…' I thought as I ended up even colder, if that was possible.

I sighed as I felt my hand brush up against something. I looked up to see a black belt with a few compartments on it right next to my right hand on the rock. Confused, I reached out to grasp it away from the waters reach. It sort of looked like the ones that Yuna and Rikku had from FFX-2, so because I needed some place to store items and because no one else was there to claim it, I took it. I thought that I could here a brief 'You're welcome.' but I just shook it off as sheer craziness.

I tried to stand up again, since everything and everyone was trying to knock me down recently, and succeeded! I was so happy that I grinned. That's when I realized that I was alone. I looked around but I couldn't see Tidus anywhere. 'OMG!' I thought 'He went on without me! Or maybe this isn't really Baaj Temple…' I looked at the huge temple that you couldn't miss. 'Nope, that's it all right…where is he!' I was really starting to panic when I heard someone yell "Heeeeeeeyyy!"

I was so relieved I shouted back "Heeeeeeyyy to you too!"

I heard a splash sound and saw that a figure was swimming towards me. I jumped and waved, ignoring my protesting muscles. "Tidus!" I yelled. While he was making his way over, I put on the belt over my very soggy jeans and waited. Just when I could almost make out a face, the figure disappeared under the water. I just stood there shocked and confused, and a little ticked.

"What the hell is he thinking!" I shouted angrily to no one in particular. I strained my eyes trying to see if he was still there when a HUGE fish monster jumped out and tried to bite me on the leg.

"WTF! Ahhh!" It leapt out again and was now standing on another rock very close. I tried to get away from it by swimming away. Big mistake. The fish monster, now in its element, caught up to me within second and attached itself to my leg. I screamed as I tried to shake it off my leg. Another big mistake. As soon as I stopped swimming the creature started to pull me under the water. As my head submerged I frantically tried to break the surface, but the creature was stronger and just kept dragging me under. I was starting to see blackness on the edges of my vision as I ran out of air. I opened my mouth as a last desperate resort to scream as the last of my vision was fading. I heard a loud screech from below me and the water around me changed to a dark red color with bright lights swirling all around me. A pair of strong arm grabbed me around my waist and pulled me up to the surface. As I felt the air hit my face, I gasped, desperate for oxygen to fill my lungs. I was pushed up onto a rock as I tried to regain my strength.

Tidus climbed out after me, also gasping for breath. "Are…you O.K.?"

I nodded as I coughed a little and reached for a perfectly placed potion in my pack. He sighed and stretched his arms over his head.

"Thanks for saving me back there…" I said as I stood up next to him, shakily, but I stayed up this time.

"No problem." He looked over towards the temple "We should probably go over there…we might find something that can help us get out of here."

Before I could answer, he jumped into the water and swam away. 'Jerk…' I thought as I jumped in after him. I was scared when the fiend attacked, that I was sure of, but I didn't want Tidus to think of me as a problem so I swam after him.

As I tried to catch up to him, I thought about the game. I was missing something here, but I couldn't remember what…that is until Tidus shouted over to me.

"Heeey! There's something over here!" I climbed up onto the platform that he was standing on and saw the sign. 'Al Bhed!' I though excitedly, as I looked around for the chest with the gil in it. It was sitting just around the corner.

"Yesss!" I shouted in triumph as I pocketed the 200 gil into one of my pockets, apparently the pockets on my belt were much larger inside than out, for reasons unknown to me but I didn't worry about it. "Now I shall be able to buy Canada!"

Tidus ignored my new found wealth and crazed look while he looked at the Al Bhed' sign, trying to decipher its hidden meaning.

"Well, we had better go forward." He said after a few more seconds (the boy has a short attention span.) as he jumped back into the freezing water. I shivered and followed. We didn't talk much after that until we got to the bridge leading into the temple.

'Uh oh…' I thought as I remembered the creepy-fat-evil-stupid fish fiend, Geogenso, was waiting for us at the bottom of the unstable bridge. I backed up a little as Tidus went forward to collect the treasure chest adjacent to the bridge. Once he returned back to the main bridge and realized that I was not following, he turned back to me.

"What are you waiting for? Come on! We could find something in there that could help us." He motioned for me to follow him.

I grinned nervously and said "I'm coming; I just wanted to…tie my shoe!" I hoped that he would buy that sorry excuse and not look down to see that my shoes were…well…gone mostly.

He shrugged and waited for me to tie my shoe. "I'll wait for you."

'Crap…' "You can go on…I'll catch up." I smiled at him.

He shook his head. "What if another fiend comes and attacks you? You're not armed. You'll die." He frowned as I was mentally yelling. 'Damn it! Why did he have to go all oh-I'm-gonna-protect-you on me! Now I CAN'T let him fight alone…otherwise my conscience would eat away at me forever!...sigh…Tysh ed…' I sighed as I walked up next to him.

"Well, let's go." He stared at me funnily but shrugged my antics off and started walking along in front of me.

My heart was pounding. I knew what was going to happen and I REALLY didn't want to face another fiend but I had no choice…well I did but I would feel REALLY bad if I ran away and like Tidus said…I was sadly unarmed. I mentally smacked myself. What the hell was I thinking going into a battle that I knew was coming up unarmed? Before I could ask Tidus if he had something that I could use as a little weapon, everything shook.

"Whoa!" I heard Tidus yell as we plummeted into the icy cold water.

I broke the surface with Tidus right behind me. I shivered. "C-c-COLD!" I yelled.

Tidus looked up to see the broken bridge. He sighed in frustration and looked back at me "We'll have to find a way out of here…let's try over that way." He pointed over to a random spot towards the temple. I nodded and tried to keep me teeth from chattering. But then I felt something brush up against my leg. My eyes widened.

"Tidus…"

"Yeah Jemma?"

"Did you just touch my leg?"

He shook his head negatively as a fish-like creature jumped out of the water, sailing over both of our heads.

Tidus went "Whoa!"

I went "Not again!"

He then dived underneath the water to fight the three fiends that were waiting to munch on us. 'Aw crap!' I thought as I looked on to the battle that was going on underneath me. I swam over to the other side of the water and dived down.

The water was cold, but clear so I could see that Tidus still had two monsters left to kill. I looked around wildly for fatty cave and saw that he was trying to decide something. 'Probably who would be more filling Tidus or fishy…' I cringed at the thought. I felt light headed as I traveled back up for air. I quickly went back down under water and I saw that Tidus had just taken down another fish, only one left. But there was a problem. He was still attacking the last fish and Sir Eats-A-Lot was creeping up behind him.

'WTF!' Tidus was supposed to be swimming away right now and the fishy was supposed to be dead, but they were still fighting. I had to do something, so I did what the first stupid thing that came to mind. I screamed.

I got Tidus's attention but unfortunately for me, I also got fatty's. 'Uh oh…' I swam up as fast as my legs would allow me to and I just missed fatty's mouth as I broke the surface just in time for one quick breath of air. The current was too strong after that last attack and I was swept downward, rolling in the water a top speed. I hit a group of stray rocks finally and I tried to stop my head from spinning. When I got my vision back I saw that Tidus was swimming towards me and fatty was trying to get his head out of a wall. I swam towards Tidus and pointed in the direction of the temple, I hoped. He grabbed my hand and brought us both to the surface. I gasped for air as he dragged me over to where I pointed earlier. We just about made it when we heard a roar from beneath us. My adrenaline started pumping as I swam faster than I have in my entire life towards the entrance to the temple, even passing Tidus. (I did NOT wanna be fishy food!) It probably would have been comical to watch had I not been living in the horror filled moment.

Finally I reached the temple entrance and pulled myself through part way waiting for Tidus. He was almost by me but fatty was trying to suck him in. I grabbed a hold of the side of the wall and stuck my hand out as far as it would go and tried to grab him. He grabbed my hand as we both went tumbling in the building because of the water being sprayed into the tunnel we were in.

I tried to scream again but I was slammed against another wall. I grunted in pain as I rolled on to my side. 'Ow…' I mentally groaned as I opened my eyes trying to gain my bearings back. I grabbed onto the wall and shakily pulled myself up. I thought that a trip to Spira would be more fun that this…boy was I wrong. I looked around for Tidus to see if he was ok and saw that he was staring off into space. 'Poor Tidus…' I thought 'He probably feels horrible…for lack of a better word. His home was just destroyed before his eyes and a fish just tried to make a snack of him.'

I walked over to him and shook him a little. He jumped up but then calmed back down when he saw that it was me. I tried to smile a little and cheer him up and push his face up in a smile, but he just slapped my hand away, stood up and walked away. I was frustrated. 'He could at least TRY and smile. I am.' I angrily thought as I walked over to where he went.

I looked around and found myself in a large room, like the one in the game, but with no Tidus. 'He must have gone to get the stuff to make a fire with.' I decided to believe myself and so I sat down by the fire pit and waited for him to return.

A little while later he came back with the tinder and flint … "What took you so long, slave! I freezing my butt off here!", "Why didn't you come and help me then!", " 'Cuz you are my slave. Now work, knave!"… and started the fire. Warmth instantly spread over my body. I smiled and tried to get closer to the warmth. Tidus looked proud of his ability to make the fire and I just rolled my eyes.

"Bet you couldn't do that!"

I sighed and rolled my eyes again "Boys…" I mumbled.

He sat down across the fire from me and laid down.

'This seems familiar…'

I started a mental countdown. 5…4…3…2…1…

"I need food!"

I sighed again. I seemed to be sighing a lot lately. Ah well. It seemed like Tidus was taking his little nap so that left me with nothing to do but put a braid in his hair and think. I thought about the game and what was to come. 'Lessee…' I mentally listed the events that had occurred already 'Zanarkand, Sin, cold water, fat fish, fire,' "…fiend!" I shouted out that last part, without realizing it and Tidus jumped up from his nap and looked at me like I was insane. I thought that was funny, I don't know why but people seem to do that to me a lot, so I started laughing.

"Are you okay?" He looked genuinely scared and concerned at the same time, but that just made me realize that I was in a 'fake' world, because he was there, and I found that hilarious, so I laughed harder. I was rolling around on the floor with tears in my eyes while Tidus tried to scoot away farther from me.

I was in a world where my world didn't exist and my family…Suddenly I became very quiet. My family…did that mean that they didn't exist either…did I even exist? I sat up and stared into the fire. Could I ever go home again? Would I even want to? That last question scared me. I had always wanted to know what it would be like to live in a fantastical place, like Spira, now I had that chance. Did I really want to give it up?

I must have really scared Tidus before but he still came over to try and comfort me "Are you alright?"

I looked up to see his face etched in concern. Why he was even concerned about me? I'm just some girl who tripped over his unconscious body. Why did he care? I mentally sighed. It was his personality, care about strangers you hardly know but become a show-off when talking about blitzball.

I smiled up at him and said "Yeah, I'm just…FIEND!"

He looked at me confused "What?"

I pointed up the wall at a menacing looking Klikk. Lightning flashed as the Klikk crawled all over the wall and leapt. I grabbed Tidus and pulled him to the opposite side of the temple before the fiend could get us. Tidus jumped out in front of me, pulled out his weapon, and got into a fighting stance.

"Stand back!" Tidus ordered me. I was put out at being ordered around and went to look for something to defend my self with. 'With my luck right now as it is, I'll probably find another fiend and die.' Before I could find anything, I heard Tidus give out a pained scream.

I turned around, wide eyed, to see that Tidus was openly bleeding from a wound on his shoulder.

'Think, think, THINK!' I dug through my pockets to see if I had another potion. I found a few blue liquids in glass vials and my inner voice told me that they were potions…no, it wasn't the label.

"Tidus!" I yelled as I chucked a potion at him. Luckily for him, his reflex's kicked in before it hit his head and he nodded in my direction. I nodded back at him as he drank it and his injury disappeared. The fiend didn't look all that hurt and I now felt bad for making fun of Tidus while I was playing the game, 'cuz now that I was here I couldn't hurt it at ALL.

Keeping an eye on the battle, I went in search of something I could attack with. I didn't see anything but rocks and, well, more rock, so I decided to try my luck upstairs.

After tossing another potion to Tidus, I ran as fast as I could up the stairs and into the first room I saw and started searching as quickly as I could. I threw pieces of rocks at random places and pushed over a table that had been broken long ago. 'Nuts…' I thought. No luck in this room. I sprinted out into the damp hallway and into another room with a broken red door. I searched and searched, but all to no avail.

Swearing slightly, I began to head towards the hallway when there was a huge explosion.

'What the hell was that!' I thought about the game again……

"Arg!" I smacked myself for real this time. 'Of course.' I had totally forgotten about the Al Bhed coming in to excavate the temple for machina. I thought that my luck was finally turning around, until a tremor shook the inner temple.

Rocks fell from the ceiling and nearly landed on my head, squishing me flat.

"Whoa!" 'Tidus is a bad influence' I yelled/thought as I jumped out of the way and pressed myself against a wall so the rocks couldn't reach me.

I closed my eyes as more and more debris fell beside me. After what seemed like forever, the rumbling stopped and I opened my eyes…to see my only known exit blocked. My mouth hung there, slightly opened, and my eyes were wide and disbelieving. I was stuck…and the only thought that was going through my mind was 'Oh, cred…'

Tidus: ...But what happened to ME?

Me: You will just have to wait and find out in the next chapter. So...blaaarg.

Tidus: (looks around) Hey! Where'd Auron go?

Me: (rolls eyes) Have you already forgotten what happened in chapter two!

Tidus: ...Mebbe...

Me: (deadpanned)

Tidus: (twitches)

Me: (looks at random butterfly)

Tidus: (munches on brownie with pic of himself on it)

Me: O.o...okaaaay...R&R as always mah duckies!