Goodness. I'm a bad author; I haven't updated this in ages. Thankfully for you all, I sat down and told myself I couldn't follow in Douglas Adams' footsteps and procrastinate any further. And I do bear good news: this is my only WIP right now, as I have put my other one on hold until summer, when I can focus on editing it better. This means I have more time to write for CCP, if I'm not distracted by one-shots.

I apologize for the long wait, and hopefully I can write a little more reliably now that I don't have a writing-dependent class. Thank you to all those who reviewed; I may not reply to everyone, but I appreciate them always!

Chapter 8: The Culprit and Lost Ones

"We've searched the entire city, and there are no signs of them!" Wakka wailed, flopping to the ground and resting his forearms on his knees. "They can't run that fast, can they?"

"Apparently, yes," Lulu sighed, taking a more graceful seat on a stone fence.

"Stinkin' Guados," Cid kicked up dirt. "I'll bet you this was all their plot! Tryin' to hurt my little Rikku!"

"And what about Auron?" Tidus retorted. "He's one of the great heroes of Spira, isn't he? Why would they hurt him?"

"Don't ask me how they think!" Cid growled. "They're Guado! They're doubly crazier than Yevonites!"

Yuna and Kimahri returned to the group from the northern exit. "The sentry says no children passed by unsupervised," Yuna announced.

"And you trust him?" Cid folded his arms.

"Considering he confessed to many other unrelated matters when Kimahri held him two feet off the ground, yes," Yuna said flatly.

"So, they haven't passed through Guadosalam," Lulu frowned. She turned her head back to the entrance. "Did we even check with the sentry at the entrance to see if they entered Guadosalam?"

Silence.

"No, I have not seen any children of which you describe," the sentry shook his head five minutes later. "I have been on watch since this morning, and no children have passed."

"You sure?" Wakka pressed. "'Cause we don't want to have to come back here and whoop your sorry keister if you're wrong."

The sentry eyed the rather large and rather intimidating group. Actually, more like the rather large Ronso and the rather intimidating black mage. He gulped. "Well, I did see two human children stop at Madame Tora's, down the way over there."

"One blonde and one brunet?" Tidus asked.

"Yes, yes, a blonde girl and brunet boy," the sentry replied testily. "Could you please leave now? I'm on guard duty and it's difficult to guard with you in the way."

The group hurriedly left for Madame Tora's, reaching the little cottage a few minutes later. The cottage seemed innocent enough.

Then again, Tidus thought, so do Auron and Rikku as children.

They decided that Yuna, Tidus, and Lulu should approach the cottage, while Cid, Wakka, and Kimahri stood guard. Wakka and Cid protested, but Yuna put her foot down: Wakka was not the smoothest talker in all of Spira, and Cid would more than likely spark a fight with Madame Tora.

Having decided the "Invasion Party" and the "Calvary" (as Cid so dubbed them and Yuna acceded to in order for the Al Bhed leader to agree with the party arrangements) Yuna, Lulu and Tidus went up to the door and knocked politely.

The door opened, and an old Guado woman peered out. "Help thee, may I?"

"Er," Tidus stammered, slightly put off by her odd (even for a Guado) grammar. "We were wondering if you saw a boy and girl pass by here."

The woman frowned at them. "Whom thee might be?"

"We're looking after them," Yuna bowed hurriedly. "You see, something happened to them and we have been trying to help them back to normal."

"They wandered off while we investigated a lead," Lulu added; she left out the fact that they had also taken off in an unproven aircraft. "Since then, we have been looking for them. A guard at Guadosalam mentioned that two children came by your cottage. We were hoping that they might be ours."

Madame Tora gazed at them for a longer moment, face expressionless. Just as Tidus was about to ask (less politely this time) if she had seen their lost comrades, the Guado woman stepped aside and allowed them entrance to her home.

Peering about, Tidus could see nothing of their miniaturized friends. All that he saw were a few dolls that had seen several years' worth of hardship, a hat undoubtedly used to ward off the bright sun, a short-handled broom and a fire blazing, lit by magic.

The Guado woman ushered them into the kitchen and sat them around the table. Tidus looked at Lulu, who looked at Yuna, who seemed quite startled that she was the center of attention, as Madame Tora was also directing her gaze at the High Summoner. Gulping, Yuna stammered, "We're truly sorry for intruding, but we are terribly concerned for our friends. Were they here?"

Madame Tora nodded slowly. "Here they be, ten minutes past. Tending garden I, and stood in my path they did. Asked for food, so invited them I did. Left them here, where thou sit, to clean garden. Returned, and be gone they."

Tidus groaned, slumping his shoulders and hanging his head. They had missed the two by ten minutes. Ten measly minutes, during which they had been fruitlessly searching Guadosalam. "Auron and Rikku are so grounded when we find them again," Tidus vowed.

His remark earned him a frown from Madame Tora. "Auron and Rikku their names be?"

"Yes," Yuna nodded. "Auron was the boy, and Rikku the girl."

To their bemusement the woman nodded. "So thought, did I. Taught them right, did I."

Tidus blinked, completely lost. "Huh? Taught them what?"

Lulu's brows came together gracefully into a frown, and she let her Onion Knight to the ground. "You are responsible for their childish states," she accused.

Gasping, Yuna hurriedly rose from her chair and backed to the counter. Tidus, ever-quick when a battle seemed imminent, came to his feet and put himself between Yuna and the Guado. "You turned Rikku and Auron into children?" he growled, angry for both the slight against his comrades-turned-children and the induced trauma to the adults.

Madame Tora, in spite of the increasingly belligerent atmosphere, nodded without the smallest sign of penitence. "Rude they be to me, one week prior," she told them all, and proceeded to enlighten them about her motivation . . .

Prices in Guadosalam had been steadily rising as the rest of Spira was refusing to trade fairly. Maester Seymour's part in the invasion of the Blitzball tournament and his attempt at world domination had put the Guado in a bad light, and made life difficult for those Guado that had tried to live civilly.

Madame Tora had finally grown fed up with the rising tension in Guadosalam, and moved to the outskirts of the city. She cultivated her own goods, but there were some things one couldn't grow in a garden. Lipstick and green foundation being particular examples.

As she browsed the selection in the store, Madame Tora decided to wait another week for a new shipment of goods. She exited the store, wondering if Tobli had any productions coming up . . .

A tall man dressed in a red robe stood at the edge of the overpass, looking down in contemplation. Madame Tora recognized him vaguely, but the name escaped her at the moment. She shrugged and put it aside; if it wasn't coming to mind immediately, it mustn't be important—

"Tag! You're It, Auron!" a blonde girl with swirling green eyes slapped the red-garbed man; her smile was so wide and huge, her eyes were squinted shut.

The man glared down at her, and said darkly, "I don't play Tag, Rikku."

"Oh, c'mon," Rikku squirmed, clasping her hands together. "Please please please? Think of it as a celebration!"

"And what would we be celebrating?" Auron arched a brow.

"Getting past the Thunder Plains, of course!" she exclaimed, as though it were common knowledge. "I'm shocked I wasn't struck by lightning at all! Hey, I made a pun!" Rikku giggled.

The man seemed no more inclined to play her game than before. "Go find Tidus. He's easily amused by little games."

The girl frowned at him, and before Madame Tora could even blink the girl had taken the large jug hanging at Auron's side. "Ha! Catch me if you can!" she yelled as she high-tailed it down the slope. The girl had not planned her trajectory, however, and knocked down the Guado woman and sped away with nary an apology.

"Rikku!" Auron roared, rushing past in pursuit. Rather than acting with gentlemanly courtesy, he left her on the ground.

Scowling, Madame Tora climbed to her feet with a deep, loathing scowl. The Guado had been involved in a dark plot, to be certain, but surely respect ought to have been given to an elder like her. No, these younglings did not know proper respect.

She would right this wrong. She would take it into her hands to teach them how to treat their elders.

"That's it?" Tidus was one octave from howling. "You turned them into our living nightmares because they didn't stop to apologize? And how exactly were you going to teach them? They were out of your reach!"

Madame Tora aimed her scowl at him. "Not respectful, thou. Change thou to child, too."

Tidus blanched, subtly inching Yuna and he closer to Lulu—all the easier to push them both down to the ground, he reasoned with himself.

"You will change them back at once," Lulu told her, crimson eyes glittering dangerously. "Knowing Rikku and Auron, they did not mean to disrespect you; they were distracted. When they are adults again, we can inform them of their grievous transgression so they can apologize to you."

They grit their teeth as Madame Tora shook her head. "Possible not. Remedy prepared not, and direct contact to children necessary when created. No other way."

"B-but, you can make a remedy, right?" Yuna broke in, slipping past Tidus to face Madame Tora. At the woman's contemplative nod, Yuna furthered, "And you would give it to them, if we brought them here and had them apologize once they were adults?"

Madame Tora tapped her lip, eyes tilted up in thought. "Four days required. Must simmer and boil proper length of time. Otherwise ineffective."

Well, four days is better than the lifetime we were facing, Tidus mused to himself. "Well, alright, you get working on that remedy, and we'll bring Auron and Rikku to you!"
Tidus nearly left the house when Lulu grabbed his hood and yanked him back. "You forgot to thank Madame Tora, Tidus," she hissed.

Remembering Madame Tora's fondness for respect and the punishment doled out to those who crossed her path, Tidus flinched and said hurriedly, "Uh, thanks for doing this, y'know, curing Auron and Rikku. At least, y'know, when we get them back to you and you make the remedy. We're really grateful, and we don't want you to get mad at us and change us into children, too, 'cause that wouldn't be good—"

"You have our gratitude," Yuna broke in, bowing deeply. "We will return in four days with either the children or an update. Thank you, Madame Tora."

Seemingly content, Madame Tora nodded a dismissal. The three left the cottage, and Lulu sent a disapproving glance at Tidus. "I thought we had left Wakka outside because he was the inarticulate one," she said.

"Sorry," Tidus scratched his head. "I panicked."

"Finally!" Cid shouted when the trio left the property. "You took forever! What'd she say?"

Yuna relayed what they had learned, and it took Kimahri and Tidus to restrain Cid from barging in and lighting a bomb. Once Cid had calmed (or at least given in to Lulu's threat to blast the man with an Ultima) Kimahri left the group to sniff the perimeter of Madame Tora's cottage.

"Man, when our kid's born, I'm gonna get a leash and never let him off it," Wakka muttered with an exhalation.

"Why do you assume that it will be a boy?" Lulu narrowed her eyes at him.

Startled, Wakka took several moments to answer. By then Lulu had growled something inaudible and joined Kimahri in searching, using Scans and calling their names. With a hearty sigh, Wakka hung his head. "I'm never gonna get the hang of this, ya?"

"My old man never did," Tidus informed him.

Kimahri called them with a roar, and the group hurried to his location. When everyone circled around him Kimahri pointed into the forest, "Auron and Rikku went this way. Smell like fear."

Tidus' gut clenched. "Well, c'mon! We won't get them back if we just stand around!"

With that, he bolted into the forest, Yuna clipping his heels and the others following in a devoted line.

The rain pitter-pattered in large droplets, wide-spread and continuous.

Rikku was beginning to wonder if running away from the witch had been such a good idea.

She and Auron had walked and walked until it felt like their legs were going to fall off. Auron had taken to a bout of crying, and she had felt very near to joining him, but she reminded herself that she was the oldest. She needed to be strong.

Now they were in a broad plain, with dark skies above and large structures in the distance to the left. Rikku thought that perhaps this might be the Thunder Plains, but she couldn't see the lightning rod towers that had been built to protect passersby.

Completely exhausted, she had led Auron to the base of a large, mountainous ridge and chose an overhang that would protect them from stormy weather. They cuddled together, Auron pressed tightly to her right side by her hug. Auron was sniffling and sucking his thumb, and Rikku wished she could do the same.

I don't like being the oldest, she thought miserably. I wanna cry, and suck my thumb, and have Byby tell me stories and make me feel better.

"Rikku?" Auron asked quietly, "Are we wost?"

"I think so," Rikku replied.

Auron sniffled deeply. "Then Y-Yunie and Tidus won't find us?"

"Yes they will," Rikku refuted firmly. "My Byby's found me when I've been lost on Bikanel! This'll be a piece of cake for him!"

Auron looked up at her with wide, brown eyes. "Your byby is going to eat cake because we're wost?"

"No, Auron, it's an expression." Rikku shuddered as a violent wind blew against them. "Are you cold?"

"Uh huh."

"Me too." Rikku sniffed. I want my Byby. I don't wanna be the old one! "It's okay, Auron. We're gonna be okay. They'll find us soon."

The area flashed briefly, and before they could even marvel at the brightness lightning struck the ground a mere ten feet away. Screaming, Auron and Rikku pushed themselves as far as they could into the overhang. Auron's tears renewed, and Rikku stopped keeping herself from bawling. In quick succession twelve lightning bolts struck, and thunder rumbled ominously. Slowly their fear-induced adrenaline rush faded, leaving them even more tired. They lay down as close to the wall as possible, shivering and crying.

The rain pattered on.

For reference, I see Auron and Rikku more to the right of the Thunder Plains. If you look at a map of Spira, there is actually a lot of unexplored territory, and I don't think that the Spirans have littered the entire Plains with lightning rod towers. Poor, poor Rikku and Auron.

I haven't quite decided yet if I want Auron and Rikku found within the next chapter, or if I should have them traverse through Spira before the adults find them (hint hint hint). But I do think that this story will be finished by June at the latest.