Fang was the first person to burst through the door, Kimahri and the others following behind them. Remora gasped as the sudden sound of the violently opened door and frantic footsteps filled the room, and to the fact that Seymour's lips were very close to press around hers. They immediately separated, looking at the approaching group, who the majority of it didn't look happy. The group stopped at the center of the floor watching, but Fang had ran up to where Remora and Seymour stood and grabbed Remora by the arm out of Seymour's grasp.
"Ow! Fang, ease up, that hurts!"
"Stay away from him!"
"Huh?! Why?"
Fang brought Remora back with the group, and at the same time an unusual sound was heard pass the other door that led to the path of the Chamber of The Fayth. Seymour had turned slowly, but not before smirking a bit. His back was facing everyone else and Fang had Remora very close to her, keeping her slightly behind her, and Tidus was actually the last one to run into the room, looking infuriated.
"Seymour!" He shouted as he slid to a stop in front of the others.
"Please be silent. Lady Yuna prays to the Fayth." Was the only response Seymour gave. Tidus didn't care.
"Make me!"
Seymour turned around then, the smile still on his face (was there ever a time when he didn't smile though?), and began walking down the stairs towards the group. Tidus looked more determined as the Guado leader approached, and Fang forced Remora to keep her distance. The grip on Remora's arm from Fang had began to hurt a little as he had gotten closer, but he stopped walking once he stepped on the solid floor. His gaze had gotten intense as he stared at Tidus silently, but Remora felt his gaze go right through Tidus towards her. There everyone was, staring at each other, and she had no idea what's gotten into them. The door behind Seymour suddenly opened slowly, and Yuna stepped through with a blank expression, but immediately looked surprised as she saw the whole group inside the room.
"Ah--but why...?" She asked, looking concerned and anxious. No one hesitated to explain.
"We saw Jyscal's sphere!" Tidus started out. Auron then took a step forward.
"You killed him." Auron said to Seymour sharply.
"But wait- wasn't Jyscal Guado your father, Seymour?"
Fang still had her grasps on Remora's arms as she turned her around to face her. "Don't you get it Remora!? Seymour killed his father so that he could gain power over the Guado...! He's been plotting all along to use the summoners, to kill them, to gain more power so that he can try and destroy Spira. He's been using you the very second you arrived here! He's the traitor!!" She had snapped. Remora's eyes greatly shrunk as Fang's explanation. She had realized that after Fang had explained it to her, her pendant stopped glowing blue and immediately grew a sharper green as she turned her head towards Seymour slowly.
"You...were really-...all this time...!?" She managed to choke out. Her throat was tight as she waited for his reply.
"What of it?" Seymour replied, his back once again to the group, which Yuna had reached in time. He turned his head to the side. "Lady Yuna, certainly you knew of these things, did you not?"
Yuna had made a grimace as she was given no time to answer the question.
"Well then. Why have you come here?" Seymour asked once more. Yuna looked a bit distance as she thought of her answer.
"I…came…" Yuna halted for a moment, turning around to look at Seymour with resolve burning with resolve. "I came to stop you!"
Seymour's head lifted slightly as the group behind him stared intolerably. "I see…" His head turned to the side once more. "You came to punish me then." He turned back around slowly as his face was looking at the group . "And…Remora, I see that you have lost your trust." He walked towards Yuna deliberately as she made a grimace from his approach. Fang had stepped a little bit in front of Remora so that he couldn't reach her. He stopped when he was only a few feet away, and stretched his arm to offer his hand to Yuna. She stared at the hand begrudged for a moment, and then backed away from it. No one was with Seymour any longer. He brought back his hand and continued to grin as he closed his eyes for a moment. He looked up staring at both Remora and Yuna. "What a pity."
The group had then enfolded around the two summoners protectively, looking ready for any sudden attack. Seymour did not seem surprised.
"Ah, of course. 'Protect the summoner, even at the cost of one's life'. The Code Of The Guardian, how admirable." He raised his hands to bring forward his two Guado guardians, who stepped out as if they were positioning for attack. "Well, if you're offering your lives, I will have to take them." He finished without hesitation. Yuna hated how over-confident he was about everything.
"Maester Seymour," She started. Some of the group got less stiff as she spoke. "I trust my guardians with my life, but they are also my friends. I will not stand by and watch them be hurt." Remora looked at Yuna through a stand of hair from the corner of her eyes. Yuna was just as used by Seymour as Remora was, but she wasn't vacillating at all. It did a great deal of grief to Remora that someone that helped her through so much would betray her at the end, but it impressed her that Yuna easily set all the past aside and did the smart thing. She immediately grasped her rod and held it in battle position. "I will fight you too!"
Tidus seemed perfectly fine with the idea. "Alright!" However, Wakka was still a little concerned with fighting a maester.
"M-Maester Seymour!" He started, but Seymour only lowered his head by an inch and gave a grim smile to the group.
"So be it."
It still made Remora shocked. They all had attacked the traitor that had helped her out of all people when she arrived to Spira. He helped her to claim her first aeon, to speak with the Fayth confidently, protected her at Operation Mi'ihen, many other things. It all bombarded her thoughts as she saw Seymour look a little faint, but then stumbled back and collapse onto his knees on the tiled floor. At this point, she didn't know what to do, seeing the one that she once enjoyed being with in deep pain, but she also saw a person who conspired and deserved the beating. He had summoned Anima once more, against the group instead of protecting it. She felt very faint going against it, but the battle was over now. Yuna had ran a little bit closer to Seymour looking uneasy. Remora had took a few steps as well, and she noticed that Fang was about to step to bring her back, but why would she? There their enemy was feeble on all fours. He looked up at the two summoners that read concern and warrant at the same time.
"Yuna...Remora, you would pity me now?"
Neither of them answered as they shown expressions of disquiet towards the Guado. He had rose to his knees, but it was the moment of his last breath that made him fall right back down on the floor with a loud thud. He was dead, and the temple seemed oddly skeptic with the moment. Yuna ran to his side as the others approached as well. His eyes were still open and had slowly rolled to the side as Yuna took her hand and ran them down his face to close his eyes. Everyone looked down at the fallen maester as the moment of remorse was suddenly disturbed by the sound of two opening doors and a gasp.
"Lord Seymour!" Tromell had cried out as he and two other Guado had went down the stairs to look at the dreadful scene. "W-Wh-What happened here?!" He asked as the three approached to examine Seymour.
"What, What have I done?" Wakka asked himself regretfully. Tidus immediately stood up to his atone.
"Wait a minute, it's not our fault at all!" Remora looked back at the door from where they had all went through, not sure what to feel or believe. Tidus continued on. "Seymour struck first; he's the bad guy!" Tromell immediately straightened his knees, staring at Tidus with dilated, shocked eyes.
"You-you did this?" He asked stuttering and surprise.
"Yuna, send him." Auron said as he walked to another spot of the room. Yuna was going to position herself, but hesitated as she saw Tromell eye her suspiciously.
"No, stop!" He yelled, showing a hand to halt her actions. "Stay away from him, traitors!"
The two Guado aided each other at carrying the lifeless maester out of the room as Tromell followed them slowly, leaving the others alone in probation. Yuna fell to her knees as the doors closed behind them.
"Traitors?" She asked herself.
"We're finished." Wakka said without any anticipation. Tidus had gotten aggravated with all of the gloom.
"Now hold on just a minute! Seymour's the bad guy, right? We'll just explain to everyone what happened." He replied as though they were going through a debate.
"It won't be that easy." Auron replied. "Let's get out of here." He did have a point. Killing a maester wasn't exactly the easiest conversation to win over, and if they stayed inside the large room, they'd probably get into more trouble than they already were in. They all headed for the doorway, leaving three seconds for Remora to realize they were departing. She followed sluggishly as Fang walked quickly back to walk with her side by side.
"Are you okay?"
It took a moment to Remora to realize that Fang was talking to her. "I feel sick."
I think...I just felt something.
Something bad.
Am I still awake or am I dreaming?
But this feeling feels so factual but dire.
I don't even know where I am. It's dark in here.
Is my baby okay?
Did something happen to her?
"You really think too much Vera."
Vera couldn't tell what she was doing. It was nothing but black that she saw and felt. She didn't know if she were lying down, sitting, or standing, or even if she tried to do either of them, and it greatly unnerved her. But suddenly a small light below her had started to show, and she could see her legs, and soon the rest of herself. She was still in her nightie, if she ever recalled putting it on, and her hair seemed straight, and there was something drastically different about it. The ends and a few steaks in her hair were scarlet, redder than blood itself. She suddenly noticed something about her that wasn't usual. She looked a bit like Remora; the hair, the skin, even her eyes. They were both a different color.
"What's happened to me?" She asked herself. She had completely forgotten about the voice that talked to her before.
"It looks like the table's turned. You seem to have your daughter's charm this time."
"?" Vera straightened herself out, seeing that she had been seated in an uncomfortable position. "That voice...you were in my house recently. What do you want from me?"
The illumination that was below her was the only light source in the black atmosphere. There was no once else around, but then she heard footsteps, but she could not tell what direction they were coming from. It was all a resonance.
"So you're finally going to show your face to me." She had stated, her eyes sharply darting one direction to another, her composure very painstaking.
"You're daughter has been quite a bad girl."
"That again..."
"No. I speak of a different matter. I kept her safe from all harm, trained her to become a summoner, and to remind her to gain assistance of guardians. But..." The voice had paused, and Vera was left perplexed. But a hand, a rather large hand, had come over her face suddenly and held itself against her mouth. She had immediately became alarmed and gave a muffled shriek as an arm then wrapped tightly around her waist. "Now I know she has your charm. You are clueless, yet in the end you skip to conclusions, and end up throwing all of someone's trust back at their face." Vera shook her head free of his grasp to her mouth and turned to find a built man, but some of his features weren't exactly habitual. His hair was blue and he had two large bangs that hanged behind his shoulders, and he wore a very complicated designed cloak. Aside from Jeckt, Vera had no idea who this man was, but she had a feeling he had a relation to Jeckt.
"Who are you? Let go of me!" She asked and was going to jab him around the ribs, but the hand suddenly moved quick enough to block her helpless attack. Her arm was pulled back behind her back and she painfully cried out she was held tense against him.
"She had quite beautiful features. Similar to yours right now." He pointed out Vera's atypical attire at that moment, but she wasn't exactly in the mood for compliments.
"What have you done to her?"
"I have done nothing of harm to her, but her friend however has convinced her that I had conspired with her."
"You know Fang too? She would never lie to Remora! They're way too close…" The last bit of her sentence had drifted a little, still desperate to know the attacker's name.
"Indeed they are, but she no longer leaves me any trust."
"If you were really trusting, you wouldn't be here attacking me. I'm going to ask again, what do you want from me?!" She snapped as she tried to get free of his seize, but it was very difficult to do so with her arm in the most excruciating position. The hand that held her sore arm had lifted and it lightly wrapped around the side of her neck, the talon-like nails slightly nudged into the skin.
"Her life. Her life is the only thing I need to get what I desire. But she is quite problematic to get a hold of. But now I have something that holds more basis." The grasp around her neck suddenly became tighter and the nails dug deep into the flesh, forceful enough to have the nails poke right through. Vera cried out as a few slow trickles of blood surged down her neck. Tears ran down her face as she was completely aware that she was utterly defenseless against him. "She has your blood. You'll pay the price very soon."
He conclusively let go of her arm and neck, letting her fall down to the lightened ground. There was crimson spread onto her neck and a little had gotten into her hair as well. He raised his fingers to examine some of the blood that had went onto his hands, and looked back at her. She looked more like a doll now, a deceased lass with no hope left for her or her daughter. She just laid there until she was sure that he was no longer around and cringed as she attempted to get to her knees. The only thing she wished for was Remora's safety. Nothing more, even if it meant her life.
The temple lobby was filled with monks and Guado, whispering their discussion of what happened a moment ago. The group finally showed up walking downstairs, Remora and Fang way behind, and the giant room then became silent as all eyes stared daggers at them. As soon as they stepped onto the floor, Tromell approached them, who was standing in the middle of the room with three other Guado guardians.
"There they are, the traitors!" He started off, and then he started at Remora, who moved in the middle of the group. "And you, of all people. You said it yourself; that you meant no harm. Can't really trust outsiders these days, can you?"
Remora wanted to scream at the people, but she had kept her demeanor to attempt to explain. "You don't understand. It was Seymour the whole time; he planned conspiracy towards all of us."
"You cannot lie yourselves out of this." He replied.
Tidus then cut in. "But it's true! He was going to kill Yuna and Remora to try and destroy Spira."
"Silence!" Tromell snapped. The tone in his voice slightly woke Remora up. "We'll reason with your punishment."
"We don't deserve punishment, Seymour tried to fucking kill her." Fang then stepped in. At that point, two of the Guado guardians had stepped forward in front of Tromell seeming to glare at Fang, who glared right back acting perusal.
Lulu's darkened voice had softly appeared in Remora's ear at her side.
"We need to leave."
Tidus had seem to have heard Lulu's warning also since he nodded and smiled at the two of them in agreement. Then the rest of the group was suddenly looking forward and definite, and Tromell was completely unaware of their plan as he was explaining the situation to a clueless monk. Tidus then suddenly dashed to the front gate, yelling for everyone to follow him hastily. The others were immediately caught off guard as the group sauntered quickly out of the temple. Auron closed the door behind him before looking out towards the ice road.
"We're being pursued. We must hurry and get out of here!"
At this point, the chill meant nothing to anyone as they all ran out running expeditiously away from the temple as a whole colony of Guado warriors were out of the temple hot on their trail as Tromell waited at the entrance.
"Don't let them get away!"
There was a beeping noise echoing throughout the mystery room. The air seemed warm and chilly at the same time as it seemed to have made the room more comforting, and the scent was…flowery? Vera opened her eyes slowly to see that she was in a white room, in other words, she was possibly at the hospital. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail to her side and she was in a white gown when she peaked under her sheets. She also noticed something else. The gown was a little transparent and purple bruises were shown around her ribs and all over her right arm, and her neck and chest was bandaged. She tried lifting her head, but a sting jolted from her neck and she immediately hung back onto the pillow. She sighed, realizing that her nightmare wasn't illusion after all. She heard footsteps out in the hallway a little bit distant from her room, but then they got closer, and later on a lady appeared in green garments, and she looked like she's been out using some kind of cream on her face, but Vera realized that she was supposed to meet her this morning at the library.
"Rouge?"
"How are you feeling?" She asked, smiling lightly.
"Sore." Vera replied, rubbing her head slowly. "Why am I here?"
Rouge looked back behind her and then entered completely inside of the room, finding a chair to sit on next to Vera. "The police got a phone call from someone that heard screaming from your apartment. The police even went inside your house to check on anything suspicious, and you were apparently bleeding all over your bed." Rouge leaned forward to lay a hand on her forehead. "But what happened last night? You look like you got beat up."
Vera sighed and rolled her head a little to face Rouge, but she looked down towards her sheets. "It's really hard to explain, but you could say that. I thought I was having a dream though." She continued to look through her sheets, unaware that there were tears rolling down her face. As soon as they hit her hand, she flipped over to have her face into the pillow, but not enough to sound muffled. "Why are they doing this to me?"
Rouge blinked. "Why is who doing what to you?"
Vera felt a hand-like pressure against her head, but it was too rough for it to feel like Rouge's skin type. She was still for a moment, but then she flipped over and right next to her with his hand above her head was Jeckt.
"Because your little girl has done a great deal of trouble so far." He smirked and Vera gasped as she realized that he was around Rouge, who seemed to have a blank expression.
"Jeckt! What are you doing here!?" Her eyes dilated and then they zoomed over to look at Rouge. "Rouge-!"
"What? What's wrong, Vera?" She asked. She sounded concerned. Vera then gave an expression just as confused at Rouge sounded, and the same rough hand that touched her head then tilted her chin up.
"I'm telling you now as a warning. Remora needs to go back home now. Do you have any idea what she's gone through?"
Vera had raised herself up lately. "Just go away! Can't you see I've been through enough? Just leave!" She had held her arm up in front of her face as if protecting herself. Rouge got up from the chair to grab the arm.
"Vera, you're hallucinating! Please calm down!"
Vera looked back at her frantically. "No...but he's not-" And that's when she saw something surprising. Jeckt was still next to her, but so was Rouge. Her arm was going right through him as she had clutched her arm to set it down. Vera looked up at Jeckt suspiciously and he only nodded. He backed away from her and the clueless Rouge until he was at the wall.
"You need to take action now, Vera." He whispered harshly as he vanished through the wall in a shadowy void. Her arm began to relax on it's own at that point, so Rouge found it opportune to let go of it. She immediately fell back down flat on her bed, her eyes closed as she huffed aggravatingly. Rouge blinked but looked guilty in some way.
"You still want to tell me what you were going to explain before?" She asked. Vera flipped over to face the window.
"I-...I don't want to talk about it."
"It's alright." Rouge replied sympathetically. "You could use someone rest. You must have had quite a night yesterday."
Vera sighed a little and closed her eyes to finally give them some rest. "Yes. I need to do something else as well."
Rouge lifted her head a little from her response. "Ah, but you won't be able to do whatever it is anytime soon. You're body really needs to ease up."
Vera sunk a little into her pillow. "No, I need to do it now, no matter how much I ache or bleed. Remora needs me."
Rouge's expression stayed the same. "You mean that she's-" From the moment of silence in the room, she could tell that Vera had finally met her resting point. She had slowly got up from her chair and backed away from the room before closing the door in front of her so that the ill mother could have her time alone.
Remora was sitting on a glacier hugging her knees close to her as she stared out into the frozen pathway. The entire group had a long run to do before having to fight a yeti-like fiend, who had caused them to fall through the ice, but unusually there was no water below it, but instead there was another ice floor. Everyone was in different places, thinking different things. Fang sat at Remora's side, but stayed quiet. She wasn't angry anymore from the previous moments they had, but she was still in a bit of shock and needed a bit of silence. She wondered if all of Spira would hear about what happened here, if all of the people from now on think of her as a 'traitor'. She would hate for that to happen, especially if she promised peace for everyone that came from this one place that she would dream to go to. She had proudly arrived, but now she was beginning to believe she had experienced more than she bargained for. Yuna's voice was heard responding to a confused Tidus, and Rikku and Kimahri had an interesting conversation of their own. Then something unusual happened. A sudden voice had echoed through the area; a beautiful and peaceful voice that could put anyone at ease. It was the Hymn of The Fayth. It made Remora look up because it immediately reminded her of Shiva. She would summon her now and then, but the Hymn reminded her of her main purpose as an aeon, and it comforted her that she'd be there even in the worst of times.
"I can hear the Hymn." Said Yuna in a quiet tone. The others had joined together as one big group again, so Fang and Remora decided to get up and join them. Remora could see from the corner of her eye that Fang was staring at her for a slightly long moment before speaking a little quietly.
"Remora...do you really feel sure that you're ready for this?"
Remora nodded in reply while seeming to look dazed from the deep listening of the Hymn. But everything was suddenly interrupted when the entire area started to shake roughly. It was an unusual time, but Remora could tell that it wasn't an earthquake. "What's happening?" She blinked for a moment, for it wasn't natural for a place like this to shake this violently unless the ice was splitting, but it sounded nothing like the sort. She turned around and gasped, for a beam of light had suddenly blinded her of all sights, and she felt two rough hands wrap around her as she was suddenly cast out of reality.