The dust bunnies said that I should update. Gotta listen to the bunnies, man. They know all. (No I'm not a druggie I just choose to talk like one.)
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"Oh!" Genis's eyes lit up as he watched her approach, "Presea, what are you doing here--" cutting himself off and going into another sentence, "D-did you maybe come to... to see me--"
"I have a message for all of you from the Professor and Yuan."
"Oh..." Genis's face fell.
"A message?" Lloyd descended the stairs, followed by Colette, Sheena and Zelos.
"Yes, this is important."
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Convincing
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"I'm sorry I acted in such a manner, I was simply thrown off." Raine cleared her throat with an obvious blush on her flustered face, she was now containing herself a bit more.
"I should hope so." Yuan mumbled, straightening out his clothes after having to nearly chase Raine around the base for several minutes. "Now..." They were back in the submarine room now, lighted blue circular walls around them and a hard black floor with what looked like veins of aquamarine embedded throughout it, illuminating a similarly colored glow.
The veins ran in zigzags from the wall to the submarine pit, A raised step all around the circular opening in the floor full of water, emerged in it was a Jet black Submarine, it's top opened into a small set of stairs that attatched and detatched to and from the large step.
"...Are you coming or not?" Yuan inquired straightforwardly but charmingly as he turned to her after putting himself before the step.
Raine stared at him warily, glancing at the door again.
"I'd appreciate you not running." He said, stepping down into the submarine's floor among two chairs.
Raine took a deep breath and walked towards him. "Yes I--" she paused before the step, Yuan had lifted his hand up before her for her to take.
"It's fine,"
Her eyes were wider just slightly, she was near embarassed.
"But I..."
"I'll make sure that nothing happens to you." Yuan whispered in a low voice, loud enough for her to hear.
They were silent for a split moment, and in not getting a reply, Yuan took Raine softly by the arm and pulled her forward into him. Raine almost stumbled, being pulled suddenly into the sub with her forehead pressed to his firm, strong chest. His arm holding her to him at her lower back.
"Th-that's reassuring I suppose...." Raine mumbled, sighing.
"Hold on to something." Yuan said casually as he took another hand and lifted it to press something on the wall beside the stairs, and instantaneously, from it sprouted a thick barrier of glass that closed them in, the very top of it was another black material that contained some sort of navigation technology, roofing the ship.
"...." Raine took a breath, ".... You're smart, Yuan."
"You're surprised?"
"N-no... Just how well you know me already, is all."
It threw him off for a moment, his eyebrows went up and he blinked, but his normal Yuan-like expression soon returned. "How so?"
"You knew."
"..."
"That I would have ran if you had told me that we would be traveling in this before we reached the base." she let a small smile be revealed, chuckling at her own words.
"Ah-" Yuan nodded in acknowledgement for what she said. "You're a bit predictable."
"..." Raine fell silent, she was still pressed into his chest, she put her hands up against his stiffening chest.
"I should start the ship now." Yuan said quickly, breaking away from the contact swiftly and turning from her. He seemed embarassed again, and like Raine had suspected before, he was regaining his composure, even for the very very split moment that it was first lost, Raine could barely tell, but she could.
He's totally just afraid of contact, or just really uncomfortable with it. As if he hadn't touched someone in thousands of years or something.
Which was pretty true, thus understandable.
Raine let herself smile again as she turned and walked a foot or so to the chair which was about a doorframe's width from Yuan's chair, his had all of the controls and a steering wheel. He would be driving and commanding, Raine notoced that her chair had a screen before it, a built-in keyboard that stood erect from the wall in sort of an hourglass shape.
Yuan opened his mouth to speak as he sat in his chair and leaned back, but Raine spoke first.
"So I'm guessing that you want me to..."
"Keep tabs on our surroundings, the device on the top of the sub has a radar--" he spoke as a light rumbling put Raine on-edge. She grabbed the edges of the chair arms as the sub descended, and as water and darkness completely rose around the dome of thick --what looked and felt like glass-- and consumed them. "And it's data will be sent to your side. Clear enough?"
"Yes, it sounds easy enough."
"Good, I hope you know what you're doing for the most part."
"I believe I do." Raine looked at him, in defiance to his 'giving orders' front. "You don't have to worry about me."
"...." Yuan closed his eyes with a smirk, "Hmph..." he pulled back a lever and his hands naturally found their way at the steering wheel.
"Ymh!" Raine put a hand over her mouth in surprise as the sub suddenly shot out and into an open-water area of light blue. They were under the water and Raine could look up and see the top of the water.
'Oh God oh god air' Raine started biting her lip nervously, crossing and uncrossing her legs uncomfortably. Tapping her fingers against the arm rest as she read the almost-blank data screen above the keyboard. It displayed a picture of an overall view of everything picked up by the radar, the coral reef that was very distant below them, schools of silvery red fish wriggled past their sub together quickly.
Floating, yet so submerged, Raine felt as if the air was leaving her, she took yet another breath and braced herself.
All the while with Yuan Musing from a few feet away, he glanced over to her curiously, it was almost... dare he think this--- cute for her to be so on-edge, the oh-so-very composed professor Sage so scared, but... did she think that he would let something happen to her or something? 'That's absurd' he thought.
"...." He wanted to say something, but she just seemed so....
"How much longer until we get there?" Raine lifted her hands to her face and started rubbing her temples.
"Not much longer if you consider four hours of this a short trip."
"..."
....No reply.
"Raine?"
He looked at her more carefully and happened to notice that she looked as though her soul had just floated out.
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"Are you certain that this won't cause any difficulties for you?" Asking with uncertainty, Raine shifted nervously.
"For the most part, we never really used this set-up mode for the chairs whenever Botta or I had used the ship."
"I see why." Raine's eyelids dropped as she looked off to the side at his leg at her shoulder, then to his other leg on her other side. Her chair was just below and in front of his, the ship had re-arranged their chairs for them and now Raine was just below Yuan, but fairly close to him.
Yuan looked down at the back of her silver head absently, it felt interesting to have someone stationed in between his legs there, he couldn't exactly move much now, but he felt a slight consideration for Raine. The man wasn't exactly cruel towards women who he had become acquaintances with, but nor did he posses a particular desire to be nice. But it felt as though Raine was just begging to be helped.
She seemed so.... well, helpless there.
Yuan suppressed a strange, unwanted desire to shift himself forward more as Raine started settling more in her seat.
"...So, tell me again, how many hours?" Raine craned her neck back so that her head was resting back on part of his seat. Yuan found himself swallowing, hard, at the closeness of her face to his--
"Two, now."
"...I see."
"..." The corned of his mouth twitched slightly. "Focus on the screen." he hissed.
"Right, right, Lord Yuan." Raine's alluring eyes narrowed as the met with Yuan's.
A bead of sweat rolled down his neck, Yuan shifted uncomfortably again and attempted re-positioning himself, moving backward a bit and clenching the steering wheel hard.
She put her head facing forward again and started monitoring the radar screen again.
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Two hours later...
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"Is that it?" Raine leaned forward and blinked as Yuan directed the sub towards a giant underwater dome, from this angle, Raine could see into part of it. Only but a large slab of glass revealed countless floors that were supposedly empty as far as she could see.
"Yes."
"...It's very big." Raine commented quietly, "but where would all of the artifacts be?"
"Well, it's actually more of a circular shape, it curves down under to complete the orb, below the seafloor."
"Ah!" Raine's eyes twinkled as she put her hands together. "It must be very strong, to be withstanding all of the pressure of the ocean this far down."
"It's not that far down exactly, but yes.... it was build rather strong to fend off certain people, as was this sub."
"Like who?"
"I'm not sure." Yuan thought for a moment as he drove them up close to the dome, "It was built far before even my time, so before even Mithos, so it's purpose was unspecified. It was empty for the most part except for the book which was pretty far in." He paused again, there seemed to be something he was pondering over, "Though there was one room that we've never been able to get into." he said.
"Oh?" Raine's eyes lit up again, she was becoming anxious as to what she would be finding int he ruins. "Was there a code? A.... a specific task to be completed?"
"...." Yuan looked blank for another moment, "Well, I can't remember exactly, It felt as though my memory was damaged slightly as we left."
"Lost?" Raine blinked.
"You could say that." Yuan shrugged. " but we didn't think much of it."
"Maybe it's..." Raine trailed, as the sub traced the side of the bottom of the dome.
"Do you know something?"
"...No." A circular opening was apparent before them, it was sealed in a mechanical spiral of metal an had a narrow, rectangular slot above it.
"Here you send a blast of electricity into that slot." Yuan said, indicating the slot above the door.
"How?"
"I'll show you." Yuan set the sub into a more idle mode, so they were stationed in from of the entrance. He stood up suddenly and reached for the ceiling with both hands, feeling around for a split second before Raine heard a beeping noise.
After about two seconds, a pipe sprouted from the top of the sub and connected with the slot, Yuan looked around for a moment and found another vent that lead into the sub with them, to the end of it was an attached square panel.
"I send a focused charge through here and it will open the door." he explained, putting his hand flat against the panel.
The entire sub seemed to be filled with static, Raine could see tiny blue orbs of pulsing electricity emitted from the spikey-looking streams of glowing indigo spiralling around Yuan's hand. As the streams trailed his hand, they seemed like they were being fed to the panel at the end.
Not much longer afterwards, Raine could see the door in front of them open, the spiral of metal retracted back into the sides and left an opening of water for their sub to go into. It was like a large tunnel, that would eventually lead them to a surface of air.
"And I'm guessing that this leads to a stop similar to the one at the renegade base?"
"Yes." Yuan replied simply as he pulled in.
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Yeah! It's longer that the last one!
(Can't wait for school tomorrow, I get to take a MATH test!! YES!)
