Chapter 11: Riot

Charlie, Lulu, Yuna, and Kimahri arrived at the locker room, where they found Wakka laid out on the bench, groaning in pain from his injuries. "Hey, I'm back!" the young woman announced, picking up the blitzball and passing it to Datto. Then he, along with the rest of the team, noticed that Yuna was safe, and rushed over to her. "Lady Yuna!" he cried, clearly overjoyed to see her.

"Are you okay?" asked Letty.

She nodded, and said, "All of this happened because of me. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"How can you let some Al Bhed kidnap you?" Wakka wanted to know, still stretched out on the bench.

"Hey, she's safe now, so just let it go," Charlie said.

"Don't go near the Al Bhed any more, okay?" he sighed. "They're nothing but trouble."

A few minutes later, Yuna and Kimahri left the locker room to look for seats in the stands, but before they left, the summoner called Charlie over and whispered "Good luck!"

"Thanks."

She returned to the locker room, and noticed Wakka staring at her. "You ready?"

Charlene thought about teasing him, but changed her mind and nodded. "Yeah."

"All right!" The big blitzer then got to his feet, and said, "I got something to tell you boys. After this game…I'm retiring. I promised myself that this would be my last game, so win or lose, I'm quitting blitzball." Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "But you know…since we're already here, we might as well win!"

"YEAH!" cheered the Aurochs.

Suddenly, Botta looked nervous, and he asked, "A-am I on the bench?"

Wakka looked at him, then put his hand on Charlie's shoulder, and said, "I'm warming the bench. Charlie's taking my place." Then he turned back to his team and said, "All right, boys, let's win this one! Let's make the Goers goners!"

…

After Charlie and the Aurochs departed, Wakka approached Lulu, who was standing silently in the far corner of the locker room. "I saw you floating there, on the sphere," she said, a strangely worried look in her eyes.

"You weren't supposed to see that," he replied, blushing slightly.

Suddenly, his knees buckled, and he started to fall forward, but the mage managed to catch him without losing her balance and toppling over with him. "You really gave it your all, didn't you?" she asked softly, continuing to hold him.

…

Outside the locker room, Charlie and the Aurochs were busily psyching themselves up before heading off to their match against the Goers. "All right, what're we gonna do?" she asked.

"WIN!" the team shouted in unison.

"For Cap'n Wakka," Botta added.

Then the team headed toward the blitz pool, and Charlie thought, "Oh man, what the hell am I doing here? I don't even know what position I'm supposed to be playing!"

Before the voice of doubt could say anything, however, Jassu turned to her and said, "Oh, I almost forgot! The Cap'n asked me to switch places with you, ya? So you'll be playing left defense…if it doesn't bother you, that is."

"Good God, Wakka's such a flake! Why didn't he tell me this back on the ship? Oh well, it's a lot easier to get in someone's way, so I've got no reason to complain." Charlie nodded, and replied, "As long as it's okay with you, then its okay with me."

A few moments later, the six of them were in the pool, and approached the Goers, who all wore expressions of smug superiority on their faces. Bickson smiled brightly, and extended his hand to Charlie, as if in a gesture of good faith, but when she moved to take it, he tried to smack her! However, she avoided the blow, and gave him an extremely rude gesture in response. "Stupid son of a bitch! I ought to kick your ass!" she fumed as she swam to her position on the field.

Suddenly, the blitzball rocketed above the two midfielders, Letty and Graav, and the game began. Charlene soon realized that the Goers had good reason to be confident, as they were passing the ball and worked together with near-flawless precision. "Damn, they ARE good, but we can beat them! We have to!" Just then, the young woman noticed that Abus had caught the ball and was rapidly swimming in her direction. Judging by the wicked grin on his face, he probably thought that she would get scared and try to get out of his way, leaving him free to take a shot. "I don't think so, you smug bastard!"

Charlie acted as if she was about to run from him, but at the last moment turned back around managed to snatch the ball from the overconfident Goer's arms, leaving him with a stunned look on his face. Under normal circumstances, she probably would have laughed at his thunderstruck expression, but she didn't want to drown, so she ignored him and swam away as fast as her legs would take her. The young woman managed to get to the halfway mark, and then passed the ball to Letty when she saw Graav barreling down on her. The pass made it through, but the blond Goer couldn't stop in time, and he smashed into Charlie like a runaway freight train! "Goddamn it, that hurt!" she winced, before quickly schooling her face into a fierce expression.

Suddenly, there was a huge cry from the Aurochs fans in the stands, and Charlene looked up just in time to see Datto's shot barely slip past the Lucan goalie, Raudy, and score. "Take that, jerks!" she exulted, as all the Goers' jaws dropped in sheer amazement. Then the game started up again, and the rest of the first half continued with the Aurochs struggling to keep the now-angry opposition from overwhelming them. Finally, the buzzer sounded, and the first half ended, with the two teams tied with one point apiece. As Charlie and the Aurochs turned to head back to the locker room, a flash of red in the crowd caught the young woman's eye, but when she turned to get a better look, it was gone.

Back in the locker room, Wakka busily gave everyone instructions, which Charlie, who was deep in thought, barely heard. "I didn't just see Auron in the crowd…did I? No, it couldn't have been him. I'm sure that Mr. High-and-Mighty-Drags-People-to-Strange-Places would have more 'important' things to do with his time besides come watch a blitzball game."

"Goers are goin' down!" Datto shouted, snapping her out of her reverie.

"YEAH!" she cheered, before heading back out the door.

…

A little while later, the score was still tied, but the Aurochs were running out of energy and it looked like the Goers were going to break the tie at any moment. "God, this really sucks! We can't let those stuck-up jackasses win like this!"

Suddenly, the sounds of the crowd changed from incoherent noise to a chant of some sort, and all the players stopped in their tracks to listen. "Wakka! Wakka! Wakka!" yelled the crowd, much to the surprise of everyone who wasn't cheering.

Charlie shook her head and left the pool, where she found Wakka waiting at the entrance. "They're calling your name, my friend," she said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Now get out there and show them what you're made of!"

The big man grinned, and joined his team in the pool, while the young woman watched the rest of the game from a screen in the corridor. With their captain back in the saddle, the Aurochs found their second wind, and the excitement of the game reached a fever pitch. Bickson caught the ball and made his shot in a last-ditch effort to break the tie and win the game, but Keepa made an amazing save that involved some rather unusual acrobatics and chucked the ball to Botta. The scarred redhead, in turn, swam like crazy for the opposite goal, with Bickson, Abus, and Graav right on his tail, but when he reached the goal, instead of shooting, he turned around and passed it to Wakka! The guardian was wide open, so he easily caught the blitzball and put on a burst of speed in his effort to reach the goal. "Go man, go! Go, go, GO!" Charlie shouted at the top of her lungs, drawing some odd looks from the nearby security guard.

The clock was winding down, and there were ten seconds left when Wakka kicked the ball with all his might. The blue and white sphere rocketed toward the goal, and Raudy tried to block it, but it slipped past his fingers and went through just as the buzzer sounded, ending the match. "Holy shit, we WON!" Charlie shrieked, glomping the poor security guard and laughing joyously, as the crowd outside roared its approval.

Then she realized that she was squeezing the life out of a complete stranger, so she let go of the poor man and rushed back to the blitz pool to find Wakka. The young woman found her friend floating face up in the water with a happy, but exhausted, grin on his face. He spotted her swimming toward him, and gave her a thumbs-up. Suddenly, the cheers of the crowd turned into screams of terror and panic, and Wakka and Charlie found themselves surrounded by huge fishlike fiends. "These things look like the ones back in the sunken temple!" she realized as she cut one of them down with her sword.

Despite their exhaustion from the blitzball match, the two of them managed to defeat the yellow fish monsters and get out of the pool. "What the hell is going on?" Charlie panted as she and Wakka ran outside. "How did fiends get into the stadium?"

"I don't know, but this is really bad, ya?" the big blitzer replied.

They ran out the door, taking down a couple of wolf-like Dingoes, and then spotted a huge, brown, lizard-like fiend that was snarling at someone they couldn't see. Charlene stood on her tiptoes, peered over the monster's back, and nearly fell over when she spotted Auron. The swordsman smirked at the beast as it slowly advanced on him, and shrugged off the left side of his coat, easily slipping into a fighting stance. The dragonish beast roared again and went on the attack, but Auron quickly sheared it in half with his giant katana. As the creature faded away into a cloud of pyreflies, Charlie and Wakka ran up to him. "It's him! It's really him!"

"Sir Auron!" the blitzer cried, his expression a mix of relief and awe.

The young woman stopped and stared at her friend. "Wakka, you know him?"

"Yeah, he's the best guardian there ever was."

Charlie turned to say something to the swordsman, but before she could say anything, a Garuda attacked and yet another battle began. The huge bird shrieked loudly, nearly bowling them over with its reeking breath, and tried to swoop down on them, but Wakka knocked it out of the sky with a brutal blow to the skull. Stunned, the Garuda tried to get back into the air, but Charlene stabbed it in the ribs with the Brotherhood, while Auron cut off its head. As it vanished, yet even more monsters showed up, looking for a fight, and Charlie yelled, "Aw, come on! Give us a break!"

Just then, Seymour, who was still standing in the VIP section, performed the prayer as a series of bright lights flared around him. Then, a massive anchor dropped out of the sky and sank into a well of darkness, and when it came back out, a creature out of a nightmare came with it. It was huge, emaciated, and bound with great black chains, and Charlene stared at it with sheer horror as it roared in agony. "What the… Is that an aeon?"

The creepy aeon's one green eye flashed brightly, and each time it flashed, a fiend would burst into pyreflies and die. Repeatedly, the giant's eye flared, until all the monsters in the stadium died, and when it finally stopped, Charlie noticed that it wept tears of blood. Satisfied that the monsters were gone, Seymour banished his aeon and smiled his eerie smile at the crowd. "What in God's name was that thing's deal?" Charlie wondered, shuddering in revulsion. "It looked like it was in pain! Why the hell does that creepy bastard have an aeon, anyway? I thought the summoners were the only ones who could call them!"

…

A little while later, Charlene and Auron stood on the docks, and the young woman finally gave vent to her rage in a stream of blistering curses that made the swordsman raise his eyebrow in surprise. "You have quite the mouth on you," he said when she finally stopped cussing.

She rounded on him, her blue eyes flashing, and then grabbed his shoulders and started shaking him. "Don't just stand there and act all calm, you psychotic nutball! All of this is YOUR fault!" "Okay, it's the little purple boy's fault, too, but he ain't here, so you'll have to do." "You're the one who dragged me into Sin! You're the one who brought me to Spira, and now I can't go home! This is all your goddamn fault!"

Finally finished with her tirade, Charlie let go of him, and he threw back his head and laughed loudly. She suppressed the urge to hit him, thinking, "Okay Charlie, you will be calm, you will be serene, and you WILL NOT kill this son of a bitch! He's your only ticket home, so killing him won't help anything…not that you could kill him in a fair fight, anyway."

Auron stopped laughing, and the furious girl glared at him. "Just who the hell are you, anyway?" she demanded, "You knew Tidus, so you must have known Jecht, right?"

"Yeah," he replied, not looking at her.

"You also knew Yuna's father, Braska, right?"

"That's correct."

"You're a liar!" she snapped. "There's no way that can be true…it's impossible!"

"There's nothing impossible about it," the swordsman coldly replied, turning back around. "Jecht, Braska, and I…together we defeated Sin, ten years ago. Then I went to Zanarkand to watch over the boy so I could one day bring him to Spira."

"Yeah, well he died, so why the hell did you bring me here?"

"Jecht asked me to."

"Bull! The only signs I saw of Jecht in Zanarkand were those big billboards, so unless you really ARE a whack job, I highly doubt it."

"I felt something of Jecht there, inside that shell. You never knew him, so you might not have realized it at the time, but you must have been able to feel him when you came in contact with Sin."

Charlie paled. "No…friggin'…way! That can't be right!"

"It is," Auron said his expression unreadable behind his high collar and sunglasses. "Sin is Jecht."

"Why would he kill his own son and drag some strange girl to Spira in his place, huh? I don't believe you!"

"I don't know, but it is the truth," he replied, as implacably as an avalanche. "You'll see for yourself. Come with me."

"Who in bloody flaming hell do you think you are?" "What if I refuse?"

"Every story must have an ending."

"This is real life!" Charlie yelled. "Well…it is now, but they'd just lock me up if I said this was supposed to be a video game." "Besides, even if it was just a story, that doesn't mean I'd really give a flying fig about it!"

"I see…sorry you feel that way. Come or don't come, it's your decision."

Auron walked away, and Charlene gaped at him for a moment before pulling her shoe off and chucking it at his back in rage. The flying footwear smacked his shoulder, and the swordsman whipped around and pinned her with a death glare. She managed to hold back a flinch, and screamed, "What am I supposed to say, huh? You say it's my choice, but I have to go with you! I already ran into Sin twice since I got here, and neither one of those times sent me home, so if I don't go with you, then I'm stuck here forever!"

Charlie turned around, her shoulders visibly shaking as she tried to keep from crying. "I will NOT cry! I won't give that bastard the satisfaction of seeing me cry!"

"It's irritating, I know…or are you afraid?" When the young woman didn't say anything, Auron turned around and placed a hand on her shoulder, which, surprisingly enough considering her current mood, she didn't shrug away. "It's all right."

She swallowed hard, trying to choke back her tears, and in a small voice, asked, "Auron, will I ever go home again?"

"That's up to Jecht." He pulled his hand away and said, "I'm going to offer my services to Yuna. Come."

"I don't come on command," she muttered. "Let him take that however he wants!"

Auron stared at her for a moment, startled, and then raised an eyebrow at her. Despite the fact that the swordsman's high collar obscured his face, Charlie knew he was grinning and she felt herself blush furiously. "Oh God, he took it THAT way, didn't he?" She cleared her throat, and said, "Anyway, I don't think I ever told you my name, did I?"

…

A few minutes later, after Charlene put her shoe back on, she and Auron arrived at the outskirts of the city, where Yuna and the rest of the gang stood, talking, but they quickly stopped and stared when they saw the swordsman. "Whoa…" Wakka breathed, his eyes as round as dinner plates.

"Sir Auron!" Yuna gasped in amazement.

"Yuna, I wish to become your guardian," he said with all the solemnity of a priest. "Do you accept?"

"You're serious?" Lulu asked.

"You refuse?" Auron wanted to know, when Yuna didn't say anything.

Charlie, who stood behind him, found herself wondering exactly what he planned on doing if she did refuse him. "If she does, fifty bucks says that he'll stalk her all over Spira."

Suddenly, Yuna shook her head and said, "No, no! We accept, right everyone?"

"O-of course!" Wakka stammered, "No problem at all!"

"But…why?" Lulu demanded.

"I promised Braska."

Yuna blinked. "You promised my father? Thank you, Sir Auron! You're welcome to join us!"

"SIR Auron? Sir my ass!" Charlene smirked, but then Auron grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. "She comes too," he said.

Everyone blankly stared at her, and she chuckled weakly. "Uh…hello again."

"This one I promised Jecht," the swordsman explained.

"Is Sir Jecht alive?" Yuna asked.

"I can't say. I haven't seen him in ten years."

"I…see."

"You'll meet eventually," he assured her.

She brightened at that. "Yes. I'm looking forward to it!"

His explanations finished, Auron turned to Lulu and started asking her questions, while Yuna motioned for Charlie to join her on the balcony. The summoner smiled, and said, "Hey, watch this!"

Then she put her thumb and forefinger in her mouth and let out a clear, piercing whistle. Charlene gaped at her for a moment, and then said, "Hey, you've gotten pretty good. Have you been practicing?"

Yuna nodded, and then noticed the sorrowful look on her friend's face. "You seem sad."

"Yeah, just a little." "Okay, more than a little, but it wouldn't be fair for me to just dump all my problems on you."

"Wanna scream?"

"I'd probably better not." "Auron would probably think I was dying and give me a mercy killing…or come poke me with a stick to see if I'd twitch."

Charlie shook off a rather amusing mental picture of Auron standing on the side of the road, poking an amorphous giggling blob, and then looked at Yuna. "You know what?" the summoner asked. "It's embarrassing to say this myself…but summoners and their guardians are kind of like Spira's ray of light. A lot of people in Spira depend on us. I learned to practice smiling when I'm feeling sad, you know?"

"I think I understand what you mean. People are easily reassured by a smile, aren't they?"

"Right, now let's see what you can do!"

Charlie blinked, startled by Yuna's sudden command, but the summoner grinned and said, "Come on!"

The young woman winced, but did as she was told. The smile was completely unnatural, but there nonetheless. "Uh…I think my face just cracked."

Yuna giggled, and then said, "Next, try laughing out loud!"

"What?"

"Come on, show me!"

Charlie blinked again, feeling like a complete idiot, but then the "Auron the Blob Poker" image popped into her head again, and she started snickering in spite of herself. Then Yuna joined in, despite the fact that she didn't know why Charlie was laughing, and the two girls laughed as if it were going out of style. Finally, they regained their composure, and the summoner said, "Too funny!"

"It was your idea, you know!" Charlene replied, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Um…thank you," Yuna said. "I want my journey to be full of laughter."

"All right."

"If we should get separated, just whistle. I'll come running, I promise."

The young woman nodded and said, "Okay, let's go."

The two of them turned around and noticed that the rest of their group was staring at them with various expressions. Lulu and Wakka looked worried, while Kimahri looked calm as always, and Auron…just looked like Auron. "You know, a picture would last longer!" Charlie stared back at them and asked, "What's the matter?"

"We were just worried you guys might have gone crazy!" Wakka replied.

"But Wakka…we ARE crazy! Didn't you know?" When the blitzer gave her a startled look, she sighed, "Uh…I was just kidding about that. We aren't crazy." "As far as I know, anyway, but I don't think crazy people actually know that they're crazy."

Then Yuna strolled past everyone onto the stone steps, and cheerfully announced, "Now we will go to the temple of Djose. And guardians…don't forget to smile."

"Smile, huh? I can picture Wakka smiling, but he's a cheerful guy, so that isn't that difficult. Lulu would probably explode if she smiled, and Kimahri's smile could probably scare crying babies into silence…if he even knows how to smile, that is. Auron…I can't really tell, since he's so hellbent on hiding behind that collar, but he probably looks like he's about to tear somebody a new one when he smiles. Wait…why the hell am I even worried about how these people look when they smile? I'm not supposed to get attached to these people, because I'm leaving the moment I find a way out of here!"

"Too late for that, you dingbat!" whispered the voice of doubt. "You like ALL of these people and you damn well know it! If you didn't, then you wouldn't be trying so hard to not like them."

"Quiet, you!" she scolded. "Yeah, I like Yuna and Wakka and the others…but not Auron."

"Oh, he'll grow on you, I'm sure."

"Yeah…like a fungus."

Suddenly, Wakka's voice snapped her out of her reverie, as he shouted, "Hey Sleepyhead, you better hurry up or we'll leave you behind!"

"Sorry!" Charlie rushed to catch up to the others, the whole time thinking, "Well, I've gone and done it, haven't I? I found some more people to care about, so now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the disasters to start."