Chapter 15: Prelude
Charlie and the others traveled further up Mushroom Rock Road, watching small groups of Crusaders finish their preparations in stony-faced silence. Wakka was quite visibly upset, but to his credit, did not say anything else about violations of the teachings of Yevon. Finally, they reached a fork in the path; one branch continued alongside the ocean, while the other reached through the rock wall and turned northward. Before Charlie could ask which way they should go, the Chocobo Knight in green rushed up to them. "Excuse me, Lady Summoner Yuna?"
"Yes?" she replied.
"The command center…Maester Seymour requests your presence there, ma'am."
"Thank you."
The young knight pointed in the direction of the path beyond the rock wall. "Take that road to get to the command center. It's not very far."
"What's down the other road?" Charlie wanted to know.
"I'm sorry, but we're still making preparations this way."
"Oh…"
The group followed the young man's directions and headed off up the path and into the entrance of a winding canyon road, hemmed in on all sides by more of the strange, curving rock outcroppings. The road didn't go very far, however, before coming to a dead end at an overhang impossible to scale by any normal means. "Hey, this is a dead end!" Charlie said, glaring at the cliff as if it had impeded their progress on purpose.
Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet shifted, and the young woman realized that she was standing in the middle of a stone circle that was slowly rising into the air. "Hey! What the hell just happened?" she shouted when the platform finally came to a stop at the top of the overhang.
"That's one of the platforms that we'll use to get where we're going, ya?" Wakka explained. "Now send it back down so the rest of us can get up there."
A few minutes and several platform trips later, the rest of the party made it to the top of the cliff, and continued their trek up the road. Along the way, they spotted several Chocobo Knights, including Lucil and Elma, all involved in what appeared to be last-minute training exercises. "They look really determined," Charlie commented as they passed a young man practicing mounted fighting with his chocobo. "Lulu, do you think they can win?"
"It's hard to say," the black mage thoughtfully replied. "Part of me says no, but the other part really hopes so."
"Discuss it later," Auron said, drawing his sword as several fiends entered the vicinity. "We've got company."
Their attackers consisted of several large, mottled lizards and a new type of Elemental of a fiery red color. Without hesitation, two of the lizards launched themselves at the group, fangs bared, but Charlie managed to knock one back, while Kimahri dealt with the other one. The one Charlie knocked down got to its feet again, relatively unscathed, but did not attack again, choosing instead to run away. The young woman watched the lizard's retreat, confused at its sudden change of heart. "Why the hell is it running? It can't possibly think that I'd chase after it, can it? Maybe it got scared and decided to run away…WHOA!"
Despite the apparent desertion by one of their kin, the other three lizards entered the fray, two of them rushing at Lulu, who was engaged in battle against the red Elemental, while the other one launched itself at Auron. Charlene turned to help the mage, who didn't realize the danger she was in, and managed to kill one the lizards before it could reach her, but was unable to get to the other one. "Lulu, watch out!" she screamed.
As the black mage, who had just destroyed the Elemental, turned to face her new assailant, a blitzball sailed past her head and struck the attacking reptile in the gut, knocking it to the ground short of its goal. Wakka quickly retrieved his weapon and smashed the lizard again, this time breaking its neck and killing it. At the same time, Kimahri and Auron finished off the last two lizards, and ended the battle. "Is everyone okay?" Charlie asked, cleaning the blood off her sword.
Before anyone could answer, a piercing shriek rang out overhead, and everyone looked up just in time to see the lizard that had run away earlier leap off the top of the wall and straight at Yuna. Suddenly, a javelin caught the fiend in the side, knocking it off its flight path. Enraged, the reptile got to its feet and hissed in agony as another javelin joined the first. Finally, the creature keeled over and collapsed into a cloud of pyreflies. As it faded away, a young woman in a Crusader uniform trotted up and retrieved the weapons. "Is everyone all right?" she asked.
"Yes, thank you," Yuna replied with a bow.
"It was nothing, my lady. We've cleared out a lot of the fiends around here, but we haven't gotten them all, as you already noticed. If you're heading to the command center, please be careful."
"We will."
…
The rest of their journey continued in relative peace, and the group arrived at what looked like a large elevator. Gatta and Luzzu stood nearby, and they appeared to be arguing about something. "Why only you, sir?" Gatta demanded. "I want to fight, too!"
"Orders are orders," Luzzu replied.
"I'm not a cadet anymore, sir! Let me go with you, and I'll prove it to them!"
"Guarding the command center is important too, you know."
"But I came all the way from Besaid to fight Sin, sir!"
"I know, but an order's an order. To your post, Crusader."
"But, sir!"
Finally, Gatta growled in frustration and ran off, and Luzzu performed the prayer. Then, when he saw the gang, he said, "They let you through, huh?"
"Poor Gatta," Charlie said, feeling some pity for the young Crusader. "He must be really disappointed." "He didn't have to be such a whiner about it, though!"
"At least there's no chance he'll get hurt," Wakka said. "Why are you guys fighting anyway? Aren't the almighty Al Bhed machina enough?"
"Wow, I didn't think Wakka knew how to be sarcastic!"
"They still need some time to get them ready," Luzzu explained. "Our job is to keep Sin at bay until they're done."
Wakka turned his back to the Crusader, fuming in silence. "Wakka…" Luzzu began uncertainly, "I might not get another chance to say this. It's about your brother."
"Luzzu, no!" Lulu shouted, her expression horrified.
"What?" Wakka demanded, warily eyeing the two of them.
"I'm the one who convinced him…to enlist," Luzzu solemnly replied. "I'm sorry."
Charlene stared at the three of them, her jaw hanging open like an idiot. "Holy hell! This is like a goddamn soap opera!"
Lulu hung her head in sorrow, as Wakka stared blankly at Luzzu. Suddenly, his face twisted in rage and he punched the Crusader in the jaw! Stunned, Luzzu dropped to the ground like a shot deer, and Wakka advanced on him, clearly not finished with the fight. Charlie quickly interposed herself between the two of them, throwing her arms around the blitzer's torso and digging her heels into the ground in an attempt to hold him back. "Wakka! Wakka, stop it, please!" she shouted as he struggled to shove her aside.
Finally, he stopped fighting to get past her, so she let him go. Luzzu was still lying on the ground and Wakka glowered down at him, still angry, but no longer fighting mad. "When we used to play blitz together, Chappu used to say that…when we won the Cup, ya?…he'd propose to Lulu. And then one day…he goes off and becomes a Crusader, just like that."
Luzzu slowly got to his feet, gingerly touching his jaw, and said, "Chappu also said to me…being with your girl is good, but keeping Sin far away from her is better."
Wakka turned to Lulu and stared at her. "Lu…you knew?"
"Luzzu told me before we left," she sadly replied.
"She hit me too," the Crusader added wryly.
Just then, Lucil rode up and said, "All Crusaders in the vanguard are to assemble on the beach."
As she rode away, Luzzu turned to follow her. "That's my cue," he said.
"Luzzu! Don't die out there," Wakka called after him.
"So you can hit me more?" Luzzu asked, turning around.
"Lots! Lots more!" he agreed, raising a fist in the air.
The Crusader stared at him for a moment, smiling faintly, and then turned away again. Yuna gasped and ran after him, stepping in front of him and halting his progress. "Sir Luzzu, please! Please don't go!" she begged.
"I have to, Yuna."
"Let him go," Auron said. "The man has already chosen his path…as you did when you became a summoner."
Yuna's gaze shifted between the two men for a moment, but she finally stepped aside to let the Crusader pass. Charlie watched his retreat with an obscure kind of sorrow, thinking, "Poor man…it must have hurt a lot to see Wakka and Lulu every day, knowing that he was responsible for the death of someone they both loved, and yet keep that to himself. I know that kind of pain all too well…and it never stops hurting." Then, she noticed Auron staring at her, a speculative look in his eye, as if he was trying to see through her. "Can you be helped?" she rudely asked, irritated by his staring. "Would you like me to poke out your eye? Maybe if I got rid of it for you, you'd stop trying to burn a hole through me!"
Auron chuckled at her and walked off, shaking his head. "I'm glad you think I'm so amusing!" she said acidly, following him onto the nearby elevator. "Ooh, he makes me so mad!"
"You like him," said the sly voice.
"Shut up! Even if I did like him…not that I do, mind you…but even if I did, that doesn't give him the right to stare at me like I was some kind of fascinating bug or something!"
…
After the elevator came to a shaky stop at the top of the cliff, the party disembarked and headed for the command center. Along the way, they ran across several Crusaders in the final stages of setting up several cannons along the cliff. Wakka, still angry, walked up to one and yelled, "Curse these!"
Then the blitzer kicked the cannon, which wasn't a particularly wise move, considering he wore sandals. "Smooth move, Einstein!" Charlie thought, as Wakka hopped up and down, swearing profusely under his breath. "Wakka really hates those things, doesn't he?"
"Chappu left the sword Wakka gave him in Besaid, and fought with a machina weapon instead," Lulu replied.
"That's got nothing to do with it!" Wakka shouted. "I just hate these sacrilegious contraptions!"
The group continued past the cannons, and found a group of Crusaders and Chocobo Knights surrounding Gatta and Luzzu's wagon. "How the hell did they get that all the way up here?" Charlie wondered. As the young woman watched, two of the Crusaders opened the door to the carriage, and an odd fiend that looked like a huge red millipede slithered out and, with much prodding from its captors, crawled into a huge cage full of other types of fiends. Wakka watched all of this with disgust and spat, "It won't work anyway!"
"Don't say that!" Yuna chided, clearly upset by her guardian's attitude. "It might be a hopeless campaign, and it might mean defying Yevon, but the Crusaders and the Al Bhed…they're doing their best to defeat Sin. They want to rid Spira of Sin forever, and that's what we want, too, isn't it?" She turned to stare up at Wakka. "Isn't it?"
"All right, all right!" Wakka surrendered, unable to withstand those sad, two-colored eyes. "But I still think machina are bad news! They're forbidden for a reason, you know!"
"Lady Summoner, there you are!" Everyone turned around as Lucil walked up, relief clear in her expression. "The command center is just ahead, and Maester Kinoc is also there."
"Maester Kinoc, too?" Yuna was surprised.
"Yes. Please hurry, my lady."
The command center was a section of the cliff top cordoned off from the rest by a makeshift wall of curtains. Guarding the entrance to the command center was a very dejected-looking Gatta. "The operation will begin shortly, so please check all your equipment," he said, with all the enthusiasm of a misogynist at a female empowerment convention.
"Um…you all right?" Wakka asked, looking quite worried.
"Of course not!" the boy shouted. "I came here to fight Sin, but they stuck me here!"
"If you want to prove yourself, you must first complete the tasks you are given," Auron said.
"Hey, you actually sounded like you know what you're talking about!" Charlie said, surprised at the swordsman's sudden flood of advice.
"I wasn't always a guardian," he replied, walking past the checkpoint.
The rest of the group followed him, save for Charlene, who stared at Gatta for a moment before joining them. As she passed, the young Crusader muttered something under his breath that sounded a great deal like "I've got to show Luzzu what I can do!"
"Gatta, you're young, but please don't be stupid as well! You'll have plenty of other chances to prove yourself later. I think I better tell someone to keep an eye on him…" Just then, she spotted Seymour, along with a portly man in orange and white robes, and all thoughts about Gatta quickly flew out of her head. "Aw, damn! Not him again! Oh look, he brought a friend, too!"
The fat man hopped out of his seat, rushed up to Auron, and enthusiastically glomped him. For the briefest of instants, Auron looked like he wished the ground would open up and swallow him, but then Pudgy let go, and said, "I'd heard from Seymour, but I didn't know if we'd actually meet. Good to see you, Auron! Ten years, is it?"
"Uh…Lulu? Who the hell is that?" Charlie asked, as the rotund stranger laughed heartily.
"That's Wen Kinoc, one of the Four Maesters of Yevon," the mage explained. "He leads the warrior monks and is also commander of the Crusaders."
"Really?" "That fat bastard looks like the only thing he'd lead is the race to the nearest donut shop! Why is it that every single one of the maesters I've seen so far has managed to give me the creeps in one way or another?"
Suddenly, Gatta ran in and saluted Kinoc. "All troops ready to move at your command, sir!" he announced.
"Good. Dismissed."
The boy ran off again, probably on some errand, and Charlie found a dark corner to sit in while the rest of the group split up. If Seymour noticed Charlene at all during their entrance, he was doing a great job of ignoring her, which suited her just fine. "Tell me, Auron…where have you been these past ten years?" Kinoc asked, drawing the young woman's attention.
"Why does he care? Was he an old friend of Auron's? An old boyfriend?" Charlie snorted at that last thought. "I seriously doubt that! Anyway, why should I care? It's none of MY business, that's for sure!"
"We don't have time for this now, do we?" Auron replied, sounding slightly aggravated.
"This plan won't work, you know that," the maester said, looking sly. "We'll just let them dream a little longer."
"WHAT?" Charlie shrieked, leaping to her feet and drawing the stares of everyone around her.
"Lord Kinoc…" Seymour interrupted, giving the fat man a meaningful, yet irritated look that clearly said, "You've said too much, you fool!"
"Oh, yes," Kinoc replied, flustered. "Proceed."
He walked away absentmindedly, and Auron growled, "That Kinoc, a maester?"
"I heard that, Auron," the chubby man said, turning back around. "A lot has happened in the last ten years. What were you doing, and where?"
"Probably a lot more than you, jackass!" Charlie thought, seething with anger.
"Fulfilling a promise to a friend," the swordsman curtly replied. "I still am."
"Just tell me one thing: have you seen Zanarkand?"
Auron made some kind of intelligible noise under his breath and pushed past the maester. Charlie had opened her mouth to make a very loud and vulgar comment about Kinoc, but Auron reached her first, grabbed her by one arm, and dragged her off, beyond the curtain-wall of the command center. "I want to talk to you. Now," he said, continuing to drag her.
He led her to a secluded corner of the road just outside the checkpoint and away from prying ears, providing they kept their voices modulated. Once there, he let go of Charlie, but advanced on her in such a manner that she backed up until she was against the wall. "I know what you were about to do in there," he said, biting off the words as he spoke, but keeping his voice low.
"But I…"
Auron clapped his left hand over her mouth, but then she licked it, so he withdrew it with a slight shudder and put the right one over it instead. "No talking!" he barked. "Just be quiet and listen to me. You may not like what you heard in there, but you WILL keep your mouth shut about it, do you understand me?"
She nodded and he let go. "But that sick fu…"
He put his hand over her mouth again. "I know, and believe me, I don't like it any more than you, but the only thing you would have accomplished in there is to get yourself in trouble…and I wouldn't have been able to save you!" From what he saw the previous night, Charlie didn't like the fact that someone had saved her. She was truly grateful, but still didn't like it one bit, so the mention of him saving her again cooled her temper faster than anything else he could have thought of, save knocking her out. He pulled his hand away, and this time, she kept her mouth closed. "Kinoc had, and probably still has, a violent temper, and I don't want to see anyone on the wrong end of it."
The young woman nodded in silent assent. "Good job! You nearly screwed up again!" Suddenly, the image of Gatta and Luzzu lying dead popped up in her head, and she bit her lip and shut her eyes to keep the tears at bay. When Charlene opened her eyes again, Auron was still standing there, watching her carefully in case she had another flare-up. "Hey, I'm okay now," she said, cracking a smile, "So, if you don't mind, could you back up some, before Wakka comes out here and has more naughty thoughts about us."
The swordsman snorted with amusement, but backed away. "Go and talk to Yuna for a while…and remember what I said. If I have to drag you out here again, I'm going to knock you out until the operation is over."
His look was completely serious, and she flinched slightly, but said, "I heard you, Chief. Don't worry, I'll behave myself." "Good Lord, that man's trying so hard to NOT care that he gives himself away!"
Auron watched her go back beyond the curtain-wall and sighed. "The little fool's going to get herself killed! This would have been so much simpler if the boy had lived."
…
Charlie walked back into the command center, and noticed that everyone was staring at her as if she had just descended from space. "Uh…Auron just remembered something he forgot to mention to me earlier," she lied as he reentered the area.
"Oh?" Lulu asked.
"Yeah!"
"What was so important that Sir Auron had to take you outside to tell you, instead of mentioning it here?" Wakka wanted to know, giving Charlie a knowing look.
"He gave me his confession of undying love and told me that he wanted to bear my children!" the young woman finally snapped, irritated with everyone's assumptions that she and Auron were sneaking around like a couple of teenagers. "Okay, I AM a teenager, but that ain't the point!"
Wakka gaped at her, clearly confused for a moment, but then he said, "Wait…that isn't right, ya?"
"Charlie was being sarcastic, Wakka," Lulu sighed. "Just leave her alone for now. We have more important things to worry about anyway."
Charlene found Yuna standing with Kimahri off in the far corner, and hurried over to her, thankful that Kinoc and Seymour were immersed in their sinister plans and not paying any attention to her. The summoner turned around at her approach, clearly nervous about the upcoming battle. "I…get the feeling that we don't belong here," she said, her voice shaking slightly.
"Don't worry," Charlie replied, patting her shoulder in reassurance, "I feel the same way." "Girl, you don't even know the half of it! We don't belong here because we don't have the right to stand here and watch all those people die needlessly because Fat-Ass and Creepy decided that it would be convenient to let them do so…God, I wish I could DO something about it!"