30: The Caterpillar's Stand
Mushroom Rock Road was as unsightly as ever – nothing seemed to be able to change the odd, bare path by the sea. Its austerity belied the fact that it was one of the bloodiest coastlines in the world. It had survived the Great Machina War, weathered countless attacks by Sin, and stood through battles between Spira's opposing factions. Now, it was host to an unlikely group of Guardians and their outcast Summoner rushing to meet an unknown purpose for the very Church that had scorned them.
"I'm ridin' a giant, oversized chicken," was Jecht's contribution to this historic moment.
"Chocobo, Jecht!" Rikku corrected him. His mount let out a loud wark of agreement.
"Whatever!" He spat out a tuft of downy feathers that had flown into his mouth. "What're we doin' here anyway? And why haven't we travelled by chocobo before? This is awesome!" Though it was his first time on the giant birds, his athlete's reflexes were serving him well; Jecht had taken to chocobo riding as easily as he played Blitzball.
Braska pulled up alongside them, also doing exceptionally well. It was rather impressive that he could stay seated, considering how much of his outfit was flapping in the wind. He had chosen to forgo his feathered helmet for the ride, however, and Rikku was distracted by the sight of his braid whipping out behind him. It reminded her of Yuna's own braid, which she refused to trim. Did everyone in Yuna's family have a thing for excessively long hair?
"Chocobos are too expensive for us to rent," Braska shouted at them, bringing her back to the present. "These steeds are on loan from the Chocobo Knights themselves!"
Courtesy of one Wen Kinoc, Rikku amended sourly, focusing on the path ahead where the man in question and Auron were racing side-by-side. They hadn't been given much of an explanation other than the order to get to the promontory connecting the Mi'ihen Highroad with Djose as quickly as possible.
But even without any knowledge of what they were rushing towards, Rikku couldn't find herself complaining. The loaned chocobos were shaving time off of their journey. Better yet, they gave her an excuse to breeze by the Den of Woe without having to think about Shuyin's presence there, still trapped as an angry spirit.
"It'd be nice to know what kind of doom and gloom we're running towards this time," she did add, loudly enough for her companions to hear. She reined in her chocobo when Kinoc and Auron slowed down; the road was giving way to a steep incline, over which the faint sounds of battle could be heard. As if to answer to her own question, bile rose in her throat and a queasy wave of familiarity washed over her. Oh, poopie.
"Sinspawn," Braska ground out, donning his helmet and collecting his staff. "This aura isn't strong enough to be Sin itself. We must try to help the people here!"
Auron turned his chocobo across the path, forcing everyone behind him to come to an abrupt halt. Jecht yelled and slid off his saddle, landing with a thump next to his mount.
"Wen!" Auron dismounted, and Braska and Rikku followed suit. "Why did you bring us here? Sinspawn are no reason to interrupt a Pilgrimage."
"Sin is the reason for the Pilgrimage," Braska interjected. "We need to stand and fight!"
While Rikku agreed with the sentiment, the sudden fervor in Braska's tone gave her pause. The last time he had felt that strongly about standing his ground, Jecht had ended up unconscious and scarred. Auron, too, seemed to remember, and met Braska's deep frown with an unwavering glare. It was the summoner who had to look away first.
Kinoc nudged his steed back, unconcerned with the screams and discordant ring of metal surrounding them. "Haven't you guessed?" He pulled his armored chocobo to a halt, pacing in place without bothering to dismount. "We're trying to defend the pass towards the Highroad. Sin's attack hasn't stopped just because your Pilgrimage did."
Jecht picked himself up off the ground and joined them, cracking his knuckles together. "Well, we've fought these guys before. If it has more than two legs we pound it, right?"
"Or less," Rikku agreed, flexing her fingers within the comforting grip of her Godhand.
Auron cut them off again, regarding Kinoc with open suspicion. "The warrior-monks have been trained for this. What more could I add to that?"
"Auron!" Braska's tone was sharp. "A summoner could turn the tide in a battle against Sin!"
"He didn't ask for you," Auron replied shortly, and Rikku winced.
Ouch. Auron wasn't going to bother sparing anyone's feelings today, especially with the battle right on top of them.
Kinoc's snort of agreement didn't help, and Rikku felt a little sorry for Braska. The summoner's knuckles had whitened around the grip of his staff and his expression was pinched. Leaning in, she grabbed his elbow. "Just ignore Kinoc," she whispered. "If you could power aeons with stupidity, he'd be a High Summoner."
Braska let out an unexpected bark of laughter, quickly smothered, then met her eyes and nodded. They turned their attention back towards Kinoc, who was still addressing Auron as if he was the leader of their small entourage.
"The monks are assigned to protect the temples, not the settlements. I'd have thought you'd feel a little more strongly about this, considering the arguments you've always made about defending Luca." He flashed Auron a challenging smile, all teeth and no warmth. "If we don't stop Sin's charge here, the fiends will swarm Luca. Or is Blitzball finally starting to lose its charm?"
Sucking in his breath, Auron's face hardened. "The crusaders? That's all you've sent? Was it even a full company?" His jaw worked as he fixed his furious stare onto Kinoc. "Think of the civilians in Luca, Wen. Men, women, children. It would be a massacre!"
"Yes, Auron," Kinoc answered with resignation, drawing his sword and turning his chocobo towards the hill. "Think of the people, if that spurs you to act."
Auron drew his sword and rested it on his shoulder. "Bastard!" he spat. "You shame us all!"
Kinoc paused, his posture tense. He looked back at Auron, eyes hard behind the heavy helmet. "I'm here, aren't I? Now come on." He turned away, all pretence of good humor gone. "You always were my better." The admission seemed to be couched more in resentment than entreaty. Still, Kinoc waited for them to catch up. "They need you."
They crested the hill together, and Rikku gasped. Jecht froze next to her, taking in the sight. Apart from whatever might have happened in Zanarkand, he'd never seen Sin's destruction up close; their encounters had mostly been against sinspawn, one-on-one. Or maybe some-on-one, considering how the fight in Macalania had gone. The devastation spread before them was new, and sobering.
Fallen crusaders and injured chocobos were splattering the landscape in macabre shades of red. Those still standing were battling the swarm of black, shelled creatures invading the shore. Minor sinspawn, deadly because of their sheer numbers.
A few of the fiends which had broken through were tearing apart corpses with their mandibles, and Rikku covered her mouth to suppress a gag. For every one of the beetle-like fiends the crusaders felled, three more were scrabbling up the rocky cliffside. The forces were holding, but just barely, as their losses were mounting.
"It's a goddamn slaughter!" Jecht grabbed his head in disbelief. "What're we supposed to do about that?" He formed his fingers into a box, scanning one of the sinspawn before them. "Weak to Thunder and those shells give 'em a good defense! Water'll heal them!"
Braska twirled his staff, beginning the dance to summon, but Auron raised his hand to stop him.
"Wait!" Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the seabed. "They're coming from somewhere out there. Chop off the head before you dispose of the body." A moment passed, and then he pointed towards an unnatural swell rising from the ocean. "There."
Rikku watched the lump quiver, breaking the surface to reveal an undulating spherical mass of glistening scales. Two webbed wings lifted it briefly out of the water before it dove back into the sea.
"That thing is ginormous!" she screamed, choking on the wave of noxious toxin its short rise had released. It was the largest offshoot of Sin she'd ever seen in her life. Despite its terror-inducing size, it was still too far out to be attacked directly.
Even at that range it was powerful enough to shoot pods of pulsing sinspawn towards the shore. Some of them were hatching in mid-air, crashing into the cliffside before exploding into pyreflies from the fury of the impact.
"Magic users to me! Surround the summoner! Everyone else, form a line on the path," Auron ordered. "Concentrate on eliminating the smaller fiends before they can spread inland." Kinoc, used to Auron's battleside manner, took off at a gallop, directing the regrouping of the soldiers.
Turning to Braska, Auron made a sweeping gesture with his sword. "Defend the shoreline. We'll need your aeon to hold the off the ones that make it out of the water. You heard Jecht; take the summon from Djose." He glanced at Rikku. "You, too. Cast from here. Don't bother aiming, just hit the water," he told them, pointing towards the ocean. "Jecht, you and I look after Braska." He raised his voice, thundering over the noise of the soldiers taking defensive positions around them. "Don't hold anything back! We hold this line or Luca falls!"
He's a natural at this, Rikku marvelled. He'd always been gruff during Yuna's Pilgrimage, but this – the imposing sureness of presence radiating from him – had all but disappeared, withdrawn into the depths of the bitter, reclusive shell of his older self. That lack of initiative had been a loss for Yuna's party.
Braska had already restarted his dance, gravitational energy pooling as pillars of lightning arced down from the sky and scorched the ground in a perfect circle around him.
Heck of a way to break in a new summon, Rikku thought with some sympathy.
Braska grunted and pulled Ixion from the rune that bloomed in the sky. He fell to one knee, staff raised as the Rapture overtook his body. The huge, shaggy unicorn reared upwards with a fierce scream before stampeding towards the cliffside. Rikku threw her arms out for balance; the ground quaked under the aeon's massive hooves in an eerie parallel to the blooming of Djose Temple.
The magic-wielding soldiers began to tighten into a living shield around Braska. Bursts of Fire and Thunder magic punctuated the chaos as they tried to hold back the fiends hounding the regrouping crusaders.
Rikku cut away from her companions and joined the ring of magic users, facing the sea. Her stomach roiled and she tried to ignore just how Al Bhed she looked among the ranks of Yevon's uniformed soldiers. Did I sign up for this?
Bouncing in place, she wished Yuna and Paine were there. Even the hardest battles seemed easier with the other two girls by her side, making their ludicrous battle pose in the face of danger. I can do this, she chanted to herself. Out of habit she raised her voice towards the incoming tide of fiends, lifting the Godhand defiantly at them. "What time?"
"Showtime!" Jecht yelled back, attacking the closest fiend. Rikku sputtered and let out a wild laugh. I can do this. And then, even though no one would possibly get it, she rallied with a wide grin and finished the Gullwing battle cheer. "Doctor A is in the house!"
An amused snort sounded next to her, despite the fact that Auron was aiming at a fiend, mid-swing. "If you have time to pose, you have time to cast," was all he said.
Rows of glinting shells boiled over the cliffside, held back now only by Ixion's vicious jabs of lightning and razor-sharp hooves. Channelling her inner Lulu, Rikku opened herself to the power of the Conflagration grid. The arcane words flew from her lips as she stretched out her hands, releasing the Thundaga spell. Lightning smashed the sea, cracking through the violent eddies stirred to life by the fiends. Odd flashes of light and color bubbled below the surface of the water, like a magical depth charge. The soldiers around her took the cue and soon, the sky was lit up with sharp bursts of lightning striking the ocean in a thick, unnatural storm of magic.
"Alright!" Rikku cheered, but her smile faltered when the flow of fiends continued unabated onto land. Jecht and Auron were blurs whirling around them, cutting down the approaching spawn to keep the defensive ring of casters intact.
"Again!" Auron yelled as he split one of the creature's shells.
Reaching into herself, Rikku pulled out the spell, sending it hurtling towards the sea. Again the unified storm of magic darkened the sky and the water churned. And again nothing seemed to happen. Ixion screamed in frustration, sending a powerful blast of his own towards the water, and charged ocean spray flew upwards in a massive geyser. Still, the fiends continued to pour out of the ocean.
"Again!" Auron roared, and with more than a little desperation, Rikku reached as deeply as she could into her mana reserves and flung out another Thundaga. The water frothed and crackled, and Jecht let out a loud whoop. Finally, finally, pyreflies were rising from the violent waves, mixing with foam and sea spray. Ixion continued to fire electrical blasts from his horn as the tide of sinspawn trickled down to a manageable level.
The soldiers around Rikku cheered; the fiends still escaping from the sea were more easily dispatched than before, weakened by the spells they'd blasted the water with. She wasn't fooled, though; Auron still held himself tense, his face darkening despite the lull in the battle.
Kinoc rejoined them, looking worse for wear but still mounted on his chocobo. Rikku realized with a start that he had also been providing support to their team; considering the man's attitude, she'd have thought he'd be as far away from the shoreline as possible, laughing at them as they fell. Stranger things have happened, she figured, narrowing her eyes at the enigma who'd drawn them into this mess.
"It can't be that easy, not even for you," Kinoc noted.
Auron answered with a grim nod. "It's coming," he warned as the broodmother burst out of the ocean, propelled into the air by its two massive wings.
Residual lightning crackled around the hull of the main body. Though it had ceased to fire pods, the massive creature continued its inexorable advance – straight out of a twisted entomophobic's nightmare.
Auron grimaced. "We won't be able to stop it from making landfall!" he yelled, breaking through the circle to knock Braska out of his Rapture. In the distance, Ixion screamed in fury and smashed himself against the sinspawn in one last charge, before bursting into pyreflies.
"We need to move to a more defensible position," Auron said as he scooped the dazed summoner over his shoulder. "Get to high ground!"
Kinoc was already herding them away. Anger and indecision warred across Auron's face as he moved, torn by his duty as a Guardian and his desire to defend the retreating soldiers.
"I won't allow it to happen again," he had said to her the last time he abandoned Braska. Rikku swallowed past the fear knocking her knees together.
I can't believe I'm about to do this for a bunch of Yevonites. Well, she justified to herself, I'm really doing it for Auron, I guess. Stupid, stupid Auron. Stupid, stupider Rikku.
"Auron," she said out loud, surprised that she was able to raise her voice above a whisper. He paused to look at her, a fierce scowl still drawn across his face. "Go go go! I'll hold things here and buy you guys some time. Don't worry, I can take care of myself!" She gave him a quick victory salute and dashed away before he could answer.
Suicide mission alert! Fall back, fall back! Rikku's mind gabbered as she raced towards the monstrosity rather than away from it. The mental babbling only quieted down when her feet hit the edge of the cliff, arms windmilling to keep her balance.
Strangely, it was that small, more mundane threat of tripping and falling to her death as opposed to being torn apart by sinspawn that allowed her to collect her racing thoughts. "There's no way I can do this alone," she groaned, her hand hovering over her sphere grid, struggling for a strategy.
"Quit hoggin' all the glory for yourself," Jecht answered as he joined her, sword in hand. "And please tell me you got a plan, other than makin' your boyfriend mad enough to split that thing in half with his eyes." He gestured, and she felt a Haste spell wash over her alongside a tidal wave of relief. Thank you, Jecht. He read her face and gave her a bolstering grin, almost as if they were sharing a secret rather than a deathwish.
"No plan, but I do know we're gonna need to get lucky," she answered him, activating her dressphere. She heard Jecht groan but a soft fog of confidence settled over her mind, soothing her jangling nerves.
Somehow, her Lady Luck sphere had changed again; she felt less capricious and more focused than she had before, snapping her cards around with purpose. Maybe it wasn't such a surprise, considering that Jecht himself was, against all odds, standing with her, completely sober and ready to fight to the death for the people in a world he barely even knew.
But who needs odds when you have luck on your side? Smiling, Rikku threw her cards into the air, sending flower petals cascading around both herself and Jecht. "A little bit of Felicity can go a long way," she purred.
Jecht darted around her, slashing at the smaller fiends that were still attempting to overwhelm them. "Got any way to deal with these small fry before the motherlode hits us?" He bounced on the balls of his feet, eyes wild.
Rikku assisted him with another round of Thundaga and pursed her lips. "Maybe. Do you like gambling?" she asked, holding a palm up before her.
"Anytime you're ready," he grunted, charging at another fiend.
"Oh, I'm always ready," Rikku answered him with a sharkish grin, summoning four dice to her hand. She blew on them softly and then flung them in a wide arc over her head, her brows narrowing in concentration. The dice hovered in the air, spinning, and the world seemed to slow down at the same rate of their rotation. A triumphant smirk graced her face when they stopped, and she flung her hand outwards, fingers spread. "Double snake eyes. I win again!"
With a pop, time flew into sluggish motion as every fiend in a wide radius around her spontaneously exploded into a mass of pyreflies. Jecht let out a low whistle, waving his hand before his eyes as if it could clear them from the thick mist of rapidly dissipating light.
"Nice," he drawled, keeping an eye on the still-approaching behemoth. "Think that'll work on the big one?"
"Sorry, not a chance," Rikku laughed, her hand moving over her sphere grid and activating another node. She heard, rather than saw, Jecht's surprise as she spun on one foot, surrounded by a swirl of light.
"Changin' again?" he sputtered. "We really got time for that?"
She reached out for the weapon materializing over her head. "Shove it, blitz boy. I'm out of mana and big ugly's still getting closer." Reaching into her now-bursting Alchemist's pouch, she let out a long-suffering sigh. "I wanted to save this for something special," she groused, before throwing an elixir at Jecht. "Chug chug!" She tilted her head with the imperious command, uncapping and downing one as well. With a loud belch, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and smashed the vial into the ground, energized. "Rud tysh! Now that's the stuff!"
Just in time, she noted with a grimace, as the large sinspawn burst into the air directly overhead. "Ugh!" She pushed away a wave of nausea as the creature unfurled its massive body. Writhing tentacles rimmed its sides, lashing the air.
Rikku's eyes widened as the fiend prepared to fire on them point-blank from the sinister-looking protrusions on its lower torso. Her fingers fumbled in her pouch for anything that would help, closing around two vials.
"Cred! Duck!" she yelled, diving to the side as the sinspawn belched multiple spears of dark energy at them. Her luck – or maybe it was the Felicity spell – was holding as nothing more than a few strands of her hair were clipped off by the attack. Turning her dive into a roll, Rikku bared her teeth. "I like my hair the way it is," she snarled at the sinspawn, rising to her feet. Jecht made it away unscathed as well; she watched him leap to slash at one of the offending appendages that had attacked them.
A cloud of black ichor erupted from the sinspawn in answer, flying onto his face with a wet splat and sending him rolling to the ground, blinded. Before the creature could put a tentacle through him while he was down, Rikku threw the vials in her hand against the sinspawn's massive body.
It's a good thing Braska and Auron haven't managed to cure me of my ways, she smirked as the shattered healing potion dribbled into her pilfered vial of Djose's holy water. "Eat that!" she yelled as the agents reacted, exploding into multiple chains of holy energy that staggered the fiend away from the cliffside. She took the opportunity to run to Jecht's side, pouring some cleansing drops into his eyes to wash away the viscous black liquid covering them.
Jecht waved her away, grabbing for his sword and blinking. "Thanks, Blondie," he muttered, focusing on the spawn that had already recovered from Rikku's attack with an expression of growing horror. "At least I'll see it comin'!" The angry, towering mass of fiend bore down on them.
"No way!" Rikku flattened herself against the ground as the creature unfolded into a long, chittering flying bug of doom and reached for them with its tentacled feet –
The furious roar hit the sinspawn at the same time Bahamut did, sending it flying back several meters over the ocean. The two creatures began to grapple in earnest, Bahamut trying to push it away from the rocky shore while the spawn wrapped its tentacles around the dragon and attempted to drag it into the water.
Rikku wheezed, ignoring the battle of the titans and digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. She tried to gather feeling into her fear-numbed legs. "C'mon, c'mon, get up!" she chanted. That brush with death had been much too close, and she forced her gasping breaths to slow down until she could sit up again.
Jecht was already standing, though he had planted his sword into the ground and was holding onto it like a crutch. "Let's not do that again," he muttered, whipping his head back and forth. He noticed Rikku coming shakily to her feet and gave her a sobering nod. "It ain't over yet, you know."
"Yeah, I know," she managed to cough out, grabbing her machine gun. "Ed'c hajan ujan," she added under her breath. It's never over.
A triumphant roar redirected her attention to the battle of the giants, just in time to see Bahamut tear the sinspawn's leathery wings off and push away. The flailing creature dropped into sea like a stone.
An exceedingly large stone, which Rikku realized spelled bad news for anyone standing near the shore. A tsunami of water hurtled towards the cliffs, directly where she and Jecht were standing.
She heard Jecht swear under his breath and tighten the grip on his sword as he reached for her arm. Abandoning her gun, Rikku grabbed onto him with both hands and hung on for dear life, holding her breath as the wave crashed over their heads. Water battered them from every angle. Finally, the pressure receded, leaving them soaked and exhausted.
"Let's not do that again either," Rikku coughed, spitting out a mouthful of silt-laden water.
"So, there's good news and there's bad news," Jecht answered, pushing his sodden, dripping hair away from his face.
Rikku straightened, wincing at the bruising the wave had inflicted. "Tell me the good news first!" she whined, dismissing the Alchemist sphere when she realized her summoned machine gun was a total loss.
"Braska's pet aeon got it to stop flyin'," Jecht said, pulling his sword out of the ground and sinking into his battle crouch.
"That was the good news?" Rikku groaned and readied the Godhand, shifting her weight back and forth. "And?"
"It's still comin' for us," he replied as the first writhing tentacle threw itself over the cliff and smashed into the ground by their feet.
"Nobody told me it was gonna be a marathon!" Rikku screeched, jumping and slashing at the tentacle with her weapon. She leapt backwards in surprise when it countered with a slash of its own. "I always suck at those!" Another tentacle reached over the cliffside, slamming into the ground.
"Better tired than dead," Jecht huffed, bringing his sword down onto another one. He danced away from a third and a fourth tentacle, not looking nearly as winded as she felt. It was more through luck than skill that she dodged the swaying tentacles unharmed.
What luck, Rikku amended as she felt the Felicity spell fading away. At least Jecht was already recasting Haste, filling her with enough temporary energy to keep moving.
"It don't look good," he muttered when Rikku found herself back-to-back against him. More writhing tentacles joined their brethren; trying to destroy all of them would be futile. The appendages weren't attacking unless Rikku or Jecht struck first, though; instead, they scrabbled for purchase against the rocky ground.
Her mind raced even as they were surrounded by a living wall of fiend flesh. "We have to get out of here!" Rikku shouted. "These are its legs!"
"So?" Jecht groused, swinging his sword back and forth. "Whaddaya expect me to do? This ain't no ochu dance party!"
"If we don't get out of here right now, we're gonna be pancakes when it pulls the rest of its body up!" Rikku said, attacking one of the barriers with the Godhand. A few of the tentacles jerked back, but it was a poor hit; panic made her careless.
Focus, Rikku, focus! She held the Godhand up in defense, grateful as Jecht deflected the counterattacks she'd provoked. The weapon on her hand thrummed with untapped power, encouraging her. You've been on the edge before. This isn't new!
With a deep, calming breath, she nodded and tightened her grip. The Celestial Weapon would support her, bad strikes or not. It seemed to recognize her command, emitting crackles of energy as she sought out a target.
"Look! Over there, they're not clustered as tightly," she yelled to Jecht, pointing. "If we hit it together we can get outta here!"
"Worth a shot," Jecht answered her, readying his sword. "It's do or die, right?" Without warning he skipped forward into a salto. Rikku recognized it as a Blitzball move to gather momentum for a spinning pass. On solid ground, it was one of Tidus' desperation moves, the "Spiral Cut." Why Tidus felt a need to call out the name of his attacks while performing them was still beyond her.
She raced to catch up with Jecht as he pushed off the ground and made a full body rotation overhead. His sword came down with a thud into the mass of tentacles at the same time as her Godhand hit them from below. With a screech, the interlocked appendages drew back enough for Rikku to catch a glimpse of hope.
"It's not big enough!" She ignored the the fiend's counters in favor of thrusting the Godhand into the rapidly shrinking opening. It was a last ditch attempt to create an escape route; Jecht also wedged his sword through the gap and grunted with the effort of prying it wider.
They both fell back in surprise when a golden talon burst through from the opposite side, ripping the tentacles apart. Rikku sprinted through the opening the aeon provided, Jecht right behind her. Bahamut roared, grappling with the fiend.
"Maybe we should call it a day," Rikku croaked as she stumbled to a stop. Fishing through her pockets, she passed a hi-potion to Jecht and greedily gulped one down herself. A few of the bruises and stinging welts she'd earned sealed shut, and she could feel the bleeding slow down in the ones that hadn't. Still, without the magic of the Alchemist dressphere, the potions weren't doing enough for either of them. "Can we retreat yet?"
Jecht shook his head, looking exhausted. "I don't think the dragon's gonna win this one," he wheezed, watching the fight.
Bahamut was struggling, dropping to one knee as he wrestled with the jagged remains of the sinspawn. He must have been holding the creature back in the ocean, buying them time to escape before she and Jecht could be crushed.
"Oh, Braska," Rikku breathed, relieved and embarrassed at the same time. What kind of Guardians had to be rescued by their summoner? If Kinoc and the crusaders witnessing it hadn't thought their Pilgrimage was a joke before, they probably did now.
With an almost anticlimactic sigh, Bahamut collapsed, the dragon's form wavering before dissolving. The sinspawn looked heavily damaged at least; huge chunks of its armored shell had been shredded away, and the remaining body was significantly smaller in size than before. What it lost in mass, however, it gained in speed.
Flipping itself over in a grotesque caricature of a pillbug, it scuttled up the rocks and directly towards its largest threat: the high outcropping where Braska and Auron stood. Bursts of magic from the remaining casters assaulted it from all sides, but this time the spells bounced off of the fiend's hard shell like pebbles thrown against a boulder.
"It's magic resistant now!" Jecht bellowed. He stood a few meters before her, his hands splayed outwards in their familiar box. "Still armored too!" He finished his spell.
The fiend was carelessly mowing down the remaining crusaders standing between it and the summoner. Even Kinoc was there, though he was knocked off of his chocobo as the sinspawn thundered past him. Jecht swore loudly, already running, but Rikku knew he wasn't fast enough; no one could be, not with the number of legs still left on the thing. She moved her hand to her belt and activated another node, refusing to submit to the drooping exhaustion weighing down her limbs.
"You're gonna listen, whether you like it or not!" she yelled, raising one arm and letting the magic swirl around her.
I'll lend you my strength, Lenne whispered, and power flooded Rikku's body. She smiled and danced a little jig, reenergized, before grabbing her microphone out of the air and bringing it to her lips. Her voice boomed over the cliffs, the magic reaching out and licking at the sinspawn, slowing its charge.
"Don't you know it's rude to ditch your date before the last dance?"
The crusaders were regrouping, at least the ones who weren't gaping. She could see Auron gesticulating angrily at her from where he stood; Braska, pale-faced, was already beginning another summoner's dance.
Winking, she blew a kiss towards them and began to sing for her audience of one. "Come to me, my dearest friend," she crooned. She held out a finger and crooked it, and a shudder rippled through the fiend. "Can you feel my song again?" Slowly, ponderously, it began to turn towards her. "I'll bring you back where you belong," Rikku promised, and its legs twitched. "And this can be our favorite song!" she belted out, raising her voice.
It's working! she thought with growing excitement, putting a hypnotic sway into her hips. The sinspawn was moving towards her in earnest now, and she almost tripped over her feet, humming into her microphone. Uh, it's really working! Now would be a great time for the rest of a plan! Beads of sweat broke out over her forehead, and, not for the first time, Rikku wished Lenne's dressphere had any kind of offensive capabilities.
The missing plan materialized in the form of a very angry Shiva, her icy face drawn in contemptuous fury as her foot crashed into the sinspawn. She stopped its charge and crushed what look like the fiend's head into the ground. Rikku's anatomical guess was proven wrong as the spawn simply rolled its hind end forward in response, lashing out at the aeon and proving that it didn't need a head because it didn't have one. Shiva managed to twirl away in a cloud of ice shards and braided hair, narrowly avoiding the hit.
Rikku skipped forward reluctantly – running towards greater sinspawn instead of away from them seemed to be the disturbing theme song of the day. Even Auron was taking the cue now; she tracked his red coat flying through the air as he leapt from rock to rock, rushing to assist them. Hmm, he looks like poetry in motion, she thought, nurturing the lyrics for a new love song while watching him move. It would probably be a smash hit if she could make it to the stage on time. She touched a node on her belt as she considered the idea, and –
– fell to her knees, the exhaustion returning full force as Lenne's strength fled her limbs. "I'll sing when it's dead," she ground out, staggering to her feet. One more time, she promised herself, fighting for her breath. Without the poltergeist in her Songstress sphere to buffer the pain, her wounds were really starting to sting. Even so, she couldn't gather enough energy to complain about it, not even one little, "Owwie." Instead, she concentrated on manipulating her sphere grid. Just one more change. One last time and it's done, she repeated. Or I am.
"Either way, this is going to end here," she growled as the light flared around her. She drew herself tall and slashed her summoned sword through the air, cherry blossoms scattering in the wind. Then, holding her weapon to her side, she pitched herself forward into a run. Fortunately, even the Samurai dressphere couldn't reduce her natural speed, and soon she was overtaking Jecht.
"Holy crap!" he yelled, doing a double-take as she passed him. "You're really gonna do that in front of him?"
"You said do or die," she answered bleakly, hefting her sword. She continued her charge without hesitation, lifting her blade in a wide arc at the last possible moment. It cleaved through the armored shell like a hot knife through butter, sending wriggling legs and plated chunks of flesh flying before they exploded into pyreflies. Jumping back, she surveyed the damage she'd inflicted with a grim sense of satisfaction.
The creature screamed and reared, only to be met with another hit, this time courtesy of Shiva. The aeon ripped through the underbelly of the fiend with her claws, before rolling away from the angry monster's thrashing.
It didn't even have a chance to recover before Auron reached them, his sword whistling through the air and smashing the fiend's chitinous back, severing yet another jointed segment of its long body into pyrefiles.
He retreated to Rikku's side, eyebrows raised at her appearance. She could see the questions on his face, a plethora of whats, whys, and hows, but when his mouth opened, he only allowed a terse command to come out: "We hit it together from the bottom up. Destroy the segments one by one."
Rikku nodded, grateful for his brevity, and narrowed her eyes. "Now!" they both yelled simultaneously, and she had the presence of mind to match Auron's offended glance before charging with him. Their swords hit the body of the fiend in a mirrored strike, destroying yet another segment.
"Never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad there's two of you," Jecht quipped as he covered their retreat, keeping the flailing appendages of the angered fiend from spearing them. Or more accurately, spearing her; Auron wasn't as winded, still able to defend himself. She dropped to a knee, panting, and willed her legs to move.
Auron looked at her more closely, his eyes tightening with worry as he took in her state. "You need to retreat," he commanded, stepping in front of her.
"No, you need me," she countered. "No Fear!" Her cry was both an answer and a spell, defensive shields rising over her in a honeycomb of light. I may be borrowing Auron's strength, but I can still do this! "It's almost over."
Jecht approached them, limping heavily and looking just as beat as Rikku. "I gotta agree with Auron for once, Blondie. We're both done, even with that fancy belt of yours." He shook his head. "Braska's gotta take the ball from here."
Rikku frowned, angry. "No. No! I won't stand behind another summoner and let them do all the work! We're Guardians now! This is our job, even if we fall!" She rose to her feet, determined.
"Stay here!" replied Auron. Then his expression softened. "You don't have to fall just yet." Rikku watched as he threw himself back into the fray and wondered when, exactly, she had become the cynic. Well, tough luck, but I don't give in that easily, she thought in defiance and readied a charge.
"You're channelin' too much of the Stiff!" Jecht caught her shoulder and yanked her backwards. "Relax, Braska's ice chick has this covered." Shiva sailed through the air as he spoke, landing another punishing roundhouse kick against the spawn's torso. "See? Nothin' to worry about – "
He trailed off as a few tentacles from the staggering fiend clamped around the aeon's leg, halting her retreat. The sinspawn swung her into the ground and pinned her there. It toppled onto the struggling summon, crushing her into pyreflies.
Rikku shook herself out of Jecht's grip. "You were saying?"
"I hope you got a miracle spell hidin' somewhere," Jecht amended, readying his weapon.
Auron was already taking advantage of the spawn's last attack against the aeon, driving his sword into its exposed belly. Rikku huffed as the fiend screeched and jackknifed back onto its many feet, nearly crushing Auron in the process.
"Why won't this thing drop?" She swore under her breath as she deactivated her sphere grid. There was no point trying to fight it with her remaining strength; Auron and Jecht were right. In her state, she'd only be making herself a needless target in close combat; magic was the only real option. She glanced at her belt.
Every node on the accessory was lit, the used paths forming themselves into a shining diamond pattern. Rikku smiled viciously. "Is it still guarding against spells?" she asked.
"Yep," Jecht answered her, squinting. "I got nothin'. Not even mana," he added. "Ooh, Auron took a big hit there." He winced, and Rikku forced herself not to look. "Seriously, we need a game plan!"
"I may have one last surprise," Rikku admitted, "but we have to make it vulnerable to magic or it'll just be another waste of time. Ideas?"
She spared a moment to watch the progress of the fight in the heavy silence that followed. Auron was alone against the creature now. He moved in an intricate dance of blood and steel, a choreography she didn't understand.
Braska was raining white magic on Auron as quickly as he could from his vantage point, buying the warrior more time. Rikku was impressed by the summoner's reach; even Yuna couldn't power her spells from that far a distance. Still, there were limits to what white magic could do. Wounds could be healed, but the physical stamina exhausted during a lengthy battle remained gone even after the injuries disappeared.
"You!" Rikku whipped around, surprised to see Kinoc joining them. His armor was covered in dirt, and at some point he'd discarded his helmet, but the grip on his sword remained strong and his eyes were lit with fury. That sword, she noted, was pointed at her. "You've brought your Al Bhed curse to this battle and doomed us to failure!"
"I'm not the enemy here!" Rikku snapped back incredulously. "Don't even try bringing your dumb Yevonite superstitions into this! Why don't you go help Auron instead?"
"What, no more Al Bhed tricks up your sleeve, girl? You're the one who's not helping," Kinoc snarled, facing the battle. "Auron was never this weak before that Al Bhed Lover corrupted his mind!" Rikku recoiled at the raw venom in Kinoc's voice, suddenly glad that Braska wasn't standing next to them. She was sure he would have thrust his sword straight into the summoner otherwise. He really hates Braska that much?
"Your lot ruined the greatest one of us! If we die here, it's on your cursed Al Bhed heads!"
Despite his words, it was the way his entire body trembled with wrath that allowed Rikku to realize she had it the wrong way around. Her entire world shifted two paces to the left. Kinoc didn't just hate Braska; he loved Auron. The sudden swell of pity blindsided her, leaving her gaping as Kinoc threw himself into the battle to assist the other man.
Did Auron even know – but how could he, when they had both been prominent scions of Yevon? Bevelle's Maesters were already falling over themselves in their hurry to denounce the Al Bhed; how much further would they have gone to punish one of their own favored sons? It probably wouldn't have even come to that – Rikku was pretty sure Kinoc loved power more than any single person.
But it was still something.
"Are we gonna let that asshole show us up or what?" Jecht growled, cuffing her shoulder, refocusing her attention. "We need to help them!"
Rikku grabbed her head and shook it. "I know, I know!" Think-think-think! She scrunched her eyes shut and covered her ears – probably not the best pose to take in a life-or-death battle – but the plain truth was they were all dead if they couldn't bring the sinspawn down this time.
She heard a low buzzing that grew steadily louder despite the pressure of her hands against her head. I've felt this before. She cracked her eyes open and watched the battle rage. The fiend rose into the air to tower over the remaining combatants. Its mandibles clicked, and Rikku tilted her head, watching flashes of light spark between them.
A prick of fear shivered down her spine; a warning. She ignored it and focused on the trance-like song echoing through her head, losing herself to the melody no one else seemed to hear.
Her feet were moving; Jecht asked her what she was doing, but she couldn't answer. There was only the call. Come here, it whispered. Listen. She ran towards its pained cry for freedom. Wait – she thought, her hand reaching out, ignoring Auron's yell as he almost clipped her, ignoring the tickle of Braska's white magic. Wait, I know you! Her hand slipped through the fiend easily, parting shell and muscle as if it were no more than pyreflies, reaching further and further in. Something shivered in delighted recognition as her hand closed around it, and she pulled.
The sinspawn's legs caught her and sent her flying. She heard shouting, but even as she landed in a bone-jarring heap and rolled to a stop, she smiled. Lifting her hand, she looked at the two glowing balls of light trapped between her fingers, whispering their secrets to her. "Twin stars," she breathed, carefully bottling them before they could dissipate.
Another healing spell sprinkled over her, waking her to a number of hurts she had acquired. Rikku pushed herself up despite the pain and looked at the sinspawn.
It was still reared above the others, but tottered as though she had pulled out whatever was holding the linked segments of its body together. Auron was more than ready to take advantage of the distraction; he grabbed the jug attached to his hip and pried it open with his teeth. Taking a deep swig, he spat onto his blade and lifted it over his head while chanting. Dark energy swirled around him; his arms shook from the effort of containing it. Then, with a shout, he swung the sword, sending the blasts of power towards the fiend and knocking it down. It let out an inhuman scream and curled in on itself, and Rikku's grin rose even higher. Jecht had asked for a miracle, but they didn't need one. They had Auron.
"It's payback time," she rasped. Leaning back, she opened her arms to the sky, feeling the Conflagration grid on her belt heat as the activated pathways pulsed in time with her whispered words. Please, she thought as she smashed her arms downwards, pushing every bit of energy she could into the spell.
The ground under the sinspawn lit up and cracked, rumbling ominously. Auron and Kinoc scrambled away from the glow as it seeped out of the rocks in an oscillating ring. The ground shuddered once before multiple beams of pure energy exploded into concentric circles over the fiend's body, enveloping it in a deadly grasp.
Seconds later, a deafening roar followed as the energy burst, spewing flames and pyreflies everywhere. It drowned out everything else for a brief moment, turning the sky into a shimmering blanket of white.
And then, in the vacuum of silence that followed, the pyreflies faded and revealed nothing more than barren rock, all signs of the sinspawn vanished.
Rikku let herself collapse backwards and savored the hard-won victory. Smirking, she took a page out of Tidus' book and pointed one victorious finger towards the sky. "Flare!" Then the blackness of pure exhaustion overtook her in a decidedly less-than-glorious faint.
edited 8/16
The title comes from a George Carlin quote: "The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity."
Rikku's song was originally based on a Goo Goo Dolls hit, but I edited it to change the lyrics into original text.
"Rud tysh!" = "Hot damn!"
"Cred!" = "Shit!"
Felicity [Lady Luck]: luck on all allies
Four Dice [Lady Luck]: physical damage on all enemies, damage multiplier x100 with all 1's
Mix [Alchemist] - Archangel: 8x holy damage on one enemy
Godhand: break damage limit (passive ability)
No Fear [Samurai]: cast shell & protect on userBanishing Blade [Auron]: non-elemental damage on one enemy + Full Break*
Flare: non-elemental damage on one enemy (must activate every node on the Conflagration Grid)
*Full Break: Power Break, Armor Break , Magic Break , Mental Break**
** Power Break: - ½ str
** Armor Break: - def, - Armored status
** Magic Break: - ½ mag
** Mental Break: mag def set to 0 ***
*** Yes, Banishing Blade really is one bad ass overdrive