75: City of Dying Dreams
A raging headache and a mouth drier than cotton were the first things Rikku felt as she came to. The first things she heard were two familiar voices debating overhead.
"I mean, parts of it look like Zanarkand, but somethin's off about that whole thing," Jecht was saying.
"You're right." That was Braska. "I think I might—"
"She's coming to."
She blinked open bleary eyes to Auron's concerned face. Her head was propped up in his lap, and a potion was in his hand.
"Drink this," he told her quietly, holding the vial to her lips.
The cool, bitter liquid trickled down her throat, soothing the burn there and reducing the headache slightly. She'd barely finished swallowing when he pressed another against her mouth. Raising her eyebrows, she tried to push it away, but the fierce stare he gave her cowed her into drinking that one, too. Finally, when he was satisfied, he let her sit up.
"You were suffering from severe mana depletion," Auron told her. "Braska can't heal that."
"Oopsie?" He leveled her with a severe look that told her he wasn't buying it, so she drank the third potion he passed over without argument. "I'm fine now, really," she promised him afterwards, taking in their surroundings. A cloudy sky filled with millions of twinkling stars spanned overhead. Cold stone was beneath her feet. Everything was dark and eerily abandoned, save for the distant cries of fiends that occasionally echoed between the alleys.
"We're inside the city of dying dreams," she said in stilted recognition.
"You are familiar with this place?" Braska asked.
Rikku nodded slowly. "I think. But it looks different than how I remember it." The last time the city had clearly been Zanarkand, all domed high-rises and sharp-cornered buildings. This time, she wasn't too sure. Everything seemed a little bit more familiar – the architecture too curved and modern and the roofs too sloping – to mesh with the memories of any Zanarkand she'd even seen.
"Hah!" Jecht said, crossing his arms and looking smug. "I told ya! This ain't Zanarkand."
Getting up, Rikku snooped around the small alley they'd retreated into, taking the chance to shake the aches and pains out of her joints. From the lack of any visible bruises on her skin to the state of her pristine, unlacquered fingernails – which were all there – it seemed that Braska had healed her quite a bit while she was out. "Umm… thanks, by the way," she said to him. "For sending Valefor after me."
Braska shrugged, as if it was self-explanatory. "I couldn't bring my right arm and leave my left behind."
Jecht glared at Braska. "'Ey! What am I then, dog food?"
"You're the pain in his ass," Auron supplied without bite. "Though we should thank you as well. Braska would never have noticed in time had you not told him."
"Yeah, well," Jecht grumbled, rubbing the back of his head. "Whatever. Next time be more careful, alright? Like I'm always sayin', Blondie, you gotta keep your eye on the entire field if you wanna make the play."
"We made it inside, and that's all that matters." Auron looked at Rikku. "But where do we go from here? How are we supposed to destroy Sin's armor? Are we to level this entire city?" he asked, gesturing at their surroundings. "Even combining all of our powers, that would take a lifetime."
"We have to find the heart of Sin. What I mean is the original Final Aeon that this armor is built around," she told them. "If we defeat that, everything else here will fall apart."
"Well where do we find it then? " Jecht asked.
Rikku took another look at their surroundings, feeling lost. "If we were in Zanarkand I would've said the Dome, since blitzball is at the heart of every version of Zanarkand."
"But this isn't Zanarkand," Braska said, staring at the walls thoughtfully. "I believe I know this place."
Auron joined him, pacing around the street. "You're right."
The two men traded a knowing look.
"So? Spill the beans!" Rikku said impatiently, swaying from side to side.
"This is Bevelle," Braska answered. "Or more like a shadowy memory of it. We're on the very outskirts. The slums, if you will." He chuckled. "In fact, this is quite near our old neighborhood." The smile slid off of his face. "Then… the heart of Bevelle would be…"
Auron grimaced. "Bevelle has never had a heart. But its core would be the Palace, which was the culmination of all of the Temple's politics and plotting, and the seat of the government." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "If this city mirrors the real Bevelle, then we will need to travel a ways to reach the city center. It would be fastest to take the Highbridge there."
"You mean we gotta cross Highbridge?" Rikku squeaked, instantly disliking the idea. "We have to walk all the way there? Through all these fiends?!"
"Another journey, then." Braska sighed. "I will admit, this is not what I was expecting to find inside of Sin."
"So what were you expecting?" Auron asked.
"Blood an' guts!" Jecht answered.
Braska laughed and shook his head. "I thought it would be something more abstract. Fury. Madness. Hatred so cloying it would taint us or drive us insane by its very proximity."
"What, them fiends we been runnin' into a lil' too soft for you, B?" Jecht asked. "They seem plenty upset to me."
"Yes," Braska agreed, bothered. "But they're a symptom and not the disease. This," he said, rapping a knuckle against one of the stone walls, "Is the heart of the matter. This is not a creation borne of anger." His palm smoothed against the wall. "This… is a manifestation of loneliness and sorrow." He looked around at the stark, barren buildings with pained familiarity. "A longing for something which was once lost. Yet no matter how memory tries to recapture it, it can never be the same again." He sighed. "Is it strange? To be feeling… pity, for a being that has wrought so much destruction and havoc over Spira for the last thousand years?"
"Yes." Auron sighed. "But that's who you are."
"Yeah, and it's not like Yu Yevon has the right to make everyone else miserable for all eternity just because he is!" Rikku said, stomping her foot.
"I feel pity," Braska clarified, dropping his hand. "Not forgiveness." He looked at Auron. "Well. Lead the way then."
They traveled slowly through the city, sneaking from building to building and trying to avoid confrontations with most of the strange amalgamations of fiends that roamed through the streets. Sometimes the creatures looked familiar, similar to others they'd fought during their journey. Most of the time, though, they were supersized, several times larger than their Spiran counterparts. It was as if each fiend was swelled with the unbridled malice of the dead; not only were they larger, they were denser and more armored than ever before.
Even the walls of the city itself would come to life sometimes, shuddering monoliths that swallowed up anything traveling too close to the wakened stone only to spit them out partially, twisted into a newer and even more grotesque-looking creation. They'd nearly learned that the hard way, when one had latched onto Jecht. Afterwards, Auron had needed to chip him out of the stone painstakingly, like a living fossil.
Occasionally they would have to fight against those horrors. In Rikku's opinion, the worst of them all were the Wraiths; souls that had striven to retake physical form once again and failed miserably. They twisted together into malformed parodies of human bodies that haunted the streets. When they were lucky, the fiends looked like desiccated, floating corpses adorned with horns and claws. More often, though, many differing souls would meld together into something larger and exponentially more disturbing: multiple faces stretching and screaming to be released across the entire surface of a single humanoid body. Sometimes that body would be missing limbs, and sometimes it would come equipped with far too many.
Braska held back in those fights, supporting them with magic rather than trying to call upon his aeons. The encounters were hard, harder than anything they'd faced before, and Rikku was fast gaining a new appreciation for Yuna's wisdom in gathering a seven-member Pilgrimage.
Still, their long months of having traveled and trained together also became clear as they pushed further inwards. It felt like they'd reached the culmination of a plan – likely Auron's – that had been long in the making. Working seamlessly as a team, Auron would defend Braska and weaken their enemies with his relentless strength and endurance. She and Jecht flitted around him like buzzing bees, striking and retreating, whittling away at their opponents until the fiends could be safely felled. All the while Braska shielded and healed them constantly under a watchful eye. It was still exhausting work, though, and they stopped to rest several times, not rushing their journey through the city of nightmares.
Auron herded them into an empty building for one such stop; the interior had the look of a cheerless café, complete with lonely tables. She slid into a grey, colorless seat next to him, sipping at the water he'd handed to her. "How much of that do we have left?" she asked quietly, tipping her bottle at him.
"We have a week's worth of food," he replied. "Water, however…" He sighed. "No more than three days left. Four, if we ration strictly."
She nodded. "I kinda figured. Well… you know, this always was a one way trip. Either we bust out of here or we become part of the local fiend population."
"We will make it out," Auron said firmly, gripping her hand. "I will make sure of that."
"You gonna tell them, though? About the water?" she asked, leaning over Auron's shoulder and looking at Braska and Jecht, who were sitting at the next table.
Auron's face grew pinched. "Not until I need to. Braska has enough to worry about, and Jecht… is distracted," he said, looking at the other man critically.
Sure enough, Jecht was staring out into space, a blank look on his face.
"Jecht?" Auron called out, to no response.
Rikku leaned over, frowning. "Hello? Spira to Jecht?"
Braska leaned over and physically took Jecht's arm, shaking the man out of his stupor. "What is it?" he asked.
"Oh, uh…" Jecht looked embarrassed at being caught woolgathering. He hung his head and crossed his arms in front of him, leaning on the table. "I was just thinkin'. 'Bout Otherworlds. I just figured, if this'd been Sin's Zanarkand, then maybe my Zanarkand…" he mumbled, circling around the truth.
Rikku took another swig of water to hide her nervous swallow. Keeping his eye on the entire field was something Jecht seemed handy at. She breathed a sigh of internal relief that this version of Sin wasn't nearly as obsessed with Zanarkand as Jecht had been; it was throwing him off his game.
"The thing is that this isn't Zanarkand. It's Bevelle, which might be even worse," she said dramatically. "But, well, that Highbridge isn't gonna cross itself." She slid out of her seat, surprising Auron with her eagerness to continue. "Let's get moving!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm comin'," Jecht said, downing the last of his water as well and rising to his feet.
As stealthily as they'd attempted to cross the city, Rikku soon realized it was a lost cause when they reached the entrance to Sin's version of Highbridge. There was nowhere to hide or take cover on the long, narrow, and horribly exposed path; they were just going to have to make a run for it and hope for the best.
Assessing the tower on the other side of the bridge, Auron turned to face them, taking the lead. "There will be no racing," he said immediately, looking squarely at her and Jecht. "We stay together and travel at the pace I set. Are we clear?"
"Yeah, yeah," Jecht said. "No showin' off, I got it."
"Ready steady!" Rikku said, dancing in place.
"Yevon help me," Braska murmured, staring at the stretch of bridge before them, but he nodded at Auron nonetheless.
"Jecht," Auron commanded, turning to face the bridge.
"Yessir," Jecht replied, casting Hastega over all of them.
"We move!" They set out at a surprisingly quick jog that soon had Braska huffing for breath.
"I thought… you said… no racing," he complained.
"If you have enough breath to talk, we can pick up the pace," Auron warned.
Braska grunted, but wisely didn't argue.
Strangely enough, the fiends seemed to be steering clear of the Highbridge; that, or Auron's decision to move at a quick but steady clip to avoid attracting undue fiend attention really was working. Still, the further along they got without being attacked, the more Rikku's nerves jangled.
At the halfway point Auron held up a hand, slowing their pace. When they neared the exit, he brought them to a stop.
"This is suspicious," he said, turning to look back across the fiend-free bridge. "I don't like it. The fiends must be staying away from this section of the city for a reason."
"Do you mean to say we might have walked?" Braska wheezed, doubled over with his hands on his knees.
"No. Catch your breath." His eyes were trained on the large doors ahead of them that would lead to the Palace interior. "Something awaits us there."
Everybody straightened and readied their weapons and Auron moved them cautiously forward, one step at a time. When they neared the door the sky darkened ominously, stars winking out of sight.
"Oh boy," Jecht said, looking up.
"Wanna run?" Rikku asked, watching the orb of swirling darkness grow larger and larger as it descended from the sky, hovering directly over the door to the Palace.
The bottom of the orb burst open with a wet squelch, sending heavy, viscous drops of dark goo splattering against the ground. A clawed toe oozed its way out, followed by a long, sinuous demonic body. Oily, slick black wings slowly unfolded, ichor dripping off of them into pools as the fiend strode forward. Sickly yellow eyes gleamed at them with keen intelligence. It pointed at them and then smiled, exposing a mouth crowded with elongated, needle-like teeth. Then it drew a thumb slowly across its neck.
"Uhh… I ain't never seen no fiend that looked like that before." Surprise didn't stop Jecht from raising his sword, though, bouncing on his heels.
Rikku swallowed. She had seen something like that before… a being of pure resentment, birthed from Trema's strange experiments in the Monster Arena. This one, however, felt different. More powerful. "I think it's a caster," she warned them, activating her Grid. Her Alchemist costume slipped over her skin quickly, and she felt a bit of her shaken confidence return.
"Go!" Auron commanded, springing forward with his sword raised. Braska lifted his staff and shells of protective magic bloomed to life around each of them. Jecht was also casting, speeding their steps with another Hastega. Rikku's hands reached into her pouch, pulling out the strangest, strongest objects of desire she'd collected from other fiends' souls and coaxed them together, counting the seconds it took for the mixture to catch.
"You place too much trust in your magics!" Auron shouted, the Ashura crackling with blue energy. The creature didn't even try to dodge as Auron slammed the sword into its side. Though he managed to push it back slightly from the force of the blow, it effortlessly shrugged off the magic break accompanying the strike. Auron stepped back a few paces, visibly displeased at the failure, but the creature didn't attempt to retaliate.
Instead, it pushed off the ground, leathery wings flapping. Its mouth opened into a wicked, silent laugh. With a lashing tail, it raised both hands to the sky. Glowing celestial symbols sparked to life directly above them, radiating holy magic. Simultaneously, demonic slashes appeared on the ground, pulsing dully red and filled with dark malice that surged upwards. As the two opposing powers met midway they clashed violently, resulting in an explosion that caught the entire group in its wake.
Rikku reeled backwards, ears ringing. The blast knocked her flat to the ground. Braska's protective spells took the brunt of the blow, but still shattered under the sheer sustained pressure of the gravitational power that nailed her to the floor. Even Jecht's Haste spell slid off of her, stripping her of almost all her defenses.
Rikku managed to lift her head up enough to see the others weren't faring any better. Jecht was flattened face-first on the ground, his hands fisted as he repeatedly tried to get up only to be pushed back down as though from an invisible hand. Braska was on his back, his expression pinched and drawn as he struggled to cast, even prone as he was. He was partially successful, because she saw the telltale sprinkle of healing magic rain over him. Only Auron was able to make it back to one knee, fighting against the heavy gravitational pressure that tore at his body.
The eerie light faded, and there was a collective gasp as the crushing pressure dissipated and allowed them all to breathe again. Rikku sprang to her feet, wasting no time in hurling the bundle of collected desire she'd managed to smush together towards the demon. Her vial hit the fiend in the chest, shattering.
The demon uncrossed its arms and looked down in confusion at the mess, which seemed to do nothing other than leave a small wet stain that was dribbling down its torso. Slowly, though, the memories she'd collected and mixed together stirred awake. They were silent, deadly, and so very, very hungry, desperate to return to what had once been their human lives.
Feeling the change, the demon clawed at its chest frantically. The green splatter turned into a multitude of ghostly fingers, probing, pulling, and finally clawing at its essence, yanking out whatever they could with famished greed. Magical power and life force were ripped out of the fiend, released by the spectral fingers into a tidal wave of energy that washed over Rikku. Rather than knocking her down, she heard their ghostly whispers of glee as strength flooded back into her legs and her dizziness cleared.
The creature – Abaddon, Trema had called his – snarled and pointed a finger at her, and the tell-tale whine of a Flare spell glowed to life under her feet. It wasn't faster, however, than the sparkling green sphere of Braska's magic that cocooned her.
The black magic slammed against her protective bubble and bounced off it, smashing back into the demon who'd cast the spell. "Just hit it as fast and hard as you can so it doesn't have time to cast!" she yelled.
"Jecht!" Auron barked, circling the fiend warily with his sword extended.
Jecht hurled his weapon at the flying demon, trying to damage its wings and bring it down. The Fang struck true, slicing across its back in a glancing blow that ripped through the webbed membranes of both of its wings.
When the fiend dipped towards the floor, Auron lunged. He struck it with the flat of his blade, hammering it towards the floor. As it staggered, he planted one foot against its massive thigh and leapt high. His other knee smashed into its horned head and brought it down completely, abandoning finesse for brutality. The Ashura struck low in a floor-sweeping blow when he landed, knocking the demon's feet out from under it.
Jecht was already right behind him, almost like they were playing tag-team. He cartwheeled, yelling as he brought his sword down heavily right over the fiend's chest, smashing it into the ground so hard that the stone cracked under its body.
"Get away from it!" Rikku yelled, pointed upwards. Her most powerful Blizzaga crystal formed over her own head, falling. It hit Braska's green shield and the magic bounced, gaining power. Both men scrambled away just in time as the wildly growing shards of ice encased the fiend, freezing it against the floor.
Auron closed in. "Farewell," he growled roughly, raising his sword in both hands and plunging it through the demon's neck.
The fiend jackknifed, its clawed fingers and toes scrabbling noisily against the ground as it gurgled out its final death throes. Its strength ebbed away along with Rikku's ice crystals, and its twisted flesh melted back into the same black ichor it had been born from. In mere moments, the fiend faded completely into fleeing pyreflies.
Rikku sank to her knees, releasing her hold on her dressphere. "… Wow, you two," she said, giving Auron and Jecht a thumbs up. "I didn't realize you could work so well together."
Auron made a face. "Only in life and death situations," he grumbled. "That thing was a little too similar to the fiends Trema made us bring down in the Monster Arena." He twitched at the memory.
Jecht just laughed loudly, slinging his sword behind his back. "Oi, B, you okay there?"
Braska nodded, joining them with a noticeable limp. Rikku handed him a potion, which he downed gratefully before answering. "Surely we must be on the right path." He looked towards the darkened doorways. "This may be it. Once we enter that passage, given no unpleasant surprises, the stairway inside will ascend to the Palace. And there, we will reach the heart of Bevelle." He paused. "Of Sin."
The euphoria of victory slid away quickly as the reality of Braska's words registered. Rikku sat down, weariness washing over her. But Auron said we had three days. Maybe four! "Can we just… wait a minute?"
"While it would be wise to tend to our wounds," Braska said, standing next to her, "Don't tell me you're losing your nerve now? This is your plan, after all."
"No pressure or anything," Rikku mumbled. She leaned into Auron's shoulder when he settled next to her.
"Believe in yourself. This will work," Auron told her.
"Yeah." Rikku reached for her usual confidence but found only trembling uncertainty. She banished it by forcing her twitching fingers to root through her pouches for the healing supplies, handing out her potions and elixirs like they weren't worth the small fortune she knew they were. "Let's be prepared for anything though, okay?"
If they lingered a little too long at the entrance to the Palace, spent a few moments more than necessary savoring their elixirs, for once, no one brought it up.
.x.x.x.
Rikku had never really taken the steps leading up to the Palace of Bevelle before; going up was Baralai and Yuna's territory. Usually, she went down, towards the Temple, if she had any reason to be there at all. Of course, there was that one time they'd gatecrashed Yuna's wedding from the sky. But walking up the long red carpet, so high above the rest of the city, surrounded by an endless void of stars… That was a new one.
She watched Auron's back, wondering what awaited them at the top. A human figure, like Jecht had been? A monstrosity, like the enormous flaming giant Jecht had turned into? Fear curdled in her gut.
"Don't summon. No matter what happens, don't summon anything," she said tightly.
Behind her, Braska kept his silence, and she grit her teeth.
All too soon, they stood at the edge of the platform where Yuna and Seymour had celebrated their ill-fated wedding. And standing there in the middle was, to Rikku's surprise and guilty relief, a very human-looking woman.
Her back was to them, one hand on her hip; long, blonde hair cascaded to her thighs like a golden waterfall. She dressed smartly; somewhere between the propriety of a Warrior Monk and the practicality of a Crusader. When she turned to face them with cool grey eyes, Rikku blinked and said the first thing that popped into her mouth.
"Wow, you're gorgeous!"
The woman's face was like smoothed marble, not reacting to Rikku at all. Instead, her eyes narrowed in annoyance. "So you're the pests who've been chipping away at my body," she said.
That was enough to knock Jecht out of his stupor. "Look now, you don't gotta put it like that," he said uncomfortably, staring at her rather well-endowed 'body'.
Auron recovered next, shifting his hold on his already-drawn sword. "If you looked anything on the outside like you did in here, there would have been no need for our hostility."
"You…" Braska said, stepping forward. "You are the Guardian of High Summoner Dysley, are you not? Lady Yunalesca told me of you."
If anything, the woman's expression became even frostier. "Intriguing, how High Summoner Dysley's name has gone down in history as a hero, yet my own is forgotten." She tossed her hair, a look of bitterness stealing across her porcelain features. "Am I not the one who provided the ultimate service to Spira? Am I not the one whose name should be sung in praise for the sacrifice I made?"
Braska immediately dipped into a low Yevonite bow. "I apologize my lady. I have forgotten my manners. I am High Summoner Braska of Bevelle. And you are…?"
A muscle on the woman's cheek jumped, but she humored him. "Jihl. Jihl Nabaat."
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sir Nabaat," Braska said, bowing again. "I wish you to know that I honor the sacrifice that you made to ensure the safety of Spira. And… I am sorry, that it was not your own choice. I know my apology does little to alleviate the suffering you must have endured these past thirty years, but you were the victim of a great injustice." He straightened. "I hope to remedy that, and prevent it from happening ever again."
Jihl's smile was crooked and her eyes flashed. "How kind of you, High Summoner. Or should I say… how presumptuous? You and Dysley, you really are one of a kind." She shifted the hand at her hip, and for the first time Rikku noticed the wickedly sharp rapier resting there. "I do not wish for a final rest, my Lord. There is no misery to relieve me of." She paced around the platform, drawing her weapon and tapping it into her palm in a steady rhythm. "You see, I have chosen to become one with Sin."
Her beautiful features contorted with an uglier emotion as her tone turned dark. "I was betrayed by my own Summoner. My liege and my lord! He threw me into this fire as his pawn, but my sacrifice was not willing! I died as I lived, resentful and unappreciated." She took a deep breath. "But no more. If this is the role I was meant to serve, then I shall make my Lord Dysley proud." She regained her composure. "Indeed, I will be the best at it that was ever seen. None shall survive the judgement I will bring to Spira… once I've dealt with you parasites." Jihl smiled, a sharp, wicked smile, and Rikku had an inkling of why Sin had managed to grow so large and powerful in just thirty short years. "After I'm done with you, I think I'll return to Luca. I do so hate missing the tournaments there."
Jecht hissed between his teeth, and Jihl laughed at him.
"What? Are you so surprised that Sin would be a fan of blitzball? It is, after all, Spira's last ray of hope." Her smile lengthened, becoming cruel. "It's only fitting that I be the one to extinguish it."
Braska brought his staff before him, his own expression hardening. "Then we shall be the ones who stop you."
"Umm. You know all that madness and hatred you were looking for?" Rikku murmured. She hummed and flicked her fingers at Jihl's form. "I take it back. She's not beautiful. She's the ugliest fiend I've seen here yet."
Jihl laughed, striking a dueling pose with her rapier as her hair whipped around her, forming into sharp metal chains. Multiple laughing mouths broke open over her face and the exposed skin of her hands. "Ah, my dear child. I have never felt more beautiful than ever before." All of her mouths smiled at them, creepy with their perfect shining rows of pearly white teeth. "Now come, and worship at my altar," she said, her voice deepening as the glow from her skin faded, solidifying into gleaming chrome. "For you stand in the temple of Spira's new Goddess, Sin."
A/N:
I will admit to having watched the FMV of gatecrashing Yuna's wedding and looked at the pictures of Bevelle from all angles on the Wiki too many times, and I still can't really figure out where Highbridge is located in relation to both the Temple and the Palace and the city in general. (The Temple is right below the Palace, though.) It must be high, since the name is HIGHbridge, yet there's visible ocean right outside of it. And there's no long bridge connecting the wedding platform to anything, just a really tall tower that drops straight down to city level. There's that weird extension running out of the city, but it looks like it ends in the ocean, not Macalania Forest. I don't get it either. I'd probably get it if I could find the time to pop the game back in my PS2, find an old save, and replay the Highbridge segment, but then I wouldn't be writing this fanfic, either. Let's just say the geography works this way in Nightmare Sin Bevelle because I already sank too many hours into this type of fruitless research. XD
The mini-boss they fought wasn't Abbadon, it was a homebrew Diablos.
Auron: Magic Break (but it didn't work).
Rikku: Alchemist – Soul Sea mix
Braska: Reflect
Jecht: Overdrive: Spiral Cut