This would
have been in a few hours earlier, but then “Oh, look, a new issue of Discover
magazine! Woot!” They pop up in my house by magic…
-------------------------------------------------
Chapter 16
--- “Glow” is the Word
“Oof!” Tydus landed
ungracefully from his running leap into a place drastically different from the
Thunder Plains. He pulled himself up and turned to take a last look at
the only piece of land to become his mortal enemy. “Ha ha! Can’t get me now!”
The lightning took a shot at him, but fell short by inches. The
electricity hissed in contempt, but it knew he would have to come back for the
side quests someday.
The rest of the group stepped calmly into the glow of Macaroni Woods.
This place was even more unlikely than the land of perpetual lightning.
The trees were gigantic and colored bright pastel purples and aquamarines, with
glowing crystal leaves. Clear crystals reflected all the unearthly colors
and big orange orbs were added for extra glowy-ness.
Kimahri’s face fell when he saw all the butterflies
fluttering around, many of which were already coming to join the first one that
had yet to tire of his company.
“What an eyesore,” whined Rikku.
“What a place!” Tydus commented, “It’s not hostile,
is it?”
“Besides fiends, no,” Lulu replied, “Macadamia Woods are fairly benign, but
watch out for the red butterflies.”
“Butterflies are annoying, sure, but dangerous?”
“Just watch out.”
Good advice, considering a colorfully dressed birdman suddenly jumped in front
of them from behind a tree. “I am the King of the Butterflies!” he
declared, waving his arms. A harp was surgically attached to his right
arm.
“I think you have some competition.” Tydus
gestured toward Kimahri, who was surrounded by no
less than thirty butterflies. Tydus was careful
to note that none of them were red.
“Hmm,” mused the King of the Butterflies, “You seem to
be quiet the master of butterflies. Very well, I resign. Here’s the
ceremonial Butterfly Scepter, aka the Sprit Lance,
along with the butterfly Charms, aka the Saturn Crest
and Sigil.”
“Er, thank you…” Tydus
said, knowing Kimahri wouldn’t say anything.
“You are quite wel- Oh my goodness! A
were-fiend!” cried the birdman, pointing a shaking finger to a spot just above Tydus’s head.
“A what?” said Tydus, slightly panicked.
“A red butterfly,” Lulu explained, “It’s on your head.”
“Yaaa!” Tydus swatted at his head frantically, though he still
wasn’t sure why he feared the butterfly.
“Don’t touch it!” cried the birdman, but it was too late. Tydus hand landed a blow on the tiny thing and knocked it into
his view. It was blood red and slightly large, but was otherwise quite
cute. The birdman stared at it in horror. “Butterfly King away!” he
declared, and jumped behind another tree.
Everyone kept their eyes on the butterfly, holding their breath. For a
few tense seconds the butterfly fluttered calmly in front of Tydus then there was a flash and the little insect had been
replaced by a raging Chimera.
“Iiee!” said everyone but Kimahri.
“Yuna, summon Ixion, I
mean, Prissy!” said Wakka.
“Yeah,” agreed Tydus, “Let’s see if he can do
something besides look prissy.”
Yuna shook her head sadly, but summoned Prissy.
The aeon came, did its best, and utterly
failed. Even Yuna had to admit it, “Prissy, you
suck.”
“Maybe he has bad morale,” suggested Wakka.
“Yeah, maybe if we call him Superman he’ll do better,” Tydus
said sarcastically.
“Anything’s better than Prissy.”
“That’s not really true…”
“Well, there are many better ones.”
“But you are who you are. You are Wakka.
I am Tydus-“
“Tidus,” said Auron.
“And Prissy is Prissy,” Tydus finished, ignoring Auron.
“Whatever.”
“Guys?” Yuna interrupted,
“We’re still fighting the Chimera.”
“Huh, so we are…”
Auron cut it in half. It died.
“Wow,” said Wakka.
“Pfft! Hardly imprssive.” Tydus
waved his hand dismissively. The group raised their eyebrows at
him. “Anyway, where are we going?”
“To the
“I wish,” Tydus muttered.
As they walked Tydus kept one eye
on the butterflies around Kimahri, now reaching
sixty, and the other eye on any new butterflies. As a result he
walked right into Bruno, who had been running around waving his arms up until
now.
“Oh crap,” said Tydus, sparing a glance at what he
had hit, “Dona isn’t with you, is she?”
“No. Dona’s not here! I can’t find here!”
“She’s definitely not on
“…”
“I don’t know what to do!”
“Well,” said Auron, “You looked like you were doing
well before we got here. Carry on, I’m sure
you’ll find her soon.” Tydus snickered in spite
of despising Auron.
“Thank you so much for your help, Sir Auron!
Bless you all!” Bruno ran off waving his arms again.
“Wow, he really did it…” said Wakka in amazement.
“All the more reason for us to ignore it and more on!” said Rikku,
who was already edging ahead. The group decided that they had enough
problems without picking up more, and followed Rikku
toward the temple.
The most annoying thing in the Woods, Tydus noted,
was how random the elements were. This place was obviously ice-based, but
most of the time attacking with fire was ineffective and often beneficial to
the wrong side. Then the group was attacked by another red
butterfly. “Oh yeah, butterflies are also annoying,” he thought.
The funny thing about Chimeras, Tydus continued to
note, was their insistence to use Thunderaga on him
when his shield had Lightningproof, not that he was
complaining.
They were walking along pleasantly, Tydus noting
things, Kimahri attracting butterflies, Yuna stomping cute things, Wakka
humming the tune of YMCA, Lulu baking a cake, and Rikku
walking into trees, when Auron suddenly stuck out his
sword in front of everyone. The ones in front ran into the flat of the
blade.
“Auron!” whined Tydus,
rubbing his nose, “What is it this time?”
“I feel like fighting a mini-boss and there’s one right over there.” He
gestured at a thick patch of branch and crystal.
“Just how drunk are you?”
“Not enough.” He took a big gulp from his keg.
“Now?”
“Maybe.” Auron swung
at the cluster of glowing stuff. Pieces of tree and ice chipped
off. A half hour later there was a hole big enough to walk through and Auron had almost worked off the alcohol, but not
quite. “Woo, let’s kill something large and jelly-like!” He charged
through the hole, stumbling a little.
“Hey,” said Tydus, looking at the sky, “Is that a
flying log?”
“I’m sure it was,” Yuna said dully. She
sighed. “I guess we should see what Sir Auron
is up to.”
A few minutes earlier…
“Hmm-dee-la. La la la-la,” hummed Spherimorph as
he bounced around his frozen pond. It had been a koi
pond before it had frozen, and there were many fat koi
hanging motionless in the ice. Spherimorph did
a large jump and landed in a pose. “BA-DA!”
“Good morning, world! Good morning, Meatball!” He hugged the ice
above a particularly big red and white koi. It
didn’t respond. “Good morning, other fish!” None of them showed any
sign of doing anything that they hadn’t done for over five hundred years, and Spherimorph did not appear to expect anything else, because
he then turned lovingly to a tree sticking out of the center of the pond and
said, “Good morning tree!” The tree made a cracking sound and a large branch
fell loudly onto the ice where Spherimorph had been
moments before. Apparently, this was nothing new, either
“What a beautiful day this is!” he continued, picking up the branch and tossing
it out of the clearing that was his home. “I don’t think there has ever
been a day as beautiful as this! Hey! And here’s a visitor to share
it wi- OUCHES!”
And here is where dear Auron showed up for a
“Preemptive Strike.” When the others joined him they saw him swinging his
Katana at a giant greenish blob that was emitting squeals that sounded like “Owie!” and “You meanie!” It
was also spazing and causing strange weather, such as
raining fire and freak hurricanes, so they were less concerned with whether Auron was in the right mind or not, and more with stopping
the horizontal hail.
Normally, the constant switching of elements would have been a great pain in
the group’s butts, but because the woods were full of water elements, ice
elements, neutral fiends, and Chimeras, no one was still using an elemental
weapon by now, except Tydus. Tydus was still using the Brotherhood, and showed no signs
of letting go.
“Tydus, stop hitting it with your Brotherhood when
it’s a water element!” Yuna shouted when he healed it
for the fifth time.
“But it’s such a nifty sword!”
“I wish I knew what that blob is,” said Rikku.
“Too late,” Auron said happily as Spherimorph
kicked the bucket. The tree shivered in happiness and spat a movie sphere
at them from a knothole. “Oh yeah,” Auron
looked quite glum, “that’s also here. Well, Tydus,
turn it on.”
“How?”
“Kick it, maybe.”
“Er…”
Auron kicked it lightly then went away to sit on a
rock sticking out of the pond. The sphere flickered, then showed a
hologram of the pond almost identical to what it was now, only Tydus and his comrades were not there and Jeckt was. He looked unusually sober,
Tydus thought as he held picked it up.
“Tydus, I love you, son!”
“Ack!” yelled Tydus,
dropping the sphere like a hot potato, but it kept going: “I have no idea
why I am leaving a sphere for you, because right now I have no reason to
believe you would end up in Spira, nor do I know why
I am hiding it in the middle of an ice forest which you would probably never
visit unless you were accompanying a summoner on a
pilgrimage. But if you’ve found it then that means something terrible,
terrible has happened to me, but also, you’re still following in my
footsteps. Now I will take a break in my sudden desire to be kind to you
by laughing. Ha ha ha
ha ha! Little crybaby
wants to be like his dad! How cute! Ha ha.
But seriously, I love you, and good luck in whatever it is you’re doing here.”
The sphere shut down and there was dead silence. This was broken by Tydus smashing the sphere with his sword. Auron came back and said, “Hey, for some reason you finding
that sphere made my overdrive cooler.”
“Arg!” Tydus threw his hands up in frustration. “What a
nightmare! Let’s hurry up and get to the Mesothelioma
temple so we can start an interesting chain of events that will make everyone
forget that this ever happened.”
“Can we stop with the names, please,” said Lulu, “It was funny at first, but I
know you all know this is Macalania.”
“Aww,” said everyone except Kimahri.