Well, er… sorry, BUT
IT WILL NEVER END! At least, until the end of the game… AND THEN
THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL! Thank you and goodnight.
Translations at bottom.
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Chapter 18 --- Sweet Home Al-a-Bhed-ma!
When
Tydus woke up he found he had been sleeping in the water again.
"Just because I can doesn't mean I should, old man," he muttered as
he looked around, "And is it a coincidence that this is the only patch of
water in this desert I appear to be in?!"
But Sin had already left some time ago and he was alone in an oasis in a desert
which was also an island. Tydus did not feel bad about being alone.
In fact, the lack of people talking and at the same time telling him to shut up
was quite a relief. At least, until he was attacked by a giant bird.
"Oh my god! How did I completely miss that?!"
Fortunately, after properly casting Haste and Slow and then using the infamous
Delay Attack (like at the airport) on Zu, it was sadly lacking in a chance to
kill him. Things were going, but this stopped, of course, as soon as
Auron arrived. "Dang! My old man must hate me!"
"No, he loves you, remember?" Auron grinned viciously.
"Maybe I don't want to remember."
"Stop whining," snapped Lulu, walking into the fight, "I'm
beginning to understand that 'crybaby' thing."
"Is everyone here?!" Tydus threw his arms into the air in
consternation, "Why, old man, why couldn't you let me be happy for
once?!"
"You also say 'why' too much. It's like you're trying to
incur Yevon's wrath."
Meanwhile, Auron killed the great eyesore Zu. "I thought I saw something
blue over there," he pointed over a dune, "while I was performing one
of my impressive aerial moves."
"Yeah?" Tydus said through gritted teeth.
"Yeah. We should check it out. Get to it, soldier!"
"Yes sir!" Tydus swung his hand into salute again, with the
sword still in it so that it came inches from giving Auron a new scar. He
said with a smile, "Ah, whoops."
"Eh-heh-heh, yeah…"
When they got around the dune they saw that the blue was actually
Kimahri. "Hey, Kima-- What are you doing?" Tydus
raised an eyebrow. Kimahri was running up a steep dune, only to slide
back down as the sand gave way. Then he would do it again. "Is
he stuck in a loop or something? Hey, Kimahri! Dude, there's flat
ground right over here! And there! And just about everywhere but on
that dune!"
Lulu chucked her Moogle at the mental Ronso. Kimahri shook his head and
joined the group without saying a word to explain himself, but no one really expected
him to, anyway.
"Hey, there's Rikku over there," said Tydus, pointing, "And hey,
there's Wakka over there," he pointed to the left a ways, "And hey,
what was the point of spreading us out over a few yards? And hey
again-"
"Anyone seen Yuna?" Auron cut in.
"I bet you wouldn't care at all except that she's your chance at killing
Sin."
"Yeah, so? Where is she?" Auron started walking over to
Wakka and Rikku.
"Gone. I bet she ditched us because you're and inconsiderate jerk
obsessed with getting her to risk her life to accomplish nothing!"
"Well, it's not really risking her life," said Lulu.
"And it's going to accomplish something," Auron added.
"That's right! It's gonna make my old man happy! The only
positive thing about this is that he'll be dead, and that's awfully
morbid."
"So it's settled," Auron said with a smile, "Tydus hates his
life. I'm going to remind you of that in the end."
"I don't like vague foreshadowing, either."
"I know you don't." Auron's smile got bigger, which, combined
with the bunny ears, made him look ridiculously cute. He quickly switched
to a smirk.
By this time they had reached the others Rikku was hopping around
impatiently. "Look here," she pointed at one of the crude
shelters scattered about the desert, "These have Al Bhed potions, which
are better than Hi Potions and are in enormous surplus around here, but only I
can use them, as I am Al Bhed."
"That strikes me as suspicious," said Tydus.
"No it doesn't," Rikku said quickly. The group stared at
her. "Oh all right, come closer." She looked over her
shoulder with shifty eyes as the others huddled. She saw nothing, of
course, and turned back to the group. "This is
"What?" said Tydus.
"Home is that grand name my dad came up with for the new base for the Al
Bhed. And I know it is stupid, but it is certainly correct. Anyway,
we should head there, because there is nothing else besides desert."
"I wonder how Wakka feels about this?" said Tydus, but Wakka was
staring blankly at a rock in the sand, stubbornly ignoring everything Al
Bhed. "I suppose that's for the better…"
"Giant worm!" screamed Rikku.
"'Giant worm?' That has nothing to do with anything," Tydus
said while still looking sadly at Wakka, who stopped analyzing the rock to look
in horror at something Tydus couldn't see. "What's Auron doing
now?" he asked, finally turning around. He gaped as the Sand Worm
growled menacingly. "Great gods of fish heads!" he exclaimed,
jumping several feet.
"Quit being a wussy," said Auron, "Let's fight already."
Rikku's Al Bhed Potions came annoyingly in handy as the Sand Worm continually
tried to poison them. They weren't fairing to badly themselves, but the
utterly staggering amount of HP the worm possessed meant it would be a looong
fight.
"This makes me appreciate Yuna more," said Rikku, who was actually
starting to run out of her A.B.P.'s.
"This is crazy!" Tydus said, taking a moment to flip through his
guide. "This Sand Worm has more HP than
"Maybe
"I doubt that."
Wakka was about to say something, probably to defend
Needless to say, this was one of the oddest things any of the group had ever
seen a fiend do, but they all came to the same conclusion:
"Run away!" And run away they did.
Leto Atreides rose groggily from the sand near the Sand Worm. He looked
around, taking in recent events, then turned disapprovingly to the Worm.
"Whiskers, you have done a bad thing." Whiskers whimpered.
Back with the group…
They ran like jack
rabbits across the desert, passing random huts and occasional boulders, and
wooden signs with Al Bhed writing that made Rikku steadily more worried.
"Uh, guys?"
"Not now, Rikku, busy running for our lives like cowards while Lulu gets
digested!" Tydus panted.
"I'm right here," said Lulu, scooting along and looking very annoyed
but otherwise okay.
"Oh, hey Lulu, nice day for a run, eh?"
Lulu growled.
They fell into a large hole.
"Ouches!" said Tydus, shaking his head, "Why does my elbow
hurt?"
"Mmpfh fh-hrmpf pmf!" said Wakka, glaring.
"What?" Tydus moved his elbow.
"It was in my mouth!"
"Ah, sorry. So why does my back hurt?"
"Because you landed on a treasure chest," Lulu said grumpily.
"And my leg?"
"Oh, that must be my Katana," said Auron from on top of him.
"Well, as long as it's nothing serious." Tydus glared at him as
he jerked the sword out of his calf and quickly applied a Hi Potion.
"Maybe one of you should have taken up White Magic."
"Why don't you? You're closest to Yuna's part of the grid,"
Lulu noted.
"That made no sense."
"I know. Now let's get out of here."
"Well see, this was my initial problem," said Rikku, folding her arms
and looking cross, "Not only are we heading in the exact wrong
direction, but we are now in the middle of the Large Monster and Pot Hole Zone,
which is full of-"
"Large Monsters and Potholes?" said Tydus, looking glum, "I had
a feeling before, but it wasn't until we got on this island that it became
blatantly obvious: you Al Bhed are very direct when you name things."
"At least everyone can pick up on what's in the Large Monster and Pot Hole
Zone. We better start running or we'll never get Home."
"But home is a thousand years ago," Tydus pointed out brightly.
"Shut up."
Suddenly, Maechen ran by, waving his arms above his head and uttering
nonsense. "Okay, he's been completely absent at all the places he
was supposed to be, and now he shows up in exactly the wrong spot, crazier than
ever. This strikes me as odd."
"Can you just pretend everything is normal?" said Lulu, "We
really need to get going."
So they ran across the desert, stopping often to cower beneath large monsters
and fall in pot holes.
"Are we there yet?"
"Rikku! Why are you asking us?!" said Tydus. Rikku
shrugged.
"Well, I don't think anything on this island but Home could burn quite
like that massacre over there." He gestured into the distance where
a gray blob resembling a metal fortress was topped by another gray blob
resembling the smoke of a very large fire.
"That better not be pollution," Wakka growled.
"Of course not. We Al Bhed use suspiciously clean fuel. Home
must be on fire."
"Why would Al Bhed burn their own city?"
"The didn't! We're being attacked! By… Yevonites and
Guados! How coincidental that they do it when we, as playable characters
and the only ones who can save the day, are here."
"This is probably what my old man had in mind when he dropped us
here," Tydus muttered.
"What?" said Rikku, Wakka, and Lulu. Kimahri settled with
raising an eyebrow.
"Did I say my old man? Well I mean Sin! Whose utter ugliness
reminds me of Jeckt to the point where it's hard to tell them apart."
"Uh-huh," said Rikku, looking mildly concerned about Tydus's mental
health. "We gotta go in and save the day!"
"Uh, maybe we could just ask them to stop," Wakka said meekly.
"That would be as effective as throwing marshmallows at a shoopuf,"
said Auron.
"Yes," said Tydus, snickering when Auron said marshmallows,
"What we need are many large pointy things to throw at this metaphorical
shoopuf."
"Wow, Tydus can correctly use "metaphorical" in a
sentence. How about that," said Lulu. Tydus rolled his eyes at
her.
"My blitzball is the incarnation of pointy, but I think I'll sit this one
out, ya? I can handle being unjustly called a traitor, but not a helper
of the Al Bhed to boot."
"Get off it, Wakka," said Tydus.
"Nope."
"Well, we have plenty of pointy things of our own. We'll just go on
without you!"
"Fine, go!"
Tydus stormed off, with the others following looking like they couldn't care
less, while Wakka stood facing the other way with his arms folded, trying to
look slightly miffed but otherwise nonchalant. This took most of his
concentration, and by the time the others were out of view behind the dunes he
had forgotten exactly what he was upset about and was wondering where everyone
had gone. He decided that walking whiddershins in a gradually widening
spiral was the best way to find something.
A few spirals later he realized that he should have just followed the others'
footsteps, but just then he found another Sand Worm. "Oh,
dear."
Back with the pleasantly smaller group heading toward Home, Tydus was annoying
everyone by reading the entire Bestiary section of his guide. This
encouraged everyone to run faster and they reached Home before Tydus had
finished the "M"'s.
"Malboro: has 27,000 HP, horrible defense and accuracy, immune to all the
cool things… and Haste? Why would it be immune to that? And Doom in
only three-- Hey, what's that weird noise?"
"That would be people screaming in agony."
"Ah, okay." Tydus put away his guide and looked around.
They were in the town square of a city of metal, sand, and recently,
fire. The buildings looked like they had been constructed from a junk
heap, and were ironically being returned to junk by the Yevonites and
Guados. The ground was littered with dead and dying Al Bhed. One of
these happened to be Cid.
"Dad!" said Rikku, running over to his wrecked body, "Are you
okay?"
Suddenly, Cid was actually okay. He jumped up, and stood full of life
before this group of people composed of a boy in extremely odd clothing, a
geezer with a giant sword and bunny ears, a lady with a doll fetish and wearing
what might have been fifty belts (none of which appeared to be holding up pants
or the like), a mute Ronso who wore butterflies, and his daughter, Rikku, who
had acquired some spiffy sunglasses.
"Suu tui, Rikku, dsu seca iuo lspudv iuop hul yv dyls lsyz lyba?" Cid
said in a ridiculous western accent, but he was smiling.
"This time?" said Tydus, "I didn't know she was a seasoned
weirdo."
"Are you the summoner Brother told me Rikku was guarding?"
"Well, I am determined to kill Sin, but-"
"Mal syb!" Cid yelled, and a bunch of Al Bhed who had previously been
hiding behind rubble jumped upon Tydus , and as utterly mighty as Tydus was, he
just couldn't throw off the dozen or so crazy guys who quickly beat him
unconscious. The rest of the group did not appear to try to help him in
any way, but Tydus liked to think that they had been too busy fending off other
Al Bhed.
When Tydus woke up he was in entirely different company. Unfortunately
this included Dona. "Why, if it isn't the runt of the guardians of
Kiddie Summoner."
"Didn't I make you cry the last time we met?"
"Shut up, you insolent fool!" She stomed off into a corner of
what looked like a giant boiler room. They were probably deep inside the
city.
"Well, she's got me pinned," thought Tydus. He spotted a
friendlier face. "Hey, Isaaru! Do you know where we are?"
"Hello, Tydus," said Isaaru, walking over to him, "The Al Bhed
call this the Summoner's Sanctum."
"This is a sanctum? It looks like crap. Why are we here?"
"The Al Bhed put us here to stop us from completing our pilgrimages."
"Well, that explains all those attempted kidnappings, but it doesn't
explain why I'm here. I think Cid must have misinterpreted when I said I
was determined to kill Sin."
"That would probably do it."
"So why are they stopping everyone's pilgrimaging? Sure it's
dangerous and accomplishes absolutely nothing, but so what?"
"You are really very tactless, you know that?" Isaaru started
walking away.
"Hey! When we all bust out of here and you finish your pilgrimage 'n
stuff, we can go have beers or something!" This didn't seem to
improve Isaaru's mood. Tydus would have pursued in this matter and
perhaps have been educated further on the Final Summoning and what happens when
a summoner uses it against Sin, but just then a bashful Cid opened a door at
the other end of the room.
"C'mon, Tydus," said Rikku, following Cid into the room, "Home
is falling apart, we gotta go."
"What about us summoners?" a random, nameless summoner asked.
"Yeah, I guess you should all come too."
As they walked out of the room Cid apologized. "Sorry.
Sorry. Really sorry. Sorry."
"This isn't a drill, guys, let's go!" Rikku said impatiently.
Everyone started running in a disorderly fashion. As they ran through the
bowels of Home, dodging sudden bursts of fire and piles of rubble, Tydus
started humming the theme of Mission Impossible. The others glared at
him, but were too busy running to make him stop. They hurried up some
stairs into a system of hallways that were drastically different from the rest
of home: they were very clean, very colorful, and very smooth. Most
of the secondary characters filtered into various rooms, but the main
characters followed Cid into what appeared to be the bridge of that space ship
on Star Trek, where several Al Bhed were already seated in front of controls,
pressing buttons and pulling levers and saying things like "Zleptuepr
zsyahrz el aymsli-zyf gapnavl" and "Ehgse, tale, GSY!"
"Sooo, what are we doing?" Tydus asked.
"We're abandoning ship, in a matter of speaking." Cid
paused. "Ha! I made a joke!"
"Er…"
"Don't worry, boy-o, I'll have you all out of this wreck of a city faster
than a horse with its rear on fire!"
"Tydus whispered to Rikku, "What is his problem?"
"He had an accident when he was 15 involving a waffle iron and a scale
model of the Tower of Babel," Rikku replied.
"Er…"
Then the airship they were in gave a great lurch and heaved itself out of its
hangar. "Holy crap!" said everyone.
"Ah, well, if you're gonna use sand for fuel," said Cid, "you're
gonna have to expect a rather bumpy ride, what with the inconsistencies and
all…"
"Sand?" everyone thought, and some people said.
"Yeah, I mean it's only covering the entire island! Now let's
go! Prepare the flux shields! Start the hyperbolic particle
motor. Spin those elliptical wheelie-dealies!"
"Dsel?"
"Mal lsyz lsyvm muyvm! Evr haepv zuba English!"
"Iazzyp!"
The ship rocketed away from the destroyed city quite fast-like, but
occasionally dropped fifty feet or spun around a bit. When they were a
ways away Cid said, "Epb lsa soma-thezl nevvuvz! Say goodbye,
Home!"
"Crack! Sizzle! Pop!" said Home.
"Jypa!"
No less than fifty tactical missles shot out of the airship, headed for the
city. Tydus then thought of something. "Hey, what about
Wakka?"
"Oops."
There was a huge exploision.
Somewhere near the recently obliterated Al Bhed city, Wakka's hair was on
fire. "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!" he yelled as he ran
around in circles. Then he was suddenly wet. He looked up.
There was a huge, brightly colored machina ship hanging in the air above
him. Lulu was hanging out of a hatch, having just caster Waterga.
"Um, thanks?"
Once aboard Wakka asked, "Why did you blow up your home?"
Cid shrugged. "Felt like it."
"So where's Yuna?" Tydus asked.
"Why should we know?" said Cid.
"The guide says you have a tracker that can -- Oh, never mind.
Let's just go to Bevelle."
In Bevelle…
"Answer me this," Yuna said with growing rage. She was in a
dressing room with many priestesses getting her reading for her wedding.
"What the HELL am I doing here?!"
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Suu tui, Rikku, dsu seca iuo lspudv iuop hul
yv dyls lsyz lyba? = Hoo boy, Rikku, who have you thrown your lot in with
this time?
Mal syb = Get him
Zleptuepr zsyahrz el aymsli-zyf gapnavl
= Starboard shields at eighty-six percent
Ehgse, tale, GSY = Alpha, beta, PHI
Dsel = What
Mal lsyz lsyvm muyvm! Evr haepv zuba
English = Get this thing going! And learn some English
Iazzyp = Yessir
Epb lsa soma-thezl nevvuvz! = Arm the
huge-blast cannons!
Jypa = Fire