Ch.5 --- Don't Leave Tydus On His Own 

Wakka turned to Tydus, "How about you take a look around the ship?"

            "Because ships are so interesting," added Lulu.  Wakka sighed.

Tydus headed below deck.

"Hey there!  Give me money!" said a stout guy with a giant pack on his back, "There's a possibility that it'll be worth it later!"

            "Who are you?" asked Tydus.

            "I'm Oaka!  Oaka XXIII, merchant extraordinaire!"

"'Merchant extraordinaire'?  You don't look very extraordinary."

            "Not yet!  That's what the money's for, you daft and poorly dressed loser!"

            "That's not a very good way to ask for money," Tydus remarked, but gave him some Gil anyway.

            "Thank you kindly."

            "Uh, yeah…" said Tydus.  He wandered to a door that said "Power Room."  "Huh, is there machina in there?" he wondered, and walked in.  The thing that hit him first was the fact that there were several large birds running in gerbil wheels.  Then he noticed that the wheels were connected to other wheels and these were connected to various other things.

            "What is this?" asked Tydus.

            "You've never seen chocobo power?" said a woman standing at the other end of the room.

            "These are chocobos?"

            "You've never seen chocobos?!"

            "Yes, I'm just fooling you."

"Really?"

            "No," laughed Tydus, "This seems awfully cruel to the poor birds…"

            "They're just chocobos, kid."

            "How would you like it if someone stuffed you in a wheel and made you run for hours?" Tydus demanded, eyeing some important-looking levers near the wheels.

            "Well…"

            "Freedom to the chocobos!" cried Tydus, and he lunged at the levers.  Instantly the wheels stopped, but the chocobos, being without prior warning, ran up the sides and fell on their heads.  "Um… Freedom! Run away!  Run away!" Tydus yelled, waving his hands at them as they got up.  One of them sniffed his head.  They stood there.  The woman raised an eyebrow at Tydus.

            "Chocobo Eater!" Tydus yelled, waving his arms again.  If Tydus was looking for a raging stampede in a cramped room full of pointy objects (which may well have been the case), then his mission was accomplished.  Chocobos were running into walls, people, and other chocobos.  There was a great deal of "Wark!"-ing and feathers were flying everywhere.

            As disrupted by this as Tydus was, he could still be heard above the chocobos yelling, "Freedom to the chocobos!"  Eventually the crew, try as they might, could not ignore the ruckus and lack of power and came down to assist the woman in calming the chocobos.  Since Yuna and company were not required to help, they all thought it was hilarious, but they also had a long talk with Tydus about everything chocobo.

            When this was over Tydus wandered into the room where some of the Besaid Aurochs were passing the time.  One was puking and the other was hiding from the puke.  Tydus saw a strange suitcase on the floor.  Actually, there wasn't much that was strange about its look as much as there was about it being there.  Tydus decided to kick it.  A Potion appeared out of nowhere.  "That's odd…" thought Tydus.  He kicked it again and received another Potion.  He looked around.  No one was watching.  He backed out of the room slowly.

            He continued baking right into Luzzu the Crusader.  He was guarding a door along with Gatta.

            "Hello, again," said Luzzu.

            "Sorry.  What are you guarding?" asked Tydus.

"Top secret stuff!"

"Really? Sounds interesting."

            "Oh, it is!"

            "I see…" Tydus gave up and decided to go back up on deck.  He could hear people talking at the front of the ship and headed there.  Yuna was standing in front of a small crowd.

            "Hey, I heard she's Lord Braska's daughter!" said one man.

            "You mean that spiffy guy who defeated Sin the last time?" asked another.

"The very guy!  She's destined to be a summoner!" added someone else.

            "Wow!" said several others.  And they all wandered off talking about the great Lord Braska.  Tydus walked up to Yuna.

            "It really bites to have an accomplished father," he said.

            "I am honored to be my father's daughter."

            "Well your dad didn't laugh at or verbally abuse you, and wasn't an overall jerk.  When I do well in blitzball, everyone thinks of my father, not me."

            "Is your father Sir Jeckt?"

            "Uh, not really Sir Jeckt… What, is he still famous after one thousand years?"

            "No, he was my father's guardian.  He came to Spira ten years ago."

            "But he was dead… How do you know he's my old man, anyway?"

            "You have the same 'J' symbol all over your clothes.  It you hate your father so much then that's kind of ironic, isn't it?"

            "Huh, I guess I do… funny, I never noticed."

            "Sir Jeckt must have gotten here the same way you did."

            "So do you know where he is now?"

            "No."

            "I'll bet my old man is just as responsible as, if not more than, Auron for all of my problems, and he'll get the same as Auron if I see him again."

            BA-BOOSH! went the water.  The ship was almost flipped by a huge wave as a giant fin broke the surface of the ocean nearby.

            "Holy crap!" said some.

            "Sin!" said the others.

            "How do you know it's Sin?" asked Tydus.

            "Man the harpoons!" said still more, "It's heading for Kilika!  Let's piss it off and maybe it'll forget what it was doing!"  They shot Sin full of harpoons, which were tied to the ship.  Sin was still moving, so they were getting tugged to Kilika.

            "See?" said Tydus, "Who needs chocobo power?"  Everyone rolled their eyes at him, then Yuna, her guardians, and Tydus set to work pulverizing Sin's fin.  It had sinscales growing on it like barnacles, which jumped onto the deck and attacked.

Tydus had the first turn.

"Yeah! Hastega all around!" he said.  Nothing happened.  "I mean, Haste!  On… Wakka, so he can whack Sin a lot!"  So Wakka threw his blitzball, and when it hit it was very far away and made a cut little "Bonk!" noise.  Lulu hit the fin with various elemental magics, Tydus and Kimahri hacked the sinscales, and Yuna healed people, though there wasn't much to heal because it was just a fin and it wasn't really hurting them.

            Finally the rope holding Sin to the ship broke, and the ship shuddered then came to a halt in the roiling water.  Sin kept going, out of sight.  Everyone looked glum, but there seemed to be something missing, something big.  "Tydus!" they said.  Tydus had been thrown overboard.

Wakka jumped into the water and found Tydus floating around unconscious in the water.

            "Hey, wake up!" yelled Wakka, and he chucked his blitzball at him.

            "Owie," Tydus moaned, and shook himself awake.

            "How about we get back on this ship, ya?" suggested Wakka.  They started to swim to the surface, but were stopped when several aquatic sinscales swam past.

            "I thought Sin was gone…" said Wakka.

            Then a big, ugly, jellyfish-like sinspawn swam out of the deep to attack.

            "Oh, fudge," said Tydus, and they started fighting.  Wakka used his Dark Attack, and they had a good laugh watching Echuilles flounder around, blinded, until Wakka ran out of MP.  They were both very roughed up by the time it died, but found the energy to pull off their little victory jigs.

            By the time they had gotten back onto the S.S. Liki they had caught up with Sin.  They watched in wonder as the total wreck of a town called Kilika was turned into even more of a wreck.  People, pets, and planks of wood were sucked up slowly into the hurricane that was Sin.