I don’t like the Thunder Plains, sorry for the delay.  Someone dies in this chapter, but we all know how permanent that is, heh heh.

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Chapter 15 --- The Plains of the Sound That Lightningg Makes

            “So, here we are,” said Tydus, “The Thund- Ow!  Who threw that brick?!”

            “We don’t want Rikku to freak out, do we?” Auron said, lightly tossing another brick in the air and catching it.

            “It’s just a word,” Tydus muttered.  A large bump was forming on the back of his head.  “Those things hurt!” he thought.  Ordinarily, Tydus would have been stunned speechless by the scene before him, but he was becoming hopelessly jaded and even if the devil appeared in a great show of flames and rare orchids and started tap dancing to grunge music Tydus would be more concerned with how full his stomach was.

            Anyone who sees the Thunder Plains would think that the name is quite justified.  In the sky was an endless thunderstorm.  Lightning danced among the clouds and often took shots at the ground followed by claps of thunder loud enough to hard boil an egg.  The ground looked like a frozen choppy sea, or year-old ice cream, with lightning towers jutting out at intervals, very wide intervals.

            “This seems kind of dangerous,” Tydus noted.  He turned to Rikku, who was thinking about which kind of pie was really the best.  “You’re not perturbed by this at all?”

“Hm?  Oh, no, not in the least.  Just the word.”

            “I see…”  Tydus decided to check his guide.  “Well, at least I can dodge the lightning, and hey, I can get prizes.  …And who thinks anyone can dodge 200 lightning bolts?!  CONSECUTIVELY!  This is pure evil!  I’ll be damned if I even try!  Ouch!  Auron, I’m the only one who gets the bricks!”

Auron shrugged.  “Eh.”

            “Auron wears bunny ears!  I have spoken, so shall it be!”

Auron quite suddenly wore bunny ears.  He muttered angrily as he tore off the fluffy ears and started stomping them into the purple-ish earth, but another pair immediately appeared on his head again.  He ripped these off, but once more the cute fluffy things perpetuated themselves on his head.  By the time he was done experimenting different ways of ripping off bunny ears the ground around him was littered with them, and he was puffing hard.  Everyone had to try hard not to laugh.

            “You know,” said Tydus, “You could open up a business selling bunny ears, and you’d always make a profit!”

Auron tried to glare at him and saunter off in an imposing manner, but with the bunny ears this was nearly impossible.  He wasn’t the kind of guy to just give up.  He decided to look at it like a challenge.  This made him feel slightly better, and throughout the trip through the Thunder Plains the group noticed him trying various menacing expressions in a mirror to see which best countered the cuteness on his head.

Tydus was too busy dodging lightning to notice anything.  “Even if I do dodge every strike,” he thought, “there’s no way I can hang around here long enough to dodge 200!”  But while he was stopping to think this he was struck by lightning.  “Ouch!”

            Then he was immediately attacked by a tiny cactus.  “What the crap?”

            Killing a Quactar is not as easy as it should be.  No one could hit it except Lulu, but before she could blast away the rest of its HP it turned heel and ran away.  Tydus was in shock.  “Hey, why’d that stupid thing run away?  The guide says they give nice goodies!”

            “I wonder why it wouldn’t want to hang around while we try to kill it,” Lulu said sarcastically.

            “I know!” agreed Tydus.  To his delight, they were once again attacked by a Quactar.  “Ha ha!  We shall kick your ass quick-like!”

            The Quactar squeaked, then performed an attack called “10,000 Needles.”  Yuna died several times over.  Tydus goggled at Yuna’s corpse.  “Oh.  My.  GOD!  RUN AWAY!!!”

Tydus used his specialty, Flee, to get him and Lulu far, far away.  The Quactar stood there looking cute.  It squeaked again, but with a hint of laughter, then romped off.  The dead body that was once Yuna lay forgotten all alone on the ocean of frozen prune juice that was the Thunder Plains.  Tydus eventually snuck back, chucked a Phoenix Down at her, then sprinted back to the rest of the group.  Kimahri had to go back and finish reviving Yuna, but they found themselves surrounded by hundreds of Quactars.  Or would they be Quacti?  Oh, well.   By a curious coincidence all the Quactars ran away before Kimahri or Yuna could think of anything to do.

            “Okay…” said Yuna, “No need to argue that.  Let’s find the rest of the group.”

            Much lightning dodging later, Tydus caught sight of a building in the distance.  “Low and behold!  Shelter!”  He ran toward the outlandish structure, but in his eagerness to get away from the lightning, he forgot that he was not safe yet and was blasted on the spot by no less than thirty bolts.  When the air cleared a little, Tydus was left standing in a patch of scarred earth.  He was smoking and making small sizzling sounds like bacon fresh out of the frying pan.

            “Owie,” he squeaked.  A small bit of electricity played around his new afro.

            The rest of the group walked past, Kimahri stopping to pick up the unfortunate lightning rod.  When they were close enough to see the building more clearly Yuna said, “Hey, it’s another Al Bhed Travel Agency, I mean, Inn!”

            “Woohoo!” said Rikku, “I mean, indifference!”

            “See you around, Wakka,” Auron said with a sneer.  He was getting quite good at being nasty, but a side effect was that he was nasty more often.

Wakka glared.  “What if I promise to not inflict any bodily damage to the Al Bhed?”

            “Fine,” said Yuna, “But no mental abuse, either.”

“Dang.”

            As they drew closer a head stuck out around the door tentively, saw Wakka, then ducked back inside quickly.  Yuna smiled.  “It’s okay!  Oh!  Wakka, put the blitzball down!”

“Aww.”

            “Bzzzt!” went a spark on Tydus’s foot.  He flinched.

            Once inside the inn Tydus was able to stand, but miniature lightning bolts still ran up and down his body.  “This is – ow – so annoying – ow.”  He looked around the lobby.  Some people, mostly cowering Al Bhed, were standing around, taking a break.  He noticed a book on the counter.  “Let’s have a look then,” he thought.

            On the cover was the title “The Record of the Lightning that Did or Did Not Hit Tydus.”  On the inside was just that.  It read: “Total lightning strikes at Tydus: 127.  Total number dodged: 42.  Consecutive number dodged: 13.  Total number hit: 84.  Consecutive number hit: 54.  The committee is arranging some super prizes for him because he’s such a great guy.”

“54 consecutive hits?!” Tydus thought, “Man this sucks.  At least I get a prize.”  He looked inside the chest sitting near the book.  Inside was a Potion, a stub of a pencil, and a cup of banana pudding.  He turned to an Al Bhed standing nearby.  “Wow, I feel appreciated.  And I hate banana pudding.  You know what would be nice?  The Onion Knight.”

            “Yo no comprendo…”

Yuna looked around and coughed nerviously to get everyone’s attention.  “I am going to be evasive and mysterious, holding myself up in my room and doing secret things.  Everyone better leave me alone.”

            This translated to Tydus as “Come to my room for sex,” and he sneaked after her immediately.  When he was at her closed door he would have gone in without hesitation, but he could hear a man’s voice.  It said, “So now you know.  Please kill that murdering bastard I once called my son.”  This was when Tydus “fell” into the room.  Yuna was nodding sagely at a hologram of a really old Guado.  Then she noticed Tydus and whacked him on the head with her rod.  “You don’t listen!” she declared.

            “I heard you fine!” Tydus protested, “You said you wanted—“

            Suddenly the door burst open once more and in came Wakka, likely saving Tydus’s life.  “NOOGIE!” he shouted, grabbing Tydus around the head and administering said noogie.  Sparks flew from Tydus’s charged hair.

            “I’m too late for the sex, then?”

Yuna kicked them both out of her room with great haste.  Wakka and Tydus shared a look that said “What’s up her butt?”  They shrugged and walked off.

            Back in the lobby Rin had arrived.  He was looking quite miffed.  “I just found out that someone let Wakka into my inn!”

            “He promised to behave, and we confiscated his blitzball,” said Lulu reassuringly.

            “Assuming that is true, this is still horrible for business!  No Al Bhed will visit my inns if they hear that I am letting Wakka in, too!  It’s a proven fact that he will attempt to strangle any Al Bhed he meets ‘in the name of Yevon!’  He’s a complete loon!”

            “Aw, he’s not that bad,” said Rikku.

“Rikku!  How are you?  How’s old Cid doing?  Still working on that airsh –“

            “Shh!  Don’t give away parts of the plot ahead of schedual!”

            “Well, it’s not like that hasn’t happened before.  A lot.” Rin looked at the rest of the odd people in the lobby.  “Hey, is that Auron?”  Auron gave him a menacing look that could wilt a cactus, or would have if it weren’t for the

            “Bunny ears,” Rin stated flatly, as if saying it would make them explain themselves, “Those are bunny ears.”

Auron intensified his glare and it broke past the cute little things on his head and blasted Rin.

            “I’ll just be going now,” Rin said nerviously, and added to Rikku as he rushed away, “Nice glasses, by the way.”

            “Oh, look,” said Lulu, “Here comes the rest of our happy gang.”

            “Hello,” said Yuna, “Let’s go outside and get some fresh air.”

Tydus groaned.

            “We’re only halfway through the Thunder Plains, you’re gonna have to leave this inn sometime,” Auron said, getting some happiness in teasing Tydus, “Is that a tear I see in your eye, Crybaby?”

            “Would you like a tail to go with those ears?” Tydus countered.  Auron growled like an enraged bunny, but held his tounge.

            “Onward!” said Yuna, to get them back on track.  Tydus cautiously headed outside at the back of the group.  Suddenly, there was a flash!  Tydus jumped out of the way of the impending lightning but none came.  There was a small, mousy man with a camera standing in front of the group.  “He must have caused the flash,” thought Tydus, then he said, “Hey, you with the camera!”  But the strange man had already skedaddled.  “Where’d he get a camera?  And what was that about?  A snap and run shooting?” Ba da ching!

            “He took off with our picture!” Lulu said indignantly, “Wakka, get him!”  She stood there expectantly, but nothing stopped the man from getting farther away.  “Wakka?”

Wakka was frozen stiff with a look of utter horror on his face.  Tydus prodded him with his finger, which in reflection might not have been a smart thing to do.  Wakka’s reaction was to wail like a tortured seal in a very loud voice, “IT STOLE MY SOUL!” and then squat on the ground holding his legs rocking and moaning.  He was much noisier than before.

            “I hope this doesn’t impede our progress,” Auron mumbled.

            A lightning bolt struck Tydus.