Chapter 20 --- Smoochy Scene

They only stopped running into the forest when they had reached the middle, because then, you see, they were running out of the forest. They were forced to stop running anywhere when Lulu tripped rather gracelessly over a belt and sprained an ankle.

Yuna sighed. “I think this is a great opportunity for me to wander away to feel sorry and alone,” she said, walking back toward the center of Macalania Woods.

“Hey!” Lulu called after her, “How about fixing my ankle first!” But Yuna was already out of earshot. Or perhaps she was just ignoring her.

“I’ll go get her,” said Tydus, “I want to hurry and get out of these horrid woods.”

As Tydus left the clearing they had stopped in, he realized that he had no idea where Yuna had gone, and wasted much time wandering around (at one point wandering back into Bevelle, where he was beaten with inflatable fruit) before he remembered his player’s guide. Under its detailed instruction Tydus finally reached a still pond with a tree sticking out of it. To set the mood, it was suddenly a cloudless night and everything was glowing five times stronger. Yuna was standing waist-deep in the water, completely soaked.

“Um, Yuna? What are you doing?”

“Swimming.”

“Figures you cave men wouldn’t have developed swimsuits yet,” Tydus mumbled.

“Eh?”

“Nothing. Let’s make out underwater.”

“Whatever.”

The pond inexplicably became a great deal deeper, the glowing intensified even more, strange music started playing from a mysterious source, Yuna developed gills of her own, and as awkward as it seems they made out underwater. The full moon was close enough to drown Spira in tsunamis. Little motes filled the water and electric eels swam around artfully like something out of the Little Mermaid, and one would almost expect every animal in the vicinity to start singing. They probably would have but it would have clashed with the aforementioned music.

When Tydus and Yuna finished there was a quiet only disturbed by a cricket who had just left the nearby cricket bar and was quite drunk. Also, Seymour could be heard crying from behind some bushes.

“O-oooh! Yuna, how c-could you?!” the dead maester sobbed.

Yuna whirled around. “Christ, Seymour! This is not a soap opera!”

Seymour stared at her pitiless glare with true and uncharacteristic despair for a moment, then ran off through the woods crying “My wife’s already cheating on me! Why, God, why?!” His miserable whining stopped quite suddenly when he was killed by a butterfly, but Tydus and Yuna heard his voice again shortly afterward, in quite a different tone. “God damn it! That’s the seventh time today!”

“Killing Seymour seems to be a bit of a running gag,” Tydus said thoughtfully.

Yuna scowled. “Whatever. Let’s just go back to camp.”

As they walked past a bush Tydus saw movement behind it.

“Un! Kimahri! You perv! Stop smiling!”

Kimahri shrugged and fell in step behind the demon-summoning witch and the figment of someone else’s imagination.

A new day dawned on the radioactive swamp of Macalania, and as a fresh start in his adventures into stupidity Tydus set off in the wrong direction. When queried, he tried patiently to explain that his guide had told him to go that way. I say “tried” because the rest of the group stopped him at the word “guide.” In spite of the many proofs that the guide was all-knowing the rest of the group refused to go out of their way to follow it.

What Tydus found during his trailblazing did not exactly make his day. “A Jeckt Sphere?! God, no!” He was just about to run back to the group like all hell was behind him when Auron stepped out from behind a tree.

“Tydus, do it. The survival of the group depends on it”

“I thought it just gave you better overdrives.”

“Which in turn accounts for the only hope this group has of surviving. Now view the sphere.”

“Fine, whatever.” With a shudder, Tydus somehow turned it on. Some stupid young scientists think he “pushed the X button,” but the older scientists managed to convince them otherwise using various blunt objects. In any case, this is what Tydus saw:

The view looked to be from a security camera (with a little timer and everything in the corner of the vision) in a top corner of a room, where it gave the best perspective of what was going on. There was a small jail cell sticking out of the wall containing the infamous Jeckt, who was snoring loudly. Tydus thought this was quite appropriate.

Soon a guard walked in and approached the cell door. “Hey, Zanarkand Man, shut up with the snoring, you have visitors.”

Jeckt perked up quickly. “Someone in this hellhole really does care for my well being!”

A young version of Auron stepped into the room and Jeckt’s face fell.

“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like you.”

“Don’t worry,” Braska said cheerily, following Auron and wearing his gigantic and silly robes, “No one likes Auron much at first, but he grows on you, like fungus.”

“Er,” said Auron. He really hasn’t changed much…

“Sooo, who are you guys?” Jeckt asked, “My lawyers?” At this thought he glanced doubtfully at the ridiculous headdress Braska was wearing.

“I haven’t a clue what a lawyer is. I am Braska, a summoner, and this is Auron, my guardian. Together we are a publicity stunt targeting the outcast demographic. Outcasts make great summoners, you see. No ones cares if the die (and if they succeed, this is a guarantee) and they get to be heroes! Win-win situation!”

Jeckt blinked.

“I tried to do this priest’s daughter, and Auron refused to marry her. But we know that she just wasn’t Auron’s type. Eh? Eh?” Braska nudged Auron with his elbow.

“For the last time, Braska, I am not gay. I am just extremely single-minded, getting married is just not part of my limited programming. The tough guy act is about all I know; I am a 2D character.”

“At least you’re a main character. I only show up in these stupid spheres where I am portrayed as an amiable idiot who actually believes Jeckt is worth something.”

Jeckt blinked again. “What is a summer-ner?”

“Oh look, a gray hair,” Auron said dryly.

The scene blacked out.

“Well that wasn’t so bad,” Tydus said, pocketing the sphere and heading back to the group.

“For you, maybe,” Auron mumbled.

(note from author:)

Hey, I’m back and better than ever! At least I think so…