Chapter 26 --- The Chapter With No Name

“Okay, so we’ve all got this straight? I’m the leader? No more backstabbing?”

The rest of the group glared at Tydus resentfully. He decided it would be best not to rub their embarrassing failure to overthrow him in their faces, lest they be driven to find a loophole. “Good. And now that we’re a big happy group again, I say we treat ourselves to a short vacation to the Omega Ruins!”

“Omega Ruins is for sissies,” said Auron.

“There’s a bunch of spheres we need in there. Lulu can get Ultima, the black equivalent of Holy, then anyone who’s been down Yuna’s or Lulu’s sections can learn Doublecast, and we’ll kick that much more ass. And I notice that you appear to be stuck behind a Level 4 Lock, Auron.”

“I’m not stuck…”

“You’ve got 24 unused moves!”

“Whatever,” Auron sniffed indifferently.

Presently the Airship landed outside the Omega Ruins, a dark brooding hole in the blighted ground of a distant corner of Spira. Standing at the entrance the group could hear inhuman screams echoing out of the darkness. Wakka, once a nervous wreck due to the stress of constantly adhering to mad religion of Yevon, was now staring straight into the maw of smelly doom with a blank look on his face. Rikku, however, had yet to grow a backbone.

“Insert something that Scooby Doo would say,” Rikku stuttered.

“All right, gang, let’s go,” said Tydus. He headed inside.

“Wow,” said Yuna, shaking her head sadly as she followed.

Inside they encountered a maze of dank and dimly lit passageways of the traitor Omega. Tydus squinted at the pages of his guide as he carelessly stepped forward. “Beware… the… high level… mon—“

“Gigantic stegosaurus!” screamed Lulu.

“Don’t be silly,” said Tydus, “Dinosaurs were extinct thousands of years before I was… I didn’t just say that…”

At this point the non-stegosaurus beat Tydus senseless with its tail.

“OW,” said Tydus. He examined the monster’s HP. “Um, what say we let Anima handle it…”

Yuna gleefully summoned her emo Anima to perform Pain. The stegosaurus died instantly. Its gigantic body hit the ground with a resounding crash that shook the walls and caused bits of rock to fall on the groups’ heads. They were too busy staring in shock at the amazing power of Anima to notice that they had all been turned brown with dust. Yuna was grinning like a maniac as she stood next to Anima, who was moaning her head off like she had not just pwned the turtle-zilla.

“My unholy god!” said Wakka, “Is every fiend in here so big?!”

“No,” said Tydus, “Some of them are just stronger, color-swapped clones of previous monsters.” He flipped through the section to look for details and discovered a complete lack of any list of fiends found here. “Hey, I paid for this! Well, actually, I didn’t, but what’s a page or two going to hurt the publisher if it would save my life and thus everyone else’s?”

At first, as the group fought their way through the tunnels (and by fought I mean ‘summoned Anima to kill everything’) they gained several levels with each fight. Lulu managed to escape her area of the sphere grid and entered Wakka’s to boost her HP, Yuna was back in Rikku’s section, having completed Auron’s and her own, Kimahri was pulling ahead of Auron in Tydus’s section, and Tydus himself was now a black and white mage, a thief, and a fighter. It was with hard-earned confidence that they entered the second half of the tunnels and encountered a Master Tonberry.

“Hey, don’t worry, Yuna, I think we can handle this,” said Tydus.

“Fine,” Yuna pouted.

But every time they struck, the Tonberry hit back with the ominously named “Karma”. At the Tonberry’s turn, the group held their breath to see what the bizarre little creature would do.

It stepped forward.

“That is the most suspicious thing I think I have ever seen,” said Tydus. “I vote we flee.”

“Go for it, crybaby.”

“How about you do the honors, Mr. I’m-Walking-in-a-Punk-Kid’s-Footsteps.”

Auron’s good eye twitched, then he shoved Kimahri. Kimahri sighed and used Flee. The group ran like the wind.

Alone again, the Tonberry sniffed in sadness. “All I ever wanted was a hug.”

Finally, the group reached the room beyond which Omega was sitting around playing Solitaire. But they were not there long before a huge, intricately ugly monster fell upon them. Six limbs, spines, scales, and neon strips contained a being of pure malice with breath like a mountain of bad eggs pouring from its very tiny mouth. While being quite tall enough to give the group sore necks, it was easily put to shame by several of the larger monsters back in the tunnels.

Fearing the worst of a boss in the Omega Ruins, they instantly turned to Yuna. Before the monster could let loose an impressive howl in challenge, Anima killed it dead. Some of pyreflies it disintegrated into floated into the back room.

“What’s all that ruckus out there,” called a raspy voice. “Ultima Weapon, if I find out you’ve knocked down another pillar— Who are you people?”

The group stared unabashedly at the monster that had just squeezed through the door in front of them. It was exactly the same as the Ultima Weapon, but slightly bigger, with more spines, scales, and neon strips. It squinted at each member of the party in turn, stifling a laugh out of general politeness when in got to Auron. Then it said, “You younguns killed my guard dog?”

“You’re Omega?”

“Yeah, I am. Did you come here to listen to me prattle on about the good old days and my heathen ways?”

Tydus turned to the others. “That’s what happens to traitors?”

“If they sit around in a horrible cave for long enough, I suppose so,” Yuna replied.

“Lets just kill him,” said Auron.

“But what if he’s not evil?” said Rikku.

“No,” said Tydus, “It doesn’t say anything in here about not killing Omega.”

Yuna laughed curtly. “Does it say anything about Auron’s new ears?”

Tydus waved it off. “Plot points aren’t discussed, only methods of survival. Only jerks put spoilers in their guides. Right now a great strategy would be to summon Anima to obliterate that clearly evil monster.”

“Fine. But only if we go straight to Sin after this.”

“Incidentally,” said Tydus as Yuna took care of another boss single-handedly, or more accurately, no hands at all. Or six, if you want to look at it another way. “This will be our battle plan for the rest of this quest. None of these monsters we’re gonna run into appear to be Anima-proof.”

“What do you mean, the only thing left is to fight Sin,” said Lulu.

“Um, yeah, about that—“

Just then Yuna ran back to the rest of them looking worried. “Guys, I think we should get out of here. Now.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t manage to kill Omega.”

“No, I—“

“Well it’s not like we need to worry about anything else in here ambushing us. Everything’s dead. We killed it all. Even the Tonberry, on a dare. Auron owes me a cheesecake.”

“That’s exactly my point. I have better things to do than waste my life standing around in an empty dungeon.”

“No arguments here,” said Rikku. “Beam us up, dad!”