Chapter 27 --- The End
“Everyone understand the plan?”
“You’re psychotic, Rikku.”
“Seriously. Pretending to be plumbers to throw off suspicion is never gonna work. Ever since Mario, no one trusts plumbers not to set their ass on fire.”
“But they’re expecting plumbers! My dad was flying around drunk while we were in the Omega ruins and accidentally blasted the roof off the temple at Bevelle! Then it rained! Since most of the real plumbers have been chucked into the Via Purifico for using wrenches, we don’t have to worry about the real guys showing up.”
“Do we really need these mustaches?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, look, the guide labled this section is Sin. These writers were really thoughtful. Thank you, Dan Birlew.”
“Shut up, Tydus.”
“Does anyone else think ‘Dr. Mario’ is a bit of a non sequitur?”
“Stop talking about Nintendo, geez.”
“Isn’t this more of a job for roofers?”
Ah, hello, I’m back! Your wonderful narrator has returned to save
the day! So, right now the group is
preparing to land once more on top of
“Halt, who goes there!”
“Are you serious?” said Rikku. “Is it not obvious that we are the plumbers you sent for? The Magnificent Six Plumbers and an Idiot Co.!”
“What? You mean yourself, right?”
“So, you need seven people to fix the plumbing? Do we have to pay extra for that?”
“No,” said Yuna, “You’re the ruling religion here, you’re not paying us anything.”
Tydus sniggered. “Here’s your problem, you’ve got no roof.”
“Then shouldn’t we have hired some roofers?”
“That’s what I said,” Lulu whined. “Also, Yuna already told you, you’re not ‘hiring’ anyone.”
“Yuna?! You’re Braska’s daughter?!”
“Holy Yevon’s foot, it’s the protagonists! We’re gonna diiie!”
“What’s going on out there?” an annoyingly familiar voice asked from the end of the hallway.
“Oh, hey, it’s Shelinda,” Yuna said unenthusiastically.
Shelinda entered and looked around. She winced a little at the brightly-clad strangers. “Who are all these people, they don’t look like they’re about to kill you, Freddy.”
“We aren’t evil, like some people,” said Tydus, “but, you know, if you guys insist on fighting, we will kill you. You won’t just be knocked out, either. You’ll be dead. That’s how it is in this game. If you don’t like it, go join Team Rocket and catch some Pokémon, pansies.”
Shelinda laughed nervously. “Why are so many, er, plumbers here?”
“We know why we’re here. Why are you here?”
“I’m the Captain of the Guard,” she answered, in a voice that was intended to intimidate, but, come on, it’s Shelinda.
The group burst into laughter. Tydus stopped to ask, “Wow, how did that happen.”
“We’re kinda short on followers right now,” she mumbled dejectedly.
“No one trusts you guys anymore? We’ve brought to light the suspicious activities of the corrupt hierarchy? You’ll be brought down in court any day now?”
“Um, I think you plumbers killed them all. You’re Yuna and her guardians, right? Mika wants to talk with you. Wait here.” She turned and walked away in a manner that suggested that she’d rather be running. The two guards jumped out the windows as soon as she was gone.
“’Wait here’?!” said Tydus. “There’s no way the Maester expects us to wait at this point in the game.”
With a complete lack of argument or complaints the group followed him into the room at the end of the hallway. At the other end of a maze of passages blessedly devoid of any minotaur, minibosses, or even random encounters they found themselves on the judge’s platform of the large room that had been put on trial in. there was a considerable lack of people here.
Just as they were about to leave to search elsewhere, Maester Mika appeared between Auron and Kimahri. “Oh my,” he said, “Of all the places to teleport. So, you guys just came here of your own volition?”
Tydus shrugged. “Yeah, we need to move the plot. While we were here we may as well make fun of you. Go on, ask us that thing you were gonna ask.”
The Maester tried to hide his shock. It was unbecoming of a criminal mastermind. “Er, very well. I thought that if you irresponsible hooligans wouldn’t repent, you could at least perform the Final Summon—“
“Ah HA!” said Tydus, metaphorically pouncing like a tiger. “Yunalesca is dead-dead now. We killed her.” He puffed out his chest with pride. Auron took the opportunity to whack it back in.
At this Mika completely failed to hide his shock and horror. “Wha… bhuh… fah?”
“Don’t kill yourself again worrying, we’ll think of a plan and defeat Sin for good this time.”
“Don’t you think you should have left Yunalesca alone until you knew you had a way?” said Mika, quickly overcoming even the most devastating news like only someone who had been ruling the population with fear for years could do. It was replaced with rage. Tydus often has this affect. “And I did not kill myself.”
“The guide says I’m doing fine,” Tydus muttered.
“Oh, this is just great!” Mika was working up to a towering rage that nonetheless failed to cause concern in the battle-hardened guardians. “Our only hope is a bunch of traitors following an undoubtedly blasphemous ‘guide’! Yu Yevon will destroy us all now!”
“There is it again!” said Tydus. “Just what the hell is Yu Yevon? There’s no way the name’s a coincidence.”
“Oh, you know, really evil guy who uses Sin as his sentient armor while he obliterates the world. He’s going to smite you all. Well, screw this, I’m not sticking around to see everything destroyed because a bunch of irresponsible delinquents tried to change things for the better.” With that, the Maester sent himself.
For a while the group stood there staring at the pyreflies, caught off guard. “Well,” said Auron, “That solves that.”
As the rest of the group filed back into the passageways, Tydus hung back to try to have another romantic moment with Yuna. There were lots of little glowy bits around already, and he felt another romance song coming on. Suddenly, the fayth of Bahamut appeared in front of them.
“Hey guys,” she said.
“You!” said Tydus. “What the hell is going—“
“Can’t talk here, come to my room.”
“What, afraid the bad guys will overhear? There’s no one left. Well, maybe a few guards and a ridiculous excuse for a Captain of the Guard.”
“I left pizza roles in the oven, I don’t want them to burn while I’m out here talking to you. Don’t even start to argue,” she snapped as Tydus opened his mouth to do just so. “You either come to my room and find out about the rest of the plot, or stand here like idiots.”
“Won’t that make me look a bit like a pedoph—“
“Shut up! Just shut up! Gah! I can’t stand you.” She faded away, leaving an angry red afterglow.
Yuna and Tydus stared at each other, both wondering if their egos could take such a blow as following the orders of a little kid. Tydus shrugged and led the way. He could worry about his ego in the Farplane.
As they both entered the Chamber of the Fayth, the girl looked up from a newspaper with what appeared to be mild surprise. “Oh, hello. What brings you here?”
“Nice try. I bet you were thinking up the best way to piss me off this whole time we’ve been riding those dumb moving platform things to get here. So immature.” Tydus shook his head condescendingly.
“Stupid boy! I’m over 500 years old.”
Tydus made a cough that sounded suspiciously like “1000 years old”. The veins were pulsing at the little fayth’s little temples. She then attempted some breathing exercises and tried to ignore Tydus as he whispered behind his hand to Yuna, “I’ve got her number. Serves her right for treating me like a puppet.” Yuna just looked confused.
“Anyway,” said the fayth with hard-earned calm, “Have you thought of a way to defeat Sin without the Final Summoning?”
“Seems like everyone and their mother just has to ask us that question,” Yuna said irritably. “It just so happens that we do have an idea. The Hymn of the Fayth should paralyze Sin with its grating discords and horrendous singers.”
“I don’t think that’s the sort of thing to gamble the world on.”
“Won’t kill us to try,” said Tydus.
“It might just,” said the fayth with a cruel grin.
“I thought you were gonna help us out. What about this Yu Yevon we keep hearing about?”
“Yu Yevon was the first summoner. He’s the one that created the first aeons and started the cult that would evolve into the principle religion of the entire world it is today. At the time he was only really interested in power, and eventually found a way to merge with any aeon. He disappeared for a while, when the religion was still obscure. He came back as Sin during a war between Bevelle and Zanarkand. Everything was in such disorder already that it was easy to throw it into complete chaos. It’s hard to argue with proof, and everyone quickly switched religions to the only one that offered hope. Now Yu Yevon sleeps, dreaming of destruction, and we can’t wake up until he is gone,” the fayth finished dramatically.
“That is such a load of shit.”
“Well, I did deviate completely from the script…”
“Made much more sense this way, in comparison, though.”
“That’s what I said!”
“Silly writers.”
“And now you know the whole story. Except for Yuna, who still doesn’t know quite everything.”
“What--?”
“Okay, we’re leaving now!” Tydus pushed Yuna roughly out of the Chamber.
They met the others at the Airship. Shelinda was just leaving with instructions to send a chain-email to everyone in her address book telling them to stand outside and sing the Hymn of the Fayth at the top of their lungs. Onboard, they discovered a present on their radar. There was now a coordinates listing named Sin hovering innocently over the Calm Lands. Someone popped the cork of a wine bottle and wheeled out a cake with the words “The end is near!” written in festive red icing on it. But little did they know that this was just the beginning. The beginning of the end! Holy cow!
As they flew, Wakka approached Cid. “I know I’ve been kinda cold to you ever since I met you, but I just wanted you to know that I’ve realized how stupid I was being. The Al Bhed aren’t evil Satan-worshippers. In fact, it appears I was the one worshipping the devil. But anyway, if you want to play around with crazy contraptions and risk blowing yourself sky-high, that’s okay with me, I won’t judge you anymore. And even though my favorite Cid will always be FF7 Cid, you’ll always be my number two.” He sniffed emotionally as tears welled up in his eyes. He gave a fake punch to Cid’s shoulder. “You’re my buddy,” he stammered.
Cid stared at Wakka as he stumbled into the hallway, while everyone else looked embarrassed. Auron coughed nervously. “Wow,” said Tydus.
“Erm,” said Cid. “Well, we’re almost at the Calm Lands, so you folks should get up on deck. I’ll be blasting the music out of our award-winning sound system in a few minutes.”
It was another beautiful day on the deck of the Airship. Tydus walked to the edge (without a safety harness) to take a deep breath of the crisp upper atmosphere when he got a face full of flying squirrel.
“Ahhh!” Tydus screamed, quite understandably.
The rest of the group came over, surprised into overcoming their usual indifference and occasional enjoyment of Tydus in pain. Except for Auron, who was the son of the devil and felt compassion for no one. “Man, you okay?” Wakka asked.
Tydus ripped the frantic squirrel from his face and quickly chucked it like a paper airplane at the ground below. He turned his face to the heavens and yelled, “What was that?! Flying squirrels can’t even really fly! There’s no excuse for this sort of random torment! So I ask you: WHY?!”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Yuna.
“I don’t know! Where were we? Oh yeah. Here—“ Tydus fumbled a sound sphere from his pocket dimension and held it out to Yuna, “is your suicide note. And there it goes.” He chucked it overboard, aiming vaguely for the squirrel, which was still plummeting. “Your acceptance of your fate makes me jealous, anyway.”
“Stop pilfering my stuff!”
“Hey, guys, can you hear that?” said Rikku.
“What?!” replied the group.
“I said, can you guys hear that?!”
“We can’t hear you over all this noise!” said Lulu.
“What?!” said Rikku.
There was, in fact, brain-numbingly loud noise exploding from the Airship cleverly disguised array of woofers, tweeters, and anything in between. The group could feel the vibrations of the bass rearranging their DNA.
From several miles away one could properly identify the sounds as the Hymn of the Fayth. Sin, a mere half-mile away hiding behind a hill, and possessing regrettably acute hearing, was temporarily knocked out. Clouds began to gather, swirling ominously above them like the eye of a storm.
Suddenly, for a brief moment, the sound cut out entirely, and the world went dead quiet (or at least, everyone’s ears weren’t currently capable of picking up a herd of elephants stampeding toward them from behind, which was unfortunate for those for which this was actually the case). Then an enormous series of explosions flowered all around the Airship as each section of the sound system shot away from its housing with the power to annihilate a herd of stampeding elephants, along with anyone about to be run over by said herd.
Gravity pulled the flaming debris downward, and they gouged deep paths through the ground. One piece barely missed Luca. The ensuing tsunami hit dead-on.
Gradually everything quieted down again, though everyone in the group was still too deaf to hear the screams of terror and despair that persisted down below. “Woo-wee!” Cid called over the intercom. “And that is how we won the award!”
Yuna gaped. “Hey, I remember that! Eight months ago! They said it must have been Sin!”
“Um… yeaaahh. Okay, so that didn’t seem to work. But our sonar equipment was able to pick up a new mountain over that way, which is incidentally not on a fault line, so it’s probably Sin. We’re heading there now.”
At this point I would make a Power Rangers spoof of Airship vs. Sin, but that’s a bit too low brow for me, hahaha. If you’d like, you can imagine it yourself, but I’ll warn you, it is rather scary…
When they reached the suspicious new chunk of land, it was just recovering from the bombardment of sound.
“I have an idea!” said Cid.
“I’ve decided I don’t like your ideas!” said Tydus.
“We’re going to ram Sin and skewer it on these two pointy things I had attached while we were under attack back at Home. I was gonna make a fiend-kebab! Haha!”
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind my old man getting skewered.” The Airship started accelerating into a steep dive. “What the hell?! Can’t we get seatbelts or something?!”
Cid either wasn’t listening or
didn’t care, or both, and he crashed the craft straight into Sin’s unmovable
body. The spikes shot both of Sin’s
primary arms out of their sockets, and the seven assorted nuts stupid enough to
be standing on the deck were flung an incredible distance right into Sin’s
mouth, opened in a scream of shock and pain.
It was smelly. Inside, they
discovered, not a complex system of oversized organs and an agonizing death via
stomach acid, but a huge, empty space that glowed in soft pastels. For some reason, they floated toward a really
unnecessarily gigantic image of
“Yeah, what could you be so happy about,” Tydus shouted at it as they floated ever closer. “A sperm whale could fit through those pores!”
They hit the image’s right eyeball and went through. On the other side was… was…
“Ah-HA!” said Yuna to Rikku. “It’s a city!”
“A city made out of barnacles, obviously,” Rikku sniffed.
“It does smell kinda fishy actually,” said Wakka.
“That would be the giant lungfish monster behind you,” said Tydus, pointing. “Haha, made you look! But seriously, there is a monster behind you.”
Wakka turned and examined the fiend as it crept closer… and closer. “What? This is, like, less than the Omega Ruins.” He beat the fiend to death with his spike-covered blitzball.
To expedite their journey, they
split up, passing like a wave of death through the City of
As Tydus ran down the main avenue,
swinging and tossing his swords at fiends, he caught sight of a classy little
café, with classy little tables out front.
“What the hell! Is that
“Yo.” He sipped his coffee.
“What happened to you? You look terrible!”
“Oh, you know, all that dying really gets to ya eventually…” He coughed uncomfortably then muttered, “and the steroids.”
“Wha-- Why are you here? I mean, what exactly do you think you’re doing inside Sin?”
“I can’t tell you how wrong that is—“
“You even destroyed the Final
Summoning, now nothing can stop me!
Spira will spiral itself to death, and there will be nothing left! Then the dinosaurs will come back and I will
be their king!” As
Tydus was speechless.
“Who’s yelling over here? Sounded like a flock of pigeons being massac— hoo geez, that’s not a pretty sight.” Auron walked around a bend, followed by the rest of the group from various ends of the street.
“
“He wanted to rule the dinosaurs?” said Rikku to Lulu. “That would be so cool!”
Tydus looked at his guide in case
there were any tricks to this boss. The
guide informed him that he should endeavor to attack the circles behind
Seymour, which only ranged weapons could reach, until they were the same, and only
then attack Seymour with the opposite magic until one of the circles would
change, then do it all over again. It
looked like a lot of work to Tydus. Then
he noticed
“Hey, Yuna,” he called, “Summon Anima to do that what-its-face, Oblivion thing.”
“What?!” said
He seemed more incredulous than scared, which irked Tydus into saying, “The other night she confessed to me that she doesn’t think she spanked you enough when you were little, though I rather enjoy her spankings, so I don’t really understand.”
“WHAT?!” said Seymour and Yuna, just as Anima Obliterated him. His dead but still glowing body fell into some classy little chairs.
“For the love of… not-Yevon, send him!” said Wakka.
Yuna ran to the café with a passion.
“Ah,
“I thought you said he had many flaws,” said Lulu.
“Why are you always pointing out my mistakes?!” Tydus sobbed at her. “I was just trying to be dramatic!”
“What’s with all these swords everywhere?” said Rikku.
“Oh that,” said Tydus, completely fine again. “Yeah, I had plenty of them taking up space in my pocket dimension. For some reason fiends have been dropping them and they just sort of built up. This was the perfect way to get rid of them, I think.”
Yuna wrapped up the sending, and the group continued to the end of the city, where they could now see a tower of large glowing orbs sticking out of previously melted metal. It was warped and twisted, tapering toward the bottom and defying gravity magnificently. Upon closer inspection, a large oval orb in the front appeared to be a door. Tydus instinctively touched it. He turned into a duck.
“Quack!?” said Tydus, “I mean, what the hell?!”
“Says here on the side of the door that it’s polite to ring the doorbell first,” said Lulu.
“The world is out to get me, I swear,” he said, as Lulu rang the doorbell, for Tydus could no longer reach.
After a few seconds, the orb swung open, and the group walked inside, where they found a large field of smooth crystal, with the odd patch of crystal spikes jabbing out, scattered with eggs that were much too big to be duck. As they stood and looked around in wonder, a new spike suddenly sprung out of the ground, impaling Wakka.
The group’s reaction was, naturally, to start running around willy nilly. Tydus somehow managed to consult his guide at the same time, while Kimahri used a Phoenix Down on Wakka, who died again shortly afterward of “continuing to be impaled by a large spike of crystal” syndrome. The guide said that the group needed to collect ten eggs, filled with random, powerful objects. Tydus headed straight for the first eggs in sight, but was suddenly cut off by a spike in front of him. By the time he had gotten around it, the egg was gone.
“Egg collecting seemed pointless in the first place,” said Yuna, when Tydus told everyone what to do, “but now it’s just a pain in the ass.”
“You can blame my old man for this, I’m sure. I bet he’s the only Sin to have all this ridiculous stuff all over his head.”
Finally, after much running around, they were able to get all the eggs, though they discovered that all the items were just powerful enough to be useless. They didn’t have time to piss about it or to figure out where they had to go next before they were all transported somewhere entirely different.
Wakka’s dead body disappeared from the crystal spike and reappeared, still dead, lying next to the group on a floating platform above a Zanarkand in the middle of a fire crisis. They heard fire engines and ambulances racing through the streets trying to quell the rampant flames. The group leaned over the rail of the platform to watch. Tydus was preparing to hock a loogie.
An irritated cough behind them reminded them that they were here for a reason, and they turned around to see Jeckt standing at the other end, looking completely normal. A giant flaming J was floating behind his end of the platform, which the group identified correctly as the source of the fires below.
Having received their full attention, Jeckt drew himself up into an impressive pose and said in a severe and serious voice, “Luke, I am your father.”
“Tydus. My name is Tydus.”
Jeckt did a wonderful impression of a train being violently derailed, then looked sheepishly at what he now realized was Tydus in duck form. “Ha! You must have touched the door!”
“Godsdammnit, old man!” Tydus shouted in his little duck voice, “That’s the dumbest prank I’ve ever heard off.” He yanked his sword out of his pocket dimension with his beak. It was now considerably larger and heavier that Tydus, but he nonetheless made a valiant effort to waddle over and slice open Jeckt’s stomach. He didn’t manage to take one step before falling on his beak. Jeckt laughed some more as Tydus struggled to lift the sword with the intention of doggedly trying again, then waved his hand, and suddenly Tydus was a human kneeling on the ground with a sword in his mouth. Tydus didn’t even pause to say thanks, but immediately grabbed his sword and continued to charge at his father.
“The guide says Braska’s Final Aeon is the last fight,” Tydus called to the rest as he ran. “This is really the end!”
“Sounds too good to be true, but I’ll get my hopes up anyway,” said Yuna, following along with the others.
“Remember guys,” said Jeckt, stepping backwards to the end of the platform, “only three at a time, or else that’s just unfair.” He stepped off the edge just as the group reached him.
They looked over the edge. All they could see was the burning abyss that was Zanarkand. Wakka turned to Tydus, looking worried. “We’re not supposed to follow him, are we?”
Tydus was about to consult his guide again when something that could almost be identified as a Jeckt who had been put in a blender, set on fire, electrocuted, bleached, air-brushed with lightning decals, set on fire again, then enlarged to five times his original size popped up in front of them. Needless to say, the group was a bit put off.
“Let’s do this!” Jeckt bellowed.
Ten seconds later he was back to normal and twitching on the ground while Anima did her victory dance again. “This is getting kinda stupid,” said Tydus. Yuna laughed manically.
“Son,” said Jeckt, “Come here. In my dying moments I suddenly feel like having a father-son moment and making up for years of unkindness.”
“Eat boot, old man.” Tydus proceeded to stomp on Jeckt’s face and kick him where it hurt. Five minutes of cruel abuse later, he finally stopped. “I feel a lot better. I think I might even forgive you for all the shit you’ve put me through.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jeckt wheezed. Then he dissolved into still more pyreflies.
At this point the group could no longer contain their relief that they had made it through the entirety of FFX. They danced around with wild abandon, played musical chairs, had a turkey feast, and then Wakka pulled a seven-layer cake from his pocket dimension. “Been saving it for a special occasion,” he said.
Or at least, he would have, if the moment Jeckt disappeared the platform hadn’t begun to tremble, and their surroundings to warp, until they were standing on a large sword (to put Cloud’s to shame, as seven people were standing upon it) surrounded by pinkish-orange clouds.
“Tydus, you said that was the end!” said Yuna accusingly.
“Ha, you were wrong,” said Auron. “This disproves your entire ‘player’s guide’ and means you’ve all been following a cry-baby with mental issues.”
“Give it a rest, bunny ears!” Tydus shuddered. “Ahh, guide-withdraw! Why have you failed me?”
“Ahem,” said the Bahamut fayth, standing off to the side. When they all turned to him he continued. “Remember I said we aeons would help?”
“No.”
“Really? My mistake. Summon us to beat Yu Yevon. I’m definitely telling the truth. No plans of back-stabbing here.”
“I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m suspicious…” said Rikku.
Yuna shrugged and summoned Prissy, who hadn’t seen the light of day since she had received it. As soon as he was out, a strange tick-shaped balloon spouting noxious fumes came floating in, collided with Prissy, and possessed it.
“Oh, what?!” said Tydus. “You knew this was gonna happened but you wanted to be summoned anyway?! That’s a textbook case of backstabbing if I ever saw one. Whatever. Piece of cake. He’s only got, what, 8,000HP?” He ran up and swung his sword for what was usually a 9,999 damage hit, but was shocked to see merely 502 damage to Prissy's HP. Wakka clean missed, as did Auron. Tydus spit with frustration.
Yuna summoned Anima, who also missed entirely. Prissy, however, hit Anima for half her HP. Another round of the similar left Anima flat out dead. The group stared in disbelief as Anima faded to nothing before them, leaving only Prissy stomping an impetuous hoof.
“No...” said Tydus, dropping to his knees. “No way! How is that even possible?!”
“What’re we gonna do?!” Rikku wailed.
“There’s nothing we can do!” said Wakka, “We’re all gonna die!”
Even Kimahri was running in panicked circles, grunting quietly.
It was Yuna’s turn, so they were safe as long as she did nothing. She just stood off to the side, apparently frozen with fear. In fact, she was thinking. Thinking… of an idea! “Guys,” she finally said. “Hey, guys! I’ve got an idea!”
But the rest of the group was still too busy contemplating the utter doominess of their doom in their own special ways.
“I said, I have an idea!” she yelled. The group stuttered to a halt and calmed down to listen, preparing to switch immediately to panicking again if Yuna turned out to be lying. Wakka, however, continued to run all around the sword, climbing up the Pagodas and pin wheeling at the edges, all the while screaming about the apocalypse. Yuna continued anyway. “We don’t need no stinkin’ aeons. Look.” She doublecast Ultima, costing 2MP total and annihilating Prissy. Yu Yevon staggered his oversized tick body out of the dying aeon.
The group switched instantly from abject terror to cautious optimism, and then gradually reached their usual level of godly arrogance. Magic never missed, no aeon could withstand more than four hits, and with her legendary weapon Yuna could cast until her arms fell off. Only Auron could find something to complain about. “If only Lulu had her legendary weapon, since she also has Doublecast and Ultima. Or really, if only I had my legendary weapon, I could kill them all in one hit, combined. And what if Yuna doesn’t get a turn and we all die?” Okay, a lot of something…
Tydus scribbled down Auron’s complaints and his answers, just to make sure he got it right. “One, if you’d prefer to stand around dodging lightning for hours, or going all over spira killing ten of everything, be my guest. Two, you just lied to my face. Three, we all have Auto-life, so there’s room for error!”
“That’s what this halo thing is?” said Rikku. “Kinda creepy…”
“A little. We are on a giant sword floating somewhere inside Sin battling an oversized possessive tick, you know.”
Tydus, Rikku, and Lulu struck up some small talk while Yuna summoned and instantly murdered all the aeons she had painstakingly searched for and prayed to. Wakka was trying to get Auron to be his therapist, as he felt the mistaken sighting of his impending doom had strummed the last string of his sanity a tad too hard and he had snapped.
Yuna finished and approached the group of, some might need reminding, her guardians. “Okay, we’re done.”
“Nice,” said Tydus. “So where’s Yu Yevon?”
“Dead. He showed up after the aeons. I sent him, too.”
“What?! So, it’s over?”
“You seem less happy than one would expect…”
“I just didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to everyone,” Tydus sniffed.
“Wha—“
“Yuna, omigod!” Wakka ran up to them. He seemed to be trying his best to initiate his own personal heart attack. “I was over there talking to Auron and he just disappeared!”
Tydus and Yuna gave him the Raised Eyebrow.
“I did not push him off the side! Omigod, it wasn’t me! I just want to go home and lie in bed and stare at the ceiling fan and never step foot outside ever again!”
Tydus laughed. “Dude, it’s cool. He was dead before we got here.”
This did not help Wakka. His brain shut down before he could die of stress, and he fell unconscious to the ground. Tydus began to dance around like, um… like a giddy school girl at the thought of Auron being gone, not to mention his old man. He tripped over Wakka and did a faceplant. Yuna couldn’t not laugh. I mean, when is a faceplant not funny? Okay, Tiny Tim faceplant isn’t funny…
“You’ll get yours!” Tydus muttered at Yuna.
Around this time, the entire group was transported back to the Airship in time to avoid becoming crushed in the collapsing super deluxe pocket dimension inside Sin. From the outside, Sin was dissolving into more pyreflies than there are stars in the galaxy, grains of sand in one square kilometer of beach, grams of fat in Wakka’s mom. Oh! Zing!
Though it was now the early hours of the morning, these pyreflies lit up the sky around them like day. Tydus could clearly see that Yuna was crying.
“Ah, gods,” Yuna sobbed. “I’m being compelled to try to hug your inexplicably fading body!”
Tydus looked at his hands. “Oh hey, look at that!”
Yuna ran forward and tripped, her face meeting the deck a full four feet from Tydus’s awesome boots, which haven’t been getting nearly enough screen time up till now. Yuna was paralyzed with embarrassment.
“Comeuppance!” Tydus crowed. “And in my short lifetime, even.” He glanced again at his body, observing yesterday’s dinner still being digested in his stomach. He couldn’t help but feel a bit worried about that.
From deep in Yuna’s throat came a primal growl. She climbed to her feet slowly and deliberately. The look in her eyes caused Tydus to take a nervous step backwards. The beauty of Sin’s death was lost on the entire group as they watched intently.
Yuna lunged at him, but Tydus was ready. He instantly turned and ran away. While running he quickly took out and glanced over his “Things to do Before I Die” list, gave “Have sexual relations with female lead” a miss, and crossed out “sky dive” just as he reached the edge of the deck. “Cowabunga!” he yelled before dropping out of sight.
Yuna stopped dead at the deck’s edge, pin wheeling and flabbergasted. The rest of the group looked around uneasily, wondering if they could become accessories to murder for this.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me he was suicidal?” Yuna demanded.
“We all went on this mission,” said Lulu. “I’d imagine we’re all quite unstable and liable to jump from extreme heights at any moment.”
Wakka, once again conscious, shied away from the edge.
“Hey, Auron,” said Rikku, “What’s up with Tydus? Oh, wait, he’s gone. I guess we’ll never know.”
As Tydus fell, he realized two things: that clouds were actually made of very wet, and very cold, water, and a fervent hope that the faiths in the wall would wake up faster. He made a third realization that logically his body was somewhere stuck in that same wall and began to worry that his face had been next to someone’s butt for a thousand years. He continued to reflect that Jeckt must also be in the wall, and wondered why exactly he showed up in Spira in the first place. It occurred to him that Jeckt might have been the fayth’s first attempt at stopping Sin. Must have drawn straws, Tydus thought, sniggering.
By this point he imagined he was about halfway to the ground, and the surroundings were finally beginning to resemble the Farplane. Tydus was becoming tired of all this thinking, so he tried some freefall stunts. He stopped short in a complicated multi-directional somersault when he noticed two objects that were decidedly un-cloud-like hanging stationary below him. Closer inspection revealed Jeckt and Auron. Tydus’s immediate reaction was dread at the thought that he was going to the same place as them, and that clearly the Farplane was no substitution for Heaven.
Tydus adjusted himself to a collision vector. Jeckt apparently misinterpreted this action and held out his hand for a high five. Tydus pulled himself into a streamline bullet, picking up speed.
“Hey there, son!” Jeckt called.
“Closer… closer…” Tydus murmured. He stretched his arm out behind him.
“Put ‘er there , son!” Jeckt continued optimistically.
The arm flew forward. Tydus’s fist collides magnificently with Jeckt’s face. In his joy he forgot to watch his landing and did a belly flop into the lake of the Farplane.
It turns out, there’s a McDonald’s there, too.
Back on the deck of the Airship, Wakka was leaning against the bay door, smoking a cigarette. He felt pleased with his decision on how to deal with his insanity. He would kill everyone in Spira. That’d teach them to cause him all this stress.
The remaining guardians stood with their summoner and watched the sun rise.
One month later…
Yuna stood at the edge of a pier in Luca, whistling across the clear blue ocean. This is an allusion to something that never happened because I’m lazy. I’m not sorry. Anyway, for whatever reason, she whistled. Then she waited. Nothing happened.
Lulu walked up behind her and watched for a minute. A minute later, Yuna was starting to hyperventilate. “That would be much more effective if you were currently visiting the Farplane, you know.” She turned to walk back.
Yuna glared at the back of her head, but followed Lulu to the stadium. She was due to give a speech…
The stadium was packed with more people than usually came to see blitz games, and seeing how blitzball was basically the only national sport, and this was the only real stadium, that’s saying something. Now one wonders, “Why are they doing this at the blitzball stadium? Don’t they have any other public meeting places?” and the answer is, “Because the stadium was already computer-generated.”
Yuna stepped up to the mike, a small part of a whole new sound system installed by the Al Bhed. She took a calming breath, and then…
As loud as she could…
She scream…
“You selfish *bleepers*! We go all over the place saving your *bleeping* *bleeps*, but all you did was charge us for products and services and make us jump through hoops for rare items! Kilika gave us all sorts of free stuff, and that was after their entire village got *bleeping* destroyed! You all made life difficult, and you don’t deserve a proper speech!”
This could have gone badly, but thankfully the audience was now completely deaf without exception.
You can just imagine the repercussions of such an event, because this is
THE END
and I’ve stopped narrating.