Spira's Revenge

by M'jai

Written 4/2006

Revised 12/12 2010

Revised 12/4/2020

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This is book four in a series. Books one through three are Spira's Dream, Spira's Sphere, and Neogenesis. This story is heavily dependent on the concepts initially presented in those.

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Disclaimer:

The original setting, characters, and inspiration for the plot all belong to Square Enix. Fans of the game will recognize which content is not mine, so I do not even pretend to take credit for it. My appreciation goes out to Square Enix and their game designers for giving us such inspiring entertainment.

Any resemblance between my fan-fic and other FFX2 fan-fics is purely unintentional. After all, we are all playing the same game, so it's pretty easy to draw some similar theories out of it. Hopefully, it will pack a few new surprises, though.

Please keep in mind this is a revision of an old, previously published story written before having a chance to play or see any extra official content beyond FFX2. So those events were not taken into account.

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Chapter 1: Spirit of Revenge

The summoner appeared out of thin air amid the dark halls of the Via Infinito. It was a dangerous place, this bottomless gateway into Spira's Hell, and he was overly aware of the fiends that could appear before him and strike him down at any given moment. He came here only once before, and it had been incredibly risky to return. The nightmare that haunted him had insisted, though. He was sure this was the place that held the answers to his questions. As his sharp, green eyes darted from side to side in the foul-smelling maze of barely lit tunnels, he became angry that he had been chosen to carry out the nightmare's demands. In a cruel twist of misfortune, years of groundwork and planning had been stolen. However, if this plan succeeded, there was the possibility of great reward—revenge and continuance.

A scream echoed through the labyrinth, and the summoner felt his heart jump into his lungs. Backing into the wall, he hoped to blend with the shadows. A ghostly woman fell from somewhere above to the floor of this level of the pit. Spira, the spirit of eternal life that sustained the planetoid ship's bio-mechanics, pushed her broken body up from the floor and ran down the hall in the opposite direction from where he stood. Though he knew who the ghost was and why she relived the terror of her death countless times a day so that her life energy could fuel the magical dimensions within the ship and the material dimension outside of them, the summoner breathed a sigh of relief when she was gone. She was not the spirit he sought. And yet, the subjects of his search were more deadly.

When he was alone again, or at least when he could see no other spirits, the summoner brushed a long strand of sand-colored hair behind his jeweled ear and continued his cautious trek down the haunted corridors. The soft soles of his leather boots and the multiple layers of his profession's colorful robes made only the faintest sound against the seamless floor as he walked.

"I know you're here," he whispered into the shadows. "You're in this place of unrest. You have to be. No one with designs like yours would be content to go to the Farplane for eternity."

His steps came to a sudden halt as he took note of an elder drake crossing the corridor perpendicular to the one in which he stood. He dare not go any further because he could not afford to alert the large beast to his presence. Sweating like an ice-cold glass on a hot summer day, he made himself stand perfectly still until the fiend passed. Then, again, the summoner sighed with relief. "My magic is weak from my ordeal, so I cannot defend myself down here!" he hissed. "Please, I beg of you, if you hear me, appear!"

A ghostly form flickered in and out of a mist that appeared before him. "You have the power to summon the dead, yet you resort to cowardly begging?"

The summoner nearly jumped out of his skin at the apparition's response, though he was mildly insulted by its condescending tone. "My magic is weak right now," he repeated with a snarl.

"Then you were foolish to come here without an appropriate defense."

"No more foolish than a spirit who chooses eternal unrest," the summoner bitterly answered.

The ghost remained calm, though his brows dipped to match the bitter tone. "I am here to avoid being there. I hope you have something more interesting than complaints, or I might decide you should join me."

"I came to ask a favor. There are those among the dead who seek another spirit, but without living bodies, they cannot enter the Farplane without being trapped for eternity."

"Forgive me if I do not sympathize."

"My summoning magic is too weak to draw out the spirit they seek. And even if I could summon him, he is far too dangerous to control. The spirits that haunt me told me to seek a more powerful summoner, such as yourself, for advice."

The ghost softly chuckled. "My dear, Meimo, if I could bring the dead back to life, don't you think I would start with myself?"

"But it is possible to resurrect the dead," the summoner darkly reminded the apparition before him. "Yevon did it. He brought them back and molded them into powerful guardians."

"True. However, dead souls cannot return to life in the same manner that they leave. The complex and morbid nature of creating aeons from sacrificial deaths pushed Yu Yevon beyond the boundary between what is holy and what is profane. No one understood this better than me. But like you, I could only summon aeons; I could not create them. If you wish to bring the dead back to life, you will need the same kind of magic that creates aeons. And for that, you will have to speak with Yevon himself. He is not here, so he must be in the Farplane, which means he regrets his former deeds. He will not want to help someone else repeat his mistakes. He may even try to stop you. And unless you have the magical strength to command him, you cannot make him divulge his most jealously guarded secrets."

Meimo swallowed nervously. The spirit was probably right.

"Perhaps, you and I could come to an agreement, instead," the spirit suggested as it moved one step closer to the traumatized summoner. "I know for a fact that Yevon's magic regarding the creation of aeons and Sin was somehow related to the guado magic that helped create this ship. As a former Maester of Yevon, I can tell you that the temples contain evidence among several well-hidden spheres that the founding father of the guado used the same kind of magic to create an aeon and a spirit guardian for all of Spira."

Meimo gave a weary sigh. "I have seen these spheres. I have even seen the spirit of the ship and awakened the aeon he created. They are of no help to us."

The spirit dampened his genuine surprise. "You awakened Maedra's aeon?"

"I found the hidden tomb and got Yuna to break the seal. Then I petrified both of them to prevent her from commanding it, but she escaped somehow. Yuna now has control of the only aeon left on Spira."

"Yuna ..." The ghost was silent for a moment, lost in memories. "Commanding is not creating," he reminded Meimo. "For Yevon to create aeons like Maedra, he must have found some way to tap into the ancient master's Art. And like all good students of the magic arts, Yevon probably kept journals of his studies and accomplishments." The soft-spoken ghost smiled at the living man's predicament and moved around him, stopping behind him to speak over his shoulder. A long tendril of light blue hair slipped between their cheeks. "If you can find Yevon's notes on how he created the aeons and bring them to me, I might be able to give your fiendish friends the new bodies they need to walk the Farplane like the living."

Meimo tilted his chin slightly to look at the dead summoner he had dared to consult, but instead of a ghostly half-guado, he found himself facing a grinning skeleton. Seymour had faded away without warning, and three liches had drawn near to Meimo from behind. Their cold, bony hands immediately grabbed his face, hair, robes. He was horrified to find himself so abruptly caught in their grasp. As he struggled to free himself, he cast a spell to teleport out of the Via Infinito the same way he teleported into it.

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Behind the fiends, Seymour Guado brooded in the darkness where his former colleague stood. Over the years that he had known Meimo as a temple summoner, he learned that the man had many unusual, strong talents. Summoning, oddly enough, wasn't one of them. Meimo would be back. Seymour was sure of that. But he was curious about why Meimo was so weak in the first place.

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The white dragon aeon had grown a little larger than a great dane since the day Yuna opened its seal. When summoned for training, the baby dragon had a tendency to lope around with the same lack of grace, too. It was every bit the proverbial bull in the glass shop. So most of the time, it wasn't allowed onboard the Celsius. On this particular morning, however, it had an errand.

Arantisu trotted up the stairs to the loft where some of the Gullwings slept, and she sniffed Paine's bed. It was empty and already made, so she moved to Rikku's bed and sniffed the toes of an exposed foot from beneath the covers. The strawberry blond Al-Bhed giggled in her sleep at the ticklish sensation, kicking Arantisu's sensitive snout. Trotting to the next bed, the little dragon placed her chin on the edge and stared at Yuna's face. Yuna was still asleep, too.

The aeon's bright blue eyes shifted from one side to the other in silent observation, resisting the urge to jump on the bed and snuggle with her summoner, but Yuna was not her mission. With a slight whimper, the little dragon turned away from the bed and shuffled toward the unfolded futon. After locating the young man sprawled in the tangled covers, she sat on the floor, set her chin on the edge of his mattress, and began purring loudly.

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Tidus opened one eye and saw nothing but dragon snout. With a groan, he rolled over, facing the other direction.

After a few minutes of being ignored, Arantisu stood on her hind legs and propped her forelegs on his back.

"Go away," came the grouchy response, muffled within the pillow. But that only prompted the baby dragon to hop onto the futon, onto his bare back. Tidus's eyes widened, then winced as the weight of each foot pressed down on his spine, and sharp talons began to knead his ribs. "Atch-tch-tch! Get off me! And cut your freakin' toenails!"

Arantisu circled, settled, and slurped a long, forked tongue across Tidus's face before he could close his mouth.

The blitzball player barely had time to be grossed out before the dragon rolled over in a luxurious, long stretch and pushed him off the futon. Tidus hit the floor in an awkward thud. "Ugh! Barf … Stupid dragon ..." He needed mouthwash, facewash, and antiseptic. STAT.

Yuna heard his fall and lifted her head to see what happened, but she couldn't help but laugh when she saw Arantisu sprawled comfortably across the futon while Tidus was stuck on the floor with an outrageous blond bedhead.

"Hey," Rikku complained, lifting her head from her pillow. "Some of us were sleeping, you know."

"Ya think?" Tidus untangled his feet from the covers that spilled onto the floor with him. Then, he stood and scowled at the baby dragon occupying his entire bed. "That's the third time this week Paine's sent her in to wake me up like that. It's not funny anymore."

"Sure, it is," Yuna disagreed with a sleepy grin. "You just need to see it from this angle."

Tidus gave Yuna a look of droll impatience, despite her amusement.

"Shall I send her away?" she offered, trying not to smile. Banishing the aeon back to the plane of magic was a simple task, but Arantisu really seemed to enjoy being around people.

"Nah, that won't solve anything. I'll handle this." Tidus marched down the stairs into the central part of the cabin.

Arantisu sat up and hopped off of the futon to trot behind him.

Tidus strode through the empty kitchen and down the long hall of the airship to the lift. He touched the control panel that would take him to the ground level but was shoved further into it as the dragon squeezed itself into the lift with him. "Oi, OI!" He bit off his urge to curse as the dragon shifted and turned. Tidus had no choice but to lean over the control panel. The doors had trouble closing, and when they did, the lift gave a peculiar sounding lurch before grinding to a halt. Disgusted, he dropped his chin onto a fist on top of the control panel's screen. "Great. Now I'm stuck in an elevator with an animal that exceeds the safe weight limit, crammed into the corner so that I can't move, and I didn't even get to use the toilet first."

Fortunately, the lift's gears started turning again, and the jerky descent ended when the lift's doors opened at the bottom. The dragon uncoiled her bulky body and totted down the ramp that opened onto the beach. Tidus let out his breath without realizing he'd been holding it. Then, he also crossed the belly of the airship toward the ramp. Hooking the top rim of the airship's doorway with his fingertips, he paused a moment to watch Arantisu run to the female warrior with short silver hair and receive a treat for completing her mission. The blitzball player frowned and released his hold on the door. Jogging down the ramp, he ran along the shore toward them.

Under the apricot sunrise, the sand was cool, and the air was crisp and refreshing because neither had absorbed the day's strongest rays yet. But he wasn't about to let the beauty of the morning distract him from the fact that he had been—literally—rolled out of bed early. "What's the big idea sending her after me like that again?" he complained to Paine as he drew near. "I would have got up on time on my own, you know."

Paine glanced at the sun and then glanced over his baggy shorts, bare feet, and messy hair. "Of course." The tall, reserved woman with crimson eyes patted the white dragon's supple scales and headed toward the sparring poles she had already set up in the wet sand.

"You've got to stop sending Arantisu up there to drag me out of bed," he protested, following. "She's too big to be on the Celsius now. She nearly collapsed the lift this time."

"Then you need a smaller alarm clock."

"I don't need an alarm clock. I'm always up in time for blitzball training."

"But you're always late for weapons training."

"Because it's too early in the morning," he argued. "Not even birds are up this early."

As if to purposefully contradict him, a large seagull squawked, soaring low overhead before landing in the ebb to seek little crabs before they could bury themselves in the tide pools.

"We moved your weapons training to sunrise because you said you were too tired in the evenings." Paine pulled her garment grid from her shorts pocket and switched it to retrieve her two-handed sword, then shoved the tip into the sand, so it would stand on its own for a moment. "I don't suppose you remembered to bring your own sword while you were busy dressing to come out here?" Without waiting for his answer, she turned her garment grid selection again to find a suitable substitute for him.

Tidus scratched his unbrushed hair and opened his mouth to protest again, but he ate his words as he looked down at his bare chest, folded his arms across himself, and tried to remember where his garment grid even was.

Paine recognized that look and responded with a flat sigh of disgust. "Tidus, either you need to get serious about these lessons, or you need to drop them. I'm more than willing to train you, but it's not my responsibility to make you show up."

"Well, I've studied hand-to-hand techniques with you for about a year now, and I already know how to use a sword, so ... maybe I'll just drop the training," he answered in a somewhat cocky manner, folding his arms in defiance.

She blinked back at him. "You do not know how to use a sword."

"I may not have had formal lessons, but I can slice and dice whatever gets in my way. I invent my own moves, babe."

"Babe?" She drew another sword from her garment grid and pressed the hilt into his forearm.

"Oh, come on! You know my fighting style by now."

"Humor me."

Tidus begrudgingly accepted the sword and the challenge. Walking a few paces away from the padded bamboo stick in the sand, he turned to face it and tried hard to concentrate though he had just woken up. With a growl, he ran for the stick and began hacking at its left and right sides. Pieces of the padded post chipped and flew away until there was nothing left of it except the unprotected stub that remained buried in the sand. When he finished, he proudly held out a hand and grinned. "Ne? Eh?" He nudged her with his elbow, expecting a compliment. "And that was without using magic to speed things up," he breathlessly reminded her. "My sword skills are fine. And now that you've taught techniques without swords, too, there's nothing more to learn."

Paine said nothing as she pulled the used bamboo stick out of the sand and rammed another one down into it, twisting it firmly into place. Then, she turned and paced only a few steps away from the pole before whirling and drawing her blade. She sliced up and back in two oblique arcs from shoulder to hip. The pole seemed untouched, and she had barely moved at all.

"Hah!" Tidus stepped forward to touch the pole. "You didn't even hit—" The top half slid off at gut level where he tapped it, one single slice, clean-cut all the way through. The blitzball player faced the warrior with a frown. "Show off."

Paine was about to deliver a sarcastic gem in response when both of them heard someone coughing and sputtering from behind the dunes nearby. Stepping around Tidus, Paine jogged to the dune behind him. Tidus followed. There, they were astonished to find a man drenched with seawater, lying in the sand. He had shoulder-length, razor-cut hair in an unusual shade of blue, but his eyes were shut tight, as if in pain. He looked as if he'd been washed ashore from some kind of horrible ordeal. Paine put away her sword and hurried to his side.

"Is he all right?" Tidus stepped around them into the shallow tide and knelt on the other side to turn the stranger over.

"The fact that he's coughing means he can breathe, but he looks pretty banged up." She indicated the red marks on his arms and legs.

"Looks like something tried to slice and dice him while we were playing with sticks." Tidus looked over his shoulder, but the water behind them looked clear of any predators, natural or otherwise. Regardless of how the stranger came to be in such bad condition, there was no question he needed help. Tidus passed the borrowed sword back to Paine, who put both weapons back into her result plate. Then, he turned his back toward their castaway and pulled his arms over his shoulders. "Help me take him to Yuna." When Paine positioned the stranger securely over Tidus's back, the blitzball player stood and carried him back to the ship.

Arantisu sniffed the person carried by her two friends, but Paine signaled with a firm hand gesture that the baby dragon was not to follow. "Arantisu, stay. This man is wounded. Guard the ship out here for now."

The little aeon responded with a throaty whimper but sat in the sand and watched her humans hurry to the ship without her.

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Fresh from a shower, Yuna wrapped one large, fluffy, blue towel around her body before wrapping another around her long, unbraided hair. No matter how long the towel, her hair was always longer and dripped on the floor anyway. Wiping the steam from the mirror, she studied her face. She was only twenty years old, but she thought she seemed noticeably older than when she checked yesterday. The crew had recently celebrated the first anniversary of Tidus's return to Spira, and he was eighteen now. But other than having slightly longer hair, he didn't look a day older than when they first met. She tried not to let this worry her, but sometimes, now and then, it just did.

After returning from the library's opening in Zanarkand last week, Yuna felt reluctant to return to her official duties as the official representative of Besaid Island. Part of her wanted to do something more exciting, like sphere hunting. Now more than ever, she had a reason to keep hunting lost recordings of Spira's history. But Rikku and Paine had been doing all of the legwork recently so she could spend time with Tidus and take care of business with the leaders of Spira's various factions. She was grateful for the time spent with Tidus, of course. But even he had his hands full with blitzball playoffs. Now that his Aurochs had won the championship, he could take a short vacation before helping out with the sphere hunting … if Paine allowed him to sleep in, that is.

Yuna giggled, remembering his rude awakening, and reached for her face cream to begin smearing it on her cheeks. "There will be plenty of time to worry about official concerns later. We should do something fun for vacation," she told her mirror-self and began humming one of the new songs she learned for her previous concert until loud banging on the door startled her.

"Yuna! We need some help out here!" Tidus called from the other side.

Yuna looked at the cream in her hands and scurried to the door. "Now? Can it wait a few minutes?" She waited for a response that didn't come. "I'm not dressed yet," she called through the door. But there was still no response. Groaning at the inconvenience but deciding it was probably best to see what was going on, she set down the face cream and opened the door. Tidus, Paine, and Rikku were trying to carry someone up the stairs to the loft.

"Is he okay? Where did you find him? What's his name?" Rikku bombarded the other two with questions.

"Yuna!" Tidus called once more.

Yuna heard the urgency in his tone, so she clutched a hand over the tucked-in end of her towel and ran up the stairs after them. "What's happened? Oh no! Was he attacked by something?"

Rikku cleared space on her bed, then Tidus turned his back to it and gently lowered the injured young man onto it. As Rikku and Paine balanced him to prevent either of them from falling, Yuna checked the stranger's vital signs.

"Aahh!" Tidus jumped back at seeing her face covered in white cream.

"Oh, stop." Yuna lightly smacked his arm, then examined her patient's cuts. "These wounds contain some kind of venom. Hopefully, we're not too late." She placed her hands over the wounds, one-by-one, and drew out the venom with her healing magic.

Tidus leaned forward with curiosity. "What's that stuff on your face?"

She paused and frowned at his question. "Facial cleanser with moisturizer. Is there a problem?"

"Ah ... no. Nope. Not at all." He backed one step away. "Just hurry up and take it off. It's kinda scary."

"Rude!" Rikku cuffed the blitzball player's arm. "Don't say something like that to a girl who's trying to look pretty for you."

"I didn't mean—"

"Moisturizer helps prevent wrinkles," Yuna told Tidus, somewhat miffed. "I have to take care of my skin. I'm not timeless, you know." Insulted and pouting, Yuna turned her attention back to the stranger, who was finally opening his eyes. "How do you feel?" she asked and checked his forehead for signs of fever.

The stranger's eyes were a crystal-blue color that perfectly matched his hair. Initially, he sighed with relief that his pain was gone. But then, his breath caught in his throat as he stared wide-eyed at the sight of the white-faced woman hovering over him.

Yuna realized what startled him and immediately straightened, clutching her towel, beet red with embarrassment beneath her foamy white mask. "Fine. I'll wash my face. But next time, I don't want to hear any complaints if I need to finish my skincare routine before answering your call for help!" she fussed at Tidus before running back downstairs to the bathroom.

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Tidus was left blinking in her wake, mute and confused about what he did wrong.

"I'm ... sorry." The stranger slowly pushed himself into a seated position on the bed. "I didn't mean to offend." He carefully extended and examined his healed arms. "I wanted to thank her."

"Well, you couldn't offend her any worse than her own boyfriend did." Rikku flashed Tidus an unhappy frown and cuffed his arm again for good measure.

"Ow!" He rubbed his arm. "I didn't say anything about the goop on her face that time."

"Boyfriend ..." The stranger's eyes fell on Tidus with a pause that almost registered astonishment.

"Yuna's been a little tense lately," Paine explained. "You can thank her when she comes back."

Rikku sat on the edge of the bed facing the stranger. "So, what's your name?"

The stranger was quiet for a moment before he answered with a light smile and polite head-bob. "Mekoshiko."

"Wow, that's a really complicated name. Me-ko-chi-ko-chi?"

The stranger chuckled at her failed attempt to pronounce it. "It's an old, unusual name passed down through several generations. You can call me Meko if it helps."

"I like Mekochikochi better." Rikku grinned, liking the rhythm of her new word.

Paine popped the back of Rikku's head, causing the younger Al-Bhed to yelp and rub the sore spot. "Now look who's being rude."

Tidus leaned forward, hands on knees. "What happened to you out there?"

"I'm not really sure," Meko answered. "I fell overboard, and the next thing I knew ... I was here."

"Overboard? I didn't see any ships." Tidus looked up at Paine. "Did you?"

She shook her head. "Where are you from? We can ask Brother to give you a lift home."

"Oh, thank you. I'm not sure how far I've drifted, but I'm from Zanarkand."

Rikku, Paine, and Tidus stopped breathing in the same instant and exchanged astonished glances.

Tidus straightened with suspicion. "This Zanarkand? Or the old one?"

Mekoshiko snorted at the ludicrous question. "There's only one Zanarkand. It's one of the biggest cities in Spira. It also has one of the biggest blitzball arenas. I know I don't look like much right now, but I play for the Duggles."

Tidus cautiously leaned forward again, studying the stranger's face, trying to judge whether he should recognize him or not. He didn't.

The stranger blinked at their concerned expressions. "Did I say something wrong?"