Don't Steal My Sunglasses Chapter 21: Ender, a final fantasy x fanfic

READ THIS. READ THIS. READ THIS. READ THIS. READ THIS.

Ahem. For those of you who thought that the story was over…

SHAME. ON. YOU. (slapbackhand)

I would never leave you hanging like that! Shame on you for thinking that at all. What of Ender? What of Mazrim? What of Elayne and Edward? Did you think that I had possessed absolutely no intention of finishing their story? SHHHHAME. When, in some of your reviews, I got the idea that you all thought that I was going to stop it there, I teared up. I really did. And you know something? I cry less than Auron does.

Definition of "sequel": Something that follows; a continuation. A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.

THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL.

Did I mention that THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL?

From here on out, please read the opening author's notes I put in my fics. This is the last chapter of Don't Steal My Sunglasses, but not the last of the series. I'm sorry to have to do this, but if you have read the opening author's note in this chapter, include my pen name (or part of it) somewhere in your review. I don't want any apologies—I really don't deserve them since I didn't make my point clear enough in the last opening note and I just ranted at all of you for my mistake. I should be apologizing to all of you, now.

Sorry, everyone. End rant here.

For the first time in eighty-thousand-odd words,

Disclaimer: I do not own: FFX or its characters/locations/ideas. (tear)

I DO own: this plot that doesn't include the original FFX plot, the idea of the deathday, and the characters Ender, Mazrim, Elayne, Edward, Reina, and more to come, including new locations.

See? Y'all done gone made me so durn mad that I remembered to put a disclaimer.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the final chapter of Don't Steal My Sunglasses.

THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL.

It was by this time that the thoughts had begun to repeat themselves over and over in Auron's head. Questions circulated like mad, going unanswered every time they arose.

He looked down at his hands; he was fading away again. Maybe he would actually die this time…when had he died the first time? What was his name, again?

He concluded that he was losing his memory bit by bit because his life force was fading. The life force supported the memories. No life force meant no memories. What was a life force?

A small sound caught his attention and he looked up, seeing a crack in one of the mirrors. A high splintering sound was made as all of them cracked the same way, then a burst of clinking and clattering as his prison shattered.

Night had turned into day with barely any warning. The stars had shone brightly all night, rivaling the moon with their brilliance before the sun had come to drown them out. Now the golden sphere hung gently in the sky, burning away the few clouds that passed under.

None of the guardians had gotten ample sleep; people were bursting with questions for them, mostly for Yuna—what was it like? How long was the fight? Was anyone hurt?

And, very occasionally, "Where is Sir Auron?"

Rikku had asked herself this question many times. Where had he faded away to? Where was he now? Was he finally, genuinely happy?

"Ceasing to exist" was something that people did when they "died." They were transferred to another world, the Farplane—a world that the living could not enter—so they consequently ceased to exist in the living's eyes. But Auron…just where had he faded away to? There had to be somewhere. People can't disappear forever. Everyone eventually sees each other again, right?

She had begun to look at the world in a different manner. Not as a bubbly and peppy Al Bhed, but as a speculator of the world itself. She had time to do that, now. She didn't have any intention of turning stoic, but for once in her life she wanted to see the world through someone else's eyes. Maybe by examining the world, she could find an answer as to why her heart hurt so much.

Of course, she already knew the answer to that. But she needed a distraction to satisfy her denial. The fact that Auron was really, truly gone had hit as soon as it had happened, but maybe that was the only reason she wasn't as pained as she should have been. As soon as the stars had begun to shine and accept him into the sky, her heart had begun to shine the same way to accept his departure.

But there was still pain.

With help from the still-loyal guardians, Yuna had gotten all the sleep she needed as they stood guard at her door. Rikku'd had the most shifts; she had doubted that there was any chance of sleep on her part.

The next morning she had been pleasantly drowsy. She remembered wandering off to the docks to watch the sun rise; she remembered the escalating pink and orange being reflected off of a dark black surface that she held in her hand. She remembered a drop of water falling onto the black surface, distorting the image of the rising sun. She dismissed it as one of the waves cresting and getting her wet, but then more droplets fell and she gave the sky a quizzical look, wondering why she couldn't see the rain. It was all over her face, after all.

She remembered falling asleep on that dock, dreaming of red and bravery, of sacrifice and suffering. An embrace that surrounded her, comforted her, a low sound that made her feel at home. White wings…A shield that protected her over and over again. She dreamed of the shield vanishing, leaving a shield to hide the rain that would fall behind. And then an earthquake. The whole world was shaking…

"Wake up…gah. Come on, Rikku! We're gonna be late!"

She moaned and sat up, realizing that her face was crusty with dried tears. Frowning, she scrubbed them away. Shoot…her face was probably all puffy.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Tidus greeted. "You actually woke up!"

"Yeah." She looked up and stared. Something must have been in her expression, because Tidus sighed and took a seat next to her, staring out at the waves.

"You know," he began, "Auron was my old man for longer than my dad was my old man."

Rikku blinked. "Huh?"

"Well…" Tidus paused, trying to find words. "What I'm trying to say was that Jecht took care of me for seven years, and Auron watched over me for ten."

"Really?"

Tidus nodded. "Yeah. At first, I thought that he was trying to replace my old man, so I began to hate him, too. But after my mom died, I realized that he was actually a good guy." He stopped to laugh. "He pretty much took over the role as 'daddy' then. He showed that he cared. He helped me grow up, but he didn't hold my hand every step of the way, you know? He taught me how to grow up on my own. Be independent."

He put his hands behind his head and leaned back, laying down on the dock. "I guess that must've been the way he grew up…only a little happier on my part."

Rikku nodded slightly in agreement, and Tidus growled.

"Gahh. Where am I going with this? I suck at pep talks."

"You don't have to cheer me up." She surprised herself with the monotonousness of her tone. "I get it. He's gone."

Tidus sat up, a worried expression on his face. "Come on, Rikku. None of us want to lose the peppy Al Bhed that we all know and love—don't go quiet now! Auron leaving shouldn't have that much of an effect on you, ri…?"

Rikku was silent, and had begun to fiddle with the sunglasses in her hand, staring down at the x bridge as a distraction. Tidus's frown deepened.

"You didn't…" He paused. "You kinda liked him, didn't you?"

Rikku nodded softly, so slightly that anyone not watching intently wouldn't have noticed it. Tidus hung his head.

"Aww, man. I feel really bad, now. He pretty much killed himself for me, but now you're hurt because of it." He fell silent for a moment, then stood and turned to her. "Okay. Uhh…you know what?" She looked up. "Auron didn't have the chance to live, so I think he would have wanted you to live for him. He wanted all of us to live in his place, you know? That's why he gave his life for me. So we could all be together." He offered his hand. "I think that he thinks that he did the right thing. So feel better, okay?"

She smiled, took his hand and let herself be pulled to a stand.

"Hey, Tidus?"

"Uh-huh?"

She slipped what had become her most prized possession in her pocket, and gave him a familiar mischievous grin. "Race ya."

She took off at a dead run toward the Luca stadium, leaving Tidus to stand behind with the most precious look on his face.

Ella tensed. "We have to go," she growled at Edward, "now!"

Bahamut gasped and muttered something about his sight of Auron disappearing. As soon as he noticed Elayne dashing toward the wall where the door had been, he looked to the other fayth. Yojimbo leaped forward and caught Edward before he went any farther. Elayne herself was restrained by the Magus Sisters. She was much stronger than them and knew their movements before they came; she spun to the side and smashed her fist into Mindy's neck. The fayth fell to the floor and the woman leaped over her, continuing her dash to the nonexistent door. Skidding to a stop and taking advantage of her momentum, she drew back a fist and punched the wall head on. The marble only dented a foot by a foot, but that was all she needed.

"Edward!"

He had already gotten Yojimbo off of his back and was sending hundreds upon thousands of pyreflies at the wall. Ella leaped into the air to avoid the blast, landing smoothly and escaping the White Room at a dead run. Ahead of them was only darkness.

Bahamut could only stare after them in shock. He quickly tried to contact Ifrit and Shiva, who were the most familiar to the touch of his mind, but they were out of his reach on the route.

It was suddenly every man for himself.

Tidus and Rikku arrived at the maester's box at the same time, stooping over to pant while receiving several looks from their comrades. Rikku looked up and grinned, and Yuna chuckled.

The whole stadium was abuzz with excitement; there were so many people present that hundreds were forced to stand. They didn't seem to mind, though, since the happy fuss was contagious.

"You ready?" Wakka asked the summoner. She nodded and, without another word, stepped to the edge of the maester's box. It was as if a spell had been cast over the stadium. Everyone fell silent immediately, waiting for the words of their beloved summoner—no, High Summoner. Yuna was silent for a moment more before she held her head high and began to speak.

"Everyone has lost something precious," she said, her voice strong as it swept across the stadium for all to hear. "Everyone here has lost hopes, dreams, and friends. Everybody…"

A smile spread across her face. "Now, Sin is finally dead. Now, Spira is ours again. Working together, we can make new homes for ourselves, and new dreams."

A soft wave of clapping spread across the stadium. "Although I know the journey will be hard," continued Yuna, "we have lots of time. Together, we will rebuild Spira. The road is ahead of us, so let's start out today!"

A roar of approval erupted from the crowd, and Yuna turned to see the reactions of her friends. Wakka punched the air as Tidus walked up and put a hand on her shoulder. Yuna laid her eyes on Rikku and jumped, quickly turning back to the crowd.

"Just one more thing, everyone!" she tried to say, but the crowd's cheers drowned her out. Tidus waved a hand for silence, calling out until the whole stadium had settled down. Yuna stepped forward again.

"The people and the friends that we have lost—or the dreams that have faded…"

Her audience waited patiently for her next words, "Never forget them."

That day, Rikku got the feeling that somehow, somewhere, Auron was watching over them.

That day, she received something that, from then on, never allowed her to forget that.

Hello, Rikku.

The Farplane was a beautiful place; exactly as described and pictured. The lake was there, the flowers were there, the blue moon was there. The U shaped waterfall was there, too. Auron lifted his head to the sky and laughed almost hysterically.

He was damned! This was his punishment. He was going to keep existing with the guilt of leaving the only thing he held dear behind. He was a demon, a devil doomed to suffer. His laughter cut off as the last part of that thought went through his mind, and he sank to his knees as desperation suddenly set in. Beauty, beauty all around him, and all he could see was Rikku's face. That name, however blasphemous or tauntingly painful, would become his world.

And yet, he was so grateful. No longer did he have the urge to kill, no longer did he have to worry about controlling himself around her. He was gone. They were separated.

She was safe.

The place where his heart was supposed to be burned and ached unbearably, and he doubled over and grasped at it, gasping. The fire spread and turned his limbs to stone until he was completely paralyzed. Ringing started in his ears and got louder, blocking out the once peaceful chorus of pyreflies; the many colors of the landscape blurred until the difference between the flowers and the sky was no longer discernable.

He had asked so little of life, but life had demanded so much from him. He'd become a legend of war when all he'd ever wanted was peace. He'd made a mistake and paid for it by losing his life. He had saddened his comrades and left the boy that he'd watched over for years with a heavy burden, probably heavier than the boy could manage. He had wronged so many people and had never corrected himself. He had received pain and returned nothing more, nothing less! He had wanted a clear conscience in the beginning, but what had he been rewarded with? A woman that he felt nothing for but admiration and love.

And the fire raged and burned as he had his final revelation: even though she had cried and showed more than distress at his final death, he knew that soon enough he would be forgotten—erased from her memory like a meaningless piece of information that had only served a temporary purpose.

Auron closed his eye and laid his forehead on the ground. He didn't want to see the world anymore. The world hated him.

"Why are you sad?"

He looked up and the pain miraculously vanished. A child was standing in front of him, staring down with a curious look. It looked like a girl, but he couldn't be sure; it didn't seem human. Her skin was entirely black, and she had long golden hair and vein-like strings of the same color that seemed to be running down her entire body from her face, which was…thin. She wore a faded yellow cloak that concealed her neck to her knees. When his eye met hers, she blinked over light blue eyeballs with innocent golden irises.

"Why are you sad?" she repeated.

"I…lost something," he said, and she tipped her head to the side, the masses of jewelry that she wore to match her hair clinking like sunny chimes.

"What'd you lose?"

"Something I can never get back."

"That's silly," she said, "you can always find what you've lost. No matter what."

"Not in this case," Auron said. "After all, I don't think I'm meant to find it again, anyway."

"That's silly, too!" The girl giggled. "If you lost something, you gotta find it again."

Auron stared at her as she spun around one time then offered her hand. "I'll help you find it!" she said. He looked from her hand to her eyes, and he reached up and took her tiny hand in his.

"You can try."

She smiled and waited for him to stand before she led him toward the lake, and they stepped into a whole other world.

Ender closed the door to his massive home, unable to smile even though the events about to pass were momentous upon magnificent. Auron had finally passed to the Farplane, but not quite in the way that he had expected.

He flexed his white fingers, clenching his teeth as he gazed up at his newest painting. Auron was a stupid little man, and it was time to fix his little mistakes and crush his spirit. At least it was for a good cause—the sake of knowledge. What greater cause was there?

Oh. Revenge. He couldn't forget revenge. The living would pay in due time.

They took a step and the world changed; they were now on the Highroad, with which there was something terribly wrong. The grass was withered, the dirt an unhealthy brown and black. The Travel Agency was a pile of rusted and black rubble, and there were one or two lumps of unidentifiable corpses lying about. The sky was hidden by dark, toxic-looking smoke clouds, through which an occasional ray of light beamed down.

"What's happened?" Auron asked. "Where are we?"

The girl stopped, but didn't let go of his hand. "I'unno. When I'm Traveling like this, I usually ignore the stuff that shows up until I get where I want to be." She had said "traveling" as if it had more meaning than the normal definition.

Auron began to say her name until he realized that he didn't know what it was. "What should I call you?"

"My name's Fay."

"Fay," Auron repeated. "Let's leave."

"Mmkay!"

After he had taken another step, they emerged at another location.

It was Macalania forest. The land was blackened and burned here, too. The once beautiful crystals darting the forest had lost their entire luster, now mirror-like and clear, reflecting the sorry state around them. The plants and trees that had grown for thousands of years had withered severely but were still, as if set in stone. Auron barely had any time to see anything else before they stepped out of that place and into another.

They traveled to seemingly every previously unpopulated corner of Spira, and each time they arrived at somewhere else there was only destruction waiting for them. The whole earth had been burned, it seemed. Fay didn't look like she was taking any notice of the desolate nature of each place they passed through, only innocently taking him through each one.

Eventually they arrived in the Zanarkand dome, of all places, where Fay stopped and let go of his hand, whipping around to smile up at him.

"Let's play a game!" she said. "Hide and Seek!"

"Wha—"

"Go!"

Auron was about to start protesting when she vanished, leaving him alone in yet another destroyed area. The Zanarkand dome could hardly be called a dome anymore…more like a big circular pile of wall with a big pile of crap in the middle.

He glanced around, frowning. "Fay, we don't have time for thi—"

But they did have time. That was the thing about going to the Farplane; you had time. All the time you wanted…that fact saddened him further, for some reason. He hopped down from what might've been the path that he had walked on both pilgrimages and began to look around. Occasionally he would hear a childlike giggle in the opposite direction he was looking in and find nothing when he turned to it. He never became annoyed, however. What reason was there to be?

After much time spent looking, Fay appeared next to him, beaming up at him.

"I'm good, aren't I?"

"Very good," Auron said, hoping to keep her spirits high. It would do him no good to depress a child.

"One more game?"

"Let's leave," he immediately answered. "I'm not very fond of this place."

"Are you suuuure?"

"Very sure." When she frowned, Auron quickly added, "Maybe later."

She cheered and took his hand again, dragging him to somewhere else.

This time their emergence was not in a place that he'd expected at all. They were on the large stone platform above the Farplane, looking down at the place that they'd started. Nothing had changed, here.

"Aww," Fay pouted, "we didn't get anywhere!"

She let go again and dashed to the other edge of the platform, looking over and making excited sounds. Auron's eye landed on the Farplane's exit, and his heart leapt as a question presented itself: could he leave? There was no harm in trying.

Walking over to the blue mist, he hesitantly put a hand on it and pushed. Meeting no resistance, it went right through. He took a deep breath and stepped through…

…emerging on the Farplane's platform. Hope abandoned him, and his dead heart was heavy.

"What were you trying to do?" asked Fay, running over.

"Leave." Auron sighed. "But I can't, can I?"

"I don't think so." She pressed her lips together. "Oh well. C'mon! We have to find what you lost, remember?"

She reached forward, but before her hand had moved an inch, six massive slabs of glass shot from the ground and surrounded Auron, trapping him in a hexagon that stretched toward the sky. The glass began to steadily decrease in transparency, and Auron quickly threw a punch at his prison wall. It cracked in several places, but as it thickened, the cracks filled themselves.

Just before he lost sight through the glass, he saw Fay staring at it at if she couldn't see him, with a look on her face that said, "Is this a game?"

Outside vision was lost, and Auron found himself surrounded by six tall mirrors.

Ella had lost her breath a long time ago, but she continued to sprint beside Edward through the thick darkness.

"Where is he?" asked Edward through pants of breath.

"I don't know," Ella replied. "Make a hard right in five steps."

Edward silently counted two and a half full sprints then pushed off to the right as she had ordered. Then he spazzed.

"You don't know?!" he cried—that turned out to be a mistake, since he lost half of his breath in the process.

"I can sense him, but I can't see him," Ella calmly evaluated through her gasps for air. "All I see is a white pillar on the flipside. The visitor's platform, you twit!" she added when he gave her a strange look. "Make a left in ten. We should be there soon."

"We have to get there before Ender does," Edward said.

"Yeah, I really didn't know that—thanks for telling me, honey!"

He would have given her a sharp look had he not heard the worry under her tone.

Auron turned, around and around, staring through foreign eyes at the six mirrors that made his cage. In all of them his image was reflected; six different angles, six different Aurons, all confused and searching, blurred by his constantly moving vision.

He stopped for a moment and took a look at himself; he was taller and his frame was a little wider, more refined, stronger. His face showed the very distress that he felt, his eyes, both of them, were wide open, revealing irises that were such a lighter brown than his normal russet that they were almost gold. Startled yet feeling no such emotion, he lifted a hand to his right eye. His scar was gone…but he looked down at his left arm to find it blackened and rough as if it had been burned yet hadn't quite recovered. The skin was flaked and scarred where it had made an attempt at healing. He reached down and felt it, but it was completely smooth, even at the flakey parts. His new body was an illusion. There was pain radiating from his arm though, somewhere. Somewhere at the back of his soul it hurt…

Six mirrors, six ways to see himself without seeing inside of himself. That was where he needed to see. He stumbled back and leaned on one of the mirrors, shaking as strange thoughts inserted themselves into his head.

I am no one.

Even if I were someone, no one would comprehend that.

Even if they could, I couldn't communicate that to those around me…

According to the perspective of others, I am part of the world. But from my perspective and the others who contemplate the world, I do not exist within it.

What I see is the world, and I am merely part of the perspective that gives shape to the world.

I cannot be part of the world.

I am no one, and I must walk all three states of being—be it life, death or twilight. All three at once.

I must be killed to be reborn again.

Auron didn't understand why such thoughts were being forced into his head, but he felt as though some part of him, sleeping deep inside the place where he needed to see, understood fully and completely and accepted it.

I am no one.

No one…

There are no worlds that will accept me.

Always alone, I never talk to anyone. That's why I don't know who I am.

I, being no one, am loved by no one.

So I tried to disappear.

That was my second mistake.

I tried to make everyone disappear, make the me in everyone disappear, too—that was my third mistake.

I tried so hard to forget what I once held dear…That was my fourth mistake.

What was my first?

I can't remember. The only thing that comes to mind when I ask myself this is a swirl of green—useless information at most. Am I doomed to never know…why…?

It was by this time that the thoughts had begun to repeat themselves over and over in Auron's head. Questions circulated like mad, going unanswered every time they arose.

He looked down at his hands; he was fading away again. Maybe he would actually die this time…but when had he died the first time? What was his name, again?

He concluded that he was losing his memory bit by bit because his life force was fading. The life force supported the memories. No life force meant no memories. What was a life force?

Elayne burst into light with a cry, her eyes locking on the white pillar she had visualized. Edward was less quick, but only because he couldn't sense Auron's location so nearby.

She immediately proceeded to drive her fist into the pillar; she heard it crack from the other side and kept at her assault. The cracks healed themselves, but she was too fast. With the mirrors near shattering, Edward sent a wave of pyreflies at the wall.

It broke into a thousand pieces, crumbling from the top as if peeling away from a mold. The glass rained down, and reached the floor—

Elayne and Edward both gasped, and she fell to her knees. There was no one inside. Ella could still sense Auron's overwhelming presence at the center of the glass, but she instantly knew that it was a fake signal.

Ender had set them up. Ender had reached him first.

"We've failed," Edward said. Ella bowed her head.

"I didn't know that," she whispered, dismay disabling her ability to add sarcasm, "thanks for telling me, honey."

Auron stared at his rescuer, trying to recall the name. But before he could recall, they disappeared. Auron looked around, noticing a slightly transparent staircase extending over a massive fall to flowery plains and a lake, leading to a blue moon suspended by black smoke. He tried to remember how he had escaped from the mirrors, and began his ascent in deep thought.

Deep drained to shallow. As his ability to remember vanished, his thoughts could only come in short bursts. He kept thinking the same things over again. He kept thinking the same things over again. The same things over again. He couldn't remember why he was walking up this staircase or why he was losing all emotion. He looked down at his hand and couldn't remember what a hand was, or why it could be seen through. He closed his eye and wondered why the world had vanished.

All thought left him. If someone had noticed him then, they would have seen a translucent man walking up a transparent staircase with no expression on his face whatsoever. Auron had lost his soul.

And yet he kept walking. Maybe it was nerve-and-muscle confusion and interaction, like that of a twitching dead animal that still had the bodily urge to walk. Maybe it was that the one action of climbing that staircase was the only thing he had left, the only thing that his life force—or what was left of it—had to prove that he was still there. In either case, Auron kept walking until he had reached the blue moon and had, at last, entered its bright core.

"Looks like we were here first." Edward grimaced at the new arrivals. There was Reina—one of the Seven Farplane Lords, even though she acted on her own. Three of the dominant fayth—Valefor, Ifrit, and Shiva—were present as well, along with another one of the Seven whose name escaped Edward.

"What is this, the All Souls Night gathering?" Ella jeered.

"Shut your mouth, little girl," Reina snapped, leaning on one hip while resting a hand on it. Edward's hair deepened in color from orange to brick red, the way it did when he was angry. Ella gave him a short glance.

"Mazrim is listening in on this conversation," she said slowly, letting the words take effect, "so I would watch what you say, old woman."

The Seven representative made a startled sound while Reina's crimson eyes slightly widened, the reaction concealed poorly as she flipped her snow white hair. Anger was evident for a few seconds before she suppressed it. She almost swore that she heard Mazrim himself chuckling with approval. None of the fayth made any sort of move to show they were surprised—they probably weren't.

"Where is Auron?" asked Shiva. She didn't seem to be angry with her for breaking out.

"Ender got to him first."

Shiva's eyes glazed over as she most likely communicated her answer to Bahamut, but the others recoiled in horror. This time no one made a move to conceal their shock.

"No…that's terrible!" exclaimed the man from the Seven.

"That is more than terrible," added Reina.

"Please tell us that you're joking!"

Edward shook his head. "We are not."

"How did you fail to reach him in time?" asked the white-haired woman.

"Ender planted a false signal," Ella explained. "When I found it, it knew that it was a fake since I found nothing."

Reina glanced toward the massive pile of glass. "Did you slow down because you assumed that it was close?"

"No," Ella replied. "The signal continued to change. I didn't understand what it was doing at all. It leapt all over Spira and then stopped here, where it stayed. But it changed slightly after it landed here. I think Auron actually was moving, but was captured as soon as he got here."

"What should we do?" asked the Farplane Lord.

"Obviously, now that Auron is as close to safe as he can be in Ender's hands, Ender will take advantage of the lull in fighting spirit that has accompanied Sin's defeat," Reina explained. "What he will do, we don't know. All we can be sure of is that this is what he created Sin to do. This one lasting moment in time was Sin's entire raison d'etre. Ender will not let a thousand years of buildup and eventual success to go to waste."

They all exchanged glances and fell silent, mentally calculating the consequences of Sin's defeat. Ella stepped forward.

"We need to warn the living of what is possibly in store for them," she said. "That's who Ender wants revenge on, after all. They need to be ready for anything."

"And what of Auron?" asked Valefor. Ella thought for a moment before replying.

"We will wait for a weak spot in Ender's guard," she said, "because we can't try to get him back head-on. We all know that we'll get our asses royally kicked."

They all nodded in reluctant agreement. "When the time comes," Reina continued for her, "we will steal Auron back."

"But until then, we need a truce." Ella stepped to the middle of the tense circle. "This won't work if we can't cooperate. And as you know, a lot depends on this working." She held out her hand. "Truce?"

Edward put his hand over hers, saying nothing. The fayth nodded and added their hands, and the Seven representative harrumphed and did the same. Reina hesitated a moment longer, then added her pale palm to the pile. "Truce," she said, "And as much as I don't like it, hopefully it will stay intact even after all of this is over."

They looked into each other's eyes, smiling. For the first time that Edward could remember, the Farplane had been united.

What a surprise it was when Auron came stumbling, blank-faced and soulless, right into Ender's home!

Except that it wasn't.

Ender smiled, assuming the role of a jolly homeowner who had just received a guest. "Auron, my pawn!" he greeted, gliding over with his arms spread wide. "I'm so thrilled that you could make it."

Auron stopped after taking three steps, losing solid form as the wall behind him became more visible. Ender couldn't help but smile wider as he waved a hand in front of the former guardian's face, getting no response whatsoever. Also no surprise.

"You took out your life force, didn't you, little one?"

No reaction.

"You're lucky that I can't afford to lose you, little one," Ender continued, not bothered by the fact that he was essentially talking to a wall. "I'm going to give you a present."

He put a hand over his heart and drew out a blue pyrefly surrounded in black. "See this?" He waved it in front of Auron's nose. "It's my life force."

Ender lifted his other hand, and a red ball of light appeared. With little concentration, Ender formed it into a knife. "I've decided that I'll give you a little bit of it," he said, the words strained as he held the knife of Balefire to the pyrefly.

Hesitating out of greed, Ender quickly brought it down and pushed it all the way through until it cut into his hand. He winced with pain and the knife vanished, but he had been successful; he now held two halves of a life force.

The one in his right hand sank into his body; Ender took one last look at Auron's blank expression.

"This might hurt," Ender warned, "a lot."

Without another moment wasted, he drew back and shoved the pyrefly half into Auron's chest. The effects took place immediately; Auron became completely solid. Thought returned, his memories returned, his emotions returned. Being only human, that was pretty much an overload of information. The first thing that he did was blinked, and then fell to his knees. His entire body burned again, paralyzing him to no end. He screamed more than once.

It took a long time for him to settle down and realize where he was. When he finally did, though, he shot to a stand and took a step or two back.

"Now," Ender started, beginning to circle Auron, "my past pawns have not been as obedient as they should have been. They refused to heed me, and so I taught them how to be docile." Ender and Auron had switched places; now Ender was closest to the door, blocking his exit. "Am I going to have to teach you how to be docile?"

Auron obeyed his very first instinct:

Run.

Turning and finding the doors under the double-staircase, he pushed them opened and dashed through. Ender sighed behind him, "That's a yes."

Auron found a long hall behind those doors, and his inhuman speed made the lamps on the walls whiz by in streaks of light. He looked up to see a second floor, and leaped.

Spikes shot from the wall with insane speed, giving him very little time to dodge. He avoided one and landed on another before it withdrew into the wall again, leaping off of that one as he avoided several more. He landed safely on the second floor, pushing off again.

Chains made from the wall itself tried to net him, but he launched himself into the air and dove through each gap in the net, swinging over one when it was low enough. The chains began to move behind him, imitating snakes and slithering after him as he ran. The lamps' flames grew higher, soaring toward him Noticing a third floor and noting how Ender's home was like one giant staircase, he kicked off and landed with no trouble or obstacles on the way.

This floor was peaceful, but he ran to its end anyway. Finding a door there, he yanked it open and slid in, pulling it tightly shut behind him. He smashed in the doorknob on his way, too.

Sighing and leaning his forehead against the door to catch his breath, he took some time to make sure his adrenaline stayed to the maximum. Of course, he didn't have any trouble with that. As soon as he turned around and took a step further into the room, he analyzed the new hell he'd entered.

The ceiling was quite high above, and the whole room was white with an unidentifiable light source. His breath caught; he had just entered something close to what could have been anything from a dog pound to a very frightening zoo.

Cages set in a marble-like material Auron didn't recognize were stacked in an organized fashion all the way to the roof, each having the height of a chocobo and the width of four of five chocobos standing side by side. The contents were concealed by such dark shadows that he could only assume that if there was anything in each one, it was hiding.

And there was something in each one. Auron strayed too close to one and a massive creature leaped at him from the other side of the bars, slamming into the material so suddenly that Auron jumped a few feet to the side. His eye widened as he defined the creature.

It was an Unsent. Angry and hungry for human blood, and fully transformed, to boot. It grasped at its barrier with overgrown claws, and Auron couldn't see how it had had enough space to hide in.

That was just the beginning. As he looked into each prison, the creatures became more and more pitiful and grotesque. There was a grey hypello that resembled a human woman; the two bulbs on the side of her neck bulged and shrank as she struggled to breathe.

A small child had been given wings, but what remained of them now were only stubs; a person was halfway transformed into their Unsent form, on arm and one leg overgrown so much that they were unable to stand without essentially kneeling. The places at which the deformed limbs joined were swollen with misaligned veins.

A human had been combined with a chocobo and was either sleeping soundly or dead. A person made of stone had become a realistic statue at the back of their cage, their face frozen in anger and sadness and fear. Next he saw a man without skin—at least, it lay in flaps on the cage floor when he wasn't trying to put it back on.

Another person seemed to be made of water and was unable to keep their form for more than two seconds before they sloshed to down to a big puddle, rising slowly for another hopeless attempt. There was one that even sweated and salivated blood—he vomited the thick red substance as Auron passed.

He once came upon cage where the person inside seemed to be perfectly fine, but then they looked up and he felt bile rise to his throat; they had already possessed naturally green eyes, and someone had carved spirals into them.

Each of these pitiful victims all had one thing in common. No matter what they were made of, be it water or stone or chocobo, they all had a dog tag attached somewhere to their body. Auron assumed that each said the same thing as the one that he had found on the Unsent in Zanarkand.

"Do you like them?" Ender asked from behind, causing Auron to whip around. "I spent a lot of time working on them all. I treasure them as if they were my own children…"

"You're a madman," Auron spat. "What sort of person does this to people?"

"This sort of person," Ender said, pointing to himself, then to the wall behind Auron. "Have you seen the cage all the way at the back?"

He had. It was the largest of them all, taking up the entire height and width of the room. Auron blinked, and suddenly Ender stood right next to him. "That one's for you."

Before he could react, Ender delivered a punch to his stomach that was so strong, it sent him flying all the way across the rest of room and into said cage. Lamps lit as he landed on his stomach and slid several feet to a stop. Something had been broken, Auron thought as he struggled to his knees and an unsteady stand. Ender appeared at the exit, which sealed itself shut.

He snapped his fingers, and wall-chains emerged and cuffed Auron's legs and arms and neck, trapping him for good.

"I'm going to make you wish that your father had never stolen that first kiss from your mother, little one."

Auron attempted to scream, but no such sound came.

Two years later-

The sweet moan of pyreflies was a sound that Rikku had not heard in a long, long time—even if it did seem like only yesterday. Her breath caught at the sight of the Farplane below, as did everyone else's. They had forgotten how truly beautiful the place had remained. The former guardians and summoner were instantly glad that they'd come.

Rikku reached into the pouch on her thigh and retrieved the glass shard, taking a deep breath. The others tensed; Yuna stood closer to Tidus, and Lulu to Wakka. Kimahri just grew stiff, and Rikku walked to the edge of the platform and held the shard to the blue moon in the distance.

It reacted exactly as described. The moon shone brightly and briefly and a beam of light extended out to where she stood, solidifying and forming a translucent staircase. A smile momentarily lit up her face as she turned to the others, and they made her assume her more serious expression. They all looked hesitant and nervous, thinking the same thing: they did not belong here. The shouldn't go any further.

Rikku turned away and looked back at the moon. She didn't care if the others were scared and wouldn't follow. She took the first step on the staircase, and then the second. She didn't care if she had to leave them behind.

This was her story, and she was going to get her favorite character back.