Turbulence

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AN: 1) I know. But I updated. I still care! :O

2) I realize that my old sketches for this fanfction are butt ugly. But once, I was mightily proud of them. They make good memories. And with that sappy hoo-ha out of the way, a much better version of those illustrations will be coming soon. Hopefully. It depends on...stuff.

I have decided that, while attempting to keep my writing style 'dumbed down' to meet the standards of previous chapters…it is highly frustrating and does not portray half of the emotion that I want to appear in this chapter. Therefore, the lot of you will be treated to some…gourmet writing, as it were.

Forgive me for this transgression. But enjoy this long-awaited chapter.

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We are the fayth of the sleeping souls, once proud and defiant of the Sin of Spira. Our peacefully slumbering has been short. Our hearts are broken. Our spirits are trapped. This is the end of our story. Welcome us into oblivion..

What he could not hear were the thousands of screaming voices in the darkness, of spirits in their throes of resentment and anger. He felt their lure between the bones of his fingers, above his eyelids and deep inside his body in a place more confidential than his heart or mind. Auron was not breathing air or water, but something cold and coursing with energy far greater than the sun or the storms above Djose. And he felt the essence of many other beings like himself, devouring the same kind of life power in its limitless supply.

When his eyes opened and the sensation of floating faded away, he found that he could not see any more than he could see everything of his surroundings. The bodies in this chamber appeared as monstrous shapes of physical, solid flesh and at the same time were masses of colours and lines that could only be defined as…cosmos.

He had spent ten years in Zanarkand, a mere shadow in a dream crafted from this same material. Then, he had been the result of it. Now, he was part of its creation. He was a fayth and did not need to be informed that his full power was now unleashed. Auron was now part of the dreamers.

Six of these bodies were in this chamber. It was wide, and empty and barren. The stone was old, cracked and aged. Wearily, the ronin lifted his head, torpidly blinked his eyes and looked down to better understand his bearings. The sensation was familiar, but not so much that it was easy. There was no mistaking the disorientation that came with his new power. It was nauseating, even for an aeon.

"Welcome to the enclave, Sir Auron. We welcome you. Even if these are the final hours of our world."

The distinctly feminine voice was not familiar. But the presence he felt beyond him was more than just familiar—it was part of him. Auron stood up, balancing with all seven limbs and peered into the space around him. Then he saw the grandiose wings and curvatures of the aeon, Valefor, and recognized her soothing words. They had been precisely what had drawn him from the clutches of madness and into the safety of the enclave.

"We are regretful that we can no longer dream your original vessel, kind guardian. I am afraid that in his last attempt to recover you, our Ixion has perished. There are others here, who wish to speak with you."

In contrast to the first time he had been torn from the physical planes of Spira, Auron now felt as though he were somehow warped. His legs and his arms—even the wings once belonging to a proud, summoner-less aeon were heavier and his bulk greater. Was it right to feel devastated and invulnerable at the same time? How had the souls of the other fayths felt when they had first risen to this form of slavery?

There were six of these essences, and it was their whispering that had awakened him. Now they were silent. In his recovery, the ring of aeons placed around the enclave was complete. This was another thing he knew by design.

Shiva, Anima, and Ifrit are dispersed. We are the former protectors of Spira and our souls decay with every flicker of our beings. All is forgiven, but now all is lost.

Auron took in the sight with mixed confusion and understanding. Bahamut stood opposite of the pale, glowing light in the center of the chamber. There were two others he knew by heart, rather than sight. Jecht was on his left, a mere reflection of the Final Aeon he had once been. The ghost of his human body drifted in front of him, arms crossed and face twisted in though. On Jecht's own left, there was a respectively smaller aeon. She was medium-sized and rodent-like with an incredibly long, slender body and green skin. Between her large, black eyes was a ruby the hue of fresh blood. Faera. This was the gentle-willed mother of Tidus.

"Jecht." When Auron spoke, the words passed through the surrounding energy like a wave. There was no sound in the enclave. "You've changed."

"About as much as you have, Auron. Oh, right, or should I say…Jak'kan?"

Auron knew as well as he knew the sky was vast that his body was gone, and he was a fayth called Jak'kan. He only wished he could erase that memory. A thousand of them were flooding his thoughts like wildfire. Hundreds upon hundreds of years of memories became part of his consciousness as though they had been poured into an already overflowing jar.

"This faythhood is what remains of Spira's hope." Valefor, gently beating her graceful wings, craned her head forward and closed her eyes. "Our temples are in desolace. Jak'kan, we are all prisoners of this enclave. Our aeons are all we can be in this age of destruction. When we die, we will become as the fiends are. This is our end. Spira's end."

Bahamut, Carbuncle, Ultima, Valefor, Fenrir and Jak'kan. We will perish with the last of the souls in the world of living.

Millions of fiends ripping the land apart, and countless faces twisted with anger and fear for the protection of their precious lives. A new memory. And the cold, upturning water that coursed around his crimson coat, soaking to the skin while monsters prodded at him. Bit him, tossed him, and the pain that had been his final thought—

Auron's heavily armoured body tensed and a cry tore through the curtain of energy with renewed vigor, "Rikku!"

But there was no echo to this call. She did not reply. And the aeons in his company simply stared on. Jecht, even, was completely suppressed by the weight of reality.

How can you al silt by and let this happen? Millions of people are dying down there! You're afraid of leaving just because you might not make it outside? If Blayne was here, he would tell you exactly how cowardly—

With the sharp realization, Auron's head jerked back and he clumsily stumbled backwards from the pale light in the center. These were no mere voices of the fayth! He was hearing the emotions and thoughts that had been captured inside of the enclave recently. His mind was melded with concern for Rikku, and now Jecht and the others could understand the turmoil inside his head. Something terrible was going on.

"She descended with you, Jak'kan," Bahamut spoke for the first time. The voice of a stoic child entered the field of energy. "Into the Moonflow. All that could be done had been done. Don't be sad. Fenrir was taken to her, and they are alive."

"That's our boy Yojimbo, if you're wondering." Jecht's aeon was still, but he ran through multiple emotions before settling on bitterness. The ghostly figure of Auron's former fellow guardian looked dim. "He went and had an epiphany, and now he's back on Spira, being a goddamned hero."

Valefor's calm presence looked to Jecht. "Your behaviour is unbecoming of Spira's hope, Jecht of Ultima. Our reason to be is to aid the summoners only when we are called. Our deaths will be part of Spira's great spiral."

"Last night, Geryn of Yojimbo gave life to a new fayth," complimented Bahamut. "The great Fenrir wants to fight his brother and stop Sin from reentering the world. But Geryn is scared. He might die before he can help the last summoner defeat Sin before he awakens.."

Lilae. She and Haschel were undoubtedly alive and amidst the depthless battle far, far beyond this enclave where he was powerless to help them. Geryn was freely moving about Spira. He may be alive now, but Auron was convinced that the young fayth would perish within minutes because of his recklessness. If Rikku was with him, then her life was in more peril than he felt comfortable to endure by simply standing here, in a timeless bubble.

Soon this enclave will come to ruin. We are the fayths of no temple. No anchors. Unworthy of fighting alongside the last summoner. Fenrir and Jak'kan, mere newborns of unknown ability…are you the epitome of our barest hope? True reconciliation? Part of you still sings the Hymm.

In his head, there was a distant echo. But his chest was heavy, as though a stone were tying him to a place far beyond his reach. The enclave told him that his resting place was in Macalania, and he could see the gentle pool in which his fayth's statue now rested. The forest was singing.

Auron! Auron, no…! Oui ryja du lusa pylg! Don't leave me, please…

He returned his twin gaze to Valefore, saw a young girl he could not recognize, and felt Rikku's even more distant voice stir the pyreflies that made up his aeon's body.

"This is an enclave of dreams, Sir Auron of Jak'kan," the placid fayth spoke through the floating aeon. Valefor projected a faded image of her young human face. "You will always be safe here, with the dreams of fallen summoners forever guiding us. When Ifrit wrongly placed you into Spira, you were a mere fragment of what you are now. Now, should you choose to leave, you will be powerless without the guidance of a living summoner."

"Of us all, only yourself and Fenrir may leave the enclave of your own, free will. Should the summoner fail to reach you, however…you too, will succumb to Yevon's taint. Should you die in the summoner's service, you will become as Lyol of Ixion has become: a fiend of Yevon's army."

"That will not be a problem," he found himself answering wryly. He could hear nothing here, except for the anguish of millions and only Rikku's sobbing voice pierced that black shroud. He was an aeon inside this enclave, but his soul was inside the confines of a cold statue many miles from here. If he could find Lilae, or somehow reach another summoner—

"You're gonna get yourself killed again, Auron," Jecht's voice came to him through the soundless link. "Just like when Braska an' I—"

"Enough!" The former guardian felt the word pulse around him. "Countless lives depend on our intervention, and if I am able to aid somehow, then so be it. My death will be insignificant compared to what will happen if the Farplane remains in ruins."

The quiet stillness that filled the chamber was almost satisfactory. For ten years, Auron had painstakingly held onto his physical form inside a world he'd been designed to resent with every fraction of his being. Today, he would do precisely what it was he felt when Braska had chosen Jecht to be his Final Aeon. He would rid the world of Sin for good, and he would ensure an eternal Calm. For Rikku's sake. For the sake of Spira.

Jak'kan is resolved. There will be no returning to the enclave once you are summoned. Your choice is final, fearless guardian of High Summoners' Braska, and Yuna.

His choice had been final when he accepted Braska's proposal for guardianship. It had been final when he looked Rikku in the eye and welcomed her into the pilgrimage. It had been final when he kissed her, so many thousands of feet in the atmosphere of their world. It had been final when he took upon the burden of a fayth. It would be final when his pyreflies finally dispersed, and he would circle Spira knowing that she was alive…and would be until it was time for her to return to the Farplane.

Bahamut. Don't worry. We'll be ready when the summoner calls us. One last time. Then we can finally go home.

Valefor. Take caution with you. Yu Yevon wishes nothing more than to control you with rage and despair.

Auron felt the corners of his consciousness here begin to fade, as the body of his aeon dissipated into pyreflies and the confines of a hallowed forest pulled him in. Even Jecht's disgruntled protest became a mere fragment in his mind.

Soon enough, he was alone. Without a body or the option to reform himself, the sounds of the Macalania forest became the only sensation he was aware of. Here, in the gently glowing pool, he was reduced to a man trapped inside a stone. His spirit touched every inch of the trees as though they were temples, and his newborn fayth began to sing the Hymm.

Air flowed into Rikku's lungs. She was jerked from the water and torn out of its depths beyond the reach of thousands of clawed fiends, transported up at a suffocating speed in the clutches of a creature twenty times her size. Before she could think to scream, she witnessed something miraculous—

The fiends in the air burst open. Dozens of screeching bodies trying to rip their ways towards her—suddenly exploded. Pyreflies choked the air and swirled like embers until they vanished from sight.

But then her body was lurched downwards again as her rescuer plunged. More and more waves of flying fiends broke into pyreflies as they shot past them. Rikku gasped and tried to curl her soaked limbs against herself as she watched the ground rush towards them at an alarming speed.

When her brain began to work again, the dizziness had passed. A pair of strong hands were prying her out of the clutches of this enormous fiend—fiend?—but she was too bewildered to do anything about it. Auron—no, Haschel dragged her away from the brilliant, white-feathered body. Only when she was standing there, dripping wet and frozen, could she witness the sight properly.

Geryn, but not Geryn, flared his broad wings and hurriedly backed away from the summoner's entourage. The red emblems tattooed across his heavily muscled neck and broad shoulders flared brightly, and several large streaks of blue-white energy began to take form in the air at the tip of his wings. After three seconds, the enormous build-up of magic shot forth like lightning and split into hundreds of smaller bolts. Each fiend struck by the energy collapsed. Half of them burst into pyreflies. The other simply lay there, souls trapped inside corpses, unable to release themselves.

A terrifying stillness came over the Moonflow. As Rikku stared, not knowing that Lilae had stepped over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, the last of the pyreflies drifted away. Slowly, Geryn—Aeon, she told herslf—turned around to stare at his summoner.

The handful of people who had scattered during the battle were now cowering away from the aeon's presence. Rikku's mouth simply wouldn't close.

"I…" Lilae, to her credit, was the one who spoke first. "I didn't know what to do, when the aeons stopped listening—I hoped Yojimbo, and he came—"

If this aeon was Geryn, there was a calmness about his body that had not been present in the former body of the fayth. His gaunt, lupine face smiled. And then he did what Aeons were not meant to do.

"Someone called?" asked the haunted, almost echoing voice of the youngest fayth. "Don't everyone thank me at once. I'm easily humbled, you know."

Amidst all of Rikku's astonishment and relief to see him okay, it was an upsurge of anger that took over next. She snapped out of her daze and took a few steps towards him. "Why did you do that, you pek, sayh lnaab? Auron was down there too, you know! Why didn't you save him? You just left him to drown!"

In her mind's voice, she told herself that would be impossible. But he…but he…

The massive brow of the aeon lowered. "I had no choice. The others…they already took him."

Despite being about a fiftieth as strong as he and much, much smaller, Rikku stormed over to the aeon under the surprised gazes of Lilae and Haschel and pounded on his leg with a fist. "Took him where? Who took him?"

Geryn averted his glowing eyes. A thunderclap sunk into her heart.

"No…" It felt worse than it had on the day Yunie sent Auron. "That's…that isn't fair. He promised me…he promised, you know! Auron, you can't do this!" Now she screamed at the agonizingly serene lake, of which hardly any pyreflies roamed. "You promised…"

Auron! Auron, no…! Oui ryja du lusa pylg! Don't leave me, please…

Not again.

Warm tears flooded her eyes and she sunk to her knees. She didn't feel Lilae wrap her arms around her shoulders. She only felt the exhaustion of her efforts, and the overwhelming grief that left no room for second or third thoughts.

Her strength, her Auron, was gone.

And this time, she would be alone forever.

The final plot twists are to come. Stay tuned...and tuned...and tuned...-- I'm sorry.