Variation 7
Nooj: If you’re done playing, let’s go.
Gippal: Chill out.
Nooj: Lost your nerve?
Gippal: Hey, we’re talking about Vegnagun. How the heck do you fight that thing? We can’t even walk up to it without freakin’ it out.
Nooj: Or making it mad. But I’ve got a plan.
Gippal: If it doesn’t work?
Nooj: Death will be my apology.
Gippal: Whatever, man. When a Deathseeker dies, that’s no apology. What about Leblanc?
Nooj: Well, she-
He heard a shriek. “-Gippal?”
Nooj turned to look, but Gippal had disappeared. However, there was a small crevice in the wall through which a man of Gippal’s size could barely fit.
Nooj eyed the opening. There was no chance that he could fit through - so he would just have to wait, or find another way.
-X-
“Get your vilgehk hands off of me, you crazy undead bitch-“
“Keep your mouth shut, Al Bhed,” said the gray-skinned corpse that currently had her hands around Gippal’s chest. It seemed like his armor and all its points did nothing to deter her; even his attempt to flail had no result.
He tried to protest. “I have to get my friend, he’s-“
“I said be quiet,” said the woman. “Or would you disrespect me just like you disrespect our world? All of your kind, destroying everything we worked to hard to set in motion-“
“You be quiet!” Gippal tried to reach down to grab his knives, but the woman grabbed his hand before he could do so. “You act like you’re all high and mighty, who do you think you are, anyway?”
The woman laughed, a sound that sent shivers up and down Gippal’s bones. It was creepy enough that he was being dragged around by someone in the Farplane who should have been dead, but now she was laughing and that was just scary.
She also, Gippal noticed perhaps a bit belatedly, was not wearing much more than a ribbon.
The ribbon was crossed across her gray, dead breasts, and she was wearing a belt with tassels. Gippal found himself wanting to pull on them, which was probably not a good idea, considering this crazy dead bitch seemed like she was about to eat him.
“You Al Bhed profane the land and the Farplane. You don’t belong here.” She threw him down onto the floor and somehow grabbed his belt with his weapons. She removed one of his knives from its sheath and held it to his throat - all moving impossibly fast. “You destroyed Spira. You destroyed our peaceful existence! Everything Zaon and I brought to this world, you and your half-breed cousin destroyed!”
“Cousin? Are you saying Yuna and I are related?” Gippal spat a little as he said this, some of his spittle ending up on the blade of his knife that she was holding. He knew his mythology, and the mention of Zaon could only mean that this was one person - Yunalesca. “We’re not even related-“
“You’re all inbred idiots,” Yunalesca said, obviously rather angry about all of this. “And then you allow that horrible mechanical thing to enter my realm, my Farplane, and bring that horrible mechanical beast-“
“Listen, babe, we’re going after the ‘mechanical thing’, so we’re on your side.” Gippal tried very hard not to look at her breasts. True, they were gray and looked kind of slimy, but they were still breasts, and Gippal appreciated that. Instead, his eye wandered over and noticed that they were very near the edge of a cliff. “So what do you say you let me go and I’ll just be on my way?”
“Why are you fighting this? It’s your fate.” She pressed the blade to his neck, and Gippal felt his skin prickle. “Your fate is to die, and you should be happy it’s at my hand instead of at the hands of that abomination.”
“What are you talking about?” Gippal wanted to shake his head or make a rude hand gesture, but found himself unable to do so without dying - literally. “Don’t talk to me about-“
“Death.”
Gippal was surprised when Yunalesca’s body flew off of him, his knife clanging to the ground next to him. Her form landed several feet away, and behind it stood Nooj.
Gippal was never happier to see him in his life.
“Don’t talk to me about Death,” Nooj said to Yunalesca, who he promptly kicked. Her body rolled slightly, and then unceremoniously fell off the cliff.
Gippal finally exhaled and picked his knife back up. He rolled over onto his stomach and coughed. “Good thing you came along,” he said to Nooj without looking at him.
“She looked like she was ready to eat you for breakfast,” Nooj said dryly as he looked over the cliff to where Yunalesca had fallen.
“Or something.” Gippal gathered himself and stood up. “I bet she was a babe in real life.”
“Maybe you should have been a summoner.”
Gippal eyed Nooj. “Was that your idea of a joke?”
“Cosmic irony.” Nooj turned and pointed to a pathway leading upwards. “That’s the way to Baralai. Let’s go.”