And he appears directly in front of of a not very thoroughly clad girl who has her arms extended to both sides, holding a staff in her right hand. The girl and several other people are on a circular platform on a hill, surrounding a giant unfriendly-looking plant.

The girl's eyes widen in surprise, but she doesn't move as a show of lights around her continues.

The lights reach into the sky, parting the clouds and opening a neat circle there, from which a large... winged... thing... starts descending.

The mysteriously appearing person looks at the large winged thing and blinks!

He is wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. He also has white, feathery wings, folded against his back.

"Valefor, Fire," the girl calls softly.

The air around the flying (floating, really, it's not using its wings to stay aloft) thing shimmers and it gestures towards the unfriendly-looking plant thing. Following that movement, a flame appears on the plant.

And the air around one of the other people around shimmers similarly, and another flame appears on the plant.

"Who are you, and can you help?" the girl asks the angel as one of the plant's tentacles lashes out like a whip at the flying thing—Valefor—who dodges it by flying higher.

"Help– what, kill the weird plant?"

"Yes."

The air shimmers around someone else—lots of light effects here, huh?—and his sword starts glowing. He runs towards the plant thing, dodges one tentacle and severs another—but is swatted aside and hits the ground with a crash.

He drops his apple – he hardly needs it, what the heck – and flies plant-wards, turning the nearest tentacle into cloud-fluff.

*failing to turn the nearest tentacle into cloud-fluff, he means.

The girl does a magic thing, and the guy who was hit by the tentacle is covered with sparkles.

He jumps to his feet immediately and runs around the plant.

… Theo is slightly surprised by the fact that the nearest tentacle is not changing, and tries to change another part of the tentacle.

He fails! Also the tentacle the blond boy severed starts dissolving into balls of light that fade as they float up. And the two spots of flame on the plant thing disappear of their own accord, leaving a mark much less scorched than it ought to be, plus some more balls of fading light.

… And if he tries to change the scorched bit into cloud fluff, can he change any of it or is this thing somehow totally invulnerable to this – what the hell.

Nope, this thing is somehow totally invulnerable to this.

"What are you doing?"

More short-lived fire!

… He will not in fact try acid on it in case it does something weird to that and stops him from changing it back. Instead he will try– ugh, what the hell doesn't hurt wildlife but would kill this freaking plant.

Next time there's fire on the plant he makes it hotter and larger and stretch further on the creature, unless it nullifies him in an area around it.

Well, it takes a while longer than he'd expect it to—almost as if there was in fact less fire there to work from than he can see—but it does work.

And then after a few seconds a large chunk of the fire's gone, leaving only the bits he's expanded.

"Was that you?"

He doesn't want to kill it, he won't burn it to death, he can try to char the tentacles and then cauterize the wounds if that applies or alternatively shove something solid against them to prevent it bleeding out or whatever, since it apparently doesn't totally nullify his abilities.

"Yes," he responds. "What the hell."

It... doesn't really have blood. Just the fading light things that leave its wounds, and they continue leaving its wounds when he tries to "cauterize" them.

One of the people around, holding a blue ball with bumps, spins it on his finger, causing black smoke to surround it. He throws it up in the air, jumps, and kicks the ball towards the plant thing, hitting it with significantly more force than kicking a ball should be able to apply. The cloud of black smoke grows and starts surrounding the plant, and from its tentacles' movements this seems to have impaired its vision.

He isn't sure how the flames will interact with the smoke – hopefully not explosively but he's not sure he should trust them to know with whatever the heck they're using against this thing, so he stops fanning the flames and instead flies back a bit – he has range, he can do stuff to it from a distance away, even if it's not a ridiculous distance.

There are in fact no explosions! Just the black cloud while the others continue doing fire or physical attacks while the plant lashes out at people.

At one point it starts moving in a very suspicious way and then a green very noxious-looking gas starts escaping from its body to surround the attackers.

Is this noxious-looking gas also invulnerable to his powers? Because if not he will clear it totally fine.

It is! Frustrating, this plant, isn't it?

He is sure he can get it to stop moving somehow, even if he has to make a bunch of ground into cloudfluff, manually move it over here, and then dump it on the stupid thing, probably after changing it to something more damaging.

For now, however, he will recommend people get the heck out of the way and– if it's not moving that quickly, if they can in fact get away, probably go get started on the stupid cloudfluff idea. Any nearby ground that looks like nobody will mind if he removes it?

Perhaps he should look into making some sort of weapon, but he's never done one before on account of never needing to and – again, what the hell.

The battle is leaving quite a lot of destroyed ground and general debris here and there, surely no one will mind.

And oh, look, apparently the plant's embedded deep enough in the ground that it's managed to extend two tentacles through it to all the way behind everyone.

The summoner starts—well, it looks like she's dancing, her various bangles and rings chiming prettily with her movements—but there are pretty sparkles here and there and people seem to not be suffering too much from the noxious cloud of whatever.

If this were a video game, Theo would expect her to be the one doing weird magic and buffing people. He has no idea where the hell he is, and he's pretty sure the mortal world hasn't changed this much in, what, like the past month or something.

So he grabs some nice cloud-fluff, converting some of the lovely damaged terrain – doesn't spend too long making it but makes sure to get enough to be useful without inconveniencing him by its weight, he can't change it that much – and then goes back and flies above the plant to try dropping rocks on it.

He has no idea how he's meant to fight this sort of thing. Trying to change the inside of the plant gets the exact same results as the outside, he's pretty sure – he tests that to make sure, though.

People don't spend too much time being surprised by what he's doing and just accept this as help. It hurts the monster, and when it does bits of it flake off.

"Get back," the girl calls, and everyone else gets back—

—and a sphere of light appears inside Valefor's open beak—

He… does in fact get back from it, because he has no idea what that sphere of light does and if it's 'shoves him away with lots of force' that could inconvenience him, and it could be that because apparently things here are magic.

Or something.

—and it becomes a laser beam, slicing neatly through the plant thing and then causing the ground hit by it to explode.

And that's enough damage that the thing apparently can't hold itself together anymore, and it starts slowly dissolving into the white floating spheres of light.

Oh well that's just wonderful, and if he tries to change one of the spheres to instead be heavy and drop downwards because he'd like to possibly know what the heck it is? Is he unable to change it too?

Ayup.

The fighters are sighing in relief and rubbing sores, the girl does some more magic to everyone, and a handful of people who had apparently fled the scene start returning to that platform to inspect the damage.

The summoner looks up at Theo. "So, uh, who or what are you."

They do not have a word for angel. They do also not have a word for what he is.

Huh.

"A Changer," he responds, moving downwards. "And you should probably be more careful about, uh–" drawing on the floor? Did she even?

She did not! But the light show did include circles on the floor.

"What's a Changer? Avoid what?"

"Drawing on the floor. Or rather – lighting up circles on the floor? Not totally impossible you'd get someone mean, though, so, should probably avoid making marks on the floor at all. And – uh, a Changer is someone who changes things, seriously, where the hell are we that you don't know what one is?"

"I can't not light up circles on the floor, it's part of summoning, and I usually only get what I expect to get. We're in Kilika Island, there's the temple," she explains, gesturing up towards the top of the stairs.

A blue lion-person with a broken horn in the middle of their forehead comes from somewhere and interposes themself between the girl and Theo.

"Who's this?" the blond boy comes closer to ask, sheathing his sword behind his back.

Theo is still flying! Theo is still staying away from the blue lion-person and the not blue lion-person and the other not blue lion-person.

"Well, you summoned me with one of the circles. And I more meant – what country are we in, since we seem to be on–" Pause. "Earth, unless they terraformed–" Longer pause. "Mars."

Why do they not have words for Earth or Mars. What.

"We're on Kilika Island," she repeats, more slowly. "I'm not sure what an 'Earth' or a 'Mars' is."

The lady with the dress made up of belts comes closer, as well, and inspects Theo. "And just what is this?"

"A Changer."

"I mean. I wouldn't expect you to know what they are, since, you apparently don't have words for them. Just. Um. Not having words for them is slightly outside my experience. Like that plant."

"And what are you even wearing," asks the girl in what's basically halfway towards a bikini adorned with rings and bangles and bracelets and earrings and anklets, surrounded by two technically-not-shirtless guys, an even-more-technically-not-shirtless lion person, and a woman with a physics-defying black dress made of belts, as well as the other approaching people in variously bizarre attires.

"… Jeans," he says, using a foreign word because of course they don't have a word for jeans. "And a– t-shirt."

Sigh.

"...okay, I'll take your word for it that that's what those are called. I'm Kaede."

"Tidus."

"I'm Wakka, she's Lulu, and he's Kimahri."

"Theo," he responds. "Jeans are, uh– pants made of some sort of textile – denim, not that you have a word for that. The t-shirt is cotton. The wings, in case you didn't know–" he says, coming down to the ground and flexing them a bit – "They're real. Living."

"...living. So you're not an aeon. Or a fiend. Or an unsent."

Pause. "Before coming here, I had never heard of those things before, so no."

"And you said you can—change things? And you appear when circles are drawn on the floor? How does this work?"

Kimahri doesn't move but manages to make himself look more menacing.

"Kimahri, it's fine, Valefor's still here, and either she can take this guy or we really can't."

"I– uh, don't know how it works, it just does? You should be careful if you try it again because you might get someone who doesn't care much to be friendly?"

"...no I really shouldn't, there's very little I could accidentally summon that would be worse than the reason I summon things in the first place."

"Admittedly I don't know quite how bad all the things are – but like, that," he says, indicating the plant– "would be quite easy to do worse than if I were a Maker. Is probably easy even though I'm a Changer, but you'll forgive me if I haven't given much thought to that sort of thing."

"I'm not sure exactly what you can do, you haven't explained, but these are Sinspawn, which are generally stronger than regular fiends but also Sin always comes back for them so they need to be destroyed as soon as possible."

"Does he know about Sin?"

"I– am not sure I have ever seen any fiends before except for apparently that plant? And no, I don't think I know about Sin, and I was saying you should be careful while drawing circles, not that you should necessarily never do it again, and this all sounds like– I have no idea where I am."

"Are you from Zanarkand, too?"

"I have never heard of Zanarkand before, so I'm guessing no, and what do you mean 'too'?"

"Let's say you're not the first impossible person we've met."

"Hey!"

"You still haven't told us what you can do or what a Maker is or—how about we just share our life stories on our way to the temple—hey, if you can change things can you fix the damage to the area? That's a good way for you to show off to us."

"Yeah, um–" he looks around and starts reattaching broken things, since that's something he can do quite easily, and cleans up some ash. "I can't just 'restore' things, so if any of this was totally obliterated I'd need to know what to make it into–"

"Erm, I think someone must have a sphere of the place—I'm sure there'll be at least one in the temple, maybe we should just go after all."

"… Sphere being some sort of recording device? I don't think I have encountered one of those before."

"Really? Even Zanarkand had those, what do you have instead?"

Given no disagreement she dismisses Valefor (which doesn't look like anything other than Valefor up and deciding to fly away) starts walking up the steps, followed by a reluctant Kimahri and a less reluctant everyone else.

Theo flies to follow them. "It depends on what you're trying to record, but – mainly phones and computers that store audio and video and play them back."

"Spheres do that. And you still haven't explained what you do."

"Change things. It's quite a broad power. Makers, unsurprisingly enough, make things, though what they can make is– kinda similarly broad."

"That's awfully unspecific, though, like, I can summon things, you probably wouldn't figure out from this description that I have to go pray to the fayth to get aeons."

"Yeah, because 'summon' to me could convey a lot of things. Like summoning someone to a court appearance. Okay, more specific, I can change physical properties? I cannot change the position, I can't change something to be magically enthralling, but I can change the color or the material or the size or shape or density or– a bunch of things, of a thing."

"Oh no," Lulu sighs with dry amusement.

Wakka's face seems to echo the sentiment.

And Kaede seems to either not notice or ignore this, as her face lights up. "Oooh! Okay, what are your limitations, what can you change into what, how fast, why didn't you change the fiend into something, how much functional knowledge must you have?"

"Limitations vary, mainly it's a 'how much can you do over time' thing. Can change lots of things into lots of things, or I can change the individual properties. The fiend was immune, probably 'cause it was magic or something – I repeat, what the hell? Functional knowledge – it's mainly visualization, I need to be able to visualize it. I think that's what you're asking?"

"So you'd need to know the internal details of, say, a spherecorder, to change something into it? Is there a volume limit? A mass limit? How distant can you be from stuff to change it? Can you change biological stuff? What counts as magic?"

Lulu smiles, a bit.

"Yeah, I can't just go 'I want a spherecorder', especially since I have no idea what one looks like except presumably spherical. Volume and mass limit is, uh. No, not really, but I don't do it all at once, it's a gradual thing if it's a large object? So, volume and mass over time, yeah, but not as a 'you cannot change a thing this large' limit, and distance is, uh, quite far, not ridiculously?" Pause. He moves a bit closer to make it easier to speak.

"Biology, yes, same limits as tech though. And I have not extensively tested the magic thing. I can't make anything magic, but you know, that could just be a failure of my imagination – pretty sure it's not, it's known that Changers can't change magical things – and I can't change other daeva much without permission, but like, that comes down to properties-of-daeva more than we-are-magical, I think. Not sure if there's, uh, actually any difference there though."

"...no, spherecorders aren't spherical, how would you even put the sphere inside it...? Anyway, what are properties-of-daeva?"

"Spherecorders are – right, the recorders that put stuff onto the sphere. Well, I dunno, could just be that you mysteriously pull stuff out of it and shove it into some other sphere, not an expert on anything sphere-related." Pause. "Properties-of-daeva vary. Include a nice, handy protection-against-lots-of-things thing."

"Protection-against-lots-of-things?"

"Yep."

"What does that mean?"

"That I have difficulty dying and it's fortunate I'm not so inclined."

"How do you have difficulty dying? What happens if I try to, say, summon Valefor again and make her cut you in half?"

Tidus cracks up.

Theo looks at Tidus then continues, "I've never tested it against a– fayth? Or whatever."

"Valefor's an aeon. Her fayth is also called Valefor but that's because I'm not very creative with names. But anyway, what if Tidus tries to cut you in half with his huge sword? Pun intended."

Tidus turns beet red.

Lulu sighs and puts a hand on her forehead.

Wakka starts laughing.

"… Then so long as it's not magical I will not in fact be killed? And I wouldn't think I'd be killed even if it were magical, but again, haven't tested it."

"So you'll, like, be two live halves? What if you lose one of the halves?"

"Nnno, like, you wouldn't be able to do it." Pause. "Like you'd get stopped before you'd otherwise do more than, like, inconvenience-slash-pain me." Pause. "Because I'm indestructible." Longer pause. "You know, I've never had to explain this before."

"I can see that."

He continues flying, totally not expressing that he feels slightly put out by the comment.

People don't have to be nice. It'd be nice if they were, though.

"So, indestructibility, what are the parametres, you don't look like you're all solid, if I poked you with a pin would it just never go, would the sword just not cut you, how do you get haircuts, oh wait you change, how do Makers get haircuts?"

"Can mildly inconvenience-and-or-pain me, doesn't do more than that. You could in fact stab me with a pin, I could in fact turn it to dust, I would in fact heal, overall would just be annoyed. Sword would do a shallow cut. I have no idea about Makers – it's hardly like I socialize with them."

"Why don't you? Your powers sound like they complement each other very nicely."

"… Mainly because they are kind of extremely horrible? As in, 'what will I take for payment for what I'm making for you, why, since I can make whatever I want, I'll take your undying immortal soul, or alternatively the chance to kill your firstborn, or mmmmaybe I'll be okay with fucking you' – pardon the language."

"What, all of them?"

"Well, I've never heard of any nice ones nor met any and it seems to be widely seen as actual fact among my people so I'm going to guess there's at least something going on?"

(They're still walking up the steps. There are lots of steps.)

"You'd think changing stuff for 'em would sometimes be enough payment, ya?"

(Theo can fly alongside the others just fine.)

"It depends on what the stuff is, I guess, but they don't need us to change themselves, and they can just create a different version of whatever they wanted to change and trash the old one."

"Sounds rough."

"And you said Makers and Changers are summoned, like aeons, with circles?"

"Please do not try it, there are also Movers, if you accidentally summon someone mean they might turn your loved ones into foam or they might decide they want to swallow your planet with a black hole or decide that telekinesis is a great way to have fun, what does planetary collision look like."

"You will find this conversation much more productive for all involved parties if you don't actively hold information from Kaede."

"That was more of a disclaimer than me trying to actively withhold information."

"Yes, and it was—"

"Lu."

She sighs and shuts up.

"You are disclaimed, now tell me about it!"

"I can't say whether it's anything like aeons, but yes, you summon us with circles and you don't want to repeat the one you just used even if you can remember it because that will get an unbound Changer and while we are generally very nice people that is not in any way, shape or form, an absolute and there are horror stories and fortunately I am not inclined to generate more." Pause. "I keep emphasizing this. I don't know if I'm doing it enough or too little, because like, again, have not encountered a society without them in my experience so far nor done a reveal or– anything."

"I don't choose the circles, they just happen, and they happened a lot of times before and this never did."

"… I mean, it does have to satisfy certain conditions to be a summoning circle, like you have to specify what type of daeva you want, but you don't have to do it in a language you know, so maybe you just got unlucky-or-maybe-lucky this time with what circles it did? Or is it consistent each time, because– that would be confusing."

"It's exactly the same circle every time."

"… Is it usually on the ground, too, and flat?"

"Yep."

"Well I have no idea why it got someone this time and hasn't got anyone in the past." Sigh. "Apparently I am not much help when it comes to things outside my experience. Typically summonings involve summoning a daeva into your circle, with Makers they are typically gagged, and then you offer them things for them to do a task and if you both accept then they do it, take it, and leave. This circle didn't require me to stay in it, it didn't, I dunno, block me from trying to change anyone against their will, it just grabbed me and that was it."

"Oh. That's terrifying."

"Oh, for– not like that, ugh, I had to agree to take it, I do this thing for fun usually."

He mumbles a bit.

"Not like—oh, no—well, that would also be terrifying, I guess, but apparently it's not the case. No, just, anyone being able to show up and change stuff—anyway, so you're, like, awake and you exist while you're not summoned?"

"– Oh, you were talking about the dangers of unbound daeva being terrifying? I thought I'd covered that already. But yes, we are awake and we do exist when we're not summoned, and I live in a lovely little place with a bunch of other Changers and then Movers have their own separate plane of existence, as do Makers, as do Limboites, and then there's the whole mortal world."

"It hadn't really occurred to me that the extent of your powers required gagging—is that magical gagging?—and anyway what are 'Limboites' and what do you mean by 'mortal world'?"

"My powers do not in fact require gagging, nor do any of the others – that can be satisfied by other things such as 'cannot change things before having agreed to a task' and things to keep them suitably on task and things to prevent daeva from harming people, suitably defined – but with Makers they have that nasty habit of trying to coerce people out of their souls – that are nonexistent for the purposes of stealing, cannot be stolen, by the way – and things like that. Limboites are– right, you wouldn't know, but there's an afterlife and people go there after they die and the mortal world is, you know, here and Earth and Mars and everywhere that's not one of the other four planes."

Pause. "Except I still don't understand why the heck this place has magic, like, mortal world doesn't tend to – at least not magical objects – in my experience, and you still don't know where or what Earth and Mars are – they're planets, for the record – and there's Earth's moon, and this doesn't look like any of the aforementioned."

"...I totally know about the afterlife, we're gonna go visit on our way to Zanarkand. Called Farplane, though. And what's a planet?"

"The afterlife I'm talking about is not conventionally visitable except at concordances between the four non-mortal planes – that's a thing, lets us trade and stuff – so I don't think we're talking about the same thing here, and a planet is– a spherical massive object that has gravity and often atmospheres and, uh, sort-of-float in space? I don't know what sort of tech level you're at, but I'd assume if you have things that can record stuff, unless that's magic, that you'd know about planets and gravity."

"Spherecorders are a technology that solidifies water into recording spheres by registering events into it with pyreflies, so it's both magic and technology."

"No idea what a pyrefly is," he says.

Are they anywhere near the top of these steps yet?

Almost there! They're lots of steps.

"No one really knows what pyreflies are but souls are made of them and so are aeons and fiends and magic in general.—Oh and yeah, about that..."

"When someone dies, if they haven't accepted their death, they might hang on, filled with confusion and grief, which eventually turns to anger and resentment towards the living, and finally hate—and they turn into fiends, monsters that cannot move on and can only prey on the living. Killing them is a mercy, and it is one of a summoner's duties to perform a sending and guide the dead to their resting place so that won't happen."

"Well. That's not how it works in the bits of the mortal world I know of, but if you say so."

"Kaede distressed by sendings," Kimahri says, gravelly, a faint growl at the back of his throat.

"People dying in general is kind of horrible, yes, especially when you're a human and have no idea about Limbo… Or. Um. Actually you're not all human, so, this–" He frowns. "Hm."

Kimahri makes a sound between an assenting hum and a growl.

"Everyone here knows about the Farplane, ya? It's where we all go to rest, when it's our time."

"So. When you say 'resting place', you mean Farplane, and– I know approximately nothing about there, okay, what's it like, do people get tortured horribly forever or do they just live insubstantially or does it act kinda like Limbo – infinite plane of very little, I expect you'd get quite bored – or is it even better than that because if so I'm not totally sure why you'd hate it overall especially if you can go visit unless there are some convenient limits."

"We don't hate it."

"But the people there aren't completely accessible."

Kaede remains conspicuously silent.

"… Can I have more details on how accessible they are? And maybe what they do there?"

"When you visit you see illus—"

"The dead are not easily disturbed, and do not react when people communicate with them. We can see them and talk to them, but they do not respond, for their place is not amongst the living anymore."

"– That sounds, um." He pauses and looks at Kaede. "Somewhat limited in how comforting it might be."

"I am very much not in this business for comfort, no."

And they finally reach the top of the stairs.

Theo looks around at the temple-or-whatever, sticking near the other people.

It is a temple-or-whatever! It's very old and very pretty and there are people milling about and they—

—well, they're not expecting an angel, they kinda stare.

"So, er, are you, like, stuck here forever or something? Do you just go away whenever you want to?"

"If you die or if you will me away for a minute." Pause. "I would currently not like to be willed away, thanks, so would appreciate it if you wouldn't."

Hello people who are not expecting an angel. If it would help he can make his wings black to cut down on the blazing whiteness, and at least he doesn't have a halo.

.........no that does not help at all the blazing whiteness is not the problem here. They also don't notice the lack of a halo, not knowing one would be called for according to some other culture somewhere.

"Why not? I mean, not that I wouldn't love to use your powers against Sin, and Makers, even Movers, it'd be such a huge edge- but if you just explained how to summon people with appropriate bindings..."

"… Yeah, but I prefer personally not to be under 'appropriate bindings' because they can sometimes be unnecessarily limiting, such as the 'do not change people without their consent thing' – if you start bleeding out, I'd assume I have consent, but I might actually need it verbalized to do anything. Plus, like, you've somehow never summoned someone before."

Well, it's not his fault that they don't have halos in their culture. He doesn't know if they have a thing against white wings or something.

"...what does you personally not being under appropriate bindings have to do with anything?"

People have not stopped reacting to his presence with confusion when he changed the colours—in fact, if anything they're more confused—so no they probably do not have a thing against white wings in particular.

"Um, that I don't see why you would dismiss and resummon me when you could just, you know, keep me here?"

"I didn't say I'd dismiss you or resummon you, I want an army of Makers and Movers and Changers to take Sin down. And, separately, I'm wondering why you don't want to be dismissed—you haven't asked anything in exchange for anything and you implied people typically do, and also implied Changers can be pretty terrible which could just be you trying to buy our trust by implying you're not, personally, pretty terrible."

Tidus furrows his eyebrows, trying to follow that.

"… So you, what, think I'm a pretty terrible Changer who has explained that Changers can be pretty terrible to try to make you not think that I'm pretty terrible? And no, I haven't asked for anything in exchange because usually that happens before I get out of the circle and I don't actually yet know what you have, and also I don't want to be dismissed because I'm curious about this place?"

"I don't necessarily think that, I just think that it's possible and your powers make me nervous but most people are not in fact terrible and you'd need to be really, really terrible to be worse than Sin. And even if you, personally, are not worse than Sin, I'd still like to get at least one Maker and one Mover."

"I'm not against that," he says. "I don't know how to do a gag, though, but I think that's mostly so people don't have to bother hearing the annoying suggestions, instead of Makers actually being particularly persuasive or dangerous like that." He looks around. "Do we need to do something about these people and the fact I'm, you know, unexpected?"

"I'm a summoner, people expect me to do unexpected things," she waves her hand vaguely. "It will be weird if I start drawing stuff on the floor, though, so maybe not here..."

At this point, a group of people walks out from the inner sanctum.

"You here to pray for victory, too?" asks Wakka.

"Us? Pray?" mocks the one in front. "Who needs to pray? The Luca Goers always win!"

Theo waits patiently for the interaction to complete, because he thinks he's probably lacking too much context to understand much of it.

Except for it apparently being, probably, some sorts of sports thing. That sounds like a sports thing.

"Oh, yeah? Then why are you here?" Wakka asks.

One of the other guys answers: "We've been praying for some competition this year!"

"So, what's your goal this time?" asks main guy. "You gonna 'do your best' again? Ha! It's too bad your best isn't good enough! Why even bother showing up?"

(Kaede rolls her eyes.)

Theo politely refrains. He is, instead, after looking them over a bit, totally ignoring them and looking around the temple.

"Well, this time, we play to win!"

"Oooh! Play away! Just remember even kids can play, boys," says main guy—

—he pauses to finally notice Theo and blink in surprise—

—then shakes his head and walks off with his teammates. 

(The temple has statues and fire inside spheres that somehow still burns and stone pillars and people and is very pretty.)

Pretty temple. Theo prefers other styles of architecture, though.

He doesn't respond to the confusion of 'main guy'.

Kaede looks like she's biting her tongue on some choice remarks about this interaction.

"We should go."

Theo is willing to follow!

… Does anybody have any questions for him or is he going to, like, die of boredom and lack-of-knowing-what-to-explain-first?

Kaede does!

"So in your world, anyone can summon those, er, three things, and there are five worlds in total, three for your powered things, one where 'mortals' live, and one where they go when they die... Did I miss anything?"

"Nope, pretty sure that's the main stuff – daeva's the collective word. There are concordances, though, between the non-mortal-worlds, think I said that, and we can be summoned to the mortal world but not to limbo or other non-mortal-worlds with appropriate circles and typically with bindings, and we're indestructible – limboites included."

He pauses to think, then says, "Oh, uh. At least some ex-summoners become daeva instead of limboites – I'm not sure on the particular skew or if it's all of them, but I've met a couple of angels who used to be summoners."

She stops walking. "Dooooes that mean I'm gonna go to your afterlife if I die because that was not in the plans."

"The plans?"

She looks around and says, "I can explain later in a less public place."

Lulu sighs.

"No idea!" he says. "I have never heard of people in Limbo who are from here, or in fact anywhere with spherecorders and Sin, just people from Earth like usual, and I've never spoken to a daeva who's gone to a non-Earth and non-moon place, nor one who's from there, so yeah, you might go to our afterlife but this whole situation continues to be unprecedented as far as I know."

"Okay, that's... better, I suppose."

"… Better? Because it might not sidetrack your mysterious plans, or because this actually explains why I can't explain things as well as you expect?"

She waves her hand. "Wakka doesn't like it when I talk about that."

Wakka is in fact apparently studiously ignoring this, making his way to a statue and kneeling before it. He starts gesturing at it in a repeated motion of spreading his arms out and then bringing them together as if they were holding an invisible ball in front of his chest. "Lord Ohalland, guide our feet and give us strength," he says.

"I mean, okay, but he's over there and I'm not sure if this means I need to be worried…? Because this place kinda creepily reminds me of some stuff?"

"Except I should go pray, too," she says—

—and her visage changes, like she's someone else entirely wearing the same skin. She kneels beside Wakka, and starts praying, as well. More silently than he does, but still.

… Well that was, uh, vaguely creepy.

She is a very conscientious and pious summoner. The pillar of the community. Watch her be that.

Uh-huh.

Nah, he thinks he'll look at the slightly less creepy things presumably going on somewhere, thanks.

He's in a temple. There are statues and flames and people praying at the statues and a set of stairs into double doors. In other words, not much in the way of slightly less creepy, no.

Ugh. He'll just wait around looking at all the creepy stuff in that case, then, with no non-creepy to break it up.

After a couple of minutes, the door at the top of the stairs opens, and two people step out. Kaede looks up and both she and Wakka stand up.

"A summoner, are you?"

"Yes. I am Kaede, from the Isle of Besaid."

And because the temple is so small, Theo is nearby and politely not interposing himself into the conversation, how polite of the – black-winged white humanoid wearing foreign clothing.

"Dona. So, you're High Summoner Braska's daughter. That's quite a name to live up to. My, my—"

She notices the winged humanoid.

"What is that?"

He turns to look at her! Doesn't answer, though, because apparently he's being treated like an inanimate object.

She resumes speaking, without taking her eyes off Theo. "My, being the High Summoner's daughter must have its perks, if you can find unknown aeons like that. Quite peculiar design, too."

Sigh.

She finally looks at Kaede again. "And all these people are your guardians? My, what a rabble. As I recall, Lord Braska had only two guardians. Quality over quantity, my dear. Whatever were you thinking? I have need of only one guardian. Right, Barthello?"

She raises an eyebrow. "There's all sorts of reasons to prefer quantity over quality, as a matter of fact. No matter how qualified a single guardian is, they can only exist in one place at a time and have limited attentional capacity, and that's not to mention replaceability. This isn't a job with a very high life expectancy, is it, and guardians have a defection rate as high as if not higher than summoners'. Not that I expect any of my guardians to defect, of course, but it happens, and not preparing for the eventuality is thoughtless. I'm not going to artificially handicap myself out of some sense of pride, nor am I going to hypocritically try to convince my guardians not to do what I myself am risking my existence to do, so if they want to come, I shall welcome them."

Theo is somewhat confused by this interaction but doesn't plan on interrupting at this stage.

Dona looks affronted, like no one had ever talked back to her like that, then recovers her composure and says, "Barthello, we're leaving."

"And he's not an aeon, by the way," she calls after Dona. Then turns to Theo. "Sorry about that. People develop the craziest signals to take their minds off the task, sometimes pretty costly ones."

"It's fine," he says. "Kinda nice for someone to be ignoring me for something I'm not for once." Pause. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm not running on emotion, I have thought about all my choices, this isn't a project where I can afford to make mistakes or wing it or go the normal way. I mean to end Sin, for good, no take backs."

"About that– I still have no idea what Sin is but I'm assuming if your 'mission' is to end them-or-it for good then they've probably done something rather terrible? Like maybe that plant from earlier plus other examples?"

"Right. Sin is a giant monster that periodically destroys places."

"A thousand years ago, there were a whole lot of cities in Spira. Big cities with machina to run 'em. People played all day and let the machina do the work. And then, well. Sin came, and destroyed the machina cities."

"The teachings of Yevon say that Sin is our punishment for our hubris and laziness, and that it will be gone for good once we atone for our sins."

"I– does it explain how in particular you might need to atone, and a thousand years ago is a long while, and– is Spira the continent or the whole, uh, world?" Pause. "And is Sin magical like that plant or what."

"We must work, and show our self-sufficiency and effort and humility."

"And when that has happened a summoner will defeat Sin and it won't come back, but until then it always will," she explains, with only the barest hint of an eyeroll. "And in the meantime Sin has never let us develop good enough forms of transportation that we can actually explore the rest of the world to see what there may be other than the continent, so."

"Do you know what your solar system is like? – You have magic plants, why am I even assuming you have a solar system. You have a– sun? How about a moon?"

"Yes we have a sun and a moon, no clue what a solar system is, though."

"A group of spherical objects – planets like this presumably is and moons and stuff – plus comets and things, orbiting a star, like the sun. So presumably you have one." Pause. "Anyway, not really helpful, so do you want to get started trying to summon things? Medical daeva can be useful in hospitals and looking at things around here I assume you're not particularly high-tech though I have no idea why you would have recording devices."

"That would be because Sin destroys every civilisation that gets too much tech, using some fuzzy definition of tech Yevon knows—Wakka did tell you we had machina cities a thousand years ago..."

"And Kaede still needs to go pray to this temple's fayth."

"So the fayth isn't that statue you just prayed to? I seem to be lacking in contexts for some of these words, like, I know they're something you might pray to but not where to find them or whatever. Fayths are, what, things you pray to to get aeons or–?"

"A fayth is a person who offered their life to fight Sin. Yevon took their souls out of their still-living body and trapped them in statues where they live forever. When a summoner beckons, wishing for a way to defeat Sin with all their heart, they awaken and come to the summoner's aid—that's an aeon."

"The fayth are beyond the Cloister of Trials," he says, gesturing towards the top of the stairs whence Dona and Barthello came. "Only a summoner and their guardians are allowed in there, and only the summoner can see the fayth."

"Is that, they're beyond the Cloister of Trials in each temple thing, or this is a special temple that contains the Cloister of Trials and all the fayth? – And would I count as an automatic guardian or would I have to undertake some sort of ritual or something?"

"Each temple has its own Cloister of Trials. There isn't a ritual, I just have to decide you're my guardian—"

Wakka folds his arms.

"—but it's a very serious and sacred responsibility that shouldn't be asked or accepted lightly," she says, rolling her eyes only a little and in a very plausibly deniable way.

"… Can it not just be undone at some point? I mean, sure, sounds like I'm trying to cheat the system here or something, but I've never been inside that thing and I'm curious, so long as it's not, like, sacrilege or something to do it."

"It's not against Yevon's precepts to abandon a pilgrimage—one of the core tenets is that you cannot force this duty on anyone, it must be a voluntary choice—but it's frowned upon. and can be stigmatising. And if a non-guardian enters the Cloister of Trials, the summoner can be excommunicated."

"Okay, and presumably I can't just go claim to be a summoner and 'can I look in' or alternatively request a special exemption by virtue of being a summoned thing and there's some technicality that summoned things are not barred?" Sigh. "I'll just wait here."

"You need to spend years apprenticing to become one, and even if you're a summoned thing you're not an aeon." She shrugs. "Sorry, we should be back in a couple of hours."

"… Right," he says. "See you in a couple of hours, in that case."

Up she and her guardians go!

...so perhaps the blond boy isn't one!

Well, if he's very clearly not going, Theo will wait a moment and then ask, "Are you not a guardian, then?"

"Nah. I'm not even from Spira, still kinda lost here."

"Where are you from, then?"

"Zanarkand. But Kaede reckons it's not the same Zanarkand Spira knows."

"Oh, huh," he says. "How'd you get here?"

"Sin attacked, and this guy who took care of me since I was a kid—Auron—took me to it, and there was this big light, and I woke up near some ruins somewhere. Some Al Bhed helped me, then knocked me out, then I had to help them with some ruins, and then Sin attacked them, and I woke up in Besaid. And Sin attacked Kilika, after. Kaede thinks that's weird and it may be following me."

"Right. Uh, not clear on a few of those things – why did your caretaker take you to Sin, and why did an Al Bhed – that's a race, right? – knock you out, and, uh, do you have any idea why you keep waking up in presumably different places?"

"I don't know why Auron did that, he's kinda weird. The Al Bhed thought I was a fiend, and didn't know what to do with me, and I don't really know why I keep waking up in different places."

"Cool," he says. "This place sounds like so much fun. Weird events, – are you part of that religion, too? I've never heard of it before I got here, is all."

"Nah, I hadn't prayed once in my life before coming here. There were some religious people in Zanarkand but nothing like this."

"So that's kinda weird too, and then there's the fact you mysteriously appeared, this place has somehow never had an angel before despite that circle apparently being done all the time and only once getting me…" He shrugs. "Also the magic. The magic creature that destroys places. That's weird."

"Tell me about it. There was some magic in Zanarkand, Blitzball stadiums use it, and Blitzball players too, to breathe underwater. And some fiends did appear, but it was a big deal when it happened."

"We have small bits of magic but it's not, like, widespread at all." Shrug. "What's Blitzball?"

"Only the best sport ever! You mean you don't have it where you're from?"

And he descends into an excited and lengthy explanation of a sport played in a magical floating sphere of water which is sort of a cross between handball and football and wrestling, with lots of animated gestures and glance-drawing sound effects from his mouth.

Oh. Fun.

Maybe he'll try it sometime. Without his wings.

"I was the best player back in Zanarkand," he says, rubbing his nose self-satisfiedly.

"Ah," says Theo. "Congrats."

"Thanks! I could show you how to blitz sometime." Pause. "The wings might be a problem."

"I can get rid of them," he says. "Perks of being able to change things. But yeah, sounds fun."

"Oh, right, cool. D'you have wing sports where you're from?"

"Yeah, actually!" he says, and if Tidus seems interested he explains the basics of one of them – like an aerial game of catch, basically.

Tidus finds it pretty cool actually. Shame he doesn't have wings.

Unfortunately wings would not do too well in combination with a mortal body, so even though Theo could in theory create them attached to the body… it wouldn't work. Oh well.

At least he can breathe underwater.

It's not like Theo would be that badly harmed by trying to do things underwater, and he could always convert the water into air or something, but– any chance he can learn to breathe underwater anyway? Sounds neat.

Yeah actually! It's pretty intuitive, but takes a while. He needs to go into a tank infused with magic and breathe that water, and then do that in decreasingly magical water until he learns to do it to regular water.

… He's not totally certain he wants to go into a tank of magical water. It's not like it'll kill him but it might be slightly annoying if he can't change it and he needs to.

Maybe.

Oh it's not magical water, it's water with magic. The water itself's just water.

Well. That might act just like water, then, yeah. He might do that sometime then.

"We're going to Luca after this, they must have the equipment for that ready."

"How long does it usually take to do? Like, a few days of training or like an hour of trying it, or…?"

"Uh, usually some months."

Nod. "I'm guessing it takes longer if you stop and start, but do you have any idea how much longer? 'Cause I probably won't be spending months learning how to breathe underwater, at least not all in a row."

"I don't really know, I'd always wanted to be a Blitzball so I kinda did it all the time."

"– Be a Blitzball?"

"What?"

"You've always wanted to be a Blitzball– player?"

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Pause. "Okay. Any other sports around here, or is that the major one?"

"In Spira it's kinda the only one."

"Huh," he says. "That's– do you have any idea what the population is, of Spira?"

"I guess a few hundred thousand? Maybe a few million people?"

Nod. "We've got about ten billion, on Earth, and definitely a lot more sports than 'like one'."

"There's probably other small ones, but Wakka told me Sin destroys everything before it gets big, so no other sports get a chance to."

"– Uh. Then why hasn't it done that with Blitzball yet?"

He shrugs. "I dunno."

"Right," he says. "– If they're gonna be there for a few hours, I should probably look around for something to do, like – any idea where a hospital is, something like that?"

"They shouldn't take more than another like hour. Why do you want a hospital?"

"Not for me, it'd be so I can hopefully treat some things – I'm trained in medical stuff so I should be able to help out, unless you're all way higher-tech than it seems."

"Oh. I dunno if there's hospitals, though, and—if there were any Sin probably destroyed them yesterday."

"Right," he says. "And nowhere that the sick might congregate to see a doctor or something…? I mean, I guess you don't know since you're new too, but," he shrugs. "Anything you need fixed up, by the way? Since I'm available with medical knowledge and the ability to change things."

"Nah, I'm fine. And I think people use magic to heal, here."

"That might interact weirdly if I try healing them, then – don't know if healing magic would actually just speed up regrowth or if the result is magical too."

"It's probably not, magic stuff disappears after a while."

Nod. "You got anything to do while we wait for them? I was thinking of flying around a bit."

"Not really. Practice with my new sword, I guess."

"– Do you want to try summoning something, then? With the aforementioned risks to where you'll go when you die, and the fact that if we want something useful we probably want to go filtering through a bunch of Changers or get a Maker who is hopefully favorably inclined."

"Hey, it's better than going nowhere, which is where I thought I'd go before. Uh, we should probably go outside for that, these old geezers will be annoyed if we deface their temple."

"Probably," he agrees. Outside they go, in that case.

Theo could carry Tidus down? It'll probably be faster than walking down the ridiculous number of steps.

Tidus thinks there's no reason to go down, they can just do it in the woods over here.

Sure.

Theo picks up a twig and starts drawing a summoning circle. "Don't say anything when they appear – if you make a sound of agreement it might count as such, so it's best if you're just quiet while I do the negotiation."

"Okay."

And then most of the circle is done! He pauses. "Okay, well, we should maybe actually have something for them to do when they're here, hm. Could ask them to go fix up that place, but it's not like I actually have anything to trade with them." Hm. "You got anything on you that you're willing to trade for them? Otherwise I can see if they want a copy of whatever I have on my phone."

He shrugs. "There's probably lots of magic stuff here that you guys don't have where you're from. Could just give them a power sphere."

"– I have no idea what that is, and do you have one on you?"

"Uh, yeah." He reaches for one in a pocket. It's a bit smaller than a billiard ball, and looks like solid water. Not ice—more like water just up and decided to be sphere-shaped on a whim. It shines with a red sourceless glow, and looks like it's in constant chaotic movement in spite of being completely still. "This one's for physical magic."

"We mmmight need more than that as an explanation of what it does if we want someone to take it? Though the red glow makes it pretty anyway and they may possibly take it just for that."

"You can use it to get stronger or tougher. Permanently."

"Huh," he says. "The stronger thing might be interesting, if it works on us, since we only have approximately human strength – how would you activate it? And uh, how expensive are they or difficult to get, do you have multiple?"

"Yeah, we have, like, a couple dozen. When a fiend dies some of its pyreflies sometimes become power spheres, or you can make them—well, I can, you'd have to learn how—or you can buy them."

Theo nods. "I'm just gonna change this, sec," he says, and then alters the circle a bit. "Aiming for a friend of mine now. Just fill in the end of the circle and then hopefully he's free to come."

He hands the stick over.

Tidus completes the circle.

No-one appears! For a while.

After about a minute, Theo says, "Might as well try another circle that's not for him, then, in case he doesn't come," and holds his hand out for the stick.

Stick: is handed back.

Theo takes it, draws another circle, and then hands it back to Tidus to fill in!

Fill in!

No daeva.

Still no daeva.

"That was meant to be a Changer," says Theo, after another minute. "Usually they're quicker than that about turning up."

"Maybe a Mover's quicker?"

He takes the stick again and tries another circle, this time to get a fairy. Hands it back to Tidus to get him to fill it in again.

If this doesn't work he might try a demon. Ugh.

Fill it in!

Nope. Then they try a demon. Still nothing.

"I think something is broken, in that case. Or I was somehow a special case."

"The aeon's circle doesn't look like that, though."

"You can use different languages around the edge, anyway," he says. "Could be that the 'language' used in the aeon circle was just sort of geometric?"

"Doesn't have a lot written on it anyway."

"Okay, well, these don't seem to have worked," he says, so he smooths over the ground to cover the circles. "Meaning Kaede does not have a way to get her army of daeva."

"Yeah... She'd be real happy if it worked..." And he inexplicably blushes a little.

Well okay then. "Anything else to do in the meantime, then? Or are we just waiting the however-long left."

"Waiting, I guess." He tosses the sphere up, catches it, and then squeezes it, causing it to evaporate into rainbow lights that circle his body before being absorbed by it.

"I am sort of curious if that works on me properly, if you have a sphere to spare."

"Yeah." He finds another one and tosses it to him. "It's a weird feeling, like you're slotting it inside you, and after you do it you gotta make room for more later."

"Just squeeze it?" he asks.

"Nah, that's just me, you gotta, like, focus on it, and know what you're gonna slot it in."

… So he tries to feel for a thing he might slot it into.

It's weird. The subjective feeling is that this sphere could normally improve something his brain translates as "endurance" but not, specifically, his endurance; could normally improve his "toughness" but again, not his, specifically (though this one feels more like "not yet" than "not at all"); or could make him physically stronger.

… Well okay, he'll try willing it using this to become a tad stronger, though he could, like, change his muscles if he wanted to do that separately.

Not like the endurance nor the toughness things really matter.

It's like his feelings about the subject flow through his arm into the sphere, which then disappears and does the nice lights effects on him. And his physical body seems to have changed not at all.

He is quite happy that his physical body has not in fact changed because he was not in fact aiming for his physical body to change. It would have been quite surprising if it had in fact changed.

"Weird," he says.

"Told ya. And if you, like, meditate about it, you can sorta, move around in your head and find other things you can do with more magic."

"Are they things I can do with more spheres, or would I need different spheres? And what do the endurance and toughness ones do, because I'm assuming they won't help me much on account of the indestructibility."

"You'd need some of these and some others. And, uh, I don't know what you're calling endurance and toughness in your head? But the things power spheres help with are strength, resistance to damage, and how much you can get hurt before something goes seriously wrong."

"I'd expect toughness to be resistance to damage and endurance to be the other one, but okay, I guess the words are kinda ambiguous. Resistance to damage probably wouldn't help much because invulnerable, same for the other one. Things don't go seriously wrong with me, I don't get damaged much." Shrug.

"Handy. There's other things magic spheres can help with, like some spells."

"Any in particular that might be useful? I mean, presumably they're all at least sort of useful."

"There's speed, mana, ability, fortune, uh..."

"… I'm kinda curious how fortune works, and actually same for the others – is speed just physical or also mental? And does ability help with learning or what?"

"Fortune makes you luckier, don't know how that works but it does. Speed is physical and mental, and ability teaches you spells."

"So there are actual spells, it's not just permanent upgrades?"

"Well, learning how to cast a spell is sort of a permanent upgrade, but yeah. Lulu was using some against the Sinspawn, and Kaede was, too."