He takes it! "Thanks."

And when he tries to use it, he picks for defense!

He feels no noticeable change but the sphere disappears anyway!

Well hopefully it makes the lightning less painful.

Lulu offers him four more spheres.

He tries to use each of them for magical defense!

By the third he meets some resistance—almost like it "doesn't fit"—and the fourth doesn't go at all.

He hands the fourth back to Lulu.

"You will probably need to get beaten up some before you can use more spheres."

"By magical attacks or all attacks? I could go walk through lightning again anyway, yay."

"Both. Whenever we walk, or use magic, or exert ourselves in any way, it helps, but I'm not sure how that interacts with you using your magic."

"Unfortunately I don't think there's any precedent I can work off either."

Fiends!

"Here you go, you could get beat up by wolves if you want," he says, gesturing ahead.

"That does not particularly sound like fun. I could just try exerting myself by flying?"

"Or that," he agrees, and the fiends are fought.

Fiends die swiftly, Theo flies around a bit.

The road is long, and the night is dark and full of terrors.

Not that this is relevant, given that it's not currently night, but.

There are still some mini-terrors around currently, so it's a little relevant.

Rikku and Tidus continue having the occasional conversation, but this is clearly not going like the Al Bhed girl planned. Kaede pretends obliviousness, and even eventually chats with her, as if nothing was amiss.

Well it's nice that they can get along after attempted kidnapping.

What attempted kidnapping, nope, they're not talking about it because Kaede's sure there's a very good reason why his cousin decided to try to do that or why Auron decided not to tell whatever it is Theo now knew.

Theo will just fly along quietly then.

More fiends! Some talking! Lots of awkwardness!

And after a bit: "… Do you still have my phone?"

"—oh, yeah, I do." And here's Theo's phone, produced out of who knows where. "Thank you for the loan."

He takes it. "Thank you for keeping it safe, coincidentally. – Oh, I don't remember what you actually said when I asked about one of those space pocket things? Because it might be convenient to have one."