A year past by and slowly everyone began to move on. Yuna and Tidus settled down in Besaid and started their new life together, and Nooj and Leblanc got engaged. Rikku for her part couldn't keep sphere hunting, so instead found a job in Luca and settled down there. The last time Gippal had seen her, she'd seemed happy enough, but there was always a trace of sadness behind her eyes that made Gippal worry; he doubted whether she'd really moved on. For the most part, his life hadn't changed much. Though his work load was pretty much the same as before, he got stressed out more and as a result over half of the time felt like he was going crazy.

At the moment, he was in Bikanel checking to see if everything was going smoothly. He'd been so stressed out that he needed to take a break from work for awhile, so he decided to put his free-time to good use and make sure everything was alright there. Everything was going smoothly. He'd talked to Nhadala and everything seemed perfect at the digging sites.

He was still talking to Nhadala when he heard shouts coming from somewhere else in the camp.

"Gippal!" a man shouted running up to him.

"Fryd'c dra bnupmas?" Gippal asked, his stress levels spiking again.

"Y tnihg asbmuoaa ryc yddylgat cusauha!" the man shouted and Gippal sighed miserably; a fight had just broken out between two of his employees.

"Excuse me." He said to Nhadala, before running off in the direction of the shouts.

When he got to the scene, he had to shove his way through the crowd that had gathered to watch. There was the employee, a drunken Al Bhed pushing the other employees away and attacking some girl, who was crouched down in the sand holding her hands over her head in defense.

"Stop!" he shouted at them. And the man did, but not before he cracked his empty bottle of alcohol over the girls head. She fell face first into the sand, but luckily was still breathing.

"Cra cdyndat dra vekrd! Cra dneat du cdaym vnus sa!" The man protested, blaming the girl for what happened.

"Will someone get him out of here!?" He asked, and a few other employees whisked him away. He'd deal with this later; right now the girl needed medical attention.

He knelt down in front her, and to his surprise she was still conscious. She sat up to look at him.

"Thank you." She said, but he didn't hear her. He was too shocked to say anything, his heart nearly stopped. He was staring right into a pair of remarkably familiar Crimson Red eyes.

A/N What did you think of that cliff hanger? I may do more of these if you guys like them.  Sorry this chapter was so short, but last chapter was pretty long, so I thought I'd balance it out. Okay so fun fact, the idea for this chapter is actually what inspired this whole story. I was playing FFX-2, and I was in Bikanel and I imagined this scene playing out...and the rest just played out from there.  So hopefully this was a good chapter, keep reading to find out what comes next. Is Paine really still alive? Well you'll see soon enough. Hopefully y'all enjoyed this. Please vote and or comment and tell me what you think. keep reading for more Final Fantasy Goodness. Love y'all -Reibun.