Paine

Paine is a playable character who first appears in Final Fantasy X-2. She is one of the three playable characters, and is the darkest of the girls. Her past is a mystery for most of the game, and it's up to the player to find out what happened to her two years ago.

Appearance & Personality
Paine has short silver hair and red eyes, making her look similar to Lulu from the previous game, but her personality is like Auron in her cynicism and the way she reveals information only when she needs to. Armed with a one-handed sword and a lukewarm attitude, no one knows much about the secretive Paine except that she is cynical, rather quiet and generally keeps to herself. Paine is extremely tough and loves a good fight, but she is also sensible enough to smell trouble a mile away. If she feels her fellow Gullwings are getting too enthusiastic, she would use sarcastic cracks to jolt them to their senses, and despite Rikku's constant prying she refuses to divulge any information about herself, except that she has always wanted to fly on an airship and hunt for spheres containing records of Spira's past. No one knows if perhaps some of these spheres may contain records that are personal to her...

She is most commonly seen wearing her black leather ensemble complete with high-heeled boots, elbow-length gloves and a unique top that folds back down to resemble a vest.

Story
Nothing is really known about Paine's childhood. The first time we find out anything about her, is when we hear about her in the Crimson Squad. The Crimson Squad was an elite group of soldiers set up by Yevon. Paine worked in a group as a recorder for three men, named Nooj, Baralai and Gippal. However, when most of the other members of the Crimson Squad are killed in the Den of Woe, the group survives, but were put up for execution soon after, since no one was supposed to survive in the Den.

Running away, the four of them stayed together for a while, with Paine still recording. It was here that Paine learnt to speak fluent Al Bhed from Gippal. When they all decide to go their separate ways, Nooj betrays them, since he was possessed by Shuyin's hatred. It was the four of them that essentially caused the events of Final Fantasy X-2 to begin.

Paine joins the Gullwings two years later, before Yuna, hoping to uncover the truth of what happened that day at the Den of Woe. She jokingly remarks that she "always did want to fly on this thing anyway", referring to the Celsius.

During the events of the game, the party encounter all three members of Paine's old squad. While Gippal still recognises her, Nooj and Baralai pretend they don't know her. Paine, not wanting the other girls knowing about her past, pretends that she doesn't know them either.

However, as the girls collect all the Crimson Spheres, recorded by Paine herself, they slowly find out about all the events from two years ago. Nooj and Gippal also tell the girls about all the events. Paine eventually opens up, telling the girls all about how the four of them dreamed about having an airship, travelling all over Spira. It is because of this that she stays on to the end, to save Baralai from Shuyin's hatred.

Relationship with the Crimson Canidates
Though not much information about Paine's relationship with the three men is shown in the main story line, it is obvious to see Paine's compassion towards them. In "Paine's Shere" it is evedent that she was close to these men, showing this is the small fact that Paine did not seemed bothered by the fact Gippal called her "Doctor P," but when Rikku said it later in X-2 it seemed to irritate her. Paine's love for these men is also apparant during the "reunitings" with the Gullwings. Though Gippal was the only one visibly recognizing her, she also seemed to have some sort of emotion towards Nooj, though it didn't seem the good kind, and also with Baralai seeming to have some unfinished buisness to handle with him, which she did by fighting with him in the Bevelle Underground. A big scene contributing to Paine's closeness to Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal is during the meet up to try and heal old wounds also held in Bevelle's Underground, in which Paine has enough of her friends fighting and yells at them to stop their child-like behavior, but before she can do so a Marlboro distracts her before she can sraighten things out with her comrades and they dissapear,some say in future of final fantasy X-3 if there was one they some will agree of partning paine with baralai.

Afterwards
Three months after the events of Final Fantasy X-2, the Gullwings are called back together, to Yadonoki Tower. Here, they travel to the top of the tower, where they find a broken machina. Paine reveals she was the one who brought them back together, to show them that even though they are now apart, they shall always be together.

Battle


When the player has obtained all of the Crimson Spheres they gain access to the Den of Woes. Upon entering the Den the pyreflies will overwhelm the party and cause them to attack each other. Paine is the second out of the six opponants you face, after Rikku.

Paine's attacks are slightly more powerful than Rikku's, so don't hesitate to use an X-Potion to recover if needed. Attack her quickly and mercilessly with your most powerful skills, and she should succumb almost as quickly as Rikku does.

Dresspheres
Before and during battle Paine can change her job class by changing dresspheres. She can become a White Mage, a Samurai, a Berserker, she can use any of the common dresspheres.

Her Special Dressphere is the Full Throttle

Creation and Development
Paine was a newly introduced character, having not appeared previously in Final Fantasy X. As Kazushige Nojima puts it, she's kind of a female Squall. “With the two (Rikku and Yuna) being a lot more talkative, there had to be someone with a calm, cool demeanor who could put a halt to their excessive chattiness. If it were Lulu in that role, she would have completely shut them down, and the story wouldn’t have advanced at all. But in Paine’s case, she’s someone who can remain neutral, keep the others focused, and help the story carry on together with these two girls.”

Also, in regard to the dress spheres and the Warriors classes in particular only Paine gets to carry a unique sword. “This is her own weapon,” says Alternate Costume Designer Tetsu Tsukamoto. “It doesn’t belong to anyone else.” Keep an eye out for the similar symbol on all three of Paine’s warrior-class swords. It’s only fitting, since Paine doesn’t have a connection to the previous game, and since this is also her default class. From a design standpoint, Paine’s Dark Knight is Tsukamoto’s favorite. “I handled a lot of monster designs prior to working on the costumes for FFX-2,” he says. “It feels like the scales of the monsters apply to this design. That’s why I like it a lot.” He also reveals that each of the girls' head pieces reflect their personalities, with the sharp edges of Paine's head piece to reflect her prickly outlook.


 * Songstress Sphere: The reason why Paine’s costume is so different from the others is because the team couldn’t decide whether she should be rock ’n’ roll or Top 40, so Tsukamoto split the difference.
 * Thief Sphere: Tsukamoto designed Paine and Yuna so they’d have as much sex appeal as Tetsuya Nomura’s original design for Rikku’s default character.
 * Trainer Sphere: Paine was originally supposed to carry a snake, but a programmer put the idea away because he said the animation would be too difficult pull off.

Musical Themes
Final Fantasy X-2 Vocal Collection: PAINE In addition to a theme song (Designated "Paine's Theme" in the soundtrack and "The Thinking which Sleeps" in her single) Paine also has a vocal collection created after her:

Disc 1 - CD: 01 - The Thinking which Sleeps 02 - Misty Eyed 03 - The Thinking which Sleeps ~ Instrumental 04 - Misty Eyed ~ Instrumental Disc 2 - DVD: 01 - The Thinking which Sleeps 02 - Megumi Toyoguchi Interview 03 - Final Fantasy X-2 Special Movie ~ PAINE Version

Kingdom Hearts II
Paine appears in Kingdom Hearts II as a chibi fairy version of herself along side similar versions of Yuna and Rikku. Calling themselves 'treasure fanatics" the three Gullwings are mercenaries spying on Leon for Maleficent, though after being left behind by Maleficent and some trickery from Donald involving promised treasure, they join with Leon and help defend Radiant Garden against the army of Heartless.

Later the Gullwings discover Donald's lie but feel sympathetic to Sora's cause. Instead of taking his items they give him the keyblade 'Gullwing'.

Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Special
Paine is a playable character in this special edition of the Monopoly-like video game available only in Japan.