Final Fantasy - Unus Mundus

by LordChrom7

The rules of time and space were never meant to be broken. The very fabric of reality itself depends upon fate running its course, not being altered or flipped around by the curious and the foolish. It has always been known that the reckless curiosity of humanity would be its downfall. So what happens when someone truly discovers how to break these rules...?

In the beginning, Marlene only saw darkness spread out before her. The ground at her feet was cold and wet, like she was standing on the surface of the ocean. Even so, the waters were calm. It felt like the ocean itself wasn't moving. Gathering all the courage she had, she took a step forward. Her legs were trembling. Why was she so afraid?

As her foot gently touched the water, it sent glowing ripples across the surface. It startled her at first, watching these mysterious rings of bright green light spread across the ocean, centering from where she stepped, but it was oddly beautiful. It was then that she saw the smallest light above her in the endless void of darkness. A star had appeared. Curiosity filled Marlene as she looked back down at the ocean. She took another step; yet more glowing rings rippling across the ocean emerged, and more stars appeared in the sky. Joy replaced the curiosity and Marlene giggled, running across the surface of the ocean.

Each step she took further illuminated the sky, filling it with beautiful stars aligned in constellations. The light of the stars revealed colorful nebulae among the space above and filled the world with beauty. Marlene could see the ocean she stood upon now, but she was no longer afraid of falling in.

Marlene stopped running when she realized she wasn't the only one there. Not far in front of her was a pure white stag, glowing brighter than any of the stars in the sky. It was bent down, drinking from the ocean they stood upon. Even as Marlene slowly approached it, it didn't seem to mind at all. As the glowing ripples from Marlene's footsteps neared the stag, however, it stopped drinking and looked up. The gaze from the stag stopped Marlene dead in her tracks. She wasn't afraid, but in awe as she looked into it's pure blue eyes. It felt like she could see the entirety of existence as she gazed into them, and it made her feel a sense of joy that she had never experienced before. However, the feeling was fleeting as the stag turned away and began galloping away.

"W-Wait!" Marlene exclaimed. She felt a sense of longing for that feeling. Almost instinctively, she began running after the stag. Something stirred within her heart... she wanted to experience that feeling again, to witness existence as a whole. As she gave chase, Marlene realized that the stag's hooves were attracting the ocean and creating small waves. The waves began running gently over the top of Marlene's feet as they slowly grew larger, eventually going up to her knees. Before long, Marlene became tired and had to stop, but the stag kept going. It began galloping upwards, the waves practically becoming stepping stones as the stag ascended into space. Marlene looked up in awe as the waters beneath the stag's hooves grew longer into the sky until finally, the stag jumped into the stars. The waters fell and created larger waves, but all Marlene could look at was the sky. As soon as the stag joined in with the stars, it became the moon itself, drawing the tides and creating the waves. "Wow..." Marlene whispered with absolute awe.

The feeling of awe and joy didn't last long. All of a sudden, the air grew tense as Marlene heard more footsteps. There were other people there with her, a man on one side and a woman on the other. Neither of them looked familiar to her, but they looked at her with stern expressions. Both the man and the woman were incredibly beautiful, almost inhumanly beautiful. It was enough to intimidate Marlene. She wanted to back away, but in a vast ocean, there was nowhere to escape to.

"She's mine, Meyneth," the man said with a low, harsh voice. His gaze was fixated on the woman this time rather than Marlene. "You're the one who ruined it all."

"You can't just claim her!" the woman replied. Unlike the man, she didn't sound harmful or angered. She had a concerned tone in her voice. She looked down at Marlene and spoke with a more gentle demeanor. "Marlene, sweetheart... don't let him deceive you. Let's go home, okay?"

Marlene didn't realize she was backing away from the woman until she bumped into the man behind her. When she turned around and looked at him, she saw his eyes glowing brightly. He didn't look like he meant harm, but the air was still incredibly tense between the two.

"She is not yours to take, Zanza," the woman said from behind Marlene.

"She'll become a god among men if she stays with me," the man replied. "What will become of her if she stays with you?"

Before Marlene could interfere, the waves grew larger around them. Marlene could no longer see the man and the woman. There were two unfathomably large titans emerging from the ocean in place of the two, causing the waves to grow. There was only one thing Marlene's instinct told her to do: run. She began running away as quickly as she could, but the waves behind her were catching up quickly and growing in size. As vast as the ocean was, she could only run so far. The ocean was bound to catch up, and when she accepted it, she turned around and saw them—two massive titans with their swords pointed at one another. Marlene saw them about to attack one another, but the waves loomed over her, standing as tall as the titans themselves...

Marlene's eyes shot open in a panic, but she no longer saw the waves, the titans, or the boundless seas and skies. She was comfortable in bed, but she had to catch her breath. It was as if she wasn't breathing during the dream. "What was that about...?" she spoke softly to herself. In an attempt to recall the details of the dream, she realized a lot of what she saw was rather hazy in her mind. She realized that she could only remember the titans rising from the ocean, but then that was about it. Her lips curled into a brief smile and she shook her head. There wasn't much use in overthinking it and hurting her brain before school. She got up to her feet and stretched, looking around the room. All sorts of photos of her family were framed along the walls and set on the nightstands, and they always made her smile. Granted, they weren't her biological family, but in those days, not many people had their biological families anymore.

After finally shaking the odd feeling the dream left her with, she left the room and began descending the stairs, each wooden step lightly creaking with each step. The silence was soon filled with the sound of running water and the occasional chime of dishes slightly clashing with one another. It got louder as Marlene walked down the stairs until she ended up on the ground floor of the Seventh Heaven Bar where an attractive young woman with long, dark brown hair was working on getting the dishes clean before opening up for the day. She turned towards Marlene with a gentle smile and spoke with a sweet voice. "Good morning, Marlene. Did you sleep well? You look pretty tired..."

"Huh?" It took a moment for Marlene to realize what she said. She really was far more tired than she expected. Once it clicked in her mind, she nodded and rubbed her eyes, speaking with a bit of a yawn. "Oh... yeah. I slept fine." She breathed in deeply and grabbed her socks and shoes, sitting down as she slipped them on. "Do you know when Papa's gonna be back, Tifa?"

The brown-haired woman, Tifa, froze for a moment before she sighed and shook her head. "I wish I did," she said to Marlene. "I'm sorry, sweetie. But if he calls back, I promise I'll head to the school as fast as possible so you can talk to him, okay?"

Marlene's lips curled into a rather weak smile and she nodded. Despite trying to stay optimistic, especially after everything they lost, it was gradually getting more difficult to maintain that cheery and optimistic disposition. Tifa saw the smile fade quickly from her face and she stopped washing the dishes, drying her hands off as she walked towards Marlene. She bent down and lightly tilted Marlene's chin up to look her in the eyes as she spoke.

"I know how hard it is, sweetie," Tifa said softly. Her tone was solemn; it was almost saddening to hear. "I miss him too. I miss Cloud, I miss Barret, I miss everyone who's not here." Marlene's expression worsened as her gaze sorrowfully strayed to the ground, and Tifa knew she wasn't helping much, so she smiled and her tone picked up a little bit. "But how about this? When you get back home from school... we can go visit the church! Maybe you can pick some of the flowers for Cloud and Barret when they get back?"

The old church... it was the place Marlene felt most comfortable. While it had the tendency to bring up painful memories of the past, the aura was soothing, and often comforted everyone who visited, regardless of what memories it brought up. Marlene immediately nodded eagerly and her smile returned. "Yeah!" she exclaimed eagerly. Tifa chuckled a little and smiled, gently kissing Marlene's forehead.

"Good," she replied. "The train should be arriving soon; you should catch it before you miss it."

"Oh yeah!" Marlene jumped back up to her feet and grabbed her backpack before heading out the door. "I'll see you later, Tifa!"

Tifa smiled and waved as Marlene left. Once the door closed and Marlene was on her way, Tifa's sorrowful expression returned and she turned the faucet back on, continuing to wash a few glasses. Where are they...? she thought to herself. Once the glasses were all clean, she turned the water off and grabbed a clean washcloth to begin drying them. Her mind began wandering as she continued the action of cleaning, drying, and organizing the dishes in the bar. Last she saw of Cloud and Barret, they were heading to Kalm to make a delivery. It was a rather shady deal, so Barret volunteered to go along. On one hand, it made Tifa chuckle. Despite their previous rivalry, Cloud and Barret were thick as thieves and rather protective of each other and their friends. But on the other hand, she grew worried. They had been gone for nearly two weeks. Kalm wasn't very far away from Midgar... what was taking them so long?

The door to the bar swung open slowly as a young man with spiky red hair and sunglasses peeked through. "You open yet?" he asked. Tifa couldn't help but laugh a little.

"Not yet, Johnny," she said. "But come on in." The young red-haired man, Johnny, walked on in and sat at one of the bar stools. "It's a little early, but what can I get for you?"

"Actually, I'm not here for a drink." Johnny spoke with a solemn tone, which was certainly unusual. It threw Tifa off guard and she turned towards him.

"Oh... you aren't?" Her cheery expression and demeanor quickly faded. "Then what's the matter?" It took a moment before Johnny actually said anything. He kept looking around and over his shoulder, like he was being followed. Tifa grew more and more concerned as she watched him. "Johnny, what's going on?"

"You just sent Marlene out to school, right?" he asked, removing his sunglasses.

Tifa raised an eyebrow with a bit of suspicion. Not only was it weird for Johnny to be as serious as he was, but the fact that he was asking about Marlene most definitely threw Tifa off. "Yes... just before you came in, actually. Why do you ask?" Johnny crossed his arms and stood back up, looking out the door.

"I passed by her not long ago." Johnny spoke with a quieter tone as he began fidgeting with his sunglasses nervously. "She wasn't heading towards the train."

"Then where was she heading?" Tifa asked, raising her voice with concern.

"Just let me finish. We don't have much time to be standing around here, anyways."

Almost immediately, Tifa stopped what she was doing and put her black leather gloves on. She closed her hands into tight fists, adjusting to the feeling of the leather. "Where was Marlene heading?" she asked again, but this time, her voice had a strong sense of anger, concern, and determination, like she was ready to fight anybody.

"T-The old church," Johnny stammered. He was completely intimidated by her at this point. "I-I think she was running from someone..."

Without another word, Tifa hopped over the bar table and hurried out the door as quickly as she could. The only thing on her mind was assuring Marlene's safety. She had gotten accustomed to living in the ruins of Midgar after the fall, and ran, dodged around, and hopped over the remaining debris like it was nothing. It was muscle memory at this point, but what she didn't expect was someone grabbing her by the back of the shirt and throwing her back. Tifa looked at what did it, and it was a machine made of black metal lined with gold. It had four spider-esque legs and two arms with sharp, metallic claws. It glared at Tifa with flaming red eyes and lunged forward with open claws. Seeing the target now made dodging it much easier. She rolled out of the way and pushed herself back up off the ground, clenching her fists as she stood in a far more battle ready position.

"What is this thing?" she asked herself, but she wasn't given much time to think. The machine lifted one of its sharp legs and quickly brought it down. Tifa dodged it, but wasn't fast enough. The sharp end of the machine's leg left a bleeding gash down her bare arm. She groaned in pain as the wound burned into her arm. Without thinking about it much, Tifa began running away as fast as humanly possible. She could hear the machine running after her. It wasn't as fast, but it also wasn't a human and couldn't lose stamina.

In an attempt to gain speed, Tifa knelt down beneath the debris of a fallen building and kicked it backwards as far as she could, using the momentum to get ahead while launching the debris at the machine. She still didn't even risk looking back, but she didn't need to in order to know that it had fallen on top of the machine. Just the sound alone of the machine falling was all she needed.

With the burning pain of her wound, the sprint from the bar to the church felt much longer than usual. Once Tifa knew she was no longer being chased, she slowed down and looked at the gash. It extended down the entire length of her forearm. She held it tightly with a gloved hand, but she wasn't able to cover all of it. There was a trail of blood along the ground where she ran. It probably wouldn't be too long before the machine followed, so Tifa strayed from her original path and took cover in an old, vacant building.

She breathed deeply and examined the gash in her arm. It went surprisingly deep, and realizing that only made the pain of it worse. Whatever that weird machine was, it didn't look like anything Tifa had ever seen, and it worried her. Was that what Marlene was running from? And if so, did she safely outrun it? Tifa's mind was running at a thousand miles an hour, on top of feeling gradually weaker from the pain of her wound. Using her good arm, she pulled her phone out and checked her contact list. Cloud never answered his calls, but perhaps Barret would. She took a deep breath before selecting Barret and making the call. The phone began ringing. As it did, she tilted her head and held the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she ripped the bottom of her shirt off and began wrapping it around her wound to stop the bleeding. The more the phone rang, the more anxious Tifa became. "Come on..." she whispered softly. "Please pick up, please pick up..."

Finally, the ringing seized and Barret's familiar, gruff voice came through. "Yo, Tifa! Everything goin' a'ight?"

As soon as Barret asked that, it occurred to Tifa that she had no idea what she was supposed to tell him. His daughter was potentially in danger, and there was a weird robot spider thing attacking people in the slums?

"Tifa?" Barret's voice chimed in after a moment. "You there?"

"Y-Yeah!" she stammered in an attempt to regain her usual cheery demeanor. "Sorry, I'm a l-little distracted... it's been a couple weeks since you and Cloud left. Is everything okay?"

"The dude we're deliverin' to is hardcore strange," Barret commented. Tifa attempted to focus in on his words, but the pain in her arm kept getting worse and Barret's words became muffled. "Ever since we met 'im in Kalm, we've been gettin' caught up in all kinds a' shit. Says his name's Alvis, or somethin'. Mild-mannered, but weird as hell. I'll talk about it more when we have the time. Anyway, you and Marlene doin' okay?"

Tifa began to feel faint. How much blood had she lost from the wound at that point? The world was spinning, and she felt as if she'd pass out, but she had to find Marlene. Without warning, she closed her phone and put it back in her pocket, getting back out and running towards the church. It was a little easier as it seemed the machine lost track of her, but she didn't let up. Her legs began feeling numb with every step, and it felt dangerous to run, like she would collapse at any moment. There was no way she could make it to the church without getting her wound treated... it began feeling like the machine had poisoned her, but she refused to let up. Tifa's vision grew blurry and she slowed as she saw the church not far from where she was. It was right there, but her legs couldn't move forward anymore. Whatever that machine was managed to infect her with something that was slowly killing her, and she could feel it.

"Hey..." it was the sound of a male's voice speaking to her. The voice was low and calming, but she couldn't see who it was that was that spoke. The voice got louder. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes..." Tifa tried to acknowledge the man's words, but she couldn't breathe any longer. Without warning, she collapsed, and the world around her faded.

"...starting to wake up. Be quiet."

Tifa stirred in her sleep at the sound of shuffling. Her eyes were closed, but she could sense the presence of other people there with her, whoever they were. Where was she, and how did she end up there? What was she doing in the first place? With all these questions flooding her rather clouded mind, she groaned and turned on her side. Finally, she realized why she wasn't working and she shot up. "Marlene!" she gasped as she did, her eyes opening, but as she got up to her feet, her legs trembled and she collapsed back onto a bed she had been laying on.

"You probably shouldn't try standing so quickly," a man in the room said. He had an English accent and his long, brown hair went down below his shoulder blades. He was wearing rather formal clothing, and his right arm rested limp on his lap. When Tifa looked into his eyes, she could sense that he meant no harm.

"Where am I...?" she asked weakly, looking around. They were in a comfortable room with a gentle blue wallpaper pattern that was rather soothing to the eyes and white curtains draped over the window. It was nighttime outside. "How long have I been out?"

"All day." This time, it was a woman who spoke. Tifa looked over at where the voice came from and saw her—a woman with long, wavy blonde hair, a gold-colored jacket over a dark under shirt and pants that hugged her frame comfortably, and a long, thin sword, like a Rapier with a curved blade. The blonde-haired woman crossed her arms and looked at Tifa with a rather concerned expression. "We managed to stumble upon you near that old church. Or, really, it was our friend over here." The blonde-haired woman gestured towards a tall man in attire even more peculiar than the other two. The tall man wore a complete suit of armor, including a helm topped with long, sharp horns. He knelt down and looked up at Tifa.

"How do you feel?" he asked, and Tifa remembered his voice. It was the same low and gentle voice of the man who found her before she passed out. After allowing herself to take everything in, Tifa breathed deeply and nodded.

"It doesn't hurt as much anymore," she replied, moving her arm. The wound was wrapped with gauze this time rather than the torn bottom of her shirt.

"I've never seen a Mechon do damage like this," the long-haired man said. He turned towards the blonde-haired woman. "Celes, you said it was poison, correct?"

"Something like that." The blonde-haired woman, Celes, walked over to Tifa and held her arm. Tifa winced a little as Celes applied pressure to where the gash was. "It managed to escape into your bloodstream very quickly," she began explaining. "I can't say whether it was poison or not, but the way it affected your body certainly imitated what poison would do, and it seemed using Esuna managed to do the trick in terms of dispelling the poison from your body. Running the way you were definitely aggravated it. If we hadn't found you sooner, you could've died."

"Oh, how wonderful." Tifa couldn't help but scoff a little. She put a hand in between her shoulder and neck and lightly rolled both, stretching out the sore muscles in both of them. "Did any of you see a little girl with brown hair in a pink dress run by before you ran into me?" The room quieted as Tifa's three saviors looked from one to the other as if conversing silently until all three of them turned towards Tifa with blank stares. An exasperated and angered sigh escaped her lips as she got up off the bed, holding onto the wall this time to keep from falling. "Great. So she's missing, while that—that thing is doing whatever it wants out there!"

"You're in no condition to go back out there," the armored man said calmly, gently placing a hand on Tifa's shoulder, quickly followed by Tifa stubbornly shoving his hand out of the way. But as she began walking across the room, she became dizzy and realized what he meant. The armored man held her by the shoulders and took her back to the bed. "Celes is right. Whatever that machine did to you, the poison penetrated your body quickly. We got most of it out, but you're gonna need to rest for a while. We can go searching for you."

"One of us should stay behind," said the brown-haired man. "Just make sure her condition doesn't get worse."

"I will." The armored man volunteered and sat back down. "In the case that things get worse, I've got an Antidote." He turned towards Tifa, who had lain on her back. "You two go back to the church and search the area for the girl. Besides, Dunban knows more about those machines than either of us do. Having him head out is probably the best idea."

"You got it," said Celes. "Make sure she doesn't die, okay?"

Tifa sat up in the bed as Celes and the brown-haired man began walking out of the door. She wanted to tell them to wait, but they were out of there far too quickly. "Ugh..." Dizziness overwhelmed her and she fell back onto the bed.

"You need to rest," the armored man spoke in a calm whisper, to which Tifa responded with a sarcastic laugh.

"My friend's daughter is at risk..." Tifa put her hands on her forehead and shut her eyes. "She's already been through so much..." She quickly shot up and ignored her dizziness as she looked at the armored man. "How the hell am I supposed to rest when I know she's still out there somewhere!? I don't even know if she's still alive!"

"Getting worked up like that is not going to help."

"Oh? And who are you to say what I should and shouldn't do? My therapist or something?"

"No, but you need to trust me and my friends." After the armored man spoke, Tifa went silent. She took some deep breaths and sighed.

"Okay..." she whispered. She breathed more and nodded before speaking with a more calm and solid tone. "Okay. Would you be able to at least explain who you guys are? No offense, but you don't really seem like locals."

The armored man smiled and nodded a little. "Yeah, I can see I'm a little... overdressed, I suppose." Even Tifa laughed at his remark. "To tell you the truth, where I come from, I never had a name—just a title. As to who came up with it, I don't remember. It's been so long, but people just call me the Warrior of Light." At the sound of the title, Tifa had to stifle herself from laughing. "What's so funny?"

"I-It's nothing," Tifa said with a bit of a giggle. "My name's Tifa. I run a bar not far from... well, I don't know where we are right now, but it isn't far from the church you guys found me at." She leaned her back up against the wall and lifted her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "What about the other two? All three of you look like you walked out of a fairy tale or something."

"More liked walked into one," the Warrior of Light scoffed. "I'll explain what I mean later, preferably once we've found the girl and you got more rest." He saw Tifa's expression become one of concern when he mentioned the girl and he cleared his throat. "The man with the long brown hair is Dunban. Where he comes from, he's renowned as a hero among his people. He's the only one who has knowledge of those weird machine-like monsters."

"He didn't seem too knowledgeable about what it did to my arm," Tifa chuckled.

"To be fair, it's not like he invented them." The Warrior of Light laughed a little as he continued. "The woman with us is named Celes. She has considerable skills in magic, though they were apparently given to her artificially by her... previous employers, whatever that means. That's what she's told us, anyway. She prefers to keep her past in the past, not giving us a lot of the specifics."

"I see." Tifa rested her head against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. "A little shady, if you ask me... but you guys still saved my life and they're out looking for Marlene. That's all I can ask for."

"Marlene? Is that the girl that—" The Warrior of Light stopped himself, knowing Tifa didn't feel like talking about it. They remained silent for a little while before the silence was interrupted by Tifa's snoring. She had fallen asleep sitting up against the wall. With a bit of a smile, the Warrior of Light stood and gently laid her down against the bed. "Marlene will be fine," he said quietly. "I promise."

While Tifa had been recovering, what she wasn't told was that she was actually significantly far away from the church. The skies were clear as they walked away from the cabin. It was completely vacant when they arrived, and in perfect condition as well. All around them was a grassland, with some trees scattered about, mountains far out in the distance, and a river about half a mile away. Celes looked up at the sky with a slight smile on her face. As soon as Dunban noticed, he couldn't help but smile in return.

"You seem pleased," he said to her. She nodded and looked over at him.

"It's been a while since I've seen such clear skies at night," she replied. "My world was destroyed quite some time ago. Not completely, since humanity survived and we learned to live with the new version of our world, but after that catastrophic day, it was never the same again. But here..." Celes looked at each individual star, watching them each flicker into view as the night went on. "It's so peaceful in the countryside. Makes me wish my friends were here."

"You and me both." Dunban chuckled slightly as they began walking through a forested area a little ways south of the cabin. "Do you remember how you ended up here?"

That question left Celes a little stunned. She stopped walking for but a split second as she thought about it, then kept going. "To be honest, I have no clue. All I recall is waking up in the middle of the field out there. I don't even really remember where I was before waking up; just that I wasn't home anymore. What about you?"

"I'm afraid I'm in the same boat," Dunban replied with a bit of a shrug. "Ah... but I do recall waking up in the train station rather than the field." He couldn't help but laugh as he shook his head. "You could imagine how startled I was to find myself suddenly surrounded by all sorts of strangers. It's surprising that nobody took my sword while I was asleep. There were plenty of unfavorable types there."

"Hold on a sec." Celes stopped walking and gently pulled back on Dunban's shoulder. An expression of confusion came over her as she raised an eyebrow. "We're still in the forest... wasn't the station here?"

Dunban put his left hand on his hip as he examined their surroundings. The lights of the station were nowhere to be seen and the forest extended beyond them. Instead of hearing the rapids of the river, they began hearing gentle ocean waves. "That's new," Dunban cleverly observed. He and Celes exchanged glances with one another and walked at a slower pace towards the sounds of the ocean. It wasn't long before they saw it out in the distance. The grass slowly evolved into sand the closer they walked towards the mysterious ocean. Right at the shore, a little girl with brown hair and a pink dress stood. She had set her shoes and socks down beside her and faced the ocean itself. The air grew silent. Not even the ocean's waves could be heard any longer. In fact, the ocean was barely moving. Uneasiness and tension grew in the air as the little girl began walking into the ocean.

"Wait!" Celes exclaimed. The girl turned towards Celes and Dunban and wore a rather annoyed expression as she looked at them.

"Leave me alone," she said. Her voice was sweet, but for some reason, her tone made her seem far older than she looked. It startled Celes and Dunban enough to stop them from chasing after her. Once they did, the girl's expression relaxed and she turned forward, walking further into the ocean. Yet as she did, the water seemed to support her weight. The girl was walking on the very surface itself. Every step she took caused bright rings of light to ripple across the ocean's surface, creating gentle waves with each ring. More stars began coming into view as the girl walked further in.

"What on earth...?" Dunban spoke quietly, hoping not to startle or interrupt the girl. He and Celes were knocked off balance as the ground began to shake. Waves formed under the girl's feet with each step, every wave growing bigger and bigger as they neared the shore. Finally, they saw what the girl was walking towards—two unfathomably large titans fighting one another. "It can't be!" Dunban gasped. He stabilized himself and grabbed Celes by the shoulder. "We need to get out of here! Now!"

"But that girl!" Celes exclaimed. She armed herself with her sword, but Dunban shoved her sword away and looked at her sternly.

"If we try to save her now, none of us are going to survive," he said. "I'll explain later. Let's go!"

Celes looked at Dunban with anger in her expression. She couldn't believe that someone regarded as a hero in his world was just abandoning a little girl, but when she realized what they were looking at, how massive the titans were, she knew what he meant. Waves as large as the titans themselves began crawling towards the shore. There was no way they could outrun waves the size of the world itself, but something inside them compelled them to keep running rather than just give up. But when they heard the waves getting closer and thought they were as good as gone, a massive bird-like creature flew down and swept both Celes and Dunban off their feet and onto its back, flying away from the massive waves as they seemed to flood the entire world. Dunban looked at the creature with a sense of familiarity.

"A Telethia...?" he asked with an inquisitive tone of voice, but Celes was terrified and in shock by everything going on at once. They held on tightly as the Telethia flew high into the air. Watching the ocean's waves grow and cover the world was an awful sight. Celes's heart was racing at the thought. So many people were going to die... the Warrior of Light, that poisoned woman, the people in the slums... everyone.

The flight lasted for quite some time. By the time the Telethia found a place to land, the horizon was orange with the first glimpse of the sunrise. They were high above the clouds now, on what appeared to be a floating continent. As the Telethia landed, Dunban examined the unfamiliar surroundings. It was a temple of sorts, one that had most definitely seen better days. Dunban lightly shook Celes awake, and as they began dismounting, they noticed two men laying there in the temple. One of them was rather thin and had spiky blonde hair, pale skin, and dark clothes on, while the other was much bigger with short, black hair cut into a flattop, dark brown skin, a beige windbreaker, baggy pants, and one of his arms was made out of what appeared to be synthetic metal. Dunban rubbed his eyes a little, but after he did, he saw a third man, kneeling before the other two. This man silver hair gently flowing down just below his shoulder blades.

"Wait a minute," Dunban said with suspicion in his voice. "Alvis?"

The silver-haired man, Alvis, looked up and smiled. For some reason, his expression and charming demeanor seemed to light up the entire temple. He chuckled, his voice sounding melodious, then he finally spoke. "Dunban," he said. "It seems we have a lot to talk about."