Disclaimer: Basically, anything to do with Final Fantasy 9 here, I do not own. The rest of it (all the stuff I have made up) is mine. So Atlantis, the Water Crystal, the Chaos fighters, the Titans, Emma Falstar, Sanubia (yes I nicked the name from FFX, but the city itself is my idea) and Horizon Road. If I've missed anything, or there's anything you need to ask me about, e-mail me at Just broke up for the summer holidays! WOO! This means I'll have quite a bit of spare time to spend on this fic, and the drawings I've started. Once I've finished them, they'll be going up in the blog, so make sure you check it out.
Chapter 6: The Dark Beast Awakens
A scream. A high, evil laugh. Loud clanking and roars of gunfire. Silence.
It took me a few seconds to recognise my surroundings, but the massive familiar clock tower gave it away. Big Ben. I was in London.
Earth. The one stable thing in my mind, that no matter what happened to me in Gaia, I knew that Earth would always be the same. But something was different. There was no hustle and bustle on the bridge I stood on, overlooking the river Thames. In fact, the only sound on offer chilled my heart. Gunshots, and ear-shattering explosions. I ran down the long empty road as fast as I could, towards the source of the terrible sounds, but something very big cut off my path.
It was mounted on six writhing arachnid legs, and was striding effortlessly over buildings, dozens of rockets pinging off it's heavily armoured shell, which emitted a dull glow in the smoke that billowed all around it. On it's back was mounted a colossal cannon, that glowed before unleashing it's terrible might on it's surroundings. I swept my vision around and saw one of the beasts up close as it strode over the bridge, ignoring all in it's path. It stopped, slowly turning it's body to face directly towards me, and my entire body grew numb. The ground was thumping under the heavy thud of detonations, and I ducked as the massive clock tower, a symbol of our great capital, erupted into a million pieces, the shockwave knocking me off my feet. Over the incredible din, I heard a faint humming that grew louder in intensity. The cannon on the back of the giant metal beast started to glow from within, before erupting with a terrifying light that shot straight towards me. I felt my body simply evaporate into dust, but no pain whatsoever. I thanked my lucky stars that this was just a vision, and that it wasn't actually happening.
I lay panting in the blinding white light that the entire world seemed to be made out of, as far as the eye could see. Suddenly, there was a calm female voice behind me.
"He threatens everyone, not only the Spiritseers. No-one is safe from his mission." I turned around to see a gentle looking woman wearing a pure white sweater standing behind me, her silky brown hair hanging by her shoulders, twinkling brown eyes gazing intently towards me.
"Errm, who are you?" I asked, my voice echoing around the emptiness.
"My name is Emma Falstar, I'm here to fill in some gaps in your knowledge." She swept her hand behind her, and a scene appeared. There was a colossal city that seemed to be built entirely on the crystal clear waters of the ocean. Nothing important seemed to be happening. "Two hundred years ago, the Spiritseers were the dominant species of the Spirit Realm, building eight huge cities to accommodate the dead. Each city held an elemental crystal at it's very heart. The city before you is Atlantis, and it has the Water Crystal at it's centre, allowing it to float on the surface of the water, like a feather." She paused, waving her arm again as the scene changed.
Now I could see a daunting tower that seemed to stretch into the very heavens, surrounded by heavy fortifications, bristling with all sorts of vicious weapons. Obviously the designer of this place had been told not to mess about, and to make it obvious that this was not a holiday spot. A foreboding wall made entirely of some sort of steel surrounded the tower, and I could even make out faint figures moving about.
"Our complacency would be our downfall. We believed that nothing could destroy us. We were wrong." We zoomed in, to the very top of the tower, where a familiar dark figure stood overlooking the land. "For every alpha, there is an omega. He is the shadow created by our light, and is our greatest fear." Draco smiled faintly, looking to the horizon.
Once again, the scene changed, this time showing an army that seemed to engulf the entire land. I saw the spider-like walkers striding over the countless millions of Imaginary Numbers, who were all marching through an arid desert, towards a distant glow on the horizon.
"His army of darkness grew, comprising of creatures that were too horrific to even name, his war machines crushing anything in their path." This time I could see another gigantic city, ablaze with explosions and flame, which licked at the skies threateningly.
"Sanubia was the first to fall, destroyed in less than twenty-four hours. 2 million spirits perished that day." Suddenly, I started to notice that everything was fading slowly from view, like mist dissipating in the air. Emma looked at me in surprise.
"Gah, what the heck?" I yelped in surprise as I looked down to see my body fading away before my very eyes.
"Hmm, looks like our time is up for the moment." She still looked worried. "The end of days has arrived..."
I managed to sum up the entire dream in three simple words as I rolled out of the warm comfortable bed in Alexandria Castle.
"What the cha?" I rubbed my eyes sleepily, still trying to figure out what was going on. Any more weird happenings like this and I feared I may go insane.
At that very moment, I heard a lot of shouting coming from down the corridor, shouting that sounded very much like Steiner, in fact. I sighed and rolled my eyes, what was he yammering on about now? I left the room, while pulling on my shirt at the same time, and headed down the corridor towards the source of the crazed shouting. Before long, I had reached the door and pulled it open, only to see an enraged Steiner pointing his long shining sword at Kuja's exposed neck.
"Finally, some reinforcements!" He said, panting from shouting too much.
"Chill out Tin-man. He's on our side." I held out my hands, trying to calm him down. Steiner looked back and forth from me to Kuja, right before Dagger burst into the room.
"Aldebert Steiner!" She shouted, looking a little peeved. "Why do you point your weapon at an ally?"
"I apologize your majesty, I was not yet aware of his intentions."
"You should do, you saw him fighting a common enemy yesterday." She turned to me. "The others are out in the courtyard, if you would like to take these two with you." Steiner sheathed his sword, firing a dirty look at Kuja before leaving the room, closely followed by Dagger. I looked at Kuja.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked him, folding my arms patiently. He looked out of the window, down at the courtyard where the others were hanging around.
"I suppose I'd be better off staying around here. I have something to show you humans anyway."
"Oh cool, just as long as nobody 'accidentally' slices your head off while you're here then?"
The sun was beating down quite nicely, but I could see a faint wisp of deep grey cloud on the horizon, heralding some rain later. The others were standing around, but I quickly noticed that all of them, apart from Sam of course, were armed.
"What's with the heat, peeps?"
"Well, I figured from the fact that some of us were pretty rusty yesterday, that we'd better do some training." Neil admitted.
"Face it man, you're never gonna get over that dude smacking you out the way." Bruce taunted him. Neil almost seemed to growl for a second.
"I will have my revenge for that!" He pounded his fists together.
"Yeah right, you suck at fighting. Why not go back to being a pansy-ass white mage?"
"Why you little--" Neil drew his machete and launched himself at Bruce, swinging crazily. The manic-haired warrior stepped out of the way, grabbing his claymore from the wall beside him, before bringing the blade to bear on the agile paladin.
"You wanna go then?"
"You're going down!" I shook my head in embarrassment as they launched into each other, blades clanging loudly. We moved away from the fighting pair, just so we wouldn't accidentally get cut to pieces.
"Um, I can't exactly fight." Sam admitted, looking nervously around.
"Ah relax, there's nothing to it. Watch and learn." She turned to me, drawing the beautifully crafted katana from her back. "First blood drawn from the torso?" I did a double take. I wasn't too good at close combat, but I couldn't deny that I needed the practice.
"Alright, you're on." I replied, drawing out the lightly built dagger I always had on me. Before I even had I chance to react, she had lunged at me, sweeping the katana out wide. I phased back and forth quickly, so she went straight through me, before turning around and making a quick slash towards her. However, she still ran forwards towards the wall, and straight up it, performing an amazing looking back flip right over me, landing softly before disappearing into the other realm. I dived forwards to dodge her attack as she re-appeared right besides me, before rolling onto my back and freezing the floor beneath her with an ice spell. She struggled to move her feet, which were now firmly frozen to the floor, and I felt a sudden shiver up my spine. She stopped too, looking puzzled.
"What was that?" She asked no-one in particular. I felt something vibrate in my pocket, and I realised that the Halo uplink was still in there. I pulled it out and looked at the screen in confusion.
There was a glowing red dot over where the Desert Palace would be on the map, slowly growing in size. I saw Vincent and Rayth come running out, looking at the sky in panic. It was at that point I realised there was a loud unidentifiable scream in the air, before three close packed objects shot straight over the castle, swerving through the sky aggressively. Vincent pulled his communicator out and tapped a few buttons, putting it to his mouth.
"Zion Command, this is Vincent speaking. I've just caught sight of three Chaos class fighters fly over Alexandria. Could you confirm that?" He waited, before a crackling female voice replied.
"That's affirmative. We're getting sightings everywhere, my lord. Agents on both Earth and Gaia are reporting Great War age aircraft passing by. Halo is reporting a huge build-up of non-spirit entities in the Bermuda Triangle, Horizon Road, and the Desert Palace, looks like Imaginary Numbers to me. I also have unconfirmed reports of a Titan near the Desert Palace too." If it was possible for a ghost's face to pale, Vincent just managed to pull it off. He tried to say something, but the words didn't come out. Finally, he seemed to pluck up the courage to say something.
"Put Zion on yellow alert. Inform the Council that I'm coming back."
"Roger that." The device went silent, and he looked at Rayth.
"This is it, isn't it?" Even the stoic figure of Rayth looked afraid.
"I fear so. We have to get back to Zion right now." He nodded and headed for the Destiny, which was still squatting in the middle of the Courtyard, towering over us. Vincent headed over. "We have to go now, you have to be careful from now on."
"What's happening?" I asked. His was beginning to scare me slightly.
"The past is repeating itself..."
I watched worriedly as the Destiny took off, kicking up dying leaves and dust in it's wake, before shooting off into the sky at a blazing speed. I looked at Kuja, who didn't even look slightly fazed at what had just happened.
"This is what I came to tell you." He said, turning his gaze on me.
"What? That your palace is crawling with clones?"
"No, that I have found an ancient artifact that may be of some use to you." He paused for a few seconds. "And the clone issue too."
"And it's still in the palace, which is currently crawling with clones, and has a Titan parked outside, whatever one of those may be?"
"That's correct."
"Gee, that's useful all right. What exactly is this artifact you speak of?"
"It's some sort of gate, but I don't quite understand how to use it. The writing on it is completely impossible to understand."
"Right, so we're going to risk life and limb to get to a gate that we can't possibly use?"
"Correct." I shrugged.
"Sounds good to me. Who else is with me?"
"If there's some of those damn clone things, then I'm going!" Bruce exclaimed, raising his sword above his head.
"Same here, I want a bit of revenge." Neil agreed, grinning evilly.
"If you're going, I'm going." Melissa nodded.
"The Desert Palace? Hell yeah!" Sam jumped into the air to illustrate her point. I looked at our little party and grinned.
"Looks like we're all going then." I told Kuja, who was looking at us in disbelief.
"There I was thinking you all had a self-preservation instinct."
"C'mon Kuja, you've known me long enough to know that even if it's pointless, I'll still do it." I patted him on the shoulder. He sighed, and we all headed off to get our stuff together.
The creaky old airship wasn't exactly the best of it's kind, but it would do. Now that the Forgotten Continent had been re-discovered by those of the Mist Continent, there were always frequent airship flights to the 'new' world, ferrying the adventurous few that wanted to explore this brave new world. It was upon the airship that our little party decided to rest for a while, preparing ourselves for the struggle ahead. I leant on one of the wooden railings, looking down at the bleak landscape of the Forgotten Continent with reluctance. This was probably suicide, but deep down I knew there was a reason why I wanted to go. That gate sounded familiar, and if it was what I thought it was, then it would be a good idea not to let it fall into enemy hands. However, I was more than a little worried by this 'Titan' that had been mentioned. Was it the same mechanical monster that had appeared in my dream? If so, we were more than screwed, we'd be evaporated in an instant. I hoped to high hell that it wasn't what I thought it was. I looked around the deck, at each member of our little party, watching them go about their regular checks. Melissa was swishing her katana through the air, listening to the sound it made intently, while Neil sat crosslegged relaxing. Bruce seemed to be preoccupied with the pilot's cabin, while Kuja was up at the front, being watched closely by Sam.
Suddenly, I became aware of a distant sound, a loud clanking in the far distance. I ran up to the front of the ship, only to see a large object rise out of the ground roughly 1000 metres in front of us. It shone brightly in the reflected sunlight, and it was only when we had moved a bit further forwards that I noticed exactly what it was.
I almost had a heart attack.
It looked very much like the machine in my dream, complete with six stoic legs and a gigantic cannon mounted on it's back. It seemed to be moving around a bit, slowly turning towards us.
"What in God's name is that thing!" Neil shouted, running to the sturdy wooden railing at the very front of the ship, overshadowed by the balloon above us that was keeping us in the air.
"I think that's a Titan." I explained.
"Great, we're screwed." He admitted hopelessly.
"Uh, just a thought, but why are we flying directly towards it?" Sam pointed out.
"Good point." I turned to the pilot, who seemed to be stuck to the spot in terror. "You might want to land this thing." He nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off the monstrosity that we were approaching. However, there was a loud whoosh, and I could make out a thin white line approaching us at very high speeds.
"Please tell me that isn't what I think it is." Neil muttered.
"What, a missile?" Bruce answered unwittingly. Neil turned on him.
"Gee, thanks for the positive reinforcement there!"
"I think it might be time to abandon this vehicle." Kuja added. "Quickly" But it was too late. The deadly missile was getting closer and closer, and I almost fell over as the aging pilot turned the ship sharply to the left. The dreaded weapon fly past us so closely on our right-hand side that I could make out the stabilising fins on the sides of it. The rickety airship started to drop at a rapid pace, and I could see a small mountain range that we could perhaps hide behind.
"Ah, it's coming back around!" Melissa shouted, pointing wildly at the missile, which had now completely circled around us and was coming back towards us.
"Buggernuggets!" Neil shouted back. There was a slight advantage to our new position: at least the Titan couldn't see us.
"Hold onto something!" I shouted, as everyone scrabbled desperately for something to grab onto.
Then the missile hit us.
The explosion was massive, tearing off the entire back of the ailing airship, firing wooden shards everywhere. I held on tight to the support cable for the balloon above, when I felt someone grab me around the waist. I turned my head to see Melissa, who had failed to find anything else to hang on to, and was currently glued to my waist, her eyes shut tight. I would have been happy about the situation if we weren't all about to die. I looked on as the pilot flew through the window in front of him, and sailed right on over the edge of the ship, screaming as he went.
"Poor guy." I heard Kirjava say. I felt sorry for him too, although he had probably lived a full life. I felt the airship tip forwards at an alarming rate, plowing straight towards the ground. I looked down towards the front of the ship, where Sam was hanging on Kuja's legs, emitting an ear-bursting scream. Neil was perched precariously on the back of the cockpit, almost surfing the airship in a way. Meanwhile, Bruce was hanging off the side of the balloon, yelling with excitement as we dropped rapidly. How the heck he had got up there in the first place, I would never know, but it was too late to try and work that out, as the ground seemed to want to meet us quite badly.
Bam!
We hit the deck at an incredible speed, and the world went dark as everything around us shattered to the sound of bangs, crashes and yells.
Right then, that should do for the moment. Sorry about the cliffhanger peeps, but I haven't decided where this is going to go yet . Anyways, I'll work hard on the next chappie, and I've just started to work on some illustrations too, as long as I can draw that is.
See ya later.
Chris
