Disclaimer: Err, if it's owned by Square-Enix, it isn't mine. Eve and Joachim are jointly owned by Samantha Warnaar and myself, Jorgen Guile is mine, the Univeral Re-Alignment is mine, the Seer Gates are mine, Market Walk is a placein Chorley, so it isn't mine. I don't whether anyone has come up with the Glyphian language before, but I'm using it regardless. Anything else belongs to it's respective owners.

A/N: Wow, this was a really fast update! I think i'm beginning to fully take advantage of these sumer holiday thingies, so expect mulitple updates very soon!


Chapter 8: Back To Reality

"When Sanubia was destroyed, we all panicked. Who wouldn't, when faced with an enemy that could destroy one of our major cities in a matter of hours?" I heard the voice from my past dreams, narrating history to me. "Soon after, Kalmana fell, then Mortalis, then Nirvana, all in the space of a few weeks. Our leader at the time, Jorgen Guile, decided to personally lead the defenses at Valhalla. A day later, the place was in ruins, and he had been killed in the attack. At that point, Vincent Heald, the brother of the man leading the enemy, and my husband, stepped up to take command. His choices in the following days would prevent our mass annihilation, but we would still suffer terrible losses at Draco's hands." I saw Zion appear, only to flicker for a few seconds and then change, set ablaze in the deep night, massive Titans outlined ominously in the fire, destroying all in their path.

"While the battle raged, Vincent and Rayth, my dear brother, went alone to the Tower Of Babel to put a stop to this madness. They fought with Draco for several hours, until he was weakened enough for them to open the gate to Erebus, and cast him into it, sealing it up for good afterwards. They both fell in the process, but their deaths were not in vain. With their leader gone, the Imaginary Numbers fell into silence, allowing a swift counterstrike to take place and wipe them out."

"What about you? I take it that you're no longer alive?"

"No, my life was taken by Draco's hands. It's what drove my brother and my husband to end the war."

"So what happens now?"

"Draco's forces have returned, yet it is unknown how. His targets are not only us, but the rest of civilization too. His ultimate goal is the Universal Re-Alignment."

"Which is?"

"Every million millenia, the universe 'reboots', so to speak, by erasing all life in it, and reforming at another Big Bang. The life forces in the universe are regulated by the eight elemental crystals held at the hearts of the great cities. If all of these are destroyed, then the universe will re-align itself to prevent a total existence failure, recreating the crystals in the newly formed universe. The other way of inducing a re-alignment is to disrupt the flow of spiritual energy through the universe. Unfortunately, this can easily be achieved by destroying over seven-eighths of the living population of the universe."

"So he wants to destroy everything?"

"Everything."

"Crud." I paused to think for a second. "How can we stop him?"

"For centuries, those of us with the power of foresight saw you and your companions fighting in the final battle. We do not know exactly what will happen, but we have pieced together that the final battle will once again take place in Zion, after our great protector has been destroyed." I sensed my surroundings start to fade, to be replaced with an annoying shouting.


"Chris! Wake up you lazy sod!" Neil was shaking me by my shoulders, shouting in my ears.

"What? Can't you see I'm busy sleeping?" I muttered sleepily. He shook me again for good measure.

"We're going, we've been taking a look at this gate thing for the past half-an-hour trying to figure out how it works." He left and I slowly climbed to my feet, yawning and stretching lethargically. I looked at the couple laid in the corner, still sleeping quietly, and also at Sam, who was stretching as though she'd just woke up too.

"Where am I?" She muttered.

"In Kuja's chambers." She instantly shot to her feet, looking around in awe. "Don't get too excited." I chuckled, as I went over to the other two, tapping the girl on the face gently. "You waking up anytime soon?" She stirred, mumbling softly.

"Ooh my head." She murmured, her eyes flickering open, only to widen in shock when she saw me.

"What? Is there something on my face?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"It's nothing. I was just a bit surprised for a moment there." She shook her companion.

"Huh, what?" He mumbled. She sighed and tapped him, a small spark of electricity jumped from her finger into him, causing him to jump in shock. "What was that for!"

"For being so lazy." She grinned and got up, stretching for a second and looking around at her new surroundings. "What happened? The last thing I remember is getting shot to pieces."

"Oh, we dragged you in here and healed you up a bit."

"Thanks." She replied, kicking her companion again. He groaned and got up reluctantly.

"Can't a guy get some rest every now and then?" He muttered, ruffling his hand through his silver hair. Both of them looked familiar, yet at the same time, so unfamiliar.

"So what're you two doing here?" I asked, and they seemed to falter for a moment.

"Err, we here to investigate the military presence up here." She started

"We heard about the sightings of aircraft flying over here, so we came out to have a look, to see what we could do." He finished

"Well it looks like you've definitely got some fighting skills, there must be at least seventy or so dead clones back there.

"Seventy-six." He looked at us. "...not that I was counting or anything." There was an awkward silence.

"...Anyway, I didn't catch your names."

"Oh, I'm Eve, this is Joachim." She said, flicking her head towards him.

"I'm Chris, the gobsmacked one over there is Samantha, and there's some others out looking at the gate we found." Now it was Joachim's turn to look shocked, right before Eve booted him in the ankles.

"It's rude to stare, Joey." He lightly slapped her around the back of the head.

"I take it from that you don't like that nickname?" I chuckled.

"Hell no, and if you start, I'll strangle you." He pointed threateningly.

"Would it offend you if I told you that you're about as weird as we are?"

"Not really." Eve responded, shrugging. I walked over to Sam and dragged her by the hand out of the room, while she stared around in awe.

---

"Ewww, what happened in here?" She looked as though she was about to throw up when we walked into the room where we had fought the day before. Blood covered most of the wall near the doorway, and smelling chunks of flesh and body pieces lay strewn around the place.

"You happened, don't you remember?" Neil replied, sat on the steps on the far side of the room that lead up to the gateway. She shook her head.

"The last thing I remember is Kuja healing me and then everything just went black. Then I woke up the best room in the palace." She grinned. I explained what had happened, how she had transformed, and how she'd completely ripped one of the enemies apart.

"I did that?" I nodded. "...whoa."

"Jeez, come take a look at this thing." Melissa sighed from the far side of the room, studying the gate. I walked over, and saw that the gate, while looking like a normal doorway, was fully up against the wall. There was no way to walk through it. It seemed to be made out of a shiny type of metal, warm to touch, and there was some sort of panel at the side. However, on closer inspection, I noticed that all the buttons on the panel were marked with some sort of strange language.

"I thought I'd never see anything written in that." Kirjava pondered.

"What do you mean?"

"It's written in Glyphian, one of the ancient languages that spiritseers used thousands of years ago."

"Can you read it?"

"Sure, any guardian can. Remember, we can decipher any language known to any race."

"What does it day then?"

"Hmmm, it says that this gate thing is some sort of portal generator, allowing an entity to travel through the barrier that separates parallel universes." It took few seconds to realise the full impact behind these words.

"We can get to Earth with this thing?"

"Should be able to, although we'd have to manually plot in the co-ordinates. That could take a while."

"Could you give it a try?"

"Alright." Kirjava's human form appeared next to the panel, and started tapping away at buttons, a look of concentration on her face.

"So what's all this about then?" Bruce asked.

"This gate leads to other universes, including Earth." This prompted shock amongst the humans in the group.

"What? You mean...we could go back?" Neil exclaimed, and I nodded. He jumped into the air. "YES!"

"That would explain why the Imaginary Numbers were here." Eve thought out loud. "If they figured out some way to escape Erebus, this is how they would have got out. They'd need this to get their armies through."

"And just how would you get a Titan through that?" Bruce asked. Kirjava sighed, and tapped a few of the buttons in the panel.

"Like this." The ground shuddered, and I saw the roof slowly grind open, tearing apart whatever decorations were currently on it. Sand poured into the room, but not as much as would be expected; just enough to cover the luxurious marble floor. I looked out into the open, and saw a colossal version of the gate in front of us slowly rise out of the sand. At the same time, I heard the familiar steady thud of the Titan that had been wandering around outside. Kirjava looked up and saw the war machine striding closer. "Whoops." She whispered.

"Erm, have we got a plan?" I shouted to the others.

"How about we throw whatever have at it until the portal opens?" Bruce suggested. Eve, Kuja, Joachim, and myself all stepped up. Four black mages versus a Titan? Oh yes, this would come out in our favor. Each of us fired off the strongest spells we knew that we could cast without knocking ourselves out in the process. The spells smashed into the front of the machine, barely denting it.

"Do we have a Plan B?" I asked again.

"Running would be a good idea about now." Kirjava shouted, as she frantically tapped away at the buttons in front of her.

"Where to, exactly?"

"Yes! How about Earth?" I heard a clanking sound as the gate behind us burst into life, suddenly showing an image of a dark tunnel inside the doorway. Everyone charged blindly into the portal, as the humming from the Titan started to grow in intensity. I stayed by the door, ushering everyone through before taking one final look at the towering machine, charging up to fire it's cannon, before diving through the door after the others.

---

It was very dark on the other side of the portal, and I only realised where we were when I lit up the area with a fire spell. It looked as though we were in some sort of tunnel, although I couldn't quite figure out where. The walls were covered in a deep green slimy moss, and I could hear the faint trickling of water somewhere. I took a step forwards, and felt my foot suddenly grow wet, and suddenly realised that we were in a sewer. Oh joy.

"Wow, this planet is nice." Kuja muttered, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"I hope there isn't a floater around here." Bruce added. I rolled my eyes and led the way along for what seemed like hours, before coming across a wrought iron ladder, leading up to a manhole.

The light that burst in upon us almost blinded me, but when my vision returned, I had sit down to take everything in. We were on a small side street that I faintly recognised, from somewhere in my distant past. After helping everyone up, we moved out into the open.

"...We're home..." I whispered.

The main street was bustling with life, the familiar roar of countless amounts of cars trundling down the road. People were busy going about their business, chatting amongst themselves. Kuja stepped back in shock.

"What are...who the...whoa." He looked as though his mind was having problems coping with all the new sights.

"Are we splitting up? I wanna go check out how my parents are." Bruce asked. Admittedly the same thought had crossed my mind.

"We could do. Where are we meeting back up?"

"How about the top of Market Walk, at 6 o'clock?" I vaguely remembered the spot, the front of the shopping area of our town, right next to a large car park.

"Where?" Samantha looked confused.

"Oh sorry, you won't have any idea what we're going on about." I paused to think for a second. "Come to think of it, where are you actually from?"

"The Netherlands...duh."

"Ah cack, that's a fair distance away. Not to mention none of us have any money whatsoever."

"It's okay, I'll tag along with Kuja." She said, grabbing his arm. Heh, I almost felt sorry for the poor guy. If anyone recognised him, he'd be glomped to death instantly. He looked up at the sky in despair.

"Please, let me come with you." He pleaded. I just laughed.

"Alright then. What about you two?" I turned to Eve and Joachim.

"We'll go wherever you lot go."

"Melissa?"

"I suppose I'd better check at home."

"Alright, don't forget to meet back at Market Walk." We all headed our separate ways, and I headed down the distantly familiar path to my long lost home.

---

I paused for effect outside the building, as I felt long forgotten memories flooding back, filling my mind with such happy times. The house wasn't anything spectacular, just a small red bricked terraced house in the middle of an unremarkable street, with a small front yard that had a little flowerbed at the front. Some things had changed since the last time I had stood here; the curtains were new, the old rusty gate had vanished from the front yard, along with the old evergreen bushes.

I reached for the door handle, only to find it locked. It looked like my parents were out, but I remembered where they had kept the spare key. I climbed onto the small wall underneath the roof that covered the entrance, reaching beneath a loose roofing tile. I pulled out the key, proud that I could still remember, before climbing down and unlocking the door, letting us in.

Old memories and emotions blasted into me like a back draft in a fire, filling every cell in my brain. The living room hadn't changed too much. There was a new carpet, a silky cream one instead of the old brown-ish red one. The suite had changed from the odd-feeling brown satin to a deep bottle green leather, and there was now a rather large widescreen television in the corner. I turned to see the reaction of the others, Sam taking it in her stride, Kuja looking with interest at the stereo in the corner, Eve looking mildly impressed. Joachim didn't really seem that bothered, he was much more interested with Sam and Kuja again. What was with him and them?

I abandoned that line of thought just as Sam perked up.

"Could I use the phone? I just want to let my parents know I'm safe."

"That depends on what you class as 'safe'" I responded. She folded her arms.

"'Safe' as in 'not dead'."

"I'm kidding, go ahead." She leapt upon the chair next to the telephone, tapping in the numbers needed. Kuja wandered over to the stereo, tapping the button marked "Power" curiously. Suddenly, it burst into life, belting out some sort of new-age hip-hop cack, causing him to jump in shock.

"What is this device?" He asked, prodding the "Power" button again to silence the machine.

"It's called a stereo, it can either pick up radio waves to play music, or play it off a disc." I explained. He looked at me.

"This will take some getting used to."

"That's strange, the phone just went dead." Sam commented, a little bit of worry in her voice. I felt something vibrate in my pocket, and realised that it was the Halo Uplink. I pulled it out, and watched as it automatically zoomed in on a small part of Britain in the south. The image changed suddenly from the usual spirit aura image to a real time satellite image, and this image shocked me to the core.

There was a Titan wading it's way up the River Thames, wiping out anything that moved on the banks, leaving mass destruction in it's path.

"Oh my god." I muttered, before charging over to the television, hammering the power switch until it switched on. There was a news report, stating in huge letters 'LONDON UNDER ATTACK', while a very nervous-looking newscaster explained what was happening, while shaky images of the Titan moving up the river from a terrified cameraman, the citizens of London running and screaming in sheer hysteria. Suddenly, the title changed, this time reading 'MASS DEVESTATION' and the newscaster paled significantly, while holding his hand to his earpiece in disbelief.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I've just received word that the events in London are not an isolated event. Giant machines have been reported attacking New York, Washington, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, and many other cities across the world." Sam's face paled at the news.

"How far do you live from Amsterdam?" I asked.

"33 kilometres." She whispered hoarsely.

"What you are seeing is a close-up of one of machines. We have received word that counter-attacks have been launched across the planet, but nothing appears to be damaging them." I watched as the camera image swung around to see three fast-flying jets launch bright missiles straight towards the side of the Titan, only for them to bounce harmlessly off it's thick shell, the explosions shaking the image even more. I looked at the Uplink again, watching as it slowly started to climb the north bank, stomping buildings into dust, firing it's gigantic cannon at anything that looked remotely threatening. Back on the television, the cameraman was now standing directly underneath the belly of the machine, staring directly up at it as it strode effortlessly over buildings.

"We now bring you live to an emergency announcement by the Prime Minister." The screen was suddenly filled by a grand-looking room, furnished wonderfully in deep mahogany. At the front of the room stood a well-suited man, highlighted by the repeated flash of cameras. The sign at the bottom of the screen said 'Tony Blair PM' in small letters, as if anyone didn't know who the Prime Minister was.

"My fellow people, it is with great sorrow that I announce the attack on our homeland. Our armed forces are bravely attempting to repel this new threat, but I urge the public not to--" he was cut off as the entire room exploded spontaneously and the feed cut out to fuzzing static.

I couldn't believe it. Earth, the one place that I had always imagined as safe, the one thing keeping me sane in the hostile world of Gaia, was now getting completely and utterly wiped out. With great haste, we left to the meeting place in the middle of the town.

---

"What the hell is going on?" Calum shouted. The town centre was practically abandoned, the panicking public had charged back to their homes to pack their valuables and get the heck away from these things. Shops were closed, streets deserted, the sun setting omniosuly in the distance. It was like a ghost town.

"It's Draco, it has to be. He knows that Earth stands a better chance against his army, so he's wiping us out first." I answered, hoping I was wrong, and that this was just another one of my dreams.

"What're we going to do then?" Neil folded his arms and looked at me.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Well, you are our grand leader. You're the one supposed to come up with the plans." I thought quickly, the weight of responsibility on my shoulders.

"Right, the cities of Gaia need to be warned about this. Who knows when they could be struck?"

"I'll do that, it is my duty after all." Neil responded. Calum stood next to him, along with Bruce.

"We're coming along too, you're not going it alone." Bruce looked at Neil.

"That's that sorted then. What next?" I looked at the others, and noticed that Sam was looking increasingly concerned.

"I want to check whether my parents are okay." She pleaded. Kuja looked down at her, a look of pity in his eyes. Ever since I had revived him at the Iifa Tree, it seemed as though his emotional capabilites had grown wildly. Perhaps the part of my soul that I had used to bring him back had caused him to grow in ways he couldn't understand.

"I will accompany her, it would be highly unsafe for her to travel alone, especially with these 'Titan' machines wandering around." He told me. I was actually quite surprised, was that Kuja making excuses? Was he actually showing that he cared about another living being? Sam should think herself lucky, he rarely did that with Zidane and myself during our five year gap.

"But how are you going to get over there? It's not like any of us can fly a plane."

"I can." Joachim stepped forwards. "I've tinkered around with flying machines before, so I should be able to handle it."

"Alright then, you go with Sam and Kuja." I looked at Melissa and Eve. "I have to go to London, I have to see if I can get out any communication with anyone who has survived. Also, I think this could be classified as a Code Vermilion." Melissa shuddered, knowing all too well what I meant.

Code Vermilion was the highest state of alert in Zion. It gave all spiritseers permission to use any offensive combat skills that would normally reveal our existence. It was only used in dire emergencies, and I thought that imminent destruction of an entire civilization might just be bad enough to warrant this.

"Well if you're going to London, so am I. I'm not losing you again." Melissa responded, knowing full-well that it would probably be suicide.

"I'll come with you too. It's not like I have anywhere else to go." Eve nodded along.

"Right, so we all know what we're doing?" Everyone nodded.

"So I guess this is goodbye for the moment then." Neil looked around at everyone.

"Yeah, but we're all coming back alive okay? No crazy heroics now." I warned them. Knowing what our missions were, we all headed our separate ways. I hoped with all my heart that nothing would happen to them, but fate has a nasty habit of creeping up on you...


That's all for now folks! Erm, please review. I haven't had any for the last two chapters, even though I know that there are people out here reading this (all hail the hit counter! XD) Also, after this chapter, I will start doing some sections in third-person, as there are now three parties instead of one.

Until next time

Chris