Well here it is! The last chapter and the end of this story. I began this blasted project about four and a half years ago, and finally, its conclusion sees the light of day! There were a number of times that I was sure that we weren't going to make it, but here we are!

First of all, thank you. Readers and reviewers all, much of this story's existence is because of your positive feedback (despite the early chapters being... well, terrible in my opinion :P). Also immense thank yous to my beta, Shadow's Interceptor, who's dealt with this damn thing for almost as long as I have! You should check out her story 'Of Sketchpads and Shadows' and pester her to finish it, because it's really freaking good.

As always, your reviews are appreciated, whether it's positive feedback or constructive criticism. Now let's end this, shall we?

Final Chapter: The Important Characters Do Something Important

Fifteen minutes earlier

Biggs and Wedge stared at the creature before them in awe. It was undeniable: this thing was powerful. Were Sephka not constantly arguing with itself, the pair guessed that it probably would have won already. Without magic to help them, the heroes were doing all that they could just to survive, never mind try to defeat the monster. At this point, it looked as though some of them were getting ready to retreat. If they couldn't stop Sephka, then was there anyone who could?

"Should we run or something?" Wedge asked.

Biggs shrugged. "I suppose," he said. " I doubt it would do much good though. It's not looking good for our side at the moment, and if we lose, I'm guessing that everyone is as good as dead."

"So…?"

"Do what you want," Biggs told his companion. "I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the light show." With that, the guard did exactly as he had said he would, sitting down cross-legged and watched the battle continue. He seemed rather nonchalant about the whole thing, apparently unconcerned with the rogue blasts of magic that were just barely missing them.

Wedge stood, looking down at Biggs, then turned towards the characters whose existence actually mattered. "Does us not having a character portrait really mean that we're not important?" he asked. "I mean, Phillip doesn't have a character portrait next to his dialogue, but he's done plenty of important stuff. He's the reason that we're in this apocalyptic mess!"

"Don't remind me," the rasping voice of Phillip groaned from beside him.

"Sorry," Wedge apologized, "didn't see you there."

Biggs shook his head. "You're mistaken," he stated. "Have you noticed the empty space next to Phillip's dialogue text? That's where his character portrait is. It's just invisible so it doesn't look like there's anything there."

The small glimmer of hope that Wedge had held onto was snuffed out by his companion's response, and the disappointment was evident on his face. "Oh," he said, looking down at his feet.

"Being important isn't all it's cracked up to be," Phillip told them. "Just look at me: I'm important, but for all of the worst reasons. All I wanted to do was show that I… no, that the entire intangir race was better than these heroes, but in doing so, I became exactly like them. In order to overcome their power, I did something awful and unforgivable. For Goddess's sake, I resurrected Kefka!" An invisible paw was slammed onto the ground in anger. There were no arguments there; Phillip had done exactly that and more.

Defeated, Wedge said, "Bah, maybe you're right." Slowly, he sat down next to Biggs and watched as the fight dragged on. Only moments later though, the guard stood back up and shook his head. "I can't do it!" he yelled out in frustration.

"What? Sit still?" Biggs asked. He wouldn't have been surprised if that were the case.

"No!" he retorted. "I do hate sitting still, but that's not important! I've lived my entire life thinking that I could do something meaningful; that my existence actually made a difference in the world." Defiantly, he raised his head and continued, "I won't believe that some stupid floating box can tell me whether or not that's true!"

Biggs did not appear to be moved. He sighed, and said, "Wedge, there's years and years of scientific evidence backing the floating box. Besides, what are you going to do?"

The other guard narrowed his eyes and looked back towards the fight. "I don't give a damn about your evidence. Sephka's got to be stopped, and we're the ones who can do it."

Biggs raised an eyebrow to this statement. "We? No, this is absurd. You're not getting me involved in this."

Wedge stepped back, dejected. "Well… yeah! I wasn't including you anyways!" he shot back. "I meant that me and Phillip were going to go and stop Sephka! You'll help me, right Phillip?"

"No," the intangir said flatly, "I've done enough harm to this world today."

The guard stood looking at them silently. "Oh," he said, suddenly feeling very alone. "Fine then, I never really liked you anyways Phillip. I guess I just meant me." Wedge took in a deep breath and then slowly let it out. Trying to stop Sephka was insane, but someone had to do it. "I ought to figure out how I'm going to do it then."

Several minutes later

Wedge paced back and forth, trying his hardest to come up with a way to stop the mad god. However, coming up with a plan to kill a god isn't exactly the easiest thing to do, and Wedge quickly realized that he wasn't very good at it. "Maybe if I took Figaro Castle underground, then rammed Sephka with it at high speed while resurfacing…"

"That's ridiculous," Biggs told him, "the castle doesn't move nearly fast enough ram things."

"Also, how are you going to aim the castle so that you actually hit Sephka when you're underground?" Phillip piped in.

Wedge thought it over, then shook his head. "You're right, that won't work," he agreed. By this time, the heroes had retreated from the fight to regroup elsewhere. Sephka had also mysteriously disappeared, presumably looking for the heroes.

Of course, what that previous sentence actually means, is that Sephka was right behind them. "Hello!" the maniacal voice called out suddenly. This startled the trio, and they immediately jumped and began scrambling away. They stopped however, when Sephka wasn't making any obvious attempts to kill them. "Don't mind me, I was just dropping by to see what you were all doing."

The guards and the intangir stood still, staring incredulously at the creature. It was Biggs who broke the silence. "Could you not do that?" he said to the god.

"Do what?"

"Exist," Phillip answered for him.

Biggs shrugged. "I was going to say that, but I figured that that was too much to ask," he admitted. "Don't you have important people to take care of? Ones that can actually get in your way?"

"He's right," the deeper voice of Sephka agreed. "Why do you insist on wasting our time with these insignificant worms?"

In response, the maniacal voice merely laughed. In fact, it kept laughing for quite some time; laughing so hard that tears streamed down its face. With a joyous smile, Sephka shouted, "He gets it!" apparently referring to Biggs. "Finally, after all of my years, I've found someone who knows how unimportant they are! Isn't it wonderful?" Its laughing stopped suddenly and it flew down in front of the guard, leaning forward so that its smiling face was nearly touching Biggs. "But you still have it wrong," Sephka cooed. "When you blather on about 'importance' and 'unimportance' I assume that you're referring to the Blue Box, right? Well here's a secret: the Blue Box lies!

"It doesn't actually know anything, and it never has. No one is important. All lives are insignificant. Sephiroth, you speak of wasted time, but every moment that a creature dares to draw breath is time wasted. Only the collapse of all existence can save that. Mortal or immortal, god or man, human or monster, your lives amount to nothing. The only important event that will ever happen is The End, and the only thing of any importance is the one who brings about The End. And guess what? That. Thing. Is. ME!"

Sephka shot up into the sky once more, roaring with laughter. "Just let me have fun with my old friends, and then I promise you that no more time will be wasted," the maniacal voice screeched. "It will not be as it was during my first reign; once I grow bored of their corpses, I will bring a conclusion to all things!"

Wedge had a couple of small problems with this speech. First of all, he liked breathing, and didn't find it to be a waste of his time at all. He most certainly didn't want existence to end while he was breathing. These thoughts in mind, he looked up to the mad god and shouted, "What if us 'insignificant worms' stop you before that happens?"

"Hm?" Sephka questioned, looking down at the defiant guard.

"You heard me!" Wedge accused, pointing at the creature. "I said that we were going to kill you and send you back to hell before you could stop us from breathing and end all of existence; which are two things that I enjoy very much, mind you."

"Not 'we,'" Biggs corrected. "We've been over this already. 'You' are the one that's going to try to stop the unstoppable god. Phillip and I want no part in this."

The great creature's face softened. "That's adorable!" it squealed. "Doesn't it just make you want to force him to vomit up all of his internal organs?"

A scowl suddenly came over Sephka, and the deeper voice said, "This is ridiculous, there's no point in dealing with these wastes of space. We're finished here." Then it flew off without another word.

Wedge continued pointing up at the sky as though Sephka were still hovering there. Then his arms dropped and shoulders slumped as he breathed a long sigh of relief. He might still not have an actual plan for stopping the mad god, but at least he had somehow gotten away with defying it to its face! "Heheh, not gonna lie, that was pretty cool," he said, smirking. "I should stand up to unstoppable gods more often!"

Biggs facepalmed and shook his head. "No, no you really shouldn't," he stated. "I can imagine it being very poor for you health." Suddenly though, he raised his head with a puzzled expression on his face. A thought had come into his head, and he couldn't get it out. "Wedge, you said earlier that you were going to kill Sephka and 'send him back to hell,' right? Why do we need to kill him? Can't we just send him back to hell?" The guard's eyes widened as he realized what he said, and hastily amended it. "You, I mean, not we. Can't you just send him back to hell?"

His companion considered this, then his eyes lit up. "Biggs, you're a bloody genius!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "All we-"

"You," Biggs corrected immediately.

"All I have to do kill a void wurm turn it inside out, and then lure Sephka through the resulting portal! He'll be trapped in hell, and the world will be saved!"

"That won't work," Phillip stated. "The portal created that way is one-way from hell to here. The only thing that will do is summon another demon, which we obviously don't want." Hope instantly drained from Wedge's expression, and it looked as though he might start to cry. "You'll have to turn the void wurm inside out while it's alive if you want a one way portal that Sephka can pass through from here. It has to do with where the void wurm's spirit is: if it's dead and its spirit is in the realm of the dead, then the portal goes from hell to here; if it's alive and its spirit is with its living body, then the portal goes from here to hell."

The guard's smile widened once again with the new news and began jumping into the air and whooping. Finally, for the first time since Figaro Castle had been hijacked, something was going his way! "Alright, I'm gonna go find a void wurm and lure it over to where Sephka and the heroes are! I… um… don't quite know how I can turn it inside out, alive or dead, but that can be improvised on the way. I'll see you guys on the way back while I'm running for my life from the wurm!" Wedge then turned to run off.

"Hurry up about it," Biggs instructed, "you only have about four minutes."

Wedge looked back to his companion, understandably confused. "Huh?"

The other guard sighed. "The beginning of the chapter," he explained, "it said that it started fifteen minutes earlier than some unspecified event. It's been nearly eleven minutes since this chapter began, so the event will be happening soon."

"What event?"

"I don't know, it hasn't happened yet!" Biggs told him, exasperated. "But I do know that it will be happening in about four minutes, so hurry up!" Wedge did as he was asked and ran off before his companion could tell him more completely useless information.

A moment passed before Phillip asked, "He's really getting into this whole 'save the world' thing, isn't he?"

"Yup," Biggs answered. He stood, picked up his spear, and turned towards the direction where Wedge ran off. "I ought to keep an eye on him," he told Phillip. "You coming?"

Phillip thought about this and said, "No, I have something to do over near where Sephka and your heroes are battling. When you two come with the void wurm, follow my voice, and hopefully I'll be ready by then."

Biggs nodded. "Got it."

Three minutes later

"Biggs! Why on earth did you let me do this?!" Wedge screamed as he ran for his life.

His companion, who was equally terrified and also running for his life, shouted back, "Because it was a better idea than trying to ram Sephka with an underground castle!"

Wedge looked behind to see the gaping maw of the angry void wurm directly behind him and getting closer every moment. It turned out that void wurms were reasonably fast, and quite irritable when woken. Then again, the guard figured that he would be pretty peeved too if someone woke him up by stabbing him with a spear. "I kind of doubt that!" he replied. If there was one thing that Wedge was grateful for right now, its that he didn't have to kill it before turning it inside out, because this monster was apparently incredibly powerful and well above his and Biggs' skill level. That still left the problem of actually turning it inside out, but it's best to just take on one problem at a time.

Thankfully, it wasn't long before their destination was in sight. Sephka was descending down before the group of heroes, who were backing up slowly. It also seemed that King Edgar might be in the process of having a mental breakdown. Perhaps maybe it wasn't the best time to add an enormous abomination in the form of a void wurm to the mix, but the guards didn't really have much in terms of other options at this point.

"Biggs! Wedge! To me!" they heard Phillip shout. The sound came from their left, so they altered their course and prayed that the intangir knew what he was doing. The pair passed between the trunks of two relatively large trees, but didn't get much farther as they both ran into an invisible, furry barrier.

"Oof!" grunted Biggs as he collided with Phillip. "What are you doing? Did you notice the void wurm?!"

"I did," Phillip confirmed, "but if this works, then we don't have to run any farther."

"And if it doesn't work?" Wedge asked.

"Then we get eaten by a void wurm." Based on how Phillip's last plan of summoning a demon to destroy the world's heroes had gone, the pair of guards did not expect to live for much longer.

The void wurm made one final lunge, opening its mouth wide. The trio felt as though they were being pushed towards the wurm, not by any sort of wind, but by the force of gravity itself.

The lunge sent the wurm between the same pair of trees that the guards had run through, where its head suddenly stopped going forwards. Four hooks that had been attached to the tree were caught in the corners of the beast's mouth, stopping its momentum while still leaving its mouth open. While the head had stopped moving though, the laws of motion compelled the rest of the body keep going; straight through its open mouth and turning it inside out. Now, instead of a void wurm, a portal hung before the guards and the intangir.

The guards were stunned that the plan had actually worked. "Um… thanks," was all that Wedge could manage to say.

Biggs pulled out a pocketwatch and checked the time, then smiled slightly. "Excellent, we're only twenty seconds away from catching up with where the previous chapter left off."

These words snapped Wedge back to reality. "Right, Sephka. Gotta stop him," he said. "Now all we-"

"You," Biggs corrected irritably.

Wedge sighed and rolled his eyes. "Now all that I have to do is get Sephka to go through there. Let me see if I can get his attention." Cupping his hands around his mouth, he turned to the mad god and shouted, "Hey! Hey Sephka! Over here!"

Present time

The heroes barely noticed the guards behind them, as they were much more focused on the creature before them. Edgar knew that this was not the time for well thought out plans and clever strategies; the only things that could save them now were sure strikes and prayers. The entire heroic party attacked at once, doing anything and everything they could to harm the mad god. Despite their efforts though, it seemed to do no more damage to Sephka than the average gentle breeze.

Wedge was confused that his shouting had accomplished absolutely nothing. He frowned, then tried again. "Yoohoo, Sephka? Remember us?" Still nothing. Well, not exactly nothing: Sephka had begun to glow unnaturally at this point, but the guard doubted that that had been his doing.

"Maybe he can't hear you?" Phillip suggested.

Grumbling, Wedge moved closer to the fight and shouted again, louder this time, "Hey Sephka! I'm the guy who said that I was going to kill you and send you back to hell! Didn't you want to kill me or something for being defiant?" Once again, there was no response. He realized that he was being ignored, and he did not appreciate that at all.

The heroes continued their vicious onslaught, but Sephka was not really interested in them. The god was much more focused on getting off this obscenely ridiculous attack. Sephka was continuously glowing brighter and brighter until it soon became difficult to look at. This did not concern Wedge though, as he angrily marched dangerously close to the radiant being and screamed, "DAMMIT SEPHKA! YOU STUPID, ASSYMETRICAL LADY-MAN-CLOWN-BEAST-THING! DO NOT IGNORE ME!" To Wedge's great surprise, Sephka ignored him.

From the sidelines, Biggs winced. It was honestly heartbreaking seeing Wedge fail like this. He had gotten so close. His companion had worked so hard to get to this point, and everything had gone right up until now. The plan didn't even end in a dramatic fashion, with him going down in a blaze of glory to have tales told of his heroism for ages to come. It was this: being ignored, being told straight to his face that he wasn't worth the time. Biggs realized that, to Wedge, this wasn't really about saving the world. Sure, that was a great potential side effect, but in reality, Wedge just wanted to prove to himself that he was important; that his existence on this planet meant something. Anything really. Biggs figured that even if the plan ultimately failed, if it had failed in a way that affected someone and proved that all of his efforts weren't meaningless then he could have died happily. This, however, was not that situation; in fact it was exactly the opposite.

As Wedge continued to throw increasingly vulgar insults at the mad god, Biggs thought to himself, But it couldn't have ended any other way. There were important people, and then there were Biggs and Wedge. That dichotomy was undeniable and impassable, regardless of how much he wished it wasn't. No matter how much that itch in the back of his mind told him otherwise, that there was something about him that other people didn't have. That ever-present itch that had always terrified him, that had nearly driven him insane and had given him the great desire to remain unimportant. That itch that…

Then it hit Biggs like a charging behemoth. His eyes widened and he gasped. "What does it matter now?" he whispered to himself. "There's nothing left to lose!" He began to run towards his companion.

"Where are you going?" Phillip asked.

"To the only interesting event going on here," he replied. "Are you coming?" Biggs didn't wait for a response.

Wedge was still hurling insults when Biggs got to him. "…AND YOUR MOTHERS WERE SO UGLY THAT GOBLINS MISTOOK THEM FOR THEIR KINGS, AND…"

Biggs put a hand on his shoulder and wrenched him backwards. This stopped his screaming abruptly and he turned sharply to face Biggs. His face was filled with rage, but when he saw his companion, that rage was replaced by despair. "Biggs," he said sadly, "I… I failed. The plan didn't work. I was going to stop Sephka and send him back to hell, but…"

"You?" Biggs interrupted. "No, we are going to stop Sephka, and I think I know how." Wedge's face lit up at this statement "Wedge, I have something to tell you. Remember back right before Figaro Castle was hijacked? You told me that you always felt like you were going to die just because your name was Wedge." Biggs closed his eyes, sighed, then continued. "Well I've always felt the same way, like I was going to die just because my name is Biggs."

Wedge blinked. "Great," he said, "but how is that at all relevant?"

"Let me ask you first: are you willing to die for this?"

Wedge looked up at the glowing god, noticing that the sun seemed significantly brighter than it had been moments ago. "Given the circumstances, that fate seemed inevitable. So yeah, bring it."

Biggs nodded. "Good. Get ready to run." Then he turned to Sephka and shouted, "Hey Sephka! My name is Biggs and my friend's name is Wedge!"

All of the sudden, Sephka's glowing ceased. The sun also shrank back to its normal size. Unfortunately, the comet had still destroyed several planets, and Mercury had already been swallowed by the sun. However, this story doesn't take place on any of those planets, so nobody really cared.

Wide-eyed, the mad god's head turned slowly towards the pair of guards. Both beings within it said "Did you say Biggs… and Wedge?" The corner of its mouth twitched visibly.

"That's right!" Wedge yelled back, "and we're the ones who are going to…"

Sephka wasn't listening at this point. It had no idea why, but both being within it had the sudden, blinding urge to kill these two immediately. It asked the pair a simple question, "Have you ever seen a firaja spell?"

Wedge's monologue stopped abruptly. "You said something about running, right?" he mentioned to Biggs. Biggs grabbed his companion's arm and started doing just that.

Sephka raised its hand as an enormous ball of flame grew in its palm. Just before releasing it though, Sephka was hit by an invisible force. This caused the spell to veer wildly off-course, and instead of incinerating the pair of guards, it merely destroyed a significant chunk of the moon.

"Get OFF!" Sephka shrieked as it shot a bolt of electricity at its unseen assailant. The spell launched the creature away and caused it to become visible.

However, the creature, a blue-furred behemoth-like beast, was not slain by this attack. Wincing in pain, it stood. "I have made mistakes," it growled, the voice immediately being recognized by all as Phillip's. "I became like the enemies I wished to defeat. But unlike those enemies I will right my wrongs!" The intangir then lunged at the mad god once again.

"Ha!" Wedge laughed all of the sudden as the pair were running for their lives, hoping to make it to the portal before being annihilated in some horrific fashion. "Did you notice? We're running from a genocidal god towards a literal gate to hell. If there was ever a time to say that we were 'between a rock and a hard place,' this would be it!"

"That would be putting it lightly," Biggs responded dryly. "Also, this really isn't the time for that."

"Nonsense! There's always time for-" The guard was cut off by his own shriek as he ducked under a blizzaga fired their way. The blast had been so close that much of the hair on top of his head had frozen solid. "Okay, maybe there are some rare exceptions…" he conceded.

The heroes stood where they had been, confused. Sephka had given up shooting spells at the pair, as his aim was constantly being thrown off by Phillip's tackles, and was now flying in pursuit of them. "Should we be doing anything?" Terra asked.

The rest of the party shrugged. "I'd cast hastega on them or something," Celes said, "but… well, we can't do that."

"We could cheer them on?" Relm suggested. "Go Figaro guards! Ignore your imminent deaths and do stuff!"

Setzer turned to the young artist with one eyebrow raised. "Wow, those are some real inspirational words…" he said sarcastically.

"Hey! I have more faith in them than I did in us!" she responded. "I mean, at least it looks like they have a plan. Had I been cheering for us, it would have been more like, 'Go team! All of your efforts are futile, but it looks really cool!'"

The gambler had to give it to her; that was pretty much as close to the truth as it gets.

Sephka pursued the pair with an unrelenting fury. He had no idea why, but the two that called themselves Wedge and Biggs had to die! The mad god desired a perfect world, and perfect world could not exist with them still on it. Seven wings carried him faster and faster, closer the stains, closer to the imperfections, and closer to an ultimately meaningless minor victory. Regardless of Sephka's knowledge of this fact though, there were only three things that existed in this world at the time: Wedge, Biggs, and the overwhelming desire to annihilate the previous elements on the list.

The guards resisted the urge to look back over their shoulders out of fear of seeing how close Sephka was. That was likely one of the best decisions that they had made this entire day, as neither of them would have liked the answer. Time ran slowly as they sprinted towards their only chance at salvation: (ironically) the portal to hell. This slowing of time deeply distressed Wedge and Biggs since they obviously would have preferred getting there in a faster manner.

Despite the danger, the terror, and the near certainty of death though, neither guard regretted a thing. This was what was meant to happen; what the laws of the universe clearly wanted, and most importantly to not only Wedge, but Biggs as well, was that this proved that their existence had meant something.

The pair was nearly at the portal when they felt an intense heat at their backs. Sephka had cast some sort of spell: a firaga, firaja, flare, ultima, maybe even meteor; they weren't really sure which. They figured that it didn't really matter though; ridiculously hot flames would incinerate a man just as well as ludicrously hot flames. "DOWN!" Wedge shouted as he grabbed Biggs' arm and dove to the ground, pulling his companion with him.

The explosion was immense, causing Sephka to smile. No living creature could have survived such a blast, save himself of course. Just to prove this point, the mad god flew through the flames, cackling. The heat did not harm him, for he was a being far above those silly mortal limitations. In fact, it was quite comfortable. Perhaps when he remade reality, the entire universe would just be an enormous flaming ball. Obviously, they would need some sort of other life forms too. Why do we need other life forms?

So we could bring them to their ultimate purposes! Their deaths and ends! Duh.

Fine we can have other life forms too.

And kittens. Flammable, non-indestructible kittens.

Kittens?

DO NOT QUESTION THE PRODUCTS OF MY GENIUS!

That was the moment that Sephka noticed a familiar object directly in front of him, which his current momentum would not let him avoid. A black disk hovered in the air, and they were inevitably about to pass right through it. Its eyes widened in disbelief just as the portal snapped shut behind it; and with that, the mad god was no more.

Silence pervaded for quite some time as everyone in the area stood speechless. The now visible form of Phillip limped over to the site of the explosion to see if he could find any trace of the Figaro guards. "Did that actually work?" Edgar asked no one in particular.

"I dunno," his brother answered, "to be honest, I'm not even really sure what happened. It sure looks like it worked though."

Phillip soon returned, dragging two forms behind him. "We created another portal to hell," the intangir explained, "then they tricked him into flying through it. It worked exactly as planned." Despite the good news though, Phillip did not seem happy about it.

"You're going to need healing," Terra told him.

"That can wait. First…"

"Are they okay?!" Edgar suddenly interrupted as he rushed over to the humanoid forms that Phillip had found. As expected, it seemed like they were the two guards, as they were still wearing the same armor (or at least what was left of that armor). Neither was moving. A sadness washed over the heroes as they began to realize what they were looking at.

Well, the sadness didn't actually appear to reach Setzer. Instead, the gambler rolled his eyes. "Really? This is the route the story's going to take? This is so overdone…" Throwing his hands up in the air in defeat, he exclaimed, "Whatever! It's not my problem. Anyways, I think we've had enough of a dramatic pause."

Right then, a slight moan came from one of the bodies. "Ah… ah… ow…" The other guard then began coughing. The pair was dazed, very well singed, and their eardrums were likely destroyed beyond the capabilities of any non-magical healing, but they were also alive.

Setzer gestured to them and said, "See? I knew that it was a fake-out."

Oblivious to the gambler, Edgar beamed. "Never have I been so proud of my subjects!" He turned to Setzer, chin raised and smiling wide. "Setzer!" he commanded. "Go and take the Falcon to the nearest shop and purchase as many echo herbs as this can buy!" He tossed a bag of gold in his direction and continued, "We can use potions to keep them stable for now, but they will require some serious white magic before long."

"You know I'm not one of your Figaro citizens," Setzer reminded the king, frowning.

"Go now!" Edgar prompted, still oblivious. Grumbling, the gambler jogged off in the direction of the airship.

It wasn't long before he returned with the required items, and not long after that, the guards were sitting up, still somewhat dazed, but feeling significantly better than they had several minutes earlier.

Of the heroes, Phillip's words concerning the deaths of the intangir had seemed to affect Terra the most. She insisted on being the one to heal him in an attempt to seek forgiveness. After a lengthy apology, she asked him, "Can you ever forgive us?" Phillip's eyes narrowed, and he was silent.

"Sir Phillip," Cyan interjected, "if I may… Our apologies are sincere. It was a terrible misunderstanding; had we known that thy people were not evil, we would not have committed such atrocities."

Phillip remained silent, and then said, "No, I don't think I can ever forgive you. But I am willing to let it go. I don't believe that you had any malicious intent, and ignorance was the cause. You will never be my friends, but you are no longer my enemies." For Terra and the rest of the party, that was enough.

"Now hold on a moment," Setzer said, "so we came all of this way to save your bloody castle, spending weeks doing completely meaningless tasks to gain completely useless benefits, only to have two completely random Figaro guards – no offense you two – and the antagonist save the day? Do you have any idea how much time has been wasted on this damn quest?!"

"Your time wasn't wasted," Phillip told him. What might have been a mischievous smile crossed his face as he said, "You proved to be a wonderful distraction."

Setzer shot the intangir a glare as rage boiled inside him. "A distraction?!" he hissed, apparently insulted. "Why you little… I'LL SHOW YOU A BLOODY DISTRACTION! COME HERE YOU DAMNED-" At this point, Umaro had grabbed the gambler by the collar and began to drag him kicking and screaming back to the airship.

It took quite some time before Wedge and Biggs were able to calm their nerves enough to hold an actual conversation. As his companion had expected, Wedge was the first to speak. "You know, that whole ordeal really hurt."

Biggs sighed. "Of course it hurt, it was fiery explosion. That's the entire point."

"Not really, I'm pretty sure that it was supposed to outright kill us. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would have if it had hit us directly."

"Er… true," Biggs conceded. "I suppose I should thank you for pulling me down at the last second then."

"Heh, not a problem," the other guard said, smirking. "Just because we were supposed to die, doesn't necessarily mean that we have to listen!" After a moment, Biggs nodded.

Grinning, Wedge laid back in the grass and looked to the sky. Then, for seemingly no reason, his eyes widened and he gasped. "B-B-Biggs!" he shouted.

Concerned, Biggs looked down at him. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Wedge shook his head and pointed. "Look!"

Turning his head to the sky, he asked, "Look at what?" Then he saw it, and he, too, gasped. Tears began to well in his eyes at the realization. In the blue text boxes that hovered above the heads of the completely random, unimportant Figaro guards named Wedge and Biggs was the text of what they had just said. To the left of the text in each box were portraits; portraits of the faces of two completely random, unimportant Figaro guards named Wedge and Biggs.

Epilogue

Kefka and Sephiroth were returned to hell, hopefully to never escape again. Their punishment was modified to fit new developments though; the denizens of hell certainly had the magical power to separate them, but being merged together as Sephka made them both incomprehensibly miserable. Because of this, instead of fighting in an arena every other week, they were fused together once again and left to deal with it. After the week was up they would be separated and resume their personalized punishments, only to be merged again at the week's end. It was not long before both of them deeply regretted ever escaping hell in the first place.

Once the healing was finished, Phillip returned to being invisible and had plans to travel the world. It was then that the heroes realized that they weren't sure what happened to the rest of the intangir race, as they knew that they had not hunted them to extinction. Phillip explained that they had been devoured by the void wurms. It seemed that Phillip never knew that being eaten by one of the resident wurms didn't actually kill you, and in fact just transported you to another dimension. Gogo confirmed actually having met several tribes of intangir during the years that he had lived in this dimension. This gave Phillip hope, and he set off on a quest to reunite with his people.

Edgar, Sabin, Biggs, and Wedge drove the castle back to the desert where it belonged. After becoming important and earning their character portraits, the guards honestly wanted nothing more than to return to simplicity. They insisted that they wanted as little recognition as possible, and merely wanted to return to their duties of guarding the engine room. Though Biggs remained relatively quiet, he and Wedge conversed significantly more often during their shifts and they remained friends for the rest of their days.

The remainder of the heroes finally returned to Figaro Desert of pick up Mog, and then returned to their respective homes. They later founded a charity fund for any of the sentient and not-evil monsters that they had accidentally massacred back in their fight against the Empire. There weren't many, but the sentiment was still appreciated.

Balance had returned, and it was here to stay. Well, at least until another insane evil sprung up to ruin things for everyone (as tends to happen in these fantasy realms), but that was not to happen for quite a long time.

Fin

And that's it. My apologies if you were expecting more humor and less drama, but that's just how I ended up writing it. In any case, I hope that it was a satisfying conclusion. Once again, thank you for joining me; I know that I enjoyed it and I hope that you did as well.

Best,

-Antismurf, Lord of Darkness