Huzzah! Er, 'scuse me. Thanks to ElTangoDeRoxanne for her awesome reviews and conversations, and to Krjs, who is supportive and kind to me. The ending is coming up!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The Chocobos galloped over the sand that was swiftly turning to mud. Bahamut had long been pried from the lake that had formed around its base when it lifted off, and now it left huge tracks in the ground where thick vines dragged underneath.
The sound of gunfire rattling just over their heads, and some just around them, the bullets zipping by, was a constant reminder of the danger they were in. Blair ducked as a bullet zinged just over her head, clipping a few feather tips from her mount. The bird squawked in alarm, but she whispered to it and stroked her fingers through its smelly feathers, and it calmed again.
"We should have gotten Dalmascan Cavalry Chocobos if you were going to bring them right up to Bahamut!" Munin yelled over the roar of cannons and the rat-tat-tat of guns. "Braver, you know?"
Balthier glanced up toward the sky, then jerked the reins of his bird, shouting, "Left! Hurry!" Seconds later, the wreckage of an airship smashed into the mixed sand and mud, showering them with debris. Flames erupted from every orifice, and there was an explosion as the glossair rings ignited and the engine burned. Marcus blinked dirt out of his eyes, spluttering.
"Is everyone okay?" he called. Kyle rode up next to him, looking pale and shaky from his near-death experience, but no worse for wear.
Fran squinted at the wrecked ship, her ears erect, and Balthier shared a look with her, something close to sorrow flickering in his eyes. "Everyone is okay except the ship's captain and crew," she announced. "We have not been harmed."
"Bravery, huh?" Balthier ran his hand over the feathers on the back of his Chocobo's neck. "Whoever makes it through this war will be brave beyond anything we have e'er seen, be they man or bird." He lightly kicked the sides of his mount. "However, as we mourn their sacrifice, we lose time— look, Bahamut has moved far ahead of us."
"So you're just going to leave them?" John asked. "Aren't you going to get them? To bury them? Give them a decent grave? Aren't you going to give your dead respect?"
"There is nothing you can do for the dead now. The only thing you can do is keep more from joining their ranks in the emptiness that follows." Balthier said dully, trotting away. John scowled, but Barnes looked thoughtful as he followed them.
Bahamut was positively roaring over the ground. The birds raced after it, and they carefully steered them around the massive trailing vines that had tethered the sky fortress in the lake that had formed around its base. Birds, disturbed from their nests in the foliage that had grown on top of its dome, flapped around Bahamut's top, screeching.
"Fran!" Balthier shouted, barely audible over the howl of engines and hiss of steam. She looked toward him, and he gestured awkwardly over his head with one hand toward the lowest ring of the fortress. She nodded in understanding, gripping her bow and nocking an arrow. Tied to the arrow was a great length of rope. Aiming somewhat haphazardly because of the bumpy ride, Fran pulled back the string, aiming high, pulling until her arms screamed and the bow threatened to snap, before firing. The arrow whistled away, up into the sky fortress, and promptly came tumbling down. She flicked an ear in annoyance. Their first boarding attempt had failed.
"The arrow is too weak and has no means to grip anything. Do you have anything more heavy duty to use?" she called. Balthier grinned wickedly, fumbling for something she could not see on the other side of his Chocobo. He held it up: a barbed, heavy grappling hook with a long cable attached.
"Better?" he asked. Fran nodded.
"Very much." Balthier whirled the grappling hook over his head like a lasso, only much more deadly if anyone happened to come within the radius of the rope. With a grunt, he heaved the hook up toward a small projection from Bahamut's side, where it wrapped around and held firm.
"Up we get," he mumbled as he slowly began to stand. Inch by inch, he moved his feet, maneuvering until he was balanced on the back of his running steed. His arms pin-wheeled for a moment as he sought his balance (which was hard on the back of a sprinting Chocobo), before he jumped for the rope. He dangled from it momentarily, looking as if he were going to fall and be reduced to a bloody smear on the Estersand, but gradually, he started to shinny up. "Marcus!"
He tossed the rope to the cyborg, who caught it with ease. "I'm not gonna try your fancy Chocobo leapin' trick!" Marcus bellowed back, choosing instead to vault out of the saddle. Balthier hauled the rope up, hand over hand, muscles straining. Even for him, enhanced being that he was, pulling a three-hundred-odd pound cyborg up over fifty feet vertically was nothing short of immensely difficult. However, having Marcus there would come in handy, especially when the next batch would be Blair, Kyle, and John, all together. Marcus helped to pull them up, though there was a brief moment of terror when a sudden gust of wind picked them up and threatened to splatter them against the side of the fortress. They pulled faster after that.
As soon as Fran, Munin, and Barnes appeared over the side of the ledge, Balthier and Marcus immediately grabbed their arms before they were plucked off the side of the ship by another blast of screaming wind.
"Right, where's our entrance?" Blair panted.
"There is a door about a hundred feet down this walkway." Fran said, leading the way. Sure enough, they reached the door, but when Barnes blasted it away with his rocket launcher, a spider web of red lights met their eyes.
"Laser tripwires." Balthier explained. "The instant someone breaks those beams, an alarm will sound, and that's the last thing we need."
"We know— they have 'em on Earth, too." Kyle said. "Though how to disarm 'em is another question."
"Allow me." John said, stepping forward and pulling out a tiny computer. He slid a thin chip into the identification card slot. Numbers began scrolling over the screen, eventually resolving themselves into a five-digit passcode. He punched the enter button, and red lights faded. "Cake," he grinned, and Blair snorted as she stepped by him and into the dark interior of the ship. Balthier brought up the rear, glancing around warily.
"Welcome to the Sky Fortress Bahamut, built by my father Cidolphus Demen Bunansa in 706, Old Valendian, supposedly destroyed by Fran and I in that same year," he said in something barely more than a whisper.
The inside of the fortress was dark, the only source of light that streaming from the open door. It seemed that the Terminators had only seen fit to restore power to the most important parts of the ship—namely, the guns and cannons. However, there was a low hum nearby, and the quiet sound of clanking footsteps on the circular walkway around the perimeter of the room. Catwalks connected the outer walkway with an inner column housing a small lift.
"Terminators?" John whispered, glancing to Marcus. Marcus shook his head.
"People and strange machines—not Terminators." He replied. Balthier tapped his ill begotten power, the inky darkness clearing. The thump of his companion's heartbeats grew loud in his ears, like discordant military drums, and their breath became the low rush of wind. He hated the spark of excitement stirring in the bottom of his stomach, the thoughts of a predator running through his head, and extinguished it with an extra dose of his usual languid temper, concentrating on the problem at hand.
Imperial soldiers staggered about aimlessly, arms hanging and backs bowed. A few rooks hovered nearby. The smell of death was overpowering, rising from every chink in the soldiers' armor like noxious fumes. Balthier was glad that he was graced with only the faintest, passing semblance of that decaying scent— what he smelled now, from these creatures likely as old as he, made his nose want to jump off his face and hide.
"There is no way through this room without engaging at least one zombie soldier in the process," he noted. "The best way would be the third walkway to our left."
Seeing Kyle readying a gun, Munin stayed him with a raised hand. "Sometimes prudence is the better part of valor. We will fight only who we must, and save our strength for the rest of the machines," he said.
They began to tip-toe forward, Marcus leading, Balthier trailing. He swept the room with another silver eyed gaze. The zombies knew they were there; he could see them lifting their armored heads, sniffing the stale air and homing in on them like hungry wolves.
"We might want to pick up the pace," Balthier noted in his most reasonable tone, drawing the musket with which he had replaced his confiscated Fomalhaut. A zombie groaned at that moment, and the others all joined in the howl. Marcus quickened his step, slugging a zombie that suddenly crawled out from under the walkway so hard that he dented its facemask, and broke into a run.
They dashed for the lift, the zombies surging after them like dogs on a hunt. Balthier ripped open a pack of powder with his teeth, pouring it down the long barrel of his gun and packing it down with a ramrod. His hands were busy with loading wyrmfire shot as he jogged backwards, almost slipping in the sticky goo that had been another zombie before Marcus and John had finished with it. Quickly sighting down the length of his gun, he pulled the trigger. A zombie fairly flew backward under the impact, and Balthier began the process again. Bullets from Kyle and John's machine guns decimated the others.
"It's closed!" Blair pounded on the lift doors.
"No power goes to the lift," Fran observed when she could not feel the hum of operating machinery in the column.
"I'll get it," Marcus dropped to his knees as the others held off the rest of the zombies swarming over the walkway. His fingers flew over the wiring inside a small casing, reconnecting fuses and rerouting circuits, until finally, with a squeal, the elevator doors opened. They backed inside, panting, grateful for the brief respite.
Balthier tucked his ramrod back on his belt, wiping zombie grime and gunpowder off his face with a handkerchief. John glanced at him.
"Watching you fight is like watching a Civil War movie or something," he joked, relieving the tense atmosphere for the Resistance members. Balthier blinked.
"Thanks?" he quirked an eyebrow. "I am not sure whether to think that is a good thing or not."
"Let's just say it's like bein' in history class again." Blair assured him.
"It looks exactly like how the Imperial Gunners stand." Munin said. "Or rather, used to. The new guns don't really need shoulder sighting anymore."
"Ah, the last words that I hear before I die are that I am a piece of history and a relic of the past. Don't remind us of our age." Balthier said sardonically, though the eyes that he glanced at Fran with danced with mirth. She passed a few potion bottles around, her ears twitching with dry humor.
The doors opened, and they leaped out, ready for a confrontation, but the bridge was silent. In the middle of the floor there was a throne, and John realized with a start that it was made out of the bodies of the last three Terminators.
What concerned him more, however, was the figure seated upon that throne. It looked like a man, but metal gears and plates poked out from under his skin. His body itself was monstrous, with bulging muscles that almost seemed too big for the skin to contain it. Large metal wings sprouted from his back, and one arm appeared to be a cannon. John gulped.
"Ah, welcome, welcome." The figure raised its head and looked at them with a glowing blue eye. The other was covered by a sweep of Raven black hair. He looked remarkably like Munin. "Thank you for coming to my fortress. I am afraid we are a little lacking on accommodations, but feel free to stay awhile, Munin, my nephew."
Munin tensed. "You're supposed to be dead," he whispered. Vayne smiled.
"Yet here I am. Here we are. Even though Ashelia B'Nargin Dalmasca supposedly struck me a fatal blow, I could not really die, because I am a god." His glowing blue eye roved over their faces. "I am somewhat disappointed in your choice of friends, nephew. I advised Freyk on the matter of friends and enemies the last time he was here. He was quite eager to learn, I tell you. Hugin too, though it took more effort to convince him to join me."
"Why are you here? What is your goal this time? World domination?" Balthier burst out. Vayne seemed to notice him for the first time.
"Hello, Ffamran. It is quite rude to intrude upon a family reunion. It seems that when you lost your heart, you lost your manners as well." Vayne smiled again, this time, condescendingly. Balthier's face went through a spasm, surprise chasing across his face before he banished it, lidding his eyes with his usual somnolent gaze, though they remained sharp. His hand crept over his chest as if he would shield his false heart from Vayne's piercing eye. "How did I know?" he asked. "You'll be quite happy to know that Venat lives on within me. He is quite giving with information regarding you. For example…"
The wires hanging behind the party suddenly came to life, and snatched Fran.
"You are clever, Ffamran, but not as clever as I. I am surprised you failed to notice, but didn't you see? All the assassins sent to kill you in the past three years were not Archadian, or Rozarrian, Bhujerban, or even from Balfonheim. They were Dalmascan. They belonged to me."
DUN DUN DUN!