Author's Note:
Hey everyone! I apologize for being a week late again, but last week when Hurricane Sandy hit the easy coast I was left without power until a few days ago, and my priorities had to be shifted elsewhere. However the good news is that everyone in my family is safe and I'm back to continue true (hopefully) thrilling story you're all reading.
Only about 3 or 4 chapters to go until its all done. I can't wait to write the ending, and I hope you're all equally as excited as I am. I have a feeling you're all gonna hate me at first when you read it xD
So now that its that time of the week again, enjoy the chapter!
"Is it over?" Hope asked.
Noel readied his blades. "No, somehow I don't think so."
"DAMN YOU. YOU JUST HAD TO RUIN MY FUN, DIDN'T YOU?"
Bhunivelze rematerialized. "To answer your question little Hopie, no it's not over. In fact, I'm just getting heated up!"
Bhunivelze's eyes glowed, almost shooting out beams of light. The light grew stronger, blinding the warriors. When the light cleared, no longer was a blond man before them. Instead, a colossal machine had taken his place.
The machine looked much like a fal'cie, except larger than most the group had ever seen, beaten in size only by Fenrir and Titan.
A familiar artificial voice spoke through the mechanical monstrosity. "Now the party really starts! Prepare for round two kiddies!"
The new form of Bhunivelze looked utterly intimidating, appearing twisted and pained, similar to some of the fal'cie the group had seen before. The knights could hear the gears of the giddy god grinding, mobilizing the other mechanisms within the mechanical monster.
Lightning sized up their opponent, familiar with fighting mechanical foes of this size. "Noel, Hope, split up and each attack a different part of him." The other knights nodded and divided, taking the left and right arms respectively as the fleeting flash flew upwards, her target being Bhunvielze's head.
As she rapidly approached his face, she could make out its more intricate features. His mouth was curved into a wide maniacal grin, revealing what only looked like fangs, complimenting his psychotic nature.
She unloaded several bullets, but to no effect. The rounds of lead bounced off before even nearing their mark.
He must have a barrier of some sort up. Probably a protect spell.
Improvising, Lightning kicked off of Bhunivelze's forehead at the peak of her ascent. As she rocketed backwards, she waved her arm and flung a trio of ruin spells, each of which somehow connected. She landed gracefully, rolling and getting back up to unload a second assault in no time at all.
At the same time Noel and Hope struggled to occupy the lunatic god's limbs. Both young men could hardly so much as scratch the armor plating that protected his arms, and spells seemingly vanished as they made contact, having no visible effect if any at all.
Hope flung spells faster than he ever had, his most powerful spells doing nothing. Thinking, he quickly cast several deprotega and deshellga spells, watching in satisfaction as invisible walls around the god glowed and vanished
He renewed his attack with a flurry of fire spells, failing to harm his foe.
He may be vulnerable now, but that doesn't even seem to change anything. How are we supposed to hurt this guy?
Hope was slowing down. This fruitless fight left him feeling disheartened. He stopped for a moment, planning his next attempt to maim Bhunivelze, and in that very moment he failed to notice the arm coming to attack him.
"Hope, look out!" Noel screamed in vain, calling out too late as he watched Hope get sent flying. Noel's scream was muffled by the sound of his own blood pounding as Hope crashed straight into a wall, leaving him out cold.
Angered, Noel turned his attention back to his own opponent. He focused himself, and leapt to dodge a punch coming at him from Bhunivelze's other arm.
"Stupid little flies! Stop moving around so much. You're making it difficult to crush you!" The god groaned with his mechanical voice.
Noel landed on the arm that had just came at him. He stabbed one if his swords into it, and began running up along the arm. This stunt left a large gash upon the appendage and earned him a loud moan of pain from the god.
Finally, at least I've actually landed a decent blow on him!
"That hurts! Didn't you mom ever tell you to play nice!?"
"Shut up." Lightning deadpanned, shooting several thundaga spells at Bhunivelze as she ran. She darted past the arms that kept attempting to squash her like an insect, and made her way to his torso. In her hand, a flame flickered and roared to life as she unleashed a massive firaga spell at her target. The result was a section of his body that melted and had become a blank metal surface. She narrowly escaped the tight situation, back flipping out of the way as a ruin spell exploded where she had just been.
Clear of the danger zone, she'd noticed that Hope was missing. She looked around, and finally found his unconscious form resting against a wall several yards away.
She grimaced as her teeth clenched in anger. She didn't have a further moment to think about it as she leapt away from another attack.
Die damn you!
Meanwhile, Noel struggled to evade the deadly attacks that were aimed at him. Bhunivelze had begun using magic, and several fira and thundara spells kept pursuing the sapphire knight. At this rate, he wouldn't even have a chance to send a healing spell at the unconscious Hope.
One haste spell later and he was now easily able to weave his way out of the magical myriad of attacks chasing him. Noel took notice of Lightning, and she soared towards Bhunivelze's face, planting her feet on the lid of his eye as she did.
He winced, as he saw her impale her blade through what he assumed was the god's cornea. His spine crawled at the scream of agony the followed.
The god roared in anger and pain. "You dirty rotten bitch! HOW DARE YOU!" Reacting purely on instinct, Bhunivelze reached for the knight on his face, and managed to grab her by the legs.
"Lightning! Look out!" She didn't hear Noel's warning, and was taken before she realized what had happened.
Bhunivelze swung her around like a child playing with a rag doll, swinging this way and that way however he pleased. He stopped, but not before raising his fist, and pounding the ground.
"NO!" Noel screamed. He stopped his attempted attack. Concerned for the older knight's life, he ran over to her, as she laid in a crater from the impact.
"I'll be fine." Lightning croaked. "Just a lot of broken bones, that's all."
Bhunivelze watched on smugly. "Oh you little humans are so cute. Getting so worried when one of you gets hurt. Haha!" He cackled wickedly as always. "That bitch got what she deserved, fool! How dare she blind me in an eye! Who the hell is sick enough to just stab someone in the eye?"
Noel ignored the ranting as he attempted to heal the ex-soldier with several cure spells. His efforts amounted to little.
"Don't worry about me Noel, just go make sure Hope is alright." He nodded, going over to check on his friend and fellow knight of Mwynn as Bhunivelze continued to rant about the cruelty of blinding a man.
"Hey, Hope. You okay buddy?" Noel asked the silverrette. Hope stirred, regaining consciousness and rubbing the back of his head. "Did we beat him?" Noel frowned. "Not yet. He just hurt Lightning pretty bad.
"Damn, then why do I have this killer headache if we didn't even win." Hope smiled. Noel couldn't help but return the smile at his friend's little joke.
"I'll take care of this." Noel told his friend. He handed a potion to Hope before turning and approaching the god again."
"-seriously, a slap on the wrist first or something. No need to take an eye out." Bhunivelze huffed as he finished his rant. "What do you want?"
Noel scowled. "Cut the crap, I'm going to take you down once and for all."
"That's a good one kid. Let's see you try." Bhunivelze teased the knight.
Noel roared and charged forward. Bhunivelze raised his arm, attempting to go for a killing blow. Noel disregarded this, recklessly continuing his charge. The god's arm neared, and Noel was prepared for the pain that would follow.
Suddenly, he was swept from his feet. He heard a loud thud from the impact of the arm where he had just been. He attempted to collect himself, and realized he was riding atop a white dragon.
What the hell is going on..
"Bahamut, rain fire upon him!" A man in white and violet armor on the dragon roared. The eidolon complied, blasting several flare spells at Bhunivelze."
The man turned to Noel, and Noel's jaw dropped slightly when he recognized his mentor. "..Caius?" Caius smiled, a rare sight for the young man.
"Oh come on. You have GOT to be kidding me. Just when I'm winning, YOU have to show up? Can't an evil maniac ever get a break?" Bhunivelze whined at the appearance of Caius. "Hey, you dropped the whole black'n purple thing. Stopped being emo?"
Caius disregarded the god, instead speaking to Noel. "I apologize for the delay. It took me ages to find this chamber. What remains of the others?"
"Lightning is badly injured and so is Hope. As it stands we're the only two with no serious injuries."
Caius pulled his sword from his back. Noel failed to identify the new weapon. "He shall pay for what he's done." He outstretched an arm and held out his weapon. "My friends, feel the healing light of a paladin. Let your wounds stitch themselves and your pain ebb away. Renew!" The spell shot into the air, exploding like a firework. Lights spread all over, showering the injured knights. The spell did its work quickly, leaving both Light and Hope feeling almost entirely refreshed.
"I hate to say it, but we owe you one Caius." Lightning smiled. "She's got that right. Your timing couldn't have been better." Hope drew his weapon once more.
Caius also smiled, pulling a pink rose crystal from his armor. "He has served me well Lightning. It's time for him to return to you." He chucked the eidolith crystal at its rightful owner. She caught it, releasing a sigh of relief as the familiar feel of the stone returned to her. "Good to have you back Odin."
"Noel, we must finish this quickly! This world is in a critical state. He has set it so that the graviton cores would fail."
So that's why he was at the controls earlier.
"We have to stop him. If those cores go out this whole place is gonna go down. Caius, set me on the ground. It's time to finish this fight." Bahamut heeded Caius's command to descend, lowering close enough to the ground for Noel to dismount from the eidolon. "Time to end this!"
Hope and Lightning joined Noel's side, with Caius atop Bahamut hovering just above. "I swear now, we'll put an end to you Bhunivelze." Noel raised his blades.
The warriors all charged. "We will save the future!"
Author's Note:
In case any of you remember, I'm also working on a new TWEWY story. It hasn't been published yet, and I'm still brainstorming ideas. As it stands I have a prologue and most of chapter 1 written out. Here's where you come in. I need names. I'm having issues coming up with character names, especially assigning names that have a meaning to them. Now, I won't spoil my story but I ask this. If you have a name that you'd like to suggest, send me it, along with what it means (try to keep it related to an art form of some sort) and I'll look over them all. Ones I like will be given to characters.
Anyways, see you next week!