Disclaimer: I only own my OC
Sorry for the delay. Once again I must thank you guys for your patience with me and for everyone that still checks out this story dispite my very late updates, and we are finally having Odin's battle! Now to cut to the chase. Enjoy the chapter!
Thankful for Misfortune
Chapter 20
Eden or Bust
"More PSICOM soldiers." Lightning mumbed from our hiding place being a collection of machine parts and a large rock.
"Should we fight them?" Hope asked getting his boomerang ready.
"No," I said. "We avoid them like we've been doing." Whenever I got near the PSICOM soldiers all I could think of was how horrified the other one was. The look of pain and fear and his face froze like that. The face only a human could make.
"We can't just shuffle around in the dark forever." Lightning said as we walked in the cover of the shadows.
"Then we will for as long as we can." I said with an icy tone.
As we contineud to walk we jumped down a ledge to came across some more PSICOM soldiers that were examening a machine, the same kind of machine that had almost killed us earlier when we were with Vanille and Sazh.
"Any signs of the l'cie?" a soldier asked
"No sign that it's been activated." the soldier closest to the machine said.
The soldier just scoffed and turned around. We tried to hide behind a rock but it was too late. The soldier spotted us and yelled "Who's there?" before charging us with his comrade.
Lightning and Hope pulled out there weapons while I took a step back.
'Idiots, why can't they just leave us alone?' I thought.
Lightning charged her balde up with electricity and attacked the soldier closest to her while Hope attacked his soldier with ice and fire. The fight lasted about six seconds, maybe seven.
"Idiots..." I mumbled.
Lightning turned around to glare at me for some reason before turning around to face the machine. "They must have thought we would use this machine to try to escape." she said walking towards it with caution.
Once it made no movement she loward her gaurd. "It seems to be out of energy though."
"So long as this one doesn't attack us." I said. "I doubt we could handle one with just the three of us."
Lightning ignored me and started to look around to see if there was a way to go forward. All she came arcoss was a large crack in the ground that we had very little chance of jumping over. There was a large piece of metal that could be used as a bridge but there was no way we could move it.
"How are we going to keep going?" Hope asked as he started to walk around.
"I'm thinking..." Lightning said. "Maybe if one of us could use wind magic we could give ourselves a boost and-"
Before Lightning could finish her idea we heard the machine spark to life.
"AAAHHH!" Hope yelled as I turned around.
I quickly summoned my chakrams in case it had attacked Hope.
I just stared completely dumbfounded at the sight of Hope riding the machine, not being attacked by it.
"What are you doing?!" Lightning yelled up at him.
"I think I got the hang of it!" Hope yelled.
Hearing Hope yell at the top of his lungs mainly meant he was about to be skinned alive by a cie'th or something, so I immediatly assumed the worse. Now that I saw he was okay I was annoyed at the kid.
"Damn it Hope!" I shouted. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"
I put my chakrams away as Hope tried to make sense of the controls and Lightning told him to get down.
Hope ignored her and started to move the machine foward, almost crushing Lightning and me in the process.
"Watch where your going Esthiem!" I yelled as Hope moved the machine to the large piece of metal and manovered one of it's arms and rammed it into the metal. The metal piece fell down with ease and instantly made a bridge that we could walk across.
"Okay, not bad." I said as Hope moved the machine onto the bridge first. We followed Hope as he moved the machine that constantly staggered and nearly tobbled over with every step.
"You should get off of there." Lightning said. "You could fall off at any minute."
"I'll be fine." Hope yelled down at us.
Lightning rolled her eyes and resumed walking.
As we continued to walk we came across something I didn't think we would see. A good two dozen robots were wandering around an open area and the second we came into view they all turned to us and started to move towards us.
"Well crap." I said getting my chakrams ready. despite the fact we were severally out numbered I was releaved that it was robots and not soldiers. I could handle destroying robots.
"Hope!" Lightning yelled at the boy. "Do you think you can handle these guys?"
"I can try!" Hope said as he started to fiddle with the switches and gears. As all the machine started to come at us Hope made the machine move it's gaint arm and smashed it into the robots an took most of them out in one blow.
"Bravo." I said hitting my chakrams together as if to clap.
There were a few of them left but Lightning and I took them out quickly as Hope moved forward. We actually came across other large groups of robots but every time Hope back handed most of them into oblivion.
We were sweeping through all kinds of robots...until Hope crashed the machine. At one point Hope apparently didn't notice a small cliff and he tumbled over the edge.
"Wah!" he shouted as he hit the ground and fell of the machine. Thankfully it wasn't a big fall so Hope was fine, but the machine was toast.
Lightning and I jumped off the ledge and landed next to Hope who was brushing off his clothes.
"Nice landing." Lightning said.
"Do you think we will find any more of those things?" Hope asked.
"If we're lucky." I said walking ahead.
"So that means no?" Hope asked.
"Yep."
The more we walked the more I wished I came up with the idea to ride the machine instead of Hope. My feat where killing me.
It was made even harder due to all the other PSICOM soldiers we ended up avoiding.
"When do you figure we'll take a rest?" I asked.
"When we find a safe place to rest." Lightning said.
"But we keep coming across PSICOM soldiers." Hope said. "At this rate we won't able to rest."
I pulled out the energy bar Lightning had given me earlier and started to munch on it. "Maybe we could find a cave or make a hut out of rubble?" i suggested.
"We won't find ay caves here, and building a hut would be more trouble then its worth." Lightning said.
I was about to let out a groan when Lightning suddenly put her hand over my mouth.
"Quiet." she whispered as she looked ahead.
Right infront of us there were four PSICOM soldiers infront of our trail. This time there was no where to hide. We would have to fight them.
Hope pulled out his boomerang and Lightning drew her gunblade. I once again stepped backward as they attacked the PSICOM soldiers. This time they were taken completely off guard to which Hope froze two of them at thier feet and Lightning cut them down.
The other two soldiers pointed there guns at us but Lightning was too quick and slashed one across the chest.
The last one got its gun ready and started to fire. Lightning and Hope got out of the way in time but I was too slow. The bullet hit me in the side and I hunched over in pain.
"Damn it!" I yelled as Lightning shot the soldier in the head.
"Hold on Vira!" Hope yelled as he ran towards me. He immediatly started to cast healing magic on me as I checked out my wound. To my suprise the bullet barely protruded my skin, and least not as much as I thought it did.
"Its safe to say that l'cie are a lot more durable than people." I said. "That explains why we've survived so many attacks that would normally be lethal."
I looked over at Lighting to see her glaring at me. I glared back in confusion. What was she so ticked for?
"There." Hope said as he wiped some sweat off of his forhead. He looked pretty worn out.
"Alright." I said as I looked at my now healed wound. There was no trace of the wound anymore, not even a scar. Hope was deinatly really good with magic.
Lightning started to walk without us and Hope started to go after her with weak tired steps. I followed and we eventually made it to a bridge that was next to a waterfall the obviously led to the river the bridge was over.
Lightning walked on the bridge but Hope tripped onto it completely exhausted.
I knelt down next to him and said. "Hope? You okay?" Even as I said the words I had to resist the urge to lay down as well. My legs were shacking from exhaustion at this point.
I heard Lightning sigh and turn towards us. "This isn't working."
"What?" Hope asked trying to stand up.
"I can't have you two with me anymore." Lightning said. "Your just slowing me down."
"What?!" I asked. "You're just leaving us here?!"
"You can't just leave us like that!" Hope yelled.
"I've done it before." Lightning said looking back at us and glaring.
I was about to yell at her when Lightning's face suddenly twisted in pain and she stummbled over.
"I can barely keep myself alive." Lightning wheezed. "I can't keep waching over some helpless kids!"
"We've helped you this whole time!" I shouted.
"I don't have the time to baby you." Lightning said with her glare returning. "You can barely walk!"
"We'll try harder Lightning!" Hope said. "We aren't done yet."
"Yes you are..." Lighting said. "Hope, your not strong enough to help me."
Lightning then turned to look at me and her glare was so sharp it almost cut through me. "And you! Vira, you won't even fight! How can you help if you can't fight?!"
I felt my breath hitch in my throat at her words. "I have my reasons!" I yelled trying to get the face off the dead soldier out of my mind.
"You just have excuses." Lightning said. "You two will just have to survive on your own! AH!"
Lightning was suddenly incased in a circle of pink light and a circle full of mythical looking symbols incased the ground where she kneeled. Several other circles raised from the ground and they all started to glow.
"What's going on?!" Hope yelled.
We recieved out answer in te form of a man coming out of the light of the circles. The only thing was it wasn't a normal man. It was at least twenty feet tall and had metallic looking skin. He was muscular and had green eyes with no visual mouth and golden horns. He had a large shield and a weapon that appeared to be two curved swords that were attached together with the appearance of hooks.
Hope and I simply stared at the being in shock as it looked down at us.
"This can not be happening!" Lighting yelled.
One moment the gaint was stairing at us the next it had its weapon raised and swung it down on Hope and I.
I grabbed Hope by the collar and yanked both of us backward from the blow but we couldn't make it far enough. Just as the blade was about to hit us Lightning appeared before us and blocked it with her gunblade.
She struggled to hold it at bay but managed to hold it back with stength that i had a hard time believing even she had.
The gaint jumped backwards and landed in the middle of the bridge, appearing ready to attack again at any moment.
Lightning raised her sword despite the fact that one block winded her. Hope quickly started to cast barriers around us as quickly as her could while I summoned my chakrams.
I tried using my deprotect spell on it but it raised its weapon and summoned a large bolt of lightning at us. Despite Hope's barriers we all felt the blow and the barrier's shattered in an instant.
While Hope staggered from the blow I summoned water around my chakrams and threw them at the gaint but he deflected them with ease and he dashed at us. Lightning tried to block the attack with her sword but it was far to strong.
The blow sent Lightning flying and the wind resistance from the strike was enough to send me staggering backwards. My chakrams returned to me and I used them try and hit him again but they were once again deflected by the gaints weapon.
Lightning shot bullets at it but the gaint blocked them with it's shield. Hope cast more barriers and tried to heal us but the gaint sent more and more bolts of Lightning at us. At one point Hope couldn't cast barriers fast enough and we were all struck.
"AAAHHHH!" I yelled as the lightning hit me with immence force.
I thought the bullet from the PSICOM soldier had hurt but this was a whole new level. My mouth instantly tasted like buring foil and I could smell smoke form my skin and I fell over along with Hope and Lightning. My whole body burned and felt tingly and over.
Hope tried to heal us but he could barely summon any energy to do so.
I looked at the gaint and tried to summon some water but I still could't move my body. I was completely paralyzed.
The gaint looked at us with his bright green eyes and jumped up in the air.
"Damn it..." I said as he got ready to bring his weapon down.
There was no way out of this. I had no strength to move and I couldn't use any magic. I could barely even summon the strength to keep my eyes open.
I was just about to close my eyes when I was suddenly jerked from my original location. I moved my head to see Lightning had pulled Hope and I out of the way just as the gaint had impaled the bridge.
The impact of the gaint's weapon made a large crack in the bridge and that side of the bridge started to crumble. The gaint jumped to the other side as the cracked side of the bridge. fell apart, causing the bridge to start to fall into the chasm below.
Lightning impaled the bridge with her sword to prevent her from falling into the bridge which was just staying up by one side now.
Lightning grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and I grabbed Hope by the wrist to prevent him from falling. I looked up to see the gaint keeping the bridge up with his wieght but the second he would move the rest would start to fall in the abyss.
"Crap..." I said. "What are we going to do?"
I suddenly felt my wounds start to heal out of nowhere and I looked down at Hope. He shook his head to clarify that it wasn't him so I looked up at Lightning to see her healing us. He forhead was sweating but she had managed to obtain magic that was new to her to heal us.
"Since when could you heal?" I asked
"Since now."
I looked back up at the gaint to see it raise it's weapon to get ready to summon another lightning strike when Hope managed to summon the strength to cast another barrier to reflect the lightning.
The second the barrier shattard the gaint jumped in the air again to get ready to strike as the bridge started to tilt downward due to his absence.
I quickly started to look for anyway to get out of the way when I saw the waterfall next to the bridge. I suddenly had an idea but I had to put it into action immediatly.
"Hope!" I said as I started to focus on the water with my free hand. "I'm can't summon any water but I might be able to control the waterfall! When I hit him with the water you need to use your ice magic to freeze him!" I
Hope looked suprised for a second before nodding and getting ready.
"I need to you hit him as hard as you can after he's frozen, Lightning!"
Lightning nodded and looked up at the gaint.
Just as the gaint was in range I forced the water to come out in a geyser that rammed into the gaint and Hope used his magic to incase him in a large block of ice. The gaint struggled to get out of the ice as he hit the bridge and almost sent it tumbling down.
Lightning grunted as she summoned the strength to throw Hope and I to the other end of the bridge where we landed on the ledge of the ground.
The gaint had landed in it's frozen capsule to act as a wedge between the cliff edge and the bridge remains. Lightning summoned a thunder spell to her blade and it crackled with electrcity and she jumped towards the gaint and rammed her gunblade into it's neck.
The gaint continued to struggle for a bit longer but soon it's green eyes started to fade and the lightning surged through it and started to break the ice. Lightning quickly turned around and ran up the falling bridge and mad it to the ledge just in time before the remains of the bridge fell into the chasm.
Lightning immedialty layed down next to us without a word. We didn't stand up. We didn't ask if we were okay. We all just layed there for a while, trying to catch our breath. We layed there in silence until Lighnting broke it. "Listen...I-"
We all suddenly heard a noise come from the chasm and we all forced ourselves to sit up as we saw the gaint float out of the chasm.
"What!?" Hope said as he tried to move away from it.
"You have got to be kidding me." Lightning said.
However the gaint didn't attack us, instead in stood infront of Lightning and fell to it's knee and bowed his head, as if Lightning was royalty. Lighting just stared at it when it suddenly impaled the ground with its weapon and jumped in the air but instead if attacking us it transformed.
It folded it's legs in along with its arms and instead of legs and arms it had hooves instead. It lt also folded it's head back and it was replaced with the head of a hoarse. We all stared in shock as the gaint, now turned hoarse, galloped down to us and stood before Lightning.
Lightning stared at it for a moment before she reached out to touch it but when she did it dissolved into pink shards and went into her l'cie brand before completely vanashing.
We all sat in silence until Hope said "I think that was an Eidolon."
"Eidolon?" I asked still looking at Lightning.
"If I remember right they test the strength of l'cie and become the servant of the l'cie if the l'cie proves itself worthy." Hope said. "If the l'cie doesn't prove its worth...it is killed."
"Yeah, I got the whole trying to kill us part." I said barely managing to stand up. "I highly suggest we find a place to rest now."
Lighning nodded and stood up along with Hope.
Lighnting walked ahead of us before stopping. "I'm sorry...about before."
It took me a moment to realize she was refering to when she almost ditched us. Normally I'd be pissed but after what we just experienced I didn't care.
"It's fine Lightning." Hope said.
"Yeah." I mumbled.
"Call me Light." Lightning said as she walked on.
Hope and I looked at eachother before we followed her. We walked a short distance until we found a area that seemed safe enough so we decied to rest.
"You guys get some rest." Lightning said. "I'll patrol the area."
I had no complaints as I sat down and Hope joined me.
"So why did that Eidolon appear anyway?" I asked Hope.
"I don't know." Hope said.
"Ah." was all I said as my eyelids started to get heavy. Before i knew it I was completely unconscious.
Well I wrote it all in one sitting but its done. There may be some spelling mistakes though so if there is please ignore them. Did you guys enjoy the chapter, or more importantly, the battle with Odin? Please tell me in a review.