The first part of this was suppose to go up BEFORE Lore and Lain went off to Italy and Greece for two weeks but stuff went crazy as hell the few days before hand. So instead of one section, this is three section in one. It's so nice to see everything in English . . .

Chapter V Part II

Only Luca, Vale and Navazi went to see the mayor the following day. They didn't want to terrify him by descending en masse. Luca carefully left his goggles behind.

The official office was somewhat of a change. Unlike most buildings on Kilika that are built one room atop the next, this building had rooms side by side, making it the shortest building in sight while taking up the most space. They weren't let in immediately but were told to wait in front of a few manually turned fans. The woman being paid to turn the fan was staring at Navazi in open amazement. He smiled at her once before closing his eyes to go over his spells again.

When they were called into the office, the mayor was wearing a floral patterned shirt with shortened pants, sandals and a light colored vest. Very tropical. "Welcome to our lovely island. What can I do for you?"

"I am Luca, summoner of Zanarkand. I am here on account of your abnormal fiend accounts."

The lines of the man's gaunt face deepened and made the youthful-looking clothes he wore seem ridiculous. "What does a summoner care nowadays?"

Luca frowned, "If I did not care, I would not be here."

"Our summoners left during the height of the attacks. They spoke of vanquishing the Demon as their boats sailed from our shores. We've tried to handle the situation ourselves and have lost more sons and daughters then I'd like to admit. Including two of my own."

Luca leaned forward in his chair, face pained, "I'm sorry for your loss, sir."

The man waved dismissively and moved on so as not to linger. "The summoners said they could not stop the fiends. That they would be as useless as our soldiers. They said they would stop the fiends by defeating the Demon."

"Well, I doubt stopping Sin would get rid of the fiends. The fiends are just dismissed summons that have escaped from the Farplane. All Sin did was let them out."

The mayor's dark eyebrows dropped nearly to his cheeks. He didn't seem to like this news. "So it's the summoner's fault that our land and livelihood is being ravaged by monsters."

"The summoners didn't know. They thought the summons simply disappeared as they had come. They didn't realize that they had gone some place that they could find a way out of. They didn't understand the rage that could build up in them for being used and discarded."

The mayor's laugh sounded tired, as if he hadn't slept in months. "And so, in your attempt to help rid us of our fiends, you'll summon more. Oh yes, that makes perfect sense to me." He pulled out a cigar, cut it, and lit it. The stench of it quickly filled the room as the blue smoke drifted toward the ceiling.

"I don't use summons," Luca's voice remained calm in his patience.

The mayor's eyebrows finally lifted, in amusement, "Is that so?"

"It is," Luca nodded. "I have six guardians who are trained to fight well without needing to be possessed by summons."

"Then why do you call yourself a summoner?"

"I summon other things."

The mayor found this cryptic. And suspicious. "What sort of other things."

"Weapons. Hopefully to defeat Sin."

The mayor snorted another laugh. This was likely the most laughing he had done since before Kilika's summoners had sailed away. "You summoners with your heads up your asses. You think you are so much better than everyone else. You thought you were better in the Mecha Wars then the young men and women who didn't have summoned monsters to hide behind. I'm surprised Yunalesca hasn't named herself Yevon yet!"

Luca sat quietly as the man ranted. Vale and Navazi stood silently to his sides, understanding as Luca did that this man needed this rant. He had every right to be angry. After the mayor had finished and started chewing moodily on the end of his cigar, Luca spoke, "Mr. Mayor, I have reason to believe that there is a hole in the Farplane somewhere on this island. I believe this is why the fiend numbers continue to rise. And I also believe I can close the hole if only you'll let me through that gate."

The mayor gave him a hard look. "You'll only get yourself killed."

"It's possible."

More staring. His eyes moved to the guado on one side and the dusty looking woman on the other. "I hope the rest of your guardians are ronso or something."

"One of them is."

The mayor blinked.

- - - - -

They left for the gate the next morning before the sun had a chance to rise. The horizon was bright with lightening color as the gate rolled aside and the High Summoner's party entered the hostile territory. Everything was quiet in the dawn and the forest looked quiet beautiful and peaceful. But after the gates crashed shut behind them, fiends came skittering out from the brush.

"This remains a bad idea," Noobin pointed as he shouldered his cannon.

"There's no other way to do it," Luca said grimly as he extended his staff.

They didn't move slowly through the forest in an attempt to destroy each cluster of fiends that attacked. They cut through quickly with Gira in the lead, leaving more battles behind than less. Many trees were dead and upturned and they had to jump or climb over fallen limbs and trunks. Luca stumbled more than once over the logs, his metal legs much heavier and difficult to pull up to clear the foliage. Nikolas fell into running behind and just beside Luca so he could grab him back up whenever he stumbled.

Gira tossed fiends into the woods without looking to see where they landed. They had a destination to reach and she refused to slow for even a moment. They reached the crack in the island an hour later, tired, hurt and about to drop. Only Gira still seemed to be in full battle mode.

The crack angled the ground away at a maddeningly steep angle and the other side wasn't much more that hunks of cracked rock left after the official implosion. The crack was half filled in with the imploded material and one would think that dumping half and island in it would successfully seal up anything down there. But even from the top, they would see fiends wiggling and squeezing out of the small places between the boulders. It looked like a hive, buzzing with activity. Both Luca and Nikolas were distracted by it, how wide and long the scar in the earth was.

"How the hell are you suppose to find the hole under of that? This island is miles wide. You can't possibly–!" Nikolas understandably cut off when a fiend slammed into him from behind, sending both tumbling down the steep incline toward the hive, armor and claws scraping.

"NIK!" Luca leaned forward with a wild face to watch Nikolas rolling away before he realized that he was perhaps too close to the edge as well. He spun around to dash further inland but a large body crashed into his chest. There was a moment of surreality: his arms pin-wheeled and there was no ground beneath his feet and only sky in his sight. Then his back slammed into the ground and he began to roll quickly downward. One second his back rolled, the next the fiend's back and on and on. When they hit the bottom, would he be okay or would he smash his skull against a rock? It was hard to tell how far he had yet to go before possibly being brained since the landscape passed before his eyes in a circular motion.

He just had to hope that WHAM! Just like that, he stopped moving. He sprawled suddenly across the smelly fur of the fiend that had been kind enough to take the impact for him. The fiend twitched feebly and Luca took what breath he still had in his lungs to send it. This was more then less a mistake because three fiends jumped on him from behind. He felt a quick searing pain across his scalp as some large hands grabbed him around the waist and squeezed. His fingers scrambled around for the staff that was still 50 feet above him on level ground and he tried desperately to turn and face his attackers.

Suddenly he felt one fiend leave his back and heard it howl in outrage. The a second one went flying over his head to smash on some boulders. When the hands of the third fiend disappeared, he was finally able to turn around and be glad that Nikolas was alright. But it wasn't Nikolas who had saved him and pulled him up from the ground.

"Can Luca smell it?"

"Smell what?" Luca asked the ronso as he pressed a hand into his hair and cringed when it came away bloody.

"Luca must come with Gira."

"Go where? I don't smell anythiIIIIIIIING!"

Gira grabbed Luca and threw him over her shoulder. He had time only to make an incoherent cry and grab onto the back of her chain belt before she took off on all fours over the piles of rock and debris. Luca couldn't do much but hold on and think so he was thinking about how much his head hurt and how bad he felt about the blood dripping down his ear and onto her back, turning her lovely fur purple. He felt her dodging attacks, even taking some hits, but she never once allowed Luca to be touched. She only cracked skulls when she could do it at high speed. Otherwise she ran straight through the ranks of fiends squeezing up from the underworld. Luca just held on and waited for it to be over.

When he finally felt her slow, he opened his eyes. She was moving around a certain area, sniffing and scratching at rocks. "What is it, Gira?"

"It is here. Gira must find way in." She gently deposited Luca to the uneven ground and tried pulling at one boulder, pushing at another.

Luca didn't question her further but waited for her to find what she was looking for. She had to stop many times to fight of fiends but the ones just squeezing out of the ground were easily dispatched by Luca as they were pretty well stuck while he sang them away. He worried about the others fighting wave after wave of monsters. Without him, they couldn't summon the amazing creatures lying dormant inside Siddah and Navazi. And Nik? Could he even be dead now? He felt frustrated just standing around while Gira sniffed at rocks but he waited. Surely she had caught the scent she had come here to find.

"Luca!"

Luca moved toward where she was crouching over a hole between three large rocks. ". . . What?" he asked slowly.

"Luca goes down there."

Luca looked down. He wasn't particularly claustrophobic, but he didn't take to the idea of climbing down into the earth and around cracks in boulders for the hell of it. "It's . . . down there?"

"Yes. Luca must go."

"But - - "

"Gira will help," her voice was suddenly and strangely gentle. "Do not be afraid."

He swallowed and looked up at her. With a large, soft hand, she wiped the blood from the side of his face and her facial twitches might have been an attempt at a reassuring smile. "High Summoner must be strong." She turned and moved to the ground. Without hesitation, she eased her way down into the hole, chain belt scraping. Luca was slower but she helped him down. It wasn't nearly as cramped as he had feared it would be because the stones were large and left large gaps in between them. Still, everywhere they turned was a broken ankle or a cave-in waiting to happen.

Many times they had to crawl on their bellies but sometimes they could move forward in a crouch. More than once, Luca wondered how Gira could fit because he was having some difficulty himself but learned that ronso, like regular cat creatures, were very flexible and could even stretch themselves thin.

Luca had no idea how deep they had gone but the close air was getting damp and, even worse, thin. The light had faded a while ago and to make sure he didn't lose Gira, he had to reach out and grab for her every few seconds. This led to a lot of groping that Luca simply couldn't handle. She didn't seem to mind but offered him her tail after his twentieth apology.

She stopped abruptly many times and the last time she stopped, Luca assumed she was just killing another fiend as before. But then he realized that he could see the shape of her shoulders from a light source ahead. When she looked back at him, the light from the Farplane Hole glowed in her eyes.

"Gira has found it!"

Luca grinned, "Yes! Well done!"

"Luca must move back."

Luca pushed himself back up the tunnel a bit as Gira moved into the glowing pool. In the stillness, he could hear a rumble. It took him a moment to realize that the ronso was purring.

He initially shut his eyes when the light filled his entire vision but forced them back open. The brilliant red rune stretched from peripheral to peripheral and he memorized it in an instant. When the light blinked off, it was pitch black. He could still hear her purring and in the dark, she grabbed him, hugged him, and stroked his hair fondly. She was warm in the cold tunnels so he didn't complain. And the fact that Gira was being affectionate blew him away.

"Gira . . . we have to get back. They'll be worried about us."

Gira let him go. Luca was pretty sure that this was one of those situations where she assumed he'd keep quiet about the hug. Or perhaps risk having his arms ripped off.

It was a bit of a squeeze as she repositioned herself around him, but they managed and she began to lead him back up by scent. The fiends down here seemed to have completely disappeared and it made for a quick journey back upwards.

They couldn't have been twenty feet from the sky when Luca felt the rocks around him begin to tremble. He stopped when Gira paused and waited for her instructions. The trembling stopped after a moment so they continued on, but less than ten seconds later the sound of a nearby cave-in was followed by more trembling which graduated to shuddering. The shuddering worsened and the cave-in sound became louder. Closer.

Luca smacked his lacerated scalp against a rock as the boulders began to jump around them.

"Gira!"

She turned like lightening and threw herself on top of him as their tunnel caved in. Luca couldn't feel the impact of the rocks but felt the pressure building up on his chest as Gira was crushed on top of him. It seemed like an eternity before the rumbling stopped and in the painful silence, Gira said not a word.

"G- - Gira . . ." Luca gasped, feeling himself using up the last of the air. He felt small pebbles bouncing off his head and smaller rocks and sand hissing as they sprinkled down toward the bottom of the crater.

"Gi . . plea . . ."

More sand spilled as Gira's shoulder shifted. For a moment he thought she was growling until he made out a word, " . . . rune . . ."

Luca frowned as panic began to take control of his lungs. He couldn't move either of his arms and only one of his hands had slight mobility. Would the rune work if it was so small and sloppily drawn?

What other choice do you have but to find out? Luca tried to stretch his left hand but only his pointer and middle finger moved. They should be enough. He concentrated on the rune until he could bring it to his oxygen deprived mind, then sent his fingers moving. Without seeing it, he had no way to know if he had made the loop too big or too small. If he'd missed a line entirely. He simply had to wiggle his fingers and hope.

His hope sprung to life when a red light began to flow from the vicinity of his hand. His fingers moved faster now, the summoner more sure of himself with each stroke. The moment he reached the end of it, brilliant red light flashed out, nearly blinding him.

Then it grew hot. Very hot. Very suddenly. His clothes were immediately soaked with sweat and the rocks around him grew hotter still. It was nearly to the point of pain when he felt Gira begin to shift and move above him. She became heavier, darker in the red light. Her growing body pushed him into the rocks below and he cried out, certain his chest would cave in.

The head of the creature who was no longer Gira turned and looked down at him. The eyes were smoldering coals, brilliant red in the dark fur of its face. They looked like the eyes of a demon but, even in Luca's fear and pain, he saw affection in them.

The summon rolled its arms around its High Summoner. Shifting beneath the rubble, it placed its large hind feet beneath it and heaved upward. The rocks flew away as it shoved itself upward until it finally broke the surface, soaring nearly twenty feet into the air with Luca in its arms. The air seemed cold in comparison to the being as they fell back earthward. The summon landed with an impact that cracked the rocks around it and no doubt started up another dozen cave-ins.

The rest of the guardians, including a live samurai, saw the exit and rushed over just in time to see the fire demon gently set the High Summoner on his feet.

"You really gotta stop doing that," Nikolas growled, eyeing the summon warily. "You gotta stop running off alone trying to save the world by yourself. It freaks us out."

"He must be there every time as a witness," Siddah said calmly but was obviously relieved that he was alright.

"Yeah fine, but next time he can take ALL of us with him so we don't have to keep thinking he's been drowned, suffocated or crushed."

"Alright," Luca smiled wearily, feeling his sides for damage. "I'll try to invite everyone next time."

The summon still loomed behind Luca, a beast nearly twelve feet high even hunched over. Black smoke billowed from its mouth and nostrils with each breath and its eyes gleamed with fire. The dark brown-black fur would catch fire in one place or another and then go out. Two long black horns crested five feet above its head.

Vale bowed to it, "We thank you, friend." The demon snorted and clawed at the rocks with a huge talon.

Siddah and Navazi were smiling in soft understanding and Noobin was trying to subtly take pictures of it with his goggles. The dog was hiding somewhere far away and Nikolas was frowning. "We appreciate it, but . . . Luca, can you send it away? It's kinda . . ."

" . . . Creepy," Noobin finished accurately.

"Yeah," Nik grunted.

Luca turned and the summon cocked its head in a very curious cat-like manner. He smiled and reached out, touching the snout. The nose was wet and hot enough that he couldn't touch it for long. "Thank you so much for joining our battle. Thank you for saving our lives. Please go and rest now until have need of your powers again."

The summon shook its fiery mane and bowed his head. The entire form burst into flames and everyone jumped quickly back, nearly pushed back from the heat. When the flames died, Gira stood quietly looking tired but no worse for the wear. Any injuries she had sustained during the cave-in had clearly been taken care of. She reached out and touched the blood in Luca's hair.

Siddah saw the blood and tsked. "Seriously, Luca, I should just cast a regen spell on you. It takes a lot of energy, but apparently it'll be worth it."

"You clumsy bastard," Noobin grinned.