Author's Note: Right, this chapter. The one I wrote out of order and I'll explain why next chapter... Ish. Sort of. Idk. Ya'll probably don't care anyway. Enjoy though!

Centra, Quistis, Age 20

They wasted no time the next morning getting ready to go. Ellone was waiting for them in the meeting room once more. Quistis couldn't help but notice the slightly worried faces and shifty glances. If Quistis was honest with herself, she was worried about what was going to happen to them, too. Quistis kept a particular eye on Rinoa. The poor girl just hadn't been the same since Esthar, and understandably so. She and Leon seemed to have sorted whatever it was out and she didn't look any more worried than anyone else.

The two were even holding hands. Quistis did her best not to intrude.

"So what do we have to do," Laguna asked.

"Just sit here," Ellone said. "I'll send your consciousnesses forward in time."

"Just our consciousnesses, or our whole bodies?" Zell asked.

"You'll have bodies on the other side," Ellone said. "Trust me."

"Provided Ultimecia doesn't interfere," Leon said grimly.

No one had a response to that. Edea suggested Ellone should just start before anyone could second-guess themselves. Not that anyone would, Quistis thought to herself.

Then everything went black. Quistis froze, unsure if that was supposed to happen. Then, all of a sudden, Quistis was falling. She looked to either side of her and saw that everyone else was falling, too.

"What's going on?" Zell asked.

Leon shrugged. "Go with it, we don't have another option."

They landed on the ground, surprisingly none of them hurt. Star shard travel was more dangerous than this, it would seem. Quistis picked herself up and pulled out her whip, just in case. She looked around.

"We appear to be in Centra ruins," Edea mused. "Those buildings do have a sense of familiarity to them."

"We're close," Rinoa said. "I can feel her."

"Me too," Edea said.

"Which way do we go?" Zell asked.

Rinoa and Edea both pointed.

"How safe is it?" Laguna asked.

"Not very," was Edea's response.

Everyone pulled out their weapons. Well, except Edea, since she didn't have one. She'd be fighting entirely with para-magic. Zell didn't have a weapon either, aside from his fists.

"Well," Quistis said. "Let's go."

So they went. Unsurprisingly, they hadn't gone very far before they ran into a large amount of Heartless. They started fighting, there was no other way around them. Between the six of them, getting past individual Heartless was not a problem, but undoubtedly the thought was on everyone's minds of what would happen if the Heartless continued coming.

"If we're at the end of time, does that mean that Heartless eventually take over our World?" Rinoa asked.

"I wouldn't think too hard on it, if I were you," Quistis said. "It'll make your head hurt."

"Actually, I think this is just a representation of the end of time as it exists from where we came from," Leon said. "If we destroy Ultimecia and keep her from meddling throughout time with her darkness, the end of time may end up looking different."

"You put too much thought into that," Zell muttered, scrunching up his face.

"When do you have time to think about that sort of thing?" Quistis found herself asking.

Leon just shrugged. "I've put a lot of thought into Heartless and darkness as it relates to Worlds."

Quistis didn't press further. They just continued fighting the Heartless. Unsurprisingly, the Heartless kept coming. It was almost like fighting some mythical creature, kill one and three more show up. It was tiring, almost. The constant sounds of slashing swords, thwaping whips, machine guns, various magic, as well as the occasional battle cry mixed with the sounds of Heartless dying and appearing.

They at least were moving forward, albeit slowly. They appeared to be heading to a giant castle of sorts. Rinoa and Edea were both sure that that's where they were going. The closer they got to the castle, the more horrific the Heartless became. No longer were they just black with yellow eyes and scraggly antennae. Now they had colors mixed in, blues, reds and purples. The Heartless looked angrier, and thus meaner. Quistis noticed that some of them even looked like monsters that she used to see around Balamb years ago—but they had the definite Heartless eyes.

After a long time of fighting their way through hordes and hordes of Heartless, Zell asked the question that no one had dared ask:

"What happens if they don't stop?"

No one answered him for a bit. Mostly everyone was too busy dealing with five or six Heartless at once.

"Well, we're still working our way to the castle," Laguna said. "However slowly…"

"We might be too tired when we get there," Leon said grimly.

"I could perhaps do something to get rid of a lot of them at once," Rinoa said. "I've got the power."

"You don't want to waste it," Edea said. "Even if you've got an unlimited amount of it. We don't want anyone getting tired."

"I think we're all getting tired anyway," Quistis said.

"Well, our options are to use a big attack to try and get rid of loads of them at once and make a run for it when it's clear," Leon said. "Or to keep plugging at it the way we are."

"Guardian Forces!" Quistis said, smacking herself that the idea hadn't come to her sooner. "We're all being such fools!"

"Take turns," Zell said. "That'll probably be the best."

"Summon and run," Leon said.

"I'll start," Rinoa said. She summoned Eden. Quistis watched Leon move over to cover Rinoa, just in case anything went wrong during the summoning process. Nothing did. Eden got rid of a large chunk of Heartless before disappearing again.

"Run!" both Leon and Quistis shouted simultaneously.

"Cover me!" Leon shouted once they were surrounded by Heartless once more. Quistis and Rinoa both moved to cover him as he summoned his Guardian Force, Shiva. As the ice covered the area and the Heartless froze and disappeared, everyone began to run again.

"My turn!" Quistis said, summoning Quetzalcoatl. The giant thunder bird appeared and electrocuted this round of Heartless. Everyone ran.

"Yo!" Zell shouted. He was already summoning Ifrit. He nearly didn't make it, for a large Heartless showed up behind him and sliced at his back.

"Finish the summoning sequence!" Quistis shouted, tossing up a Cure for him. She didn't care if she should save them. Zell needed one now.

Ifrit came and destroyed that round of Heartless with his fiery breath. Edea moved to summon Bahamut.

However, what arrived was not Bahamut. It was more of a centaur than a dragon. It was huge and ugly, almost like two bodies mashed together. It also most certainly was not a Heartless. Likely, it was one of Ultimecia's personal monsters. It destroyed all the remaining Heartless with a single pillar of light, making an awful noise as it did so. Quistis frowned at it.

"I suppose now we've gotta fight this, now, don't we?" Zell asked.

"I'm going to say yes," Leon replied, readying his blade.

They all readied to fight whatever this monster was.

"This should help," Edea said, casting a spell on Leon. "It'll make you stronger."

Leon was bathed in an orange glow. Quistis vaguely recognized the spell. Aura, was it? She'd never seen it in use before.

Rinoa wasted no time in casting Meltdown on the thing. Quistis smiled, that was a smart move, weakening its defenses from the start. They could use that. They could use whatever they got, really. They couldn't afford to lose to this guy.

Quistis did a quick scan, to see if anything came up in her records. The response labeled the monster as the Omega Weapon, and said that they were all very unlucky to be running into it in the first place.

"Lovely," she muttered to herself before turning her attention back to fighting the thing. She tried to figure out the best method for attack.

Edea was casting that Aura spell on Zell now. The minute the spell was done, Zell went rushing towards the Omega Weapon and began attacking one of its two faces with great intensity. Quistis' eyes went wide and she almost told him to be careful, but figured he knew what he was doing. She hoped.

Suddenly, she noticed that she herself was bathed in that orange glow. She looked at Edea and smiled. Edea only nodded before turning her attention to Laguna.

The Omega Weapon lunged forward and attacked Zell with a massive swipe of one of its claws. Zell didn't seem to be too bothered, however. He continued attacking, almost as if nothing happened.

Leon charged forward, almost as if he'd been waiting for an opening, but considering Zell had not stopped, he ran forward anyway and slashed at the Omega Weapon five… six… seven times. Then he ran back out of the way.

The Omega Weapon began casting a spell.

"Barriers!" Edea shouted.

Quistis cast one on herself and threw one around Zell as well, figuring he wasn't going to. She figured Rinoa and Leon would get themselves covered or cover each other. Edea would probably get herself and Laguna. It was a good thing, too. The purply-black fog that engulfed all of them would have probably knocked them all out.

"How did you know that was coming?" Quistis shouted.

"You learn to recognize casting sequences," Edea replied.

Quistis just shook her head and ran forward, getting the Omega Weapon with a couple good cracks of her whip, just as Laguna fired off what felt like half a magazine of bullets from his machine gun. The Omega Weapon charged forward and batted Laguna to the ground, it must have found him more bothersome.

Then, almost immediately, it began casting another spell. As the spell started, Quistis recognized this one herself: Meteor. She hoped her barrier was still good.

When it felt like the world was done falling on them, Rinoa threw up Curagas for everyone. Quistis was grateful. Her barrier had only absorbed some of the damage.

Unfortunately, by the time all the Curagas had finished, the Omega Weapon was charging up for another attack. He stamped his foot into the ground and tongues of fire spread up around all of them. Quistis tried to avoid the fire, but it was no use, the minute the flames neared her, she felt her very strength being sapped from her. She sunk to the ground, though all she wanted to do was to get back up and attack the thing… she'd heard of elemental magics sometimes coming with negative status effects, but she'd never seen one in use before now.

Zell and Leon managed to do the thing that she most very wanted to do. They ran up and attacked him. Quistis almost envied them. She still couldn't manage to stand up.

That is, until Edea threw the Curagas. Quistis harnessed the newfound strength and ran at the Omega Weapon just as Leon was going in for a second round. Quistis hit him several times, but found herself backing away when the Omega Weapon started casting yet another spell.

Some high-level Gravity spell. Quistis couldn't quite think the mechanics through now that her strength was sapped once again.

"You have got to be kidding me!" she heard Rinoa shout. Quistis almost had to laugh as her strength returned with that round of Curagas.

While Rinoa was doing that, Edea cast Meltdown on the Omega Weapon. Laguna took aim and fired. The Omega Weapon swiped at Edea that time. She threw up a small Cure for herself. Rinoa cast a Haste spell on Leon, so he could attack faster. Then she turned around and cast Meteor on the Ultima Weapon.

"Payback," she said, a grin on her face.

The Omega Weapon responded by slashing at all six of them, multiple times. Rinoa turned back around and cast Meteor again as Edea Cured them all of anything that might have come of those physical attacks. Quistis was beginning to like having two heavy-magic users on her side. It made it easier to concentrate on fighting rather than defending.

Everyone ran forward to attack at once as soon as Rinoa's spell was over. Edea and Rinoa stood back, waiting to see what spell they would need to cast next.

The Omega Weapon cast Ultima. Thankfully, Edea was ready with the Curagas as Rinoa sent forward two Meteors back-to-back. That angered the Omega Weapon greatly. He shot out another one of those pillars of light that he'd used to kill all the Heartless. It hit Rinoa square in the chest. She crumpled to the ground.

"No!"

Quistis wasn't quite sure who yelled that, but she figured she might be one of many who did. She and Edea both ran to Rinoa. By the time Quistis got there, Edea was already checking for a pulse. Edea locked eyes with Quistis, relief in her eyes. Quistis breathed her own sigh of relief.

She then heard the most heart-wrenching battle-cry ever. She looked up to see Leon charge forward at the Omega Weapon. He slashed at it again and again. More times than Quistis could count. It must have been more than twenty however. Each hit seemed to do more damage than the last.

Finally, the Omega Weapon fell. As soon as Leon was sure that it was down, he came running over to where Rinoa, Edea, and Quistis were.

"She's fine," Edea insisted, throwing up a Curaga.

Rinoa opened her eyes and sat up. She had barely done that when Leon pulled her into his arms.