Chapter 35: B Double E and R

"One moment, your majesty, we're just waiting for the young princes' escort to depart." The pilot apologized.

Garnet watched the tall, black haired man in the red robe walk off the airship slowly. Steady steps showing pride and patience. It always made Garnet shudder. His steps showed irritation now, just the slightest bit.

"My Prince, you assured me this would be a quick visit, which is why I waited aboard..."

"Something has come up… so Princess Garnet is taking the Veşnic Viaţă," Drake explained.

"Is there another airship waiting that we can use?"

"No… this was important, the Black Mage Village is under attack," Drake watched the ship lift into the air and disembark.

His guard was not pleased, "You gave in."

"Not now… I don't want to hear it," Drake turned and walked into town.

The man in the red robes snarled, very displeased. He was losing control… and for what? To make the Princess happy? This was not right… he told Drake to forget about her, to move on, to focus on the longer plan. The boy had seemed to obey, and now this… why had he insisted on coming to this town? And why was Drake now giving up his airship? The man could only hope it wasn't for the Princess, could only hope Drake was having a momentary lapse of obedience, that he was temporarily nearsighted. At most, let it be a crush that could quickly be destroyed; let it be anything but love. He'd worked too hard for too long to let teenage hormones ruin everything!

He hissed and followed after Drake. Just because he was upset didn't mean he was going to lose control enough to let the boy out of his sight.

"YAH!" Zidane roared, spinning to meet another attack.

They had come from nowhere. Everything had been peaceful when he had arrived, now everything was chaos.

It had… burned! He couldn't see anything, and something had hit him from behind. It made his whole body jerk out of his control, freeze, unable to move. After it was over, he felt every inch of him tingle. The same feeling you get when your leg falls asleep and you try to move, only through his entire being. He had gotten a much, much, much milder sensation once when he was a kid and had wondered what would happen if he touched the base of the intercom's wires… okay, so he had done that a few times… but a he'd been dared to a couple of times and remembered making decent Gil from it…

This was not like that.

This was that times a billion.

He hadn't even had a chance to recover before the next blast came. He'd spun and managed to hit it with his dagger, which… didn't help as much.

Nooo, I won't need my Ultimate Weapon anymore. After all, the fighting is over right? Sheez…

His daggers did OK, but he knew he should have kept his Ultimate Weapon with him at all times… in his Chariot he had The Tower, but he couldn't leave to get it… though he wasn't helping much now anyway.

Ugh… I'm going to have to go back, my Rune Tooth isn't good enough. He turned once more and started running, hoping he was going the right way.

As he ran, though… he noticed something… interesting. No, not interesting; frightening.

The lighting storm followed him.

"Eee!" He yelped as another blast struck the ground where he had just been. It hit in front of him, making him dart to the side to avoid being hit; it hit behind him making him speed up, to his side… everywhere! And it was following him, he was sure of it. The attacks on the building stopped, it FOLLOWED him!

Good... maybe I can lead it away from the village… Zidane sped up, jumping over a log that got in his path.

He'd lost sight of Vivi… he hoped the little mage was okay. His feet crunched the leaves of the forest, telling him he'd picked the right path, but the light just got brighter.

Vivi panted, looking around… it was fading, moving… that last attack had scared him. He'd seen it hit Zidane, then he saw nothing. Occasionally he heard a roar as Zidane fought, but it didn't sound good.

Then footsteps, light, fast…and the light died down.

"Zidane?" Vivi called. "ZIDANE?"

He looked around… the entire place was charred. Buildings on fire, Mages running around in a panic. Genomes standing around… doing their own… thing.

No sign of Zidane or the attacker.

Vivi noticed it was getting dark, VERY dark. He ran toward the entrance, the way the light seemed to be fading… Zidane would be there, Vivi knew it. Zidane would be right in the middle.

Faster, faster, must go faster! Zidane chanted to himself.

This was insane. The past few seconds had made it very clear he'd walked into a trap. Zidane saw his jet and dove under it. He heard the lightning hit it.

Ah maaan! Not the jet! It was so cool!

The Chariot vibrated and sparked. He was sure the systems were fried.

Zidane rolled out from underneath and climbed in quickly, grabbing The Tower, he waited, standing on one wing.

He didn't have to wait long. In seconds, another attack hit.

"GRRAH!" Zidane swing The Tower at the bolt and… managed to hit it.

"ZOW!" He hissed. It had shocked him, but it wasn't nearly as bad as when he'd taken a full hit.

He drank a potion and was back at the top of his game in moments. The blasts kept coming.

He felt his jet buzzing beneath him, and hated himself for the damage he knew this was doing to it, but he didn't have a choice.

The jet sparked all around him, creating white fireworks on the metal bellow and around him.

This is the most psycho game of catch ever!

"GRR!" He hit another bolt, and another, and another.

One more…and the gold light vanished for a second.

I musta hit it! Whatever the hell it is, I must have hit it!

Zidane grinned, getting a new plan. When a bolt came, he did his best to hit it with the side of The Tower's blades, so hit would go back the way it came.

"Strike one!" He declared, hitting one back, nearly making it follow the same path it had used to get to him.

"Strike two!" He hit another one with the side of the blade, but had to spin The Tower to hit away a few others he couldn't take time to aim at.

He hit another with the side, and forced it to double over itself, going directly back the way it had come. "STRIKE THREE!"

The gold light died.

"... Holy Hades it's NIGHT?" Zidane marveled, rubbing his stinging eyes.

He looked around the sky… but saw no one.

"OW!" He screamed as he was hit with Blizzaga. "VIVI!"

"You were on fire."

"Hell yeah I was! Did you see that? Man that was AWESOM―!"

"No, Zidane! Your tail was on fire." Vivi explained, walking over.

Zidane looked down at his ice-covered tail and noticed the end was singed. "… Oh. Thanks. I was a bit distracted."

"Did you see who was attacking?"

Zidane jumped down off his jet and shook his head. "No… did you?"

"No, I was watching you… that was weird, Zidane, it was like… I don't know, like you were dancing amongst all that chaos." Vivi tipped his head to the side, trying to think up the right words.

He'd never seen anything like it before. He could SEE it. See Zidane on top of his jet with all the flickers of light, as if he was on a stage and the deadly sparks around him were just theatrical lighting. His motions looked timed, his movements too perfect, the sound made when the lightning hit The Tower was… elemental.

Elemental music and he danced to it.

It was scary, and would have been terrifying if it had been anyone else, but it was Zidane… Vivi knew Zidane…

"At least it worked. I'm kinda surprised," Zidane rubbed the back of his head.

"Now what?" Vivi asked.

"Is everyone okay?"

"As far as I know… the other mages are looking and putting out the fires. Everything is being taken care of," Vivi nodded.

Zidane climbed halfway back into his jet and put The Tower back as well as grab something.

He then looked at Vivi a moment, looking him over, and then he tossed him a can.

"What's this?"

Zidane grinned. "You'll need it, just drink it."

"… O-okay… Is it a potion?"

"It's LIKE a potion," Zidane nodded after thinking that over a second. He popped the top of his own can and drank the contents.

Vivi opened the can he held and drank a small amount. "What is it?"

"After massive attack on your hometown and fighting like mad to save it, it is the provider of ignorant bliss, the memory eraser, the cure-all elixir." Zidane opened another can for himself and drank some, "We mortals call it beer."

Heheheheheh... yeaaah. Please review, you know I love reviews!

I bet you INT fans thought it was Surge! (I know, it's very irresponsible to give someone Vivi's age a beer... but it's 1 can, it's supervised, and after all the stuff Vivi has been through... I can see Zidane deciding to do this. As a disclaimer, just because he does it does not, in any way shape or form, mean you should!