I have returned from my holidays! I also noticed in recent reviews that people have clicked with the Ocarina of Time references, which I'm glad. So to the last few chapters off, this chapter will be one more homage to the brilliant game, before the finale! Enjoy!
Chapter 51: The Final Battle
As soon as they clashed swords, Blaze could feel the extreme power of the two elements mixed together. The brilliant flash of light that shot out from the impact of the rapier and the great ice sword added to the powerful effect of the crossing elements. Blaze quickly jumped back and ducked beneath a large sword swing, knowing that even one strike with one of Galvaria's swords would certainly smash ever bone in her body.
The fire energy from her blade was surging all through her body. She channelled the energy into her blade and let out a large gust of flame from the sword's tip that seemingly didn't affect Galvaria a bit. Galvaria swung his sword again, just missing Blaze by an inch, before slamming his other sword to the ground, causing a large plume of ice to rise from the ground. Blaze quickly jumped up onto the plume, propelling herself up with a fire burst, before jumping off and attempting to slash Galvaria's head. She missed and landed on the floor, rolling away from another of Galvaria's slashes. Getting up, she ran towards Galvaria, ducking yet another slash, before preparing to stab Galvaria in his thigh.
But as she attempted to sink the rapier into the beast's leg, she felt as if she were trying to stab a stone. The blade barely scratched Galvaria, who suddenly grabbed Blaze with his hand, sandwiching her between his grasp and the cold ice of the ice sword's hilt.
Blaze could feel the rough fur and the tough flesh of Galvaria's grip crushing her against the ice blade in an all too familiar feeling. She realised that he wasn't trying to crush her to death, but watched as Galvaria brought her near his mouth. Blaze could smell the rancid breath blowing against her like a gust, with an unnatural coldness. But she saw Galvaria opening his mouth wide, before a piercing blue light shone from within. She felt a large wave of coldness radiate from the mouth and knew that she was going to be in a lot of trouble if she couldn't escape.
Quickly, she charged a lot of fire energy within her. As Galvaria's mouth beam was just about ready to fire, Blaze released the gush of energy, the great flash of heat forcing Galvaria to loosen his grip enough for Blaze to drop out of his hand. As soon as she did, he released his mouth beam, causing a large stream of freezing cold energy to shoot right out of his mouth and into the sky like a shooting star.
Blaze dropped on the ground and lunged at Galvaria, her sword ready to strike. Galvaria brought his blades into the air and clashed them against Blaze's rapier, pushing against it. The two found themselves in a test of strength, trying to outdo the other. Blaze started to release as much fire energy from her as she could, powering her push. Galvaria was forced back slightly, but his body started to glow blue, radiating a freezing cold wind. Galvaria's strength almost doubled as he started to push back against Blaze. Yelling, Blaze put as much energy as she possibly could into her push, but she wasn't able to topple Galvaria for the fact that he was just that much bigger than her.
Blaze found herself pushed away suddenly by Galvaria. She lost her footing and watched as Galvaria swung his giant ice sword, striking Blaze with the flat of it. The strike sent Blaze flying right towards one of the broken pillars. As she struck against it, her head knocked against the marble, causing a stunningly sharp pain to run through her head and down her body. She fell to the floor, clutching her head, looking up in pain as she tried to suppress it. She saw Galvaria slowly walking towards her, raising his sword again for another swing. As he swung, Blaze summoned the strength inside her to roll out of the way. Galvaria's sword crashed through the pillar, shattering it into many pieces. He suddenly swung around and slammed his sword against the floor, just missing Blaze by an inch. Blaze struggled to her feet and ducked another swing, before sneaking in close and stabbing Galvaria in the stomach.
But to no avail. Instead, the tip of the rapier struck against the rock hard chest of Galvaria before slipping off the edge. Blaze quickly wriggled her way out of the close grasp of the monster, before taking a few steps back. She was at a loss on what to do; even with the extreme power of heat in her blade, she couldn't pierce Galvaria's flesh. As Galvaria was closing in on her, she could hear a faint yelling from behind her.
"Hit his tail!" it screamed. "Hit his tail!"
Blaze recognized the voice to be Stamatis's, and looked carefully for Galvaria's tail. She saw it, moving about naturally behind Galvaria. She took a deep breath and started to run.
As Galvaria went for a swing, Blaze shot herself right up into the air and above Galvaria. Landing behind him, she turned around and saw the tail, with its spiked end and somewhat soft looking flesh. Gathering all her strength, she yelled and brought her sword down on the tail.
Her sword struck against the tail, cutting it slightly. But the slash seemed to affect Galvaria a lot, who started to thrash around in pain. Blaze quickly retreated away from the flailing Galvaria, who turned around. She realised that his tail was out of sight when Galvaria was facing her.
Galvaria crossed his swords in the air and charged a high amount of ice energy. Blaze could feel the rain start to fall heavily on her as energy charged in the twin ice blades. Galvaria sunk the two swords into the ground, causing ice pillars to shoot up from the ground around him. One of the ice pillars formed beneath Blaze, firing her right up into the air. Caught by surprise, Blaze couldn't react as she was struck by the flat of the ice blade as she came tumbling down.
Crashing against the floor, Blaze felt little pain, being masked be the energy of her flames. She quickly got up to her feet and started to run towards Galvaria, who was preparing to strike Blaze with his sword. But before he could swing, Blaze sped through with a fire burst and shot between his legs, ending up next to his tail. With a mighty slash, she struck the tail once again, cutting it and causing blue blood to seep out of it. Galvaria thrashed about once more from being struck, clearly in a lot of pain from the strike.
Blaze watched as Galvaria turned to her, his mouth open. Swiftly, a blue beam shot out of Galvaria's mouth, firing right towards Blaze. Blaze placed her rapier in front of the beam, throwing as much energy as she could into the blade to stop the beam. She managed to hold off the beam for a few seconds, but suddenly felt her power diminish. She was encased in a giant plume of ice, trapped within still gripped her sword. She could see that Galvaria was preparing to shatter the ice with his blade, potentially causing sever damage to Blaze. Blaze noticed this and focused all her energy once more. She felt the ice melt away from her skin, giving her enough space to unleash her power.
She exploded in a ball of flames that shattered the giant ice plume. Dropping, she just missed the sharp edge of Galvaria's sword that shot through the air and shattered ice. Landing on the floor, she watched as Galvaria went to slash at her with his other arm. She blocked it with her rapier, the colliding elements once more causing a brilliant flash of light. They struck swords with each other a couple of times, before Blaze slashed back at one of the blades, shattering it into pieces.
Standing back, Galvaria created a wall of ice as another blade formed in his free hand. Bringing it down, he shattered the ice shield as the sword plunged into the ground once more. Acting on whim, Blaze suddenly activated another fire burst, propelling herself onto the sword. She ran as fast as she could up Galvaria's arm, before jumping and delivering a kick to Galvaria's eye. Galvaria flinched and brought a hand to his hurt eye as Blaze continued to fly through the air. Falling, she saw she was about to land on Galvaria's tail and managed to clutch onto the fur.
Galvaria noticed this at once and started to flail wildly. Instantly, Blaze found herself battling to stay onto the tail, her legs swaying around like weak branches in a hurricane. Her hand was firmly gripped onto the rough fur at the base of the tail. She looked back to see the shining section of the end of the tail and tried to slash at it with her sword. Each attempt failed, missing the tail, and she realised that her grip was slipping. Blaze knew there was only one way she could do this. She had to let go and chance it.
Taking a deep breath, she let go of the fur, the momentum of Galvaria's swinging throwing her right off of him. But as she let go, she gathered her strength and went for one slash at Galvaria's tail. She watched as her fiery blade swung right towards the tail in a huge blurry mess.
She watched in surprise as her sword cut through Galvaria's tail like butter. As the tip fell off, it started to bleed rapidly. Galvaria emitted a thunderous roar and swung around suddenly, almost beheading Blaze with the edge of his sword. Galvaria slammed his sword against the ground, causing a quake that shook Blaze off her feet. She watched as Galvaria was about to crush her beneath his foot, and quickly rolled out of the way he stamped down. The thud shook the ground so hard it threw Blaze right up onto her feet again. Galvaria was still thrashing around in pain, trying to grab his tail in order to tend to it. But his thrashing ceased slightly as he raised his swords into the air.
A large blue ball started to form in the air. The entire arena started to become covered in a frost as the blue energy ball grew bigger and bigger. Blaze knew what was coming.
Suddenly, Galvaria threw the ball right towards Blaze. Blaze brought her blade out and surged her whole energy reserves into the sword, which suddenly steamed with heat. The ball collided with her sword as she felt an immense strain shoot through her body. It felt as if she had the weight of the world pressing down on her arms. She couldn't even see Galvaria for the size of the energy ball. She could also feel the immense power emanating from the ball. She knew that if she let her energy fade, the ball would surely destroy her entirely.
She yelled, trying to search every corner of her body for the strength that she desperately needed. It felt strange when she felt more energy entering her body. Looking back, she saw Sol floating behind her, a faint red light trailing from her body into Blaze's hands. She felt the strain of the energy fade slightly, and her strength increase.
With one more yell and a final push, she managed to throw the energy ball away from her. Little did she know, the energy ball came bounding right back at Galvaria, striking him. There was a huge explosion of white and blue as the ball made contact with Galvaria. He screamed in a monstrous yell as the ball exploded. The smoke cleared quickly, showing Galvaria struggling to get to his feet, electric bolts trailing all around his body, cold steam emanating from his hard body. There were also cuts and bruises visible on Galvaria's flesh. Blaze saw her chance.
She ran up to the vulnerable Galvaria and started to deliver a series of slashes to his abdomen, each one cutting into his flesh. Each slash caused Galvaria to roar louder and louder, until she stabbed Galvaria in his stomach once more, this time digging right up to the hilt of Blaze's blade. She surged fire energy through her blade, which in turn flushed into Galvaria's abdomen.
Galvaria stood back and roared, clenching his gut. He dropped one of his hulking ice swords, before collapsing on his stomach. It's roaring became quieter and quieter, until they were just mere grunts, near silent. Blaze almost let herself drop to her knees as she saw the great beast finally felled. She was about to take a deep breath, until...
Galvaria's eyes flushed once again with light as he roared. His body started to spasm, and Blaze felt an unearthly cold energy surging all around her. The blue wall of fire suddenly grew five times as tall, the flames flailing wildly. Blaze stood back, suddenly feeling the power of her blade being suppressed by the sudden boost of energy. From the air around her, she could hear a deep and dark laugh.
"I shall not die..." it said. "Though you have struck me down, you have forgotten that I...am a god!"
Blaze clenched her teeth, summoning the fires inside of her to fight against the waves of cold energy being radiated from Galvaria.
"I won't let you win..." she said quietly. "I said it once and I say it again...I will kill you!"
There was another laugh, this time a lot more maniacal than the last one.
"It appears that physical harm will not sway your determination..." he roared. "But have you forgotten? If you really wish to kill me now, while I am still vulnerable, then Silver will also die!"
She felt as if she had suddenly fallen into a pit of nothingness as that moment. All the energy she had built up dissipated immediately. She had completely forgotten until that moment that it was Silver who had transformed into this beast. She felt a striking pain in her heart as she witnessed the wounds that she had caused on Galvaria, knowing that she was actually causing Silver bodily harm. She almost felt the world dying around her, vanishing into black. She felt faint, caught between a rock and a hard place. Her love for Silver would mean nothing without the world to carry it out on, but without Silver, the world was just that, nothing. She didn't know what to do, and fell to her knees in defeat.
"No!" both Stamatis and Milos screamed. "You have to stop him before he gets too strong!"
But Blaze couldn't do it. She felt tears streaming down her cheeks as she looked up at Galvaria, who was very slowly, but surely, getting back up onto his feet. He was still surging with cold energy, yet still vulnerable.
"...I'm sorry...*sob*..." Blaze cried. "I...don't want him to die...*sniff*...I love him too much..."
"Heh heh! I knew you would succumb to the petty feeling of love! It was exactly what I despised when I had control of Gustav, and I told you how worthless an emotion it was! And now here, you see exactly why it is worthless! You could have saved the world, but instead, you let love get in the way! In a matter of time, my strength will double, no, triple! You and your Sol Emeralds don't stand a chance against my powered form!" Galvaria shouted. "And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for...the moment when I cover the world in ice, and begin my eternal rule!"
Blaze closed her eyes, preparing herself for the end. Galvaria had won, it seems. He was right. Love did get in the way this time. And it was love that was about to destroy the world.
