Author's note:What's this? I finally updated on Sunday? MADNESS! Anyway, this chapter… well, I kinda went a little crazy writing Tina's bits, you'll see why in seconds, other than that, just read. This is the penultimate chapter of this part and believe me when I say, I'm feaking excited for the next one, I mean, REALLY excited.
An Unending Struggle
Chapter Fifty-Five
Believer
My beautiful fans, I am back! The Narrator! No need to applaud, I know how much you love me. Now that I've been conned out of appearing onto Herald's latest fic, I decided I needed to watch my back so I will TRY to remain as passive as possible. Just as long as he doesn't touch any of my favorite characters.
Vaan slowly opened his eyes, jolting into a sitting position when he regained consciousness completely.
"So you are awake." Bahamut commented with little hiding his apprehension towards the boy. "If you wanted to kill us all, you failed." He told him as turned His back to him.
"What do you mean "kill us all"?" It then hit Vaan, no, it couldn't be that bad.
"Irresponsibly unsealing Zodiark. We were seconds away from being shattered along with our dimension. Imagine, the entire Living World be annihilated just because you couldn't accept reality." Bahamut's calm hid away a seething rage inside of Him, one that He knew wouldn't solve anything.
"W-what?" Vaan asked, dumbfounded. He slowly got up, but not for long.
"Your surprise only serves to highlight just irresponsible you were. You unleashed something you knew nothing about." Bahamut reprimanded.
"N-no… DAMNIT! WHAT WAS I THINKING?" Vaan shouted, grabbing his head as he fell to his knees.
"You weren't." Bahamut stated, still not sparing a glance. "But spare us the self-loathing, we're safe and Zodiark's back into your hand, just remember to be more responsible about its usage later on." His stone softened even if just a little, He hadn't been a saint all of His life either.
"Just a question… who exactly stopped it?" Vaan asked, again standing up and looking into the man's back.
"Is that even a question?" A voice came from behind him. Zack had woken up and jumped into a standing position. "Look around you, who's missing?" He did, but he hadn't paid attention to the group so he returned Zack a confused look.
"Shin's missing." Aqua answered, shaking her head and opening and closing her eyes. "That light really did a number on my eyes." She cursed, everything filled with little rainbow dots. Everyone started slowly waking up, all of them looking at Bahamut for answers.
"Shiki, schedule a call with God, we have a pretty big report to give." Neku told the red haired girl, who didn't hesitate to start talking to her big black cat.
"Wait… where's Rydia?" Edge exclaimed, looking around to find nothing as green as the summoner.
"Edge, if she was dead, I wouldn't be here." Bahamut pointed out. "She can't even be that hurt, or she couldn't sustain me."
"Fair enough." Edge said, a lot calmer. "Still, I'd like to know where she is…"
"As touched as I am by your worry, I think I'm the last person that needs worrying about right now."
"Well, now that that's over with, I think we have a kingdom to visit." Laguna mused, seeing the city in the distance.
"Terra? Terra?"He heard Celes call, immediately all the room had pointed their eyes towards the woman, who was now in a deep coma-like state. "What's happening to her?"
"Wait… Just as I thought." Naminé interrupted, putting on hand on top of the woman's head and sighing. "We were interrupted by that energy pulse, but I had already unlocked her memories, she must have fallen into them. Don't worry, when the memories are over, she'll wake up."
They could only watch as the girl seemed to be emerged in a somewhat blissful sleep.
Memories:
Terra was confused, how was she watching her memories unfold without Naminé?
"Look, don't worry about that now, I want to see what happens to that woman." Her esper told her. She agreed, only because she had no way to get out on her own, having to trust her friends outside to help her. She saw the green haired woman grabbing a scaled whip from Leviathan's human form, but she looked… bored? With a yawn she yanked the whip right from the man's hands and said:
"Let's make this more realistic Levi. I can't beat them if I have to use my true form on you, so… go sea serpent now, I'll take you on like this!" Leviathan didn't know if she was taunting or speaking like she meant it, but he obeyed, transforming into the massive sea serpent known as the Leviathan, water appearing from nothingness to sustain the Lord of the Sea.
"I warn you Tina, I will not hold back! DROWN!" He cried, a giant Tidal Wave being born, one that threatened to consume the summit.
"You'll have to try harder… Freeze, Glacier!" She exclaimed, spinning with the cold winds she had invoked, freezing the massive wave in its path and sending it back to whence it came.
"You cannot hurt me with my own element!" Leviathan hollered, the ice dissolving into water once again.
"Of course… but I can like THIS!" Leviathan didn't react it time, one smash from her left leg onto his head turned his world black as the serpent fell in one shot. "Sorry friend… Who's next?"
"Tina…" Bahamut stepped to the front, instantly growing his wings and becoming the King of Dragons. "Do not make me do this!"
"I think we've gone past the point of no return… at least make me use my true form, will you?" She replied with a saddened sigh.
"You know, I'd expect it to be more well-guarded by now." Lightning groaned as she made she way into Rabanastre's research facility. As you could guess, the broken Epoch was plain in sight, one of the blackbird's wings laid down on a research, along with its engine.
"Spares us the work of finding the reactor." Lightning jumped back, pointing her Gunblade into the place where the voice originated, finding it on Lezard's neck. "Your guard needs polishing, oh wannabe-Valkyrie." He said with a chuckled.
"Whatever… just what are you going to do with it anyway?" Lightning asked, curious of what side Lezard was REALLY on. Jenova's? The other enemies or… his.
"I'm afraid I do not need to do all that much with it, it's just the final piece of the puzzle for my master plan… I'll just need to solve it afterwards…" Lightning watched as he seemed to make several adjustments, both physical and magical to the sphere before even going as far as to completely repair the ship in a matter of minutes. "There we have it… new and improved."
"Why are you doing this?" Lightning asked, now even more confused on what he pretended.
"Giving them the encouragement they so need, aswell as the tools to accomplish their objectives." He said in a crazed chuckle. "Why play on one side…. When you make every side play for you? That puppet really thinks she betrayed me, they all do, but a good pawn is the one that never realizes it's being controlled… Hehehe…. HAHAHAHAHA!" The laughter echoed through the now almost lifeless facility, not one person was still conscious. "Now, I'll keep my end of the bargain… if you keep yours. Do not fret, she cannot be hostile to your news without ending what she believes to be her cover. But I warn you, if you ever disclose anything I have told you to anyone… You'll not be the one to pay…"
"How can I trust you?" The soldier and goddess asked the man, who adjusted his glasses before answering:
"Trust me? Silly former human. You cannot trust me… you just have to wish your desires truly coincide with mine!" HE let out another laugh.
"Serah… Fine. I'll give you a shot, I don't anything to lose…" Lightning answered as Lezard made a portal behind her.
"Go on, you have your "Mother" waiting…" Lezard mocked, not minding the killer glare he received as he vanished into a portal of his own.
"Damnit! It's assimilating DNA!" A young, blonde haired man cursed, hitting his computer with both hands in frustration. "If it's like this… There can BE no cure. How can you cure something that cannot be considered a disease?" He asked himself, sighing in disappointment.
"DIRECTOR HOPE!" An armored guard with a machine gun called, entering the room where the young man was in panic. "They are everywhere director, even my own men are starting to turn! Any wound will drive them insane, you have to escape! You're the only chance at a cure we got!"
"Escape where? Last I checked, Academia was the last town in time itself that was not filled with mindless fanatics… Even if I do escape, where can I work to find the cure?" He shouted in frustration.
"Perhaps… I can help." A familiar old man offered as he appeared out of nowhere behind Hope.
"W-who are you? And what did you do to get in?" Hope asked as he drew his boomerang confused.
"You can call me Cid. And to answer your second question, what I did is what is going to get you out. I need your mind and data Hope, store it in a safe container and come with me, we have to devise an antidote!" He urged as the sound of cluttering steps inched ever closer to their location.
"Sir, you HAVE to go, you can't get into a worse situation than the one you are right now!" The guard urged, Hope knew he was right and nodded.
"Let me just get my gear…" He said as he rushed to the computer. "Huh? The data is… different." He commented as he looked at the computer, but he soon realized he had no time to lose and saved it all in a pen before heading back to Cid, who opened a portal to the Rift.
"Be safe sir, we're all counting on you!" The guard as the door was kicked open. "GO!"
"The cards are in place…" Lezard mused as he saw Hope leave through the portal. "Now to see everything unfold!" He cackled as he vanished, probably into his laboratory.
Memories:
"Are you insulting me?" Tina roared, dodging a hail of flares before vanishing and reappearing behind the dragon, kicking it into a mountain as the onlookers gasped. "DON'T YOU DARE HOLD BACK ON ME!" She hollered, sending two balls of flame to find the wounded dragon, which blew them away with flaps from his wings.
"Speaks the woman who has always been condescending about me!" He shouted back, ramming into her at a blinding speed, apparently starting to get serious. "If you want me to tear you to pieces… then so be it! It will just as you've done to my heart!" My notion was correct it seems. "Can't you see what you are doing? You are destroying everything we worked for the past years!"
"Bahamut… there's no getting through with you is there? What you are doing is monstrous!" She yelled, now having difficulties to dodge the charges from the Dragon King in midair considering that she was still in human form.
"Humans ARE monsters!" Bahamut roared, faking another charge, just to spin as Tina tried to dodge sideways, hitting her with his tail and sending her spinning into the floor, promptly crashing onto the fallen girl with his draconian claws which led her to blurt blood onto his nails.
"Wh-what has Kayser done to all of you? Don't you remember what you told me all those years ago?" She asked, slowly forcing Bahamut to lift his claw with overwhelming strength. When she regained her footing she jumped up, claw in tow and spun around in midair, completely baffling any onlooker, even Maduin as a human slammed a dragon into the ground. "Monsters cannot kill monsters! They can only breed them!" She reminded him, punching his snout. "And by the looks of it, Kayser has a MASSIVE NEST here!" She punched him again, not wanting to use magic and possibly annihilate one of the few people she ever trusted.
"I…" Bahamut stuttered as he looked back and reflected to what he had done, what the people he was following had done. Ever since they started listening to Kayser… they had done the exact same as humans did when they tried to exterminate him. Revenge causes revenge and they had been tricked into continuing that cycle so easily. Even the person with the most reason for it could see that they had been wronged, how did it come to this? "I'm sorry…" He finally answered, returning to his human form. Tina let out a sigh and turned his back on him.
"You better be!" She told him as she walked back in the direction of the Summit. She didn't need to go that far however, as a giant demon-like figure crashed right in front of her. "Well, warm-up's over." She joked, bursting into a pink light as lightning coursed through her body. "Let's dance little devil!"
"You disrespectful bitch!" Diablos roared, the ground itself cracking as the gravity was increased a thousand fold. "I'LL CRUSH YOU!"
"Is she going to be alright?" Vaan asked desperately as Rydia brought a floating Ashe to their side.
"I'm afraid I just... can't tell." Rydia replied somberly. "She only survived because the sword pierced her lungs and not her heart, but even that means that she lost tremendous amounts of blood. We would need to get her to a competent healer, at least more skilled than Cu there, she has tried her best to stabilize her… I'm afraid we have no means to save her right now." She finally blurted out, causing Vaan to fly into a blind rage.
"NO! We can get her to the Strahl and…" He began before Gabranth interrupted him.
"She needs immediate attention, she cannot handle a travel of more than two hours." The judge answered from his lying position.
"YOU!" Vaan roared, grabbing him by the neck. "I should kill you! You lost to Vayne, you're the cause of all this!" He accused, beginning to strangle the man as the group tried to pull him off.
"If you desire to kill me Vaan of Dalmasca, go ahead, you have every right to do so, but be warned. You are not the same man I saw years ago. Yes, you may say that you "matured" but somewhere along the way, you began to lose sight of the light. Vaan, what would Reks think of you if he saw you now?" A bold move, considering how Gabranth was the one that killed him, but for some reason, Vaan stopped chocking him.
"He's kinda right Kid, last time I checked you were just like that Bartz and Zidane kids." Jecht added.
"Yeah… yes he is… it's just…. Damnit, I've been under a lot of stress lately… sorry…" Vaan replied, standing back up and shaking his head as if to shoo that part of him away.
"I should be the one apologizing… but that does not answer our predicament with Queen Ashelia." Gabranth replied, forcing himself into a sitting position. "How can we get her to Rabanastre or any capital city that swiftly?"
"Well, I might have an answer to THAT!" Two intertwined voices said as Shin appeared right in the middle of the group. "Sup." He said cockily.
"Wow, you got a hair due, a pair of contact lenses and now you think you're hot shit huh?" Zack replied in a deceivingly annoyed tone. "Kidding dude, you're gonna have to tell us all about what happened later, for now, can you get this girl to a doctor?" He asked as he pointed at the barely breathing Ashe.
"Probably." Shin replied, grabbing her weak body. "But I probably can't take you all back, I can feel my power lacking even now." He told them. It was true, his power was waning and he could feel that he couldn't last with hit a lot longer.
"Take her then… And the kid…" Jecht… was…. Being… sensitive… WHAT?
S'what I do!
Not it's NOT!
Shut up before I break your ribs again prissy pants!
Tsk, I love my job way too much to let you ruin it like this… onward we go.
"Why me?" Vaan asked, not astonished at why, but how they could still feel sympathy for him.
"She has to have SOMEONE to wake up to. Don't you agree?" I really think this is some sort of alternate Jecht, because there's no way he would say things like this…
"That she does. At least he's straightforward about it, unlike some…" Most of the group gasped as the voice of Shinryu came from Shin's mouth, but then the realized that it was in fact another person.
"Do I have to rip out my throat?" Shin yelled at him.
"Probably." Shinryu teased.
"Hey, Shin!" Zack called, Shin looking to his side for a single second before being blinded by a flash. "It turned out pretty good!" Zack said as he looked at the photo on his phone.
"Why did you just do that?" Aqua questioned to which Zack answered.
"We don't know if he'll ever use this form again, so might as well keep a photo for the future!" Whatever that meant.
"Well then, go ahead Shinryu. They can pilot the ship anyway." Neku told them as the Strahl's engines resounded from above.
"Well, okay, let's go Vaan… teleport!" He cast, their body vanishing into the four winds.
"Well, what do we say when we arrive?" Tifa asked as the ship slowly docked into Rabanastre's air dome.
"That we need help." Shin's booming voice told them as he appeared right into the bridge, falling to one knee and returning to his normal self.
"Shin?" Tifa gasped, trying to get him up, something he refused. "She needs it more…" He told her, passing the critical condition queen to him.
"Vaan! You're here!" Zidane and Bartz exclaimed, tackling the blonde into submission. "Squall, can he join the Pride? PLEEEEEASE?" Squall groaned at their ridiculous attempt of puppy eyes, but he told them it would be okay, or he would never hear the end of it.
"Not. The. Time!" Rinoa urged, pointing to the door, they had now docked. "Let's get her to a doctor!"
"Larsa should call any doctor in the city for that." Vaan told the stranger, shaking off his strange assaulters. He couldn't say much more however as a snap of two fingers sent him into the ground.
"You're getting kinda trigger happy with that Nam…" Roxas commented with a distressed smile.
"It's… fun seeing them fall face down into the ground!" PSYCHO ALERT!
"Oooookay… by the way…"Shin began.
"Where's Terra?" Locke finished in a girly tone.
"She's reliving some memories, Naminé says she'll wake up soon." Celes replied and took note of Shin's disheartened expression. "For the Triad's sake…" She spat at the obliviousness of the duo.
"Hey author! What about lamp shading this?" Locke yelled to the unknown, earning him another "is-he-a-lunatic" look. Unfortunately we know how he just has a special gift to destroy the fourth wall. Still, they tried to ignore him and took Ashelia to the outside with Vaan, giving a very, very awkward smile at Larsa when he ordered the troops to prepare themselves for battle when he saw the unconscious bodies of his allies on the hands of strangers.
"We didn't think this through, did we?" Squall pointed out, raising his hands as his father waved a small white flag.
"We can… explain?" Zidane begged as the guns clicked.
"I'd suggest you do it fast." Balthier said as he shot a warning shot into the air. "That kid owes me a ship."
"You have my thanks… Warrior." Orlandeu told the man in the blue armor that stood beside him. "Your arrival was enough to scare off those beasts."
"There is no need, you are valuable to us." The warrior replied. They all stood in the conference room, some tied in bandages, some completely fine like them. Jenova had traded some blows with Orlandeu before Hikari arrived to stop the fight. Thank god he did, as the fight wasn't exactly on Orlandeu's favor. A ring on King Caelum's phone finally appeared as they listened to their long awaited report.
"It's true King Caelum, everything that is not the capital has been taken over by the cult, we are unsure of what to do as any soldiers we dispatch add to their numbers." An officer told the King.
"Retreat back to the capital, we'll concoct a plan here." He replied with a sigh.
"I can halt their advance." Orlandeu offered, being met with rage.
"You cannot do this by yourself Orlandeu!" Joshua told him sternly. "As your superior I forbid you!"
"Then what do we suggest we do? We have to take a course of action, the more we wait the more they grow." Orlandeu had a point, but Hikari had a better one.
"Barricade the city, a person we know off went to get help." He informed in a passive tone.
"Cid isn't a man that plays, he does what he says!" Shantotto rhymed whimsically.
"I'm sure that Prishe and Lloyd will be back soon…" Éclair reassured. "I think he mentioned something about an antidote…" She added.
"That settles it… barricade every entrance!" Noctis exclaimed.
"I agree." Caelum nodded. "I'll make preparations, for now… rest." He told the group that started to disperse.
"Reks, you've been kinda down… but now…" He saw that the Reks who had spent the days mopping had a smile on his face.
"I don't know why… I felt my brother was passing through a hard phase, it's probably over by now." He replied, trusting his brother's intuition.
"Good, we need all the help we can get against this "Dark Queen" as they call her…" Joshua grumbled.
Vaan on the other hand had a much more pleasant dream. Well, any dream that started with waking up on Cosmos' lap was good enough for me…
"You've been through much my warrior…" Her heavenly voice rang on his tired eardrums. "You can rest now… you are between friends…"
"You guys were late!" He replied with a more "Vaan-ish tone", not moving from her lap due to… certain attributes he would not normally be so close to.
"We most certainly were Vaan… but now it's all alright. Go back to your friends, laugh, cry, live. But please, never again forget who you are…" The goddess told him, pulling him closer into and embrace… lucky… bastard.
"I really did a mess there, didn't I?" He asked with a sarcastic smile. He was still enjoying his position though, like a normal man would.
"I never thought I'd say this, but if it weren't for Jecht… things might have been wilder…" Cosmos confessed.
"Yeah, well, he could have warned me…"Vaan told her before laughing quite a bit, Cosmos accompanying with a giggle of her own. "Any words of wisdom you can give me? Or at least a few more minutes in this position." He joked, for the first time ever the goddess going red with shame as she literally threw him away.
"I'm so sorry!" She apologized when she realized what she had done.
"Don't worry! I totally had that one coming!" Vaan replied with a smile. "Just a question though… Terra… did she make it?" He asked.
"Why don't you ask her yourself?" That was answer enough for him. "Still, there is a word of wisdom I can give you… Your crystal is "Freedom". Maybe that can help you get it…" Cosmos informed him as he began to fade. "Vaan, take care, please…"
"Will do!" He replied as he suddenly woke up. Not everything would be good news though…
Memories:
"How… how can she do that?" Bahamut gasped as Terra ran though Diablos' gravity field like it was nothing. "Diablos and Crusader should be leagues above us…"
"The difference Bahamut, is that while you stayed here and reveled on your power, she was down there fighting every day. One or two appearances in the war doesn't make you stronger." Maduin told him.
Thing is, Diablos by himself isn't that powerful. He is physically only a bit stronger than the majority of espers and has a limited spell book. What made him stand out was his imperviousness to gravity along with his mastery over it. With his Gravija Field he made everything in it weight one thousand times his weight. That was normally enough to incapacitate most living beings, but the ones that didn't were completely crippled by it and were easy pickings… except for this girl. Sure, when she ran up to him and clawed him her right foot had been almost engulfed by the earth and she still had lost a great amount of speed, but…
"Diablos, just give it up! This is why you never beat Crusader. You're a one trick pony! If someone even as resists your magic… you can't handle it!" Diablos' was disgusted by Tina's taunts, much because of their realism. He was stumped, the fact that she could move and move well left him without almost any ways of countering. He could only groan and roar as he was showered by meteorites that ironically were faster due to his gravity. His bat-like wings were the grabbed by the girl, who froze them in place with her magic before grabbing his tail.
"You can't throw me on one-thousand times gravity!" He cried in fear as Tina's grin only grew bigger.
"Let's see…" She said darkly before begging to spin him around by his tail repeatedly, everyone that was outside the dome watching in awe as Tina let go of the devil after long seconds of winding up, sending him hurling through the ground against a nearby mountain away from the dome. She then began running after him, trying to catch the guy before he could do anything more, but that wasn't going to happen.
"You dirty… rotten… bitch!" Diablos boomed, the field of gravity around Tina becoming smaller and smaller as the gravity increased. "I'll turn you into stardust! Dark Messenger!" He chanted, closing the sphere around her into a pure black ball of gravity whose true extent of force was unknown.
"Tina!" Maduin and Bahamut called in despair.
"Don't bother calling…" Diablos told them with a darkened satisfied grin covering his demonic features.
"Listen to him…" That was not diablos… "RIOT… BLADE!" The sphere exploded into a hail of shinning blades of light that cut deeply into Diablo's torso and limbs but missed any vital spots. "I have to give it to ya… I felt heavy in there." Before getting attacked from behind, being launched from where she stood to the mountain where the summit took place.
"You… deserve my full attention." Three voices announced as three very different espers appeared in front of her.
"Jihad… you have THREE bodies?" Tina gasped, watching the monsters she was about to face. The first one was massive, muscled golden humanoid that appeared to be able to crush mountains. The second was an even taller black armored… thing whose arms were no more than two brown bones that connected to giant claws. The third one, floating above the other two was a woman…or it looked like one, with purple skin and dressed completely in a flowing golden vest. "Uhh… Two boys and one girl? Kinky!" Tina quipped, not to Crusader's liking.
"Will you take anything rationally Tina? There's a limit to how stupid your actions can be before you drag the entire world down with you! If you were not so powerful, I'd let you be…but as you are right now? You will be the first sacrifice for the world of prosperity the espers will live in!" The three of them boomed, to which the girl yawned.
"You done? Great! Sorrowful waters!" She chanted, pillars of water erupting from bellow the three, blinding them as Tina appeared just above the woman, kneeing her face and grabbing her from behind as she expected a claw from the black monstrosity. It stopped just in time but Tina understood what that meant and teleported away at the last possible moment, the fist of the golden giant impacting on his companions. "Jolt!" She chanted, now four streaks of lightning impacting on the golden giant, it screaming before shaking it off.
"She's fighting just like us…" Terra gasped.
"I doubt she's fighting just like us… we're fighting just like her… but I… no, she can't be…" Her esper side groaned, falling to the ground. "I… I can remember this… WHY?"
"Calm down… let's just see how this goes." Terra suggested.
"She's going to cast meltdown and Jihad will counter with three of them." She replied and as if it was programed.
"With this power… I will MAKE this end!" Tina roared, hurling the massive ball of fire into the cluttered trio.
"I TAUGHT YOU THAT!" Crusader boomed, cancelling the blast with three of his own.
"But I learned this on myself!" Tina shouted as she appeared from above, cutting right through the woman with her claws but costing her a steep price as the duo of giants crushed her between claw and shoulder.
"You are so powerful for a cub… why do you have to be so wrong? You could grow up to be a legend!" He told her infuriated, pressing both their arms and claws against her small body.
"A legend among monsters? No thanks!" She replied, pulling her arms upwards as she tried to release herself from the bone crunching bear hug. She could feel some ribs crunching but she cringed her teeth and managed to slip her arm out. "GET AWAY!" She ordered as she blasted the golden being with a massive chunk of ice. It flew against the wall and cried out in pain, leaving the black one to deal with Tina. "Malevolent winds…" She chanted, surrounding herself in three whirlwinds. "Protect me now!" She ordered as they congregated into a single one, sending him flying against a wall nearby, the turbulent tempest even blowing up the fragile celling of the summit. Tina then rose up above the ceiling and raised her hands up high, calling forth a giant black sphere of gravity. "Darkness of gravity… Crush them!" The chant was followed by the descent of them massive ball of darkness that destroyed most of the mountain and would later turn them into a cave system due to how deep the crater was. Now, usually, that would mean the end, right? Wrong!
"Now she's done it…" Diablos coughed as he joined Bahamut and Maduin.
"What do you mean?" Even Bahamut was unknowing against what was going to happen next.
"You never saw Jihad's… TRUE form, have you?" He asked, freezing both men. "What if I told you… that he has two transformations?"
"You are either very fortunate or the epitome of bad luck. You are the first I used this form to fight." This form was… truly strange. It was so… normal for an esper. It didn't derive a lot from his normal form at all! In fact, his body was the same but he was now wearing golden armor and had a golden metal halo behind his back. He didn't have any weapons, a string with more than one hundred beads attached and he had his eyes closed shut. "I am the living being closest to God…" He said in an almost divine voice.
"Does it look like I care?" Tina roared, firing two rounds of meltdown against her target, but was stupefied when the bounced off at a safe distance from him. "Oh, you want to play rough? LET'S!" She yelled, losing her patience as she flew towards the unmoving being.
"Away demon!" He simply said, opening his eyes.
"My… my body… I can't move!" She groaned, only able to move her neck. "What have you done you bastard?"
"Your sins are chaining you…" He simply replied. "Now I ask you Tina of the Raijū… will you submit?" He asked calmly, his eyes never leaving hers.
"I'd rather die!" She replied, spitting on his feet. "You damned hypocrite!"
"So be it… let me make you understand just what'll happen to you if you do not submit… Purification!" For some reason, Tina stopped feeling pain. Was that a good thing? Of course not. "You cannot feel your body, right? That's because I've chained one of your five senses, touch, and I promise I will not show mercy and will take away each and every one of your senses… Now tell me, if your cause righteous enough for you to live as a vegetable for the rest of your life?" He asked, to which Tina only asked.
"Shut up and take my hearing, I'm sick of listening to your self-righteous speeches!" She then stopped tasting with her tongue.
"I am sorry, but to make your surrender possible, your hearing shall be the last one to go." Crusader told her in a tone as cold as ice. "As long as there is… difference, there will always be pretext for war, don't you understand? Now, I ask you again, Tina… why don't you sub-"He never expected that. Somehow, Tina managed to break loose from his grip and punched him straight in the face. "Lose sight of your world!" He commanded, Tina's vision going blank. She had already suspected it would end like that however, and as her nose twitched, she could already smell where he was, turning to land a kick where her claws decimated his right check. "Why are you so irrational? "He asked, terminating her smell.
"Why are you so rational?" She asked back, taking him by surprise. "What you're basically saying is that the only way to have peace is to terminate one of the races! How short sighted and cold blooded is that? Can't you BELIEVE that we can work this out?" She roared.
"The short-sighted one is you! Yes, you may end this war, but I guarantee you that in one thousand years there will be another. What I propose is a definite soluti-"He shouldn't have talked, with only her hearing, Tina managed to detect where was and grab onto him. "Suffer a fate worse than death!" He spat, cancelling her hearing.
"Is he… right?"She asked herself as she unknowingly fell to the ground. No hearing, no balance, no touch, no positioning. "Can we never accept our differences?"
"What do you mean? You're just glowy!" Rang on her head.
"That's…right." She groaned inwardly, clinching her fist.
"What?" Crusader asked surprised. "No matter, she cannot have any perception now…" She reverted to her human form, further assuring Crusader of his victory. But it was just the opposite. The ribbon in her head was glowing in an otherworldly shine.
"I met a boy… that didn't see us as two races. He… proves that there is a possibility we can… forget all of this!" Tina exclaimed as the world around her began to return to her. The soil of the moon was gray, she knew it's feeling, it's smell, it's taste, she could hear herself and the murmurs. "As long as there is someone that proves we can coexist… I'll believe in that too! If we take revenge humans, humans will take revenge on us! Someone who doesn't understand that, who's too blind in his own plan that he doesn't see that he's being played… doesn't deserve to be a leader." And the she did the craziest thing I ever saw in my history of narrating this. She speared her body into the man and using her teleportation, she teleported them both to the planet's atmosphere.
"Are you insane? We cannot survive an entry into the atmosphere!" He yelled in the vacuum of space, only his lips telling the story.
"Care to try?" Tina asked back as they both started to enter the atmosphere.
"Why are you… doing this?" He asked as his armor began to be ripped off due to the pressure.
"If we die, the council will be a two to one in my opinion's favor and if we survive I will be Queen and my orders absolute! It's a win-win!" She replied, casting a protective barrier to not be burned by the fire at the re-entry.
"To go this far… do you place so much face in us as a whole? We are all flawed, you cannot believe not one will throw stones!" He replied, giving a weak punch to the girl, he was too busy contributing with power to the shield that ironically, was saving them both.
"I don't believe that! I believe that the majority of us won't! To be alive is to make mistakes!" She grabbed him very close to her and slapped him. "Learn from your mistakes you asshole, it's not too late for you to do the same! Swallow that damned pride!" She ordered of him, looking straight into his open eyes.
"What you are saying has no logical basis! Do you want our whole species to leap into the dark like that? Why don't you just kill us now?" He shouted, pushing her away and breaking the barrier in a desperate attempt to end it.
"Damn it Jihad! Don't make me kill you!" Tina shouted. They couldn't stop the fall by flying at this point, the momentum was just too great, she could even already see the ground forming bellow.
"You overestimate yourself! Tina! If you want to be queen, you'll have to kill me! Purifica-" She had grabbed his head as they drew dangerously close to the ground.
"I'm sorry… master…" She mumbled as…
Crack!
"What happened?"Terra shouted as she jumped awake.
"Did she…" Her esper side asked herself, deducing that since the memories had stopped, she had to have… died.
"I don't know! But I know someone who owes us some answers!" Terra exclaimed, for the first time in a long time being truly angry at a friend.
"Terra… you're awake?" Celes asked as she bolted into her room. "Better yet… you can move?" It was only then that she realized that she COULD in fact move as she was sitting on her bed. But that was not all. She felt… different. She felt… powerful. Like she could take on the world. Was this what Rydia and Schala meant?
"It... looks like it…" Terra replied, still a bit confused about how she got her body functions back. But she wouldn't be able to think that a whole lot as Celes urged her:
"That doesn't matter right now! Come with me or Ashe'll die!" This got Terra's immediate attention, the rest could wait.
Cosmos sat in her throne contemplating how she could further help her warriors when… suddenly a flash of her own light appeared in front of her, blinding her for a short second before she saw the object in front of her… A half sphere of clear blue color that was joined with a silver metal plating. This was…
"Tidus' crystal? No… NO!" She screamed, knowing exactly what that meant. A crystal would only change its owner… if the former was no more.
... OH YOU MOTHER F-
Next Chapter:
"THIS is freedom!"
"We have this planet's crystals, now to put them to use."
"We sealed this here because it is a threat to God itself…"
Post-Chapter Note:Thank lord the amount of Tidus fans out there is minimal, maybe I won't have to live under a couch. Well, let's get the usual, you have any questions please ask them or any opinion can and should warrant a review since it brightens my day and unicorns and butterflies and… I'm just gonna stop there before I lose my lunch, you got the point.
PS: My new fic is up and it has two chapters already. So… GO READ IT! I find it hard to believe none of you likes KH, so I strongly request you ( to put it nicely) to click the profile button, go read both chapters (It's called Just Go Forward!) and leave a review to tell me what you think of it. This is actually very important because, unlike this one, I have too many ideas on how to actually make continue that fic and any opinion can help me decide. So… DO IT! READ, READ AND READ SOME MORE!... Please?
*Cough* Now that we got that out of the way… Cheerio!
