Exdeath's castle.
How long was it since she last saw this? The gathering Void tendrils certainly didn't make it look any different. Even from the highest point, it all looked barren and empty.
The Dissidia warriors worked outside like clockwork. Their haste muffled in Lenna's ears and eventually they moved outside to halt the collapse. Gadot and his crew took up sentry against attracted beasts. They lost Balthier—he claimed to have work to do—but they remained.
The earth rumbled about them and shadows faded in from the east and west. The oceans to the north and south shook. The faint power that pulsed inside her confirmed her fears. This wasn't meant as a merge, but as a collapse of all the involved planets. And her home made the center of the implosion.
Lenna drew on the Crystals and filled her lungs with their dust. With it, she borrowed their memories of the greatest monks and changed.
She leaped from the window and caught a pole. From there, she found the rooftop of the barracks. She hardly thought with the instincts provided by the soul inside her. From the roof, she found the Warriors joining in one great spell.
A great wind almost knocked her over and she took to a crouch. Gilgamesh took up position with the Warriors. Lenna had power enough to protect them, but she felt a pull from the opposite direction.
Dust and debris billowed in from the west and silhouettes formed a distant skyline. Mountains rose and flattened, and something churned the waters of the Northern Sea. Lenna turned Geomancer, but she couldn't imagine stilling all that.
"Lenna!" called Bartz. "We're not enough!"
"Who else is there?" she asked.
"Not many!" The Warrior of Light strengthened his position. "Focus, friends!"
Lenna watched planets move in and out of sight through their atmosphere. She might not know how to steady the world herself, but something else did.
She reached and felt the distant boundaries of their world. It clashed with other realms and squeezed under the pressure of collision. Something vast compressed them, willing them to implode.
"It's the Void." Gilgamesh joined her. "It'll crush us all, given a chance."
"Is there nothing we can do?"
"Most of us, no."
Lenna reached again and tested the boundaries. "I can do it. Not all of it, but I can…" She pushed and the Crystals surged to aid her. They already fought the Void best they could, but her will lent them a strength otherwise unreachable.
Gilgamesh supported her and Lenna relied on him. But even he didn't feel strong enough to compensate for the world's weight on her hands.
"We don't let it win," she said. "Understood?"
"Understood, milady."
"… I'm glad to have you back, sir."
Shards of time flung about the place and Serah caught slivers of lost journeys. She saw Augusta tower and her imprisonment there. She saw her death on the plains of the Archylte. She heard the birds of New Bodhum and the razing of Old Bodhum. When she moved, the air broke again like she swam in glass shards.
Noel shouted and space cleared. She saw through the maddening illusion and showed her the melee fighters already engaged. Hope ran and cast illusions to cover himself and Yeul.
Serah spun Mog and he revived at her encouragement. She found a stance in the shifting time fragments and steadied herself. Then fired.
Bhunivelze swiped her arrow and everyone back in one fell swoop. The ranged others faltered. Bhunivelze summoned Pulse and Lindzei.
Snow yelled for them to go again and Serah took aim. A shot went wide and slipped through the sea of shards. That timeline changed.
"Careful!" Serah yelled. "We can't doom the timeline that led here!"
Seven mobilized and sent a ripple of stability through the waves. Deuce and Ace joined her. With Guidance, Interpretation, and Fortune, they reinforced the barriers protecting them from mortal realms.
Bhunivelze grew and developed wings.
Snow ordered another volley from Serah's ranks and they let off a round. Bhunivelze blew it off again. One ricocheted and hit Sazh in the chest.
Dajh screamed and rushed to Daddy's side. This felt different. Dajh hurried to heal him amongst all the spells and chaos.
"He'll die," Dajh whispered to Vanille, who helped him. "We could… if we die here, we don't have anywhere to go back to."
"We'll be fine," she said. "As long as no one stays hurt, we'll be fine."
Sazh straightened with a grimace. "This is nothing. Focus on the big guy."
"Okay." Dajh had a hard time thinking with the noise. "I'll keep healing everyone."
"Good idea!" Vanille said. "Let's do it together, shall we?"
Sazh lit up and blasted Bhunivelze with fire. Dajh moved with Vanille to help the fallen Sice. They pulled her away from the action and fixed her up within moments. Sice grunted in thanks and flew away again.
Someone whispered behind him and Dajh looked to see himself in the shiny pieces of space. Through them, he saw home on Cocoon and home on the Floating Continent. Through them, he remembered sleeping through countless days. Through them, he saw himself doing things he didn't remember.
Vanille yanked him back. "Stay away! You could get lost in another timeline!"
"How?"
"We're fighting in a sea of fractured time. If you don't keep your feet, then you'll fall into water so deep we won't be able to save you!"
He shuddered and followed her up, then back into the fray. Serah was next.
Luca stayed with Rikku, Shinra, and Baralai at Tenebrae. She worked communications with Shinra while Rikku made bombs and Baralai spoke with the team. They approached the Rift known as Exdeath's castle and described it as a black hole in the ground. Every now and again Baralai switched from update-talk to battle strategy. Vaan and Penelo traded jokes and though Baralai kept quiet, he betrayed his humor in soft smirks and shakes of his head.
Rikku worked quietly and Luca knew from her silence that she worried. Shinra, too.
"They'll win," Luca said. "They have P—the twins with them. And Leonora."
"And Bhunivelze has the Void." Shinra snipped the end of a wire and replaced the crystalnet. The comm went down until he got the end refigured. "We're pretty evenly matched."
Voices chattered about the lapse. Luca paused in her distance reconfig. "We have dozens of gods on our side. He's only one."
"And the source of our gods' power."
"…. I'm just trying to be optimistic."
"Then you should stop. False hope never helped anyone."
Rikku slapped him over the head. "And neither have you, twerp."
He harrumphed and moved away to work. Luca tried to refocus on the codes displayed on her terminal, but it blurred.
"We'll be fine," Rikku said, "Everything is fine."
"He's right, though. We might not live to see the end of this."
"That's the great thing about us techies, though. We're away from the chaos over here. If everything hits the fan, then we're the last ones that'll see it. I've even got some death syringes, so we don't have to worry about gruesome deaths. Not all of us are like Baralai here."
He blinked. "Beg your pardon?"
"Thanks, but I'm okay." Luca thought of Palom potentially listening on the other side. "I can take whatever happens."
"Hold up," Baralai said. "You're walking into another dark spot. And this one's bigger than the rest."
"How big?" Vaan asked over the link.
"Larger than the Archadian palace. Play it safe. Melee to the front, mages to the back. Vaan, ping Rydia and see if you can send any summons ahead."
Balthier rested against a battlement. What an archaic structure. They must not even have plumbing in the main room. The NORA crew took their positions before resting against the battlements or pacing to and fro. They crackled with blue energy.
The air turned stale. Balthier readjusted his grip and moved to cock his pistol before remembering he already did.
And in the back of his mind, he only wished Fran was here.
Eiko dreaded that looming shadow. "Why's it growing so fast?"
"It's gathering," Rydia said. "Bahamut! Cast them from your sky! Titan! Clear your land!"
"Carbuncle!" Eiko yelled. "Help!"
A flash of blue and green, and Carbuncle popped out of thin air with a squeal. It perched on Eiko's shoulder and its protection shimmered about her.
The tornado of Voidsent burst with Bahamut's attack and scattered with Titan's earthquake. Enraged monsters barreled toward them and Eiko braced herself.
Only for fire, ice, and thunder to blast the region. Palom and Leonora cast round after round of black magic to cut off the throngs of freaky things coming her way. The ground fried and the sky crackled. It smelled like burned and gross food.
A rat-like fiend made it through the explosions of magic and came at her. Eiko drew a dagger.
Only for Gladio to leap ahead of her and cut through it with that heavy sword of his. It slammed into the dirt like an anvil.
Carbuncle squealed and something slammed into Eiko. Her protect vibrated and she scrambled to her feet. Firion took the twisted fiend that attacked her and yelled for her to find safe ground.
"I don't need safety!" Eiko said. "I'm a summoner!"
Maria rained arrows. Iris kicked away a cactuar, punched a malboro in the face, then launched a bomb into the sky.
Needles hit Iris from behind and Eiko healed her back up. Porom and Penelo got some of the others after another bomb went off. Eiko hurried to get stragglers. Carbuncle buffed her up the whole time, though it used a lot of energy to keep him here. Fran wailed on a group too far away.
She only needed to keep Carbuncle until all these monsters stopped.
Eiko hit Iris with white magic and that brought her back to her feet. Penelo and Porom also cast white magic and that boosted her.
Something heavy took her from behind.
Rufus found that Galbadia Garden that everyone spoke of as a towering complex. It stood out like a shard in the ground and reminded him of his first days with the Turks. From here, he might even see Edge's skyline. Too bad there were so many trees and hills in the way.
He gave in to fatigue and searched for a resting place. The ground shook and he steadied against a brick wall. The collision of worlds slowed, but it seemed even those ageless warriors couldn't keep it away forever.
When he looked for the front door, broken whispers blocked him. The air turned thicker the deeper he got into the complex and something watched him. Thought blurred and he lost strength. The Void must have taken this place.
Rufus swore to himself and turned away. No doubt he'd find another center of civilization on the way.
He drew up short when a painted and horned woman in red faced him and put a finger to her lips.
"Who—?" Rufus asked, but she was replaced by another, this one dressed in blue and all too average-looking.
She smiled and said, "Sorry for the poor reception. I'm having trouble keeping everything together with all this going on. You've still got shards, by the look of things. Maybe we can use those and call it a trade."
"And you'd regret it." He flared strength and pushed her back. "If you'll excuse me…"
Rufus turned to leave, and something took his ankle. He used his shards again only for them to tug at him like hooks.
The woman's image flickered to look more like the red monster that greeted him. "Those don't belong to you," she said, voice raspier in this form.
The woman kicked and knocked him over. Rufus pivoted and grabbed her ankle. Ground wobbled again and Rufus reached as if he could stabilize himself.
"Pesky little—" She yanked free of him and reached. A pressure gained on him forcing him down. "You are a nuisance, aren't you? Fal'Cie don't pick any other kind, do they?"
She yanked at him and his insides twisted. Like when Bhunivelze ripped his own free, this creature stole his strength. But he fought back.
"Just let it go. It won't hurt so much, little brat."
"I refuse." Rufus held onto those shards and used them to force himself up. Finding his feet felt like swimming against a riptide.
She tore into him with claws and power yanked from him.
He reeled under the weight of compressed time and space. Every bone strained under an impossible gravity. The pain in his ripped chest worsened with the sensation of being condensed.
"President Shinra!"
Rufus barely saw past the blur in his eyes and the merging world. A woman in pink greeted him and granted him support. The push of gravity eased. "Elena?" he asked.
"Not quite." His sight cleared. The flower girl from the slums helped him get away.
He struggled to speak. "The Turks. They need help. My help."
"Not just yours. Come on." Aerith washed the witch's influence from him. "It's a little further, but we're closer. Just stay with me."
Moving felt like muddling through the dark in a drug-inhibited body. He followed Aerith. His tongue felt trapped in his mouth. He felt like he should apologize.
But he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Light broke through the haze of the sky and sparkled in the gently rippling ocean. The air tasted less musty than it had in years, but not in any familiar way.
Libertus scrunched his nose against the abnormal scents and spun his blades about.
"Ugly as everywhere. Haze is clearer, but the daemons are just as strong," he muttered to himself. In fact, there was an oily pool bubbling with soon-to-be-born daemons just twenty feet away. Libertus watched it, feeling a steely cold, and waited. Couldn't kill it before it existed.
The pool spun and twisted. Light refracted against it and glinted in the air like it turned physical.
A glow lit in his veins as Libertus readied to strike.
Only for a flash of light and a dull thud to scatter the daemon-blood.
The blood screeched and began to form, scattered from the center. Libertus steadied himself, looking between that flash of light and the forming daemons.
They were smaller than he was used to. And that was a Kingsglaive uniform.
"I told Cor I don't need any help." Libertus took his eye off the still-bright form and cleaved a daemon in half just as it gained sufficient form.
"I'm sure you did."
Libertus' heart stopped. He knew that voice.
Daemons exploded out of the splatter. They ran, lurched, hissed, and screeched. Libertus cut through a few more before daring a look back to the center of the emergence.
Nyx throw a kukri and warped into the blood-spray. He jammed another knife into another daemon and kicked the corpse away.
Libertus cast ice to slow the horde of little daemons. "You're kidding me! You know, I waited for you!"
Nyx rolled out of the way of a larger beast. "Wish I could make this a grander reunion."
Magic thrummed in the air and a third pair of boots thudded against the pier. A blizzard encircled them whose source he couldn't pinpoint. He released his spell and returned to jamming his blades into the deformed skulls of these… not-quite-demons? Yellows and blues glinted beneath their skin, displacing the usual reddish-purple.
Crowe appeared through the haze and said, "Unfortunately, we're both dead," She wore a sly grin even as she struggled to hold the ice-storm by herself.
Libertus' knives grew slick from all the blood and oil. "Then how're you here?"
"The border is thin right now," Nyx said. "Problems that go beyond the starscourge. Libertus, I'm gonna have to ask you not to exert yourself right now."
"Oh, come on, you're still gonna take all the glory for yourself?"
Crowe groaned—it sounded exaggerated. "Listen to him, Libertus. It's for your own good."
"Right, like I'm gonna sit back and let you two do everything."
"You've been stronger recently," Nyx said, "like something's given you power. You're not even drawing from the Prince, are you?"
"Can't say I'm sure about that."
The blizzard spun faster as Crowe stepped up beside Libertus. "But it's true."
"… Yeah."
Nyx gutted the last daemon as the light above them strengthened. "That power comes at a price. If you push yourself, you'll earn an early grave."
Crowe dropped the blizzard.
"What—like you?" Libertus asked. "I'm one of the only surviving Glaives. Just about everyone I've ever known is gone."
Crowe said, "Just give it a bit of time. We'll be waiting."
He had a debt to repay. Libertus locked eyes with Nyx. "How're everyone over there? Lady Lunafreya, and King Regis? Selena?"
Nyx smiled, cocky as ever, the dead bastard. "They're doing their part."
"What about Drautos and Luche? Both gone, right?"
Crowe grimaced. "Little harder to explain there. Back to the point—Libertus, you were given shards from a god, and your body isn't ready for that."
Libertus stared at her for a moment. "God? Thought they abandoned us."
"Again—hard to explain." Nyx pointed out across the ocean. "We need to make sure that this place stays intact. Best way to do that is to get away from it."
"And go where?" Libertus asked. "Lestallum?"
Despite being dead, Crowe still looked winded after they cleared the area. "No. Pelna should have that handled. We need to get those shards out of you."
"Why the hurry?" Libertus asked. "Seems like I should use them while I have them."
"If necessary." Nyx took up a stride towards the beach. "But each use will reduce your life-span. You haven't been primed for them. That's how I died."
Libertus and Crowe followed. "You got shards?" Libertus asked.
"He got a concentrated dose," Crowe said. "Turns out, our world has been pretty screwed up from the natural order. People acting like crystals…"
Nyx picked up speed. "Come on—we're running out of time."
Eight worried less about hitting Bhunivelze and more about keeping his siblings in the right places. Seven worked best near Sice, Cinque near Trey, Ace near Deuce… Oh, but Seven couldn't stay near Sice forever.
"Lightning!" he called.
She caught the signal and zipped his way despite Bhunivelze's twisting slices. That thing moved too fast for its size.
He gestured. "With Sice!"
Lightning nodded and repositioned herself closer to Sice. Eight found Queen and forced her out of an oncoming ricochet.
"What if we threw him through time?" Eight asked. "Take the chance and hope he goes somewhere without us?"
Queen said, "Then he could come back. And if he didn't, then we doomed who knows how many galaxies of at least one timeline to his corruption. This is our responsibility."
Snow reorganized the ranged side and moved them to flank. But Bhunivelze used magic to block every hit. And with every hit on one of them, Dajh rushed to get them in time while some combination of the others covered him and the wounded.
"We give him all we got," Queen said. "That's all we can do."
She took off again with a scream and Eight watched her go.
Jack helped him up. "No getting distracted."
Eight agreed and split off to help Hope and Yeul.
Seven struggled under the weight of the expanse she monitored. With all the teleporting she did, she thought these planets closer. But when she found wayward souls, it took all her concentration to find their destination planet. Ace and Mother's song echoed back to her and she imagined using that to guide these people.
Deuce's strain betrayed her over the link. "We broke a lot of passages," she said. "The Council must hate us."
"Don't we have bigger things to worry about?" Seven asked. She barely heard the words as she focused on keeping her area organized. These shards made everything so complicated!
"Losing souls to space is a pretty big deal. But maybe they'll have an easier time tracking down stragglers."
"We'll do what we can," Ace said. "Focus on that for now and we'll deal with the rest later."
"What are they even doing right now?" Seven asked. "The Council?"
Ace's connection glitched in and out. "Dealing with the Void alongside everyone else."
"That should be a bigger mess than ours, shouldn't it?" Deuce asked.
"Watch out!" Seven yanked Deuce away from a ricochet. "Shit, we can't focus like this!"
Deuce gathered herself and refocused. "It's either the souls or us, I guess."
"It doesn't have to be!" Ace phased back to their side. "I'll watch your backs. Just focus on the people out there!"
Seven almost lost cohesion of her watch area. "Fine, but they better hurry this up. We're falling behind fast."