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Chapter 98: Belias
...I understand why he did it. The lies he told, the people he hurt...I get it. Even if he hadn't tried to explain it to me, I think I still would have understood. I was with him, every step of the way. Ajora could be monstrous...but so could the Ydorans he fought.
It's not something you can understand now. Mullonde's fingers were everywhere. We could not escape their grasp, no matter how far we traveled. Whether we sheltered beneath the auspices of the Exile in Fovoham, or fled across the Bethla Wastes, or hid in the Neveleska Archipelago...there shadow was everywhere. Either the people they kept in fear and terror...or the ruins they had left behind, when they had obliterated some past defiance. Always putting more and more of the world beneath their heel.
He was my friend. I may not forgive him, but I understand him. Sometimes, in fighting monsters, you have no choice but to be monstrous yourself.
-The Gospel According to Germonique, I.S.V (Inquisitor Simon Version)
A beam of scouring light, more powerful than any of Cuchulainn's, ripped past him and punched a hole through the wall beside him, flinging stinging gravel against his side. Ramza twisted, kept twisting as a wall of scouring flame billowed off of Belias' body, raised Wiegraf's sword to cut through the tide of fire, to steal some of it for himself. It was so terribly hot, and Ramza gritted his teeth and braced both hands against the hilt, struggling to stay standing-
A shadow burst out of the fire, Belias' massive arms crashing down towards him like enormous gavels, and Ramza leapt to one side, somersaulted to his feet, already slashing his sword. But for all his great size, Belias was horribly nimble, dancing back just out of reach as his azure arm traced signs in the air. A moment later, and another terrible, scouring beam ignited, spearing towards Ramza like the light of judgment.
There was no time to dodge. Ramza leaned forward as though he were walking into a strong wind, burned all his stolen strength to steady his grip upon the sword, readied himself to try and dissolve the blast of magic as it came-
None of it was enough. It hit him like a tidal wave, knocked him off his feet, burned at his hands as it threatened to devour him. Ramza screamed in pain, struggled to absorb what he could, dissolve what he could, struggled to survive-
He came to a stop at the far end of the room, his heel pressed against the wall. He wobbled unsteadily on his feet as his vision darkened around the edges, tightened his grip on his sword and bit his tongue. In front of him, the horned figure laughed, the fire dancing in time with his laughter. "What did I tell you, Beoulve?" The inner arms of red and blue were tracing figures in the air with frightful speed. "Not strong enough."
Ramza wiped the blood from his eyes with one frantic movement, felt his right hand shaking with the weight of the blade. It was a long time since he'd felt this tired, and Belias towered in front of him, unshaken by all his efforts. There was no blow he could strike that Belias could not parry, no spell he could cast that Belias could not deflect. And still the inner arms traced their patterns, and the fires around Belias were beginning to dwindle as more and more power coalesced in front of it, ready to ignite. It was hopeless.
And God, but Ramza was tired of hopelessness. He had been tired of it for almost as long as he could remember now. He'd been tired of in on his dreary march into Fovoham, alone and uncertain of what the future held. He'd been tired of it in Lesalia, when Zalbaag refused to listen to him, and put a stop to this war. He'd been tired of it in those weary months spent with Daravon, laboring in the shadow of a war that should not be. He'd been tired of it when he'd been Gaffgarion's apprentice, learning a brutal trade and killing for coin. He'd been tired of it when he'd found out what the Death Corps truly stood for, and discovered how powerless he was to help them.
Maybe the hopelessness was even older than that. Maybe it had been with him since the plague had taken his mother and his father alike. When he had felt adrift in a world where he could do nothing but survive, and even then, only just.
So perhaps this battle with Belias was hopeless. Perhaps his whole journey had been hopeless. Perhaps he could not oppose the plot of rival kings, of the Church and its dignitaries, or of these terrible demons. But he could still try. He would try.
He had beaten hopeless odds before. He could do it again.
The gathered magic in front of Belias burst: a wave of terrible magic came roaring down the shattered room, obliterating the broken bodyparts scattered across its length. Ramza took a step towards it, raised his blade to strike, hoping it would be enough, praying it would be enough-
And a shadow leapt forwards, and cleaved the oncoming wave in two. Surrounded by that burning light, illuminated by it, so that the shadow seemed a towering figure among the flames. In his left hand he held a golden blade so long and thin as to almost be a fencing foil. In his right, he held a much broader blade, hefty as a butcher's cleaver. And, though his figure was mostly cast in silhouette by the blast he'd just cut through, Ramza could make out the rabid grin on his face, and the blue eyes blazing with excitement.
"Beowulf?" Ramza shouted.
"Beowulf?" Belias bellowed.
"Ramza!" Beowulf said cheerfully, spinning his mismatched blades nimbly in each hand. "And..." He studied the creature for a moment. "You know my name, so you can't be Loffrey, and you sound mad at me, so I doubt you're Vormav...I guess that makes you Wiegraf?"
There was a comical look of consternation on the ram-demon's face. "How did you...?"
Beowulf laughed. "So this is a Lucavi!" He gave his blades another showy spin. "Honestly, I'm not impressed."
"Contemptible brat!" Belias spat, and the flames burst off its body in five seeking arcs. Beowulf lunged forwards, sidestepping through a rain of bursting flames, spearing the last on his thin blade. As the fire dissolved around him, he sprinted forwards, swinging his broader blade in a cleaving slash-
The demon's huge, stone-like arm caught the blade on the back of one clawed hand, twisted with surprising speed to strike with the other. Beowulf ducked backwards, then rebounded off his back step, spearing forwards with the thinner blade. Again, Belias raised one clawed hand to deflect the attack-
And roared in pain, as it stabbed through the stone.
"Accursed Silencer!" Belias bellowed, and the roar was another ignition, a towering burst of fire that sent Beowulf dancing backwards. The hem of his cloak was smoking, though he didn't seem to notice: his grin was wider than it had been before.
"Come now, Wiegraf, you can do better than that!" he shouted. "Or maybe you've lost your edge?"
Another roar of frustration from the heart of the inferno, and a beam of blue annihilation flashed out of the flames, straight towards Beowulf. He leapt aside, kept somersaulting as a second beam burst out of the flames and struck the space where he had first landed, rolled to his feet in front of a door that hung horizontal from its one remaining hinge. He crossed his blades in front of him.
"Are you even trying to hit me?" he asked, and laughed again.
The flames swirled inwards, as though being pulled down a drain. Belias radiated the same terrible blue light that had suffused him when he had first transformed, undergirded by that deep, threatening darkness. The inner arms gestured frantically.
"Beowulf, move!" Ramza shouted, as the arms gestured one final time, and a beam of scouring force surged towards Beowulf with all the weight of an avalanche. Beowulf stood unflinching before the attack, hunched low like Ramza had been, his crossed blades thrust out before him in a warding gesture-
And, at the moment of impact, a shadow leapt out from the broken doorway behind him. In that same moment, Beowulf slashed his blades downwards, causing the beam before him to ripple and twist, like the surface of a pond when something heavy is tossed into its heart. The shadow behind him lunged into this slowed pool of energy, their red-bladed sword slicing across it, siphoning some of its brightness, than bursting away as the dammed, diluted force broke its bonds and poured towards Beowulf, who slashed again: the weakened beam refracted off his slashing swords and smashed a nearby wall to rubble.
Illuminated by the beam, the charging figure with the red sword looked almost divine. Her loose collection of mismatched armor gleamed in that light: her sweat-damp hair, almost as red as the sword she held, shone with it.
"Ramza!" cried Radia Gaffgarion, her green eyes bright and fierce, and reached out her hand.
A blast of shock and joy obliterated tiredness, and Ramza grabbed her hand: there was a shimmer of light, a wave of magic mingling with his own, and then a surge of energy walloped into him, filling him with electric giddiness that tingled from the soles of his feet to the roots of his scalp. He rose at once, feeling the odd, itching fire of his wounds closing, feeling young and alive and impossibly strong. He swung Wiegraf's stolen blade as though it weighed nothing, and faced Belias with Radia at his side.
Belias, cloaked only in embers, towered in the rubble and smoking ruin of the terraced room. They were framed perfectly beneath the Ydoran picture window with its running chocobos, a bizarre contrast to that stolen scene of pastoral peace. Their head turned slowly towards each of them.
"What a happy reunion," Belias said at at last, and chuckled (with every note of laughter, one of the embers on its body sparked a fresh flame). "The last of the Valkyries, standing next to the men who killed her sisters."
Radia flinched backwards. But before she could speak, Beowulf had stepped in front of her, his mismatched swords held high.
"She fought us," Beowulf said. "Tried to kill us. While we were trying to kill her." He paused thoughtfully. "Me and Delita, I mean. Not Ramza. Ramza didn't kill anyone until..." He shot Ramza a comically uncertain look, like a classmate checking details on a shared assignment. "Argus, right?"
Ramza nodded dumbly. Beowulf faced Wiegraf again. "S'what soldiers do, Graffy."
"Don't," growled Belias. His inner arms curled into fists, crackling with scarlet light and azure lightning.
"Don't what?" Beowulf asked. "Speak the truth?" He hunched slightly, blades splayed wide to either side. "You trained Delita. You trained me. If she's a hypocrite, so are you."
Belias was silent for a moment. Ramza stared between Wiegraf and Beowulf. What had they been up to, these past two years? What adventures, what tragedies? Why was there always more to the world than Ramza could see?
The silence was broken by deep, rumbling laughter, like thunder rolling across a silent night. Belias was cackling, the flames sparking higher and higher along his skin, the crackling bolts of red-and-blue lightning arcing wider and wider, scoring fresh burns into the shattered stone around them, drawing up a hiss of a steam from the still-trickling fountains along the room's edge.
"Hypocrisy?" the demon sneered. "You think I care for hypocrisy? Humanity is nothing but hypocrisy, Beowulf Daravon. We fight and die for power, and dress it up in pretty words so we need not face the awful truth of what we do." He sneered at Beowulf. "Or do you not remember? Your heart-wrenching grief when I killed you precious chocobo? Did you still have the blood of the Valkyries on your hands while you wept for you mount?"
Beowulf shrugged. His smile had faded a little, though it had not quite gone out. "I did," Beowulf said. "I'll have to live with that. Live with playing pretend, like other people were just bit players in my story." He sighed, and his smile brightened. "I'm sure I'm making mistakes like that now. I'm sure I'll never stop. But I'll keep learning from them." He studied Wiegraf. "I learned a lot of that from you."
"You know nothing, human!" Belias spat. "I have the memories of eons. Cowards and squabbling cutthroats, the lot of you!"
"That's not true." Radia's voice shook a little, high but firm. She strode to Beowulf's side, pointing at Belias with her father's sword. "We fuck up. We do horrible things. We make mistakes. But we keep learning. We keep getting better." Her voice softened. "Like you did."
"And what did all my learning buy me?" Belias demanded, the flames crackling higher on his skin, all four hands flexing with murderous rage. "The Corps died, Radia. I died." His black eyes glared at Ramza. "All Ivalice rots beneath the ambitions of the powerful, their greed crushing us beneath its weight. Nobles killed the Corps. Nobles killed me."
"You're right," Ramza said, stepping between the two of them, Wiegraf's gold-washed sword dangling at his side. "But we're trying to change that."
"Can an insect dam a river?" Belias asked, the flames on his body leaping higher still, the heat of it intense enough that Ramza almost flinched backwards. "No. Power only answers to power." He spread his massive, stone-like arms wide, to encompass the castle around him. "We shall tear Ivalice down to the foundations, and build anew." Red-and-blue lightning crackled around the clenched fingers of his inner arms. "It is the only way."
"That's too bad," Beowulf growled, squaring himself so the broad blade was held vertical beside his head, and the thin one pointed straight towards Belias. "Because we're going to stop you."
"You will die trying!" Belias snarled, and the flames exploded off of his body, a rolling stormcloud of threshing fire. Ramza and Radia shied backwards, raising their blades and fighting to leech some of the heat off that fire: Beowulf leapt into the thick of it, carving it apart as though he were cutting through cloth, plunging through the flames in pursuit of Belias.
Beowulf had always been a damn good fighter, and in the path he'd carved through Baerd's men in Goug, Ramza had seen how much he'd improved. But even so, Ramza was briefly stunned by the speed and grace with which he moved now, cutting through the flames, flickering here and feinting there as his golden blades darted, sliced, and stabbed against the burning bulk of Belias. Beowulf's strikes were as smooth and confident as a painter's brushstrokes, his movements as deft and dexterous as a dancer's. He made this battle to the death look like art.
"All your flailing avails you naught!" roared Belias, and his inner arms speared out, in a bursting surge of crackling lightning. Beowulf sliced through the lightning with his broad blade, laughing, but one of the enormous stone-like arms smashed towards him. Beowulf twisted aside, too slow: the hand caught him across the chest, and hurled him back across the room. "Burn, child!"
The blue arm speared outwards, loosing a beam of azure destruction. Radia threw herself into its path as Ramza leapt towards Belias' back. One gold-tipped hand smashed towards him, and Ramza dodged backwards as the blue light drained away into Radia's blade.
"Your father's daughter, to the last!" sneered Belias, charging towards her. "Always siding with the powerful!"
"And you, Wiegraf?" Radia demanded, slashing at him. "You sided with the Church! You sided with demons!"
"I sided with power!" Belias roared, and a fresh wave of fire rolled off of his body and knocked Radia off her feet. Ramza cried out, lunged forward, drove his blade into Belias' powerful back, and felt the blade stick in the stone-like skin: he could not pull it out.
"Power!" Belias roared again, smashing at him with both arms as Ramza rolled away. The inner arms were gesturing again, the fire on the demon's skin fading into lukewarm trickles of smoke, a terrible shadow-girded light beginning to burn within the creature, crackling in the air around it. "Power enough to overturn this rotten world! Power enough to fell empires! Power enough that I will never kneel again!"
He snapped forward with both hands. An enormous beam of terrible light exploded towards Ramza, wide enough to scour the room. A red-headed shadow leapt to Ramza's side, raised her red-bladed sword. "Ramza!" Radia cried, and Ramza understood, and close his hand around her hand, so they both clutched at the hilt of Gaffgarion's sword.
Side by side, clutching at the same hilt, Ramza and Radia struggled against the wave of blue annihilation, drinking as deeply from it as they could, struggling to dissolve what they could not drain, struggling to survive what they could not dissolve. It far surpassed what Cuchulainn had loosed against Ramza in the depths of Lionel Castle: it would have burnt him to ash, left him a hollowed husk like a lightning-struck tree, but Radia was at his side, fighting with him once again, both of them glowing with the power Belias howled against them, filling with that too-hot fire, and they raised their own voices, roaring in turn, roaring and burning and fighting, and it was not enough, Belias was too strong, Ramza felt like he must explode or collapse under the weight of this terrible, all-consuming power.
Beowulf's tall shadow darted out to Belias' side, his thin, rapier-like blade in one hand, his broad, cleaver-like blade in the other. A twisting move, skewering into the beam with his rapier, than slashing down with the cleaver: a bizarre flash of shadow against light, and the beam carved off to one side like a redirected river, smashed through one section of the wall, the castle rumbled and creaked and cracked with the force of it, and there was Beowulf, barely a silhouette beside Belias' burning majesty, his blades embedded just beneath its neck.
"GO!" Beowulf cried, and Radia and Ramza flew, burned to brassy glory by their stolen fire, hurtling like comets across the room. Ramza was quite sure his feet never touched the ground: he simply willed, and moved like thought, with Radia beside him like a red-haired lightning bolt, their hands wrapped around the same hilt, moving in perfect unison, burning with stolen might.
"NO!" Belias thundered, rising to his feet, towering into the air, and Beowulf was dragged after him, dangling from the hilts of his embedded blades, and at almost the same moment Ramza released his grip on Radia's sword, felt the magic burn inside him with terrible heat, felt himself bursting with it, screaming for release, and in the same instant he released the hilt of her sword he leapt, leapt so terribly high he felt the crown of his head scrape against the ceiling.
Beneath him, Radia raced towards Belias, the vestiges of the dissolved beam glittering around her like azure constellations, her pale skin glowing with stolen magic. Ramza did not think she had ever looked more beautiful.
Then she was in front of Belias, plunging her red blade into his broad chest, and the demon screamed as the flames on its body ignited, an inferno that threatened to burn them all to ash. The panormaic picture window shattered in the force of that heat, glass laden with moving images raining down around them in a haze of dissolving magic.
And Ramza Beoulve, plunging through this rain of shattered glass, crashing into the rising heat of Belias' column of fire, remembered how it had felt to block Wiegraf's sword, remembered how it felt to pour power through his skin, into his armor, into himself, remembered how Rafa had described her own power, remembered what Agrias had tried to teach him, and he didn't have the runes for this, the time for this, the training for this, but he was stronger at this moment than he had ever been in his life, and he only needed it to work once.
He brought his hands together, willing all his stolen magic into his arms, and brought them smashing down upon Belias' skull. The force of the blow cracked in his arms and in his fingers: Belias fell forwards, crashed to his knees, as Ramza skidded clumsily down its burning back, his magic healing his burns and his broken fingers, and as he fell he caught against the hilt of Wiegraf's golden sword, still embedded in Belias' powerful back.
With the last of his stolen strength, Ramza grabbed the sword, yanked it from the monster's back, and then drove it with all his strength into the back of the demon's head.
Belias roared, and his field roared with him, the flames leaping up towards Ramza, his bones shaking with the force of Belias' struggles and the sheer stunning sound of that awful, weighty roar, desperately trying to wrangle some small part of that terrible, incredible magic, but then Beowulf and Radia were moving, drawing their blades and driving them in again: Radia, straight up below the jaw, and Beowulf, driving them into the sides of his neck, and the field convulsed (a huge, terrible movement, like feeling a wave building on the ocean, and Ramza could see that power, a submerged darkness burning beneath ordinary reality, threatening to swell and crush it beneath this far more terrible weight), and Ramza was not trying to fight it, drink it, overcome it, he was just trying to survive.
And just as suddenly as the field had erupted, it dulled, quieted down to glassy stillness. The flames on Belias' skin died down so low that not even embers remained. The darkness that lay beneath its body (beneath reality) no longer roiled, but curdled.
"I..." the voice was a husk of its former booming volume, thin and rasping with pain. It sounded more like Wiegraf than Belias ever had. "I...was supposed to be...strong. Strong enough to...end this...stop this..." His voice cracked. "Oh, Ajora...please..."
Belias sagged forwards, as far as he could with their four swords buried in his great-horned head. The darkness beneath the world thickened. The silence stretched.
There was a burst of intermingled darkness and light, and Ramza gasped against it, squinting his eyes. His sword was suddenly embedded in nothing, and he staggered backwards with the abrupt absence, still squinting even as the light dimmed. A moment later, and there was just the faint glow emanating from the hovering Aries Stone, sitting almost exactly where Belias' chest had been.
Then the glow went out, and the Stone dropped to the ground with a weighty thunk.
"Ah, Wiegraf," Beowulf said sadly, staring down at the Stone.
Ramza stared at the stone, and felt his own strange, strangled grief echoing inside of him. Wiegraf had represented something to him Ramza could barely describe. He had been a catalyst whose appearance had signaled a massive change in Ramza's life. With every meeting, the world had felt less certain, less stable. With every meeting, Ramza felt he understood this strange, confusing world a little better. From the first time, in the Sand Rat Cellar, to the last, in Orbonne-
"Alma!" Ramze explained.
"Right!" Beowulf shouted, snatching up the Stone. "Time to dwell on our losses later!"
He sprinted towards one of the broken doors. Ramza followed after, with Radia only a step behind.