Summary: An unexpected arrival at the battle leaves Rhea and her companions fleeing on the Enterprise. Even infused with the last Crystal of Light, she wonders how the Scions will combat the new monstrosity that now threatened the realm.
Garuda had fallen...or so Rhea had thought.
She was strong. Very strong. Though it had been a hard pressed battle, Rhea thought she could go another round with her when it was clear the primal still stood. She possessed the eikon's crystal now, after all - the final one that filled her with a Light and strength she could scarcely describe. She was empowered by Hydaelyn. She could finish her.
Then Gaius van Baelsar, the Black Wolf of Garlemald, showed up. Antagonistic and egotistical, he pressed Garuda into a corner between himself and Rhea and in a fit of desperation, Garuda forced the captive beastmen, captured previously by her followers, to summon their primals.
Garuda had been hard enough. Having to defeat Ifrit and Titan again, as well as the Lady of the Vortex, while contending with whatever the Black Wolf had up his sleeve, was more than even Rhea could combat. She knew when she was outmatched and that was it.
Retreating back to the Enterprise with Alphinaud and Cid, she left the Garlean to deal with the primals. Rhea had hoped that he would be no match for them, but as she stood on the deck of the airship and witnessed the Garlean mechanical monstrosity drop from the heavens, she knew her hopes were for naught. Before it even began its attack, before Gaius paraded his monologue out to the primal, she knew whatever he had created was worse than any eikon she had faced.
As beast-god after beast-god became drained into the machine, transforming and empowering it further, a deep unease rested within her breast. How in the seven hells were they going to defeat that? Even before being empowered by the primals, it had the power to effortlessly kill them and absorb their essence.
She should have stayed. She should have fought the primals. She should have stopped him before that thing had a chance to grow stronger.
Rhea watched as the Allagan machine, as Gaius had called it, flew away with him in hand. Though she felt fear for what this would bring, she also felt a fierce determination. Gaius had to be stopped, his creation destroyed, and Rhea knew deep within herself that she was meant to end this threat, no matter what it took of her.
This. This was her destiny, her purpose. While Minfilia and the others needed to be rescued and the Scions rebuilt, she knew that on the horizon she was meant to bring Gaius and his mechanical pet to heel. Many and more wheels were in motion that she scarce could imagine but Rhea refused to be waylaid by the unknown.
They would rebuild. They would save their friends. They would find a way. And then, they would take on the Black Wolf and save Eorzea from the encroaching darkness.
They had to.