THE FOURTH UNIVERSE
CHAPTER 8
He shrugged while feasting his eyes on the classic steadily purring in front of him. An old Cephiron Inline VIII. Fully charged, with a spankin' new paint-job to boot. And grayish-silver has always been his color. He would never have it any other way. But the truth is, he'd settle for a more common automobile if need be. Better that than anything less. He would never be caught dead riding a chocobo.
Turning his attention to the town exit, he ponders once more. Should he finally do it? It's been a long time, but he strongly doubt if they had already forgotten. Or at least forgiven. What if they refuse? He had nowhere else to go.
He chuckled, for no apparent reason save the vicious irony of the situation. Seeking for approval, he tosses a questioning glance toward the two already inside the car. The beefier one nodded. It's now or never.
"Holy shit, I've never seen a monster like that!" Zell blurted out.
Below, scores of white specks, which appear to be people wearing lab gowns, are frantically scampering for their lives. Behind them, the once illustrious form of the Lunar Gate slowly succumbed to infernal fires as some isolated explosion sprout out sporadically. In the middle of the hellish flames stood an imposing and frightful silhouette. The creature was spewing unearthly howls coming from two dragon-like heads protruding from a human-like anatomy so massive, it could easily shame that of an Iron Giant. And instead of two, there seem to be four arms extending from the main torso and appended by four gigantic claws. Another body seemed to be jutting out from behind the monster, an auxiliary form similar to a mutated Mesmerize's half-body.
"You're kidding, right? Tell me you're just trying to scare me." Irvine apprehensively snapped at Kiros on the Ragnarok's radio. "Because it's not working. I'm not scared. I'm petrified with fear!"
"Sorry, Irvine. But that's what our preliminary Scan analysis showed. It calls itself Hades Sentinel. And right now I think the reason behind the name is quite obvious." Kiros returned. "We'd try mobilizing our forces to neutralize it, but there's no more time. At the rate it's going, in less than an hour it could reach Esthar City itself. At the moment, you're the only thing we can come up with to take that monster out."
"This is terrible!" Quistis anxiously blurted out. "A monster that may as well be a composite of Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon. Where did this thing come from anyway, Kiros?"
"Umm I guess the responsibility is ours, Quistis. When we destroyed Lunatic Pandora six months ago, we didn't bother to address the threat of the Crystal Pillar's power. We had no idea of the effect of having it dumped in Great Salt Lake."
"The Great Salt Lake a place fabled for its immense reserves of untapped magical energy." Muttered a contemplating Siegfried. "They have a point. The last place you'd want to dump a monster-attracting entity like the Crystal Pillar in is Great Salt Lake."
"There's no point in discussing that, guys." Squall voiced out. "Right now our main concern is to take this monster down. Even if we're not anywhere near our usual fighting form."
"That'd almost be suicide, Squall." Rinoa butted in.
"I know but right now we really don't have any choice." Turning his attention to the pilot, "Zell, operation Blitzkrieg."
"Here we go! Let's kick some serious ass!!!"
The majestic Ragnarok nosed down in response to Zell's forward drive. Letting out an excited roar, Zell pulled the throttle as far back as he can, channeling tremendous rocket energy to the Estharian flagship's main thrusters to bring it to a howling dive towards Hades Sentinel. Beside him, and equally hyped up Selphie indiscriminately drummed her fingers against the firing trigger of the phasor cannon to bombard the hideous monster with relentless pulse-wave fire that connected with impunity. Hades Sentinel staggered back, visibly hurt by the sudden assault.
"WHOO-HOOO!!!" the Trabian prodigy screamed in delight. However, her jubilant expression was replaced with alarm when the monster displayed incredible resilience by quickly returning fire with destructive energy bolts from its two gaping mouths.
"Oh shoot!!! ZELL, BREAK RIGHT!!!"
Banking hard right, the Ragnarok narrowly avoided the powerful counter-attack. Opting to regroup, Zell allowed a few seconds to elapse before maneuvering the spacecraft for another approach. Squall, an idea forming in his mind, then issued a quick order.
"Zell, come in very, very low behind it. Try not to let it see you. Then at the last second, pull up."
"Squall, you're not thinking what I'm Oh man! You're not..!"
"Just do as I say, Zell!"
Reluctantly complying, Zell once again brought the Ragnarok to a steep dive, gradually leveling up as they approached ground level. Speeding towards their foe with merely ten feet of ground clearance, the SeeD pilot waited for the closest possible distance before tugging forcefully on the stick. And just before the crimson dragon ship flew past the mighty creature's head, Squall immediately pulled on the eject lever of his seat to send him flying out of the Ragnarok.
"SQUALL!!!" Rinoa screamed just as the auxiliary protective glass panel quickly closed in the cockpit to replace the one that flew off. "DAMMIT! LET'S GO BACK! LET'S GO BACK!!!"
Roaring rabidly, Hades Sentinel struggled like mad to reach the stubborn SeeD tightly clamping his arms around one of its scaly necks. But his massive arms were too bulky and muscle-bound to reach far enough behind him. Squall knew it would only be a matter of time before the beast managed to shake him off. Taking advantage of this rare opportunity, he swung the Lionheart across Hades Sentinel's neck. Clutching the blunt edge of the blade tightly with his left hand, the intrepid SeeD commander poured all his strength in one furious tug that forced the blade of the Lionheart inside the tough flesh. Hades Sentinel screamed in unbelievable agony when the mighty gunblade sliced halfway into its neck. Its subsequent, tormented bucking eventually threw Squall off it, leaving the Lionheart still lodged deep inside the bloodied wound.
"Damn!" Squall exclaimed when he realized what happened. Fortunately, his suicidal attack bought enough time for his crew to join him as Hades Sentinel continued to wince from the immense pain. Above them, the Ragnarok piloted by Zell and Selphie circled in for another approach. As the vile monstrosity started to regain its balance, Squall gathered his crew to begin their attack.
"Let him have it!" Squall shot out together with a well-aimed Meltdown attack that hit Hades Sentinel dead on. But to their surprise, there was no subtle change in its skin color to indicate affliction of the Vit 0 status ailment. Squall then decided on a conglomerated approach. "Let's do this together, team!"
Four Meltdown blasts bombarded the disfigured beast simultaneously, instantly shifting it's metallic silver shade to that of light purple. It was quickly followed by another devastating cannon barrage from the attacking Ragnarok that pummeled the violently lunging monster.
Taking advantage of its confusion, Rinoa reached for a Phoenix Pinion inside her SeeD pouch and hurled it on the ground. It then burst to form a crawling avian figure on the ground, which subsequently gave birth to the spectacular Phoenix firebird. Screeching majestically, the Phoenix unloaded its live-giving Rebirth Flame, whose debilitating heat Hades Sentinel promptly absorbed.
"Yep, it absorbs elemental attacks. Very Omega Weapon-ish." Irvine sarcastically remarked while casting Aura on himself. Quistis quickly did the same while Squall, with the absence of his weapon, decided to go for Triple right after casting Aura on Rinoa. The raven-haired SeeD then proceeded to activate her sorceress powers.
"Sieg, the Soul Hunter is out of the question. You'll just end up re-energizing it." Quistis promptly warned Siegfried, who also opted to cast Triple on himself.
And while the Ragnarok kept Hades Sentinel preoccupied, Squall, Quistis and Irvine called out a summons to their newly acquired Guardian Forces. Lobo, emerging from the boiling semi-fluid surface of the sun, dashed into space in a lightning-quick, zigzagging path that eventually led him over Hades Sentinel, where he spewed blazing solar plasma on the flinching beast. His partner, Polaris, solidified from the ionized field surrounding the planet and fired a humming magnetic stream that nearly pulled Hades Sentinel apart. And somewhere at the other side of the globe, a missile silo opened its massive gates, from where a blurred figure blasted off with explosive power. One second later, the speeding Lockheed rampaged at Mach 20 in front of the staggered monster, producing tightly packed air molecules which consequently decompressed with tremendous force to deliver a destructive sonic blast that pummeled Hades Sentinel.
"Do you feel it?" Quistis marveled at the after-effect of the last GF. "We're Hasted!"
"Man, these new GFs are totally awesome!" Irvine exclaimed in wonder.
"Yeah" Squall retorted. "But that thing's still standing." He added while gazing apprehensively at Hades Sentinel as it reared its two heads toward the bold warriors. Not wasting any time, Irvine cut loose with a barrage of Armor Piercing ammo fire that repeatedly pierced the tough hide of the fear-inspiring creature. Rinoa quickly followed with an unusually powerful Ultima spell, doing five times the damage due to her sorceress ability. Not to be left behind, Squall and Siegfried simultaneously attacked with Triple-casted Meteor spells.
Quistis was about to unload with her highly damaging Shockwave Pulsar, when she was stopped by an uncanny perception of an alien presence trapped inside Hades Sentinel.
" Valhalla?"
She then concentrated for a Draw maneuver that pulled the strange entity into her.
But her action consequently gave the monster the dreadful inch that enabled him to square off for a counter-attack. Siegfried felt his blood freeze when he saw the murderous beast aiming for Quistis. With his heart racing insanely, the former pacifist frantically scampered to save the embattled instructor. And just as Siegfried managed to shove Quistis aside, violently crackling energy cut a swath across the air and struck him directly. They didn't even hear him scream.
"No!" a stunned Quistis stammered upon catching sight of Siegfried's horribly burned body. Too horrified to even speak out, she closed her eyes tight, cursing herself for what her negligence resulted into.
"Quistis! We need you here!" a panicky Irvine blurted out while pumping in the last of his Pulse ammo into Hades Sentinel. "Snap out of it!!!"
Struggling to regain her composure, the dazed instructor quickly stood up to rejoin her comrades. The creature had just hurled Squall against the rocky ground with one of its four claws, and is now ominously fixing its attention on the other two SeeDs. Rinoa tried to push the monster back with an Apocalypse spell, a move that proved to be an exercise in futility. She did manage to dodge the beast's bone-crushing swing, but Irvine wasn't as lucky, as when he was caught by the blow in the middle of reloading. Summoning all her strength, the beleaguered Rinoa then unleashed the unfettered fury of the deadly Shooting Star for a staggering impact that sent the hideous monster reeling back. Zell and Selphie again quickly followed up, as they maneuvered the Ragnarok for another assault wave that brought it careening down the great creature with all guns blazing relentlessly. The area quickly assumed the hellish scene of a burning war zone, with the obstinate SeeDs unrelentingly charging at the powerful beast which doesn't seem to be sustaining much damage at all.
Without warning, a mysterious hush permeated throughout the surroundings. Puzzled by the sudden stillness, Rinoa and Quistis looked around frenetically before affixing their attention on Hades Sentinel. His massive body is quivering, first steadily, then slowly building up in force as if a tremendous explosion is about to occur. The mighty beast then turned heavenward, with its two head and four clawed appendages starting to emit yellowish-white brilliance in preparation for its deadliest attack.
The fragmented radiance then exploded. An explosion without sound.
Ground zero. Low rumblings spread their resonance for as far as anyone can hear. Globular solid light energy radiated from the center and fanned out in alarmingly rapid rate – consuming everything it touched and leaving only a terrain made of smoothly polished glass. Simultaneously moving its catastrophic power upward, the infernal field proceeded to dissipate the dark clouds with its devouring resplendence.
It is the Upheaval. The most powerful, most deathly cruel hell breath this universe has ever laid eyes on. Two thousand years ago, it destroyed an entire civilization of a far away world. Two millennia previous, it brought to an end four billion innocent and unsuspecting lives.
Two microseconds from now, with a greatly scaled down might, it will merely wipe out seven. Seven who just happened to be this planet's last hope.