FINAL FANTASY: INQUISITION
By Thomas Knapp
Act Five- Scene Three
Cid was somewhat curious when Midas blew right through the Outlaw camp, paused ever so briefly to promise Borz that he would return, then left as rapidly as he had arrived. For the briefest moment, he was confounded with Midas's action. Then, when he saw the new Summoner riding a chocobo directly towards Cairos, smiled. "Well, I suppose I don't blame you, Midas…"
City of Cairos…
Midas had always thought that Cairos was a particularly scummy sort of city. It wasn't particularly well designed, and just looked like a terrible place to live. His brief tenure as the city's monarch hadn't helped much either.
However, the city NOW shamed even that. A depressing mood sat about the city, and it was even more unkempt that it even had been before. He had become accustomed to the sight of lifeless bodies littering the landscape, Karma's handiwork left a great deal of those, but these bodies lining the streets of Cairos were NOTHING like what he had seen before.
Karma's draining merely ripped the life from her victims. Whatever had done this to the masses of bodies was not totally Karma's doing. The faces were gaunt, skin in various sickly shades of pale yellow. Judging from the bloody clothes on every corpse, it looked like the victims had been bleeding everywhere over their body.
Midas bent over to examine one of the bodies a little more closely, when he heard a feeble voice, racked with coughs, trying to warn him away. Midas straightened, then realized he recognized this person. The two of them ran into each other on occasion when Midas had to go underground to get out of Cairos. With a hint of embarrassment, Midas realized that he had never taken the time to learn this benefactor's name.
The old man regarded Midas's new attire closely, then said, "Wow… a new look, Midas? I like it."
Midas smiled slightly, and then thought, 'Maybe I pull this look off better than you, Hades.'
Humph! The Eidolon Lord snorted. He obviously didn't agree.
Midas's old friend then jerked to attention. "You shouldn't have come here. There's been a wicked disease that's been ripping through this kingdom. The people as a whole had been growing increasingly weaker, then all of a sudden this plague hit us. I think that it took advantage of our weakened state." The man coughed again, and Midas noted a trickle of blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth. "The contagion seems to spread just by breathing the same air. You might be sick already."
I wouldn't bet on it. Hades told Midas. He doesn't realize that you have some added insurance in that regard. I'm not about to let you be felled by some disease.
"I think I'll be fine, sir…" Midas began, "And I can't leave just yet. There's someone here I have to find."
"Well… whoever it may be is probably already dead, or might as well be."
I doubt that. Hades commented.
"I doubt that." Midas stated at the same time, then smirked. "She's here… but I'm not terribly sure where…" He could feel Tamara's presence somewhere in the city, but was having a hard time focusing on where it came from.
The old man's eyes brightened in realization. "Oh… you mean Tamara, the Inquisitor chick! Yeah, she appeared in some strange green cocoon about three months ago. Doesn't make much sense… I mean, she's in the Smithy Square, in the back alley of Orath's Metal Shoppe. Why are you hunting her down? I know that the two of you weren't exactly the best of friends, but she won't be getting in your way in her state, let me assure you."
Midas didn't have time to explain that he had grown considerably more fond of Tamara after leaving Cairos, nor did it appear that the old man did either. He continued coughing, and Midas noted small dots of blood beginning to seep out of the man's pores.
"I shouldn't be here long, dear sir. You on the other hand, need your rest."
After another fit of coughing, the old man stated grimly, "Rest won't matter. All it does is postpone a horrific and painful end. You just make sure YOU stay well. You're the first healthy and energetic person I've seen in some time. Try and keep it that way."
"I shall, sir. I bid you farewell." Midas said with a slight nod, and darted down the street, trying hard not to let his eyes dwell too long on the dead and the dying. Keep your mind focused on your goal. Hades reminded periodically. You can't do anything for those already gone. Focus on saving those that still can be saved.
It seemed like yesterday that he was ducking around these streets after liberating a small supply of goods from some of the less intelligent merchants in the city. It was amazing the difference a few months could make. Finally, he reached the Smithy Square, were the majority of Cairos blacksmiths had set up their craft. Orath had been known as one of the more prominent smiths in the kingdom, his handiwork gracing the majority of the Cairos army as well as select merchants and nobles who could afford the finest in craftsmanship.
The back alley was where he used to set up shipments to various places in all the five kingdoms, and had been one of Midas's favorite raiding haunts until Orath finally got frustrated enough to actually pay the money for guards.
It was in this back alley that he found Tamara, floating in a familiar cocoon filled with green ooze. However, now that he had located her… he had no idea what to do next.
Even Hades seemed a little uncertain. This is one interesting dilemma, and it is far beyond anything I had expected. We won't be able to just bust our way in and rip her out of there. She's gonna have to help us.
'How do I go about doing that?' Midas asked in his thoughts.
Well… we CAN contact her. Just place your hand on the cocoon. My power can get through so that the two of you can at least talk. But be forewarned… she may not be terribly willing to leave.
'Why do you say that?'
Come on… you can sense it as well as I. She KNOWS we're here.
Midas examined the translucent cocoon again, trying to find something to contradict what he had felt in his gut. Tamara's eyes, which had been clenched shut, had opened slightly, the small slits not exactly showing excitement at Midas's presence.
'Well… I'm not just going to let her mope.' Midas announced to Hades, and placed his hand on the thick membrane separating Tamara from the outside world.
Instantly, his mind was flooded with Tamara's image. She regarded Midas, and said, "You're here."
"Yes. You have to get out of there. We've got a lot of work to do." Midas stated, holding out a mental hand for the Knight.
Tamara reeled back, rejecting the offer. "I'm afraid."
"Of what?" This was so much unlike Tamara that he just about outright discarded the notion. Tamara hadn't been afraid of anything.
"Of you."
Midas blinked. This was not what he had anticipated. "You're afraid of… me?"
"Remember when we first met?" Tamara asked.
Midas had tried to FORGET that little run-in. "It was right here… in this alley, as I recall."
"Correct."
Midas paused, and replied, "I don't see the connection."
Tamara whispered softly, "You will."
Same alley, 4 years ago…
Tamara watched the back alley from her position above Orath's smithy. Had she not been an Inquisitor hired to end the robbing, and merely watching the show, she might have found it amusing. Every time that the tanned craftsman would place a crate of equipment on the cart he was preparing to ship, a pair of hands would emerge from around the corner, and silently slip away with it. Darting around to the next corner, the red robed figure would hand it off to a diminutive accomplice in the next alley over who stashed it away in a sewage drain. Orath would then return to find the crate missing.
However, Tamara WAS an Inquisitor hired to end the robbing, and thus, the show wasn't particularly amusing. As a matter of fact, she planned to end it right now. Stepping forward, Tamara slipped down a small drainage pipe, landing in front of the blonde haired thief with a loud clank of her armor.
Tamara recognized the clothes that the young man wore. On any other day, she might have felt some pity for the young man wearing them, for they symbolized an existence that could not be particularly comfortable. Unfortunately for him, this was not one of those days. All she saw was a thief.
If the robber was surprised by Tamara's entrance, he didn't show it. "I was wondering when you were going to come down off that roof." He said blandly, then walked right by her.
Tamara had grown used to being able to command at least a grudging respect from others. Everyone knew the armoring and standard bore by an Inquisitor Knight, and regarded it with at due courtesy. Thus, she was a bit upset at being so casually brushed aside.
She stormed after the Red Mage, who appeared to ignore the intentionally loud clanking of her footsteps as he handed the stolen crate off to his accomplice, a man who barely went up to her waist, wearing the shrouded clothes of a Black Mage. The little mage yelped, and dropped the crate on his foot.
"I demand that you return that stolen property and come with me!" Tamara ordered.
"You're STILL here?" the Red Mage frowned, as he picked up the crate his accomplice had dropped, settling it into the drain. "Get going. I'll meet up with you on schedule." He told the Black Mage. The little man regarded Tamara somewhat fearfully, but in the end nodded and ducked into the drain along with the stolen cargo.
"I am Inquisitor Knight First Class Tamara, and I ORDER you to…" Tamara began again.
The Red Mage interrupted, "Did I ask you your name?"
Flabbergasted by the question, Tamara answered honestly before she realized she had opened her mouth. "No…"
"Then doesn't it seem likely that I didn't want to know it?" The Red Mage asked simply, his facial expression never changing.
"I don't care if you wanted to know it or NOT!" Tamara replied, taken aback by this… boy's (she finally realized just how young the Red Mage looked) disrespectful demeanor. "You have stolen property that does not belong to you!"
"Maybe if my kind wasn't hunted like dogs, we wouldn't need to take weapons to defend ourselves from renegade Hill Giants." The Red Mage retorted.
"That is not my concern!" Tamara shouted, temporarily losing her cool.
The mage allowed an ever so slight smirk to creep onto his level features. "Good, because YOUR concerns are none of MINE either. Now if you don't mind, I have to leave. I'll have to hurry now that you've held me up."
Once again, the mage walked right by her, out of the alley, and into the main street. Tamara had been used to being threatened by thugs, ogled and groped by drunken slobs, and generally being mistreated by those on the wrong side of the law. But she had never been outright IGNORED. She finally snapped.
She hit the main street surging with Trance energy. The Red Mage noticed this, and momentarily panicked. In the back of her mind, she deduced that her opponent was familiar with what was happening. He looked like he was going to take off in a sprint, but Tamara's sword slash that just about removed his bangs convinced him that running was not the best plan.
Even as the mage drew his sword and began a defensive, Tamara knew that she had the upper hand. With each maneuver, it became apparent from the look in the young mage's eyes that he knew it too. She slowly backed him up against a support beam for one of the multitude of stone archways that had been placed all over the city.
Tamara no longer was interested in merely bringing her opponent to justice. Right now she was debating whether to give him the escape of a quick, painless death. Deciding that she might as well, Tamara's slash came downward with enough force to split stone.
That fact was proven when the young mage, blessed by Tamara's split second indecision, was able to roll away from the support. The blade whistled through the stone at a sharp angle, cutting a razor thin gash through it from one end to the other. With a grating sound, the support collapsed, dropping about a ton of carved stone to road level.
Now the Red Mage was flabbergasted. "What the HELL are you doing, you crazy wench?" He shouted, "There could have been people on that arch! I thought you were supposed to PROTECT them!"
Tamara's own Trance aura almost dispelled in shock as she watched her mage opponent follow suit with a Battle Trance of his own. The whisper that was her logical mind concluded that this was why the mage hadn't been terribly taken aback witnessing hers.
When the duel quickly resumed, Tamara found herself suddenly merely on an even keel. This swordsman was GOOD, at her level, if not a little bit better. Tamara leaped onto the smashed stone, and with one giant jump reached one of the stable portions of the arch. Without a moment's delay, the Red Mage followed suit, now pressing the issue, forcing Tamara on the defensive.
After trading and parrying several more blows, Tamara felt her energy waning, and her Trance aura dispelled as suddenly as it raged through her. Her rational mind once again clicked to the fore. His aura flared into being considerably later than hers did. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and it was all Tamara could do to keep from being butchered by the enraged mage.
She was so focused on parrying and dodging her opponent's dancing blade that she didn't realize that she was getting perilously close to the side of the arch. Her foot tripped on the slight lip along the edge, and with a startled scream tumbled off the arch, limbs flailing.
She soon realized that she had fallen next to where one of the city's weavers set up shop. She landed in a large fishing net that had been hung to dry out the fibers. Fortunately they were dry just enough. Two opposite corners gave, and it sent her tumbling to the ground, stopping a less than 10 centimeters off the ground. The loose ends tangled in on themselves, in essence trapping Tamara in the fishing net.
Her sword had clanked to the ground out of reach, and Tamara squirmed futilely against her impromptu bonds. Her panic rose as the Red Mage bounced from the archway to the weaver's roof, then to the ground below. She bit her lower lip in anticipation of her death when the mage's Trance dispelled.
Almost instantly, he was back to his level cool, although panting somewhat from his exertions. Tamara finally got the nerve to speak to this man who could Trance like her. "Who… are you?"
The Red Mage strode right up to Tamara, their noses almost touching. With the level tone he had used for most of their meeting, he said, "People call me Midas. I'm an Outlaw. As much as I'd love to ensure that your psychotic crusade be put to an end right here and now, I am now grievously late for my rendezvous, and must be on my way."
He smiled deviously, and in parting, leaned forward, brushing a light kiss across the side of her mouth. The Red Mage whirled around, and with a flip of his hand in parting, said, "Ta Ta." Then he was gone.
The sounds of approaching backup finally could be heard, but Tamara knew that they would be far too late to catch Midas. Instead, she hung in silence, her mind wrapping around what had just transpired.
"He's… mocking me." Tamara finally whispered, "He could have killed me honorably. Instead… he's taunting me…"
She threw her head to the sky, and screamed in sheer vehemence, "MIDAS! IF IT IS THE LAST THING I DO, I SWEAR THAT I'LL MAKE YOU BEG FOR ME TO KILL YOU!"
Present Day…
Gee, you sure had the way with the ladies back then, didn't you? Hades chuckled when Tamara finished the story of her first meeting with Midas.
"I'm still confused as to what you are trying to point out, Tamara." Midas said softly.
Tamara sighed in frustration. "Don't you see how much we have changed? I HATED you… then when our adventure began I began to like you. Now…" She paused, and finally continued in almost a whisper, "I want that relationship to change again… but I'm afraid that…"
She clenched her fists, and howled, "WHY did you make me love you? Why did you do this to me? You made me feel this way with your honor… your courage… your decency… the kindness you hide under that passive shell. I want you to feel the same way about me…"
"I do feel the same way…" Midas admitted, but was cut off.
"But you love Yura too, don't you?" Tamara demanded.
Midas cringed. This was going to be fun to explain. "Well, yeah… but…"
Tamara sobbed suddenly, "I knew it… Midas, I can't live that way… I can't live in limbo like this. You aren't being fair to me or to Yura. But then, I suppose I can't blame you for not being able to make a choice."
Midas groaned, "The choice was made for me, Tamara."
This caused the Knight to question, "What do you mean?"
"Did you know that Karma was my mother?"
Tamara gasped, "Are you serious?"
Midas nodded, "When I underwent the summoner's trial, the truth was revealed to me. Karma's name used to be Ailona, and she was a Dragoon for Cairos, not for Wodensland as she claimed. Both my grandparents were summoners, as it turns out."
"Oh."
"That's not all of it. Karma gave birth to a second child after the Revolution, a child like me…" He let his explanation drop off, figuring Tamara could pick up where he was going with this.
"You mean… Yura's… your… sister?" Tamara concluded with a start.
Midas merely nodded. "But it wouldn't have mattered. I had chosen you a long time ago. Since Hamil, once I think about it. When I received that letter from you, saying you had given yourself up to Sabol… I couldn't bear it. The thought that you wouldn't be with me tore me apart. I tried to tell you before the attack on the Temple of Alexander, but we got interrupted…"
Tamara didn't say any more. She flung herself into Midas's embrace, and his mental conversation shattered into pieces. Back in his physical self, Midas blinked several times, then looked up at the cocoon holding Tamara. Backing away, he watched the translucent shell split, and the contents spill out in a sloppy gush. Catching Tamara as she fell, he pulled her away from the now shattered cocoon, pushing away goo from her mouth while she gasped for breath.
It was everything he could do to keep from crying in joy as the color returned to Tamara's face. Green slime clung to her hair and armor, and she weakly brushed some away from her eyes. "I'm here." She muttered with a faint voice.
She's still quite weak from Karma's draining, but she will recover. Hades diagnosed. Midas was just so overjoyed to see her alive that he almost didn't even realize that the Eidolon Lord had spoken. As he bent down to place a gentle kiss on her lips, the ground beneath them shook violently.
Looking up, he saw two behemoths with human chests and arms sandwiched between the head and legs of a bull. They thudded to a stop outside the alley, their meaty hands clenching metal clubs about 2 meters in length, and called out, "Hey… I know you're in there. Why don't you just put the lady back where you found her, and come out here so we can talk to you, huh?"
Oh boy… Hades moaned. Sacred and Minotaur… they are demi-Eidolons.
'Demi-Eidolons?' Midas asked in query.
Demi-Eidolons are the offspring of mortals and Eidolons. During the early eras of creation, it wasn't that uncommon, but the practice died out as humankind became more plentiful. Sacred and Minotaur were special cases. They were so chaotic that they became dangerous to anyone around them, and had to be sealed away. No doubt Karma freed them.
'They're THAT powerful?'
Unfortunately they're about as solid and imposing as mountains. I wouldn't recommend fighting them at the moment, not with Tamara pretty much helpless.
'Wonderful…'
Fortunately, they're about as SMART as mountains too. You might not be able to get rough with them right now, but I can't imagine they'd be too difficult to outwit.
Midas smiled deviously. As much as he loved besting an opponent in combat, it was SO much more fun to make one look like an utter fool. Midas called out to the minotaurs, "Well, I kinda need help with that. You see she's awful heavy, and I can't get her back in there. Think you can give me a hand?"
Tamara grunted something that Midas assumed was an objection to that statement.
The Demi-Eidolons paused, then rubbed their furred chins. Finally Sacred said, "Yeah, sure… we can do that for ya. Just stay right there." The two creatures stepped into the narrow alley… at the same time.
"Hey… move it!" Minotaur hollered at his brother.
"No… I was here first! YOU move it!" Sacred bellowed back.
While the two fought to get past the other. Midas gathered Tamara into his arms more than easily enough to belay any previous comments. Gaining a running start, he leaped, planting his boot on Sacred's head, and used the creature as a springboard up to the top of Orath's smithy. With a laugh, Midas darted for the city limits as fast as he could manage
The pair looked up, and Minotaur said, "You know… I don't think she was that heavy after all…"
"You think he was lying to us?" Sacred asked.
"Looks like it."
Sacred sat in thoughtful silence for a moment before finally saying, "What a bummer."
End Scene Three