9)----------
In Which, Rydia exceeds her natural abilities.
Rydia stirred and awoke slowly,
stretching her stiff limbs and yawning. Then she shook her head and looked around.
She'd been lying asleep, sheltered,
wrapped up in one of Bahamut's wings.
Noticing her movement, he turned to
regard her.
"You can't do it," he
shortly informed her.
She frowned.
"Who says?" she snapped,
yawning again.
"No one has to say
anything. You couldn't even complete
the spell for a trial without passing out halfway through."
Yawning one last time, Rydia though
about that.
"Oh . . . is that why I was
asleep."
"Yes, I didn't see any point in
waking you. Figured you'd do better if
allowed to recover from the drain."
"The drain. Hm. The drain of the DRAIN. Funny."
"Thank you," Bahamut
replied graciously, flicking her out of his wing and onto her feet.
"How long have I been
out?"
"Around three days. Here, eat something." He nodded his head towards a large bundle on
the ground.
Looking inside, Rydia found that it
was cram-jammed full of food.
"Where did this come
from?" she asked, pulling out a banana.
Bahamut shrugged.
"A group of Yokels came up here
sometime yesterday from a nearby Village. Something about, 'Please, don't eat the Maiden, accept our offering
instead.' "
Rydia grinned.
"They thought you were going to
eat me?"
"Apparently so."
"Yokels. Hm. You don't eat Maidens." Then she looked up. "Do
you?"
Bahamut cocked his head at her.
"Oh, I have. If the situation calls for it."
For a moment, Rydia lost her
appetite. But then it came back, and
she ate the banana.
"Anyway, you can't do it,"
he repeated.
She swallowed quickly.
"I've gotta try, though,"
she told him. "You taught me the
spell, thank you kindly, now I have to go knock myself out and use it."
"Knocking yourself out is all
you'll do," Bahamut informed her, shaking his head. "I should've known from the start. I just figured that since you have such a mastery
over black magic, that you might be able to handle it. But it exceeds your natural abilities."
Rydia shrugged.
"That doesn't change what I
have to do."
Bahamut sighed inwardly. Why was this girl always out trying to kill
herself . . .
"You're still determined to go
through with this?" he asked.
She nodded, her mouth too full to
reply.
He sighed outwardly.
"Then I suppose I should give
you a ride to Eblan."
"Would you?"
"I suppose. Tell me, do you have any idea what you're
going to do?"
She shrugged.
"I've gotta find Masamune. Then I DRAIN it, then I find out from Edge
exactly what's going on."
"The Airship left a few hours
ago."
Rydia dropped the muffin she'd been
about to eat.
"What?"
"They took off in Baron's
direction."
Picking up the muffin with a grim
expression, Rydia said, "Then I guess we don't have much time."
"It also means their defenses
will be down."
Rydia glanced up at him with a grin,
catching his meaning.
"True. Very true."
A few minutes later, they took to
the air, heading back to Eblan. Rydia
still couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive. Bahamut really didn't think she'd be able to pull off the DRAIN9
spell, and she wasn't very certain of her ability herself. Still, she knew she had to give it a try.
The Kingdom appeared in the
distance, and quickly grew closer. A
quick glance confirmed what she'd been told - the Falcon was nowhere in
sight.
"Hang on," the great
Dragon told her smugly.
Without waiting to give her a chance
to do so, he dived down low over the City and construction camps, scaring the
Yokels. Then he swooped back, almost
straight up.
"Still there?" he asked
her in a jubilant tone.
"Nope!"
"Good! Now for the Castle! Get ready to drop off!"
"Right!"
While the Yokels continued panicking
and rioting, Bahamut soared amiably over to the Castle and hovered for a
moment.
A group appeared on the main balcony
as Rydia watched. She managed to pick
out the Cook among them, but Kormag was not.
"Hang on," Bahamut told
her again, and turned sharply, swooping down almost into the Castle, the force
of his wings knocking the group off the balcony and into the moat. He veered back up, then back down, this time
pausing enough to let Rydia disembark.
Without giving her a word or waiting
for one, he shot back up into the air, and up into space.
Rydia spared an instant to watch him
go, knowing that he'd come again when she next needed him. Then she turned and hurried into the Castle.
Edge had told her how he'd locked
Masamune up in the chamber deep in the Castle, so she decided to start
there. Chances were, Kormag and his
posse would've been unable to remove it from wherever it had landed, so it
would still be there.
No one opposed her as she shot
through the halls, although she received many hostile looks. The way she figured it, they'd seen that
she'd arrived with Bahamut, and no one, no one on this Earth in their
right mind wanted Bahamut upset with them. So no one stood in her way.
It took a little time, seeing as how
she wasn't very familiar with the corridors of the Castle, but she did
eventually locate the chamber Edge had told her about.
And Masamune hovered directly in the
center of the room, casting a faint, eerie glow.
It was like they'd first seen it, up
below the Lunarian Palace. Without the
altar, of course, but other than that . . .
"Masamune," she said
curtly, "what have you done with Edge?"
Making no reply, Masamune continued
to float silently.
"Masamune," she said
again, this time a rough edge to her tone. "Don't think I'm just fooling around. I want him back, and I'll do whatever I must to get him!"
The Sword glowed a little darker.
"Do you think to intimidate me,
mortal?" it inquired in the same unearthly voice she remembered.
She glared straight at it.
"Yes," she replied.
The door to the chamber slammed shut
behind her. For a moment, everything
was in total darkness.
After a moment though, her eyes
adjusted. The first thing she realized
was that she was not in the chamber of Castle Eblan any longer.
"Where are we?" she
demanded of Masamune, who remained hovering a few feet in front of her.
"Your final resting
place," it informed her, beginning to glow with a faint green tinge.
Realizing that it was revving up to
do some mischief to her, Rydia clenched her teeth and began chanting the spell
she'd been taught by Bahamut.
It was almost a race between the two
of them - to see who could finish their spell first.
As she reached the halfway mark of
her chanting, she felt her legs begin to give way beneath her.
No - that's what happened with
Bahamut, and I lost consciousness for three days. I've gotta finish the spell . . .
And so she kept chanting. Her vision began to fade, and all feeling to
her limbs was lost, but somehow, she remained conscious, she remained standing,
and she finished the spell.
"DRAIN9!!!" she
finally cried, ending the chant, and watching as the magic took effect.
The green light shot out from her
and converged on Masamune, attacking it.
Masamune emitted a strange,
strangled sound, as the spell spasmodically drained its energy.
And, as Rydia watched, her senses
fading from weakness, a tremor ran through it, and then a bolt of white light
shot out and into the air. This light
solidified and took on the form of the Ninja she was seeking.
Masamune fell to the floor with a
clank.
Edge fell to the floor with a
strange sound, sort of like an "au" with a French accent, completely
unconscious.
Rydia rushed over to him, stumbling
on her weak legs.
"Edge . . . " she sighed,
falling to her knees beside him. Reaching for his neck, she checked for a pulse, and found that he was
still alive.
That was good. Alive is good.
The room whirled, and she allowed
herself to give in to the weakness which was assaulting her, collapsing, her
head on Edge's chest.
Completely unconscious.
That was bad. Unconscious was bad.
Kain was oblivious to what had just
happened to Rydia with Masamune. All he
knew was that the floating Ninja he'd been chatting with suddenly made an odd
squeaking noise, convulsed, and vanished.
Now, with his memory returning, he
realized that he should be with Cecil and Rosa trying to figure out what to do
now, not lying around thinking.
So he got up and sought them out.
Cecil was pacing frantic circles
around the Throne Room while Rosa was plopped in one of the thrones, rubbing
her temples.
Uriat was going on about some
meaningless stuff.
" . . . if you'd only listened
to me, but no, you didn't. Which is, of
course, your right, Your Majesties, but now we have little choice but to
mobilize an attack force against the Eblanians and strike at them before they
strike at us, and destroy their Kingdom once and for all, or else they'll just
- "
"Uriat, don't you ever shut
up?" Kain sourly asked, pushing his way through the ajar door. "Cecil, Rosa, Edge's gone. I think something's going on over there."
Rosa frowned.
"Maybe Masamune released
him."
"I don't know, but it didn't
seem very pleasant when it happened." Kain leaned against a wall, still feeling a little weak, but much more
himself.
"What about you? Is your memory back?" Cecil inquired in
a stressed-out tone.
Kain nodded.
"I think. For the most part. It's still coming, but I'll be all right." Uriat glared at him. Kain glared back. "Leave!" he snapped.
Uriat glanced to Cecil for
protection, but the King just turned to gawk at a rather lovely wall hanging
and ignored.
Sulking, the Chancellor stalked past
Kain and out the door.
"I thought you were going to
fire that guy," he reminded Rosa.
She shrugged.
"Now isn't exactly a good
time. We will when we're not involved
in a crisis."
"Ah." That made sense. "So, do we have a plan?"
Cecil shrugged.
"What can we do? We have to wait for them to arrive and
defend the Kingdom. I don't want to
attack unless they fire first, but the second they do . . . "
The three of them exchanged a worried
glance.
It seemed almost as if a new war
between the two nations was inevitable.
Edge slowly awakened, every nerve in
his body rebelling against him.
Yaa-aach . . . pain.
Masamune was a Sword. This meant that it was very, very thin. He was not built to be sucked in and out of
it like this!
Grinding his teeth against the agony
that was his body, he tried to will himself to get up, or at least open his
eyes. But some sixth sense told him
that he didn't really want to see where he was.
He tried to move his left hand, but
found that either he was even weaker than he thought (which was pretty weak) or
something was holding it down. As a
test, he moved his right, which obeyed him with no resistance, if a lot of
aches.
Letting his hand drop, he forced
himself to open his eyes and look around.
The place was somewhat familiar to
him - he was in one of the caverns beneath the Castle. He'd seen most of them before - and all
those discovered had been furnished with an exit, because most of them were found
quite by accident. Some gardener poking
around the gardens suddenly feels the ground open beneath him and falls a few
hundred feet . . . poor guy. If he
lived, he called for help, and someone got him out. If not, then they removed the body and dealt with it. The holes were sealed up, but there were
passageways leading to and from each of them from the surface.
So why was he here?
He lifted his head and dropped it
almost instantly with surprise. Then he
lifted it again.
No, he wasn't delirious.
There, lying unconscious beside him,
her head resting on his chest, was a hot chick with green hair.
Wow. Cool.
That was the first thing that jumped
into his mind. Then he started
thinking, though.
Why was he here? Why was Rydia here? Why was she unconscious? Why had he been unconscious?
The memory floated back into his
throbbing brain.
Masamune. He'd been in Masamune.
How had he gotten out? Had Rydia done something . . .
Hey, did that mean she liked him?
Then it struck him.
Kormag was on his way to attack
Baron.
Lightly, he tapped her on the head
with his right hand.
"Rydia," he called in a
faint voice. "Wake up?"
She stirred.
"Rydia, please wake up. I . . . we have to go save the world. But I can't do anything until you get
off."
Groaning slightly, she pushed
herself up and shook her head. Then she
rubbed her eyes and looked around.
"Edge!" she exclaimed,
kneeling over him. "Crud, are you
all right?!"
"No," he replied. Then a wave of fury passed over him, and he
used its strength to push himself to his feet. "C'mon. We've gotta find a
way to get to Cecil and the others . . . "
She pushed herself to her feet,
seeming pretty weak herself. He
wondered exactly what she had done.
Masamune was lying on the floor.
He glanced at it for a moment, then
picked it up without hesitation.
It didn't respond.
"Good boy," he
muttered. Then he looked at Rydia. "How could we get to Baron?"
"I can Call Bahamut," she
replied. "He can give us a ride .
. . but first we have to get out of here."
"This way," he told her,
stumbling over to where he knew the exit to be. Halfway through the corridor, however, he had to stop, leaning
against the wall to keep himself upright.
Rydia came up beside him and grasped
his arm.
"Keep going," she murmured,
supporting him as they continued. "We'll make it."
After what seemed like an hour, and
quite possibly was, they reached the surface.
"Sit for a minute - get your
strength back," Rydia absently told him as she began her incantation to
Summon Bahamut.
He happily let himself slide to the
ground, too weak to feel embarrassed by his weakness. As soon as all this was over, he was so getting some sleep
. . .