Several things happened at once.

Magus stretched out his arm with exaggerated boredom, demanding the matrix.

There was a loud, sickening sound as a sword, faster than light, flashed
through the air, cutting Magus's arm off, leaving nothing but a stump with
blood gushing out left.

Magus swore and kicked Dagger forward, figuring his arm was more important at
the moment.

Zidane's hand lunged forward, catching Dagger instantly before she could hit
the floor.

"Are you alright?" he asked slowly.

She nodded, still shaken up. Zidane started to loosen his grip, but she held
tight on his leg, as if for life.

"Daeva? Is this your doing?" Magus sneered. Getting no response he added, "show
yourself, traitor. So we may end this rivalry of politics."

"As you wish." someone laughed and suddenly there was black smoke in the room,
and arising from it was a creature which looked straight from hell.

It had a human body, except it was covered in dark scales and had two large
wings erupting from it's body, along with a deadly weapon attached to his side
which Zidane's mind instantly recognized as the Masamune.

He looked around at the room for a moment and let an evil sneer cross his face.

"Pathetic. You use hostages to do your work for you?! Hahaha..." Daeva sneered.

"Shut up!!" Magus screamed, wrenching his scythe from it's sheath and running
full speed at Daeva. It pierced his heart in an instant.

Daeva let a small grin cross his face as he looked down at the scythe plunged
deep within him, not even effecting him.

Then, without hesitation, he tore it out from his body and threw it full speed
at Magus.

Magus tried to dart out of the way but he was to slow. his own scythe pierced
his heart, and he felt himself loose his grip on to life.

"You'll pay..." Magus muttered.

Daeva could restrain himself no longer. He threw back his head and let an
insane laughter fill the room.

Then, he kneeled down beside the dying Magus and whispered loudly.

"I truly love you, Magus. You presented the perfect opportunity for me to rise
to power. I'll simply tell Eva these creatures," he gestured, pointing at
Zidane, Beatrix and Dagger, "took you out."

Then he pulled back his foot and let the claws on it finish the job as they
raced forward full speed.

There was an ear piercing scream. Then silence.

Magus was dead.

-*-

"I dunno who you are but thanks." Zidane congratulated.

"You shouldn't be thanking me, Zidane. You're next on my list."

With suprising agility, Daeva raced forward and delivered earth shattering
kicks to Zidane's body, driving him to the ground.

"Zidane!" Dagger wailed, trying desperately to get a heal spell on him.

Daeva chuckled and turned his head towards the young queen.

"You're also on my list. I need your eidolins."

Dagger backed away, fear written on her face.

Daeva chuckled again and walked forward, feeling several jolts of energy shock
him.

He turned around to see Beatrix unsheathing her sword.

"I forgot about you, bitch." Daeva muttered.

"...But I an easily remedy that!" he screamed, lunging at her with his Masamune
drawn.

Beatrix was too slow. She couldn't move out of the way as the sword came down
on her arm, braking it.

Beatrix screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor in a heap.

"Pathetic. How can anyone be so stupid?"

"Something I've asked myself many, many times." a sinister voice spook up.

Daeva twirled around to see Kuja, standing in the doorway.

Before Daeva could think, he felt the intense heat of the holy spell on him.

"REFLECT!" Daeva screamed.

Daeva laughed as the reflect spell of his took place, bouncing the spell back
at Kuja with twice the normal amount of energy.

When the white light cleared, Kuja was nothing but a coughing, beat, bruised
man on the floor. He looked more like a piece of rags.

Daeva's hand extended out to Zidane.

"Give me the matrix, monkey."

"N-never.."

Daeva simply kicked Zidane, breaking one of his ribs.

Zidane screamed in pain, and then felt a new feeling surface. Rage.

"Y-you're gonna pay!!!" Zidane cried, still gasping from the pain it took to
breath. "TRANCE!"

A purple light encircled Zidane, engulfing him in it. When the light cleared
Zidane looked like a monster almost.

Daeva stepped back in fear.

"Trance? From a Genome? Impossible!"

"GRAND LETHAL!!!!" screamed Zidane.

There was nothing but white light and Daeva's screams of pain that could be
seen or heard for several minutes.

Zidane felt his rage slowly end. He collapsed to his knees, exhausted, and
deadly tired.

"I'll be back." Daeva murmured before disappearing.

-*-

Steiner rushed down the hall, barging into the queen's room.

"Your majesty, we have just-OH MY GOD! WHAT HAPPENED HERE!!!!!" Steiner
shouted.

A guard appeared at the door, looking worried.

"I heard you shouting sir."

"Get the medics here now!" Steiner ordered.

The soldier bowed and immediately set out to comply with the order.

-*-

Doctor Tot sighed.

"Garnet'll be fine. She's just in shock. I wish I could say the same about the
other two. Zidane'll be alright..In a couple hours if I'm correct. But this
young man in white..Who is he?"

Beatrix sighed, trying not to touch the bandage on her arm.

Steiner's face went pal with shock.

"Oh my god! That's Kuja! He must be behind this!" Steiner shouted, raising his
sword up.

"Steiner, stop." Beatrix pleaded, placing a hand on his shoulder to restrain
him.

"But this-This is Kuja!!?" Steiner screamed.

"He helped us. Can't you wait 'til her can speak before killing him?"

"Oh, alright." Steiner said, he sounded almost regretful.

"Doctor Tot, I recommend you place both Zidane and Garnet in the same room.
Alone. The two have not seen each other in ages, it would do the queen well to
see Zidane again."

Doctor Tot smiled in grim understanding. "We'll see."

"Speaking of which," Beatrix started, holding Steiner's hand, "we haven't done
anything together since Alexandria fell."

"My duty does not enable me to have fun." Steiner said almost proudly.

Beatrix just sighed and walked away.

-*-

Hmm...*laughs*. I think this ch. 4 is much better then the previous one. What's
gonna happen when Zidane sees Garnet again? And what's happening with
Beatrix/Steiner? Will the relationship last or simply fade? How will
everyone react to Kuja's appearance? All is revealed in ch. 5. Sorry that the
chapters are a bit short. I'll try to make the next one a lot larger. If you'd
like, please state in your review how many pages you would like for each
chapter. Well, later people.