NEXT CHAPTER! Guess what? Massive fighting in this one! BOOYA! Brace yourselves.
Dawn approached Conde Petie with an odd calm. The warriors who now held it were preparing an attack on the Black Mage Village. All through the night, they had been constructing a weapon with which to assault the place. After the horrible skirmish that had occurred with the dwarves, they were being more careful. About 13 hours earlier, they had asked the Black Mages and Genomes to join their society. When the answer was, surprisingly to them, no, they fell back. All of that black magic present in the village was too much for them to compete with. So, they had been building a device with which to decimate the place from a distance.
It was a cannon of sorts, but instead of aiming a projectile, it focused magical energy. All of the warriors could use some magic, though some were specialized in it and others were just learning. They had fitted it with a sniper-scope, and had it aimed straight for the village. All they could see was a faint bulge of forest out from the horizon line, but it was enough. With that information, they could adjust the ark and angle of the weapon to send a blast straight into the village. After getting the aim perfect, they poured all of their magic into the weapon. With one final check, the order was given, and the blast of magical energy soured over the land. In a very short amount of time, it landed right on target. The dome of forest that was the Black Mage Village burned, and soon enough it spread throughout the entire forest.
Though this incredibly destructive weapon had succeeded in decimating the target, the Clariyan warriors had failed to count on one thing. There were no Black Mages or Genomes present in the village.
Earlier that night, Mikoto, Vivi, Eiko, Zidane and Dagger had gone into the village and evacuated it. They knew that it might become a target, but there was another reason. The Black Mages were just that, and had powerful magic to accompany them, even if they almost never used it. And the Genomes were as good of warriors as anyone; surely they would be useful in any major battles. As it happened, the Genomes were on board the Madain Sari with the Black Mages, Eiko, Vivi, Dagger, Zidane and Cid. The others were riding on the Red Rose 3. They were now going to put their plan into action.
Even after so many years of peacetime, the armies of Lindblum and Alexandria were mobilized at an incredible speed. Both of them had boarded dropships, and sailed to the closer side of the Outer Continent, thus landing on the north face of the plains that the Iifa Tree used to be on. They had all unloaded, and as dawn came, they began their slow approach to the crater. They didn't want to be too close, because there was going to be quite a lot of damage occurring there. The Red Rose 3 and Madain Sari were not alone, either; they had the combined airship forces of Lindblum and Alexandria right behind them. They were presently moving in on Conde Petie.
As they discovered when they had evacuated the Black Mages and Genomes, Conde Petie had indeed been taken over. So, their first objective would be to defeat the bogies there. Those particular bogies knew that a fight would be coming soon, and thus had mounted sentries all over the place. It would do them no good, however. Way back when Queen Brahne had Dagger's Eidolons, and had summoned Bahamut, he had been given quite the boost in strength due to the magic of the Black Mages. Dagger was fully aware of this, and so were most of the others.
As such, Dagger found herself in the summoning chamber of the Madain Sari. The Black Mages, though somewhat reluctantly, poured their energy into the chamber, fueling Dagger with enough energy to make her sick. What really bothered her was that they would be doing this again; but it had to be done. Raising her summoning rod upwards, the massive amounts of magical energy cackling about the camber suddenly shot into the sky, and the King of Dragons came bursting out of a fiery circle in the sky. The sentries in Conde Petie noticed, of course, but their shots did them no good. With a massive roar, Bahamut launched ball after ball of flare energy at the building. Some people inside started running away, but the ground seemed to life up under their feet and send them flying into the valley below. The others just watched on gravely, Vivi and Eiko holding each other by the hand.
For good measure, Bahamut drew in closer, then charged up for the Mega Flare. In a blinding flash of light, Conde Petie, and all of those within, were no more. The damage done, Bahamut soared back high into the atmosphere, and left in another spectacular flash of energy. Dagger, despite the massive amount of power she had used to call such a powerful Bahamut, was feeling full of energy, though rather woozy. She exited the chamber, and was given a congratulatory hug from her husband Zidane.
"Good job, Dagger. That took a lot of guts," he said, releasing her from the embrace.
"Ugh. Please, don't mention guts right now. I feel like mine are about to have a massive shift," she pleaded. Zidane edged away somewhat nervously. That taken care of, the battalion of airships moved in on the crater.
Mistress Clariya was well aware of the army approaching her from the north and the armada approaching her from the south. She was confident that the airships were nothing to worry about, however, since the only thing they had onboard were summoners, one of who had lost that ability. Their cannons wouldn't do any good, and her shield would ensure safety from the Eidolons. However, the army worried her some. It was likely to be stronger in force then her warriors and she had less available then she had planned. The warriors lost in Conde Petie had been a surprise to her; the strength of the Eidolon was something she had, like many others, underestimated.
Still, Clariya was confident that her shield would hold up. And as far as the army was concerned, she had a few tricks up her sleeve. The colored rings along the inside of the crater wall could actually generate energy quite similar in nature to that of the Ultima spell. As the enemy army descended, those rings would activate, and a huge chunk of the army would be burned to ash. It was truly a shame that so many lives had to be wasted for her goal of perfection, but it had to be done. They were infidels, and would never be worthy of living under her rule. And since she would rule everything with time, it meant that they were not worthy of living.
As she went over this, there was suddenly a massive rumble.
"What is going on?" she shouted to the darkness. An image appeared in front of her, and showed a massive cloud of energy swirling over the crater that her people resided in. The Red Rose 3 was unloading massive amounts of some kind of cargo into the crater, while many small forms on the Madain Sari were waving their arms about, and seemed to be making the energy cloud bigger in doing so. Suddenly, and without warning, a massive comet fell out of the energy cloud, and rocketed down into the depths of the crater. It moved so fast, she could barely see it, but it did indeed crush her Eidolon shield. Within moments, there was another amazing crash, and another image in the darkness appeared. It showed a massive explosion in the hollows of the crater; when the dust cleared, she saw her colored rings were completely destroyed.
"Curse them! I will show them not to mess with perfection!" she cried. Thus began a new attack.
"Keep throwing down the gunpowder! Dagger's gonna call another Eidolon, so we need to give it as much boom as possible!" called out Amarant to the crewmembers on the Red Rose 3. And that was exactly what they did; crate after crate of gunpowder was hurled over the edge of the airship, and down into the cavern. And, Dagger did prepare to call forth another Eidolon. However, something interrupted them.
The crates of gunpowder began floating up out of the crater and into the sky near the airships. And, soon after, a blast of energy shot into them, making a massive explosion. The airships rocked madly, and became uncontrollable. They flew towards each other, and before another thing could be done, they crashed in midair. As if it wasn't all bad enough, another blast of energy came up, and both airships seemed to evaporate. All of the people onboard were somehow unharmed, however; but that didn't stop them from falling straight down into the maw of the crater.
As the armies of Lindblum and Alexandria looked on, Beatrix could see no reason to hold back any longer. Steiner was not there; he was supposed to be protecting Dagger, but somehow got stuck on the wrong ship. All Beatrix new was that her lover was gone; and all because of those... those things! She turned to face the armies, and drew her sword high into the air.
"Attack!" she cried, turning around and rushing towards the crater. One by one, the rest of the army ran after her, each person seeing the one in front of them moving, so naturally moving with them. It was at this point, as the heroes fell and the army charge forward, that something changed. Vivi and Eiko clutched to each other, both of them crying softly, despite the urge to scream at the top of their lungs. And suddenly, a white light enveloped both of them, as well as all of the others who were falling. They stopped falling, and instead floated in midair. Vivi and Eiko looked about wildly.
"What happened?" Eiko asked. "Are we dead?"
Vivi shook his head. "No. We're... floating. It's the float spell."
"What? But that can't be! Dagger doesn't know float! Does she?" Eiko asked, staring into Vivi's eyes, tears still present in hers.
"No.... Not from her. From you. We've got our magic back, Eiko!" Vivi exclaimed.
"What! But, I didn't even do anything! How could I have cast float on so many people without even trying?" Eiko asked, incredibly confused.
"Instinct, I guess. But really! I have mine back. See?" he said, holding a hand up and forming a ball of fire in it.
"Woh! We really DO have our magic back! This is great!" she said, hugging Vivi again.
"Well, I guess, but how do we get out of this situation?" he said, hugging back for a moment before releasing her to look around.
"Um... I don't know."
Before anymore could be said, the white glow around them changed to a black one, and with a flash of darkness, they all disappeared from the space in the crater quite suddenly. Once eyes adjusted to the sudden shift in light, they found themselves in what seemed to be an endless space of black. Somehow, they were all illuminated, however. Meanwhile, back on the surface, the ground forces were encountering some trouble. Somehow, a few of the Iifa Tree's old roots had lifted out of the ground, and were attacking the soldiers.
The airships that had avoided the attack from within the crater laid down quite a lot of suppressing fire, but the roots didn't seem to be affected. Rather then waste time trying to stop the things' rampage, the soldiers thus just ran forward, trying to avoid it. Even Beatrix's Shock technique did nothing but chip off a few pieces; she could not comprehend it. If the Iifa Tree was gone, how could its roots be alive and moving about? Who was controlling them? Well, she would find that out soon enough, but not if she let those things get to her. So, she and the rest of the army continued onward, counting on the airships to distract the roots.
Eventually, it worked. The cannon fire was simply too much for the dying things, but they had done a fair amount of damage before they became lifeless lumps again. However, the zeal of Gaia's defenders would not be wavered by such setbacks. The entire army poured into the crater, and slid down the walls. The elevator was, of course, destroyed now; however, the explosion had made a number of useful pathways out of the rock. Thus, it wasn't very hard to make it down, especially since nothing else was there to stop them, with the exception of the warriors; Mistress Clariya was concerned with other matters.
When the heroes had fallen out of the airships, she was counting on their destruction. When the mages had mysteriously reacquired their magic, and started to float, she became infuriated. After calming down to think about it, she realized that the device that was containing their magic had probably been destroyed during the blast; still, she was amazed that they could figure that out so quickly. At any rate, they were in her territory at that point, and she held the power there. So, she quickly transported them in to her chamber, scattering them as well. They would not be able to keep safe from her wrath without each other for support.
"Oh... my head. Where am I?" Eiko asked to the empty space. The darkness seemed to swallow up her every word.
"Zidane? Freya? Dagger? Vivi? Hello?" she called out in despair. There was no answer; only the silence of her words being sucked up by the coldness around her.
Everyone else was in a similar situation. Vivi was now walking in a random direction in the hope that he would find someone. "Eiko? Amarant? Mikoto? Hello, can anyone hear me?" he shouted. Man, what awful luck, he thought to himself. He thought he felt a chill breeze blow across the air.
"Is someone there?" he called out. Quite suddenly, he ran into something he couldn't really see. Like some sort of invisible wall, or something. He pounded on it, but it didn't give in. He heard it echo, though, and unlike any other sound made here, it was loud and clear. He stood in thought for a moment, then concluded that he might find something on the other side. So, he stepped back from the invisible barrier, and aimed two palms at it.
"Flare!" he shouted. The beginnings of the energy started to head for the wall, but it bounced right off and went back at Vivi. The energy smashed into him, and the heat burned his clothes. After the attack subsided, Vivi just stared at the thing with a high level of confusion present in his face. Fortunately, he was a lot tougher these days then he was back when he had first learned how to cast Flare. So, he wasn't hurt too badly.
"Reflect, huh? Weird," he said, searching his pockets for an X-Potion. He found one eventually, and slurped the tangy mixture down.
"Ahh... much better."
Deciding to look around some more, Vivi turned one hundred eighty degrees around on his heel, then practically collapsed. For he saw standing there, though some distance away, none other then Mistress Clariya. Of course, he had no idea who she was, but he had dealed with the terrain enough that he understood how massive she must be. And then, though the voice seemed distant, he heard an innocent voice coming from her direction.
"Perfection will be attained. You, however, are not invited."
Vivi stood there almost petrified with fear. Meanwhile, the army had reached the cavern entrances, and the fighting had begun. Sword upon sword, spell upon spell, beam upon flesh, and claw upon shield, the battle raged. Zidane, Dagger, Eiko, Mikoto and the others simply wandered about the darkness, in a vain attempt at finding each other, though all the time praying and hoping for the others to be all right. Vivi backed away slowly from the approaching monster, then had a comforting reminder that escape was not probably impossible as he felt the invisible wall. Then, he heard the voice again.
"Do not worry. Life is not meant to be painful; your death shall come quickly," it stated. Oh, great, Vivi thought. Another person wants to kill me. He decided, however, that if was going to go down, he would do it fighting. Wishing his friends good luck should he fail, he aimed his palms once again, this time at the titan who sought to kill him. The challenge was set.
"Come and get some!"
I finish in the next chapter. Maaaybe REVIEW! Pleeeease.
