Chapter seven:
Did I mention that the only things I own are Jason and Megan and all associated titles? Never mind - I'm sure you knew that. Enjoy the chapter!
Zidane and Dagger realized quite easily that Steiner would not be happy about the trip to Lindblum, and would probably not allow it. That was where Jason came in. He had the bright idea of putting certain memories inside of Steiner's head that never really happened but would make things understandable. Until they reached Lindblum, Jason could fiddle with Steiner to think he was going to Alexandria. He would figure out what other memory to replace that with when they got there; if he made anything solid now, it might not run together with what actually happened, and all sorts of confusing things would happen.
Of course, confusion seemed to be the order of the day for those involved. For instance, when Megan woke up to find herself back in Dali, she was very confused. Hadn't she been on her way to Treno with an army of Black Mages at her disposal? Wait... Jason! She groaned loudly, getting out of the bed she found herself in. A door slammed shut as the innkeeper scuttled away. The freak had been watching her in her sleep... she decided that he would have to pay. Plans could wait. She was still wearing her outfit of skirt and blouse and such, so that was good. Still, she headed out into the main room and stared the innkeeper in the face.
"Y-yes? May I help you?" he asked, pretending to have been snoozing.
"Don't look at people when they're sleeping. It gets really annoying," she declared.
"What are you talking about?"
Before he could figure it out, he found himself unconscious, because for some reason he had just flung himself and his chair down onto the ground as hard as he could. Of course it was Megan who made him do that, but he would never know. With that out of the way, Meg needed to figure out what to do next. Production should still be going on for a few more batches, and another cargo ship should arrive soon. Let Jason do whatever he wanted to with his silly friends. She had a city to win over.
On the cargo ship, things were running smoothly. Steiner was standing at a placid parade rest, with Jason close by, making sure nothing happened. Vivi tried talking with the black mages on board some more, but still received no response. Dagger tried to comfort him, and Zidane continued to pilot the ship towards South Gate. However, the mages soon noticed that something was wrong, and gathered up at the deck. Jason also sensed that something was amiss. Close behind them was indeed something dangerous; Black Waltz Three was coming after them.
"Kwahahahaha! The Princess is mine!" the Black Waltz cackled to itself as it leapt from the nose of the airship, flying after the cargo ship. It overtook the ship soon enough, and landed on the bow. Jason knew then that they would end up fighting this thing, so he turned to Steiner and snapped him back to reality.
"Steiner! Something's threatening the Princess!" he shouted to him, pointing at the Waltz. Steiner came around and growled angrily. While this happened, the mages on board all closed in around it, and it let out a menacing laugh.
"You intend to stop me? You are nothing but mindless dolls! You want to protect them? Kwahahahaha!" It raised its left hand, which surged with energy, and before a single mage could throw a fireball at him, he launched a massive blast of lightning at them. Mages were flung about the ship, and boxes were blown open, sending still more of them to their end after a long fall to the ground. Vivi saw all of this, and started shaking uncontrollably.
"Are you alright?" Dagger asked him.
"That monster!" he shouted, rushing out to confront the Waltz.
"I shall assist you, Master Vivi!" said Steiner as he dashed out after him.
"Jason, let's go!" Zidane urged. "Dagger, you steer the ship. Let's get to Lindblum!"
"Right..." she said, taking the wheel from him. He and Jason ran after Steiner, who was standing right behind Vivi, who was shouting at the Waltz.
"How could you do that to them? Weren't they your friends?" he demanded.
"You compare me to those lowly black mage soldiers? Kwahahahaha!"
The others could barely contain their rage, and Jason had heard his fill. Before he could express his own feelings, though, Vivi made a move.
"You... won't get away with this!" he shouted.
"What, so the Princess' body guards have all gathered here to stop me? How convenient! I will kill you all!"
"Who are you?" Steiner demanded.
"Knowing will do you know good, since you're about to die!"
Vivi surged with anger, and before he knew it he was glowing bright purple. Jason stared at him with fascination until Vivi unleashed a double blast of icy fury on the Waltz. It staggered back, surprised at the child's ferocity, but was not daunted for long.
"Thundara!" it shouted. The four of them were knocked down by this massive blast of lightning, and Steiner found himself almost incapacitated. The poor man was wearing metal armor, Jason noticed; it had to have done nearly twice as much damage to him. But he would worry about that later. Right now, he was determined to defeat this creature.
"Now I'm mad!" Zidane shouted. He rushed up to the creature and slashed its face, but in return it knocked him back with its staff. Jason stood and sensed massive power coming from Vivi. What must he be feeling? Before he could figure out much more, the Waltz had already shot a fireball at him. Jason took a few steps back, glaring at the thing angrily.
"Kwahahahaha! Your powers are pathetic!" it declared.
"Shut UP!" Jason shouted. He had heard enough. This thing was really pissing him off, and he was going to make it pay. For hurting Vivi, and his friend Zidane, and because he really didn't have a choice if he wanted to live. Before he knew it, he found new energy surging in his body. He was glowing purple; what was this? And then there was Vivi, who again launched a double blast of ice at the Waltz. This time it didn't seem to do as much, and the thing quickly countered by knocking Vivi down. Zidane was up, and Steiner was getting to his feet slowly, but the Waltz looked like it was ready for both of them. It was going to be up to Jason now. He knew that his psychic attack wouldn't work very well, but with this strange new energy of his, he could feel something new. The words came to him, and he used it.
"Star Cannon!" he shouted. He held one hand above his head, the other one pointing two fingers to his brow. The Waltz looked on with terror as the space around Jason started to warp. Finally, a glowing ball of iridescent energy appeared above his head, and flashed brightly before launching about ten spheres of glowing rock at the Waltz. It held up its staff to defend against the damage, but it did little. All of them smashed into its body. The ball of energy disappeared, and suddenly Jason's purple glow was gone. And so was his breath. He fell to the floor, exhausted. When he looked up at the Waltz, he expected to see that his attack had totaled it. Unfortunately, it still seemed to have enough energy to form a ball of lightning. Before it could hurl this weapon at Jason, however, Zidane snuck around and stuck his dagger in its neck. Steiner charged forward and stabbed the thing in its gut. It bent over, but knocked Steiner away and jumped up in the air, causing Zidane to fall down. It seemed as though it had run away.
"Broken, it is!" Thorn shouted.
"We made its magic too powerful!" Zorn agreed, jumping up to look at the returning Waltz.
"Unstable, the ship becomes! Sit down!"
"The Black Waltz is coming back! It must have captured the Princess!" Zorn exclaimed.
"Did it, really?" Thorn wondered.
"It is coming too fast! It has gone crazy!" Zorn shouted.
"Run away, we must!" Thorn suggested.
"We must run away!" Zorn agreed. The twin jesters jumped out of the airship they had been tailing the cargo-ship in and seemed to fly back to Alexandria Castle. Meanwhile, the Black Waltz 3 commandeered the ship and kicked in to full throttle, determined to destroy everyone on that ship.
"I exist only to kill. I exist only to kill. I exist only to kill. I exist only to... kill!" it shouted. Meanwhile, on the ship, the group was starting to recollect itself.
"You okay, Jason?" Zidane asked. Jason stood up slowly.
"I think so. What was that energy?" he wondered, seeing Vivi's glow had also disappeared. The child was now staring at a hat, one that had belonged to a black mage. It was stuck on a broken railing of the ship.
"You mean the purple glow?" Zidane asked as Steiner returned to the cabin.
"Yeah. Do you know what it was?" Jason asked. Zidane nodded.
"It's called Trance. A surge of emotion is what causes it, and it gives you lots of power. In your case, it looks like it gives you some new abilities. That was an amazing attack!" Zidane said. Jason chuckled a little.
"I didn't even know what I was doing, really," he assured.
"Sure. Anyway, I'm gonna go check on Rusty and Dagger, make sure that he's not bothering her. Why don't you see if you can talk to Vivi?" Zidane suggested. Jason nodded - it sounded like a good idea to him. As Zidane returned to the cabin, Jason approached Vivi and crouched down next to him.
"Hey, Vivi," he started. Vivi didn't turn to look at him, but he responded.
"...Hey."
"Don't worry, Vivi. We'll make sure to get to the bottom of this. Whoever made the Waltzes is going to pay," he said. He didn't know if Vivi heard him, because not even his thoughts seemed to change that much. Before he could continue, though, shouting could be heard from the cabin.
"What do you mean we're heading to Lindblum!" Steiner demanded, outraged.
"Listen, Rusty, there's nothing you can do about it. Dagger wants to go to Lindblum, got it?" Zidane tried to explain. Steiner made noises of frustration.
"My duty is to protect the Princess, and I can best do that by returning her to Alexandria! Princess, I beg of you, turn the ship around," he pleaded. Zidane gave a sigh and headed back out to the deck.
"Steiner... I'm not going back," she said, keeping a calm and determined voice.
"But... but..." he stammered.
"Hey! The Black Waltz is chasing after us! Punch it, Dagger!" Zidane shouted from outside.
"What?" she wondered. Zidane dashed in.
"Steiner, pull that lever over there!" he commanded.
"What? We should turn around if the thing is coming after us!" Steiner said.
"We can't outmaneuver him in this old piece of junk! We've gotta rush through South Gate and lose him there!" Zidane explained.
"But what if the gate closes on us?"
"Pull the lever and that won't happen!"
"Pull the lever, Steiner," Dagger said. Steiner gave in and did so, giving the cargo ship a huge boost of speed. But still the Black Waltz overtook them, a blast of lightning in its hand. A crackle from the lightning sent the hat Vivi had been staring at into the wind. His eyes flashed red.
"AHH!" Vivi shouted. He held his palms up and blasted the Waltz in the face with a massive blast of fire. That sent its airship careening back, but he got under control before they entered South Gate, and was back after them. Jason could barely keep his balance through the ruckus, and Steiner wasn't doing much better. Zidane rushed onto the deck.
"Vivi, get away from the edge!" he shouted. The Waltz buzzed past them again, and blew Vivi right off the ship, but Zidane had a fast hold on him, anchoring himself down by wrapping his tail around the railing. They were now inside of South Gate, and the Waltz was preparing another blast of lightning. But the lightning strayed past its ship's engine, causing him to loose control. Before he could stabilize himself, he smashed into a wall, causing a massive explosion. The cargo ship made it out just in time, and Zidane pulled Vivi back on board. Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"We made it!" Dagger shouted with amazement. She had done the flying back there!
"You make an excellent pilot, Princess," Steiner commented. Then he looked back at the Gate.
"Good heavens! We've destroyed South Gate!" he exclaimed. Zidane, Vivi and Jason filed into the cabin.
"Don't sweat it, Steiner, no one's gonna know it was us," Zidane said.
"Worthless mendicant! Need I remind you that I know you are responsible for this! When we return to Alexandria, you shall be hanged!" he shouted, hopping up in down in his agitated way.
"What makes you think that I'm just gonna go back?" Zidane challenged.
"Boys, calm down," Dagger interjected. "Steiner, there are more important things to worry about than executing Zidane," she explained. "After all, he never did anything really wrong. I did ask him to kidnap me, after all, and every further piece of action was wholly responsible on his part," she said. Steiner flustered with anger.
"Princess... very well. If that is how you feel, I shall no longer concern myself with the arrest of this thief," he said in a respectful tone.
"Thank you."
With the talking dying down, they could start to hear sniffling from Vivi. Steiner turned to him.
"Master Vivi, what is the matter?" he asked.
"I don't know... it said that they were just mindless dolls. Am I a doll too?" Vivi wondered.
"I don't see what the problem is, Master Vivi," Steiner stated.
"Yeah, Rusty's right!" Zidane said encouragingly. "They're nothing like you. You're an individual, always remember that. What you do is for you, okay? Never think that you're like them."
Vivi put on a weak smile and nodded.
"Okay."
Jason leaned against the cabin wall, looking from person to person. This was really a nice group. Yet somehow, he felt like he didn't yet fit in. Well, of course he didn't. He never fit in anywhere. Jason couldn't help but wonder what Meg was up to, and realized that it could be his preoccupation with those other things, like getting back home, that kept him on the outside. No matter how much he might try to talk himself out of it, he seemed unable to get his mind off of these things that were now unimportant. After all, he knew these people would be involved in a world-threatening situation; why else would they be the stars of a game? So what was important was helping them. He'd figure out how to get home after that.
"Jason?" Zidane asked, waving a hand in front of his face. Jason seemed to have zoned out while thinking about his situation.
"Oh... what?" Jason responded.
"You were staring into blank space, Jason. What's on your mind?" he wondered, leaning next to him on the wall. "Not still thinking about alternate universes and past lives and all those other weird things, I hope?"
Jason chuckled, trying to put that in the past. "I'm past that. I was just thinking about what I'm going to do when I get to Lindblum," Jason said airily. That brought about a degree of silence. It was true that Lindblum would probably be the parting of ways for everyone.
"Hey, I'm sure you'll figure out something. Lindblum is huge! There's gotta be something there for you. If you're lucky, you might even find someone there for you," Zidane said, nudging him in the shoulder. That got a chuckle out of everyone, even Steiner, who was starting to soften up. Things were looking good for the quintet.
On the other hand, things were not looking so good in Dali. As Mega awaited the next cargo ship so that she could head out to Treno, a dark force approached the town. He was preparing to upgrade the production facility here, to make more powerful Black Mages. He and Mega would both be in for quite a surprise when they would meet each other.
Phew...chapter 7 done. I'm sure you know how 'he' is. Am I still doing good? Oh, and if any of you have suggestions or requests for what might happen in the future, feel free to tell me. I love reader input.