Chapter 7 – Too Much, Too Soon
The three of them were wandering aimlessly for about an hour, just killing any monster that stood in their path. "Hey guys, hold on a minute." Irvine finally said. "Does anyone here know where in the world this power core might be?" he asked while he reloaded his shotgun with AP ammo.
"Good question." Quistis pointed out.
"Why don't we just blow up the whole place to smithereens!" Selphie exclaimed in joy and jumped up and down, just thinking about the idea.
"I agree with Selphie." Irvine immediately said, hoping to gain some ground with her.
"We can't, mostly because we don't have those type of explosives." Quistis reminded them.
The three of them stood there, trying to think of which way to go, when Selphie pointed out a map. "Heeeey! The power core is on the 9th floor." she said as she rushed upstairs. Irvine and Quistis shrugged and followed her, with their weapons in hand.
However, as soon as one problem was solved, another presented itself. Because once they reached the ninth floor, they were greeted with an enormous beast. "Great! Here we go again…" Irvine muttered as he aimed his shotgun toward the beast.
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Raven had already tossed aside his sword and issued the first attack, which sent Zell flying back into the wall. The SeeD quickly got up and snickered, "Is that the best you got?" he asked as he returned the favor with an uppercut of his own. Normally, that would have injured his opponent a great deal, but Raven just stood there and took the attack head on. Surprisingly to Zell, he didn't budge an inch, but jabbed Zell in the gut once again and elbowed him on the back. Zell instantly fell to the ground, clutching his stomach.
"Pathetic. I was hoping, maybe, for some kind of challenge. But alas, you are not the one to give me that sort of excitement." he said as he kicked a fallen Zell again. "C'mon, get your spikey ass off the floor and into the air. Hmm…maybe I should incite your anger somehow? What if I called you…chicken wuss?!" the general said and laughed.
As soon as the words came out of Raven's mouth, he was decked to the floor. "You just picked the two wrong words to call me, Raven!" Zell sneered as he continued his onslaught against Raven, who had no choice but to block the martial art master's attacks.
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"Yes! Finally! It is complete! My transformation into the universe's ultimate life form is complete!" Dragoon shouted as he felt a strange new presence within his body. A presence that he liked and wanted to get used to. He looked out the window at the far mountain structure. He snapped his fingers and within seconds, the mountain exploded. "Still not perfect, but close enough." He looked at his hands, and grinned devilishly when something in his body felt different. Gazing towards his hands once again, he saw them turn different colors, disappear, and then reappear. "I suppose that's just a small side effect that WILL go away." Dragoon tried to convince himself. He looked towards Rinoa, who finally started to wake up. Dragoon snickered at her and left her by herself in her prison. "Only three more hours of oxygen left my pretty, then your gone."
She sat down against the wall and brought her knees to her chest, rocking herself back and forth slowly. Her head was aching as if a huge bulldozer or something of the sort had hit her. It took her awhile to come to grips with herself, but just in time to hear the part of only three hours of oxygen left. She did nothing, spoke nothing, but just cried. She saw it all, had done it all. Another presence or something had invaded her body, and she was forced to witness all of it. From the beginning, when Dragoon had taken her from Esthar, just when she was going to tell Squall about the good news she had, to when he tried to get her in bed, and finally to her current predicament. She had seen it all and couldn't do anything to stop it. She cried for many reasons – the fact that she was too weak to resist this presence; the fact that she was forced to watch her friends suffer and enjoyed it; the fact that she was separated from him, her knight in shining armor; the person she relied upon the most. Tears were flowing down from Rinoa's angelic face onto her lap. "SQUALL! I NEED YOU!" she yelled, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would come, like he promised he would.
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The sphinx-griffin hybrid once again tried to claw at Squall, who barely managed to evade the attack, only to suffer a minor scratch on his left arm. "What the hell do I do?" he asked himself, trying to think of a way to beat the creature. As he looked towards it, Squall saw something he hadn't noticed earlier. The creature had a minor cut on the belly of its body. "Well, let's turn that cut into his destruction." the swordsman said calmly. He looked sideways and saw an unstable pillar. He quickly used a thundaga spell on the base of it. The pillar started to rumble and in no time, began to fall. The creature put up his two front paws to prevent it from falling on him. Squall, however, took this chance to strike. He ran up to the creature, again quickly casted a Firaga spell on the wound and then stuck his sword deep into the creature's skin. The creature felt a sharp pain, and couldn't hold up the pillar. Squall quickly moved out of the way, as the creature turned his attention to the injury, and letting the pillar fall on it. As it gave its last dying roar, Squall fell to the ground, totally exhausted.
"Damn, I can't go any further. I'm just too tired." he pointed out to himself as he casted another Curaga spell on himself, to heal him of most injuries. Just then, Rinoa's scream finally reached Squall's ears. As the young warrior looked up, he knew what he had to do next. The gunblader took his sword into his hand once again and ran for the castle.
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It was obvious to Raven that Zell was getting tired. He kept on bringing his onslaught, which felt like it was becoming weaker and weaker with every punch Zell was throwing at him. Just then, Zell performed a backflip and slouched a little, taking his time to gain some breath.
"Well, well, well, it seems you've grown pretty tired." Raven sneered as he slowly started to stretch his arms and legs. "Now I'll show you how it's done, little boy!" With that, Raven jumped into the air and kicked Zell right in the face. The young SeeD warrior fell backwards, and slowly got up clutching his cheek. However, he had no time to recuperate as Raven started his own onslaught of punches and kicks. Zell was blocking most of them, but he knew he couldn't keep this up much longer. As a series of punches made it way to Zell's face, he took his knee and aimed it straight for Raven's stomach. Feeling the pain, the general was pushed back a little. Zell then immediately casted a Meltdown spell, which burned right through Raven.
"Looks like your defense has just grown much weaker." Zell pointed out to an exhausted Raven. With that, Zell kicked Raven through the wall of the castle, who plunged down to the ground. "Now to finish things off. Alexander, come forth!"
As if it appeared from nowhere, a huge machine like creature popped instantly out of the ground from the far craters. It rested its two huge feet on the sides of Raven, who at the time, had a terrified look on his face. Sparing no time at all, Alexander stared at its opponent and instantly fired several ray beams encircling the fallen general. The beams then shined brightly and instantaneously blew up with huge explosions to show for it afterwards. As soon as the dust cleared away, Raven was nowhere to be found, and having done its job, Alexander mystically disappeared in a bright flash.
"Damn, that was rough." Zell muttered as ran out of the prison cell.
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Selphie, Irvine and Quistis were throwing everything they could muster out at the beast in front of them, but he didn't seem to budge an inch. "Ok, let's see what this creature actually is." Irvine said as he performed a Scan spell.
*Creature name: Fallen Phoenix. Element: Fire. Weakness: Water/Ice. Description: A phoenix resembled creature, the only difference is that instead of being the usually red colored bird, it has a black coat to show for it. And instead of healing, it promotes destruction.*
"Well, at least we know its weakness." Quistis said in relief as she casted a Water-based spell. The bubble headed toward Fallen Phoenix with great speed. In response, the dark bird blew an intense gust out of its mouth and dissipated the bubble. Selphie then casted a thundaga spell while Irvine shot away his Water Bullets at the beast. Both attacks hit the creature hard, which fell back a bit, but instantly recovered his lost balance. Almost instantly, Fallen Phoenix stretched out its wings.
"Now what?" the three of them muttered out simultaneously.
A huge flame sprung forth from both wings and headed straight for the warriors. Both Selphie and Quistis quickly hid behind Irvine, who quickly used Shell, in hope to reduce the power of the fire based attack. The flame hit all three of them, and caused great damage.
"Triple Curaga!" Selphie yelled and instantly the three of them were healed of most damage. However, the spell had worn out Selphie who slumped to the ground in exhaustion.
"Ok, I've had enough!" Quistis exclaimed. "I summon you, Leviathan!"
Fallen Phoenix smirked, "Heheh, we'll see………"
The water based snake had presented itself from a portal in mid-air. He looked straight at his foe and smiled, thinking this would be an easy prey. Leviathan quickly brought up a huge cliff. He then went to the top and was ready to launch his attack. "You're done!"
"I don't think so." Fallen Phoenix said to himself. He once again stretched his wings. Everybody was expecting another fire based inferno, but instead, the creature summoned a huge thunder attack, which hit Leviathan dead on. Almost instantly, the serpent blew up into flames and in minutes, there was nothing more than blue ashes on the floor, which were quickly blown away by Fallen Phoenix's gust.
"NNNOOOO!" Quistis looked in shock as she witnessed the defeat of her strongest GF, Leviathan.
"Now its my turn!" Irvine yelled as he clenched his hand into a fist. "Show this monster what you got, Quezacotl!"
Instantly a thunderstorm cloud formed above Irvine and in a flash of lightning, a large blue/green bird popped out. Fallen Phoenix gave another small smirk as Quezacotl stared at him in the eye.
"So now you think you actually have a chance, do you?" the creature asked to the legendary bird.
"You rein of terror ends here." Quezacotl said as he summoned a huge thundercloud above Fallen Phoenix and in seconds, exploded into a huge bolt of lightning. Not taking any chances, Quezacotl unleashed a barrage of lightning bolts under Irvine's command.
Irvine, Selphie and Quistis had to shield their eyes from the bright light of the lightning bolts Quezacotl was sending at his adversary. A huge explosion had come right after the successive bolts thrown at Fallen Phoenix and, for a minute, everyone stood still. Dust was everywhere, and nothing could be seen. However, just then, a huge shrill had pierced the SeeD's ears. It was just too loud, and in seconds, it was gone. Selphie, by now, had casted a small Water spell to clear out the dust. However, to their surprise, it was Quezacotl on the floor, and not Fallen Phoenix.
"H………h………how?" Irvine managed to whisper out.
The beast smirked. "Well, when you know how to contain the energy from your opponent's attack, then you might just learn how I pulled it of."
Irvine couldn't move. His hands were numb, and the sound of his rifle falling to the floor could be heard throughout the room. Quezacotl then, like the others before him, gave one weak shrill and slowly disappeared from sight. Selphie could see a tear from Irvine's eye. He quickly washed it away and picked up his rifle. "You fucker!! You're going to paaaaay!" Irvine yelled at the dark beast as he exploded ammo out of his rifle and onto Fallen Phoenix. "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!" A huge barrage of what seemed like a never-ending number of bullets emerged out of Irvine's rifle, who aimed directly at his foe. As soon the clicking of the trigger could only be heard, he stopped and smiled. "I told you that you would di…"
Fallen Phoenix roared and the dust again, lifted from in front of him, revealing all of the bullets stopping in mid-air. He smiled. "I believe these belong to you…" he added as the bullets started to change direction.
"Shit, we're done for." Irvine said in despair as Quistis and Selphie quickly pulled him back behind a fallen piece of the wall. All three of them sat there with their hands over their heads, awaiting their fate, but instead, all that was heard were four words.
"Let's get it….ON!" the voice yelled as its owner slammed a huge Blizzaga spell right in the back of Fallen Phoenix, who cried out in pain, and in no time, was down, along with the bullets it was about to fire back. Quistis, Selphie and Irvine turned out, knowing whom it only could be, but just had to make sure.
"Yay! It IS Zell. Tee hee, and I thought we were goners for sure!" Selphie smiled as she ran up and hugged her comrade.
"Hey, hey, it was nothing." Zell said as he scratched the back of his head, blushing a slight red.
With another huge roar, the fallen beast once again rose to the air. "Now, NO MERCY!" he exclaimed in anger, with fierce, red glowing eyes.
Zell smiled as the four of them got into their battle formations once again, and this time, with newfound confidence.