Disclaimer: This story is in no way affiliated with Square. All characters, objects, and anything else directly related to Final Fantasy belongs to Square.

Author's Notes: Woo, another chapter. I'm going to try to make chapters longer, 'cause they seem kind of short to me (if any of you guys have input on this, feel free to e-mail me at CowHuntr88@aol.com). Anyways, this chapter will be interesting, or at least I hope. Just as a note, I'm going to totally mix things up for the sake of progression in the story. I know there are a lot of die hard Final Fantasy fans out there that'll be like "Viera can't morph!!!" or "There isn't any Nul_____ Spell in Finals Fantasy Tactics Advanced!!!". But if I stay TOTALLY true to the game, my story'll be lamer than it already is. So I hope you guys understand!

Within a couple of minutes, the three travelers had reached Nick's chocobo ranch located on a farmland near the edge of Cyril. By this time, it was dark, but the torches provided enough light at the ranch. As Nick unlocked the gate, he pulled his chocobo into the stable, and closed the door.
"All right, follow me. I have to tell my master that we've got guests and that you'll be spending the night," said Nick in a whispered voice.
"You can take you're room and shove it hunter," grunted Mike.
"Well, nobody is asking you to stay here," said Nick in a stern whisper. "Go ahead and sleep out here. It's not my fault if you get bitten by a Lamia."
"Come on Mike, just spend the night. It's cold out here, and you'll catch a cold," said Leo.
"But I thought you were a white mage! Can't you just zap away any sickness?" cried Mike. But Leo and Nick were already headed into the main house, so Mike just gave up and followed.
When they entered, a chill went through all three of their bodies. The house was dark, save the dimly lit chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The room was overly large, with dust covering every inch, and old statues of fiends casting their shadows along the wall along with old paintings.
"I'll never get used to this place," muttered Nick. Leo and Mike could only nod. The three waited for a couple seconds, and out of thin air, an old Viera man appeared out of thin air. As old as the Viera man was, he was wearing very rich clothing, and had silvery white hair tied back into a neat long pony tail. However, this was the only young thing on the Viera. The man's face was wrinkled and tan and his ears were dropping, with what seemed to be chunks of skin missing. His eyes also seemed to be empty and lifeless.
"Nick, who are these people," said the Viera man in a barely audible whisper.
"These two were trespassing in the Materiwood, and they don't have a place to stay for the night," explained Nick.
"Now hold on just a minute! We weren't trespassing at all!" screamed Mike. The Viera turned to Mike.
"Hm. Where have I seen your face before?" inquired the Viera. Leo quickly stepped in front of Mike to hide his face to protect his identity and their only chance at having a bed to sleep in for the night.
"Please sir, all we need is a place to stay. We'll even pay for the night," said Leo in a reasoning voice.
"That boy behind you.... He is a thief is he not?" said the Viera, as if he had not heard Leo. Mike pushed Leo aside.
"You're darn right I'm a thief! And I would steal back that soul if I could old man!" cried Mike.
"Mike, what the heck is your problem?!" asked Leo. "Nick hasn't done anything wrong, and all you're doing is acting like a jerk!"
"Just stay out of this Leo. This man and I have a score to settle," said Mike, preparing a battle stance.
"Ah, so you are the boy," whispered the Viera. With this, the Viera's eyes became lively with hunger, while Leo and Nick just stood there, utterly bewildered. The Viera then took out a small squishy yellow sphere.

"Meet my son," whispered the Viera. He tossed the sphere up in the air, and when it landed, it poofed into a Cream.
"Your son?!" said Nick in a shocked tone. "What have you done with him?"
"My son is nothing but an illusion. I used him to train you with the bow, so that you could capture fiends for me, and after many years, I have finally extracted enough souls to rule Ivalice," said the Viera. "Cream. Fetch that thief." The Cream made a weird battle cry, and scooted towards Mike at an incredibly fast speed.
"Mike, jump!" cried Leo, as he pointed his staff in the air. Mike jumped up in time to avoid a lick from the Cream, and Leo zapped a spell onto Mike.
"What the heck is this?" said Mike.
"It's a NulShock spell. It'll protect you from any nasty shock that thing can give you," said Leo.
"It's called a Cream," said Nick. "Hey, thief, duck down!"
"I refuse to listen to you hunter!" stated Mike, but Leo pushed Mike out of the way. Nick strung an arrow at shot it directly at the Cream, piercing it between the eyes. The Cream let out a shriek, and melted into the cracks in the floorboard.
"Well done," whispered the Viera. The hungry look in his eyes got creepier, and the Viera threw another sphere into the air, this time it was a dark brown sphere that looked like it had been a chunk taken out of a tree. This time, it was a Jawbreaker that poofed from the sphere.
"Ugh, not another one!" said Leo desperately. "How many things did you hunt for him?"
"Well, let's see, I've been hunting for about twelve years, so I would have to say... a lot," said Nick, as he took aim at the Jawbreaker crawling up the wall and taking refuge on top of the chandelier. Nick let the arrow loose, but the Jawbreaker caught it between it's pincers and crushed the arrow.
"My turn hunter," said the thief. Mike threw one of his daggers boomerang style up at the old rope barely holding onto the chandelier. The knife barely sliced the rope, and Mike swiftly caught his returning dagger. Nick exclaimed "Ha! Missed!" but Mike grinned and chuckled tot himself. The rope snapped and the chandelier came crashing down, and when it reached the impact of the floor, the chandelier burst into flames along with the Jawbreaker.
"Let's see how you work with this," whispered the Viera, now with a maniacal grin on his face. He threw two spheres this time, a sticky green sphere and a sphere that looked like an eyeball. A Malboro and an Ahriman poofed this time, and the dusty room shook with the cries of wild animals.
"Ugh, great, more monsters," said Nick.
"Hey, this is your entire fault," said Mike. "If you hadn't just handed all these souls over to Imation..."
"You guys, let's focus on the battle!!!" cried Leo. Leo charged up to the center of the room and pointed his staff towards the ceiling. "Holy!" Immediately, a bright light lit up the room, and two white spheres or holy magic went flying at the Malboro and Ahriman. When they got close enough, the exploded and blinded the two creatures. "Dang, it didn't work!"
"Hey mage, get down," said Nick, as he strung an arrow and fired it directly at the Ahriman, but missed. The Ahriman, now angry, flew towards Nick at zapped him with a bolt of electricity from its one eye.
"Gaaah! Can't move!!!" screamed Nick. Leo pointed his staff at Nick.
"Esuna," Leo whispered. An aura of white light surrounded Nick, and he was able to move again.
"Take this you evil booger," cried Mike. He jumped on top of the Malboro and cut off a few of its eyes. The Malboro cried out in pain, and wrapped one of its tentacles around Mike.
"Whoa! Put me down!!!" screamed Mike. The thief struggled in the death grip of the Malboro, but the more he squirmed, the harder the creature squeezed. Then an arrow flew out of nowhere, and sliced off the tentacle that was grasping Mike.
"Told you that you couldn't handle anything," the hunter said with a smirk on his face. Then Mike threw a knife at Nick, and barely cut the side of his face.
"What the heck was that for?!" said Nick in a panicked voice. "I just saved your life, and you thank me by throwing a knife at me?"

"No, I just saved your life," said Mike, getting up and wiping slimy mucus from his arm from the Malboro. Nick turned around, and surely enough, there was the Ahriman on the ground, dead with a knife protruding from its eyeball.
"Erh... right... thanks I guess," said Nick.
"Whatever... hey, whatever happened to Leo Boy?" asked Mike.
"You mean the mage?" whispered the Viera man. Nick and Mike looked up to see the Viera man floating in mid air, holding the limp body of a mage by the neck. "You know, its not very wise to totally forget one of your clan members while in a battle." The Viera man now had a very hungry look in his eyes, and his grin was now a malicious grin.
"Let him go Imation!" cried Mike. "He has no use for you!"
"Oh, but he does," whispered the Viera. "Under order of Master Sardes, I am to capture this boy."
"Master who?" whipered Nick to Mike.
"No clue," whispered Mike back. "Listen up here Imation! We'll fight you for him! If you win, you can take the boy AND our souls!" called Mike up to the Viera.
"What the heck are you doing???" said Nick in a hushed voice. Mike just stopped him with a gesture of his hand.
"And if we win, we get the boy and the soul you took from me! What do you say?" The thief remained calm, and if Nick had taken the time to look into his eyes, he would have seen that there was a blazing fire of confidence.
"I accept your challenge," said the Viera. He let go of Leo from the air, and Nick dashed forward to catch him from the fifty foot drop. Imation pulled out a clear sphere that seemed to be made out of glass, but inside was a burning fire. But instead of throwing it into the air, the Viera held the sphere to his chest and closed his eyes as he floated down to the floor.
"Tell me, have either of you fought a dragon?" whispered the Viera. His voiced seemed suddenly dangerous. "Because you're just about to figure out what it's like!" The sphere melted into the Viera's chest, and as he screamed in pain, he sprouted great, big, yellow, scaly wings. In seconds, the Viera had turned into a Thundrake. Nick and Mike's eyes widened in fear.
"I never hunted that for him..." said Nick, awestruck.
"Yeah, well, we're still gonna kill it!" said Mike in a savage voice. Mike ran around the dragon, and jumped over the long scaly tail that Imation swiped at him.
"Puny humansss!!" the Thrndrake roared. "You can never beat me!" Mike scrambled up the back of the dragon, jumping from spike to spike along the dragon's back.
"We'll see about that," said Nick. He strung an arrow, and aimed it at the sky. When he shot it, the arrow exploded in mid air, creating a giant dust cloud, making the room, if possible, even dustier. However, the explosion wasn't for nothing. A force came crashing out of the cloud of dust in the air, and crashed into the ground, creating a tremor, making the Thundrake lose its balance.
"If that's all you can do, you're going to have to try better," bellowed the dragon.
"Oh, that's not all," said Nick in a confident voice. "Imation, meet the Sonic Boom!" As if on cue, a gigantic black serpent crawled out from the hole created in the ground, covered in ancient markings in the color of red. "A little something I picked up while hunting for you sir. Too bad it's gonna eat you. Little Devil... get him..." The snake rose to its full heights, which matched that of the dragons. The snake locked its eye with Imation, and lunged for the dragon's ankle. However,the dragon was faster than the snake, and the dragon grabbed it and squeezed as hard as he could.
"Ah, your silly hunting tricks won't hurt me," hissed the dragon.
"But I'm sure this will!!!" screamed Mike! By this time, he had reached the head of the dragon. Mike took another jump and landed, stabbing another one of his daggers into the dragon's skull. The dragon roared in pain, and released the snake back into the pit.
"Good job thief, now quick, get off!" cried Nick! She strung an arrow, and shot it into the air again. This time, a heavenly white cloud appeared, and opened up, as a great golden sword came crashing down to the dragon.
"Imation, meet Mr. Sidewinder," Nick cried. The sword sliced through the air, and as Mike jumped off, the sword pierced through the dragon, and Imation fell dead. Nothing was left of the dragon's hide, except for a claw and a clouded sphere.
"All right!" cheered Mike! "We beat him!"
"Not bad for a thief," said Nick coolly. "We make a pretty good team, the three of us."
"Yeah we do. Hey lets get this stuff and bring Leo Boy to the hospital in Muscadet," suggested Mike.
"Yeah, sure thing." Nick picked up Leo, and Mike pocketed the sphere and the claw. Together, the three left the chocobo ranch.
"By the way," said Mike. "Would you like to join our clan? Illegally of course." Mike couldn't help but grin, and Nick chuckled.
"Sure, why not? It beats having to take care of these chocobos by myself."