PART XXVIII

The four heroes ran out into the cave and got to a solid wall as the entire structure began to feel like it was sinking.

"Now what?" Vivli screamed.

"We climb!" Bootus announced, quickly scrambling up the cavern wall.

"I don't think I can climb that." Vivli whimpered. Zinkata grabbed her.

"Hold onto my back!" He ordered. She did so as Zinkata scaled the wall.

The four heroes emerged standing on the thin rim of the hole they had made when they defeated Lavos's mouth. The entire shell was lurching backwards, sinking into a gigantic pool of lava.

"Guys, I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but I think this is it." Voldos muttered.

"No point in living anyway." Vivli whimpered. "Our lives were a lie."

"Hey, don't say that." Zinkata said gently. "Lavos was powerful, but deluded. It told us it manipulated everybody's lives to harvest us. How's that possible? If it was manipulating us, then why did it let us destroy it?"
"I don't know." Vivli sighed.

"I've seen Altana." Zinkata stated. The others looked at him in confusion. "That day, in the battle against Carnage. I heard her voice. She's real. Even if Lavos is the one that was manipulating us, she was the one looking over us. As far as I'm concerned, we're all still her children, no matter what some overgrown seashell might think."

"You're right." Vivli said, hugging him. "Altana is still our goddess."

"Aw, how sweet." Sighed Bootus. "Now I get to die knowing Altana exists. Hope we have something sweet waiting in the afterlife."

"I don't care." Vivli smiled, turning to Zinkata. "Everything I've ever needed is right here with me. I love you." She said gently. Bootus rolled his eyes.

"Can we please die in peace?" He snapped. "I don't want any more mushy crap while we're cooked to death by lava." Vivli and Zinkata ignored him, hugging each other tightly as the shell continued to sink into the fiery depths.

"Ahoy down there!" Came a sudden voice as a rope ladder dangled down. All four heroes suddenly looked up in shock. "Didn't think I'd just leave, did you?" Olose called from the deck of the Raven III. The four glanced at each other, and quickly scrambled up the rope ladder. Vivli seemed to be the only one petrified by the thought they were climbing above a gigantic pool of lava, but managed to make it on deck all the same. The four looked over and watched as the great hulk of Lavos sank into the lava, disappearing beneath the orange liquid. They all collapsed, panting from exhaustion.

"What are you doing back here?" Zinkata panted. "I thought we told you to get to the cities and warn everyone!"

"We did." Olose smiled, holding up multiple linkshells. "Except we did it the easy way." The four heroes smiled.

"Thank you." Vivli managed to say between breaths. There was a rumbling from below and the four heroes sprung up to look over the edge of the ship.

Below, the lava had collapsed in on itself, as if being drained back underground. Solid ground reformed, and it began to snow.

"The glacier will be back to normal in no time." Voldos smiled.

"And Lavos is gone forever." Zinkata said.

"Are we going to tell everybody about what it said?" Bootus asked. "You know, about us. About the races. About how we all evolved."

"I think some things are better left quiet." Zinkata answered.

"What things?" Olose asked. The four turned to him.

"You don't wanna know." They all said together.

The Raven III hovered in the air over the glacier, the snow gently setting down on its deck. Vivli and Zinkata stood there, looking into each others eyes. Vivli slumped into his arms.

"It's over, Viv." Zinkata said warmly.

"Don't we always say that?" She smiled slightly. "Didn't we think it was over when we beat Chaos?"

"You're thinking what I am, aren't you?" He laughed.

"Scrap the retirement plan?" She suggested with a giggle.

"Of course." He answered. "I mean, if we retired, this world would fall apart in seconds."

"What ever happened to the over protective Zinkata who was scared of his little girlfriend getting hurt?" Vivli asked sarcastically.

"I realised that she cast a spell that almost blew up Lavos, the Destroyer of Worlds. I kinda figure that means you're an okay warrior." Zinkata gave in answer.

"That was a one off." She reminded him playfully, actually enjoying his protection.

"Well then, I'll just have to keep you safe. And there's no safer place than in my arms." He smiled.

"Do you know what I think we need?" Vivli asked. Zinkata shook his head. "A holiday. We need a break. Just the two of us."

"I like that plan." Zinkata smiled. "We could go somewhere peaceful, like Seblina, just relax by the sea, put down the swords and enjoy ourselves, instead of fighting all the time."

"Going to Seblina?" Roared Bootus as we walked up on deck. Zinkata and Vivli sighed. "Sounds like a great idea! I'll go tell Voldos!" He disappeared again. Vivli and Zinkata laughed.

"Well, we can at least get our own room at the inn." She said.

The Raven III touched down in Windurst, and the heroes emerged. They were greeted by the High Priestess.

"We heard of your courage." She said warmly. "Your bravery. You've got to stop saving the world, it must be somebody else's turn by now." The Light Warriors smiled.

"Hey, we don't enjoy clearing up the mess." Bootus joked.

"Hey! It's them!" They heard a voice. They looked over to see a small crowd gathering. Suddenly, hundreds of people flowed out of the city, flocking to them, roaring and cheering.

"I think they want to say thank you." The High Priestess laughed. They roared with cries of victory. Bootus turned to Voldos.

"I think the Adventurer's Appreciation Festival has just been extended." He laughed.

"I think our trip to Seblina may have to be postponed." Voldos smiled.

The streets of Windurst were full to the brim. It had taken a week, but the festival had been adapted into a pure celebration of the heroes. The gigantic banners that had once said 'Thank You Adventurers!' had been replaced with ones reading 'Thank You Light Warriors!'. Hundreds of stalls and games lined the streets, and people of every age, race and profession were having a good time.

"I bet Lavos never saw this one coming." Laughed Zinkata to the others.

"Sweet Altana!" Cried Vivli. "Check this out!" She was obviously restraining laughter as she showed the others to a stall.

"What is it?" Zinkata asked, confused. Vivli held something up and burst out laughing. Zinkata took it curiously. It was a stuffed toy of some kind. A galka.

"A Bootus Bear?" He exclaimed as he read the label. Vivli fell backwards laughing. Bootus rose one of his massive eyebrows.

"They made me into a teddy bear?" He asked. Vivli nodded with tears of laughter flowing. "I've got to get me one of those!" He quickly picked one up from the stall. The stall keeper looked at him curiously. "Can I have this for free?" He asked.

"What? Why?" Asked the stall keeper. Bootus held up the cuddly toy next to his face.

"Look. It's me!" He laughed. "Bootus!" The stall keeper burst out laughing.

"Then I guess that makes it yours." He laughed.

"Thanks!" Bootus exclaimed.
"You might want this one too." He through something else to the galka and Bootus fell over with laughter.

"You seen that over there?" Voldos asked Vivli and Zinkata. "They have 'whack-a-Lavos'."

"Sorry. Been there. Done that." Zinkata joked. "For real, I mean."

"It's hard!" Voldos explained. "You have to through these balls at these Lavos shaped coconuts on stalks and knock them off. I can't do it."

"You're a master with the bow, but can't hit a coconut?" Vivli asked.

"I swear they've stuck them to the stalks!" Voldos protested. Bootus walked over, still laughing.

"What're you finding so funny?" Vivli asked. "Or is this still your bear?"
"Oh no." Bootus said, wiping away a tear. "This isn't my bear. This is your bear!" He held up a little stuffed mithra in a robe with gigantic felt ears and a long running piece of string for a tail. Two blue buttons made up the eyes and a little black spot made up the nose. Vivli looked at it in shock.

"My ears are not that big!" She cried sarcastically. Voldos and Zinkata had both broken down in laughter. "Oh, you two are just jealous you don't have your own cuddly toy."

"I think humes and elvaans don't make good cuddly toys." Laughed Zinkata.

"Yeah, we're more of the 'action figure' kind of people." Voldos added.

"Funny you should say that, because look what they're selling over there." Bootus pointed to another stand advertising Light Warrior action figures.

"You have got to be joking." Vivli said sceptically.

"Let's go check it out!" Voldos cried, running over to the stand. The others smiled and followed him.

They fought past the crowd to look at little molded figures of the four. They were surprisingly fairly similar to what the heroes looked like. The clothes were off, but most of the features were correct, with the right hair styles and eye colour.

"Wow, that's awesome!" Zinkata cried. "I want all four!"

"I think they really captured Bootus's likeness." Voldos said, examining the figure.

"He looks kinda angry." Vivli observed.

"That's what I meant." Voldos said. Bootus looked around the stall and burst out laughing again.

"Check it out! Vivli dolls!" He pointed to dolls of Vivli, which was wearing a pretty looking dress.

"Hey! I wear robes!" Vivli protested. "That's not fair!"

"Viv. What did you wear against Lavos?" Bootus asked patronisingly.

"That's entirely not the point!" Vivli cried.

"This is the best festival in the world." Voldos laughed.

"Who do you think's responsible for it?" Came a voice. The four spun around.

Emilen smiled at them. Voldos ran to her.

"Emilen?" He exclaimed.

"Not just her." Lucia smiled.

"Yeah, we were pretty much all involved." Angel explained.

"I'm the one who made the bannerrrrrrrrrrrrrrs." Dedji told them.

"I made the cuddly toys!" Elnroth put in. The four heroes stared at him. "So I'm good at sewing!" He cried. "There's nothing wrong with that!"

"I've been writing songs to play in the evening." Jacoby explained.

"I designed the games!" Ninias pointed out.

"I persuaded them to make the Vivli dolls." Olose grinned.

"They still aren't done with toys of the Raven." Cid mumbled.

"Hell, Crazy Steve's been making the action figures!." Zanu told them.

"It's great to see you guys!" Vivli cried.

"Well, somebody had to make surrrre you got the rrrrrrespect you deserrrrrrved and got embarrassed at the same time." Dedji laughed.

"Hey! I like my Vivli toy!" Vivli shot back, cuddling the cuddly toy of herself.

"Might even replace that other teddy bear she carries around." Bootus mocked.

"Oh, nothing could replace that." Vivli said without thinking. "Ur, I mean, what bear? What are you talking about?" She quickly tried to correct herself just to the laughter of the others. The entire group laughed together, enjoying the festival that honoured the heroes that saved the world. Again.

A month passed and the heroes moved on to Seblina, enjoying the peaceful quiet town. Vivli had passed the days trying to actually learn to fish, but failed miserably to catch anything. Voldos and brought Emilen with him, and the two had spent more and more days together. Zinkata spent all of his time with Vivli, except for one specific day where the others went to the beach. Vivli stayed behind in Seblina, considering the beach near Seblina wasn't a normal beach, but one roaming with monsters. Zinkata returned later that evening, and found her hunched over a desk with an ink quill and paper.

"What are you doing?" He asked with a curious smile.
"Well," She began, "I figured that if we're going to be famous, people might as well get the story right. So I'm writing it."

"Writing what?" Zinkata asked.

"Our adventures." Vivli answered.
"What, all from your point of view? Like a big journal?" He asked.

"No." She smiled. "I'm writing it like a real story. In the third person. So that everybody can read of all of our adventures from all points of view."

"Where do you start a story like that?" Zinkata questioned.

"Back on the hill outside Bastok. Starts with you, actually." She told him gently. Zinkata peered over her shoulder and read the first few lines.

"Hey! That makes me sound like an idiot!" He protested.

"Well, you did get beaten up by that sheep." She mocked.

"Oh, it was much more of a battle than that." He answered, intentionally deepening his voice. "I mean, it was more of a war really. There were hundreds of them." Vivli laughed.

"And that's why you're not writing the story." She mocked.

"Oh, if you're writing it, I get input!" He insisted. "If you put in every embarrassing thing I did, I'm going to make sure you put in every embarrassing thing you did!"

"Fine." Vivli said confidently.

"Hey, if you're writing our lives, is this conversation going to be written down?" Zinkata asked.

"It might." Vivli smiled.

"So, what you going to call it?" Zinkata questioned. "I suggest 'The Almighty Zinkata And Friends'." He joked.

"Urm, I don't think so." Vivli smiled. "I've been thinking about it. About how much our lives have been like an old fantasy adventure. Almost like a fairy tale."

"Yeah, but this was real. We could have died. You always know the heroes will survive in those." Zinkata explained. "I mean, think about our battle against Lavos. That could have easily been our final adventure." Vivli nodded, and then suddenly smiled. "What?" Zinkata asked.

"I think I have the title." Vivli told him.

"What is it?" Zinkata asked, watching as she grabbed her front page and began to write the title at the top of the page. She wrote two words.

Final Fantasy.

Ending Note: The End. Thanks a million if you've read this far. I really appreciate you taking the time to read through this story, and the others! I mean, that's three long stories you've all now endured by this point. Thank you. I'd love it if you could leave a comment of some kind so that I know what you thought, even if you didn't like it, I'd love to here. It only takes a few minutes and really means a lot to me, so please, review away! Any criticism is welcomed.

Once again I really should thank some people. Again, everybody who read. I really appreciate it. Thefrogkiller again for his constant reviews and help, having given me a lot of advice on writing which means in my next story hopefully the romance wont be quite so poor thanks purely to his help. He also gave me many characters to play with which was very useful. Ninias deserves thanks as I used Ninias as a character with permission, so thanks for that! All of my reviewers for being encouraging and helpful! Sorry I haven't mentioned everybody, I mean, there's only about six of you, but I'm afraid I'm going to forget somebody! But believe me, I really appreciate it! Zinkata also deserves thanks for continued suggestions, and for not being too freaked out by a Zinkata-Vivli romance! Believe me, Zin, that was disturbing to write as well!

And now I should probably say something about what's going to happen in the future. I'm taking a break from writing for a few weeks. A forced break due to exams. I don't want to, but I simply have to. Now I've got this out of the way, I'm better off not starting anything new until I'm done with exams or else I'll get addicted and write a chapter a day again.

But what to write when I come back? I have a few ideas, one of which is the story of the ten months between FFXI Chronicls 2 and 3. This wouldn't be a full narrative though. Every chapter would instead be like an 'episode' where they are individual stories for our heroes, telling you what they got up to during the ten months. The advantage of this is we're back to square one and there will be no awkward romance. The bad side is all the character development in this story won't have happened yet. Another idea is obviously the FFXI Chronicles 4, which I have some plot ideas for, but the Light Warriors saving the day again is going to be a bit samey, so I'd need to work on making it original. A third would be a story starring Olose, but it wouldn't work well as FFXI fan fiction because the FFXI world wouldn't be fully evolved yet, so that's probably my weakest idea. Plus there would be no Light Warriors. That's just got to be bad. Might be more suited to a short story. Anyway, if you have an opinion, feel free to post it in a review or in an e-mail.

Over my exam period, I might still find time to work on a short story or two, so if there are any short stories you'd like to see stemming from the FFXI Chronicles please ask and I'll see if I can write it. There's already been the story of Crazy Steve and what's odd to him on Phabrizoe's suggestion (thanks for that Phabrizoe!), and I'll see what else I can do if you have an idea.

Well, thank you for reading this far. I hope you've enjoyed the FFXI Chronicles and hopefully they'll be more in the future. Thanks a million! I hope to see your opinion in a review, but even if you decide not to review, thank you for reading this far. I'm very appreciative you took interest in my stories. Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed them!

Oh, I almost forgot, if the lack of visible scene changes drive you crazy, but you want to read this story again, e-mail me/say in a review and I'll send you a real version of the story in a text file where my paragraph breaks show up!

Thanks again!