Disclaimer:I own nothing of this story. Even though I should, because I put a lot of thought into it, but it all came from stuff owned by someone else. Figures...

Notes:I just realized that I forgot to write Chapter 11 Posted! on the summary when I uploaded the previous chapter several days ago. Oh well, I'll mention it along with chap 12 and the epilogue. Anyways, I'm putting the final chapter with the epilogue, because waiting for a boring post-chapter is kind of senseless to me, even though the periods between my updates have been fast lately. Whatever. Anyways, here it is, the finale to my fic. Plus an epilogue (it's called Calm, not Epilogue. Rest assured, this is the final chapter.)

Final Fantasy 7/8: Lord of Weapon

Chap 12: Showdown

"My body is unlike yours anatomically. Ultima is a suitable replacement for blood. By sharing some Ultima with the Weapons, we were as one."

Cid, Cloud, and Squall, stood emotionless as the Lord of Weapon spoke those words. How could that be even possible?

"If you three are worried about imploding, don't worry. We Cetra were more intelligent than that. The Weapons and I contain an amount of Ultima less than the dangerous quantity, and the liquid is very thin, so the Ultima is not compressed. As you already know, Ultima disrupts reality. Thus, Ultima that was of permanent constitution of the Weapons, I took that and kept it simultaneously in my body. This formed a bond that could not be disturbed unless one of us was knocked unconscious. However, the sharing still existed, and I could watch though the eyes of the Weapons, which interestingly enough are quite omniscient. Also, the bond allows for instantaneous teleportation. When the Weapon finds excess amount of mana, it would transmit that between the fabricons of reality, sending it directly to me, charging me. Luckily, the other Cetra were stupid on two accounts. First, they actually thought that destroying me would cause some major cataclysm, which is absurd. Second, they thought this world would never regenerate. But it did, adding more energy to me. Granted, I don't have perpetual energy as I wished to have because you killed my messengers, but I have far more than I ever did, which will be more than enough to kill the three of you."

His politeness throughout his story had caused all three of them to drop their guard. This sudden declaration of murder shocked them, and they soon remembered why they had traveled so far.

The Lord of Weapon continued, "You see, all of my attacks are elementally charged with Ultima, for which no living creature can defend against."

"That's impossible. Ultima is non-elemental," said Cid.

"You forget that it runs through my veins, my arteries, and my capillaries. Every last blood vessel now serves as an Ultima vessel."

"Shut up," yelled Cid who gripped his spear and charged forward, "You're just human like the rest of us."

"No, Cid," called Cloud, but it was too late, Cid had attempted to pierce the Lord of Weapon, but as the point pressed a few inches away from the albino's face, a loud crack reverberated throughout the tomb, and a green flash knocked Cid backwards several yards. His spear was in pieces. His body was covered with blood. Cloud and Squall quickly rushed to his side.

"I'm alright," said Cid amidst the blood pouring from his mouth, "Go on and kill this guy."

Cloud cast full-cure on him, and Squall followed with a sleep spell to let Cid rest.

Then both of them turned towards the Lord of Weapon.

"Don't you see, I didn't even do that to him. The Ultima acted of its own accord. There is no attacking me, and there is no defending against me."

"We'll just see about that," said Squall as he rushed towards the Cetra with his Lionheart blade. As he approached the torso, the same crack and green flash appeared, but Squall was not flung backwards. He was still pressing his blade towards the Lord of Weapon, who was now covered in the green light.

"What? Oh, of course, a blade of Ultima. But to have the ability to control such a weapon…"

The Lord of Weapon snapped his fingers and the green aura dispersed, allowing Squall to press down with his gunblade. However, he instantly moved out of the sword's trajectory when he snapped his fingers, and he dived towards the right side of the coffin behind him. He quickly pushed aside the lid and placed his hand into the coffin, extracting a large silver broadsword from within. Swinging it into a swordsman stance, he said, "You may be armed with the purest form of Ultima there is, but you cannot defeat me." With that statement, he rushed towards Squall with an overhead strike. Attempting to slash the Weapon Lord's torso before the attack came down, Squall countered with a horizontal slice across the abdomen. To his surprise, the silver sword immediately appeared in front of Squall, pointing downward, flat forward, and deflecting the gunblade. The Lord quickly spun the blade knocking Squall's weapon to the side and brought it up with his right hand for a backhand slash. This attack slammed the gunblade out of Squall's grip and flung it several feet away. Instantaneously, the Lord swung his sword back to Squall in a decapitation movement. Squall had already moved back, the silver tip a couple of centimeters away from his neck. The Lord of Weapon continued to advance, slashing and thrusting the sword towards Squall, who continued to dodge the attacks while still moving backwards. As the Lord began to angle Squall toward the wall, Cloud jumped into the air with his zweihander and sliced downward directly onto the white swordsman. As before, with Squall's failed attack, the silver edge immediately disappeared from the assault on Squall, and it materialized directly above the Lord's head, blocking Cloud's strike, knocking him backwards. Once again, without appearing to move, the Lord of Weapon had moved his hand and sword in the blink of an eye.

Upon landing, Cloud said, "That's impossible, no one can move that fast. It's like you're not even moving."

"Ultima disrupts reality, remember? I can teleport sections of myself short distances. True, I can only do so over a couple of inches, but as you can see, the swift movements are worth everything in a fight."

Squall had quickly taken this opportunity to retrieve his fallen gunblade. When he picked it up and resumed a fighting stance, he said, "Swift? You're not even moving."

"Lesser beings such as yourselves may not realize it, but transmitting myself through reality takes quite a bit of strength. Not everyone can do it, let alone making such decisions in the heat of a sword fight."

"Of course not everyone can do it," said Cloud, "normal people don't have Ultima injections."

"Make jokes all you want. We shall see—"

Playing to the Lord of Weapon's vanity, Cloud immediately thrusted his sword forward and yelled, "Bahamut ZERO!"

The Lord of Weapon suddenly looked taken aback, although it appeared his confusion was derived from Cloud's interruption rather than his words.

"The dragon king?" sputtered the Lord.

A few seconds had passed since the original spell had been cast. In a single instant, a blue light pillar had slammed on top of the Weapon Lord enveloping him in the summon's Tera Flare.

"Got him!" said Cloud with a smirk.

Squall was not easily convinced, and he continued to hold his gunblade, ready to attack. When the light disappeared, the Lord of Weapon stood as before, unscathed, wearing an expression of revulsion.

"How dare you use the King of Summons upon the White Dragon? But no matter, even his powers are nothing against me."

"That can't be. Bahamut disregards defense of any kind," said Cloud, bringing his blade downward to his right side.

"But my defenses are not just any other kind. They are the ultimate kind. Don't you understand what it means to have the nonelemental defense of Ultima? It is as futile as defending against the spell."

"Damn you…"

With that statement, Cloud pulled out his UB and pointed it at the Lord of Weapon. "You're full of Ultima, right?" He fired two shots at the Lord, but a green light vaporized the bullets on contact.

"What?"

"Don't tell me you thought that would work. It didn't even work on the Alpha and Omega Weapons. What made you think—,"

But Cloud had not waited for the sentence to finish. He immediately rushed forward with an onslaught of slashes.

Meanwhile, Squall continued to grip his gunblade, ready to strike. I can't use my Holy War at this rate. It wouldn't help. It would be a minute of doing absolutely nothing. He has to have a weakness. Otherwise, how would the Centra manage to seal him away for the last few thousand years. There has to be a weakness. Wait. He glanced at the radiant blue edge of the Lionheart. He wasn't able to deflect Ultima blade as he did with Cid's lance. He's absolutely right. You can't beat Ultima no matter what you use. But what if you fight Ultima with Ultima. Squall looked over to the duel between Cloud and the Lord of Weapon. In spite of the zweihander's weight, Cloud was managing to exchange an equal amount of blows with the teleporting swordsman. He's using inertia to move his Ultima Weapon like that. When he slashes with full force, even the Lord of Weapon can feel the impact. Every time when Cloud gains an advantage in the fight, the other guy has to fend of the recoils just like Cloud. He may able to teleport, but he still has limited strength. So what we have to do is get a stronger force of Ultima. Maybe the Ultima spell? No, the scientists said solid Ultima is strongest. Wait a second, that Lord of Weapon has a white sword. It's not made of Ultima. But the sword is being energized by his body, that's why. Cloud and I need an extra boost just like that for our sword. Maybe…

Squall leaped towards the two duelists, launching a downwards cut at the Lord of Weapon's unprotected back, for at that moment, the Lord and Cloud were clashing their weapons together. As Squall slammed his blade, the Weapon Lord pushed Cloud backwards, allowing the white sword to materialize behind him, countering Squall's attack. Seeing how Cloud was now free to move, Squall hollered, while attempting to push the white sword away from his body, "Cloud, we have to make our swords stronger to beat him. If you don't care about your sword, shoot it with the UB."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Squall was unable to immediately answer; the Lord of Weapon had managed to get the upper hand and was now slashing repeatedly at him.

"Look," said Squall while dodging another blow, "the Ultima spell comes from disruptions within the molecules or something like that, right?" he paused, trying to deflect the oncoming attacks, "And this guy's strength is coming from the Ultima flowing inside his body. All we have to do is shoot our blades, and it'll be like with the Weapons, the liquid should spurt out and there should be mini-Ultima blasts inside the sword itself."

"And what does that do?" said Cloud who decided to finally join the fight again, but Squall motioned him to stay back."

It'll give our blades the combined power of the Ultima spell, solid Ultima, and the liquid form, which appears to be quite strong, I mean, look at our opponent."

Up until this point, the Lord of Weapon was focused on attacking Squall, feeling his words were insignificant, the result of last minute desperation. However, now listening to the logic, he soon realized that he would be at a sever disadvantage if they were able to come through with the plan. He immediately pushed Squall's blade over to the side, releasing his left hand from the handle and facing it towards Squall.

"Burst!"

A green light appeared in front of Squall's torso for an instant. In the next second, Squall was sent flying across the floor, knocking over a set of candles.

"Now you die, you filthy worm," he said while holding his sword with both hands once more. A green light now surrounded the blade, and it appeared to permeate it as well. "You are correct. The strength of the sword was able to challenge your blades of Ultima due to my body. But I have not yet energized the sword with Ultima yet, until NOW!"

He rushed towards the Squall, who was attempting to stand up, and made a horizontal strike across Squall's neck. The wounded SeeD summoned all of his strength to dodge the attack, but he only managed to move a few inches. The glowing sword sliced the front of his chest. The Lord of Weapon turned to face Cloud, smiling, to see his handiwork.

"That was the strongest form of Ultima. Even though I only grazed his skin, the force behind the blow would move past that."

"Well, you're wrong," said a voice behind the Lord of Weapon.

Wearing a face of unconcealed terror, the Lord of Weapon turned around to see Squall bearing only a red scratch mark on his chest between the tears in his clothing.

"That isn't possible. You could not have survived that cut. Unless, you have a high soulon concentration inside your body. But no, how could a mere mortal like yourself contain that high amount of energy."

Frantically, the Lord of Weapon rushed towards Cloud with the same ttack. Cloud, who had been standing motionless, unable to make a decision, was taken off-guard. The pseudo-ex-SOLDIER was attacked in the same way, and he crumbled to the floor. A few seconds later, however, revealed the swordsman standing back up, wearing only a red streak from shoulder to shoulder. Cloud gave a very superior grin.

"Guess both of us are special. It's our turn now."

With the end of that statement, Cloud pointed the UB at his sword and fired one shot near the tip. The blue edge exploded in a mixture of white and green swirls that enveloped the blade in seconds.

"Here, Squall, catch."

Cloud tossed the pistol past the Lord of Weapon over to Squall who had finally managed to stand up. He caught the pistol and immediately pointed it to the tip of his gunblade and fired the final round. This also blew up in a fury of green and white flashes that spread to the rest of the weapon. He instantly felt as though the gunblade had multiplied its own weight by several times. Damn this is heavy. Cloud didn't seem to feel anything. But then again, he hasn't tried to lift his sword yet. Squall tried to return to a fighting position but his wounds from the Ultima cut and the additional weight were too much for him, and he fell to his knees once more.

"Too much for you to handle?"

Cloud, sensing the weapon's weight, decided not to lift the weapon lest its flaw be revealed. Instead, he cast a quick fire spell at the Lord of Weapon. The Lord, seeing the flame shooting towards himself, raised his hand and yelled, "Ultima!" A green cloud slammed into Cloud, causing him and his sword to be knocked back in a spinning vortex of green gas, white liquid, blue shrapnel, and blood.

"Cloud!" yelled Squall.

Cloud appeared to be unconscious as he lay on the ground with his stomach facing the floor. Suddenly, he looked up and whispered, "Gotcha!" A huge red aura erupted from Cloud's body, pushing upward into the air. With his new found strength, Cloud lifted his zweihander, tip up, in front of himself, as though he were lifting a twig. He closed his eyes and yelled, "OMNI-SLASH!" Opening his eyes, Cloud rushed forward and concentrated a volley of slashes against the Lord of Weapon. Even though he had been taken off-guard, the Lord managed to teleport his position to deflect the initial hit. But the force of the onslaught was obviously too much. Expressions of strain appeared in the Lord of Weapon's once calm face. As Cloud swiped left and right, the Lord attempted to counter each one by deflected the shot. He managed to defend himself each time, but the recoil was too much. With the ferocity of a demon, Cloud landed fourteen hits, each one knocking the Lord a little further backwards. After the fourteenth cut, Cloud jumped a few feet in the air and came down a cut that sliced the defender's sword in two, cutting toward the Lord of Weapon himself. The Lord immediately warped backwards, but he still caught the edge of the Ultima Weapon, which was now disintegrating in a frenzy of colors. Clutching his wound, he found that his torso was covered with a white liquid, which did not come from the sword, but from his own body.

Squall, seeing Cloud and his exploding sword falling back to the ground, the intensity missing from his blue eyes, ran towards the swordless, bleeding Lord of Weapon. Since he was already an albino, one could not observe the color fading from the Lord of Weapon's face, but it was evident from the terror in his eyes as Squall moved in with his gunblade. As he ran, blood was streaming from his hair, but he didn't care. Now orange and black light enveloped Squall. "LIONHEART!" Squall felt the blade lose weight dramatically, and he made an upward cut, knocking the Lord of Weapon a few feet into the air. With the agility of a lion, Squall followed the Lord and continued with a barrage of cuts. Except this time, the Lord of Weapon had no means of defense and was forced to take every attack at full strength. When ten hits had passed, Squall charged one final shot; the lionheart's blade was now a moving mass of liquid and gas and both forces compressed for a single instant. At that moment, Squall dashed through the air and toward the Lord with one last cut. As he passed the Lord, the blade disintegrated, smashing into the Lord of Weapon who fell to the floor. Squall made a perfect landing, holding his gunblade's handle on his shoulder.

Cloud, also holding a handle without a blade, limped over to Squall.

"Wow, that was good."

"Not too bad yourself."

"Unfortunately, your stupid plan cost us our swords."

"And saved our lives."

"I guess I'll have to buy a new one. The Ragnarok blade was pretty cool."

"And I'll have downgrade to the Punishment."

Both warriors laughed for a few minutes. They had both been nearly killed.

"C'mon, let's go get our pilot and get the hell outta here," said Cloud.

"Not if…I…have…anything to do…with—," said the Lord of Weapon who was trying to stand up. Squall and Cloud instantly turned towards the fallen swordsman. The Lord was drenched in white blood. His gown was shredded, revealing white skin that bruised and cut. "Both of you. You think, you think," the Lord attempted to say. It was taking him the same amount of energy to stand up as it took to talk. "You think you're so strong with your stupid Limit Breaks." He went into a flurry of breathing, having said an entire sentence without pausing. The Lord finally managed to stand up, though he was hunched forward, with only one eye completely open. "Where did those attacks come from…You…got…them…from us. I…will…show you the ultimate…limit. It's used…to destroy…an entire planet…if…necessary. You die…with me."

"You're bluffing. You've got nothing left," said Squall.

The Lord smiled. But this wasn't the smug smile of superiority as he had worn. This was the expression of insanity. He clasped his hands together. As his body was surrounding by a fierce, red glow, he uttered with his final breaths, "FINAL TERRA SHATTER!" His body seemed to instantly collapse, but unexpectedly, his body held together. It even straightened. When his eyes turned to Squall and Cloud once more, they saw the truth. His pupils were gone, replaced by a dead whiteness. The Lord of Weapon had allowed himself to die, letting the energy of the Ultima within him be devoted to sustaining the Limit Break. Before Cloud and Squall could react, they heard several large cracks, and the floor began shaking. It was an earthquake, and the candles, statues, and coffins that were falling everywhere were sure signs that the tomb was also about to collapse.

"Damn, he is trying to destroy the planet," said Squall frantically.

He turned over to Cloud, who had sprinted over to Cid, tapping his head with the sword handle.

"Wha? What's going on?" mumbled Cid as he was snapping back to reality. It only took a few seconds for him to register the earthquakes, the collapsing tomb, and the floating albino corpse, and yell, "SHIT! We gotta get outta here."

"That's why you're awake now," said Cloud, "Come on, get up."

The three immediately ran at full speed out of the tomb and into the open air. Eyeing the Gravitor and selectively pushing the images of the pleateau cracking in front of them, they ran forward, jumping over the rapidly expanding fissures that lined the once stable brick path. Realizing that the foundation beneath the Gravitor might also collapse, Cid used his spear to vault over to the ship's entrance, and he ran inside to active the controls. As Cloud and Squall hurried into the Gravitor, still clutching their weapons' handles, Cid's voice boomed on the intercom temporarily masking the sound of a planet that was self-destructing. This is your captain speaking. All aboard. If not, tough luck. The ship is now lifting off. Squall and Cloud immediately held on to the closest counters they could find. As soon as they held grip, the Gravitor rose into the sky and shot out of the atmosphere, disappearing into a blink a few minutes later.

Planet Cetran continued to suffer immense earthquakes for few more minutes, before a huge explosion that could be heard from the neighboring planets erupted in the planet's core. Centran resembled a star for single moment as it was surrounded by a flash emanating from the center, then it fragmented into pieces that were shot outward to the rest of the star system. The flare from the core continued to move outward, eventually being dispersed by cosmic winds. After a little bit longer, any otherworldly being would have seen the location of the former planet Cetran as an asteroid field. The only signs of the former planet were huge masses of rock floating in space.