Where there's light...
Disclaimer: I do not own Golden Sun or any of the characters, I just like the games.
Okay, last chapter here. After this chapter the fic will be done, and I can move on to another one without feeling guilty about updates. I've had over 60 hits to my first chapter, but then it drops off dramatically. What's with that? Is the first chapter that bad? Still, it's nice to feel read. On to the end...
Chapter Fifteen: Judgment
Argadon began his attack without delay, thrusting with his sword at Ivan, who nimbly dodged away. Isaac took up his leadership role equally quickly.
"Garet, Felix, Picard! Circle around back and strike its legs! Sheba, Jenna, Ivan, use your psynergy at its eyes! Mia, keep us healed!" After issuing his commands Isaac circled around to join the strike at the God's rear.
Argadon wasn't fazed too badly from the attacks behind him, but the psynergy assaulting his face clearly aggravated him. Roaring with rage and pain he swept his morningstar at the magic casters. Sheba and Ivan managed to evade, but Jenna took a blow to her legs, instantly snapping them like twigs. Working with lightening speed Mia Plyed her before Jenna even felt the pain, and shakily stood to continue the fight.
Meanwhile, the assault on the legs continued to have little effect, even with the power of the Gaia Blade's unleash.
"Dammit, this is pointless! We need to do something else!" Garet yelled after swinging his ax deep into Argadon's thigh.
"I know, Garet! Just let me think..." Isaac called back, his face screwed up in concentration as he stabbed Argadon's ankle over and over without even drawing blood.
Without warning, the Djinn Echo unleashed itself as Felix readied himself for another attack. Feeling the familiar wave of power hit him Felix let the Djinn control his arms to deal two swift, powerful gashes in Argadon's leg. This time, the cuts drew blood, the black substance oozing down Argadon's ankle. The God screamed in agony and tried to swat the men with his tail, but was too distracted by the attacks in front of him to aim properly.
"For Sol's sake, use us! We Djinn can unleash more power than you humans have on your own!" Echo said furiously, its tiny body quivering in unexpected fury. "I know you have refrained from using us, but this is the end! The God of Darkness can't get any more powerful now!"
As if to prove the point, Garet spontaneously unleashed Core, drilling into Argadon's tendons and causing the God to roar in pain as his leg was charred from the inside out.
"Alright! Change of plans, everyone go all out with your Djinn! Hold nothing back!" Isaac commanded to the party.
The group responding smoothly, switching from psynergy and physical strikes to Djinn unleashes. Jenna unleashed Cannon, leaping up to strike Argadon in the chest while Sheba used Smog to blind the God of Darkness. Issac and Garet teamed with Meld and Picard used Shade to nullify Argadon's attacks. Even Mia got in on the fight with Serac, striking Argadon's shin with incredible force.
Buckling under the furious onslaught, Argadon fell to one knee in apparent defeat. Before the party could finish him, however, the God fired into the air, landing on top of the mountain of human corpses. The moans of the dead and the damned grew greatly louder as Argadon boomed from the mountain.
"To be sure, you have power little mortals. Not enough to defeat me, however. You humans have grown weak with the millennia, whereas I have grown stronger! I cast you all to the pit or Darkness forever!"
His words spoken, Argadon took his sword and thrust it into the mountain of the dead. He then threw his morning star into the air, and it traveled so quickly it seemed to smash through the very air. Argadon took his massive arms and formed a cup shape, out of which spawned an enormous black ball that screamed with dead souls. He threw this up as well, which merged with the head of the morning star, turning it so black that it seemed impossible that light could even be near it. He caught the morning star and, whirling it over his head, he brought it crashing down onto the hilt of his sword.
"You will all die, and I will absorb your power to snuff the light forevermore!"
The sword plunged into the mountain of dead, sinking into the putrid mass. The party could only watch, unsure of what to do in their sudden, terrible fear. They stood, still holding their weapons, unspeakably terrified at what was to happen.
And just a second later, it did.
The mountain of corpses shifted slightly, and out of the mass appeared a circle. With corpses for lids, an enormous eye blinked out of the mass of the dead.
"Ginungagap" it said.
It then unleashed a hideous scream as all the dead of the world were torn apart all at once, their souls shattering forevermore. Their pain swarmed into the pupil as a wave of many colors, and the eye began to roll in every direction, as if in agony itself. The screaming wouldn't stop, the eye ceaselessly moving and twitching until every dead soul was contained within it.
And it unleashed that pain all at once in a single blast of mutilated souls.
The mass struck the party with massive force, the screams and moans and the smell of rotting flesh all around them. Every nerve in their body felt as if it was on fire, burning with the untold multitudes of sad and tortured souls, each one wailing its tale of misery and death all at once. Before long, their screams joined the mass of dead, and their souls were carried away by the cursed mass of the dead.
After several minutes, it abruptly stopped.
Eight bodies lay upon the dry, red ground, their faces contorted with agony.
Argadon looked upon them for a while, then chuckled to himself.
"Hmf. Truly weak. Mortals are no longer fit to rule Weyard as they have. I will kill them as I have killed these eight fools."
Just as he was about to ascend to the upper world, however, he noticed a stirring.
"What?"
The body of Felix twitched and moved, deep primal growls sounding from deep within his chest.
"This is impossible! His soul is gone, torn from the astral plane! How can he move? Unless..." The God looked upon Felix warily, almost in fear. "He is one of Hoenir's Brood..."
Felix's eyes snapped open, white as ivory. He leapt up to all fours, growling and spitting like a possessed beast, his hand on the Sol Blade ready to attack.
"Damn these creatures, I thought they died out long ago!" Argadon roared. "Very well then! If I cannot kill your soul I'll make it so your body cannot hold it any longer!"
The berserk Felix dashed to Argadon and slashed the Sol Blade four times into the evil God's arm, cutting the flesh to the bone. Countering with speed unthinkable for a creature of his size Argadon brought his mace around to pummel Felix, clipping his side and opening a deep wound in Felix's side. Screaming from the combination of berserk rage and pain, Felix increased the fury of his attacks still further, opening wound after wound in Argadon's body without pause.Meanwhile, another body began to stir from his supposed final rest. Ivan groaned and opened his eyes to behold Felix's attack on the Dark One. Shocked by the battle occurring directly before him Ivan quickly stood up and nearly passed out again as his soul adjusted to being inside his body again. 'I'm alive, and so is Felix. But how? My soul was ripped apart, torn to pieces by that eye...and Felix is berserk again! I need to help him!'
"Felix! Can you hear me? Felix? FELIX?" Ivan cried to no avail; the Child of Hoenir fought on as if nothing else existed or mattered besides drawing as much blood as possible.
'Dammit, I can't talk to him, like against Lich. So what can I...' Suddenly Ivan gasped as he noticed the Gungnir lying just a few feet away. "The Goddess of Light! I can summon her!" Running over to the spear, Ivan quickly felt a sweep of despair as he realized he had no idea how to summon the Goddess of Light, let alone how to use the spear to seal Argadon.
He had little time to ponder, however, as Argadon quickly noticed the other form moving about. "Damn humans! You are always so stubborn, never knowing when to die, to give up. I'll rip you to shreds!"
The God of Darkness raised his sword from the mound, preparing to sweep it over the dead plains and cut Ivan in two. His efforts were too slow, however, as Felix let out a hideous bellow and cut Argadon's arm off from the elbow. Argandon screamed in agony as the thick black blood poured from the gaping wound where his arm was. The sword fell to the ground and landed, quivering, point down in the dirt, the hand that held it still gripped tightly around the hilt.
His breathing ragged and forced, Argadon launched himself into the sky once again, dropping his morningstar and picking up a handful of corpses with his remaining hand. He then chanted some words in a strange tongue, words of evil never heard on Weyard or anywhere in the mortal world. As another lightning bolt crashed across the sky, Argadon pressed the corpses onto the stump of his arm and collided with the bolt. Ivan felt his gorge rise as he watched the corpses twist and melt into a new arm, as black and clawed as Argadon's original arm. With a hideous laugh Argadon looked down at Ivan, his eyes wide with sadistic glee.
"You see, mortal? I am immortal! The bodies of mankind rejuvenate my body, and their souls give me my power. Not even your friend, the Child of Hoenir," Argadon said, gesturing to Felix who stood spitting and howling at Argadon just out of the reach of his tremendous leaps, "can kill me. Your fate is sealed!"
The God of Darkness swooped down at Ivan, swatting at him like a fly. Ivan, still in shock from what he had just witnessed, couldn't dodge well and received two large cuts across his chest and abdomen. However, Argadon's laughter quickly turned to a bellow of pain as Felix, forgotten momentarily by the God, renewed his assault by impaling his sword into Argadon's spine. Argadon crashed onto the ground, flailing as Felix continued attacking over and over.
Clutching his wound, Ivan limped over to the Gungnir once again, despair filling his heart as he felt his lifeblood leaking away. 'I've...lost my strength. If I die, Felix will just keep fighting as Argadon regenerates himself, and soon will lose. But I just can't figure it out...I can't.' "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?" he yelled to the dead plains, his voice nearly drowned out by the struggle occurring mere yards from where he stood.
"Do not fear, young Ivan!" said a voice.
Ivan stiffened and glanced around, searching for another threat. Finding nothing, he looked back at the Gungnir to find his Djinn, Gust, sitting next to it.
"We have an answer, Ivan. Even with our adepts gone, we Djinn survived the Eye's blast and have searched our memories far, to the adepts who defeated Argadon many years ago." As the Djinn spoke, all the other 71 Djinn appeared around the Gungnir.
"To summon the Goddess of Light, Freya, you must combine all our powers at the same time. The Goddess of Light is the embodiment of the combined powers of the Djinn, plus the power of one human to focus it. You must do this, Ivan! Are you prepared?"
Ivan sat stunned momentarily at this news. "But what will happen to you all? And my friends, will they be OK?"
Gust shook its head impatiently. "Freya is the strongest embodiment of Light possible, so of course she'll reverse what happened to the other adepts. As for we Djinn, we will return to the Astral Plane and send down new guardian spirits. Now enough of these questions! Felix can't last much longer!"
Ivan looked back and saw, indeed, that Felix was slowing down tremendously, his eyes dulling from fatigue. "OK! I'm ready!"
All at once, the Djinn placed themselves in their summoning stance as Ivan shut his eyes and manipulated the flow of their power. Summoning guardian spirits required an adept guide a Djinn's power to a focused point, and Ivan found the drain on him from guiding 72 spirits to be physically painful. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to continue as one by one the Djinn silently exploded into showers of light as their powers fused.
Slowly, a figure began to emerge.
First, a delicate arm of pure light formed in the air. It was shortly joined by another arm, then two legs, straight, slender and strong. A long, lithe torso appeared as well, until finally, completed with a featureless face of light and long ethereal hair, stood a female body roughly the size of Argadon. Aside from her gigantic form, however, Freya could not have been more different from the God of Darkness. Her body glowed with holy light, and let off an aura of peace and happiness. Around her body like a wreath were millions of multicolored souls, which unlike the souls near Argadon laughed and sang, for they were the souls of the pure and happy, purified in the holy light of Freya.
Ivan opened his eyes and gasped at the sight before him. Before he could speak, however, he felt that Freya was going to speak, and so listened in awe.
"I am Freya, the Goddess of Light. Your hope and pure intentions have given me form once more to seal Argadon, the God of Darkness, away. I have been watching you for a long time, Ivan, and know what you need. Here," she said, and waved her arm over the bodies of Ivan's friends. Almost immediately, their bodies stirred as their souls returned to their proper places. First to stand was Garet, then Mia, until finally they all stood in wonder at the Goddess.
"Now, Ivan, prepare yourself for your final task. When I tell you, throw the Gungnir at Argadon and myself so that it pierces both our bodies. Once you have done so, the Gungnir will bind us together for the next thousand years, at which time Argadon will rise again to threaten Weyard. Instruct humanity! Tell them about this struggle, so they are prepared for when Darkness creeps over the land again! Do you understand?"
Mouth gaping, Ivan stood and nodded. He then grasped the Gungnir and held it, ready to throw.
Freya quickly strode to Argadon, who in his fight against Felix had not noticed her manifestation. Just as he succeeded in swatting Felix away he looked at the Goddess in recognition, then horror.
"You! You meddling whore! You can't have returned! It's not possible! I was so close!" Without a word Freya pulled Argadon into a tight embrace. "Now, Ivan! Throw the spear!" she yelled. Instantly Ivan threw the spear with all his might at the two deities, and as if possessing a mind of its own the spear angled itself to perfectly pierce them through the heart.
"Damn...you..." spat Argadon.
And with those words the God and Goddess twisted and warped into a ball of black and white energy, which swirled and spun in the air as it slowly shrank to nothingness.
No sooner did it disappear that the world of Argadon faded into a white void, which then faded back into the world the heroes knew.
They had returned to Weyard.
Yggdrasil had disappeared, as had the Gungnir. Sol Sanctum and Mount Alef were as they were, nothing but a pile of rubble. Below the village of Vale stood, smoke drifting from the chimneys as the people woke in the twilight of dawn. Birds sailed through the air and crickets could be heard chirping on the midsummer morning.
This brought no comfort to any member of the party, however, as Jenna screamed, "Felix!"
They hurried to him, his body laying on the grass, motionless. His face was calm again, the Sol Blade lay in his right hand, perfectly clean as if it had never drawn blood in its existence.
"Felix, wake up! Don't leave me, brother! Don't leave me again!" Jenna cried out, tears streaming down her face as she shook her brother, trying desperately to rouse him, in vain. Sobbing, she turned to Isaac, who tried to soothe her in spite of the pain he himself felt.
"He fought well. He fought right to the very end." Picard said sadly, looking down on his best friend and companion.
Mia tried every healing spell she knew, without success. "He's gone, I'm afraid. Truly gone."
Sheba stood to one side, crying silently, while Garet knelt beside Felix, cursing himself for not being able to do anything.
Ivan turned and walked away from the scene, thinking sullenly to himself. 'Why didn't Freya save him? She easily brought back everyone else. And in a thousand years, it'll all start over again. All this pain we've felt will be given to others so many years in the future. It's not fair! None of it is fair! Why can't we change it, go back in time and change everything, so Felix didn't die and Argadon never came back.' Ivan laughed bitterly to himself. 'Time. What was it Argadon said? That Chronos could change time? Break the cycle and everything? But no one, God or Man has ever seen him. How could we speak to him?" Glancing down, Ivan spotted what appeared to be an oddly shaped rock. Upon picking it up, he discovered to his surprise that it wasn't a rock at all. 'It's too soft and light. It's like...a seed.' As he turned it over in his hands he suddenly gasped as he saw a marking on the seed. "It's a spear...the Gungnir! Could this be a seed of Yggdrasil?" he muttered to himself. As he spoke, he felt a rush of something flood his mind. A rush of wisdom. With sudden clarity, he knew what to do.
"Everyone! Come here, quickly! I can fix this!" Ivan called.
Confused and shocked by his words, the grieving party stumbled toward him, unsure of his words but, as if commanded by another force, felt obliged to obey them.
When they stood around him, Ivan raised the seed and yelled; "With the goodwill of Mankind and the promise of the Gods, I return the Seed of Knowledge to the Heavenly Kingdom in exchange for the Fruit of Life! I ask thee, Chronos, God of Time, everlasting, to speak to your creations and set everything to rights! COME FORTH, CHRONOS, THE KING OF ETERNITY!"
At first, nothing seemed to occur. Bewildered, the party looked around at the world that appeared the same as it ever did, until Sheba called out "Look! The smoke!"
They all looked and gasped in astonishment at the town of Vale. The smoke in the chimneys hung still in midair. A flock of birds was suspended frozen on the horizon. The wind no longer blew, the grass no longer swaying. Time itself had stopped.
"What is it you desire, young Ivan?" a voice called out from the sky.
Ivan looked up and called back, "Oh great Chronos! We desire you to give the life back to our friend Felix, and destroy the cycle of Light and Darkness once and for all!"
There was silence again, then the voice spoke. "You have chosen wisely, Ivan. You have fulfilled your destiny as I had planned it, and you and your companions have brought peace to the troubled land of Weyard and last. I will do as you have asked, and I will heal Felix of his affliction. However," Chronos continued. "I cannot grant your second wish as you would desire it. Light and Dark have always been necessary for humanity to exist; all life exists with two opposing forces. Life and Death, Dark and Light, Good and Evil, all define life. Without these forces, the universe would cease to be. In order for Weyard to enjoy the peace you have forged for it, Ivan, you will have to leave it."
The party stood in shock at this news. "That's bullshit!" Garet yelled. "It doesn't make any sense! Why does Ivan have to leave?"
"Because it is his destiny. Ivan, you must become the God of Humanity, the God to judge Light and Dark and maintain the balance that is necessary. If you shirk from this fate, the struggle between Freya and Argadon will never end, and there is no guarantee Light will succeed every time. Are you prepared to face your destiny?"
Ivan stood blankly, overwhelmed by the sense of responsibility and loneliness that now filled him. Despite that, he smiled. "I must, I suppose." He said to himself.
He turned to face his friends and spoke. "This is my final duty to mankind, everyone. If I have to leave you all, then I must."
Isaac shook his head and said, "Ivan, you don't have to. Humanity has a chance if you leave or not. We'll tell everyone, the entire world about what we did! They'll know what to do, and remember it. We can unite mankind together!"
"We can't, Isaac." Ivan said sadly. Not everyone would believe us, and people would forget. There might come a time when there are no adepts left, and then what? There would be no one left to fight. I must do this, for everyone."
He sighed deeply and glanced down at the ground, in silence. When he looked up again, tears speckled the corners of eyes, though he still smiled happily. "Goodbye, everyone."
With that, he turned to face the sky as a column of light enveloped his body. The light shone brightly and grew brighter and brighter until it blinded the party with its brilliance. As the light began to fade, Chronos' voice could be heard.
"Time heals all wounds, and Time will end all struggle. Mankind will live on, able to judge the Good and the Evil, for a new God, Ivan, forever after to be known as Odin, shall lead the people. May the wind of fortune be forever at your back!"
As the last of the light faded, the echoes of Chronos' last words faded with it. Ivan was gone now, and time had started again as if nothing had occurred. The six stood in awe and wonder, and though over the future.
Just then, a familiar voice called from behind them. "Jenna?"
Finished! At almost 4,000 words long, this last chapter is quite satisfying to me. I thank everyone who reviewed this fic, and frankly anyone who read it. I am very grateful for your kind words and advice. Last Norse history lesson for you, Freya was the Goddess of love and beauty, while Odin was the king of the Gods who used his spear, Gungnir, to judge the victor in a battle. Argadon, however, is my own made-up name; I just couldn't think of any other Gods I could use. Well, that's all. I have decided that my next fic will be on FF7, in which I'll throw in a new character, Saul, and base it on his POV. It is not one of those fics I see all over the place now of people getting sucked into the game! I want to make that very clear! I think that's enough writing now though, since my wrists are cramping, so goodbye for now!