Chapter 45: Final Paradise Part 1
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Days passed after the events at the now normal Iseillia and a majority of the group went around the world to try to warn everyone about what was going to happen. Even the previous Mecano Generals left, dragging Kai behind them, saying that once the world was saved the entire group would be allowed to gamble and enjoy the facilities of their casino/carnival. The rest of the group was at the Renegades base; this included Lloyd, Colette, Genis, Raine, Regal, Presea, Sheena, Zelos, Zeek, Kratos and Sera.
Sane and Yuan were also there; Sane was working on getting the teleporter system in Vex's gauntlet. The rest of the group was waiting in the living quarters of the Renegades base; a majority of the group was talking about what going to happen while some were resting up.
"With Vex gone, we've got three dark generals as well as Exodus to deal with," Raine stated as she looked through the small notepad she had in her hands.
"So we've got Zephyr, then there's Chaos, and finally a revived Mithos," Lloyd said as everyone turned towards him with a little surprise. "What? I can pay attention too."
"Anyway, we know what Mithos is capable of," Kratos continued. "Exodus however, we know a little about, it would seem that Vezerini would have to know the most about him. However, Vezerini is temporarily healing. The wisest thing would have to be to learn what Zephyr and Chaos are capable of by going over what we already know about them."
Genis looked around the entire room, noticing that something was missing. "Hey…where's Zeek?"
"I think he said that he was going to help Sane with the Gauntlet from Vex," Raine answered as a loud explosion filled the air. "And by the sounds of it, they're not really being successful."
"Damn it!" Zeek yelled as he waved the smoke away from his face.
Sane applied the powerful fire extinguisher to the flaming gauntlet. The entire lab was filled with the dark metal smoke. "I told you not to cross the black and blue wires! No one ever listens to me!"
When the smoke finally cleared, Zeek was looking at the inside of the gauntlet. A blood vessel had appeared on his forehead from the stress of trying to get the armor to get the teleportation to work. "You think that the Mecano Generals would've at least told us how to work this thing."
"I doubt that they knew how this thing works," Sane replied as he went to the computer. "Even though this Magitechnology is similar to the stuff we got here, there are a few key differences."
"I guess we better go to plan H," Zeek sighed looking through the various toolboxes.
Sane turned away from the computer with a quizzical look on his face. "Plan H? What's plan H?"
"Hammer time!" Zeek yelled as he slammed the hammer that he found onto the gauntlet! Sane just looked insane at the site of Zeek continually smashing the gauntlet.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sane roared before the gauntlet shot out a light from the fist that formed into a circle. From the circle, a familiar site of Exodus's castle was viewed from the window.
Zeek just smiled in victory, and with an 'I told ya so' look in his eyes, he turned towards Sane. "And that's how to get the thing started!"
"…What is the world like inside your head?" Sane asked sarcasm dripping from his lips.
"A little muggy to be sure."
The group was in the lab, completely in awe at the site of the new portal. Sane and Yuan were standing in front of the portal. Yuan coughed to get the attention of everyone. "So apparently, thanks to dumb luck we've actually been able to get to Exodus's castle. So we need to come up with a sensible plan of attack.
"Since we've stationed many Renegades at the towns and cities, we're prepared for a distraction from anyone. So we'll take the battle to the enemy, however, two of you will have to be here as parts of the B-Team incase the first team is unable to make it. So any volunteers to go?"
Lloyd stepped up from where he was standing. "Through everything we've been through, I don't think anyone here is going to say no."
"You got that right bud," Zelos stated, rising from his seat. "I'm with ya till the end of this."
"We're all in this together!" Everyone announced at the same time.
Sane just adjusted his hat while sweat dropping. "Very well, but how about you each draw straws to determine who stays."
After a series of agreements, Sane produced a series of straws that had been colored blue at the bottom of them. However, two of them were colored red. Each and everyone of the group drew his or her straw, and the two who drew the two red straws were Zeek and Sera who sighed at the same time. "Dang it…"
"We better hurry," Regal said before he walked into the portal.
"Can't let him have all the fun," Zelos chuckled as everyone else walked into the portal.
"So…it appears that we have guests," Exodus sighed as he gazed at the huge screen in front of him. Zephyr, Chaos, and Mithos were standing next to Exodus's throne. "At least we'll have some fun before Final Paradise begins."
Chaos watched the screen displaying the main group entering the castle; his fist clenched so hard that blood was dripping from the force. With a quick turn, Chaos glared towards Exodus. "Lord! Please allow me to destroy these fools and have the pleasure of killing them."
Exodus just chuckled to himself as he watched Lloyd and the group look towards the new separating staircases. Good thing he had those things put in recently. "No Chaos…I want you three to head towards your combat zones…if and when those fools reach them is when you'll get to fight them. You are not to attack them until they reach your area."
Zephyr and Mithos nodded before they disappeared into a dark aura, however, Chaos seemed to be really pissed off and remained where he was. "But sir…the gate keepers are in front of my zone! No matter who goes to them, they'll lose!"
"Don't be so sure Chaos…remember, the Gatekeeper brothers haven't fought in over 2,000 years, they might be 'rusty'! Exodus laughed as Chaos groaned.
A small dark aura appeared around Chaos before it completely engulfed him. Exodus then turned his sights back to the screen to see that Lloyd, Colette, Regal and Sheena were taking the right path while Raine, Genis, Presea and Zelos took the left. "Looks like Chaos might get his wish after all. Good thing I've got picture-picture."
Five minutes passed since Lloyd, Colette, Regal and Sheena spilt up with the others and the stairs seemed to be going on forever. Sheena broke the very disturbing silence. "This place seems to be very different than the last time we were here."
"Maybe they just remodeled?" Colette suggested as a large door stood many steps away from the group.
"Judging from the door…I'd say that's actually an applicable reason," Regal stated as the doors began to open automatically.
"Seems like an invitation," Lloyd stated as he walked through the doors with the others following.
"Yeah, to maybe a trap," Sheena commented as the room began to light up with torches.
The room was large to say the walls were covered with rust covered chains next to the torches. On the ground next to the walls were piles of gold and silver. The most eye catching item in the room however was a huge door chained together to multiple chains connected to two large statues that had two different colored muscular men sitting in the hands of the statues. Lloyd gazed at the statues as if something wasn't right. "Look at these things."
"I guess whoever decided on this room's style really wanted to go for the dark and gloomy dungeon style," Sheena commented.
"Brother…we have guests."
The group of four looked around to try to find out where the mysterious voice had come from. "So I see…it's been 2,000 years since we last had company."
"We should entertain our guests."
"…What should we do?"
"How should I know?"
"We need to come up with something."
While the voices continued to discuss on what they had to do, Lloyd and the others were sighing out loud and made the voices silent…for two seconds. "Brother…our guests are bored."
"BORED? What is BORED?"
"Well, you see to be bored is when…"
"Excuse me! But could you voices tell us how we could go further?" Colette interrupted as a silver and gold light appeared from the statues' heads.
"You would need to go pass this door."
"Unfortunately, we cannot allow anyone to pass without admission from the lord of this domain."
"Oh, and what are a couple of voices going to do?" Lloyd questioned as a large rumbling sound filled the air. "What the?"
From the statues, two imposing figures jumped from the air and crashed onto the ground leaving large cracks from their feet.
One figure had golden skin and was fully muscular holding onto an extremely large battle-axe. His head was extremely carved and had a long black hair. "Gold!"
The other figure was a skinny silver skinned guy, holding onto a long lance. His face was thing and frail looking along with his black hair. "Silver!"
"And together we are the Gatekeeper Brothers!" the two guardians announced as they lifted their weapons into the air.
"We cannot allow anyone to pass," Silver said spinning his lance around. "Me and my brother have been guarding this gate for over 2,000 years."
Gold slammed his axe into the ground. "And we're not just about to let anyone get through the gate without a fight."
"Then are you two just going to stand around talking about it?" Regal asked as he crouched down. "Or are you going to fight?"
"Silver…let's show this guy our Silver Torpedo!" Gold announced as he lifted his axe into the air and Silver leapt onto the axe.
"Right!" Silver added as he grabbed the axe with his open hand. Then Gold began to spin around with his axe out as far as he could hold it.
Lloyd raised an eyebrow as he watched the weird technique. "Okay…what are they planning?"
"SILVER…" the brothers roared as Gold slammed his right foot into the ground and forced his brother off his axe with a powerful slash. "TORPEDO!"
Silver flew directly towards Regal, aiming with his lance; Regal slid to the right to have a small part of his hair cut off by the force of the Silver Torpedo. Silver continued till he flew directly into the wall…where his lance got stuck. "A little help?"
Everyone else in the room sweat dropped at the sight of Silver struggling to get his weapon out. Sheena lifted her cards and charged towards the stunned Gold. "Pretty good technique…if it wasn't used in doors! Take this!"
Gold immediately raised his axe at the last second to block Sheena's attack. "Well, don't really get a good of enough chance to use our techniques on living beings. So you'll have to forgive us for being rusty."
Silver pulled his lance out of the wall, and landed on his back. "Yeah…that's the little drawback of being gatekeepers. That and the lack of interaction of other people."
"Then why are you gatekeepers?" Colette asked as Gold and Silver jumped in front of the gate.
"It's a long story…" Gold stated as Silver sighed.
Silver stabbed his lance into the ground. "And since we're not really main characters, the author thinks it's too much to give us much of a background story."
"Let's just say…it's our curse," Gold and Silver said at the same time before Gold began to run at high speed towards the middle of the room.
As soon as Gold reached the middle, he jumped high into the air roaring loudly. "To defend this gate as long as we battle! SLAMMER AXE!"
Gold dropped directly towards the majority of the group who managed to dodge at the last second. However, Lloyd didn't notice that Silver was running next to him, and with a powerful horizontal slash, Silver sent Lloyd flying into the wall. "Well that hurts."
"Lloyd! Are you okay?" Colette yelled as Gold appeared behind her.
"You best be worrying about yourself little lady and less about your boyfriend!" Gold roared as he began to swing his axe. "I've got this one Silver!
Gold took a powerful axe swing towards Colette, expecting the blood to fly. However, Gold's eyes opened as he saw Colette flying with her wings out dodging the attack. "S…she's an angel?"
"Pay attention in battle!"
Gold turned his head to the right to receive a powerful kick directly to the face, compliments of Regal's feet. The force of the kicked sent Gold to the ground. Silver turned towards his brother and began to run towards his fallen brethren. "I'm coming my brother!"
"Forgetting someone?"
Silver stopped in his tracks as two crossed slashes caught him off guard behind his back. As Silver fell to the ground, Lloyd appeared behind him with his red and blue sword at his sides. Gold watched as his brother drop his weapon to the ground. "Big brother!"
"Big brother?" Sheena questioned as Gold walked over to Silver. "Shouldn't it be the other way around?"
"Are you alright my brother?" Gold asked as Silver brought his head to Gold's ear. "…I see. Very well.
Gold lifted his brother's lance, each of his hands now fully armed. "With the skill of my brother…I will not fall!"
"Ya know…for gatekeepers, I expected you guys to be tougher," Lloyd commented before Gold jumped into the air.
"FOR SILVER!"
Meanwhile, with Raine's group, they had reached another door that was at the end of their staircase. Zelos walked towards doors and pushed the doors wide open, then stood to the side. "Ladies first…"
Everyone scoffed as they entered the door pass Zelos. The room they entered was quite spacious, many different types of armor lined the sides of the walls, and many carpets on the floor kind of lowered the setting of mood. However, in the laying in the middle of the room was none other than…
"Zephyr!" Everyone yelled as Zephyr just yawned.
Not even flinching, Zephyr scratched the side of his cheek. "Do you have to yell? I was just settling down for a nice old nap."
"I take it that you're here to stop us?" Presea asked as Zephyr yawned again.
"Nope…not going to fight," Zephyr answered causing his foes to fall to the ground.
"Then what are you doing here?" Genis asked stomping his foot into the ground.
Zephyr stood up and pulled his whip from the back of his pants. "Well…to stop you from ruining Master Exodus's Final Paradise plan."
"So…if you're not going to fight," Zelos stated as Zephyr walked towards the armor. "Then how do you propose to stop us?"
"Well…as a minority of you all know, I have the ability to turn almost anything into a beast," Zephyr answered as he raised his whip. "I am a mythical beast tamer, and with my whip of life…
Zephyr jumped into air and just like magic his whip began to grow and slapped the multiple suits of armor. When Zephyr landed on the ground, the suits of armor began to glow. "I can make an immortal army… a reason why I was chosen to be a part of Exodus's Dark Generals. NOW MY AMORS! ATTACK THESE FOOLS! MAKE MINCEMEAT OUT OF THEM!"
"Prepare yourselves everyone, Raine announced as the suits of armor began to walk towards the group.
Exodus stood in front of the temporarily deactivated machine before him, in his hands were the crystallized summon spirits. On the machine were multiple holes which Exodus began to fill with the summon spirits. "One by one…this machine will become the absolute.
"No one will be able to stop my plans this time around. Soon this entire world will be made in my image."
From the shadows in the room, a daunting pair of eyes watched Exodus fulfill his plot…or what he thinks is his plot. 'Yes…you're doing good…I guess Lucifer having a second son, let alone a half demon, would actually be much easier.
'So work my little brother…work till you can't give your life.
'That's when I'll take it.'
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Vyser: And that's that chapter…forty-five down, five to go.
