Chapter 31
The Ancient Black
"So that's what the bastard looks like," Cid growled as the Highwind slowly headed toward the darkening North Crater.
Out of the shroud appeared a huge creature, not really bigger than most of the things they had to deal with, but big all the same.
It was a four-legged completely black monster that looked to have a pair of horns on its monstrous head and five deadly claws on each of its feet. The creature's actual size was unknown, but the only scale they had for the creature was the fact that it was big enough to walk flat footed on the ocean floor, it didn't need to swim.
"It's a lot bigger than I imagined it," Wymond muttered.
"That's what my last girlfriend said," Sam replied.
"I doubt it," Wymond retorted.
Cid had already armed the ship with as many weapons as possible. Chuck and Shera had finished installing every last bit of equipment, including the reinforcement of the Dragon Skin that would probably save their lives.
"Are we looking at a time limit here?" asked Chuck walking toward the front of the ship as if mesmerized by the Ancient Black. "'Cause this thing looks like it might take a while."
"We can be fairly certain if we don't stop it from crossing the ocean we're doomed anyways," Rufus said.
Wymond nodded, "If we can't stop it in the water we can't stop it."
"It's moving pretty slowly, we can take it," Yuffie said.
"Cid," Wymond said, "empty everything you've got at it, when you're done I want every weapon you have emptied and gone off this ship."
"You got it," Cid said nodding.
"Everybody with a long range weapon meet me on the outdoor platform," Wymond said.
Sam saluted the guardian, "Sir, requesting permission to go kick Dark Navy's ass, sir!"
"I always get nervous when you act like that, what are you thinking?" asked Wymond.
"You'll see," Sam said, "I'm gonna go for a bit of a swim, you guys do your fighting thing, I'll be back."
"Sam," Vincent said walking out toward the outdoor platform with him.
"What can I do for ya tall dark and shady?" asked Sam.
"What you said, about Yuffie," Vincent said.
"Never listen to what I say," Sam said, "as a rule, most of the things I say are utter bullshit. Whatever it is you figured it out for yourself and has nothing to do with what crap came out of my mouth."
Vincent said nothing as they stepped out on the platform. The wind was calm and the water was shining like jewels, deceiving characteristics for a day that could spell the end of all days.
"You should definitely embrace the whole hot ninja girlfriend thing," Sam said walking toward the railing of the platform, "seriously, I guarantee it's the way to go."
"What're you doing?" asked Vincent.
"I told you, going for a swim," Sam said, "first I give advice, and then I swim."
Vincent said nothing; Sam flipped backward over the railing and fell toward the water.
"The hell's he doing?" asked Chuck rushing over to the railing.
"Going for a swim," Vincent echoed his words.
"Alright," Wymond said coming outside, "we need to…where's Sam?"
"He went for a swim," Chuck said.
"Oh," Wymond muttered, "okay then, well, we need to throw everything we possibly can at this thing."
"I've got something we can use," Chuck said, "I had machine guns installed on the platform here, look."
None of them had noticed before, but there were in fact about three heavy machine guns set up in different places on the platform.
"That works," Wymond said, "as soon as we're close enough to the Black Vincent and I will jump off on to the thing's back. From there we'll do as much damage as we can at close range, hopefully it'll be enough."
"While you're doing that the third gun I have set up here should be in perfect range to hit the thing," Chuck said.
"Just don't hit us," Wymond said.
The ship seemed to rumble as it began firing off weapons, missiles and machine guns exploded to life and headed toward the Ancient Black.
"Here we go," Wymond muttered.
The Ancient Black seemed to notice the incoming attacks and reared his head, a beam of some kind of energy exploded out of its mouth and wiped out every piece of weaponry on its way to hitting it.
"Damn," Cid growled, "this bastard isn't as dumb as he looks."
Outside on the platform the three of them saw the Black's defensive move.
"He blocked them," Chuck said, "that's not good."
Vincent ran forward and grabbed one of the heavy machine guns bolted to the railing. He turned it so it was aimed at the Black and then fired. The heavy weapon shook violently as a constant stream of bullets erupted from the gun.
Each of these bullets were incinerated by another black beam, this time the beam didn't stop.
"It's coming this way," Chuck said worriedly.
"Down!" yelled Wymond diving to the ground along with the others.
The beam narrowly passed overhead. They stood up.
"How can we attack it if it just keeps blocking us?" asked Chuck.
"We have to stop it from firing," Vincent said.
"Damn," Wymond muttered, "I don't think we can."
The Black fired another shot from its mouth, straight toward the platform; this shot would blow the thing clear off the ship. There was no time to get off the platform.
The beam closed in, too fast for anyone to do anything to stop it.
Almost anyone, anyways…
Suddenly a jet of flame shot out of the water and seemed to intercept the beam, the red beam of flame connected and both beams flashed out of existence.
"What the hell was that?" asked Wymond.
"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say…fire," Chuck replied.
Wymond got his answer, water exploded upward and a huge, bright, crimson feathered bird shot upward. The shining creature came to a halt floating in front of the Highwind. On its back, was Samael.
"Phoenix," Vincent muttered, "Sam has the staff."
"What staff?" asked Wymond.
They could hear Sam's voice carrying through the air, "Yeeeehawwwww!"
"Whatever the staff is it's not safe in his hands," Wymond said.
"Of that I'm sure," Vincent agreed.
"Guess what, bitch," Sam yelled at the Ancient Black, "Knights of the Round, say hello to my little knight friends!"
Sam held up the staff and it started to glow multiple colours. Then it appeared as if the Ancient Black was attacked from multiple directions at once…thirteen directions to be exact. Each knight did their own unique attack and the Ancient Black was knocked to the side and backward and in all different directions. By the time the summon was done the Black was staggering a bit in the water.
"Now, time for a science lesson, water is an excellent conductor of what?" asked Sam.
"Lightning!" yelled Chuck.
"We got a wise guy in the house, yes, lightning, Ramuh, my man, do your thing!"
A pillar of earth seemed to grow upward out of the water and on top was what appeared to be an old man with a staff of his own. He held it up and electricity exploded outward hitting the Ancient Black. Water conducted the electricity so the damage was doubled at least.
The Ancient Black recovered and fired a blast of black energy back at Sam; Phoenix fired another jet of flame and casually cancelled out the attack.
"Now, for the grand finale, ladies and gentlemen, the six-winged son of a bitch you've all been waiting for: Bahamut ZERO, let's have a round of applause people," Sam yelled holding up the staff for the last time.
This summon didn't appear near Sam, this summon didn't even appear on the planet at all. Bahamut ZERO hovered out in space, slowly charging an attack in its mouth. Then the flare of energy exploded down through the atmosphere and directly into the Ancient Black. The impact exploded violently sending shockwaves through the water resulting in huge plumes of water that got high enough to hit Vincent, Wymond and Chuck on the platform of the Highwind.
The Ancient Black was still standing; it looked unsteady, but standing.
Sam knelt down, partly from exhaustion, and patted Phoenix on the head.
"One more go, encore for the audience, right?" Sam asked breathing heavily. "Make sure he keeps his big mouth closed."
Phoenix let out a screech and suddenly shot forward, heading straight for the Ancient Black. Then it swooped into a graceful back flip and stopped as if standing straight up with its wings held straight outward.
"Fire away," Sam murmured.
Phoenix let loose what appeared to be hundreds of beams of bright light that all hit the creature square in the face. Suddenly, wherever the beams shone there was a small explosion, millions of small explosions that, combined, completely encompassed the monster's face entirely.
"Shoot at me," Sam said.
The Black appeared to want to, but was unable to; its mouth was cauterized completely shut.
"That's what I thought," Sam said breathing heavily; using Phoenix was still draining his energy, combined with all the others he'd summoned. "Okay bird-boy, you've done your job, now I take my swim."
Phoenix was summoned back into the staff and Sam fell through the air and into the water like a rock.
"Sam!" Wymond yelled leaning on the railing.
"The staff drains energy for use of summons, he's just tired," Vincent said, "he'll be fine."
"He's survived worse," Wymond said nodding, "okay, let's go kill this thing."
Immediately, Cid began firing the ship's weapons again, this time the Ancient Black had no defense against the relentless missiles and bullets. The creature hadn't expected to encounter the Outcast weapon; it looked like it was physically paying the price.
Vincent and Chuck fired away on the heavy machine guns constantly as the ship approached. The stream of bullets appeared to be affecting the creature, but didn't seem to be any closer to killing it.
After a few minutes of this the platform was within range of the Ancient Black.
"Alright, Vincent, we need to get on its back and do as much damage as we can," Wymond said drawing his long blade.
Vincent nodded and likewise drew his own weapon.
"Now," Wymond said.
The two jumped over the railing and landed on the Ancient Black's back, Chuck immediately grabbed the gun closest to aiming at the Black and started firing away.
Vincent and Wymond landed safely enough on the creature's back and immediately went to work. Vincent fired his revolver at point blank range into different spots on the Black while Wymond drove his sword deep into the thing's skin. Wymond's weapon was doing considerably more damage. They both chipped away slowly at the creature's resistance, but it wasn't enough.
The Black attempted to throw his enemies off his back by rocking side to side and making them lose their footing. It almost worked multiple times but both managed to somehow hang on. Vincent drove his clawed hand into the creature's back and hung on as it rocked violently to the left.
Wymond walked forward and drove his sword into the Black's head, it cried out and violently cocked its head backward catching Wymond off guard and sending him flying backward and off the creature's back.
He was falling toward the water; his sword was still imbedded in the creature's head. It was unlikely that he would be able to get back on the creature again very soon; it was up to Vincent now.
However Vincent was no longer on the Black's back, Vincent was gone. Chaos shot downward and caught Wymond before he hit the water.
"Vincent?" asked Wymond.
"More or less," Chaos replied and flew the both of them back on the Ancient Black, Wymond grabbed his Masamune blade.
"This is what Aeris was talking about," Wymond said, Chaos nodded. "We'll see if she was right about how powerful you are, then."
Chaos took flight again and Wymond continued to hack away with his blade. He watched as the winged monstrosity that was Chaos floated in front of the Black's face and started clawing away at it. The creature managed to raise a clawed foot and whack Chaos aside, he splashed into the water.
Immediately Chaos was rocketing back out and straight at the Ancient Black, a crimson streak passed by the Black's face and the creature seemed to stagger to the right as it did. Then the streak came back and hit from the other side, Chaos repeated this going left and right, then going up and down. He slowly started deteriorating the monster's face.
Wymond simultaneously attacked the creature with his sword constantly; this was mixed with the bombardments by Cid and the Highwind.
Chaos floated out in the air a few feet in front of the Black and aimed Death Penalty. Using physical melee attacks wasn't working fast enough for Chaos. He began firing his gun. The powerful rounds in the big gun cut into the Ancient Black causing it to stagger side to side and almost move some complete steps backward.
Chaos started moving forward as his gun slowly started pushing the Black backward. Wymond attacked still but watched in amazement as Chaos' gun dealt heavy damage on the black creature.
"She was right," Wymond muttered.
The Ancient Black attempted to take steps forward but Chaos reloaded and began firing again, the huge gun's bullets wouldn't allow the creature to gain any ground.
Then it looked like the creature was frozen in time itself, the world moved around it but it itself was just frozen. Chaos stopped firing and looked at the monster wondering if maybe it was dead.
Then, like glass, the monster began to shatter slowly into pieces, it started at the legs and then the body and finishing at the head. It slowly began to break into small jagged pieces and fall uselessly into the water.
The ground disappeared from under Wymond and he was falling with the remnants of the Ancient Black. Chaos shot through the waterfall of pieces and grabbed Wymond, flying him back toward the Highwind.
Chaos landed on the platform and he and Wymond looked back at where the Black was in the late stages of deteriorating.
"Did we kill it?" asked Chuck looking at Chaos warily for a moment.
"I don't think so, that was too easy," Wymond said. "Look, the pieces of the Ancient Black are being sucked backward into the Crater."
"It's lost its connection to this existence," Chaos said, "Cloud and Aeris have succeeded."
"We won?" asked Chuck.
"It appears that way," Wymond said.
"We won!" Chuck yelled and ran inside the airship yelling the two words over and over.
"Will they be able to come back to this existence?" asked Chaos.
"As far as I know as soon as the path is destroyed they should be sucked forward as the creature is called back," Wymond said, "if not Cloud is the key to Centre Time so they could get in that way."
"You knew?" asked Chaos.
Wymond nodded, "I'm the reason he and Aeris knew, I was able to send them both a vision, much like the one you and Cloud received from Aeris, telling them who they should find and that Cloud was the key."
"Hojo," Chaos said.
"I guess you were there," Wymond said, "I found out quite recently and knew I had to get the message to him. I used the City of the Ancients again to convey the message; it was difficult, but not impossible. I thought it was odd I didn't find any remains of you, Vincent. I had suspected death was too easy an exit for you."
"You may be right," Chaos said, "I have to go pick up a friend, I'll be back for the celebration."
"Yes, you do look like the partying type," Wymond said sarcastically and headed inside.
Chaos flew toward the water and spotted Sam floating on his back, staff in his right hand. Chaos stopped at a hover beside him.
"Did we win?" asked Sam.
"The Ancient Black is gone," Chaos said.
Sam looked at him, "You did your freaky winged demon thingy again, and I'm guessing you killed it."
Chaos shook his head, "I believe Cloud and Aeris succeeded in what they were planning."
"Oh, well, one way or another the thing's gone," Sam muttered, "well, hurry up and fly me outta here before this water ruins my hair. I combed it all nice for coming here and now it's ruined."