Author's Notes: As of writing this, I have finished the epilogue. It doesn't quite feel real, finally finishing this story that I started over five years ago. But hey, every project needs to come to an end. Enjoy the second to last chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise
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Chapter 7: Facets of Time
Drake grumbled as he jerked out of his sleep, blinking owlishly around until his eyes focused on the hand in front of his face. He looked up and saw Odette smiling down at him, and accepted her help up. He yawned and looked around, seeing that their companions were gathering up their belongings from their break.
Drake trailed along at the rear of the group, rubbing at his eyes as he struggled to wake completely from his nap. He blinked as the next section that they walked through didn't change as blatantly as the last one. The stones still had the pinkish hue that he was familiar with in Lindblum, though the light was darkening to twilight.
There were three barrels at a corner their path took, and Drake glanced in them because they were there, only to do a double-take and nearly fall into one as he reached for something at its bottom. Someone gripped his belt and hauled him back just as his hands closed around the item. He huffed and shook his head to get the blood flowing back out of it and looked over the item he'd picked up.
"Do you always have to grab what you see, Drake?" Edgar sounded like he wasn't sure if he should be annoyed or amused, though he eyed the leather-wrapped object Drake had in his hands curiously. Drake smiled sheepishly and unwrapped his bundle, nodding to himself.
"Ah, I thought so. Here, Edgar. A pair of daggers." Edgar blinked at the pair of daggers and spun one around his hand as he pulled it out of its sheath. He looked over it, pulled the other out, and started to laugh, sounding amused.
"Castor and Pollux. A rather fitting pair of names for the Chosen of Gemini." Edgar grinned broadly and replaced his current daggers with the new pair, running his fingers over the golden-toned wooden hilts. "They feel like they were made for my hands." Drake shrugged a little at that and looked around. Most of their group was waiting on them a short ways away. Drake smiled apologetically at them before walking again.
"Sorry, didn't mean to delay everyone." Freya rolled her eyes at him and started to walk again, and soon they were all back in the previous area. "Well that explains why there wasn't a change in scenery." Drake ducked as they passed under a ringing bell, covering his ears as he hurried away from the sound.
Under an archway not far from the bell, there was another chimera waiting for them, growling. It lasted even less time than the previous one. It barely even felt like they had broken pace as it tumbled into the abyss below, allowing them to pass by and up the stairs that slowly traded their pink tint for blue as they rose in elevation.
After the memory of Lindblum was gone from sight, the path turned from stairs to a road, complete with weeds sprouting up between the bricks. Drake paused mid-step and looked around before swearing. Everyone looked where he was looking and saw what looked like a truly ancient city in the distance...split in half with one half rotated ninety degrees and attached to the side of the other.
"What is that?" Above one of the halves of the ancient city was a sight even more curious than the questionable architecture. Two spheres impacted into each other in slow-motion, each with a moon trailing after them. Unlike in the game, which had been mostly in shades of blue and purple, this was vivid, deep red molten rock pouring out of the gashes caused by the collision and swirling around the two in an approximation of a ring system. "Two moons colliding...? No, they look more like planets." Drake rubbed at his mouth, frowning.
"I wouldn't be surprised if that was Gaia and Terra," he said softly, frowning. "We've been kind of traveling back in time. But this is...This would have completely reset both planets. All life would have been wiped out, and it would have taken centuries for the conditions for life to return." He ignored the fact that people were staring at him. Zidane jumped a little and looked directly upwards of where he was standing, listening intently as a frown grew on his face.
"Garland says it's Terra's attempt to assimilate Gaia?" Drake frowned and stared at the distant spectacle. "They didn't actually physically collide, it's apparently a...metaphorical image?" Zidane didn't sound entirely sure about what he was saying. "He says this happened five thousand years ago." Drake crossed his arms and squinted at the image.
"Yeah, there's no way that could have happened five thousand years ago if that happened physically. Five billion, maybe, but not five thousand." He finally glanced sideways and saw Edgar staring at him. "One of the things the scientists of Earth figured out was how long it took life to propagate and evolve to become sentient, by observing the rock layers within canyons and assessing the fossils there."
"It does prove you right about Earth, though. Look." Dagger pointed a fair ways away from the two colliding planets, and everyone turned to look. Odette gasped, and Drake frowned. There was Earth with its large moon, a broken trail of something pearlescent leading towards it. "The broken flow of souls..." Drake nodded, still frowning.
"This was one of the things that struck me about the story when I first saw it. Earth was never mentioned, but I was able to figure it out once I started to puzzle out what wasn't mentioned in the stories." Zidane nodded a little and crossed his arms.
"I saw something like this in Oeilvert." Drake looked back at Terra and Gaia, and blinked as he saw that the molten rock was forming into something that looked like the roots of a tree around both Terra and Gaia. "Well, not the part with Earth, just Gaia and Terra overlapping." Zidane shrugged and started to walk along the road again. Drake frowned at his back.
"When did..." Drake trailed off as he thought. "Oh, that's right. You and some of the others went there while the rest of us were trapped in Figaro Castle." Drake started to walk, glancing at Odette in time to see her face fall. He grimaced a little at bringing back what was probably a horrible memory for his fiancé, and looked forwards again.
An iron giant was waiting for them at the gate to the city. Odette took her frustrations out on it, and managed to wreck it most of the way before Vivi finished it off. Drake winced at the destruction, and reminded himself to apologize for bringing up Figaro Castle at the first chance he got. While he admired Odette's power, he never wanted to give her a reason to turn it on him.
The city looked completely foreign to Drake, even once they'd reached it. He had never seen a creature like the statues that guarded the bridges before. They were a cross between a fish of some sort with a bottom-turned mouth, and a porcupine. There was water everywhere, and the blue-tinged rocks had given way to green, and not all of the green was moss.
They walked through part of the city before they reached a gate that had a waterfall pouring over the entrance. Drake paused on the bridge in front of it as Freya approached the gate to try to see if there was a way past the water that wasn't just walking straight through it. She shook her head at them, and Drake sighed, tugging at his hood so that it covered his face better. Odette put up a protect spell to ward off the water, but it didn't last terribly long. Most of them ended up drenched.
Beyond the gate, Drake felt strangely buoyant for a moment before gravity returned to normal. However, he did stare at a fish as it swam past his face. The moss on the walls slowly gave way to colonies of coral, and bigger and bigger fish began to appear. He wasn't the only one staring around with confusion, though Quina did have the strangest reaction. S/he began to swim in the air once the tunnel they'd been walking through opened up into what looked like a shallow sea. The ceiling itself looked like the surface of water from underneath, even.
"What a strange room," Odette murmured as Quina confirmed that s/he thought they were under the ocean ahead of them. "These coral never existed on earth, as far as I'm aware. This must be an ancient ocean on Gaia. Look." She pointed, and Drake turned to look. Sure enough, there was a creature that reminded him of a trilobite scuttling along the sandy pathway they were walking on.
"Why would we be able to see it, though?" There was a thud, and everyone turned to see Quina picking themself up off the ground. "Oh. Must have realized that we aren't actually underwater." Drake turned his head and continued to look around. "Wait, where did all the fish go?" He frowned, reaching for his bow.
Tentacles appeared around the top of a ridge of coral, and Odette took a step back the moment she saw it. Drake grimaced and checked his quiver before realizing he had to switch it out. As he did so, the creature that had scared all the fish away hauled itself into clear view. Drake's grimace grew worse as he saw the creature clearly.
"Ew." Drake glanced at Odette in time to see her shudder, and pulled one of his arrows from his quiver. Glancing at its tip, he grimaced. He was running out of arrows. Once the last of them were gone, he'd be all but useless.
"I am the 'Water Chaos', Kraken... Your presence is forbidden!" Even its voice burbled unpleasantly, and Drake couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at its taste in fashion. The silk that it had decided to drape its body in was rotting, and all the gold on it was tarnished.
"I think I see why you didn't want to talk about the Water Temple," Zidane commented drily. He spun his weapon hand over hand in front of him, little bubbles of 'air' following the blades as it spun. "That thing looks all kinds of nasty."
"Is it at all safe to be using electric magic here?" Drake blinked at Sabin's point, and tilted his head to the side. He hadn't stopped to think about that. Undoubtedly, that would be the best method to use against Kraken, but they were technically still underwater, themselves.
"Only one way to find out." Odette was already gathering magic along the edge of one of her swords. Drake noticed with a start that she hadn't been fighting with both of her swords out as much as she used to. She swung her right-hand sword upwards to launch the spell at Kraken, and it exploded into a Thundaga spell. "Nope, we don't get affected by it. Nice to know."
Drake sighed and drew his bowstring back, taking aim at one of the two major tentacles that Kraken had sprouting from its back. He took a deep breath in before loosing the arrow, feeling rather than seeing that it would strike its target true. It was a sense of peace that he'd been missing, he realized. Memoria was full of questions even for a gamer, let alone someone having to hike through it. Life just made more sense with his bow in his hands. Maybe once he retired he could go back to just hunting.
Drake's arrow took out the left tentacle without much trouble, damaging the tip so it dripped blue blood. Kraken screeched, a warbly sound that grated on Drake's nerves enough to make him cringe. He paused as he straightened up, his eyes finding a red gem that was set at what would have been Kraken's throat had he had one.
He had to withstand a Water spell getting thrown at him before he was able to draw another arrow from his quiver. He didn't bother to think about why the Water spells actually hurt if they were underwater, or why their weapons trailed air bubbles if they were in air.
Everyone jumped as Drake's arrow struck the gem on Kraken's chest. Odette cast a Reflect spell on Kraken in time to reflect a Water spell off of it. Drake blinked a bit, but then remembered that Odette, Eiko, and Dagger had all fought Kraken before, so they would know his tricks better than anyone else. Heck, he didn't even remember as much about the end of the game as he'd like.
When the fireworks of the Water spell faded, Drake wiped his face and patted his quiver. He didn't feel any fletchings, so he looked down, twisting to peer at the opening of it. He swore, and reached in his pouch to see if he had any other quivers of arrows. His swearing only grew, and he scowled as he looked up. Edgar was tilting his head at him.
"I'm out of arrows." Edgar sighed at that and gestured for him to back up, an annoyed look on his face as he turned to look back at Kraken. "At least I helped a little," Drake muttered to himself as he shoved the empty quiver back into his belt pouch. He crouched to make a smaller target of himself, slinging his bow over his shoulder.
Between Odette and Vivi casting Thundaga spells at Kraken and Dagger summoning Ramuh, Kraken didn't last long. Eiko cast healing spells on everyone as Drake stood up, though everyone jumped at the sound of applause. Drake yelped; the sound was coming from directly behind him. He lurched forwards and turned to see who had snuck up on him in time to see the man smile apologetically at him.
"Sorry, I thought you knew I was here. Well done, all of you! Especially you, my dear, well done on the timing of that Reflect spell." Odette blinked at him, and then her eyes widened. Drake frowned and glanced between them, tilting his head to the side. Though he did have a familiar buzzing in the back of his head that reminded him of...
"You're a Constellato. What are you doing here?" Edgar sounded confused, though he was putting his blades away slowly. Odette had a hand over her mouth, her eyes still wide. The Constellato gave a sweeping bow, a wide grin on his face.
"I realized that there was someone I needed to give something to." All of a sudden, he tossed something to Odette, who caught it with one hand, the other still holding a sword. She blinked at it, and then at him, an unreadable look on her face. "I've something for you, too," Hades told Drake, turning to him. He patted his pockets before finding what he'd been looking for.
An unstrung bow emerged from a pocket that must have worked like Drake's belt pouch and handed to the archer. The moment his fingers touched it, purple light flickered into existence where the bowstring should have been. His eyes widened as the grip fit into his hand perfectly. He hesitantly touched the bowstring made of light, and found it was cool to the touch and had the perfect draw weight when he pulled it back.
"I...wow." Drake was speechless as he looked over the smooth metal bow, purple arrow inlays along the sleek belly of the weapon. "I don't have any arrows, though." He couldn't tear his eyes away from it. It almost felt like it had changed itself to suit him.
"You don't need any. The only reason an arrow didn't form when you drew the bowstring back was because you were doing it to test it. You have to concentrate on using it as a weapon for the arrow to form." When Drake looked up, he saw that Odette had sheathed her sword and was looking over the object that Hades had tossed to her. Drake had a feeling it was a Stellazio.
"So why didn't you just give that to her last time she was in Treno? That is where you stay most of the time, isn't it?" Hades looked sheepish at Sabin's words, and scratched the back of his head. Edgar looked amused, but was politely not looking at the Constellato.
"Oh, er. It didn't seem like the, ah, correct time." Drake lifted an eyebrow as Odette rolled her eyes, and was suddenly reminded of the fact that most Red Mages had a fondness for dramatics. It stood to reason that the Constellato they bowed to would have that same fondness. "Anyway, it seems you all are ready to move on. The Constellato and Einherjar are with you."
Hades bowed again, and stepped back behind a ridge of coral, and was gone. Drake blinked a few times before turning to look at Odette, who looped the cord the pendant she'd been given was on over her neck. When Drake looked at it, he was surprised to see it was a pendant of a pair of scales like merchants used.
"We are ready to go, though." Zidane pointed out the obvious, and started towards the staircase that looked like it was half rubble, half naturally occurring sedimentary rock. Drake noted with a small amount of annoyance that he couldn't loop his new bow over his shoulder like he'd gotten used to. He had to carry it in his hand at all times.
Something about their surroundings seemed off to Drake as they reached the top of the 'water' and emerged on top of a line of what looked like basalt. He paused partway up, looking around. The land above the water was covered in ancient plants, mostly short ones that hadn't yet developed a reason to grow to the heights found in modern Gaia. He blinked, seeing a small platform not far from where they were, and what looked like a sword sticking out of it.
"Is that...?" Drake tilted his head to the side, seeing that the blade looked familiar somehow, and climbed up the steps enough that he could jump to the platform. The blade took a couple of tugs, and he looked over it as everyone else noticed what he had spotted. "Hey Steiner, isn't this the sword that General Beatrix uses?" Drake jumped back onto the stairs, and let Sabin steady him before offering the blade to the old knight hilt-first.
"It is. How did it get here?" Drake shrugged, but rummaged in his belt pouch until he came up with an empty quiver that could be used as a make-shift sheath for the blade. Everyone stared at the blade, but it was eventually handed to Drake so he could store it in his belt pouch.
"Okay, so, barring the confusion with the sword, what on earth is going on here?" Drake blinked at Zidane, who gestured at the landscape. "This is still Memoria, right? Well, I don't remember ever seeing any of these plants. Or any of the creatures down in that ocean there. So why do I seem to have a memory of Gaia being covered completely in water?" Drake and Odette exchanged glances.
"The evolution of life," Drake suggested. Odette nodded, and Drake turned to look at Zidane. "Some of the scientists back on Earth have suggested that there's such a thing as genetic memory. Except since you're from Terra, I think it's safe to say things went the same there." Drake looked up and frowned. "Though in the story, this section was... well, it was more like the early sections. Man-made structures, not natural ones."
The columns of basalt started to lift up off of the ground and spread out. They started having to jump from column to column, but thankfully no one fell. An odd object appeared off to the side of their floating pathway.
Drake tilted his head to the side at the broken clock face. Their path led right to the stairs that went over the top half of what seemed to have once been a truly impressive clocktower. Drake was surprised by how comforted he was by the fact that there were regular stairs now, with railings. Though the stairs didn't go very far
Beyond a door, there was a platform with a ladder. More than one person stared dubiously at the metal ladder. Drake looked between it and the bow that he couldn't loop over his shoulder like his old ones. His eyes eventually slid to the image beyond the ladder, and he frowned.
"Too dim to be a star...That must be Gaia as it was first forming." Several sounds of confusion came from the others, and Drake gestured with his bow towards the giant fireball. "That's what a young planet looks like. All molten stone. It's also what Gaia would have looked like if Terra had physically collided with Gaia." Odette nodded, humming in agreement.
"I think the discovery that there were planets around other stars happened in our lifetime, back on Earth. It gave scientists the chance to figure out how Earth had formed. There had been theories, of course, but very few had been testable while on Earth itself, because of gravity, and only a few had been able to go up into the space beyond the atmosphere." Edgar's eyes were glittering with curiosity, and Drake smiled a little at him.
"Once we're home, we'll tell you all about space travel, Ed, I promise." Odette blinked at him and laughed a little, amused. "Can we sit down here and rest for a while? After climbing up those rocks, I think I'd like to take a break." Zidane shrugged a bit at that, and Drake sighed with relief before finding a part of the crumbling railing of the platform to lean against.
They largely were quiet as they rested, and Drake swore that Eiko and Vivi both dropped off to sleep. Zidane had his head tilted to the side like he was listening to Garland, but he wasn't offering any information, so Drake was fine with that. Sabin had his eyes closed, in a meditating seat with his hands on his knees. Amarant looked like he was also meditating, but it was impossible to tell whether his eyes were closed. Ed had the far-off look in his eyes that meant he was thinking about machines, and Odette was tracing a bit of embroidery on her skirt, head tilted to the side.
Drake decided to acquaint himself with his bow, and ran his fingers over every inch of it, finding the places where the power that formed the bowstring and the arrows hummed under the metal. He also found the word 'Sagittarius' etched along the belly of the bow, filled in with a purple enamel so dark it was almost black. Again, he felt as though it was aligning itself with him.
"Alright, let's go." Everyone looked up as Zidane stood up. Sabin leaned over and gently shook Eiko awake as Odette woke Vivi. Both children blinked around, disoriented. Eiko accepted a piggyback ride from Sabin, and Amarant grudgingly gave Vivi one as they started up the ladder. Drake slid his bow into his belt pouch as he climbed after them.
They climbed for what felt like forever before finding what looked like floating islands with ferns sprouting out the sides. Drake sighed and sat on the platform at the top, stretching out his arms. One by one, the rest of the group arrived. Odette looked frustrated, and her skirt was tied up above her knees so that it stayed out of the way.
There was a clatter, and everyone turned to look. Vivi froze, a new staff at his feet. Drake smiled wearily at him and gestured for him to pick it up. Vivi did so carefully, and turned his eyes to it. Everyone else eventually went back to their own thing, and recovered from their long climb.
Drake was, surprisingly, the first one up the next ladder, but it was far shorter. It led up to a domed building with a bit of walking room between the door and the ladder. Drake pulled out his bow, and halted with a thought, looking at the architecture. On Earth, this sort of look was associated with the gods, and they had gone back through time past the beginning of Gaia itself. There were many creation myths that started before the beginning of the world. Was this where those early gods had lived?
Once most of the group was at least on the ladder, Drake pulled his bow out of his belt pouch and opened the door, because he was pretty sure that there wasn't nearly enough room for all of them to stand in front of the building. The inside of the building wasn't much better, but it did have more doors than it had looked like from the outside. At least at first.
The moment the last of their group stepped through the door, the building changed. The dome was gone, leaving the blackness of space lit only by stars. Drake's breath caught in his chest for a moment in awe of the sight. His view of the stars had been tainted by light pollution on Earth, and the horizons had always been blocked by trees on Gaia.
"Wow..." Drake wasn't the only one overwhelmed by the sight. Edgar's eyes were wide as he drank in the sight. A scent made Drake pause and look around. The trappings of the building had faded, leaving a great deal more room, but there was no sign of what was causing the stink that Drake had just noticed, until he looked up.
"Incoming!" Everyone's attention moved to Drake, and then up at the creature that Drake had noticed. They scattered to the edges of the room as the creature dropped to the middle of it. The wave of air carried its stench to the rest, and Drake cringed, covering his nose with his free hand as his eyes watered.
"I, the 'Earth Chaos', Lich, commend your feat. But your life ends now." Lich's voice rattled, and Drake grimaced. The voices of all of the Chaos Guardians were unpleasant in their own ways. If he remembered right, though, beyond here lay the Crystal World, which was populated by crystal imitations of the Chaos Guardians. He shook his head a little, reminding himself that he had to concentrate on the here and now.
His bow hummed under his hands as he concentrated on his intent to kill Lich. It came as no surprise to him when an arrow sprouted between his fingers as he grasped the bowstring. He eyed Lich, trying to figure out where the best place to strike was. He couldn't go for the center of mass like he could on a living person because it was more likely to bounce off of a rib or go straight through. The skull wasn't likely to cause much concern, either, but it was the best target available.
They all hit Lich like a battering ram, though Zidane, Edgar, and Quina hit hardest of all. It made sense, seeing as they had fought Lich once before. Drake was surprised by how quickly he could reset with his bow, now that he no longer needed to grab a new arrow and set it on the bowstring.
Drake gasped as he was hit by a Doom spell, feeling something settle in his chest uncomfortably. He gritted his teeth and drew his bowstring back, concentrating on making the arrow do as much damage as possible. His strength waned as the spell continued to eat away at him until he was on the ground, gritting his teeth against the pain.
"Full-Life!" Drake coughed with relief as the spell chased out the Doom status that had been eating at him, and pushed himself up with a grunt. Sabin offered him a hand up and he took it, grimacing at the lingering pain. Even with healing spells, he was going to be sore for a while. Most of the fight had already gone past while he was on the ground. As he caught his breath, Lich fell, and Odette rushed to Drake's side, her eyes worried.
"I'm alright, Odette, I promise." She hugged him tightly, and he winced. "Ow. Okay, so maybe I'm still a bit sore." Her arms loosened a little, and he hugged her back. "Sorry I scared you." Edgar punched Drake in the shoulder, and the archer eyed him. "Sorry I scared you too, Ed." There was a distinct tinge of sarcasm in his voice when he directed it at his blood brother.
They all looked around after the fight, trying to figure out where to go next. Drake moved to what was left of the door they had walked through and looked down. There was no island below them. There wasn't even a ladder there anymore. When he turned around, he saw Zidane was at the gate on the other side of the platform, head tilted to the side like he was listening. As Drake watched, Zidane hesitantly stepped off the platform and onto something that couldn't be seen.
"A step of faith? Really?" Drake's comment made everyone turn to look at Zidane. "Well, I guess we've seen weirder since entering Memoria." Drake sighed and walked over to the gate. Zidane made a couple more hesitant steps forwards, and Drake swallowed as he stepped out into space, not breaking his pace for fear he just wouldn't continue if he halted.
It was almost like walking on something inflatable, he realized as he walked a couple of paces off of the stone and looked down. He still couldn't see anything under his feet. He turned and looked back at the rest and smiled encouragingly. He had a feeling that his uncertainty still showed through, though.
One by one, the group stepped off of the stone. Odette led Eiko, who covered her eyes as she walked. Drake pulled out a scarf for them all to hang onto while they walked so they wouldn't get separated once that concern was brought up. There were times that what they were walking on felt like it was shifting underfoot.
They all got pretty tired after walking for what felt like hours. Zidane had to break up arguments from the head of the group as tempers flared. Eventually, there was a flare of light that lit up right in front of Zidane, and they all were pulled into it.
Drake blinked and held a hand over his eyes as he recovered from the light, though he felt something firm under his feet again. His eyes ached a bit, but a Curaga spell helped him feel a bit better. When he opened his eyes again, he just had to squint a little until one of the Einherjar helped him by adjusting his eyes so everything looked a little darker. It was nice, almost like a pair of sunglasses.
'You're welcome.' Zeke's voice echoed in Drake's head, and he smiled a little, thanking him before looking around properly. Zeke must have been the one to help him in this way on top of the Pillar of the World, too. He definitely needed the eye protection this time. They all stood on a path that looked like it had been carved out of quartz. Light refracted through it all, scattering enough that it was impossible to tell where the source was.
To their left was a large orb that also looked like it had been made of crystal, with peaks where the surface had been swirled. It was impossible to tell just how far away the orb was from the path, but it looked to be huge. Drake wasn't the only one looking around, nor was he the only one staring at the orb.
"Where is this? This isn't Memoria..." Drake shook his head and adjusted his hood so it blocked out more of the light. There was a slight ringing sound that he could swear was the crystals resonating, but each time he thought he could pick out exactly where it was coming from, it moved.
"This is called the Crystal World," he said softly. "I don't know where the name came from, but that's what I've always heard it called." Zidane shrugged, still in front of Drake. Both of them turned to look at something that climbed up from underneath the crystal path. "Oh yeah. That's a thing, too."
'That' ended up being a crystal version of Kraken. Considering that the crystal Kraken was weaker than the previous version and more than one of them had a more powerful weapon, it didn't last very long. Drake kicked a chunk of the shattered foe off the path, only to see it start to float in place.
"Please tell me that was the only one." Freya had a tone of exaggerated patience. Drake shook his head and smiled apologetically at her. Freya sighed and ran a hand along her snout, grimacing. "I suppose we ought to be careful, then." Drake nodded, and they started forwards, shoving the larger chunks of crystal off the path so they could pass by.
As they walked, the crystals slowly gained color, first turning yellow, then orange and shades of brown. Larger crystals started to appear alongside the path as it spiraled in towards the largest crystal in the vicinity. Drake paused and looked away from it for a moment, frowning a little. There was nothing but crystals, but the farther away from the largest one, the smaller they got, until they looked like stars against the black.
"Drake? Something wrong?" Sabin noticed Drake stop. The archer shook his head as he turned and started to walk again, giving Sabin a reassuring smile. Amarant and Freya had paused as well to look back at him, Odette just a step beyond them.
"Nah, I was just wondering what there was around here besides crystals. Come on, the others are gonna kill that crystal Lich without us if we don't catch up." Sure enough, there was a crystal version of Lich hovering in front of the vanguard of their small army.
The Lich was dead by the time they rejoined the group, but there were six more crystal Chaos Guardians on their path before they got to the main crystal. Drake managed to figure out that his bow was particularly good against crystalline creatures, even if the effect wasn't seen immediately. What did make everyone jump was when a bolt of pure mana would jump from crystal to crystal with a crash like lightning.
The path led them into a crevice in the surface of the main crystal, and Drake paused on the path to rest a hand against one of the sides, only to snatch his hand away as he felt the buzz of crystallized mana through his glove. He rubbed his hand as he trotted to catch up to the rest.
When he caught up, he found that they had all stopped. Odette was standing there with her head tilted to the side, like Zidane had been when he was listening to Garland. After a moment, she looked around and stepped to a wall of crystal that looked like it had inclusions of metal in it. She reached towards it with both hands, wincing as mana crackled around her hands. Drake started forwards, but was stopped by Edgar.
When Odette stepped back away from the wall, she had two swords in her hands. Mana still crackled around them, but they looked like a strange cross between metal and crystal. She held them up, and Drake finally stepped around Edgar, looking concerned. Odette noticed him and gave him a soft smile.
"I'm fine. Do you have any spare quivers?" Drake frowned a little at her but pulled out a couple more empty quivers that she put her metal swords into before sliding her new swords into the old sheathes. Drake put the metal swords into his belt pouch before looking at Dagger, who was also holding a rod made of crystal that also crackled with mana.
"I'm fine. I was running a little low on mana when I touched the wall, so it recharged me." Drake blinked at that and looked at Odette, who nodded. Drake sighed and rubbed at his face. Even with Zeke's help and his hood, he was starting to get a threatening ache behind his left eye. Or maybe it was the jolt of mana he'd gotten when he had touched the wall.
"Fools!" Everyone jumped at the booming voice, and Drake turned as a figure jumped from somewhere above them to land on the other side of the wide section of the crevasse they were in. Drake automatically settled in a ready stance as the stranger turned around, swirling his bright red cloak dramatically. "If you wish to reach the crystal to destroy it, you will have to go through the best swordsman of-"
"Gilgamesh, you do realize that we're here to save the crystal, not destroy it?" Drake cut off the swordsman's speech and got stared at as he relaxed his stance. "The one that means to destroy it is the one we're trying to stop." Gilgamesh leaned forwards to stare at him. Drake shrugged. "Or would you prefer I call you Alleyway Jack?" Gilgamesh growled and crossed one set of arms.
"Hmph. I see there are legends of me from that land yet." More than one person snorted, and Drake shook his head with a small smile. Sabin looked disappointed that there wasn't going to be a fight and looked away from Gilgamesh.
"Not really. The stories I know you from are from another world entirely. One that could look into Gaia in all its incarnations." Gilgamesh stiffened for a moment and then straightened from his slouch to look intently at Drake. "Yes, I am a Whole Soul."
"It has been many years since I last crossed swords with a man such as you." Drake lifted an eyebrow at that and pointedly looked at his bow. "Ah. You aren't a swordsman." One of Gilgamesh's hands lifted to scratch at the side of his face.
"I'm horrible with a sword." Drake couldn't help the small smile pulling at his mouth. "I've managed to injure myself more with a wooden one than anyone else." Gilgamesh grimaced a little at that and looked at the rest of the group.
"An admirable cadre of warriors, nonetheless. I would join you on your quest, but... I was supposed to meet with Enkidu." Drake shrugged a little at that, and looked at Zidane, who was still looking at Gilgamesh like he wasn't sure what to make of him.
"We should get moving again anyhow. The more time we waste, the more time Kuja has to damage the crystal." Zidane nodded at that, his face grim. Edgar started to move again, towards the front of the group now. He eyed Gilgamesh warily as he turned away, but kept walking, his shoulders tense. Drake waved to Gilgamesh before turning and starting to walk, hyper aware of the man's eyes on his back.
Only a few minutes later, they were out of sight of Gilgamesh. Edgar sighed and allowed his shoulders to relax, though he still scowled. Drake was listening hard, he'd heard crystal scraping against crystal a while back but hadn't seen anything that looked like an enemy. His fingers were resting against the bowstring, but no arrow sprouted between his fingers yet.
After a moment, Drake started to walk again, climbing up a jumble of crystals to the top of the hill. His boots slipped a couple of times as the path got steeper. When he reached the top of the hill, he paused and looked around. The crevice had led them to a plain full of towers of dark crystals. Occasionally an orb of light like the phenomenon called pyreflies in Final Fantasy Ten floated past, lighting up a spire to reveal the color within the crystal.
"Wow..." Eiko grabbed hold of some fabric on Drake's pants leg as she stood next to him, her eyes wide as she looked around. "It's so pretty." The rest of the group also expressed their admiration for the scenery. A pyrefly looped around them, and Drake followed it with his eyes, a frown slowly growing on his face.
"What that?" Drake hummed a bit in response to Quina's question, trying to figure out how to word his answer. Knowing Quina s/he would want to know if it was edible, he was going to have to be a bit more careful than he would if anyone else had asked.
"It's called a pyrefly. In one of the other stories, the tenth one, they were known to be the souls of the dead. I'm not sure why they're here, though. They don't have a physical form, but if enough of them gather together, they can create what's called a fiend, if the souls hold a grudge against the living. If they don't, they can create an image of the past." Drake shook his head slowly, watching as the pyrefly he'd been watching swung behind a red-violet spire. "But I don't know how they got here. The crystal is the source of all life, there shouldn't have been anything to create them yet."
Slowly, his unease spread to the rest as they figured out what he meant. Odette looked around at the scenery again, this time assessing to see if there were any hiding spots. Edgar and Sabin did the same. Zidane was looking down from the top of the hill, scowling.
"The path ends here." Drake paused and blinked before looking around. Zidane was right. Only a few feet from where Drake stood, crystal spikes sprouted from the ground, threatening to spear anyone that thought to climb over them. There were two very tall ones flanking the end of the path, but nothing else was there.
"Well, how about we rest before we start to look for the offshoot we missed," Sabin suggested with a sigh. He found a crystal with a flat top and sat gingerly on it until he was sure that it wouldn't shift under him and send him tumbling into the sharper stones. "I dunno about the rest of you, but I'm starting to feel the trip."
Drake glanced around at the rest of their group and realized that they all looked pretty tired. He didn't feel it so much, but then he'd had a nap a while ago, in the area that looked like Lindblum. Everyone else had been going for hours longer.
"Yeah, alright. We all could use some rest." Drake sat down on the path, groaning a little as his joints protested. Quina passed along some more food. Where s/he had been keeping them, Drake had no idea, but it still tasted pretty good. He was surprised to find that once he was sitting, he was too tired to ponder what was in the pastry shell.
More than one person started to nod off as they mechanically chewed their food. Drake finished his and started to stretch gingerly, struggling through his sudden exhaustion to try to remember how close they were to Kuja. His stretching reminded the others that they had to do the same, and soon Sabin was talking Eiko and Vivi through some easy stretches.
Drake had no idea that something was changing until Zidane looked up and yelped. Everyone else looked up, and Drake's eyes widened. Hundreds of pyreflies were swarming in their direction. He lurched to his feet as they arrived, some shooting through his body with a feeling like ice that made him gasp.
An image appeared around them as he pressed a hand to his chest. Odette's fingers curled around his elbow as he forgot to breathe. Everyone else was still getting to their feet, looking around with confusion at the image the pyreflies were showing them.
"It's...Earth..." Odette sounded as breathless as Drake felt. He swallowed hard, feeling a fierce yearning he hadn't expected welling up inside him. "More than that, this is...this is my neighborhood." Drake finally forced himself to move, and was absurdly relieved when the illusion didn't dissolve simply because he'd moved his head.
"This is Earth? It's so...spacious." Edgar looked around at the suburban neighborhood. "And clean. Unnaturally so. What's with the grass?" Drake looked around and couldn't see what Edgar was referring to. "There's no clover, no flowers..." Odette smiled faintly, but she wasn't looking at any of the others.
"It's a status symbol. Having a spread of land that isn't cultivated for anything but a single strain of grass that isn't useful for anything is a sign that the people that own the house are wealthy. It's stupid, really." There was a bit of bitterness in her voice, and her smile turned into a grimace. "And that's not taking into account the trappings of status you'd be more familiar with, like behavior, clothing, and buildings."
There was a rumble, and Drake turned his head in time to see a bright red car barrel harmlessly through their group. There wasn't a physical sensation this time, but it still made his heart leap into his throat. It was nothing like the reaction the rest of the group had, though. Edgar physically leapt out of the way, eyes wide, and Quina fell over while the rest merely stiffened.
"And then there's those," Drake said dryly. "There's some people that say the size of a man's car is inverse to..." Drake trailed off as Odette sniggered a little. Edgar looked befuddled at the comparison, while Sabin and Zidane were trying to keep from laughing. "That. Of course, there's a trend toward larger ones anyhow. Why, I have no idea."
"Because they're more expensive and go 'vroom'," Odette replied as the vision rippled and changed to another neighborhood. "Oh." Drake's breath caught again. His mother, recognizable even to those that had only known her in Caledonia, sat on the front step with her arms wrapped around a stuffed wolf toy.
"Mom..." Drake grimaced as his voice cracked and suddenly had to blink back tears. The stuffed wolf was a favorite toy of his when he was a young boy. Odette's grip tightened on his arm. There were other things on the front step, boxes and suitcases stacked on top of each other. "Is...are those my old things or...?" He didn't want to have to think about his death driving his parents from the house they'd been so close to paying off.
"She looks just about the same here as she does in Caledonia," Edgar murmured. Drake didn't look over his shoulder at him. "At least the yard here looks proper." Drake finally tore his eyes away from his mom and looked at the garden.
"...She hasn't been tending her garden for a while." All of the flowers that he was used to seeing in the garden had been choked out by weeds. Thistles and dandelions bloomed in place of lilies and peonies. Crabgrass and clover encroached on the normal grass, to the point that Drake had to wonder just how long it had been since he and Cass had...
The image faded, and Drake took a step towards his mother, trying to reach out for her, only to have a pyrefly brush past his fingers as she looked up and faded entirely. He was left reaching for nothing at all, and had to blink tears from his eyes. Suddenly he wanted to do nothing but go back to Caledonia and hug his mother, though it wouldn't reach the one he truly wanted to hug.
Arms wrapped around him from behind, and Drake closed his eyes before reaching up and rubbing at his eyes. He could tell that it was Odette that was hugging him, but he didn't want the rest to see him crying. He couldn't quite explain why, but perhaps it was at least partially pride. He had a job to do still, he couldn't allow himself to fall apart just yet.
"You okay?" That was Zidane, behind Drake still, but closer than he had been before. Drake nodded and took a deep breath, pulling on the calm that he usually felt while aiming for an enemy. He needed to cling to that, even if he felt like a balloon on a string currently.
"Yeah. I'll be fine." He was distantly pleased that his voice didn't even crack, nor was it choked up. He took another deep breath, and smiled a little as he felt a cure spell sweeping through him from where Odette was hugging him. It helped alleviate some of effects of the tears that had leaked out.
When he turned around, most of the group still looked concerned. The three that knew him best looked even more concerned when he offered them a small smile. He looked away from them to look over the landscape again, and frowned as he realized that all of the pyreflies had disappeared. Where to, Drake really couldn't see.
"Okay, so I don't know about the rest of you, but I think I'd like to find the way forward now." Eiko sounded rather uncertain. Drake was about to turn to start heading back the way they'd came when he felt more than heard vibrations in the crystals around them.
Odette and Dagger cast protective spells on the entire group as the vibrations rocked the ground beneath their feet. Crystal fragments rose up into the air as they were knocked free, and some even bounced off of the protect spells. Drake steadied Odette automatically, though he wasn't looking around like the rest had been.
When the quake had passed, everyone waited a few moments in case there were aftershocks, and then started to take stock in what had changed. Drake managed to direct their attention towards what they had previously thought was a dead end.
"That portal wasn't there before." Drake sounded oddly calm, even to his own ears. "Did the quake activate it?" The light in the two pillars that flanked the portal flickered like all the pyreflies had been sucked into them.
"It must have. I get the feeling that's our way forwards, too." Zidane sounded even surer than Drake felt, despite the fact that Drake was the one with the future knowledge. Then again, Zidane was the leader of their group and had to at least pretend that he knew what he was doing, if it wasn't just a connection he had to Kuja that Drake couldn't quite grasp in words at the moment.
The majority of the group gave each other concerned looks, but they followed Zidane down to the portal and through it anyhow. Odette paused before walking through it with Drake, giving him a concerned look. He simply shook his head a little. Now wasn't the time to talk about what the pyreflies had shown them, let alone what it had done to his emotions.
~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~
End Notes: I mentioned a while ago about letting you all know who is on whose team with regards to the Einherjar being able to be summoned. No one asked, but I figure I'll let you all know anyhow.
Drake's team:
monk - Gala - Legend of Legaia
thief -Vaan - FF12
paladin - Cecil - FF4
dark knight - Zeke - OC
summoner - Rydia - FF4
white mage - Penelo - FF12
red mage - Lyn - OC
archer - Cid the First - OC
geomancer - dwarf from Conde Petie - OC. I never gave this poor guy a name, lol
dancer - Tess - OC
scholar - Violet - OC
Dragoon - Jay - OC
chemist - Key - OC
Edgar's team:
monk: Josef - FF2
thief: Edge - FF4
paladin: Firion - FF2
dark knight: Ingus - FF3
summoner: FuSoYa - FF4
white mage: Minwu - FF2
red mage: Lulu - FF10
archer: Irvine - FF8
geomancer: Cid - FF4, I think
dancer: Olivia - Fire Emblem: Awakening
scholar: Edward - FF4
dragoon: Ricard - FF2
chemist: Rikku - FF10
Sabin's team:
monk: Tifa - FF7
thief: Setzer - FF6
paladin: Regina - Queen from FF Type-0
dark knight: Cloud - FF7
summoner: Galuf - FF4
white mage: Banon - FF6
red mage: Tony Redgrave - Devil May Cry
archer: Bran the Raven - OC
geomancer: Luca - FF4: After Years
dancer: Ashelia - FF12
scholar: Mid - FF5
dragoon: Kain - FF4
chemist: Cater - FF Type-0
Vivi's team:
monk: Ursula - FF4: After Years
thief: Reddas - FF12
paladin: Vossler - FF12
dark knight: Machina - FF Type-0
summoner: Rem - FF Type-0
white mage: Porom - FF4
red mage: Palom - FF4
archer: Fran - FF12
geomancer: Refia - FF3
dancer: Deuce - FF Type-0
scholar: Larsa - FF12
dragoon: Basch - FF12
chemist: Krile - FF5
Dagger's team:
monk: Yang - FF4
thief: Yuffie - FF7
paladin: Ceodore - FF4: After Years
dark knight: Leon - FF2
summoner: Yuna - FF10
white mage: Rosa - FF4
red mage: Arc - FF3
archer: Guy the Wild - FF2
geomancer: Mog - FF6
dancer: Gordon - FF2
scholar: Quistis - FF8
dragoon: Kimarhi - FF10
chemist: Selphie - FF8