So. Today's a snow day, so I got an extra chapter out! I should probably be working on history but… OH MY GAWD IT'S SO COLD IN THE HOUSE MY FINGERS FEEL LIKE THE BLOOD IS FREEZING INSIDE OF THEM. It's currently 17 degrees F outside. Brrrr! My poor plants! I forgot to bring my Bay plant inside! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Okay, enough ranting. Thanks to fallacies, emeraldonyxdragon (you're back, yay!), and ElTangoDeRoxanne, for giving me AWESOME reviews. You made me feel warm and fuzzy inside (though not warm enough, I am positively freezing). And also, Tango-chan made me laugh because she used FUDGE MUFFINS in her review two chapters ago. Gotta luv those fudge muffins.
One more thing on names: Solanum, Balthier's successor, gets his name from the genus Solanum, which is the group of plants including nightshades and potatoes. Yes, potatoes are a type of nightshade. This is just one of The Giant Daifuku's weird quirks: she loves plants and soil and vegetables.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Vayne took in the scene before him, shaking his head and sighing. "Only a fool would overestimate their own power and capability, Judge Magister Freyk, and you have paid the ultimate price for your idiocy." His blazing blue eye drifted toward Hugin, but the young man shook his head. Apparently, the spell upon him had been broken at the same time as Munin's.
"I am not your puppet anymore, Uncle. You are alone in this fight," he said. His voice had lost the imperious edge that had so grated against John's nerves. "Your blight will be erased from the face of this Ivalice, and no longer will Dalmasca cower in your shadow!"
Vayne's visible eye flickered red as he rose from his throne, once again towering over them. "Such words are unbecoming toward your uncle, feckless child. Do not worry— I will not allow you to disgrace yourself any further." Mist poured out of his body, wrapping around the throne. The Terminator's bodies separated with a clatter and began to fuse with the Undying, completely covering his skin with metal plates. The three heads writhed at the end of long, scintillating necks, yowling and snapping and breathing flaming Mist. Vayne's own head elongated slightly, teeth sliding passed his lips, metal gears poking out from his overstretched skin like dragon scales. His hair whipped about like a mane, and his tail lashed like a whip, shattering windows and showering them with glass. A forest of spikes made of fractured steel bristled out of his taut back. His breath rumbled deep in his throat, an inhuman sound that was like the growling of a thousand lions, fingers that were as thick as Balthier's musket barrel digging into the floor, each tipped with a vicious claw. They backed away as he grew still more, filling the bridge until all they could see was the long length of his fleshy brown and cold silver body wrapping around the room.
Vayne, or the creature that had been Vayne, roared, filling the room with crackling, blistering heat from his breath, before lunging. They scattered like ten-pins, and he crashed out of a window, plummeting toward the desert far below.
Or so they would have liked to think. The mechanical dragon soared by the broken windows, screeching, six sets of wings pumping to keep its bulk afloat.
"He has truly ascended to the namesake of his demesne," Fran said with a bitter smile. "Bahamut, indeed." John, Blair, Kyle, and Marcus opened fire at its stomach, the bullets shattering what was left of the broken window. Vayne rolled, grinning his dragon's grin, and the shots rattled off his metal plated back harmlessly. They all had to duck for cover as Fran's Ardor spell bounced off a magical shield he erected and came rocketing back at them, melting control panels and gun ports. The room filled with flames and smoke as gunpowder and ammunition ignited. Vayne fanned the flames with his massive wings as he circled once more, screaming triumphantly and launching a ball of lava from his jaws through the window. Fran beat at flames licking at her stomach veil as she skipped backwards from the advancing slurry of molten rock, chanting a Blizzaga spell and breathing a thick layer of ice over it to hinder its progress. Vayne clacked his claws authoritatively, and her spell cut off in mid-cast as she was struck mute. He whirled on a nearby airship zooming by, grabbing it in his claws and throwing it through the bridge. Kyle jumped to the side— he had almost forgotten about the war outside.
"Just hold still and die!" Barnes fired his rocket launcher, only to infuriate Vayne and momentarily knock him off course. The dragon's form blazed and blurred with Mist, before a swish of its tail sent the spell flying at him. Barnes stumbled, staring down in horror as his skin began to turn the ashy grey of stone.
"Barnes!" Blair shrieked, rushing toward him, and he turned toward her sluggishly. "What's going on? What did that thing do?"
"My legs… they're turning into rock!" Barnes exclaimed, watching the grey patches spread. Blair wept hot, angry tears.
"Well, I don't want you to be a rock! Stop it somehow! Fran!" Fran pointed to her throat, indicating she was Silenced, and shook her head. They had no curative items. Blair screamed in frustration.
"I go to sleep for a minute and look what happens!" a strong, clear voice rang out. Blair whirled, and almost cried once more at the sight that greeted her eyes. Balthier rose to his feet with serpentine grace, the words to a Stona spell tumbling from his lips. With a fluid gesture, he cast the White Magick over Barnes, and the grey patches faded. The man shivered with the memory of almost becoming stone.
"I'll never envy those poor men who fell to Medusa, for sure," Barnes said, slapping at his shins to get the feeling back into them.
"You took your sweet time coming back." John glared at him accusingly.
"Getting into a body burning with magick is not pleasant. Try it sometime. See how you like it." Balthier said tartly, shifting to watch the dragon swoop by. "Vayne, I presume? There's a hideous beastie if I ever saw one. It makes me wonder how he ever had the right to call me a monster."
"Nothing we do can even scratch him." Marcus said glumly as they sidestepped another fireball. This time, a Thundaga that would have fried them if they did not dodge accompanied it. Marcus's legs went into spasms as a stray bolt jumped from a control panel to his limb. Balthier began chanting a Vox spell, directing it to Fran, who received it and almost immediately launched into a Dispel incantation, slipping on an Agate ring as she did so. Blue light surrounded Vayne, and the strange flicker of light that had been his shield vanished.
"Yes!" Kyle pumped his fist as he managed to lob a bomb out of the window, lodging it between Vayne's spikes. It exploded, and for the first time, the dragon let out an infuriated scream. His claws smashed through the walls, grabbing and snatching, and shrapnel raked John across the midsection. Fran was instantly at his side, pressing a hand laden with Curaga to his stomach.
"Fran! Catch!" Balthier slid his fingers underneath his vest and into the hole in his stomach, clenching the jewel in his hand before tossing it to the Viera. It spiraled through the air, twinkling.
Vayne spotted the shine, and his eyes ignited— though if it was in greed or in rage, it was impossible to tell. Fran missed the catch as the dragon barreled through the room in an attempt to grab the jewel, throwing her to the ground. She curled up into a ball as the rest of his body roared over her. The jewel skittered across the ground. Hugin dove for it before it fell into a deep crack, sensing its importance, rolling across the ground as spires of ice erupted out of the floor, summoned by Vayne. He clutched it in his sweaty fingers, jumping up and handing it to Fran, who accepted it.
"Into his mouth!" Balthier called to her, as the room surrounding them boiled with Mist. Fran nodded, and he unleashed his Quickening.
His fingertips glowed with blue magic as he wove an intricate web before him. Above them, maps of an ancient world known only to the gods flickered brightly in the starlit void. Water, green-blue and white with foam, lapped at their heels before surging forward, almost up to their knees. Blair clung to Marcus like a barnacle to an anchor, lest the unrelenting tide swept her away.
Vayne seemed to sense what was about to happen, even if he had not figured out their plan, and attempted to fly out of range of the wall of water that now reared up behind Balthier, the crest of the wave churning and frothing like the mouth of a hungry beast. The sky pirate smiled.
"I suspected you would do that," he murmured, before snapping his fingers. A lattice of blue beams, not unlike the spell he had used to summon the wall of water, surrounded Vayne, trapping him in place. The dragon spewed fire, vented Mist, and sprayed Dark magick in every direction, but the lattice held, though just barely. It was long enough for Balthier to put his fingers to his lips and blow, the sound shrieking though the emptiness, and the wave rushed forward, pummeling Vayne under a barrage of icy seawater. The dragon's roar of pain and rage blended with the echoes of Balthier's whistle. The tide had barely receded when Fran jumped out of the wall of water that had hidden her, the crystal in her hand.
"Come, it is time to feast on the Nethicite you love so much!" she exclaimed, before using Bravery fueled muscles to force open Vayne's razor edged mouth, thrusting her arm inside. She used an ice spell to freeze the jewel to his tongue and keep him from swallowing it, pulling her arm out quickly before he ripped it off. Vayne screamed again, tossing his head, flinging Fran from her perch just in front of his snout. Barnes caught her, just as John took careful aim at the jewel on the end of the dragon's lolling red tongue.
"I think it's time that Mister Solidor was introduced to my friend, Mister Gun," he said, a grin splitting his face end to end. Vayne snarled, lunging through the control center of Bahamut again and destroying another wall. As he opened his mouth for another eardrum shattering roar, John pulled the trigger.
"Hasta la vista, baby."
Burning Mist exploded out of the crystal, scalding everything it touched. The party took cover behind one of the bulkheads Vayne had not destroyed on his rampage, and even then, Balthier and Fran still choked on the amount of sizzling Mist in the air. The blast consumed Vayne in a terrific ball of boiling Mist and magic fire, a final scream escaping his throat— and it was the scream of a dying man, not a beast born of greed and metal.
"The last remaining fragment of the Sun Cryst is destroyed," Fran whispered as bits of charred flesh and burned, twisted metal rained down around them. "Ne'er again will it tempt Hume kind with its power." She turned to Balthier, who fretted with the state of his ash stained cuffs. "How ever did you find it?"
"Two ways— there was so much Mist coming out of that tiny shard that I swore I was being smothered. And…" he blushed, the color an ugly black stain against his sickly white skin. "I tripped on it."
Blair burst into laughter, rolling on the ground. Hugin and Munin shared identical smirks, and Kyle joined Blair on the floor.
"I did not think the leading man ever tripped?" Fran raised an eyebrow, and the grey pall of Balthier's skin deepened further, all the way to the tips of his ears.
"Apparently he does when there are shards of the Sun Cryst lying around," he mumbled. "Let's get out of here. That last barrage of Mist could not have been good for the foundations."
When they emerged onto the sands of Dalmasca, John blinked, shivering. Snow fell from the sky, the soft flakes muting the sound of crackling flames and burning ships. "Snow? In the desert?" he asked, reaching out and catching a few crystals on the palm of his hand. Balthier nodded, turning his head up toward the snow. Flakes stuck in his eyelashes. Fran flicked her ears as the snow landed on them.
"Mist is known to do strange things to the weather. It is no surprise that the amount of Mist in that Sun Cryst shard was able to make it snow in the Estersand," she explained. Kyle took out a small camera that had somehow managed to escape the whole ordeal unscathed.
"Star would like to see this…" he muttered, gazing in wonder at the falling snow. Marcus held Blair close as she shivered, clearly underdressed for the weather in her army tank top. Barnes stood off to the side, quietly observing the mangled wreckage of Bahamut's bridge.
Fran opened up the communicator Balthier passed to her, broadcasting on the open frequencies.
"This is Fran, co-pilot of the Strahl. On behalf of the Captain, we thank you for your service to Ivalice, and we assure you that your efforts will be awarded handsomely upon our return to Balfonheim." Fran gently nudged Balthier as she said that, and he grumbled under his breath. "In the meantime, we would also appreciate transportation back to the city, for us and our friends."
Several ships swooped down, almost crashing into each other in their haste to be selected as a ship for the Pirate King and his consort. Balthier looked each one over with a critical eye, and when his gaze fell upon a ship that looked like a three-pronged leaf, he narrowed his eyes.
"This one," he gestured, and a collective groan was heard over the communications line, but for one person, who gave an ecstatic "YES!"
Balthier stomped into the cockpit. "Solanum? Why, pray tell, is my successor on the battle front?" he asked in caustic tones. Solanum, a rather small man with a shock of red-brown hair and laughing green eyes turned around from the pilot's seat.
"Ar, well I was wantin' to pitch in, see? Wouldn' do no good if everyone else was helpin' if I was sittin' around in that posh study ye gave me," he said in the harsh tongue of the Balfonheim Sea Pirates.
"And if Vayne had grabbed your airship and thrown it through the bridge? What would I do then? Wait another century for the perfect one?" Balthier purred, though his silver eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits. Solanum, clearly sensing his danger, gulped.
"Weel now… there was this bloke, y'see? He wanted a ride o'er to the battlefield! Said 'e wanted to see ya!" he babbled.
"Someone wanted to see me?" Balthier cocked his head, hauntingly like the way Zalera had while the Esper had inhabited his body.
"Balthy!" someone roared. John looked up as someone strode into the cockpit, dreadlocks flying and necklaces tinkling. Balthier's face, which had been an unhealthy shade of grey, drained back to a color more reminiscent of mushrooms that had never seen the light of day. He turned around slowly, a look clearly screaming Oh GODS no, please, please, gods no! painted on his face. The apparition did not go away.
"Bloody hell!" he cried as Jack Sparrow wrapped his arms around him.
"Balthy! Long time no see!" the pirate was shouting.
"Let go of me!" Balthier pushed him away. "What are you doing here?" He grasped Jack's hand, brows furrowing. "Your hands are the same as mine. Have you…?"
Jack looked grim. "Yes. I died of radiation sickness shortly after Judgment Day…" he said, shaking his head. Balthier sighed.
"I assume Will took you in after that?"
"Yes. What wif all the people who died and are dyin', he's got his work cut out for him. He sent me here, actually. Said the situation on Earth was rather dire, if you know what I mean. The Resistance against the machines is crumbling— slowly, but surely. They need their leader back."
"How did you know he was here?" Balthier asked.
"Well, you bein' dead and all, Will was able to sense when you came back to Earth, and when you left it. And when news circulated around the towns he'd planted us in (since he can't walk on land but once every ten years) that John had vanished, he put two and two together and realized that you guys probably went on a mission to save the world and ended up in Ivalice instead. He put me in a dinghy and sailed me off the edge of the world, and well, here I am!" Jack grinned. Hugin glanced at John from where he stood on the edge of the group.
"You are indeed popular if even the dead will rise to aid your cause," he said, looking at Jack and Balthier. John shrugged.
"They're useful, that's for sure." He grinned, and Balthier's fingers twitched in a gesture reminiscent of throttling something.
"I am going to ignore that, and instead tell Solanum that if he does not get to Balfonheim in one hour, I want his resignation. Fran, with me, please." Balthier exited the cockpit with as much grace as he could muster, considering that his guts were about to spill out, the entire group was laughing uproariously, and both of them looked more like beggars than Pirate royalty.
Yays!