Final Fantasy: Rise of Despair
We will now check in on the five groups like so. The order has been randomly determined, and here is the order that I came up with.
1.) Laura, Hunter, and Brently
2.) Casey, Kyle, and Adam
3.) Cole and Syack
4.) Matt, Monty, Mendoza, and Gilbert
5.) Harris and Heidi
Alright then, let's get started with Laura, Hunter, and Brently.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy: Tactics Advance, I do own the characters and plot.
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Mountain company
Laura and Hunter remained unconscious on the mountain ledge for a while. Several minutes passed by and finally Hunter stirred. "Oooooohhhh… my head…" Hunter moaned. He groggily looked at his surroundings. "Somewhat cold…" Hunter then looked up at the mountain above him. "And we're still not near the peak… hm? Laura!" Hunter gasped when he realized that Laura was passed out beside him. "Hey wake up!" Hunter shook Laura roughly to wake her up.
"…" Laura remained completely motionless.
"Oh that's just great." Hunter turned her on her back and pressed two fingers on her neck. "Yeah she still has a pulse. Maybe I'd best get to some shelter." Hunter said. Hunter picked Laura up and held her in his arms. "She better be thankful for this." Hunter said as he walked along. "Hmmm… what happened, and why aren't we in the Deti Plains anymore?" Hunter wondered. "Last thing I remember is that Laura, Brently, and I were standing on some magic circle and… wait, does that mean Brently should have been with us?"
Meanwhile…
Brently's unconscious body was floating gently down a river on the mountain until it finally washed up at a small pond. "Ooooooggggg…" Brently groaned. "Huh? I'm… alone, and not with those guys." Brently said groggily, he suddenly snapped to life. "Yes! That means I'm free! I'm free! I'm free!" Brently started to sing happily. Brently skipped along the mountain trail simply tickled that he wasn't with those guys anymore. "Hm?"
"Our latest catch was good." Some bangaa voice said.
"Yeah the boss will be pleased beyond measure with this much gil." A viera voice said.
"Hmmmm… lots of gil huh?" Brently pondered out loud. Brently smiled and then hopped up to the top of a rock. "Alright! Hand over all of your valuables!" Brently shouted. A small camp of about ten various people stopped talking and stared at him.
"Who the hell are you?" A human woman asked.
"You've got some nerve threatening us." A moogle said.
"You realize you're messing with the Kudik Bandits?" A nu mou asked him.
"I'm at Kudik Peaks? Really?" Brently asked amazed. "Uh I mean… do you realize who I am?"
"A dead man shorty." A bangaa told him.
"Nobody… calls… me… SHORT!!!" Brently shouted as he leaped above the crowd and threw knives at them. The bangaa and a nu mou got hit, but the others avoided it. Brently landed and did a brief melee fight with a human thief, but quickly stabbed him and threw a Molotov cocktail between two other bandits. Brently then used Steal: Weapon to steal the weapons of three bandits and throw back at them.
"This guy is nuts!" One of the remaining two guys shouted.
"Just run!" The viera and the moogle made a break for it.
"Ha ha ha! That's what you get for messing with me!" Brently shouted. "Now then, about the gil." Brently started looting through the bags and tents and helping himself to whatever he could find.
Meanwhile…
"Uuuuuuunnnnngggghhhh…" Laura groaned. She woke up to find a wet cloth on her forehead, near a campfire. "What?" Laura sat up out of the sleeping bag she was in and looked around her. She was in a very small cave, and she thought she heard a flute. "Where am I?"
"Oh, you're awake." Hunter said. Laura turned around and found Hunter sitting on a rock behind her, holding a wooden flute in his hands.
"Oh… you." Laura said. "You can play the flute?"
"Yeah, I made it myself and I usually pass the time like this." Hunter said.
"I see." Laura said. "Where are we?" She asked.
"After I found this cave and set up that fire, I looked around for a moment, and my best guess is that we're in Kudik Peaks." Hunter said.
"Kudik Peaks… we're a few days away from the Deti Plains." Laura said.
"That's what bothers me. Do you have any idea how we wound up here all of a sudden with no one else?" Hunter asked.
"Hmmmm…" Laura thought for a moment. "Oh you're such a weakling you know that?" Laura taunted with a smile.
"Well you're welcome." Hunter said sarcastically.
"It's just kind of obvious. Somehow or another we were teleported here." Laura said as she stood up. "Whoa." Laura suddenly began to fall over, Hunter quickly got up and caught Laura.
"Whoa, be careful there. You drained a hell of a lot of mana protecting us from the Black King's attack, you're hardly in any condition to be moving." Hunter told her.
"Heh… I suppose you have a point." Laura said. "But still, we can't stay here, we need to get going."
"In your condition?" Hunter asked her.
"But what about the others weakling? Think about the others." Laura pointed out.
"Hmph." Hunter wasn't too happy about being insulted again, but he had to agree that Laura had a point. "Alright… let's find the others." Hunter said. Hunter sat Laura down gently, packed up everything, then let Laura lean on his shoulder, and the two left the cave together.
"Um…"
"What?" Hunter asked after they had been walking for a little while.
"Thank you… Hunter." Laura said.
"Your welco… wait did you actually call me Hunter?" Hunter asked.
"You've earned it… for now." Laura said with a smile. While they were conversing, they failed to notice a few shadows watching over them.
Meanwhile…
There was a large cave somewhere in the Kudik Mountains, a cave with many chambers that had piles of various goods. There were a few sleeping quarters, and a mess hall. The chamber that you entered when you entered the cave was by far the largest, and in it was a cozy looking chair on top of a stone staircase. "Boss! We have something to tell you!"
"Hm? What is it?" Asked a human voice from the chair.
"We may have found more travelers!" A viera told him.
"Hmmmm… do they have children? Or anything of the sort?" The human asked.
"No of course not boss! We wouldn't do anything like that, and the odds are that the human male and the viera aren't even a real couple from how they acted, just lost travelers from the looks of it." A bangaa told him.
"Heh… perfect then. Do as you will." The human told them when a moogle and viera ran in.
"Boss! We've got a problem!" The moogle shouted.
"You guys are back alre… wait a minute." The human abruptly stood up. "Where are the rest of you?" The human asked with genuine concern in his voice.
"Some short moogle juggler attacked us and killed most of us." The viera with the moogle told him.
"WHAT!!!" The human shouted. "Grrrrrrrr… alright, tell me where you last saw this moogle, and I'll make him pay for hurting them." The human growled as his fists let off steam.
Later on…
Laura and Hunter were still walking along as they had through the whole trip. "Getting out of these mountains, is going to be a trick." Hunter said.
"True… even though I came through here once, that was quite a few years ago." Laura sighed.
"Hm?" Hunter looked around uneasily. "Hold on, I think I hear something." Hunter said. He led Laura over to the mountain wall and then got his bow out. Hunter notched an arrow and looked around carefully.
"Hunter look out!" Laura shouted.
Fwip
"Augh!" Hunter got hit in the neck by some dart and fell over. "Ooooogggg… damn…" Hunter cursed.
"Hand over you valuables!" Someone demanded. Hunter's vision started to go blurry as he weakly stood up.
"Hey look at this, there's enough tranquilizer to knock out a very large chocobo in an instant with these darts, and he's still standing.
"What have you done to him?!" Laura demanded. Hunter thought he saw Laura draw her rapier, but in her weakened state she was no match for whomever these guys were.
"Hey… hands off." Hunter weakly drew his bow and released the arrow hoping it would hit a target.
"Augh he hit my leg!" A bangaa shouted.
"Help along that tranquilizer!" A human female shouted.
"Gladly." A nu mou voice said. Hunter then felt someone hit him in the back of the head before he finally blacked out.
Meanwhile…
"Dum dum diddily dum dum dum." Brently chanted happily. "Good old freedom, and no nut jobs to have to fight all the time." Brently thought happily once again.
"You…"
"Hm?" Brently turned to look at some figure behind the rocks. "And you are?"
"Did you recently borrow something from some campers near by?" The figure asked.
"Yeah, and what are you going to do about it?" Brently asked.
"Let me make this clear short-stuff, no one messes with my men and gets away with it." The figure hissed.
"And let me make this clear. No one calls me short and gets away with it." Brently said as he put down his loot and pulled out as many throwing knives as he could hold.
"Bring it." The figure said as steam started coming from his arms.
Meanwhile…
"Ooooooooggggghhhh…" Hunter moaned as he woke up. "Man… hm? Laura!" Hunter woke up with a start and noticed that Laura was missing, and so was everything minus his bow, arrows, and the clothes he was wearing of course. "Man, who were those guys? Where did they take… huh?" Hunter noticed something on the ground. He bent down and looked at a small red puddle, he touched it with his fingers. "Blood." Hunter thought a moment. "That's right, I hit someone in the leg, I guess he never bothered to stop the bleeding." Hunter looked and noticed that blood was trickled along a path. "Guess I've found them." Hunter said as he started carefully following the trail of blood.
Meanwhile…
"Ugh… Let me go!" Laura yelled. She was shackled to a wall by her wrists, kicking and screaming at the bandits to let her go.
"We can't do that, you see we recently ran short on members, and the boss will surely love you." A bangaa that was mending his leg said.
"Yeah, the boss is always thrilled to have new people join us." A female human said.
"So let's celebrate a knew members, and a successful plunder!" A nu mou shouted raising a wooden cup.
"Here here!" Came the cries of the several dozen bandits.
"Grrrrrrrrr…" Laura growled. "This is humiliating." Laura thought.
"Ha ha h…hurgh!" A bandit fell over with an arrow embedded in the back of his skull.
"Huh?" The bandits turned to the cave opening to find Hunter at the mouth of the cave.
"If you don't mind, I believe you kidnapped someone." Hunter said as he notched another arrow.
"Huh? I thought that guy would be knocked out for another few hours." The bangaa with the wounded leg said.
"Heh… another brilliant strategy on my part. You see, when I started my clan I started having very small doses of sedatives, poisons, you name it. That way I'd build some immunity to them." Hunter said. "Now let her go." Hunter threatened as he aimed his bow again.
"Make us." A bandit hissed.
"Suit yourself." Hunter said with a smile. "Sonic boom!" Hunter fired an arrow that released a sonic boom that wiped out a number of bandits once it hit the floor.
"Rah!" The bandits grabbed their own weapons and the many archers present began firing their arrows at Hunter. Hunter easily evaded the arrows that came flying at him and took aim with his bow again.
"Capture!" Hunter fired four arrows that formed a mana net between them and caught several bandits underneath it and causing several more bandits to stumble over the caught bandits.
"Rah!" One got close and swung his sword at Hunter, but Hunter quickly dodged to the side and climbed up the cave wall up to a ledge like a chimpanzee.
"Sonic boom!" Hunter fired another sonic boom at the bandits below and killed another several bit of them. Hunter then aimed two arrows at Laura and fired, striking both the shackles holding her to the wall.
"They've really made me mad." Laura said as she checked her wrists. "I call upon thee! Ifrit!" Laura called upon Ifrit, in all of his blazing fury.
"Whoooooaaaaaa…" The remaining bandits gasped in fear.
"HMPH…" Ifrit snorted once and then cast a wave of across the whole cave.
"Whoa!" Hunter barely got behind cover in time as the flames swept over the entire cave. When the cave was clear, Hunter looked out from behind cover, and found the cave charred in several places, and the burnt bodies of the remaining bandits, and Laura collapsed on the ground. "Laura!" Hunter ran over to check on Laura.
"Heh… looks like I overdid it again." Laura said.
"Laura, you really need to be more conservative with your mana." Hunter said. "Hm? Hang on a moment." Hunter ran over to a nearby horde of treasure chests, after rooting through them, he pulled out a bottle of some golden liquid. "Eureka! An elixer." Hunter said. He ran up to Laura and gave her the elixer, Laura instantly found herself healed and all of her mana restored.
"Well, that did the trick." Laura sighed in relief. "Thank you again… Hunter." She said.
"I'm starting to like this." Hunter said.
"Don't get too used to it." Laura said as she and Hunter walked out of the cave.
Meanwhile…
Brently was lying on the ground severely burnt, and several circular scorch marks on the rocks around him, and the figure standing over him. "Hmph… that's what happened when you mess with my men." The figure said as he picked up the bag of loot. "See ya, you little dead guy."
"Just play dead Brently… this guy is INSANELY strong…" Brently thought to himself.
"Hmph." The figure snorted as he walked away. "Anyone who messes with my men, will pay the price. No matter who they are." The figure said to himself as he walked back towards his hideout.
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Just who is this figure that is the apparent leader of the bandits? And what will his reaction be when he returns to the cave?And who will be the next to bring about his wrath? Find out next time we check on these two.