Chapter 6: The tower

"Be good kids and die!!!", the replica of Natalia yelled and stormed towards the three friends who were now taking a defensive stance. But before anyone could do some kind of damge against the enemy, a sudden feeling of dread rushed through Luke, his body going rigid, like when someone had a seizure.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", Luke screamed out of pain, making Anise, Florian and even Natalia stopping all their plans of attacking. Luke´s eyes rolled into their sockets, everything around him pitch black...

"... Where am I...?", Luke murmered when opening his eyes again. He was lieing on cold marble ground, totally different fromd the stone ground of Baticul. He sat up, limbs aching, and looked around. He was sitting on a giant tower amidst eternel nothingness. "What...?" Orbs of light of different colours where flowing around the area. "Fonons...? But... how am I able to see them...?" He stood up and looked around some more. Where did he end up?! A sound behind him made him turn around in a hurry. A person, clothed in a dark cloak, stood a few metres ahead of him. "Who are you?", Luke asked the person who just looked at him. "Are you one of Dist´s minions?"

"Not that I´m aware of.", the person answered after a few moments.

"Well... Who are you, then?", Luke asked.

"That doesn´t matter.", the person said. "And I don´t know what you would gain from knowing."

"But...", Luke started, but stopped and let his gaze wander around again. "If you´re not going to tell me your name, at least tell where I am." Silence. "Well?"

"... This is a place deep inside you, a place deep inside your heart.", the person finally said.

"Huh? I don´t understand.", Luke said, slightly confused.

"That doesn´t matter.", the person said and suddenly drew a sword. "Explaining it to you would only be a waste of time, because your life is going to here anyway."

"What?! Why...?"

"Shut up and fight!", the person yelled and stormed towards Luke with his sword.

"Grrr!", Luke hissed, let himself fall to the ground, rolled to the side to dodge and jumped up again, sword drawn. "Okay, this day will be known in history as my worst day ever! First Dist goes totally beserk, and now I´m stuck at a strange place with an even stranger person!" He stormed towards the person. "Must be cursed, or something like that!"

"Die!", the person bellowed and hit with rapid thrusts from his sword at Luke who blocked the attacks with his own sword. The person jumped backwards, but Luke followed, just to hit air, because his foe had performed a second jump over him, landed on the ground, concentrated and yelled: "Icicle Rain!!!" Several sharp blades of ice shot forth, and now Luke had to roll to the side again to dodge. But while he was only concentrating on defending himself, his foe had used that time to storm forward and was now about to stab his sword through Luke´s body. "This is the end!!!", the person screamed and...

"Luke! Wake up, already!", Anise shouted and slapped Luke, hard, which made him wake up.

"W-What...?", mumbled and opened his eyes. A salty sea breeze greeted his nose.

"Thank Yulia!", Florian who kneeled beside Anise said, relieved.

"What... happened?", Luke asked and sat up. He was on board of a small cutter that was floating along the sea, Baticul in the distance.

"We managed to get out of Baticul.", Florian explained.

"But how? Natalia´s replica had been attacking us, and then... and then..." But Luke stopped as he remembered the person whom he had fought against. He inspected his body for wounds, but couldn´t find any. Had this only been a dream? "... How exactly did we manage to get away from Natalia?", he eventually asked the other tow.

"Honestly? No idea.", Anise said.

"Huh?"

"Well, Natalia had been about to attack as when you had cried out in real agony.", Florian began to explain.

"She and we had been paralyzed with shock, and you suddenly had been glowin, and the next moment...", Anise resumed the explanation.

"And the next moment?", Luke repeated.

"It was... weird.", Florian said. "The next moment you had been just standing there calmy, had looked at Natalia and had said `Leave!´ to her."

"And then?"

"And then she had really left.", Anise explained.

"Huh? ... Just so?", Luke asked, perplexed.

"Yes, just so.", Anise said and nodded. "And after she had left, we hadn´t run into any more enemies. We had been able to get you to the harbour without a problem and had taken this small cutter. It was as if Natalia´s replica had distracted the Oracle Knights or something like that..."

"But...", Luke started and looked up to the sky that was now full of stars. "What do you mean, `it was weird´?", he finally asked Florian.

"You were suddenly so... different.", Florian explained. "Totally calm, as if you hadn´t been escaping out of the city just now. As if you were someone else..."

"Hmm...", Luke hummed. "If Jade were here, maybe he would know something..."

"Speaking about the Colonel...", Anise said.

"Hmm?"

"We had an idea.", Florian started. "Dist´s attack at the castle had the only aim to conquer Kimlasca, right?"

"So it seens...", Luke agreed.

"But don´t you also think that this isn´t the end of it?", Anise asked. "Don´t you think Dist would want more than that?"

"Do you mean...?", Luke started, shocked.

"Yes. We believe he´s going to attack Malkuth as well.", Anise said.

"Argh!", Luke moaned. "Why did this disgusting cockroach break out of prison!? How does he even manage it?!"

"Well, cockroaches are tough little buggers.", Anise said and shrugged.

"Anyway, we´re sure he´s going to attack Malkuth next.", Florian said. "Even if he only wanted to conquer Kimlasca, Malkuth is not going to just do nothing against it. He has to take over that kingdom, too."

"And there´s still Daath.", Anise said, serious.

"Daath?", Luke repeated.

"Yeah, Daath. There is no doubt that Dist had attacked Baticul today when I reached the city. He had wanted to eliminate the Fon Master - me - as well to get Daath out of his way as well. Two birds with one stone, so to say."

"So what you mean is that we should rather hurry to Grand Chokmah first then hurry to Sheridan, right?", Luke said.

"Right.", Florian said.

"I guess we have no other choice.", Luke sighed. "If we allow Dist to take over Malkuth as well, then things will certainly get worse for us, even if we have Daath´s help." He looked towards the replica of the Sephiroth in the distance. "Hang in there, Guy..."

Annotations: Is there even someone left who´s reading this story?