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Part Eight: A Maester's Demise
Fox looked out the window silently as they approached Bevelle. He knew this would be a very difficult task as thier plan had virually no chance for victory. Fox had been trying to think of an alternate plan but to no avail. Every time one came to mind there was something that would make it nearly impossible. Fox was still pondering this as Bevelle came into sight.
"Alright guys, its almost time. Now get ready to rescue my niece, we're goin in!" Cid said over the loudspeakers as he sped the airship up even more. Fox decided that he would just have to improvise and hope for the best as he made his way to the deck of the airship.
"Okay guys, this is it! 5..4...3.2.1, GO!" shouted Cid as they slid down the large ropes Cid had fired moments ago. Fox bent down to make his body more areodynamic as he broke ahead of the others. He reached the landing zone first and saw that they were quite aways off from where Seymour was.
It had happened so fast that the Bevelle guards were in utter disarray. Fox procedded to dispose of any who were unfortunate enough to be near him as the others arrived. As soon as they had all landed Fox charged towards the marraige sight, he knew time was of the essence.
After a few suspiciously easy minutes they had reached thier destination. Fox immediately knew they had run into a trap as soldiers and
machina were suddenly at every turn. Fox weighed his options and made a decision. He leapt at the Maester and severed the guados arm.
He grabbed Yuna and threw her at the others as he put a Lucavi shield around them.
"Go! Get to the temple and obtain the aeon! i'll deal with these fools and meet up with you later." Fox said as he dodged bullets left and right. He used Lucavi again to teleport the others to a safe location as he prepared for battle.
"Kill him!" commanded the maester as Fox evaded like a madman. Fox had the advantage in the sense that he could hack away at anyone he wanted while the guards had to take care not to shoot thier own. Fox decapitated and impaled around twenty guards when the others decided to run for it. Fox watched as they fled and prepared to face the machina, who were not programmed to flee.
Fox saw that there were about ten ground machina that were equiped with a huge bolder type hand for crushing as well as armor and a small machine gun. On top of that there were also seven or eight flying machina that were raining bullets and small explosives on him. Fox sent a wave of dark energy at a ground machina and knocked it off an edge to its doom.
Fox realized he would have to rely heavily on Lucavi in order to win here. He cast a barrier to deflect bullets as he focused Lucavi again into his hands. He sent dark energy spikes through the ground which shot up and impaled several of the ground machinas. He darted at a nearby machina and slashed it several times. The machine fell over as sparks shout out of its damaged body in all directions.
But Fox had let his guard down for a second too long as just then a bullet tore through his calf. He dodged and quickly healed the wound.
Fox decided it was time to test his new arm and grabbed his sword. He held it with the Lucavi arm and found that he could strech the arm
quite far. He used this as he snaked his new arm right through several machina.
He quickly realized the sword was quite unessecary as his new arm had powerful claws. He dropped the sword and proceeded to destroy the rest of the land machina with ease. He saw that the flying ones were still unloading on hin as he prepared darkness energy to decimate them. However just as he took his shield down to fire he found he was unable to move.
In all the commotion of battle he had forgotten Seymour who had just cast stop on him. He watched in horror as several missile headed towards his head. They exploded with terrible force and Fox was thrown over the edge. He opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself alive and well.
"I GROW TIRED OF SAVING YOU HUMAN. PERHAPS NEXT TIME I'LL LET YOU DIE." Lucavi said to him. Fox used his arm again and found that it had many more uses than he had given it credit for. His arm melted away as it traveled to his back and reformed into large wings.
Fox soared through the sky as he chopped the machina's levitating mechanism off one by one, all the while dodging Seymour's spells. After he had taken care of the machinas, Fox landed and faced Seymour. He reformed his arm back to its normal shape before he spoke.
"This time you won't survive." Fox said as he charged the guado. Seymour dodged Fox's sword as he slammed his staff across Fox's head.
"You can't kill me and you can't stop me." Seymour said as a wall of fire launched itself at Fox. Fox dodged to the side and dashed at Seymour again, this time extending his arm and trying to pierce the maester with his claws. Seymour evaded once again and was readying a spell before he was impaled through the spine. The maester looked down and saw Fox's hand sticking out of his chest.
"How?" Seymour said before he saw that Fox's arm could travel through shadows. "Ha, no matter. I'll just come back." Seymour said as he fell to his knees.
"Not this time." Fox said as his shadow hand dived back into the maesters body.
"Ahh! What are you doing?" Seymour cried in pain.
"This new arm of mine has many uses guado. You are about to experience the most terrible of all of them, the power to crush souls." Fox said as his arm emerged from Seymours body holding a glowing ball of energy.
"Your soul is tainted Seymour, say farewell to it." Fox said as his shadow claws stabbed into the former maester's soul. Seymour didn't even have time to scream as his life was ended. His limp body fell over and a trickle of blood made its way out of the corner of his mouth.
Just then hundreds of Bevelle soldiers had arrived on the scene. They saw the dead maester and charged at Fox, who looked at them and evaluted the situation. He slammed his shadow arm into the ground and teleported in a swirl of black energy.
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The others were outside the cloister of trials when Fox contacted them.
"Seymours dead." Fox said simply.
"Are you sure this time?" Auron asked.
"Yes, the maester is dead for sure. Thats good news for you, they'll be too busy coming after me to worry about the rest of you." Fox told them.
"Where are you? How did you get to a safe location so fast to contact us? And what's the deal with that black energy you used?" Rikku asked concerned.
"I'm back in Macalania woods right now, it's in the opposite direction than the Calm Lands so it'll throw them off our trail. When Yuna obtains the aeon continue to the Calm Lands and i'll meet you there." Fox said as his form disappeared.
"Wow, that guy's somethin else if he killed a maester, ya." Wakka said as they entered the cloister of trials.
"I hope he's gonna be okay, Bevelle's soldiers aregonna be out for blood." Rikku said worried.
"Don't worry Rikku, Fox will be fine. Let's focus on the task at hand." Auron said. They all nodded in agreement and continued towards the chamber of the fayth.
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Fox had already made his way to the Calm Lands after only a few hours. Fox had relied heavily on Lucavi back in Bevelle and he was paying for it now. He was exhausted as he awaited the others arrival. Fox had spent his down time resting and observing the Calm Lands.
The place was huge and full of scars from previous battles with Sin. He noticed one that was much deeper than the others as it formed a huge trench that cut the Calm Lands in half. Fox wondered how deep it went while he stared into its deapths. He drew his eyes off of it as he saw the others had just entered the Calm Lands.
Fox was heading towards them when something happened that caught him entirely by surprise.
"RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" came a roar from inside the trench. Fox watched in disbelief as the shadow beast emerged from the deep hole. The beast was badly injured, its body was severly burned and large chunks of its armor had been blasted off. Its right arm ended at the elbow and its legs had been blown off as well. On top of that its left eye was now a bleeding hole and only half of its jaw remained intact.
It was no less fearsome however as it dragged itself towards Fox with its one functional arm and a look of pure fury on its face. It left a huge blood trail behind it as it came suprisingly fast for how injured it was. Fox dodged an energy attack as he drew his sword and prepared to fight the creature for a second time.
Fox leapt onto the shadow beasts shoulder and drove his sword into its neck. The beast let out a howl of either pain or rage as it tried to claw Fox off its shoulder. He jumped off of the beast and focus Lucavi into his arm. Fox luanched the Lucavi blast at the beasts exposed stomach. There was a gush of blood and tissue as the blast infliced heavy damage.
Blood spattered Fox's face temporarily blinding him. He wiped the blood from his eyes just in time to see the shadow beasts hand come
crashing down on top of him. The hit sent Fox sprawling to the ground and left him riddled with broken bones. Fox tried to get up but he
quickly realized it was a futile effort. He watched as the beast raised it hand once again and prepared to deliver the final blow.
The final blow was stopped however, as the ronso Kimahri had arrived just in time to prevent Fox's death.
Within seconds the shadow beast was swarmed with Fox's comrades. Tidus was on its back slicing chunks of flesh off like crazy while Lulu and Wakka were bombarding the beast with ranged attacks. Meanwhile Kimahri and Auron were dealing the heavy hits and causing some major damage. Even Rikku was inflicting pain by slashing out vitals.
Fox watched as the beast slowly gave into its wounds and its movement began to slow. The others leapt away from it and watched as the beast bleed out. Fox saw that the beast had a look of utter rage in its face as it made a last ditch effort to kill its mark. The beast launched a small energy blast at the group but it hit a couple feet short of where they stood. It still caused a large explosion which caused Fox and the others to shield thier eyes until the dust settled.
When the dust had cleared Fox saw that the beast had one final trick up its sleeve after all. It had a massive ball of energy gathered at its chest, Fox realized what it planned to do immediately. Even though Fox was heavily injured he knew that the others would die if he didn't do something. He focused all his remaining Lucavi power into a massive shield in the hopes that it would at least half the blasts power.
"RRRRRAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!" the beast let out its final howl as the energy ball exploded. Fox could see huge chuncks of the shadow beasts flesh and armor fly in all directions as the wall of fire closed in on them. Fox saw Yuna cast protective spells as Lulu threw her strongest water magic at the explosion.
The blast collided with his Lucavi barrier as Fox put all his energy into holding up the barrier. His strength faultered however, and just when he thought he couldn't hold the barrier any longer it suddenly became much more powerful. Fox blinked in surprise as he reached the only logical conclusion.
"Lucavi, you claim to want me dead yet you keep preventing my demise." Fox said to the demon inside him.
"HA! I AM ONLY SAVING YOU SO YOU CAN MEET DEATH AT MY HANDS YOU PATHETIC HUMAN!" the demon roared as it held up the barrier effortlessly. Fox watched as the explosion slowly subsided and collapsed in exhaustion. His battle was not yet over however, as soon as he had passed out another battle raged in his head.
"YOU ARE TOO WEAK TO FIGHT ME OFF THIS TIME! YOUR BODY WILL BE MINE, HAHAHA!" the demon shouted maliciously as it attacked him in his own mind. Fox was weak but he still had power here. Fox prepared to fight a hated enemy alone for the third time in one day.
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Rikku watched as the barrier deflected the massive explosion. She couldn't believe how powerful Fox had become. Every time she saw him he was stronger and stronger. She watched as he fell over in exhaustion no doubt and studied him as he lay there. Rikku admitted that Fox was easily the strongest of them all but she didn't like his powers.
Rikku had trouble putting it into words, she didn't believe that Fox was a bad person. He was a little cold and seemingly uncaring but not a bad person at all. There was just something about his power, something dark. She didn't like to admit it but he scared her. She kept feeling as if he might attack them all.
She wasn't sure where the feeling came from but she'd had more than a few nightmares about the man. Rikku knew he had a terrible secret he was holding back from them. She could see it in his eyes, a sadness just behind the surface. SHe got the feeling that something terrible had happened to him that he couldn't quite let go of.
So Rikku just watched as the others carried the tired warrior to the inn for a nights rest. She stayed where she was for a second, still lost in thought, before following the others into the inn.
----------------------------------------------------------end of part eight
I wanted to get this chapter up sooner but now i have a job on top of college plus i have to help my dad out working on a house. So the next few chapters may take awhile as im gonna be TIRED as hell.
Also, if you want me too update sooner review. Even though i'm gonna be busy if i get enough reviews i'll bust a chapter out.