Tempest Rising V

Her ears were ringing, her chest and back of her head was sore, and there was the coppery taste of blood in her mouth as Fang struggled to her feet. She used the remains of the tree she'd been thrown into to help herself up. The latest enemy Cie'th the group had come across was proving to be a lot more trouble than the others—mainly due to it's massive size. It certainly didn't help that it seemed much more heavily armored than the others, either.

"Hope!" Lightning's voice rang out to reach Fang's ears. The Oerban saw the pinkette launching herself at the creature. To her right, Hope was casting a spell that put a faint, light blue glow around the Commander for a brief moment. And then, Lightning was a blur. Attacking swiftly and relentlessly—even the Cie'th could be taken as impressed, unable to react to the torrent of blows from the soldier. Eventually, however, it seemed impressed was all it was, for as fast as Lightning's attacks were, they weren't enough to pierce its armor.

Eventually the creature seemed to grow agitated and eventually did lash out. It's tail—which the group had found was much quicker than anticipated—whipped out and began stabbing at the Commander. While Lightning was having little trouble evading the blows, Fang shot a sizable, uncontrolled burst of magic at the Cie'th, provoking it successfully. It turned it's giant body toward her, tail poised and ready.

"Damnit Fang, don't be reckless, wait for a heal!" She heard the pinkette curse, still making attempts as the Cie'th. Fang charged at the beast. While the power of the blow she delivered to its side didn't quite launch it into the air, it knocked it off balance, causing its stab with its tail to miss Lightning who hand landed on its back. As the creature stumbled, the pinkette was forced to jump off and away.

"Says the one who's doing nothing but pissing the thing off." Fang retorted, moving to Lightning's side. Suddenly, something whizzed past her ear to hit the tail that'd darted forward to stab at the both of them, knocking it aside, keeping it from skewering them. The soldier and warrior also noticed a thick orange glow surrounding the Cie'th as it moved to recover.

"Only you two could be arguing at a time like this." Vanille's voice reached them as she finished casting Slow on the Cie'th.

"Think we could maybe save the old-married-couple bickering until after we're not dead?"

"Somehow that sentence seems a little off..." Vanille piped up, earning herself a glare from the young Katzroy.

"I'm sorry, it's a little hard to be witty and make sense when there's a Cie'th the size of a small Adamanchelid in my face!" Dajh retorted, jabbing a frantic finger at the debuffed creature before them. It's sheer size must have weakened the effect of the Slow spell that'd been cast on it. It also, most likely, didn't help with its intent to skewer the group with its tail.

"What was that about arguing?" Fang brought up, a smirk touching her face. It only widened into a grin as the two younger argumentees glared at her. Before long though, both the glares and the smirk were wiped off their faces when the Cie'th tail crashed against a Protectra spell that'd formed around them.

"Would you all get a hold of yourselves!" Hope's boomed in a tone worthy of his rank, "We need to take out it's tail." He strategized as another crash of the tail shook the ground as it hit the protective barrier, "Fang, your strength is probably the only effective way to do it. Light and I will keep it busy." Another attack on the Protectra spell, this time a stab with almost full power. The Slow spell had more or less faded by now, "Vanille, keep casting Slow on it. Dajh, I need you with Alva."

"Can't say I've been happier to be asked to babysit-" He felt a hand grasp his shoulder. The grip was strong and tight, almost painful but not quite.

"You're not babysitting her, you're protecting her." Lightning stated as Dajh met her steely gaze, "This thing is probably drawn to her and when Cie'th are drawn to something, one can only distract them for so long." Her eye darted over to Alva cowering near Vanille, "We've already lost one piece of this puzzle, I refuse to lose both."

"Speaking of pieces..." Fang interrupted as the Protectra shattered under another violent stab by the Cie'th. Vanille cast Slow on reflex, allowing the group to scatter once more. Dajh grabbed a whimpering Alva—now too scared to struggle—and ran toward the edge of the clearing, stopping just behind a large rock and fallen tree. He placed Alva safely between the two before peering over the cover towards the others.

He had seen both Lightning and Hope in action before but it'd been when their power had still been dormant. Even during their journey towards the Faultwarrens, the times Lightning had fought with magic, he'd been in the midst of combat himself—too panicked, too concentrated on not dying—to really be able to focus on anything else. But watching the Commander and First Lieutenant now, he found his awe of them almost matching his stress from the situation.

And Fang and Vanille. He'd only ever seen Vanille display powers of healing. It wasn't any less impressive but something had to be said about her ability to debilitate an opponent. There was little doubt in Dajh's mind that the reason the others were able to get close enough—for long enough—to even scratch the gargantuan and heavily armored Cie'th, was because of Vanille's crippling spells. He dared to wonder about her skill with fully offensive magic.

There was a loud cry from Lightning as she disregarded her role as distraction and launched herself at the creature's tail. She managed to pierce the appendage and use her weight to bring it back toward the ground.

"Fang! Now!" She yelled, already struggling against the pull that threatened to send her flying. A soft blue glow around pinkette as Hope cast Bravery and Vigilance on both her and the Oerban who had launched herself in the air. Fang seemed to hover above the creature for a long moment, accompanied by an eerie silence, all other things seemed to freeze. Then, with a force strong enough to send a shock wave through the area, Fang brought her lance down on the creature's tail. There was a booming sound, something like a roar, from the creature as the bright red weapon pierced its armored appendage and pinned it to the ground.

"Yes!" Dajh found himself fist-pump in joy as the others took the brief moment to regroup. With the inability to move it's tail, surely the creature would prove less of a challenge- His thoughts immediately stopped short and an exasperated groan rumbled in his throat as he heard an utterly horrifying tearing sound. The others watched as well, as the creature continued to howl—wail even—as it violently struggled to free its tail. This resulted it it completely tearing it in two along Fang's lance. And when it finally ripped free, the Cie'th tail lay limp on the ground for a few moments—it's main body just as still.

Fang seemed to snap back to reality first, moving to pull her lance out of the ground. As she did so, Lightning noticed movement other than the Oerban.

"FANG! WATCH OUT!" The warrior turned into a whip of one half of the tail. She let out a loud grunt of pain as it threw her a good dozen feet into the trees, out of sight, "FANG!" Lightning yelled, running toward her.

"Lightning, no!" Hope warned, throwing a Protect spell at the pinkette. Lightning turned just in time to see the Cie'th tail stab at it, cracking it but leaving her untouched.

"Fang?" Vanille had also started making her way in the direction her fellow Oerban had been thrown. Her back now turned to the Cie'th, she didn't notice the other half of it's tail raise itself and take aim at her. Dajh did, however, and had already begun running toward the saboteur.

"Vanille! Down!" He screamed, launching his boomerang at the tail as he threw himself at Vanille. His weapon flew wide of the target as it shot forward at the two below it. Vanille felt herself knocked aside before she could fully turn to look over her shoulder. But her surprised yelp was cut off by a ear-splitting cry before she hit the ground, half under Dajh. She looked down at the cadet, eyes widening when she felt something wet running down her arm.

"D-Dajh?" She squeaked, shifting herself into a seated position, "Dajh!" The liquid coating her arm was a deep red. Blood from a deep cut through her savior's shoulder—almost severing his entire arm, "DAJH!" Vanille screamed as she carefully rolled the boy onto his back. She couldn't help looking away from the wounded shoulder but eventually forced herself to examine the damage. One look at Dajh's face and she could see he was in immense pain—too much to even form sounds to express it, "No... no no no no, you..." Vanille mentally kicked herself into focus. She raised a hand Dajh's shoulder, a green glow surrounded it almost immediately, slowing the loss of blood, "You're going to be fine, I'm going to fix you, just stay awake." She mumbled, placing her other hand on side of the cadet's face, "Stay awake, Dajh!"

"Dajh?" Lightning's voice didn't reach Vanille's ears.

"Vanille!" Neither did Hope's frantic warning as he became aware of the two tails ready to strike again. He fired a load of rounds at the tail near Vanille and an unstable Thunder spell at the one near Lightning. Both tails seemed to falter in their movements but within seconds had recovered and whipped toward the First Lieutenant.

"Hope-!" A small cry from Lightning was the last thing Hope heard before there was the sound of tearing fabric and a searing pain up and across his torso. Stumbling backwards, Hope found himself unable to keep his grip on his pistol as it slipped form his hand and fell to the ground. As the burning sensation began to spread from his chest through his body, he looked down to find his uniform soaked in blood, a large laceration running upward from his right hip to his left shoulder. His legs buckling beneath him, Hope fell to his knees, vaguely registering that—were he not having as much trouble breathing—he would have matched Dajh's bloodcurdling screams with one of his own.

"NO!" Lightning screamed for him, running toward the fallen soldier. She evaded the many attempts at her by the Cie'th tails but as she drew near a swipe from the side took her off guard and knocked her away. As she skid to a stop, at the sight of a shadow forming on the ground around her, she reflexively threw herself out of the way of a tail stab. It buried itself in the ground in the place where she'd knelt seconds before. She wasn't as successful in dodging the second tail. It clipped her leg, cutting deep into her calf. Hitting the ground unevenly, she ended up on her side, forced to scramble away from the tails already poised and ready for another attack.

Refusing to give up, Lightning tightened her grip on her gunblade and kept it raised in front of her. She'd be damned if she'd die before putting the Cie'th—who'd done so much damage—down, like the rabid monster it was. As the tails moved to strike, Lightning found herself temporarily blinded by a bright light from her left. It shot across her line of sight, hitting the Cie'th in the side, sending it flying at least half a dozen feet, effectively preventing the tails from attacking the pinkette.

Ignoring the burning pain down her leg and the sticky blood pooling around her on the ground, Lightning squinted through an up-kick of dirt and leaves at the source of the light. The silhouette she was met with made her forget the wound in her leg completely. She'd seen before. It was one of the last things she'd seen with her right eye. For a moment, Lightning could have sworn she felt a dull, pulsing ache in the back right side of her head as the silhouette grew larger and more distinctive.

"A-Alva...?"

Eventually the silhouette stepped beyond the fast-fading obscurity of dirt and leaves to stand more or less directly over the pinkette. And now, without any ominous fog to hinder her vision, Lightning finally saw clearly what had taken half her sight those many years ago.

Towering above her—larger than she remembered—stood a creature that didn't quite match Lightning's picture of what she would deny she imagined in her dreams. The lower body of a horse, white but almost shimmering with a green tinge. Powerful, graceful legs ending in golden, crystal hooves stamped and scraped at the ground as if feeling it for the first time in a long time.

At where a neck should be was instead a humanoid torso, unmistakably female but undoubtedly brimming with raw power. Adorned in what looked like small scales—blue, violet and pink—not unlike the crystal armor present on the various Cie'th they'd encountered. Upon the shoulders extended blade-like bones that spread out in a fan, almost touching the crystal-helmed head which—despite it's size—did little to mask a face Lightning recognized almost instantly.

The familiarities didn't stop there. On one of the massive arms hung a silver, gold and green turtleshell-like shield. The hand of the other arm gripped Zantatsuken—larger than Lightning had ever seen it. The curved blade was the length of the creature's humanoid body; the massive weapon's handle over half her size.

All anxiety and fear Lightning had felt, at the thought of facing off against the creature that'd left her in a coma for almost a month, disappeared and made way for an odd sense of awe and wonder as she took in the form towering above her. It was a strange sort of elegant mixed with a graceful sort of danger. A perfect blend of the two Eidolons the creature reminded Lightning of, and—to anybody else—their former masters.

A/N:

Oh my. An Update.

Sorry, Sorry.
First it was A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones
Then it was Mini Ninjas
Then it was Majisuka Gakuen

Distractions, distractions, distractions...