8. Endgame
Ever since nethicite had laid waste to the land of Nabudis, the enormous, misty swamp had been spared of any more wars or battles. At least, until now. Ether, Munchin and myself went all out against Team Kel that day, in what seemed the ultimate battle for supremacy and possession over the Keystones, our ticket home.
Ether had summoned over fifty past selves of herself, not caring that such a huge number was incredibly taxing on her mind and would no doubt leave her with an equally big headache soon after the battle. The swarm of Ethers ganged up on our three opponents, but despite the advantage of numbers, Kel and his friends were holding up quite well. They could fly with jetrockets, making them slightly faster and more agile than Ether, who had to keep herself in the air with muscle power. Energy blasts were fired non-stop from Team Kel's blasters in all directions. Despite them holding up quite well, being more agile and faster, they knew they were screwed if Ether's onslaught continued. She would overwhelm them like this, probably sooner than later. They had to break her concentration, and for that they had to hit the real Ether with a blast.
And so our three opponents were soaring and firing through the swarm of Ethers, trying to find the one Ether who controlled them all. It would have been difficult enough had they only had to face Ether and her swarm of past selves, but unfortunately, Munchin and myself were there as well. We knew, just like our opponents did, that the real Ether was the target of all attacks. Her ability of Time Duplication just made her the most dangerous and powerful of us all. So Munchin and I were there to make sure that her concentration would not be broken. It was quite easy to do so, too. Me and my mosquito friend just had to protect a random Ether, tricking Kel and his friends into thinking that we were guarding the real one. That worked for a while, but soon they caught on to the trick and Munchin and I had to change strategy.
We switched to the offense. After all, there was no fun in letting Ether handle them with us hovering in the swarm defensively. Munchin engaged Blaze in one-on-one combat, while I took on Gale. No matter the power that his anger for his earlier defeat granted him, my repulsion power would ensure my victory, I was sure.
My blue-and-silver opponent fired a number of blasts at me, but I reflected them all right back at him. As Gale dodged his own attack, I turned to Ether.
"You can shrink your army now, if you want," I told her, but she shook her head.
"Not a chance, Icy," Ether replied, "I'll make sure that these losers suffer a total defeat, and fifty me's will do just that." She then sought out Kel in the swarm of her past selves. Once she had found him, she commanded her entire army of Time Duplicates to attack the red-and-silver leader of the opposing team. I almost felt sorry for Kel. Just then, however, I was hit in the side by a blast from Gale, reminding me that I had a battle to win myself.
"You are going to regret that," I said to my opponent matter-of-factly. The blast that had struck me didn't really hurt all that much, but the idea of being hit at all by the opposing team injured my pride. And so, I attacked. I started to trigger my power of repulsion, but Gale had caught on well to that trick now and many successive shots fired at me prevented me from concentrating. And if I couldn't concentrate and focus, I couldn't use my powers. Out of sheer necessity, I was forced to land, but that didn't mean my opponent had gained any advantage over me. With a smirk I steered myself to drop in the murky waters of the swap. With a splash I submerged in the dark depths, leaving Gale clueless as to where I was.
Not that my foe seemed to mind that. He just started firing blasts in all directions, as fast as a machinegun. Sooner or later, he was bound to hit me, even underwater. Well, he would hit me sooner or later if I didn't posses repulsion powers. He could fire as fast as he wanted, but if most of his shots missed, I was free to concentrate and focus on using my powers against him, and not just on the water surrounding me. Naturally the murky water blinded me as much as it did him, but as Gale was firing like a maniac for the moment, locating him in the air above the swamp wasn't difficult. Once I was certain of his location, I swam until I was right under him, then repelled myself from the swampfloor as forcefully as possible. I shot up through the waters like a rocket and quickly emerged from the dirty swamp, vegetation and mud clinging to my insect-like form.
But I didn't care about that. I cared about ramming into my foe, which I successfully did. Sure he had seen me and tried to knock me back in the swamp with more attacks, and of course I was hit a lot, but it didn't matter. The force behind his blasts wasn't as great as the force with which I had repelled myself. As of such, he couldn't stop my ascend. I struck Gale head-first, then immediately struck out with my bladed forelimbs. The spiked, razor sharp pincers ripped through my foe's armour and damaged his vulnerable flesh underneath. Gale attempted to kick me, but I was ready for him and plunged both blades on my legs forward, stabbing them straight through his leg and hip. My opponent cried out in pain as blood began to leak from the wound. I ripped both my spiked limbs from his body as painfully as possible, being a real sadist for doing so. But I didn't give a damn. This was all the Occuria's game. They wanted a show? I'd give them one.
As Gale doubled over, clutching his pierced leg and hip, I raised my forelimbs again and empowered them with my power of repulsion. Faster than the eye could witness and with the strength of a thousand blows I attacked, stabbing my defenceless opponent in the back and striking him down towards the swamp. Gale plunged into the foul waters and did not emerge again.
Satisfied that was over with, I turned to see how my friends were doing. Munchin was finishing up his fight with Blaze, having managed to close in on his black-armoured opponent and lash out with his four clawed hands. Blaze on his part caught the blow with the grand shield mounted on his shoulder, so that all Munchin did was give it some scratches. My mosquito-like friend remained unfazed, however, and simply struck out again and again, relentlessly attacking and hacking away at Blaze. Realization hit me, and I understood what Munchin was trying to do. With that shield of his, Blaze had a very good defence, one that was hard to pass for one whose only power was superhuman strength. But no matter how good his defence, Blaze was still human, er, part-human and could still grow tired. With Munchin this close and attacking so furiously, he couldn't get in a shot with his weapon. So the only question here was who would tire out first: Munchin or Blaze?
After just one more minute, the answer seemed to be Blaze. Perhaps it was the desire to go home, or just being stronger after being turned into a bug, but Munchin didn't slow down his attacks in the least, while his foe was having more and more difficulties catching the swipes on his shield. My mosquito-like friend started to add kicks to the swipes and strikes with his arms, giving Blaze even more trouble. One kick got lucky and passed Blaze's shield, hitting the man in the stomach. It gave Munchin the opening he needed, and he threw a punch at his foe with all his might. Blaze caught it on the shield, but to my amazement it shattered under the force of Munchin's blow. The punch sent Blaze flying, but Munchin grabbed hold of his leg, whirled him around in the air a few times and then threw him down towards a very hard rock below with all his might. Blaze soared towards it and hit solid rock, but the force with which he was thrown was so great that it shattered under him, covering him with debris. Kinda like in all those anime shows were characters are knocked through mountains and stuff.
If I still had thumbs, I would have given my friend a thumbs-up, but I didn't have them so I couldn't do that. But I was pleased with his victory all the same. We both went to look at how the third member of our group was faring against the leader of the enemy team. With her power of Time Duplication, surely Ether would have won by now?
As it turned out, she hadn't. In fact, she didn't even have Time Duplicates surrounding her and she looked quite beaten. The jaws of me and Munchin dropped in shock. Was Ether actually loosing? Her opponent, Kel, was continuously firing a barrage of blasts at her, hitting our beetle-like friend with the scarab head, preventing her from focussing and using her power. Kel must have gotten a lucky shot in before and hit the real Ether, breaking her concentration and making her Time Duplicates disappear. Once on her own, the field was evened a lot more, and with his jet rockets Kel had superior speed. And unlike his two team members, he had another weapon besides his Blaster: his shield with spinning blades.
"I know you too well, Ether," we heard him say. "Even looking like that, I can still tell the real you out of fifty duplicates. Too bad, eh?"
The red-and-silver warrior fired one more barrage of energy blasts at his former friend, then immediately rocketed towards her with the blades on his shield spinning. Even as Ether defended herself against the energy blasts, Kel circled around her at great speed, striking her over and over again with the blades on his shield. Ether's armour started to wear away and cracked in a few places, allowing her foe to damage her soft flesh underneath. But she'd be damned if she let out a cry of pain.
"We gotta help her, Icy!" Munchin said to me, an urgent tone in his voice. But I shook my head and held out a bladed limb to prevent him from lifting of and go help Ether.
"We'd damage her pride, Munchin," I told my mosquito friend. "Besides, I know Ether by now, she'll come through, you'll see."
Munchin glanced at me, then at Ether, and then at me again. He looked worried for a moment, then crossed his arms and nodded. "You're right. She'll kick his sorry behind."
As if she had heard us, the yellow-and-black armoured female member of our team suddenly struck out with one of her pincer-like hands. Regardless of the fact that Kel was still zooming around her and hitting her at great speed, she managed to grab him somehow. With her free pincer, she gave him a good punch in the face. While Kel counted stars for the moment, she ripped his weapons out of his hands and threw them away carelessly. They landed with a splash in the swamp and sank out of sight. Then she gripped her foe around the neck and squeezed.
"I don't need any Time Duplicates to beat you, Kel," she hissed venomously. "We're going to find those keystones and get our real bodies back, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it!"
With that said, she punched him in the gut repeatedly, while tightening her grip around his throat. Before we knew it, the leader of a guild of fanfic writers back in the real world had passed out under the combined pressure of lacking oxygen and repeated punching. With a snort, Ether threw him away over her shoulder. Her red-and-silver armoured, defeated foe hit the waters just as his weapons had, and soon enough joined them on the bottom of the swamp.
Satisfied that was over with, Ether winged herself over towards Munchin and me.
"Well then, that's that," she said with casual delight. "We kicked their asses, and hopefully made the message clear: the keystones are ours."
"They'd have to be very thick-headed to not understand it now," Munchin agreed with a smirk. "But next time we fight, Ether, don't make it look like you're loosing again, okay? I was worried there for a moment."
"As if Kel could ever beat me when I put my mind on something," Ether snorted as she crossed her arms, seemingly offended by Munchin's words.
"Yeah, well, that's what Icy implied earlier," our mosquito-like friend replied with a shrug.
I had followed the conversation with only one ear, my attention being more drawn to the swamp where our opponents had fallen into. If they didn't wake up from their beating soon, they might drown. I told this worry to my friends, but, as expected, they only raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
"So what?" Ether said, "They brought it down upon them themselves. Let them drown, for all I care. I mean, if they do, it means they were weak in the end and not fit for Ivalice at all."
"I suppose you're right," I agreed slowly. I sighed, gave the swamp one last look, then turned away from it. "Well now, we kicked their sorry behinds, so let's find the final two keystones, shall we?"
My companions nodded, and together we flew off, away from the battlefield where we had crushed Team Kel. It was time to find the final two pieces of the puzzle that would get us home and give us our real bodies back. None of us noticed the bubbles of air coming up to the surface of the swamp, as something stirred beneath the murky water.
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Next chapter: the search for the final two keystones begins and the fight in the Nabreus Deadlands reaches its ultimate climax!
Only two more chapters to go and this is done. I hope to finish this before 2009 is over, but I'm not promising anything… I know myself and my attitude towards deadlines.