FF: Journey

Ch 4

A couple days had gone by since they started their journey. "Are we there yet," Kit groaned.

Scott replied with frustration, "No." This had gone on every since they left.

"We're almost there," Alan said, "We should be able to see it just over this hill." Just as Alan finished they made it to the top of the hill. Everyone was speechless at the sight of the town covered in fire. They hurried to the city and looked for survivors but no one was left.

"Who could have done such a thing," Katelyn asked in terror.

Scott saw something move out of the corner of his eye. "Over there!" They rushed turning around a building to see a giant silver dragon slowly wondering around on its hind legs. Scott drew his swords and charged it shouting, "You will pay for this monster!" He swung his swords in a cross slash pattern at its leg only to see his swords have no affect on the dragon. The dragon turned and saw him.

"Thunder!" Kit pointed his rapier toward it and a bolt of lightning struck it on its cheek leaving no visible wound.

Bridgette waved her rod around for her own spell. "Fire!" The flames from the surrounding buildings shot forth covering the dragon until there was an explosion.

The smoke cleared and it was still standing uninjured. It announced, "It's been a long time old friends."

Kit was puzzled. "Are you talking about us because I don't know any dragons. Wait... Did he just talk?"

Chrissie approached it. "Why did you burn down this town?"

"I did no such thing."

"Who did?"

"That's none of my concern. I am here to meet the warriors of light as I was told I would."

"We are the warriors of light."

"You?" The dragon looked at everyone and ended it by staring at Kit. "I wonder why he stays in someone so weak."

"Who are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the summoned creatures inside of you all."

"The who?"

"Legendary creatures with great powers that side with the light in times of peril."

Scott joined in, "I heard of these. Each one has more power than any army. There are even some who are only exceeded by gods."

"Yes. I am one such creature. I am Bahamut the dragon king. I was told to come here and provide you six with some wisdom for your journey to save the world."

"If your here to tell us stuff then I guess you could start by telling us about the summoned creatures inside of us and why they are there," Katelyn suggested.

"Fine then. The reason behind why they reside in you is because all summoned creatures except for I cannot make use of our full power unless we have human vessels. Each one of you has been chosen for such a task. You little knight have Anima the dark emperor. The white female has Carbuncle the mystic sprite. The black female has Ifrit the ruler of the hell. The crafty female has the Magus Sisters the deceitful beauties. You red mage have Leviathan the storm serpent." After glancing at Alan he stopped.

Alan asked, "What about me?"

"It is not my place to say."

"How come?"

"It was a request."

"Okay, I guess." Alan was still a bit confused.

"With that I shall be on my way."

Kit asked, "Before you go, Can I ride you?"

Bahamut spread his wings and started to flap. "No." Soon he was off. The party had to brace them selves because of the wind that picked up due to his launch. Bahamut thought to himself, 'It is time for you to experience your first battle in this war. I can only feel sorry that you have become involved at such a young age. Except for that red mage.'

The party looked around and saw that all the flames were out. "So I finally found you." A human figure walked out from one of the buildings wearing a red robe that hid his entire body stopping just below his eyes. From what they could see his skin was a fleshy pink color, he had horns in his forehead, and white spiky hair.

"Who are you?" Kit asked.

"I am Sean. I have come here to destroy you."

Scott pointed his swords toward Sean. "Bring it."

One of Sean's arm came out of his robe revealing a pale yellow jump suit with sleeves too long for his arm which caused them to flap over when he held his arms up. He snapped his fingers and everyone including himself had a magical circle appear below them. "To be honest I'm not going to fight you. You all will have to fight my Seeds of Sin." He threw six seeds on the ground.

The first one to sprout became this hideous fat slop of a monster that drooled. "Who do I get to eat?"

"Gluttony you will deal with the white girl in the white." Sean snapped his fingers and Katelyn's circle disappeared.

"Gluttony," Katelyn asked, "You think I'm fat?" With a flash of her white fiery temper she pulled out her hammer-mace thing and brought it down on his head making it cave in.

"I didn't think it would be that fast." Sean snapped his fingers making the circle appear under Katelyn again. "I guess the red one is next." After snapping his fingers the circle under Kit disappeared. The next seed sprouted into a woman-like plant creature. She wore a very revealing two-piece.

Kit walked up close to her. "Why do we have to fight? After all, I am a lover."

"Oh, chivalry. You're giving me goosebumps." Lust replied. She hugged herself emphasizing her size D breasts. She followed up by pressing herself onto Kit. "Just the king of man I need."

Kit wrapped one of his arms around her. "Must resist urges." He went in for a kiss. As he drew his lips closer to hers he thought, 'SNAP OUT OF IT MAN!' One of her hands melded into a blade behind his back prepared to stab him. He passed her lips and stopped at her ear.

As gently as he could he whispered, "Blizzard." Her eyes widened as she flash froze in place and shattered. Another circle appeared under Kit. "Guys I think these sin plants draw out our inner instincts and use them to distract us or something like that."

"Aaawwww. I thought she would have had you. Luckily I have four more." The rest of the seeds sprouted at once into a fat man barely able to hold himself up (Sloth), a guy who kept rubbing his hands together (Greed), some girl who couldn't bare the sight of the party (Envy), and a very aggressive man with his arms crossed (Wrath). "How about the man in robes now."

Alan's circle disappeared. Scott reassuringly said, "It's Alan this time. They got nothing on him. He's the most disciplined person between us."

Alan looked at wrath a little worried. 'Crap.'

Wrath appeared in front of Alan in a flash. "Boo." He punched Alan sending him through a couple buildings and down a few blocks.

"NO," shouted Bridgette

Sean looked at her and replied, "I think I decided who's up next." Bridgette's circle disappeared next. Sloth slowly walked over to her.

She Kept waving her rod around, trembling in fear, saying, "Fire! Fire! Fire," but she wasn't focused enough to complete the spell.

A voice in her head called out to her, "It is time I joined in." A giant circle appeared under her feet. Fire rose from the edges stopping Sloth from advancing. "Do it. Read the runes ans call my name."

Bridgette say the runes near the edge glow. "Rise from your pit of damnation, Ifrit!" The circle cracked all the way through and Bridgette could feel a burst of energy from within. Finally the circle broke and parts of it flew through the air.

The fire from the edges moved and took the form of the demonic Ifrit. The fire died down revealing his charcoal-ed body. He looked as if he was a cross between a lion and a man with a burning mane (FFX Ifrit).

"Hell Fire!" Bridgette yelled as Ifrit, on all four, opened his mouth charging a ball of flame. The ball reached 5 ft in diameter before shrinking down to the size of a marble launching at Sloth. It hit him causing him to fly toward the other sin plants. As he flew into the center of them the ball inflated 20 ft wide covering them all in flames.

Ifrit disappeared being consumed in flames which slowly died out. Bridgette fell over unconscious from fatigue. Wrath walked out of the flames while the others were burnt to ashes. "It's about time I destroyed you all."

"Leave the unconscious one for me. I have an obligation to keep."

Alan managed to push the rubble off of himself. He heard an explosion in the distance followed by a flash of light. He started running through the path of wreckage from his earlier trip. It took him 20 min to get back. He saw everyone on the ground and blood spots here and there. The first person Alan ran up to was Kit, who was conscious healing himself, and he bent over to talk. "I'm gone for 20 minutes and you guys lose a fight."

"Well after you left Bridgette summoned this demon thing which killed all the plants except the angry one. He then proceeded to hit me. I noticed some things were on the ground that should be under my ribs and had to heal it. Everyone else dropped like flies and the other dude took black face."

Alan felt his entire body shiver after the last sentence. In a calm voice he asked Kit, "Which direction?"

"That way." He pointed and Alan stood up.

"Make sure you heal everyone."

"What about you?" Alan just walked away ignoring what he asked. Kit got up and started walking over toward the others. "I guess it's not my turn yet," he told himself.

"Well if it isn't my personal buffet." Wrath said as he came around a corner blocking Alan's path. "I knew you would attempt to stop Sean, so I decided to stop you and suck your anger right out of you."

"Why did Sean take Bridgette?" Alan continued to walk as he asked.

"It doesn't matter if I tell you. I'm just going to devour your soul anyway." Wrath flashed in front of Alan doing to same punch as before. The smirk on his face soon faded as his fist stopped before making contact. Since Alan still walked forward Wrath felt himself being pushed back. "What the hell?"

He opened his mouth and bit down on the area between Alan's neck and shoulder. His teeth actually sank in and he tried using that to feed on Alan's anger, but he felt nothing coming to him. "Where is it? How did you get rid of it all?"

Alan just mimicked his earlier statement. "It doesn't matter if I tell you. I'm about to destroy you." Wrath drew his teeth out of Alan getting ready to flee. But in the same insane speed he once had Alan punched him leaving a hole in his chest. "Spring's First Breath." A burst of air went roaring through the hole. Wrath dropped to his knees and withered away just like the other plants.

Sean was walking through a cave with Bridgette over shoulder. They passed torch by torch. From Bridgette's shadow approximately where her eyes would be a pair of red glowing eyes followed. These eyes belonged to Ifrit who was keeping tabs on his host. "I can tell you've been watching me."

"Where are you taking us?"

"Back to your kingdom your majesty." Sean replied with a slight chuckle.

"You couldn't possibly open a gate to hell from the human realm without my permission so stop lying."

"I'm not lying and you shouldn't assume that I'm the one opening the gate. I got some people to open it from the inside."

"Even still what do you hope to accomplish?"

"I'm going to drain your power from your host and kill her."

"I don't know who fed you this delusion of possibility but they were wrong."

"Are you gonna stop me because last time I checked you needed permission from your host to come out and play."

"I didn't say I was going to be the one to stop you. In fact he's following your trail right now."

"Nice joke but your doom is certain seeing as I already took care of the other Light Warriors."

"Actually they are all still kicking."

"Impossible. Wrath had more than enough anger to absorb to finish them off."

"True but what if the one who he fed off of replaced his anger with another emotion."

"Stop trying to stall. We're here." They stood before a giant iron door shaped like a box with a half circle on top if it standing 60 ft and 40 ft wide tall with runes written on it's edges and a parallel set of runes going down the middle showing off that it was a double door. There were also chains which had smaller runes written on each link that came from the corners making a cross connected in the middle by a lock that was just one solid circular block with a rune on it.

Sean wrote a rune in the dirt below him and put his hand on it. It began to glow red. "I'm at the door. Open it now." After a couple seconds of waiting all the runes on the doors and chains started to glow red and it opened outward toward Sean's side with the lock split in half and staying at the center of the doors. It only opened enough for Sean to to walk in and closed as soon as he did. "Welcome back to the land of the demons and the damned."

Some demons stood around the entrance. There were dozens of death claws, a couple of imps, a demon wall and a diablo. Sean held up his hand with a small yellow light hovering over it and tossed it to the diablo. "Here's that chocobo soul you wanted."

"A pleasure doing business," He said as he dropped it in his mouth and swallowed it. The demon wall moved in front of the door with his back against it.

Sean walked over to a magic circle with some runes written inside a star in the middle and placed Bridgette in the middle of it. He then walked 5 feet away from the circle turned around with his back to the door and began chanting. The circle began to glow red. Bridgette's shadow outlined itself into the shape of Ifrit. With a furious voice he shouted, "How dare you take a bribe and let this insolent fool into my kingdom."

The diablo looked at the shadow, grew wide eyed, and looked back at Sean. "You didn't tell me you were bringing him back in here." He spread his wings and took off deeper into hell.

Mean while Alan was running through the cave. He finally reached the gate to hell. Standing only two and a half feet away from it he got into a runner's starting pose with his left leg stretched out and his right knee bent with both his hands on the ground. Alan focused his chakra into his arms. "Summers Inescapable Wrath – Rising Temperature." He used the position to give him a short leap forward and as soon as he was in the air barely moving and inch from where he leaped he let out a flurry of punches. He landed 50 blows on the door in a small concentrated spot before catching himself on the ground leaving a dent in the middle of the gate.

Inside hell the monsters heard banging coming from the gate. This was the first time such a noise came from it so they started to stand near it. The demon wall replied to the noise by saying, "Whoever the hell is trying to get through should know that its impossible to open it. Especially since all the gate are reinforced with demon walls."

Alan stretched out his right arm with his fingers fully extended and touched to dent where it was deepest. "Summer's Inescapable Wrath – Heat Wave." He quickly retracted his arm, made a fist, and punched that part of the dent.

The monsters felt and earthquake on their side. The door fell over on their side causing it to knock over the demon wall on top of other monster and crushing them. One of the imps who didn't get too close to the door shouted, "What in the nine layers of hell is happening!"

Alan emerged as the dust settled immediately locking his sights on Sean. What remained of the group of monster looked at Alan. Another imp pointed at him. "It's a human. Tear him to pieces." They all start running at him.

Only focusing on Sean, Alan dashed past all the monsters before they could notice with a powerful gust against his back increasing his speed. Some of the monsters who were too close to him were blown into the air by the force and others just tried to keep their ground. As he approached Sean he brought his arms up further focusing his chakra into his hand. "Fall's Deceiving Decay." Both of his fists collided with Sean's back. Not only were his punches backed up by the force of his dash, his fist were as strong as iron because of the chakra, and some of the chakra went into Sean's body and did some internal damage.

Sean was sent flying into a rock unable to brace himself for it. All the other monsters just looked in shock at what they thought was a mere human. Alan crouched down to examine Bridgette. Bridgette's shadow started to return to normal while the eyes remained. "It's about time you got here. Just don't leave yourself as open as you are now."

Alan picked up the hint picking up Bridgette and turning round. Two giant balls of fire rushed in and collided with Alan's back. He put Bridgette down and faced Sean who already had two more fire balls ready launching them in Alan's direction. Alan did nothing to stop them as they hit his chest.

"That would have killed me if we weren't already in hell." Sean was charging another fire ball. Alan was slowly side stepping so he could keep Bridgette from being in path of Sean's attacks.

"For the sake of getting out of here as soon as possible I'm going to beat you in 4 hits," Alan told Sean.

Sean laughed at that notion. "You think I'm just some weak mage."

"No I'm just saying that I'm stronger than you."

Sean got angry. He held up the fire ball he was charging which was 5 feet in diameter and threw it into the ground. "Hell Storm!" The ground cracked in a cone shape toward Alan. Alan began to run toward Sean when the ground erupted with fire which shot all the way up the the ceiling. The fire kept spewing from the ground for a couple seconds. "So much for being stronger than me."

"Are you sure about that?" Alan emerged from the flames right in front of Sean. Sean was surprised to see Alan, a human, survive flames from hell itself. Alan combo-ed by elbowing Sean's face with his right arm, rotating counter clockwise sweep kicking him with his left leg, and using Sudden Updraft to knee him in the chest to send him flying in the air.

"Winter's Absolute Death." Alan jumped into the air grabbing Sean as they continued up. He arranged Sean upside-down facing away from Alan. Alan crossed Sean's legs with both hands, put his right foot on Sean's chin, and wrapped his left leg around Sean's body. They began to fall, Alan jerked his body, and they spun around as they fell.

All the monsters saw them crash into the ground. Alan was still standing and he walked out of the crater they created. Sean was lying on the ground unable to move. "So much for 'absolute death.' I'm still alive and as long as we're in hell you can't kill me."

"I don't have to kill you. Just incapacitate you so you don't follow us out."Alan picked Bridgette up and began to walk out. The monsters were too scared to even conceive the thought of stopping him. "If I do see you outside of hell, I will kill you."

As Alan reached the other side of the doorway the ground trembled. The gate lifted back up and secured itself back in place. It looked good as new with the addition to a giant glowing red rune on the hell side. The monsters began running around screaming. "We're all dead! WE'RE ALL DEAD!"

Sean was confused. "What are you talking about. We're in hell. Nothing can die here. Even living creatures have immortality."

One monster stopped. "You don't get it do you?"

"Get what?"

"Under normal circumstances that is true, but there are two things in this place that make exceptions to that rule. Ifrit and his officer of order."

"I was never told about this."

"Nobody thought you were going to bring the king himself here. Now that you have, failed to absorb his power, and attracted a being powerful enough to knock down the gate the officer of order is coming here to stop all this chaos by cleaning it up."

The diablo from earlier came flying back. "It was him sire. The one inside the crater." An iron golem emerged from the depths of the tunnel. The other monster freaked out even more crowding against the corner where the door was. The golem approached Sean and brought his left hand down to pin him.

A hunched, short robed figure walked down the golem's arm from his shoulder. Emerging from it's right sleeve was a lamp. It held the lamp up to Sean's head as if to analyze him. It moved it's left arm to reveal a knife and took off it's hood to show it's green head. Sean laughed and said, "You gotta be kidding me. I've slaughtered children taller than this."

The creature looked at the diablo and back. The diablo spoke up, "Silence! You have been judged and found guilty of entering hell without permission, forcibly bringing back his majesty, attempting to drain his power, and causing the destruction of a gate by enraging a being of untold power all on top murdering the innocent you've done throughout your life. You are hereby sentenced to oblivion to be carried out by Lord Tomberry, Officer of Order."

"And how is he going to do that?" Tomberry stabbed Sean in the throat with his knife. Sean could feel his body and soul deteriorating.

"As for the rest of you. Leave now and never talk about what happened here, as are Lord Tomberry's orders." All the monsters left thanking Tomberry for mercy on their way out. The diablo drew close to Tomberry. "Lord Tomberry it is that time again. We need to reinforce all the gates and since the seal is already broken we need to delay her awakening as long as possible so that the Light Warriors can build up their strength. From what I can tell from the traces around this place, they need it."

Alan reached the outside of the cave. Bridgette began to wake up. "What happened?"

"The guy in the over sized clothes took you to hell so I busted in, beat him up, and rescued you. What happened after I was punched and flew away."

"I summoned the king of hell to burn a couple of weed. What about everyone else?"

"If I'm right then everyone should be OK. There is still a 95% chance that Kit will still be hurt but that will be because he said or did something that Katelyn didn't like." They returned to the others and Alan was right about everything.

After resting for the night Scot woke everyone up early. "We need to get going to the next town."

Kit just yawned with a blank look on his face. "Why do we have to get up so early?"

"To get to the next town as soon as possible."

"I can already feel a long and incredibly dangerous adventure for us."

"Now shut up and let's get going."

"Fine..."