Ginji is hopeless. Actually, no. Everyone's hopeless. Even me. Especially me.

I'd say I got into my first fender-bender, but really, the only thing that got bent was my front license plate. The other lady's car just has a couple scratches (from the screws holding my license plate on) that honestly look like a vampire car jumped up and tried to bite it in the ass...

Well, now that we all have that lovely image in our heads...

Enjoy.

(Also, Dark's line in response to Kairi's is basically what I thought to myself as I created the arte.)

"Made me think of a line from a story called Peter Pan... 'All it takes is faith and trust... and a little bit of pixie dust.'" –Kairi

"So, how many days' worth of rations do we have? Because what I was hoping would be a two or three day infiltration is starting to look like it's going to take us a week, at least." –Asch

Chapter 13.3 – End Game
Part 113

I'd been right. Ginji did have a concussion. And a broken wrist. And half of his 'cuts' were infected by the time we got to him.

Good news was, he would heal up just fine, so long as he stayed safe and didn't get any more injuries. So we left him with Noelle on the Albiore II and headed in.

I'd been racking my brain for memories of how Eldrant usually went, and I was fairly certain that Legretta usually attacked you the moment you walked in.

And, in keeping with what I remembered, the moment we stepped off of the elevator we'd found and into the colorless insides of Eldrant, gunshots rang out.

Everyone shifted, looking up even as two brown blurs jumped down.

Legretta was easily recognizable in the brown, white, and yellow outfit she usually wore for this battle. The other woman had brown hair, gold eyes, and was playing around with a pair of sai.

"Rhunön."

She looked over at me and smirked. "So, you recognize me, hm?" The brown duster coat she'd been wearing was tossed to the side. "Interesting."

Legretta's eyes were locked on Dark. "Zion needs Kairi alive." She paused to scowl. "Kairi's the only one he needs alive."

Rhunön played around with her weapons for a moment. "Which, of course, means the rest of you get to die."

Dark growled something that was probably quite rude as the brunette then charged at us, Legretta opening fire behind her. "Watch it, there's poison on those!" he yelled, pulling out the White Lotus chakrams. I jumped back and out of the way, rolling away from Rhunön's attack.

Flick, Ion and I spread out, all three of us sticking to long-range. Asch, Luke, and Guy charged right in, though it took both Luke and Guy to keep Rhunön somewhat preoccupied.

I knew, the moment she jumped up and flipped over their heads, they were out of their league against her. Dark scowled as he let off a Stardust Rain that hit Legretta. "Damn. She may have retired, but she's still as deadly as ever, looks like," he muttered.

I noticed that all of the replicas, with the exception of Luke, were focusing on Legretta, and frowned. *Do you know something I don't?* I asked Dark.

*Ryndor and Rhunön don't really agree with what Zion's doing. They just can't do anything to stop him,* he said. I nodded, and let off the next Blast Edge in Legretta's direction, rather than Rhunön's. *Of course, that still means they'll follow him until he's dead.*

*We can deal with that later. Zion isn't here for me to kill. Legretta is.*

Dark chuckled, apparently finding that trail of logic amusing.

"Major, please! Why do you insist on fighting for my brother's ideals?!" I heard Tear ask. I noticed that Tear was basically on her own over there, and ran over to at least keep from having her get hurt too badly. She was the strongest healer we had, and we'd need her desperately later on.

"Because I'm tired of having my life decided by a force that's simply trying to destroy the world!" Legretta replied. "I won't stop fighting until the last breath leaves my body."

I scowled and let off a Silver Shot. "And you think we won't fight you just as hard?!"

Legretta let off a shockwave as she unleashed her over-limit, and I groaned. Great. This wasn't going to be fun... Well, at least it was physically impossible to use more than one Mystic Arte in an eighteen-hour period. My Extensions only worked one after another because they rode largely on the leftover energy spent by the person whose arte I was Extending. I couldn't do one after letting off Twilight's Requiem, not for a few hours, at least.

"Fragments of light, strike down my enemy!" Legretta aimed at Tear. "This ends now! Prism Bullet!"

Tear yelled, but it was more in frustration than pain. Good. That meant Legretta hadn't done as much damage as she wanted to.

I was limited to my bow for this battle, since I couldn't fight with putting it away and summoning my sword, but that didn't mean I couldn't at least make myself a nuisance. "Silver Shot!"

"Stardust Rain! Oh, hell, Kairi!"

I couldn't help it, I giggled. "Have a little faith!" I said. And it took a lot of self-control to resist the other half of what I wanted to say as I drew another arrow and let off a second Silver Shot.

"Fine. You know I trust you," Dark grumbled. I smirked and let the arrow fly.

"Dust Wave!"

Where my arrow landed, Dark's Stardust Rain finally exploded, rushing outward similarly to a shockwave. Legretta got hit the hardest, but when it reached me and Tear, I noted that it gave us a bit of a magic boost.

Rhunön paused long enough to give Dark a sour look, and I realized instantly what had happened.

We hadn't identified Rhunön as an enemy, so she'd gotten a magic boost, too.

Whoops...

*Note to self: if we do that again during this battle, treat Rhunön as a second enemy,* I said, since Dark hadn't seen the nasty look.

*Do I want to know why that's relevant?* he asked. I smiled.

*She didn't get hurt. Instead, she got the same magic boost the rest of us got.*

*...Noted.*

I cut it off again and let off a Blast Edge, followed by a Star Stroke. Legretta decided that of me and Sync, I was the bigger annoyance, and she turned and started shooting at me. I smirked and started dodging shots, leaving Sync free to attack her mostly-unprotected back. Asch was caught up with dealing with Rhunön, who had most of the group's attention.

Legretta had me, Sync, Tear, Dark, and Flick to deal with.

Which also mean that Sync was the only one fighting short-range, since Dark was staying back and casting for the most part.

He let off a Sandstorm, and I grinned, raced in, and used Guardian's Pain. I needed a sword for Guardian Field, but its FoF mutation was one I could pull off without a weapon at all.

"Ring Whirlwind!"

Legretta flipped back to avoid the poisoned chakrams, only to have to jump to the side to avoid a Ray Thrust.

She failed, and I tilted my head to the side and prodded the Energies around her.

Poisoned.

Tear looked uncomfortable. She knew how Van had died, and now...

"I'm sorry Major. But I can't allow my brother's ambitions to become reality," she said. Legretta frowned and looked over at her, then had to duck under Sync's Shadow Daggers.

Since he could only use those with the Black Rose Daggers, the new cut that opened up was likely poisoned as well.

Legretta flipped back and raised her gun to fire at Sync, and I noticed that she hesitated a moment before she actually shot at him.

He was able to dodge easily, and Legretta jumped a bit further back, stumbling upon landing.

"Poison..." she realized.

Dark nodded. "The same that killed Van. I'm sorry. We didn't have the time then, and this time, we don't have the energy to waste."

Legretta's expression was nowhere near as guarded as it usually was—I blamed this on the poison—and I saw, plain as day, that she at least respected that.

Reighn had finally broken free from the fight with Rhunön and was walking over. Legretta looked over at him, and nodded once before allowing herself to succumb to the poison. What, exactly, that exchange meant, I didn't know, but I knew from the pained expression Reighn wore that it was important to him, at the very least.

Tear shifted uncomfortably. "Dark..."

He nodded. "We can bury her next to Van once all of this is over," he said, walking over and kneeling to feel her pulse. I watched for a few seconds before turning and watching Rhunön do a rather complicated-looking flip over Asch's head. She then did a few more back-flips over to where her coat had landed. The sais disappeared and she grabbed her coat.

"I'm outta here for now. Stay alive, brats."

She was then gone, and Flick snickered.

"Way to go, Luke."

I raised an eyebrow. "Wait, what did Luke do?" I asked. Guy chuckled.

"Oh, Flick kept yelling at him to use fire, and, well... It's kinda funny. He ended up using a fire version of Guardian Field when he finally lost his temper with her."

Luke scowled. "It wasn't funny when it happened."

I grinned. "So? At least now you know you can do it."

Luke sighed. "Yeah. Still, she was driving us nuts. And by 'us', I mean me and Rhunön both."

"I'm not surprised. Rhunön really doesn't like fire. It's part of the reason why I stuck to using my fifth-fonon artes. She'll do just about anything to avoid them, including not dodging Luke and Guy's attacks," Seth said.

I smirked. "Huh. Neat. Which reminds me... Dark?"

"Hm?"

"Pixie dust."

He looked up at me. "What...?"

I snickered. "Dust Wave. Made me think of a line from a story called Peter Pan... 'All it takes is faith and trust... and a little bit of pixie dust.'"

Dark gave me a rather deadpan look. "I ought to shoot you."

Asch laughed. "I'd prefer it if you didn't, thanks."

I smiled. "Aw, you know you love me."

Dark rolled his eyes, then pulled an overlarge blanket out of his wing pack. "Alright. That's Legretta down, and Rhunön running off, probably to regroup with Ryndor," he said, gently rolling Legretta's body into the blanket and wrapping her up.

"Are you going to do this with everyone we have to kill?" Jade asked. Dark shook his head.

"No. Legretta, yes. If we run into any of the other former God-Generals, yes. Arietta really should be buried in the Cheagle Woods, where her mother died, and Dist..."

"Dist is a cockroach. I'm sorry, but I'm fairly certain it is impossible to kill him," I said. Sync snorted.

"No kidding..."

"And he hates you in every form he takes," Asch and I added. Sync gave us both sour looks.

"Alright, I think that's enough socializing. We need to get out of here—no doubt that commotion would have attracted attention," Jade said. I nodded, and once Legretta's body was squared away in Dark's wing pack, we set out.

I very, very, very quickly came to hate Eldrant. It was a maze of white, and were it not for most everyone else having fantastic senses of direction, I'd have been totally lost.

The enemy fare was much the same as it had been on the Isle of Feres, too. Ligers. Griffins. Other monsters. Replica soldiers. Plenty of replica monsters, I was sure, though they were impossible to tell apart from the normal monsters.

We tried for stealth. We really did. Dark had brought up a very good point when Legretta was dying, one even she had conceded before her death.

While we weren't as strapped for time as we had been during the lowering of the Outer Lands, we couldn't afford to waste too much energy, because we really needed it for the multitude of, to use game terminology here, boss fights we were about to face.

We'd already survived one, thanks to Dark and the White Lotus chakrams taking Legretta out relatively quickly. Rhunön had simply run off then, and that was fine too, even though we'd have to fight her again later.

But that still left her and Ryndor. Danté and Arietta. Zion. Star. Dist, if he decided to show up. Mohs, if he felt like it. Also, there was the chance that someone else could show up. I knew I was missing someone, I just knew it... The replicas! Mirage and Meryl! It was always a possibility that we would have to fight those two as well. They'd attacked in Chesedonia while we were at the Tower of Rem, sure, but Star had been at the Tower of Rem.

And that was disregarding the replica of Van. I didn't know what had happened to him, and it was possible he's been sent here to fight us.

Then there was the trap that had been laid for Luke and Asch in the game, and everything else.

There was so much we had to plan for, so many things that I didn't know what the outcome would be, and while it terrified me, I knew that I had to keep my head on straight. Getting out of sorts here wasn't going to help anyone.

"Alright... So, how many days' worth of rations do we have?" Asch asked. "Because what I was hoping would be a two or three day infiltration is starting to look like it's going to take us a week, at least."

I sighed. "Good thing I packed for a week," I muttered. Selenia giggled.

"You and me both. I'm glad at least we were prepared."

Asch shot us both a scowl and then turned and kept walking. Unfortunately, he walked right into another pack of ligers, and I sighed, drew out my bow, and took aim. Luke and Guy were using Flamberge and the Vorpal Blade, and I smiled every time I saw those two. Those swords really did fit those two.

Asch swung around with Ultimatus, and I smirked when he pulled off a successful Devastation. He didn't like it, but he had yet to get the FoF mutation to work for him, so he was using it anyway to augment his arte repertoire.

Selenia was using Gray Larkspur, and her Devastations were a lot more powerful. I noted that she usually followed them up with a DelQues, because it launched her in the air and got her back out of the middle of the fight. Good, she was figuring out how to be a front-liner easily. Now then...

"Silver Shot!"

"You're favoring that today," Dark noted. I nodded, then used the next fire FoF I could find to turn the next one into a Phoenix Shot. Natalia did the same a moment later with the FoF from Jade's Infernal Prison.

We finally beat the ligers and then immediately ran to find someplace to... well, not hide, since ligers have really good noses and therefore would be able to sniff us out easily, but we moved anyway, so as to avoid having two battles in the exact same spot.

The others seemed to agree that this was a good idea, and it certainly kept us from having to fight constantly, which would wear us down faster than if we were fighting, taking a short break, and then fighting again.

"Alright, we've been in here for two hours now and I still don't see anything that looks different from an hour ago," Guy complained. "Damn, they built this place well."

"Shh!" Dark hissed softly. All of us went silent at once, and I realized a moment later why.

"Arietta... I can't."

Fun Fact: About half of the Combo Artes were born of my having a line or a scene stuck in my head. Axel talking to Roxas about the sun setting red, that line from Peter Pan, a victory screen skit from Tales of Symphonia (though how that one's going to work now that Twilight decided to ditch on me, I'm not sure)...