One moment, Hope is standing to face his arch enemy, and the next, he finds himself transported to another realm.
"You were wrong to bring the rest of them into this fight." The familiar voice of Bhunivelze echoes from the corners of Hope's vision, and he whirls around what seems like an endless grassy meadow to ascertain where the God is coming from.
"Show yourself to us!" Hope cries out, whirling in all directions. There is a fresh breeze that blows through the thicket, seeming to taunt him with the serene motions of the flowers nodding in a gentle wind.
Light is standing there next to him, but remains silent, scanning the perimeter with quick eye movements. She is hunkered down into a crouch, warrior ready and deadly in the quiet ease with which she rocks to the balls of her feet. Neither of them are surprised that they are suddenly standing in unfamiliar territory.
Shimmering out of thin air, Bhunivelze appears, but not as his giant, true form. To Hope's surprise, the god has shrunk his form down to human scale, appearing only as a slightly larger form than Hope and Light themselves. In a show of diplomacy, he deliberately sheathes the giant two-pronged spear of his in a clamp behind his back. He walks toward them, opening his palms and spreading them wide in an appearance of civility.
Light isn't buying it. "Drop the act, Bhunivelze. Where have you taken us? Where are our friends?"
"You know, I could never truly hurt you, Savior." Bhunivelze is saying, turning to her with those freakishly sad eyes. "I kept Hope alive for you, for all those years, because I could see how much that he meant to you. I couldn't keep the both of you apart. Don't you ever wonder why I used him as my tool? Why Hope became my chosen one?" His grin is terrifying. "It wasn't just the endearing play on your names-Hope and Light being together, though it is just an added little bonus. It's fate at it's finest." He chuckles without any mirth. "No, I wanted to use him to manipulate you-and it worked-for a long time. I could crush him without a thought, but you-I wanted you so badly, to myself. I couldn't have him around forever, you know-his presence would cloud your judgement-so, eventually, he had to be erased-but you…you I could never truly hurt." His smile becomes two rows of jagged dagger teeth. "Even when it was you who banished me to that remote part of Chaos."
"You can't win. Even if your tactic of breaking us up might slow us down-we will still persevere. There isn't any way to stop us-not now, not ever."
Hope nods his assent, standing closer to his beloved. He couldn't let the God see his hurt, his fear. Light needed him to be strong, and he would do so in this fight, just like all of the others that they had won together over the ages. Together, they could vanquish any foe.
"Oh, my dear, I'm not arguing with you there. You have a point-I cannot best you, but then again, who said that winning a fight is what I'm trying to accomplish?" He grins, his eyes dancing. "No, you never thought to ask me what it was that I wanted-you had just assumed, for yourselves, that what I had called you to me for was to fight."
"We don't care what you want." Light cuts him off, lip curled back into a snarl. "We're here to finish this, once and for all."
Without further ado, Light reaches inside of herself and shoots flames at Bhunivelze's head. With a crackling cry, a flash of red and orange springs up from her palm, and a –ga level spell of Fire engulfs the God.
Eerily, Hope hears laughter amongst the flames. There is a brief flash of light, and then the flames flicker and die, leaving Bhuni's grinning visage behind. He seems to have taken no damage.
Light reaches for a gunblade that isn't there, then looks around the empty, silent meadow. "Where's Odin? What have you done with him?"
"Ah, yes, your old world protector." Is Hope mistaken, or is there a twinge of-jealousy?-in the God's voice. "He is on the other side of this meadow-so close, but yet, so far away. He can see us, I assure you, but you cannot see him."
"What is it that you want with us now?" Hope finds the bravery to speak to the God, and he feels the eyes of blue ice turn to him. He stands his ground, planting his feet when his very core wants to run away.
"I agree with your little plan-in fact, I'll even come along willingly." Hope and Light glance at one another, sending a telepathic silent message between them, but the God sees everything. He chuckles at the glance that they share. "Oh, you don't have to worry-I heard you before I transported all three of you here. The idea isn't as crazy as it seems-though I have to admit, I don't think all of your friends are completely on board the way that you are." Hope remembers Vanille's reluctant agreement to the plan. The God continues. "At any rate, I agree with you that it just might work. You have become immortal once more, after all. With your progenitor gone, you have no clear Focus, therefore, you cannot fail. You can't become C'ieth if you have no more direction, no Fal'Cie to fail. Anima is gone, and you are…orphans, shall we say, without a family or home. That makes you a sort of genetic freak. In a sense, you have achieved the impossible through a cosmic loophole-and have ascertained the level of Gods yourselves."
Hope is discomforted more than words could even suggest at the thought that his enemy is agreeing with his plan. "You-you agree with our logic?"
"In theory, it's failsafe." Hope can't believe that they're having this conversation. Every alert mode that he has in his body is screaming, telling him to abort his plan and start to attack en force.
"Let's just say, that as an immortal being-one who has a lot more experience than you do at the concept of eternity-I grow…weary…of this prison that you have put me in. In a way, we are helping each other. You have come back to rescue me in a sense, so I guess that makes me grateful."
"We are your captors." Light has no time for further dialogue. "We get to decide where we put you, and when. We decide your conditions. We can't kill you, but now that we are immortal like yourself, we have all the time in the world to watch over you, and make sure that you are never truly free."
Bhunivelze grins at this little speech, his smile stretching a little wider, something that Hope would have thought impossible before now for him to do. "Continue to think that you are the one that has ultimate control in this, or any, situation-and that will be your downfall. I need not intervene-you will have cursed yourselves."
"If you are such a willing pawn to our scheme, then why cut us off from our friends? Where have you put us? Where are the others? And why are Odin and Alexander barred from us?" Light throws out her hand in anguish. "I buy none of it."
"I can't have your Eidolons barging in here. They wouldn't listen to me. I did this for their own safety. They are of no consequence to me-I can smite them both with the briefest of thoughts. I can put down the barrier that separates you from them if you wish-but if they attack me, I will have no choice but to defend myself. Do you have a good enough bond with your dogs to bring them to heel?" The god raises a pompous eyebrow down at the two, and Hope hesitates, not sure in his years of being captive and a human being that Alexander would obey him even now without question.
The god takes the moment of hesitation as acquiescence. "I thought so. I will drop the barrier after the group of you casts the spell that releases me from my prison."
With cold clarity, the boy realizes that he has no option-his hand is forced. The god is taunting them on so many visceral levels. Realistically, they should never even be having this conversation. Watching the God, conversing with Him and seeing him able to somehow be partially mobile is taxing to the psyche. They can't just re-imprison Him to another corner of the universe. Their plan, at least partially, had failed. They know that they can win, but the dance hasn't stopped.
What good is a victory if you will never stop having to fight to claim it? There can be no joy in the aftermath, knowing that there will always be a next battle. And why would the God continue to fight when He knows that He cannot fight the combined magic of their friendship? It had to be just to taunt them. It had to be so that the God could at least take comfort in the fact that they can never truly rest or be happy. If Bhuni is doomed to be beaten, He could take cruel comfort in knowing that He has an eternity to spar with His most hated enemies.
"How did you break free of the ice?" Hope gets around to asking the most obvious question. Logic prevails, always, in his train of thought and speech patterns. Though he doesn't expect an answer, Hope is pleased when he receives one.
"You have already found the answer back on that speck of dust which you aliens now claim as your home planet. Even behind the layers of crystal, I could see through the clear cavern and watch your very distinct trails pass in front of my eyes. You headed toward a distant sun, and I fixed all of my energies and attentions on the place where you would land. I reached out, using the cosmic forces I have cultivated over eons of patience and practice at my side to plant clues of my existence here into the minds of a few weak humans that would be the most…shall we say…receptive, to my nonverbal cues."
Hope has a quick flashback to the scattered cells of activity all over the globe, leaving intentional clues with Bhunivelze's name recently. And then there was the prisoner in the underground desert cell. The God was clearly harnessing power that should have never been possible. Bhunivelze had definitely been an integral part of what should not have been possible back on Earth.
"You are saying that you will make our lives miserable for us, even if we beat you over and over, until the end of time. I get it." Light lowers her head.
"It's just not the way the universe works. You cannot have complete happiness while I live, cold and isolated, on another part of the cosmos. We are now too connected for all of that. There has to be balance. It's the ruling factor that we all must live by."
"Well, now it's a reality." Hope holds up his forearm, and makes his palm into a fist. "We are now just as immortal as you are, and are ready to hold you down for the rest of days. We have the tools now that we need."
"Then we are both prisoners, and balance has now been restored to opposite ends of the cosmos. You cannot kill a God, but you have found a better way to contain my influence. I cannot be forgotten-in any world. If I exist, there are always those that can worship me, and give me the power to rule."
"He's right." Light looks up, and it kills Hope to see her look so dejected. "He IS right, you know, Hope. It makes sense, what he's saying." She sighs, and turns to Hope. "If we choose to elect ourselves as equal parts Bhunivelze's guardians, we ensure the safety of anyone else He would try to influence. We make sure that innocent people don't get hurt in His effort to manipulate us from across the galaxies. We make sure that what happens to you, never happens to anyone else. Keeping His corporeal form in one place doesn't safeguard His silence. He can speak though His body is frozen. That was our downfall-not realizing that when we crammed Him into that corner in the first place."
"I am not a child." Bhunivelze booms deeply over Light. "You cannot contain an all-powerful being forever in such a manner. Now you have come to pay for your mistake. I have gained followers now on your world, and you do not have the power to go to another one. Even if you did, you know now that I can follow you, wherever you go, and I will take as many down with me as you hop across the universe. Even the universe is too small, if you are destined to live forever as you and I are. Your choices are limited-and I know that you could never allow all those people to burn to make yourselves happy."
Hope made his decision with Fang, Vanille, and Light-but it makes his skin crawl to know that he is going to be a part of holding on to a part of the God forever. It's sick, it's vile, it's wrong. All he wanted was just to be rid of the God after all of those years, being tortured and removed from his family and the people that he loved.
Were those 18 years of human life, with his memories repressed and his mind naïve, the only true years of peace on this world he will ever know?
But what torture is worse? Knowing that you are personally responsible for keeping the evil of Bhunivelze at bay and protecting the innocent, or sacrificing others just to have a few years of peace for yourself?
Hope knows his answer. So be it. "One last question-before we try to snuff your presence out forever this time. Why did you separate us from our friends? Why bring us here alone without the others?"
"Together, the two of you have always made a team. I saw this for a long time. The rest won't be so easy to convince of the plan you created." The God points an accusatory finger at Hope, and the motion sends shivers down the boy's spine. "Just remember- you are the one who came up with the idea yourself, and this wasn't some sort of plan that I am responsible for. No one's manipulating you this time, boy. You are the leader now-you have to be responsible for your decisions."
"That still isn't answering the question." Light has no time for the God's trailing half-answers, and she narrows her eyes in judgement. "Why bring us here?"
The God sighs. "Call it-a sentiment? I am closer to the both of you. I wanted to keep you safe so we could talk-perhaps for our last meeting. Also, I sense that there is a recent wound-a rift-between the two of you, and I wanted to make sure your minds were clear enough to carry this out amongst your friends, working together."
A pain stabs through Hope, and he grits his teeth and turns to Light, who turns on her heel and walks away a few paces, folding her arms over her chest. The pause only lasts for a brief second, during which Hope extends his hand to his new-found love, afraid his actions have only caused him to lose her for good this time. The wound is too raw to be discussed openly right now.
Just like that, the awkwardness is shoved aside, as Light whirls on her heel and straightens her shoulders to face Bhunivelze, all trace of emotion gone in that face. "We are functional. We can complete the mission. Take us back to our friends, so we can get this over with and finish what we started."
The God only grins. "So be it. I have watched the two of you for so long that you have grown not only my greatest enemies, but in a sense, the only family that I have. Take care with yourselves, as you now are to be taking care of me."
And in a moment, the meadow is gone.
They arrive in the blink of an eye back to their friends.
It takes Hope all but a moment to realize that almost no time has passed since they were last adrift in this corner of space together and the time in the meadow. Vanille turns to them.
"Serah thinks that you're crazy as well for trying to keep the God contained within ourselves."
"But Serah, you might be the most integral part of this whole operation." Hope turns Light's sister, and he stops for a moment to contemplate how she was the person to start this whole adventure.
"Bhunivelze knows almost nothing about you. You are unfamiliar to him. Your brand just might be the key ingredient to all this mess. It's purely a hunch, but you might be the key that turns the lock into this prison for good."
"You mean, she might be the extra body that is needed to seal all of our eternal fates." Sazh corrects him. He jumps out of Bryndhlir, and his Eidolon transforms from car to warrior. Without a backward glance, Sazh strides toward the party. The God looms over the group, silent and unmoving. There is an uneasy truce between the two sides, as Bhunivelze allows the l'Cie to confer.
Serah has stopped using her power to blind the God, and now wearily rests onto Snow's shoulder. Snow doesn't look happy about what Hope is saying.
"What do you mean, she might be the key to this operation working? Where are you getting that?" Snow's angry face speaks volumes.
"I'm not exactly sure. Who knows what will happen? It's not like anyone has done this sort of thing before. But I've studied l'Cie brands-I know that they hold vast amounts of power. It's the source for all of our magic and strength-and I think that, if we focus, it could also be the energy that binds a God inside."
"This story just keeps getting crazier and crazier." Sazh is shaking his head. "I don't know how we're going to try and make sense of all of this."
"We don't. But we have to try." This is Light speaking, and all turn to pause at her words. "Bhunivelze isn't attacking us right now-he's letting us hash this out. This means that even a God thinks there is a possibility-he doesn't have any options, just like we don't. His only other alternative is to sit imprisoned here for all of eternity-why not give something new a shot? We have this power again for a reason. We won't ever have another chance-we witnessed Anima's death-so we are the last living fragments of a world that's now extinct. In a way, we have that in common with this asshole behind all of us. All of us versus a God-it's a power balance."
"I don't like doing something that may help that thing." Snow shakes his head, but looks at his wife. "But, I trust you. I trust your judgement-I know that I don't think things through sometimes before I just rush in. I know you will think more carefully. Tell me what we should do, baby."
Serah and Light look at each other-so alike, yet so different.
"I feel like it's Snow and me versus you again, Light. Except this time, it isn't your birthday."
"I hope that I'm not wrong this time like I was then." A flicker of sorrow passes over Light's face, but she reigns her feelings back in.
"We should do it." Serah nods. "The only other alternative, is to find a way home and leave this guy here, who can now influence our world. We have to protect our new home-we can't lead evil into our new place. That's bad luck. We have to finish what we started. We can't banish our problems-we can't ignore them. The past will always come back to haunt us-in this case, literally."
Serah's words make sense to all gathered, and Hope finds Snow clapping him on the shoulder. "Well, you've got my wife's blessing, so I'm game, as promised. I just hope that you know enough, that you studied our brands enough, to have an idea of how this is all going to work."
"Yeah-just how do we get that huge God inside of our tiny brands, anyhow?" Sazh does have a point.
Hope looks up to the God. "That's where I was hoping I would get some help." At hearing Hope's voice, Bhunivelze turns to look at the l'Cie that are now poised to become his forever guardians.
"I know the way." The God smiles. "You have to bust me out of the prison that you put me in. Only you have the power to do so, else I would have done this years before. Break me out, and take me down as you did before. I will find my way to your shackles."
Fang grins. "Good, I hope this means that we're going to fight. Let's have another go at it, then."