Chapter 26

Dawn of Battle

The new Battle of the Great Plains commenced on mid-morning of the third day. To the west, the Esthari vanguard was met by the Garlands and fifty thousand green-armoured 'Rangers'. In anticipation of the Lunar hordes, the Galbadians had deployed most of the heavy units in their arsenal: tanks, utility vehicles, exosuits, artillery, armed motorcycles, and its high-mobile mechanised units. As had been anticipated, Galbadian artillery was ineffective in halting Esthar's advance. An impregnable line of iron giants advanced behind charging behemoths, soaring elnoyles and careering toramas.

Galbadia's heavy weapons were naturally enhanced models of what had been available twenty years before. There were the hasty and hard-hitting X-ATM 'Black Widow's, equipped with an assortment of weapons for use against all manner of opposition; hulking, purple GIMs, anti-tank and anti-aircraft units equally effective against infantry; the reptilian SAMs, bio-organic weapons with shoulder mounted cannons and long talons, reared to fearlessly charge entrenched units in glorious and unwitting sacrifice; and the colossal BGH cannons, steadily rolling along the plains and pounding away at the Esthari infantry's shields until they were engaged from the air.

Galbadian fighter jets tore through the darkened sky to meet an arrow formation of Valkyrs; helicopters engaging unmanned aerial vehicles and the beetle-shaped airpods in drawn out aerial duels. The invisible shields stopped most of the bullets and plasma. The aircrafts whose shields failed first would be the loser, and the victors could then concentrate fire upon the lesser shields protecting foot soldiers from small arms fire.

Thalassa and Raine dazzled the charging beasts with a combination of ruby and silver light. Then Thalassa used Carbuncle to erect a temporary emerald wall, making all the iron giants stumble awkwardly as they hit it, many of them falling. The cyborgs overtook the monsters, and to conserve energy, Thalassa removed the wall.

'Come on, Raine!' the White SeeD cried, leading the counter charge of the Garlands, exactly as her father would have done. 'The monsters, like we said!'

The two friends cut a path through the cyborgs, using their GFs' power when met with more than a few, heading towards the nearest behemoth. The behemoths were still dangerous despite their impaired vision, trampling cyborgs underfoot.

The cyborgs were not easy to disable. Their skin split as easily as a human's would, not composed of a heavy material so as not to sacrifice durability. Their 'bone' structure was a combination of metal and plastic, their blood a milky white, with only their main processors under robust armour. Pain was not a factor, nor was fatigue, and even the androids that suffered maiming injury would still relentlessly pursue their opponents. But this also proved to be an element of their destruction. They did not protect themselves from debilitating attacks as a human would, posing little threat to the Galbadians with crushed or missing limbs.

The iron giants had almost reached the pockets of fighting but had now been engaged by heavy weapons, as had the elnoyles and the behemoths. Thalassa reached the blinded behemoth. It was still staggering wildly, moving in circles. She and Raine backed up to avoid its tail. As its head came around, she drew on Carbuncle to drive forward, thrusting her Kotetsu deep into its thick neck. She pulled the trigger, the vibration causing the monster great pain and worsening the fatal wound. Its knees buckled as she wrenched her weapon free, leaping aside.

A second squinting behemoth approached, this one with more vision, drawn by the death cries of its cousin. It attempted to gore Raine, who summoned a round, quicksilver shield with a measured spin of her staff. The behemoth's horns snapped horribly with the impact, Thalassa pitying it as it bellowed in agony. One end of Raine's staffed glowed silver, the tracing light almost encircling the Neo-SeeD as she drove it into the recoiling behemoth's head, caving its skull.

Soon enough, the bulk of both forces had met. Nearly a million men, women, monsters and androids converging on the great plains in what would be a deciding battle for the ages, the death toll quickly rising. The two SeeDs drew handguns to deal with a pack of unshielded toramas but were swiftly confronted by a large group of cyborgs unmet by the Galbadians. Too many to deal with by natural means. With a burst of inhuman speed, Thalassa incapacitated several of them, hacking expressionless heads from necks and cutting off sword arms in a jet of white liquid and gleaming emerald.

Raine crushed their arms, shoulders or legs with her shining tipped staff; whichever presented itself first, rendering them unable to walk or raise their weapons. Some of their heads were dented like tin cans. Thalassa became separated from Raine, and got too ambitious against the slower cyborgs, feinting and taking chances that would normally get her killed. Over thrusting, Kotetsu was caught within the pickaxe of a stubby gunblade.

She was swiftly disarmed, but it did not matter. Her gloved fists and feet glowing emerald, she destroyed the cyborg's forearms with a roundhouse and followed with another kick that almost took its head off. The construct of the cyborg's neck shattered, its head flopping. But it did not fall, its central nervous system protected within its chest. Thalassa drove her fist into its chest, sending the cyborg flying for yards and crashing into dozens more of them.

The one nearest to her attacked almost immediately. She moved out of the gunblades line, grabbing the cyborg's arm and holding it down with strength it likely had not calculated, a burst of plasma uselessly striking the ground. Bringing her fist down, Thalassa broke the artificial limb. Letting go, she struck her shin to its chest, knocking it down. She pounced and landed on its chest with both feet, crushing its CPU. Her gunblade ignored, Thalassa kicked the head of the nearest cyborg at the apex of a somersault, snapping its head back at a horrible angle.

Sighting Raine's silver nimbus somewhere to the side, the lights around Thalassa fists turned into a potent green fire, a round barrier of flames surrounding her whole body. Concentrating the fire into her fists, she struck the ground with enough power to make the surrounding grassland shake. The emerald flames split the ground, rapidly heading toward the unrelenting cyborgs. It exploded out at their feet, launching dozens of them into the air, boiling them in their bodysuits. Their false skin rapidly peeled off their ugly, artificial frames, any plastic components liquefying.

The Armageddon Fist had shown his daughter other moves, frequently showing off against Balamb's monsters during the annual culls as he had channelled Leviathan's energy in inventive ways, enabling him to ground and pound even the t-rexaurs like a superhero.

Thalassa set her sights on an elnoyle that was drawn by the unnatural fire. Leaping high into the air, she used Carbuncle's raw energy to form a green ball, then flew toward the winged beast. Easily dodging a big talon, she swung down with the green sphere as though slam dunking a ball into a net, making a hole in its exoskeleton. Using both legs, she powerfully kicked herself away, landing as gracefully as a falling cat. Carbuncle's ball engulfed it with a small but precise explosion, and Thalassa's only regret was that it would have destroyed the valuable energy crystal within, one of the most coveted refining materials in the world.

Raine appeared at her side again. 'That was awesome, Lassa! I couldn't see your gunblade, but you don't even need it!'

'We've gotta save some power! Once the beasts are all gone, we need to let Buncle and Mog rest!'

'You're telling me!' Raine remarked, as thunderous, shaking steps announced the arrival of an iron giant behind them. 'Let me handle this one!'

Raine moved forward, poised to leap high over the swing of its monstrous sword. Then Thalassa saw a flash of red and silver, and the next thing she knew, the iron giant was toppling backward, its comparatively small head lopped of its insanely broad torso. Its killer landed even more expertly than she had, between her and Raine.

'Gilgamesh!'

The otherworldly being rose to his full height of eight feet, looking just as menacing as the iron giant that had dwarfed him. His scarlet cloak billowed behind him, revealing six sizeable arms with that inhumanly grey complexion. Gilgamesh's face, as it had been in Timber or anywhere else Thalassa had met him, was always obscured by his cowl, with only pupilless eyes and pointed black horns visible. Many of the Garlands cheered when they realised the significance of the reinforcement, whom some also recognised from Timber.

Four of his huge hands held legendary swords, three of them from this world. There was the aesthetically impressive blade once wielded by Odin, Zantetsuken, and a charcoal longsword with a crossguard resembling golden horns, Ragnarok. Thalassa recalled Gilgamesh had found the latter exploring the ruins of Lenown Castle, and by rights it belonged to Steiner, the heir of the last Centran monarch. In another hand was Masamune, forged by Sorceress Nakano in the same fire as the Murasame and gifted to him by Zell before the Fall of Balamb. Gilgamesh's other sword was from his homeworld, the broadsword that permanently gleamed with a off-white light, Excalibur. Behind his back was his huge greatbow, Yoichi. Over his other shoulder was Odin's Gungnir.

A fifth hand held Kotetsu, which Gilgamesh offered Thalassa back.

'This thing sucks!' the outworlder remarked, his voice was surprisingly tenor for such a powerful being. 'It doesn't even fire bullets! Anyway, how's it going, Lassa? Sorry I'm late!'

Raine had not met Gilgamesh before but knew the stories. The Neo-SeeD looked coy as the outworlder's vacant eyes met hers, her body going rigid.

'You're another pretty one!' Gilgamesh said. 'Who are you?'

'Raine, sir!' Raine replied awkwardly. 'Of Neo-SeeD!'

'One of Squall's, eh?' Raine nodded.

'Raine's got a GF, too,' Thalassa had moved to stand side by side with Gilgamesh. 'C'mon, let's go kick some ass!'

Gilgamesh gave a high-pitched chortle. 'Spoken like Zell's daughter!'

Gerra had heard the cries from ahead of him, stopping cold with dread when he realised that the Red Reaver was here. Although he quickly reassured himself that Gilgamesh would not know him in this time.

He turned to an imp that was flying at him, the green light signifying it was about to cast a spell, cutting the ugly, hook-nosed monster in half with a broad stroke. The bastard sword had got its money's worth, but then again, it had been gifted to him. Gerra longed for Hyperion as more blank-faced androids advanced toward him and Damian, unaffected by their fallen neighbours from the production line, who blotted the plains with their white blood and broken bodies, many still moving.

He and Damian met them first, followed by Nadia and Siegfried, the four of them having remained together up to this point. Gerra dispatched the first on a third stroke, with Damian beheading the next, the half-moon blades glistening with its milky blood. The Wraith had been reserving his hand cannons for the monsters. The two Garlands were good, their entire regiment only suffering minimal losses. Siegfried, ignoring a facial wound, kept a cyborg at bay with his sword and shot it pointblank with his shotgun one it got within it. Nadia, with her scimitar, cut the arm and head from another as she spun in a dance of death.

The turtapods were a pain to deal with. Evasive turtles capable of levitation, with shells of spiked bone around garnets at their cores, which were entrapped by Reina's mind-bending devices. With sudden bursts of speed, the turtapods would launch themselves at their enemies, their spikes splayed out to cut deep as they whistled through the air. With a sword, Gerra could only sidestep and strike with a glancing blow at their tough hides. Damian had more success with his axe. Nadia and Siegfried had stocked some offensive and defensive para-magic, which they used sparingly, the mana-wards protecting them against the bothersome imps. Gerra and Damian had no magic, every hastily erected draw point exhausted long before they had reached the Galbadian camp.

The four of them had to work together to bring down a behemoth. Having transitioned from a gladiator to a Sorceress' Knight, Gerra had little in the way of military experience. Damian had naturally assumed a command, and the Garlands had not contested it. Gerra silently obeyed the Neo-SeeD's commands as the four moved circles around the giant beast, bringing it down with repeated cuts and gunfire to its hamstrings and calves. Damian finished the behemoth by jumping between its shoulders and emptying a clip of high-calibre rounds into its skull. The Wraith then rose to stand atop it as though it were a poacher's trophy, keenly surveying the battlefield.

But an iron giant confronted them next, and by some unspoken command the four of them ran to another section of battlefield, Damian leaping from the behemoth as his face paled. The iron giant's attention was diverted by a Galbadian GIM.

Gerra swallowed his own humiliation. If only he had not lost Ifrit and Phoenix. He felt as useless as he now was in the long run, despite the number of beasts that fell by his blade. At present, the fate of the Planet was out of his hands. Ifrit was junctioned with his ancestor, Seifer. Phoenix, if not with Seifer, would be beneath the magma in the depths of the Fire Cavern, wherein only one junctioned with Ifrit could descend. And Gerra thought it unlikely the champions of the free world would trust him with a GF, in any case.

A bounding torama was almost on top of Gerra before he saw it, a flash of gold barely visible in the dull light. The big feline managed to knock Gerra's sword from his hand and mount him. Gerra threw a shoulder out as far as he could, his forearm underneath the torama's neck. It snarled furiously as its saliva dropped down its fangs, onto his face. Its breath was hideous, many humans never getting close enough to tell of it. Gerra assumed the other three were occupied as he felt for the hilt of his dagger with his other hand. Thankfully, it was within easy reach. He thrust the dagger into the side of the torama's neck, and it went limp with a strangled cry, thick blood dropping onto his sleeve and coat as he withdrew.

He heard Damian laughing as he struggled to free himself from under its corpse, wondering if the axeman had been just watching him the entire time.

'We can't have you becoming torama food, Future Boy!'

Krysta's announcement came again when the Valkyr was within sight of land, but it was unnecessary. They could already see the beach and its defenses on the south horizon, which was enhanced by a night vision filter due to the predictably overcast sky. The Valkyr fleet stopped at pre planned coordinates, hovering over the Esthari frigates and battleships, which expanded across the sea for miles behind them, looking as though they would be better suited to space travel in their sleek designs. The Galbadian navy was arrayed in a formation beyond them, paling in comparison to the Esthari force that was bearing down upon it.

'On your command, Your Grace,' Krysta said, then asked, 'Do we proceed?'

Her father, Admiral Ramius, would be commanding the Esthari navy during the battle, as soon as the Empress gave the word. Leo had noted the size of the opposing force. He was sure it had been larger.

'Your Grace, I sense another ruse,' Leo said quietly. 'The Galbadian numbers were greater than this, and their Garden was with them. The SeeD vessels should be present, too.'

The Empress hesitated only for a second. 'I don't know where they are hiding, but they are only postponing the inevitable.' She turned to Krysta. 'Proceed!'

Krysta passed on the command to her father by coms, and in no time the Esthari fleet was moving south at a low nautical course. For the first time, Leo questioned whether it had been a mistake for the Empress to learn of the future before the war was won. It had made her believe she was unstoppable before she truly was, as though nothing could stop her ascension. She was confident she could not be thwarted.

Leo's intuition proved to be on point. To the southeast, a larger contingent of Galbadian warships had appeared, having been hidden by emulations of Esthar's cloaking technology. In its midst was the gigantic Galbadia Garden, all heading for their fleet at high knots. Simultaneously, to the southwest, they were met with old SeeD assault vessels in addition to surviving warships from Balamb, Dollet and Timber. At the head of these was the unmistakable form of the White SeeD Ship, and the gargantuan vessel once belonging to Esthar: Battleship Island.

The two wedges of the opposing force rapidly converged on them in a pincer. Although much like in a modern land battle, the plasma cannons and missiles could only wear down each other's shields; only a Guardian Force or a Sorceress could penetrate those barriers. The ships would approach one another, even the aircraft carriers; the battles to be decided on deck like in an age before gunpowder.

Bahamut's roar was so mighty it could be heard through the bulwarks of the Valkyr. Leo felt its demonic opposing half, Tiamat, acknowledge it from within his magicite. The more celestial half of Ryu led the charge against Esthar, flying directly for the fleet and unleashing its non-elemental flares down towards the ships below.

'Summon Tiamat!' the Empress demanded.

Leo turned to leave the bridge. He was out on the ship's deck in no time with his super-speed, summoning the midnight blue dragon. The two GFs shot their flares at one another and met in a cataclysmic crash above the sea, each ravaging the other with a speed that could not be fathomed by the eyes of those below.