Chapter 43
The Dark Messenger
It was just like old times for the three remaining Children of Fate; Squall, Rinoa and Selphie journeying into the unknown. They had never entered the Jade Passage. Yet they were well attuned to such journeys, having being repeatedly thrown into the deep end during their youth.
Damian brought up the rear. He firmly gripped his double-headed axe, which Sacred and Minotaur had wished to transform into a combination of their maces. Damian had steadfastly refused, to which Brothers had seemed to take offence. As a compromise, he had allowed them to recolour his weapon. The shaft was now purple, while the spike and half-moon blades were now red, but richer than the blood of their victims. Titan, Brothers had insisted on calling it. The Wraith of Winhill had put it to good use so far.
The four descended those gleaming steps into the vast hall where Cerberus had stood before those giant gates, surrounded by his tri-faced spawn. If Ballad were with them, they suspected the tri-faces would have left them alone. But it was not to be.
Dozens of the wailing hounds assailed them, assaulting their eardrums before anything else. Squall and Selphie were cut off by the swarm, visible only by the flashes of the similarly coloured Lionheart and Strangevision, the screams of the hounds now those resulting from mortal wounds. Damian met them head on with Titan, bludgeoning several as it he swung back and forth. Rinoa flew above the battle and raised one hand overhead, paying homage to Sorceress Edea as she fashioned numerous javelins of ice to tear into the hounds. After losing more than half of their number, the monsters retreated into the many side passages that fed the huge chamber.
'This is it,' Squall said, approaching the gates, which were open just wide enough to admit the four of them.
'Are we ready?' Rinoa asked.
'If anyone can do it, we can!' Selphie said boldly.
During her recovery in Wilburn, Selphie had visited a surplus store for new combat gear. She now wore a tailored, magnolia dress that resembled her old battle attire, with the high-cut skirt and multiple utility pouches. She had also bought a phone, at long last, now that she was no longer off the grid. Communication technology had come a long way since the end of the Great Interference, and Selphie had quickly got to grips the modern wonders of smart phones. She had this new phone inside a secure case over one breast, allowing her to record their entire journey. While giving a running commentary, of course. Sometimes she withdrew the phone from the case, waving it around to get a better view of the Passage chambers.
'This is it, folks!' she was saying. 'Nobody has been farther than this since Jadis and Heahmund! No one that we know about, anyway!'
Was she like this before becoming a Sorceress? Damian wondered.
Upon arriving at Battleship Island, Selphie had been looking for a role. A lot of the SeeDs and cadets responsible for the maintenance of the Island's social network had been killed in the recent battles, and so, Selphie had resumed one of her old jobs. As well as stringently trying to organise a new music festival. She had been constantly uploading media from her newfound social life and extra-curricular activities on base; from the bar, from the cafeteria, from the dojo, from the music room, from the VR Training Centre. There seemed to be not a single hour without the upbeat Sorceress appearing on everyone's news feeds, and there had been chuckles among the crew that she should consider changing the spelling of her name to 'Selfie'.
It was likely Selphie was doing this to avoid thinking about Irvine. Or even Quistis and other absent friends. Not mentioning the uncountable Galbadian soldiers that had died by her sorcery. Not that Damian could blame her. Whenever he closed his eyes at night, the only image he saw was Winhill in flames, raging fires covering the bluffs as far as the northern mountains. He suspected that it was the same for Raine.
Damian would picture the face of General Zebalga above it all, standing atop Doomtrain. Even though had only ever seen the General on Esthari state television, with that demonic sneer and his scarified skin. It was easy enough to imagine the filed teeth and tattooed eyelids. Perhaps he and the Stormbringer would kill him together when the time came.
'Come on,' Squall said.
The four passed through the gates into another deep chamber. The way was lit by Selphie in her favourite colour, but they could see no end to it. Their footsteps resonated around the cavernous hall, the main sound that could be heard as they pressed on in anticipation. Before long, two hulking silhouettes met them. They were unusually shaped and stood like sentinels, lit by Selphie's warm light.
'Hexadragons!' Rinoa said with alarm.
'Oh, crap!' Selphie said, likely for the benefit of her camera. 'I thought hexas only lived on the Island Closest to Hell!'
The hexadragons stirred at the sound of their voices. They were gigantic, over five metres high. Their skin was as black as a moonless night and their crab-like legs splayed out awkwardly either side of them. Their underbelly was a pale blue, interspersed with six menacing red eyes. Their heads were flat and wide, almost like crowns extending far behind them.
There was a single roar, but it did not come from either hexadragon. Bahamut appeared before them. The GF stood upright with his arms folded, his wings unfurled as he gave them a sidelong look.
'Stand aside, cousins!' Bahamut demanded.
The hexadragons seemed to hesitate briefly. Then, they responded with their minds, the words sounding like magma spewing from a pit in Damian's head.
We answer only to Ryu!
Not his softer Half!
With a roar of feral rage, Bahamut dropped to his forelegs and fired a sapphire flare at the rightmost hexadragon, obliterating its massive cranium. He then launched himself at the unperturbed second dragon, who rose on its own forelegs to meet the GF. The two great beings wrestled back and forth, both of their maws opening to emit flame. They were swiftly veiled with a combination of sapphire and sunburst flames. The passage shook at the sound of more hexadragons lumbering from an offshoot of the great hall. Bahamut leapt forward to meet them as the second hexadragon fell.
'Go!' Bahamut commanded to them.
The four of them ran further into the chamber, the sounds of the battle fading as they got away. The chamber ended with two passages; one in green jade, the other lavender. It was the first time since they had been at ground level that they did not have a clear path to follow.
'Dominant hands? Any lefties here?' Rinoa said.
Though it was not long before they were met by a new threat, perhaps the only being on the Planet that Damian would have prayed to never cross paths with. From the right passage came the unmistakable form of a marlboro, quickly sliding toward them on its countless tentacles, followed by many of its miniature spawn. The fully grown marlboro's mouth was already gaping open, its famous bad breath pouring from it like a rolling, vegetable-coloured cloud.
Selphie was at the front now. She concentrated on Strangevision, then parted both ends so that the unbreakable chain was taut. A yellow tinged barrier appeared between them and the onrushing mist. As the breath passed through, it turned white, purified as it surrounded them. Damian felt it restoring his fatigue.
'A breath mint!' Selphie laughed. 'Who would have thought!'
Rinoa was readying a ball of fire. When it reached half the size of the marlboro, she willed it toward the demonic plant. It gave a horrible shriek as it caught flame, and its spawn wailed along with it as their progenitor burnt before them.
The marlboros had made the group's decision for them. They ran into the other passage and did not stop, even when Squall started glowing with the sapphire that signalled Bahamut's return. This passage grew wider, and Selphie's beacon revealed the threats further within.
Four chimeras impeded them first. They stood with their broad paws planted, just as still as the hexadragons were until they got within distance. Even one chimera would have been difficult to deal with, Damian thought. For any other group, that is.
'Summon Brothers!' Squall ordered.
Damian immediately obliged, moist-earthen orbs surrounding him. Sacred and Minotaur appeared behind the rear two chimeras, dealing a much needed pre-emptive strike. Sacred's blow was like a spiked cannon ball, lifting one off its feet. Minotaur's blow was measured, striking the viper-head that topped the second chimera's tail. This one simply wheeled around, but was wide open to another of Sacred's devastating blows.
Squall and Damian approached the other two, all four heads of each now surrounded by multi-elemental essence. It had been predetermined before entering the Passage that Rinoa would shield her Knight, while Selphie would watch over Damian. The Wraith was unperturbed as he charged his mark. Lightning and fire bounced off Selphie's mana-ward, and he took off two of the chimera's heads in timely fashion. The chimera became befuddled as a result, making it easier to dispatch the remaining two. It dropped with a thud, and Damian saw that only Squall's was still standing, but only for a second longer. The Lionheart rose from a fighting crouch, and blue light shot from the hilt of his gunblade to the tip, expelling the blood of the beast.
Yet there was no respite. Damian recalled Brothers as a roar and bounding footsteps signified a blue dragon. One of the smaller of the dragon species, but not to be taken lightly. It towered over the interlopers, its wingspan almost covering the whole passageway. Blue flame appeared from its maw, jetting toward Damian.
Behind him, Rinoa funnelled the fire into her Knight's weapon. Squall held his gunblade high. By the time the dragon relented, a column of fire enshrouded the blade, tripling its length. Squall darted forward, using the dragon's own fire to rebuff an ambitious claw swipe, then followed with a leaping undercut that took him higher than the dragon's head, roughly dividing it in half. Damian was impressed as the two halves of the dragon fell to either side of the Commander. That sort of devastation was more characteristic of himself.
The party gained a short breather now. They could hear more creatures up ahead, though they pressed on determinedly. There was no going back, now. Something big was fast approaching, and the passageway shook with each tell-tale step. Not one, but two t-rexaurs emerged into the magnolia glow. Damian could only speculate as to how they had got down here. They were prehistoric and had died out anywhere other than the Albatross. Though despite their huge jaws and terrible fangs, they could not breath fire, and their lack of intelligence was often their undoing. They were awkward, clumsy, and predictable.
Additionally, their disproportionate bodies literally put a bullseye on their achilles' heel. Damian summoned just Minotaur this time, without any order from the Commander. The pint-sized earthen overlord appeared alongside one of the dinos in mid-gait, instantly swinging his mace into one planted ankle. The bones shattered as the spiked ball struck. The t-rexaur cried out and was no longer able to support its own weight, toppling into its partner and sending them both crashing to the ground. The Passage shook so violently Damian feared they would all be buried, but its supernatural supports endured.
'Good thinking, Damian!' Selphie lauded him.
Damian was then on one of the t-rexaurs like a torama on a wounded mesmerize. Damian shouldered his axe and drew a hand-cannon, jumping for its thrashing head. He jammed the barrel into an eye larger than a dinner plate and emptied the entire magazine into its brain. Squall leapt high again and fell with Lionheart angled down, penetrating the thick skull of the other and firing a pulse round for good measure.
Slowly, Damian got off the first's twitching body. When he looked at the two Sorceresses, he made a show for Selphie's camera, blowing smoke from the bloodied hand-cannon's barrel before slapping home a new magazine.
'Not bad, people,' the Commander allowed, now they had another respite.
'We're doing great, guys!' Selphie said.
'We can't let our guard down,' Squall insisted. 'We've got no idea how many more beasts stand between us and Diablos.'
'Ever the killjoy, Boss!' Selphie commented.
Damian finally swallowed his pride. 'It's an honour to fight alongside the three of you. Thanks for trusting in me. I won't disappoint you – especially not you, Commander!'
Squall nodded. 'Jacques would be proud, Damian.'
Their next hurdle was a large number of imps. Imps were Lunar creatures, those from the penultimate Lunar Cry migrating to the sparsely populated Vienne Mountains, which had been abandoned by the Trabian highlanders. They lived in a stone age, despite their intelligence, and avoided all contact with humans. Over the past twenty years, those imp communities had been joined by their cousins not enslaved by the Empire, following Esthar's Lunar Cry. Ultimecia's bondage solution had understandably given free imps a deep mistrust of the human race.
Like the t-rexaurs, their presence here was perplexing. Damian had heard tell of the 'Waygates' outside of the future Ultimecia's castle, which had granted the Children of Fate fast access to every corner of the Planet. But time was already being compressed by then, and the heroes had not known how much of that precious time remained. Squall's party had instead turned and entered the castle, the portals quickly forgotten as a sphinxaur welcomed them in the lobby. Though could some of these portals be located within the passage?
The imps' greatest weapon was their magic. Like a Sorceress, they could cast multi-elemental spells at will. But could they match the power of two of Hyne's Descendants? Squall and Damian let the women take point for the first time, as the imps swarmed into a semi-circle, blocking their path.
'Stand aside, guys!' Selphie demanded.
Their spindly, wrinkled hands started to glow with a variety of colours.
'I am the Guardian of Trabia!' Selphie continued. 'I want to make peace with your race!'
There was a very guttural noise from one who Damian thought was the leader. It looked female, but an unsightly one at that. The imp had wisps of white hair from a blotched head, bulbous warts on her creased face; dirty talons coming from gnarled hands, and a huge, hooked nose.
Rinoa spoke now, her gleaming wings unfurling. 'Please! We are not your enemies!'
The female elder made another guttural noise to the others. Then, one by one, they all departed down a side passage. The elder left last, holding Rinoa and Selphie with a wary glance.
'Phew!' Selphie said as it vanished. She took her phone out, to ensure it was still recording. 'I can't wait to share this!'
Pressing on, they were able to avoid some solitary chimeras and grendels they were met with, opting to conserve power. Rinoa and Selphie forced them aside with their magic and none of the beasts followed as they ran. Sacred and Minotaur could sense the Rift, rather than Diablos. They were only about halfway there. Damian told the others as much when they were in a safe enough area.
'To think we've made it this far,' Damian stated, wiping sweat from his bald pate. 'Without the GFs or the sorcery, we'd have been dragon food at the start!'
'Or driven insane by the marlboro breath,' Rinoa added.
Selphie began ticking off dainty fingers. 'Ultimecia's castle. The Necropolis. The Tomb of the Unknown King. The Sunken Shrine. The Island Closest to Hell, and Heaven. Does Esthar count – after the Lunar Cry?' Selphie asked now. 'We had to add the Jade Passage to the list, didn't we?'
They continued, faced with more monsters seemingly placed here from every corner of the Planet. A granaldo, snow lions, wild toramas, a herd of grand mantises. More t-rexaurs and blue dragons. Behemoths and elnoyles. Before long, Squall and Damian were nearly completely expended. Sacred and Minotaur depleted their energy before the mighty Bahamut, who cleared their path of a dozen deathclaws and anything else behind with one last mega-flare. Then the men had no choice but to allow the ladies to lead.
Damian was amazed at the stamina of the two Sorceresses. They both possessed a quarter of Hyne's Half, in theory, with Ultimecia now harbouring the remainder. Yet they did not seem in the least fatigued. They could not heal themselves, but they could heal one another to full health in a heartbeat. Rinoa was more proficient at defence, letting the more ferocious Selphie have at the beasts. The death toll rose beneath the Strangevision, Selphie moving as lithely as ballerina while Angelwing whistled through the air intermittently, always coming back to Rinoa's arm after a lethal circuit. Squall and Damian would double team anything that got by the two Sorceresses.
After a while, they were met with the proud form of a ruby dragon. The passageway almost seemed to widen especially for its breadth.
'A ruby dragon!' Selphie exclaimed for the camera. 'I've fought one of these before! And Sir Laguna met one filming the remake of the Sorceress' Knight, which was filmed in my gorgeous Trabia!'
As the name would suggest, the dragon was mostly ruby in colour. But its head was crowned with a grey, helm-like exoskeleton. Rinoa and Selphie met the dragon unwaveringly, jointly casting a powerful ice spell. A glacier appeared around its paws and began to grow rapidly. With a click of Selphie's fingers, it shattered, dealing a hundred unrelenting cuts to its wings and body. With deadly accuracy, Angelwing was embedded in its skull in due course.
'Man, we defeated it in record time!' Selphie boasted.
'Diablos isn't much further!' Rinoa said. 'We're nearly at the Rift! I can recognise the same disturbance in the air from when Odin's sword cut a tear in it!'
Their last obstacle was two iron giants. Not just any iron giants, but red giants. They stood either side of the passageway, their gauntleted hands resting on their sword hilts, the tips resting on the floor. They were still as statues until they moved simultaneously.
'Remember what you did in Ultimecia's castle, Rin?' Selphie said. 'That was a great idea! You've got the left, and I've got the right!'
Ice was their element of choice again. This time, all they did was blanket the jade tiles with a black frost. The lumbering giants toppled, their giant swords flying from their grasp. They flailed as helplessly as adamantoises knocked onto their shells, their gauntleted hands scrabbling for purchase as they tried to stand, or even reach for their weapons. Angelwing parted the air like an elegant boomerang, slicing through the giant's disproportionately small heads in two passes.
They had made it. The path expanded into a gigantic, round chamber. The tiles here were each a different shade of jade, not one identical to its neighbour. They walked cautiously into what they hoped was the centre, the magnolia light from Selphie's ethereal beacon creeping across the chamber.
Damian did not truly fear what lay ahead, nor anything they had met within the Passage, and Diablos would know if he did. Never once did he doubt being worthy of becoming the Dark Messenger's summoner. The winged form of Diablos became visible. He hovered gently up and down in a steady rhythm, his sinewy arms draped across his broad chest, which was a dark red. His talons were around his round, black shoulders. The fan of his featherless wings, black on the phalanges and red on the patagium, veiled most of his body from view. Only Diablos' dusky horned head and his lithe lower legs were visible. His eyes glowed orange as they opened, and the party stopped cold as his icy voice cut straight to the bone.
'Who dares disturb my sleep?'
'Let me take it from here, guys,' Selphie stepped forward. 'Sorry to wake you, Dark One, but it's me and Squall again! With Rinoa and an ally!'
Diablos pulled his wings from around his body to reveal his full form.
'Selphie!' he rasped. 'Shiva's bearer! No, the Glacial Empress is absent. I have no idea how many orbits have passed since we last met, Trabian, yet it does not feel like so long ago.' Diablos looked between the two Sorceresses. 'Rinoa and yourself have not aged a day,' he observed. 'Yet the Lionheart appears to be older!' His eyes narrowed as he peered at Selphie, likely at the aura on a plane that they could not see. 'You have become one of Hyne's Descendants, too!'
'That's right, Dark One!' Selphie replied. 'I've inherited a share of Rinoa's power!'
'Evidently,' Diablos said.
Damian chanced taking a few steps toward Diablos.
'I have come with them to seek your approval, Diablos!' he called out. 'I wish to become your new summoner!'
Diablos regarded the mortal he had not met. He slowly flew forward, landing on his feet before him. Damian stood rigidly, holding Titan in both still hands. Diablos was more than double his size, towering over him with his arms folded, his expression neutral. Damian held the Dark Messenger's eyes, knowing this was likely his trial.
'I detect dark shades around your aura, mortal!' Diablos remarked. 'And you are junctioned with the disgraced Halves of Gaia! Who are you?'
'My name is Damian Reno, of SeeD,' Damian answered evenly. 'Sorceress Rinoa leant me the might of Sacred and Minotaur to enable me to reach you. But you are the only Guardian Force truly suited for me, Dark One. My comrades call me the Wraith of Winhill. Yet my hometown has been razed to the ground, and I will never be worthy of that title until I cut Winhill's name into the chest of the one who led its destruction!'
'And who might that be?' Diablos questioned.
'He is Agamemnon Zebalga. A descendant of Sorceress Zenobia and King Zebalga; he presumes to be even more demonic than yourself! Your old rival, Doomtrain, is a slave to his will.'
'Is that so?' Diablos sneered. 'And who is this Doomtrain that the Zebalgan commands?'
Squall addressed his former GF. 'You knew him as Mateus,' he stated.
Diablos knew little of the outside world. His limited understanding had been but flashes seen from within the lamp, or what little he could glimpse when he had been physically summoned by Cid or Squall. In time immemorial, before even Ryu's Rebellion, Diablos and Mateus had fought for supremacy over all the most demonic of monsters. After a great battle, Diablos had prevailed, disfiguring the depleted Mateus so that he had been unrecognisable from his original state. Mateus then resembled a mutated locomotive – long before that concept of travel had been thought of by mortals. He had also been stripped of his name. For eons, this nameless GF had roamed the Great Plains of the eastern continent in its deformed image.
At the Tower of Babil, it encountered the migrating supporters of Sorceress Adel, following the fracture of the Centran empire. A young Adel defeated this peculiar GF in battle and imprisoned it within the Solomon Ring to further augment her power. In the centuries after, enemies of Adel had referred to the Nameless GF as 'Doomtrain' due to its visage. The crimson-haired Sorceress had been happy with it. The Solomon Ring had been in the possession of Odysseus Vlahos before Adel's cryogenic imprisonment in modern times. A young Reina had been privy to its power, and had inherited it before her coup d'état.
Doomtrain remained a prisoner to this day. Unbeknownst to the Allies, General Zebalga now had Tiamat's magicite, and the Solomon Ring was currently awaiting a new owner.
'I remember Cid's tales of Sorceress Adel,' Diablos said. 'Never was it my intention for Mateus to become a slave of one of Hyne's Descendants, certainly not for millennia! Let alone for him to have his strings pulled by a mere mortal! Worse, a Zebalgan!' He paused, and his tone softened a hairbreadth as he continued. 'Yet, if I had lost our battle, I trust Mateus would have treated me much the same way,' he speculated.
'Dark One, Mateus isn't the only Guardian Force to become enslaved!' Rinoa explained. 'Eden and Tiamat have, too, by the Ultimecia of the present! Along with several others!'
'Ultimecia has enslaved Eden?' Diablos bellowed. 'One of my Elders a puppet to a Sorceress?'
'It's true,' Squall confirmed. 'We need you as much as you need us, Diablos. Or Ultimecia will eventually march into this chamber and take you prisoner for herself.'
Diablos turned to the SeeD Commander who had once earned his full respect.
'Fine,' he said. He looked Damian full in the face again. 'You had better not disappoint me, young Wraith!'
'I won't!' Damian vowed.
The essence of Brothers left Damian and returned to Rinoa, and Titan reverted to a mundane axe. Rinoa took something from within her duster and enlarged it in her open hand; an antique lamp. When Diablos looked at it, he recoiled a little.
'I'm sorry, Diablos,' Rinoa said ruefully. 'But it's the only way.'
Diablos gave a snort of anger. 'That accursed Jadis, imprisoning me within that lamp! The bones of Heahmund lie somewhere within this chamber! He was a Paladin – the last – soiled by that witch and her dark beauty, seduced into breaking his vows! She led him to his end, not I! Heahmund was the one that needed protecting, not Jadis!'
'One question, Diablos!' Selphie presumed, who had largely ignored his rant. She had her phone out now, angled to get a good view of the Rift. Diablos squinted at her device. 'So, you can't leave this chamber, right? Can you enter the Rift?'
Damian beheld the Rift now, which Diablos had been obscuring in front of him. It looked like a gaping cut in mid-air, brilliant white in the centre and silver on the edges, yet it emitted no light.
Diablos stared at her for a time. 'I have wandered the Rift in my incorporeal form, as it is one of the only ways I can amuse myself. Although I can glimpse through the sporadic tears, it is forbidden for a Guardian Force to enter a world that is not its own. Our counterparts exist on every world in every Universe, though we take different forms and oft possess different names. Espers, eidolons, aeons or primals are a few examples. Sometimes we are simply called summons.'
'"Summons?"' Selphie remarked. 'Nice and simple!'
'In most worlds,' Diablos continued, 'we are worshipped as deities. Yet we tend to fade into obscurity when sentient races become technologically advanced. Once they learn how to produce weapons of mass destruction, they have less need of our power. If I were to step into one of these worlds, I would cease to exist, for the Universe does not permit such crossover.'
'What a bummer!' Selphie commented, deflated. 'So much for recruiting more GFs from Gilgamesh's world! But if we can't beat Ultimecia this time, then maybe we can all just go there!'
Even Squall smiled faintly at his old friend's words. It was at least reassuring to know there were other places the survivors could travel to, should they lose the war, and if they did not want to live under Ultimecia's shadow. Yet there was always the possibility of her following. She would have untold eons to terrorise other realms after completing her domination here.
'Who is Gilgamesh?' Diablos wondered.
'An outworlder,' Squall explained. 'He came here by accident twenty years ago, and is still trying to get home. He helps us every so often, when he feels like it. Gilgamesh is the one who killed Adel.'
Diablos made a contemplative sound. 'I think the one you speak of tried to reach me some years ago. Though after eluding the hexadragons, he took a turn into the marlboros' lair and decided discretion was the better part of valour.' The Dark Messenger chuckled now. 'Those dreaded things creep up in other worlds, too, and are of the most despised monsters of all!' He hesitantly glanced at Jadis' lamp again. 'Well, I had better get this over with!'
His essence, a red and black cloud, entered the lamp willingly. Rinoa reduced the lamp in size and stepped over to hand it to Damian. Immediately, the Neo-SeeD flared up with the colours of the Diablos. His eyes glowed with the same sinister orange glow. His axe took on a new form, becoming longer but lighter, the shaft turning black, the half-moon blades turning blood red. The whole weapon glowed with a that same red hue, as though crying out for the blood of Damian's enemies. His tribal tattoos shone like silver moonlight, and he grinned satanically. Then voice of Diablos sounded in his mind.
Use the Mastema well.
'Wow, Damian!' Selphie said, her phone now aimed at him.
He hefted his new weapon and held his signature callous grin, hoping that Selphie would be forwarding this part of the video straight to Esthar's news stations. So that General Zebalga would know the Wraith of Winhill was coming for him.