Book II, Part I: Outbreak - Vector's Gambit

Chapter XIII - A Summoner's Burden

'You're a fool if you think you can kill that thing alone,' Manes grunted, his voice filling Ben's mind as his host flew over the snowy plains of Trabia. Both of them could feel Sin's energy like a beacon, overwhelmingly bright against everything else in the area...probably in the world, Ben thought to himself. Sin's power was immense, and he hadn't been able to sense it the last time he confronted it, but now...

It was terrifying. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before - not Planeswalkers, not the Pillars, nothing.

"Then I'm a fool," he said aloud, paying the insult no mind. "I'm going to kill it. Again. And I'm going to make sure it stays dead this time. I don't know how it came back after we put it down in Spira, but I'm not going to stand by and let this thing rampage here too."

'What part of 'fool' don't you understand, you idiot?' the Daiesthai asked, his temper rising. 'Your power isn't anywhere close to what we're feeling from that beast. Even the Espada cannot compare to this...'Sin' that you speak of.'

It galled Manes to admit that there was something in the world more powerful than himself - his grudging respect and deference to the Espada aside, he realized that all of them were more powerful than he was even before his present confinement. Still, he knew the power of the Espada quite well, and he was sure his statement was accurate. Ben had willingly - a surprise, to be sure - given him all of the memories he had from his last encounter with the terror from Spira, and Manes had actually been surprised to see the depths of Sin's strength.

'I, for one, would not care to die today on some banal quest to 'save the world' or whatever it is you're after,' he continued.

"Like I care what you want," Ben snorted, rolling his eyes. "In case you forgot? You kinda tried to kill me. Came pretty close, actually. That means that your wants are pretty low on my list of concerns right now. You want to live through this? Then sit down, shut up, and actually help me for a change."

'You arrogant little whelp,' Manes growled. 'If I were free right now, I would flay the skin from your bones and make you scream for mercy.'

"Funny thing about that? You aren't, which means that we've pretty much got no choice but to put up with each other for the foreseeable future. The way I see it, we can play this two ways - you can calm down and actually try to be civilized for a change of pace so that we can coexist, or I can devote the entire rest of my existence to finding a way to end yours."

Ben smirked.

"It's your choice, sunshine."

'I regret the day that witch of a Pillar bound me to your stripling hide,' Manes grumbled. 'For a so-called 'hero,' you certainly have an abundance of violent tendencies.'

"What, like I'm going to be all sunshine and rainbows with someone who - I'll say it again - tried to murder me? I'm lawful good, Manes, not lawful stupid. And good, if you're not aware, isn't always nice."

'For claiming you aren't stupid, you certainly haven't learned much. You've barely even stopped to consider the full ramifications of what you were told mere hours ago, for instance,' Manes commented. Ben reflexively started to rebut the comment, but then stopped as what Manes had said sunk in, his anger vanishing in a flash to be replaced by curiosity.

"...What's that supposed to mean?"

'Listen well, you fool - this is the only help you will get from me on this matter. What did that insufferably dull Planeswalker tell you about the nature of the Crystal Path?'

Ben stopped in mid-air for a moment as he thought, sidetracked by what Manes had brought up. "The Crystal Path is an intermediary plane between worlds," he said out loud, listening to the words as he spoke them. "It links everything together with everything else. What about it?"

'You're missing the point, as usual,' Manes replied. 'I'll spell it out for you, since you seem incapable of remembering. 'It is an elaborately woven tapestry of possibilities, and can allow us to go anywhere that we can imagine,' I believe were the words she used. Now use your brain for a moment - what does that mean?'

"Wait, wait...you can't possibly be saying what I think you're saying. You're telling me that the Crystal Path is a gateway to literally everywhere, not just the ten Realms?" Ben said, reeling in momentary surprise as he realized what Manes was saying.

'Exactly.'

"That's...this is the most broken thing ever," Ben said, a smile creeping across his face like he was a kid on Christmas morning. Manes chuckled as he felt the emotions coming from his host, realizing that he'd gotten his point across.

'Why else do you think I would even consider suffering in a pathetic Hume's body? Were it not for the fact that you are a Planeswalker, and as such are infinitely more useful to me alive where I could have made use of the wonderful gift you possess, I would have simply killed you when I took over and let that be the end of it.'

"At least you're honest," Ben deadpanned, starting to fly again. "But this...this has potential that I can't even start to consider. If this really works the way you say it does, then I've got a lot of work ahead of me. There's only so much you can learn in the same world, after all..."

'And now you finally understand,' Manes said. 'Try not to die in the first minute.'

"Oh, please," Ben scoffed. "Unless this thing pulls out some kind of secret boss-only move that one-shots things, I'm pretty sure I'm fast enough to last sixty seconds."

'I would say that your words made no sense to me, but that would imply that anything you say is worth considering more than mindless drivel.'

"How sweet - you do care. I'm touched."

'Pay attention, you witless lapdog - your so-called 'quarry' is nearing us.'

Ben had been flying quickly, as fast as he could manage without wasting unnecessary magic, and he was surprised to see that they were rapidly approaching the coastline of the Trabian continent. The waves lapped at the cliffs separating the snowy expanse from the frigid water below, and Ben slowed to a stop as he finally spotted the being that he had been homing in on with his own two eyes, letting his wings disappear as he touched down on solid ground once more.

"What the...?"

Ben felt his heart catch as he registered what he was seeing, and he immediately spun and retreated back to give himself some room, separating himself from the water's edge by hundreds of meters in preparation to confront the monster in his sight.

'Running away already? You haven't even begun fighting.'

"I'm getting some space to fight with," Ben replied, a numbing chill in his body that had nothing to do with the frigid Trabian air. He took a deep breath to steel himself as he watched Sin approach, the colossal gray beast pulling itself out of the water with a keening cry as it took to the air in order to scale the cliffside before it. As Sin's form loomed over the cliff, casting a shadow down over everything below, Ben knew that he was in for quite possibly the biggest fight of his life.

The Sin that floated before Ben now was not the Sin he remembered.

Sin had been a malevolent force on Spira, titanic in size and nearly unstoppable in power, carving a swath of destruction through whatever drew its ire all across the world. This Sin...this Sin was an entirely different beast, Ben knew, judging by what his senses were telling him now.

Its size was unbelievable. The Sin of old carved trails through the world with an outpouring of magic - this Sin looked large enough to shatter the world with the same.

There was no trace of malevolence, no hint of anger and fury radiating from its spirit...it was just...hollow. Devoid of meaning, of caring, of anything except existing...but the power...

The power was stifling. Overbearing and choking, a strength that threatened to force the life from his body and the thoughts from his mind simply by being in its presence. It took all his power to stay on his feet and not give in to the influence of the creature before him...but still, he stood. Determination went a long way, but anger went even further.

And he was furious.

"No more," he muttered, reaching to his hip and unsheathing the Diviner that his teacher had given him. "You hear me? No more. You broke one world while I watched - I won't let you do that again here."

The sword came up, and he let his energy flare as he stepped into an attacking stance.

"I won't let you have this world!"

(Play: Gekkou no Tsurugi - Nana Mizuki, Senki Zesshou Symphogear)

'What is that horrendous noise?' Manes suddenly said inside Ben's mind, causing Ben to turn his awareness inward again.

"What are you talking about...?" he started to say...then stopped, realizing what Manes was talking about. "I'm concentrating. Thinking about music helps."

'Concentrating...how could you possibly concentrate with this...drivel echoing in your pitiful excuse for a brain?'

"Just watch."

Up ahead of him, Sin bellowed, finally noticing the outpouring of power that he was emanating - on purpose, for a change. The Grim Angels he'd trained under had finally taught him to control his spiritual energy, among other things, giving him a bit finer control over how he used his power. He could see dark shapes splitting off from Sin at an alarming rate as Sinscales rained down from the beast, unfurling their diamond-shaped scale forms into tiny, quadrupedal bug-like creatures that chittered and flapped tiny wings angrily. Further behind the multitude of Sinscales that were now approaching where he stood was a larger gathering of the tiny beasts, clumping together and...merging? That was new, Ben thought to himself as he watched the Sinscales' forms seem to melt and flow together, rising upward and reforming into a larger mass. Whip-like tentacles emerged from the mass, the rest of it stretching up and forming green scale-like skin as well as a three-jawed, plant-like head. Three more brown structures like curved leaves extended from the back of the creature, stretching back like strange wings as the last of the Sinscale mass finished forming.

Ben looked at the form of the Sinspawn he recognized as Geneaux, and merely smiled.

"I'm not the same as I was back in Spira."

He switched the sword to his left hand before kneeling and slamming his hand into the ground, drawing on his Alchemy for a large technique as the chittering Sinscales charged forward. The moisture in the air and ground started to gather around him, filtering down into the ground rapidly as the earth started to shake before him. In the next moment, the entire area in front of him erupted into a field of icy spikes that tore through ground and Sinscales alike, hundreds of blades of frost slicing apart the horde running for him and instantly devastating nearly the entire group.

That was when he moved, switching the blade back to his dominant hand before vanishing in a burst of Shunpo to reappear near one of the Sinscales that hadn't been caught by a spike. His sword glowed with black energy as he lashed out, instantly slicing it apart into wisps of magical energy - not pyreflies, he noted - before he vanished again. He reappeared again right in front of the Sinspawn next, and the black energy that had encompassed his blade gave way to a brilliant red outlined with black as the Sinspawn's tentacles dove for him. From his perspective, however, the giant plant-like monster may as well have been standing still. He nimbly dodged around each of the tentacles, watching for a moment as they embedded into the ground before he made his move.

"Take this!"

He dashed forward in the next instant, blade slicing out to rend the tentacles in his way into pieces before he hit the spawn's main body and kept going, the Diviner in his hands cutting cleanly through the entirety of its body as he released the power in his Bracing Cleave skill. He landed behind the creature and looked back in time to see the upper half of its body crumple to the dirt, dissolving into magical energy as the life left it. Sin's body shifted to look over at him then, almost seeming to size him up and reevaluate the threat he possessed as he took a moment to recover.

"You'll have to do better than that, you monster. Old tricks like that won't work a second time."

Even as Ben spoke, he stepped again into a ready stance as he waited for Sin to retaliate. Etchel's words about pacing himself and playing to his strengths ran through his mind as he considered all the possibilities he could think of for what Sin might do next. The beast in front of him gave what could have passed for a grunt, the shuddering sound more akin to rumbling thunder than any kind of human noise. More Sinscales flew from its body as Ben watched, landing in front of him a short distance away in a haphazard smattering of chitin and glowing eyes that started to advance again even as a group further away began to converge as they had done before.

"More of these, huh...alright, then."

Spines shot out from the Sinscales in front of him, biological projectiles that he tore from the air with his blade in a flurry of rapid strikes as he refreshed the Haste enchantment around him. More and more of the spines kept flying as his sword flashed to cut them aside, his movements a dance of precise movement that seemed almost effortless as he wove around and cut apart the flying barbs. Behind the firing spawn, he could see the mass of Sinscales continuing to grow as more and more of Sin's 'children' merged into the gestalt form of another Sinspawn, a form that was growing larger and bulkier by the second and showed no signs of slowing down.

'Gui, maybe?' Ben thought to himself, looking past the attacking Sinscales to focus on the mass momentarily as the onslaught of spines slackened. 'Only Ammes was that big, and it's not the right shape...wonder what it's making now?'

He darted forward suddenly as he considered the growing spawn, his blade slicing out and throwing a trio of Sinscales aside even as it tore their bodies apart and caused the rest of the small group to turn to try and surround him. One leapt with clawed legs outstretched to meet him, but a swirling burst of frost that sprang up around Ben intercepted it, the frost armor chilling and repelling the tiny creature and allowing Ben to cleave it apart with another quick stroke of his Diviner.

'You need to kill the larger spawn before it finishes transforming! Stop wasting time, fool!'

'Yeah, I can kinda see that!' Ben replied, parrying another blow from a Sinscale and retaliating with another crushing strike that ripped two of the legs off of its body. 'The only thing I have that could probably kill that outright is Ultima, and I really don't want to get turned into a pincushion while I try to channel it!'

'Then use this insipid Guardian Force that you have bonded with! Freeze it before it can attack!'

'...Not a bad idea,' Ben admitted, flipping over the last few Sinscales and aiming carefully before releasing a wave of energy from his blade, the Crescent Strike attack melting the last of the Sinscales that had been stalling into wisps of dissipating magic as he turned to face the looming Sinspawn. It had grown to an impressive size, towering over Ben by dozens of meters and sporting an elongated body held aloft by six stubby legs, each still as tall as Ben was. He could see four arms sprouting from the creature, two on each side, and what he assumed was a head forming at the front of the body along with a large tail whipping around from behind. Ben closed his eyes, touching the presence of the Guardian Force that he held within his mind. Energy built around him as he focused, using his power to call it forth, and flurries of snow and ice burst around him as the Guardian Force Shiva materialized into existence in a massive icicle.

Ben had spent quite some time learning about the way that Guardian Forces contracted themselves with humans worthy of wielding a fraction of their power. Shiva had told him about their nature as avatars of primal forces, beings of pure magic given form and consciousness that were almost as old as the world itself. He had learned how SeeD wielded Guardian Forces to their advantage in combat, summoning them to the physical plane for a brief period to protect themselves and wreak immense devastation upon their enemies. The ability to summon a GF quickly and hold the summon for longer periods of time was difficult for most people to learn without long periods of training and acclimation to the Guardian Force's power.

Ben was not 'most people.'

He was a High Summoner of Spira, someone who had spent his first months on a quest to save the world learning how to commune with the Aeons, how to utilize their power and work alongside them to the best of their combined abilities. Guardian Forces were not Aeons, but they had similarities...something that Ben could use to great effect, especially with the one being's power that he was more familiar with than any other.

The icicle in front of him shattered into a thousand brilliant shards of ice, releasing Shiva's form into the physical plane, and Ben stepped up beside the summoned entity in the next breath. His body showed none of the translucency that came with using the Guardian Force's power to shield oneself from harm - he had foregone that entirely, choosing instead to focus his energy on the summoning and link Shiva's power to his own as he had done with Aeons in the past. Valefor, Ifrit, even Bahamut...he had worked together with all of the Aeons he had learned to summon, aiding their power instead of simply wielding it, and Guardian Forces to him were more than just contracted spirits.

They were partners. And partners existed to be fought beside, not behind.

Frigid air gathered around the duo as Shiva concentrated her energy into a sphere of magical frost, raising it above her as it grew and took shape. Ben's transmutation circle glowed as he focused on his Ice Alchemy talents, using the snow all around him to bolster the effect as he gathered up all of the frost and ice that he could reach with the transmutation.

'Now!'

Shiva heard his mental command and brought her hands down at the same time that he released his transmutation, sending a massive wave of frigid energy out towards the incomplete Sinspawn in front of them. It hit with the sound of rushing wind and crackling ice, wrapping around the Sinspawn and chilling it to the core as ice started to creep along the gray-colored skin. Ben's transmutation erupted from around the Sinspawn even as Shiva's Diamond Dust attack engulfed it, large circular walls of ice wrapping around the creature and closing in on it to entrap it in a cocoon of ice as it joined with Shiva's attack, solidifying and melding to the creature's body.

"Did we get it...?" Ben said, watching carefully for any signs of movement from the frozen prison he and his Guardian Force had created.

A single crack appeared on the ice, followed by another, and the entire structure shivered momentarily before it exploded outward into thousands of miniscule pieces that were chased by a bellowing roar from the newly-formed Sinspawn. Thick spikes of bone had formed along the crest of its head, down its back, and along the back of its four clawed arms, and its six chitin-tipped legs kicked up dirt and snow as they dug into the ground underneath it. Its tail whipped wildly behind it as it roared again, lashing its arms out in anger as it issued a challenge to the comparatively tiny Hume in front of it.

"...Great."

'You took too long, fool.'

'Tell me something I don't know,' Ben retorted mentally, calling up magic from within once again as he gripped his sword tightly. The green glow of Scan magic flashed around him briefly as he focused on the Sinspawn to try and discern any kind of information about it, and he frowned as he realized that the magic was only able to reveal the name of the monster in front of him.

"Sinspawn Caeculus..." he said, taking a good look at the monstrosity that towered over him. "That's new, alright."

His sword flickered out as he stepped back into a combat stance.

"Still gonna kill it."

Ben vanished from view into a flicker of Shunpo, reappearing in the air in front of the creature to release a Firaga spell straight into its face as he started to fall that caused it to flinch backwards. He peppered the monster with throwing knives all the way down, taking the roughly forty-foot fall with barely a hint of trouble thanks to his junctions. Shiva, meanwhile, had begun to assault the creature with a multitude of Ice-elemental spells of varying intensity, further obscuring its vision and freezing over parts of its arms and upper body with the icy magic. Neither Ben's knives nor Shiva's magic seemed to affect the creature much, and Ben found himself forced to dodge away from a sweep of two of the massive arms the Sinspawn sported. The creature seemed big and slow - an ideal fight for Ben, but one that left him wondering exactly how he was going to manage to kill the creature without expending a large amount of energy in the process.

The monstrosity in front of him roared again, claws swinging wildly as it scuttled forward on its sharpened legs and lunged towards Ben and Shiva, forcing them apart as it charged between them and brought its arms down in a smash that shattered the icy ground between them into flying fragments of rock.

'Go for the legs,' Ben told Shiva mentally, feeling the GF acknowledge the thought as he did so. 'If we immobilize it, we can take it out safely from range without having to worry about it swinging at us the whole time.' He dove back in with his blade, aiming to strike at the joints of one of the Sinspawn's front legs, but it straightened again and shuddered as some sort of gas began to erupt from the pores of its skin, a sickening brown cloud that started to engulf its body even as Ben got close to it.

'Poison...?'

His eyes widened as he changed course, flipping back and out of range of the creature and the cloud of gas, and he hunched over coughing for a moment as the tiny bit of poisonous gas that he'd inhaled burned his body before he sent waves of Esuna magic cascading over himself to ward off the effects. Shiva, he knew, would be immune to such a thing due to her nature as a Guardian Force, but he was still susceptible...which meant that all of his melee prowess was now useless against the Sinspawn. He frowned, eyes narrowing in annoyance as he looked up at the beast again.

"I told you that you'll have to do better than that to beat me," he growled in frustration. "I've got tricks here that I didn't have in Spira."

Pink diamonds began to swirl around his body before vanishing as he called up special magic from within himself, the Double magic lending an unnatural haste to his ability to channel and release magical energy. He watched Shiva get batted away from the monster a moment later, two of the creature's legs covered in shimmering ice, and he prepared a pair of spells as the Sinspawn tried to shake off the ice in order to attack again, grateful for Shiva's momentary distraction to let him gather his thoughts.

A blazing corona of energy started to surround his hands as he held them cupped away from himself, arms outstretched and palms angled towards the Sinspawn. He let the energy build for a few seconds, watching the Sinspawn struggle to get its legs to move as it limped towards him, and he pushed mana into the spell before finally letting it fly with a scream. A white-hot beam of fire blazed from his hands as he cast the Meltdown magic towards the Sinspawn, widening and consuming a large portion of its body and causing it to howl in pain as its flesh was seared and burned away by the high-level magic technique. The magic left the Sinspawn's flesh cracked and glowing red as it finally faded away, the spell expended, and Ben smirked as he let loose with his second spell as soon as the Meltdown's effect had passed. The wind picked up dramatically around the Sinspawn in the span of a heartbeat, the ground underneath it sliced and sheared away in a matter of moments as a circular funnel of wind formed around the Sinspawn to suck it high into the air. Ben's Tornado magic battered and sliced the Sinspawn with devastatingly fast winds, tossing the towering Sinspawn around like a toy for several seconds before abruptly dissipating and leaving the Sinspawn to fall back to the snowy plains with a thunderous impact and outpouring of snow and dust.

'That was an impressive waste of energy,' Manes sneered, and for a moment Ben could almost envision the Daiesthai clapping mockingly. 'It seems that you haven't learned anything about conserving energy from that foolish pair of Malakh after all.'

"Waste?" Ben asked innocently, reaching into the pouch at his side. "Who said anything about waste? It's almost as if I've learned from some of my mistakes or something." He withdrew a small glass bottle full of bright blue liquid as he spoke, pulling the cork from the bottle in a quick movement and downing the bottle of mana-replenishing liquid in a few quick gulps.

"Etchel taught me my limitations. If I don't have a lot of mana to work with to use magic, I'll just have to make sure I have ways to replenish it in a long fight." Manes didn't say anything in response as Ben turned his attention back to the Sinspawn, which was struggling to get back to its feet after the devastating pair of magic attacks. "Time to finish you off," he muttered, Haste magic springing to life around him once again as he darted back into melee range, noticing that the poison the creature had been emitting had ceased. As he got near the creature's body he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and no sooner had he registered what he had seen than he was swept into the air in the grip of the Sinspawn's powerful tail, his sword falling from his grip as he yelled out in pain under the crushing force. Shiva immediately leapt back into the fray as she saw Ben caught by the Sinspawn, a Blizzaga spell from the avatar crashing into the creature in an attempt to force it to let go, but Caeculus merely roared again before drawing its head back and spitting a ball of corrosive bile that rocketed into Shiva with the force of a cannon shell. The GF went flying head over heels from the attack, tumbling helplessly across the ground for several meters before finally coming to a stop, motes of light beginning to dissipate from its body as it finally lost its physical form.

'Shiva! Are you okay?' Ben asked mentally, feeling the GF's consciousness recede back into the confines of his mind. The GF didn't answer with words, but he could feel its energy pulsing in his mind like a reassuring beacon even as he tried to free himself from the grip of the Sinspawn. He lurched violently to one side as the tail holding him whipped around before launching him into the ground, causing stars to dance across his vision from the impact - even with his junctions, he felt his bones crack under the force as he hit the dirt. Coughing, he moved on instinct, using his Planeswalker abilities to blink across the field several hundred feet away from the Sinspawn to get a moment to recover as he started to call up curative magic around himself.

"...Okay...that was a mistake..." he wheezed, feeling the Curaga knit the cracks in his bones and tears in his flesh from the impact back together as he rested on his hands and knees. It took a few seconds before he was able to get back to his feet, turning to face the Sinspawn once again, and he realized once he came fully back to his senses that he'd dropped his Diviner right at the Sinspawn's feet.

'Admitting you were a fool. Truly, there is a first time for everything.'

"Oh, shut up," Ben said, shaking his head to clear it as he thought for a moment. "Need to get my sword back...but I really need to kill that thing before I do it." He started to run back towards the Sinspawn, considering all the possibilities he had to work with...before smiling as inspiration struck. "Haven't had a chance to test this as much as I wanted, but...I think it'll work."

He held out his right hand as the circle on his left hand glowed, starting to draw on his Alchemy again as he ran, and snow and ice began to form into a large sphere that sat in his hand and grew by the second as he moved. He'd practiced quite a bit with his Ice Alchemy talents while training on the Ethereal Plane, and while he hadn't quite managed to perfect the skill he was planning to use, he was reasonably sure that it would work well enough for what he needed to do.

"Just need to get a little closer..."

Caeculus stomped the ground again as he approached, threatening the tiny bug of a creature that dared to attack something as mighty as it was, but Ben was undeterred. The sphere of ice in his hand had grown to the size of a basketball by the time he was near the Sinspawn's feet again, and he gritted his teeth before taking a junction-enhanced leap into the air directly towards the Sinspawn's face.

"Haaaaa!"

His yell was as much anger as it was exertion as he pushed his hand forward and sent the Frozen Orb directly at the Sinspawn's face. It tracked the orb for the barest of instants before attempting to swat it out of the air, but the orb was moving too fast for it to hit the comparatively tiny object that flew between its clawed hands and headed straight for its eyes.

The orb exploded directly in the Sinspawn's face right before it would have impacted, bursting into a cloud of razor-sharp icicles that flew in all directions and shredded the entirety of Caeculus' head and neck, dozens of lacerations tearing flesh from its body and cutting apart its eyes and throat in a second. It died almost before it realized it had been struck, arms going limp like a puppet whose strings were cut as it fell to the ground with an echoing crash and wisps of magic already beginning to float away from its form. Ben hit the ground alongside it, taking a few deep breaths as he looked around before stepping over and reclaiming the Diviner he had dropped, propping it back up on his shoulder as the Sinspawn finished dissipating into magical energy.

"Still not good enough," he said, eyes tracking back to the form of Sin that was still watching him, silently unmoving some distance across the plains. He'd taken a bit of a beating from the few hits that the previous Sinspawn had landed, but he was still more than willing to fight. No Sinscales came to meet him immediately, nor Sinspawn that was formed from the piles of tiny insectoids the massive beast could send forth, and he instead burst into a run towards the flying behemoth in an attempt to deal Sin itself some damage. He wished that he was able to perform the ability to suspend himself and stand in mid-air with just his own power, but it was something he had yet to be able to get the hang of under Lady Inihara's tutelage. He settled instead for preparing another Blink upwards as his sword began to glow with black energy, sending himself upwards in order to fall towards Sin from above. He brought the sword down with all the power he could muster, only to find his strike arrested by the appearance of a reddish-purple barrier that materialized around Sin.

'Damn...forgot about that shield...'

Undeterred, he gathered his strength again and used the energy shield to propel himself back into the air as the residual power from his strike melded to a red glow around his sword, and he screamed before bringing the Diviner down into the energy shield again with crushing force. The shield buckled briefly around the area of the strike before snapping back into place, and Ben cursed again before jumping back and away from Sin's body, plummeting back towards the ground before casting a Float spell to slow his momentum and allow him to land safely.

Sin's eyes tracked Ben as he fell, the mind of the beast wondering why the tiny creature in front of it hadn't been consumed by the onslaught of its spawn. Those it had found before were feeble and weak, unable to do anything before its progeny devoured them and destroyed that which they had built. All would be consumed in its wake...all that it laid eyes upon was its prey.

'Do you really think you can hurt that leviathan with a puny sword? You may as well be using sticks and harsh language.'

'We killed it once with nothing but these puny weapons, some wits, and the Aeons who fought by our side. I am not giving up here!' Ben retorted, defiantly taking a stance again in front of Sin's floating body.

Ben's Haste and Double enchantments had worn off, but he didn't bother refreshing either of them as he started to prepare magic again. He wanted every bit of mana that he had available to him for what he was about to do in order to try and put a dent in the unnaturally large and durable behemoth. He leapt away to a safe distance as he sheathed his sword, thankful that Sin didn't appear to be sending any more of its spawn out after him for the time being. Carefully, he started to draw on the most powerful magic that he had available to him, something that he had strove to learn under Lulu's instruction and guidance. Green sparks flashed around his hands as the magic continued to build, and even Manes took notice as Ben poured nearly all of his stored mana into the spell before thrusting his hands forward and releasing the spell in a massive outpouring of energy.

The Ultima spell exploded from Ben's hands and engulfed the entire field at the fore of Sin's body in a massive, swirling ball of dark green magical energy that ripped apart the earth and vaporized the snow. Sin's energy shield sprang up once again to deflect the attack, and Ben was blinded by the clash of the two energies as his spell fought for dominance against the violet shield emitted by Sin. He found himself blown backwards from the force as the spell finally detonated against the shield, sending him tumbling back through the air for a few long seconds until he got his feet back under him and skidded to a stop, trying to see through the haze and smoke caused by the magical explosion.

'You've gotta be kidding me...!'

As the dust cleared, Ben could see Sin still looming over the plains, looking for all the world as if his overloaded spell had still done nothing at all to harm it.

'That was everything you had, fool. You can't kill this thing as you are now!'

For the first time since leaving Trabia, Ben felt his confidence waver. Sin had just taken the full force of the most powerful spell, perhaps the most powerful attack of any kind in his entire arsenal and come out without a single scratch. Maybe Manes had been right all along and he had been too stubborn to realize it, blinded by his pride and his desire to spare others suffering.

"I can't give up here..."

He clenched a fist, trying to push aside all of the doubt and fear that he was feeling and focus only on what he could do to win.

"If I give up here...then how can I call myself a Planeswalker?"

'If you don't run, you won't survive to call yourself a Planeswalker!'

He steadied himself again and took a deep breath, trying to figure out a way to actually harm the abomination in front of him. The last time they had killed Sin, they had done so from the inside, entering Sin's body and destroying the being called Yu Yevon that controlled the beast, but Ben didn't think he would be able to use the same method a second time. Truthfully, he wasn't sure how Sin had managed to come back in the first place, let alone whether Yu Yevon had also been reincarnated alongside it. Try as he might, no magic bullet presented itself to his mind, no instant way to slay the beast and win the day, and he decided that the only thing he could do was to keep going and hope an opportunity presented itself soon. It seemed like it was a battle of attrition now, a battle Ben didn't particularly care to fight with something as powerful as Sin.

He reached back into his pouch and grabbed another Ether, downing the magical liquid even as he watched Sinscales begin to rain down from Sin's body again - apparently, it was going on the offensive once more. This time, however, he noticed that they all began gathering together the moment they unfolded on the ground, none of the tiny creatures staying separate from the growing mass...a mass which was, curiously, staying rather small despite the dozens of Sinscales that were dissolving into its form. He brought his hands together again as he watched, readying another powerful spell for a few seconds before unleashing a Flare towards the forming Sinspawn, the focused beam of intense fire quickly bathing the Sinspawn in searing heat and power as Ben kept up the spell in an attempt to burn the creature to ashes. Ben held the spell for several seconds before letting it go, not wanting to expend all of his mana again with just one spell, but he was surprised to see a pair of gray-skinned arms held up in a guarded position in front of the creature to ward off the attack as the spell tapered off.

The Sinspawn that had finished forming under cover of Ben's attack was nothing like the previous one, he saw. The overall shape was humanoid, unlike Caeculus' insect-like body, and thickly muscled with mottled flecks of black within the deathly gray coloring. It had no mouth or nose, only a pair of jet black orbs for eyes, broad feet featuring spiked protrusions of bone at the front and back, and two gnarled horns atop its head that jutted out at different angles. Immediately, Ben called up Scan magic again to try and discern anything he could about the creature, but just like before he was only rewarded with the creature's name and nothing more - Sinspawn Pyrithis. He took his sword back out of its sheath, pondering for a moment how best to approach before flashing in with another burst of Shunpo towards its back. He spun as he came out of the flash step, blade glowing with the blue energy of his Ice Brand technique, but he didn't expect the Sinspawn to have the quickness that it possessed as he brought the sword down. The icy blade left a ragged gash down the Sinspawn's chest that frosted over with the magic in the technique right before the Sinspawn buried its fist into Ben's stomach, lifting him off his feet with the crushing force and stunning Ben enough to almost drop his sword. The other fist came around a moment later in a devastating haymaker that blew Ben off his feet and across the ground, the Sinspawn seeming to pay no mind to the cut Ben had inflicted.

Ben coughed blood onto the ground as he tried to find his bearings again after the powerful strike. He'd at least managed to keep his sword this time, but that was little consolation - the Sinspawn hadn't even flinched at his attack. He was sure that the punches would've put him out of the fight for good without his defensive junctions, but even with them his left arm was now limp and immovable and his entire chest throbbed with pain. He started to rise again, the energy of a healing spell already welling up within him when he felt bands of steel wrap around his body and squeeze. The Blink this time was almost instantaneous, taking him out of the Sinspawn's grip to leave him a short distance away as he spun around, cursing to himself as he realized that this Sinspawn was quite a bit faster than Caeculus was and seemed to have no intention of letting him heal himself. He juked away from another strong punch by the Sinspawn and raked his sword against its body again, cutting open a gash along its upper thigh as he found himself in a mad dance of feints in an attempt to evade all of the heavy blows from the Sinspawn.

'I can't keep this up...'

The Sinspawn moved and struck with a speed that, while slower than Ben's own, was still enough to force him onto the defensive, trying to stay away from the swinging fists while dealing at least some damage back to the creature in the process. Ben ducked under a wild swing and opened up the Sinspawn's stomach with a low strike, only to have the Sinspawn raise a leg and kick him away, the bony spikes on its leg piercing holes in his stomach and causing him to drop to his knees as he tried to recover. He was struggling to fight back now, bleeding from multiple different wounds and without the use of one arm, but he gritted his teeth as the Sinspawn advanced on him again and screamed, willing himself back to his feet as he took hold of his anger and pain and pulled.

Amber light shot up around him as he drew on all the power he could muster, his Limit giving him renewed vigor that let him parry a downward smash from the Sinspawn and retaliate. Bits of flesh and trails of magical energy flew from the Sinspawn's right arm as Ben cut nearly halfway through its wrist with a swift strike before bringing the blade back down to tear into its chest with a second strike that forced the Sinspawn back under the sudden onslaught. He let loose with everything he had as the Sinspawn recoiled, slicing out to attack a knee before going back to striking at its chest one, two, then three times, each attack pushing the Sinspawn further and further back. Fully on the defensive for the moment, Pyrithis held its arms up to try and defend itself from Ben's attack, but Ben charged his Diviner with all the remaining energy left in his Limit and brought it down hard onto the Sinspawn's crossed arms, shearing its already-damaged right hand from the wrist and blasting it with a powerful energy wave from the blade.

'Was that...enough...?'

Ben collapsed onto the ground as his Limit faded, completely exhausted and hoping that he had managed to kill the Sinspawn with his last attack. He watched as the dust cleared around where the Sinspawn had been standing, only to feel his heart sink as he saw a form start to reappear from the smoke. The Sinspawn was battered and badly damaged, missing a hand and trailing small streams of magical energy with its movements that flowed from the multitude of gashes Ben's Diviner had inflicted, but it was still moving even after all the injuries Ben had dealt to it.

Even worse, Ben could see Sin's massive form looming closer, floating over the plains slowly as if it wished to savor the victory of its spawn up close.

'That's it, then...I've got nothing left...'

(End: Gekkou no Tsurugi - Nana Mizuki, Senki Zesshou Symphogear)

Sin's many eyes looked down upon the tiny being that had defeated so many of its spawn almost scornfully, watching as the powerful beast it had sired prepared to finish its prey. Nothing was able to stand against it for long, all creatures that it faced inevitably succumbing to its overwhelming might. It would feast again soon - the tiny morsel before it would not even be enough to whet its hunger, but it would be consumed all the same.

The whisper of consciousness from before returned, and what was Sin became more as the power of an Author dominated its mind and stole its senses for their own use.

Wilhelm gazed down at Ben from Sin's point of view high above, thoughtfully contemplating the persistence of the Planeswalker which Lady Vanadis had once politely requested him to test. The boy was stubborn and driven, he knew, and had gone through the trials of a summoner in impressive fashion alongside the young summoner Yuna, who herself was a remarkable individual. Yet, if he were to allow his creation to kill the young Planeswalker, he knew that Erasmus' ire would be swift and quite...profound, to say the least.

The hulking form of Sinspawn Pyrithis threw its remaining fist one last time at the smaller creature beneath it, intent on crushing its body and consuming its essence...then stopped, its fist inches away from Ben and frozen as if time itself had stopped dead.

'...What...?'

Ben watched in stunned amazement as the Sinspawn began to dissolve in front of his eyes, the magic that comprised it floating upwards to meld again with Sin's body as the progenitor reclaimed its spawn. Sin's eyes met his own, and for an instant he wasn't sure if Sin was going to attack or not before Sin's body began to slowly turn away from him. It paid him no further mind as it lumbered through the air and back towards the sea from whence it came, the hulking form lowering itself into the water and sending waves lapping fiercely at the rock face as it slowly sank down and out of sight beneath the sea, leaving him alone on the snowy plains.

Ben couldn't find it in himself to move, speak, or to do anything else but sit on the snow-covered plains in silence and begin to cast healing magic to try and stop the bleeding from the lacerations he'd received as Sin slowly vanished from view. He'd tried with every ounce of his power to stop Sin from terrorizing the world as it had once done to Spira...and he'd failed. The weight of his thoughts came down on him all at once as he realized that he hadn't been able to stop the beast, and he slumped despairingly as the sword fell from nerveless fingers to rest beside him.

'I couldn't do it...I failed...'

Despite all the injuries he'd suffered in the battle, the pain he felt from that one thought was worse than anything he'd suffered from Sin and its spawn. He felt the exhaustion from the battle wash over him like a tide as the adrenaline started to wear off, the curative magic doing nothing at all to dull the fatigue, and he swayed on the ground as a lightheaded feeling overtook him. A momentary spike of energy in the nearby area drew his attention as his vision blurred faintly, and the last thing he saw was a person he couldn't make out approaching him before he finally collapsed unconscious into the snow.