Chapter 88

Guardian

The Neo-SeeDs were wholly swept up by the Esthari counterattack. Raine, Liu and Zhang were quickly separated from the Dragoons and the remainder of their squad. With just one tiring demi-GF and two moogles between them, Raine's trio alone were not in a position to hold back the advance, and soon found themselves surrounded by enemies at every turn. They could see Damian soaring above the chaos before he swooped down for the first on his death list; now that he had found his prey, Raine knew his bloodlust would render him deaf to everything else until it was satisfied, and they heard nothing from him after that.

In taking down two Magitek and its support units, Raine told the others to spare the non-commissioned officer, giving him a display of her power. This had the desired effect, as Raine received reports that the nearest two Praetorians were heading for her last confirmed position.

'We stand our ground now,' she ordered. 'We'll make the most difference if we take them out, provided Damian doesn't get to them first.'

Liu just nodded.

'Sure thing,' Zhang said. 'Can't let the dwarf have all the glory, can we?'

They made short work of a behemoth while they were waiting, Liu hamstringing it and Raine driving her quarterstaff through its eye. It was one of the only full-grown Lunarians on the battlefield, most of them having been killed in the aborted Galbadia campaign. Regardless of the battle's outcome, it would be several years before the Empire could rear such a beastly force again, and they had few cyborgs remaining too. Esthar's army would never be as vulnerable as it was now, which is why it had to be defeated here, before they could retreat across the ocean.

The trio were approached by Rillina and Rubicanta at the tip of an Esthari spearhead, working as a deadly duet of fire and poison to overwhelm the green-uniformed Galbadian Rangers, who were currently on the backfoot. An orange blur passed them by, followed by a white one. Raine initially mistook the first light for a potent fire spell. Though she realised they were moombas, followed by a small number of moogles, driving into the Esthari flanks with their claws and pitchforks, their innate magic power protecting them from gunblade and small arms fire. Morfydd had successfully regrouped the B-rankers and the Dragoons, and was rushing forward, attempting to rally Sergeant Zabac and the rest of the nearby Galbadians to stand their ground.

Atta girl! Raine thought.

Still, separated from their junctions, the B-rankers would be annihilated by the Emerald Viper and Ruby Salamander, who were showing no quarter and had altered their course to meet them head on.

'Liu,' Raine said, breaking into a run. 'You've got Rubicanta!'

He nodded again. 'Fire with fire,' he said quietly. Prowling Torama glowing with flame, his eyes were set on the red-haired Rubicanta.

'Zhang, you've got Rillina!' Raine said now. 'Watch her karambits!'

'Yes, ma'am!' Zhang returned excitedly, twirling his nunchucks as he ran. 'Don't worry about me!'

Raine allowed them to overtake her, running to bolster Morfydd's assault with a burst of GF speed. Derfel, along with the other wounded, had been medevacked, bringing the number of B-rankers to eight. Then seven, as Seth was killed but a yard from Morfydd. As Raine reached them she brought her staff down on the killer's skull with enough power to break their neck, and Morfydd looked at her with her wide cornflower eyes as she wheeled around. The Trabian looked almost disappointed to see her.

'As you were, Morfydd!'

After all, she was doing a great job; Raine was not about to steal her thunder. She fell in behind the Dragoons, watching their six. The sound of numerous motorcycles signified that Zabac was also leading a new charge.

Some distance away, steel clashed furiously between Liu and Rubicanta. The redhead seemed visibly frustrated that the element she had worked so hard to master gave her no advantage over an almost equally adept Liu. His jian was modest compared to her orange crystalline sword with its flame-shaped pommel, but it was no less deadly. On his other side, Rillina tore at a cocky Zhang with her venom-coated curved knives. But Zhang danced surefootedly out of range, giving high-pitched cries with each swing of his nunchucks. Raine saw him knock one of the karambits from her hand with a stiff roundhouse, then followed with another kick to keep her out of range of it.

'Loire?' she heard in her earpiece.

It was Wedge's voice. Raine had plunged one end of her quarterstaff into an Esthari's diaphragm, doubling them over. She could not respond until she had swung down to cave the back of their helm, tapping the earbud three times for a constant transmission.

'What is it, sir?' she asked.

'Your boy Reno's getting his ass whipped!'

'By who?'

'Ialantha.'

This made Raine stop cold. That Hynedamn meathead! she thought. Uncle Squall had told him to stay well clear!

'We're keeping a perimeter,' Wedge informed her. 'You'd better get here. Double time.'

'I need their coordinates now, sir!' she said frantically. Then she gestured to get Deist's attention, who had been nearest to her. 'Take my place!' she urged. As soon as Wedge responded, she was running as fast as Minimog would carry her, a quicksilver flash on the battlefield that was moving between friend and foe alike.

As she passed a spectating General Wedge and his most trusted Rangers, she saw Damian on the ground. An ordinary axe lay several yards from him, which she recognised as his more mundane weapon from before his junction with Diablos. That it had gone back to normal did not register in her mind immediately, as Ialantha was poised to finish her opponent off. She was holding her glyph-engraved, gold-ringed stave high, the antlered end pointed dangerously at Damian's blood-streaked chest.

It would be better if was her. She did not think Damian's pride would ever recover if Liu or Zhang came to his aid.

'Ialantha!'

Raine's roar befitted a lioness. With no other contenders around, Raine hoped her challenge would give the Golden Raptor pause. Thankfully it did, her quicksilver glow making no mistake as to who had sounded. Raine slowed to a normal pace as Ialantha turned away from Damian, then a walk. She stopped a few yards before her. Damian was in a bad way, bleeding from multiple deep cuts. His self-destructive pride was not letting him try to escape, though. He stayed where he was, eagle spread on the ground.

'She took… the lamp… from me!' he coughed.

Raine looked at the mundane axe again, remembering Damian was not junctioned with Diablos in the conventional sense. The 'Magic Lamp', as Selphie had once simplistically dubbed it, was akin to magicite; the bond was broken as soon as it went into another's possession.

'Don't misunderstand,' Ialantha said. 'I have no need for the Dark Messenger. I merely snatch a toy from a misbegotten child.'

'I do not doubt it,' Raine said. 'Your reputation precedes you, Ialantha.'

'As does yours,' she returned quietly, looking at Raine's own inherited quarterstaff. 'Daughter of Raijin.'

Her accent was exotic. Despite her own ancestry, Raine had never heard a Grandidi native speak before; her father had been orphaned in infancy, and White SeeD's Viviana had been mute.

Raine stared her down, noting the intricate patterns of her face paint. The white was interspersed with black and gold tribal lines, the latter matching the rings on her stave. Below the painted mask, her skin was a mahogany brown, like Raijin's had been. She was slenderly built and still had a full head of black hair only slightly lined with grey, neatly cut to her shoulders. Her mouth was small, also painted black. Her eyes were the same colour as her skin.

'General!' Raine called to Wedge over her shoulder. 'Get Damian out of here!'

Ialantha disinterestedly stepped away from her previous opponent, walking to a more favourable section of ground. Raine stayed where she was until couple of Rangers reached her comrade, picking him up and moving away. She tuned out Damian's protests to leave him be. He would have to learn to live with a humbling defeat and inwardly pray Raine could retrieve his lamp for him. Only when he was safely away did she follow.

'The Lioness, they call you,' Ialantha remarked. 'I will trust that you can differentiate boldness from folly. Unlike your friend.'

Raine just nodded, simply saying. 'You're something of a legend of the Grandidi. I won't deny I've always wanted to meet you, though I was a somewhat preoccupied that time in Dollet.'

'As was I,' she said. 'By a SeeD and a Garland, no less.'

'Not many could rebuff Zhang and Nadia as easily as you did,' Raine mentioned.

'Not many can overpower the Empress, either,' Ialantha said flatly.

Hearing the term made Raine frown. 'Why, Ialantha? Why would you continue to serve Ultimecia? Even now? When things are finally going against her? I know your history. You might be one of the greatest warriors ever, but you've just become a puppet! You're not even guarding Ultimecia, anymore! She cares nothing for you, now she has a Knight, and she's still pulling your strings from miles away!'

Ialantha sighed, shaking her head. 'Sadly, you are mired in ignorance,' she responded simply.

The Grandidi slowly woman took something from a utility pouch, holding it in an open palm. Expecting some sort of offense, Raine tensed and raised her own hand to shield her eyes, but nothing happened. Then she saw it was a clear magicite crystal. Ialantha raised it with her thumb and forefinger, gesturing that she would throw it, and Raine caught it in her own palm. Extending her mental tendrils to it as she would to Mog, she knew the magicite was empty. To emphasise her point, Ialantha glowed with a golden hue.

'I might have sworn oaths of fealty, but everything I do is of my own volition. The Golden Chocobo follows me willingly, as he always has. I answer to higher power than Ultimecia – or even the fallen deity her ilk are descended from, for that matter.'

She twisted her wrist to spin her stave, and Raine could not help but be captivated by its craftmanship.

'My weapon is carved from the Eldertree, marking me as one of its Guardians, a charge that is passed down through the generations of my people. There were three others.' She looked at Raine's quarterstaff. 'You possess one, too. Your father was such a Guardian, although he did not know it.'

Raine gasped, looking at the staff. The weapon she had named Thunderstroke, in honour of its previous wielder.

'Those glyphs are of the southern tribes,' Ialantha went on, 'in particular the Kuautik Tlakah, or 'Tall People', who had a mixture of gigas ancestors in addition to elven ones. Despite their innate brawn, they do not seek to impose or dominate. They are a peace loving people; gentle giants, if you like. Though the tribes that surrounded them in every direction are not. They are the reason outsiders rarely make it to the northern Grandidi.'

Raine knew the story of Raijin's discovery, which had been by pure chance. It had been when Galbadia had attempted to invade an ailing Esthar via the southern Grandidi. Edea had led that excursion, stumbling upon the end of a massacre of particularly tall tribespeople. The vicious perpetrators, with their wooden weapons, stood little chance against the Rangers and their state-of-the-art firearms. They swiftly fled back to their settlements. Raijin, just a few months old, had been the sole survivor. His carrying basket had been left between his parents, one of which clutched a glyphed quarterstaff.

Unable to locate his settlement, the boy remained with Edea's squad until the mission was aborted, and he was later sent to a military hospital. Raijin, the temporary name chosen when Edea sensed his affinity for lightning, went onto a tag tied to his tiny wrist and later became permanent. Edea kept a deep interest in Raijin and had kept the quarterstaff for safekeeping. When she later founded her orphanage, Raijin was among its first occupants, befriending her son and a girl named Fujin, who had been the sole survivor of a mysterious pirate shipwreck. The staff was returned to him as soon as he had been big enough to wield it.

'In any case, ancient custom decrees that Raijin's duty now falls to his kin.' Raine looked back to Ialantha. 'The Eldertree did not die after Hyne's machinations, as many believed, but is merely dormant. It is disguised as a common sequoia. I will know the instant it awakens, as will you, or whomever accepts our charge after we are gone to the Void. When it does, and only then, I may have the power to defeat Ultimecia myself.' Ialantha gave another strained sigh. 'But unless that day comes within this generation, I am powerless before her, she who would shroud the entire Grandidi in her crimson fires.' She paused again. 'I have done only what I have had to, Raine, to save my ancestral homeland.'

Raine nodded hesitantly. 'I understand, Ialantha.'

Around them, Wedge's unit had been engaged. Raine and Ialantha's inevitable clash would be one on one, staff to stave. Raine would not have had it otherwise. Ialantha twirled her stave again and took a curious stance, holding it horizontally before her. Raine matched her twirl, her wrist now with a mind of its own, before she held Thunderstroke upright behind her; the way her father always did, replete with that cocky, closed-fingered beckon.

'So, daughter of Raijin. Will you be the one to free me from the shackles I have worn for the past twenty years?'

Raine swung first, as boisterously as Raijin would have done, keeping the slender woman on the backfoot. The antlered stave flashed forward, and Raine twisted Thunderstroke to deflect it each time. Just barely, for her skill was unparalleled, the simulations in the Training Centre barely doing her justice. In the flesh, she was something else. Ialantha was only slightly built, several inches shorter than Raine, though her vigorous movements revealed a coiled strength in addition to a definitive fluidity. She moved with a springiness that belied her fifty years; there was some substance to the legend about the protracted dilution of elven blood, and her father had barely begun physical degradation by his late thirties.

Ialantha forced Raine lead the dance for a time, simply circling every time Raine backed up, as though she had unlimited time. This taught Raine that her opponent preferred to counterattack. Several times Raine darted in and swung ferociously, coming at her from every conceivable angle, though Ialantha silent checked each assault with minimal effort before giving a retaliatory onslaught.

Raine soon had a collection of superficial cuts from where she barely turned the stave's antlers or talon away from her skin, forcing herself to disconnect from the stings and the pain. She knew she was losing, slowly but surely. Her para-magic was depleted, Mog was nearly drained. Ialantha blocked each strike as she had any other, no matter how inventive, no matter the speed or the execution, seeming to know every move she made before she did. Raine had oft assumed that only a wielder of a similar weapon could best Ialantha. Perhaps Raijin may have been Ialantha's equal, but he was gone now. Raiden was gone too, although Raine did not know it yet. Now it down to her. Maybe there was some way she could goad the tribal chieftain into taking the offense, as she seemed not want to do.

With no other recourse, Raine fainted before playing her only trump card, albeit earlier than she would have liked. It felt like desperation, but she had no alternative. It was a new combo, one that she had been honing for hours on end after her Dollet mission, inspired by one of her greatest feats. She started it now. A low strike, a high strike, then a firm spinning back strike, followed by a downward vertical. Now Raine feinted, letting go of her staff and ushering it slightly forward, and when she caught it her grip had changed. It had also given her an extra yard of reach, and she thrust it forward the same way she had driven in into Sepultura's eye.

Unlike Ialantha's stave, it did not have a pointed end, and this threw the tribal chieftain enough that her subsequent parries were a fraction too late. One blow finally landed on the upper arm of her offhand, and Raine heard the crunch of bone, followed by Ialantha's gasp as she reflexively evaded follow-up strikes.

Around them, victorious Galbadians cheered Raine on. Having now dealt with all nearby Esthari, Raine realised they had formed a half-circle, and were watching the spectacle. Liu and Zhang were among them, too, having been victorious in their own fights. When Liu met her eye, Raine shook her head. She was suddenly confident she could prevail.

It was time to turn the battle on its head. Raine starting to circle her wounded opponent, as Ialantha had earlier done in her confidence. Not wanting to have her back to the onlookers, Ialantha shot forward with a burst of golden light, attacking one-handed. She was evidently practiced in this, for she was still swift and measured, but not as powerful. Having seen her attack patterns, it was now as if they were happening at a slighter slower motion. Now Raine was the one calmly rebuffing every strike. Yet Ialantha's own defences were still impeccable, and none of Raine's counterstrokes found their mark. Even impaired, the Golden Raptor proved almost impossible to best. Her injury served only to make the duel even.

It continued this way for several minutes, the number of Galbadians swelling until the two women were completely encircled. Though what Raine had been dreading happened, as she began to slow, knowing that Minimog was out of power. Ialantha knew it too, and Raine backed up fearfully. Yet the tribeswoman stayed where she was. She responded by dispelling her golden aura, and the Golden Chocobo took physical form above her, rising and circling. Raine tuned out the alarmed shouts and responding gunfire of the Galbadians, though the demi-GF hovered well out of their range.

Raine just looked at Ialantha with dismay.

'Why would you do this?'

Ialantha smiled, despite her pain. 'I wish to know the true victor. And if I am to know defeat once, it should be by a child of the Endless Forest.'

She wants me to win! Raine realised. She wants me to release her!

'So be it!'

Ialantha struck at her. An opening in her defence had presented itself before, however slight. Raine had not capitalised on it before, dismissing it as a feint, but then she saw it again. On Ialantha's left side, of course, with the broken arm. A small section of her side that she was just not quite able to cover with her wrist twirls and pivots. Raine lunged for it now, after a parry put her in favourable position. Ialantha swivelled to save her ribcage, which prompted Raine to attempt a leg sweeper with Thunderstroke's other end. Ialantha simply stepped back into a southpaw stance as Raine knew she would, the simple movement taking her out of range and preventing her from being unfooted.

The tribal chieftain eyes widened as she realised her misstep, as Raine had altered her grip again, a split-second before the one broad end of Thunderstroke struck her neck with all the force a daughter of the Kuautik Tlakah could muster. Ialantha's mouth opened, but no sound came from it, and her beautiful stave clattered to the trodden plain. She clutched her neck as though there were an invisible rope around it, a silent scream coming from her open mouth as her opponent backed away.

Raine was deaf to the victory roar of the Galbadians as Ialantha desperately tried to suck in breath. The Golden Chocobo swooped down, giving a pained 'Kweh!' as he landed at the same instant his Summoner dropped to her knees; he had no healing capabilities. Hyne, what have I done? Raine thought, realising she was going to have to watch Ialantha slowly die, unable to breath as though she were trapped in a tank of water for all the Galbadians to see. Many of them were approaching now, including Wedge. A lot of them were grinning in addition to cheering.

Ialantha's expression changed to one of resignation. Her mahogany eyes went to the Golden Chocobo, then to Raine's, and back to her GF's. She nodded, and then closed her eyes. The Golden Chocobo turned its head, regarding Raine with sad, tired eyes. It bowed its head, then dematerialised to join Minimog within her before she could say a word in protest, flooding her with a whole new power. The Galbadians were stunned into silence then. Ialantha's voice was sounding in her head, a message relayed by the Golden Chocobo.

My gift to you, Raine.

'No, Ialantha!' she responded frantically. 'Not like this!'

Raine dropped down before her opponent, grabbing her with both hands. She was already unconscious, starved of oxygen as she was. Raine tilted Ialantha's head back. The crash course Minwu had given her in white magic was tantamount to repairing enough cells to heal a cut or bruise, or purging toxins that were clearly unbelonging, like those from a cactuar's needle. Repairing the fragile bones of the neck would have required a deeper understanding of anatomy and months of practicing replenishment. It was far beyond the skills of a novice. She did not know how to do a field tracheotomy either. With tears in her eyes, Raine knew there was nothing she could do.

Desperately, she looked around the Rangers now standing yards away.

'Medic!' she cried.

But there was only hatred in their eyes, including Wedge's. Ialantha had killed more than a hundred of their number singlehandedly, their bodies blighting the plain around them. She had likely killed scores more at Galbadia City as well as at Timber two years ago, along with the rest of the Twelve. The Rangers would not piss on her if she were on fire.

'Medic!' Raine repeated desperately.

Wedge glanced at one his Rangers. 'Save her,' he ordered.