Another chapter is here!
Kazeshuriken: Tough struggle in their journey. It is never easy.
Andrew MacKenzie: Thank you.
Bob the random: Thank you.
Enjoy!
The chocobos were cautious as they slowly gaited through the water, wary of any remaining zoloms after the death of one of their youngest. Their riders were equally cautious, eyes spanning the marsh for any sign of movement barring a bird above or buzzing insects. The muggy fog that seemed to have rolled in over the water only compounded their concerns, obscuring their view and the sun above greatly.
"Hmm…" Red XIII sounded, for the umpteenth time. It drew Crimson's attention, no longer able to ignore it.
"What's wrong?" she asked, turning her head around to face him. "You've been doing that for some time now."
"I feel like… I'm close to gaining something else," he explained. "Like when I perform my Sled Fang, but a different expression of my power. It's been this way since the chase earlier, once everything settled."
"Oh, it sounds like you're about ready to gain a new Limit Break," Aerith said, having been listening in. "The power simply hasn't taken
on a solid form yet, but the potential is there waiting for the right time."
"Is that so?" He looked pensive at the news. "I had been unaware of such a thing."
"Not surprising," Crimson said. "Most people don't get into nearly as much combat as we do, so they don't develop them. I don't even have a second one yet, though to be fair I've done more fighting in the last few days than I've done all my life. The conditions for unlocking them aren't really clear to anyone, but the Research Division has a hypothesis that they seem to be some combination of emotion, desire, and the situation being dire enough to warrant it."
"I see." He nodded his head. "You both have my thanks."
Crimson only turned her head back towards the front. Aerith, on the other hand, smiled and said, "No problem. Happy to help."
"Why is the fog so warm?" Tifa asked, changing the topic as the vapor brushed against her bare arms and calves. "I thought fog only comes around when it's cold or something?"
Aerith, sitting behind Tifa, leaned down far enough that Tifa reflexively braced her to keep her from falling over. Her slender fingers touch the water. It was… too warm. "The water feels like it's been heated, like a sauna."
Crimson pursed her lips at the thought. Why would the water be so heated? She was certain the combination of temperature-shifting ice and electricity wouldn't have spread this far into the marsh. Did this mean the lack of visibility was intentional?
"Something tells me we'll need to speed up," she mumbled. Her head turned back towards her rear-mounted companion. "Red XIII, keep your ears and nose on high-alert and tell us if anything is near or changes."
The flame-tipped beast made a low noise, affirming the command. He raised his head and tried to sniff through the muggy and obscuring fog. "I hear something ahead," he said, mere seconds before the fog seemed to thicken as it billowed past them. "Like… flames hitting a large section of water, evaporating and boiling it instantly. This isn't fog, its steam!"
"We're curving around!" Crimson immediately ordered, motioning for her larger chocobo to do so. Unlike before, it listened and moved with haste right away. "Full-speed, weapons out!"
The others gave a small kick to their mounts and spurred them into following quickly, with Cloud's rushing ahead of Crimson's to take the lead, since it carried the lightest load in comparison to the double-mounted ones. About a minute afterwards a gale tore through the marsh, battering them with water, steam, and enough force to knock them all down with their mounts into the waist deep water. The chocobos panicked and fled, squawking in alarm and fear along the way.
The group got to their feet, weighed down by their soaked clothes. They wiped away the heated, dirty water that stung their eyes and reached for their weapons that slipped free. Then they looked up as a shadow was cast from a figure rising from the water abruptly.
Clashing viridian scales gleamed with a flaring hood as the serpent stood at least twenty-feet tall. More of its length was hidden by the water, the points of the tail stirring it up some distance away from where it poked its body out from beneath the murky surface. Its blue tongue flickered, tasting the air now devoid of the obscuring steam.
"This must be one of the adults," Tifa noted, focusing on her Ice Materia and feeling the power woven inside of it that she could call forth. No hesitation, no waiting, she called forth the strongest of Ice spells she could muster. Rime and frost gathered in between her palms and flew out like a cannon shell towards the giant serpent.
The Midgar Zolom moved its long, upper body to avoid the shot, slipping through the water at a quickened pace while a shrill, angry hiss came from its mouth. It leapt out of the water enough to skim the surface and attacked with lashing fangs towards the party. They moved, but the splash when it landed managed to carry the force through the water and swept them off their feet, splitting them up as skirted off in the distance for a second run.
"Shit!" The curse slipped out of Cloud's mouth on its own accord as he rose from the water a second time. "This battlefield is a disadvantage!"
Red XIII snarled, activating Matra Magic. Missile constructs formed and fired, moving erratically as they sailed forward through the air. Explosions threw up spouts of water as the large serpent managed to avoid the bulk, while a few caught it on the fringes of the blast radius. It still didn't slow down.
Without the use of her Thunder Materia, Crimson's contributions were limited to her Sense Materia and its input, aiding her in tracking it. She didn't dare use her Rekka without a clear shot and she couldn't take the level of damage any of the others could in close-combat, except for maybe Aerith. The first thing she realized was that they needed to lock down the angles of approach.
"Lockhart!" Crimson pointed at four points surrounding them. "Create ice barricades, use the lowest powered spell so the formation doesn't bleed over and freeze us as well."
She did so, narrowing the approach the giant serpent could take to intercept them without damaging itself. This created choke points, allowing them to target it more efficiently.
Red XIII opened fire with a Fire spell that hit near its body, barely hidden beneath the water. The scalding heat turned it to steam, and should have cooked the meat inside of it scaled skin. It seemed to pay it no mind as it rushed in to meet Cloud, who had the Mythril Saber at the ready.
Cloud met with the weight of its head as it tried to bite him, his sword knocking it askew as he put his enhanced strength into it. Crimson ordered him to move, which he did so by kicking off its body beneath the water and retreating in a single bound. Fire and ice hammered at the Midgar Zolom as it turned around, throwing up a wave of water at the defenders and smacking one with its tail while it targeted Cloud again.
[-oOo-]
Bestial rage burned inside of Red XIII as he fired another Fire spell, his focus narrowing well into the heat of battle. He had been stricken by glancing wave from the giant serpent's body, and lashed at by its tail. The wounds had been healed by the shamaness that heard the planet's voice as his grandfather did, but the rage he felt remained.
He used it. He took that rage and the power welling up inside of him to perform the technique passed down his family line, used during the hunt against more ferocious and larger game. He tensed his legs as he was surrounded by the pale blue glow of energy and then shot forward like a shooting star.
The serpent let out a pained cry as the attack took a chunk of flesh, blood mixing into the water. It reared its head towards him for once and tried to bite into him. The water slowed him down enough that the fangs found his hind legs and sank into them, leaving a pained cry of his own to emerge as the creature used the grip to fling him out of the way while the swordsman cleaved a gash into its side.
He struggled to rise onto his legs only to buckle from the wound, his own blood mixing into the water around him. Healing light engulfed him as the shamaness healed his wounds again, staunching the flow of blood, soothing the pain, and re-knitting the muscle. He rose up once more to see that it caught the troubled swordsman in its mouth, holding him horizontally, and submerged its entire head into the water.
It was trying to drown him, bypassing the need to penetrate his flesh entirely. The female companions were trying to stop it, rushing in with the throwing weapon being used like a blade to stab into its head while the fighter used her fists to try and beat it into release him. They wouldn't succeed before he had drowned like that, and the creature ignored them as the swordsman continued to flail and fight for breath.
"MOVE!" barked Red XIII as he fired another salvo of Matra Magic at it. The swordsman was strong in body. He would survive as long as the shamaness was quick.
They saw the missiles incoming and dodged, while the stationary opponent provided for an excellent target with all the missiles hitting home and doing real damage for once. The explosions tore through the scales and it jerked back in agony, releasing the swordsman as it hissed in pain.
It reared around towards him again, and he stood ready to meet it… only for the Midgar Zolom to buckle as a very large chocobo with the strange moogle from before to land on its head. That… gave everyone pause. He briefly turned his head to see that the shamaness had its materia out, hoping to buy time perhaps as the swordsman climbed to his feet again.
The serpent's daze was short as it lifted its head and bit down into the feather and meat of the obese chocobo. The Midgar Zolom then thrashed it around until the giant chocobo popped like a balloon into motes of light rather than blood and feathers, leaving Mog without a mount and floating in the air. The serpent then huffed with a strong breath and blew it away, before turning its attention back to the swordsman rather than him.
As much as he hated to admit it that was fortunate, since the swordsman could still hold it at bay. Exhaustion of the mind had begun to set in for Red XIII. He had used magic too much. The body was willing to fight more, but his mind couldn't last past maybe three more spells at best. After that, he would be limited to claws and fangs again, which were hampered in this terrain and against an opponent of this size.
Red XIII, in a moment of weakness, could only think to himself how bad the situation was. This did not seem to be a fight they could win, and they could not flee in this terrain. At least… at least not all of them.
The enlarged serpent seemed to be after the swordsman more than the others. The bloodlust and hatred directed towards him was so clear and pure that it may as well have been holy. The shamaness had to devote the majority of her attention just to keep it from overwhelming him as he took hits from its head and body, the fangs occasionally scraping against his durable skin and leaving blood in its wake.
He could likely get away. It wanted the swordsman the most, more than willing to sacrifice one or two of them for the sake of bettering its chances of killing him, blinded by its hatred. More steam to obscure his movements with a Fire spell, and Red XIII could slip away unnoticed.
The very thought made him furious with himself. Though they were companions for such a short time, he owed them for freeing him from that madman and avenging his lost eye. He would not abandon them to die. Not like how his father abandoned their home and his mother.
Anger surged in Red XIII anew and turned inwards, the familiar power of the Limit Break returning. He prepared to go through with another Sled Fang, energy coiling around him and wreathing him in its pale blue glow… and then he stopped to think.
It wouldn't help. Yes, he could likely attack it again and damage it. But what then? He would be effectively useless with both it and his ability to use magic nearing its end. How would he defend them then?
Likewise, the rest of his party couldn't damage it faster than it could them, and they could barely defend fast enough to survive. The shamaness couldn't heal them fast enough either, approaching her own limits. Strength was not key, speed and defense was.
They needed to be faster to survive. He needed to be stronger to defend them. Faster, Stronger, Faster, Stronger, FASTER, STRONGER—!
Something clicked that instant, born from the desperate desire. That shapeless power that had been inert before imprinted on that need and became an expression.
Red XIII was wreathed in a golden light that seemed to erupt from the ground beneath him. He bellowed, spreading that power to the rest of them and encasing them in the golden radiance as well. The water became less of a hindrance to their movements, and they could think faster, react faster, mover faster.
It was a high that put the fight back into to them, compounded as the tactician used her own Limit Break. The combined boosts changed the flow of the battle, with the swordsman's blade finding it easier to open up its scales, the fighter's fists meeting with exposed flesh to strike deep the nerves and innards, and Red XIII's claws and fangs seemed to find just the right spots to leave it riddled with gouges torn out of it.
An angry sound bubbled up from the serpent soon enough. It rose up further, rising to easily three stories and looking down on them from the trees. Scarlet flames and heat pooled in its mouth, readying some sort of attack. His instincts told him it would be brutal, but his flesh was tempered by the same light that only bolstered the speed of the others.
He would survive. So he leapt towards it unafraid with a Fire spell at the ready and let their flames clash. The resulting blaze swallowed them both.
[-oOo-]
"RED!" Tifa screamed as she covered her eyes when the two attacks met. It was reflexive as the blinding light and heat from the blasts washed over them all. The concussive force alone hit like a solid wall, but to her surprise the flames didn't hurt as much.
She looked down around her neck to see the Talisman taken from the lab where they fought the monster had a faint glow. The effects had seemed to have shielded her from the damage to a greater extent than the others. That was more than she could say Red XIII, his body held in Cloud's arms and barely breathing while he himself was smoldering with minor burns.
A warble left the Midgar Zolom that still drew breath, wavering in the air with large patches of its scales melted and its face charred. Despite all of that, it still looked down at Cloud. It still wanted to kill him rather than run away.
There was a whirl of steel and an angry hiss as the giant shuriken was flung, hitting its yellow eye on the right side and embedding itself. The pain was enough to stagger it where it was. That was the opening she needed.
Tifa's muscles tensed as fiery light engulfed her, the power of the Limit Break coming to the forefront. Still swaddled in the radiance of the boosts from the ex-Turk and Red XIII, she clenched her fist as she kicked off the bottom of the marsh, upturning the silt and mud while she charged and jumped. One chambered leg found its belly and then she used it as a springboard to place a kick that shattered the underside of its jaw and kept going.
A little more, she thought as her momentum finally stalled above the serpent that fixed its remaining eye on her. Frost gathered in her hands as it lunged up with its permanently gaping mouth. The mid-tier Ice 2 spell was then fired down and jagged crystals of ice and white rime encompassed it, freezing it in place like a pillar that she set her foot on long enough to jump back down. She landed in the water with a splash, just as a soothing wind blew through the marshes and relieved her of the aches in her muscles.
"Tifa!" She turned her head to see Cloud rushing towards her, having left Red XIII in Aerith's care while the ex-Turk was reeling back her shuriken with the wire it was attached to. "Give me a lift!"
"Okay!" She obliged, cupping her hands as he set a foot on them and then tossing him into the air as hard as she could. The sun gleamed almost blindingly off his sword as he chambered it while rising above the frozen Midgar Zolom.
He brought it down with a yell, dragging the blade as he fell through its belly and underside until he hit the water below. The wound was too severe for its body to endure, leaving its innards to slowly spill out while the ice covering its body crackled and broke off. It fell down slowly for its size, a death throe resounding through the marshes as it finally hit the water.
Its massive-size created a large wave that towered over the party, forcing Tifa to brace herself as it hit. It still swept her footing away from her, leaving her to tumble within the surge that resulted. It made her dizzy as she was carried, bumping her head along the bottom of the marsh a few times as she spun until disturbance settled down after a few seconds.
She broke the surface with a gasp for air, swallowing some of the water in the process. She coughed and spat it out as her feet found purchase and she stood. Her fingers parted the wet strands of hair clinging to her face and covering her eyes to look around. "Is everyone okay?"
Various responses from the others told her they had all made it.
She looked towards where the Midgar Zolom laid. It reminded her of a fallen tree, with half of its body hidden beneath the water. She sighed with a surprisingly haggard breath at the sight.
It was finally over.