Start Date: March 24, 2024
Windwillow
Final Fantasy V: War of the Crystals
Chapter Fourteen: A Brand New World
Was there no hope left? The four crystals of both worlds were now ruined. Even if they did kill Exdeath it was still his victory. Then again, who was to say that he'd actually been killed? The warlock had regenerated from fatal damage before. As he opened his eyes in the expectation to find the afterlife, Bartz was stunned to find himself in a very familiar setting: Lush plains, surrounded by beautiful forests and ridged with magnificent mountains. Bartz shakily rose to his feet before finally falling to one knee again, though when he spied the familiar spires of Castle Tycoon his spirits were lifted to new heights.
Upon their triumphant return to Castle Tycoon, all four Warriors of Light were greeted with a hero's welcome, loud cries of joy and the sound of roaring applause. The Chancellor gleefully received them and welcomed Lenna and Faris by kneeling before them with his head bowed. With the two princesses of Tycoon finally reunited with their homeland, the Chancellor installed the both of them on the throne of the kingdom as co-regents. During the festivites, with Faris outraged at being dressed as a princess, Bartz and Krile quietly excused themselves and went out on the balcony that oversaw the whole of Tycoon, a Tycoon that seemed complete but at the same time foreign to their world.
"You feel it, right? That something's wrong?" mumbled Krile.
"Yeah... We shouldn't even exist right now. Exdeath mentioned something about living in an artificial world... So, is this another one?" Bartz wondered.
"Maybe... Then there's another possibility... That this isn't an artificial world... It might be the real world. There are so many unknowns..." sighed Krile, turning to Bartz and extending her hand. "Should we turn the unknown into knowns? Will you come with me?"
"You need to ask? We're the Warriors of Light, for crying out loud. I know that it'll feel strange without Lenna and Faris with us..." muttered Bartz. "But someone has to rule the country, and I know those two will do nicely."
"Good for them, but what about us? We're halving our strength at a time when we need each other even more than ever..." Krile said darkly. She leaned against the balcony and stared out into their new, unknown world and quietly knitted her brow. They'd trounced Exdeath, true, but had they brought about an even worse scenario? There were far too many unknowns to even make a guess as to what would come next. "It'll be a miracle if we can actually accomplish anything."
Scene One
After setting off from Castle Tycoon, Bartz and Krile encountered a familiar face: Boko. This time, however, he was accompanied by his wife Koko and their three tiny little chicks. Bartz praised Boko for being such a stud, but when he asked him to help them again the valiant chocobo said yes without any hesitation and instructed them to find safe shelter. He and Krile mounted Boko and traveled northwest, aiming for the lands beyond only to be dropped into a large chasm with a surprise earthquake.
Both Warriors of Light slowly stumbled to their feet and checked one another for injuries. Upon finding none the task turned to finding a way out of the hole, but before they could further discuss the topic a strange beast dug its way out of the soil. It was a huge monster, easily twice their size combined, with two large pincers on its head and wicked fangs in its maw. As the Antlion charged Bartz and Krile split up and took either side of the beast.
The Antlion let out a strange chattering noise before lunging at Krile with its pincers. She leapt back just in time and was forced to dodge again when it followed up. During her struggle, however, Bartz had found an ideal position above and drove his sword into the Antlion's skull, causing it to cry out and wither into molecules of black dust. This still left them with the problem of how to get out, however.
"Just swell! We're in a den of monsters fifty feet below ground! What the hell are we supposed to do?!" screamed Bartz. He sunk to his knees and let out a low growl, agitated at the situation he was in. They'd just lost Lenna and Faris, and now this?
"Um... Grab onto that rope, maybe?" Krile mumbled. She pointed out a long rope that had been extended from above and, after exchanging glances with Bartz she leapt at the rope only for it to slide just out of her reach. The rope went up and down a few more times until Krile finally gave up and shouted out an obscenity that her grandfather would have slapped her for saying. "Get us up there, dang it!" she screeched.
"If you agree not to ditch me again, I'll be more than happy to oblige."
It was a familiar voice, one that they hadn't expected to hear again, and it was tinged with fury. With a sigh Bartz and Krile tugged on the rope and were slowly lifted up to the surface, where they were greeted with a worried Boko and a furious Faris, now dressed in her normal attire. When they finally reached solid ground and Krile fell to her back panting for breath, Bartz rose and was greeted by a harsh slap in the face from Faris.
"I thought you were in a dress last time I saw you!" groaned Bartz.
"It was too tight, asshole," scowled Faris. She smilingly put her hand on her hip and her expression changed from anger to irritation. "I'm not princess material. We have a job to do, right?" she snarled. "We do it and we do it together, got it?"
"Ha ha... Being royalty hasn't changed you much..." Bartz chuckled. When he heard a sharp noise he swiveled behind him and saw Krile clutching her ankle. "Are you okay?!" he gasped.
"Yeah... Just a splinter," Krile whimpered. "Nothing I can't handle."
Scene Two
Fortunately the landscape seemed devoid of any monsters and soon the trio found a very familiar cave entrance jutting from the surface. They quickly hurried inside Ghido's Cave and found the turtle upside down, flailing and fighting to get up. Bartz quickly grabbed onto him and lifted him up, then set him down gently on his feet. Ghido groaned and glared at Bartz, but relented and smiled.
"You're still an ass. But, hey, good to see you," said Ghido.
"Any idea what happened? Tycoon shouldn't be here anymore..." moaned Bartz.
"Oh, I know what happened: The worst case scenario! The Void has been released!" shrieked Ghido.
"Uh... And that means what, now?" Bartz asked dumbly. With a scowl Ghido took a bite out of Bartz's ankle, causing the warrior to flinch and fall back to grip his new wound. "Stupid turtle! I just asked a question, dammit!"
"Ages ago, during time immemorial, the world existed as it is now. However, the threat of the Void forced the people to split the crystals into two sets in order to seal it away," explained Ghido. "In short, your world and Galuf's have been merged into a single cohesive unit. Because of that, Enuo's scourge has returned to threaten all of existence!"
"Enuo... Didn't you mention him before? When you were saying that Exdeath originated in the Forest of Moore?" Faris asked. "I'm guessing that the two topics are related somehow."
"Indeed. The evil warlock Enuo forsake his immortality a millennium ago in order to create the Void, an absence of existence. The people fought back with twelve legendary weapons and defeated Enuo, but he couldn't be killed... So, they sealed Enuo inside his own precious Void and split the world's crystals into both Light and Dark, separating the two worlds with the Void centered in between," explained Ghido. "This balance sealed the Void into the Cleft of Dimensions, where it could no longer threaten humanity."
"With the crystals gone, it's sort of academic... The world will still decay until it dies," Faris said sadly.
"Indeed. Soon the wind will cease to blow, fire shall no longer light, water will become polluted and the earth itself will begin to rot. Here we reach the problem, however... With the Void, Exdeath can just wipe us all out of existence in an instant!" bemoaned Ghido. "We won't even go to the afterlife, we'll just cease to exist!"
Krile suddenly flinched and grabbed her ankle, and after tossing away the splinter that she'd taken in the chasm it shot forward and began to grow into a strange cocoon. From the cocoon an eerily familiar figure formed and, when it broke open, it revealed Exdeath in all his wicked glory. He was totally unharmed, not scarred at all by the attacks that he'd taken during their battle, and most importantly of all he was pissed. He brutally took his arm and slapped Krile away and into Bartz's arms.
"Sealing myself into that splinter allowed me to survive the reunification of the worlds!" boasted Exdeath.
As she drew her cutlass, Faris angrily charged a triple-elemental spell in her left hand, fire frost and lightning mixed together into a single nuclear reaction. "Then let's fix that!" she hissed. Before Faris could charge Exdeath flicked his fingers at her, sending her flying into the water below the cave. She quickly burst out of the chasm, however, and furiously resumed her attack. "Stop doing that!" she roared.
"Thank you for releasing the Void," Exdeath said gleefully. He flicked his fingers and a projection of Castle Tycoon formed in the air, the same kind of image that he'd displayed to Galuf in his own world. "Allow me to give you a demonstration."
"D-Don't do it!" Bartz screamed, loud enough that his voice went hoarse.
Exdeath flicked his fingers one final time, causing four points of light to form around the borders of Castle Tycoon. The lights slowly faded into dim embers and the entirety of the castle was swallowed up in a mass of empty darkness, deeper than the black void that Exdeath had thrown the Warriors of Light into. With the darkness crackling with white lightning Bartz completely lost his composure and sprung to attack Exdeath, but was easily repelled by another barrier and was forced to dig his sword into the earth to keep himself from toppling like Faris had.
A quaking Faris weakly dropped to her knees and whispered her sister's name. The anger inside her began to build to critical and she finally lifted her cutlass in a similar attempt to maim Exdeath, with the same result that Bartz had accomplished: she was knocked away again, but this time righted herself the same way that Bartz had. She struggled to rise but fell to her knees again, overwhelmed by the force of Exdeath's blow. Bartz, Krile, and Ghido were similarly thrown to the ground prone.
"The colony of ants has begun to shrink," Exdeath gloated as he stretched out his armored arm and flexed it. He was fully prepared to end the war once and for all. "Let's stomp out the rest, shall we?"
Before Exdeath could launch his final attack Ghido shot forward and struck the warlock square in the chest, blasting him into a crater in the wall. He quickly freed himself and lunged at the turtle, but to Bartz's shock Ghido put up a better fight than he had. The two clashed inconclusively, sparks of light and embers of flame bursting from the impacts of their battle, until Exdeath finally broke away and clenched his fist. By doing so he blew Ghido's Cave to bits and scattered all four of them far into the distance, leaving him to fall to one knee in exhaustion from the battle. He would never admit how close he'd come to losing to a turtle.
Scene Three
Ghido and the three remaining Warriors of Light awakened in a small patch of destroyed forest. A quick assessment of where they'd landed showed a remarkable development: Somehow, they'd reached the Library of the Ancients! The party hurried inside and used the library's healing water to mend their wounds, then gathered around a central table with Ghido and the rest of the researchers as the turtle laid a torn book on the desk.
"Here's our situation: With the worlds merged, the Void has been unsealed. Exdeath will soon use it to erase all of existence. On top of that, by releasing the Void, Exdeath has unleashed a horde of legendary demons that Enuo used as his army a thousand years ago. Soon, when Exdeath's power over the Void matures... well... we're all dead," explained Ghido grimly.
"And do you have any good news, or is this just a party to celebrate our obliteration?" Bartz groaned. Ghido gestured to a nearby scholar, who laid the ruined second half of the book on the table, causing it to reunite into a single volume. Bartz watched in fascination, though it quickly turned to agitation. "And what is that book going to help?!" he screeched.
"This Sealed Tome details our only hope. Sealed inside the Castle of Kuza are twelve legendary weapons, the same that defeated Enuo a thousand years ago. Four tablets that have been scattered around the world will unseal them, and then we use them to defeat Exdeath. And it isn't only that," Ghido said with a bit more enthusiasm. "The seals on the ultimate magics of white and black, the world-rending Meteor, and two Eidolons of incredible power have also been sent out into the world. Find them and we find a shred of hope."
"Uh... Okay, that brightens things up a tad..." muttered Bartz.
"The Desert of Shifting Sands, now located west of the Library of the Ancients, is the closest point and holds the first tablet. It is sealed inside a Pyramid guarded by undead hordes. Your first task is to go there, retrieve the tablet, and begin unsealing the twelve legendary weapons," explained Ghido.
"I take it there's a catch?" Faris groaned.
"Yep. You'll be facing the most horrifically powerful monsters to have ever existed in all of the three worlds," said Ghido.
"You know what?! I totally could've gotten by without you saying that!" Bartz snarled.
Ghido motioned to a second scholar, who laid a large sack on the table. "This is a magic sack that will hold an unlimited amount of weapons, armor, and items," he said. "You'll be putting the sealed weapons in here unless you decide to use them yourselves. Now... I suggest you get going before Exdeath bug flicks us all out of existence."
Scene Four
The task was set: Enter the Pyramid in the Desert of Shifting Sands, recover the first tablet, and unseal three of the twelve legendary weapons to help defeat Exdeath. Once the Warriors of Light had passed through the forests around the Library of the Ancients, however, they came upon one particularly amazing sight: Inside the ruins of the Forest of Moore, the Guardian Tree still stood as proud and tall as it ever had, despite the havoc that it had seen over its millennia of existence.
"Oh, Grandpa..." murmured Krile. "You..."
"Papa... and Lenna..." whispered Faris. "Don't worry. We'll put this monster down for you."
"So many lives have been lost... But killing Lenna is going to be the stupidest thing you've ever done!" roared Bartz.
"And why is that?" Faris asked slyly.
"Shut up," Bartz snapped.
Passing the Desert of Shifting Sands was a simple task, given that the sands weren't shifting any longer. After a few hours the Warriors of Light caught sight of a massive pyramid complex, a solid gold protuberance that jutted out of the desert like a sore thumb. They quickly entered and the Sealed Tome emerged from their sack, ripped off a page, and began to shine with a bright light. As the page clapped to the door, they could hear a faint voice.
Bearers of the Crystals... Beware the darkness, embrace the light.
To the party's shock the two statues on either side of the door began to creak before finally breaking free from their stone bindings. They were huge, winged abominations, black and slate gray in color with a horrific face that seemed like they could (and would) rip the flesh from your face. Startled, Bartz drew his sword and beheaded one, but it simply grabbed its head and plopped it back on, stretched its neck, and turned to him with even more menace. Faris quickly followed suit in drawing her blade and slashed at the other Gargoyle, with an inconclusive clash resulting in a second decapitation and a repeat of the earlier event - it simply put its head back on its shoulders and turned back for more.
"Are these stupid things immortal...?!" choked Bartz.
"I have a theory..." Krile said warily. "Cut 'em both down at once!"
When the Gargoyles lunged for a second attack Bartz and Faris took Krile's advice and severed their heads at exactly the same time. This time around the monsters burst into green flames and slowly dissolved into white pixels, leaving the Warriors of Light the opportunity to proceed. This they did until they reached a room with several switches. Bartz flicked one at random and a large white serpent burst from the wall, aiming its fangs at him. He quickly cut off its head, leaving the body to rot, while he himself caught his breath.
"Each switch must either be a trap or a way in... the one way in," theorized Krile.
"And there are still three switches left... Meaning," Faris said slyly, "that two out of the three have a monster - the same one Bartz just cut up. Just be ready and that'll be that."
Bartz and Faris exchanged a quick smile, then Krile rapped on each of the three buttons in quick succession. The two remaining Aspir were easily beheaded and the door opened to the next room. In the next chamber they found three large coffins, as well as the statue of a beautiful nude woman. Bartz lecherously reached for its breast but Krile pulled him back just before it came to life and struck at him. A hideous abomination, a mixture of demonic snake and alluring temptress, the Lamia Queen was a well-known devil that was famous for enticing and slaughtering any men who came across her path. Before it could follow up both Faris and Krile cut it down, and Faris smacked Bartz in the head for his perverse behavior.
Suddenly the trio heard three clicks and the three coffins opened up to reveal their masters, three Mummies. Wrapped in bandages and smelling of ancient spices, the mummies were former princes that had been rendered undead and immortal by their former subjects. As they slowly lumbered out of their final resting places Faris flicked her finger three times and set them all on fire, and they steadily burned to death (un-death?) where they fell. Krile quickly gave Faris a high-five, then carefully examined the wall. There seemed to be no door leading further inside.
"What comes next?" Bartz asked haggardly.
"Uh... Go inside the coffins?" muttered Krile. "Hopefully they aren't iron maidens..." Against all logic the three entered the coffins and each found a switch that, when all of them were pressed, opened up a door hidden inside the wall. The next area that they arrived at had several flowing sand pits and a switch on the far wall. Bartz quickly realized it was a trap and drew his sword.
"Come out, ugly!" he shouted. When it dropped down, however, his resolve weakened. It was a huge, monstrous beast that was easily ten feet tall and wielded a long mace that was almost as long as it was. The creature vaguely resembled a Minotaur of some sort, actually. "Okay... Maybe you could have stayed hidden?" Bartz mumbled. "You look bloody horrifying."
"Silence!" boomed the Sekhmet. "I'm much better looking than my big brother!"
"Holy hell, it talks?!" Faris gasped.
"Yes, I talk, you jackass!" growled the monster. "If you wanna get to the tablet, you gotta go through me!" Sekhmet lifted its mighty mace and then slammed it down, causing a massive sand pit to open up that separated the three Warriors of Light into three totally remote locations. "I control the platforms in the room!" it cackled. Out of the corner of its eye the Sekhmet saw Faris and Krile lunging at it and attempted to swing at them with a horizontal blow, but instead they cleaved it in half. As it died, the beast let out a loud roar and a final death cry: "My big brother will have your heads!"
Bartz quietly took in the situation: both Faris and Krile had run on air to get to Sekhmet. While at first this shocked him it didn't take him long to realize that both of them had control over gravity. He quickly lifted his left hand and shot out a concussive burst of air at the switch, which activated it and immediately caused the sand pits to cease flowing. Unfortunately, the area around the switch totally caved in.
"I knew it was a trap!" gloated Bartz.
"Congratulations on your first ever intelligent thought..." muttered Faris.
"Bite me..." Bartz hissed.
The next chamber was the final one. Inside, atop a large step pyramid, was a flat pedestal with a stone tablet situated inside it. When they removed it the entire platform zoomed up to the ceiling and broke through, sending the party to the top of the pyramid. Fortunately, it also formed a staircase that led down to the base of the structure. The whole way up Bartz screamed like a girl, a fact that Faris clearly noticed judging by the glee on her face when he turned back to her.
"Shut up," Bartz growled.
Faris suddenly saw something and pointed to the far shore near the Library of the Ancients, where the Enterprise had washed up. Though this was good news a violent earthquake seemed to signal an even bigger problem. Far in the distance the same dragon-shaped land mass that had sent the trio to Galuf's world suddenly burst from the sea as a massive dragon. As they began to panic the dragon soared off into the distance, but they heard a faint voice inside their minds as it soared away.
I will await you on North Mountain. When you're prepared to die, come seek me.
Scene Five
With the first tablet in hand, stored safely inside the magic sack they'd received from Ghido, the Warriors of Light trekked back through the Desert of Shifting Sands until they reached the Guardian Tree and Krile heard the sound of a Wind Drake. They turned their eyes to the ground, where they found Lenna laying unconscious on the ground. They all gathered around her and, upon seeing signs of life, Bartz quickly kneeled down to revive her. It was then that a strange force burst from her body and knocked them all prone. The demon that emerged from Lenna's body was as large as the Sekhmet was, although almost totally nude. What clothing it did wear consisted of strange, fiendish vines that it could surely use to wrap up and crush the warriors.
While the trio lay prone the Melusine's eyes glowed and the warriors were lifted into the air via telekinesis, then slammed down on the forest floor. They were soon hoisted back up and hurled into trees, and once that was finished they were again thrown on the ground repeatedly until eventually they ceased to resist. Exdeath suddenly manifested next to the Melusine and began to chuckle.
Exdeath wordlessly manifested another screen in the air, this time revealing the image of the Library of the Ancients. Although the warriors quickly realized what was about to happen they were unable to keep Exdeath from tightening his fist and tossing the entire library into a bottomless black abyss. Exdeath slowly faded from sight as the Melusine snickered and sneered at Bartz, a twisted mockery of Lenna's own face. He could see no kindness behind those blood red eyes, a stark contrast to Lenna's joyful smile.
"Fight it, Lenna!" begged Bartz. "Fight it!"
Before the Melusine could launch an attack the canopy above broke open and the Wind Drake, Hiryu, descended from up above and slammed itself into Melusine, jarring it and dislodging Lenna's body from its core. With that hope in hand the three Warriors of Light charged the demon. Although Melusine moved to stop them, Faris thrust forward her left arm and froze it with a Stop spell, leaving it immobile as Bartz silently laid his blade against its throat. Despite the danger it was in the Melusine remained defiant, unwilling to back down, and it maintained the same hatred in its eyes that had been reflected when it possessed Lenna.
"I refuse to admit fearing you!" hissed the demon. "Kill me and be done with it!"
Bartz grit his teeth and tightened his fingers on his sword. Playing with Lenna was the stupidest thing that anyone could ever do in front of him. "The second you corrupted Lenna, you signed your death warrant!" Bartz snarled, shortly before he lashed out and decapitated the demon and followed up by carving its body to quarters. As its corpse disappeared into pixels of light Bartz watched as Lenna slowly began to stir, and he quickly cast aside his sword and took her in his arms, cradling her head close to his heart. "Oh, God... I thought I'd lost you..." he choked.
"B-Bartz..." Lenna whispered.
"Yes, Lenna?" murmured Bartz.
Finally their emotions both overcame them and the two broke out into a passionate embrace, their lips meeting for the first time in blissful union. They stayed connected for several seconds, though they finally detached and Bartz guided Lenna to her feet. Lenna sheepishly reached out to her sister and the two shared another embrace, with Krile joining in for good measure, and as they hugged Lenna gave Bartz a rather naughty wink that flushed his cheeks red.
After passing by the ruined gap in space-time that was once the Library of the Ancients, the Warriors of Light reclaimed the Enterprise and it lifted up high into the sky. As they ascended, however, another of Exdeath's view screens emerged in the sky, depicting several locations: Walse, Istory, the Moogle Village, and to Bartz's horror his home village of Lix. He watched as the warlock swallowed all of them and cast them into the abyss, and as he trembled Bartz grabbed hold of the wheel and turned it towards Lix, charging at the void with all the speed the Enterprise could muster.
"Bartz, don't!" Lenna screeched, which seemed to calm Bartz down. She quietly shook her head and took him in her arms, and as he began to cry she stroked his hair and tightened her grip. "We'll get them all back..." she murmured. "I promise..."
Author's Notes
This was one of those chapters that I just finished in a day. I'm satisfied with it, don't get me wrong... It's just bloody tiring. I think the quality suffered from it to boot. From this point on the game ceases to be linear as the search begins for the rest of the tablets, while also recovering the twelve legendary weapons from the castle of Kuza. I'm breaking up that segment into two chapters, each handling two parts of the story - the Sealed Temple and the Fork Tower, and then the other two locations where the tablets are found. After that comes Bahamut, and then the Inter-dimensional Rift as the finale.