(Updating every two weeks through July)
Chapter 117: Working Through
"I know you and yours don't lack for talent, Ramza Beoulve," Faris said, as they crowded around her at the elevated helm above the captain's cabin, near the rear of the ship. "And I'll take ever onze of help I can get. But I need you listen to what I tell you, yes? None of you are used to fighting at sea. It's a different world out here."
Agrias scoffed, and opened her mouth to speak.
"Agrias, please," Mustadio whispered. "She's right."
Agrias glared between Mustadio and Faris, but said nothing. Ramza gave both her and Mustadio a grateful nod, then looked back to Faris. "How can you be sure it's an enemy?"
"I can't," Faris replied. "But I trust my gut."
"She's got reason to," Val added. She had Faris' telescope against her eye. "Ivalice has never had much of a navy. We trust our mages and our shorelines to keep us safe. We know it's not the Nanten, because I know what the Nanten was bringing with them."
"So who do we think it is?" Ramza asked.
Val's mouth was pressed into a thin line. Faris gave her a searching look, barked an order to one of her crewman, and scanned the horizon in turn. "The Invincible?" Faris suggested.
Val shook her head. "Surely not..."
"Is that a no?" Val said nothing. Faris grimaced. "That's what I thought."
"The Invincible?" Mustadio asked.
"Belonged to a member of the Ydoran Royal Family," Val replied, still scanning the horizon. "Just a pleasure craft, for long, leisurely cruises...but since it was for a member of the royal family, the construction was excellent. Bremondt found it beached somewhere here in the Archipelago, and had it refitted into a warship."
Mustadio's head snapped to her. "Its hull was intact?" Val nodded, and Mustadio cursed under his breath.
"Why's that bad?" Ramza asked.
"If it was a royal ship, it would have been built to resist armed attack, from the sea and the air alike," Mustadio replied. "I doubt there's a weapon in operation today that could put a dent in her.
"So maybe we should consider sailing away?" Radia put in.
Faris shook her head. "If we can see them, they can see us. I'd rather control what they see then have them asking questions."
They continued cruising towards the island and its attendant ship. Details were becoming clear even without magnification: the island was bigger than it had seemed from far away, sloped towards the center and densely forested. And the size of the island helped put the suggestion of a ship to one side to scale. From this distance, it was still hard to make out details...but the ship in question looked long and tall enough that it might almost have been mistaken for a nearby island.
"They're signaling us," Val said, passing the telescope back to Faris.
"Of course they are," grunted Faris, setting the telescope to her eye. "Let's see, let's see..." She muttered under her breath for a few seconds, then huffed in consternation. "Yes, that just about figures. Benedict!"
"Aye, Captain?" called the older man, uncharacteristically serious.
"Signal back acknowledgment and agreement, but add that we've mechanical trouble. That should buy us some time."
"Aye, Captain!" Benedict hurried to the prow of the ship, opened a bench and began sorting through flags.
"They're waving us off?" Val asked.
"Under Templar and Inquisition authority," Faris replied. Her lips were pressed into a thin line again. She kept her eye on the ship as Benedict waved, first a red and white flag, and then traded the red for a black one. "They've acknowledged. Now we've got to get ready." She lowered her eyepiece. "All crew, arm yourselves and prepare for mock combat."
The crew froze. Val gave her aunt a confused look. "Mock combat?" she repeated.
Faris nodded. "In a few minutes, we're going to attempt to turn the ship. When we do, Benedict is going to run up a new set of flags. And when he does this-" She glanced at Ramza from the corner of his eye. "-the heretic who has captured our ship will see we intend to defy his orders."
"And a battle for the ship will begin," Radia said. "Think it'll work?"
"The bounty on your head is quite high," Faris said. "And I imagine reports of your appearance were widely circulated among the Church. If this is Cardinal Bremondt's ship, and he sees the infamous heretic aboard..."
"He'll want to claim me as a prize," Ramza muttered. They were close enough now to start making out more details of the distant ship. It lacked sails entirely: it must be powered by engines, just like this one. But a ship that big...and of Ydoran make, besides...who knew what it was capable of? "Captain, are you sure you want to do this?"
"I do not want to do this, Beoulve," Faris grunted. "But I believe it is our best chance. They will approach. You will surrender. And when they try to take you captive, we strike."
"Unless, of course," Agrias growled, with her hand drifting to Wiegraf's sword. "It's us you intend to ambush, while we play at fighting you."
"They're not like that, Agrias," Ramza said softly.
"Perhaps this was their plan all along, Ramza," Agrias breathed. "They could not catch us with force, so they try deception instead." She glared between Faris and the distant ship. "It would not be the first time a Cardinal did such a thing."
"You thought I couldn't be trusted, either," Meliadoul said softly.
Agrias' head snapped towards Melia. She was standing ramrod straight, her eyes fixed on the ship ahead of them.
"They saved us once, Agrias," Mustadio added. "I believe in them."
Agrias' head turned slowly back towards Mustadio. Finally, she nodded. "Alright. I do not trust these strangers...but I will trust the two of you."
"Glad to have your consent," Faris grunted. "All hands, prepare for mock combat!"
Still, the crew did not move. Finally, Klaros pocked his head out from belowdecks and called, "So just...keep to battle stations, but don't kill our guests?"
"That's right."
"So we don't really need to...do anything."
Faris lowered her telescope a fraction of an inch to glare at Klaros. Klaros raised his hands in surrender and retreated belowdecks again. "When Benedict starts waving his flags," Faris said. "One of you shout an alarm, and the rest of you strike. Understood?"
"You're going to have to pin us right away," Alicia replied, gesturing with her scepter between herself and Lavian "We'll make some big flashy spells, but it would be pretty obvious we're not giving you are all if you don't overwhelm us fast."
"I suppose that goes for me as well," Agrias said, grimacing. "Where should I aim my first explosion to cause the least damage?"
"I would prefer you make no explosion," Faris replied. "But I suppose that is not an option." She pointed behind her, to the raised wall that marked the ship's stern. "I'll lunge for you, we'll spin, you slash and I'll dodge. Make sure the blast goes up: don't want you hitting the rudder."
"Understood." Agrias rested her hand lightly on her sword.
A tense silence hung over the ship, interrupted only by the creaking of the hull beneath their feet, and the rapid movement of the crew from one place or another. Faris kept her eye on the horizon. Finally, she raised a hand. "On my mark, Benedict."
Benedict reached for a flag. Ramza reached for his sword. And then everyone froze as the roar thundered out from the island.
They were much closer now than they had been before. The island and the nearby ship were no longer specks on the horizon, but shapes with hints of detail: he gleam of the ship's metal hull in the sunlight or the aquatic motion of the island's trees in a breeze. The roar, like the island, was now close enough to suggest details. It wasn't as deep as a behemoth's growl, but what it lacked in depth in made up for in resonance, as bright and fierce as a hunting bird's cry. It's echoes reverberated over the water, and rang in Ramza's ears. And in the thick of the island's trees, one patch of canopy shook strangely: if the movement of the leaves was almost aquatic, this movement was almost predatory, like a shark's fin cutting through waves.
"What the hell-" Faris started, and then gasped. "The ship's moving!"
Ramza squinted. The enormous ship sitting near the island had started to drift away from them, along the island's southern coast. But why, when their ship was still sailing straight towards them?
But he had his answer, when the dragon took flight.
The patch of forest that moved differently than the others rippled outwards, then burst like a geyser. An enormous violet shape surged out of the forest, climbing high into the sky in a rain of broken boughs and branches. Large as it was, it was still hard to make out more than the slightest details, but those details were impressive—the gleaming amethyst of its scales, the immensity of its wings, the serpentine stretch of its long neck. It looked exactly as Ramza had imagined when he was a child, hearing stories of the dragons that had once roamed Ivalice and beyond.
It rose high into the sky with a mighty flap of its wings. On the second flap, it twisted in the air strangely, like a fish on a line.
"A dragon?" Faris whispered. "But...but dragons don't..."
"It's not a dragon," Ramza said, thinking of the story Beowulf had told them, before he had headed for these islands himself.
"Then it is the scariest fucking bird I ever saw," Faris muttered, as Ramza plucked the telescope from her unresisting grasp.
Ramza ignored Faris, watching the dragon's struggles through the eyepiece He tried to squint again, remembered that did nothing, kept sweeping the telescope back and forth. Harder to make anything out now: if there was something tying her to the earth, it was also rustling the trees, and everything was lost in the movement. He saw strange grey flashes beneath the canopy: occasionally he saw something flicker across the leaves that might have been a rope, tethering her to the ground.
"I think she's tied to something..." Ramza muttered, focusing on the dull grey object.
A flash of strange movement, mottled colors against the grey: with a roar made thin with distance, the dragon was freed from the bond tying her to the ground, and with a might flap of her wings burst away from the large ship. Ramza's head jerked up and down as he tried to track both movements.
There was a high whine, like a mosquito buzzing past your ear: a moment later, and a beam of red light exploded out from the forest, leaving smoke in its wake as it smashed through trees.
"Ramza!" Mustadio called. "Let me see!"
Ramza tossed him the telescope underhand. Mustadio snapped it to his eye. "It can't be..." he muttered. "It can't be...!"
"What can't it be, boy!" growled Faris.
"It...it looked like a Worker laser," Mustadio muttered. "But they're impossible to maintain, the Worker's systems are all one piece, you'd have to bring the whole Worker back online, and that's just...it's not..."
He trailed off, as another laser ripped through the treeline. A golden-feathered chocobo exploded from the forest just to one side of where the laser had burned through. The figure on its back had a sword in either hand, and was trying to follow the dragon.
"Is that Wulfie?" Faris demanded, snatching the telescope from Mustadio.
She calls him Wulfie, too? Ramza thought distantly, as he squinted his eyes at the racing figure. They were still too far out to make out much detail, but the golden feathers on the bird certainly looked like Boco.
Behind the two of them, an enormous shape of metal exploded from the treeline.
It was roughly humanoid, and might well have been damaged: it moved quickly, but with a strange lurch to its stride. Its torso was a suggestion of careful curves that seemed like a mobile suit of armor. Its legs were much shorter than its long, powerful arms, the seams of which burned with the same red light it had unleashed in tearing beams to burn through the forest around it. As they watched, it raised both arms and slapped its great metal hands together: a beam arced up into the sky, then dissolved into a rain of scarlet rays, spearing down around Beowulf and Boco.
Beowulf twisted off the chocobo's back, spun with both blades. One ray dissolved along the broad blade's cutting edge: another deflected away from the tip of the thinner sword. Behind him, Boco zigzagged through the deadly display. Where each ray hit the ground, it left a fire burning.
He was holding his own. But Ramza knew Beowulf well enough to know he wouldn't have been running if he could bring that thing down himself.
"Captain," Ramza said. "Does this ship have any weapons?"
Faris grimaced. "Nothing I would trust to bring that thing down."
"Then it's up to us. Alicia, Lavian!" He strode towards the bow of the ship. Alicia and Lavian moved beside him. "All three of us channeling through your scepter," Ramza muttered. "Think we could hit it from here?"
Alicia frowned, glanced at Lavian. "Maybe if you and me do the lightning, and Lav directs it?"
"If it's made of metal, it shouldn't be too hard," Lavian agreed.
They reached the prow. Alicia snapped up her scepter. Ramza found the rune for lightning on the side of his gloves, and wrapped his hand midway up the stave. Just in front of them, Lavian put two fingers to the gem atop the scepter, muttering quietly to herself.
"On my mark," Lavian said. "Ready?"
Alicia and Ramza nodded. Ramza felt the air tense around them: pressure built in his chest, and electricity tingled in his scalp. They drew closer and closer to the island: Beowulf darted around the Worker's crushing blows, dodged between its red bursts. Each time, the brute struck a little closer. Each time, Beowulf dodged a little slower.
"Now!" Lavian cried, and lifted her rune-shod quarterstaff with her other hand. Ramza felt the power flow out of him: his legs shook with weakness, and he struggled to keep his feet. The power visible crackled along the scepter, arcs of white static leaping like whales out of the dull shimmer that surrounded it. All that power whirled into Lavian's fingertips, like water swirling down a drain.
She jabbed the quarterstaff, and a burst of white hot force exploded from its tip. Ramza smelled burning air in his nostrils, felt his skin shiver with the force of it. With a crack and a thoom, the lightning crashed into the Worker. Ramza dropped the scepter, caught Alicia as she sagged against him, felt his knees buckle and slid to the ground himself. All three blinked the afterimages from their eyes as they scanned the island-
With a rush of wind and a burst of heat, a line of crimson light cut across the deck of the ship, scattering embers behind it. Ramza, Alicia, and Lavian staggered to one side, as shouts of alarm went up from the crew around them. On the island, the Worker had turned towards them. Its steely exterior had been blackened by the heat of the lighting, but it was still standing, and red light still burned in its powerful arms. It was already aiming those arms towards them for a second strike.
But just before it could fire, Beowulf leapt up from behind it. He slashed down towards its shoulder with his broad blade, while driving his thin blade straight into its back. The arm he'd cut at fell lifeless to the ground: red light burned from the socket, convulsed in on itself. As Beowulf drew his blade from the Worker's torso and lunged away, the red light exploded up in a howling, burning geyser, scattering flames around the creature. Beowulf rolled to a stop, swords drawn. He was silhouetted against the burning light, a sword-wielding shadow framed in crimson radiance.
The light faded. All that remained of the Worker was a smoking pile of metal shards. The dragon and the large ship were specks against the southern horizon.
It took a few minutes to drop one of the ship's two jolly boats into the water. Ramza, Radia, and Mustadio insisted on going with Captain Faris and Val (though Ramza had to rely on Radia's help to get aboard, between the still-healing wounds in his legs and the exhaustion of the spell he'd cast with Alicia and Lavian). Beowulf was waiting for them on the beach, a heavy pack over one shoulder, and Boco pacing around behind him. His dark blonde hair was shaggier than it had been, framing a soot-stained face with a healing cut along his sharp jaw. There was a faded bruise along his prominent nose, too...but his blue eyes were bright with joy
"Nice shot!" Beowulf called, as they waded ashore. "I was in trouble there for a minute."
"When are you not?" Captain Faris remarked.
"I do tend to keep pretty busy," Beowulf admitted.
Mustadio gave Beowulf a quick nod as he hurried up from the beach swords the smoking ruin of the Worker. Beowulf chuckled, then looked back at Ramza with a smile. "You came."
"I told you I would," Ramza answered.
There was the slightest hint of tears in Beowulf's eyes. He looked away. "I know."
"That ship," Val said brusquely. "Was that the Invincible?"
"Good to see you too, Valerie," Beowulf grunted. "Appreciate you checking in-"
"If you can stand, you're fine," Val interrupted. "The ship?"
Beowulf nodded. "Bremondt's own warship."
"Why didn't it stick around?" Faris asked, with a wary look in the direction the ship had gone.
"He's not going to let his prize escape, is he?" Beowulf asked.
Ramza's head snapped back to his friend. He had only heard that kind of raw anguish in Beowulf's voice twice before, most recently the night they had parted ways in Fovoham. But the sharper memory by far was how he'd sounded when Wiegraf had killed Violet, three years ago.
"So the dragon," Ramza said. "It's her?"
Beowulf nodded, and looked in the direction both dragon and ship had gone. Tears tracked down his cheeks. "It's Reis."