FF RP Chapter 8
 

ooc-Well, Dante knows most of it, as well as how I decided to set it up. I made it to be mostly flexible, so that what you guys do actually does affect the outcome of the final battle. And no, the battle is far away, it's just that I want you all to be able to affect the storyline. Is it so bad for the RP to be interactive?

ooc-Also, you guys should know where most of you are (Ripel is going to be gone), and if you don't PM me. I'm starting this chapter with the group that ran into Deamon and his...demons.

They ran, but there was a limit to how far even the chocobo could run, even if they were flying. Eventually, despite being araid of the demons, they decided to rest.

For a while noone talked, the mood the demons put them in...it went beyond terror. They were living nightmares, beings that seemed to come from the deepest pits of our fears. Finally, the silence was broken when one of the bandits punched a nearby tree. "Damn...what are we going to do?"

A minute passed, and his answer came from a young boy who, like most of the other children, had been crying. "We're going to die...aren't we?"

OOC: You must have missed Zephir's post, but he made all the chocobos fly I thought, and I thought we were all flying away now...

Another bandit walked over to the young boy. His name was Derek, and he was second in command to Killith. He wasn't much for smarts, but he was good with a sword, and he knew how to keep moral up. He put a hand on the boys head silently, while his other hand clenched into a fist, and then he looked down at the child for a second and then lifted his hand and looked at the others. "Well. I don't know about you... but I'm not going to die, and I'm sure as hell not going to let those demons take over. Sure... we may not be able to fight them right now... but I'm sure that we can get an army in Preos... and the Rab resistance groups... I'm SURE we stand a chance. No... more than a chance. We're going to send those demons back to hell where they belong!"

OOC: Suddenly something Ecurt said occured to me, the final battle? Does that mean the RP is almost over, or that our current actions will have long range effects later down the line?

ooc-Look at the edited first post.

The boy looked up at the man, sniffling. He wasn't really sure that that could happen, not after all that he's seen...but, it wasn't wrong to hope, was it? "Do you really think we can do it? Is it possible...we already lost..."

The boy didn't bother to continue, the list would've have gone for a long time. However, he guessed that they got the message, and he didn't really want to think about it himself. Instead, he shook his head of the thought, and sniffled one last time before looking up at the man again. "Do you really think we can?"

OOC: Okay, got it now. And I like this open ended format, it's lead to lots of twists and surprises along the way... Soem good and some not...

Dezil had hopped off his cart and stroked the tired Zero on the head before he headed over with the others. "Kid, not only is it possible, we're going to beat them. We have a crack team of mercenaries and mages here, as well as the greatest engineer the N'Revat Empire has ever seen, so no worries, alright? When those demons come, we'll be sure to have a nice surprise waiting for them." Dezil said to try and cheer everyone up.

(OOC: Derek = prominant NPC, by the way. Anyone can control him if they want to... I just introduced him to help show that the bandits were willing to combine forces with the heros and refugees after what they'd seen. Of course, some bandits are always going to be looking out for number one.)

Derek grinned and nodded at Dezil. His smile was actually natural. He believed they could win, even though anyone with a greater IQ would realize how low the odds were. Luckily for Derek, ignorance truly was bliss.

"Damn straight!"

Deamon sighed at his demon army. He had forced them all to come out from hiding and face the weak moonlight. It slightly sizzled their skin, but they were quickly getting used to it. They would have to be used to it, at dawn they were going to roast.

Deamon was on the cliff, looking down at his demon army. Every demon was out of the netherworld, sizing up to about 10,000.

OOC: Army of only 10,000? Something is wrong here...

Marche walked among the refugees, administering the few potions and healing spells he had. Carolina was in charge of the first aid station, and Naras was assisting her, but somebody had to watch out for the seriously injured who couldn't make it to the medical station.

He passed a bandit, and recognized him as the same one he had fought with previously. He leaned against a tree, sullen, the edges of a massive claw-slash on his back peeking out from behind makeshift bandages.

Marche bent down and offered him one of the last few potions.

"Here, this might help."

The bandit accepted the potion and nodded. As Marche turned to leave, he spoke.

"Hey kid... no hard feelings about yesterday, right? We're on the same side now... I think."

Marche looked back and smiled.

"Yeah. I hope so too."

Then he moved back into the throng of people, looking for more of the wounded.

A Long Time Coming
 

OOC: FOr the first time in a long time... I deliberately double-post!

BIC:

We rode on the winds of the rising storm,
We ran to the sound of the thunder.
We danced among the lightning bolts,
and tore the world asunder.

******

Dante did not push open the doors, nor did he even use telekinesis to do so. He simply blasted them off their hinges, and devil take the poor fool hiding behind them. He followed no conscious course, the remnants of his mind only knowing that he had to go somewhere, and that at the end of his journey, he would find death, pain and suffering.

Before him, Ciaran's guards melted away, most retreating into side passageways, some literally as they raised their halberds against Dante. He strode through the ruins of more doors, eventually arriving at the threshold to a massive chamber. He threw a telekinetic punch which would have disintegrated any normal obstruction. It barely budged.

Growling, Dante gathered the Power inside him again, the freezing fire growing hotter and colder at once, until it suffused him, threatened to burst from every pore of his skin.

There was a sudden brilliant flash, and the palace shook. A wave of burning air swiftly rushed from the inner sanctuary's entrance, and a massive plume of magma followed, like a giant, orange flame. Inside, the conditions could have come from Hell itself - glowing, liquid stone everywhere, the cries of the blinded, wounded and dying, the reverberations of the sonic boom like the sounds of angry demons through the corridors as the shockwaves echoed through the castle. The ceiling was warped where the molten rock had dripped into stalactites, a slow rain of fiery death.

As for the doors themselves, they were rippled, distorted by the massive heat, though they remained largely intact. But the damage had been done. Reaching out with the Power, Dante pushed... and the ruined threshold gave way. The metre-thick metal slabs fell to the ground with a crash that shook the palace again.

Dante hovered in, silent as death. He fixed the man sitting upon the throne with his dead eyes, and the expression on his face changed from blandness to sudden, violent anger. The air around him buzzed again as the invisible Power strained against the walls of the world, drawn to Dante, begging release.

"You... Ciaran... DIE!"

As he was about to Fireflash the chamber, a sudden chill wind blew, and Dante turned the deadly pulse outward, changing it into a tsunami of fire and throwing it forth just as an opposite pulse of absolute-zero temperature crystallized the moisture in the air. The flame touched the frozen stone... and shattered it. As Bandon tried to disrupt the weave, his eyes grew wide as his spirit blades were themselves destroyed by the flame wave.

Damn you... turning my own trick against me!

Using his flight spell, he hurled himself into a nearby corridor just as the shattering flame roared through the space he had just occupied. Turning a quick circle, Bandon composed himself, then the walls around Dante exploded as the older channeller sent lances of Earth raving through them.

Die, little fool!

Dante didn't dodge, didn't even seem to move as he interdicted the lances with blades of spirit, then sent a storm of fireballs back through the dust at Bandon. The older wizard leapt aside again, and even as he sliced through the fireballs with his own spirit blades, aborting them harmlessly, he tossed wires of cutting fire in a low underhand at Dante, the red lines gouging smooth lines through the madly twisted stone of the corridor.

Lightning flashed down the corridor, and Bandon barely threw up a shield in time to protect himself, and he cursed as the lightning took the shield with it to oblivion. Then, he let the Power loose in a new configuration, and the warped stone flowed anew, reaching for Dante to wrap him in an earthen embrace.

Dante slashed the weave asunder with a spirit sword, then surged forward, detonating the walls around Bandon with blasts of earth energy. Bandon tried to disrupt the spells with his own spirit blades, but Dante threw more and more flows forward, like an octopus with bladed tentacles, until Bandon's channelling was lost in a sea of power. With no other recourse, Bandon was forced into a defensive mode, raising a physical barrier that the shrapnel bounced off, the blades of spirit countered by other blades.

But it was not enough. Dante gathered his power, and formed the many blades into a single perfect fist of spirit. Then he smashed, and he smashed, and he smashed again, each time letting the anger, the hatred, the pain fuel his blows, until finally the shield burst apart into a million glittering pieces, leaving Bandon exposed.

What? How did he become so good so fast? Unless...

He focused. Now he had to concentrate. A dozen lances of earth barrelled down on Dante, who fended off every single one of them, then launched a stream of man-sized icicles at supersonic speed at Bandon. They shattered off another invisible shield, then the walls and ceiling exploded as Bandon transfered a massive shockwave into the frame of the palace. Masonry fell, but not on Dante, who was already upon his quarry again, the chain in hand burning a brilliant undifferentiated white.

A Rending Chain! No! Where did he get one of those?

Dante grinned, and the chain leapt forth, seeking Bandon's head. He threw up a shield, but the spell-breaking tip unravelled it as it passed through unimpeded. Thinking fast, Bandon threw a blast of earth to the side, sending shards flying into the chain, hoping to deflect it. They shards disintegrated upon touch the glowing white chain.

With no other recourse, Bandon drew the power from all around, binding it into form, a perfect defense against all attacks. Even as the chain bounced harmlessly off it, the glow gone instantly, he knew he couldn't keep it up for long, but it would be enough time for him to think of a new plan.

Dante saw the perfect shield going up, tried to cut it, but the spirit blades flew apart as soon as they touched the fabric. He threw a storm of earth lances against it, and they were similarly unravelled.

Then, something sparked within him, a memory of the past, jarred free of the mental lock by the sheer hatred Radeus had bound into his mind towards Bandon, and he remembered.

Dante fell back into a defensive position, almost mimicking Bandon's perfect defense as he began pulling the energy from all sides and sculpting it into a form. But it was not a shield. It was something far worse than that.

Sensing the lull in the attacks, Bandon dismissed the shield, then from its corpse he generated a multitude of earth lances, each capable of tearing a Magitek in half, laced through with spirit energy to pierce shields, all desperately seeking Dante's body, as Dante's chain had his head previously. Dante made no attempt to dodge, no attempt to parry. He simply stood their, preparing his weave.

Finally admitted defeat, boy? Well, it's too late! Now die-

His words were cut off halfway as Dante suddenly threw the ball of power he had been creating forward. But it was no ordinary weave, not even a projectile at all.

The air turned to fire, the fire to light liquefied as a lance of energy sprang forth, burning so brightly it made the noonday sun look dark, so hotly that the previous Fireflashes Dante had used seemed col in comparison. It sheared through the myriad earth lances, and then, it burned Bandon away, flesh and bone vaporizing into countless floating white motes which disappeared into nothingness like an evanescent dream.

He didn't even have time to scream, mind, body and soul annihilated in a single flare of light. Panting, but hardly conscious of it, Dante surveyed the area. Most of the walls were torn through. If the ceilings had been normal before, albeit deformed, they were devastated now. The carnage was total.

Then he turned. Back to the throne room.

It was Ciaran's turn.