The War Over Time
By Indon
Ch.46 Desperation, and A Short Break
Somewhere in Ayla's mind, she understood she was flying, that an intricate web of wind held her aloft and sped her body across the distance she could never had crossed otherwise. Consciously, however, all her mind registered was suprise that she flew so long, and so fast, that her foot struck the evil Rawboot before it even reacted to her scream. She flew so fast, that the flames of Kino's Flare spell didn't even touch her, the air flowing about her moving so fast that not even fire could penetrate. Her foot crashed into the Rawboot's body, and knocked it away a long distance. Ayla herself flew up a way, then, when the realization that she was flying set in, she dropped like a rock, luckily landing on her feet unharmed.
Elise was watching this whole battle to this point with silent anticipation, but now her triumph was clearly etched on her face. Finally, she thought, my foresight worked as it should for once! she had known that Ayla would get her powers in this battle, or at least she had hoped...
Now it is time to end this fight, Elise thought. every second it lasted from now on was a risk not worth taking. Elise folded the universe, and appeared in front of Prometheus as it rolled to it's feet.
"Oh, you want some too, girl?" It mocked. It's fist swung towards Elise's head, and...
Elise calmly raised her hand to the incoming assault, and stopped the robots arm as if halting a child- a small one.
"What in the hell..." Was all Prometius managed to say before Elise preformed a roundhouse kick and slammed into the metallic monsters body, knocking it away and putting a large dent into it. For an instant, she stood there, fist clenched. She was drawing air into her fist, creating pressure. Promethius stood up and charged Elise. It leaped at her, an incredibly powerful metal body about to crush her.
She aimed her hand at the robot, and released the hidden energy. The pressure in her hand was charged with a magical field, so instead of air coming out, a lightning bolt flew forth and blasted the dark mechanism.
Promethius flew away, then rolled to it's feet. "What... WAS that?" the robot muttered in suprise. "Oh, no... crying heavens..." he whispered in fear...
"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!" the robot cried as Elise teleported before Promethius and prepared for the finishing blow. Her hand glowed light blue, and an ice-cold aura encompassed it. "Blizzard Fist," she declared softly, so that nobody but Promethius could her her.
Her body whipped around, and she executed a perfect karate chop right in the center of the evil robot's head. The metal, instead of denting, was frozen instantly as her hand touched it, and shattered. Her hand went clear throught the robot, neatly rendering it into two peices.
The metallic husk collapsed, now as lifeless as the metal from whence it was created. Elise stood back as if to look upon her handiwork.
For a few minutes, the healers scurried about, mending broken bones, healing wounds, and dragging people from the brink of, or a little beyond, death. When is was all over, the group surrounded the destroyed robot, and Elise.
Ayla and Kino had watched the battle, and leaped into the circle of people for the single purpose of reenacting the fight, with Kino as Promethius and Ayla as Elise.
When the play had reached the point where Ayla and Kino together described a lightning bolt coming out of Elise's clenched fist, and Kino crying out, with a rather well-imitated voice, 'I know what you are!', Janus and Lucca, who were clutching each other, psychologically wounded after the battle, had heard and now were whispering quickly to each other. Crono looked very closely at Elise, but when her gaze met his, he looked away quickly. Robert, who was standing near Elise, took a step back before realizing what he was doing. Jason appeared impresssed that a water mage could conjure up such a powerful lightning attack. Balthasar only nodded to himself.
Kino and Ayla had finished the mock battle, and some among the heroes, Marle, Schala, Cyrus, and Glenn, cheered the woman. Jason walked up to her and complemented her on such an impressive array of spells.
"Magnificent, Elise! You dispatched that thing single-handedly!" Jason clapped Elise on the back and smiled. Suddenly, a thought came to him, and his smile faded. "Why didn't you kill that thing right off?"
Now, Elise smiled. "Simple. I forsaw that Ayla would gain magical powers in this battle. I was right. I couldn't risk ending the battle until Ayla had gained magic."
The focus of the crowd moved to Ayla. Ayla brightened as she remembered what happened, and turned to Kino. "Ayla fly!"
"Fly?" Kino was confused. "Ayla jumps good, but not fly!"
Ayla grinned like a child. She grabbed Kino's wrist. "Ayla FLY!"
"Ayla?" when Ayla flew into the air, Kino was dragged with her. She stopped 20 feet in the air an hovered, holding Kino by the wrist. "Ayla, you use magic!" Kino cried.
"Magic!" Ayla cried as she streaked around, pulling an equally ecstatic Kino with her.
A general feeling of accomplishment and success began to spread through the group. Everyone lightened up, even Robert. After a minute of enjoying their triumph, Elise grounded Ayla and Kino, rounded up the group, and they set out towards the Gate, which was beginning to get close.
Ch.47 The Last Laugh
The group came upon the Aeon Gate after less than an hour of walking. They had encountered no more resistance than a few scattered bands of creatures, mostly enemies that fled from an earlier battle. For the most part, these monsters had grown neither more brave or more foolhardy since they had ran the first time. Hence, the venture to the gate was a rather smooth one.
The area surrounding the Gate was almost bereft of people. The were only two beings there.
One was the Magus, Janus' dark clone from another reality, and the other was The Warlock himself. The Magus was wearing a solid black cloak on his shoulders, with blood red leather armor on his chest and legs. He was carrying a scythe, with a black wooden hilt and bloodstained blade.
The Warlock hovered a few feet in the air, wearing clothing of a dark blue color, with a chestplate of white gold over it. In his left hand he held a shimmering sword, and in his right, a simple wooden wand.
As the group got near, they prepared for battle. The swordsmen, Crono, Jason, Cyrus, and Glenn, drew their weapons, Janus drew his scythe and began to mumble incantations. Kino readied his bow and strung an arrow. Everyone prepared for the final battle.
Elise, who was at the head of the group, walked forward. Everyone else followed. She walked towards the two waiting until she was barely five feet away. "Why do you do this?" She asked. "Why do you hurt so many people?"
"Hmmph. You know why, Elise. We are greater than those humans. We deserve to command them. They are but ants, scurrying about, building nests for us to destroy at our whim. Even you have these beings to command, however pathetic they may be compared to mine."
Robert caught only one part of all that. "What does he mean by 'we', Elise?"
The Warlock grinned. "You mean to say she didn't tell you?
"Neither of us are human. We are far too powerful, too intellegent, to count among your inferior species."
"You are Lavoids." Balthasar stated, as he walked up right next to Elise.
"Lavoids? Is that what you people call us? Yes, that is what we are.
"We are not like the being you call Lavos, however. That being, by corrupting the fabric of magic in this world, prevented it from maturing."
The Warlock laughed. "Yes, the being Lavos, which so very nearly destroyed you all, was but a child...
"Due to Lavos' manipulations, the DNA of the creatures here was nearly impossible to assimilate. We require a high degree of complex DNA encoding to finish maturing. Lavos found it impossible to obtain this.
"However, Elise and I both completed our 'childhoods'. We have powers encompassing and surpassing that of a human, or of any sentient species, for that matter!
"What is more, Elise is much weaker than I."
Elise smiled. "I am afraid you are mistaken. I have hid much of my power, concealing it from you to make you think we are not equal. I am afraid we are, almost exactly in fact."
The Warlock chuckled. "Is that so, Elise? I must have neglected to tell you, you no longer have access to your powers of time manipulation. Nothing does, save those beings that are loyal to me."
The Warlock walked a step forward. "Being the new lord of this world, and thus, inevitably, the universe, I think that you may now call me by my true name..."
"The name I gave myself, when I was still young, is Asmodeus."
Balthasar stepped forward, in front of Elise. "So, you opened the Aeon Gate?"
"Well, nice to see someone noticed I had said Elise couldn't access her time powers. In fact, as of about 15 minutes ago, nobody can use any time power. Whether it be forming a red gate, or seeing ten seconds into the future, without my permission, you can do NOTHING." Asmodeus chuckled for a second, then he broke into a powerful laugh. "I can revive people, and you cannot!" He pointed to Elise.
Elise took a step back. Her face seemed to show fear for the first time. This is why my foresight wouldn't last this far. I can't see into the future past the point when my powers dissapear... She thought. I've lost.
And Asmodeus knew it. "Hmmm... Who to kill first?" His eyes swept the group. "Ah, Elise!" A blast of fire swept towards Elise, who had her eyes cast down at the ground, as if awaiting death.
Abruptly Balthasar stepped in the way. He gestured once, and the fire was met with an equal amount of water, dousing it. "Elise, RUN!"
Elise raised her head. "Why? He has the gate. He can come after us and kill us all."
"Perhaps you should listen to Elise, Old man. She recognizes her defeat." Asmodeus laughed.
"Jason, take everyone out of here! Go, I'll distract... Asmodeus. Go!"
Asmodeus' face twisted into a combination between a sneer and a smile. "What are you going to do, drown me in your blood?"
Balthasar leaped up without warning. With alarming speed, he landed behind Asmodeus. Balthasar turned and raised an arm, and both he and Asmodeus were swept up by an incredibly powerful wind. Before the dark mage could recover from his suprise, the two were already into the distance. A bright scene lit up where the two were, as if fireworks were being detonated there. The battle had begun.
Elise was still in her resigned pose, so Jason took the initiative. "All right everyone, let's move. Balthasar won't be able to distract that guy long."
"You aren't leaving." The Magus, Janus' dark Image, stepped out of the shadow of the Aeon Gate.
"You can't stop us," Schala said.
Janus frowned. "Yes, he can."
"Ah, so my weaker copy can fathom the new depths of my power? That alone is impressive." The Magus smiled. "I guess it is up to me to kill you all."
"You fool." Janus said. "Don't you realize that the being you serve despises all of humanity? He keeps you alive only to aid him in killing!"
"Yes, I am aware of this. In fact, I am his only servant truly aware of his motives.
"I agree with him. Man is unworthy to rule the universe. If you have seen half the worlds I have, you would realize what we all are: insects. Humanity infests almost all inhabitable worlds, thousands upon thousands, with each world as packed with humans as ants in a nest.
"To help destroy humanity, such a miserable species, is it's own reward." The Magus smiled.
"You make me sick." Janus said.
"Ha ha, not that you can do anything about it. You are all powerless to change the inevitable, even Elise, your 'leader' knows you are all doomed." The Magus gestured to Elise, who had since fallen to her knees and started to sob.
"You know, that gives me an idea! You are all weak and powerless to resist us, for you know that conquering the entire universe is just an inevitability, now. You can't fight the ultimate power of the Gate." The Magus began a series of arcane gestures. "You can never resist us." He continued to gesture. "It would be kind of me to kill you..."
"In fact, the worst possible thing I can think of would be simply to send you away, far away, where you must live the rest of your lives with the shame of your failure. You let down the entire world...
The Magus grinned happily. "And every day, you will pray that my Master's army has not yet reached you...
"Yes, that is a fitting fate for the failed champions of this world!" The dark wizard made a final gesture, and the sky started to darken. A dark time gate engulfed each in the group. Robert, Glenn, and Cyrus were unprepared, and were all sucked into their respective vortexes. Elise did not even look up as the void of the gate decided her fate. Crono tried to jump out of his, but the gate adjusted to his movement and he landed in it as he hit the ground. Marle was being slowly dragged, screaming, into the gate meant for her. Lucca attempted to use magic to close her gate, to no avail. Janus rooted his scythe into the ground and held onto it, so his gate moved to suck him up. Ayla tried to fly out of her gate, but apparently, the Magus had control over how fast the gates moved. She was sucked up with ease, as was Jason, who also tried to fly. Kino attacked his gate with a fire spell before being drained through it. Schala thrust her hands into her gate and screamed, and in a bright flash of light it was dispelled.
Schala staggered with the pain of using her powers, but the Magus didn't notice. He only noticed that one of the heroes had escaped. He grinned, and rapidly conjured up 4 gates, all headed towards Schala.
In a blast of light, all the gates were dispelled. However, Schala was obviously out of energy, as she fell to her knees and clutched her head in agony.
The Magus simply made a final gate, and this gate engulfed Schala.
Dark Epilogue
After a while the flashes of battle faded, and Asmodeus, the Warlock, Lord of the World, flew to where his Magus was and spoke to him.
"You killed them all already? I am impressed, Magus. I had expected you to need help."
"Kill? No, sir, I did something MUCH more painful than merely kill them..."
Asmodeus smiled. "Hmm... what did you do then? And what was the expression on Elise's face?"
"Well, they were all nearly helpless to stop us, and none of them could use their time powers to stop us, period, so..."
"Spit it out!"
"He he he... I banished them. Sent each to a random world in the great, wide universe. They can't use their time powers, so they can't get back! They can only wait for our army to approach..."
Asmodeus incinerated his Magus right there. He stood for a moment and shouted at the pile of ash that remained. "You FOOL! The Aeon Gate only shuts off time powers within THIS world! They can regroup now!
"Hmm... Oh, well. What is done is done. At the very least, they are seperated, and it will take time for them to recover. I can have an army by then, and probably send a few assassins as well. Plus, I have the power to revive whomever I want within this timestream, give them Shadow powers, and make an army the likes of which this universe has never seen...
"But first, I had best revive that dolt, Magus."
............................................................
End.