Aerith, Dreaming of Forever Part 3
Danger Within the Forest
By Aerith's Man
Aerith awoke.
As she rose up, stretched, and cleared her eyes, she looked
upwards, into the eyes of a snarling monster.
"Aaaaargh!" she screamed, leapt with all her might away from
her sleeping bag, landed on the grassy forest floor with a harsh impact on
her left knee, and scrambled furiously to find her staff, the Princess
Guard. She grabbed it with both hands, jumped to her feet, quickly
examined her materia-fire materia, linked to elemental for the icy environment,
restore materia, Titan and Ifrit summons-and then gazed at the monster as
she stepped into a combat stance. I may not know how to hunt, to go
out and find and kill animals, but I do know how to defend myself.
She recognized the monster as an Adamanchyt, a large,
maroon colored creature with thick armored scales, long teeth and a powerful
tail, similar to the prehistoric reptiles that Bugenhagen had taught them
about in Cosmo Canyon. This one looked even more humongous and more
ferocious than the ones she had fought with Cloud and Cid on the Northern
Continent's beach for practice. And even with three people, all linked
to powerful materia and armor, the Adamanchyt was difficult to defeat.
And I'm stuck here, with a staff only a quarter filled
with materia, no armor, and little fighting ability, all by myself, cold
and hungry, fighting a huge, voracious monster who looks about as hungry
as I am. Not very good odds....
Especially if he's as hungry as I am.
The monster growled, advanced toward her. Aerith raised
her staff to defend from an attack, but none came. She saw that the
monster was about to use it's magic breath, a powerful spell she had studied
while she was fighting them with Cloud. Fear gripped her heart, made
her knees shake below her, all courage fled her, and she seemed to be paralyzed
before this awesome beast. She didn't know what to do, couldn't do
anything, and she almost gave up. But she remembered Cloud, and what
he would think if he saw her like this. Strength came back to her once
more, and she searched her mind for everything she knew about the monster.
It'll take a little while for it to get ready, but I don't
have my armor, and I'm going to get killed! I have to put him off for
a short time while I find my Golden Bangle and my Ice Ring.
The fire spells weren't enough to hold the monster off
by themselves, so the only thing left was the summons....
"I summon Titan!" she cried in a powerful voice.
Three red balls of powerful light encircled
Aerith. As soon as they had came, they disappeared along with the young
woman, casting Aerith into a state of invicibility where she could watch
without being harmed.
<I am Titan, Protector of the Earth. I come to
do your bidding.>
Titan, powerful summon monster, erupted from the ground
underneath the Adamanchyt, hurling it onto its back. The summon creature
lifted its arms, and simultaneously, long, sharp, jagged rocks rose from
the forest floor under the beast and pummeled it senseless. When the
Titan summon disappeared, and Aerith reappeared, however, the monster was
still alive.
It wasn't about to move, though, being trapped under a
large boulder, Aerith was relieved to find. She searched for her equipment
bag, found it, and pulled out her Ice Ring and Golden Bangle, both of which
she equipped immediately.
There. With the Ice Ring on, she would be impervious
to the Adamanchyt's magical breath, and the armor would help her defend herself,
but what was more valuable to her was the materia in her armor. Barrier
materia, Poison materia, and Mystify. That ought to help me quite a
bit.
The monster had now managed to smash the boulder atop
of it into pieces with its tail, and was scrambling to get on its hind
feet. Aerith quickly cast Wall on herself for protection, then cast
Bio on the monster as it jumped to its feet. The poison spread quickly,
and the monster soon turned a pale shade of green, over its maroon colored
scales.
Okay, what else can I do....Titan summon's used
up now, and the Ifrit summon is still recharging from the Temple of the
Ancients... I don't have a lot of magic power left, and I didn't have
enough money to buy many ethers....
She decided to give herself an advantage and run for
it. She hurriedly cast Confuse on the monster, grabbed up her supplies,
and broke out in a steady run. She could hear trees shaking behind
her as the maroon-scaled magic-breather furiously tried to find a target,
and destroyed everything it saw. She ran harder.
The effects of Confuse eventually wore off, and the monster,
even more infuriated, detected Aerith's scent and broke toward her in a swift
run. Even though Adamanchyts were long, heavy, and looked quite ungraceful,
they were actually very speedy creatures.
Aerith stopped. She was at the edge of the Sleeping
Forest, overlooking a chasm that lead down to the City of the Cetra.
But she couldn't draw the monster to the City and desecrate it with a monster's
footprints, and there was no way she could climb down the canyon in time
anyway. She was trapped.
The monster reached her. Drawing her staff
again, Aerith prepared to attack. It was probably weakened greatly
by the poison spell, but Aerith knew that a Bio spell alone wouldn't kill
one this big. The creature slashed at her with its claw, but Aerith's
Barrier deflected the blow, and, taking the monster in surprise, swung her
fire-embued staff at its head. The weapon, upon hitting the animal's
skull, turned its left eye into a charred pulp, causing the monster to cry
out in pain as blood seeped from its eyesocket. Such carnage sickened
Aerith, but she hadn't time to feel sympathy
her life was at stake. She beat the monster furiously in the head,
and it kept trying to slash her, wearing down her Barrier slowly. The
Adamanchyt used its ice magic, but Aerith's Ice Ring absorbed it. The
young woman knew that if she hadn't been so wise in choosing her equipment,
she would have been dead a long while ago.
It tried to step on her. Aerith counterattacked
by sticking her staff in the bottom of the raised foot, giving the monster
a hotfoot like it had never known before. Bellowing in pain, it tried
to swipe its tail at the Cetra. Since it was standing on one foot,
this threw it off balance, and, screaming, it fell off the side of the cliff,
down into the canyon behind Aerith. She knew the creature was
dead. Nothing could survive that fall.
.