The party reeled when they heard they were speaking to a dead man.
"You see," he continued, "All souls, living or dead, have been sucked into this world, I'm not sure why, but all souls now exist in this world as if they were physical. I can say this, this world is not my world."
"This world," Ramza speculated, "was created when the Lucavi created their portal from the dead world, basically transferring all the souls into their world, while taking over the living world, making their world our world, where all things are ruinous and chaotic."
"In this world," Bugenhagen explained, "I cannot die, my soul and all others are in unrest. Those long dead see the light again, even great evils killed long ago are alive once again."
"That means," Ramza said ominously, "Altima is alive and well, in our world."
"Does it also mean," Cloud dreaded these words, "That Seph--that Jenova is alive as well??"
"Yes…Jenova and her spawn, Ultimecia, Necron, and….Chaos, and other super fiends exist in this world. I have awaited your return for over 10,000 years. Each of these fiends have their own territories and humans are merely treated like rats, or flies. We are tormented here, you must free humanity from this fate of the future."
Bugenhagen began to hack and cough on the foul putrid air he had apparently breathing in for some time.
"A-are...you okay?" Delita asked as he held the elderly man in place.
Bugenhagen continued in rhasps, "First you must find the lost Zodiac Brave here, how such a cruel fate could fall upon a Brave is beyond my reckoning, I only know the Brave's symbol." He took out the Zodiac stone, "It is Capricorn, generosity, perhaps the kindest of the braves."
He began to wheeze, but continued.
"But in order for you to defeat Altima in your world, you are going to have to find the missing Brave here, that means finding and defeating the main fiends here..."
Delita looked the place over once more, feeling the darkness and remembrances of death creep back into his heart. "I...fear, not the fiends...but...those who are trapped outside the grave here. Those I betrayed and...abandoned."
"You begin with Chaos, one of the most powerful fiends, he will attack the next time you enter a time gate."
"Oh, shit." Zidane whispered.
The embodiment of Chaos had, in Zidane's time, been a forbidden name to speak of, except that the original Light Warriors who bore the four element crystals had defeated it 2,000 years prior.
"We will fight valiantly," Delita promised, "with God on our side, we can win."
The party marched down the precipice in the dark, the only light coming from the lightning and the stones.
"You seem afraid, Zidane," Beowulf asked, "who is this Chaos?"
"An old legend said he almost sucked all of us into the Zero World," Zidane shuddered, "I guess he lost his power when Altima rose to power. We almost died because of him."
"In a place like this," Beowulf said, circumspectly, "one cannot seek even death for comfort."
"That's right..." Reis thought aloud, "how do people live, when they cannot die?"
"Tortured and restless, I should think." Delita responded, "They cannot go to heaven in peace, nor hell to face pain, it is a bland monotonous existence. You exist, yet you cannot feel, you live but death escapes you."
"Not something I'd wish even on an enemy." Said a familiar voice following them.
The party turned around once again to find a weak and despondent Nanaki huddled next to a rocky wall, the cat-beast looked leprous and half-eaten, yet in a way, not dead.
"The fiends did this to me...because I can't die, and I helped you...but it doesn't matter so long as you fulfill your mission in this era."
Alma was overcome with grief, "...no..."
"We will save this world, Nanaki, this I promise." Delita said half in sympathy half in rage.
The weakened voice of Nanaki barely registered in the ears of the party, "Focus...on...getting Capricorn..."
Thunder pealed across the expanse as they trudged downhill to the mainland. Fearful, Resolute, and Determined eyes were scattered across the group. But none suspected that they would be in for the challenges of their lives.
"If...all those who were dead ended up here...does that mean we'll see dead ancestors?" Zidane asked inquisitively to Alma.
"Not exactly, at least from what I can tell," she replied, "This is, to an extent, an anti-nexus world. That means whatever was our world and the physics in it are probably warped and altered in this one. Those dead are living, but in an altered state, probably in the form of monsters or undead."
"That means we should be on our guard everyone. If you see someone familiar that may have died in the past, don't trust them, they may suck the life out of you." Ramza warned the team.
"Especially dead warriors..." Sephiroth piped up, "They'll be especially hungry for blood since that's all they can ever hope to live for in this world, death and chaos."
As they reached the bottom of the mountain, they noticed, it wasn't really a mountain at all, but a massive pillar that seemed to be what was left of the Deep Marine Trench. At one time there was ocean kilometers deep and the platform where they had arrived the sea floor, now eroded earth.
Aeris nearly doubled over in pain as Cloud caught her, "...the...the planet...'s in pain...it's dying."
Speculating what this meant, Alma took a wild guess, "Close Aeris...I see what you mean...but in a place like this...a ball of chaos and destruction. More like, the planet's undead."
Cloud looked at Alma disparagingly, "This place is hurting Aeris, I don't think she'll be able to fight well with us."
Aeris winced and slowly picked herself back up, "No...I'll be fine, that was just a tremor...I'll just ignore the other cries from now on...there's no lifestream here. I can sense that now, just black choked out earth."
Cloud's deeply concerned look made her reply, "Really...I'm all right."
Seeing the events just occurring before his eyes Delita spoke resignedly, "I think what Nanaki said was right; we have to focus on getting the last Brave, then find a way out of here. Destroying the Fiends isn't our primary concern."
"But what about what Bugenhagen said? I thought we had to destroy all the fiends here?" Zidane said.
"...I've been thinking," Delita said, "If the fiends have already been defeated in the past, what's the use in defeating them now? They're already defeated, plus they really can't die in this dimension. I really don't want to risk losing any of you before we face Altima."
"...let me put it this way," Ramza spoke up, "We knew the risk when we entered this War, Delita, we are all prepared to die for our cause, don't think you're the only one. Whether we defeat them now or in the past or future, we prepared our hearts, our minds, and our souls for this moment. Okay so we won't face the fiends directly; our main objective is to get the last Brave. However: should we find a Fiend along the way, or if one attacks us, we will fight, and we will win, even if 50 fiends get in our way, we'll knock them all down, does that sound reasonable to you?"
"Fair enough, we look, and if a Fiend shows up, we fight." Delita said with an air of satisfaction.
As they were speaking a massive Zone Eater arrived out of the ground, and made a sickening gurgling roar.
