THE ZODIAC WAR
^ _ ` a b c d e f g h i

Chapter 44: Reunited and Whole

In the massive body of the Zone Eater, it took some great effort navigating the twisting paths of the stomach to find the rest of the Braves. Delita, after a time, had only one thing to say:

"I'm exhausted...."

So the ten of them located a less moist section of the stomach and settled down for a brief rest.

The topics of discussion were: who was Teta? How did she become a brave? And how were they supposed to find their way out of the Zone Eater?

Teta, apparently knowing exactly what was on their minds answered the question openly:

"Well, I'm Delita's little sister, whom was apparently dead for many years since we were young. I.....um...think I still am, at least until we beat this Altima. The only explanation I can give as to why I'm alive now is that we're in...."

"The Zero World.....we know all about that." Zidane said, rather tired of the place.

"How did you end up in such a......place?" Alma asked, cringing at the disgusting decor.

"As far as I know I've lived here for quite some time now, because of the fact I'm already dead, I really don't need food, so I just sat in here waiting for some way out of this thing. It's not very pleasant being undead, and yet I still have my soul."

"We were worried that undead people would want to feast on our flesh and drain our lives." Garnet said, shuddering at the thought.

"Most do....I think....but due to the fact I was a Zodiac Brave when I died, and on top of that I found my stone in this place, I think some kind of Aura is keeping me from doing that."

"Well, sis, we'll do all we can to see if we can bring you back to life again." Delita promised.

"Are you sure that's wise, brother? I mean, changing the course of history? If you do that the Zodiac Braves may never assemble to fight Altima, the Lion War may never happen, thus you aren't put on Ivalice's throne......and...."

"I don't become a black knight? Is that so bad, sister? To save needless bloodshed, violence, to remove a dark chapter out of my life?"

"No...it's not that....if...if you don't become a Black Knight, you won't become a Paladin!"

"I would trade a thousand holy swords for your life, Teta, never forget that!"

"Back to what we were saying....," Beowulf interrupted, "Exactly how long have you been in this monster?"

".......I'm not sure.....something like 100 years......yeah, something like that....time doesn't seem to matter in a place like this, no one goes anywhere anyways.."

The gawking faces of the party made her blush, that is, if an undead could blush.

Their reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Cloud, Sephiroth, and Aeris...although Cloud appeared to be a little worse for the wear, they seemed to be stable for the rest of the trip out of this pit.

"....well...," Delita said, scratching his head, "if you've been here that long.....do you think you could help us find a way out of here.....?"

"....hmmm.....oh! Absolutely.....I'm sorry, Delita, but being undead causes me to have slight memory lapses from time to time...in fact, I don't think I would have ever thought to leave this place until you came here....the idea never really occurred to me..."

Stymied at such an odd answer, Delita let it go and asked her to lead on. She quickly marched them through the passageways, which was rather brief, considering what they had just been through.

Delita was baffled that his wise little sister was actually acting like something of an airhead, although he would never say as much. Then what she had said to him a while ago made sense: "The stones show us who we are inside, then who we are destined to become." That was part of the reason she was so different then from now...the stone was speaking through her.

He would have to hold on to this bit of knowledge for later use.

They came to a large open space and noticed a massive breeze blowing at them.

"A vacuum...we're almost at the mouth! Come on!" Ramza yelled over the noise.

Charging, slashing, cutting, and casting, the party busted their way out of the Zone Eater's mouth, and landed on the ground, getting ready to battle the thing again.

"This time, I get first cuts!" Seifer yelled as he charged at the beast's underbelly.

A few cuts at the mid-section left the monster wide open for a Holy Explosion on Agrias's part. This ended up causing the creature to writhe about in mass confusion.

"We strike now! While it's confused!" Delita ordered.

Reis jumped high and performed a massive, repeated Dragon Dive strike. Pounding away at the creature's fat neck.

Sephiroth ran full-speed at the thing with Masamune digging in the ground, then, turning the blade upwards, he cut a large gash in it and cast a large cloud of smoke in it's eye-holes.

Blinded and confused, it could only writhe about, and when it did strike, it usually only ended up biting itself.

"Even though it's disabled, I still think it's pretty strong, Ramza! I'm going to use Bio-cut on it to weaken it even more!" Beowulf yelled.

Casting the Bio spell onto his sword and slashing into the already open wound left by Sephiroth, Beowulf could see the thing was in real pain.

Surprising everyone, Teta, cast a massive Firaga spell on the creature igniting it into flames.

"Time to end this! OMNISLASH!" Cloud screamed.

The rest of the party marveled at the Ex-soldier's deftness with his Ultima Sword, even Seifer was impressed.

The final cut sent half charred, half diced pieces of Zone Eater in all directions.

Breathing heavily, Cloud put his sword back in his sheath,

"......That.......is how one uses a sword..."

"Now that that issue is settled...," Delita sighed, "I need to explain something to all of you...."

All eyes and ears cued in on what Delita was saying, the howling wind seemed to evenly accentuate his words as well.

"When we were in that Zone Eater....," he began, "I was having second thoughts as to if we could ever find the 13th Zodiac Brave, let alone the 12th...."

"I was unsure for the most part if we could make it out of here with Capricorn, I should have never doubted myself.....that's when myself, my...former self showed up. My subconscious summoned him via the stone. He wanted to be 'me' again.....and he said that he was torturing all of you to do it.....I'm sorry I put you through that...."

"No Delita, it really isn't your fault," Aeris had a pleasant smile on her face, "I realized I had doubts in my heart too, and I needed to defeat them to move on....I guess I lost...."

"We didn't lose, we only got stronger...." Ramza said, "Don't you see? We created our own tests via the stones! We came out sane, right? And if Delita didn't test himself, he wouldn't have ever gotten his Zodiac stone! If we're going to defeat Altima, we need to be strong in mind as well as body."

"I for one defeated my self," Zidane happily replied.

"I couldn't have done it without Beowulf," Reis said.

"And I would never have won if Reis wasn't in my heart," Beowulf grasped her hands.

"It doesn't matter if we defeated these 'foes' either alone or with allies, what matters is that we defeated them." Ramza seemed quite pleased at the turn of events, "I feel a lot braver for it."

"So it was a test well met then," said a mysterious voice from behind.

They weren't shocked by the voice, so they slowly turned about to face their old friend.

"Bugenhagen....it's good to see you, sir," Delita bowed in respect.

The old man laughed, "Ho, Hoo, you really outdid yourselves this time, and you got all the stones, now it is just a matter of finding the right gate to Altima."

"How do we do this, sir?" Delita asked, somewhat puzzled.

"The question is...where do you do it?" he replied.

On to Chapter 45 >>>>

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