As soon as they appeared in the old time chamber that sent them off on their quest in the first place, they looked up, a long, long way up.
The first thing they noticed was that the chamber, was no chamber at all anymore, but now the top of a massive Cathedral-like tower, thunder and lightning filled the skies, and what descended from the black clouds was not who they wanted to see at all.
"….Necron…." Zidane said half whine half yell, "I KILLED YOU ALREADY!!!!!"
"So did I! I thought!" Garnet chimed in.
"Apparently not…." Seifer wryly remarked.
"Did I not say I would return? Did I not say I am eternal? As the angel Altima is eternal as am I, for I am the essence of death and destruction!!!"
"…Yeah well you can forget about the talking about 'cleansing this world of corrupt substance' crap, cause we're taking you down!" Zidane stretched out his Tower and prepared to fight.
"You think a little vermin and his friends can defeat Death itself, I mean, what can you do, in fact, why bother? I helped you defeat Chaos didn't I? Without me, Chaos would still exist."
"What?" Teta was shocked beyond belief, "I summoned that monster as a spell?"
"That's right child, you summoned me!! Now you seek to destroy me!! You can't destroy that which is so a part of you, I am in your very nature."
Delita's Serpentaurius stone flashed wildly, "You're not death, I KNOW death, death is impartial and does not heed the commands of the eternal, it isn't even a being or substance, death is a LAW!! You may have the power of death and destruction at your command, but you are not death." An unforeseen rage began to build within Delita. "We don't seek to destroy death, we seek to destroy the bringers of death, such evil as you!!!!"
With a cry of rage, Necron attacked, creating masses of earth, and sending them to crumble upon the Braves.
The strongest of the warriors used their swords to cut any large falling debris in half while the mages used combustion spells to destroy any dangerous rocks.
Cloud and Sephiroth were the first to recover from the barrage, quickly readying his Ultima, and Sephiroth his Masamune, the two performed the most unthinkable attack ever attempted:
Simultaneously they shouted, "DOUBLE OMNISLASH!!!"
The attacks on Necron were in perfect tandem of each other, each slash a step of choreographed combat, anything else would not have survived, but they knew simultaneously that their attack was not successful.
The next wave of earth came crashing down on the party, Alma, Garnet, Aeris and Reis were busy healing the party between strikes, and threw in an occasional soft for any petrified members.
Just then, Beowulf had a crazy but new idea.
"Reis!! Let me hold onto you as you jump!!"
"What!? Are you crazy! You'll fall to your death!! Only Dragoons can--,"
"Hold that thought, Reis," he touched a finger to her lips, "If we don't do this, I don't know what else will work."
So he grasped her around her waist, and she bent her knees as low as they would go to compensate for the weight. And up they went.
High in the air, Beowulf spoke to Reis, as if the flight would last forever. "So this is what it's like to truly fly on the Wind, we should do this more often…" Then after a short kiss and drawing his sword, Excalibur II, he and Reis aimed their weapons at the floating Necron below.
"This is gonna hurt him more than it hurts us!!" Beowulf said.
They plunged, and the strike hit home.
A roar of pain signaled they had done damage, the force of both the Holy Sword and the Spear, punctured a massive hole in the hide of the fiend.
Bouncing off Necron and landing back where they had stood, Beowulf winked at Reis as she readied her spear, and felt that she was actually blushing.
"There's an opening!!" Delita said, "We strike there,"
"Ooh! I like openings!! Let's bust it open WIDER!!" Zidane yelled in glee.
Three spells rocked the hole that Reis and Beowulf made, a Flare, Holy, and Ultima seemed to work well at weakening Necron further, but now they needed other strategies.
Necron's rage seethed at that point as he was sending barrages of meteors their way, not a good thing to deal with, but the mages were keeping the warriors in tact.
"Time to get nasty," Seifer yelled, "Griever!! Annihilate him!!"
The Lion being appeared and for an moment it looked like the fight was completely unmatched, but suddenly, Necron pronounced an idyllic incantation, and Griever was gone.
"Wha--? That's not fair!!" Seifer yelled. "Now you've gone and done it!!"
Sensing danger, Necron created a wall of earth as Seifer charged at it.
"Rrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!" In rage and a little less sanity, Seifer flew at the wall.
Like a wild animal breaks through its cage Seifer used his gunblade's Blasting Zone like a massive battering ram. He blasted through the wall like it was nothing.
"YOU CAN'T HIDE NECRON, YOU'RE MINE!!!" Seifer, even though he was powerful, was somewhat going berserk at that point, attacking everything in range, so the party had to hold him back till he calmed down.
Focusing her Holy Sword energies onto Sephiroth's Masamune, Agrias prepared Sephiroth for a Holy Explosion on Necron up close and personal.
Charging forward with the Masamune channeling with Holy Power, Sephiroth struck the hole. It seemed to work, except for the fact that the force of the explosion knocked Sephiroth away from the rest of the party.
Zidane was starting to get worried, "We've lost two braves, a GF, and some spell casting, Delita, how do we stop this thing?"
"We do what Braves do...we FIGHT TILL WE DROP!!"
"Ulp, I guess so…" Zidane said. "But not till we win!"
The battle was starting to come to a head, but both sides were starting to really get weary. Necron, it was noted, was really hurting, but some of the party members were separated during the battle.
Agrias had to go looking for where Sephiroth landed and protect him, while Garnet had summoned Bahamut once again. This, however, seemed fruitless as just as he was summoned, Necron 'Banished' him. Teta was running low on magic power, and the only warriors who could've seriously done critical damage was seriously wounded or mentally unstable. Reis couldn't attack due to the fact that she was busy reviving and healing, as was Alma. Aeris was busy throwing up barriers to protect against anymore 'Earth Attacks', and Ramza was wounded and could barely stand. Zidane was attacking, but his strikes weren't that affective.
Pulling his Zodiac stone out of his pouch, Delita thought about the promise he had made to God and to his people. Then he looked at his own glowing stone.
Serpentaurius--Deceiver. The Thirteenth Brave. The Wanderer.
Disappointed at how his life turned out Delita cried out in a form of strong anguish. The pale, filthy green of the stone, seemed to now change color.
"I'm a monster, worse than all those who are falling in my party…" His soul spoke to him, deep in pain, deep in sorrow.
"But I will make it right!" the voice from his heart cried out so loud, his voice spoke it out.
Standing up, his armor began to glow a golden color, that of a bright Platinum. Brighter than anything anyone had ever seen.
He looked at the sword, Legend, it was reacting to the stone!
"Inside Me! The Whole time!" He placed the stone next to the blade known as Legend and a bright flash of light filled the sword. And both the Zodiac Sword and the Zodiac Stone became one.
Words began to fill his mind and he spoke them in unison: "I am Avatar, the one who sought the stone, yet obtained my heart, who sought a sword but found I am the Blade. I am he who would bring about the peace of all time. I am the chosen one. The fallen angel, fallen to save the world, and bring it back to God."
Grasping his new sword, which now had a new name: Legacy, Delita pointed the blade upwards toward Necron.
"By the power of life…you shall be destroyed…HOLY SWORD OF LIGHT, SHATTER THIS DARKNESS AND BRING NEW LIFE!!!"
A massive beam of light erupted from his sword and tore through Necron, burning as hot as the sun itself. The light was so tremendous that it parted the clouds and lit up the whole sky. Necron was destroyed, and the battle was over.
Exhausted, Delita fell to his knees, his new sword the only thing holding him up.
Stunned, half blinded, the Braves gathered over to Delita and simply stared.
Weakly, Delita mumbled, "What are you all staring at? You look as though you've never seen a Paladin before?"
"Some Paladin you are!!" Zidane exclaimed, "We were almost goners and you wiped the floor with him!!"
Seifer had calmed down a bit, but was still rather angry, "I guess even Griever's Heart isn't as strong as I thought, that bites, man!"
Delita laughed weakly, and so did the rest of the party.
After a full recovery, and after Delita was rested. The party began the preparations of restoring Wind.
Making their wish, Ramza, Zidane, and Reis waited, for a time, it was rather foggy and misty. But a little gust of Wind restored the parties' hopes.
"I guess it just takes a while longer…" Ramza commented.
"But what about Earth?" Aeris asked, "How do we restore that."
"I guess that there's another era we have to go to." Alma replied.
"Some time before our era…." Delita said.
"First we have to check on Alexandria Castle and Hyral Castle." Garnet said, "I wish to look upon my subjects once more.."
Marching down from the platform, the party noticed that the crystal barrier that they had thought would hold Necron in was broken through.
"I…guess..he did invade Alexandria, he must've been too powerful for them to face." Zidane said.
"We should check the extent of the damage done..," Delita said.
As the party marched through the main portion of Alexandria Castle they saw debris everywhere, but no one to be found. Then they found a tattered and battle-worn Steiner, sword in hand, but barely.
"M-my queen…," he said, nearly collapsing. Zidane caught him.
"What has happened here?" Garnet asked.
"….the demon….Altima…invaded…destroyed most of Alexandria...nearly all the Alexandrian Fleet and the Knights of Pluto."
"That monster....," Delita said, eyes flashing.
"….how did Necron come here?" Garnet asked.
"….set up as an evil garrison, took over here, no one could stand up to him."
"Don't worry, Sir Steiner, we bested him in combat, he is no longer a threat to this kingdom." Delita said.
"...oh thank God..." He said as he sighed in relief.
"Where are the other knights?"
"Repairing what they can of the city, we have done our best m'Queen."
"Yes, and you shall be commended for your efforts once we defeat Altima."
"W-what? My Queen, how can one even stand up to her…?"
"Do not fear, knight, we are not just a band of warriors, we are the Zodiac Braves…and we will defeat Altima…"
"--but--"
"Do as your Queen commands this day: rebuild and protect our beloved Alexandria, as long as it takes…" an unknown resolve seemed to fill Garnet's voice then.
"Yes ma'am."
"We shall be leaving Alexandria quickly, prepare a battle ship for us to travel in…"
"As you command."
The party was soon once again in an airship, but this time with Lady Beatrix at the helm.
"Pilot us to Hyral Castle...I have to check on things there…" Delita wondered if the caslte still stood.
