Subj: [ffml] [HD] Planeswalker Date: 00-12-31 02:03:32 EST From: dshumate@bbtel.com (Arcanis) Reply-to: ffml@egroups.com To: ffml@egroups.com * This is my first post to one of these listfic-type-thingies, okay? I just hope I don't screw up here, so bear with me. ---------------------- Arcanis ran his hand down the edge of his green cloak absently, looking around the huge rock chamber surrounding him. Being an esper, luckily, the lack of oxygen, or any air whatsoever, hardly bothered him here on the moon. "...open the Gate for you and-- Arcanis, art thou listening?" At the booming voice of Bahamut, king of the espers, Arcanis snapped his attention back to the black dragon coiled in a massive throne carved of moonstone before him. "Sorry, King Bahamut, my attention wandered momentarily," Arcanis said, wincing as near hurricane winds battered at the thin forcefield containing air and atmospheric pressure he maintained around himself in a dragon-sized sigh. Arcanis made a mental note to work on refining the shield to also block trace smells. "I see I shalt need to begin from the start again," Bahamut said, stretching his wings out. "As I wast saying, esper Mariana hast divined that Kefka is not dead, as we have believed for these many years. He hast been in hiding, and recently exercised his powers enough to be detected." "Er, are you sure you can believe Mariana?" Arcanis interjected, "Her 'divination' probably involved a few nine-pointed plant leaves from her 'vegetable' garden." "Er, well," Bahamut said, "`Twas what I believed at first as well, and whilst her divination didst indeed involve some superfluous elements, I had them checked and found them to be correct." Arcanis, wondering why so many dragons dragged out simple statements and always spoke in Olde English, rolled his eyes. "So what is Kefka is alive? He might've crystallized a few espers before, but nothing can break through the Gate, right?" "Not entirely," Bahamut said. Arcanis blinked in surprise. The Gate referred to was the portal that separated the original home of the espers, Earth, and the dimension Abterrus, created by the espers as a haven from the mortal world, and known as Esperworld, or sometimes Esperville, to mortals. The portal from Earth to Abterrus had been sealed by some of the most powerful espers after Kefka's fall long ago. The last espers to visit Earth had been the dark esper Denar and Poochie, the rockin` esper dog, over a millennium ago during the third Moogle War. "I hath reason to believe that Kefka is searching for a power capable of breaking the seal on the Esper Gate," the black dragon stated. "The key to breaking the seal is either on, or is, a mountain known as Crystal Peak." "Come again?" Arcanis said, raising an eyebrow. "Which is it, the mountain or something in the mountain?" "I do not know, unfortunately. The key to breaking the seal, whatever it may be, magic, relic, person, or else, may not even lie in the mountain. However, the mountain is a key to gaining it." "I see," Arcanis said, somewhat confused. "But what does this have to do with me?" "Arcanis, can I trust ye to accept the mission I am about to give ye?" "That would depend on the mis--" Arcanis caught Bahamut's grimace. "Er, I suppose so." "Excellent. Thine mission is two-fold. Your first and most important quest is to seek out and kill Kefka." "W-what!?" Arcanis exclaimed, stepping back. "Kefka annihilated almost all of Abterrus and crystallized most of the espers, even you! What makes you think *I* could beat him alone? Why don't you send one of the more powerful espers out?" "`Tis true Kefka is quite powerful, but he would never have beaten me, or many espers, if it were not for a special spell he had crafted that instantly crystallized us into magicite-- luckily, temporarily. When he smote me," Bahamut winced slightly at the admission, "I knew I stood no chance against the specialized spell. So, I memorized how he cast it, and analyzed it as I was trapped inside mine magicite. I discovered that the spell is almost completely formed of Thought mana, the power of the mind. Plus a bunch of quantum physical crap thrown in." Arcanis had a sinking feeling. "Yeah, uh, well, so what?" Bahamut stared at him levelly. "Thou dost know very well. Thou art a powerful mage--" "Archmage," Arcanis interjected irritably. "Thou art a powerful archmage," the king of the espers continued, "but not as powerful as many. At least, not that thou wouldst admit. I doth know very well that thou art more powerful than thou dost pretend. Still not one of the most powerful, but still quite powerful." Arcanis winced. Right on target. "Okay, so I'm a little more powerful than I show in duels, but there are still several more powerful." "And I know furthermore that thou art especially very strong in mind magicks, Thought mana, perhaps the strongest." Bahamut finished. "Either way, thou hast enough skill to figure out how to counter the spell that Kefka defeated us with long ago. I hope. Therefore, I send ye on this mission." Arcanis sighed in resignation. "Alright. What do I have to do *besides* trying to kill Kefka?" "Killing Kefka ist thine priority. However, if Kefka hast grown more powerful in this time than I estimate, which I fear he may have, and thou findeth that thou canst not defeat him, thine mission is to find and destroy Crystal Peak. Completely and utterly. Now that I doth think about it, I wish for ye to level the mountain whether or not you can destroy Kefka to ensure it's power dost not fall into the wrong hands. Then thou may return." Arcanis bowed his head in acquiescence. "As you command, King Bahamut," he said reluctantly. "Oh, and Arcanis," Bahamut said, apparently remembering something. "Do not bend space/time too much or too often to teleport. Kefka will likely know it is an esper, as few mortals are capable of teleportation, much less have the knowledge of how to." Arcanis winced, that would extend his visit by quite a bit. "Thou dost leave as soon as possible," Bahamut said, dismissing Arcanis with a nod of his head. Arcanis frowned and bent the space/time continuum around himself enough to teleport from the moon Bahamut claimed as his palace, which existed at the fringe of Abterrus and the prime material dimension, back to Abterrus. * * * "Are you really leaving, Arcy?" Poochie asked, walking beside Arcanis at knee-height. The rockin` esper dog had just recently been revived from magicite some 400 years ago. Well, recent for an esper. "Bahamut ordered me to, so I suppose so," Arcanis said, rolling his eyes and adjusting the his cloak's latch on his collar. Arcanis and Poochie both lightly shortcut the path winding down the cliff by stepping off of it and slowly gliding to the bottom. Arcanis pitied espers who didn't have the ability to fly. He grimaced. Then again, he didn't have the ability to shapeshift, like Poochie did. "Arc!" a booming voice echoed as Arcanis and Poochie touched earth outside Ifrit's home carved intricately within the walls of the cliff. Arcanis turned to face the fire esper and wished he hadn't as he squeezed his eyes shut. He wished all humanoid espers would wear clothing, especially ones whose waist was at his eye level. He spotted Shiva walk out of Ifrit's cave to stand beside the fire jinn. Well, not *all* of them... "I herd ya` were levin` to Earth, Arcanis," Ifrit spoke in poor grammar as usual. One day, Arcanis decided, he would research and prove his theory that muscles and brains were almost always inversely proportionate. "What for, Arcanis?" Shiva said in her usual seductive tone. Arcanis snapped his attention from her torso to her face. "Oh, well, uh, Bahamut told me to. It's a secret mission, you see," Arcanis said. It wasn't *really* secret, but that made it sound so much more important. "So I can't tell you anything about it. I should be back in a few months, give or take a few years." Arcanis kicked Poochie surreptitiously as the rockin` esper dog chuckled at Ifrit's expression, as the fire jinn tried to mentally subtract a few years from a few months. "Only a few years? That's not too long. Maybe I can throw you a private party when you get back, Arcanis," Shiva said even more seductively, if that was possible. Arcanis gulped and nodded, wincing at the sudden inspiration for writing a lemon. "Uh, um, okay." Arcanis stammered. Shiva giggled and pulled the still calculating Ifrit back into the cave. Arcanis squeezed his eyes shut and turned. Poochie had already topped the lip of the valley in front of Ifrit's cave. "Look, Arcy! There's the Gate!" the rockin` esper dog exclaimed. Arcanis walked up beside Poochie and looked down into the valley at the massive portal, swirling with multicolored lights. After a few moments of looking at the painful amount of swirling palettes, Arcanis decided to look away. Poochie was already bounding down the slope of the valley, and Arcanis followed, wondering if the rockin` esper dog had taken a few too many happy pills that morning. He stopped next to Poochie several yards from the gate and drew a small stone out of one of the hidden pockets in his cloak. Bahamut had had it sent to him, assumedly to allow passage through the gate without being utterly annihilated by the seal. "Seeya, Poochie," Arcanis said, channeling a stream of mana through the polished gem to activate it. The stone glowed brightly in his hand, and he walked towards the massive swirl of energy. "Bye Arc! Good luck!" Poochie called. Tendrils of mana, seeming to sense his nearness to the portal, reached out from the swirl of color and touched him. Immediately, a flux of power from the seal struck out from the portal. The stone he held glowed brighter, and the destructive energy that normally would have turned him to ash, no matter what defenses he might make for himself, bounced off an invisible shield generated by the stone. Arcanis took a breath as the seal's energy pushed against the stone's shield, and quickly stepped into the swirl of color. Immediately, bone-chilling cold shot through him and he had a sense of falling forward through a tunnel of multicolored light. He continued falling through the tunnel until he struck a white oval of light at the end of it. The coldness vanished instantly. Arcanis realized that gravity had returned as he fell toward some sharp, pointy looking rocks. He quickly caught himself with a levitation spell, and glided down to a more level area of the ground. Arcanis turned to see a mirror of the portal he had just entered, only now set against a sheer cliffside. As the adrenaline drained from his body, Arcanis felt a sudden rush of queasiness wash through him. He fell to one knee and retched dryly. The mana of the land seemed impure, filthy, polluted, compared to the pure mana on Abterrus. Overcoming the feeling of sickness as his body adjusted to the less pure magical energy of the planet, Arcanis rose to his feet and turned to look over the lip of a sheer rockface at the forest below. On the horizon was a rising star, the sun. Something he had not seen for thousands of years on the ever-lit, artificial dimension of Abterrus. Yes, he was most definitely on Earth. ---------------------- -Arcanis --- The Last Esper Head of Development for FFMLRPG Co-webmaster and Chronicler for www.ffml.org Master of Bad Jokes and Inane Comments Writer Extraordinaire of Miscellaneous Corny Stories "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." -"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost