Part III. Danger Within the Forest
By
Mike Collins
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.
.