Final Fantasy [Begins]

[Shadow Wolf]

Jin

“I think you should save the ‘catching up’ for later”

Eden’s words made Jin snap back from his mind into the situation at hand. He still didn’t know where he was, so that should be his priority. “So what do we do?”

“Find out where we are?” Eden said as she returned her weapon.

“There are others so we should also look for them.” Nova mentioned this as he offered a hand to help Jin stand up.

“Thanks” He had a bit of pain, but he could still move.

“Let’s go!” Eden was already walking slowly ahead of them. For some reason, Nova gave a quick sprint towards the woman… as if he expected something… And that’s when Jin noticed… the woman lost her balance and Nova was already ready to have her lean on his shoulder. She forced her hand Jin thought as he gave some quick steps to walk close to them. With Nova carrying Eden, the least he could do was to be on guard. With this, they proceeded forward as a lit chamber awaited them at the end of the next hall.

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As the trio proceeded forward into the chamber, there silent environment was interrupted with a sound of something crashing against a wall and shattering, followed shortly by an eerie howl. Quickly following the origin of the noise, their eyes widened a bit as they witnessed a massively tall creature turning around slowly to a girl holding a large baton in her hands. Eden was about to say something when she was quickly interrupted by Nova.

“Bell-”…. “Alex!” He didn’t hesitate to let go of Eden to rush to the girl’s aid.

With no choice but to follow the “hero’s” lead, she pulled her sword from her case to make it transform into a rifle. With a slow breath, her eyes were focused on the laser, which was now pointed at the humanoid monster. “Go!” Eden ordered Jin to assist the hero as her finger clicked on the trigger, making the shots hit some of the monster’s weak spots and making it stagger. The monster howled again and in its rage, managed to raise its arm again to strike. Nova had his guard down and Jin knew that he would not arrive on time to block the fiend’s strike. The monster made its swing…

Fortunately, the very girl that he intended to save ended up saving him instead. She managed to roll both of them to the side with enough strength to help both of them evade the huge arm coming at them from above.

Now’s my chance… Holding both weapons by the main shaft, Jin made a dual swing at the monster’s leg. With its arm already on the floor and the leg of the same side taking a blunt hit from Jin’s Tonfas. It wasn’t enough to take it down but at least it was enough to make the monster focus on Jin. Stepping back as the monster proceeded towards him and barely evading a swing from one of its massive arms, he was able to ensure the safety of the three on the floor. During the events, new people joined the team, but also many more enemies… many more than the whole team could handle.

“Let’s go!” Eden’s words echoed through everyone’s ears, including Jin’s. “We have to run – there’s more!”

Eden led the group as they tried to keep as much distance as possible from the giants. The group eventually stumbled upon some kind of ancient elevator. Eden was lost in thoughts for a moment, but she quickly reacted and activated the mechanism.

“What were those things?” Markus questioned.

“Fiends” Jin noted.

“No” Eden opened the elevator doors, checking the interior. “They’re ceith.”

Alex gasped, the rest were silent. There was a short conversation between the rest of the group, but it was quickly interrupted as Eden gave the order to get on the elevator. Eventually, everyone was on and, with the elevator going down, the group was thrown into an environment filled with silence, mystery and darkness.

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After a brief period of time, the elevator stopped. Everything was completely dark, but everyone’s eyes were focused at where the door is supposed to be. “Stay alert everyone!” Markus voice reminded everyone of the horde of ceith they left behind, thus they needed to be ready.

With a loud but quick pitch produced by the mechanisms of the elevator, the doors of the lift proceeded to open. The loud sound echoed through the place and with it, the lights of the room began turning on, as if the room was ready to receive the crew; and with the lights on, everyone could see each other again. Eden, Jin and Markus had their grip on their respective weapons, while the woman with her ears covered in earrings seemed to have recovered and was currently analyzing the current situation. Jin recalled the name Bellaevis while he was dealing with the cieth, or whatever the monster was called.

Nova was probably the one facing an unusual situation. On his left side, the girl who apparently was named Alex was attached to his left arm, probably due to a spontaneous reaction. And on his right side, the guy with the hammer was gripping his right shoulder, as if he wanted to make sure that he was still close to him. Both of them released Nova so quickly and nervously that it pretty much made everyone notice how nervous they were as each one tried so hard to hide their faces.

Ignoring the scene, Nova stepped out of the lift and into the room. The steps echoed through the room and with no other sound except that of his teammates, it seemed like there was no enemy near them. He looked around a bit; just to make sure that no threats were close.

“It seems we’re safe for now.” He was now facing the group as he lowered his weapon.

“Ah, I’m glad” Alex was breathing a sigh of relief as everyone proceeded to get out of the lift.

Once again, the sounds of everyone’s footsteps were the only noise in the chamber.

Apparently, they had gone down quite some floors, since they couldn’t even hear the echo of the cieth waiting for them in the floor above them.

“We’re are we?” The woman whose name was Bellaevis asked as her gaze was fixed at the weird statues surrounding the room.

“That’s what we have to find out.” Eden replied as she apparently showed signs of recovery.

“Hehehe, this promises to be interesting.” Nova aired as he showed signs of excitement. Eden seemed like she disapproved his statement, but remained silent to the young one’s response.

“In any case, the only way to go is forward.” Markus conveyed his words as he pointed a path which seemed to have a long stair to an even lower level of this place.

“But there are two paths.” The guy with the hammer exclaimed as he pointed a small hallway east of the path Markus was pointing.

“Yeah, but I don’t think splitting up is a good idea, considering that we have cieth on the hunt for our necks.” Markus mentioned while looking at Eden, as if he was waiting to see if she agreed.

“We should check both paths and return. After that, we can choose the best route to proceed. You two, check the stair path and you two, check the other path.” Eden ordered as she sent Markus with Nova to check one route and Jin with the young one with hazel eyes.

“Alright, time to explore.” Nova exclaimed as he readied his sword.

“And Markus” He turned around to see Eden with a fixed glare at Nova “Don’t let him out of your sight.”

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After a few minutes, both parties returned to Eden. From what each group reported, it was confirmed that the route they should take was the one with the stairway.

“Alright, let’s go then.” The group was now moving forward as each one proceeded to take the steps of the dampened stair with caution. As both Markus and Nova stated, what awaited them at the end was an even bigger room with what it seemed to be some kind of chamber filled with ancient technology. Thin pillars with some kind of orange light, projected by small artifacts in some of the handles could be found in the air around the room, making the room even brighter, along with the white lights surrounding it. A few sets of small stairs were placed in each side, leading to a higher platform in the northern part of the room.

And in the end of the big platform, some kind of door which seemd to be powered by the artifacts in the room awaited our group

"Well, we know where to go." Nova replied as he walked in front of the group. However, his confidence was cut short when the room began to shake, as if some kind of earthquake had befallen the place. The floor beneath them was shaken uncontrollably, and almost everyone was paralyzed due to the sudden earthquake.

"MOVE!!!!"
Eden had to shout the order to make everyone react and move into a safe place. However, the young guy with a hammer as a weapon seemed to have ignored Eden's order, as he still remained in shock.

He finally reacted when he felt someone pushing him to the side. Jin managed to push the young one just before part of the floor began to collapse. And as the young one turned to see who the one who saved him was, Jin noticed how the floor beneath him ceased to exist.

He was falling...

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OK, I think I tagged everyone here. I hope I managed to create both tension and action with this post. I apologize for the grammar errors and if there's anything I need to fix, let me know.