But.....I Don't Have the Answer

by Djibriel

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Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Sabin stood and fired into the mass under him. Aurabolt. Aurabolt. An Exocite crawled up the wall, Scissors ready. Aurabolt. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, and saw a Pterodon coming. Aurabolt. Gilomatis. Aurabolt.
He fired with his mind, not with his hands, like master Duncan had taught him. "I fire with my mind!", he roared into the crowds of the never-ending reaches of his opponents, "I fire with my mind, scum!" Then he heard the sound of the horn, blowing the signal of defeat and humiliation. His brother's yell from behind.

"Retreat! Retreat, for the Gods' sake! Retreat!"

A black Bomb approached. "Grenade", he thought, "May the Gods help me, a Grenade." Sabin fired with his mind, Aurabolt after Aurabolt. The Grenade took one, recoiled, approached and evaded the next. Sabin kicked it down, under the wall he was standing on: the Southern Defense Wall of Narshe. Then all thoughts of names, confused and hasty, were banned from his mind when the Grenade exploded. Pain flared in his legs, and the wall caved in. Sabin went down in the monsters, grasping for something to hold on to but failing.

"Edgar, no!" Terra. Edgar ran for his brother, unarmed and enraged. He grabbed a sword lying around, and jumped from the Southern Defense Wall of Narshe to save his brother. He crashed in the snow, his sword crashed into the skull of another Pterodon. Sabin was kicking, fighting like a tiger. Edgar fought his way to his brother. Oh, gods of hell and heaven, this was bad. The amount was terrible. All was lost, but maybe when he reached Sabin, maybe...if he reached Sabin, they would stand for all eternity, maybe.

Edgar was coming, and Sabin sent a thing he vaguely recognized flying with a kick. Immediatly, something horrible and liquid was on him. Those damned LIQUID monsters, resistent to kicking and punching and even resistent to Aurabolt. Desperately, Sabin tried to get it off, but the slime oozing from the monster's belly was growing hard. In a moment, he would be unable to move, let alone to escape this hell-hole. "Sabin, cover!" Fire exploded, leaving everything around him burned, the monster burned, himself untouched by the flames. "All hail to the Flame Rod!", Edgar said, panting in half-a-second of pause "All hail to the Red Jacket! Now come on!" Sabin pulled his brother with him. The brothers ran from the monsters knowing both the same thing. There was nowhere to go at all. Gate sealed. Entrance to Narshe's surroundings packed with monsters.
Those were the only ways out of this mess. They were lost, bloody DEAD they were, and running wasn't going to do shit about that.

"The Secret Entrance, brother!" Sabin and Edgar ran, jumped, evaded. Fighting was impossible, there was only the evading of monsters. It was a rush of colours and moving objects, tails and beaks that meant to hurt them. That meant to kill them, more specifically. "What?" "The Secret Entrance!" And Edgar followed Sabin. Opening the Secret Entrance would be dumb. No, not precisely: that would be the dumbest thing either of them would do in their lives. The monsters would follow them in there, and Narshe's only hope was it's limited amounts of borders with plain ground. They would bring down Narshe in doing so. Edgar ran after his brother to stop him, not to escape with him. They would die here, but opening the Secret Entrance would mean dying in a short while with the town of Narshe fallen. "Sabin! Stop! They'll follow!" Sabin did not hear that. Edgar jumped over a plant, in the middle of the chaos, but the plant...

Sabin saw the plant, (known as Uroburos Vulgaris by Figaro scholars) jank out it's vines and take Edgar down. Edgar fell. Sabin rushed over to the plant-thing and shot an Aurabolt in it. Hitting it would be futile with those thin and agile vines as a body. The plant-thing shrinked into itself, and let Edgar go, but the damage had been done. Uroburos Vulgaris had the ability to drain all life-energy, converting it into the energy of the undead. The unthinkable had happened, and Sabin just stood there. Had a monster attacked him, he surely would have died at that moment.

No.

Hell, no...

His brother had become a Zombie, and was now shifting his gaze from the ground to his brother. The eyes were blank, no pupil at all. The Edgar-thing picked up his sword and stood up. Sabin fled.

He sprinted to the Secret Entrance. He had thought briefly about the consequences it might have for the defense of Narshe, but he wasn't thinking clearly and he thought...

He thought about his brother, who was gone now. No chance of getting near him to touch him with the Holy Water of a Revivify. No chance to save him now. Edgar wad dead, lost, gone. Edgar had suffered from BonePowder, he had suffered from Ruin, he had suffered from DoomPollen an he had suffered from StoneTouch. He had survived them all, and now he was taken down. It...

It just wasn't FAIR! Gods, damn you! They were fighting for a cause!

He ran for the Secret Entrance, and met a monster who was...'standing guard? Is he standing guard? Do they know?' standing in front of the entrance. It was an Adamantatoise, and it was going to die. The Adamantatoise was going to pay on behalf of all monsters for the life of his brother. He jumped at him, raised his fist and slammed it into the monster's side with all his might. Sabin didn't know it (and couldn't have cared less if he knew), but that strike was the single-most powerful punch he had ever thrown. There was a sound of shattering rock or bone, a terrible crushing sound and blood, but when the pain shot trough his arm like a bullet through a barrel, he realized that it was his blood, his bones that had pulverized against the skin of the monster. The pain paralyzed him, sank him through his knees. The pain was so intense, Gods, so intense...it filled up his world, turned his vision red and engulfed him. He was...he just couldn't move. 'Setzer was right', he thought, 'there is nothing, nothing in the world as bad as physical pain.' The monster in the corner of his eyes turned at him and charged.

After two minutes, all went black for the second Figaro brother as well.



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Terra stood on the remaining part of the Southern Defense Wall of Narshe, and sent a quick prayer of gratitude to the Gods who had made sure it had lasted. She also prayed for the Figaro Brothers, and looked to the south. Narshe had fought itself through another attack, but barely. Celes joined her. "We made it through another night, Celes." "It could be the last, Terra." They both knew that if another wave of monsters like the previous would attack, they would fail to stand. Narshe would fall before the next day. "How's Thamasha, you think? Standing? Falling? Victorious?" Celes stroke a hand trough her hair. It was reduced in volume and amount after a strike from a Mantodea Rex, leaving Celes no choice but to cut it up in a rather boyish hair-do. Having a haircut like that in any other time would be trouble, like walking naked in the streets, it was not done. But these were no other times, these were the Last Days, and nobody cared about hair-dos. "They can't be victorious, Terra. They will fall." Terra said: "Hope our friends still live. Cyan and Setzer..." Celes finished. "And Strago and Relm..." Terra sighed. "They will last longer then us, I guess." Celes shook her head. "It doesn't matter." Terra bolted up, eyes blazing. "It still matters! When nothing matters anymore to you, to us, then we are dead already!" Celes turned and left, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. "We ARE already dead, Terra." After Celes had left, Terra had no choice but to stop thinking about that statement. It was true, after all.

"You okay?" It was Duane. "Terra?" He was worried, one could hear it in his voice. It was becoming the general tone of voice around Narshe. "Illam Terra, cheer up a bit, eh? No need to be down on a beautiful day like this." Terra turned around. She had to admit she felt a little bit better, if only by the usage of the words 'Illam Terra' and the statement that the day was beautiful. "How's the army, Duane?" Duane looked at her for a while with something on his face that Terra couldn't place. Then, he exploded into tears. It was Duane-tears, male-tears. They were angry and vigorous. He covered his eyes with both hands, and lost the power over his legs. He fell on his knees, onto the floor. "They're dead, Illam", he snorted. He stopped crying, got on his feet and wiped his eyes. "Half of 'em officially, the other's are mentally dead. They know Narshe'll fall in a day's time. They know these are the Last Days." Then, he continued: "They don't deserve it, Terra. They don't. WE don't. What did we do to be cornered like this, trapped like...like...What did we do, Terra?" Terra almost repeated a line she had heard before from Setzer, not knowing it. "When things cease to exist, they cease to exist. It's all...it's all a matter of luck or no luck, not of fate, not of something we did. This is no pay-back time, Duane. We struggled and succeeded to do so for a long time. Now, our energy has run...low."



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It was the Last Days, and it was the last of the Last Days. Over the world, cities began to be deserted, monsters attacked, slowly the human race fell back in numbers. In these Last Days, the human race shone in it's splendor. They were worthy of living, most of them, and they died.

In the Collosseum, Siegfried stood in the entrance. Behind him, only one man was living, the man who built the Collosseum, the founder of his home. Siegfried stood in the entrance, and the monsters in front of him roared and hissed. Siegfried stood proud, great. He could've been a king, King of Figaro, or Maranda perhaps. He could have been Draco, the folk hero. He could have been a Paladin. He stood high and mighty, not afraid. The Great Entrance Doors were smashed to pieces, and there was no way to keep them out. There were too many, they charged, and Siegfried fired his gun, taking one out, two out, three out, five out, ten out. Twenty-four he shot down before they reached him, twenty-four of the three hundred. Aquila, Chaos Dragon, Bogy and Sprinter; Slatter, Luridan, Chimera and Vectaur. They tore his armor open, clawed his face to bloody ribbons and eventually killed him. The last he heard was the man behind him, screaming out of fear. Siegfried was dead when Ronal Bluegrain, the founder of the Colloseum, started to scream out of pain.

John Bluegrain, nephew to the founder of the Colloseum, stood in the doorway of the Museum of Jidoor. All of Jidoor was empty, and he was the only one to stand. He looked behind him, and saw the wheezing girl he loved, Maria, and whinced again when he saw her bright yellow dress becoming red almost all over her stomach. She tried to move. "Maria...just lie down. Everything's fine, I promise." She shook her head, and rose to her arms. "I love you, John. I do, I....I always have." Tears pressed against his eyes when he heard this, but he fought them back. He had to. "Save those things to say when we go out again, okay? I'll take you to a play in the Opera House like I promised, sweetie...I'll buy you flowers and you'll wear that sexy green dress, remember the day we bought it together? We could have more of those days! Wouldn't...wouldn't you want more of those?" She fell through her armes at that, but before John could rush over to her, he saw a Chimera spotting him. John held his ground and fought until he fell. The girl had passed out, and would die of blood-loss two hours after her lover, still passed out.

Ronal Bluegrain had been mad before the Apocalypse, and a genius ahead of his time afterwards. That is, if you assume that the words 'mad' and 'genius' were only defined by what other people thought. He had on numerous occasions said that human kind was at his best when in war. A lunatic or a visionair, that statement proved itself right on countless occassions during the Last Days. Despite the fact it didn't help any of them, men died for their wives, and vice versa, mothers died for their children, big brothers died for their little sisters, old quarrels were forgotten and the worst of rivals would team up and smash the enemy together. Human kind shone in a brilliant light.

Setzer had lived to gamble, and he had died gambling as well. Taking the ultimate odds, he jumped in between two Rhyos to save Relm's life. He had won the jackpot, aye, but he had lived up to the First Rule of Gamling. No matter what game you played: Blackjack, Roulette, at the slots, how many Gold Pieces you bet: the minimum, 10000 GP, all you had, no matter if you cheated or not: the house eventually always wins. The house always wins. Setzer had been living on the edge all his life, accepting the rule. Now Relm had lived and Setzer had died and the game was over.

Strago, Relm, Cyan and the Thamasian twins had locked themselves in, at the end. Cyan guarded a window, Strago guarded a window, the twins guarded a window. It was the door that caved in, and they were forced to go up the stairs. Cyan had run outside, carving his autograph of blood in the bodies of the monsters. Strago had taken Relm upstairs, and the twins, one male and one female, had fought back the monsters as best as they could halfway up the stairs. For a moment, they had the upper hand: In a narrow battle-field, numbers had less importance, since only a few could stand in front and fight. But eventually, Bombs came in and set the stairs on fire. The twins were cut off from their access to the second floor, and they died. The monsters left the burning house because they sensed the two upstairs were trapped in the fire, and the one outside still lived. Cyan fought back with all his might, and this might was great. He took down monsters with more speed, more stamina, more power than ever before. But even the trained hand tires, the best katanas break and the fiercest knights die. Cyan died when his head was cut off clear from his shoulders by a Mantodea Rex. Strago and Relm were trapped in the burning house, and Strago leaped from the only window with Relm in his hands. Strago broke his legs when he came down, and told Relm to run, to run and get help, to run and escape the monsters. Relm refused, killed five monsters before Strago was killed and killed seventeen monsters before she herself was killed.

It was the Last Days, and it was the last of the Last Days.