Chapter 6: Transformation

Chapter 6: Transformation

The night was mid and all was harmonious, until a sudden thunderous explosion ripped through the silent veil over the peaceful city. Aura jumped out of bed in a panic, the Moogle laid in its hammock still sound asleep. With his long Elvaan arms, Aura whipped open the closet doors and pulled out a personal robe which he had obviously neglected to wear even once. Breaking in the robe, he threw it on and ran out the Mog House door.

Fiery balls rained from the sky, crashing into the city streets and decimating everything in their path. Aura could hear chanting all around him, a meld of thousands of soft voices all speaking the same words. At the end of each sequence of words, a new ball of inferno crashed to the ground. Suddenly, through the flames and heat of a recently fallen fireball, the distorted image of the city's citizens running for cover was made visable. When Aura finally realized what was going on, he ran back inside the Mog House and rushed to put on his clothes while screaming "Moogle! Get up!" When the Moogle sat up, the sight of the blazing city outside caught its eye through the Mog House door. The Moogle's eyes widened and its wings kicked into overdrive, quickly fluttering to lift the small pink furry create into the air.

Aura finished pulling his shirt onto his body and ran out through the door. With the Moogle zipping along behind him, the Elvaan man's long legs swiftly carried him through the burning city. As he was running as fast as he could, he thought to himself "Another war... for what? King's and Emperor's greed...?" he lowered his head in anger, still looking forward as he ran, when a wall of flames exploded upward in front of him. He stopped running and looked around. With no other way to his destination, he, without hesitation, ran fullspeed toward the wall of fire. But before he could get to it, he noticed something happening. A sphere of distorted light appeared between him and the flames. He looked at it, then looked around him to notice two more spheres, the three together creating a triangle around him.

The spheres became so distorted, that they turned black, completely void of light. The Moogle fluttered up behind Aura, finally catching up to him. Aura turned to the Moogle and asks "What to you think they are?" but the Moogle replied "I have never seen anything like that, kupo." Just then, pulses of distorted light were emitted from all three black spheres. The pulses got bigger and bigger, until finally, the fiery wall was being bent inward to the dark core in front of it. The fire from outside of these mysterious phenomena spiraled to their centers, to disappear. The Moogle looked to the sky as yet another fireball flew through the air, but this time, it looked as if it were heading straight for the two of them. The Moogle yelled "Look out, kupo!" and pushed Aura as hard as it could, but barely affected the tall Elvaan's balance. Aura looked up and ducked, while putting his arms over his lowered head. The Moogle flew behind Aura, cowardly using him as a shield. But the sound of the burning fireball flying past them suddenly stopped. Aura looked up, and he could see the fireball being sucked into one of the three dark spheres. It spiraled to its center, just as the flames did from before. The young man let out a quiet "whoooah..." as he marveled at the sight.

He looked around, wondering why they were there, when a quiet voice echoed from above him. He looked up and the Moogle peaked around Aura's leg to look to the sky in curiousity with him. A radiant violet ball of light slowly drifted downward right on top of the Elvaan man and his Moogle. When the violet light got closer, its shape became more and more clear, until Aura realized who it was. 

Raven gently floated to the ground, landing softly on her feet next to him, her violet light now faded. Aura immediately asked "What are you doing here?" and her reply hastily followed "Saving your butt, brother." She lifted her hand with a satin piece of cloth drapped over it, matching the rest of her witch-looking robe. Suddenly the black spheres light distorting nature quickly vanished leaving no trace behind. 

Aura lowered his head and mumbled "Thanks..." before rising it back again to ask "What is going on anyway?" Raven's emerald eyes seemed to grow softer as she spoke "A band of terrorist black mages are attacking the empire. But we can't fight back, we don't know where they are casting from." Aura looked to the sky, as magically generated fireballs shot back and forth above them, shaking the ground on impact. "I need to go to the workshop." he said, as he stepped around Raven, and briskly walked through the area where the fiery wall once was. Raven shouted to him as he entered an alley "I need to help defend the city, I'll catch up with you later!". She floated off of the ground and shot through the sky above, stopping fireballs mid-air, and crushing them inside psychic sphere-shaped barriers. The Moogle sat there on the ground and said aloud to itself "I guess I'll help defend the city too, kupo." It's little wings once again fluttered, carrying it into the sky in pursuit of the Imperial Guard, Raven. 

Aura had climbed over fallen pillars and navigated through other rubble while avoiding the fiery patches spread about, when a ball of fire crashed down barely missing him, but he continued around it and to the workshop. When he arrived at the workshop, a large piece of stone was blocking the doorway, however the door itself was no longer there. He pushed the stone as hard as he could, but it would not budge. He kept trying, finding different positions and hoping one would work, until he eventually lodged himself between the wall and the stone. With a motivated push, the stone rolled over, opening up the doorway. He ran inside, the small workshop was full of thick smoke, but it was just sparse enough to make out the Automaton's silouette, showing that it was sitting on the counter next to the register. Aura scrambled over fallen boxes to get to it. As he reached for it, the Automaton's power flipped on, and its system had began loading the newly implemented technology. The still limp puppet felt much heavier to Aura, but he did not dwell on that thought long because the back of the shop bursted into flames. He kicked the boxes out of the way as he carried the heavy Automaton out of the door and down the path to the city center square.

As Aura rushed through the city square past the fountain, an unusually large fireball fell near him, kicking up dust and launching fire and stone fountain fragments everywhere. The Elvaan man lugged the Automaton over the debris from the demolished fountain, but tripped causing the Automaton to fly from his arms and onto the ground a few feet from him, while he fell head-first onto a large chunk of stone, knocking him unconscious.

The chilly wind rushed over the young mans dust-covered body, waking him up. As he sat up, a drop of dark red blood mixed with dust and dirt dripped down his face from his hairline. He calmly thought to himself "Everything is so quiet now, much different from last night." He stood up, causing rubble to fall from his pants. As he walked up the stone staircase to the upper levels of the city walls, the view became painfully visable to the Elvaan man. The city laid in ruin, nothing left but scattered stones and burned shops and homes. Even the Imperial Palace had holes in the gigantic drop-shaped domes.

So many thoughts ran through his head, too many to pick just one. He stared out over the decimated city, and wondered who would go this far, how someone could have been wronged so much that they were driven to do something like this. Realizing his new home had been through a destructive transformation as his previous one did, he sat there on the ledge of the only section of the tall city walls still standing, sorting through his thoughts after this overwhelming experience.