Chapter 8: Hell Hath No Fury

Chapter 8: Hell Hath No Fury

Black clouds gathered above the destroyed city and a cold heavy rain began to fall. Aura and Ken ran swiftly through the ruins leading to the guardless gates of the city. As they passed through the gateway, the Moogle, lagging behind the Elvaan and the Automaton, began to flutter its small wings as fast and as hard as it could to give itself a short quick boost, before its speed fell to even slower than before.

As Aura and Ken stood outside the city gates, they saw lightning flash in the distance over the woodlands, followed soon after by a faint sound of thunder. Ken looked up to Aura, and speaking over the sound of the downpour and thunder the Automaton asked "Where... do you think... they went?" Aura simply dropped his head down and closed his eyes with the water running from his drenched blond hair, down his face and onto his wet clothes. Just then, the Moogle finally caught up and exclaimed "I know where they went, kupo!" The Automaton's head flicked to the side to look at the incoming Moogle, as Aura raised his head and turned as well. "Where...and... how?" Ken said questioningly, as if expressing Aura's own thoughts for him.

The Moogle looked to the sky and pointed to the dark clouds which filled it. The black heavens looked as if they were being pulled to some far-off point over the horizon. The Moogle announced with a heave in its squeaky little voice "The sky is quickly moving toward Windurst, kupo!" Aura looked to the ground with frustration before tightening his fists at his sides and saying in a near-whisper of a voice "Raven...what has come over you..." Ken suddenly looked up to the sky and tugged on Aura's sleeve before saying to him "The clouds... are getting... faster..." "We should get moving, kupo." the Moogle added. Aura let out a sigh, unclenched his fists and began walking along the outside of the mostly demolished city walls with Ken and the Moogle following him closely.

As they approached the harbor, they had noticed the broken down and burning ships that were scattered across the port. Aura looked out over the ocean, but only saw the dark sky being compressed into a single point far out of his sight through the heavy rain. Ken looked up at Aura and noticed the look across his face, a look depicting the sorrow he felt for all of the death he had come to know of. As the Elvaan man stood there spacing off, the Moogle shouted "Look! There's a whole Ferry over there, kupo!" pointing to small untouched ship. Aura and Ken both looked in that direction simultaneously with their now blank visage.

The Moogle began to hover down the pier leading to the small crewless Ferry with Aura and Ken running quickly behind. The three of them slowed to a walk as they approached the edge of the long drenched wooden platform over the dark navy blue ocean water. They came to the docking ramp of the chocolate colored ferry, and the moogle hovered there before floating up onboard the ship. Aura looked down at Ken and jestered him onboard as he said casually "After you." The wet Automaton tilted its head while looking up at Aura, but suddenly proceeded to march clankily up the wooden ramp with the tall Elvaan man following directly behind. Aura pulled the soaked ramp up onto the Ferry deck and continued to follow Ken up a short flight of stairs leading to the cockpit.

When Ken and Aura entered the small window-filled room from the cold rain falling outside, they noticed the Moogle floating around pressing buttons and spinning the steering wheel randomly before turning around and announcing "It wont go, kupo!" Ken and Aura looked at eachother and then back to the Moogle. The Automaton stepped forward and pulled a lever as the Moogle watched curiously. When the Automaton turned around, the entire ship shook and rumbled before a loud bang explosively sounded beneath them. "What did you do, kupo!?" The moogle shouted at Ken. The Automaton tilted its head and suddenly the entire ship pushed forward out of the ruined city's dock. The Moogle looked out the window to see the cloudy dark ocean and thick rainfall speeding past. "We're moving, kupo." it said while Ken walked over to Aura and looked up at him. Aura looked down to the Automaton and smiled before noting "It may take a few hours to get to Windurst from here, we should probably get some sleep." The Automaton nodded as Aura turned around to walk out of the room and down the stairs that led to the deck. The Moogle squeakily shouted as loud as it could from back in the control room "I'll keep an eye on our course from here, kupo!" 

Aura and Ken stepped into the doors on the main deck of the small ferry and walked down the solid wooden stairs leading to the crew quarters below. Aura walked down the hall and looked into the first room he saw. It had a long soft bed in the back, "It's just like the one back home." he thought to himself before he realized his Mog House was no more. The depression of the thought didn't last long in his head as he watched Ken walk over to the bed and climb up as if trying to scale up the edge of a cliff. The Automaton pulled itself up and sat on the bed with its legs hanging off and its hands on the bed as if bracing itself from falling to the floor. Ken looked up to Aura as the tall man walked over and sat down on the bed next to the metal puppet. "What...do you think...happened to...her...?" Ken slowly asked. "I'm... not sure." Aura replied hesitantly. 

Moments later he began to speak his thoughts "That little girl seemed familiar... and I got the feeling all of that rage was coming from her..." Ken tilted his head as he looked at Aura and listened carefully. "Wait..." Aura suddenly said. "Being a Psychic Knight, Raven has the abilities of an empath... ...I should have realized what was going on before now..." Aura leaned over forward and laid his face in his hands with his elbows on his knees. "What... does that... mean?" Ken asked. Aura slid his hands over his face and ran his fingers through his hair before straightening his posture and looking toward the Automaton sitting next to him. "Ken. Empathy is when a person with a highly developed mind has the ability to directly feel whatever those around them are feeling. That is what made Raven such a powerful fighter. She could use the battle spirit of her opponents against them." Aura set his hand on top of the Automatons metal head and continued "She can usually control it, but if that little girl is who I think she is...her anger and rage must have overwhelmed Raven's control of her empathy. Thus allowing the girl control over Raven through her own emotions."

Aura stood up and kept talking while Ken simply listened intently to his Master. "We need to get through to that little girl before she destroys Windurst with Raven as her weapon. The only way to do that, would be to convince her that the destruction of her city wasn't the fault of the Tarutaru nation." Aura walked over to a mirror near the nightstand next to the bed. As he gazed into the reflection of himself, he mumbled "But how...?" With this thought searing his mind, he sat back down on the bed. "We should really get some rest, Ken." he said as he rolled backward onto the bed, swinging his legs over the Automaton to lay on the side of the bed near the wall. Ken looked at the Elvaan man laying there, tilted its head, then began to crawl up onto the pillow next to Aura. The Automaton sat up straight, but slowly leaned downward as his systems went into hibernation.