Throughout all of Muspelheim a continuous series of deafening blows continued to ring out, each of which generated yet another powerful shockwave that destroyed everything around. All these explosions never died down even for a moment, and mixed with the rumble of the shattered rock sounded a rolling laughter that blended with the furious roaring of the dragon. Such wild sounds came from a deep crater that had formed in the middle of a fire-ravaged valley devastated by the battle. Alex was at the very bottom of this crater, tirelessly delivering one brutal blow after another straight to Bahamut's muzzle.
With every new strike the dragon's muzzle sank deeper into the scorching soil, while he himself struggled with all his might to break free from Alex's steel grip. Yet another crushing blow from Alex caused the bottom of the crater to be covered with a network of deep cracks, from which thick lava immediately began to seep, slowly filling all the free space. Sitting atop Bahamut, Alex once again clenched his heavy fist, and flame began to thicken around his hand like a hurricane.
The fire swirled with such force that a genuine fiery tornado arose around them. All Alex was thinking about at that moment was that he simply needed to beat Bahamut thoroughly in order to finally bring this arrogant dragon to his senses. Throughout the entire duel Alex had seen that Bahamut's gaze remained absolutely unshakable—as if to the very last the dragon sincerely believed that his holy mission consisted of the complete extermination of humanity.
While Alex paused for a brief moment, accumulating energy for the next blow, this hesitation gave Bahamut the long-awaited chance to come to his senses and deliver a counterstrike. The scales on the dragon's chest began to glow brightly, and a dense, unstable energy sphere rapidly formed right in front of him. Narrowing his eyes, Alex without hesitation brought his fiery fist down straight onto that sphere. Noticing the opponent's attack, Bahamut grinned predatorily and in the same second detonated the accumulated charge.
At the very last moment, when Alex's fiery fist was supposed to touch the sphere, it exploded with colossal, destructive force. Straight from the depths of the crater a gigantic pillar of pure energy burst up toward the ashen clouds. Such a concentrated explosion temporarily completely disoriented Alex in Ifrit form and hurled him away for a hundred kilometers.
Quickly recovering from the concussion, Alex felt the sensation of rapid falling, which was immediately followed by another powerful explosion. At enormous speed Alex crashed into one of the numerous mountains of Muspelheim, which in the same second collapsed crushingly on top of him. Finding himself completely buried under multi-ton rubble, Alex without delay began punching a path to the surface, realizing that he needed to manage to climb out before Bahamut fully recovered his strength.
"These dragons are constantly nothing but trouble… Is it really so hard to just sit down and talk normally?! Proud dragon, yeah right, I almost believed it! This idiot doesn't even realize that his brain has simply been washed!" Alex grumbled endlessly, scattering giant boulders with his powerful fiery paws and forcing his way toward the light.
Alex had not yet fully climbed out onto the surface when a blinding flash flared before his eyes. Immediately reacting to the danger, Alex forcefully scattered the last giant boulders and with a desperate leap jumped far to the side. An instant later a scorching beam of pure energy crashed with a roar into the remains of the destroyed mountain where Alex had just been, pierced it through, and raced onward.
The light beam continued its rapid movement, piercing one peak after another until it finally slammed into the last mountain on the horizon, causing a colossal, deafening explosion. Turning his head, Alex saw a mushroom cloud rising to the ashen sky and immediately covered his muzzle with a paw to protect himself from the scorching shockwave.
A second later a furious gust of wind overtook Alex, and he had to dig his free clawed paw deep into the scorching soil so that he would not simply be carried away by the powerful squall. Finding himself literally buried under a thick layer of ash and soot brought by the shockwave, Alex noisily exhaled fire through his nostrils and heavily rose to his full height. He clearly had not expected Bahamut to decide to use such destructive weaponry.
Shaking the acrid soot from his head and curved horns, Alex suddenly heard a sharp whistle behind him and in the same second spun toward the sound. But the moment he turned, right in front of his face was Bahamut's massive hind paw, which in that same instant clamped onto his muzzle for all it was worth. Feeling once again how his body was being dragged at full speed across the scorching ground, Alex from sheer frustration could not even find the strength to protest.
Having dragged Alex across the fiery rock, Bahamut swung his wings with all his might and soared upward like a swift candle. Having gained solid height, the dragon made a sharp turn on the spot, using his wings to impart maximum inertia, and with all the accumulated force hurled Alex back downward. Bahamut spun and threw Alex with such insane power that a whole series of dense shockwaves from breaking the sound barrier thundered behind the falling body.
Folding his wings, Bahamut shot after him like a stone, instantly catching up to the falling Alex. Catching him in the air, Bahamut spun around and again clamped onto Alex's muzzle with a death grip of his hind paw, pressing him toward the ground with his entire weight and accelerating the free fall even more. Bahamut and Alex raced downward at such monstrous speed that a bright fiery trail stretched across the sky behind them.
An instant later they crashed crushingly onto the scorching ground, generating yet another gigantic explosion that once again reduced everything around to rubble. Finding himself at the bottom of a fresh crater, Bahamut pressed down on Alex's head with renewed force, driving him even deeper into the burning soil. Looking down at Alex from above, Bahamut stretched his right paw to the side, and a long silver saber began to materialize in it from clumps of light.
"It's over, Ifrit. When you sink once more into eternal sleep, I will fulfill the will of the Mother and forever cleanse our common home of these insignificant parasites," Bahamut said in an absolutely calm, cold tone, aiming the tip of the sparkling sword straight at Alex's chest.
"Dragon idiot with a chicken brain, haven't you forgotten something?" Alex said, predatorily baring rows of the sharpest teeth, and tightly dug his claws into Bahamut's hind paw, nearly crushing it to dust.
"What exactly have I forgotten?" Bahamut asked in the same indifferent, even voice, intently looking into Alex's blazing red eyes.
"Where is my fiery club?" Alex said with an even wider and more terrifying beastly smile, clamping both paws for all he was worth onto the paw that was holding him.
Bahamut's eyes narrowed warily in the same second when he heard behind his back a hollow series of dull explosions—as if something colossally heavy was punching through thick layers of molten rock, demolishing absolutely every obstacle in its path. An instant later the rumble began to sound closer and closer until, with a wild whistle, the fiery club, covered in a thick layer of boiling magma, shot out of the stone wall of the crater. Bahamut immediately materialized a second silver sword in his left paw, intending to deflect the weapon flying at him mid-flight.
However, barely had he raised the blade for a block when he heard a dry, nauseating crack, after which his entire colossal body heavily staggered. Bahamut did not even manage to realize what had happened when his heavily wounded knee buckled, and the returning fiery club slammed into his muzzle at full speed. The blow generated a crushing wave that immediately knocked Bahamut out of position and hurled him toward the opposite wall.
Crashing into the monolithic stone, Bahamut shook his head in a daze and lowered a cloudy gaze downward. Narrowing his green slit eyes, he saw that his hind paw was twisted at a completely unnatural angle, and the toughest scales at the site of the fracture had been literally crushed into dust. At the same time Alex jumped up, deftly catching his fiery club by the handle.
Giving Bahamut not the slightest chance to come to his senses or catch his breath, Alex lunged forward with a sharp surge, literally tearing the soil under his feet. In fractions of a second Alex found himself right in front of Bahamut, stuck in the stone rubble, and immediately raised his smoking fiery club over the dragon's head.
"There's something you didn't know about me, Bahamut… I'm a real master at twisting my opponents' limbs. And now shut that dragon mouth of yours, because from here on our battle is going to get a lot dirtier," Alex said with a wide, predatory beastly smile, swinging the fiery club with a deafening whistle.
Seeing the approaching fiery club, Bahamut immediately reacted, crossing his silver swords in front of his muzzle. But the moment the scorching weapon was supposed to touch the blades, the dragon noticed with alarm that the beastly smile on Alex's horned muzzle had become even wider. At the very last moment before the collision Alex sharply changed the direction of the club and with all his might slammed it straight into Bahamut's unprotected torso.
In that same moment yet another deafening explosion rang out, and the monolithic stone wall behind the dragon's back was covered with a gigantic spiderweb of deep cracks. Feeling that this damage was clearly insufficient, Alex swung the club in a broad arc for the next blow, again aiming at the opponent's battered chest. Quickly recovering after the crushing strike, Bahamut managed to close his sparkling blades in front of his torso.
But once again, right before the moment of contact, Alex broke the trajectory mid-swing, and the club with a nauseating crunch of breaking scales slammed with full force straight into Bahamut's muzzle. Receiving a heavy blow to the snout, the dragon jerked his head back from inertia and slammed the back of his head into the stone wall with full force.
Once again shaking his head in a daze to restore clarity of vision, Bahamut saw that Alex was again swinging his fiery club. Narrowing his eyes, the dragon firmly decided that he would never again fall for this cheap trick. Carefully watching the approaching weapon, Bahamut raised the swords in front of his muzzle, and when the club once again changed trajectory, he reacted in the same second, lowering the blades to torso level.
However, what happened next was something the blinded Bahamut could not have expected at all. At the very moment when the fiery club crashed with a ringing roar into the rigid block of swords, the dragon managed to make out Alex's rapidly approaching heavy fist. In the next instant he received a crushing direct punch straight to the jaws, causing his head to snap helplessly backward again.
Giving Bahamut not the slightest chance to recover, Alex clamped onto his shoulder with one paw for all he was worth and in the same second jumped high, raising his elbow for a strike. Yanking his arm downward, Alex slammed his elbow with full force straight onto the crown of Bahamut's head, forcing it to sharply nod forward. Without loosening his grip, Alex tightly wrapped his paws around the dragon's head and began delivering a brutal series of continuous knee strikes to his torso while simultaneously pounding with his elbow precisely between the wings.
Feeling the hail of merciless attacks that caused the toughest dragon scales to crumble and fly in all directions, Bahamut could no longer hold back the pain and spat a dense clump of dark blood mixed with pieces of internal organs onto the ground. Releasing the opponent's head, Alex immediately made a rapid leap forward, thrusting his powerful knee ahead. Alex's knee slammed with enormous force straight into Bahamut's chest, finally destroying his chest scales.
After such a savage series of blows Bahamut slid limply down the half-destroyed wall, breathing heavily and trying with the last of his strength to gather the remaining energy in order to regenerate his eternal body. Grinning at the beaten, helpless appearance of Bahamut, Alex picked up his fiery club and already by long-ingrained habit reached with his paw toward his thigh for a pocket.
Patting the smoking hide with his clawed hand, Alex realized with annoyance that he was in the beast form of Ifrit, and there could be no talk of any cigarettes right now. Irritably exhaling two streams of thick flame through his nostrils, Alex decided to take out the untimely flare of frustration on the lying Bahamut. Raising his powerful leg high, Alex delivered a direct crushing kick with his foot straight into the dragon's muzzle, driving his head deep into the destroyed rock.
"Thought you'd figured out my feints?! HA! Naïve lizards like you I eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! You got that, Bahamut?! And now, damn you, get back into your lousy sphere!" Alex roared, finally removing his heavy hind paw from Bahamut's muzzle.
"Never… It is my holy duty to protect the Mother. She weeps from unbearable pain… just as she wept then! These disgusting creatures soullessly suck her blood! And no matter what it takes, I will exterminate them every last one!" Bahamut uttered with enormous difficulty, bracing his wounded paws against the destroyed wall of the crater and trying to stand.
"You're right, she really is weeping! But not because of the people—because of that alien creature that is still parasitizing on her body! Have you forgotten what that being was called?! Remember, damn you, Bahamut! Who did you fight two millennia ago?!" Alex roared with even greater irritation, digging his claws into the dragon's muzzle with a crack and forcing him to look straight into his eyes.
"Who was it?.. Who did we fight? Who was it?.. I… I don't remember… Why the hell don't I remember anything, Ifrit?!" Bahamut exhaled in a stunned, lost tone, intently peering into Alex's blazing pupils and with horror sensing how something incredibly important inside his mind had irrevocably disappeared.
Intently looking into Alex's bright-red beastly eyes, Bahamut with the last of his strength tried to recall what had happened whole millennia ago during the great war for this world. But all these ancient memories slipped away from him like sand through fingers, and he simply could not latch onto a single clear detail. Before his closed eyes short pictures of the distant past flashed chaotically.
He clearly remembered the majestic temple that the ancient people of the Cetra had erected in his honor at the foot of the highest mountain, where his abode had been. He remembered how year after year he had tirelessly watched as the world around gradually came to life and filled with strength, and how in those places that had gained life other guardian spirits were born one after another. He remembered a mysterious being with dark-gray wings that had gifted the Cetra deep wisdom and guided them along the path of prosperity.
Still desperately trying to remember, Bahamut dug his wounded paws into his bloodied muzzle, trying to literally pull from the depths of memory at least something that had happened after that peaceful time. Without noticing it himself, the dragon in madness began slamming his head against the destroyed ground with all his might, as if trying by brute force to knock out of the most hidden corners of his subconscious at least tiny fragments of memories of that war.
And gradually through the hellish pain he managed to recall what had happened right before the beginning of the catastrophe. He remembered a gigantic fiery meteorite that had crashed onto the earth from the heavens with a roar, immediately followed by a loud cry of his Mother filled with unbearable pain and sorrow. And then total devastation and an endless, protracted war had begun.
But no matter how hard Bahamut tried, he still could not recall either what that alien being had looked like or what its name had been. And when the dragon already felt that he was one step away from the truth and was about to remember everything, in his ears in the same second a wild, deafening hum of many foreign voices began to grow. In the next instant they merged into a single icy whisper that rang out with an authoritative echo throughout his entire subconscious.
"All these memories are false… They were imposed upon your mind. There was no being that wished to destroy the Mother," the voice insistently whispered right into Bahamut's ears, again drawing his mind under an impenetrable veil.
The hum of foreign voices in Bahamut's head grew stronger and louder with every moment, and together with this growing noise the dragon clearly felt something inside his consciousness crack with a nauseating ring, like thin glass. Bahamut did not even manage to realize what was happening when the genuine memories of the distant past shattered before his gaze into thousands of tiny fragments, and in their place completely different pictures immediately arrived.
Everything he had desperately tried to recall up to this moment now appeared before him in a completely different, distorted light. Now he clearly "saw" that what had fallen from the heavens onto the earth was not an alien meteorite at all—it was something entirely different that had caused the bitter weeping of his Mother. And immediately the picture before his closed eyes sharply changed: he discerned that the fiery ball that had destroyed everything by its fall was a weapon created by a once-prosperous race.
Helplessly twitching his bloodied muzzle and to the very last trying to deny these imposed images, Bahamut against his own will continued to absorb the falsehood that the foreign whisper was forcing into his mind. The race that had created that terrible weapon was supposedly the Cetra who had fallen away, who at some point had simply stopped hearing the sacred voice of the Mother. Those Cetra had been called Humanity—proud beings who denied the very fact that Gaia was alive and capable of feeling pain.
For this new Humanity the entire world was merely a soulless place of habitation belonging exclusively to them alone. And with these selfish thoughts Humanity had begun ruthlessly cutting down the ancient forests, destroying the sacred beasts, and building gigantic smoking cities that polluted everything around. But even that was not enough for them, and in the same second they began mass-producing deadly weapons in order to seize ever new territories.
In the end this egoism grew into a bloody war between the remnants of the true Cetra, who wished to protect the Planet, and Humanity, blinded by greed and thirsting to rule all that exists. The more such lies flashed in Bahamut's poisoned head, the stronger and more unyielding became his blind faith that Humanity was an incurable parasite on the long-suffering body of his Mother.
"Humanity… must be completely destroyed…" Bahamut whispered barely audibly, helplessly pressing his wounded muzzle into the scorching soil and staring ahead with his flared, cloudy-green eyes.
Bahamut himself did not realize how, in those short moments while he had desperately tried to restore the pictures of the past, his memories had been forcibly rewritten by the polluted Fate of this world. Its invisible messengers, the Gray Whisperers, without even knowing it themselves, were again leading Gaia not toward salvation at all, but strictly in that destructive direction which the alien Parasite was secretly indicating to them.
Watching this tormenting hesitation, Alex to the very last hoped that now Bahamut would finally be able to remember who the true villain in this story actually was. However, in those couple of short seconds Alex's beastly face twisted with fierce anger the moment he heard Bahamut's mad whisper.
Already preparing to properly slam the heavy club into the dragon's head in order to knock all the nonsense imposed by the Gray Whisperers out of him once and for all, Alex noticed with annoyance how Bahamut's wounded body began to rapidly regenerate and change its form.
The bright silver scales on the dragon's body before his eyes began quickly darkening, becoming gloomy, dark-gray, and as if completely losing their inner radiance. His sweeping wings became noticeably larger, and from below on them massive bone spikes immediately sprouted from the flesh, resembling long, sharp swords in appearance. Sharply spreading his new colossal wings, Bahamut generated powerful gusts of wind that immediately blew away all the stone chips and lava around him.
Covering his muzzle with a paw from the risen hurricane, Alex still tried to swing the fiery club at Bahamut's renewed snout before the dragon could pull another stupidity. But the moment Alex raised the fiery club, Bahamut powerfully swung his enormous wings and soared upward like a swift arrow.
This takeoff caused even more destruction, finally collapsing the already broken walls of the crater. Covering his eyes with a clawed paw, Alex gloomily watched as the dark dragon flew into the ashen sky of Muspelheim, and could not hold back from clicking his tongue in annoyance.
"Well, fuck, same as always! Does Fate have such shitty jokes that every idiot like this necessarily has second and third phases in reserve?!" Alex spat out with dull irritation, feeling only deep fatigue from the realization that this unpleasant fight was still not over.
Having soared to the very clouds of Muspelheim, Bahamut spread his colossal dark wings and with one powerful flap completely dispersed the stormy fog. Lowering a cloudy green gaze downward, he looked at Alex in Ifrit form, who was still standing in the very center of the destroyed crater.
Flapping his gigantic wings once more, Bahamut began concentrating all his power for one deadly salvo. Along his renewed wings silver-gray energy began rapidly accumulating, which flowed in a thick stream to the neck and then to the chest.
Bahamut widely opened his maw, where a clump of colossal power also began to boil. Before the dragon's eyes an enormous sphere of compressed plasma formed, rapidly increasing in size. As if embracing this gigantic energy clump with his wings, Bahamut sharply spread them to the sides. In that same instant a crushing pillar of energy struck from the heavens, racing downward straight at Alex.
Watching the rapidly approaching pillar of death, Alex narrowed his eyes, and blue astral flame immediately began boiling in his maw. Sharply throwing his head back, Alex released a pillar of compressed blue fire to meet the heavenly punishment. The flame was so hot that the very air around it began to distort and ignite, causing a series of deafening explosions.
The pillar of blue flame and the clump of compressed plasma locked in a death grip right in the middle, generating a colossal explosion. A powerful wave in the same second shook all of Muspelheim, causing total destruction even in those distant corners of the Domain where the echoes of their battle had not previously reached. While a fierce confrontation of two elements was taking place in the sky, the surrounding space itself began to crack at the seams and become covered with deep spatial fissures, catastrophically changing the structure of the dimension.
This confrontation lasted only a few short moments, but it had already managed to inflict critical damage on the entire Domain. And in that same moment Alex saw with annoyance that Bahamut immediately began charging yet another attack, intending to deliver one more, far more concentrated shot. Seeing all this, Alex realized in the same second: if their next pair of attacks collided again, Muspelheim would simply shatter into pieces.
Then their destructive battle would inevitably transfer to the skies above Midgar, and that would end in nothing good for the people below. Gripping the fiery club more tightly in his powerful paw, Alex hurled it with incredible force straight at the chest of Bahamut frozen in the sky. The thrown weapon immediately gained furious speed, turning into a blazing fiery projectile. At the very last moment Bahamut managed to sharply flap his wings and fly aside, avoiding a direct hit.
Having dodged the projectile, the dragon continued as if nothing had happened to accumulate energy for the salvo. However, in the next instant he noticed with astonishment that Alex was no longer in the crater. Instead, right behind his back Bahamut felt a scorchingly hot gust of air. Sharply turning his muzzle back, the dragon saw Alex, who mid-flight had intercepted the returning fiery club and immediately raised it for a crushing blow.
"When I told you to get into that fucking sphere, you should have, bitch, gotten into the fucking sphere right away! Damn King of Laser Dragons, now I'm going to beat every last drop of that gray shit out of you!" Alex hissed with fierce rage, bringing the fiery club down with a deafening whistle straight onto Bahamut's head.
Giving Bahamut not a single chance to react, Alex slammed the fiery club with all his might straight into his snout. The club crashed with a deafening crunch into the dragon's jaws, knocking out an entire row of bloodied teeth. Pressing on the handle with even greater force, Alex sent Bahamut into a rapid flight at enormous speed.
Having no intention of giving the opponent even a moment to react, Alex in the same second hurled the fiery club after the falling dragon. The weapon immediately caught up to Bahamut, and in that same moment a scarlet flash flared nearby—Alex, having gained enormous speed after teleporting to his own weapon, was once again nearby. Deftly intercepting the club in the air, Alex swung and crushingly slammed it into Bahamut's torso, sending him into yet another prolonged flight.
Again throwing the club after him, Alex in the same second found himself at the target and once more brought a heavy blow down on the dragon, redirecting the vector of his fall. Alex continued to continuously deliver cascades of powerful attacks against Bahamut's mutilated body, time after time sending him into free fall and leaving him not the slightest opportunity to fight back.
Once again intercepting the thrown club, Alex swung precisely at Bahamut's head. However, right before the collision the dragon at the last second managed to intercept the fiery club with his massive clawed paw. But even so he still received colossal damage from the concentrated impulse—all the scales along his paw were covered with deep cracks through which dark-red blood densely seeped.
Bahamut himself paid no attention whatsoever to this damage. He sharply swung his wing, intending to pierce Alex's body through with his bone spike that resembled a huge sword. Seeing the approaching tip, Alex let out a low beastly growl and immediately delivered a powerful punch with his fist straight against his own club. From this ram the fiery club snapped, and Alex with a sharp yank tore the sharpened stump out of Bahamut's paw.
Dodging the deadly swing of the wing, Alex with all his strength drove the broken club straight into the membranes of Bahamut's wing and sharply yanked his arm downward, ripping them open with a crack. Deflecting the bone spike with the back of his clawed paw, Alex without delay drove the jagged tip of the club deep into Bahamut's abdomen.
Receiving such severe injuries, Bahamut let out a deafening roar of unbearable pain and desperately began concentrating energy in his throat. But before he could release a salvo of compressed plasma from his maw, a crushing upward blow to the chin landed on him from below, completely disorienting him. Not allowing Bahamut to spit out the plasma, Alex instantly pounced on him from above, tearing off a layer of scales with his claws along with the flesh.
Opening his fang-filled maw, Alex clamped his teeth for all he was worth onto the very base of Bahamut's wing and clenched his jaws until the bones cracked. Blood from the torn artery instantly gushed onto Alex's muzzle, but he had no intention of stopping. Clenching his teeth even tighter, Alex with a sharp, wild movement of his head completely tore off Bahamut's gigantic wing.
Having torn out the wing, Alex delivered a furious knee strike against the handle of the broken club sticking out of Bahamut's abdomen, driving it even deeper, and immediately leaped backward. Having lost both wings and with them the ability to stay in the air, Bahamut plummeted downward like a stone, tearing through the clouds.
Watching the falling dragon, Alex raised his paw high above his head. Right above his hand a fiery hurricane began to rapidly gather, spinning into a furiously rotating sphere that in the same second grew to colossal size. From the furious whirlwind created by this fiery sphere, the heavy clouds of Muspelheim began to spiral around Alex's colossal figure.
"Fire Rasenshuriken, Ifrit version!" Alex growled with excitement, with difficulty holding the gigantic rotating sphere right above his head.
Having finished speaking, Alex with a deafening roar hurled the fiery Rasenshuriken straight at the falling Bahamut. Seeing the rapidly approaching gigantic sphere that was spinning at furious speed, the dragon understood perfectly: without wings he would never be able to dodge a direct hit. Therefore he took the only desperate step that could somehow save his life. Bahamut raised his crippled left paw in front of himself, intending to take the entire main damage upon it.
The fiery Rasenshuriken slammed into the dragon at colossal speed, imparting an even more deadly impulse to his fall. An instant later Bahamut crashed with a ringing roar into the scorching soil of the crater, and in that same moment the fiery Rasenshuriken detonated, completely covering his body with a gigantic blinding dome. The fiery whirlwind spun at insane speed, sucking everything into its center and grinding multi-ton rocks into the finest dust on the fly.
Watching this fiery hell from the height of the dispersed clouds, Alex stepped off the hovering fiery platform and raced downward. Almost at the very ground Alex smoothly slowed his fall and softly landed on the soil scored with deep cracks. Waving a powerful clawed paw, Alex dispersed the dense cloud of ash, intending to check whether his opponent was capable of continuing the fight.
As soon as the gray smoke cleared, a truly pitiful sight appeared before Alex. Bahamut's entire body was practically destroyed: the toughest scales were completely cracked and charred, and dark blood continuously flowed from deep wounds, immediately evaporating upon contact with the scorching earth. The left paw was completely missing, and the right one was burned down to the very white bone.
But even in such a terrifying state Bahamut still managed to rise. With enormous difficulty standing on his hind paws, the swaying Bahamut trudged toward his torn-off wings lying nearby and heavily bent over them. He stretched his burning paws toward them, and the severed wings in the same second flared with bright light, beginning to fuse with his torn flesh at an extreme speed.
A moment later Bahamut's mutilated paws began to rapidly regenerate and transform. Instead of the lost left limb a massive organic shield in the form of a folded wing formed, fused for all it was worth with his shoulder. The right paw, for its part, fused solidly with a sharp bone blade. Rising to his full height, Bahamut raised the shield in front of himself and above it raised the bone blade.
By his entire appearance Bahamut made it clear: he intended to fight to the very end. Seeing this unyielding resolve, Alex nodded understandingly, and the astral flame around his beastly body flared with an even brighter, more blinding force. Taking a deep combat stance, Alex stretched his open paw forward and drew the other far back, clenching his claws into a crushing fist.
"We'll finish everything with one blow!" Alex said, looking straight into Bahamut's eyes.
"Yes… With one single blow… Stop me, Ifrit," Bahamut answered in a quiet but clear voice, for a brief moment breaking free from under the mental oppression and brainwashing of the Gray Whisperers.
"All right… Then I'll show you the true power of a Hero who managed to become a Symbol of Hope for the people of an entire world!" Alex said with a wide, excited smile, slightly crouching on his powerful paws for the decisive dash.
"Show me this… Show me that true Heroes can still be born among humans…" Bahamut exhaled in a hoarse, weary tone, holding on with the last of his strength on trembling legs.
"PLUS!.." Alex roared loudly across all of Muspelheim, with a wide beastly smile drawing his blazing fist even farther back.
Seeing this, Bahamut with the last of his strength raised the shield of the transformed wing in front of himself, preparing to take the final crushing blow. Slightly leaning forward, Alex immediately vanished from his place, at furious speed drawing back his blazing fist. Thrusting his arm forward, Alex generated a whole series of destructive shockwaves that began to finally tear the fabric of reality around them.
At that moment Bahamut felt how the entire world around him sharply slowed down, and in his head the icy foreign voice again insistently sounded, ordering him to continue fighting and no matter what to kill Alex. But Bahamut flatly refused to listen to this whisper. He stubbornly continued to hold the shield in front of himself, defending his right to remain himself. And the moment the dragon rejected the mental command, the world around in the same second returned to its former furious rhythm, and Alex's gigantic fist collided with full force against his organic armor.
"ULTRAAAA!" Alex shouted deafeningly across the dying Domain, putting all the power he had into this single blow.
From this crushing ram Bahamut felt colossal, inhuman power, but continued to stubbornly lean against the shield with his entire body, straining with all his might to withstand the attack. However, in the same second a deafening crack rang out, and deep cracks spread across the organic shield like a spiderweb.
In just one short second the wing-shield was completely destroyed under Alex's fist. The blazing fist without delay slammed straight into Bahamut's chest, generating a colossal shockwave that finally destroyed the dimension of Muspelheim. Together with the complete collapse of the Domain, Bahamut's body crumbled into pieces, and high above Midgar a pure, powerful explosion thundered, dispersing the heavy clouds in all directions.
Finding himself in the open sky and gripping the bright Red Materia of Summoning in his clawed paw, Alex breathed heavily and intermittently. At the very last moment before the destruction of Bahamut's form he managed to discern in the dragon's cloudy eyes a deep, sincere relief. Lowering his head, Alex understood perfectly that the dragon was not dead for good at all, but had merely once again sunk into a deep sleep inside the Materia.
Shaking his massive head, Alex decided to act strictly according to his original plan. In the same second his colossal body of Ifrit flared with blinding scarlet-blue flame and rapidly raced downward toward the steel roofs of Midgar. Watching the blazing fiery monster falling from the heavens, the residents of Midgar fell into genuine panic.
However, the colossal body of Ifrit never reached the plates of the Upper City: right in the air it crumbled into thousands of harmless tongues of flame that immediately scattered in the evening air. Alex knew perfectly well that the top brass of the Shinra Corporation was right now carefully watching him through every available camera. That was precisely why he intended to flawlessly play the role of a mortally exhausted and emptied guy—for he was certain that Heidegger had partially managed to detect his transformation into Ifrit.
To be continued...
(Yes, there may have been a lot of talking in this chapter. But Alex and Bahamut weren't planning on talking. Okay, Bahamut has fallen, and Alex has a new Pokémon. And that means we're one step closer to ending the events in Midgar, and our journey is beginning. Hooray. And for me, that means it's time to eat. So I'll go eat. Peace, love, and PLUS-ULTRA!)
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