orz.
Balthier tumbled onto the ground, taking a moment to register the fierce sunlight before he got up. Dusting his leather vest and pants off as he stood, Balthier scanned the ground around him.
And immediately sensed something was wrong.
It might have been the conspicuous lack of Fran, which was somewhat alarming of itself. He was used to Fran disappearing under her own power, rather than physics and gravity.
Moreover, he was standing in front of a stone arch, and through it, like a temple’s windowpane of cutout colors, was a hazy picture of falling debris and desert sand, cutting off sharply at the inner edges of the arch and starkly apocalyptic against the bright sun and blue sky all around it. Then, the picture flickered, like a primitive video screen, and the landscape was suddenly lush vegetation in colors Balthier was fairly certain never existed in Ivalice.
Thinking, he picked up a stone from the ground near his feet and tossed it straight into the archway with a flick of his wrist.
The stone didn’t come back out the other side.
Which made the rather rudimentary archway a dimensional portal, then, of some kind. And a world one stone heavier than before.
From the Mist that seemed to curl from the stone arch, the fall of the Bahamut and her thousand-strong magicite engines had likely generated enough Mist to bend time and space. Fran was either here or still in Ivalice. Fortunately, he’d managed to get her inside the shelter before the Mist had blasted him clean off his feet. And Fran was nothing if not a survivor. Sky Pirates had to be. He would have to trust her on that.
On the other hand, if she had been thrown into this dimension, too… well, he could hardly leave a lady unescorted.
Particularly as unwanted company seemed to be plentiful around here.
In the persons of three monsters lumbering into view from the left, no less.
The first one spotted him and grunted, charging immediately.
“I don’t suppose you’re any more sentient than eloquent?” Balthier asked testingly.
But the monster simply kept charging, clearly unable to understand.
“I see. Clearly too much to hope that the locals would be friendly,” Balthier murmured to himself as he cocked his Fomahault, dipping a hand into the pouch strapped to his thigh and sliding some onion shots into the barrel. When in doubt, shoot first.
After that, reload.
Balthier tumbled onto the ground, taking a moment to register the fierce sunlight before he got up. Dusting his leather vest and pants off as he stood, Balthier scanned the ground around him.
And immediately sensed something was wrong.
It might have been the conspicuous lack of Fran, which was somewhat alarming of itself. He was used to Fran disappearing under her own power, rather than physics and gravity.
Moreover, he was standing in front of a stone arch, and through it, like a temple’s windowpane of cutout colors, was a hazy picture of falling debris and desert sand, cutting off sharply at the inner edges of the arch and starkly apocalyptic against the bright sun and blue sky all around it. Then, the picture flickered, like a primitive video screen, and the landscape was suddenly lush vegetation in colors Balthier was fairly certain never existed in Ivalice.
Thinking, he picked up a stone from the ground near his feet and tossed it straight into the archway with a flick of his wrist.
The stone didn’t come back out the other side.
Which made the rather rudimentary archway a dimensional portal, then, of some kind. And a world one stone heavier than before.
From the Mist that seemed to curl from the stone arch, the fall of the Bahamut and her thousand-strong magicite engines had likely generated enough Mist to bend time and space. Fran was either here or still in Ivalice. Fortunately, he’d managed to get her inside the shelter before the Mist had blasted him clean off his feet. And Fran was nothing if not a survivor. Sky Pirates had to be. He would have to trust her on that.
On the other hand, if she had been thrown into this dimension, too… well, he could hardly leave a lady unescorted.
Particularly as unwanted company seemed to be plentiful around here.
In the persons of three monsters lumbering into view from the left, no less.
The first one spotted him and grunted, charging immediately.
“I don’t suppose you’re any more sentient than eloquent?” Balthier asked testingly.
But the monster simply kept charging, clearly unable to understand.
“I see. Clearly too much to hope that the locals would be friendly,” Balthier murmured to himself as he cocked his Fomahault, dipping a hand into the pouch strapped to his thigh and sliding some onion shots into the barrel. When in doubt, shoot first.
After that, reload.