"Edge... Got any idea where we are going after? Where do we go from there?"

"I haven't the slighte..." The Falcon shook violently. "idea. The fiends, then another town, I gather."

The Falcon was shaking, hard.

"Okay, then we should meet back up with FuS. .. " The Falcon shook again. "What is that?"

Edge shrugged, and the shaking grew larger, and then the airship churned, and started going down.

Rydia yelled, shocked. "Ah! Now what? No float spells... uhmm. Bahamut!"

The lgendary dragon appeared and caught the airship just before it hit the ground, and lowered it gently, then bowed to Rydia, and disappeared.

"Great... now where are we?" Edge asked.

"I don't know, we can use Leviathan to swim us around though, and then..." Rydia felt another pain through her head. She became confused. "The fiends can't be here..." she muttered.

Edge drew his swords, and Rydia, her whip. They looked around nervously.

A large shadow flickered into view in front of them. The shadow spoke in a loud booming voice.

"YOU HAVE THE POWER TO USE MAGIC. I, MORDATH, WANT THAT POWER IN MY GRASP, NOW! YOU WILL GIVE ME THE FRAGMENT OF ORB!"

Edge immediately jumped at the being. "These guys always seem to follow us, then attack us, and take something of ours!"

The being knocked Edge into the ground, then looked straight at Rydia. "GIVE ME THE ORB!"

Rydia thought clearly, and whipped at it. Then she had a single thought in her mind. "Call Bahamut, or Leviathan." But the thought never was transferred to action, as she was thrown back near the airship.

"Oww... Asura!"

The queen appeared, healed Edge and Rydia, and Rydia fell to her knees, weakened by the lack of magic she had.

Edge then leapt into action. "How dare you hit her!" He raged, threw a sword at the being, and charged it.

Rydia had recovered now, and was casting another call. "Leviathan!"

The large serpent emerged from the water nearby, and thrust a huge wave, enveloping the being. Edge leapt back, near Rydia.

Edge, now with only one sword, asked weakly, "Now what...?"

"We're damaging it, now!" shouted Edge, happily, but Rydia was too busy trying to cast magic off the orb.

"Titan... Titan... T-I-T-A-N!" she cried out, panicking; the orb wasn't functioning right, and she was losing magic power. A large Titan appeared and punched the ground, but the Mordath leapt over it, landing near Edge.

Edge now flipped back, and hurled another star, and jumped forward, slicing with his sword. He was knocked back hard by the creature's arm.

Rydia was now completely panicked. She ran up with Edge, not having magic anymore, and whipped it hard - to no avail. The duo seemed to be fighting a lost cause. The Mordath paused a second, and seemed to transform. Rydia spoke out, surprised. "A... wizard?"

Indeed the Mordath was no longer the Mordath, but a wizard wearing a circlet, who began to cast a spell at Edge. Rydia whipped, and the wizard caught the whip with his arm, and jerked Rydia down. He finished his spell, and cast it at Edge. "Fire3!" Edge was enveloped in a crimson flame, and collapsed from the flames. Mordath turned to Rydia, who had recovered her wits, and had retrieved the orb from her pocket. Her whip was now under Mordath's foot. Mordath shot a tiny bolt of lighting at her, which she dodged. "Fire... FIRE! FIIIIRRRE!" she yelled. A small flame burned the wizard's cloak. He laughed. He began to speak.

"Foolish caller! You will now give me the orb I seek... Or, at least the fragment. It's a pity my spell didn't fool you completely, because I wouldn't have had to kill you then." he laughed.

Rydia thought, as she pocketed the orb. It didn't and wouldn't help her now. While pocketing the orb, she noticed a small thing in her pocket, about the size of her hand. It was her last hope. . She withdrew it. Her Punisher Rod! Cecil had given this to her a long time ago! She focused her energyu into a swing, and did so. She struck such a heavy blow, Mordath fell back, enraged. "Next time, caller.. WARP!" he cackled.

Rydia fell from near-exhaustion, next to Edge. There would be time to talk to him later...

"Well, hi there, mister!" Rydia called out. She smiled. She had more to smile about since she woke up. They had just beaten a bad guy, not something you do all the time.

Edge came up groggily; he was hurt, but not too badly. He was well enough to walk around. He moved over to his thrown sword after acknowledging Rydia, and caught sight of a circlet. He picked it up. "This look familiar to you, dear?" He showed it to her.

To Rydia, the circlet glittered with a bright light that she had never seen before; as she held it, she felt her magic powers refill. "This was Mordath's!", she said, as she donned it. "Must've given him some magic power!" She smiled again. Only now did she notice Edge was looking longingly had the slightly ruined Falcon.

Edge slashed at the hull of the airship. "It'll never fly now," he muttered. "I figure that now we're stuck here, save for you calling some big thing to help us." He slashed again. Rydia began to call something, but she didn't. She touched the orb to the circlet, and regenerated it first, and then cast it. Something just told her to take the precaution. She called Odin, and it slashed some trees down. After about twenty minutes of calling beings, the airship was restored.

Edge took the helm, and took off. He looked far into the distance, and saw another, newer airship, that he had never seen before. He set a course, and headed towards it. This was most certainly not the Big Whale. The Falcon would overtake this ship if he flew it fast enough. Then Rydia called out to him.

"What about Golbez?"

"He can cover for himself... First we get that airship over there!"

"Huh? Celes told me about one of her friends who buil... Huh?" she was startled by another jar at the airship, "Not again!"

Swords were unsheathed, and another fight began.

An airship was rapidly overtaking the lackadasically-moving airship Setzer flew. He glanced over in some mild annoyance, tinged with surprise. Who else would have the skills to construct an airship, and why were they intruding on his serentity? Wait! Of course! A race!

Setzer grinned, pulling his airship beside the other. A race it would be, then. He strode to the side of the ship, to call out to the other. And smiled at the five figures who stood there. "Ho there!" he cried.

A scream startled him from his thoughts. "Oh, don't cash all your chips in yet." he called out, grabbing a rigging line and slashing it with the edge of one of his razor sharp playing cards. Wrapping the end of the line tightly about his wrist, he launched himself from the edge of the ship, leather coat and white hair flying equally free in the rush of air he passed through.

He landed on the balls of his feet, the tail end of a cry of victory still sounding in his throat. He spun, tossing cards at the three creatures whom he and the two others fought against. Setzer grinned. With his presence, the tide had turned significantly. "Wild cards tend to do that to the game." he said idly, drawing an odd look from the green haired lady who he had initially thought to be the lovely and talented half-Esper, Terra.

But even with his aid, the monster's abilities far overwhelmed his and his new comrades'. "/Now/ it's time to cash in..." he yelled at the two others, slashing one of the handy rigging ropes on this ship. "Grab on!" Setzer wrapped the rope about his wrist just as he had done before, fixing the Coin Toss relic about his wrist. The lovely almost-Terra and her friend grabbed onto Setzer in absolute trust, having identified themselves that this fight was a hopeless one.

Setzer's fingers dipped into his money pouch, drawing out a handful of coins. With an expert touch achieved only by a man who had made the manipulation of chips his life, Setzer tossed the stack of coins into the air, catching them in a slot set into the Coin Toss relic. With a buzz of grinding metal, the coins were honed to a razor edge, then propelled out at blinding speeds - to strike the balloon which held the airship high above the land.

With that, Setzer launched himself and his two new companions from the edge of the crippled airship. Looking for all the world like a scene stolen from a space opera, the three flew across the gap between the two ships, to land gracefully (at least on Setzer's part) on the deck of Setzer's ship.

Setzer turned, smiled and waved at the almost comically horrified fiends who stared at him from across the gap. "Enjoy your trip down!" he cried with a merry wave. And with that, the only functional airship left upon the planet went spinning off into the horizon.