Scarecrow breathed deeply of the salty sea air.  For a moment the
storms had cleared, so he tried to enjoy himself.  Two hundred thousand!
Now that he was beginning to create a name for himself, he was getting even
better job offers than when Kefka...
  He paused, looking down at the frothy ocean.  He was almost sure he had
seen something.  What could it be?  Scarecrow stared at the water for a long
moment.
  "What 'r you lookin at, sonny?" asked Greldex.  The grizzled boatman
stepped over to the railing, standing next to Scarecrow.  "Is something
wrong?"
  Scarecrow only pointed.  The water was bubbling a short distance away from
the ship, and steam seemed to be rising.
  Greldex blinked.  "In all my years... I've never seen anything like
this.  Any idea what it is?"
  Scarecrow gave a brief shake of his head.  "Hard to tell for certain.  It
could be some type of sea creature, but I've never seen anything like
this... and sea creatures don't usually attack boats... unless..."
  Scarecrow paused for a moment, staring at the bubbles.
  "AQUILAN!" he suddenly shouted.  Scarecrow grabbed Greldex and with all
of his strength, leaped toward the cabin.
  Behind him, a huge head rose from the water, letting out a blast of flame
that covered the entire ship.  Scarecrow hit the floor of the cabin hard,
flames passing just behind him.
  "And now the real fun begins," Scarecrow muttered as he leaped out of the
cabin.
  The Aquilan blinked as he leaped back out of the cabin, apparently
surprised that anyone had survived that.  Scarecrow had his cloak to thank
for that, which had fended off most of the blast from both he and Greldex.
  In the split second it took the creature to blink, Scarecrow sent two
knives flying toward the reptilian head.  It screeched in pain as the
blades soared straight into it's mouth.
  The head returned to the water, and Scarecrow drew two more knives.
Standing in the middle of the now burning ship, he waited for the next
attack to come.
  Where had it come from? he wondered.  The last of the Aquilans had become
extinct during the first War of the Magi.  In fact, he was lucky to have
heard about them at all.  They had some amazing legends in that Ancient
Castle.  An Aquilan, it said, was a type of Sea Dragon, a type that grew
quickly and could regenerate itself.  Scarecrow had no doubt that the
Aquilan was healing the knife wounds it had taken, and would soon be back
to normal.
  A tentacle rose from the water, raking blindly across the ship.  Another
rose from the opposite side.  A third rose up, but this one had a huge eye
attached to the end of it.
  Scarecrow cursed inwardly.  He had hoped the Aquilan would have to resort
to blind-fighting.  If this thing was fully grown...
  As the tentacles snaked across the burning boat, Scarecrow threw a single
knife at the massive eye.  Armored eyelids closed, and the knife bounced
off ineffectively.
  But when the eye opened again, Scarecrow was nowhere to be seen.  The two
tentacles stopped moving, unsure of what to do.  The eye stalk began to
circle the boat.
  And then Scarecrow leaped out of his hiding place behind the cabin,
slashing down with both longswords at the starboard tentacle.  The blades
peirced the armored skin, managing to slice the end of the tentacle clean
off.  As the other tentacle raced toward him, two more tentacles rose, one
on each side of the ship.
  Blades flailing, Scarecrow leaped across the ship, desperately trying to
avoid the three tentacles, not to mention the spreading blaze.  One managed
to tangle around his leg, but he slipped free just in time to avoid the
other two.
  Scarecrow realized he couldn't win this way.  "Time to pull out the big
guns," he muttered to himself.
  After evading the tentacles once again, he suddenly stopped, roughly in
the middle of the ship.  "Lightning!"  A bolt of electricity appeared out of
the only slightly cloudy sky, impacting with the eye before it had a chance
to close it's armored eyelid.
  Scarecrow knew this had only stunned it for a second, so he ignored the
rapidly approaching tentacles to throw his sword at the eye.  It went in
dead center, and the eye dropped into the ocean.
  He didn't have time to congratulate himself, as the three tentacles
slammed full-force into him.  His DarkCloak protected him from most of the
damage, but one of the tentacles twisted around him, pinning his arms to his
sides.  He couldn't even move as it began to squeeze him.
  Scarecrow struggled against his captor.  If he could just reach...
  A quarrel suddenly stuck into the side of the thing, and it released its
hold on Scarecrow just enough for him to slip out.  As he rolled to the side
to avoid the other tentacles, he grimly noted Greldex inside the cabin,
re-arming his crossbow.
  The Aquilan's massive head reared up again out of the water...
  Scarecrow leaped to the side, ducking behind the mast to avoid the heat of
the flames.  Luckily for him, the Aquilan could only breathe flames at the
same strength as its first blast once in a great while.
  "Stay inside the cabin!"  Scarecrow shouted to Greldex, unsure of whether
his voice would carry that far.  He had to find some way to take out the
head...
  He almost didn't notice the sixth tentacle rising up from behind him.
This tentacle had a hole at the end, and looked almost like a tube...
  Scarecrow brought up his DarkCloak just as the acid spray hit him.  He was
glad the cloak was impervious to acid.  Kefka had indeed created it well.
The cloak had been a personal gift to him for his services... in some ways,
it was almost too bad Kefka was dead.
  Scarecrow broke out of his thoughts in time to evade one of the normal
tentacles, being sure to keep his cloak up between himself and the acid-
sprayer.  Unfortunately, that left only one hand free to use his sword.
  "As if that wasn't bad enough," he sighed, noting the small winged form
now rising from the depths of the water.  It was a drake, a sort of
offspring of the Aquilan, that an Aquilan would realease in a dangerous
situation.
  "First things first," Scarecrow muttered.  Abandoning the protection of
his cloak, he whipped out his trump card...
  the Guardian sword.  It was Scarecrow's most powerful magic item, a blade
found deep in the secret passageways of the Ancient Castle.  The legend he
had read there had mentioned the fact that it had belonged to a great
warrior, and that this warrior's essences still filled the sword.  It was
indeed a powerful weapon, and could slice through steel like it was butter.
Scarecrow still thought the Guardian had more power locked deep inside,
though he had been unable to unleash it.
  "No time for that now."  A tentacle was headed straight for him.  He
hopped a short distance to the side and cut it in half, then leaped to avoid
the acid blast.
  The other two tentacles stopped reaching toward him, hesitating
momentarily.  He took the opportunity to leap forward and hack one of them
apart.  The second retreated into the depths of the ocean.
  The drake, which was in the sky above the burning boat now, took the
opportunity to breathe fire, blasting Scarecrow to the fore of the boat.  It
was a good hit, but Scarecrow managed to stay on his feet.  He dimly noted
two more drakes rising from the waters.
  "Now's the time," he thought, leaping to avoid another blast of acid.  He
then dropped the sword in his left hand and whipped out an autocrossbow,
raking the three drakes with quarrels.  One of them went down, but it was
enough to turn the other two away.
  Dropping the Autocrossbow to use the Guardian with both hands, he ran from
the front of the ship to the back, acid trailing along just behind him.
Though the acid damaged the ship even more, it did put the fire out, and
that was good enough for Scarecrow.
  Then Scarecrow leaped straight at the spraying tentacle, using the
Guardian to block the acid blast.  One quick swipe and the tentacle was gone.
  He turned around to find himself facing four drakes, and the head of the
Aquilan had just risen up.  Not even his DarkCloak could protect him from
that kind of firepower.  He was sure he could see the Aquilan's reptilian
lips draw back in a smile.
  There was nothing left he could do.  It seemed stupid to Scarecrow for it
all to end here, stupid and useless as well.  He knew it could have been no
coincedence that the Aquilan had attacked him, but he had survived many
traps before.  Why here?
  His gaze went down to the Guardian sword, and thoughts of the great
warrior filled Scarecrow's head.  "Ancient warrior," he began, unsure of why
he was talking to a sword, "I ask for your help.  I cannot defeat this thing
alone.  I know what you must think of me, if indeed the essence inside this
sword does think.  I believe you were once a protector of the innocent.  The
captain of this ship has done nothing, but if I die, the Aquilan will kill
him.  Please help us."
  Scarecrow opened his eyes, suddenly aware he had closed him.  Nothing had
changed.  The Aquilan drew back its head, moving in perfect simoultaneity
with the drakes.  Nowhere to run.  Scarecrow held up the Guardian, in a
futile effort to block some of the fire, and closed his eyes.
  A deafening roar filled his ears...
  Scarecrow opened his eyes.  Nothing had changed.  Except...
  The Guardian was glowing, burning with a magical fire.  Scarecrow looked
around.  The drakes and the Aquilan looked as confused as he was.  He looked
back at the Guardian sword.  /The sword must've absorbed the flames.../
  It suddenly came to life, flying out of Scarecrow's grip.  A ghostly image
of a white-haired knight in crystalline armor suddenly appeared, holding the
weapon.  While they were still stunned, it leaped and swung at a drake,
cutting it apart with one fell swoop.
  Scarecrow drew his spare longsword, though the Aquilan was no longer
paying attention to him.  A jet of flame passed through the ghost-image,
then was absorbed by the fiery Guardian blade.
  Scarecrow took the opportunity to leap and stab another of the drakes.
The drake swerved out of the way, but Scarecrow still managed to clip its
wing, and it crashed down onto the deck.  Meanwhile, the Guardian was
attacking the reptilian head, smashing into the thick armor again and again.
  Scarecrow didn't have time to watch the Guardian, however.  One of the two
remaining drakes swooped at him, and he barely managed to leap to the side.
It circled around for another pass.  Backing up against the mast, he raised
his sword in preparation to strike.  Without warning, the other drake
swooped from behind.
  Prepared for this, Scarecrow ducked... but the drake wasn't going for
him.  It caught his longsword squarely in it's jaws, wrenching it away, even
as it clawed at his arm.
  The things were intelligent!  That was something the old legends had never
said.
  The first drake was still approaching... fast!  Scarecrow leaped up onto
the mast, forcing the drake to veer off, at least for a moment.  He began
climbing upward, headed to the crow's nest.  He had only a few knives left,
so he would have to find a way to make them count.
  The two drakes were approaching from below.  Though he was climbing as
fast as he could, Scarecrow knew they would reach him before he made it to
the top.  Time to waste some of his precious magic...
  "Ice!"  The two creatures were hit by a quick torrent, which served only
to distract them for a moment.  It was just enough, however, for Scarecrow
to swing himself up into the crow's nest.
  The drakes soared upward, circling to come at him from opposite
directions.  Stuck between a rock and a hard place...
  Scarecrow drew two of his knives.  In terms of knife-throwing, he was the
best.  If he could time it just right...
  The two drakes opened their mouths to breathe fire, and Scarecrow launched
his weapons.  They went in perfectly, jabbing deep into the drakes' throats.
Not quite enough to kill them, perhaps, but they were unable to breathe.
  Undaunted, the two drakes charged him, flying with death-defying speeds
straight at him.  They were attacking off-timed from each other, so trying
to make them crash together wouldn't work.  Scarecrow drew two more knives.
  Just as they almost reached him, he leaped out of the crow's-nest, coming
down on one of them from above.  Both of his knives went deep into the
creature's hide, as they plummeted toward the boat.  The creature shrieked
in agony, fully aware that it would not survive the crash into the boat.
  Scarecrow calmly removed a rope-and-grapple from his cloak, swinging it
away at the last possible second.  For a moment he was in complete
freefall...
  then the grapple caught, presumably on a crossbeam of the mast, and
Scarecrow found himself swinging halfway across the boat.  He dropped to the
ground, rolling to dampen his impact.  His DarkCloak helped with that, too.
  The last drake was soaring away, trying to escape the now-impossible
situation.  "I don't think so," Scarecrow muttered, drawing two more of his
knives.
  They sailed in with perfect accuracy, each one hitting one of the drake's
wings.  It plummeted into the ocean below.
  Scarecrow paused for a moment to rest, as he looked around.  The Guardian,
and for that matter the Aquilan, were nowhere to be seen.  He could only
think of one place they had gone.  He sighed, staring down at the frothy
ocean waters.
  The boat shook suddenly, and Scarecrow was knocked to the floor.  As he
struggled to his feet, the boat shook again.  What was going on?
  Greldex rushed out of the cabin.  "We're taking on water!" he shouted.
"The thing is putting holes in the boat!"
  Scarecrow sighed.  He had had about enough for one day.  This was getting
old, fast.  Sighing again, he leaped into the water.
  A strange glow lit up the sea, and after a moment Scarecrow realized it
was the Guardian sword.  The Aquilan had wrapped it's remaining tentacle
around the blade, and was struggling to keep it from attacking.  Scarecrow
noticed the sword's light was getting dimmer by the second.
  Meanwhile, the Aquilan's head was repeatedly slamming against the bottom of
the boat, frequently putting holes in it.  Scarecrow had to finish this fast.
  Still swimming, he drew two of his knives.  They wouldn't be too useful
down here, but he had to find SOME way to get this thing.
  The Aquilan turned its head, spotting him.  Scarecrow was sure he could see
the thing smiling as it stretched it's neck toward him.  The Aquilan opened
its mouth wide, unsure of why the morsel wasn't moving, but not caring.  It
was hungry, and it had been unable to eat all day.
  It slammed its jaws down, crunching the morsel with all it's might.  It had
been a tough fight, but the taste was worth...
  Leather.  It tasted only leather.  It screamed, letting out a blaze of
flame into the water as it did so.  /A trick!  I have been tricked!/  The
Aquilan snapped its head around, eyes searching for the prey.
  Just in time to see the 'prey' slam a knife into each of the Aquilan's
eyes.  The trick had been one of Scarecrow's favorites.  Slipping out of his
cloak, to sneak up on his opponent.  He was slightly surprised it had worked
so well underwater.
  Almost out of air, Scarecrow left the bellowing creature behind as he swam
up to the open sky.  After catching his breath, Scarecrow looked back down
into the water.
  The Aquilan was withdrawing, swimming away with a speed that rivaled the
fastest of fish.  The Guardian was left behind, having finally got loose of
the tentacle.  The ghost image holding the sword was now swimming up to the
surface.  Scarecrow noted with dread that the boat was taking on large
amounts of water.  He couldn't afford to lose his ride, not in the middle
of the ocean.
  Scarecrow swam up to the boat, entering it through one of the holes that
had been bored into it.  He noted with dismay that the cargo hold was almost
full of water, and the boat was close to sinking completely.  Time to use
the last of his magic.
  "Qifi!"  The boat shuddered, planks suddenly coming back into place,
partially repairing the damage.  "Qifi!"  The boat was sealed now, but water
still filled most of the hold.  "Fire!"  A large portion of the water turned
instantly to steam.  Drained completely of magic, and still losing blood
from various wounds he had taken, Scarecrow collapsed in a puddle of the
remaining water.

   ******************

  "Are you all right?" a gruff voice asked, shaking Scarecrow awake.
"C'mon, lad, you can't just die on me now.  Wake up!"
  Scarecrow coughed up some water, opening his eyes.  He was on deck again.
How did that happen?
  "You're alive!  C'mon then, get up!"  Greldex helped Scarecrow to his
feet.  After a moment of resting, Scarecrow pulled a potion out of the pouch
on his belt, draining it in one long swig.
  "I'm fine now," he breathed, still coughing up a little water.  "What
about my cloak?"  Scarecrow was still covered from head to toe in black
armor, but his cloak was a powerful item, and he hated to lose it.
  Greldex lifted a sodden mass of black cloth.  "Fished it out of the water.
Figured you'd want it."  Looking again at the cloak, he added, "Once it's
dry, at least."
  Scarecrow managed a brief laugh.  "Found this, too," Greldex continued.
He pointed to a crystalline sword that was lying on the deck.  "Don't know
how it got here.  It just showed up in the middle of the hold.
  Scarecrow smiled under his mask, reaching for the sword.  "Thanks," he
whispered.
  "Yer not just an agent of Scarecrow, are ye?"  Greldex suddenly asked.
  Scarecrow turned.  "What?"
  "I saw you do magic, lad, and ye're a wonder with weapons.  The way I see
it, with magic bein' destroyed and all, only Scarecrow can pull a stunt like
that."
  After a pause, Scarecrow nodded.  "So I am.  But, remember one thing.
Magic doesn't die easy, and it takes a lot more than killing Kefka to do it."