The players rejoiced at the terrific effort of the fights and their strong accomplishments. They welcomed Gingitsune back from her difficult fight happy that the worst seemed to be over. The hacker crowed that still remained were booing in discontent. They wanted to see their comerades win and their enemies die. Halcyon giving up the match didn't sit too well either. Unfourtunatly for them, the group seemed to be too smart and too strong for the hackers... Everyone in the stadium was on their feet whether they were cheering or booing...save one. Nall was sitting in a corner away from the rest of the group. His battle was the last and he knew what was comming.
Garaa's voice boomed out over the crowed getting everyones attention.
'We are almost at the end of our wonderful tournament! I know some of you are disappointed and I know some of you are quite happy with yourselves... However, it's time for the main event!'
The hackers boos suddenly changed to cheers and everyone listened intently.
'Yes, our very own famous Nall will be the last of this group of freedom fighters to fight! Everyone in the building must have at least heard of this fool...'
The crowed laughed and called names at Nall who was slowly getting up. The group was cheering him onward and wishing him luck, even though most of them had complete confidence in Nall. Nall stood in the center of the area awaiting the rest of Garaa's speech, already knowing what was comming.
'And now! Without furthur adieu, Nalls opponent shall be... Lord Garaa of Darkness!'
The players and even the crowed was shocked at the annoucement. Suddenly Garaa vanished from his little platform and appeared on the battle field in front of Nall. The group started to move towards Nall seeing the unfair match up but Nalls arm extened.
'No! This is a tournament and this is my fight, don't get involved...'
Nalls words were strong and somewhat harsh... Nalls tone and agitated stance were totally different then usual... it was almost like when he was fighting Kuja. Garaa laughed at Nall and the rest of the players, his large robe still covering his whole body.
'Nall... Everyone has awaited this day... the day you'd finally die... The Master will enjoy hearing about your death I'm sure...'
Nall spitted on the ground, his eyes with pure anger and...darkness.
'Enough of your pathetic talk Garaa, lets get this over with!'
Garaa's laugh could be heard throughout the stadium. The players were beginning to wonder though what was so amazing about this Garaa person... He was obviously hiding somthing but what? That was answered very quickly as the robe flew off of Garaa and onto the floor revealing his alterted character... He was at least twice as large as a normal heavy axemen and had the form of some demonic creature with wings. Garaa's toothy face grinned at Nall who didn't seem to be suprised. In his hand he weilded a very large mace that was even bigger then Garaa himself. What was curious though was that his whole body was illuminecent in a black light.
'As you wish Nall... Now you will feel true pain!'
Garaa dashed towards Nall with amazing speed for his size. However this wasn't the area to even test Nall in. Nall jumped into the air and gracfully landed on Garaas head kicking him several times sending him to one knee. Garaa's mace swung across where Nall should have landed but Nall quickly dodged again, clearly outclassing Garaa's speed. Garaa stood up and smiled.
'You havent changed at all... except you might have gotten even faster!'
He laughed as Nall took his fighting stance once again. This time Nall made the first move. With his speedy feet he dashed towards Garaa sending a swift kick to his face before Garaa could even defend himself. He was sent flying backwards landing on his back making the earth shake. With Garaa still on the ground he took out his sword and dash towards him. 'VAK SLASH!' Was heard throughout the arena as Nalls flamming sword came down upon Garaa.
Garaa however was toying with Nall. In front of him a black hole opened up swallowing the the sword in mid slash. It was like Garaa opened up a hole to another demension. Nall quickly let go of the sword as he realized what had happened. It got sucked into the black hole quickly and after it did the hole closed. Garaa stood up and laughed.
'Did you think that I wasn't going to use Twilight Power? Don't try and make me feel guilty... Because I know you use it too!'
The group and the crowed and even Nall was shocked. The stadium was almost silent as all eyes were on the 2 fighters.
'Hah... So you figured it out did you?'
Garaa chuckled and pointed his mace towards Nall.
'It's not hard to find out for one of the original creators of the world... Even when you hack into games there is always a maximun limit... You don't use it often but there are times you exceed even that maximum limit therefore it's obvious what you're doing...'
Nall smirked. He didn't think Garaa would reveal his secret but he assumed that it was because he didn't want Nall to hold back and hide his secret.
'Well then... I guess there's no reason to hide it... If you're going to use your power, so will I!'
Nalls eyes were blood red, the players wondered what was going on. They still didn't understand anything about this twilight stuff. Nall grined almost evily as he riped off his green jacket from his body leaving him standing there in his black muscle shirt which was pressed tightly against his very muscular body. Nall's white hair waved in the wind as well as his baggy pants. All along his arms were different colored symbols that were beginning to glow as well as the ones on his face. Garaa seemed somewhat suprised but still held his confidence. But Nalls eyes did not falter. They held anger, disgust and downright hatred.
'You do realize that you can't beat me? I'm invincible to your power!'
Nall only smiled and gave no reply. Garaa finnally lost his patience and dashed towards Nall again. Nall stared at Garaa, to him... it felt like it was taking Garaa an eternity to get to him. He raised his arm slowly, to him at least, but to everyone else, it went up instantly. No one could read Nalls movement as he suddenly appeared over the dashing Garaa sending his elbow into the back of his head. Garaa fell to the ground instantly with another small tremor. Nall stood with his back to Garaa.
'I wont lose Garaa...'
Garaa slowly moved up into a standing position gripping his mace angerly.
'Do you really think that your Time Distortion will help you? You forget you can't use it for a long period of time and it will take you forever to defeat me... My hp and defence is almost infinite...'
Nall frowned. It was true what Garaa said. In fact, he would run out of energy soon. However Nall fell into Garaa's trap. While Nall was concentrating on what he had said Garaa used one of his own tricks.
'Hahaha, you've already fallen for my trick... Shadow Bind leaves you helpless, unable to move unless I control you to.'
Nalls eyes widened as he saw the ground. Garaa's own shadow had reached out and connected itself to him. He felt his body lose control as the menicing Garaa steped forward.
'Not even time can help you now...'
Garaa delivered blow after blow with his gigantic mace. Many of the players sheilded their eyes from the gruesome sight in front of them. Nall was bloody and bashed taking every hit without being able to evade. The only reason why Nalls character wasn;t being killed was because of the constant use of health drinks... however, while his hp would recover, he body wounds wouldn't. His body was taking an extreme amount of stress from the beating. Finnally after what seemed like an eternity of beating on Nall Garaa stoped, bored of his opponent.
'You Nall... While I could beat you for all eternity for what you've done... I will end your suffering and kill you now with this final attack!'
The players gasped. They couldn't take Nall beeing beaten up so bad and now it looked like Garaa was going to end everything... Garaa had only been playing with Nall. Either that or he got lucky with his cheap trick.
'Now die!! CHAOTIC GALE!!'
A wave of black light rushed towards Nalls frozen body. Nall appeared to be hit directly, no one could see the warriors body from within the smoke. They all assumed the worst. As the smoke cleared, there was no sign of Nall.
'Hahaha! Ladies and gentlemen! Now that I have proven the power of the hackers and defea--'
Garaa was cut short by a voice in the distance.
'Wrong Garaa... It will take more then that to defeat me...'
All faces turned to the lights shinning on the stadium. In disbelief there was Nall, standing atop one still driping with blood.
'The problem with Shadow Bind is that you cannot use any techniques while controling the player... That is why you were only using regular attacks on me at first. Once you thought my body was beat up too much to move you released your bind on me and casted Chaotic Wind... However, you judged wrong, my body was still quite able to fight and was able to dodge it with Time Distortion...'
Garaa frowned up at the warrior who he though was acting too cool for his situation. Nall jumped down to the arena floor once again and began to walk towards Garaa.
'Oh, by the way, I don't fall for the same trick twice!'
Nall suddenly burst into a run towards Garaa. Garaa looked worried now, afraid of the battle torn fighter who just wouldn't die. Nall appeared behind him and kicked him five times sending him to the ground again. Before Garaa could get up Nall came down upon him with his elbow. Garaa's cry of pain could be heard throughout the stadium. Nall came in for another attack but Garaa fell through the ground into his own shadow. Nall jumped back away from the shawdow which still remained where Garaa used to be. Nall laughed as he pulled out four scrolls with his one hand.
'Is that all you do? Play with your shadows? If you wont come out I'll blast you out of there! LEVEL 3 THUNDER MAGIC! PLASMA GALE X 4!'
The electricity raged down and around the shadow in a counter clockwise direction. Sparks and bright light were emited from the spot where Garaa once layed. Nall waited for the smoke to clear to see if his plan worked. Obviously it didn't as Nall felt a the force of the large mace come across his head and sent him flying into one of the walls.
'Your idea wasn't bad, but you made a mistake... I can move from one shadow to another regardless of them being connected... Even yours hahaha!'
Nall fell from the wall to the ground and got up slowly. It appeared as if Nall was slowing down, whether it had been from the attacks or somthing else. Nall was however still covered in his own blood and it would be the most obvious choice to assume he was weak from the attacks.
Nall was panting heavily but Garaa, who looked beaten up still seemed fine. Garaa held his one demonic hand forward towards Nall.
'You are weak boy... without your twilight power you'd be nothing...'
Nall overheard one of the players complain about all this twilight stuff. Nall wiped some blood away from his mouth. He looked at the group and smiled.
'I've kept all of you in the dark long enough... Twilight is actually a virus, implemented into The WORLD by one of the original creators... While The WORLD's original intentions were to be the greatest MMORPG ever, one of them wanted to use it as a tool to take over the planets population.'
Garaa smiled as he continued Nalls story.
'The other programmers had no clue of the virus being in their program and released it for beta testing... The virus was directed to release it's power when the first user completed the final event in the game. By that time, he assumed millions of users would be a part of The WORLD. However, a player by the name of Helba hacked into The WORLD and made her player it's maximum level with edited weapons. She was doing it to boast that her great hacking skills could never be caught...'
Nall wiped some more blood away and continued.
'To this day Helba has never been caught... by the admins at least. You see, since she edited her character she was able to complete the final event, setting off the virus. The programmer, enragged at this happening since it was still only in beta testing had to hack into The WORLD himself and fix things...'
Garaa continued.
'The programmer was very experienced in hacking but even still, the virus he made was very difficult to stop... Players who played The WORLD were becomming infected and some losing conciousness in the real world. Altimit was about to ban people from playing The WORLD...'
Nall started up again.
'The programmer was forced to enter The WORLD himself as a player to stop the virus. However, he was entangled in the virus and got caught in his own trap. He lost his conciousness and was stuck in The WORLD... However, since it was his own program and sent him to his server, he knew the passwords and found out he was able to control everything from inside The WORLD.'
Garra then added more on.
'Without hope of being released from The WORLD he decided he'd make it be the real world... The virus was like a demon, merged with the programmers character... He could control it, but it controled him as well. The other 2 programmers found out about the scheme and the virus, furious about what it's going to do to their reputation. The one programmer went straight to the government to protest. On the way there, his electronic car exploded into flames, cause unknown...'
Nall spoke up again.
'It's not hard to guess what the cause was... The other programmer, seeing what happened to his friend decided that world domination was better then death. He joined him and was infected with the virus himself. Soon after others found out about his plan and joined him, all being contaminated by the virus...'
Garaa continued.
'The virus, Twilight, edited their character make up and basically rewrote the games data for them... It was like they were playing a whole different game then The WORLD, yet still inside The WORLD. They were able to control the virus and infect other people, making them lose conciousness, but not recieve the same advantages they recieved....'
Nall spoke up.
'Quite the opposite actually... They were basically like slaves in the hackers perfect world. The group of 8 elites are the one who joined The Master, who was the original programmer who implemented the virus, and Garaa is the one who betrayed his friend... Now you should understand when these hackers talk about twilight this, and twilight that...'
Garaa stepped forward and laughed.
'Yes, now that we've finnished our little break to tell the fools about Twilight... Why don't we continue! Shadow Clone!!'
Garaa's body suddenly went faded and black and began spliting into multiple Garaa's. When he was finnished there was 10 of them. They all stood surrounding and staring at Nall.
'Increasing your chances by 10 are we Garaa? I think I'll cut it down a bit! Time Web!'
The 10 Garaas all dashed towards Nall who was performing his magic. 3 of them suddenly stoped as if they were in suspended animation. Nall sprinted towards the one closest to him sending a kick to his stomach. The other 6 Garaa's followed Nall and attacked in unison, Nall wasn't able to dodge them all and was sent flying backwards hitting the gorund hard. Nall jumped up quickly to dodge the mace of another Garaa's attack. Turning around he jumped over him and nailed him in the back with his fist. Nall looked at the Garaa who slowly got up, also seeing the others catching up to him. 7 were still active, 3 were frozen. Nall pulled out a basic sword and equiped it.
'Hahahaha, you can't beat us with a basic sword... thats the worst weapon in the game!'
Nall smiled as he played with the sword in his hand.
'I don't need a powerful sword, any sword will work with this technique!'
Nall dashed forward slicing quickly at one of the Garaa's. It's body fell to the ground, completely severed in half.
'Hahaha... so that's your trick, cuting a rip in the whole game to completely delete a player in one attack... clever but it wont work on all of us!'
The remaining 6 Garaa's stood in a defensive stance as they began to fade. They faded to black, then completely invisable.
'You can't hurt us if you can't see us!'
Nall frowned and took a defensive stance himself. He couldn't tell where they were to attack or defend for that matter. He suddenly felt the sharp pain of Garaa's mace crush into his side sending him flying. In mid flight he was bashed down to the ground by another invisable Garaa. Nall screamed out in pain as he felt the strength begin to die out of him.
'You're finnished now Nall... The final attack!'
Nalls eyes widened as the black energy of Chaotic Gale came towards him. He tried to get up quickly but one of the Garaa's was holding him down. It looked like Nall was finnished this time but he still had some tricks up his sleve. Nalls body suddenly disappeared before the blast hit him, instead only destroying the one Garaa clone. Nalls body appeared behind the Garaa who made the attack who was semi visable. Placing all his energy into the attack he sliced through him, severing his body in half. 4 Garaa's remained, still shrowded in invisability. Nall couldn't see their faces but he could tell they were shocked. Nall panted heavily as he said two simple words to explain.
'Time freeze.... And....no more....playing.... I'll finnish...you.....right...NOW!'
Nall jumped up into the air spinning like a top. Blood was splattering all over the arena from his wounds and his tapings and ribbons flew off towards the crowd. His necklace, which no one ever payed much attention to or even noticed because it was hidden most of the time snapped off and flew towards the group of freedom fighters landing at their feet. Nalls body began to emit light as he spun faster and faster, almost to the point where he was turning invisable. The light emited turned into bright balls or energy which surrounded Nall. Nalls voice could be heard throughout the arena.
'With the energy expanded....from the time entangled....I release the power....and the energy expelled!'
The energy surrounding Nall shot in all directions, hitting the stadium, the ground and the sky. The balls exploded with great force whenever they hit an object. The stadium exploded violently, the sky cracked and shattered, the ground was on fire. When the explosions subsided and the dust cleared, only half the stadium was left standing, half the hackers were deleted, the others were running, only a small percentage braved it out and watched. The group was only slightly injured and taken aback by the blast. It was more of the damage of the falling rocks that injured them then the explosions themselves. The group of elites were completely unharmed, gaurded by Royce's barrier which protected that side of the arena. On the ground, there was no Garaa's left but the ones frozen. Nall fell to the ground, panting and out of breath. The players couldn't believe their eyes, Nall was really that powerful? He stayed on one knee for a while, panting, sore and proud. The hackers in the crowed who remained were booing and the elites looked very angry. The group didn't know how to react to the battles outcome. Sure Nall beat Garaa but the way he did it... Nall was about to get up but he felt a sharp pain... His ruinic symbols were burning... He looked down at his arm and then his eyes widened. He turned his head and smiled.
'It...looks...like....I..................lose...'
The three Garaa's who were frozen were unfrozen now! Two of them vanished leaving the one left smiling behind Nall with his arm out stretched, black energy flowing around it. The players gasped as the cry rang out through the arena.
'NAAALLLLLLL!!!!'
The black energy surrounded, consumed and vaporized Nalls character. He was gone... Completely gone... Garaa chuckled.
'Hahahaha! Nall loses... Unfourtunatly for him he ran out of energy! Nall's powers only last for so long as previously mentioned, his time web didn't last long enough I guess! Chaos Gale made quick work of him... As they say, third times a charm!'
Garaa laughed menicingly. The players were shocked, scared, and sad. Some of them expected Nall to jump out of somewhere and make another one of his miraculus come backs. Sadly, it didn't happen.
'I'm sorry to say but since Nall lost his fight, you all must die now as well! hahaha!'
Garaa began to advance on them. They were scared but suddenly the necklace whiched lied at their feet began to shine brightly. Garaa and everyone covered their eyes as light stretched across the whole stadium. When the players opened their eyes, they were in Dun Loireag, root town of the Theta Server...
The wind blew across their battered bodie as they looked at each other... They were all hurt to some extent... Many of the players broke out in tears realizing the magnatude of the situation... Their hearts ached, they wondered if it was even worth fighting for... everything seemed so hopeless... They had lost their leader who had any knowledge of the situation... They had learned of the powerful virus that gave the hackers undefeatable strength... They were left with nothing but Nall's pendant which still glowed. The obvious thing they needed to do was rest and recover... They were all too tired to even think about all the questiions that puzzled them. Little to their knowledge a pair of eyes were watching them, but had no intention of revealing itself for a while...
(OOC: Well then, I dunno if you enjoyed reading all that in one post but I thought I should make my last one long and exciting! hehehe, after writing that I have an urge to write more but the jobs already been given to Asgard so

I'm sure he'll do a great job though! Good luck to all of you and sorry for the inconvinences I've been causing...)