Cecil funzies be here. ^_^ now remember- I'm bad at flat out fight scenes, so please forgive that I decided to stay true to my preferred sort of fighting. Also took a slightly dif approach than originally intended. ^.~

Oh yes? And Cecil fans everywhere? Prepare to hate me. ^_^ happy reeeeeading~!

The darkness of the room beyond folds around us as we enter this forbidding place..nearly inaudible whispers lingering in the shadows. Whispers of past battles here...sometimes my voice, sometimes that of my comrades...As well as voices completely alien to me. If I glance from the corner of my eye, I can almost see something lingering in the darkness....a flash of a sword or the brilliant flare of a spell....

But a pause to look brings only deeper shadows and a slipping away of those whispers. Porom also stops and looks about her a moment, then looks to me with eyes wide from fear...an inaudible plea forming on her lips. Whatever she hears- it frightens her as much as this does me....but Palom? He's looking at both of us as if we've quite taken leave of our senses. He alone is walking through this place without a hint of fear..

I don't know if he's exceptionally brave, a bloody fool, or just plain ignorant of what I'm fast coming to realize...

There is no hope in this. Our world...it's died so many times. And it's half dead now already...a frozen globe of ice hanging in the universe. This isn't like going to battle Zemus...everything had been clear cut in that day.....he had to die to save our world. The enemy- the goal - had been clear....

Poor little paladin....without your friends and without your enemies, you have no purpose do you?

THAT was no whisper. I stop, turning to look to the mages.......and they're no longer there. I'm alone in this place...it simply swallowed them whole.

"Palom? Porom! Where are you?"

Call them as much as you like- they won't be appearing any time soon. You're alone..just like that day before you met them.....how nostalgic.

"Come out! Who are you?!"

Who do you think I am? Think Cecil...who would know how to do something like this?

Around me.....the darkness has begun to change..mocking the day this voice whispered of. Black sands now shift under my feet....at the shore, dark waves cresting gray slash against the sands....and overhead the sky is black as midnight but with no stars. There is only a greater darkness, the clouds twisting upward to vanish into it....

And standing down the beach, water slipping over his feet...is Golbez....

"Why so surprised, 'brother'?"

I can feel my mouth hanging open as he walks down the beach towards me- he no longer wears the robes of the lunarian sages. He is instead armored as I am- though his own is a shadowy, darkened crystal rather than bright and glittering as my own. But no sword rests in his hands...instead he holds an odd rod of sorts...large enough one might think it a mace or scepter, but with ebony blades coiled around the top..

"Isn't this what you want? A straight forward battle. Light seeking to strike down Dark, no different from battling Zemus!"

I unsheath my sword...the way does seem so much clearer when put that way. Yes- it has always been that way. Every time this world has been endangered, there's always been one small band rising to save it. But even as this thought occurs to me..so does another. A small band. But there is no group here, no one fighting beside me. The sword in my hands falters.... I can face nearly any battle alone...but this one.

I have always had their support, their guidance...their convictions to hold me up when my own have begun to slide...

Golbez does not miss the wavering of the sword...he simply smirks and stops where he is.....just watching me.

"Poor little Paladin.......abandoned and alone, you don't have a purpose, do you?"

"Shut up! My purpose is clear enough- I should have realized you'd betray us, Golbez! Not even FuSo Ya could change you-"

"Change me? Ah, but didn't they? Look, brother. I'm stronger than even when you and your little pack of misfits last thought to challenge me....."

The sand beneath my feet stops shifting- and instead surges up, coiling around my hands and binding them against the sword- but not striking the weapon from my hand. The sword's light- born from it's pure crystal blade- seems pitifully meager here- but burns still....is that what keeps the sands at bay...?

"Give you hope, does that? How utterly pathetic...one shining sword and you think all the world can be saved. Or is it just yourself you're trying to save now?"

"What?! I've always-"

"Done what you thought was "right". Don't give me such bull. Tell that to the mages of Mysidia that you threw into the jail for simply defending the Crystal!"

So he was going to try THAT tactic was he? I can feel indignation rise with anger...my past actions were horrid ones- but I had paid my penance for them! Did he really think to fell me with them now? I begin to struggle to try to break the sands' hold...to strike at him...

"And now why do you seek to kill me Cecil? Some noble purpose? Or simply for dragging up the dirt you thought safely swept away?"

My stuggles slow slightly at those words..and the sands have begun to move again.....coiling around my arms and neck, around the blade of my sword...snuffing out it's light under a black, gritty curtain..

"Is this your idea of a battle, Golbez?! Is this what you came back to the Blue planet for? To destroy it?!"

"No, brother. I came back to save it. It's your actions that have damned it. False Paladin, Fallen Champion of Light, failed brother....I bid you a long, eternal good night. Your own past filth and darkness will be your grave."

The sands begin to slide over my face, over my ears...and those whispers are returning....the demands of the Elder the day I took the Crystal- the pleas and angered cries of the mages we'd fought- and further back..to the days when the Red Wings had first begun their terrorizing of the other lands......and mingled also with the sceams of the summoners while Mist burned to the ground.....

My fault- every thing I'd ever done. All of it is being recalled as these sands blind me, constrict and begin to pull me down.....

Failed brother....

How had I failed? Simply because I couldn't so easily forgive him? How do you forgive nearly destroying the world? Even if he had been a tool and not the cause, he still-

False Paladin...

How had I ever thought myself truly redeemed? Simply because I'd prayed at some fallen paladin's shrine and gotten his blessing to clean up his mess?

Fallen Champion of Light...

What was it to even BE a champion? What did the Light want of me that it abandoned me here to die in darkness...?

I obeyed my master without a prayer of ever breaking free...your sins, your failures......they are only yours to claim and be blamed for.....

...he's right.....I can't hide from that truth any longer. Golbez, Kain...even for a short time Yang- all of them had been used, been powerless to help it.

Me? ..I've simply been too weak to fight back, to stand up against those who pulled my strings. And now without those strings being pulled...like a puppet, I'm helpless..worthless. I've always followed a path laid for me....If not by my convictions then by another's.......

My fingers loosen on the sword, the sands swallowing me fully, crushing me....and I don't fight it. I failed...all my life, I've failed and succeeded only with another's guidance. I never stood a chance once I was alone....

I'm going to die here....once again, and for the last time......

"CECIL!"

(Continued in: Glittering Light)

^_^ doncha just hate me? hehe....I'm fairly sure you can all guess what the real battle in this one was.
BTW- the reason for palom's not being affected has been guessed. Thanks to everyone who participated!