Moving on again, we witness the fiery birth of Gaia 5000 years ago, which isn't nearly long enough for it to have settled down into the modern world. At the same time, Terra was at the height of its power.
So then we fight Lich again. He's gotten a visual upgrade as well as a power one, but unfortunately, he's also falling into the annoying rather than challenging category, because aside from casting Earthquake, all he does is cast various instant-death spells and Stop. Stop could have been countered by the Locomotion ability, if we'd happened to have the foresight to set it, but there's no way to counter the various Death spells, which makes them supremely cheap, but not at all hard to overcome. The only way we could have been in serious trouble is if everyone in the part had been at level 60, and therefore vulnerable to his Lv5 Death spell.
After killing Lich again, we walk off a balcony into outer space, where we walk through a free fall into a world beyond worlds and space, and Garland starts talking about Genetic Memory to explain how we're seeing all this stuff from before any of us were born. Garland tells us we're on our own from here, and chages us to take care of Kuja, and of the crytsal that is the origin of all life and memory. Supposedly not in the same way, of course.
Entering a world of crystal and bizarre camera angles, we soon find Kuja, who starts going on about how once he destroys the crystal the universe will end, and that even if we stop him Terra will still assimilate Gaia. But, didn't he destroy Terra? Zidane says that even if Terra assimilates Gaia, we'll just start over on the new world, and tells Kuja to go fuck himself.
Instead of attacking us himself, Kuja summons a giant demonic flying facehugger that instantly kills everyone but Freya with a Meteor, then keeps Cherry Tapping Garnet every time we raise her with a Phoenix Down. He finally knocks it off and we manage to get everyone back on their feet, and it turns out that, like Lich, he likes to cast Death spells. Ugh.
With his pet dead, Kuja attacks. A caster to the end, Kuja strictly sticks to casting Holy, Flare, and Flare Star. The hit hard and he casts them rapidly, but still not enough so to beat Auto-Regen, and their long animation times just give us more time for Auto-Regen to heal us back up for each hit. With Freya and Vivi both hitting him for 9999 max damage per turn (Freya tranced with MP Attack set and Dragon's Hair equipped, and Vivi casting Flare on himself with Auto-Reflect and Reflect x2), but most importantly, with no need for to bother wasting turns trying to steal from him, he doesn't last long. Declaring that he'll take us all with him, he unleashes Ultima again, and blasts himself into the void as well.
We regain consciousness on a smoking rock surrounded by flame-illuminated clouds and the distant cries of the damned with the crystal nowhere in sight, but all eight of our party members present. A new voice starts speaking into Zidane's head and, no joke, repeats Yoda's "Fear leads to Anger..." bit word for word.
The voice says that Kuja's actions proved that all life exists to die, so there it's going to destroy everything, because in a world of nothing there is no fear, which is what all life desires. Zidane says he's not afraid to die because his memories will live on inside others (except for the part where if you don't stop this thing, there won't be anyone left to remember anything), and we're prompted to pick our party, because obviously we're going to want a different one to fight the real final boss than we did for what we thought was the final boss a few minutes ago.
The four party members we don't pick give their energy to the four we did, each leaving us with a few words of encouragement, and then it's time for the real final boss, angel!Dr. Manhattan. Manhattan buffs himself with rotect and Shell, and casts several high-power attack spells, the worst of which are Blue Shockwave, which reduces a single target to critical health, and Grand Cross, which deals immense party-wide damage and inflicts various status effects. He also casts Firaga, which hits like a wet noodle at this point. These spells do enough damage to warrant needing to heal a couple times as a precaution, and a Life spell needed to be cast, but for the most part, Auto-Regen took care of things once again.
Even with his defensive spells up, Manhattan doesn't last long against the team, especially since Vivi's still slipping in those 9999 double-power-self-reflected Flares whenever Manhattan's Shell expires, and he teleports us away before he explodes with the warning that he is eternal and will return.
We're telported to the outskirts of the Iifa Tree, whose roots are going nuts and thrashing around like tentacles. Man, this game really likes its tentacles....
The Red Rose, now carrying Mikoto for some reason, spots us, and communicates to the Hilda Garde 3 our location... somehow. Wait, when did this world get radios? Cid swoops down to pick us up, but Zidane hears Kuja's voice in his head, and decides to go back. The others tell him he's nuts, but he says that he understands Kuja, because he might have done the same thing in his place. Freya, Steiner, and even Amarant volunteer to come with him, but he turns them down. Garnet is still reluctant to let him go, but Zidane kneels and addresses her as Her Highness. He says the abduction is over, and this is as far as he can take her. She thanks him for everything, and makes him promise to come back, and then the airship takes everyone away, leaving us alone.
Zidane makes his way to the tree, running, jumping, and riding from one thrashing root to the next until he finally falls several hundred feet down into the heart of the root network, where he lands flat on his face and gets back up without a scratch. Man, we'd been doing pretty well on that ever since the theater ship crashed.
He climbs back up to a de-Tranced Kuja's resting place and sits down to chat. Kuja inquires after the others, and Zidane suspects Kuja had something to do with their escape. I presume he means teleporting us away from Manhattan. Kuja says he finally understood what it meant to live after we beat him, and that he can't live with himself after what he did with that knowledge. The tree's not done freaking out, though, and a barrage of new roots crashes into the chamber, interrupting our chat with impending death.
One cut later, we see Zidane walking away from the tree alone, thinking about Kuja. He says that all of them; Garland, Zidane, the Genomes, the black mages, and Kuja himself, were all created for the wrong reasons, but Kuja alone defied that fate, and for that, Zidane will remember him for giving them hope that their lives could have meaning.
The scene fades away to black, and the words, "Some time later..."
We see what appears to be a flashback of Vivi in Alexandria at the start of the game, but then Puck runs into him, and recognizes him, but Vivi has no clue who he is. It turns out he's Vivi's son, one of a whole group of new black mages who look just like Vivi.
We see Freya being seen off from Burmecia by Sir Fratley, who still hasn't recovered his memory, but has fallen in love with Freya all over again.
We see Beatrix laying down her sword in Garnet's room, retiring her knighthood.
We see Amarant run into Lani, the bounty hunter woman, on a path in the wilderness, and she follows him.
We see Quina in the kitchen at Alexandria Castle, leading the cooks.
We see Eiko riding the elevator in Lindblum Castle with Cid and Hilda, complaining that they're going to be late. She calls them "mother" and "father."
We see Steiner catch Beatrix on her way out of the castle and confess his feelings, albeit in a roundabout way.
We see the Tantalus crew meeting in the same room of the theater ship where we planned Garnet's kidnapping, getting ready to put on a show.
And finally, we see Garnet sitting in her mother's throne, overlooking the courtyard where the play was held at the beginning, flanked by Steiner and Beatrix. Her hair has grown out again, an she tells herself that she has to let the past go and move on, just as Zidane taught her to, and applause begins as Baku takes the stage.
They're putting on the same play, too: "I Want to Be Your Canary." Baku sets the scene, and Ruby, playing the female lead, meets a cloaked Marcus on the stage. They go through their big romantic scene where he tells her to throw away her royal title, that they'll run away to be married on the morning tide. Blank steps in after Marcus leaves and kidnaps Ruby. The scene shifts to night as Marcus waits for her, but Cinna takes the stage to tell him the boat is leaving, and that if he takes it alone, a war could be averted. The dawn comes as Marcus laments his situation, and prays to the twin moons to grant his only wish:
"Bring my beloved Dagger to me!"
Well, of course, it's Zidane under that cloak. You didn't actually think it was Marcus, did you?
Garnet is on her feet and heading out the door in a flash. Steiner and Beatrix open it for her, and she races downstairs. She fights her way through the crowd, drops her pendant, throws off her crown, and leaps into Zidane's arms. The crowd breaks into cheers, all our friends are in the front row, and Beatrix and Steiner raise her sword together as Zidane and Garnet embrace.
The End.
Join us next time for the review portion.
