//------------------------------// // Chapter 44: Trixie's Illusory World. // Story: My Little Fantasy // by GuyWhoWritesThings //------------------------------// Chapter 44: Trixie's Illusory World. Falling. No, not falling. Guided. Guided by wispy threads of green. Shimmering, warm, flowing threads - threads of Lifestream, swarming above, around, and below. The momentum from kicking against the rock face and plunging into the Lifestream seems gone - replaced by the Lifestream itself tugging me forward. The twinkling lights and trails of green reflect perfectly in the Buster Sword's blade, creating the illusion that the blade itself is forged of swirling Lifestream. It's sweeping me along - a feeling I'm all too familiar with - except, unlike other times, there's an urgency in how I'm being rushed forward. It's like the Lifestream is speaking directly to my heart, or maybe my spirit. Go, quickly, it says. They're not words, but rather, a feeling. Quickly... ahead of me, I finally see something solid. A chunk of land, surrounded by Lifestream on all sides. A collection of familiar, small houses, and a large tree that itself looks suspiciously like a residence. Some of the buildings are toppled, wreckage in the nearby streets, with large paw prints adjacent to them. It's only a small piece of the town, but it's definitely... Ponyville. Had Jenova used the Lifestream to construct an illusion of Ponyville when its construct and Trixie fell in? Building illusions and distorting space are both more than possible when deep in the Lifestream like this, as I've learned first-hand from Sephiroth. The 'town' extends on a single strip of land, with Twilight's library on one side, and the toppled buildings on the other, ending in a recognizable edge of town that I remember leading to the Everfree Forest. It's floating freely inside the Lifestream, like an island in a sea of green. I touch down gently, my descent slowed as I near the ground by the force that lead me here. It's placed me directly in front of the Golden Oak's door. There aren't any immediate sounds - yells, fighting, or otherwise - so I start my testing my left arm. Motion is met with a wince, and attempting to hold the Buster Sword in a two-handed fighting stance sends a flare of pain down it as the damaged muscles attempt to support the weight. It's bearable enough if I need my left hand for focusing Materia, but I'll be using the Buster Sword one-handed until I can find Trixie and have her use the Restore Materia on it. Just great. But where is she? I wasn't that far behind her, but the second she and the construct dove into the mass of Lifestream, I had lost them, and after piercing it myself, I hadn't found them again. Had they somehow gotten ahead of me? I rest the Buster Sword on my right shoulder and get moving, running down the one path available to me. I'd wasted enough time on my left arm. If Trixie's here, she's probably fighting against that construct that came down with her, or possibly lost somehow in Jenova's illusory world. The constructs don't appear that strong, so I know it's plenty possible for her to beat it, but... I'm fine, Dusk! The memory of that shout cuts into my thoughts and makes my run falter. Am I not putting enough faith in her? She hadn't needed my help in that bank, but instead of trusting her to handle it, I had rushed in without thinking and abandoned the others. If I hadn't done that, this entire situation could've played out differently, and I wouldn't be in here, trying to find her right now. Am I making that same mistake a second time? I abandoned the others to fight the remaining construct, and Bahamut, and whatever else Jenova has up there, just to dive after Trixie without a second thought, even though I know she's not the defenseless unicorn I met in the Everfree Forest anymore. Every pony and every person makes their own choices! Am I just letting guilt drag behind me and cloud my judgment again? I shake my head clear of the thoughts and start running faster. I'm here now. This is the choice I've made. I don't have any time to regret it right now. If it's the wrong one, it's like Shining Armor said - hesitating will only guarantee the worst outcome. My only choice now is to find Trixie as soon as I can, then see what we can do from there. In the path ahead of me is a pile of debris that doesn't fit in with the town. The bits of red that look to once be a roof and yellow wood that must've been the everything else could've easily fit in as materials for a house in Ponyville, but they didn't match any of the damaged ones nearby. A single wagon wheel sticking through the pile of wood hints at its previous purpose. If that were the entirety of the pile, I would keep running. There's one more piece, though - a piece that causes me to stop completely and fish through enough of the rubble to lift it out with my left hand, ignoring the pain. It's a sign, the one that I assume signifies the wagon's owner... a sign painted purple, and emblazoned with a familiar star-tipped wand. This must be the wagon Trixie has mentioned... meaning the footsteps... is this a recreation of Trixie's time in Ponyville? So, this illusion must be meant for her... "Found Trixie's stage wagon, have you, Dusk?" A familiar voice asks, making me pick my head up away from the pile of rubble to meet its owner. From the shadows of two buildings on my left steps the mare I came here to find... except, not. Instead of the royal purple, gold-trimmed coat, she's wearing her old star-speckled cape with the jewel brooch, and her wizard's hat sits atop her head. Neither of those are the strangest part, however. The strangest part, to me, is the familiar horn jutting from her forehead. "Trixie..." I mutter, letting the wood fall from my hands. There are plenty of questions I want to ask, given what I'm looking at, but keeping them straight and getting one of them to exit coherently-formed from my mouth is proving to be a challenge. She smirks confidently, head held high, and trots over to me. "Trixie is fine, assistant." How can she be wearing that? Where are the Materia? How could she have her horn back? My mind then finds itself on an amusing thought - the thought of when Tifa and I were tossed into the Lifestream at Mideel. The event that led to myself appearing in Equestria. Could this be a situation like that? Was I currently in Trixie's subconscious, and tasked with somehow fitting all the weirdly shaped bits of her personality together? ...I damn well hope not. Heaven knows I'm the least qualified person to be helping anyone with that. I settle on asking a simple question as my lead. "What happened to you, Trixie?" "Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that," she says, waving her hoof dismissively, "nothing The Great and Powerful Trixie can't handle." I step away from the wreckage of the wagon and eye her more closely. "What about the thing that came down here with you?" She smirks, looking up at me, beaming confidence. "Do you truly think such a meager threat would be a problem for the greatest unicorn in all of Equestria?" Maybe the Lifestream has affected her personality, somehow? She's acting far more like she did when she first met than the one I've come to know now. "...And what about your horn? And your Materia?" "Don't know." She replies, simply. "When Trixie awoke, she was in this area, and the creature that accompanied her stood across. She was in her magician's attire, graced with the gift of her unrivaled magic once more instead of the Materia, and defeated the threat before her. Then she heard the footsteps of another and hid until you arrived at the wreckage of her wagon, assistant." I study her, but she's fully in her stage-mask. Something is definitely wrong. It's eating at me, but until I can get a proper grasp on what's going on here, I need to tread carefully. "Can you take me to where you beat it?" "Do you accuse Trixie of being a liar, assistant?" She shoots back, glaring indignantly. "No, not that." I assure her. "I'm just wondering if there'll be any hints there on how we can get out of here. There's nothing of value here to us, it seems like." "Right." She raises an eyebrow at me skeptically, before turning her head. "Come, then. It was near the edge of this conjuration of Ponyville that Trixie felled her foe. We only need to follow this path to its end." She motions me to move ahead of her, and giving her a final glance, I get to walking. Soon, her hoofsteps fall in line behind me, and the two of us head deeper into the somewhat-demolished illusion of Ponyville. We pass the pawed footstep I saw from above, that I assume to be that of an ursa minor. If the size of the paw print is accurate to life, then even the ursa minor truly is quite the massive creature, at least the size of Bahamut. Possibly larger. And, if memory serves, the ursa major is even larger than that? Just how big do these things get? It doesn't take much longer for us to reach the edge of the town - in a very literal sense. The ground ends in a cliff that would send anyone unfortunate enough to go over the side deeper into the Lifestream. The road has a few wrecked houses on either side of us, clearly the part of the town that took the brunt from the ursa minor stomping. The one thing it doesn't have though, are any visible remains of Jenova's construct. "So, where is it?" I ask as I take a few more steps forward. I look around, trying to find any obvious paths forward through the Lifestream to get out of this dead-end Ponyville conjuration. "Trixie obviously knocked it off the side of Ponyville, never to return!" She boasts from behind me. "Trixie, these things can fly, you know." I reply, shaking my head and taking another few steps closer to the ledge, wanting to get a look over the side. "You can't just knock it off the side and have it not come back." She huffs behind me. "Well, it didn't!" I peer over the side. "It's probably still alive, then." "Probably..." She says, her voice twisting maliciously. I spin on my heel to find her eyes narrowned, face contorting in a dark sort of smug victory, as her horn glows a pale green. Before I'm able to properly compute the consequence of what I'm looking at, I hear a familiar, rage-filled cry from inside the dilapidated house directly to Trixie's right. The doors burst open as a form blasts through them like a rocket, slamming into Trixie's side. Her horn's magic misfires, a concussive blast of green flying past the right side of my head as the two forms tangle and struggle against each other on the ground. That's when my brain finally clicks and I realize what I'm looking at - the Trixie I plunged into the Lifestream after, clad in the gold-trimmed purple coat, wrestling against the one in the hat and cape. They roll until the vest-clad Trixie is atop the magician-clad one, and the vest-clad one throws a right-hook, only to receive a blast of green magic to the chest that tosses her into the air and back several feet. The magician-clad one rises back to her feet as the vest-clad one slams back against the ground, and I finally get a proper idea of what the situation is. "Trixie thought she got rid of you, pest!" The thing taking the form of The Great and Powerful Trixie spits down at the real one. Had it thought it was done with Trixie, then took her form to try and dispose of me without needing to change the illusion? Trixie ignores the jeer and shakes off the magical impact, rising on shaky legs, a small distance away from her caped doppleganger. She looks a bit beat up, but otherwise... "How could you fall for something like that, Dusk?" She asks, turning her head to me. "You're an idiot, not stupid!" Yeah, she's fine. "Hmph!" The fake Trixie snorts and huffs, pulling the attention back to her as she grins smugly down her muzzle at the real one. "It's not your assistant's fault that Trixie is so great she outshines the original!" I finally get my ass in gear, closing the gap between myself and Trixie, with the Buster Sword as readied as it can be in a one-handed grip. "You have to admit, Trixie. It's a pretty convincing copy." "Oh, come on!" She stomps as she steadies her stance. "I was never that obnoxious!" "Weren't you?" It taunts, its smugness never falling as it begins circling us with a slow gait. "Does the mirror harm your eyes, little one?" It stops, smirking as it reaches a hoof up to its forehead. "Or is it the futility? A mirror isn't quite the right analogy anymore, isn't it?" "Is that all?" Trixie's hoof drags across the ground as she glares at her doppleganger. "I'm sick of listening to you talk." "What would you rather do? Kill this puppet? And then what?" It flips its cape as it jeers, locking eyes with Trixie. Its voice becomes slightly distorted and decidedly more malicious. "You wretches are in my domain now. All your paths from here end in failure. Although," the distortion disappears, leaving behind the mimicry of Trixie's, a wide grin kreeping onto its face again, "Trixie supposes that, between the School for Gifted Unicorns and SOLDIER, both her present company are well-acquainted with being failures." "It's just trying to get under our skin, Trixie." I try to soothe the mare in front of me, her body beginning to shake in anger. "It knows its too weak to beat us by itself if it doesn't." "Tks-tsk..." The thing across from us shakes its head. "The one here most worried about weakness isn't The Great and Powerful Trixie, now is it, little Lulamoon?" Its eyes meet hers again as it raises its head, drawing itself up to look down its snout at Trixie. "You so love flirting with those feelings of inferiority, don't you?" "Trixie..." Even with the looming form of one of Jenova's constructs in front of us, I find myself putting all my attention on the quivering mare in front of me. I place my left hand on her back and shake her gently, trying to calm her and pull her back to reality. "Nothing it says matters. You know that. ...We both know that." "Doesn't it?" It begins walking forward, and I ready my weapon as it makes its slow approach. "Why don't you tell your assistant the truth, hm, little mare?" "There's nothing to tell." Trixie replies through gritted teeth, her body tensing, ready to pounce. "So just stop talking aready!" "If there's nothing to tell, then why are you angry?" It stops, smirking with satisfaction at Trixie's rising temper. "Because your smug voice bugs me." Trixie retorts, but her breathing becomes heavier. She knows better, so why is she letting this thing get to her so much? "That's too bad, because Trixie isn't done yet. Why don't we tell that guilt-ridden assistant of yours what really happened at the Ghastly Gorge?" It raises a single hoof to point at Trixie, its eyes narrowed. "Or, would you prefer your lies to die with you than have a confessional?" "Trixie..." I move my hand from her back to her shoulder, trying to quell the way her body is shaking. "Relax, Trixie." "Trixie Lulamoon, the mare that shattered her horn while using a powerful Materia to protect her friends from a monster. What a joke that is!" It jabs its hoof in the air accusatorily at Trixie, causing Trixie to wince in response. "You let it shatter that day! No, it's worse than that. You wanted it to happen!" "Shut up!" Trixie's body and voice both tremble, the rage and pain rising up in her voice as the construct's barbs dig into her. "You wanted to destroy the thing you hated most!" It jabs its hoof, making Trixie wince again. "And what was that? The Great and Powerful Trixie, that's what! You're just a weak, petty, lonely little creature, who thought she could leave Trixie behind if she cast her magic away!" It punctuates each sentence with another jabbing hoof, causing Trixie to wince back again with each in turn. "Everypony else may think you've changed, but you haven't. Everything you do is for yourself, because, deep down, you're just a scared, self-serving mare." It presses the once-jabbing hoof to its chest. When it speaks again, its voice is again distorted. "If I didn't intend to kill you, I might just pity you." Its eyes are closed, a grin smug even beyond the others its used plastered to its face, clearly relishing in the pain its causing. A curdling, pain-filled scream, a sound more animal than mare, causes its eyes to snap back open, but its too little, too late for it to react. Even I'm stunned at the speed Trixie's hooves get moving, rushing down the construct across from us. "Shut up!" She yells, with a hate and a fierceness that makes the words only barely discernable as something other than another animalistic cry. She spins on her front hooves, turning to deliver a buck to its chin that snaps its head back instantly, flinging it off its hooves and slightly into the air. It flops back to the ground, landing on its side with a thud, but that's not where my attention is drawn. No, what's getting me, is my glimpse at Trixie's eyes. They're... wild, misty... a surge of emotions all crashing together a once, solidifying in a piercing hatred that I'd started to become convinced could never be worn by a pony. Her face matches, contorted in wrath and anguish, muzzle drawn to reveal her teeth. Seeing her like that shakes me to my core. But... why? Why had Jenova's words hurt her so badly? Were they... true? Would she really disfigure herself over something so petty? The construct pulls itself up on shaky hooves, laughing darkly. "Has Trixie struck a nerve?" It coughs, hacking up dark-looking gunk onto the ground. "It didn't work, you know. They look down on you more now than they ever did. At least The Great and Powerful Trixie had her pride." "I said shut up!" Trixie's yell is punctuated with the glow of a Materia, and the inky glow of the Gravity spell surrounds the construct and slams it back to the ground. "Shut up!" Water condenses above it, creating a spear of ice, tip aimed down, then released, pulled into the well of the Gravity spell to skewer the construct to the ground. "Shut up!" Lightning cackles through the sky, and arcs doward. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up shut up!" Each declaration punctuates with another cast of magic - more ice, more lighting, stronger gravity, explosive bursts, winds that toss strewn rubble, a comet that crashes onto it from above and obscures it from view completely. I don't know which spell stops it from being able to maintain its form as one of Jenova's constructs, but I do know that losing that form doesn't stop Trixie from flinging her magic wildly at its corpse. "Trixie, stop!" I finally find the strength to yell, running over to her and using my left arm to pull her gaze away from the mess she's created and towards me, ignoring the pain that accompanies it. "Snap out of it, Trixie! It's dead!" "Dusk..." She mutters, almost inaudibly, the glow of Materia finally fading from around her. Her body trembles as she comes back to reality, her breaths fast and shuddering. The hate disappears from her eyes, but the pain, the everything else is still there. I place a hand on the back of her head again, intending to press her to my chest to try and calm her down in the same way I had done during the incident with Beethoven, but she pulls away, steading herself on her feet as she turns her back to me and takes a few steps forward. "Dusk... can I ask you something?" She turns her head up, taking deep breaths to calm herself. "Yeah...?" I reply, my voice trailing, staying kneeled and still. "If..." she starts, but stops to take another breath. Her voice is shaking, despite what I imagine are her best attempts to keep it steady. She takes a moment of silence to collect herself before trying again. "If everything it had said about me just now were true... we'd still be friends, right?" "...Of course." I reply after a moment of my own. Did that mean what it said was true, then...? "...Thanks, Dusk." She nods, despite the fact her back is to me. "That means a lot to me, right now." "Trixie...?" I mouth dumbly, trying to form a question but failing. "We need to talk, but... after we beat it, okay?" She turns her head up again. "For now, let's get going. It's expecting us." "What do you-" I start asking, but stop as I turn my head away from her and back up to the path I'd traveled down to get here. It's gone, the path in front of us instead leading to a massive, metal staircase. It leads up to a familiar industrial spire - lined with steel pipes and beams, doors and pathways marked with black and yellow caution stripes. It towers, stories taller than the Golden Oak or any structure that should have been in Ponyville, its crest adorned with a red diamond, backed in a black square, with white writing inside - Shin-Ra. I can't help but let out a small laugh. Maybe having that construct take Trixie's form made her sense of grandoise rub off on Jenova. "The Mt. Nibel Mako Reactor. Fitting." "Yeah..." Trixie cranes her head up to see the top of it. "It's a lot more massive first-hoof than it is seeing it in a memory." She smirks and turns back to me. "It must be hard to make things this massive without pony magic." I sling my Buster Sword over my right shoulder and give her a thumbs up with my left arm, doing my best to cover up another wince. "Thumbs help." Though, that's what makes me remember something important. "Trixie... can you come here first? I could use a bit of a fixer-upper on this arm." "Oh, right!" She turns and gallops over to me, realization finally replacing all those grim emotions she'd been bearing before. "I forgot, your arm, you..." She trails off as she closes her eyes, the glow of Materia around her once more, but for a less savage purpose. "Hold still, I'll get it." The cooling tendrils of the Cure magic wash over my body, again soothing my muscles, but the pain in my arm won't subside. Trixie pushes the magic, squinting her eyes shut in concentration, but it doesn't seem to stick. I pull back my cloak far enough to get a look at what's actually happened to my arm, now that we're, in a sense, free of immediate danger, and a potential cause of this unexpected complication in magical healing becomes apparent. The black splotches that have been advancing up my arm since I was bitten by that one chupacabra-thing of Jenova's have at least reached my shoulder, past where the wound passing through my upper arm is. Is it blocking the Materia's healing somehow? "I don't think it'll do any good, Trixie." She opens her eyes, looking at me, then at my open cape, seeing what I'm looking at and turning her head away quickly. She turns, facing her back to me again. "...I see." She takes a single, deep breath. "Let's get going then, Dusk." Without waiting for me to reply, she begins walking forward in slow, measured steps, reaching the stairs and beginning to climb them. I rise to my own feet, following behind her as we climb. It's a long climb, made longer by Trixie's pace. I don't rush her, though, keeping my own stride in check as we make our progress up the stairs. It's not entirely bad to be taking it slow, though. If we fail, this is essentially our walk up the stairs to the guillotine, so we might as well take our time and enjoy it. We finally reach the top, and enter through the yellow-and-black-stripe lined doorway, the metal door that would prevent entry to the Mako Reactor left ajar. Once inside, I find myself laughing a second time. "Looks like it cut to the chase." I can't but comment at the sight in front of me. Jenova's skipped on recreating most of the Reactor - the main entrance leading directly to a red-tinted room, a second long staircase in the middle leading further up, platforms covered in pods on either side. At the top of the stairs is a single door, massive letters above it. J-E-N-O-V-A. After I'm done taking in the room, I turn my eyes back down and go to move forward, only to find Trixie pressed up against the pod nearest the staircase, straining her body up on two legs as tall as she can go, front hooves pressed against it so she can see in the glass. I take a few steps to close the distance between us before speaking. "What is it, Trixie?" "Dusk..." She starts, trailing off. She doesn't seem to be fussing about what's inside the pod, so I assume the contents are what's supposed to be in there - something that had once been human, drowned in Mako until it distorted into a monster. Something I'd rather not lay eyes on again. With my memories, the sight of it wouldn't surprise her. "It's nothing, Dusk." She shakes her head after a moment and pulls away from the pod, getting back on all fours and running ahead of me to climb the stairs. These stairs, thankfully, don't take anywhere near as long to climb, and we soon find ourselves staring at the giant steel door between us and, presumably, Jenova. "Looks like it didn't leave the front door open after all." I lower my Buster Sword from my shoulder, taking a one-handed fighting position. Trixie grins and looks at the door, and I can see a glow of Materia as red-hot energy gathers around the door's center. "Well, let's knock." She quips as the energy brims into an explosive Flare that blows the door off its hinges, tossing it in its entirety into the next room, which seems to be nothing but the gentle green of Lifestream. We step forward, and the bits of the Mako Reactor around us, including the blown-off door, dissolve into green wisps of Lifestream, released back into the aether around us. We're not even in a room anymore, from the looks of it - just floating about in the sea of green. Though, we're not alone, either. Across from us, towering, is something that looks like some weird mix between an egg and an unbloomed flower bud, made entirely of leathery-blue flesh. It has to be the same height as Bahamut, if not larger. Its 'shell' writhes from what seem to be internal impacts as we approach, whatever has been growing inside clearly wanting out. After a few steps, a massive claw-like appendage pierces through the bottom half, covered in a goopy, black fluid, causing us to stop as we gaze up at it. Though, a quick glance at Trixie confirms that neither of us are feeling the mess of fear that one might be expected to in this situation. Instead, she looks to be as inexplicably, almost disturbingly calm as I feel about what's in front of us. "We're screwed, aren't we?" Trixie asks, though her tone is more like she's setting up for a bad joke than pondering her imminent doom at whatever's in front of us. "Probably." I answer as a second claw tears out the opposite side of the 'egg', the top stretching and distorting. "You ready for this?" "Yeah." She gives a small nod as a sharp-tipped tail bursts out the side of the 'egg', tearing across its back side then looping its tip up to slice open the top. "Pretty exhausted from using so much Materia, but," she lets out a laugh, "I can sleep when I'm dead." A pair of giant-sized and claw-tipped, but otherwise human-looking hands push their way up through the new slice in the 'egg' top, and begin pushing to part it. "Think everypony else is alright?" "Hope so." I answer as we hear the tearing of flesh, the egg beginning to part along the front from the hands' pushing. "Won't be much point to this if they're not." "They better be! There won't be anypony left to give me one of those stained-glass windows if they're not!" What appear to be massive wings spread inside the egg, distorting its shape and forcing it further open, its tough hide clearly reaching its breaking point. "I want a nice, big one, that everypony can see! Trixie's heroic sacrifice to delay the giant space monster long enough for the Elements of Harmony to vanquish it!" She smirks and gives me a sidelong glance. "If there's enough room, maybe they can put you in one of the corners or something." I return her grin and her glance. "Thanks." It finally bursts out, the bits of fleshy 'egg' getting tossed in all directions as it takes its first beats on powerful wings. It lands in front of us, towering as it stares down. It's a strange mix of creatures that in another context might be morbidly fascinating to behold. Its head and torso are similar to the Jenova I remember from the containment tube at Nibelheim, and in turn, at the Ghastly Gorge. It has the blue, sickly skin in the fascimile of a human woman, with long, matted hair that covers the right eye. The left one gazes down at us as it this time glows a mix of colors, fading between each color of the rainbow in turn. The arms, however, are different. They're now large and muscular, the flesh a strange imitation of scales as each finger tips in a long claw. Outside of the five-digit layout that betrays influence of a human limb, it looks similar to what I might image Spike having, were he an adult dragon. The leathery wings of Jenova are changed as well, now massive and in the shape of an angel's or a bird's wings, complete with feathers... except a bit twisted in the bone structure, and entirely made of brown flesh. The artery-like tubes still connect to the torso, extending down to the rest of its body, but that rest of its body... Jenova looks in many ways grafted onto an entire separate creature, placed on the center of its back like it's riding it as a mount, though it's clear that the 'halves' are indeed both parts of the same being. The 'mount' has its own head, a gross distortion of a pony's, with solid-red eyes and a mouth full of sharp, meat-tearing fangs. A twisted horn juts from its head, bent and jagged but cresting in a tip, lined with the ridges of a unicorn's horn. Where a pony might have fur, it simply has flesh, the same color as Jenova's wings. Four massive, trunk-like legs keep it standing, the front two now looking closer to paws instead of claws now that they're not tearing through the egg and covered in gunk. The back two legs, though, are distinctly hooves, and a massive, muscular tail smashes the ground behind it, covered in spines and sporting a hooked tip. The torso is thick, leaving the legs looking a bit short given the overall size of the creature, but the width of the legs betrays plenty of muscle to keep it standing. Proportionally, its more reminiscent of a lizard than a pony. Wings jut from the sides of the 'mount' as well, but their leather flesh this time is a bit more appropriate, as they appear to be either draconic wings or bat wings. The lower body writhes and stomps around slightly, testing itself for the first time as the head throws itself back and roars, a gurgling and otherwordly sound. The beats of a heart echo through the Lifestream, much like the time we fought it in Ghastly Gorge, but from this angle its impossible to see what might be causing the beating. The full form of Jenova is easily as large as the egg it hatched from, the familiar torso and its 'mount' each taking up roughly half its total height, leaving even the distorted pony head of its lower body towering a few feet over us. "So, Trixie..." I look to her after taking in Jenova's full form. "Got any idea what the plan should be?" She looks back to me, and gives me a knowing smirk. "Hit it until it stops moving?" I steady my weapon and my stance, turning my attention back to the enemy in front of us. "Right. Hit it until it stops moving."