Well, that was different. The older man goes by the name of FuSoYa, and he is benevolent. Instead of trying to beat us silly, he tells us a story. Neat.

The story gets a bit complicated, but these appear to be the important details. FuSoYa is the guardian of the sleeping Moon People. Golbez has collected the Crystals in order to awaken some giant on Earth and destroy everything. And Cecil is apparently a Moon Child. I’m leaving off quite a bit here, and missed a few pieces in the Japanese, but I think those are the highlights.

The bottom line, however, is that FuSoYa joins our party to head back to Earth and battle a massive giant.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

Encouraged by our success against Bahamut, we pack up supplies and head out on what appears to be a winding journey to the Moon’s Crystal Palace. I thought this would take forever, as there appears to be a series of caves that we must enter in order to get to the entrance of the palace, but the caves are small, and the frequency of random encounters is light.

Within a short while, we find ourselves inside the Moon’s Crystal Palace, which is also a fairly simple structure. There are only three paths. We explore left and right, which recharges our hit points and magic points, then head down the middle path.

We find ourselves standing in front of an older man. He is alone. We prepare for battle and approach…

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose
Image Source: Final Fantasy Compendium

I’d be more confident if I had a better strategy for this rematch with Bahamut, but I don’t. All I’ve got at the moment is to have Rosa cast “Reflect,” and then we’ll adjust from there. If all works according to plan, Bahamut will fry himself up when he unleashes Megaflare against our Reflect-enabled party.

It takes a while to get back to Bahamut this time, as we make a few trips back outside the cave to save our game along the way. The actual run to Bahamut is fairly short once you know the way, and if I lose here again I don’t want to have to run around yet again to collect all the Genji Armor. Finally, the path is clear, our game is saved, and Cecil has a full set of the armor.

We race headlong to the third floor of the cave, speak with the wizard, and begin the battle with Bahamut. As Cecil and Edge wail on the beast with their weapons, Rosa quickly casts Reflect on our party. Or not. Ooops. Reflect appears to only protect one party member. Crap. What to do? Who to pick? Flustered, Rosa casts Reflect on herself. Meanwhile, Rydia starts summoning Leviathan to see if that can help our cause.

Bahamut’s counter reaches zero, and Megaflare comes screaming towards us. I cross my fingers and wait….

Argh! Cecil, Rydia, and Edge go up in the massive fireball. Only Rosa remains alive. I guess it’s an improvement if only 75% of your party dies instead of everyone, so we’ll look at the positive here.

Actually, this might work. Bahamut can’t get to Rosa, and he is burning himself up when he repeatedly casts Megaflare on her. If I can get the others up and cast Reflect on them as well, we’ll be unstoppable. Quickly, Rosa revives Cecil and casts Reflect on him.

Whoops. Problem. I’m not sure if Rosa’s spell ran out, or if I can only have Reflect active on one party member at a time, but whatever the cause, the next Megaflare fries Rosa but leaves Cecil alive.

I scramble to get Rosa back up, but before we do, Bahamut launches yet another Megaflare that reflects off Cecil. This time Bahamut shudders and goes up in flames himself! We’ve done it! We beat Bahamut!

The only party member alive is Cecil, and he gets enough experience to advance nearly two levels. Yikes. Rydia learns the summoning spell Bahamut, which I’m guessing is mighty powerful.

Nice!

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose
Image Credit: Lesmode

Once again our consciousness gnaws at us: we feel guilty that we haven’t reported back to Yang’s wife that he is now recovering nicely in the underground world. To appease our Catholic guilt, we once again pack up our belongings, leave the moon behind, and head back to Earth.

There, we quickly head to Fabul, where we speak with Yang’s wife. She seems elated by the news, and proceeds to give us a…

Kitchen Knife?

Huh? She then tells us to give this to Yang. I think. We’ve got to go back to the Underworld again? Argh. Oh, well, we might as well see this to the end, so once again we head back down to our home away from homes, the Cave of Summons.

By now we know the route blindfolded, so it’s only a short while later that we approach Yang with the Kitchen Knife. Yang, however, is completely uninterested in the Kitchen Knife. Matter of fact, nobody reacts in any different way now that we’ve come all the way here yet again.

Puzzled, we head back to the Falcon with the mysterious Kitchen Knife in our packs. I believe we just burned about 7,000 gallons of fuel flying from the Moon in order to obtain an onion cutter.

But enough of Yang, Frying Pans of Love, and Useless Kitchen Knives! There are bigger beasts to slay: Bahamut! We’ll head back to the moon tormorrow for a revenge match against Bahamut.

Status: Moonward Again

As we reoriented ourselves on our return to the moon, we noticed a cave that we hadn’t seen before. It looked separate from the caves that appear to connect to the palace, so we decided to try this isolated cave first.

Once inside, we find ourselves facing some of the more formidable opponents we’ve battled yet. We are fighting all sorts of dragons, giant robots, and Behemoths. These enemies take a massive beating before they fall. In most battles, Rosa is forced into overtime as she tries to keep our health levels up. As a side benefit, we are raking in gobs of experience and cash. The Behemoths, in particular, give us 65,000 gil each when they die. By the time we get to the third level of the cave, our entire party is over Level 50, and we have over 300,000 gil in our pockets. We also find an entire set of Genji Armor, which gives Cecil a reasonable upgrade over the diamond armor he was wearing.

Finally, we reach what appears to be the end of the cave! A wizard stands there, and as is usually the case in Final Fantasy games, he starts to babble. Not sure what he’s getting at, but it appears that he is impressed that we know the Leviathan spell, and with that, he offers to let us battle Bahamut. Maybe he is Bahamut? Humm. My memory is a little vague, but I remember this guy from previous games.

In any case, we get right down to work. Bahamut has this strange counter thing that starts with five, and is working its way down. Whatever, dude, count as long as you want. We start wailing away on the beast, and are putting on some significant damage. You count, we kill. Silly Bahamut.

And then it happens. Bahamut’s counter reaches zero. With that, he unleashes Megaflare, which should probably be more appropriately named “Hah! You All Die!” Which is exactly what happened. The bastard burned our entire party to a crisp in one shot. We are Dead. Again.

That was great fun.

Not sure what I can do against this guy, as there is no way we can take the damage he deals. I’m guessing that I should have used some sort of defensive spell, or perhaps that reflection spell would work. I have to think we’re strong enough to beat him, as we’ve been grinding away in the underworld for so long that we must be overleveled by this point.

Status: Dead
Image Credit: Lesmode