Getting them all.
Empyrea>Zenon:
Empyrea's way of handling this was quite simple.
She wandered over to the Cave of Ordeals.
No, no, it's not quite what you think.
With the simplest of cunning, she simply taunted Zenon by saying he couldn't possibly beat a single Zombie.
Then recruited a Zombie King.
Needless to say, Zenon was not terribly happy.
How does a mystical bird recruit a Zombie King?
You'd be amazed how annoyed those things get when you back off and snipe them with magic on their little island.
...Well, I didn't say which Cave of Ordeals she went to.
Millenia>Fenril:
When it comes to crushing women under her heels, there's no one like Millenia.
The duelling league, at large, knows it.
There are...various cliches about what should have happened here.
But screw them, let's have a beach volleyball party!
---
"What exactly are you judging here, though?" Asked a disgusted Terra, as she watched Fenril and Millenia play out their match on the sands.
"...huh? I'm supposed to be judging something?" Zelos muttered, his eyes fixed on the match.
Ultimately, the battle was decided simply and intelligently.
Terra tied up Zelos and told the two to beat the crap out of him.
Millenia, due to having much higher raw damage, beat Zelos senseless much faster than Fenril for an easy win.
Fenril got to take home a souvenier of one of his kidneys, though, so it's not all bad.
Zidane>MOMO:
Zidane's throat was slit before even entering the arena.
There are...many reasons this <i>could</i> have happened.
But in this case, it was a simple case of intelligent logic.
MOMO was a girl.
Zidane has woeful taste and is a pervert.
No one wanted to take the risk of letting these events proceed to any possible conclusions. None of them could end well. At all.
Unfortunately, MOMO was kidnapped for her own safety before the match, by other, equally well-meaning people.
So screw it, let's have a beach volleyball party!
---
"Now, repeat after me. Any idea that I got from Zelos is getting me a mouthful of sand." Hrist Valkyrie said calmly, standing firmly on Sten's back.
"Mrfg iga I gah fum zerwush ih gen m' eh muffl ub sn." Sten repeated.
"I'm sorry, that wasn't clear enough. Try again." Hrist said, prodding Sten with her lance. "And if you get turned on by this, you're going to lose the parts involved with getting turned on."
Ultimately, the beach volleyball was a flop. However, lacking any better ideas-Sten hadn't had a clue on how he was going to judge the volleyball match in order to get any real <i>results</i> for the match out, he just wanted women in bikinis-the judges decided to give the match to the person that would have appreciated it more.
After all, Zidane was going to suffer enough hearing he'd missed it.
MOMO still disagrees that being kidnapped by Albedo counts as "for her protection" though.
Chisato>Imoen:
Chisato is intelligent.
Chisato is blindingly fast.
And Chisato can sense a pattern.
---
"Why is Chisato beating Imoen senseless with Odin?" Kurando asked curiously from his judges box. "Isn't he one of the judges?"
"Something about beach volleyball." Miguel shrugged. "I didn't really follow it."
It turns out that Odin makes an excellent bludgeon. His incredibly hard head and high weight, combined with Chisato's primal fury-which was being taken out on Imoen-meant the poor girl never stood a chance.
Oddly, Chisato doesn't remember any of it, according to her. Something about blacking out in pure rage after someting Odin said. Oh well, there's worse ways to win a finals.
Bonus:
The problem is, most of these people tried too hard.
Yuki attempted to smash his plane into a mountain.
He was likely to walk away from it, having done more or less the same thing before. It worked, too.
But it was dull.
Cid attempted to overload all the engines on his airship, take the craft as high as possible, and go out in a spectacular blaze of glory.
Unfortunately, he forgot the whole walking away from it part. This cost him points.
Rika...
Rika loves crashes.
Rika's excellent at crashes.
Rika, given a chance, is overjoyed to crash something. This is great!
However, sadly, <i>she can't actually fly anything</i>.
While her airship exploded spectacularly on the runway, it was considered a loss on technicality.
The Onion Knights won for a very simple reason.
They just acted naturally.
Five minutes later, they'd been hit by Lexis' experimental clothing disintigrator, caught in a way between New Almekia and Norgard's aerial divisions, had their ship be an attempted meal by three massive beasts-one of which was a sea monster, no one could figure that one out-rammed by a floating city, and crashlanded in a spectacular explosion on a deserted island.
Naturally, they were unharmed, so they had a beach volleyball party.
I mean, they were attired for it after the disintegrator.
And that's how the Onion Knights won their match, and lost their dignity. Now let us never speak of it again.
